to do list

something in the corner
something on the ground
a third thing in another thing's bed
and the fifth in my head

halloween

A hilarious thing to observe is people in very ridiculous costumes having very serious conversations.

pall mall cigarettes

 

Apparently I am not 'particular'.

colonization/semantic satiation

I don't know how to know better the people I would like to know better.

intersections

Sofia drew this picture in my book one morning and told me I should write a story from it. This freaked the shit out of me. I find it difficult to do anything if it is specifically asked of me because all I can think about is fulfilling what that person expects and worrying about failing (failure is imminent due to panic causing severe inability to think). Bottom line: I am somewhat shit under pressure. Here is a 'somewhat shit/under-pressure'* story. Illustrated by Sofia McIntyre.

Really, a cross is much less than the thousands of meanings threaded to it. When it comes down to it a cross is just two straight lines intersecting each other. A large portion of the globe is dedicating their lives to two straight, perfectly perpendicular lines.

Two straight lines, one straight priest. One straight priest and a hunch-back sharing communion after the parish has gone home. A carnal ritual.  I would like to walk through all the world's churches and turn their crosses forty-five degrees counter-clockwise. 

When I was seven or eight my Nana would buy me beautiful white dresses in an attempt to persuade me to attend church with her. She has enormous amounts of faith, my Nana. She has faith in her God and she has faith in a society which is regulated and predictable and safe. She has faith in a society where little girls wear white dresses on outings with their grandmothers.

She didn't know that I hated wearing dresses or anything remotely girl-ish. I would sometimes go with her but I refused to wear the dresses. When I did go my Nana would proudly introduce me to all her friends. She would always say, "This is my eldest granddaughter Natalie" as if being the eldest granddaughter made a difference to my worth.

One Sunday morning my Nana turned up at our house to take me to church. I forgot that I'd agreed to go and I had a friend over. I told her I didn't want to go anymore. The look on her face made me feel so incredibly guilty. Pure disappointment. I don't think I fully fathomed why she looked this way or why I felt so guilty. But I felt awful about making her look like this.

Natalie. Are you coming to church with me on Sunday? 

This is my eldest granddaughter. Natalie.

Natalie doesn't know to genuflect before taking her seat. Natalie doesn't know what the priest would like her to say when she takes Christ's body from him. Natalie is the eldest grandchild. Natalie should lead by example. 

The only part of church Natalie really likes is when the Kapa Haka group from her school sometimes perform. They sound fantastic. They are far more alive than anyone else in the church seems to be. She likes the criss-crossed woven lines of their skirts which intersect at right angles. She warms toward these intersections more than the one which holds a small bleeding body above the altar. You are supposed to love this creature though.

Natalie hates the part of church where the congregation must say, "Lord, I am not worthy to receive you." Natalie refuses to say this. She doesn't think it makes any sense and she refuses to say something so degrading. But Nana notices. Nana makes Natalie say it and after a while Natalie begins to believe it. She hates the white dresses even more. They make her feel like a million tangled lines. 

*Disclaimer: It is edited a little in an attempt to be slightly less shit.

problem solving

politics etcetera

 

outside in

... Such misery in the face of the girl unscrewing the hinges on the doors. She wants to dismantle everything - especially herself. I would like to put an arm on her. But she would surely shatter into a million tiny pieces like Willy Wonka's tele-portable chocolate bar and end up in a dusty pile on the floor.

She would hate to know she was my muse. But I have seen night-time things she doesn't know about. I saw her first. I struggled with her body when it refused to sit straight.

