Kent Parkstreet

Robin Williams On The True Path.

2012-02-03T05:29:00.000-08:00

“What's right is what's left if you do everything else wrong.”

Robin Williams.

This is one way of getting there. It's actually the method I chose for many years. I can report that it is no better or worse than any other method.

www.kentparkstreetblog.com

Process Of Elimination.

2012-02-03T04:26:00.000-08:00

Having options is a modern luxury. I'm a very modern guy, I have far too many options. Who knows which ones will make me happy?

After trying to be positive, looking for what makes me happy, failing to come up with a single clue, I decided to go negative, work out what really shits me. The correct term is the process of elimination. I'm just scrapping stuff that irritates me.

After over twenty years of riding public transport to and from random venues at night I know for a fact that it pisses me right off. I'm scrapping that. Gigs that pay enough cash for a taxi or offer a car ride I'll do. The rest I'll let go.

Playing inane music for drunk people in pubs is quite obviously no fun for a non drinker. Because I've jumped from one style to another my whole life I've never scaled the popularity tree in any of them, whichever city I start again in I start at the bottom again. I'm too old and jaded to do it again.

This leaves some great musical options. By cutting the chaff I can clearly see the wheat. I am a very solid flute player. I can demand enough money for doing that to make it worthwhile, to cover motorised transport. I can also go back to writing my own songs again. I love doing that, can record them in my own time, play them in small venues near my home. I have plenty of prose writing to go on with too.

My ego has become attached to playing in venues at night. Giving it up makes me feel old. I'll get over it. Perhaps it is time for this gentleman to behave like one, open the next chapter? Sometime I will receive eye surgery, learn to drive again, new options will open up again. Right now I have plenty to go ahead with.

Picking a direction, any direction, leads somewhere, to a new range of options. I'm lucky enough to have plenty of options, and plenty more to come.

Parkstreet.
www.kentparkstreetblog.com

Robin Williams On Madness.

2012-02-02T20:44:00.000-08:00

“You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it.”

Robin Williams.

If you haven't gone a little mad at least once you just aren't trying. The secret is to ensure that your sane mind leaves a trail of breadcrumbs so you can find your way back, hope the imaginary birds don't eat them first.

www.kentparkstreetblog.com

Teach A Man To Fish.

2012-02-02T20:30:00.000-08:00

Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach a man to simulate an American accent and work in a call centre and he'll eat for possibly a decade, or until new technology arises. There are huge mechanised ships that take care of the whole fishing business now, not a lot of jobs there.

There was a time when a man learned to fish from his father. Families named Fisher are the descendants of these folk. Technology changed slowly, skills could be passed on and adapted over generations. I doubt we'll see a time like that again.

The basic, hands on skills required for work weren't as diverse as they are now. There were no jobs for technical writers. Even if disaster struck the family trade a man could turn to another easily enough. Everyone understood what everyone else did. Today I don't even understand the tools I use, let alone how they are made. What's inside my iPad is as much a mystery to me as a clock to a caveman. When I ask people what they do for a living I often pretend to understand the answer. It seems many people send e mails to other people a lot.

Our society becomes lonelier. None of us really knows what other people do. How does a subsistence farmer talk with his call centre operator son? People end up hanging out with other people who do something similar to themselves. Work is an essential element of our lives, the more specialised we become the less connected.

My father was a property developer. Can you imagine me in his footsteps? I have a mean streak, I might have been good at it. My current work involves trying to connect with the public, get a feel for them. I don't even know what they do, or why.

Yearning for a simpler time is kinda' corny, don't you think? I'm sure it isn't an accident that folks are crying out for common ground with strangers on social media, even there people rarely talk about work, only to complain about the boss. Shallow jokes and those corny images we used to delete from our inboxes abound, no one talks about their work, why they do it, how it satisfies them. For someone like me, my mind consumed by music all day every day, it is hard to understand. I too find myself attracted to other people who create stuff, I get them, understand what they do and why. I feel alienated amongst other people, their work is incomprehensible to me.

I love that there are people out there making iPads for me. I love their work. I love that my phone problem can be solved by a charming young Indian fellow, that the world is getting smaller. I'm sad that we become more disconnected from each other as we specialise, divide into work related cliques. We need to find other universal ideas to connect us, perhaps love and art will become the common languages?

