Opened up my arms
So I was talking to A about music, and I said that Opened up my arms by Sennen was my most-played song, which was surprising. But I love it. And A thought I had said that I didn't know why I love it. But I do. It's not just that it has chiming, soaring guitars, that it repeats and builds, and swirls in a ball of beautiful noise. It's more than that.
This is what I said. I'm just going to quote myself:
you could drift away
it's like summer on teh river
it sounds like a beautiful June day
full of yearning
a world blossoming
and you want so much to be part of it
to awaken
to be as beautiful as the world round you
that's why I like it
it captures that day for me
That is all it is. When you look at me, you see a careworn man, almost an old man, lost and broken, ugly and unappealing. But I don't. I see the warmhearted boy on a hillside near Highleadon, kissing A (a different A); I see the young man who still lived on dreams, afraid to touch K because she was so beautiful I didn't want her to stop being in bed with me. I do not know whether I have ever been beautiful, or whether I ever can be, but I love Opened up my arms because when I listen to it, for a few minutes I believe in a world that is as beautiful as I dreamt it then, and as beautiful as I dream I am, and you are too, because when I dream, I dream we are beautiful together, all of us, and I cannot stop loving you for the dream I have of you.
Winning
So it's small things that get you excited, small triumphs, little steps on the road to wherever.
So the other day I'm playing poker. I've just moved up to the 22s and as usual, when I move up, I run really bad. I had lost a couple of hundred bucks, which is not much, but when you have painstakingly won it a buck at a time, it feels like a lot. It's a feature of poker that losing seems a lot easier than winning.
So I'm losing, and the little whiny child in me is saying, let's give up poker. We're not good enough and now we're getting our comeuppance.
But there's a stronger me: an experienced, smart poker player, who has studied and learned. And that guy looked around the table and said, hang on, no one here, literally no one, has the first clue how to play an STT. And my edge, my ability to win, is strongly expressed in being able to say that, to know that I am the only player there with the ability to win money over the long term.
Today, I got a bunch of new work. The local paper's chief sub has offered me casual shifts and my people in Singapore have given me a new project. And I know, if I let myself know it, that if I don't give in to self pity, I can survive, and better than that, thrive.
The monkey can get fucked. Because I know that happiness is not illusory. I know that I am the guy who can write a wicked bassline, beat the 55s in time, edit anything, massage you into paradise, fuck you till you're sore, win. I can win. I knew it in an instant.
And I came second. (Sometimes that's like winning [insert winky].) It's enough. I am going home. I am soon going to be walking the streets of an English city, and everything will be okay. All that ails me will vanish, and I will have my pear tree.
Yes, fuck the monkey. I will have my pear tree. I am telling you now, you can count on it. Bear with me; where I have it in my power, you will have yours too. Can we not rise up? Can we not overcome our monkeys?
I know it won't last. I know I'm manic and the crash awaits. I don't care. You will never understand. You will never know that it is all worth it. It's like a cycle. At the top, I love you. I love you so much I am bursting with it. At the bottom, I hate everyone, myself the most. But I wouldn't trade it. I mean, I couldn't trade it.
I feel like laughing maniacally and I don't care. LOLOLOLOLOL. See? Tonight, Zenita was trying on her new hat, which Mrs Zen bought for her, because we will soon be in a place that is cold for months on end, not just the odd night (and I am sitting out on our back verandah on a midwinter night, in a light jumper). She was so perfect, a little hippie chick, beautiful and spirited, real and tangible. I do not know how to tell you how much I love her. You would have to feel it to know how it is.
How lucky we are! Us dads, how lucky we are to feel this overwhelming, wonderful love we have for our girls and our gentle, beautiful boys. How lucky we are sometimes to be winners, to rise above it and be, for a moment or two, better than the world we have been marooned in. Three cheers for us. Fuck the monkey. He does not cheer. He leers and hopes to see us fail. But if we live, and have hope, he cannot ever see us fail. If we live.
I will have my pear tree. Come with me. We will have it together. I have stopped being shit when I lose. I have learned that losing is just one more step on the way to winning. I am better than the world I am a stranger in. I will be home soon. Fuck the monkey. He is not coming with me. He is not coming. He is going to stay here. He belongs here, the miserable cunt. Come with me. Let's succeed. Let's be people we can fall in love with. Let's be manic forever. Let's win.
Let's win. We're good enough. Look around. No one at this table has a clue. We are not opposed to them. We are just who and what we are. We do not have monkeys to hold us back. We have a strong, deep understanding of love, and that is our salvation, nothing else, and nothing between us and winning, always, winning.
Fuck tha police
So the police do not believe I rammed the woman's car, but I got fined for not exchanging details. Apparently, it doesn't matter that she refused to take my number. I should have gone to every other car in the carpark asking whether anyone had a pen, and forced my details on her. Or something.
Basically, the woman went to the cops, claimed I rammed her twice and refused to give my details. Right. I was standing in the rain for my health, and apparently "just exchange fucking details, you cunt" doesn't count as giving your particulars under the act. I mean, why the fuck would I get a pen when she was sat there holding one? There's nothing I can do though. The law is written very broadly so that the police can just make it up as they go along. That this disgusting woman not only caused the accident but lied about it doesn't help me any. Oh well, soon I will be gone from this shithole and this will be just one more reason to hate Queensland, which I do, and to consider the police the enemy of the truth and morality, which I do.
Why did the police believe me and not her? Well, apart from that I was telling the truth, and police are used to distinguishing truth from lies, and use interview techniques to do it, they have photos of the damage. It quite clearly bears out my story. The car is dented at an angle: so it's obvious at a glance that she was moving when she was hit (the dent is not flat, as it would be if she was stationary, but angled, and the crumpling is greater at the front).
Unfortunately, the police will not put it in writing that they do not believe her. Officially, there are two sides to the story, and there is no evidence to proceed with. The constable said that they had decided very easily and quickly that there was no case to answer. Sigh. Now I have to hope that her insurance company investigates the claim and denies it. They have told me that if they find she has lied in her claim, that's what will happen.
I understand why she lied. She drove into the back of my car, and is well aware that morally, if not legally, she caused the accident. She probably wasn't sure how she stood under the law, so she made up a story that seemed more clearly to put her in the clear.
But see, I did nothing much wrong. You can certainly argue that it's unpleasant to abuse someone for not swapping their details and berating you instead, but the police should not be in the business of teaching me a moral lesson by fining me because they don't like that. I backed out of a parking space carefully and some stupid whore ran into my car. When I saw the notice in the newsletter I contacted the police straight away, and I have told nothing but the truth. I feel good about it, to be honest. Sometimes, shitty people do shitty things to you, and there's nothing you can do. You just brush yourself down and walk away. So that's it.
