* 19 july 1981 Monday 8.00pm

Through a tremendous act of discipline, I have at last propelled myself back home. I had money. I could have gone out, indeed I was expected to. P---- was stoned and I could have been too. But sheer force of will prevailed.

I have a toothache and will be going to the dentist tomorrow.

I’m waiting on my Ovaltine money before I get a new flat, in case you’re wondering.

I’m stripped of ideas, but I’ll write anyway. I’ve moved a desk into my bedroom. I’m going for a facial on Thursday.

I never want to go out again. It is pleasure without pain. Leisure without work. It inspires a feeling of guilt in me ... and therefore winds up being not very pleasurable at all.

I’m going to have to move soon or not at all. This diary must seem like a book of procrastinations.

(Mt Waverley)

*

Hmmn. I remember how hard it was in those days, forcing myself to work. Sitting down at a desk was at least half the battle. It was so easy just to coast in the hedonistic dream of a wastrel, and it took a long long time before I learnt the tricks to generating my own volition. Nourishing the seeds of guilt were a part of it. I hate to feel useless even now. I hate to reward myself unless I feel I’ve done something to deserve it.

That facial sticks in my memory. Troy had arranged it for me with a Polish beautician in Glenhuntly Rd, Elsternwick. He may even have accompanied me, as I recall his introducing me to the vol-au-vent at a cafe nearby. It's the only facial I remember having in the entirety of my existence. I recall the blackhead removal apparatus and the phrase 'congested skin'; I recall that the beautician was from Krakow.

For months afterwards, I applied product to my face from a variety of tiny Ella Bache sample tubes which she had given me.

~ pink caligaric jug-eared

No point apologising for the wide intervals between my posts. No point promising to better my frequency, I’ll merely forswear myself. Life is too unpredictable and so am I. When things quieten, such as now, my mind turns to the Sails of Oblivion, but when I am harried by the innumerable demands of my mystifying existence ... it recedes.

I’ve finished my season performing for children as Roald Dahl’s BFG. Hundreds of litres of sweat passed through the fabric of my green giant’s costume. Many kilograms of snozzcumber popcorn spewed from my mouth onto a writhing, over-heated front row. I gave a thousand high fives, and hundreds of photos were taken of children in the presence of my pink, caligaric, jug-eared head. I damaged myself innumerable times attempting to match the energy of a cast which was, on average, less than half my age. Indeed, I went to school with the father of the actress Sophie Perillo, manipulator of an eponymous puppet which accompanied me through much of the show.

Actually, I think I’ve done something permanent to my knees. There’s a painful twinge now when I stand. In both of them. Have my seven weeks of delightful gamboling precipitated arthritis? [Not long ago, I espied an advertisement seeking applicants for a study on arthritis; the only prerequisite was a sore joint on the big toe of the right foot. I have that sore joint. I’ve had it for years. What does it forebode?] I still have a pain in my shoulder from Titus Andronicus. Perhaps I should be taking it easier. After all, I am approaching fifty. But then who cares?

My aim for the coming year is to raise fourteen thousand dollars, simple as that. The amount is a conservative estimate of what my lawyers will ask for representing me before a County Court judge and jury probably in early 2011. In some ways my life is on hold until then. I could be jailed and our house could be confiscated. Or I could come out clean. More likely the result will be something between these two poles.

In the face of this and other no less serious [but far more personal] difficulties, I’ve had to enact some complex mental and spiritual contortions to keep myself from sinking into a debilitating depression. In fact, strangely, I seem to be experiencing a kind of rebound. The year ahead is looking more positive than I would ever have predicted. The fright and horror of my legal problems appear to have splintered my inertia, and instead of running about in panic I seem to be taking what for me are calculated careful steps towards some sort of solution.

I’m coming to the end of Truth by Peter Temple, the crime novel I am narrating for Vision Australia. An invaluable experience. I think I would like to do more of it. I’m sure If I minimise my daily dose of spasmo-nemigron the gravel in my throat will recede to more acceptable levels. Through February, I am planning to at last complete a solid first draft of Ambergris, a play I’ve mentioned before in this blog. I have high hopes for it, which I believe are grounded in reason. I also have a slew of short fiction - speculative, mainstream and weird - which I’m going to polish up and spruik.

If you’re interested, I’ll be performing something at La Mama Poetica on February 8. [My name's not listed, but I'll definitely be there. There's also a Facebook group]]

In a book by the SF writer Charles Stross, I encountered the phrase ‘The troops entered wearing cream and beige office camouflage...’.

