Sunny Breaks

Maybe it’s my conspiracy-fueled mind at work, maybe I’m reading between the lines too much, but when I saw this article, block-quoted here ad infinitum, I began to wonder… could that smart-but-casually dressed Zeta Reticulan standing behind the Federal Tresurer have anything to do with it?

The Federal Government will use the Budget on Tuesday to outline plans for a major review of Australia’s taxation system.

The 18-month review will look at all aspects of federal, state and local government taxes, other than the GST.

The review team will be led by Treasury head Ken Henry and will include prominent academics and business leaders.

Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan has told Channel Nine changes are needed to ensure Australia’s economic prosperity into the future.

“We will look at personal taxation, we will look at the transfer payments system, we will look at how that effects individuals, how it affects families, how it affects retirees,” he said.

“We’ll look at–we. will. set aside large amounts of funding in preparation for. . . The Arrival. Vast nitrogen-filled domes will be constructed in the Woomera desert as part of Stage One. A new plant form known as Plankflora will be sewn into the Australian soil to make the air more breathable.

“It will be a comprehensive takeover.”

Mr Swan says the Government is likely to take a series of reforms to the next election.

“Certainly we will go to that election with a–_New Overlord_,” he said.

“I can’t predict what the review might say … I mean the review might say that–_All Hail Zeta Reticulum!_.”

Opposition treasury spokesman Malcolm Turnbull supports the review but has questioned the Government’s move to appoint the supra-intelligent, 2.3m tall praying mantis named Vasscorm, to lead the review team.

He has told ABC TV’s Insiders program the Government’s review cannot be considered independent.

“Vasscorm is a very smart man(tis) and we all respect him, but he is the head of the Treasury and the bureaucratic side of things,” he said.

“One would think that a review of this kind should be independent so this looks like a very in-house and insect controlled review.”

One sweet day jesus was crossing the road at the zebra crossing and got mown down by a silver Honda Civic.
The difference between alive and dead, here and there, was really quite distinct. Reflective white paint / dust-covered black-blue gooey stuff. That is, except that actually getting from one to the other took a while.

There he lay, several feet from the curb, all crushed and torn up inside. His back was broked and his lungs were poked. His ribs were smashed and his spleen was mashed. On that day, a child called Billie, took her trike for a ride.

She stopped near the dying jesus and got off. His worldvision was starting to blur and was gaining a purplish butcher’s shop-window hue. One of his eyes had swollen shut, he had blood in his beard and some road debris– wire– had caught in his hair. He’d been lying there half an hour and didn’t have much longer.

“Oh great. I’m saved”, thought jesus. “This kid’ll see me and get help. An ambulance will come.” He quit his slow crawl and stretched a shaking arm up toward the kid. He tried making noise but not much made it past the bile and blood flooding his mouth. It made a bubble.
He was making this effort but because someone had finally found him, he felt like he would be alright.

Billie frolicked about and then sat down on the curb near jesus. She looked at him.
“WANNA PLAY BARBIES?”

She wedged a doll into jesus’ outstretched pain-wracked claw. Billie played, talked and sang to herself.
He expired like that and as he did, a hard-boiled egg, that he was taking home to his mother, slid gently from his other hand and rolled to a stop in the gutter.
Billie picked it up and put it in the pocket of her dress. Later on that day she gave it to a woman who she thought was jesus, because the woman had long hair the same mouse-brown colour as his.

From that day, it has become custom to receive an egg if not from a girl-child, then at least from a girl (or woman) younger than you.

Dear Pulika,
Sorry I haven’t written sooner but it’s just been a fucking madhouse aroound here of late. As if chistmas wasn’t enough, then my older twin sisters decide to have their weddings on the 9th of Jan! I get to be a bridesmaid but there’s stacks of stuff I have to do for it like get fitted for a dress and mum says that we have to do *2* complete test runs of eating the whole banquet just in case the first one is a fluke. :barfs: I’m so full.
Mum said I could invite a friend because all the reception speaches n junkk will be fully boring so I said to my friend Imogen could come and she’s like she totally freaked coz she’s got a crush on my brother Grant who is a year older than me. I said to Immy like, he likes you but he’s just not that into you.
My brother is a totall pain but sometimes he is ok, like, he did something to the onboard navigation computer dealy in the Toyota Prado so that the talking woman in it so that she says Would you like mme to talk dirty to you? and it said it to mum and she totally freaksvilled and says back to it How is that going to help me get from Chadstone Southland back to Armadale?

