I sat here all night flicking the telly
but now I’ve stopped for Spider Man.
It’s hot in here and the fridge is smelly,
I can’t do anything a spider can.
If I could think of something exciting
and leave the house off my own bat,
then I wouldn’t even be here writing
but I guess you’re familiar with that.
And tomorrow you’ll sit just the same way,
an Office Wench caught in the grind,
and you’ll tell me what’s happened in your day -
because it’s good to know what’s on your mind.
I think of the photo where you lay there and snored.
These things that we do when we’re sleepy and bored

(visit officewench)

I shouldn’t lay claim to impartiality here, seeing as I’ve known Tomas for years, but he was sleeping on my kitchen floor during this tour and that was annoying enough to counterbalance and friendly sympathy I may have had. So impartial I am.

Bar Me, by the way, is not a bad spot at all - if you can find it. I walked all the way from the Cross into the city looking for it, and in the end it turned out to be on a back street, contra the pub’s advertising. The underground jazz cellar was okay, and even though only six people turned up, it didn’t feel scary - just intimate. Tomas’s show is getting better all the time and if people knew what they were getting, they would have flocked down there in their hundreds. The mix of overt camp rock moves and insecure ‘coming of age’ poetry makes his shows multidimensional in a way that might seem like a crime against nature at first, but always comes off as charming in the end. I laughedmuch, and I’ve seen it all many times before.

Really a good gig. My only gripe is that I was promised some poetry from Briohny Doyle and she didn’t show up. If anyone out there knows her, can you deliver her a flaming bag of dog poop from me?

That’s Sylvia Plath’s way of saying ‘ouch, I cut myself’. It happened to me the other day: I opened my box of kitchen belongings and found two knives my mother had put in. They were stuck in hard plastic packages for safety. I asked myself, ‘Shall I walk across the room to get some scissors, or shall I just try to yank them out of the packets?’

So I yanked. The real tragedy was that the first one worked. It came out so easily that I did the second one without hesitation. Then I noticed that there was a dark bit on my arm. It was cut down into the purple stuff, and blood was running freely. The knife had been very sharp. It didn’t really hurt.

Now I’m going to have a scar about as long as the last bone on your little finger, just down from the inside of my elbow. When you ask how I did it, I’ll refuse to say. Your imagination will get the better of you, I think.

There is little possibility that you’ll understand the way performance poetry gets to me, but I’ll try and tell you about it anyway. See, we were at Bardfly’s in Glebe last night, which is a poetry event organised by that Tug Dumbly guy everyone knows. Tomas was a featured poet, and since I was feeling restless I went in what the Sydney people call a poetry ’slam’; a series of 3-minute spoken word slots. Don’t think this is anything unusual, mind you - the fact is that poetry is easy to write and easy to read out. I do it all the time, and have developed quite an ego about it. But it’s my ego always gets me into all this trouble.

See, the ’slam’ is a competitive event (hell, all performances are competitive) and the fact is that I didn’t win. Didn’t even place. Wound up unmentioned, along with a guy who praised the church and a woman who sang a song mocking the church. Even the brain-damaged Samoan beat me, and he was kicked off stage multiple times.

So either I feel sorry for myself at this point or I rant. Hmmm.

I choose rant.

Tug Dumbly. If you don’t know him what kind of poetry-muffling rock have you been hiding under? But it still bears to be said that he’s a tool. A complete wanker. I mean I’m sure he’s a nice guy and all but as a poet he’s just unutterably annoying. He’s funny. He’s lighthearted. And to make it all worse, he’s popular. That just isn’t what I call poety, okay?! Dumbly and his cohorts turn what should be a place for darkness, depression and vain obscurity into a vulgar and commercially viable form of entertainment. Who comes along to heckle at poetry?! It’s just not done.

I guess what really shocks me is that poetry events are not like reading books. Live, the fragile things that work on paper don’t work anymore. And if you ask me what I prefer, then no screaming wanker can hold a candle to Walt Whitman’s gentle whisper, and no overdressed poser can equal old T.S. for sophistication.

But that’s just me. And don’t worry - I don’t hate you, Tug.

I don’t even hate that guy with the beret on Hey Hey It’s Saturday…

It’s Banjo Paterson I’ll never get over.

Cockhead.

