FMR

Le Point Ephémère was a trendy venue in an unlikely locale. It was situated in a lofty bunker on the edge of a darkened canal in North-East Paris. We couldn't find it initially, I breathlessly stopped to ask a local for directions in broken French. His hand gestures indicated that it was à la gauche and I rushed on ahead, scraping out a merci! as I skipped towards what looked like an abandoned canteen in the middle distance. We stumbled down the slope and the muffled music became more convincing. Hurry, hurry! I shouted behind me. Andrew and Louise staggered on like zombies, exhausted from the first day of our continental adventure. We had walked what seemed like the entire breadth of the city, imbibing le musée de la vie romantique, Colette and Shakespeare & Co. We were all dead by 8pm, but that was the exact time we were meant to be at Le Point Ephémère, waiting for Eugene McGuinness to come on stage.

It was entirely my idea and Louise completely understood how much it meant to me. She knew how I cultivate these types of daydreams and she knew how invested I got in this idea of us in that crowd, dancing to Fonz and Lion, carrying on to songs that for me, have only ever existed in my room. However, as we all lay supine over our maroon-coloured beds, it was clear Louise was very ill, indeed. She ached but continued to convince me wearily: We will go, Elle. We will go soon... The idea of it became increasingly implausible when at 8.30pm, Andrew went across the road to the local supermarché to buy supplies for dinner. He'd seemed to have gone for something like 45 minutes and by the time we had actually left the hotel, it was getting closer to 10pm.

We waded past the punters and approached the door of the bandroom. It was heavy, locked and glazed with a dried honey-like substance. I pushed repeatedly and peered through the glass which had been obscured with internalised chicken wire. The room was filled with misshapen silhouettes and magneta-coloured stage lights. I pressed my ear to the door and heard Eugene announce his last song, the crowd wildly cheered and whistled. I couldn't determine whether it was the exhaustion, the disappointment or perhaps a deft combination of the two, but I cried. I cried hard. I retreated to the sticky, bathroom stalls which were defaced accented profanities and curled up into a seated fetal position for several minutes. When I emerged, I found Andrew in the emptying bandroom. He was talking to a guy on stage who was winding up a heavy lead around his arm. He admitted to me, I was trying to get you a setlist...

It was an excessive reaction on my part, one that certainly felt excessive as we ambled back towards the underground in silence. I walked slowly behind them this time, tears streamed down my face. As we approached our hotel, Louise asked to stop at a nearby bar to sit alone and write. I didn't need any retrospect to understand what had just happened. I knew that my tantrum had ruined what had been a completely euphoric day. However, when I would come to reflect on the incident later, the moral of the story became abundantly clear: I should have gone alone. I knew that my desire to have them with me was not so much to do with this fantasy I've cultivated of musical friendship, it has to do with a fear of true independence. I understand the limitations of my own independence and those limitations seem to be ingrained in me. I don't do certain things alone because I fear that something will happen to me.

Months later, I sifted through the tickets, receipts and other debris from our adventure together. Among the misshapen artefacts, I found that two light purple tickets that were unfamiliar to the eye. They were tickets, someone else's tickets to Eugene McGuinness at Le Point Ephémère that Andrew had picked up from the bandroom, without my knowledge. I let out a large wail in love and in guilt, knowing how my tantrum must have affected Andrew in particular. I stuck the tickets in a hardcover O-CHECK scrapbook, among hundreds of other photographs, ribbons and postcards. It's a beautiful document, one that would stand as the ideal propaganda piece as it glorifies every aspect of that adventure together. I love it, but when I flick through it, I sense the ongoing sense of grief and loneliness. I didn't wish to endure any of it alone, but I suppose due the nature of it, there was no other way to convey what it was like.

Intent

I have always derived personal satisfaction in this idea that I'm sympathetic to the male plight. I never really identified why I've always been like this, but perhaps it's safe to say that there was always comfort in the thought that I was privy to "insider knowledge" and ultimately, I was treated as an equal. I was gifted with a kind of honesty that would only ever be reserved for another man.

I took pride in the way I cultivated honest friendships with men, both single and taken. My brothers educated me in the ways of Mystery Method and I began to easily identify pick up artists during sober nights out in Melbourne. I was told about the endlessly frustrating mechanics of the dreaded friendzone, fully conscious that I had committed the same crime: I had relegated several suitors to the land of no action.

