Hieronymous the Anonymous

About Bali

For some reason I never wrote about my Bali trip. It was only pretty short, but it was full on.

First day spent all afternoon and most of the evening in our private pool with Whisky, a couple of girls, and a bottomless pitcher of Cuba Libre and Vodka tonics. Sometime in the night I dived into the pool and my head hit an unseen step. It swelled up bleeding and I was pretty well concussed for the next 36 hours - not that I could have told the difference.

We stayed in Seminyak, in a lovely villa complex. Our villa was luxurious. We had a private pool about 6x4 metres set amid a tropical garden. Most days it was warm and humid without being too uncomfortable. On a few occasions we had tropical downpours typical of Asia. The rain would fall in sheets and the roads would flood and the drains filled with rushing water. It is part of the Asian experience, but often I would think as it fell how useful this rain would be a few thousand kilometres to the south-east.

Every night we would go to a sunset bar for a cocktail looking over the ocean towards the setting sun. Most of these places were unbelievably plush, with waiting staff both attentive and very friendly. All the Balinese were friendly and unspoiled. We would sip on our watered down cocktails and feel in our face the breeze come in off the ocean and watch the sun dip and refract it's colours on the cumulus clouds. At times it was very beautiful and led to a great many photo's.

For the most part we ate well, checking out some of the best recommended restaurants in town, but in this regard I was a little disappointed. The best meal I had was an hour after setting down on the first day. Whisky and I wandered down the road and at random went into a little restaurant that advertised cooking classes. The menu was interesting and looking at it I thought we would be in for a good time here. Because I was not so hungry I ordered modestly thinking this will come again. In fact I never saw another menu as interesting or with the same range of Balinese dishes. I saw a lot of satay chicken on menus, and other such generically Asian food.

One day we went into Kuta for the obligatory shopping expedition, typically a Bintang singlet and a bunch of pirate DVD's. We paused by the site of the Sari club bombings years ago. It is a vacant site still and seems likely to remain so as a memorial. Opposite it is a small memorial with flowers collected at its foot. It is in a typical narrow street thought, mundane in its ordinariness - but I guess then it need not be remarkable.

Indulgence was high on the list for all of us, and so besides the booze and the food each of us took advantage of the cheap massages on offer. On our last afternoon we went to a new resort on the other side of the island from us. It was spectacular, like somewhere you would expect Brangelina to be staying. We took the funicular down to the small private beach and lay upon bana lounges there drinking our usual cocktails, and later eating a lovely meal under the fronds of the restaurant/bar there that looked as if it might have been built by the Swiss family Robinson.

For me it was an enjoyable but exhausting trip. I was not feeling 100% yet and together with our hard living find myself depleted upon returning. I would go back, but it is a funny thing. The trip solidified in my mind the desire for a more modest lifestyle. I do not want to continue to live big, and do not need it any longer. For me at this point in my life the greatest pleasures are often in the small things. 

The unhealed

I visited my Mum the other day in her home. I drove there through the streets familiar from the time I lived there. It is a pretty and well to do area, comfortable and safe - and great for my Mum.

Every time I go there my skin creeps a little. I look up the stairs to the bedroom where I used to sleep and feel a weight descend upon me. I recall things, simple things really - the foggy, cold mornings as I went to work and standing on the cold railway platform waiting for my train; listening to my iPod and looking out the window as the stations went by, looking in faces; retiring to my small but comfortable bedroom to wile away the hours while Mum watched her shows downstairs. Though the memories are simple taken together they recall a time that was pretty dark in my life.

I don't like to remember this, if only because I don't want to associate my mothers home with bad things. It's not her fault, and hardly to do with her anyway. But it's there, for now anyway.

Each time I leave Mums I drive away with these memories like freshly turned soil in my mind. I stare ahead at the road and trace the familiar route home. This happened again on Thursday, and as I felt it heavy in me I admitted that those times had left deep scars in me. They would not be easily cured.

There is anger in me, but of the slow-burning sort. I have denied this before but realise it is true. It is like those seams of coal that burn invisibly underground until one day smoke and flame break the surface. I do not want this to be the case. I do not want to be angry, but I can understand the reason for it.

