I went and got myself a website. Figured it’d be nice to have a place where I can collect my stupid little things. It’s still a bit empty, but it’s looking a lot better than when I first tried setting it up. I had trouble resizing the photos (I can’t figure out why they won’t go smaller!!), but I figure people will assume it’s some kind of effect and hopefully won’t be too bothered. Check it out!

Sitting with my back against the wall, padded with my bunched up duvet and my battered pillows, a computer on my lap. The power cord stuck to the side of the laptop leaves an indentation on my inner thigh, near the crook of my knee. When I lift the laptop, the square head of the cord breaks free of the little bed it has made in my skin.

Sitting on my hair covered carpet, pulling my dress, my t-shirt above my head, pulling my cardigan at the sleeves, taking my shoes off as I sit cross legged. Unhooking my bra, slipping the straps past my shoulders and letting it hang, stuck and molded to my shape. The quick action of draping my towel around me like a cape. I bend at the waist to tuck in the towel around me, maneuvering around the awkward short cord of my headphones which I never think to take off beforehand.

Lying down on my stomach in bed, the joy of only having to put on a t-shirt and a pair of underpants, the feel of my duvet cover sliding across the backs of my legs, and my bum, the awkward cushion of my pillow beneath my breasts, tucked in by my elbows. I am propped up.

I cross my legs behind me, making a tent of the fabric and thinking of how my grandmother and my aunt used to tell me that doing that would mean the death of my mother – a bad sign, a bad omen, a bad thing for a daughter to do. The superstitions embedded and stitched in a young girl’s limbs. I remember the teenage years of this pose, lying in front of the TV, too close and ruining my posture. Being a bad anak dara.

I remember thinking, “My mother’s already dead” as the sole of one foot massaged the other.

You emailed him, and he did not reply. You texted him, and he did not reply. You woke in the morning and wanted to hear his voice, panicked that he would be silent forever, denying you his last words. You called him, and he did not pick up. In the back of my mind, the words tickled me, emerging from a hazy bubble of a half forgotten reference. “Do not be that girl.”

Good advice or a bad call? Now it is my voice that floats. My hands and fingers are nimble over the gleaming water-shined glasses and plates from the dishwasher, the bang and slam of cupboard doors like messages from other worlds, the blinking light on the answering machine behind my ears. I am thinking, “Be a good friend.” I am thinking, “I don’t understand.”

Is it a writer’s curse to invent words to string together as you speak, your lips like the nibs of pens, the lead tips of pencils and your tongue and breath the ink? Never have I understood air better than when I am pretending to know what I am talking about. Here is heartbreak, here is denied self-worth, here is desperation and a need to understand. Here is another person. Two people, in love and out.

And the script says.

*

Over the kitchen counter I can feel the rush of air conditioning as I dawdle with my water glass to hear you speak. You’re a book I learned to read, a well-thumbed magazine in a doctor’s waiting room. Repeat visits. It is getting harder to keep being positive with you. Always somewhere in your many caveats and validations — excuses — there are the dark, burning embers of surrender. Being happy is the most difficult thing any of us can ever try to achieve. It seems.

Once, months ago, when you told me about this thing now that has finally found its legs, I told you that I would say this one thing once, and only once. “I think this is a terrible idea.” And once it was said, I would be happy for you.

I lied. God, how I lied.

I imagine us as broken phonographs in this kitchen, bleating our glitchy tunes at each other. “It’ll be fine.” “I know.” “It’s tricky.” “I mean…” I do not know what I am saying to you. I turn and inch my way to the kitchen door and leave. A half-turn, a half-smile, an exit. It seemed better than anything else I could have conjured up, cheap tricks.

*

And through undersea cables, my loved ones speak. A best friend with two heads, and a sister with a husband out of frame. We repeat stories and tread soft, familiar ground. There is silence, and the palpable lack of anything to say. The palpable need to keep talking. I would rather have this.

