all football is equal some football more so than others the mpua take on footy why some football is better than others

Hello ipso facto people, and a fatso batso welcome one and all. To this the Winter warmer spectacle of the mpua page of footy. Here at the mpua we're partial to the rugby, and to the AFL. That's right punters, the Rugby and the AFL. Don't like league and don't like soccer. Omah I'm dobbing! Miss! She doesn't like soccer and league! I Don't care, I just don't like watching it.

I can barely tolerate soccer and league-you call that a scrum?! when intoxicated on the performance enhancing drugs that I'm partial too. It's like watching paint dry, for me, really.

I'm a one eyed rugby supporter, who likes a bit of the old aerial ping pong on the side. Here at the mpua we're prepared to be as opinionated as we are.

While it's true that Australian rugby is as tumultuous as ever, there can be no doubt that the ripple on effects of the now professional game are beginning to pay real dividends at the club level. 

Club rugby here in Sydney is as strong as it's been for a while. In club rugby we still take the tap, and run the ball, more often than not. Something that the Internationals seem loathe to do these days. This obligatory kicking for the penalty goal instead of running the ball can be boring for the supporters, commentators and sponsors all.

At the club level, here in Sydney, Parramattas getting the development funding it needs to stay in the Shute Shield competition. Randwick and Sydney Uni are getting a proper run for their money this season, from the many well fielded suburban clubs. 

Old licences are being renewed which has seen St George, a club many thought extinguished, take to the paddock and breathe fire once more.

Mostly though, we here at the mpua, are well chuffed my that dad's old club leads the Shute Shield competition, and have become the rough favorites to take out the pennant this season. 

Southern districts Rugby Union club is also a feeder club for not only The NSW Waratahs and the Australian Wallabies but also for The Cronulla Sharks Rugby League Club and competition.

Leading the charge in all sorts of ways, here at Southern Districts. We also acknowledge the wonderful to-ing and fro-ing across the league and the union, in recent years. 

This cross pollination, of sorts, enhances both codes and pleases us greatly, here at the mpua. A few years later and sports journos are finally admitting that Sonny Bill's time in France has been the making of him as a player, and as a fella, I'd reckon!

These recent inroads across codes bear strange and marvellous fruit. Matt and Stevie Rogers' abilities to play across codes. Wendell Sailor, Lottie Tuquiri and more, I'm sure. In my day it was Sterlo and Price who had rugby backgrounds. All workers, and rightly proud, so no bullshit about the union being only for toffs.

The cross pollination of recent times is the one thing I love across codes. That, and the late great match caller Mr Frank Hyde 'It's high enough, it's long enough, And it's straight between the posts!' A great man, a great voice, a great mind, and a truly great commentator. Vale, Frank Hyde. 

Other than these phenomena, I'm rah rah through and through.

A merger, in the early days of professional rugby, between Port Hacking and St George rugby clubs gave birth to the bastard love child, that we love to love in our household, as well as at the mpua. Ladies and gentleman I give you Southern Districts Rugby Club.

My old man played first grade rugby for Petersham and then St George rugby clubs. Dad played first grade in the fourties and fifties, up until his nuptials in early nineteen sixty. 

Balmain rugby league club offered him, what was once a small fortune, and a waterfront home, to join their club. He declined on the grounds that it would be a betrayal. To my mums everlasting despair.

In a country, like ours that idolises our sportsmen and women, and the games that we play, imagine having my dad, the footy legend, as your dad.

Quietly proud. The amateur way. There was to never be any boastfulness about how well he played up through the ranks. Quietly proud of our dad, and his sporting prowess. He was a great fellow and the best of dads.

Weekends, in Winter, we'd watch St George play, at home at Hurstville Oval, then off to the rugby club all rose gardens and Tudor cottage. What's not to love? My uncle Buddy played alongside dad as bachelors.Team mates who married sisters.  Mum and auntie Kay as WAGS! Imagine!How cool is that? I am born of rugby.

Dad was fostered out during the The Great Depression, and the brothers got him swimming and running and singing for his weakened bronchial system. Worked a bloody treat. Old gentleman who played with him or against him talk of his character, his strengths as a player, and his truly marvellous singing voice. He could carry a tune-all my early memories of dad involve song and fun and whistling. Him and mum whistled and sang show tunes and jazz and tuppenny opera  around the place..

Here is a short piece that sums up the inherited one eyed die hard love of rugby that is truly in my blood. This was written to honour the anniversary of the troops landing at Gallipoli, and also as a way of publicly chastising the leaguies for some of the stupid indiscretions off the field.

Read it and weep.

Imagine that the footy season proper has yet to kick off, and already scandals are being reported in the media. Allegations of assault and sexual harassment, reports of gangbangs. Extra marital and extra curricula activities make the front page.

The league chiefs look at educative measures for the players, the media goes into overdrive, and plenty of females come forward to trade claim and couterclaim with Gallop's boys. As the culture, the players, the managers and bosses are put up for investigation. It seems the leaguies just can't keep it zipped. Everybody has something to say about it. This is my thinking on the whole sorry affair:

A League of their own.

At this, the start of the footy season, the 90th anniversary of the landing at Gallipolli and all who fell there, and in light of the ongoing disciplinary actions and aborted court actions against the leaguies, let me fire the opening salvo across codes, from an old rah rah.

Rugby is the game we play in heaven. It's very much a gentlemans game. We're a worldwide fraternity, and our games are about much much more than spectacle, and are thus more compelling more brutal, heroic and legendary. Here's why.

In the 1900's when foundation-to-league clubs broke ranks and modified the game, it was from it's inception a professional mans game. Money for jam.

At the same time a War of world scale was breaking out, and the armed forces plundered and recruited from the amateur and sporting associations across Australia.

Boys as young as 15 volunteered from all walks of life, but it was only the professional classes who were exempt from any public shame about staying behind.

Rugby is a world wide brotherhood(fraternity) simply because we've fought in each others wars for
so long now, we're all old mates.

Rugby is a game based on the strategies of war. In camps across the planet since rugby began, and even in camps of war since rugby began, the game transcends and indeed influences, the very politics and strategies it is founded on.

If we have a reputation for being gentleman off the paddock, and right proper bastards on it, you'll see exactly why it's the game we play in heaven. League lost more than a few fancy moves when they broke ranks, and the rest as we say, is history.

