Dear Diary

Welcome to Rebecca Louise's Virtual Memories. Please feel free to visit as often as possible and I'll try to keep you up to date not only on my stories, but also on Plays and performances that I'm involved with...

January 17th, 2005
I’m at the peel,
and a boy comes up to me and he says : “You’re so beautiful” we smile at each other for a while and then he asks me : “Are you a lesbian?” His voice is a camp drool, and his eyes are trying to focus on me. He holds onto me, and I can feel the speed shaking his bones around. I say I like both. He tells me: “Don’t waste yourself on a woman, you need a man”
He tells me he works at a brothel. He tells me he’s looking for love. “I love this song” We’re on the dance floor. He holds onto me, spins me around. Tells me he loves me. I give him my phone number. We should get together I say. I just want to hold him. He tells me his parents don’t love him anymore.

I get a call on my mobile in the early hours of the morning. I recognize his voice. I ask him if it’s him. He giggles. On his home phone he calls McDonalds and asks for home delivery. I hear the whole conversation. Despite his incoherence, his screaming, gurgled words down the line, they persist with him politely. “No, we don’t do home delivery. Why don’t you call pizza hut?”

He calls the police, asks if they do home delivery. “I just need some food” he says to them. They repeat the same sentence: “We only look after emergencies”
“This is an emergency” he says.

He puts on Justin Timberlake. He is struggling to sing along. He can’t remember the words. “No, I need instrumental music” He decides. He puts some techno on.

He tries to sing along. It’s not working. He begins to cry. At first I think he is playing, because it’s a loud howl. Too dramatic to be real.

Then I hear him rest the phone down, he is on the other side of the room, yelling “ I don’t remember the words. I’m so stupid, I’m so stupid.”
When he finally gets back on the phone, I tell him:
“It’s an instrumental honey, there are no words.”

It’s been at least an hour. I say: “Honey, this is gong to cost you a fortune. I have to leave you.”
He does not respond. “Please look after yourself.”

I’m on wet grass. Drunk. Crying, and I don’t know why. I have to piss. I try to stay still, squatting. My legs give way. My friend hears me fall in my own piss. He turns around. I’m laughing in my own piss. I tell him: “I want to go out and dance”.

It’s a dark morning. In my friend’s spare room. I can’t sleep. I can’t think. There is nothing I can liken this feeling to. I have a joint to help me sleep. It makes me more paranoid then I’ve ever been in my whole life. There is a figurine of Yoda, on the window seal. Half covered by the curtain that’s not quite heavy enough. He fills my mind. I imagine him, pushing the curtain with his little rubbery hand to reveal himself. I know how ridiculous this thought is, but I cannot find a grain of humour in it. I am petrified. I go through a process of separating my mind, between “healthy” and “unhealthy” thoughts, and realise that I could very likely become insane. I decide against it, and with every part of my being, try and drag myself out. I listen to the Fleetwood Mac album: “Rumours” and decide this the best album I have ever heard. I cover Yoda completely with the curtain and try and sleep. I orgasm five times, whilst listening to the matrix soundtrack on a walkman. It only seems to wake me up. I decide the matrix soundtrack is almost as bad as the film. With the light on, I close my eyes and concentrate on breathing slowly. Sun light finally creeps into the room. And I am safe. The world is normal again. Sleep finds me. It comes like a secret and the only evidence it leaves is my feeling of waking, in the heat of a summer afternoon.

October 26th, 2004
I picture myself dying here.
They wouldn’t find me for weeks. My dead smell would fill the apartment block. They will ask each other about me. They will compare the brief experiences they had with me. The one with the cat they’ll say. Did you hear her music? No. I have to get out of here. The cat meows again and again. The heater so loud, hot air, my head is thirsty. I need air. Different kind of air. I have to get out of here. These walls are so thin. These places so small. My whole universe fits in here and it’s closing in on me. I can’t breath. Everything in here has my touch, my history. I have dreams of these little rooms filling with flames. Orange dancing, spreading a hole, wider and wider, all our history, all those silent nights burning away. I’m expanding, I’m growing looming, my face becomes the sky, I’m watching it all burn. This building this forgotten building burning, it’s people burning in their sleep, their dreams becoming flames, orange dreams, the final, long awaited relief, the hungry licking flames. All striving, all tears about what we were meant to be and what we have become, disappearing, swallowed by the orange.

So I walk. In the dark, I let myself indulge in the lit windows of all those houses. I imagine their people, sitting around fires, the flickering TV, the warmth, the muffled sound of peace. I long for them, their coloured windows, their plush cushions, their soft, sleepy weight. It’s all I can do. It’s all I can do to feel free for a moment.