Anyhoo the agency said I should tell you a bit about me so here goes.
the most disturbing things that i can think of are scalps, they are disgusting, flakey, porous, smelly, just writing this is making me gag. i also get really sickened when i see drawings of hair follicles. i hate seeing ants clustered together, vomitworthy, and so are things like fish eggs and cell walls, ground beef, things like graph paper makes me sick a lot. the fish eggs on finding nemo were horrifying. my friend was the first to talk to me about this disgust with clustery beasts and sometimes when we’re on the internet, we battle each other by looking up pictures of sick things like chicken pox and fish scales and mushrooms to see who gives up first. she is horrified of birds and the way that their feathers fold over each other and their wrinkly eyes both gross her out, she’s also scared of bald spots, and when it comes to clusters she hates poppy seed clusters the most. she is also throughly disgusted and horrified with the thought of things embedding themselves and she has had horrible dreams about poppy seeds embedding themselves into her arm and then someone scraping the seeds out with a potato peeler. we also get really grossed out by words that sound sick. words like, moist, fineagle, ointment, blithe, just gross sounding words. other things that make us want to puke are stout things, like the sugar pot on the movie the sword and the stone, and the 6 oz soda cans. anything that people try to make miniature so that its “cute” is just really wrong. i get really grossed out when i have to feel fabric that is worn and it has little balls on it, especially sheets, i almost die if i have to sleep in a bed with pilly sheets, it is sick. also people sipping makes my skin crawl along with strings of sticky things, we’re talking pizza cheese that won’t stop stretching, people that pull their gum out of their mouths and spit, spit is the worst, spit that won’t detach, bleck. i have a big problem with eating things, especially turkey, if i think about where they came from before i eat it, with turkey, i think of a dead road kill turkey on the side of the road with its feathers puffed and there’s lice on it and you can see its raised pores and… *barfs* i’m also scared that toilets won’t function correctly… but i think that’s enough confessing for now

In geog class they told us the average temp for addis ababa now is 38 degs. Surfs up dude! Maybe ur a bit little for surfing but boogie boards is kewl too. If its 200km from yor village to the coast then that, like, 2 hrs drive or something as long as theres no traffic jams. LOLLZzz! Addis abiba sounds like adidas. I hope that means you don’t have Adidas becuz Fila rox.

I’m glad I got u as a sponsor kid b/c in the photot the agency gave me you look nice. Braids went out here last year, but I guess you guys will catch up soon. Immy got a boy blecch! from gwatamalla and he has a thing on his face that looks gross..
The OC is gonnna start soo I gotta run! :)
laters
Genny

I’m totally turned around on the whole Flight Centre thing. Hung out there twice this week and will probably go back again saturday. Troy (the american) is my man. I walk in there and all these eager faces look to me and say, “can I help you?” and I hold a hand up and say Nah nah, I only want to speak to Troy. But he’s on a call, they say. I’ll wait, I say.
In the middle of my powow with Troy, some guy rings up from Vietnam because Vietnam airlines is trying to screw him for too much money. Troy rang em and sorted it. Then we talked trash about how Vietnam airlines are always trying to do that to people when they just want to get home. Yeah, down at Flight Centre we’re always baggin’ vietnam air except that we call it VA because we don’t have time to say it longer, or if there’s no customers around then it’s “Vi Ai” (Veee Ayyyee) which is fun being stupid.

The Scorpio detective agency company car is a black Leyland P76 with the likeness of a scorpion roughly stenciled in red onto the front-door panels. Digby and Dexter Poindexter are in it. Digby is driving and Dex is talking:
DP: –I mean to say, the Swiss Army? They haven’t been in a war since … never! And what are they going to do if they did get in one? Pull out their knives and uncork your bottle for you? Open your can of baked, beans?

{Beat}

DP: I mean, for Pete’s sake a nail file?
[Digby doesn't appear to be interested in what Poindexter is saying. He looks bored.]
Dig: Uh most tin-cans have a ring-pull now.

{Beat}

DP: So do you know what this contact looks like?
Dig: No. He’s going to approach us.
DP: Well… I just hope he’s got the information we need.
Dig: I just hope this thing’s catered.
[Cut To-
A large, dimly-lit, pattern-carpeted hall. Paintings and sculpture are spaced out along the walls and spot-lit in glowy golds from distant sources. The gathering of about forty people including Digby and Poindexter is ushered into one area and encouraged to sit on the floor. A man wearing overalls stands before them and starts talking with a slight French accent.