The only thing I can't figure is the chick stuff. When we play away it stays away, primarily because we're gentlemen. Get it. We have no truck with that percentage of the fairer sex that carry the icky morbid fascination for fitness and talent, that your lot do.

Because we're gentleman.

Because the union keeps us strong.

So that's the rugger then kiddies. Stirring stuff, yes? Now lets tackle the AFL, Because it's my bit on the side game I'll be short and sweet. I love it. I thinks it's way manly. The brute force and strength of athleticism in the game is spectacle enough for this supporter! I follow the Swans (formely the South Melbourne Bloods) and my second love is North Melbourne. I'll defend captain kangaroo Wayne Carey's right to fuck up royally till I die. We treat them like rock Gods, so whattaya expect?!

I saw some AFL footballs hand painted by talented koori artists at the MCA years back. I've heard enough stories to believe that AFL is based on an early shared contact game that comes from the dreaming times before my mob got here. I dunno. I don't have to. I can feel it as we watch 'em play from the cheap seats of whatever state we're in. I can see it in the kids as they play a sport where their skills and agility can be showcased.

AFL offers some beaut coaching camps and meet and play the players days for kids of all backgrounds. The AFL of all the clubs and codes gives the most back, generally, and targets Indigenies specifically in it's training and recruitment programmes.. Bloody well should be this way. Let no one man exclude another. We believe truly it is the only sensible way to conduct ones affairs. What what! Here's the real reason I'm partial to the AFL it's called:

Football for Idiots

I know nothing about The AFL Zip. Zero.Zilch.

My knowledge is limited to a rudimentary understanding of what, some years ago, was called disparagingly called aerial pingpong

I know that my first boyfriend played the VFL with some success, for a local side, here in South Sydney.

I know that most women of my generation were lured to the game with promises of athletic gods in tight shorts.

I know that when South Melbourne morphed into the Sydney Swans in an early, and successful attempt to nationalise the game, Warrick Cappa, he of the teensiest tight shorts and the Kiwi polish white shoes, became something of a a laughing stock, and a household name for his antics, both on and off the field.

I know that my then pre pubescent child had a teen sized crush on The Kangaroos(North Melbourne) captain, old rooboy himself, Wayne Carey. So big was her crush, that an arty black and white photograph carefully torn by her ten year old hands, from Rolling Stone magazine hung above her bed.

I know that while I was more than happy to indulge her crush, I have always been less comfortable with the rush to blur players like Carey with popstars of old.

I know that the AFL has the highest recruitment of Indigenous players of any of the codes, and that this in turn attracts legions of Indigenous supporters.I know that this high profile Indigenous presence also feeds back many many positive influences to an historically marginalised people.

I know that via coaching clinics and school visits that the players achieve at least a couple of things.They actively promote and further nationalise the game. They also humanise their astonishing skills and athletic abilities to young players and supporters. It's an example of these media made legends, giving back.

I know, having been to games in both the MCG and the SCG that Melbournians, are passionate about their footy in a way the leagues organising committee could ever hope for with a Sydney audience.

And I know that weekends are sacred to me. If I can't actually be at the game, I've got the game, via tv or online feed in the comfort of my lounge room.

I know that the AFL, as it's become known is high fashion and good politics, but I still reckon it belongs to the supporters, and to those elite boyos whose job it's become to entertain us, the supporters and fans.

I know that I know more about football than I let on. I know that push comes to shove, I'm as big a yob as the man I trade insults with on a crisp winters night in the cheap seats at the SCG.

I know that the game is said to have been invented in 1856 in that most hallowed of hallowed grounds the Melbourne Cricket Club. It is rumoured that there are two things good parents still do for their kids in Victoria, one involves a priest and the other is to put that child's name on the waiting list for membership at the MCC.

I know that whatever your politics, your sex or your fashion, the game of Aussie Rules can transcend this stuff. Politicians, heads of state, movie stars and models, the shakers and the movers, and the folk like me. We gather in a rarified atmosphere of revelry and rivalry to cheer and scream our guts out, because the game really is bigger than all of us.

And I know we accept this as our lot in life, as we cheerfully turn out week after week come rain hail or shine to watch the big men fly.


so there you have it punters, all. Our opinons and creative endevours and interests laid out for your perusal, your thought and your enjoyment. Gotta scarper,it's my turn to take the under 9's for a run and a play of the footy, see yas! yours, in football, the mpua...

 *** the mullers and packers union of australia retains any and all intellectual and creative copyright in this and all or any subsequent and previous posts..the mullers and packers union of australia also respects acknowledges and sources to the best of it's ability all and any other copyrights in play that are used in the commission of the creative goals of the author and the mullers and packers union of australia and all who sail 

a special edition from the mpua hand made with the help of basket weavers r us

G'day punters, and a big fat warm welcome back to the mpua hq. We're coming along at a lively pace today fellows, and I'm already down to the businees end of the game. Spliff up pronto! pronto!. Time's a wasting and I bring big news...

Todays post focuses on matters mental. I'm feeling it deeply. I'm wanting to show off another side to contemporary 'mental health issues'. Or as I'm insisting on calling them, psychiatric illnesses, afflictions and ailments and possibly, I'll allow the term disorders.

I love these terms because they are powerful, weighty, and authoritative. They are respectful words. and lend us much needed respectability They convey the suffering, the despair, and the poignancy of a person with a psych illness. This sometimes creates a little empathy and sympathy, and may help generate further understanding, and compassion

I'm opposed to terms like mental health issues and services, clients and consumers which, to me, seems deliberately flimsy, supposedly neutral and very departmental. They are soulless and empty words. They have no balls, no guts and no gumption. Beyond neutral they can also serve to further neuter, hobble and cripple often already crippled people.

Language like this shows us nothing of the passion and drama and zest for life that most psych afflicted people have.. One group of terms recognises us, and the weightiness of the illness, the other is dehumanising and acts to render us invisible(out of sight out of mind) They are nothing words lacking warmth, with little or no humanity.
So for me then, I like the old fashioned language of formality and dignity. I detest the supposed nuetrality of the language of bureaucracy and the politically correct.