If I write, I’ll be ok. For as long as I can see these demons, they can’t take me.

October 5th, 2004
Back on track for a day.
Don’t know how I got here. I can never remember how I get to a point of functioning. It’s great though. Like being on speed. Can’t believe people live here. Doesn’t take much to bring me back down though. A sound can bring me back in a second. Just a sound. And then the cat meowed. Times like this I thank myself for not being a junkie. I don’t frown on these people. You’d think that the people who do never had a bad day. Nina Simone called it the “indigo blues”.

A space like this makes you think. A space like this makes you go over every detail of last night. Over and over. Yet a space like this makes you forget what day it is and how does time go by like this? The walls are closing in. I dream of escape but I do not leave. Escape is not on the wet streets outside, or in the misty light of travellers. Escape is invisible and silent. If it has a place, it is far away. So I wait. In my warm dark haven, I grab onto myself, and wait.

October 3rd, 2004
Sunday afternoon. . .
The streets smell like vomited wine. It warms me, in this cold afternoon. Makes me feel at home.

All is silent, and then a voice comes over the speaker, announcing the trains arrival to an empty railway station.

September 22nd 2004
The sound of pencil on canvas
reminds me that I am being drawn. In the whole 2 hours that I sit, I do not wonder what they are thinking. I watch the spot between my breasts, move up and down with my breath. Each time I open my eyes, my skin looks colourless. For a moment, all I can think about is how much my leg wants to move. It begins an internal spasm, that only I can see. My thigh twitching. My foot’s heavy weight, resting on the floor. They make conversation about classical pianists. The teacher is eager to sound interested in what the artist is saying: “Dinner and then we went to the athenaeum theatre.” “Oh lovely, that’s lovely.”

It occurs to me, that this man is paying for a kind of friendship. The teacher, presents smiles and rushes around, his voice unnaturally higher, he’s trying so hard, to get money. He would much rather be in a room on his own, painting, either that or being praised for his work. I understand this, because it is my desire also. To be either alone or praised in some way. The artist, I decide, by nature, is selfish. You need to be intensely interested in yourself, to have the energy to reflect on your own observations. Other people’s ideas, fail to intrigue you, unless they are similar to your own, or offer a better version. So, conversations about the weather just do not cut it.

I rise, put on my clothes. As I leave, the teacher has a mild concern in his voice: “Will you be getting a lift?”
“No” I reply. “Just the train”
“Keep warm.” He says with a smile.
“Looks like the sun’s out now.”
“Not for long, we’re in Melbourne.”
Ah yes, Melbourne. The ever changing sky of Melbourne.
He’s right. It’s raining. The station seems further away than last time. I sit there and read my book, feeling a man’s eyes drilling into the side of my face.

September 1st, 2004
Journal
I see all these people together, at cafes, in shopping malls, lining up to see the impressionists (because everyone likes a painting of a French cottage) and I wonder how they find the energy.

I only ever care about strangers, enough to ask questions about their life and to answer that tedious, dreaded question -

"What do you do?"

- when I am sufficiently drunk. More often than not, my conversations with friends are laced with "I've heard this before" familiarity and I feel myself closing in.

April 3rd, 2004
Modern living
I cannot break this spell
Of grey carpet.
Fully contained unit with all appliances in full working order,
Fully furnished with all you need.
You can live in us for your whole life and never need anyone.
You don't even have to answer the door.
Everything you need is right here between my white walls,
Lock upon lock upon lock,
You will never need to fear the street outside.
When you hear their machines and voices, you will feel safe with the knowledge that you are inside me. I will protect you. Let it out, I have seen it all. Let all your demons spill out over me. My thin walls are ever absorbent. I contain decades of hope and loss. I feed on solitude. Feel its fear soak into my grey carpet. You fill the ceiling with your hot exhalation. It's growing worn and yellow from your smoke.

You have grown to hate me, like you people always do. You dream of leaving, but you never will. I hold all you were and all you will ever be. You can run away, but solitude will always find you. They will break you over and over and you will come back to me. Do not fear.
Time and time again, you fill me with new street air, containing the shifting breath of the road, the blinking lights, the smells of cheap Italian cuisine. You clean the dust out of my corners, spread dreamy material over old places.
Satisfied, you sigh out loud.
A new start.
My smile spreads thick like the dust that will find my corners soon enough.