The little green symbol next to my avatar goes green and gray in turns, Skype in Morse code. Our images grainy, squeezed through our camera dots, our voices out of sync with our lips, overlapping and drowning out. We tread water and float. A hum breaks free from the base of my throat, and I close my eyes to think. What else to say? What else to say?

I would rather have this.

The red and white beach blanket I got two Christmases ago has been spread out on my carpet all this week. My makeshift beach. Sometimes the bed just isn’t enough. On my terry-cloth island I can lie nude and paint, but when my limbs skim the beige carpet that surrounds the borders, I pick up all my shed hair. It’s all very flawed, but it’s what I have.

Today I sat under someone’s tree in a public park and listened to her put her secrets in front of me on the grass. We looked off into the distance and suffered some not entirely uneasy silences, I focused on her staccato “like’s” but also on what I can say, what I can possibly say to help. There is a noisy seagull that paces around us, and I am not ashamed to say I threw a small twig at it that hit it right in the face. I kept saying, “I mean…” What do I mean?

In the past few days my life has gotten full enough of events that I was compelled to buy a new planner to replace the old one. When things get slow, I can fill the pages with poetry, just like I do in my lived life.

My cousin got married in the past month, an email from my father told me. On the grass we spoke of our parents – mothers, fathers – and our families. We spoke of blackmail. We spoke of worth. The way we cannot choose who comes out of us, and who we come from. The blood line of rot and regret. The blood line of obligation and duty. Love. We spoke of love.

On my beach towel, I lie on my stomach and scroll through my cousin’s wedding photos on Facebook. On a separate tab there is a photo of my little sister who will turn 12 in thirteen days. I almost did not recognize her. All the things I am coming home to, and all the things that crumbled and slept and died while I was gone. I am nostalgic for the concept of family and for a moment feel terribly alone as a member of this unit, trudging along through the years, losing pieces. I think of the strict fence I have put around my own Facebook profile, to keep out my family. I think of how I can look through this window into their lives, and the imbalance of that.

It’s all fleeting, this desire, the reaching out of fingers to glass. This life of mine has morphed so unrecognizably from the little girl they all knew. Maybe I am saving us all the shock.

Earlier that morning, in a grey Melbourne drizzle (the memory of which evaporates the further I get into the country) a friend tells me she grew up in Seymour and I think of her as I pass a complex of uniform beige tin warehouses – a Curves gym, a signmaker, a mechanic. This is her town. The bus passes mothers with their daughters and sons in tow, all wearing shorts, buying ice cream from the corner store, jumping up and down their white porches, texting three abreast on the sidewalk. What must it be like spending long summer days living a life here? I look at every place as a site of activity. An empty carpark where teenagers trespass and smoke? A bakery where they get their first job? I don’t care much for the adults. Someone else can think of them.

I feel a bubbling moment of inexplicable happiness, with the sun glaring on the left side of my face and the roads seemingly empty from our height. I love that I have left behind Melbourne’s cold winds, my suitcase full of books. I am looking forward to seeing Ruth. The moment is brief but strong, and I hope to make it grow, or keep it with me.

Jacobson’s Lookout, a stretch of water at our first stop. The shine of sun on the chopped up glass of a small lake adds lustre to a country town. The glitter makes everything a little brighter.

Before the bus, I was on a train. I fell asleep, the deep drymouthed head-tipping sleep that feels like a significant blip in time. Drool spots the corner of my mouth as I wake, the woman in front of me anxiously checking her watch. This is such familiar sleep, like a quick drop of the curtains before they lift to a brand new view. A necessary transition – the seamless blur of moving from one place to another.

The house is gleaming wooden floors and other people’s bedrooms. Ruth removes the porcelain doll in my temporary room, on my request. I see it lying down on another bed as I walk down the hallway to the bathroom.

I slip into the indentation of their leather couch, into the rubbery blue of their pool. I look at the cerulean blue of my dress hem against the black tights covering my knees as I read a whole book in the lazy afternoon, in this cool, high-ceilinged house. There are details everywhere that remind me I am not at home, that I am “away”. The dogs pant at the door, and bring us balls and toys as entreaties, and we ignore them because we are not dog people, and we are not much into play.