We all require work, hopefully satisfying work, to feed and house our families, work is an essential part of who we are. Now that work no longer connects us we will have to find other connections, or separate into specialised societies that don't understand each other.

Parkstreet.
www.kentparkstreetblog.com

A Longer Whitman Quotation, I'm In A Whitman Mood.

2012-02-02T11:29:00.000-08:00

“This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”

Walt Whitman.

Of all the folks who have been called "enlightened" Mr. Whitman strikes me as the one I get. His writing is of this life, of life itself.

www.kentparkstreetblog.com

Walt Whitman On Simplicity And Creativity.

2012-02-01T21:25:00.000-08:00

“The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.”

Walt Whitman.

From architects to song writers I hear this same idea, simplicity is the essence of beauty. I'm beginning to think there is something in it. Our culture seeks complexity for its own sake, the joy of the "simple air well played" is being forgotten. When all the silly complexities are exhausted we will return to simplicity.

www.kentparkstreetblog.com

Naked And Honest.

2012-02-01T19:46:00.000-08:00

When the Dalai Lama goes out in public he doesn't go alone. He is protected by large men with guns. There is the risk of assassination, the more likely threat is being crushed by those who love him too much. He would never rush forward and crush what he loves, he is smart enough to know that not all his followers share his grace.

Should a lover go into romance open and defenceless? If he can't trust the person he loves can he truly love her? Or is it his responsibility to himself to surround himself with stout defences, until it is proven he doesn't need them?

Interestingly being open and defenceless often scares the other person. It is rare, disorienting. In a way it places a responsibility on them, makes them nervous, do they trust themselves to hold and cherish that trust?

Some prefer to build that trust over time, others to tear their shirt open. I say that fear is the enemy of love. Stand naked and honest before your lover. She will be thrilled or afraid. Keep doing it, be open and defenceless, until you find the girl who is unafraid, who stands naked and honest before you too.

Parkstreet.
www.kentparkstreetblog.com

Walt Whitman On Departing Graciously.

2012-02-01T18:57:00.000-08:00

“We were together. I forget the rest.”

Walt Whitman.

A few words of grace in this "don't get angry, get even" world.

www.kentparkstreetblog.com

Spiders And Relationships.

2012-02-01T18:06:00.000-08:00

Spiders are born looking ugly and scary for a reason. We are supposed to be afraid of them. When hundreds of baby spiders come into the world they scatter in every direction, because they've looked up and seen their mother, an ugly, scary spider. It's only natural to run away from a spider.

Anyone who spent their formative years on Sydney's North Shore, the habitat of the Funnelweb Spider, will agree with me. The Funnelweb grows large enough to carry a small child away after the poor kid has been killed by venom. Leave your four year old playing happily in the sandpit, turn around to hang up the laundry and your offspring may be gone. At least that's what my mother told me.

Australia has a lot of the big, nasty, deadly spiders. Strangely the small ones are often more deadly. If you are hiking, come across a disused bushman's hut, light your stove, look up to see the glow of a hundred Redback Spiders, look at the bed and you'll see the skeleton of the last fool who thought, "if I leave them alone they'll leave me alone". The Redback is smaller than a little fingernail, it's eponymous red sack carries enough venom to murder a large man in minutes. With all that venom there is no space for a real brain, the one working cell controls maliciousness, that is all it knows. Leave your backpack, three Redbacks have already slipped into that, just walk to the closest road and get out of there. At least that's what my father told me.

Some kind hearted folks are inclined to pick up a small, harmless spider, take it out to the garden. For me that is like taking a young Adolf Hitler to Iran, thinking he can't cause any more trouble there. Nonsense. I know that tiny spider will just grow stronger, hairier, wilier. When it is ready it will return, for vengeance. It will hide in your bath towel, cause you to slip on the wet floor in panic. It will sneak into your car, drop from the sun visor, cause you to crash and die. It just will, I know it will. The bottom of a Converse trainer is a much more sensible response to a small spider, nip it in the bud.

Why are spiders on my mind today? There was a small one in my bedroom this morning. It is no more. It reminded of one morning when I woke to a vast creature hanging right in front of my eyes. So close I could see where the long legs joined the freakishly large head. It was ugly and scary, as it should be, I scrambled up the bed to get away from it. When I looked again I realised it was actually tiny. It had been so close, right in front of me eyes, that it looked huge.

