Sleeping Kane

We went out to the movies, me and Kaine and some of his friends. I really liked Kaine's mate, Bryan, a fellow writer. He was smart and cute and a little shy, with a kind of inner strength. He seemed very centred, an old soul, as they say. Beautiful eyes, nice lips. While Kaine was boisterously in conversation with the other guys, Bryan and I chatted fiction and flirted quietly with each other. I felt a little disappointed when he was the first to head home. Our gazes lingered, as he said his good-byes. I wanted to go with him. I couldn't help but watch him walk away up Swanston Street. He stole a look back at me, just at the last minute. It was nice.

Then I felt Kaine’s hand take mine and squeeze it, as he gently tugged on my arm. As I returned my attention to him, he was giving me a semi-quizzical look, tilted head, raised eye brows, just momentarily.

I guess he noticed.

I suppose that's a bad thing, hey? Men! Hands in the air. Eye roll. Head shake. Who needs them?

(That's self deprecation and not a comment on Kaine, you understand. Was that clear? I'm not sure.)

Fav car

BMW M3

Fav type

Enrique Iglesias

Fav rose

Julia Rose

Fav dog

Rottweiler

Fav architecture

Edwardian

Fav city

Rome

Chris Pine

Star Trek

I went to see the new Star Trek movie and it was great. All the old crew are back, it was good to see them. The new actors for the old characters worked well, were believable. It starts from the beginning and tells the story of how the crew came to be on the Enterprise. Of course, it stars my next husband, Chris Pine. What a gorgeous man.

Why do we always mistake a shadow for a burglar? Why do we never mistake a burglar for a shadow?

Left the country late last night.

Got up late.

I wondered why I drove down to the city last night, as I gazed bleary-eyed out the window this morning to see what sort of day it was in the inner suburbs, scratching my arse waiting for life to return to every cell in my body. When I get something into my head sometimes I just do it - middle of the night I got in my car. It was overcast and looked like it had been raining. Another cheery day in the city, I thought.

What to do? As I, actually, felt myself pine for the wide open spaces.

I wandered aimlessly down to Smith Street, ate a late lunch and read the newspaper from cover to cover. Seven confirmed deaths of Swine Flu and yet it is a potential pandemic. Politicians and newspaper editors should all be put at the bottom of the bay with property developers and lawyers.

I looked in a few book shops, on the way back, for inspiration. There was a lot of Gabriel García Márquez, I should read him. But, that pointy-faced, know-all, Jacqueline, in my tutes at uni loved him and it always, kinda, put me off. Margaret Atwood was well represented too. I saw her talk once and she was fascinating, but the weirdest looking woman I have ever seen. I didn't know that Jack Kerouac wrote so many books. Ah, cute Luke from work, with those beautiful blue eyes, loved him. It made me think of the time when we were smashed on alcohol when he said he'd love to party all night with me. Be still my beating heart. Where's the modern day equivalent of The Wasp Factory when you need it. I thought of London and Turnpike Lane tube station where I found it in the book shop and read the it from cover to cover. Where was I going that day?

I hunted for a table cloth, preferably dark coloured for the table I have set up in my bedroom, for my laptop, in my bay window hoping for a little bright sunshine inspiration, nothing except for plastic... and floral. (Jasus!) I came home.

I smoked pot with (my) Luke over the weekend, now I'm craving it. Stupid me.

Sunday Morning

It's a beautiful day in the country, the sun is shinning. There is a stillness and a silence, I sit and gaze at, feel it. Beauty, solitude. It is broken only by a singular bee buzzing past... zzzZZZ... ZZZzzz... There is a freshness and crispness to the air. I sit on the front step and the sun touches me like warm honey and I think I never want to go back to the city. The leaves on the grape vine are turning yellow and falling.
The sky is unblemished blue, the tall gums are framed against it.

The leaves, in the garden, are almost translucent with the bright morning sun behind them. The spider's webs glisten and sparkle silver, like jewels on a fine string.

The Crimson Rosella's are up and foraging, a flash of red and they are gone. The Rainbow Lorikeets are wanting seed, they stand their ground and look me in the eye.

I've stacked the fire, even though there is, really, no need. But, I always think the a hearth looks sad without flames licking orange at logs.

Now, I'm just waiting for the coffee machine to warm up and every thing will be well with the world.

Does he, or does he not, look like Saddam Hussein?

Oh Mel

So devout catholic Mel Gibson doesn't believe in abortion or contraception or homosexuality, but some how the whole thou shall not commit adultery seems to have passed him by.

Why do we have to listen to these people bang on endlessly about their religious beliefs - Mel is quite vocal about his - when they don't even live by those beliefs themselves?

