2.04AM at the Hotel Costes

...I miss Japan. Or wherever. Wanderlust. All kinds of lust, really. For the late, late night. For a man. For the world. For recklessness. For cycling downhill in the face of a midwinter chill. For calculated indiscretions engaged upon a whim. Now, isn't everything better in cloaked insinuations? And rain. Everybody seems to hate it, but the truth is, I love it. I want to be bone-drenched. I want a complicated way of living. "Desire, like a promise in the year of election."

2.04AM at the Hotel Costes.

It's dark in the night, the city
Brightening, its arteries - roadways
Aglow with wandering cars
I can't sleep tonight.

I want you.
Simple. Untainted by contrary ambitions
The drive over, the June rain
Pulling up to park
Doused headlights

"You know, I read somewhere
The spaces between objects, inanimate and alive
Are not empty."

Molecules and chemicals and rain.
Rain.
Slipping from my skin to yours

"You're soaking. Come in.
Shower."

Marble tile, floor heated
Glass to ceiling
Steam billowing
Fogging my windows
Beyond, the sleepless city.

2.04AM. Daylight seems
Like another life.
Now, the rain, the night
Stretched bare.

All we have is time.

(c) Wenee Yap

Harvey Wallbanger

You say hello

I say, "Stranger, I don't know

Who you are, how you've been

Here - pour your story in a drink

Let's kick back and

Solve nothing.

Let's talk til 2."

Or let the night wind down

Tell me your troubles 

Without a word.

In your manner of kiss

By the lamplight flicker

As the cold burning stars carve their arc

We, beneath their collisions.

Unravel.

Disassembled.

By four in the morning

Birds call 

From tree to telephone wire

News of the world.

Turning now, toward our nearest star

Light up the darkness.

By the dawn

You remain.

As do I.

Ourselves.

Without a trace.

LLM v PhD. It's a matter of inches.

"We need to break the cycle of take, make, break."

- Panelist, AHRC Corporate Social Responsibility Evening

I attended the Australian Human Rights Centre CSR event this evening. A week's worth of sustained sleep deprivation, mad deadlines, strained overcommitment and strong coffee couldn't keep the nerd within away. It was good. More than. Satisfying. Challenging. Inspiring. Realistic. Provocative. It is what you experience when a group of highly intelligent people come together - that synapse-buzzing rush. 

I am considering postgrad law. Intriguing choice for someone who really did believe they were going to fail, every single semester. Sigh. I just want it. To live the big idealist dream. I want to go all the way to the Un-i-ted Na-tions. (Imagine that, hissed in Hannibal Lecter voice, when he says to Clarise, "You wanted to go all the way to the F...B...I...")

The big dream. Mmm. Minimum qualification for admission is an LLM. Apparently I did well enough to consider a PhD. Indulged in silly Lisa Simpson fantasy as my former thesis supervisor proposed the idea. ("Dr Yap. Paging Dr Yap!" ..."I'm sorry nurse. I only fix...THE LAW.") My friend who studied Landscape Architecture (but, with typical North Sydney Girl bent, could not exit her degree without first gaining First Class Hons, as a kind of par minimum for our peers), is considering postgrad in the States. Which is what I'm considering too.

Then, PhD. I mean, seriously. Now that we're talking crazy here (and I always proposed even honours as a crazy wild idea. My boyfriend has the email entitled: "Crazy wild idea" to prove it), doing an LLM without going on to PhD (esp since I refuse to become a practitioner) is like reaching third base and backtracking. Deeply unsatisfying for all concerned.

Tenuous innuendos aside. I've been mulling over a story I read somewhere many years ago. Possibly Reader's Digest. What? Don't judge me. Sometimes it's good. 

Three brothers found themselves stranded ashore a fertile volcanic island. Discussing amongst themselves, they decided to share the island equally between them, and each set off to claim his stake in the virgin land. (No dinosaurs ala Lost, don't worry.) The first brother, the eldest, found a fruitful stretch of land just within the rainforest. Close to shore, close to water, warm. There he settled. The next brother, the middle child of stranded history, climbed further up the mountain island until he found a more temperate region - further from water, but cooler with views of the sea. He stayed.

The youngest brother left them both as he climbed up the volcanic mountain. Steep and sharp, the forest gave way to ash and craggy rock, moss and snow, crisp winter chill year-round. Still he climbed. He left behind land suited for planting vegetables, rearing animals, pitching tents (presumbly of palm tree leaves and well placed logs.) The air grew thin. The island fell away beneath him. Still he climbed. The peak in view, he looked from the top of the mountain and saw the world stretched out before him, as far as he dared to look. Vertiginous and dizzying. He saw how the sea met the sand, how wild animals hunted their prey, how the weather ebbed and crackled. He saw the connections and patterns underpinning world order. There he stayed. Far from food and water, eating moss, watching the world unfold.

...

As I recall, this story was given as a scenario test to prospective entrepreneurs as a means of measuring where they 'fit' in business. No prizes for guessing how it worked. I think, however, it's a far more telling story. About what drives us. 

Honestly, I don't know. Dizzy with altitude sickness, I can feel my addiction. Not to a substance or a product or even a person. To this feeling. Even if it means scraping moss and never sleeping. It's a dopamine rush within the foggy glass of a car under the thin cover of night, knowing only metres away are a group of prison escapees totally unaware you're even there. (It's a long story.) It's payoff. Knowing all you've worked for is meaningful, is recognised, is...remunerated. Half the time, I'm afraid of being found out to be completely incompetent. The rest, I relish the labels. Star student. Amazing. All of it. 

Even though I know it is meaningless, in many ways. Even though I am the same person today as I was five years ago, or ten, or the day I was born. I have simply followed a course of events, seized upon opportunities offered and run with whatever luck came by. I can't claim to be special, but I like the idea of somehow - yes - being unattainably unsurpassed. 

"I find the impossible far more interesting."

- Elizabeth, The Golden Age.

Haha. Some days, I just want to walk down the street ala Will Smith at the end of The Pursuit of Happiness, applauding. Quiet. Unrecognised. Just for me. Just to know. It's not about you or me, of course. Life. It's about leaving the world better than you have found it. It's about doing good, if you can, where you can. It's about life full volume - the big blind, the rags-to-riches risks. 

Somedays, I just want to celebrate another day of living. Whether you live at the base or the peak of that mountain. 

Like today.

Cue applause.

Go down in style.

Brink.

"On the verge, as always."

               - 'In the Skin of a Lion', Michael Ondaatje

It's the end of the world

All over again

Pack your history

In a suitcase

Flee urban living

The free open country, hills and dusk

At the leatherbound wheel

Of a tax deductible Maserati.

Dr Phil will tell you how 

To live, rebuild.

His New York Times Top 10

Told you so, years ago

It's love - the lack of 

It's heart attacks and hydrogen bombs

It's all there

In ten easy chapters.

Slick your hair

Black suit - a Zegna charcoal

Pour Homme cologne - essence man

Cuff links by Vuitton, a grab bag of Vicodin

Black suit

You always knew

How to go down in style.

Down the barrel of a gun

You can't think of anything

Clever to say.

Your heart in your mouth

Still beating.

Breathe.

In. And out.

All life's essential rhythms

Fall this way.

Here you are

On the verge

Of life, death, sex, conquest

Winning and losing and all that

Never mattered.

You pull up to the drive

Your name on the space.

Another day

In a world of plenty.