I recently left a relationship. While I was up close to it I couldn't see the size of the problems accurately. They all looked huge. Just a few days later I can see that most of the problems were the result of my own fears, what I learned from my mother and father. A little distance and all is clear. Of course the relationship was with an adult human, she could have employed some communication device, perhaps words, to tell me my fears and misunderstandings were unfounded.

It's a sweet feeling, seeing clearly that everything is alright, that all us living, loving creatures are just doing our own thing and should be left in peace to do it.

Apart from spiders, they are born ugly for a reason.

If I ever find myself on the couch of a psychiatrist I won't tell him I once compared romantic relationships with ugly, scary spiders.

Parkstreet.
www.kentparkstreetblog.com

John Steinbeck On Illusion And Reality.

2012-02-01T06:13:00.000-08:00

“You've seen the sun flatten and take strange shapes just before it sinks in the ocean. Do you have to tell yourself every time that it's an illusion caused by atmospheric dust and light distorted by the sea, or do you simply enjoy the beauty of it?”

John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday.

There is a lot of psychobabble about illusion and reality. Most of it supposes the reality some guru is offering is less illusory than other realities. Enjoying a sunset is always a good thing to do, no matter which reality you choose. Beauty is a truth unto itself. You don't need a self help book to know and feel beauty.

www.kentparkstreetblog.com

A Lazy Duck.

2012-02-01T05:16:00.000-08:00

I often give the impression that I am a godless layabout who loves coffee and cigarettes more than oxygen. A lazy duck on a still pond. It is mostly an accurate impression. I've also been scratching out my first book over the last couple of years, amidst all the godless hanging about.

I started by blogging, making myself write daily, practising. I've written a bunch of short vignettes. Edited, linked by some short pieces, some common characters, they will come together as an atmospheric work, a portrait of honesty in a dishonest culture. A longer work is also underway, I've realised that completing this shorter work first is the correct order of things. I'm just now up to the hard bit, putting it all together. Hard work has never been my favourite thing to do. I don't think hard work is anyone's favourite thing to do, sue me for being honest. I quite like it when the actual work is hard, it's hard work I don't like.

While this little black duck has been drifting about on a pond he has also been paddling a little. Now I have to flap like a bastard and fly for a while. I can't say I'm looking forward to it, I am looking forward to getting it done so I can float lazily on a pond again.

I really like hanging about, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee, playing some music, being feckless and lazy. I can't and won't deny it. A lazy duck on a still pond, paddling just enough to stay afloat, hopefully producing some quality work every now and then.

The book should be ready by March, if I flap my wings hard enough.

Parkstreet.
www.kentparkstreetblog.com

John Steinbeck On Individuality And Freedom.

2012-01-31T19:36:00.000-08:00

“And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about.”

John Steinbeck, East of Eden.

Gotta' love this.

Follow the money and the power. People don't try to take your freedom just for fun, see who gains and how, then fight those fuckers by maintaining a free mind no matter what the cost.

www.kentparkstreetblog.com

Passive Aggression, Again.

2012-01-31T19:22:00.000-08:00

I recently came across something I wrote a couple of years ago, a bit of a rant about passive aggression (To Live With Intent). Over the last two years I've had some further thoughts, I hope this will be less ranty.

Like many bad habits passive aggression is a learned behaviour. I mostly come across it in women whose mothers passed it on, an heirloom of sorts, a glory box gift for her future husband. A generation of women who felt powerless saw they could finally gain some power, chose to hide behind the "I didn't do anything" shield. We all have nasty little habits we picked up from our parents, some of them are quite charming in their way, when they are combined with real life neurosis they become dominant over our personalities.

I once worked as a sub contractor for a large city council, became privy to every group e mail that dysfunctional organization produced. Someone tripped over a long dog lead in a city park, broke an ankle, sued. The discussion on changing by laws to limit the length of dog leads in city parks went on for six months that I know of, my contract finished before the discussion, it is probably still going on. Everyone passed the buck, refused to make a decision. These administrators know that if they don't make a decision they don't make a wrong decision, that the public will continue employing them on their fantastic wages just the same. Passive aggression, building a defense into every word and action, is a successful policy, it is encouraged.

Within a relationship it only works if the other person will keep you on, make all the decisions, wear the consequences. Passive aggressive women end up with controlling men, it's a certainty. The fear of doing the wrong thing is amplified by men who tell them they've done the wrong thing constantly. It is no way to love, to live.