Why did I put guys in the friendzone? Simply put, I was afraid to be forthright. I never had the courage to say no.

I would later try to overcome my relationship reluctance, based upon this idea that I didn't want to be like "those other bitches". Taking down the walls of the friendzone meant that I entered into relationships that I wasn't particularly ready for. I became cold and unfathomably frigid. I knew that my desire to be a more palatable kind of woman backfired and approaching 30, I still struggle with that ability to effectively manage their feelings and my comfort.

I've maintained a healthy interest in the friendzone, particularly since society's recent sympathy shift away from the lovelorn male. Perhaps it was a discussion that came about with the astounding popularity of the Tumblr, The Nice Guys of OKCupid. The revelation is simple, yet compelling: "Your right to be angry with womankind is invalidated because being nice to a girl does not automatically mean you are entitled to have sex with her."

I like to recall the sentiment of one nameless woman from my Tumblr feed, "I happen to think that my friendship is a pretty special thing. It shouldn't be some consolation prize when a man doesn't get what he wants." It's a comforting idea that I continually return to. Growing up, I thought that the existence of the friendzone suggested that my body was more valuable than my mind. Perhaps this is why I have such a strong desire to solely exist as a brain in a jar.

Yet I continue to indulge in these honest discussions with men and usually I'm the one to volunteer an adept summary of the whole situation: "So, what you're saying is that you want her to put out or get out." I'm sure it doesn't sound like it, but I believe that I operate in this perverse role of undercover feminist. I don't admonish their behaviour, I don't go after these guys with a burning cross and a pick-axe. I simply listen and take it all in.

I convince myself that there is a certain power in doing this. I believe I am powerful because they're not saying this to me.

Cracks

My Dad has this fear about Studley Park Road. Whether it be turning right into it or simply walking across it to reach the bus stop, the threat of getting rumbled by traffic gives my Dad the heebee-jeebees. It's gotten to the point where I'm challenged about it whenever I leave the house and it's always the same conversation. Don't run across Studley Park Road. Walk down to the lights. You're wearing black. Because I'm always wearing black, I always ask why wearing black is even relevant. Cars can't see you if you're wearing black. I always insist that black is not a cloak of invisibility. He claims it is... and then I leave the house, walk up the street and run across Studley Park Road.

On this recent occasion, as much as I wanted to, I could not run across Studley Park Road. It was peak hour. I stood tentatively by the gutter, waiting for a gap in traffic that could only be described as gapless. It just wasn't happening. After a couple of moments, I followed my Dad's advice and walked down to the lights, activating my RunKeeper app to ensure no distance went unrecorded. It was warm and I was happy, having spent the afternoon laughing with my writing friends. I wore a pink and cream dress and marvelled at my punctuality, it never used to be like me to make good time. It was half the reason I always chose to run for the bus.

Halfway down to the lights, I stopped, having spotted something in the concrete. It was neither a name or a paw print but a fragment of a poem by W.B. Yeats, recorded in slashed capital letters in the wet concrete:


We had fed the heart on fantasies,
The heart's grown brutal from the fare - W.B. Yeats.

At risk of missing my bus entirely, I felt compelled to read the faint markings over and over. I quickly decided to get out my phone to take a photograph of it, to later examine on my sunset ride to the city. I couldn't help but smile when I marvelled at its surreal relevance, how it seemed to touch upon the debilitating of side-effects of fantasy, of possibility and hope. It's strange when you realise that the chasm between what you want and what you can have is not really all that great. The prospect of having all you ever imagined becomes intoxicating. Dreaming of how it could all fall apart becomes exhausting.

I forwarded the image to my writing friends that night. My friend Anne replied with the full 1922 poem, The Stare's Nest by my Window. She wrote, I wondered what Yeats was about, thought it could have something to do with the occupation of Ireland by the English, but it seems that it was about the civil war in 1922, after Michael Collins signed a treaty with England for home rule, which ended up with the provence of Ulster staying in English hands... It all started coming back, Michael Collins and Éamon de Valera. It all seemed so bitter, bloody and brutal and so totally removed from Studley Park.

