Looking Back:

I’ve never had a real birthday party, not since I was seven. I’m not sure why. Perhaps I never had the confidence that people would show up if I did have one. Anyhow, on my twenty-first (this must have been three years ago) my friends actually threw me one.

It was at L’s house, so I went along there in the afternoon. I can’t remember who else gave me a present, but L gave me a couple of second hand books. One of them was a fairly good Terry Pratchett novel, the other a very bad sci-fi. The birthday party went like this: we sat around in the Hamilton Hill Hotel drinking Coopers for a few hours (L’s boyfriend has a thing for Coopers but I find it nasty) and then all five of us packed into E’s VW convertible went to a poetry reading at the Rosemount where Tomas read some of his poetry. The poetry reading was small but somehow I was press-ganged into Tomas’s act and, as I recall, nearly gave him a broken rib playing that ‘bounce off each other’s chests’ game. Poetry can be a contact sport sometimes.

After that we were sitting in L’s loungeroom running out of goon and there was a debate about whether a bottle shop would be open. L and I left the others to walk down the hill and see.

And this is the main thing that I remember. We found the shop closed and decided to walk to another one in the next suburb over, which took about an hour longer than we were expecting. When we finally found it that one was closed as well, so we got KFC instead and walked back eating chicken burgers. By the time we arrived at L’s place again, we were running so late that her boyfriend was getting into his car to come look for us.

I guess said boyfriend wasn’t happy, but that’s not the important part. For a while, L and I were just walking along and talking shit, completely oblivious to the rest of the world. All we had in mind was the poorly-conceived goal of walking to a bottle shop that was closed before we even set out. I had the feeling, and I always had the feeling when I was with her, that nothing else really mattered. That we were in some small bubble that the world couldn’t get into, and we could go anywhere or do anything and it would be okay. Maybe you know what I mean and maybe you don’t, but the point is that it was one of the most exciting times I can remember. You don’t normally think of L as ‘exciting’, just as some quiet girl waiting to be bent into whatever shape her man desires like so many other girls, but it’s true. More than anyone else I’ve met.

Looking Forward:

I think: so many of the stories men tell are sad ones about how the past was better for them than today. I try never to tell stories that way, because it’s not cool. After a year and a half, I’m moving back to Perth because Sydney is expensive and boring and far away from everyone I care about. Being a mover and a traveller is good for your CV but not good for anything else I have decided. I never want to leave again unless I have that bubble hanging safely over my head to protect me.

At this point I will stop telling the story, for fear of it going the wrong way.