I come home with a dozen stories in my brain, and another layer of tan. My suitcase wobbles behind me as I drag it home, and the sun is a bright dot in the sky, setting behind the train windows. Moving, always moving.

Two beans drop down the front of my grey striped dress and leave three stains of their descent. I drink ginger ale with ice and the others drink wine and vodka. I do not know how to wrap a burrito, but I get it right on my second, my third try.

“Can you please pass the cheese?” And again. One more time.

Everyone in the room is older than me, I realize by the end of the night. Louder, more familiar with each other. When I find this house, the door is open and the left wall is a straight line from the small front yard to the back of the house, the kitchen. In the half a minute that passes as I enter through the front door, the living room and finally into the kitchen, I feel like I am trespassing.

I am liked and everyone is friendly, but nobody here feels like my friend. Not yet.

“All of us have been Juliets.” She starts, lit up by two lamps, round orange moon faces turned to us nine, inquisitive. “You’re a child, you walk along in life until smack! Love hits you in the face.” “That realization that you could feel that way, this much for someone else.” “Wanting to die rather than feel that pain. I remember a friend who said “I’d rather have broken both my legs, both my arms, than have this happen.”" “Do you know what you’re saying when you say “I love you” at that age?”

Somewhere I hear the rattle of leftover screws and nails of a half-built project, abandoned. Incomplete. The rattle comes from me. I keep putting and taking off my elbows from the table. My chin does not quite fit in my palm this night. All the negative spaces I housed suddenly felt like they were never meant to be filled by anything. I think about the young girl, walking along in life. A country road, a field of grass, a dirt track. I think about the absences that mark my milestones.

*

On the lawn of the state library, I sit on a stone ledge by the bike racks. The trams trundle past, and the air is full with the incomplete snatches of strangers’ conversations. There’s dried gum next to me, stretched like a snail in a mild storm.

No force in the world can keep my fringe in place – the plaything of Melbourne winds. I tuck my plastic bubble cup tea, a quarter filled with ice, behind me like a small child, so it won’t tip over from the strong breeze.

*

When I say goodbye, the women press their cheeks to mine, and slowly I feel a swatch of blank paper being coloured in. One stroke, two. I remember all their names, and I list them one by one in my head. I walk to the train station in the dark, chest out, eyes darting between the fence posts and street lamps, at the darkness stretched taut between them. At a crosswalk, I forget a name and fish out my script to read in the fluorescent orange lamplight. My heels clack, fierce and false and young on the wet bike track.

I feel, for the first time in a long while, that I am missing an essential answer. Unnerved, I continue home.

I’m watching the last episodes now, but dragging each out to several hours with so many breaks in between. That’s right, I am procrastinating at television.

This morning I woke up at 5am, in a bedroom that smelled like Deep Heat. I had slathered it on my arms in the middle of the night, because my joints ached from carrying a bundle of cardboard boxes from Preston to Reservoir (via walking and public transportation). The boxes have the word “BOX” on them in large type on a wide orange stripe and they remind me of vintage laundry detergent boxes. Right now I have six boxes stacked neatly in my closet, filled with my books and clothes and essays and knick knacks. I have made lists, and wielded a tape gun. I am trying to make my room as bare as it can be, but small things pop up everywhere.

My meagre art supplies are strewn all over the carpet. An early wake up call saw me beginning a craft project: decoupaged postcards as thank you’s for some choice friends and professors. They look so pleasing lined up to dry against the bottom shelf of my bookcase. I can only hope that the recipients see the elements as not being arbitrarily chosen, that each has a theme, however faintly infused by my thoughts of them, and our relationship to one another.

The original idea was to render small simple pictures in paint on the canvas panels. Foolishly and blindly, I purchased non water soluble oil paints, which – did you know? – takes forever and an age to dry. ALSO, I am rubbish at painting.

