Wax

I brought in the new year alone. I didn't intend it to be that way, but it felt appropriate somehow. As I stood by the upstairs window and watched the fireworks over Northcote, I don't think I could have had anyone else there.

With any other year, I'd take myself aside moments after midnight to read a letter I'd written a year before. There'd be lengthy summaries, paired with annoyingly simple and familiar moral overtures.

As I sat alone, I recalled those instances where I was forced to reveal the contents of my yearly letter, to Gav in a gutter in China Town and to Min in a kitchen in South Yarra. In both instances, I warned of its intensity but they insisted I proceed.

They were both disgusted, but for very different reasons. Gav came up with the infamously ironic (and the fucking stupid) statement: "you have ephemeral attitude towards love". Min, predictably, dismissed my candour and depressive tendencies.

I realised it quickly, after I managed to pull the pages apart that were stuck fast together with silver sealing wax. A year ago, I wrote with the same idiotic naïveté that I displayed in revealing my words to those I had loved so much.

I don't think I'd have ever realised, in my ten years of doing this, that perhaps these letters weren't about resolutions for the new year. They were about an ideal: someone interested enough to excuse themselves from a party, to follow me out to calmly listen to private thoughts.

Everything is different now, everything is more different than I could've ever imagined. I no longer hope for connection, I no longer hold that desire to glorify passing moments. I hope for nothing, except for the ability to quash that pathetic propensity to talk and to trust.

Disappointments Diary 2013

Pinstripes

I could see his face flush with panic whenever he saw me. It was only a subtle sign, but I could see it, behind his thick-rimmed glasses, behind his tar-coloured eyes. He knew my after-hours appearance at the front desk typically indicated that something was wrong and it so happened that every other hour, something was wrong. My door key had been deactivated.

However, on this occasion, I had to insist that nothing was actually wrong. I had been sitting across the room, curled up on a beanbag. I was concentrating upon writing about the potency of particularly perfect pop songs, the subtle but ever-relentless snobbery of once-trusted friends and Sydney's ever-irritating influx of one-way-streets and prams.

I had just started writing in my new, navy-blue Semikolon notebook that I received for Valentine's Day. My Parker pen was bleeding stolen red ink everywhere... and even now, I cannot remove its ink from my fingers. It's as if my fingers and palms were wounded by Cadbury's great stationery cull of 2011. But I have to remind myself, they were going to throw away that ink anyway.

When the requisite pages were filled, I approached the desk and started a conversation with the handsome doorman. He spoke of his double life. Long days, wearing suits and carrying himself with the utmost formality. Taking on the work of his superiors and receiving absolutely no credit. He told me of lonely nights behind the desk of the hostel, struggling to stay awake.

I suppose if we were talking strictly in the terms of pick-up parlance, I responded with a DLV. I said I struggled with notions of professionalism. I gush and I flirt and I laugh and carry on. I refuse to pin my fringe back and I always wear drainpipe jeans. Yet, I feel as if the quality of my work is excellent and I have (the arguably misguided) faith my employers will see that.

Ever since that night, I've been thinking about how he managed to articulate his attraction to professionalism. He spoke of his unequivocal desire to be a part of that corporate environment. Just as I once had faith that volunteering would lead to a paid job in broadcasting or even the music industry, he believes that being a corporate lackey will lead him somewhere... and that with professionalism, comes respect.

"You don't seem like a lawyer..." He said, I never even caught his name. "Well, it happened." I muttered apologetically. I told him about C&CM, about the music essays and the podcasts and the documentary I had been working on... but I couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed that I couldn't share his enthusiasm to step up, to change and adapt to meet the expectations of the rat-race.

The conversation halted suddenly when a dishevelled Dutch back-packer stepped in off the streets. I didn't think to wait, I didn't even think to appear distracted until he was free again. He was lovely and pristine and together. I don't see how he could have understood my inability to do as he does. To save face, I thanked him and said goodbye.

By friend, Norbi
Weeks later, I found myself with a film crew in the back alleys of Melbourne. Hands still ink-stained, legs still in drain pipes. It seemed like an accident to me, but after months of discussing, planning and writing we were finally filming this thing, this fashion segment I had once imagined. At no point did I hesitate, neither in my direction or guidance to cameraman, presenter or contributor... and much like in my days of producing radio, I had the utmost clarity about what I wanted this to become.

"I've just never seen you like that!" My Louise gushed after the shoot. "It was crazy for me to see you take control of everything..." She paused a moment. "You were just so professional!" I couldn't help but recoil slightly at the mention of that word. Yet I felt a some kind of unearthly gratitude that although I have no burning desire to become a corporate lawyer, I won't always be a complete shambolic mess. Quite incidentally, and quite accidentally, I still have that capacity to possess a quality I never thought I'd have.