I don't believe in anger. I don't think it is a productive emotion. It's fair enough sometimes, and should be expressed - but it shouldn't be held on to. I'm no different from anyone else. I get angry too, sometimes fiercely so. For me mostly it is like a flash of gunpowder. It goes off in a blaze but is quickly exhausted. I have never been one to hold a grudge.

I don't bear a grudge now, and in fact do not feel an 'active' anger. If I were to characterise what I feel - and remember this is rarely at a conscious level - it is a strong sense of being wronged, and being denied the voice to either explain or express my feelings.

I can blame others for this state of affairs, and to a point I would be justified in that. I was treated poorly, and without explanation. Almost deliberately I was never given the opportunity to speak my mind. I have no control over other people though. I can wish and hope all I like, but ultimately I have to deal with the actions of the others - as I have dealt with this.

My method of dealing with this has been very typical. Someone said to me the other day that I intellectualise things too much. And that I carry too much of the burden for others. I recognise the truth of these things, but it has always been my way. I bring sense to chaos by ordering it my mind and by impartially reviewing it. And I always take on the greater share of the burden because I figure I am better able to manage it. I am fair to a fault.

This generally leads to two things: forgiveness, and a general philosophy of stoicism. As I have written, I cannot control others - but I can myself.

In this case I have done exactly that. I have turned the other cheek believing I had little choice, and thinking it was the right thing to do. I don't dispute that now, except to make the obvious point that no amount of intellectual rationalisation can repair an emotional wound. I can explain it, I can give reasons why I should endure it, I can pontificate on the superior man it makes me, but the wound remains. You cannot stop the bleeding by words alone.

This is where I am today. I am forgiving. I am ever ready to accept bygones can be bygones. But despite all my fine words and intentions there is a part of me that bleeds still, and burns. This is the part of me that looks to reclaim something from the wreck as if it can be salvaged. That is the big hope, though unlikely. In the meantime a part of me burns still and wants to know why, why, and longs to be heard.

A stone in my shoe

It's quite common these days to read of someone referring to their partner and to discover their partner is of the same sex: a gay couple. I doubt there are any more gays now than there have ever been, but they have never been more visible or openly accepted than now. This is a great advance upon the dark days of the not so recent past when bigotry of all descriptions was rife. It is a testament to our open society that so many gays now feel safe coming out of the closet.

I believe in all of this at both a theoretical level and deep in my heart. We are a stronger society by accepting all the diverse creeds, religions, inclinations. The mix of 'cultures' makes for a more interesting and vibrant society. The world would be a much more peaceful place now if this were more commonly believed.

Despite this I always feel a touch of discomfort whenever I discover the writer I am reading is gay. The head and heart may be aligned, but the gut still betrays some doubt.

I remember reading sometime back that there is a surprisingly large percentage of men who have had a homosexual experience of some sort in their life. That's not to say they are gay, and in fact many of the experiences could be described as speculative at best and often insignificant. Regardless of that, I appear to be one of the shrinking majority of men who have never crossed that line in any form. I remain vigorously heterosexual.

I've had gay and bi-sexual friends, and have thought little of it. As far as I'm concerned what people do in their own bedroom is their own business, and I'm a supporter of gay marriage. I'm happy to stand up for their rights because I believe in justice for all.

It surprises me then when I feel this discomfort, but I don't think it is sexual prudery, or even disapproval. I think it is a kind of disappointment, not at their choice, but rather because there is an immediate disconnection. Reading good writers I want to empathise with them, I want to stand in their shoes and see what they see. In large part that is possible when reading a gay writer, but in a big way it isn't because the shoe pinches in critical areas.

I could liken it to reading a conservative writer I am at odds with right from the get-go - but then I am likely to continue reading just to get a different perspective. But what about women writers? I'm not a woman after all, but I manage to read them without issue most of the time. Well yes, good point.

There are explanations though I think. The conservative is different from me: I read him for that reason. The woman is in many ways just like me, just of a different gender. The gay man is between those poles. Unless he is writing of gay issues I am not reading him because he is gay. He is not 'different' in the same way as the conservative writer is. But nor is he the 'same' as the woman writer. He is not different enough to be different, nor the same enough to be same.