I wonder who wrote it. I wonder what they could have meant by it.

Concentrate

I don't remember much from that night. It was upstairs at Pony and we were there for a show. Some acquaintances were on stage and an unlikely pair of friends were hooking up in a corner. I'd occasionally see glimpses of someone I thought knew, but I was hopeful and mistaken.

For some reason, I think it must have been the second time we met. You bound up to me, breathlessly with a trademark enthusiasm. I don't remember what I was wearing, but you were wearing your AMIENS WHATEVER tshirt. It was a in-joke and I never understood what it meant.

We somehow got onto the topic of the words we weren't allowed to say. I told you about how, as a ten year old, my best friend told me off for referring to movies as films. It was in exactly the same way that my estranged brother told me off for using the term genre. Saying a word like that was just so embarrassing.

You met me with a similar anecdote, of how you casually and accidentally referred to cordial as concentrate and consequently, kids taunted you endlessly with that term for years and years. It riled you up and upset you, in the same way it upset me. It was baffling how an ordinary word could come across as nerdy or pompous.

My details of that night are sketchy at best, but I often contemplate that youthful compulsion to say a dumber word in order to convey a dumber image. I think of it more and more, now I am allowed to be as open and gregarious as I want. I live now without bullies and censors and I can speak, free of reproach and ridicule.

Nocturne

I have an attachment to the night. I love its stillness, how time becomes vague. There is a comfort in being alone with the thoughts and notebooks, it's as if I am lost and unaccounted for. There's no threat of aggression or confrontation and the possibility of ever having to defend myself is removed. I can be alone.

I've used my love of the night to my benefit, my job is at night. I can do what I do when the office is empty. I'm not subjected to the silliness typically associated with office politics. That, and my tendency to flirt and argue can be quashed. Instead, I sit alone and listen to my documentaries, plays and ripped episodes of Heartbreak High.

I emerge when it becomes light, when men in suits walk purposefully down Bourke Street, nursing their take-away soy lattes. I love the sunrise too, even though it signals the end of another wasted evening. The horizon glows with ever-changing pinks and flossy yellows, there are creamy clouds and unfamiliar hues.

Stephen Fry says that people who stay up to see dawn perceive it differently from those who awake early to hear birds frantically chirping. He described the phenomenon in some degree of detail, however, I'm not sure if I quite believe him.

Alexandre Cabanel's Phèdre
When I get home, I go to bed after many hours of distraction. It's mid-morning and I sleep deeply, for too many hours. My dreams are highly involved, typically including detailed scenes of fantastical foreign cities I'm yet to visit. There is often kindness and redemption as I meet the people I so keenly miss and admire. All is calm and blissful.

Dreams are interrupted by the vibration of my phone. Another call, another text. In that moment of disorientation, I fool myself in thinking it had all really happened. It all passed as I dreamt it, with Johnny Marr in that Indian marketplace. I see the daytime dreams as another aspect of that addictive attachment I have to the night, my conscious imagination could never be as compelling as the subconscious.

As much as I love it, I have decided to give up the night for the month of March, the month of my birthday. While I feel safe and autonomous in the indefinite hours of darkness, I know that I forgo the possibility of a real existence. That is, doing things that I really want to do in the hours of daylight.

Perhaps if my hood had a 24 hour gym or even a coffee house, perhaps if I produced more essays or podcasts, I could have kept this up forever. The truth is that I'm just too curious to see what life could be like on the other side of dawn.

Why I Can't Write a Song

When I think about writing a song, constructing lyrics, a melody, chord structures and a hook, I feel physically sick. It's been this way for a very long time. But now, in my attempt to cure my writer's block, Julia Cameron stylee, I'm compelled to write the story of how it came to be such a grotty, apologetic mess. If, for no other reason than to satisfy my own vanity, it may give my reader(s) cause to think about the nature of their own creativity and why we are sometimes discouraged from doing the things we truly want to do.