I adore the old style colloquialisms and slang. Words and phrases like spaz, nutter, fruitcake cuckoo, off with the fairies, off your trolley, dropped your bundle, mad as a meat axe, crazy as a cut snake. You catch my drift, yes? The colour, the humour and the richness of this lingo speaks of care and genuine affection. I'm determined to resurrect them in the every day. Affection and good cheer should never be nuetralised and legislated out of existance.

Contrary to popular belief most mentals love the wordplay of these old addages,and do not consider these phrases to be jibes. If you can't take the piss what else is there when all hope seems lost? The gallows humour of the locked ward, and of the every day. These words delight us, honour us, and allow us our flawed humanity.
I'm dedicated this post to the beautiful and tragic Roni Levi He was fatally shot by the cops, at Bondi Beach in 1997. For being schitzophrenic in a public place. Some of the cops turned up dirty urines post shooting. Enquiries and editorials opined, but nothing brings this man back.

A commercial photographer was working on Bondi Beach, and captured the whole sorry shambles on camera. Frame by frame. That awful day, that poor mans violent death at the hands of The State. Exercuted by Agents of The State(the cops) Men and women who have the right to subdue any one of us, by any means necessary.

This police action has been life changing, and has informed for me in ways I am only now able to articulate. Pretty shitty day, that. For all concerned, I'd guess. Especially for Mr. Levi, and his family. Vale, good sir. The mpua shall offer our condolences, all these many years later. We mourn your passing, and the manner in which your life was taken.Let me me be upfront, from the word get go. These days, nearly six years and counting, I'm mostly high functioning, For a nutter. It's been said quite recently that I present well. I have just enough of a work ethic to pass in the straight world, and I'm robust and ambitious. These days I'm seen as successful in the management of my health. What I've been through to get back on track has been epic heroic and miraculous. So much so, that there are days when all I want is a ticker tape parade because I've seemingly conquered the unconquerable!

One time I was convinced that the building of the new Glebe Island Bridge(renamed Anzac) was a gift to me, from all of you for my valiant efforts, but that's another story, and I digress.

Since 1997, the affliction of Seasonally Affected Bi-Polar 1 has both ruled and ruined my life. Try forgiving that! Try intergrating that into you're life, making sure you can make spaz jokes with the best of them Picking your self up, dusting yourself off and starting all over again. Losing trust and faith in your self and the community because psychiatric care/ mental health might just be our last too hard basket.

Too many losses. A litany of loss.

The symptons of my bi-polar are hard to spot initially, and the ailment's seasonal, so it's fickle. Colours are brighter, every thing is sexy and vibrant, I have more energy, I begin to need much less sleep, my thoughts race, my libido wants action, my eyes begin to hurt, my thoughts race faster and become grandiouse. I become irritable and may be agressive Old grudges and resentments well passed thier use-by-date can surface. I have been violent and anti-social at times. Verbally, I am terryfying. Physically I feel unstoppable. Bulletproof, even.

Then I can begin to hear voices, and sometimes I have visions. That's the point of no return,so I am told. I am delusional and psychotic. It is at this point that I apperently pose a threat to myself,and to the public at large. I am seen as anything but compliant now. The only option isto exit stage left in a paddy wagon and head to the hospital with an available bed. Once there I am force-fed loads of psychoactive drugs to combat the malady. Rest and respite, and eventual recuperation.

I am by now exhausted and wound up all at once.

Medication, in most situations, continues to be trial and error. Experimental, and often taxing in the side effects.

Hospitals like Rozelle/ Callan Park are a balm for this tattered soul. I deeply regret the closure of this grand old asylum and teaching hospital. One of the best things about Rozelle/Callan Park aside from the river, the acres of gardens, and the comradery, is that once I am on an open ward, I can talk up a level of compliance, enough to have my keycard restored to me, and when the moment is good, I gather up my few effects and scarper.

On the lamb. A fugitive in my own lunchtime. I walk home, and break in through a back window. I have to break in to my own home because you never get your keys back until just prior to the discharge papers being signed. I buy some groceries, some beer, and have a queit time at home. Just me and Mr Resch's with the books, the bong and the boombox for company.

Within a fortnight or so there's a knock on the door, and feeling secure, I open it, as though I've forgotten I am mental, and sure enough it's the cops come to take me back to 'the farm' in the paddywagon. In light of my unauthored departure from hospital, I am listed as a missing person, and this increases the anxiety of family and friends

For all the good intentions and rhetoric, psyche hospitals are run as prisons. Administered in this State under a Mental Health Act that's not had that much ammendment since Federation in 1901. Especially if you measure psych care and services against other general and specialied health. Bloody sad to starve sick people of assistance. Makes a person feel like a burden just for getting ill. We are stigmatised and criminalised and our lives are dangerously interrupted, time and time again. By both the illness and the compulsory treatment plans.

I just don't get the cops involvement. Its brutal, dehumaanising, traumatic, and far too often fatal. If funded appropriately, the cops would become totally redundant and unnecessary, in the delivery of services pertaining to psyche care. I'm like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. I have a dream, and I'll make it a reality by any means necessary. By hook or by bloody crook.

Psychiatric care/mental health is also a civil liberties and a human rights issue. My liberties and rights are forfeit the minute the cops are called in. Each and every time.

I've become an expert, over the years in managing loss and mistrust by using humour, wit, and a joi de vie that fluctuates with the seasons, as a weapon, as a shield, and also as a release.

I'm learning how to get well sooner, rather than later. I'm learning how to connect to the few services I can afford. I'm learning to relax and take it easy, as I try to medicate excercise and diet it all away. The very many daily acts to depersonalise my self so you all feel more comfortable.

I aim to never be taken by force again. That's my definition of freedom. It may explain my compliance(colour me beige) but all in all, I think it shows a healthy level of self preservation. I think, that it's time for spazoids like myself to stand up and be counted. I'm feeling duty bound, and well enough (did I mention the accompanying exhaustion?) to trumpet the changes, to ring them in so to speak, and to try to engage with you, dear reader.