At about 1 o’clock, after a lengthy and awesome four-way chat with three of my very good friends (all of us in different countries, save for the two in the UK but in different cities), I decided to finally shower and when I finished I didn’t much feel like getting dressed. And so out comes the beach towel, spread out over my carpet as I decide to have a go decorating some teacups I had already previously painted.

Needless to say, I botched it. A, this one was for you, and I am sorry.

I go for broke and cover the entire canvas with what’s left on my palette. A lot of blues, and purples from the red and white I had mixed for some pink. A little butter yellow from what’s on the canvas. Whatever the teacups were meant to look like were soon steadily covered over. And just as a reminder, the whole time while I was doing this, I was not wearing anything save for a towel turban around my wet hair.

The canvas panels are 4 inches by 6 inches, and as I held it up on the fingertips of my left hand, painting over the blank spots, the whole thing tips over and lands on my thigh, brushing over my right nipple on its way down. I do that jam-side-down thing where you catch it just after it’s landed – not quick enough. On my way to the bathroom, the imprint presses onto my other thigh. It’s a comical disaster.

Hot water does nothing, and the colours smear together, this artistic bruise – blue and purple, blue and purple. A stack of cotton pads and nail polish remover (so useful) does little, but the colour becomes more faint. A colour wash. In the shower, looking at this holy mess on my hands and my thighs, small lashes on my stomach, my knees, my chest and I cannot help but laugh. Who do I tell this to? Is this ridiculous enough to be a secret? Is this too embarrassing to blog about (no, but this sentence should have been)? Well, 2012 means never having to say you’re sorry, right?

The four-way chat is still going when I come back from the bathroom and dry off. A new friend (another country) comes on. I tell them almost immediately. We all have a good laugh, and some of us get creative on Google.

There is lots of talk of a meet up in London in June. At least four of us – possibly the largest concentration we’ll be able to achieve in a while with all our collective globetrotting. I am so excited to see my friends again. I make a mental note to get another canvas panel and give away the oil paints. I make a mental note to call some shipping companies on Monday.

I have one foot out of the door, and this is the happiest mourning I’ve ever done. It worries me. My stretch marks flash white on the smear of blue and purple. These two months will fly by and I’m not quite sure what that will mean, in the end.

A man in a blue car comes to pick up what has been my wardrobe for two years – four metal baskets slid into a frame. IKEA. He has with him a child, a little boy in the passenger seat, tattoos on his neck, a 20 in his pocket, and his name. He told me his on the phone, I tell him mine in my driveway, a minute before he drives away.

I mow the lawn, attacking the sides and around the big trees before going in a measured square, working my way in to the fluffy blanket of weeds and dandelions that spread out beneath our apricot tree, and the tree that hasn’t flowered. I shut off the mower when half the lawn is half trimmed. I sit in the carpeted hallway of our upper floor, turn on the air conditioning and drink iced water. The mower refuses to turn on again when I am back outside. The container of oil is forgotten on the patio table.

“Are you still making cheesecake?” Is there supposed to be shame in admitting that your idea of baking is sometimes putting together a box mix and some frozen berries? The result is the same; I will eat it. I am apologetic about wanting to do nothing at all. I am apologetic for not wanting company. Some people understand, and some don’t.

D helps me fold the couch bed back in place, so I no longer feel the residue of my Christmas lounging. I tell him about the window I opened and could not properly close during that time, too. And he fixes it. I unload the dishwasher as we chat. Later, I come down to the kitchen and watch him chip away at the second freezer’s overgrowth with a screwdriver. He empties the freezer’s contents and I refit it into the other one, turning a frozen ice cube tray sideways to do so. I feel immensely clever, and I continue feeling this way as I slide a newly boiled pot of water into the iced over box.