So we were down at the queer fair in Victoria Park and looking at all the different stalls - gay pet accessories, gay scuba divers, gay law firms and so on - and we found, right next to the ‘God loves me too’ tent, a humble and unassuming people known as the Clitocracy. And an interesting bunch they are. Their philosophy is a mixture of Raelianism and unorthodox feminish socialism, and they’re not half mad either, as their slogan suggests:

Yes to Pleasure and
Femininity!
No more god, no more guilt!
We are 55% of the world’s
population !
Women can rule the world using
Democracy

Basically the story goes that prophet Rael was visited in 1973 by Yaweh - who was actually an alien with green skin and pointy eyes, if the illustration on my pocket-sized ‘Raelianism Explained’ information card is correct - as was told that life on earth was created by aliens using D.N.A. Along the way, the aliens came down to earth to chat with people who then became the prophets of all the major religions, thus unintenionally creating the idea of god. When he came down in ‘73, Yahweh wanted everyone to know that all the ‘god’ stuff had just been a mistake, and that everyone should start building an embassy for the aliens because they were coming back to earth (and presumably wanted to start taking off-planet visa applications right away.) So Rael started writing his books to spread the word and the cult of Raelianism was born.

Now I don’t know how the Clitocracy jumped on the bandwagon , but I can almost be certain that it happened in California. The Clitocracy believes in the baring of breasts in public (not an uncommon practice) and that since women make up more than half of the world’s population they are democratically entitled to push everyone around. War, famine, pestilence and death are all primarily caused by men waving their penises around, so if women held the reins the world would be a better place. Another big Clitocratic belief is that there is no God and everyone is free to be lesbian if they want. In fact, that would be just dandy, seeing as girl-power is destined to rule the world.

Perhaps I don’t need to go into detail about why the Clitocracy is a menace to society, but oh how I want to mention a few points: 1) just because someone mistook an alien for God doesn’t mean that God doesn’t exist. Who created the aliens? 2) Democracy, in theory, means that everyone gets a say equally, not that the majority should always have their way. And 3) any political party led by a devotion to genitalia cannot govern a cuntry. As Kat says:

Listening to your clit isn’t always a good idea.

So true. In fact, if I tried to start a Cocktocracy, society would be in ruins within five minutes. Blondes would be sent off into the desert, the economy would be ruined by overproduction of electric guitars, and my hastily constructed ‘Temple of Zooey’ would collapse killing scores of innocent Cocktocratic citizens. So let us all chill and be thankful that the Lesbians and Raelians are just a bunch of crackpot losers who’ll never amount to anything.

in Sydney,
Paper Trap

it’s very hot in my little a-part-ment
it’s like being stuck in a glove com-part-ment
the fan don’t work but I’m making some caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalls -
let me get a hammer and knock down a wall

second verse, same at the first…

I do this far too much - when I’m having trouble sleeping or it’s too hot I tend to talk in my sleep. It can be a bit embarrassing. Like last night, dreamed I was standing in line at some counter and then I had to explain to the lady why I was only wearing boxer shorts. I told her very politely that this was because I was dreaming and clothes weren’t required when you were dreaming.

And I’m afraid it all came out in real life, at four in the morning. Crap.

And my dreams are always so boring, aren’t they? I can dream anything I want and here I am stuck waiting in line at some unidentified office. Jeez. …So, like, now Kat’s arrived I’m busy traumatising her all day. How are y’all doing?

>>I did two useful things today: changed my address with some bureuacrats, and applied to be a uni tutor. I think that’s *fine* for eight hours in the office, don’t you agree?

Short of singing the praises of Clare, and writing sonnets to The T (and weird obsessions are so overrated anyway…) I can’t think of much else to say. So I’ll fill you in tomorrow when Kat comes to town :)

You can’t have too many pens. You can never find a pen when you’re angry.

Wegglywoo has discovered a new health risk that could be at lurk in the most innocuous of places: environmental sperm.

Another good reason for carrying rubber gloves, I say.

The movers came today and deposited all my things into my tiny flat. I was panicking for a while because I thought I’d have to move about by climbing over the boxes from now on, there were that many of them. Honestly, it’s times like these I realise how encumbering property can be. Well enough though, it all fitted in. My bed is rocking unsteadily on top of a pile of boxes and all the cupboards need to be labelled ‘contents under pressure’, but well enough.

The surprising thing of course was the bathroom - you’d think a boy might not need even a whole bathroom cabinet, but I have masses of toiletries lying around without a proper place. It seems seven tubes of toothpaste, two (virtually useless) hairbrushes and two swivelling lint removers might have been more than I need. As for the two steam irons, that’s just fate.

But I didn’t come here to sit organising my room, did I? I think I’ll go for a walk. Sydney, by the way, is great fun. I saw the Chinese New Year parade yesterday - year of the rooster - and had lunch with Kat, who was passing through town. We’ll get more time to be tourists on the weekend.