 

May Day

Off to the country. Out along the freeway, in the slipstream of everybody else getting the hell out of the city, fast, furious, door handles in alignment, all lanes are full as the freeway sweeps around to the airport turn off. A mass of red tail lights in front of me, beside me, behind me. Gone!

I'm not the only driver now who ignores the ridiculous new 80 kph speed limit, there is a line of us, bumper to bumper, accelerating up the Keilor Park Hill. Two of them are P platers. I shake my head. At least I'll only be fined.

My sunroof starts to filter in the crisp, clean air, so I know I have left the city confines behind. I wince as I remember I'd said to my ex-bf Lauri, I'd meet him at Sircuit. Oops. Too late now. Besides, that's what ex-bf's are for, tormenting. Nothing can spoil our relationship now, I think. The two of us have already made a good fist of that.

The fog comes down, somewhere near Gisbourne. My driving lights are good, European and made for such things, so I can accelerate up the hills, through into the clear, night air, like a plane breaking above the clouds. It’s like flying in the crisp, fresh air high above the cotton wool.

The hills look like sleeping dragons in the dark.

The freeway stretches out in front of me, as the wind whistles on the windscreen. Duffy sings the 60's almost as well as Amy. I'll soon be there.

 

A Beautiful Day

It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining down in that crystal clear way that makes the whole world sparkle and seem full of clear, fresh air that hazes, just a little, above the concrete covered ground. Bright. Sharp, with a kind of gentle edge. The blue sky, the glowing orb of a sun; the autumn elves are dancing their last waltz in the final translucence of summer, as it slips completely from sight for another hibernation of winter.

Ben stopped his car at the tram terminus in the line of traffic waiting for the, three in a row, trams to dock in the terminus, or to continue their journeys to the city. Lines clicked this way and that. Staff changed shifts, one on, one off. Trams sat unmanned in the interim, the new roster weren’t, seemingly, as keen to start their shifts as the old roster were to be finishing theirs.

A mess of cars and a conglomeration of transport vehicles massed together in the mean time forming a knot outside the tram terminus.

People are stupid, Ben thought. They stop and wait like begging dogs, for a command from the tramways workers. It’s ignorance, really. Or fear, maybe. People don’t, quite, know what to do when confronted with a stationary tram. They let the fear of them getting it wrong paralyse any rational thought on the matter. Common sense should prevail. A stationary tram with passengers, as they say, alighting, getting off, should make sense. Stop. Nobody wants to have a body, with a shocked look, disappear under the front of their car, now do they? But, a stationary, sitting tram with no passengers at all… proceed with caution… how hard can it be?

Ben didn’t really care, though, as the warm sun was shining in through his driver’s window and he was in no hurry, really, to get any where. But stupidity annoyed him no matter what his schedule was. A tram heading the other way pulled up at the tram stop on the other side of the road. The new trams have big, picture windows, which frame the occupants well, like huge display cases, or exhibits at the zoo.

Josh’s eyes ran along the tram-car windows lazily.

Cute guy with vacant look. Girl with red frizzy hair pulled into a bun on the top of her head, also with a vacant look. She had to be smart or there was no god. Josh laughed to himself. Another cute guy, vacant look… no, refocused. Attention gained. Eyes connected with Bens. Smile. Ben couldn’t help but smile too. The stranger’s mouth pulled up into a grin at the same time Ben’s mouth did. Ben felt a small thrill surge down his spine.

They both looked away, momentarily. Is it because nobody wants to be caught returning a smile when it turns out that the original smile wasn’t, in fact, intended for them? “Oh hello,” they say as the embrace the person behind you. Is it because we are all essentially shy, well, upon first meeting. Ben thought it was fear, the worst thing that any of us can be guilty of was making a fool of ourselves. Maybe?

Ben looked back, to see the stranger staring back at him. The stranger smiled again, Ben did too. Their eyes danced with the delight of each other’s gaze. Stupid, self conscious smiles, like making faces in a mirror, or at young children. Kind of. Not really. Nice, what life’s all about. However, they were, by then, both looking at each other, any pretence of not doing so abandoned.

They were quickly making unashamed eyes at each other. Flirting. The attraction was obvious. The interest was keen. Palpable, even through thick picture window glass, some metres apart. Love on the tracks, Ben thought, which made him laugh, which made the stranger laugh, too. Like a reflection.

Beautiful, Ben thought. He’s beautiful.