Her happiness and her misery are the same. No wonder she can't differentiate.

dear institution

Please don't educate me any more or I'm going to end up with no brain cells.

before december

Lilies on the dashboard and
buttercups on the windshield
we drive down unknown roads
first-time navigators
listening to songs we don’t know
and singing lyrics we can’t understand
driving with the wrong hand
tuning in to a station which doesn’t exist
doing our part for global warming
(we like it hot anyway)
and pretending it’s ok to wear togs in the rain
which it is, because it’s hot anyway
and we are so hot –
anyway, we can drive any way we like because
all of these roads feed into each other
school road doesn’t even lead to a school but rather
just to an old empty bus stop which is
rusty and
the point is to be spontaneous
so we shouldn’t worry about where we are going
really, do you take a bus to work each day?
I didn’t think so, so we’ll
drive where we like
and it doesn’t even matter if the lilies are dirty
it’s just road dust, right?
the road is getting us to where we want to go so
we shouldn’t look badly on it
after all the road is just doing its job
it’s not the road’s fault that it’s unsealed
how would you like cars running over your back all day?
I can’t imagine you’d be very white either
anyway
the point is
that there are no perfect circles in nature
and no perfect whites which is
fine because I like flaws so long as they’re
not my own
so we stop the car
a little too far down the road and walk
back to the dirt-covered lilies
they end up everywhere
not just on the dashboard but also in the
house and in a
vase and one in
Holly’s hair and several smushed into the
driveway and down the
toilet and between the dog’s
teeth and now all of these places are infected with
dirt. Not just any dirt. Road dirt. Pollution is a
serious issue
so I hope you’ll walk home on Sunday
I’ll drive down with your bags and meet you there
the roads all intersect
sing yourself some lyrics to keep you company
I’ll buy you a wet suit to keep warm
we can employ some road workers when I have a
steady job and they can build us a bus shelter
this is a good plan, I think
I’m done with living on a whim
strategies are what life requires
so before I do anything else
I’m going to buy a road map

managing anatomy

You can pull apart the carcass of a cooked chicken quite easily. What should be different about our insides?

Imagine wrapping your hands around yourself - from the sides, elbows crossed in front - and separating your shoulder blades out from your spine. Sliding the round head of the femur through the hip joint to create a satisfying pop. Stretching your cartilage like taut chewing gum. Thumbing at flaccid skin, oily and dead-coloured.

My bones are sitting too close to each other. They need to be rearranged.

pretend

I like the last
eight before the four because
peoples' faces
seem honest when close.

the zoo

 
He was sitting on an unmade bed
    Body bare
My skin tightened around my bones at the sight
  Until my flesh shook
Shook itself right off my bones
Caught by the skin-bag
Something like
    “Don’t worry, it’s just a
metaphor”
Kissing exactly the same as I remember
   Although
His voice, I don’t recall –
      But then again I have never had ears

 Or what ears I did have
  First apprehensive
  Soon drank his speech
They would have willingly drowned
      had I let them
We kept holding on
He said he’d be back. When he left I
  noticed that on the bed
  hiding in the sheets there was
a cat and a
  rat. The

rat crawled up the side of the bed and into my hair.
I couldn’t get it out.
I kept calm.
 “Stay calm,” said the cat, “it’ll
       be
          all
             right.”
I was keeping calm because I knew that was the proper way to deal with the situation.

The cat
climbed onto my back
to get at the rat
the rat in my hair
  They hissed and fought over the
back of my
head.
I put a hand up to reach them
Pulled them off, they
climbed back up again.
I became progressively panicked.

    He came back
Wearing jeans.
He looked concerned and I
 liked the look of his face. He
assessed the situation.
He called the cat off
  sternly
and my ears grew smaller at the sound
            I saw in his hands traces of
    liquids I couldn’t identify
some strange green
He wiped his hands across his jeans
    The cat skulked out

Me, outside of myself and him inside of me
  I disliked the view outside
and thought of the
    poor cat making friends with rain clouds
But I guess that’s what you get for laying on your back
  I quite liked the view
the view
outside

   He put his hand in my hair so that his
finger tips found my skull.
                       I think he was forgetting the rat.

away, out

They are all sitting around the table together. Some of them are eating bacon and some of them are not. You can choose whether you would like your eggs fried or poached or free range.

It is advisable to wear sunglasses in harsh light to avoid squinty eyes. They are all wearing sunglasses but I am not. This is often the case.

She reads books about molecules in the privacy of her bedroom and hair styling advice at the breakfast table. It's important to take an interest in a variety of things. A good way to do this is to split your personality: such as listening to music with home friends that reminds you of dancing with away strangers. Or similar.