Along the way, we might share an occasional exchange of thought and opinion which according to my late grandfather, are like bottoms, in that everyone's got one.
Here at the mpua we've got more opinions than we know what to do with, so today we're gonna throw a whole bunch of them out into the ether, and see what, if anything, comes back to us. Like a game of boomerangs-but with whitefella words, language and ideas.
To kick us off, I'm going to speak from very personal experience about how me and mental health services first met, or should I say collided. I was in my final year at university. I had been invited into post-grad course work. I was a shiny new talent, showcasing my wares and assets all over this cities artistic fringes. I was studying on a full time basis, working part-time, single parenting a young child, and running a small but costly habit. Issues of addiction abounded in my daily life. Sick of myself and sick of the habit, I stopped using, and quite gently entered a fugue like state known as psychosis. I brokedown nervously.

I've often descibed it as having had my central nervous system wake up(via an amatuer and ineffectual home detox) only to find find a note on the kitchen table saying the brain was away on a fishing trip for an indetrminate while.
I awoke one night in my lovers bed, to a yellow fullmoon with a dreamtime voice telling me to leave now! That the house, like me, was unclean! In my jammies I walked the cold deserted streets not sure of much at all. Everytime i stopped, the moon ordered me on. My first aural hallucinations.

Walking back to my lovers house and sitting, slumping, cold and sleepy on her doorstep, not able to rouse her from her slumber. I was no longer sure of my place in the world.
The people around me did what they could, and it constantly confirmed my worst fears; they were as out of their depths as I was. Eventually, I attended an appointment with the registrar at the local health centre. She ordered me to hospital. When I declined, left the building and began the long walk home, I was stopped by the police, bundled into the back of a police paddy wagon and taken to hospital where I was immediately admitted, sedated and put to bed.

Aaah, the uber bex and the good lie down. Because I was honest about my recent drug history, this first episode was written up, and explained away as a D&A psychosis. It is worth noting that recent innovating thinking in psychaitry, backed up by studies and research, show that while drug and alcohol use can part of the wider diagnosis, it is seldom the sole or root cause of episodes of ill health. This is called a dual diagnosis.

Eventually visitors visited, eventually i was moved to an open ward, eventually the visitors dried up because me and my situation made people uncomfortable. It was too confronting. Too squalid, too sad, too defeating. Too scary.I wouldn't shower because there was no lock on the door. I refused to let them take my bedding or my laundry. The smell of my psycho-active drug affected sweat smell was the strongest and only thing I had had left. I was in a locked ward. There was no escape. I was made to ask for my cigarettes. I was not allowed a lighter. I had no freedom and felt truly alone, confused and helpless

I was under constant surveillence, and dependant on the kindness of strangers.

I was comfortably numb. I was humbled over time, by the mostly caring and cheerful intelligent psych nurses, who helped as best they could. There were a few nurse rachette(cukoos nest) moments, which only added to the trauma and the drama. I felt glad, sort of, that I was finally getting help to get well. I was embarrassed to be this needy. I was annoyed by this predicament. I hated myself. I felt like a failure, a traitor to the cause, and that I was letting everybody down.

Not part of the old life plan, what what!.

Whatever my visitors were thinking, showed in thier manner. They began to influence, deeply, how I was to see myself, my life, and my future. The fractured lens of grief. I felt broken, ashamed, defective and bruised. This was reflected back to me, constantly, by the people in my life. This time I had really gone too far. I believed I was a fucked unit, a spaz, another dumbfuck clusterfuck junkie who was getting all the payback, karmically, for her dilettante ways

As though the cosmic chickens had come home to roost.

You get the picture? I believed that it was all my fault. That I needed to repent my wicked ways, learn the lesson, and move along like a good little doggie. I also felt strongly that I was being cast out of the garden of eden that had once been my earthly paradise.

There is nothing that smarts more than to feel so thouroughly abandoned and debased in your hour of need. I'm aware that I've gotten a little bible-flowery just then, punters, but understand this: psych illnesses are very old testament. It can be hugely apocalyptic when your psyche is fragmenting. We are systemically and socially abandoned all of the time, us people of the lost marbles tribe.Eventually I was discharged. This meant seeing a magistrate again, and agreeing to a community treatment order. Like bail conditions, an order of this type is legally binding document, with penalties for non-compliance. I was also given a clean bill of health by a team of doctors, nurses, and the obligatory social worker. All of these people, including my family, my lover, and my friends had more say in my life than I did.

I felt like a real nobody. I felt like an abject and pathetic loser. It occurs to me, all these years later that breaking your will and your spirit (by whatever means necessary) is still seen as necessary and therapeutic. That in time, you'll eventually see the wisdom of these barbaric ways. It's for your own good. It's all for the best. Its policy and procedure, my dear. Don't fret about it, don't think about it, and above all, don't dwell upon it.

To become compliant and complicit with the machinations of the medical-legal model. To become teachable. as the buddhists and the twelve steppers might say. To learn to love your illness in order to heal your life.! To learn to pretend. To pretend it matters not, that eventually all of your old mates are too busy to see you. To try to move on and upwards and forward. To be angry and exhausted and full of sorrow and remorse.It seems that I'm pushing for legitimacy. Blood oath I am! I want to talk about how fucked the Mental Health Act is. I want to say, again and again, that police and medical staff routinely overstep the bounds, safe from censure, because we're in an enfeebled way, and the dastardly Act backs thier misbehavior.

When I was mistreated and manhandled by the cops one time, and I asked for assistance to document my injuries, I was told by a kindly nurse, that a copper photographer was mandatory, so no we couldn't take pics with a smart phone. I was in no shape to be any where near a cop! It was cops that had just mashed me in the privacy of my home.

I went to lock a kitchen window and they thought I was getting a knife. They contained me by forcing me face down into a rug, kneeling on me to restrain me. They nearly bloody hog tied me! I resisted valiantly(like the peacenick I was) which probably enflamed them, as they cuffed me (with more than one set or type of cuff) and half dragged, half carried me forcibly into the paddywagon. Lights and siren flashing. Burning rubber. Very old school.Very criminal.

As my neighbor let them in with my spare key, I ran outside and turned on the hose full bore to create a diversion, if need be. They looked like they meant business. Sporting both latex and leather gloves, hands on batons they adanced into the hall, I was close enough to see badges, I ran outside telling them I'd left the hose .on, I wrote thier names and badge no's on the fence and once inside grew very scared. because they wouldnt let me secure the house.

When I finally got home from the hospital it was to a crimescene. Anything and everything of value had been taken..

