Flower Show

Melbourne International Flower Show, 31st March 2007

8.24

Morning shower. I like to turn up the heat and boil myself under the shower head especially if it is cold outside, without worrying too much about my 'contribution' or lack thereof, towards the water crisis. After all, what's the use of having water if its not to be enjoyed, especially on a cold gloomy morning.

Shampoo smells good when you mix it with soap. Especially if its moisturising body wash; you get a very nice and foamy experience, although I doubt it would be very good for your hair - kinda fucks up the follicles. Because I have so little of it (no pun intended), I don’t really care.

I never really liked shaving. Not only can I not afford to buy a decent pair of razors, I'm also really cannot be fucked in the morning, especially when my vision is like, blurry. Putting a sharp blade against your face in the wee hours of the morning is not a very clever thing to do.

Morning rush hour usually means rushing out of the house because I've woken up late (damn that alarm clock) and have had no time to eat breakfast (but have spent the last 25mins having a nice hot shower). So I resort to stocking up with bananas, which are plentiful and cheap in Coles after the stocks up in Queensland started recovering from Cyclone Larry. I like the versatility of the banana and how it reacts with your saliva, and the easy no-hassle brekkie it provides. Occasionally I'd settle for mushy Wheatbix but most of the time I just can't be bothered.

Usually I leave the house at 8.24am on the dot, because that's the time the leveled-crossing bells start sounding and the train starts arriving. Missing that train will mean being late for class, like, 20mins. Of course, everybody thinks like me and wakes up at the same time, crowds the station at the same time, all along the Sandringham line. So by the time the train arrives it is packed like sardines and you have to jostle with a hundred other people waiting to get in and one or two trying to get out. And yes, if you miss this one, you're gonna be late, so by all means push. Everybody does it.

I wish I could wake up for the 8.04am train but that's just too much effort. At least pushing doesn't require too much drama.

Every morning, being squashed up against a whole bunch of random strangers presents its opportunity for you to view and grope another person, especially those in one's reach. Occasionally you get bloody CK perfume stuffing your nose up, but most of the time people smell of cheap aftershave and hairgel. I've never really been conscious about my own contribution to this mass of inorganic vapours, because there's always a screamer with a barrel-full of Dior stink-o standing nearby to help mask my mondaymorningAsiandelight

Every now and again you get cuties on the 8.24. Besides being able to observe the freckles on their skin and the scent of their black suits, the close proximity almost means legal molestation. What a fantasy. I've never found myself in a 8.24 with more than half-an-arm's length distance between me and the person next to me, and the closeness can sometimes make me wet.

Then again, I might not necessarily like to stand next to a person who smells of old socks, or who has silicon the size of salad bowls.

在哪里?

在哪里 在哪里见过你
你地笑容这样熟悉
我一时想不起

是你，是你，梦见的就是你

Tramcar

Two drowsy nights, sleeping later and later doing absolutely nothing online. I've been holding up by surviving on my regular chocolate fix and occasional perve at the gym, but otherwise relentlessly kicking for some excitement and unpredictability.

One hundred bucks away, and a tram full of eager-to-be-drunk passengers, I made my way into the dimly lit space. Marcs shirt, cheesy $10 jeans and a dollop of Issey, I felt like I was worth $1mil.

Dips to start off the evening with the homophobic chef and half a dozen screaming queens sipping away at the cheap Chardonnay and watered-down vodka-on-ice. The streets outside seemingly glide across the windows like moving portrait on the wall. Sweet. Looking out at the people walking on the pedestrian pathways along High St, I’m suddenly reminded of Howl’s moving castle.

Playing with the four forks and three knives on the table in front of me, I realise that they are, in fact, the same length. So much for the 'fine dining' experience. Even the plates are the same diameter.

The couple next to us feels the jitters as we go about our flamboyant conversations across the length of the tram. We're having a good time at the expense of others. How rewarding! We should crash more parties like this next time.

The boyfriend takes photos of me on his camera, with the wrong exposure, wrong ISO, wrong aperture size, and wrong focus. I look like a fuzzy monster, illuminated from the back.

5-minute stopover at Albert Park. Group photo. Everybody smiles naturally except me; I look like a prostitute with my sly posture. I'm so out of sync after the four glasses of chardy and two champy, one Bourbon-on-ice and a sip of red from the boyfriend's glass. Chalks is feeling unwell; his head is as hot as a hotpot. Taxi home for the poor boy. Wish he could stay longer and get drunk together.

Back on the tramcar and we're having Cognac that tastes like jet-fuel. I can tell the waiter is starting to get pissed because we keep swapping seats around the tram. Its fun. Straight men just don’t get it.

Old couple opposite us are really starting to lose their nerve. Sorry for the gay-gestures, we can't help it. Especially the old shriveled lady, she's over it now, playing with her dessert while her husband looks on. Yes, go on, dig deeper into that pudding of yours, bitch.

Harder, I said.

She jolts her knife into the pudding and crushes it. Good girl.

~

The Peel. How did we end up here? Dancing trashily on the dance floor I attract no attention. My Aquilla's are cutting into my heels as I dance to Dannii. I can't remember anything else.

Soon before I know it I'm sitting on the couch at home. How did I get here?

Happy birthday to the boyfriend.

Perseverance

Mardi Gras

I'm not there. So why does it matter?

Kylie

Presenting the Queen herself.

School

Running through the last of the raindrops that fall onto the parched pavement below, I notice I've forgotten my notepad and a whole bunch of other printed lecture material. Now that I'm halfway across the city there's no turning back, and any more delays will render me late.

Ice cream shop is opening its shutters, and eager kids are waiting outside. A whole bunch of them. I wonder when was the last time I felt the same way about any food in Melbourne, then again maybe my views and opinions are biased because I come from a food-hotspot capital.

Tram packed with sweaty middle-aged business men who listen to horrendous music on their iPods, turning the volume up so that the people squashed up against them have to bear to listen. Directly opposite me, Dior fragrance. Awfully oiled hair, parted in the most unflattering way, reading a book. He has a huge zit on his left cheek, and a very firm chest; I suspect that's really all that's going for him, his chest.

Bloody PRC's blocking the door again. Tapping against her shoulder, I startle her by saying in a very loud voice 'excusemeyouareblockingthebloodydoorpleasestepaside'. She jumps. I growl. She moves out of the way and I push past her rudely. I have no respect for people who block up the way with their fat arses and Hello-kitty skirts.

Like, you don't even own the path, bitch.

Skye - Love Show (Tom Novy Remix). Jumping heart. Sushi in one hand, pen and practical manual in another. Sunshine greeting the burned skin on my ears, and a fucking non-native elm tree providing me shelter. I am become a plant nerd. I am naming five unidentified bobs of lichen growing on the pavement after the Beatles, one green lump per singer, with Paul McCartney as the only purple-orange bob in the otherwise greenish-white group.

Droning in my head is suppressed by the need to fall asleep instantly during lectures. His voice is raspy and unattractive, and though the electron micrographs being projected on the wall are interesting I can't help but doze off to the sound of my lecture's voice. Glad he can't notice; it is too dark in here.

Jumping on the train on the way home, I notice how I've stepped onto a lump of pink coloured gum and picked up a cigarette bud along the way. Gross.

Back into the bed I miss so much, under the sheets and head on the pillow that I make love to at night, I forget that I was ever awake to begin with.

Except of course, until the boyfriend startles me from my sleep with a kiss.