#5: Together Seven Years Apart

Memoir - Week 5

  

Introductions out of the way, it turned out I had stumbled across a bunch of girls – mostly study-abroad students doing a stint at the University of Canberra. There were around eight of them who had entered the infamous King O’s, including two Canadians, a Norwegian and…Erin Ogilvie from Roanoke. Virginia. The United States of America.  There was also Carol, an Australian student Erin had become friends with through the university’s orientation day.

“No, but I’ll buy you a beer” Erin said.

This was the first time for me any girl had replied with this cheeky response, and I admired Erin for her independence and confidence. It struck me as a good start and only bolstered my feeling that this was something, that she was someone quite different. She hadn’t said no to me. She wasn’t being negative. She had gently taken control of opening the gate and allowed me to prospect on her land, you might say.

Contrary to the predictable convention, I followed the ‘girl’ as we side-stepped, bumped and brushed our way past the seemingly invisible others to the bar.  On-tap Carlton draught we drank, the conversation did flow. Erin’s large blue eyes were pretty and mesmerising, and I remember beholding them on a woman as I never have before. 

 

#4: Together Seven Years Apart

Memoir - Week 4

Casual glances and shy smiles at each other gave me confidence to push through the universal boy-meets-girl awkwardness.

I have to talk to her. I’m going to talk to her. 

“Hi, how’s your night been?”

“It’s been good, thanks”, she said with an American accent.

An American accent! – even better; a different species in this little pond here tonight.

“I’m Julian”

“I’m Air ren and this is my friend, Carol”

Air ren? I honestly couldn’t make out her reply. The combination of my residual nervousness and her accent had scrunched up what she had said. 

“Sorry, how do you spell that?”

“E, r, i, n”, she said.

“Oh, Erin, sorry! Hi, nice to meet you”

You idiot, you just made her spell out her name to you. Okay, salvage mode now. Keep this ball rolling – acknowledge Carol and keep chatting.
 

#3: Together Seven Years Apart

Memoir - Week 3

A sort of fuzzy greyness filled the pub space and overhead the blonde a perfectly centred spotlight lit her presence. Sounds cut back to a muffled hum as she headed my way.

Before I knew it, the blonde had walked past me and was standing, slightly away, to my right with the other girl on her far side. The blonde’s good looks aside, I sensed something deeper as a wave of familiarity washed over my off-guard self. My brain didn’t realise it at the time, but my heart knew something special had arrived when I hadn’t been seeking it.

Seconds later, I returned a little grin to Harry as I shifted to my left – his eyebrows were raised indicating approval of the girl who had just gained my interest.

Brains and hearts aside, there was another aspect that I couldn’t ignore even if I’d tried really, really hard - she so obviously descended from a fantastic line of buxom predecessors.

#2: Together Seven Years Apart

This week is the first time I've posted on my writing blog ahead of my cartoon blog. Only because I haven't got a damn cartoon ready!

Memoir - Week 2

This night, though, I was not actively spotting. Rather than chatting with Harry and enjoying myself, my mood had somewhat a morose hue to it. I couldn’t weight down rising thoughts that my life in the Bush Capital was turning stale. Plus, I was seeing the same old people and I was standing in the same old pub and it was the same old end of the week night. Same-shit stuff. My life explained almost in a mathematical equation, conveying all the predictability and dullness that math is renowned for and feared.

Julian had always feared predictability and a kind of dullness in his life. He feared being left out and in an empty room with only a keyhole to look through – a single eye with which to observe others interacting and enjoying life. 
 

He remembered thinking as a young boy how the late afternoon calls of Australian birdlife in the garden signified the end of the day – particularly the wistful voicing of the spotted turtle doves. Had he spent enough time outside playing with friends, and making the most of a sunny day? Too late – the birds had sung their song and the keyhole was coming into focus. Another day had become irretrievable, lost with the ominous clouds in his mind he was yet to fathom. 

Still, he took solace that the birds’ regular calling also heralded chance anew in the fresh day to come. Just one more day – he would think – and the sun would rise never again to set.