Artiste: Nothing
is forever
let us drift our minds to believing nothing
drift your mind into believing nothing
start repeating in your head, and mind — nothing
now, just be happy and want it to continue
you are nothing
but please don't be disappointed — sometimes nothing doesn't even work for me
say in your mind — nothing
people are strange
holding within them, nothing
only now, we are on the threshold of opening another mind and discovering nothing
everything is nothing to you when you truly believe--

Dexter Poindexter: [quietly] Which nothing is he talking about?
Digby: [Also quietly] Nuth-thing
DP: Nuh-thing?
Dig: No. NO - thing
DP: So when he says ‘nothing lasts forever’ he actually means something. Something like, er enegizer batteries?
Dig: No man, just nothing
DP: Like the anti-batteries - or anti-whatever he’s talking about …?
Dig: Batteries is something. Bubonic plague is something. Even dental floss is something. This [Digby motions forward at the performance] is nothing.
DP: I thought this was an art gallery.

[Cut To]
The pundits and critics chatter, mill about in clumpy groups and circulate loosely around past the art. Digby stands by a table with an array of food laid out on it. He has a paper plate in hand and is eating from it in a methodical fashion while visually scanning the crowd. Poindexter stands nearby reading a catalogue.
Digby spots another table with a single plate of biscuits on it. He moves to it, picks one up, mutters ‘anzacs’ to himself and chomps on it. He eats a few more, unaware that the plate is spot-lit in the same way the pieces around the walls are.

From one of the clumps of art-goers a woman notices Digby and screams. Moments later her friends figure out why. A man points at Poindexter and Digby and yells, “Get ‘em, Eric!”
A white bunny rabbit hops daintily toward them. Dig and DP momentarily forget that they are about to be harranged by an angry art-mob and instead are grinning dumbly, transfixed by the rabbit.
It reaches Poindexter and starts nipping at his ankle. DP chuckles at first and then says, “ow, he’s biting me”. DP backs up a step or two against the wall, the rabbit hops playfully around his feet and keeps biting him. DP starts yelling, “Ow! ow! ow!”, although doesn’t make any attempt at what would seem to be an easy get away. Digby watches and laughs a bit, still holding his paper plate and eating anzac biscuits.

When people start to move in on them, Digby grabs DP, saying, “Let’s go”.

[Cut To -
Scorpio Headquarters. ]
Vulcan Conray: What!? You’re saying you didn’t make the contact?
[Digby shrugs. DP is sitting on a chair, gingerly pulling down his sock to examine the bites. Conray catches a glimpse of the injury, squints and moves in closer. The bite marks forms letters and numbers.]
Conray: Hello what’s this? 22, J9. Sounds like a Melways [street directory] reference.
DP: So Eric the bunny rabbit was the contact!?
[Digby shrugs]

This ph. no. I’ve got is like a vortex for wrong numbered calls. I return to all kinds of garbled messages. “Penny this is Peter calling from Doikin, your school placement starts tomorrow.” “Penny please call me as soon as you get this message. It’s Peter.” “Is Mr.Lewellyn there?” “Vuh vuhvuh vu vuhvu va vuhvuh n’ vuhvuh, vuvuh?”
“Hello this is Mary from St.John of God ringing for Peter. I was given the message that you handle the deliveries from the Werribee clinic? We’d like to place an order for six knees please. Could you get back to me on ________?”

All random, but as Burroughs said, How random is random?

The first job I got after getting out of high school was with a small business concern here in Geelong. It was called Total Knee and is one of many jobs regrettable enough to leave off today’s resume.
Owned and run by Jimmy G—-, a short, gruff man and in some ways little more than an Italian stereotype. There were some memorable things, like, he’d say he was a beatboxer “and a damn good one too!” but really all he’d do was put his hand over his mouth, cough a bit and clear his throat.
There was also his ‘motorchair the world’ rant, which all of us eventually learned not to argue against or even interrupt once underway. This was back when those motorised chair-things were still relatively rare and expensive. Total Knee was taking them on as a new area of sales but the lion’s share of business came from high-tensile aluminium knee joints, and crutches.
Jimmy would rave on about how one day everyone would be riding in motorised chairs. Ramps everywhere, extending into the sky. Battery recharge stations. The way he saw it, every1’s a winner. The chair manufacturers, the insurance people, ramp builders, people because they didn’t have to walk anymore, and most of all– Total Knee Pty. Ltd.

When things got slow sometimes on a Thursday me n’ a few of the lads would strut down through town wiv a spanner or a bike chain tucked up the sleeve and drum up a bit of business, literally. Thursday being when all the old people come out.
Hey I never said I was no Saint.
(By the by, this is what happens when you put a kid in prep when he’s only 4 and a half, rather than letting him wait for the next year — just because his birthday falls right on mid-year)

At some point I got jack of the knee replacement game and went on to other things. I still see some of the fellas in the mall now and then. They’ll be walking one direction and I’ll be going the other. I nod hello but don’t stop. Some of them don’t recognise me at all anymore.