I Should Have Loved You More

I recently confronted a boy I once knew, my best friend. I went to his house, armed with a letter in anticipation that he would refuse to speak to me. The entire context seemed so odd, this boy knew me better than I knew myself. He loved and encouraged me, then it all fell apart somehow. He eventually fell in love with a more worthy girl, then I fell in love with someone I wasn't meant to. I don't know how it happened, but I know that he will never forgive me for my purported mistreatment. I know he will never forgive me for refusing to commit to him romantically. I know he will never forgive me for falling in love with someone so similar to him. With that being said, I know that I must forgive myself if I ever wish to move on.

That night, he did agree to speak to me. It was so strange. For that half an hour, standing in the starlit courtyard of his apartment, I felt so totally overwhelmed. I couldn't believe he was looking me in the eye for the first time in ten months. Every few moments, I kept on exclaiming how different it was, how strange it felt. It was a different person standing before me, this wasn't my best friend. His body had changed, his posture was different. I don't know what the hell happened to his speech patterns but suddenly he had a lisp. He said that he never thought of me, that I was simply a blank to him. I just didn't exist. I said I admired him for being so strong-willed, for I could never forget the past so easily.

I write all this here because I have been thinking of the evolution of identity. Can you ever truly let go of the person you were? Do the matters that once touched you in the past suddenly bear no meaning once you adopt a new identity? What happens if that new identity is so thoroughly exciting and convincing, so brimming with musical and emotional success? It reminds me of the last words of a lost musician I once knew:

"That person up on that stage isn't me. In some ways it never was. The projection that you might have about that personality is not in the member of the band you see up there. He's just a puppet. I've long since stopped inhabiting him. I don't belong in there and I never did really."

There will never be a satisfying conclusion to all this, I will never find the answers for which I seek. But I know that I desire that which seems to be impossible for my mood and temperament. I want to change myself as he has, to make myself an identity that is so thoroughly exciting and convincing, so brimming with musical and emotional success. I want to make it so exciting and convincing that nobody will ever care to remember what I was like. How wretched and depressed I once was. I want to be the intimidating one, fearless and without any past.

I want to forget you.

"Even if you changed everything, he would still recognise your chin..."

I recently went on a cybercrawl in search of matters to write about. I seemed to recall an article on a blog that discussed notions of femininity at length, particularly in respect of the appeal of the tiny waistline. I could scarcely recall the name of the blog, nor any coherent search terms associated with the post. But I did recall that the lady blogger featured a brilliant picture of Ceci n'est um pas pas, dbroon's brilliant reworking of Ceci n'est pas une pipe. By some interweb miracle, I found it. Gatochy's Blog. I don't think I have even found the original article yet, I am too mesmerized by the vast collection of pretty vintage illustrations, not to mention the varied and many posts that touch upon matters of taste, style and beauty, posed in a way that I had never really considered before.


Illustration by Almanaque Bertrand, circa 1934. Children on leashes, loveit.
Perhaps the most fascinating discovery of my cybercrawl was Mariana's reflections upon female gender-bending. Slightly subversive you would think, perhaps. But she managed to identify another reason why a woman would feel the need to adopt traditionally "masculine" characteristics. I thought it had nothing to do with me, but then I read the article.

I think people tend to see this kind of gender-bending playfulness as a PC wink to trans culture. [...] But I believe in some instances it may be not so much a men-hating based rejection of femininity, as an expression of feminine desire from a woman who is disappointed in herself.

[...]

The logic may be something along these lines: "I'll never get boys to notice me as a girl, because I can't compete with other women's feminine charms. The more feminine I try to be, the more I'll just be drawing attention to how lacking in the feminine department I truly am, like a monkey wearing makeup. Instead of trying in vain to emulate the kind of women I find attractive, I'll don the accoutrements of the kind of boys I find attractive. Wearing their skin feels more comfortable than wearing my own, and it puts my mind off the kind of women who only remind me of how unattractive I am in comparison.

I can't have my dream lover, but wearing his 'skin' is like incorporating him into my persona, grabbing possession of him. I'll be as close to him as it's likely I'll ever be. And who knows, maybe such a man may one day see me and interpret my 'look' as a message that I am from his 'tribe', that we are two of a feather, and he'll approach me, and say 'You are just like me, we belong with one another'."