Ben’s line of traffic moved forward a car length. Ben looked back, to see the stranger looking backwards towards him. Ben raised his hand, instinctively, and waved good bye, with a half wave, like the Queen of England might do. But, in Ben’s case, it was a sad waved, yes it was, Ben had to admit it. A good bye wave, a nice to know you, for the brief moment we knew each other, wave. Even a I-would-have-liked-to-have-known-you-a-little-better wave. So long, have a nice life, kind of wave.

Stupid really. Some people say that the people whose gaze you capture are the people with who you have unfinished business from a past life, and for the length of time you are connected that is the length of unfinished business that the two of you had. If it was only brief eye contact on the street, you know, just in passing, that was probably the finish of that relationship for all eternity.

Ben wasn’t sure if he believed that, but it always came to mind when there were people with whom he would have liked to have a longer relationship…no matter how tenuous the relationship was to start with.

Ben’s line of traffic moved forward again. Suddenly, he wasn’t thinking anyone was so stupid. He looked nonchalantly in his rear vision mirror, wistfully back at the notion of love, the possibility of, travelling away from him.

There standing in the middle of the brightly lit road was the stranger, jacket in one hand, bag in the other, pushing forward with his chest, moving through the almost stationary line of traffic towards Ben.

He was surprised.

The traffic in front of him cleared, lurched forward and the car in front was gone, going, accelerating away. It was Ben’s turn to do the same. He looked ahead. Looked behind. Looked ahead and then behind again. There was suddenly nobody in front of him, nobody stopping him, nobody impeding his get away.

Ben hesitated. He could feel his pulse quicken with surprise and, as Frankenfurter would have said, anticipation. No, couldn’t be. He shook his head. Was he afraid of making a fool of himself? The other guy had only just realised at the last minute that he was at his stop and got off. It was that simple. So, why was the stranger walking up the centre of the road towards Ben?

Couldn’t be. No.

Could be? Why else?

Ben wanted the stranger to wave his hand, make a gesture to allay Ben’s disbelief. Something? Like, now running up the centre of the road wasn’t enough of a gesture.

The car behind tooted. Ben refocused on the driver behind, who was gently swishing forward with her fingers over her steering wheel for Ben to move. He put the car into gear and revved the engine. Then he pushed his indicator lever down and pulled to the left. The woman behind gave Ben the “look” with the rotating head swivel as she drove past.

Ben tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, as the stranger approached his driver’s door.

“Hi” said the stranger. He stepped away from the driver’s door, nervously.

“Hi,” said Ben.

“You’ve got a nice smile,” said the stranger.

“Thanks,” said Ben. “So have you.”

“My names Will.” He smiled self-consciously, like there was a lot riding on it. Gone was the beautiful, relaxed smile through the glass.

“I’m Ben.”

“Like the flower pot men.” Will smiled.

Ben must have looked confused.

“Bill and Ben,” said Will almost as an exclamation.

Ben couldn’t help but laugh. “So…” Will was adorable. “Do you often get off trams for strange men?”

“No, never,” said Will. “Well, maybe not never.” He smiled that beautiful smile again, raising his hands up and down as if intimating a balancing act. “Never a tram and a car, though, in broad day light, in the street.” He shrugged. “But, I thought fuck it. Why not. You got to take chances in life and I never take enough of those. None of us do.”

“None of us?”

“I don’t,” said Will. “Not nearly often enough.” He stepped forward and touched the side of Bens’ face with his open hand, through the car window. He rubbed Ben’s cheek, stroked Ben’s hair. He stepped back. “You know, like that.”

The two men smiled at each other.

“You can do that again,” said Ben.

“Ha, ha.”

“Where are you heading?” asked Ben.

“I guess…” Cheeky smile. “Where you are.”

“What if I’m going to a wedding… or a funeral?”

“I’m good at weddings and I have a hanky.” Will pulled an actual cloth handkerchief from his pocket. “Are you?”

“Well, no.”

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t know,” said Ben. “Do any of us know?”

“Why do you think I’m standing here?”

“Do you want to come?”

“To… I don’t know?”

“Sure,” said Ben. “I here it’s lovely this time of year.”

“Count me in,” said Will. “Do you think it will lead any where?”

“Get in,” said Ben. “I don’t know, but if you never take a chance you’ll never know, hey?”

Will walked around the front of the car, holding Ben’s gaze as he did. He opened the passenger side door. “Do you often pick up strange boys in the street?”

“No,” said Ben. “This is the first time.

Will closed the door and smiled at Ben. “That’s gotta mean something.”

Ben reached out and touched the side of Will’s face with his open hand, rubbed Will’s cheek, stroked Will’s hair.

Will beamed.

“Gotta take a chance,” said Ben.

“That’s what they say.”