1. yang
2. the idle mind
3. action
4. guilt
5. pain
6. time
7. max. span of memory tissue
8. pendulum
9. the hidden
10. circular nature
11. yin

First Wednesday of the month is when the Historical Society meets. They always have some guest-speaking old biddy going on and on about some pointless and obscure topic but I like it because they’re all so polite and I always hear something that’s a bit of a cack; the other month one of em says, ‘Now here’s some music to get you in the mood“ except he pronounced it ‘mewd’. Plus I’m by far the youngest there and I like it that way.

The other Wednesday I was sitting in there, 2nd row from the front, same as usual and they’d just turned back on the lights after a series of wacky little films from the mid-1960s doing things like boasting the burgeoning industrial sector of the town (all but gone now) and explaining the Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works, ”Them’s those blokes who dig ditches inthey?“
And I sat there for a moment letting some wave of unrequested endorphins flow, probably set off by the large meal I was digesting. I stared into the sun-worn spammy complexion of the mostly bald head sitting in the front row, and the way the thin white-grey hair on it was encouraged to run in ordered, clumpy lines via the use of Brill Cream or some such.

Eventually I got up and started helping put away the chairs. I stood there for a moment in the middle of the theatrette. Then this old boy, squinting slightly comes up to me and says, ”I say do you remember me?“. Me hearing that phrase has always meant it’s time to get the fuck out of Dodge. I started reversing toward the door, hands out and fingers up in a gesture of ‘Hey not me, man’, but a small group of cronies had gathered behind me, one of them putting a foot out and tripping me.

The next thing I know they’re laying into me from all sides. Tan patent-leather Hush Puppies, gleaming darkly varnished hard-wood walking sticks, glass bead-embroided handbags. I balled up but it didn’t help much. There’s several bits I don’t remember, although through an ear filled with blood I did hear the old boy’s muffled voice (presumably to the ambulance guy) ”Took a bit of a tumble down the stairs I’m afraid”. Even in a near-blackout state I thought it interesting that they’d beat me to an inch of my life then see fit to call an ambulance.
I’m sure the injuries look nothing like a fall down stairs but who’s gonna get sus on old people? I suppose I had it coming…

Anyway, I’m in hospital, mending. They have laptops here that you can rent. I didn’t know that.

I don’t know why they did it but the ridge on tin cans has become deeper. It’s bad news for people like me with old-school can-openers because they don’t latch on properly. Night after night I’d stand in my little house, over the sink, struggling with a can and opener. After half an hour I could generally get a knife in there and lever it open enough for most of the stuff to come out.
The other night I got these frightful pains in my torso. I put up with it for about 6 hours, thinking I didn’t want to bother anyone with something that was probably only in my head. Eventually I called the 000, reasoning that having a healthcare card would cover the ambulance ride. But the hospital sent a taxi and I did have to pay for it.

There was a bunch of tests. Gaps in memory. I woke up not hurting and some medico said that they’d recovered metal filings to the volume of half a tin-can’s worth. They asked me if I knew how this could’ve happened. In the heat of the moment I lied and said I’d swallowed parts of a kids’ chemistry set to spite someone. I didn’t want them to think I was too cheap to spring for a new-fangled can opener — and you may indeed come to this conclusion, but at this stage, why would I bother buying any more kitchen stuff?
Anyway, they have laptops you can rent in here, so that’s what I’ve done and this is where I am.

Billy supposes that the first defining moment between them and the first moment of clarity within himself about it came while they stood facing each other in a pub, hopping sideways in alternating patterns.
That moment was triggered by the one before it, when a strange little man who looked like a half-strength George Negus somehow tripped and hip-and-shouldered his self on the back of an older woman. Billy didn’t even actually see it but heard the “oof” as air escaped him. And it sounded funny, so Billy smiled.
The next moment he and The Penguin turned toward each other and he could see she also was smiling. He couldn’t see his own smile but he knew there were several shades of darkness between The Penguin’s and his own. She didn’t perceive this, Billy thought.

A milliion thoughts in a millisecond. He looked down to slightly below his own eye-level to that of The Penguin’s. He had always reasoned that it wasn’t that the eyes are the window to the soul, it was just that when looking into someone else’s eyes, it centred–everything else like facial expression and frame became almost subliminal. Like after-image.
As always, The Penguin wore black shirt, pants, shoes. Dark brown hair, feathery with sometimes the illusion of a rainbow sheen to it as if from an oil-slick. Elongated but finely-wired black-coloured glasses frames and dark-brown eyes — in the gloom of the tavern much more could be seen than in day.

