Theirs were covered in tattoos.
Her’s were covered in notes.
Notes written in blue ink by her hand.
Everything was scrawled - what they wore, the how they stood, the colour of their eyes staring out into the sea of adoring fans. The charisma that they expelled over the crowd. No beat would go un-noted.
For this moment was not meant to be fleeting, but documented and felt many times over again in the future, right down to the gritty floor and bright lights shining down through her lashes and hitting her eyes.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Monday, September 20, 2010
Usable
As she awoke loosely by his side, the smell of last night’s booze on his breath made her reach.
The brazen morning light intruded rudely through the blinds, unwelcome and the first trains of the day could be heard from Southern Cross Station. The seventh floor studio apartment was sickly warm and stagnant and seemed to warp slightly at the edges as she gazed vacantly around the room. She quickly exhaled, thrust her tongue to the back of her mouth and shut her eyes tightly to steady herself and refrain from vomiting.
“He really was beautiful.” She thought to herself a little later as she carefully got out of bed for a glass of water, determined not to wake him.
His smooth brown skin and curly golden hair held a certain innocence. Something vulnerable. Something that needed to be protected no matter what. And with that thought she wondered if there was anything he could do that she would not forgive?
She wanted to believe that he wanted her back.
She was thinner now, happier, more playful. She was sure she was less demanding and less needy. She was almost like the girl he had met all that time ago.
She tried to comfort herself, by affirming that the previous night had felt they did in the old days. He had he smiled the same. Held her the same. And after all, it was he that encouraged her not to travel all the way home so late at night.
“Just relax.” He had said when they got home from the gig. “Go have a shower and I’ll make you something to eat.”
She made it seem like she did not wish to stay and ‘grudgingly’ took a shower. But he knew how she felt and he knew she would stay.
Surely he had felt something for her?
But there were small dark holes missing in the lovely cardigan of a notion she was wrapping herself in. It was warm, but it let the air in at parts around the frayed dangerous holes.
With the chilling discovery looming, she briskly tip toed back to bed, her feet making little padding sounds of the floor as she walked, and nuzzled into him. He instinctively wrapped his arm around her, accompanied by a small affectionate sound. Very similar to that of which he would have made all that time ago when they were together.
Three days later, the cardigan fell apart.
It was not returnable. She did not keep the recept.
The brazen morning light intruded rudely through the blinds, unwelcome and the first trains of the day could be heard from Southern Cross Station. The seventh floor studio apartment was sickly warm and stagnant and seemed to warp slightly at the edges as she gazed vacantly around the room. She quickly exhaled, thrust her tongue to the back of her mouth and shut her eyes tightly to steady herself and refrain from vomiting.
“He really was beautiful.” She thought to herself a little later as she carefully got out of bed for a glass of water, determined not to wake him.
His smooth brown skin and curly golden hair held a certain innocence. Something vulnerable. Something that needed to be protected no matter what. And with that thought she wondered if there was anything he could do that she would not forgive?
She wanted to believe that he wanted her back.
She was thinner now, happier, more playful. She was sure she was less demanding and less needy. She was almost like the girl he had met all that time ago.
She tried to comfort herself, by affirming that the previous night had felt they did in the old days. He had he smiled the same. Held her the same. And after all, it was he that encouraged her not to travel all the way home so late at night.
“Just relax.” He had said when they got home from the gig. “Go have a shower and I’ll make you something to eat.”
She made it seem like she did not wish to stay and ‘grudgingly’ took a shower. But he knew how she felt and he knew she would stay.
Surely he had felt something for her?
But there were small dark holes missing in the lovely cardigan of a notion she was wrapping herself in. It was warm, but it let the air in at parts around the frayed dangerous holes.
With the chilling discovery looming, she briskly tip toed back to bed, her feet making little padding sounds of the floor as she walked, and nuzzled into him. He instinctively wrapped his arm around her, accompanied by a small affectionate sound. Very similar to that of which he would have made all that time ago when they were together.
Three days later, the cardigan fell apart.
It was not returnable. She did not keep the recept.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
HOW MY GAP YEAR CHANGED MY LIFE.