There was a time when I used to write "songs". I used to write them a lot, actually. I once boasted that I wrote 80 songs in one (particularly melancholy) winter. They weren't real songs, not in the strictest use of the term. They were more like loose leaf poems, folded and bound together by hair-ties, living in disused Walkman boxes. They were typically about adolescent anxieties, very emo in nature. At that time, I felt it was a legitimate, very private way to express my loneliness and frustration. I never reproached myself for it, although now I could never bring myself to read those words again - perhaps out of sheer embarrassment but most likely because anything more than a vague recollection of that time is simply too painful.

I can't deny that I had outrageous daydreams of being a "rockstar", in the true sensationalist meaning of the word. This was long before meeting Gordy who promptly asserted that the correct term was "musician". It makes me chortle, after all "musician" has so much more gravitas than "rockstar". Anyway, I had these preposterous ideas of somehow staging a concert on the construction site opposite my house and covering Don't Let Me Down. I harboured such an obsession over that song that I even took up bass in anticipation this concert would actually happen. Unfortunately, the house was built before anything eventuated. The annoying neighbours moved in who, in time, would come to reproach me for not earning enough money.


It's so easy but I can't do it, so risky but I gotta chance it, so funny there's nothing to laugh about, my money that's all you want to talk about...
I stopped writing my poems for one reason or another. I think I might have fallen in love, or else I might have shelved my emo tendencies and started being happy. Who the hell can remember anyway, it's hardly important. The fact of the matter is that I stopped writing these poems. For a little while, at least.

The second songwriting era occurred in first year university. I had actually sat down at the piano and composed songs about midnight adventures, lust and human delicacy. They were slightly more developed songs, perhaps by virtue of the fact that there was a musical accompaniment. But I have to say it, the piano parts were rarely very sophisticated. I was surprised by how awfully poor it was, given the years and years of music lessons I had to endure. Again, I feel embarrassed at the thought of those songs now. I feel embarrassed that we actually recorded demos for them in Bundoora. The piano drags and the pitch is slightly off and the lyrics are so derivative. It was clear I was trying to sound like Morrissey or Dave Gahan or maybe even Neil Tennant, but I didn't sound like any of them. It was just awful.

Yet in spite of my negativity, Laur encouraged me a great deal. As my best friend, she allowed me to record demos on her Minidisc. She would subsequently listen to the "album" repeatedly and tell me which songs she liked. I still have a text message from her from six years ago: "Your album has gone straight to my no 1 most listened spot! It's like you're always with me when I listen to it!" Her support didn't reflect any kind of musical quality, moreso a delirious breed of wholehearted loyalty. It's funny how we can never accept their compliments, no matter how emphatic.

The last song I officially wrote was "The Lost Weeks End". It was a play on words, relating to John Lennon's period of hedonistic inactivity. It detailed my period of depression after discovering my crush didn't feel the same way. I slept for up to 19 hours a day. I did it to numb the pain, to get through the hurt. I don't think I ever recorded it, the subject matter was just far too grim. After that, I stopped for good. I got involved with radio, fashion illustration and awkward romantic scenarios.

I never lost the yearning to sing or to write songs, but I was just so totally appalled at my prior efforts that I had no idea how to legitimately do it. I'm too afraid I'll make something hideously self-indulgent or infantile or plain fucking stupid. I'm too afraid that people are going to be able to identify what I'm singing about, who I'm singing about. I'm too afraid that I'm somehow going to drift into a genre of music that I quite simply hate, just because I don't have the creative intelligence to do what I want to do.

I must allow myself to bypass these fears and start again. Afresh. This can be the third era. This can be great.

Clandestine

I moved out of home for the first time approximately three weeks ago. I didn't give it much forethought. I was at work when I had received a call from my Dad that my brother had found my diary and trashed my room. I knew then, covering my face so not to draw attention to myself, that there would be no way I could go home.

When I describe what it has been like these past few weeks, I usually start with some ironically snide remark. It's just funny that I don't feel safe in my comfort zone, I would say. I used to think I was safe, simply locked up in my room. In addition to hiding myself, I would hide my writing, in fear that he would find it and read it out loud, pausing to cackle loudly in my face.

But how can you ever escape? I can sit in a rented room on the north side of town, with my suitcase unzipped and my notebooks in full view. I can sleep without having to lock my door for the first time in fifteen years. But I am yet to escape somehow. I know I will continue to punish myself, just as he punished me.

There's nothing more I can say.