I don't know if I am explaining this well, and I don't know if I am displaying a blind spot. Perhaps in the end it is simply incomprehension. I can understand love and sexual desire as basic and essential elements of life. Much as I am tolerant of homosexuality there is much I simply cannot understand. I have never felt desire for another man, and so in reading trip over that small thing because I cannot comprehend, much less empathise. It is as if in reading my perspective is subtly but abruptly shifted from someone sharing to someone observing. It is small, like a stone in your shoe, but it is there.

A night in the life

So by last mood I was in a rotten mood. Impatient, frustrated, I might have kicked to dog if I didn't like him so much. To add to it all I had to go out. All I wanted to do was flake on the couch and watch the footy and generally feel sorry for myself - instead I had to get myself dressed up and meet with people I didn't know and hardly cared about.

It was at about 7 that I roused myself into the necessary preparations. I pull on a pair of jeans and searched through the wardrobe for the right shirt. What's the weather like? Cool. I throw on a shirt and combine it with a v-neck jumper which makes me look like a kind of alternative preppy sort of guy - but no, that's the wrong look. Instead I grab a jacket and what the fuck, that'll do. I put the dog out with a bone to appease him, pick up my keys and go to turn the TV off. For a moment I pause. When Harry Met Sally is on. That used to be a favourite movie. And it has memories for me. I watch for a minute or two as Billy Crystal goes through his peprikash spiel and I know it all. Great, I think, I'm going out to meet one woman across town while I'm thinking of another. Shoot, what's new?

For some reason the first song I hear on the car radio aggravates me. There's no rhyme or reason to it. It's not a bad song - LA Woman by the Doors. I speed up listening to it: it's a symptom, not a cause. As I drive I find some comfort in the act. By now I am in a very alpha male mood. I drive fast, feeling the corners as the tyres grip, feel the rubber on the road ripple through me. I drive with precision, alert and quick off the mark, the steering wheel in my fingertips. The car feels an extension of my ego.

I travel across town to St Kilda. I park and then wander down to Acland Street. I am early and so pop into the Readings store, brightly lit in the darkening night. Pausing by the front display I see a book about stealing horses and suddenly I remember an old love and how she told he how she was looking for someone she could 'steal horses with'. I pass on. As I pick up books and browse through the shelves I glance around me. Most of the clientele are women, the sort of women I would go for if they were pretty. Then it's time to move on.

By now I am in a pretty ruthless, blunt frame of mind. I am looking ahead, to the night before me, plotting the finale. I'll get her alone, I am thinking, I'll stir her up, and then I suggest we adjourn somewhere else for afters...

It doesn't work out that way. I am met and taken upstairs. It's a 21st birthday party and I know no-one but the woman who invited me. She looks good. She introduces me to all the olds - the parents of the birthday boy, their friends, his grandparents. I realise I am one of the olds. Fuck me dead. I swap small talk and glance around at the room filling with the birthday boys much younger friends. In ways they seem much more familiar, though much shorter somehow. Have I really become that old? I thought back to my own 21st birthday party and seems not so long ago. Christ, so much has happened since...

I talk to a few, young and old, and complete the mandatory flirtation with the pretty barmaid. I realise I like most of these people, though I feel different - less settled, which is fair enough, perhaps harder edged. I realise I look upon this younger generation differently to what the others do. There are parts of me that have never grown up; and much of my lifestyle is interchangeable with any of these kids. Most pertinently I do not have the buffer of my own children to remind me of my age and generation. In truth I feel largely unchanged from when I was their age.

By now I have accepted that I'm not going to follow through on my lofty plans, not tonight anyway. I settle back to enjoy myself. My enjoyment is mitigated by the awful band next door doing reggae versions of Marvin Gaye and Lionel Ritchie for God's sake, played way loud - maybe I'm older than I think. I find myself settling into a groove. Since working from home I have been absent from society - back in it again I find my place again. People ask what I do and I respond smilingly with the prepared answer, I'm an entrepeneur.The words flow from me easily as if it is all downhill, and I find myself in my words and relative to these people as if they are stars I navigate by.