That moment Billy received confirmation of a familiarity between them that Billy wishes wasn’t there. Sharing a smile, a silent chuckle, brought about by the misfortunes and patheticicism of others.
Growing up being a freak - adolescence and dealing with the taunts and the ostracism of one’s peers. Some arseholes, Billy thought, said it builds character but he knew first hand that it was mostly a soul-destroyer. He’d hung tuff and got to the other end of the teens with only a battered self-esteem. After that, barring the odd really bad day, it stabilised. He’d never done anything about it.

In that moment of connection, Billy could see that those years had affected The Penguin differently, created a dark and maybe dangerous edge to her. She kept it hidden so well; hidden behind a polished mesh of politeness and the appearance of actually caring. It was as well hidden as his weaknesses. Their sicknesses had already begun to feed one another.

Billy realises that the effects of that causal moment will drag out for years and he wishes he’d never stepped out this night.

Oh god dear reader I’m sorry my proofreading is so shit. I suppose I’m just not one of those people that can do that. I made all kinds of excuses for myself, like my fingers not being good at targeting the keys accurately or being hampered by the size of this little box that I type into but really it’s just me.
If education is the new Church then I thank the local cathedral for not accepting me for their job. I’m no good at it and somehow they had the divine foresight to know it _{boo-hoo, boohoo, o god thankyou}.
The truth is editing and fixing up mistakes, mine or other people’s bores the fuck out of me, and that’s why I don’t do it good.

I have a confession to make. Considering the painful detail in to which I retell the pathetic nothingness of my life on this here website, you’d probably be surprised to know there’s something I haven’t been letting on about for the last 16 or 17 months. Probably shame is why.

I chew gum. Bubble gum because aspartame scars the brain, but that’s another story. Hubba-bubba.
It started off a bit before the end of first semester, last year. In off-campus anchorite mode I’d get out of bed, eat a meagre breakfast then sit down here to write assignments only to find that by 11am I’d be very near to dozing off.

Caffiene? Of course that was always around but it wasn’t having any effect at all anymore. Somehow I got the idea to chew some gum, remembering that the motion of the jaw helped to keep blood flowing through the brain.
It worked. It wasn’t like some hallelujah Praise Be thing, because at that stage I was still smoking and would also duck outside for a fag which kept the blood pressure up. After I gave them up I found I was chewing a lot more.
I joked to some friends who came to visit that I thought my jaw muscles would grow enormous and mishapen, like Popeye. I was secretly very worried about this, but it didn’t happen.
Through the dark dead drag of winter and semester two I countinued with the Hubb-bubba — strawberry, apple, vanilla-cola, even blueberry when I could lay my hands on some.

I’d do stuff like incise it into two parts in my mouth, then chew in stereo so my jaw wouldn’t ache from lop-sidedness. I’d squish it into the gaps between my teeth and drag it through with my tongue. I thiink this is why there is now a visible gap between my top two front teeth, where there never was. I’d blow the odd bubble too, but mostly it was about the chewing.

It got so that one piece wasn’t enough. I’d only start out with one, but a few hours later I’d chuck a second bit in. I’d mix flavours… all kinds of shit.
I’d tell myself it because I didn’t want to get diabetes from all the sugar, but I started taking the gum out of my mouth and putting it back on its little peice of wax paper. This would only be when I had to do something as unavoidable as eating. Then … o the shame … I’d pick up the gum and starting chewing it again. The truth is, these are the bizarre and unhealthy kinds of habits that emerge when something as heinous as a gum-habit goes unchecked.

Things like this spread into my external, social life. I noticed that eventhough I was always at it when I was out, I’d never offer anyone else a piece, ‘If you wanted some, you’d get you own’, I’d think. Sitting on the dead-quiet but rather full (don’t ask; Geelong people are just like that) morning bus out to uni, chewing well-hard, two-day old gum… I’d work it up warm enough to get a bubble on, blow it and CRACK! — it’d pop like a Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band Snare drum, unsettling my dead-eyed peers in the process. It was my way of saying, Fuck You society, Fuck You Geelong, Fuck You Deakin Uni. Sociopathic is what they call it.

There’s this Jerry Seinfeld bit about how it’s basically impossible to chew gum and not look belligerent at the same time. It wasn’t until I saw someone else chewing gum in class that this occurred to me. I chewed in lectures and tutes all the time. No wonder no one approached me to say hello.
Plus there was these things I was totally unaware of, like when I had to say something for more than a sentence or two, I’d actually pop the gum out, wrap it in its little bit of paper and stuff it in my pocket. Then pull it back out ten mintues later.

I’m still chewing, there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m chewing right now. I’m conscious of it. I think about it a lot.
Lately I’ve been thinking that, see, I used to have this perception of myself as having a very low threshold of amusement. It means that I can be amused by very small or simple things for an abnormally long time.
But it turns out I’m wrong.