In the 80's we used to say that the NSW police force were the best that money could buy.That's still true for me. I's a corrupt action whern we are harmed or killed by cops claiming provocation and self defence. Or when our wider society allows a barbaric and repressive Act to still be in use. The Act gives carte blanche, and such sweeping powers, to everyone but the ones that need it most.The Mental Health Act is so totally disenfranchising. We are rendered absolutely powerless in it's maladministration as in its administration. It's a nasty piece of legalise, for sure, for sure.

Bastards! Bastards! Bastards!

Cops get aproximately five hours of psyche 101, as part of thier basic training at the academy. That's right, five hours! To become a shrink takes eight plus years To become a nurse takes four to six years, to become a social worker takes four plus years. Five hours for cops who are the frontline forces; is seen as sufficient, in reality this is ludicrous but true. Some cops are tops-others are arseholes. Simple really and probably reflective of the wider culture, Except that cops have the power to take a life within the scope and latitude of The Mental Health Act.

And it really is luck of the draw. Like the fuzz, some crisis team nurses are fab. Others turn out to be crude ratbags and bastards From this moment on, if and when The State is next made aware of my disorder and predicament. I want a shrink present. I want the crisis team to bring a teabun and a friendly manner. And if cops attend they do so with dignity and resprct or it's at their own risk.

I should be able to go to hospital in a health dept car, or ambulance (Or god forbid! a taxi, or my mums car) I should definitely be able to go with my dignity intact. I think it's cruel to be mean to spazoids like me. I shouldn't think that Stephen Fry or the late and kooky Spike Milligan suffer quite the level of indignity that public inpatients do.(They are my poster boys of bi-polar)

She cried, my lovely neighbor when she came to visit in the hospital. Cried for my injuries and cried for the cops, because she likes me. She had trusted them to do the right thing. She also gave me back the spare key. I took it too. Wouldn't you?

If a cop or nurse or doctor mistreats an inpatient and nobody sees it, did the tree really fall?

For years after that I startled whenever a cop was nearby. Literally jumped at the sight of them and their paddy wagons .At hospital that day, I politely declined the cop photographer and instead I accepted the offer of an uber pill and compliantly slept off the injury done to me. I pretended amnesia for years and only allowed myself wry comments to most folk and hid the depth of my fury, from myself as much as others.Coincidently the very last hospitalisation was, like the very first, drug related. Having maintained good attendence at 12 step meetings, I realised one day that for the first time in many years that I wanted to use. I also gave in to the urge pretty quickly. Four or so sleepless nights later, had me ringing for help. Mistakenly I think I dialed 000 because I was put through to the cops. Maybe also some psyche nurses from acute care/crisis team surfaced.

Again the decisions were all made for me. and hop into the back of the wagon please love, seems so bloody fucken familiar, which is a bit of a worry, really. Except that it's routine to have lots of what Spike Milligan used to call sanatarium time.. Like my bex and the good lie down. Or the the hidden wonders and mysterious depths of the hubbly bubbly.

Before I bid thee good day gentle men, ther's a couple of last minute matters arising. Read up on Aboriginal, Greek and Roman mythologies and dreamtime myths. They shape our psyches and in turn inform us socially and systemically. Such is the power of creative an culturally produced mythos.

I want to whet your appetites fellows all, here's a little taste of the myth of Icarus, For your listening pleasure, may we suggest this fine local tune as an accompaniment to the mythology you're currently perusing. This song is the unofficial anthem for paranoid folk everywhere. Yes, that's right noble savages all, it's the local band Men At Work  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPlNzWbX9c8 with an old song called Who Can It Be Now.

So let's leave it there for the moment, good fellows all. If it feels unfinished it's because it is. It's enough that, together, we've begun this odyssy to converse outside of the shrinks or health centres rooms. It's not exactly palatable among the dinner set or cafe culture crowd, or is it? Time will tell, that's for sure. To this effect we're thinking about starting up a crafty group to be called The Lost Marble Society. We could meet monthly in the basket weaving room, here at the mpua hq. It's a social event for the mentals and thier friends. All welcome, bring a plate and some bevvies, and we'll handle the rest. Hope you can come along and if we get the numbers we'll make a day of it.

Don't forget to check out the link below. These people lead the way in psych care and education. Truly a centre of excellence. Thank you black dog Institute. the black dog is named for Sir Winston Churchill, former PM of England, during WW11. He suffered the black dogs of depression and despair. A spaz was in charge of the war! Cool

Until the next time time our paths cross, be kind to each other. See yas!


Black dog institute

letter from a boy in london the mpua fiction page

Hello, happy people, and again, welcome back to the mullers and packers union. Today for your pleasure and enjoyment we, here at the mpua hq, are proud as punch to present a work of creative fiction that's sure to delight. It's handcrafted, it's original, it's stylish as buggery, and it's locally produced. As is the author who's a real bright spark from way back. So settle in, listeners, get comfy, pour a drink, make a spliff, plate up that chocolate eclair. Kick back and enjoy the ride.......The story goes something like this:


Letter from a boy in London


It's there. In the letterbox. I can't breathe. I can't move. I'm all eyes as big as saucers and sharp intake of breath. My grin breaks wide and splits across my face. I savor this feeling, hand on letterbox, lid up. Frozen in this moment this letter. This letter from a boy in London. Pete Jones.
In London for the christmas holidays with his family. a long, long, longest way aways.

On blue heavy linen paper and written in spidery bic ink is my true loves hand. His hand spells my name across the oceans. On this missive he's drawn a sex pistols kind of hms flagg-y thing. In my letterbox is word from abroad. From a boy, not just any boy, he's the boy for me. And me for him.

He's been my friend for ages, years and years, since littlies, and the funny thing, it's deeper now. Scary deeper friends. The stuff that knocks the breath from out of you. Each and every time you see each other deeper stuff. Aqua Profunda kinda stuff. Latin is too easy sometimes.


He's a year or so ahead of me at school.
And tall.
And the sweetest face.
Like an angel.
And mannered.
And smart.
And funny.
And kind.
And handsome.
And soft hearted sweet for me.