I watch Drive, mildly distracted by the font used in the opening titles (Mistral). I open up Word and type the word Drive in the same font, to see if I’m right. I watch bits of the other movies on my hard drive, fast-forwarding to the specific parts. I watch the sky turn tangerine and grey, mixed together, outside my window and think about having my heart broken. I think about telling someone they have broken my heart, and I think of them asking for my forgiveness. Could I forgive that? I eat the last of my snickerdoodles and manufacture sadness as the sun sets.

The washing machine breaks down twice during a load; shifting the wet towels around doesn’t quite work until it does. The dryer is running and there is a blanket in the wash – destined to be given away to another stranger, on another day waiting outside at Coles.

The moon looks like a lemon slice in the sky, and the grey blue is threatening to take over and darken. There are the soft pops of fireworks, and I sneak downstairs to the front room to open the curtains and watch. It is too late when I get there, and I hope D does not see me waiting. I walk down the length of the house, having a conversation with the open doors when I hear more pops. Running to the window yields nothing but then I turn my face, and there it is. Turning back, I see the wisps of a star fade away in the dusk sky. It is too light for this, and now the moon looks like it’s smiling. I hope no one sees me here, but after a while I lean into the window and forget to mind.

I shouldn’t have gotten the dhal at dinner. The promise of jasmine rice (unsatisfactory) and roti (always delicious) seduced me. Paella next time. Or the chicken breast with the mango and coriander salsa.

This part of the year seems so confusing, both emptying and filling at rapid rates. The new year comes this Sunday but I am a little too jaded to believe in fresh starts. I’m torn between wanting to start my to do list now or use the excuse of my work break to not lift a finger to do anything productive. I’ve been ignoring the bathrooms that need cleaning and the lawn that needs mowing and the kitchen floor that need mopping. The passive aggressive act of being the only inhabitant of this house that does those things to begin with.

More of my little private niches online keep being infiltrated by real life friends, the ones I complain about sometimes when I need to vent. Maybe they’ll find this post and read it. I hope they don’t feel bad. It’s mostly my problem. I briefly flirted with the idea of opening another Twitter account, solely for these little drips of bile I now swallow back, but then I think maybe now would be the best time to turn that tap off entirely. Either say it to their faces or find a way to feel something that doesn’t lead to bitterness and resentment. The burden is on me. I retain the right to open a secret Twitter account in the future.

Sarah sent me home, as she always does and we have a conversation in my driveway, her headlights on, just like we always do. I listen to her and think of all the many ways in which she is flawed, but also in which she is loved by her friends, and by me. How those two overlap, again and again. I try and think of ways to encourage her, to not shut down what she knows to be a little bit wrong with herself. I used to be a huge proponent of being blunt and dishing out tough love. Still am, sometimes. But so many times I know I appreciate a soft touch over a prickly reprimand. We’re all trying so hard. I tell her a story about my friend, almost immediately I know it has nothing to do with her situation, but I can only hope she knows I’m telling it as a distraction. This is a piece of me that’s broken. I understand. I understand.

An old digital camera, a desk lamp and a set of plastic drawers go up onto a recycling website, the start of my material purge. I have gotten a message regarding the camera, I hope someone else wants the other two things. I think of running some errands tomorrow, and maybe dropping off some clothes at a donation centre. Start hacking away at the small pile I’ve accumulated in my room, start hacking away at all the things I have here, to lighten the load. I am burning off my wings.

It hailed once during my childhood, that I can remember. It was the most exciting thing then, too. We were in the tropics where it would never ever snow, but here were missives of ice and cold and everything our weather was not, raining down from the sky. My parents were in Mecca on a pilgrimage, and our grandparents had come down from their perches in the North to look after us. My brother opened the door to have ice cubes land on his feet. My cousins and I ran to the back to watch as an old tree we had in the backyard succumb to the weather and fall with a magnificent crash. Or maybe I am remembering that from a thunderstorm. In any case my grandparents blamed these aberrations on the sinfulness of the city, and city living, and modern lives.

The windows were cool to the touch after the storm died down. My hands left frosted marks on the glass. The sky bled watercolour grey and white.