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March 20th, 2004
Functional
I'm sorry. I'm dysfunctional. Yes, I know looks are deceiving. But I'm having fun. I know you don't care. If it's any consolation, it does get me down. Always on my birthday. I try and remember what they told me I should be. There was a lot of work involved. I remember my teachers always had a worn, resigned look about them. Of Course, I swore I would never be like them. They always revisit me. In different forms. these ugly teachers. people full of regret. So, each birthday they come, hungry for me. They talk about growing up. I feel like a failure, because I know I'm not how I should have been. Then I try my hardest to remember what it was I should have been. That part of my mind is blocked. Maybe I never even heard them.
Sometimes, I search my mind for those general facts that you learn about the world in primary school. I have forgotten most of them. But I remember those faces. To this day, I see them in my dreams.
They thought I may be deaf, either that, or I had "learning difficulties". The main reason for this, was because during story time, I would look out the window and around the room, instead of at the picture book the teacher was holding.

My parents were terrified. I met with a gentle young woman once a week, to assess me. I will never forget what she taught me.

She explained to me that things get harder. The more you progress, the harder things will be. I remember the frightening dread I felt in that moment. She must have seen it in my face, because she went on to explain that, it's ok, because once you learn something, you will have advanced. You will be ready for the harder thing.
It all made sense.

In our last session, we wrote a story together. I told it to her and she wrote it down. I chose Snow White. In my version, Snow White was strangled with bright coloured streamers that the Queens people spun around her whole body. I remember she was impressed when I described how Snow White "fell to the ground".

She told them that I wasn't stupid after all.

She didn't notice that I was ambidextrous.
Neither did I, until a time later, when we all had check ups with some external people. I sat in a small room with a woman who told me to read letters from a sign , and tap on the table when I heard beeps coming from either side of the ear phones I wore. All was well, until she told me to write. I must have been indecisive that day, because, she noticed me shifting from one hand to the other.
"Which hand do you write with?" She asked, obviously perplexed.
I'd never thought about it.
"I don't know" I told her.
She told me, that the way you chose, was to decide which one felt more comfortable.
I've been left handed ever since.

A guy in my building gave me a whole series of encyclopaedias. Said he didn't need them anymore. I haven't looked at them yet. Feels like a big step. Entering the world of general knowledge. I've never understood those people you see on those game shows who know a bit about everything. I've always felt choosy about what I want to know. Important knowledge seems to have a way of finding me anyway. I suppose that's arrogant, thinking you know enough to know what you need to know. But you can tell when people have accidentally stumbled upon knowledge they wish they didn't have. There are times when I can't take anymore information from this world, when it feels like pollution and I'm about to choke to death and I feel myself telling the universe: Enough! I don't care how many countries there are in the world. I have no desire to see who will win all that money on Survivor. There are too many decent films I haven't seen, and too many words people have written that may make me feel that there is nothing left for me to say. Too many amazing experiences that will shake my body and make me remember I am actually here right now. . . for me to care about how much sand is on this earth. Selfish? No, just selective. Enough.

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March 14th, 2004
If I stay, something in me will break. I have worked hard on people. I've worked hard on myself, so I can be around them, without feeling like my insides are being drawn out through my nostrils. There is no integrity in staying.
Only leaving, for trees and silence at 4am, the mysterious black. Just my mind tinkering away at it's own convenience. No demands, no people trying to suck from me, in their own form of subtlety.

I want to be a secret in a forest. I want the green to become a part of me. I want to attain the look of quietness. I need to cry for years.

It's a frightening feeling, when you realise that no one you know will be able to offer you any enlightenment. I see my friends repeat the same shit over and over. I'm horrified to think that they see me doing the same.
Some of them have turned into the grotesque, disgusting, insecure fools that I always knew they were deep down.
Some have let themselves settle and die.

I feel so tired.
Take me away.

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March 13th, 2004
I believe that when you're sleeping next to someone, your dreams merge.
So, understandably, I am choosy about who I sleep next to. Lately, well, for a long time, I have been dreaming of my crazy neighbour. I dream of his life. In these dreams he is likeable. He has a life - girlfriend, friends. In my dreams, we hang out. I like him, but I'm always frightened to like him, because, I remember that he is crazy.
Once I dreamed that the wall between us was quickly disintegrating. There was a hole in it, growing bigger. Sometimes I wonder if he has his bed pressed up against the same wall that my bed is pressed up against, and perhaps we are dreaming together. This thought, late at night, fills me with a feeling of suffocation and disappointment. Can I ever truly be alone with thoughts that spring from me?

June 8th, 2003
Well, I've spent all my money and it's 3 days till pay day. I've been here many times before, but this time feels extra harsh. Spent the last of it on a drunken night. Ended up at the 24 hour Pinball Parlour at the Casino. Wouldn't recomend it. It had alcohol though, and thanks to the kindness of strangers, I ended up blissfully lying across the pool table.