He schools at the local boys high, and I travel a bit further again, to a posh, not so local girls school. He lives about a half a mile from me so we catch the same bus of a morning. It really is the best part of the day. It's on account of him that, over time, I shorten very very subtly the hem of my uniform. Oh, and very much on his account that I also run in the upper seams and darts on an otherwise very dowdy school dress.

He's in London for our summer, and I miss him greatly, as my heart stands still, and simultaneously threatens to burst out of my chest, when I see his letter in the post today. Slowly I let my breath out, and my hand steals in and gently lifts out the letter, and I do! I hold it clasped to my bosom, and a tear hits my throat to know he writes to me. It's too real. There's the rub. It's too big, this feeling of Oh! he writes across oceans and a family christmas in London to me.


I kiss it and slide it into my back pocket, scoop up the rest of the mail, and slowly make my way back down to the house. I'm saving this letter for later, for me and me alone, to steal glances at, to read again and again, because who knows if he'll write again? It's too too much that he's written at all godblesshim! I love a boy who's not afraid to commit on paper in the pursuit of romancing me.

Pete Jones and me go way back. Since first our family moved here. Here, is the very leafy, very splendid lower lower north shore of Sydney. The green belt of the bush that is our playground once more.


It's been a couple of years since the olds split up. It's been a tough couple of years 'till I could even say that, that matter of factly. Nonchalantly, even. Vocab, like nonchalance, is what holds us all together some days, since the decree nisi became final. Some days we all still fall apart in our own familiar ways. I miss dad. We all do, I think. Sometimes, even mum, though she rarely has a good word to say about him, on the whole.

We came here to this house, in this lovely place, in a round about way. Such is divorce, and the lot of the broken home-d and broken hearted, such as we are. From our old house, we went to nanna and pa's old terrace for a bit, then a flat that was too small and cramped for a mob such as us, but like pa's place, it had the makeshift feel of adventure.

A fatherless adventure. Pretty scary without dad around all the time. Sometimes I ache to snotty overflow at my loss of him. In between these times gets longer and longer, and then bamn! the immediacy of his absense is hot sweaty-faced tears. Mostly though, the adventure's ok and downright funtastic when I'm not feeling gutted and wretched over dad.

This house has a permanency to it. It's ours. And it is in this house that we begin to knit back together as a family, after the fracture of the split. This house, like the 'hood, is spacious, airy and light. We live a couple of miles out of town, and we're hemmed in by bush on all sides. It's the grouse to be back in the bush again.

I can't remember not knowing Pete, but I couldn't honestly tell you where or when we met. I've just always known him. He lives near us, with his parents, and his big sister Sally. She's heaps older and very suave, I only know her from dinners at their house and stuff like that. Pete's my buddy from the word get go. We are thick as thieves. Me and Tanya and the lads, of which Pete is one.

I can remember, however, when it changed between us as clear as day. On the bus on morning it changed as soon as we saw each other. Just like that! As I climb up those three steps, flash my bus pass at the driver, I've looked up at his green eyes looking back at me. We hang from those straps and as a seat opens up, we avail ourselves of it. It's different, more charged between us and fluid too, as he stands back to let me sit first.

It's easy. What I mean is that I'm at ease with this different thing that we're doing, and he is too, and that's why it's easy. It's all long grins and steamy looks, and our arms touch all the way to the ends of our fingertips, as we sit close by each other on the bus to town. Where we both loiter with intent, talking the most important bollocks imaginable, as we wait for the trains that take us in opposite directions to our respective school days.

Times are good in this new house of ours. Mum's busier than ever, busting a gut, earning a crust, keeping the metaphorical wolves from the door. She's run ragged supporting this brood of hers, but she wouldn't have it any other way, as she's fond of reminding us. She affords us many freedoms 'cos she believes in us, believes we're up for the challenge of the responsibilities of said freedoms. We try hard to prove her faith in us, mostly we're successful. She's fairly forgiving when we erre, and we all sleep easier, because finally life is once again expansive and thus quite luscious in this leafy silly lazy days are here again house of ours.

The neighborhood is special. We live in a gully off the road that leads to the escarpment and a hairpin bend filled gorge, that if followed, finally meets the river. In the other direction is town, and away to the east is a national park that also follows the river back into the harbour, eventually. Over the ridge to the west is more bush and crown land.

We rule this patch of bush of ours. We revere, play, plot, plan, daydream, explore and make ours, as we while away all the hours left us in any given day in the heady crackle of cicada hum, goanna underfoot, eucalypt sharp canopy of freedom. God's own indeed.

We really do congratulate ourselves for our everlasting good cheer and resilience in this house of ours. The only dark spot is dad. He seems to have lapsed from our lives. Disappeared. We don't see much of him these days. Our brother sees him still, but it's like he's forgotten about his daughters, all four of us! I can find no way to rectify this seemingly immutable state of affairs. So it becomes, slowly over time just that, immutable. It is as it is, and it's sad, but maybe it's all for the best? That's the vibe I get whenever I think to hard on the subject. Because time waits for no man, not even our dad. Eventually there's barely a blip on my emotional radar. Just the whisper of a by now dull ache. There's an echo, like a shadow, on my heart for him.

Starting school here is cute. Not. Me and one of my sisters are in the same room, the same class, a combined 5/6 class. It's weird and funny all at once. As if I don't see enough of her at home, now we share the same class as well! For the first time, in a long time, I feel the weirdness of my family. Socially, publicly, spatially. It's good we're cheeky, me and her, it makes school easier, and helps compensate for our weirdness. We're like twins, her and I, but not really. born eleven moths and one day apart, I'm older, but not really, except I am, chronologically speaking. I told you it's weird, we're like twins, but not really. To cap it all off, for one month and one day each year, from her birthday in September 'till mine in October we are, on paper, the same age. Think about it! I told you it was weird!

I like this school. I'm happy here. Lighter. All of us are. it's a relief to be settled again. We set about making ourselves comfy in our new home, because that's where it's at. Home and hearth. Kith and kin. So says my mum, and I agree. The living like gypsies was fun for a bit, but I for one am glad it's over. We sail through our first year in our new home, in a haze of low level glory that all we thought lost, is restored to us again. Dad remains the one loss in all this restoration.

