My world’s upside-down, and I like it that way.

Approaching midnight, and I’m sitting down to a main meal – it might be breakfast, although I’ve been awake for four hours now. And I had something resembling breakfast at ten this morning, although it was actually my last meal before I went to bed. Like I said, upside-down.

I’ve been out tonight!

The (oo-Fey, ighters-Fey, in an attempt to avoid all those google searches) played their last acoustic show in Sydney tonight, and I managed (long story) to get a ticket. I also managed to oversleep this evening, so I was 15 minutes late, but the night, the show, was inspiring.

I’m not a demonstrative person. I don’t wave my hands in the air (like Ms Point-at-herself who sat in front of me… what is that about?). I’m not inclined to jump up and dance in front of everyone. I like to lose myself in the show, the lights, the music. I try to imagine the show with just me in the audience. Of course, it’s nice to see the crowds appreciating what I’m appreciating, and I know the bands enjoy the hooting and banter with the crowd; it’s just not in me to be so outspoken. I’d rather watch the playing, the strum patterns, the chords, the exuberant enjoyment they all seem to get from playing on stage.

And where I might once have fantasised about sleeping with the lead singer (*gag* I know, but I can’t deny it), now I fantasise about jamming with him.

Travelling the world, playing music… I’m sure there are many downsides to the lifestyle, but I can understand why so many make it their dream.

Dreams. I dreamt this afternoon (upside-down world) that I was buying love-birds, and I wanted the nicest, biggest, most well appointed cage for them, but no matter how much I tried to convince myself otherwise, I could not help but see that it was still a cage, and it made me feel uncomfortable, like I shouldn’t have the birds, because they wouldn’t be safe from my cats without the cage, but they couldn’t truly be happy within it…

It’s going to be a strange night; I’ll be staying awake but don’t have anywhere to be. I’m not working until Friday night, but to sleep too soon will upset my sleep patterns yet again.

I like the idea of the city after everyone has gone to sleep. It changes character. Many people find it intimidating, fearful. I am told to be careful, that I might be mugged, or worse, because it is late. So why is it that I feel just as safe, if not moreso, in the quiet of the night? The thing to fear at night is the mob-mentality, loosened by alcohol, but they are the same people walking around during the day, and in greater numbers then, so is that why crowds unnerve me far more than empty streets?

I could be nocturnal, except for the need to be quiet. I respect my neighbours’ need for sleep. If only I lived far from people… a sound-proof house would be fantastic!

Thoughts about the show tonight:

1. It is DG’s band. Or, at least, he is the overwhelming spokesperson. Others may sing some songs, but he captains the ship.
2. He’s a funny bastard. (That’s a quote (roughly) from the SMH, but I reiterate it because it’s true!)
3. Is it time to confront your addiction if you can’t go two hours without a smoke/drink/text message/loo break? I pay $150 for a ticket, my arse is planted for the entire show!
4. DG is cool! Alright, that puts me in the same basket as all ceiling-pointing bogans (what can I say, I can’t deny my roots :P ) but, again, it’s true. He’s funny and he’s cool.
5. Is there something about me that means every time (oh so rarely) that I go to a show, I end up behind the only woman in the seated theatre who thinks standing, dancing, pointing to herself as though she’s the subject of every song (ooooh yeaaaaah, it’s allll about me, baby!!) is a reasonable thing to do? Or the two woman who stood in the aisle next to me and talked loudly throughout the last two songs – I don’t care if you have backstage passes… just fuck off outside to talk about how badly your boyfriend is treating you!!
So, what's the time limit that you can let these people behave inconsiderately before you lean forward and give them an electric jolt that renders them unconscious for the remainder of the show? Anyone know where I can get me one of those zappy jolting machines?? Or lessons on the Vulcan pinch that Mr Spock used so effectively???
6. Ahem
7. Just to prove how contrary I can be… how cool is it to be in the Opera House and hear the Concert Hall shaking with the stamping feet of bellowing fans beseeching an encore?
8. I confess I bought a FF songbook a few weeks ago – I can’t wait to get out the guitar and start murdering one of their songs.
9. What would it feel like to be backstage and hear the Concert Hall shaking with stamping feet, knowing that they wanted YOU!!

It sounds exciting, and I’m sure it is, but I think it would require an incredibly strong sense of self, a grounded-ness, to see it within the narrow confines of a show. The chipping away at privacy, the need to be pulled out of your private self/thoughts, and into the public self with every approach of a stranger who calls themselves a fan. You touch their lives in ways you can’t fathom, these people you don’t know, haven’t met, might not like, but to them there is a connection they have with you, and you need to recognise it, be grateful for it, because they are part of the stamping crowd.