The reality of the situation as I understand it, at this point in time, is that I’ve no idea what bores me and what doesn’t. I’m like one of those freaks who has no sense of pressure-touch in their skin nerves. Put me in a black box, turn me upside down and I wouldn’t know it. It’s like that with me and interest.
I experience no sensation as to whether something is interesting or boring. People can talk me me into thinking something is interesting — and I’ll go along with it — this happens all the time. In fact, there’s undoubtedly many things I’ve done in the past that I’ve thought were interesting but were actually really boring. Hindsight provides no clarity. There is no learning from trial and error. No progress. A flat line all the way out.
This pursuit and you, reader, bore me to death. How can I be sure this isn’t true?

I’m going to take the gum out of my mouth. If oxygen stops getting to my brain and my head falls dead onto the keyboard, then I guess you’ll figure it out. mhn uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuubnj bnm bnmfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffcr

Wandered down the platform and happened upon a vending machine. The protective steel door had been left open, either by a refiller person or some other.
After casting a glance each way, there was no other option than to take it for all it was worth. I really mean it, there was no other choice.
With pockets and underpants stuffed full of Skittles, Cherry Ripes, Snickers Mars Bars and the like, I boarded the newly arrived train.
Sat down opposite me was a chap quite wired in appearance. Head twitched about like a hen’s. This man opened a hard-shelled case and produced a one-litre carton of unflavoured milk. Holding it up he said,
“Mmmm, milk. Natural, refreshing; milk,” in a voice unecessarily loud for the compartment. He opened it and drank enthusasitically, leaving driblet-streams at the corners of his mouth.
He held it out again, this time stretched in my direction, grinning cheesily and twitching eyebrows vertically in ‘?‘ gesture. All the while those little milk-riverbeds on his chin like hinges on a wooden ventriloquists’ puppet’s mouth.

I leant forward and sniffed slightly. The milk registered as being off, and as much I said. The man’s grin dropped out. He struggled to his feet, groaning, slightly thrown by the train’s wobble, but also holding his gut as if he’d been hit with a shotgun. A bit over the top really. I’d accidentally ingested sour milk plenty of times and the effect was more of a slow-bleed over the next 12-24 hrs.
Nevertheless, after what must have been only four or five steps out into the carriage passageway, the man began to hurl shamelessly. This I heard, in full Dolby Surround.

He leveled with me %100A; in the way that only the truly desperate can.
“You gotta help me buddy, you gotta help me!”, he lunged forward and feebly attempted to grab the collar of my trench coat. The puke-breath would have been over powering, had I not been wired on Skittles.
“Settle down there, chester.. Who put you up to this?”
His head bowed and while he said nothing, his eyes gave it away, tracking back to the milk carton on the floor.

“I needed the money! Half now, half later they said. All they gave me was this case, no instructions or nothing. All they said was push the product.” He belched, looking queasy for a moment. “I haven’t slept in a week. I been riding trains nonstop. I don’t even know what country I’m in anymore.”
At this I grappled his shoulders and shook him violently. “This is Australia you idiot. There’s only one country on this continent. The happiest continent on Earth.”
“Oh…”, his eyes downcast, looking thoroughly beat now.
I got up and left the compartment, disgusted and only least by the smell.
So.
The Milk Mafia had entered the murky world of solids — one-to-one promotions.
Figures, homogenisation had taken quite a bad wrap lately.

The first couple of times I stood in that queue and had my poise gathered up about me, looking sharp and feeling like I’m looking sharp and she said, “Can I help you?”, I’d turn in her direction and look her in the eye. She was goodlooking, I’ll tell you that much for free, but for someone who seemed as emotionally cooled-out as Dr.Spock she was pretty easy to read.
As I approached, she’d do this adjusting the glasses thing; a certain way of lifting them off the nose, the way a thumb and finger are positioned at either edge of a framed lens. Lifted up, set down in a place marginally higher on the bridge of the nose. The lens thickness was such that, to me, there was the illusion of eyeball ripple due to magnification.
It was this habit that gave me the idea that she at least recognised me and might even say yes if I asked her to go kite-flying with me.
Not that I thought it would be a fun or quote-unquote “romantic” thing to do, it’s just that for reasons best not gone into, I needed to go K-Fing and had literally run out of people I knew who would agree to come along. I’d get hoisted by winds and land on busy roads or roofs too tricky to get off of, unless there was a 2nd person’s weight involved.

I have to say, each time I stood there at that counter sneaking glimpses at her so severely drawn back hair and beady eyes, I became a little more intrigued.
Her voice wasn’t what I would’ve expected - a little higher than that - and the way my head measures voice in spectrum pegged hers at yellow, and the texture of cheese without having anything else to do with cheese. I am highly effected by voice, and while hers was not great I could deal with it.

