if this is me...

who the hell are you?

you introduced me to this song. sitting beside me in the car on our roadtrip you turned up the stereo playing your handcrafted mixtape & said "this is you" as i drove us, roof down 120 kms an hour into the uplifting winter breeze, hair flying. away from the city.

it's now the highest rotation track playing in the studio while i pretend to work, fastidiously analyzing lyrics, thinking about the sometime subjugation of independence when personalities come together, thinking about us. thinking about you. imagining psychotic as sexy. it is a sexy song.

you say you don't want to be you plus someone else. you want to be yourself. as if i would argue, i like you as you. surely we two don't have to be mutually exclusive.

history reveals that relationships can steal personal identity. that one must surrender independent self when fusing with another. but it's not a given. there need not be a reduction. even if egalitarianism is brushed under the carpet, the converse is equally valid.

why not embrace emotionally supportive growth & mutual betterment & inspiration FFS! our friendship, an inimitable foundation, a lifelong conversation. my bubble need not be greater than yours. in the end we're all alone. each erratically breaking the other's silence. or noise.

i come to you. as you came to me. then went. now come back. if not forever, stay awhile. perhaps we'll see out a few more incarnations together. everlasting love need not be a hypocritical sliding scale. energy does not die. it merely changes & shifts with the tide. we can be the moon together. yet polarized stars bound by gravity. read D H lawrence. fuck the religious zealots, poppy choppers & hallmark.

even hedonistic fredrich agrees. marry your best friend ie. a person who helps you become a better person through a shared higher thirst for an ideal above. when you gaze into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. don't look down. hold on...

so dearest defiantly independent nihilist, is your cup half empty or half full? bend time to refer to as yet unwritten pages within the IDTC manual & place our higher operational plane there. you will find passages which will invalidate your "there is no forever" theorem. in short there are too many possible worlds. perception is a malleable force. as are we. you & i. collective & separate.

please take this electric litmus paper test & come run amok in übermensch with me. we can laugh at the abyss together. and take turns in the lead if we can't always be side by side.

i'd like to be your psychotic girl. you need not be the lost boy.

own your inner monk

yesterday i said to ky: "why does my totem have to be a monk? why can't my icon be a lovebird... at least they come in pairs. i don't want to be a monk anymore."

the cyborg sage said to the tempestuous foot-stamping child "we don't choose, it chooses us".

the path to acceptance is riddled with the cognition of weaknesses and recognising our own limitations. like roadside barriers their successful negotiation is key in order for any monk to maintain one's life-long pilgrimage to truly know [one's] self. and others.

only then might one continue skipping along the dusty roadside on this incredible journey. to unconditional love.

sabbe satta sukhi hontu

skipping down the garden path

i know some amazing women. they're so incredible they constantly blow me away & i can't believe there are so many of them. in some ways it really is a man's world. no wonder they all look so smug. i'm lucky enough to call some of these goddesses my friends, even though often i'm unsure whether i'm particularly deserving. 

whilst i struggle with my own existence, the meaning of it and whether it ought to be continued, i end up coming back to the women of the inner sanctum in my life: raen, claire, clare, serena, sonja, marianne, kate, ang, ky, gina, monica, cat, jess, kathleen, karina, shell &  sometimes conrad. the keepers of the secrets. there are men too but they number fewer even though typically i always liked men. sometimes it was mutual.

this is claire: the minx. the pragmatist. the comic. in my wildest fantasies i imagine us in our decrepit old age on balcony chairs gazing out together into the ether with vibrant blue rinses & cackles which soar to match. i am happy then.

but the thing is, which has been blatantly & painfully illustrated in my most recent love relationship is that there can be no future without a present. you can plan all you want but there's no point picking out the wallpaper & obsessively researching it if the foundations & roof aren't built. noone likes soggy walls. which invariably collapse.

one may as well just skip blindly down the unformed garden path back into the emotional wasteland from which we come from.

life is a cabaret

...and then in an apparent overnight coup my baby duckling turned into this, erm, colorful vivacious swan.

it's so surreal that we just did her 21st birthday party. i'm still pinching myself & assume there was an alien abduction involved. there is no other reasonable explanation.

she seems to have inherited a shy retiring manner & love of dress-ups from her mother [but is much more wise/sensible]. she has incredible friends too. aint life grand?

words are easy, like the wind

words are easy, like the wind; faithful friends are hard to find.

- william shakespeare

thank you for being a friend

being on the-day-after" end of an epic almost week long birthday celebration in the midst of moving my life and work, all i can do is, with a smile plastered all over my face [still], say thank you to the beautiful people who enrich my life & make it so much better... thank you for being my friend. and for writing it on my bedroom wall.

these are a tiny sample of images from my birthday. not an accurate depiction at all but an hors d'oevre if you like.

from waking to champagne & cake in bed accompanied by raen's sweet dulcet tones in the early am, to sublime lunches upon lunches all over the city, a zine fair & kusama exhibition run through, relocating an entire warehouse working bee, an impromptu dinner out[featuring an amazing organic wheat-free lemon & almond cake handmade by adam], the perfect last supper in ending with incessant dancing once more into the sunlight all couched with lashings of champagne, the blood of christ & lounge island iced teas... like a never-ending ice-cream/story it just wouldn't stop.

i was too busy enjoying it all to take many pics so there aren't many of you. in fact most unusually i didn't touch my camera all day yesterday. sorry about that. as much as i love myself, this really is supposed to be about you.

you make me very proud, happy and humble. because of you, i have just had the best birthday & year ever. it has been by far both the most challenging & rewarding year of my life. my pledge is to be as good a friend as i can be back and to honour us.

you are [without getting all wedding invitation angsty]:

raen, stevie, clare, kate, marcus, monica, ky, john, baz, dermot, karina, gina, annette, alex almost to the power of infinity [parker, pappas, chamarro], sonja, mark, adam, mathieu, kathleen, matthieu, james [mcintyre, scott, crawford], kaitlyn, serena, eugene, davey, barry, andy, kirsten, caroline, evan, simon, scott, dan, ang, marianne, francois, steve, steven, jessica, heidi, shell, dean, jack, madeleine, jordan, sophie, lisa, dean, claire, troy, maddie, bella, catherine, rosie, anna, fee, dan, felix, michael, chris, glenn, kate, kaori, stefan, katherine, tracey, jen, carmel, josh, shannon, francesca, rachel, jacqueline, shailla, iOTA, richard, jan, krystyna, christine, kirsty, renee, amanda, jacqui, em, amalia, AB.

i can't believe there are so many people whom i love [which is possibly reciprocated] in this crazy little mixed-up world where we don't have enough time for ourselves let alone each other. i didn't even have to pay anyone. thank you for sharing the passion and freely giving your precious energy to be part of this journey. thank you for choosing me. i will continue trying to be the best version possible. to be worthy of your friendship.

each one of you have turns every day contributing to increasing the quality of my life & the pleasure of being on this planet. i am the luckiest girl in the world & indebted to you for helping me remain here & allowing the opportunity to soak you all up.

the consumed champagne et al was a massive toast to you. obviously a lot is required for this never-ending story of ours. no pain-killers need apply.

mirror image

these mirrors, like tree rings, determine the tangible measurement of being. two kindred spirits superficially differentiated by separate circles. mutual reflection defiant of a three dimensional paradigm.

"the best mirror is an old friend" -- peter nivio zarlenga