All of a sudden an interruption snapped my contemplative mood. Two girls – one blonde the other a brunette – had walked in through the front door and were making their way up towards the bar area in slow motion, where Harry and I were staked out on the fly paper floor. Hello, hello! Predictability and dullness might become casualties to the night after all.

#1: Together Seven Years Apart

I do tend to focus more on my cartoon blog. But, finally, here's a posting for this writing blog after neglecting it for a while. I'm starting to post snippets of a memoir I'm working on - Together Seven Years Apart - a story about my wife and me. Hopefully, posting the snippets will force me to find more time to write and so keep posting - and to actually finish the story. That's the plan...You know how it is.

Memoir - Week 1 

Exactly two days after we happily celebrated our first wedding anniversary, I left my wife. June 28, 2010.

Leaving wasn’t easy - but leaving seemed to be the only way forward.

Right after I first ever met her on that cold Canberra night, I had also fallen in love with her. Friday May 16, 2003. Somewhere around 10.30pm.

Me and a friend, let’s call him Harry, were shoulder to shoulder, standing semi-glued to the always made-sticky-by-spilt-drinks floor, warm inside King O’Malley’s – a popular Irish pub downtown Canberra.

For anyone unfamiliar with the capital of Australia, Canberra doesn’t really have a downtown as such. Although locally referred to as the centre or city, it’s actually like another suburb of Canberra – too small to qualify as any downtown proper. Too quiet and leafy to be “downtown”. 

Okay, too boring. I said it.

We hadn’t been there long and I was not in the mood for being out or around people. At approximately 10.30pm, King O’s – as everyone called it – was still filling up. Purposely positioned where we were, Harry could readily admire any entering guys that took his fancy, and I could easily spot approaching, attractive girls.

How I write

Messy writing? I think so. Actually, it's quite neat writing for me. I like to write by hand before typing any stories. It's such a good feeling hand writing, and allows my thoughts to flow freely. Plus, I like to know I'm not under the complete control of modern technology. There's a certain romance in putting pen to paper.

This particular sample is of my memoir about my wife and I.

What do you normally do?

#10 Dee Why to Downtown Bus Trips – A Diary of Stuff that Popped into My Head One Week.

The final Bus Trips piece...now I have to get serious and post real stuff.

Returning - Wednesday, 4.28p.m., 14 December 2011 

Somehow we’ve gone back in time. We’ve gone back in time to when I suggested we start the week clean and fresh with a swept and mopped bus floor. I say this because this E84 has the cleanest floor so far. They took my suggestion after all.

As I look around this afternoon’s bus, I see such precision. You can see a lot of thought and planning has gone into the design of the interior of the bus. Everything has its perfect place from the two luggage racks at the front, to the layout of the large windows, the placing of the green ticket machine and the six spring-loaded seats that greet you as you step past the isolated bus driver posted on his instrument-surrounded seat. Nuts and bolts are bold-looking and tight throughout.

Despite this, I’m hearing a lot of squeaks and rattles. All of these newer buses squeak and rattle. I think they’re made in Sweden. Do the Swedes purposely build in squeaks and rattles for character? If so, I don’t mind. I feel quite safe.

We’ve been cruising past patches of agapanthus for the last four minutes or so. And although my eyes have been on the journal pages, I can see them waving at me. And they’ve been aware I smiled back at them. Agapanthus make good friends. They offer a reliable, telepathic and comforting friendship.

This bus has quite some energy. It’s strong and hauling us home like she’s already emptied all her passengers out.

There’s a well-dressed lady with short, blonde hair holding a book open in her seat: Hell West and Crooked it’s called. The letters on the back of this book are big and red, so I easily read the title. But every time I’ve done the meerkat – popped up to look around – she’s not reading it. Is she tired? Bored? Thinking about other things? Can she actually read? I perceive her to be a nice lady, friendly with a good heart. I wonder what her story is. Why the book is open, but the reading process is frozen. Should…?

It’s going to feel strange not writing about my daily bus trips. The buses and I got to know each other a little, we became closer. Did the buses enjoy having me as a passenger? Did the buses notice me? I hope so, I noticed them.