Me and You and Everyone We Know Look Both Ways

Miranda July has charming curly hair and a certain way with a prim eighties top that makes her jeans seem not nearly so matronly. She's luminous and serene with a languid voice, even when she's writing FUCK on the windscreen of her own car. If you could write and direct and star in your own film then of course that's how you'd make yourself be. Maccaroni. There's also a goldfish in a plastic bag on the top of a moving car. But not for long.

Then there's a train track somewhere in Adelaide and many people who live together but don't speak to each other nearly enough, or don't say the right things. Mostly it's the questions they don't ask that are the problem. They're sad and wistful and anxious and regretful, but one of them does beautiful paintings of the sea and wears mostly sea-like colours, except for an orange singlet. When the painter falls over her knees are red with blood and it completes her outfit.

The pre-occupied anxiety is so right for now.

As we walked home the night was still and a lone bat hung by just one leg from the powerline. In McAulay Street was a ute with a Humphrey B Bear doll tied to the outside of the back of the cab, facing the tray. Eamonn had gone home before us. They’re a perfect match for LT and Trev.

The occasion was the christening of the Beefeater BBQ and the outdoor heater that as far as I know lacked a catchy name. I was over an hour late because I thought that the christening group was large and that they wouldn’t miss me. Actually there were five of us.

We talked about cockroaches, the cross city tunnel, parking fines, friends that we don’t spend time with any more, the avocado tree and the flight path. Lee and Shannah each left the table to spray giant brown cockroaches as they spied them on the back door step.

I dreamt that I couldn't work my ipod, and that I woke to find someone had stolen all my magazines. It was marginally better than my previous night's dream in which I had a baby and was so clueless what to do with it that Lorraine had to look after it.

Drove to work yelling the words to Always Have to Steal My Kisses and marvelling at the group from a Bathurst High School who are going to Russia for Schoolies because they think that Lenin is hot, even after years in a mausoleum, and they want to see him before he's put in the ground.

When I picked up my toast and coffee Aussie John was breakfasting in the sunshine (fruit) and I thought that if I was the producer of Celebrity Australian The Biggest Loser, I'd want him on it.

None of my favourites have blogged this morning. But wasn't that a great frock that Missy Higgins wore to the Arias. You've got to love her because she's got short hair, and it's brown. There are interesting chicks in Australian music at the moment. Sarah Blasko is the thinking person's Missy Higgins. And, of course, I'm not talking about The Veronicas.

Neil Finn deserves a special post-Arias mention. Quite simply the goods and services.

Breakfast in the Brisbane Room

Angry Anderson ran on, talked about the rock 'n roll share houses of his heyday, got teared up about his tall mate, got cut short by La Brisbane and then left before he heard what Garrett had to say. Does Angry Anderson have some other place to be at 8am on a Thursday morning? He said that Garrett couldn't drink as much as the Rose Tattoo crew - and that's not a criticism he added. He reminded me of Caroline's brother David Sylvester. Perhaps he left because he already knew exactly what Garrett would say. After all in Angry's words they are simular (sic).

Garrett began like a politician, talking about passion and blind faith in a voice devoid of any hint of either, but then provded us with a moment. Not the horrifying one when he motioned to his PA to bring him a glass of water, using his pinky as if drinking from a delicate tea cup and in that single movement causing his rock 'n roll stocks to plummet. No. He sang a verse of Flame Trees. Asked us to join in. I wanted to yell the words as if I was alone in my car. But of course, didn't. No one did. Zoe said the woman next to her hummed a little. I don't think it was what he was after. He said that the use of Flame Trees in Little Fish was to symbolise transition between new and old versions of Australia, and an example of the way art can convey powerful and complex ideas quite simply.

Zoe said she couldn't sing because she didn't know the words, and after Allie saw Little Fish she came to work asking about "the really cool old song that they use in it. I think it is an old Jimmy Barnes song". It's Flame Trees for God's sake. Have they not sat in a pub in some town somewhere in rural and regional Australia and shouted the words? Who are these people?

Garrett spoke rather than sang the last lines of the chorus. I took it as his disappointment in us. Then he talked about reviewing Labor's arts policy and asked us to forward comments and ideas. Later someone asked him when the new policy would be released. He said he would work on it over Christmas. Then he sat down and ate bacon and eggs.

I have a graze on my elbow and a bruise on my knee. I feel twelve. They're from netball. It's a non-contact sport, and a Monday lunchtime competition.

There's still nothing like the feeling of falling, though. The fleeting eternity to decide what to do, then a point when you realise that there's nothing to decide. Just falling is an option. Like from the horses of my childhood. From a horse it's sometimes more dangerous to cling on. There's a moment just after hitting the ground of wondering whether you can ever get up, and then of course in my experience it's always been possible. If you're broadly OK you don't even think about what might be wrong with you, until you see other people and their reactions.

Silky came home alone once, to the house. She was new and came puffing up the paddock behind the shed, reigns flapping around her neck. Lorraine and I scrambled down the hill and Noonie met us, not far behind the horse but pale, dazed and squinting through eyes purple. and closing. I was in front and couldn't help an alarmist "Oh, Bec". "What? What? WHAT?" she yelled and then started to cry. She couldn't calm until she looked in a mirror.

I think I was the same when Choc bit me on the nose. Although, probably in reverse. I was disappointed when I looked in the mirror because it felt like my whole nose had been gouged off by that grumpy old dog. Now that I think about it, it happened after netball one Saturday afternoon.

I still have a patch on my arm, not so much as scar as an area less freckled. Originally just a graze it must have been deeper than most. The mail lady came past in her four wheel drive. The filly was frustrated with me and would take any convenient disruption. I heard later that that mail lady died of cancer.

Quote for the Day

"All you need is a fan club."
- Trish Carlon

The Gotham Suite

The costumes are dreadful said the woman behind us. She was wrong. Just wrong. Even if I hadn't known that they were by Tara Subkoff, I would have thought them great. The pale blue gingham frock worn by the dancer whose calves were so well formed that when she lay on the stage in the final piece her thighs didn't touch the tarket. I couldn't take my eyes off her. Tall. And Lou Reed. Above my chamber door. Wonderfully, slowly rhythmic and then maintaining, holding a lazy rhythm through frenzy. Above my chamber door. At the end Jo Dyer clapped even higher and more expressively than usual, and yelled Bravo as watermelon Petronio took his bows. It was to let them know that we're cool too, and it doesn't mean anything that there were only a few rows of us. That they're great and cool and inspiring. And it's not all for nothing. Please come again.

After Dinner

On the way home from birthday dinner I look for the blood on the footpath. It's dry. Noonie mentioned it before. It has followed the crevices in the concrete and pavers but there's been too much to be contained in those straight lines, and it's spilled over into spidery organic forms, like an Olsen painting. A chopper hovers and I feel anxious and 34 until I reach the park, empty except for the moon holding in the rain. I'm hiding out in the big city blinking.