~ awash with meaninglessness

I’m really sorry I haven’t been able to post as often as usual.

Ebay is the culprit. In desperate times, as you may already know, Ebay is where I turn to breathe life back into the cadaver that is our household budget. It’s an activity of last resort, and I don’t know what I’d do if it didn’t exist.

But my god, the drudgery it demands…

At first it’s not so bad. Listing the books can even be fun. I like to provide all the pertinent information a potential buyer may need. I paste reviews from Amazon into my item descriptions. I take care to paint a good verbal picture of the book’s condition …

But then the auctions end. The money starts trickling in. I must keep a log of this money. I must list again. I must check my messages … ‘Just letting you know I’ve transferred the money for Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’…. Cheers. I knew that already. I could have addressed your parcel in the time it took me to read your blasted email….

The addressing … the bubble-wrapping … the weighing … the swabbing … the double-checking … the constant search for non-putrid packing materials in bins and skips … the gluing of fifty cent stamps … all the many and various stages in the process …

By the time I’m fully Ebay-engaged, they pile upon each other inexorably. When I have sick days, which I invariably do, they pile even higher. There is no pity for the faceless seller. And there is always at least one irritable buyer who wants emails replied to within the hour.

And there’s no way to streamline it. I’ve tried. People are just too variable… [Though I admit I’ve successfully integrated Polly into sections of the production line.]

[If you’re wondering about the fifty cent stamps, don’t. I buy them in bulk from my next door neighbour, who is in the local stamp club. I believe they come from ‘stamp collections’. Problem is, when the postage is, say, thirteen dollars, you have to patiently glue twenty-six stamps to the package.]

Is my life reduced to this?

No. I can still write in the mornings and visit the pool and discharge my fatherly responsibilities. But my blogging suffers and I guess this post is by way of an excuse, and an apology.

Otherwise, life lollops on. On Saturday I’m recording a voice track for White Noise Carousel. The piece is named ‘The Organ of Oertel’. It tells the story of a secret society, the members of which were born with an anomalous, whiskered organ resembling a sea cucumber in the region of the lower intestine. This ‘Organ of Oertel’ imparts wild talents - and drives its possessor to madness and excess as if it has a will and a sentience of its own.

*

Yesterday my wife withdrew all her money from an ATM [$600] then forgot to remove it from the slot. She was around the corner at the supermarket when she realised, freaked out, raced back and found it gone. She landed home in tears, despising herself, deciding she was useless and a fool, a rotten mother and a burden on her family. I tried to convince her otherwise, tried to comfort her, directed her to ring the cops, the bank etc …

And wound up in such a flurry myself that stupidly, while pasting a fifty cent stamp, I bit on the nozzle of the glue bottle and broke a veneer off one of my front teeth.

The next day, praise the heavens, we learnt that the ATM had sucked the money back in before it was pilfered. Meanwhile it cost two hundred and thirty dollars to fix my tooth.

But there is light on the horizon, and soon you will hear a lot more of me, I swear.

~ the letter

The letter I have been so dreading arrived on Thursday – an envelope with the logo of insurer AAMI in the upper left corner. A warning within. I will be expected to fork out roughly eight and a half thousand dollars for impacting the rear of someone’s car.

I had been expecting a figure of the sort. I’d put big numbers in my head so that I wouldn’t be too shocked when the news came – whilst half hoping it would be somewhat lower…

Well, it may not come as a surprise to you that I don’t have, at this moment, even one per cent of $8,500. Indeed, it’s not all that far below the amount I live on – reasonably happily – per year. I long ago realised that fulfilling my life’s dream and making truckloads of cash were never going to happen simultaneously.

The best I can do with my predicament is – as Helen from the Lion’s Club op-shop in Mt Waverley advised me – not to stress. On Monday, I’m going to get on the phone and work out the best response. Maybe I could pay them five dollars a week for the rest of my life …

Strangely, given my anxious nature, it hasn’t gotten to me all that much. Just another black cloud of potential hanging high above me in the stratosphere. Like hepatitis, I suppose – and the chance that I’ll develop cirrhosis or cancer.

I visited the liver clinic at the Alfred last week. It’s been some time since my last interferon treatment, [I’ve had three,] and I’d been hearing rumours of new medical developments. Alas, nothing that could help me right now.