Pointing out passive aggression is pointless. The accused admits their crime, claims it is just who they are, they can't change. You'll feel better for calling her a name, for a few minutes, nothing is resolved. Pointing out that she is just like her mother is an act for the truly courageous. I don't recommend it.

So what to do? I've got it wrong so many times I should know by now. Apparently I am the flame to the passive aggressive moth. The only answer I can see is patience. Through encouragement, proving you will stand by decisions she makes even when you think they are wrong, by proving through words and actions that you have no interest in judging her, over time this is the only answer I can see. I have always lacked the patience. More accurately I haven't diagnosed the problem early enough, become angry and dispirited, walked away. Only then have I seen the problem clearly, what I should have done. No one wants to believe their true love is neurotic and annoying.

Perhaps the established passive aggressive is a lost cause, moving on might be an easier solution. Nobody said you have to be a saint. I hope I never encounter the problem again, never have to test my method. I'm pretty sure I will have to. Wish me luck.

Yeah, I know, I ranted a little. We all have habits we picked up from our parents.

Parkstreet.
www.kentparkstreetblog.com

Charlie Chaplin, A Swiss Oompah Band And Me.

2012-01-31T13:34:00.000-08:00

I heard a great Charlie Chaplin story last night.

Having dwelled in cities Chaplin loved the freedom when he moved his family to a house in the woods in Switzerland. He enjoyed throwing open his bathroom window, seeing the trees, hearing the birds, feeling the air as he took his morning crap.

One morning the oompah band from the closest village came to greet him, traditional costume, full regalia. Seeing the great man sitting in a window they set up and played, sang and danced for him. Too polite to close the window Mr. Chaplin sat smiling for an hour and a half, every time he waved goodbye the band enthusiastically struck up a new number.

A perfectly Chaplinesque scene.

There are times in my life I have been that Swiss oompah band, full of enthusiasm and good intent, completely misreading the context. Ask any of my ex girlfriends, they'll tell you of plenty of these moments, none of them quite as funny without Charlie Chaplin on set.

Parkstreet.
www.kentparkstreetblog.com

Joseph Conrad On Life.

2012-01-30T23:48:00.001-08:00

“Life knows us not and we do not know life—-we don’t know even our own thoughts. Half the words we use have no meaning whatever and of the other half each man understands each word after the fashion of his own folly and conceit. Faith is a myth and beliefs shift like mists on the shore; thoughts vanish; words, once pronounced, die; and the memory of yesterday is as shadowy as the hope of tomorrow”

Joseph Conrad.

Mr. Conrad could be so bleak, couldn't he? Yet his characters strive and go on, they seek truth and beauty, such courage in the futile, godless void their author places them in.

www.kentparkstreetblog.com

A Stranger In My Home Town.

2012-01-30T23:25:00.000-08:00

I wasn't born in Melbourne, I was raised here from a young enough age to make it my hometown. I've spent more than half my adult life elsewhere, will most likely leave this town again soon enough. I don't love or hate the place, it's just a place, there are other places.

Somehow I've ended up here on my own, a decade since I lived here last, a couple of incarnations in the meantime. I don't know anyone, no one really knows me. The waitress I used to know at Leo's is still there, we chat most days, otherwise I keep my own company. It's an odd feeling, a stranger in my own home town.

I'm treating the city as a traveller might, exploring it. Apart from a couple of old regular haunts that haven't changed at all I'm spending my days looking around interesting areas, venues, seeing it all like new. If I stay for a while, settle into a home, I'll start making new friends, new lovers, for now I'm enjoying the thrill of the new city.

Every city is pretty much the same. Mostly drab suburbs, a central hub of real life. Melbourne too. Here there are a handful of long, inner city streets that are packed with bars, cafes, pubs, interesting shops, the buzz that makes city life exciting. I'm trawling these streets, Fitzroy, Brunswick, Chapel, Lygon, Swan, High, becoming friends with them again. Perhaps they are getting to know me again too?

I guess I'll find new people too. Right now I'm fine without people, I'll need them again soon. Until then it's just the city and me, two strangers getting to know each other, becoming friends.

Parkstreet.
www.kentparkstreetblog.com

Graham Greene On Understanding.