The tug of war between selves would damage me. To rely on the consideration of others to respect your privacy. 98 per cent of people might do the right thing, but it only takes that two per cent to make y our life miserable.

I live in the world and touch noone. They are forced to live a more private, discrete, sheltered life, and yet they touch so many…

It’s one am. The coffee is strong. I won’t work tonight, and after this coffee, I’ll make my way home – perhaps to type this formless blathering up, resisting the urge to make senst of it, just to let it keep its rambling form. [Ed: successful!]

One am, in the dark of the night, in a 24-hour restaurant of dubious quality and excessive prices, surrounded by the straggling fans, the newly-dating couples putting off going home and facing the inevitable question… will I be having sex with you tonight, the over-dressed teenagers clinging to their adulthood before they return to their beds still made by their mothers. And lone people like me, sitting in a booth in the corner, scribbling like crazy, hoping the too-strong coffee will take the edge off the beers drunk over dinner/breakfast.

The night people wipe down the tables, tie up the ferries, sweep up the streets. They pick up the pieces of the almost grown up teenagers who don’t quite make it home tonight; a corner taken too fast, a gum tree too close. They clean the offices of the suits, those of the mob-mentality, all out celebrating their successful, profitable days. Bonuses, bourbon and the taste of victory, a mindset that doesn’t take no for an answer.

The night people; who drive us home, feed us, care for us when we’re vulnerable, clean up after us. Their world is upside-down, invisible. It’s a world I’ve barely touched, but it makes me feel at home.

Navel-gazing

A head full of good music, a full tummy of yummy risotto, and a couple of beers in the sun, watching the world go by… life is pretty good!

If I’m honest (and I try to be that, if nothing else), I check out the people as they pass by my street-side table. The women, the men, the couples.

I figure they have something I’m lacking, and I’m curious about what that is. I look at the couples and wonder what it is about them that attracted one to the other, and vice versa. I look at the men that attract me, and wonder what that initial thing is about them that makes me want to take a second glance. And I wonder what kind of man might find me attractive, and there I falter…

Unless you count the creepy cab driver I had on Thursday night, or the security guard at the local cd shop, whom I suspect has suffered a brain injury in his lifetime, both of whom are well into their 60s, well, noone else has shown the remotest interest in knowing anything more of me than dealing immediately, and decidedly, in whatever matter it was that caused us to cross paths.

I can’t say that I’m surprised, and I don’t blame people for not wanting to do a ‘double-take’ when they meet me. I am many things that would not count favourably in the attraction stakes.

The first thing noticeable when meeting me is that I’m fat. Not a little chubby. Not a slight tummy over my jeans causing ‘jelly belly’. I am heavily overweight. It sits over a muscular and relatively tall frame, so I’m not even a ‘cute’ fat. I am physically intimidating. It would take an All Black front-rower to not fear me in full flight.

Of course, it’s not just the weight. It would be unfair to put the blame on the world for not seeing some inner-beauty in me because of my thunderous thighs (although I sometimes wonder whether I hang on to the kilos because it makes me ‘safer’).

That leads into the second seemingly noticeable impression people have of me. I’m self-reliant. That sounds like a good thing, but if it gets to the stage where you simply don’t let anyone near you because you don’t want to take the risk of disappointment, well, that’s becoming an issue too. Compounded with a lard-arse, the odds are quickly stacking against me.

It’s not that I actively push people away; I simply don’t expect them to be interested. And maybe that explains the people I’ve chosen in my past as both friends and lovers. They’ve been people very comfortable in centre stage, very comfortable as the subject of interest, and it has allowed me to happily [?] sit in the position of audience, not having to worry about too much attention being paid to me. If any attention came my way, I could deftly redirect it back to my friend or lover.

I was accused, during the last gasps of my marriage, born witness to by a counsellor years too late, I was accused of being emotionally withdrawn. I laughed at the time because any time I’d tried to share my fears with him, to be vulnerable with him, he’d turned it into an accusation that I wasn’t trying hard enough and that I’d upset him to have to hear these things from me. So even from my husband I learnt to keep myself hidden away where I wouldn’t embarrass, wouldn’t inflict myself on the outside world.

If someone where to try to ask me about myself now, it would take a lifetime of effort to stop myself from running away. I know I still do it, but now there’s another consideration: I don’t want to be the audience any more. I find those friendships becoming more and more dissatisfying and as I’ve tried to shift the balance, I’ve seen those friendships wither.

So, to recap: I’m fat. I’m shy. I’m withdrawn. I’m no longer willing to be a starry-eyed reflection for someone else’s ego.

It would take so much effort for someone to break through my defences, and I’ve laid so many brilliant boobytraps, that I doubt anyone will make it, even if they were to try.

And what sort of person would want to be around someone like me?

They’d have to be even more fucked up than I am, and do I really need that? *wink*