Towards the end of the night after the speeches have been made and the cake cut I look at the birthday boy and wonder what advice I would give him. He seems a good kid. He's slight and wearing a tracksuit top I wouldn't in a million years. There is a hat on his head and a ready, playful smile on his lips. His hair is shaved to a stubble but for a patch of longer hair he has tied into a pony tail. He is friendly, welcoming, teasing. I watch as his mum wraps wedges of cheesecake in paper napkins. She is deft and unthinking at it as if she has a lifetime of practice. Probably so, in any case there seems something wonderfully maternal and ritualised in the simple act. It's been pleasant to view as an outsider these simple and loving connections: they're what make the world go round. But what advice would I give?

For a while I am stumped. No doubt there is much I could say, but forced to distill it into a few words of wisdom I come up empty. My own frustration and impatience earlier come to mind. There are few things more difficult than knowing you are powerless to alter the way of things. It is a choice though, I realise, to either swim with the tide or against it. It is a choice made for you I think, something deep inside like blood that dictates a lifetime of choices. From that I know then: have no regrets. If in doubt, go for it - if you crash and burn then so be it. At the very least, be true to your self.

I part soon after and climb in my car for the trip home. The roads are surprisingly busy. This time it's the Who playing on the radio. Stopped in traffic I watch as a girl crosses the road in front of me. She reminds me of a girl I used to know I had forgotten. How many have I forgotten? I wonder as I push ahead again. Many, I think, but I am feeling mellow with it now, I have lived.

Not long after I am stopped at lights in South Yarra. I exchange glances with the guy in the car next to me, edging his card forward poised for the lights to change. I feel the familiar urge. I smile to myself, mentally shrugging my shoulders: what can you do? Even though I am in the left lane I burn him off as the lights change. He never stood a chance.

The C word

I watched an interview last night with the Jewish-American comedienne Sarah Silverman. During the interview she dropped the C word - cunt. Now Sarah Silverman is a controversial comedienne, and could be accused at times of being gratuitously provocative. That's a big part of her schtick. Last night the audience reacted with a predictable gasp and then with good humour. And in truth it was not so bad. She was speaking on self-styled divas and how they excuse their rude and insensitive behaviour because of their status. She suggested humourously - and perhaps accurately - that they could be better described as you know what. Perhaps the choice of word was extreme, but it was in context - and meant to be extreme.

A few weeks ago I watched an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm on DVD. In this episode Larry David and his wife were playing poker with a bunch of acquaintances, couples all. Larry David is an eccentric, misanthropic sort of character, always getting himself into sticky situations (he was one of the creators of Seinfeld, and George was based on him). In the wash-up of one the hands Larry accuses one of the other players of folding weakly, and calls him a cunt.

The word has an immediate effect. The table stills and all eyes turn to him. He is told he has crossed the line and made unwelcome. In his typical way he blusters humourously and tries to explain: they won't have a bar of it. Leaving he mutters that perhaps he should have called the guy a pussy instead. And to his wife explains he calls men pricks all the time without any problems - why is this any different?

By issuing this word he is branded as a certain type of person. He is a man of low character and capable of anything. Before long he is being accused of all sorts of transgressions, including beating his wife.

Now this is a comedy show, and a very funny one, but there was something in this whole episode that reminded me of the Albert Camus classic, The Outsider (L'Etranger). That may seem an unlikely connection, but if you recall in the novel the protagonist Meursault is virtually convicted of murder (in self defence) because he didn't cry at his mother's funeral. This was was held to be proof of him being a cold blooded and dangerous misanthrope. His true crime is not the death he caused; it is in not conforming to societies conventions.

The C word is bound by similar conventions. I have used it a few times myself, usually for impact, but I know its general use is a no-no. Thinking about it objectively I wonder why that is the case.

We all know what it means. For both men and women there is a great variety of slang for genitals. They may not be all socially acceptable, but none evoke the outrage the word 'cunt' does. It is particularly offensive to women. Why is this so?

The word in its general usage is intended to be offensive. It is only occasionally used in its literal context - that of female genitalia. It is intended to be extreme - it is indicative of only the greatest anger or disgust or disdain (strangely self-fulfilling - the more people find it to be offensive, the more it will be used). It is not a light-hearted insult.