Romance of a Lifetime
By Miss Drew
Master Gap Year and I knew each other from way back in the second grade. I was focusing on colouring inside the awkward, diagonal lines of the pyramids when I noticed him first. He was prancing around the classroom singing sweet melodies in words I had never heard before and wore technicolour clothes from what looked like our class dress-up box. I watched him as he whispered into the ears of little boys and girls. Their faces lit up like lightning bolts of electricity and excitement. It was the sight of people alive, young and free at heart. He smiled at me from across the room. His eyes were deep as the ocean, and made me feel as happy as an eight year old can be - like someone had opened the windows and let the warm breeze waft in with the dancing scents of spring and freshly cut grass, and there was a barbeque with all you can eat sausages!
Over the years came the warnings. No one had ever seen the figure or figures, but some said he was a strange man lurking around the neighbourhood looking for his lost puppy, the grim reaper come to take the children away and plucked them from their beds at night as they slept. Others told tales of large dogs and creatures with long claws that lived in wardrobes and behind doors. Through sensationalism, Master Gap mistakenly became the quintessential worst nightmare of parents worldwide, ready to wrench their children out of their cradling arms.
The children stopped seeing him then. Their laughter became less frequent and more like the monotonous churning of machines, soon they forgot about him, and they headed down the “good and righteous” path of ‘higher education’ and ‘maturity.’
Gap Year found me one day during my teens, a weeping mess of a woman in the corner of my room. It had been a few years since he had seen me. I now had a curvy, seductive body that I didn’t know what to do with and I was covered in running mascara, initially applied by an apprentice’s hand. I felt lost and alone. I couldn’t find meaning in anything, not in school, in work, in my friends. My short life was not going to plan. It wasn’t like what I’d seen in the movies, or what I’d read in books and magazines. I didn’t have the perfect body, I wasn’t the smartest or prettiest in school, and I no longer knew a boy, let alone be able to talk to one!
Gap, as I called him, and I became official and were together over the years as I went through the motions and followed the crowd. I went to the parties. I saw the same faces and had the some conversations over again. Gap was unlike any of the boys I had known, he was an older man and so I thought it best to keep him my little secret. He used to tease me in a playful manner, swooping around my head while I laboured through my maths homework. He sympathised that he couldn’t help me with it, but encouraged me with promises of brighter days and greener pastures. I just had to finish my schooling. Then he would take me far, far away.
A short time later, he and I left that place, that era of time or frame of mind. Together we went to exotic lands and magical places I could be myself. For I had a unique mind, which thought just a little bit differently to the others, that struggled to be strong when told how I should be, who I should be. Gap taught me I was an Empress, shiny and new no matter if I waxed my legs or styled my hair. I learnt I was the same person who sat reading make up-less, feet dangling in the cool water of a running stream in the late afternoon sun or the dancing queen of a rural fire covered in dust, singing in tongues. Gap encouraged me to be free, to do and think as I chose.
Gap gave me an explosion of sensory delights, which rocked my world and exploded me into the woman I am today. It was an intense fulfilling rush that touched every nerve in my body and lasted.
Last time I saw him was in South Africa. I stood on the blood red dirt road and was getting ready to thumb a ride, when the heavens opened up on us, I knew it was goodbye. The mighty deep purple sky let out heavy wet drops and I stood there revelling in the moment. Standing in the African summer rain, I said goodbye and erupted into laughter, the kind you only hear from the young and free at heart and I knew life would never be the same.
By Miss Drew
Master Gap Year and I knew each other from way back in the second grade. I was focusing on colouring inside the awkward, diagonal lines of the pyramids when I noticed him first. He was prancing around the classroom singing sweet melodies in words I had never heard before and wore technicolour clothes from what looked like our class dress-up box. I watched him as he whispered into the ears of little boys and girls. Their faces lit up like lightning bolts of electricity and excitement. It was the sight of people alive, young and free at heart. He smiled at me from across the room. His eyes were deep as the ocean, and made me feel as happy as an eight year old can be - like someone had opened the windows and let the warm breeze waft in with the dancing scents of spring and freshly cut grass, and there was a barbeque with all you can eat sausages!
Over the years came the warnings. No one had ever seen the figure or figures, but some said he was a strange man lurking around the neighbourhood looking for his lost puppy, the grim reaper come to take the children away and plucked them from their beds at night as they slept. Others told tales of large dogs and creatures with long claws that lived in wardrobes and behind doors. Through sensationalism, Master Gap mistakenly became the quintessential worst nightmare of parents worldwide, ready to wrench their children out of their cradling arms.
The children stopped seeing him then. Their laughter became less frequent and more like the monotonous churning of machines, soon they forgot about him, and they headed down the “good and righteous” path of ‘higher education’ and ‘maturity.’
