these are not the contents of my head

ok, the trauma of re-reading and then typing out the contents of my head from the other day got the better of me and the cost of actually getting it all into the easyjournal was prohibitive here on the most expensive street in australia (hastings street) and i'm feeling much more alive yesterday and today, but just for fun, this is how it started....

"i had difficulty getting out of bed. lots of it. what do i want to do? do i want to do anything? no, not really. why not just relax? because that would be a waste of resources--what it took to get you here--and a slap in the face of those you're on your way to learn from. right. i'm a failure. i can neither do nothing and be happy nor do something and be happy. there is no joy in the day. get up and have some coffee. make it first. that will give you a start. thank you. what would life be like without sleeping aids and caffeine? or lots of food. heaps of it. 2 slices of the best bread ever, toasted, with butter, a banana (12.99/kg after the hurricane wiped out the crops in queensland) AND a bowl of muesli with soy milk. then a slightly squishy bowel movement. right. wasn't i just saying to james that i thought my gut issues were likely related to overconsumption, rather than any one food? but i'm feeling unsure of myself and what i should do today, since alexandria must wait until tomorrow. eat, then. eat. throw yourself together, too. splash water on your head, face and under your arms. arm yourself for a simple, solitary walk up viewland drive, into noosa national park, to laguna lookout. look. there's a fire burning in the forest north of noosaville on the other side of the noosa river. walk to hastings street down the freshly laid cement walkway that protects revegetation areas from further touristic trauma. these homes closer to hastings street are magnificently ludicrous, perched imperiously on bandy metal stilts like war-of-the-world cottages. worth millions, they are. is that success? right now, i wish it were so. i'd have something to aim for. why am i not goal-oriented? isn't that supposed to be a good thing? shhh. you're approaching the street and other life forms, most of them 55+ wearing blindingly light-coloured clothing and sunglasses so big they almost seem to need bandy metal stilts to keep them from sliding from the soft, craggy hillsides of the slightly stunned-looking faces on which they, too, are ludicrously perched. do you pity them? yes. do you envy them? yes. where the hell are you going? to the tourist information booth at the intersection of hastings and noosa drive, just to get a map of the town, but the information lady must be tired or sick of softly craggy couples in blinding-light clothes and hubcap-sized sunnies because she chooses not to smile when she tears one from the sheet in the big front window. maybe it's you? yes, maybe it is. maybe i'm too hard and edgy. maybe i look too foreign. maybe i'm just too tired and stunned in my own way....."

etc.

you get the idea....there was also something about darkly cute and curly 18-year-old grocery store clerks, but i may come back to that at some point. i usually do.

i'm leaving noosa in a few hours. i've got a 90-minute bus ride to the brisbane airport and a flight of maybe 2 or 3 hours--i have no idea, really--to darwin. i'm trying to decide whether i'll just wander the streets of that city tomorrow or splurge on a crocodile feeding cruise. maybe a tourist or two is bait. once again, i have no idea, really.

other than a bit too much sun yesterday, i was lured by a small beach at the base of a fairly steep cliff, ringed by heaps of black pearl-like rocks. i'd noticed it, and the handful of people body-surfing, on wednesday on my way back from alexandria bay. i think it may be winch cove and part of granite bay. the best photo i can find in a short period of time (this cafe is rather expensive) is the small, bottom right photo here, which doesn't really demonstrate how steep the access is, but at least gives an impression of the black pearls (the kind of washed out gray areas....)

anyway, i'd scoped out my descent on the way to alex earlier in the day, but almost couldn't find the courage to do it. i had to complicate it by asking a (darkly cute) surfer if "that" (pointing to where he'd just emerged and knowing the answer very well already) was the best way to get down. of course it was, and i got down the "goat track" (his phrase) to this fantastic little beach. just amazing. less amazing were the 2 young women taking T&A shots of each other on the sand. ok, maybe it was amazing, but not in any conventional way. at least they were in the water by the time i was ready, so i didn't feel so alone.

i got only one good drubbing when a wave caught me off guard and sent me tumbling along the sandy bottom. it was time to exfoliate anyway.

i was at alexandria bay (someone else's photo) again much of yesterday yesterday. it was a wilder, windier day there.

the savage azure cat
licking clean
heaving up against the hard to reach spots
loving me too
with foamfleck kisses
and wind-dressed caresses
i drown
in its deep
secret bath
the relentless
rolling whispers
of its countless tongues

(that relentless....whisper...tongue motif just wouldn't let me out of its grip, as you can tell)

and then i leave you with words from mimi:

"Lately we [mimi and daughter, nora] have to play this game where she dresses up in weird outfits (a favorite is the lab coat/swim goggles/Mardi Gras beads combination) and pretends to put three small stuffed monkeys in monkey jail (the newspaper recycling basket), and then they escape, and then we chase them down and give them injections with the toy syringe from her doctor kit. It is like some sort of Andromeda Strain reenactment for preschoolers, but performed by drag queens or the Flaming Lips."

truly, there's no place like home

saturday, august 12, noosa heads, queensland