I suspect many women take it personally because it is their body part. There are male equivalents - dick, cocksucker, etc, but none are as offensive - certainly not to men. I would guess that women are offended by the word not for what it describes but in how it is used. And because it is used in that way it is associated with the female body part it describes. It is a term used in anger that also describes female genitalia, ergo it expresses anger against women. It becomes a term of oppression.

Hell, I could be completely wrong. For me, while being aware of the obscenity, I have never been terribly offended by it. I've been called a cunt a few times, but in general it's water off a ducks back - but then I'm not a woman.

PS Just as a matter of interest, I find Sarah Silverman sexy - and not just because she has a potty mouth. She has a great rack too ;)

The great beast

Drove up to Daylesford on Saturday morning. It was a lovely sunny and warm day, a throwback to the fierce summer we have just left. On the way up drove through areas where the bushfires had ranged through a month ago, when the whole area was under threat.

I have visited bushfire ravaged landscapes before, and they have never ceased to fascinate me. Quite aside from the piecemeal devastation, it is the quirks of the fires that lead me on. Though I look upon these things with the fires long gone, and danger passed, it is possible to look upon the burnt landscape and trace the development of the flames.

Whole swathes of trees are burnt, while patches next to and in between seem untouched. Grasslands are scorched black, the grass a crisp stubble on the blackened earth. The eyes travel, to where the flames spread - and then stopped. In their path a farmhouse pretty in its garden surrounds, untouched as so many others were not. Looking at it you cast your mind back to those dire days. You imagine that these home-owners stayed put to fight the fires, you imagine the dread they felt as they faced the flames approaching over the hills and through the forest and to their door. You imagine the sight, flames licking at all that can burn, the smoke thick and choking, and the heat burning on the skin. Here though they prevailed, here they fought the flames back, or else the flames turned of their own accord.

From all I have seen and all I have heard the fires are caprice itself. They leap and turn. They go this way, and the they turn that. Some benefit from this caprice, and others not.

In the fires passage are left great sights and vivid colours. In places it is as if the flames have burnt the flesh from the trees, revealing the twisted, coloured entrails within. The sap boils, it flows and sizzles in the extreme heat, and stains the exposed wood. More often the trees are blackened all the way up, and their leaves turned the rusty colour of late Autumn, dried by the heat of the fire. It is strange and strangely beautiful, whole stands of these trees like in a postcard from a more peaceful place. These are eucalypts though. They are perennials whose leaves do not shed. The coloured leaves are a novelty not normally seen in nature.

Amongst all this there is the occasional stump of a tree, but it is surprising how much that is damaged still remains. It strikes you how nature is so resilient. Then you remember that this has been the way for thousands of years, this is the cycle, this is nature. It happens for a reason this, undergrowth is burnt off, the soil is oxygenated by the fire, regeneration begins. It is only us humans that get in its way that spoil the process.

As we drove through the region mile after mile I remembered what a vast country this is. How could you possibly believe that all this could be burned? There is too much. Yet the truth is that vast regions were burned. Towns disappeared. Look at the photo's and you view scenes that are surreal and often beautiful in the same strange way.

On Sunday we drove north to Castlemaine. I was in a quiet Sunday morning mood. I looked out the window at the passing scenery. The fires had not come this way. It was dry, but then I thought there is never much difference to this. Ours is not a green country, it is the colour of sand even inland, far from the sea, and red of the deserts and the rocks, and blue, of sky and sea. It is a rugged place that any who belong to it can't fail to feel some kinship. It seemed to me as I mused upon the passing scenery as if I looked up the tough hide of a great beast, the hills and rolling valleys the folds and joints of the animal at rest, and the rugged rocks protruding from it like knobs of bone pressing against the skin. 

Ready to fly

The footy starts properly this week. All the gasbagging and pontification, the phony pre-season games are over, replaced with the real thing. From year to year I approach the first round of footy with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Some years it takes longer to warmed up and into it. Not this year, I'm set to go.

In preparation for the footy season I watched a program all about the game the other night. The Essence of the Game focussed on a number of clubs from the highest level to the local juniors over the course of last season. It was beautifully photographed and put together. As the title suggests, it captured the quintessential nature of the game. All competitive sports have common aspects regardless of code, and that's most true in team sports. Every sport likes to think they are unique, and in their own way every sport is. Aussie rules is just more unique than most.

