AAYL The week that was not of worth.

Here's a week's worth  - or two weeks, maybe - of the imaginary madness that is the AAYL. An interesting perspective of the role of the diary? Only you can be the judge. One of these entries refers to the sleeping pills. Two of these pieces are about parties, because that was what we did back all the way then.


Please note: all of this writing is 2003. 


Please, please note: this isn't the entire diary over these specific days; just the interesting entries from my viewpoint. 


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Friday 17th of October

So it's a couple of months back. And I'm at a party, right? I'm with a group, at this house in Northbridge, sitting out back. There's a really deep backyard that hasn’t been gardened in a long time. The plots are filled with weeds, the grass is shoulder high and there's a big shaggy tree blocking most of the view. That doesn't really matter though because it's nighttime, I'm just telling you all this to create some ambience. The group is sitting on some bricks, around this green table made of wood. Somebody has spilt beer on the table and it's dripped down a hole in the middle, leaving a gooey puddle on the concrete floor. I'm sitting on an old, uncomfortable wooden bench. The bench is so awkwardly matched to the contours of my bottom that it feels like my hips are pointing into the space above the group's heads, shooting their eyeballs out in a salubrious manner. The group is listening to some girl talk and talk. I don't really remember what this talking is about. Maybe she was speaking just to hear the sound of her own voice. I hear that's relaxing for some. So she's talking, people are nodding, I'm pointing my hips at the moon, and then the girl says something about time. Ever since somebody, I don't know who, I'm not listening, told her about it, she's always noticed the time 3.33 on her clock. She notes it every day, in the late hours of the night. The group sparks up at this time and starts agreeing with her. Then the group starts to share the times that they notice reoccurring at a daily rate. This is my cue, I reposition my hips, aim for the foreheads and speak: "Well, I've found my life tends to be organised in half hour intervals. No matter how hard I try, everything I do seems to fit into thirty minute blocks. When I listen to music the records either run for half an hour or an hour (two thirties). When I drive to university I either have to leave half an hour, or an hour, before my class starts. Even when something doesn't fit into the thirty minutes, I find I'm waiting to fill in the remaining time before I can start something new." Stunned silence. Nobody nods their head to agree. No one offers up the time block that they work in. One girl, a different girl, thinks my idea is odd. The group continues on a new topic of conversation, I go back to quiet and point my hips at the night sky.

Monday 20th of October

The other day I found a packet of sleeping tablets in my bedside draw. Being the wild person I am, on a whim I decided to read the ingredients on the side of the package. It was the usual information: mepyramine maleate this, lactose that. I flipped over the package and had a look at the instructions for use. Again, nothing earth shattering. Don't take more than this, don't operate heavy machinery when doing that, these tablets are for relief of the minor symptoms of insomnia, if said symptoms persist then seek your inner nervous breakdown immediately. And then I noticed some information in the instructions that raised the proverbial eyebrow, so to squeak. There's a warning alerting the user to the fact that this medication may cause drowsiness! These sleeping tablets might cause you to fall asleep - my god, what an unfortunate side effect! State the obvious to me some more; I love it when you talk dirty.

Monday 27th of October

my left thigh aches, or is it my left groin? i think i have over-done it doing whatever it is i do i have lost all balance in mind shaking the glass in front of my nose produces a very interesting visual effect that negates all peripheral vision and sense of self-worth damn this ache it leads into the core of my hips and hangs like a raw wire in the air like a raw nerve bracing against an impact of broken glass and hard brick walls steadied with syringes essence is indebted to the process by which it stores itself indefinitely in shelves and places of hiding i will scratch my cracked nails against my skin rake the forearm good more scars i can deal with focus i can not deal with my sweaty palms letting aces and jokers slip out of the pack and fall amongst tears and crushing divides in the gaps of interstices relating to golden networks i think there is a terrible tumour eating away behind my forehead and supplying me with faint fleeting liminal white traces of lights whenever i shut my eyes in capitulation to pain pressing against the back of my eyelids and golden calves left dead and red flowing on backdrops of sun-kissed brown grass wavering in the heat of certainty this is my sacrifice this is my war waged against the world

Sunday 2nd of November

And with my right foot falling asleep I've been given my cue to start the typing. Set that bar and people will fight to be the first to stand up to the mark and go under. No matter how degrading the situation you'll always find a group who will line up to be part of it. And once you've filtered out those who can't go under, lower the bar and the winners will come back for the next attempt. It won't even occur to them that there's something else out there. Just keep the dumb sods distracted with sliding scales, and a greater demeaning challenge, and possibly up the ante on garish visual candy if everything else fails to control, and they'll suck it up. And what is this something else? Well it's a road outside the house you're at. It’s a desolate major highway at six in the morning. The sun is breaking over the treetops, you can almost see the gradient between black and shimmering aqua as the night turns into day. You're coming down off the drug you were on during the night; the final waves of anxiety are washing away from your stomach, the bright lights have packed up and gone home. There's a crisp stillness in the air, you're absolutely certain that the rest of the world hasn't woken up yet. The party is in its death throes behind you, behind the front door of the house. There's still time for you to go back inside, still time for you learn how to lose control. And when they're done with limbo the group breaks up and everyone drifts away on their own little spiraling paths, much like bees or ants, towards the next new challenge.