I believe that I am currently working with the most chatty girl in the world.

Finishing my day she managed to corner me for one-ENTIRE-hour. I am profoundly
talkative myself, so much so I thought I could never be stopped or outdone. The thought of someone having more social stamina for talking-BS was a farce. But she managed it. My eyes were rolling back up into my skull, hands on hips, I was sweating, leaning for support, quizzicle look slapped all over my face. I was outdone.

The girl herself, lovely. Blonde with beautiful pale blue eyes. Very easy on the eyes in-fact, with a beautiful Irish accent. “I could listen to her forever” I may have said in my head. So wrong.
One hour, is the most, YOU WILL EVER BE ABLE TO ENDURE AND I SO CHALLENGE YOU.

But coming out of that conversation, we did collaborate on one thing that made us both laugh, and I will share.

Her: *Sneeze*
Me: Whoa are you ok?
Me: Is that how babies are made?
Her: No, No. They come from the stork!

Me: … The Stalk? As in the Facebook-Stalk?
Her: That’s the one! Nobody knows what it looks like.
Me: But you can hear it passing by.
Her: Yeah all you hear is “LIKE LIKE LIKE LIKE LIKE”
Her: And then BAM.

Incredible amounts of shash was spoken this day.

A somewhat shotgun style version of the week past as well as the welcoming of the new year.

This is me; excited at possibilities. Starry eyed with my options and ideas for the future. Somewhat amazed at the high expectations, indeed how high the bar has been set.
The choices made last year to make this year better. My low expectations for the new years just past, blown out of the water. Out past the stratosphere, into outer-space leaving me wondering “how has it taken me this long to find a happiness in the New Year”. But I did it.

First.
My family. Christmas. Food. Talk. Adventure. Drinking. Old Friends. A Girl. A Cruise.

Second.
Work. A Free Festival. Camping. Music. Bad Knee. Drugs. Drinking. The Girl (again). Quotes.
Challenges. True Fun. Sweating. Kissing. New Years. The morning.

Last night was the last poker session for the year.
6 of us in total, met in the dingy backroom of the local pool hall.
It was a hot day, but we’d already committed to dressing up “like bosses”.

Some of us rode (which would have been a sight). Young men in suits riding plush; single speed,
bright green and white bicycles. I suppose not that weird, welcome to Melbourne.
I was late-ish, and slugging it out on foot.
“Hot day… tight pants, remember never to do this again” – I thought. Welcome to Melbourne.

Sitting around the table, the first few rounds are cheap and cheerful.
Everyone’s catching up. Everyone’s got time and money. High spirits, low stakes.
I buy a round of drinks for everyone, knowing full-well that I have taken more money at these
tourneys than I have forked out. The fellas are pleased at my generosity and I feel the universe tilt,
tilt ever so slightly in my favour. Good karma time. The banter between the boys continues between sips.

The first break and I’m even-stevens. Its a beautiful summers day outside.
Somewhere in earshot some folks are playing table tennis, the lads have a smoke while I use the gents.
At the urinal I see only 1 tag. “Brass Don’t Tarnish“. What the hell does that mean to the person that wrote it? I’ve considered looking it up on google. But i’ll savour the mystery.
I should take this moment to say. I am a creature of habit. With poker and sport i’m big on superstition.
Upon reading BDT, I felt the omen. Tonight was my night. And all the lights in my brain lit up. Everything I do from now is a + or – on the luck scale. Focus.

We resume. Door closed air-conditioning on.
‘Z’ is out before you know it. He’s a hard man to read in poker because he doesn’t know what’s going on alot of the time, I would swear by it.
A few rounds later its an unfortunate “all or nothing” from Shagz. He buys back in.
Declan soon after goes out on a pair of 8’s buys back in… 2 hands later, goes out. Buys back in.
Things have heated up. There’s 50% more money in the total stake. I buy a Pasito.

Another break and we’re down to 4.
In the bathroom I realise from the multitude of sinks that I could choose from to wash my hands,
I’ve chosen to wash them in the far corner. For no justifiable reason except that it’s now habitual.
I return to the table contemplating ‘BDT’ and whether or not I’ve picked out the lucky sink & tap.
I think I catch Ratman fixing the deck, but it doesn’t phase me. I fold.

We’re all a bit on edge, it’s crunch time. I’m ‘big stack’ after a multitude of small wins.
Laurence, Ratman, Dec and I. Its really not Dec’s night. The cards just ain’t falling for him.
I notice the guy haven’t spoken in about 30 minutes. Not a peep. The shuffle on my iPhone goes from Bob Marley to The Spice Girls. The boys perk up and sit through the entire 2 minutes 55 seconds of “Wannabe”.
Classic.

One hand after the other. Declan is taken out by Ratman. Ratman is taken out by Laurence and finally Laurence is taken out by me. I am tonight: The big, lucky fish.
I pay the tab we’ve racked up and wonder if I didn’t win, if the gentlemen would have done the same.
“Probably not” – I find myself thinking awkwardly.

