My mind can wander anywhere and usually does when I'm not looking which is why I walk into walls and fall over cats. But I woke up this morning and my mind had definitely been wandering and had totally walked all over someone else's dream. I knew the person involved, haven't seen her for years but she was having a weird dream and I was watching it and walking through it with a few comments for good measure.
It's still in my mind now and boy, did she look old. There were no mirrors so I assume that I looked fabulous. But still it was strange. Fenstar DeLuxe, I may have to book a session with you. Do you do dreams of weirdness? And no, Andrew, you weren't involved, that would go way beyond weirdness and sanity.
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My mind wanders off to beaches a lot. Beaches that have fine sand and a rocky foreshore and a treed background. A place where I can have a shack, a decent sized shack, right on the beach. Like whatshisname in Death In Paradise.
I dreamed about Jon English a couple of days ago. In the dream we were friends and spent a whole day at a small country fair somwewhere.
If that is true my heart is in some very, very strange places, with equally strange company.
River, nice way of remembering Jon. As for the shack, get up the beach a bit, the water is definitely rising and build a boat.
EC, you know that nightmare where you wake up naked in a crowd, haven't had one of those. But feeling one's knickers moving downwards in the shopping centre comes close, happened on Thursday but made it to the Home and a safety pin.
Ha ha, I do dreams of anything! But weird dreams are delicious.
I read the last line with some relief. I rarely remember dreams but when I do, they really stick in my mind.
Fenstar, you are going to write a book one day, non? Thought of you this morning when I found the most divine tattoo, a peacock from shoulder curving round the hip. This dream definitely belonged to someone else, I just walked right through it.
Andrew, are you saying that I am so forgettable I wouldn't stick in your mind, well really!
Nothing happening here. Darlings waiting for an RH comment. I painted the bathtub today and stunk the joint out. All doors and windows open, lucky it's fine weather. Well it's an old clawfoot bath and was a rusted embarrassment. The entire place is an embarrassment. And yet estate agents are around here every five minutes offering me the world. That's how it's going. Latte has arrived. Yes, in dirty old Newport. It has a train station. That's it. Even our little corner milk bar is now a latte cafe. Gone. Good heavens. You wouldn't believe it. I went in, just for a laugh, and spent twenty dollars. Got buggar all for it. Well I had to do it. Now it's done. Today I pounced on an old metal fruit bowl at Vinnies, it used to be silver but its all worn off. Mind you, it's still attractive, goblet base and filigree around the top. The woman at the counter, looking not bad herself, said, "It's a pity that no one wants to restore those things anymore." I said, "Restore it? I like it the way it is; if I want something shiny I'll go to KMart." That went over very well, especially with the old dears in the queue behind me. Say what you like, RH sure is the man for the occasion.
Love to all.
-Robert.
Well it's getting late, or it doesn't matter. I don't work anymore. I did work, and I regret it. Silly. I used to worry about my present, and my future. I had to have a job, a factory job where you don't need a brain. Did I think I'd ever get anywhere? On minimum wages? Bosses of these places despise you, they sack you but they'd rather shoot you instead. I've worked in factories where no one spoke English. I stopped speaking it myself. I wore the same clothes to work that I wore everywhere. I lived two years in a backyard shed doing every bit of overtime while saving every penny to go overseas for six months then came back and married a woman and I didn't even like her. Then I really got worried, because I had to have a job. You'll never get a good job at the CES. I've had some horrors. In the old days it was called The Employment Office. It supplied cheap labour to factories that had a colossal turnover of cheap labour. No one would stay there. You'd go insane. Every week they'd lose workers, every week the boss would pick up the phone: "Send more men."
"Could you work a bit faster," they'd say. And all for shit wages. They'd spy on you, peer at you from behind boxes, the greatest satisfaction was to quit the place on Friday, leaving some fucked up work for them to find on Monday. Nothing changes, there'll always be the lower orders, there'll always be these scum employers. Don't ever forget that a bit over one hundred years ago they had six year-olds working twelve hours a day at thumping machinery. Well I finally saw the light when I found out I couldn't even save fifty dollars a week after I stopped taking work home to do at night. That was at Godfreys, repairing vacuum cleaners. I was living alone with my seven year old daughter in a housing commission flat. Some old couples there were giving me hell. They didn't like kids and they didn't like that I wouldn't give them my life story. And they didn't like that my kid played with the wogs kids around the place. They didn't mind that I was leaving for work early in the morning while they were snoring their hearts out. And paying full rent while they got concession. With all this going on I crashed, then started to climb. That's what happens. You need a catastrophe. I quit my job, rented a room, and became an associate of thieves and prostitutes. They thought I was funny, quite a card, and filled me in on ways to make cash. I began a stall at the trash markets, selling questionable goods to eager buyers, including magistrates who'd have sent me down for it. Yes well that would happen in normal life, a bargain upsets everything.
I began this because I wanted to talk about the Housing Commission, and a bloke I knew called Greek Harry who was living in the Carlton flats. He'd stopped paying all bills, including his rent, but remained living there. I wanted to view it, this strange philosophy, a sort of non-cooperation with current economics. I went to see him and he was sitting in the dark. The door was open and I walked straight in. "Who's there?" he said, and had a good old laugh. He was defiant, profoundly amused, fascinated to have all these people chasing after him. "I'm all right," he said, "I don't need electricity, I don't need gas." He had a think about it. "You're not well off, you just think you are, your life's all worry." He was right, but I can't help it, I love goods, merchandise, I reach out, reach for it, in terror.
Darlings I've bought a letter box on ebay, it's a milk can fitted horizontally on top of a metal pole. Now all I need is a country house front garden to plant it in. I thought I'd sell this place ("Character and Charm") in about October, but now I'm in a hurry get out sooner, latte is all around. Six months ago a house a few doors from mine sold for $775,000. New owners have moved in and are doing it up to sell it again. And get this - it was thoroughly renovated already! So I'm thinking what the hell more can they do to it? Well they've ripped up some carpet and thrown it onto the artificial grass installed there by the previous owner, and right now the exterior is getting a new paint job to cover the previous owner's new paint job. How's that. Truly, there's just no group more money mad than the latte set. Clothes, hairdos, cars, INVESTMENT PORTFOLIOS! Meanwhile they're running around the block here, right past my house, shaven headed men and big arsed women. I zoom in on the women, don't you worry about that, no one is more expert than RH. And I give them marks out of ten. The bird next door was a six, but last week she gave me a big smile and I increased it to eight. Women are better looking nowadays, better than when I was young. They know what's on RH's mind anyway, and it amuses them no end. But I'll tell you what, they'd get a shock at the yonny he could come up with. Really, I've never lost my interest, my fascination, with the feminine mystique, my worst disasters can be traced back to it. In the end, they're expensive. Except for The Lovely Andrea, too dumb to cost any money. "Are you sure you'll be happy up in the bush, Robert?" she says. She thinks I'll become a weirdo, laughing all night in a tin shed. It's her imagination, too much for her, no one is safe. Meanwhile another house is gone, demolished, just down on the corner here. Every corner house is at risk, bulldozers waiting. They sweep them away, good solid houses, and put two in their place. Not a bad trick. Councils are alway corrupt, but Hobsons Bay is the winner, most developer-friendly council in Australia.
Well I don't know where big woman is but I'm trying to keep the pot simmering. People are so fickle nowadays, disappear for a while and they'll forget all about you. There's more people in the world now than ever before, and that means more loneliness. They swarm, they hurry, disappearing into subways, eyes blind, phones to their ears, seeing faces at the other end. People are fickle nowadays, further apart. I can live in the bush.
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