Coffee at her house: Boy was I hangin’ for that cuppa tea. It was mid-afternoon and I was in real danger of falling asleep, head dropping onto the formica kitchen-table top right then n’ there. It mostly was a very normal house, very clean, ordered. She stood there aside the kettle like a gameshow model as it came to. But instead of filling the two awaiting cups, she glided along a little further and, pouring from a height, tipped the water into the sinkhole. She made this hideous screeching-pain noise while doing it, which was explained to be the noise that the pipe-dwelling bacteria and other flora would make when they got a taste of that boiling water.
“It’s a jungle down there”, she said.
“Whoah. Did you swipe a load of liberry books or what?” I asked, looking at a long book case through some smoked-glass, sliding doors.
No answer.
“Then why do they all have labels on them like library books?”
“Let me tell you about a brilliant young man named Melvil Dewey. The year was 1876…”

Coffee at my house: I’d be lying to you if I were to use the expression, ‘I didn’t have the heart to tell her that…’. More like, Telling the truth would ruin my plans, so I didn’t mention how I’d never understood the Dewey Decimal system, and often wondered why they didn’t just arrange it all like in Fiction — with the author’s names in alphabetical order.
Further to that, as we walked up the street to where I lived I remembered that I’d sorted my bookcases according to the colour on the spines. I panicked and decided to break into someone else’s house and pretend it was mine. I said I’d forgot my key and would pop ’round the back to open the front door for her in a tick.
I pulled it off pretty well considering I didn’t know where anything was. After a little well-masked fumbling about I had beverages poured and was pleased with how things were going.
I spied a jar labelled ‘biscuits’, pulled it off the shelf, whipped the lid off and looked down in.
“Would you like a … Chips? … Ahoy?”

In a beautiful place out in the country: That summer evening we sat picnicking on the chronically chemically abrased buffalo grass, in the cool, sweet shade of the refinery stacks. The main incineration chimney’s flame got a hold of something specially toxic and shifted from orange to blue, a special kind of blue that the two of us could share for those short moments.
Maybe it was ’cause of the oily vapour from the catalytic cracker, or maybe it was the Dewey-induced fervour that she kept on yabbering with - order, structure, purpose - but her eyes gleamed, and gleamed.
I looked into those eyes - through the goggles, at those flat 2-dimensional, brown irises and I knew sadly that she could never be any more than kite ballast to me. ah.

I am the U21 team’s 3rd top hockey player, state champs this year.
I have a flower shop in Hawthorn whose name plays on the word, ‘hydrangea’ sounding like, ‘ranger’.

�It’s a disgusting show of politicians’ lack of concern about the environment. …”

I am involved in monitoring the water quality of Whites Creek, which is located in Annandale.
Me n’ Jayce Moore make up Team Black Flag: 100% Male.
Last January I came 11th in the Category C BMX race at Bacchus Marsh and scored 11 points for it.
I graduated with a Masters degree from the Department of Geospatial Science and now work for Hatch Engineering.
I’m no.2 for Epping Eastwood soccer club.
I died in Canada in 1899.
In 1901, as a 30 year old farmer from Glasgo (sic)., I married Alice
I and some fellow chums from Scotch raced kayaks down the Murray in 1998. Go Scotch!

I live in Mortlake. I have many interests. My main hobby is motorbike riding. I have a Honda, and also ride a Honda four wheeler. I am planning to buy a new four-wheeler, aTRX250. I am excited about it. I am also interested in playing the drums and listening to music. I like all sorts of music, heavy metal, instrumental, 1980�s, and ACDC in particular. My favourite modern band is Metallica.

I am tweleve years old I have two younger brothers
My hobbies are colleting harry potter cards .
I took boomarange lessons and I do not have a picture for you.

Mrs bond spoke to us about dream time stories .

I was after some red licorice for a special project, didn’t find any, but since I was in a lollyshop, decided to get a big bag of mixed lollies. Moving from one little bin to the next, scooping up a handful of brightly coloured stuff from each, for a moment at least, I felt at one with the universe.
I proceeded to the counter and plonked the paper bag on the scales. The little man looked through my eyes knowingly.
“Do you have any work here sir?”, I asked
“I have unending amounts of work … for the right person.”
“Can that be me? Please.”
“Answer me this. What do you find difficult?”
“Trimming my sideburns. For one, when I look in the mirror and move my hand, in the mirror-world it moves the right way, but in reality it doesn’t. Also it’s really hard to trim them to level.”
“Then you cannot work here.”
“Ah geez, why not?”
“Balance. You lack balance. Much of the work is pre-paring bags of lollies. Here, look.”

