I bought “Lovage – Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady By”. It’s a kind of cynical love album, like it Barry White had been dicked over by a few too many devil women. It’s also very fine. Oh so very fine, etc.

Having previously moved in with his girlfriend, my old flatmate has now moved into his own bachelor pad. His entire flat costs $10 a week less than mine, but it’s about the same size as my lounge. Because of its tininess, I went over and helped him sort through his crap.

If you move around a bit, like he has, and like I have, you end up with boxes filled with inessential stuff that never gets unpacked. From flat to flat the boxes are schlepped around and never opened, never unpacked. Before I went to Melbourne I went on a ruthless culling spree through all my stuff. I threw out so much stuff that I just had no use for. Now I don’t have any unopened boxes. Everything is unpacked.

So I helped Teh Matt sort through print outs of web pages, university notes, old computer disks and manuals, bad poetry, scraps of paper with phone numbers and a flowery yet touching break-up note from an old girlfriend, written in the way that only 17 year old girls write. It’s nice when everything figures out a place to go.

The Lady With The Cat Named Lesbo

She used to take it for walks, like walking a dog. Sometimes Lesbo would go walking on his own and she’d be walking around the building calling “Lesbo, Lesbo! Where are you, you naughty cat?” Lesbo was very big and fat and white and fluffy.

The Person Who Couldn’t Sleep

A person of indeterminate gender started sticking notes under my door saying I was keeping him/her awake at night by doing such ruckus-inducing activities as opening my bathroom door, walking, closing the front door. After threatening me with eviction, he/she went to a doctor and discovered the he/she actually had a mental problem that was keeping him/her awake at night so he/she moved out.

The Guy Who Swore At Himself

One day I was sitting on my couch reading. I heard loud stomping down the hall. As it got closer to my place I heard a guy yelling “Fuck you, fuck you, just get the fuck out of my life!!” I went out on my balcony to see who was making the guy so angry, and saw him angrily walking up the driveway saying, “Fuck you, just fuck off”. He was completely alone.

The Naughty School Boy

I came home one day and there was a someone sitting in a car parked in my space. I went over to asked the person to move. There was a man sitting in the car dressed as a school boy. He said he couldn’t park on the street because someone might see him. Well shit, if you’re going to dress up as a naughty school boy, you should be prepared to accepted the consequences.

The Couple Upstairs

There was a couple upstairs who often had noisy sex. I’d be in bed trying to get to sleep and there’d be bang bang bang bang coming from above. That wasn’t so bad, but sometimes I could hear, “Oh yes, yes, oh baby, oh God!” type of sounds. I had once asked them to turn their stereo down and the woman was so friendly and nice that I wasn’t about to ask them to, er, be more quiet when they’re having a shag. I don’t know how you could do that without it being a little embarrassing for everyone.

The Singing Girl Upstairs

The shagadelic couple moved out and the singing girl moved in. She would do things like wake up at 3.00 am and sing really loudly. At first I thought she was singing folk songs in an Eastern European language, but one night I recognised her singing the Celine Dion song from “Titanic” and I lost all respect for her. She also hummed and I think she danced too, because there was lots of banging about. In the end I wrote a letter to her telling her to be quiet at night because I was losing sleep and she left a message on my phone telling me that she worked very hard. Right-o.

When I start getting bad voodoo vibes that’s when I know it’s time to move on. The road becomes my bride.