They are currently trialling a triple therapy, adding a protease inhibitor to the interferon/ribavirin regimen, but are only accepting ‘naïve’ patients. ‘Naïve’ means previously untreated. I am a ‘Relapsing’ patient - I almost cleared the virus, but it rebounded.

My doctor, [Keith Noack,] isn’t terribly upbeat about this new treatment anyway, so it’s no great tragedy that I’m ineligible. I just have to keep doing what I can to mitigate the effects. Diet and exercise…

In truth, despite everything, I’ve had a good week. I’ve done laps almost every day, been walking Polly to school then riding home on the old mountain bike which Lynne recently gave me. I’ve been working diligently on Ambergris, my play, and doing what I can to get myself out of my current [non-$8,500 related] financial pit. This means, as it usually does, getting back on Ebay and selling books. You’ll find me there under the name of Lampsucker.

~ Drive Me To The Dogs

My wife has returned from a bunker in Preston describing her experience as 'horrible'. The unisexual fortress was full of war victims with sour lips, fused minds and twisted bodies, many of them driven to madness by the depredations of the Spores. She described the sharp smell of antiseptic, and the stress of suddenly finding herself living in close quarters with so many wandering, murmuring, twitching reminders of what the Spores can do to a person. During her time there, she barely left her cell, as her own condition was somewhat critical; she was frail, cadaverous. paranoid, in despair, and wholly unable to manage her life - and it was here that she decided that preventative medication was the only thing that would save her.

It is a pity, as Spasmo-Dromoran is a harsh drug that mimics many of the effects of the Spore-illness in order to counter them. Under its influence, the bones and teeth may crumble, the love of music may die, one may sleep for upwards of fourteen hours, and the manner of the soul may become infantile. During my own time on this drug, I produced reams of writing, of which very little was useable. It was indulgent and hopelessly naff - my internal editor seemed to have lost its critical faculties. I dare not tell you what became of my teeth.


My wife, however, has come home bubbling. She has resurrected the house from its squalor; she has upgraded the contents of Polly's lunch-boxes a hundredfold, and has already mustered the confidence to go have coffee with friends. The household aura has shifted from piss yellow to restful blue. In recent months, owing to her emaciation, she has been too embarrassed to take on work as a life model. [her primary money-making occupation], but already, thankfully, she is putting on weight.

I wonder how long this pleasant part of the cycle will last? What I dread are the moods which Spasmo-Dromoran can generate. The bad, irritable moods, which come just after lunch time each day. Jenny is the sweetest creature with a delightful nature, but Spasmo-Dromoran gives her an acid tongue that can strip the flesh from my bones. When that starts, the best thing she can do is have a nap.

But for the moment we are all seemingly well, though impoverished. Soon, perhaps even today, I will have to return to my book-selling on ebay, an activity that drives me to the dogs. I am building the ant-pinata for Polly's upcoming party. I am in the yard cultivating nuVanilla. I am reading The Swarm by Frank Schatzing. I am thinking about a snooze, though it's only eleven in the morning...

Spasmo-Nemigron

Each morning, I go out to collect my daily dose of Spasmo-Nemigron. This is my primary medication and a defense against the Spores. Sometimes, at the pharmacy, I meet other users of Spasmo-Nemigron, easily identifiable by their thin down-turned lips, haunted eyes and furrowed skin; by their arbitrary grooming and their often threadbare garments.

One of these ghouls, Lemon, I have known for a couple of years and treated as a friend - until recently she did me great harm.

This complex war has bred monsters, individuals who have surrendered wholly to the Spores and who make a living in their service. Amy encountered one such man - a Romanian - who offered her fleeting luxuries in exchange for the betrayal of her friends. The first victim was my beautiful wife, Jenny.

At this point, I should pause to say something of the Deadly Spores' physical nature. Their principal means of enslavement is a glistening compound - excreted in an unknown manner and generally referred to as Honeycomb. It is a foodstuff so enticing, so delicious that few can resist it. But once it is consumed, some fraction of one's humanity is lost forever and replaced by spore-complient non-flesh. Men such as the Romanian trade in Honeycomb and, having identified her as vulnerable, he plied Jenny with this pernicious material, forcing her into despair and unmanageable debt.

All this happened fast and outside my knowledge while she was away and explains her unpleasant manner on the phone and in person. Thankfully, she has struck back, freed herself [at least to some extent], and - because she is returning to the fold tomorrow - I am allowing myself a little optimism. As for Lemon, ought I devise some way to punish her?