Freddie Mercury by Mick Rock
Perhaps I'm terribly impressionable, but the first time I read that, I couldn't help but acknowledge that Mariana had described me with an eerie degree of accuracy. I don't consider myself a gender-bender, by any means. But long ago, I adopted all the stylistic hallmarks of a lover, who, for all intents and purposes, ruined me. Every misdeed and mistreatment has become ever so slightly blurred with the passing of time, but his uniform has influenced my personal style immeasurably. Everyone who knows me would recognise the boyish aesthetic: navy blue Bonds tshirt, black drainpipe jeans with a white belt, black leather boots and maybe even aviators, if I'm sitting in the sunshine. I wiped out any trace of femininity in my own personal iconography, simply because it's not what I perceive to be attractive. I never had the confidence to wear misshapen mustard-coloured vintage dresses made out of curtain material. It was his uniform that was attractive to me, because it was sexy and understated... and it somehow denoted the existence of a musical kindred spirit. The existence of someone who cares too much about that so-called "indie" musical subculture we've all sold our souls to.

In recent times, I have taken to wearing dresses and A-line skirts. They're usually hidden under trench coats, as I am too embarrassed to show my chest, hips, waist and/or arms. I am happier and more comfortable hiding in the cloak of the past, in the uniform of someone else. I have no doubts that such a stylistic appropriation is unhealthy, I would be the first to tell you that. I would also be the first to acknowledge my poor attitude and details of my self-loathing tendencies. No doubt it'd be packaged nicely, either in a leather bound journal or a PDF document. But, hell. I'm working on it. I'm working on seeing beyond the drainpipes and aviators and being happier and less hateful. I'm working upon developing something of my own, that doesn't embody the hateful figures of my past, but a hopeful representation of the person I want to become.

I'm not meant to be here

I'm not meant to be here. I'm not meant to be writing about fashion, style, taste or identity. My best friend from primary school always made it clear to me that I simply had no idea about these matters. It was clear that she was far more stylish and sophisticated than I. She would construct projects based upon drawings of thin girls with long faces draped in short floral dresses. We put together a magazine one time, she was particularly enthusiastic about writing a fashion advice column. For a ten year old, she managed to speak with disturbingly high authority about woolen midriff tops, even more floral dresses and other garb predominately inspired by the clothing worn by the cast of Beverley Hills 90210 and Heartbreak High, respectively. When we sat together and edited the magazine, I felt an odd burn of embarrassment. She had made it clear that every line of her advice was directed towards me. That and her makeover pursuits made it perfectly clear that she always wanted to fix me.

Despite her attempts, she never managed to successfully make me over. A part of it was that I simply didn't have the resources to pull off her desired mid-90s aesthetic. I didn't have the opportunity to shop at Miss Shop or Sportsgirl, simply because my mother bought all our clothes at op shops. At that point in time, op shops did not carry the sort of indie cred as they do now. Op shops were not a haven for stylish bargain buys or unique vintage pieces. They stocked cheap and extremely nasty cast-offs from the late 1980s. You could never disguise the fact that you got your clothing from op shops. Take that pair of purple parachute pants with the odd streaky black lines and fluro-green flecks. Aside from the hideous colours slash material of said garment, there was a very large burn hole around the crotch area. My clothes loudly proclaimed to every kid in the school yard that I had no taste, class or money. There was no way to co-ordinate anything, to pull off a certain "look". There was an incident in August 1995 where I attempted to look decent in an oversized, cut-off denim jacket and pair of slightly tight 501 Levi's. I don't need to tell you that it was an unmitigated disaster.

In retrospect, I should have desperately campaigned for a makeover. I would have wanted her to take away my rag-like flannel shirts, my burnt up purple parachute pants and even my black Cons. I would have wanted her to fix me. Why? Because I am inextricably drawn to makeover sequences in popular media. I love how you don't see very much during the clip itself. I love the feverishly upbeat pop hit that would accompany oblique images of hairspray and lipstick application. Most of all, I love the unveiling where she would look stunning, in a gobsmacked sort of way. All semblance of her former identity would be forgotten, for she would no longer be weird, ugly or different. The success of the transformation no doubt have a cursory effect upon the quality of her life. With some hairspray, lipstick and a short floral dress and she would be set! Love, happiness and success, FTW!


I am starting The Fashion Plague, in spite of the fact that I'm not meant to be here. I never received a makeover, from her or anybody else for that matter. I never conformed to the traditional tenets of feminine beauty. However, that never prevented my growing fascination for fashion design and journalism. Whether it be admiring the cut of a Givenchy jacket in Charade, reading about notions of beauty in Pigeons & Peacocks or sketching designs in my design notebook, this is something that consumes me. It is something that I want to share with you, even though I'm not quite sure I ever got it right.