Watching the program unfold I was stirred and moved and motivated at different times. At times I felt my heart strings plucked, not by sentiment, but in the recognition of common truths that contribute to the culture and mythology of our game. I'm sure every follower who watched the program felt similar things at different times. Right from the grass roots it is something we share and can aspire to, whether we ever make it to the top or not.

At the broader level it is about community. We supporters each have our team we follow through thick and thin. They represent us in our hopes and aspirations; they are the colours we believe in and the values we hold to be true. Our team stands for something, and so to do we.

Though the ultimate are those teams that fight it out in the AFL competition, it starts much smaller than that, which is what this program ably portrayed. It starts simply. A kid has a ball in his hands. He bounces it, he kicks it. He baulks imaginary opponents, he blind turns the tree and lines up - while he is commentating - for the winning goal in his imaginary backyard competition. There is a scene very similar to that in the program. It was something I did as a kid hundreds of times, the hero of my own imagination, rain, hail or shine.

How well I remember all that. Games of kick to kick, raking drop punts going from one end of the oval to the other in a crowded lunch hour, fighting to win the ball in the mass of kids, leaping for a speckie (or a doing a Jezza as we sometimes said then). Then there is school footy, and local footy, hard fought battles of will and pride. That sense that you belong to something bigger, a team working towards a goal pitted against a team with the opposite goal. You run and hit, you stop with your hands on your knees gutted until the ball comes again and you rouse yourself for another effort. You don't want to let your mates down; and like those years practising in the back-yard, you dream of being the hero that will kick the winning goal or make the saving tackle. It can happen.

Like no other sport I think Aussie rules makes demands on you. It tests your endurance, both physical - and there is no other sport that tests as hard - and mental. Throughout your formative years you are drilled to go hard at the ball, to put your head over the ball and to persist. You daren't fail this test because you fail your mates. And so you learn, and it is a skill that transcends the football field. It forms character.

Watching this program what resonated most strongly with me were the little things which stirred up little memories. The constant talk on the field, calling to encourage, calling to receive, and calling to warn "you're hot". I remember sitting in changing rooms after a training session and listening as next weeks team is read out, ears pricked for my own name to be called out.

I guess most sports are about hopes and dreams, and I guess in the context of this program that was what was highlighted most for me. The kid enthusiastically chasing the ball around who might one day become a champion. The champion taking on new challenges and dreaming of team success, the premierships. And in between, the battlers at their local club playing for a certain kind of pride and fellowship, never giving up, forever striving, for the same glory as everyone else. It's a beautiful game.

As a sidenote,I saw the new AFL add during one of the breaks. It's pretty good:

Boobs galore

I was watching the cricket last night, sitting on the couch with the laptop in my lap when at about 11 I got an IM: "do you want to see some boobs?"

There's only one real answer to that, but I paused to ask, "whose boobs?"

All our boobs was the prompt and impressive response.

A collection of boobs? A mammary of glands? Go for it, I told her.

After a moment the webcam clicked on and I was suddenly treated to the sight of half a dozen woman across town somewhere in a dark beer garden hoisting up their tops to reveal all manner of attractive breasts. I thought I recognised one or two.

Afterwards I was asked for some feedback. All good, I told them, very impressed.

And that was that. Another true event in the life of Hieronymous the Anonymous.

Smith street rambles

Went out for dinner with Fong last night, a sort of belated birthday catch-up. We planned to go to Gigi-Baba, the hot new Turkish joint in Smith street. I was a little early and wandered in looking for a table. They don't don't take bookings, and told me it would be about an hours wait. They took my number and I left.

For a few minutes I wandered up and down Smith Street. It is quite familiar territory, but it had been months since I had been there. It was early evening and light still, the weather mild. As I walked by the places I remembered I recalled the last time I had been there - about October I think - and the different state of mind I was in then. I don't know if there has actually been a lot of water under the bridge since, but it feels as if there has been.