In the year of my tenth birthday, I begged, pleaded with, and harangued my mum for a skateboard for my birthday. You could never be sure with mum until presents were actually opened, if the hassling would pay off. So good was her poker face and teasing, in the face of our oft repeated requests in the lead up to birthdays. And 10! Well, finally double figures. A decade old. Me. 10. This birthday was to be special, and I knew that despite her concerns about my safety, my chances of a skateboard were good. That the separation from dad's so new could. if played carefully. work in my favour, and as long as I don't overplay my hand I'd be right. With the bust up so new , mums a bit topsy-turvy and harder than ever to predict. But still! I'm turning ten, she's got to give in.


She does. I do get a skateboard that birthday. Not the thin flexy fibreglass deck and wide trucks of my dreams, but a classic nerdy surfer sam. Half an inch thick balsa hardwood deck, a nubbly grip pad all over the top, and basic black straight from the factory standard ball bearing wheels, not trucks mind you, wheels. No glamour, very very basic and godblessher! she's talked with the fellas at the local sports store and what she's given me is the starting blocks to a great affair with skating. In time I can do all the trick stuff on the ole surfie sam: tictacs, 180's, 360's, up and down kerbs and gutters, speed and freestyle. You name it, and I can eventually make it happen on that you beaut undercover deck of mine. Go mum.

As long as we're active and out in the sunshinefreshair she lets us go, quite literally from dawn until dusk. She makes sure we always have quality gear to tool about with. Big on sports, she is. The old man too. Lifeguard, waterpolo, rugby, body surfing. There isn't much the old man can't or won't have a go at in his pursuit of leisure. Life's a game billylids! he'd say, and thus we live accordingly. Sports mad, our mob. Watch it, play it, live it, breathe it, train for it, and try always to apply the rules in the spirit of fair play. That's the maxim yeah! Sports mad and vitally proud of it. All that healthy body, healthy spirits, healthy mindedness is part of what drives the tribe I spring from.

I'm guessing it's the skating or the fangin' through the place on our pushies that see us all finally come together. I meet Pete through Tanya, who lives further down the gully again. In the street, and almost the house, behind us. She's alright is Tanya. A bit of a tomboy still, like me. Sporty, and fond of a laugh. Not like some of the girls at my school. She lives with her dad and her stepmum Gina, who's lovely. Her stepbrother Dave stays for the holidays, sometimes. He's a funny silly duffer boy, and he reckons I can ride his surfboard this summer. Cool.

I'm in the Kiss Army. Me, and Tanya, and my sister Twinny paint our faces, and go into town one Saturday. Tanya's Ace Freeley with the star over one eye, I'm Paul Stanley, with the catface, and Twinny is Gene Simmons, and can she ever do a tongue thingy to rival his, let me tell you she can! We shock the good burghers in town and draw many stares, some comments too, not all of it disapproving. It's a hoot! A masquerade of sorts and we take liberties in the crowded shopping centre, jostling and yahooing, holding court in the centre court, rowdy in our anonymity. Having, Isweartogod! the time of our lives.

I really like The Angels, and a band Dragon, has caught my attention. I love Kiss, but I'm also a bugger for a bit of Barry Manilow, and I also love disco. But it's the bass player from Dragon who's really caught my fancy. He's the bees knees! I'm a huge fan for Todd Hunter. That's his name. Todd. Hunter. His brother Marc is the frontman. Lovely smokey voice, that Marc, but it's the taller one Todd, that I'm soft for. I love Dragon. Mum lets me have a half-day off school to see them live at Miranda Fair. On a school day. For free. My mum rules OK! I'm taking their latest LP for them to sign, some clothes to change into, and I get to leave at recess! Yahoo! Dragon! Todd! Here I come!

Me and a million bazillion other sweaty girls! But I'm agile, determined, and did I mention I'm a huge fan?! I push and squeeze ever closer to the front of stage area where I swoon along in time to the music, and the air of hysteria of us masses packed in like sardines, hypnotic in our adoration of the band.

Too soon it ends, we yell, stomp and cheer for more. They sing two more songs, April Sun In Cuba and Are You Old Enough, both off their new LP and both brilliant. I meet them. They exit stage left, only to reappear some time later, sitting at tables to sign autographs. We sardines attempt to form queues, and soon I have my five minutes next to fame. Good lookers these Hunter brothers, all shiny pop star smiley polite and sexy! Oh that Todd! What a hunk! Twice as handsome as on the telly, and he asks me my name and everything. Looks into my eyes as he thanks me for coming as he hands me back my record. I'm in heaven!

The train home is a blur, and it's not until mum picks me up from the station that I come to in any real way. My mum rules OK!

I also like Peter Tosh and some of Hendrixes guitar and Janis Joplin wailing on Pearl can send shivers up my spine. I also hear a whisper of some new London sounds from my lovely mate Pete, and his big sister suave Sally. I like him alot, but I think he likes my friend Karen, and because I like him alot, I sit on my hands and watch him decide he really likes Karen. Ouch! Bloody bloody boys! If I live to one hundred I still don't reckon I'll have figured them out!

Pete and me are close. Real close. Best friends even. He's the goodest company ever, since year six. We're like that crossed finger thingy. Sometimes it's hard to figure where we stop and start. It's neat. Like Robin Hood and the merry men, or the three musketeers, or those rats from Tobruk and if you chuck in the antics of Hogans Heroes and anything Mel Brooks, then that's me and Pete in a nutshell. He's goofy and smart and silly. Full of tommyrot and nonsense. And so am I.

But I think he likes Karen. Bummer. Big time. I'm not sure what holds me back from speaking up. I like to think it's the honourable thing to do, not make a competition for his feelings, with my friend Karen. Maybe I'm shy, maybe I'm gutless, maybe I'm hedging my bets. I like him maybe more than like him and I can't be sure I like him for real, and I'm loathe to share him in any way with Karen. Damnitalltohell! Why can't things be the way they were? How come all this other stuff lurks in the shadows just waiting to trip us up! I hate this feeling of jealousy and cranky whiney me. I'm still no closer to deciding if I'll declare my intentions and feelings to him. All I do is chase my tail until even I'm fed up with me.

My big sister reckons to tell him. We consult the twin oracles of Pink and Dolly magazines, and she is on the money. The agony aunties all concur that honesty is the best policy. Fortified by the wisdom of big sis and the mags I decide to bite the bullet, and let my feelings be known to him.