2012-01-30T19:28:00.000-08:00

“Time has its revenges, but revenge seems so often sour. Wouldn’t we all do better not trying to understand, accepting the fact that no human being will ever understand another, not a wife with a husband, nor a parent a child? Perhaps that’s why men have invented God – a being capable of understanding. ”

Graham Greene, The Quiet American.

Delightfully cynical, yet beautiful.

Over the last few months I've made the mistake of trying to understand, instead of just letting it be. I'll never understand, there is no rule that says I should understand. If I'd let it be, not tried to understand, the outcome would have been the same, it just would have cost me less emotional energy and a lot less wasted time.

www.kentparkstreetblog.com

Word Doodling.

2012-01-30T19:08:00.000-08:00

Gather around kids, I'm going to tell you about an ancient art form, one your parents knew, one that was popular way back in the days before the mobile telephone was even invented.

This art was called Doodling. It takes a bit of explaining. You see, back in the day, each home had only one telephone, yes one. It was generally placed in a democratic position in the house, in the hallway, somewhere that was considered a shared space, easily accessible to all. Anyone in the house could answer the phone, so a pad and a pen, ask your folks what a pad and a pen are, would be placed beside the phone, if the call was for someone who wasn't at home a message containing the details of the call would be written down, left for the intended recipient.

Sometimes, when a young man was talking with his girlfriend, quietly so the rest of the house couldn't listen in, the fellow might pick up the pen, draw meaningless abstract images, whatever came into his daydreamy head as he listened to the wonderful inanity of a teenage girl on the other end of the phone line. This was called Doodling.

On a long call an entire page of paper could be filled with nonsense swirls and love hearts and animal images, all subconsciously appearing, drawn by a distracted hand, no real intent, the silly markings of young, thoughtless love. It was a beautiful art form, one that has been lost to the modern world.

Occasionally a particularly romantic young man might decide to tear that page off the pad, fold it away, present it to his girlfriend, his love, an image of his heart and mind inspired by her. He might become a little more conscious of what he was doodling, just a little, knowing there might be an audience for it. He might draw a small, subtle message of love into the otherwise abstract form.

This is where I'd like my writing to end up, simple word doodling, the abstract, subconscious scrawl of a lover, just slightly aware that she might be reading, a small, subtle message of love on every page.

Parkstreet.
www.kentparkstreetblog.com
Warm Up, solo, improvised flute by Kent Parkstreet, available for download at iTunes, all the other sites.

Graham Greene On Despair.

2012-01-30T05:10:00.000-08:00

“Despair is the price one pays for setting oneself an impossible aim. It is, one is told, the unforgivable sin, but it is a sin the corrupt or evil man never practices. He always has hope. He never reaches the freezing-point of knowing absolute failure. Only the man of goodwill carries always in his heart this capacity for damnation.”

Graham Greene.

They say a virtuous life is it's own reward. Bullshit it is. Just as no good deed goes unpunished, every virtuous life is an impossible aim and on the edge of damnation.

www.kentparkstreetblog.com

Cool Loving.

2012-01-30T03:30:00.000-08:00

There is much misunderstanding about what cool is. Like pornography, cool is difficult to define, you know it when you see it. Much squareness gets dressed up as cool, it ends being heartlessness instead. Cool isn't afraid of enthusiasm for love, there is nothing cooler than love. Squares pretending to be cool believe that being condescending and aloof are evidence of cool. They aren't. They are sure signs of squareness.

“Absence of Quality is the essence of squareness."

Robert M. Pirsig.

Parkstreet.
www.kentparkstreetblog.com

Robert M. Pirsig On Keeping It Real.

2012-01-29T19:23:00.000-08:00

“The result is rather typical of modern technology, an overall dullness of appearance so depressing that it must be overlaid with a veneer of "style" to make it acceptable. And that, to anyone who is sensitive to romantic Quality, just makes it all the worse. Now it's not just depressingly dull, it's also phony. Put the two together and you get a pretty accurate basic description of modern American technology: stylized cars and stylized outboard motors and stylized typewriters and stylized clothes. Stylized refrigerators filled with stylized food in stylized kitchens in stylized homes. Plastic stylized toys for stylized children, who at Christmas and birthdays are in style with their stylish parents. You have to be awfully stylish yourself not to get sick of it once in a while. It's the style that gets you; technological ugliness syruped over with romantic phoniness in an effort to produce beauty and profit by people who, though stylish, don't know where to start because no one has ever told them there's such a thing as Quality in this world and it's real, not style. Quality isn't something you lay on top of subjects and objects like tinsel on a Christmas tree. Real Quality must be the source of the subjects and objects, the cone from which the tree must start.”