I was still homeless at that point, and looking for every opportunity to get out. Everything I did then was invested in alternative meanings. I remember browsing in a second hand book store chock full of good stuff. I picked up Hughes Shock of the New and considering buying it. I browsed the stacks, chatted to the proprietor. All the while there is a part of me me feeling leaden. As I flip through the books I feel it but refuse to acknowledge it. Outside in the street as I chat with a smile on my face it is there still. I am lost and wondering where things are heading. Most of all I wonder what to do about you know who, and how it will end up. It was a time when it still seemed possible to make things right, I just needed to find the right key to the lock.

I bought a cider from one of the bars on the street and sat outside. Behind me a couple were having a strident conversation about how they treat other people. Each was trying to outdo the other in tolerance, but undid some of that good work by dipping into the relative merits of Asians and Europeans. A few moments earlier I had stood at the lights waiting for them to change. Behind me was an odd looking couple, a scrawny, shopworn woman pushing a pram, and her companion, a short, rotund man in his fifties, his arms covered in tatts and dressed like a shater boy. Very incongruous. She was saying "some people are just born stupid."

Gigi-Baba was good. I smuggled in the half finished stubby of beer I had been drinking across the road, is that ok? It's a good beer they said, too good to waste, and so let me finish it. We sat at the corner of the bar in a conventional bar set-up - bar along one wall, small eating area in front of it. Looking around I noticed most of the patrons were females, friends catching up for a trendy meal.

We ordered a selection of dishes, which is the go there. Think tapas, except Turkish, though not much like the food I had when I was over there. My abiding memory of Turkish cuisine is kebabs of every ilk, lot's of bread, raki, Turkish coffee and apple tea. It's a big meat eating place, which I enjoyed until I grew weary of it.

We had quail and deep fried mushrooms, twice cooked chicken, cauliflower moussaka, lamb, and several other things I can't remember now. It was all very good, though I came home hungry.

It was an enjoyable night, and nice to get out midweek. It felt like old times in some way. I'm off to Daylesford and Hepburn Springs over the weekend, so I'm keeping busy.

Cracking the nut

Today I am wearing my pale blue t-shirt inscribed with I love my pussy across the front, with an image of a sitting cat. It could use an iron, and I'll have to change it if and when I go out. It's clear outside, and after a few days of cooler weather it will be warm again.

I'm aware of having dreamt throughout the night. The dreams themselves have largely faded from me now after being clear upon waking up. I know the dreams in themselves appeared to have little relevance to my life as it is today, but they have had the unusual effect of clearing my mind of much that was cluttering it. Today things are much more straight-forward than in days past.

I sent an email to Paige the other day. For the last week or so I have felt unsettled. Much is happening lately, and a lot which remains uncertain looking forward. I've dealt with that day by day, but it has not been entirely satisfactory. Most mornings through this period I've woken with a sense of loss, or perhaps more accurately, the sense of something missing. I nibbled at the edges of this not knowing exactly what it was but feeling as if it was something to do with Paige.

On Monday I woke knowing what it was. I miss having someone to talk to as I used to with her. I have friends I share a lot with, and many of whom who would love me to open up to them completely. It's not as easy as that though. It's just not in me to be that way, no matter how beneficial I know it to be. It's something I've tried to change over the years, and I am much improved on what I was. Still it does not come naturally to me.

For some reason it was different with Paige. Looking back I can't help but think she sneaked under my guard. While my attention was elsewhere she closed with me; when I finally looked there she was by my side. I think she saw something in me she could relate to very strongly. For a woman who could be seen as hard to know she showed a lot of intent in getting close to me. For a long time I was distracted by other things. I was happy to find her there but thought little of it until much later. It was only too late that I understood what she had understood from the first: that we fit.

Our relationship had the same surreptitious quality to it. Looking back it seems we did everything together, and even then I had some idea that there was something more happening that I never bothered to follow-up. I was arrogant, freely admitted. Much of what we did was completely casual, but that was the charm of it. We were always there, both of us. Throughout the day we might chat on the phone 2-3 times, we'd chat online a similar number, or have one chat that went intermittently the whole day long. We would lunch more days than not, and catch up for an impromptu coffee out. She would visit me a couple of times daily, while I would occasionally pop in to see her. We caught the train together to and from work. Occasionally we would delay the trip home - I would tag along while she went shopping, showing this thing and that for my approval. We might have a glass of wine on those nights in one of the dinky little bars around town, and sometimes even decided on dinner. Friday nights without exception we spent together, either in a crowd or alone. Regardless, we were a pair.

