Being an artist

I've felt a bit funny today.

My writing has been awful. It's forced, boring, pointless clumps of words thrown together to make sentences about things. The sort of sentences people read and then think, "Wow, 11 year old girls are pretty bad at writing aren't they?" Then they work out that it was actually written by a 25 year old man and they promptly set about stabbing their eyes out with a biro or holding their breath till they pass out.

Not wanting to 'cause any blindness or... death, I stopped writing.

I drank a coffee and a can of coke and jumped around.

I pretended to karate kick the work experience kid.

I grabbed a pen and drew on my wrist.

I made a video of myself on a stairmaster-like exercise machine drinking coke and dancing to an upbeat Black Lips song.

This was real creativity. Screw the writing. I was an artist.

Then I showed my friend the video, cause I knew appreciated the complexities of my brilliant art.

"That was fucking awful," he said. "You owe me 38 seconds of my life back."

The sugar and caffeine high wore off then. I re-opened the word document and stared at the screen until all the words went blurry.

"I wish that window screensaver with the coloured pipes was still around," I thought.

4 stars.

Stealing Lavender

I've developed a weird habit. I'm not sure where it came from. One day I just started doing it.

I steal lavender.

Not from a shop or anything, but if I walk past someone's front garden and a bit of lavender pokes out over the fence, I'll rip off a bunch of it. Chuck it in my shirt pocket or something. Put it in my car. Sometimes I just hold it in my hand as I walk.

I like the way it smells. I liked the way it looks. I like the way it feels in my hand. "Lavender is good," I think as I steal it. "It's not gay man, it's good. It's cool."

One sunny day I was walking to Tall Guy's house in Narrabeen and I walked past a cool little weatherboard house with a pretty good garden. I stopped and reached over the picket fence to rip me some lavender gold. As I tore some stems from the greater plant I looked up and saw a little old lady sitting on the front porch. She'd seen the whole dirty act go down.

I didn't know how to feel about that. I was stealing her shit, and she was a little old lady. Little old ladies are probably the last people you should steal from. Them and babies. But this was lavender. Maybe there would be a vibe of like, goodwill. You know, a how-great-is-it-that-rat-bag-looking-young-men-still-stop-and-enjoy-the-simple-pleasures-of-lavender type thing. Maybe she'd invite me in for some tea and freshly baked scones.

We looked at each other for a moment. It was a strange moment. The invite didn't come. Just silence.

I pretended I didn't see her and walked away staring at my shoes. I was happy though. 'Cause I had lavender in my hands and my hands smelt nice. They smelt like lavender.

4 stars.

My poor cat

"Have you spoken to Mum lately?" My big brother asked on Facebook chat.

I don't live at home. I don't live in the same city as home. I don't really know what's going on at home. I'm a really shitty son and don't call very often, even though I love my mum and dad and my home very much. Lots much. Heaps much.

"Nah, why?" I answered.

"Oh, just turns out that Syl is blind," my big brother said.

Syl is my cat. We got her at the end of 1992. She has a sister named Patch. We got Patch at the end of 1992 too as well.

The last year or so Syl has been meowing and meowing and meowing. She'd be fed. She'd have gone to the toilet. She'd been outside. But still she'd meow.

I thought she was old and had dementia. But nah, turns out she's blind.

"Oh poor thing." I said.

"So she's not actually sick, she's blind, and when she meows it's because she's confused,"said my big brother.

"Oh that's heartbreaking," I said.

"Yeah it's real sad," said my big brother.

No stars.