Robert M. Pirsig.

I'm just loving this guy right now. He describes, exactly, why I feel alienated from my surroundings most of the time. Give me honest ugliness over this shit pretence of beauty any day.

In any big city one can find the real, it has to be sought out. I find myself returning to a handful of real places, a handful of real people, a handful of real musicians. The rest is like the fake shit you buy from the mail order advertisements in comic books, it's not even real shit.

www.kentparkstreetblog.com

Would You Like A Valium?

2012-01-29T18:58:00.000-08:00

So within two hours of breaking up with my girlfriend a well meaning person offered me a Valium pill, a chemical solution to grief. Such foolishness.

The whole point of falling in love is that you feel alive. Placing a pillow over an emotion, smothering it before it lives, cheapens the whole affair. I want to feel it all. And like a soap opera character the emotion never really dies, it just plays dead, goes to live somewhere else for a few episodes, becomes angry and strong and full of malicious intent, finds ludicrous ways to mess with your life that you never imagined possible. Better to feel the grief, feel every moment, let the emotion die of natural causes, peacefully in your sleep one joyous night.

Our culture turns emotions into medical conditions, cures them with pills. Damn foolishness. Why be alive? Why fall in love and only feel half the emotions? Isn't the tightrope act without a net part of the thrill? So high, so far to fall, wow, I'm alive!

Keep your Valium. My grief isn't a condition, it is me, my life.

Parkstreet.
www.kentparkstreetblog.com

Robert M. Pirsig On The Cult Of Busy.

2012-01-29T18:19:00.000-08:00

“We’re in such a hurry most of the time we never get much chance to talk. The result is a kind of endless day-to-day shallowness, a monotony that leaves a person wondering years later where all the time went and sorry that it’s all gone. ”

Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values.

If I ever needed an excuse for laziness, this is it. Constant busy busy routine does lead to a tedious, shallow life. I'm sure of it. Make less money, get less done, live a bit.

www.kentparkstreetblog.com

A Tip For Giving Up Smoking.

2012-01-29T18:11:00.000-08:00

Anyone giving up the addictive drug of tobacco needs motivation, some reason to battle through the difficult moments when it is just easier to buy a pack and feel good again. Our brains suffer from the Stockholm syndrome, identify with their captors, tell us to have just one, just one.

I'm choosing to employ a mental trick, imagining something that gives me more pleasure than a cigarette could. I imagine that every time I don't smoke a cigarette a grey suited NAZI who works in a place called The Big Tobacco Building hurls himself out a window in a fit of despair about the stock price, plummets to his death. This always cheers me up. I'm gradually luring my fickle brain back to work for me, although I'll always have to keep one eye on it, keep giving it small happy hormone rewards to maintain it's loyalty.

Perhaps you'd like to imagine your lungs getting healthier, something positive like that. Good on you. I'll stick with malicious dreams of death until the addiction eases, then I'll try positive.

Parkstreet.
www.kentparkstreetblog.com

I Dived In The Deep End And Paddled Like A Bastard.

2012-01-28T22:54:00.000-08:00

Writing a personal blog I often fall to the temptation of shooting my mouth off when something good happens, what a great bloke I am. If anyone is to have faith that this blog is a truthful response to what I'm thinking and feeling I also have to report it when something bad happens.

Andrea and I broke up today.

A love I've never known has become a heartbreak I've never known. Tears are falling as I write this. It's alright, I can wipe them off my iPad screen with my t shirt, there is no ink to smudge, no permanent stain. The soft cotton t shirt of time will wipe away my sadness, no permanent damage has been done.

The important thing to keep in mind is that I lived. I took a chance, gambled on romance, given the circumstances it was always a long shot. If I'd stayed in Sydney, wondered what it might have been like, I would have regrets. I did consider not moving, somehow knew what the outcome would be. As it is I packed up my life, moved it to Melbourne, dived in the deep end and paddled like a bastard.

I lived. Tomorrow I will live again. Tonight I will cry.

Parkstreet.
www.kentparkstreetblog.com