He held open the bag I’d chosen and scooped up. It was 90% fizzy things like coke bottles, sour snakes, sherbet bombs and gummi things. The small minority was chocolate; bullets etc.
“But I put some honey bears in”, I pleaded. He said nothing.

In a moment I realised he was right. My destiny lay elsewhere.
Of course the fizzy things are the yummiest, but without the powdery bananas and those big chalky white things that look like tablets — the coke bottle doesn’t even exist. It is defined by the filler - the also-rans in the lollybag of life.

I bowed and backed out of the shop.

*****************
I shouldn’t eat all those lollies. I’m so sorry.

Digby reclined on the couch, sighed and interlaced his chunky fingers across his chest.

“It started when I’d be out doing something, walking along the street, thinking about stuff. I’d think of something, come to some conclusion, pause, and think, ‘You can say that again, Billy!’ or ‘ya not wrong there Billy boy.’, or ‘No shit Billy’.”
“Y’know? It’s just the kind of thing you do when you’re thinking things through by yourself.”

Digby looped his hands around behind his head and dragged them loosely across his afro, absent-mindedly massaging his scalp. He clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth like he’d made a bad move playing checkers.

“Then sometime after we finished the last case it started to get more. Like I was getting my sneakers cleaned and came out of the shop, about to put my wallet away and thought, — hang on, did that guy just short-change me? ‘You’re damn right Billy. You better get back in there and get what’s yours.’
So I did - or tried at least. Turns out it was my mistake. Made a real scene.”

“So, y’know. Stuff like that. The next thing I know There’s one of those life-size plastic Flight Centre captains standing in my living room, and the cops have nabbed me trying to unscrew the oversized plastic hood ornament from the roof of the Jaguar dealership at 3am.”

From his chair behind where Digby lay, the doctor spoke.

“And you think, Billy, has something to do with this?”

“Nah… ah… the way I figure it, there’s this thing in my head, and it’s calling me Billy.”

“I see.”

Digby sat up quickly and looked around at the man.
“Do you? Doctor, my name’s not Billy. I’m not Billy“.

was two years before you were even born.
I’d just retrieved the ball from the corner of the room and returned to take my serve. Standing there, hunched over the table with the ball enveloped in my hand, something altered.
The ball felt heavier and wonky.

Bringing it closer to my face, I slowly opened the hand flat and looked at what was in it.
OMFG. It looked exactly like an egg. Trying to hide my surprise, I gently shifted my focus to the Duchess across the table. Did she see what I could? Didn’t look like it; still hopping from foot to foot waiting for the service, wearing that ridiculous sun visor.

I served it. Yolk and white went every which way. A fragment of shell got in her eye and she started crying.
It looked and felt like an egg but I hit it anyway.
Standing there awkwardly, watching her bawl, thinking how awkward this all was, a door collapsed open and countless piglets flooded over the floor. Like a leaning tower, I gradually lost my footing and fell over. The piglets were extremely soft and manicured, as if they had never been outside. Some sniffed at my face and it tickled.

A third man stood a bit off to the side by a lampshade, pushing the last remaining molar around with his tongue. It’s root hung onto the gum a little longer, and to the tongue, felt like craters and peaks on the moon.

What I like is when someone stops me in the street and asks me for directions and I’m able to give them to them. That makes me feel good. Like I have a point. Also I like delivering things people like to get. Admittedly community newspapers isn’t top of the range here, but at least they’re free, and you’d be surprised what kind of crap people will accept if it’s free. But something quality would be really tops.
I want to get a plastic bowl, spray paint it gold and attach wings to the sides then wear it. Also wings for the heels of my shoes. I already practice the leaning bit. Rather than walk right up to someone I stop at about four feet away, stretch out an arm and counter-balance with a leg swung out in the other direction. I couldn’t find a picture of him doing that on the net, but there’s one in my bulfinch book. Wait until the scanner’s working.

You’d never know it but I updated to nucleus 3.0
Mostly this entry is just shunting so the page load isn’t so big.
My favourite song at the moment is Xcentric by Monolake - nice to get back to ‘pure’ electronic. All the voice bit sample grow tiresome, particular when I hear bits from the same sources. Xcentric sounds like there’s a whole bunch of ping-pong balls in it.
KLF played in Melbourne last night but the first I heard about it was Friday. Sigh.

During a school trip to Amsterdam Billy is offered a toke on a spliff.

Give or take half an hour.

(1) biting his shirt or arm
(2) sticking out his tongue
(3) kicking or biting himself, others, or objects
(4) calling someone or something a derogatory name
(5) removing or threatening to remove his clothing
(6) saying “NO!” loudly and vigorously
(7) threatening to damage objects or persons
(8) throwing objects
(9) pushing his sister