September

I know that I should be reading Ulysses but instead I'm marvelling at Andrew G's A-frame hair.

Then it's Friday night. No time to breathe. I take my green German shoes to meet Chris, and they get some work turning on heel. No room for drinkers at the first bar and a private party at the next. We end up beside the car park-like pylons of the Opera House's new Western Loggia with champagne and cheese from a plastic box.

In Church Street there's a party in the house that is not a fishbowl. At intervals throughout the evening girls talk in the street to other girls and sometimes to boys about their party progress and who they want to take home.

I'm making choc chip biscuits the next morning and there's a woman outside taking photographs of a small white car. Then there's a boy with green hair and a red bucket washing that car.

We miss the ferry and sit on the Wharf reading. Fergus thinks the best cities in the world have an arrogance, and Sydney is one of them. He wonders why we don't do casual, local moments well, though. Then he talks about spending time in Bondi, and I understand. He'll have to try harder than that.

The man on the boat is using his radio voice, and we think it's funny.

On the island there's a kid called Tilly in red pants. There's a ridiculous number of dolphins. They spend a ridiculous amount of time frolicking in the water in our line of sight, and soon we forget to look at them.

I have seven faces. Thought I knew which one to wear. From a song about a different city. Somehow I'm not impressed.

I lie on my belly on a red blanket while they talk of solving the water crisis.

Why don't we remember to do these things? Need to remember to do these things.

Then there's the hint of a storm but it's the morning still. An indigo sky, and in the trees red as well as green. A policeman at the door. No tickets left for the fair weather fans. Sitting in the gutter outside the Dinosaur garage. And the storm again, past the string art of the bridge.