Effectively they just paid me to buy them all drinks. This is why I gamble with friends.
“I’m horribly unlucky” I tell myself and others. This way I always win.

We exit the pool-hall and all the bikes have been stolen.
The police station is on the way to my house.
So we all walk.

Discussing the Brass
Discussing the Tarnish
Discussing the Luck
And how I tapped into it.

Money lost among brothers, is another treasure of friendship.

I’m sitting and reading in my favourite cafe.
Back to the wall, comfortable as can be,
with a small, bustling room of people before me.

Standing up, a pretty girl having just downed her second glass of water.
Makes her way to the bathroom. The door to which, is only a few short strides away.
I see her open the door, close the door, lock the door…
And then a sudden rattle of the door knob.

“Velociraptors” I say to myself half smiling, and return to my book.

My point though mundane. Is that almost everyone checks that they’ve locked the door.
Simple enough from their perspective. But hilarious indeed when I see it happen.
I myself am guilty, I lock and check.
“No stranger barging in on me mid-stream”. Safe.

From the observers side, its a relaxed walk in, the click of the lock…
followed by the…
VIOLENT attempt to unlock the door.
Followed by quiet.

I like to think the person walking into a bathroom is set upon by carnivorous dinosaurs.
And the lock rattling is indeed their failed attempts of escape from the enclosed deathtrap.
Thankfully though in this daydream dinosaurs cannot unlock doors,
nor do they possess the will to attack anyone outside of the restrooms.

I love iPhone notes.

I get drunk and write myself reminders for the next day. I write shopping lists, grande epiphanies, whimsical and all other kinds of stuff.
I like to ask folks what their oldest “note” is. Its funny because it’s usually not note worthy.
But lo’ and behold! There it is, at the time there was nothing more sensible than writing that down.

Myself, i’m an avid jotter. I do love a quick scribble in the iPhone notes.
My oldest “note” is a poem. It’s pretty crappy, I wrote it when I was lost in Tours a few hours south of Paris. Waiting for my girlfriend at the time to finish teaching her class and come rescue me.

22/1/2012 *1057 days ago. -I realise I’ve had this phone for a while.

Tick:

Tonight I walk,
The path home,
Alone by choice.
Wondering what makes us tick.
Our hearts and brains make us thick.

Hearts tell love untruths,
While brains decipher,
And say in love we find.

I walk alone
Tonight it seems
Alot is on my mind.

Thoughts of love
Thoughts of games
And some a different kind.

Sometimes the walk alone reveals,
quite a different side,
A side that hopes and pines for things.
The likes you’ve never had.
Thoughts, I now clarify
as neither good nor bad.

What does it mean, o’everything.
The feeling in-between.
I just feel raging grey I say.
A caring grey, angry and swirling.
Limitless by void expression.

To compare to others is a pin
needle, among the hay.
I wish I had a smile like you,
‘you know the other day’.

Depression and being depressed
are two very separate things.
One from being alone too long,
the other just a mark.
Marks come in all and every size.
Marks tell us where we’ve been,
and if we’ve been unwise.
Marks for girls and guys alike,
some can be disguised.
Though not as topical for you and me,
it’s certainly on the rise.

The clear sky, the dripping tap,
the fatally awful feeling.
Rest is needed but the stained glass,
though appealing.
Reveals your life is stealing.

Stealing away, from you.

If you ask me…

“is there anything I can do to help”

You’ve already failed, in helping me.

-initiative.

Pray, do not speak to me of weather
Not sun, not cloud, not of the places
Where storms are born
I would not know of wind shivering the heather

Nor sleet, nor rain, nor of ancient traces
No stone grey and worn
Pray, do not regale the trouble of ill health
Not self, not kin, not of the old woman
At road’s end
I will spare no time nor in mercy yield wealth
Nor thought, nor feeling, nor shrouds woven
To tempt luck’s send
Pray, tell me of deep chasms crossed
Not left, not turned, not of the betrayals
Breeding like worms
I would you cry out your rage ‘gainst what is lost
Now strong, now to weep, now to make a fist and rail

On earth so firm
Pray, sing loud the wretched glories of love
Now pain, now drunken, now torn from all reason
In laughter and tears
I would you bargain with the fey gods above
Nor care, nor cost, nor turn of season
To wintry fears
Sing to me this and I will find you unflinching
Now knowing, now seeing, now in the face
Of the howling storm
Sing your life as if a life without ending
And your love, sun’s bright fire, on its celestial pace
To where truth is born.

|Malazan Book of the Fallen Series|
-By Steven Erikson.

I let my mind wander today and came up with Metaphor Misapplication.

-I started trying to solve real issues in a nonsensical fun kind of way, and promptly lost track.

Global warming is like a child wearing too many jumpers.

I can’t afford dinner like a duck can’t be a dentist for chickens.

The food was off, like a pillow with a hole through it.

Paul liked mice in the same way underpants are blue.