Gap Year found me one day during my teens, a weeping mess of a woman in the corner of my room. It had been a few years since he had seen me. I now had a curvy, seductive body that I didn’t know what to do with and I was covered in running mascara, initially applied by an apprentice’s hand. I felt lost and alone. I couldn’t find meaning in anything, not in school, in work, in my friends. My short life was not going to plan. It wasn’t like what I’d seen in the movies, or what I’d read in books and magazines. I didn’t have the perfect body, I wasn’t the smartest or prettiest in school, and I no longer knew a boy, let alone be able to talk to one!
Gap, as I called him, and I became official and were together over the years as I went through the motions and followed the crowd. I went to the parties. I saw the same faces and had the some conversations over again. Gap was unlike any of the boys I had known, he was an older man and so I thought it best to keep him my little secret. He used to tease me in a playful manner, swooping around my head while I laboured through my maths homework. He sympathised that he couldn’t help me with it, but encouraged me with promises of brighter days and greener pastures. I just had to finish my schooling. Then he would take me far, far away.
A short time later, he and I left that place, that era of time or frame of mind. Together we went to exotic lands and magical places I could be myself. For I had a unique mind, which thought just a little bit differently to the others, that struggled to be strong when told how I should be, who I should be. Gap taught me I was an Empress, shiny and new no matter if I waxed my legs or styled my hair. I learnt I was the same person who sat reading make up-less, feet dangling in the cool water of a running stream in the late afternoon sun or the dancing queen of a rural fire covered in dust, singing in tongues. Gap encouraged me to be free, to do and think as I chose.
Gap gave me an explosion of sensory delights, which rocked my world and exploded me into the woman I am today. It was an intense fulfilling rush that touched every nerve in my body and lasted.
Last time I saw him was in South Africa. I stood on the blood red dirt road and was getting ready to thumb a ride, when the heavens opened up on us, I knew it was goodbye. The mighty deep purple sky let out heavy wet drops and I stood there revelling in the moment. Standing in the African summer rain, I said goodbye and erupted into laughter, the kind you only hear from the young and free at heart and I knew life would never be the same.
Do you Know the Red Paper Clip man?
Have you heard of the, “Red Paperclip Man?” If not, have a squiz here, http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/2005/07/about-one-red-paperclip.html
Kyle MacDonald sat at his desk, probably during one of those slow afternoons, where he would rather scratch out his own eyeballs for an excuse to go home and watch daytime TV - You know what I am talking about, that may be the reason you are reading this now? He examined one red paperclip sitting on his desk, next to his computer. During that particular session of hellish eyeball scratching, he found a muse in that single red paperclip. He would trade the paperclip, through a series of bigger and better trades, for a house.
One year on, fourteen trades later, some nifty publicity and quirky writing, he ended up with a house and will forever be known as, “the red paperclip man.”
That very essence of starting with nothing but a dream, (or paperclip) and achieving that dream, should encourage all who have wanted something that others have said is unattainable.
I am going to be a successful freelance journalist.
My ideas for adventurous exposés, whimsical bohemian writings and travel and lifestyle features and documentaries, were too dreamt up during those hellish eyeball-scratching afternoons in the office, where I would rather push my boss into the Yarra River and watch him grow a second head, than put on that robotic voice, soul-killing smile, and continue to follow the rat race.
However as soon as the skies blue up, with whiffs of amazing ideas of the truly charmed on the breeze. In blows the sneaky dark clouds and the doubts come flooding in waves, filling up my lungs… I am drowning in my own self-pity before I had even started towards my goal.
I am not pretty enough, strong enough, fast enough, smart enough, hard enough, loud enough. Je ne sais pas… I don’t know, I don’t have that special quality.
Just like that, I am struggling. Then all of a sudden I am so far away from shore and the sky has turned grey. I go under, suppressed by my personal sea of self doubt, pity and barrage of negative self talk. I go numb and slowly slip to the bottom, feeling the slow draining of each and every creative idea I have ever had, bleeding from my fingertips that are still reaching for the surface, the sky, the stars.
Then something strikes me. WHY NOT? Why can’t I do and be exactly what I want to? There is no reason; I am not unlike the next successful person. No reason I am different and I believe that to the very core of my heart.
I am studying travel journalism, via correspondence through the London School of Journalism. I am as pretty and as smart as the next woman. I am going to be a star.
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