Throughout all this we would each share whatever was happening in our lives. Over countless meals she told me much more of herself than I ever revealed to her, but I found myself opening up. If anything of note happened throughout the day the first person we'd speak to was the other - meet you downstairs for coffee. In this way every little bit of our lives was put on the table for the other to dissect and comment on.

One day I was feeling pretty blue. I remember Paige asking if I wanted to catch up for lunch, a pretty standard request. On this day I told her that I was bad company, might be better if we give it a miss. Let's go anyway, she said, and secretly glad I went along with her.

It was mid-winter, we went to a little restaurant in Flinders Lane called Journal. We sat by the window and ordered lunch, and while she looked at me I began to talk. What I said doesn't matter now, what matters is that I opened up completely. Me, the strong, cocksure man who always had an answer for everything revealed my vulnerable underbelly. I talked and talked, encouraged by her keen attention and occasional prompts. She was a good, sensitive listener, as if she understood everything and was more than sympathetic. She cared.

Back in the office I felt obliged to send a jokey message to her thanking her for listening to my grizzling. She replied immediately with a lovely email: Anytime H.... and I do mean that... anytime you want to talk, vent, chat, laugh whatever just give me a call or whatever.... it’s my pleasure.

I appreciated her response right away, but the significance of it only struck me much later.

About a week after this exchange it all ended abruptly, as I have described elsewhere. Only then did I truly realise that I had lost someone near and dear to me. And it was only a month or two later that I understood the full extent of what I lost. For years I had tried to be more open, to expose myself more fully to those closest to me. Somehow I had managed that with Paige. Not only had I found that person I could relate to without a second thought, I had briefly become the man I had aspired to be. Then it was taken from me. I had glimpse and then whoosh, gone.

It is the lack of this connection that has ached within me these last couple of weeks. I have needed an outlet from all that is going on, but there has been nothing for me. On Monday I connected the dots: I wanted what I had shared with Paige, right down to the casual intimacies exchanged throughout the day. That's what I needed, but it's what I didn't have.

It's important to note that while trust is essential for this, it is not enough by itself. You form a different relationship with every person you know. They each see a subtly different face. With few do you become more intimately connected, and fewer yet - for me anyway - do you actually feel able to expose yourself to. In the end it's something to do with chemistry I think, it is the combination of personal chemistry that forms that intimate bond, or not.

This sat in me for 24 hours. I felt helpless. I knew, but could do nothing. I had lost that thing. On Tuesday I sat down and began to write an email. I'll often do that for therapeutic reasons, writing all that I feel with never any intention of sending. On Tuesday I set out like that but within a few lines knew that I would send this.

I wrote a long email. I explained some of what has happened lately, and something of the process I have been going through. I touched on our parting, how bewildering it was, and then I wrote a few lines on the bitterness that later came between us. I didn't dwell on this, but I explained my side of it. I also admitted sorrow that I had not sought to understood how she felt or what she thought. It was all about me. Then I went on to write much as I have above, and to recap something of my feelings for her:

I liked you Paige, I trusted and respected you, and I cared for you. You were my friend, my confidante, my drinking buddy and my shoulder to cry on. I thought that was the end of the story and would forever be. That's something I something I should have protected, but from ignorance failed to.

I concluded by saying I would love to have some part of that again: I want us to be friends.

I don't expect a response from her. It would be nice to claim back something of what we so mysteriously and abruptly lost - I still don't understand. I don't expect it though. It was good to put it out there though. It was good to represent myself to her. She can go on thinking whatever she likes of me, but this is the truth in black and white, take it or leave it, but there it is. I've made my voice heard.

In the same way I had to tell her what I feel. It's no good hiding your feelings under a rock. It is crippling to have things inside that remain forever unspoken. Let them out, give them wings and send them out into the world.

I feel better now having done this. And though I expect nothing from her, I have the feeling that these words might be good for Paige too.