One should ask important questions. Things like, How far up my leg should I shave? I suppose it depends on what one intends on doing with one's legs. Decent things, mother hopes. Or not, hope the boys and several of the girls except the girls are less likely to let you know this. The boys will almost always let you know even if they don't know your name.

Most girls also consider legs and what legs are capable of but they are not assholes for thinking these things, maybe just other names (if they act on their thoughts). Here, in five, I am the only one who thinks of boys' legs. I see what she means.

Mostly we end up in pairs. That's the ultimate goal for most and pseudo-pairs are an ideal way to exist until one finds the ideal pair. Myself and my book: a good pair. This is not the pair I would like to end up in although for the most part, now, it is pretty good.

Here is why five is a dangerous number: There are not enough for everyone to be in a pair and someone is going to end up with a book and if you don't have a book you are FUCKED.

These days, vitamins don't just come in pills but also in sunscreen. Sunscreen is good for you until you overdose. If you put too much sunscreen on it seeps into your bloodstream through your skin and poisons you,  I'm not even joking this guy told me last weekend and it's an actual serious threat and you could die. Just make sure you wear some sunscreen otherwise you'll get cancer. And die. Cancer is a serious threat. You are only allowed to make jokes about cancer if they are wildly inappropriate.

Everyone is reading the book. To be fair I picked it up first but you know what books are like, as soon as you put the book down another person snaps it up and then the same again; when she puts the book down yet another person flicks through its pages. The book is a slut. Times new roman - sexy.

Everyone wants to be literate so we all go to school. We are trained in how to read books from age five and probably even before that if your parents are respectable. They are reading books to babies now. It's disgusting. I hope they choose books which are wildly inappropriate.

Like books which have pictures of pink elephants and interactive textures. I guess they are trying to make reading an 'experience'. Baby (darling), you will probably grow up and end up stroking pink elephants. Sadly, most of us do. Sick. Wildly inappropriate.

Here's a trick: respectable people go for blue elephants. Blue elephants in suits are allowed. The kind which run when they see mice. Cowards. I would let a whole cage full of mice loose on them. Or I could just douse them in sunscreen. Yeah, that'd work. Then I could read as many books as I liked.

return to fourteen

Her first thought:

What if the bough breaks?

Her second thought:

You'll fall in. And so what? You might get cold and wet but you can go home and change. It's not deep. Or dangerous. You'll just be swimming.

So she crept out along the branch - over the land and out over the water.

And I hardly need to tell you that it didn't break.

sunday night observations

What is up with the neon green lighting in the Britomart toilets? It makes me feel like I'm in Amsterdam. The closed cubicle door opposite got me all suspicious and apprehensive. Visions of junkies shooting up with their handbags between their ankles began hopping around frantically inside my head. I have never felt so terrified while peeing. So on edge was I that when the toilet flushed itself (is that really necessary? I am capable of pushing a button...) I actually jumped in fright.

Crikey.

It must be lonely to be a bus driver when everyone is sitting at the back. Maybe I should sit near the front more, to keep the bus driver company.

"come and sit here, darling!"

Joyce is good company on buses. She will talk about anything you like and anything you don’t like, too. Her words will rub up against your comfort zone. They will encourage you to alter your thinking. This is good for broadening your perspectives. Joyce will help you be ‘open-minded’. This is a good quality. Everyone says they are this.

Joyce will never ever lie. She will tell you exactly what she is thinking. Even about you. Especially about you. This is good for provoking self-reflection. Self-reflection is required if we are to be as honest as Joyce.

She will not talk so quietly you cannot hear. You will never have to be rude and ask Joyce to repeat herself (which always makes you feel like an idiot). She will make sure everyone has heard clearly the first time, which is very courteous of her. She talks very VERY loudly. Well done Joyce.



Joyce talks to everyone but Joyce has no friends. Even though she is a great talker no one wants to listen to her. She scares people a little bit. Even though she projects her voice most people can’t understand what she is saying.

Joyce is an idiot. She is despicable and smells funny and makes people wish they’d taken the car. Screw the environment. Joyce is an ear-sore.