The next morning I take special care in getting ready for school. The white socks with the lacy tops, the 'be alert, your country needs lerts' pin, all the accessories that single me out from the drab uniformity of my school life. My legs are freshly shaved, my hair shines from the three million brushstrokes, and the butterflies are huge in my belly, as I head off up the hill to the bus stop

As I hear the bus approach, I've an overwhelming desire to duck back of the road side, into the mouth of the track, and let the bus sail on without me. I need to pee, and the phrase 'no guts no glory' jumps into my head, as the bus pulls into view.

I climb those well worn steps, flash my bus pass to the driver, look up and bam! I'm looking into that boys deep green eyes. We hang together from one of those straps and everything is different. When a seat opens us for us, he stands back to let me sit first, then bumps in beside me and whatever distance we've always kept is gone forever, as his thigh fits along side mine and our fingers reach for each other, and our grins break deep and slow, upside our faces.

We sit together into town, chattering nonsensical morning stuff. Lessons, homework, teachers we love to hate. School politics, friends and foe take us the three miles to the station. We hang back and away from the others and make plans to meet after school. At his house by 5. So that's that. We don't talk about Karen at all, which is a small mercy, and I do have him all to myself later this day, and that's more than enough for now. He runs to catch his train at the very last minute, as we pass grins and fare thee wells across the plarform as his train rattles him away to school.

I see Karen in a couple of my classes and try to be nice, rembering Nannas advise about flies and honey not vinegar. It's hard and my teeth hurt from the effort. I'm either a hypocrite or a stellar diplomat cos she thinks I'm her friend, when she's now becoming the friend I quietly hate cos she might rival me in is affections. He might like her, like her, even more than me. If he likes her like going steady likes her, it may spell the end to me and him and all things silly. Three being crowded company and all that jazz. He is the most beautiful young man! I fan the embers of my crush as I daydream the school day away. I'm marking time 'till 5.

I rush through my homework, fold the washing(my turn) and I change out of the school frock, and into Lee jeans and a Hang Ten tee-shirt and sandals. A quick brush of the tresses, a swipe of lipgloss, and I'm off on the pushie, on the way to Petes. I let my big sister know I might stay for dinner, and that I'll call in with my plans later. Then I'm gone!

Pete's parents house is amazing. An architect fleshed out thier ideas and it's pretty impressive. All split levels and huge sheet glass windows, kind of Frank Lloyd Wright modern modernism sprung to life in a rocky outcrop of bushland on a steepish block. He lets me in, he's on the phone upstairs, and there's cold drinks in the fridge. The Jamacian sounds of Tosh, Marley and the other Wailers drifts through the lofty rooms. Cordials in hand, I make my way upstairs, towards an uncertain future, and me with the flimsiest of gameplans!

It's bloody karen on the phone! Oh well. I hand over the drink and go look at the books and stuff that litter his room. I find a collection of sci-fi short stories, flip the record over, and lose myself in Asimov. Sitting on his bed, trying not to eavesdrop, trying to make sense of the print, and not his conversation. To do anything but listen to his conversation is torture. I get up, close the door between us, turn the record up and dance to lose myself in the view outside his window.

Anything but his low and lovely voice voice, his chuckle, and his attention directed elsewhere. I'm annoyed with the pair of them, but mostly her. She lnows how I feel for him and yet she flirts and flirts, any chance she can get, the slag! He's not that much better; if he fancies her. then maybe his standards are'nt what I thought. Oh shit! I try to push all of this crap out of my mind, and I redouble my efforts to get well and truly lost in the music.

It's working and I'm grinning madly, eyes shut, flailing about, lost to this world, and I startle to hear him chuckle. I look up and he leans into the doorframe.
-Gotcha! he grins
-Got what?! I shoot back at him. I feel a bit caught out that he was watching something not meant for others. I love dancing-it's an inside thing and I'm way self conscious of how other people see me. Who knows what I give away about myself when I'm inside the beat?

-You're good, I think, he says as he moves across the room to turn down the record.
-Thanks. How's Karen? I shoot back with an edge in my voice.
-Yeah, she's good, he replies.
-Oh good-o. I try to speak slowly and not stacatto cross, but I ain't pulling it off.

I feel misery-guts-ish and teary with frustration, our talk is at odds with how I feel and I want to run from this moment so bad, but I know the only thing to do is to stay put, so I do.

-Whassup, buddy? he asks coming to sit up on the ledge near me. He flips out, and lights up a ciggy. He's older, he sometimes smokes. I don't. Mum does, Dad never! Pa loves cigars, and Pete Jones is a B&H Speccy Filter kinda guy.

-Gimme one? I ask.
-Sure, he says offering the pack. Now this is weird. I don't smoke, but here we are, the pair of us, smoking! He takes it from me, puts it gently to my mouth, holds his lighter to it, as I enhale and choke splutter hacking burning throated cough my head off.
-Whoops! he pats my back, takes the ciggy from me, passes me his cordial, and as I regain my breath and my composure, his hand stays put across my back and shouders, rubbing slow soft circles. He draws on his ciggy and laughs softly. Sotto low man belly chuckle.

-Sorry, I offer. He shrugs, takes a long draw on his ciggy, and we say nothing for a while.
-Can I've another go? I gesture to the smokes. He passes me his and we both look at it for a bit. I'm not sure what to do. I'm not even sure if I'm holding it the right way, and I want to engage him with the task at hand. It burns slowly on in the silence.
-How do you smoke and not cough? I ask him.
-Like this, he says and he shows me how to breathe it softly in, then adds that I'm to expel the smoke as soon as I can.
-You turn, and he passes me the fag.
-Softly Annie, he warns. I do it. I have a quick puff and pass it back, glad to be rid of it, and glad to have held his attention away from Karen.

-Karen's okay y'know Annie? he begins quietly. Another draw on the ciggy, the tip glows red, I watch him exhale. His hand is still on my back.
-She's nice and all, but um she's not...not my....she's not for me y'know? I like her, don't get me wrong, she's a great girl but she's not my girl, yeah, that's what I'm wanting to say mate, she's not my cuppa tea at all.

-Oh, is all I can manage. His hand is still on my back, still making cicles. He draws again on his ciggy, we sit on in companionable silence, and I relax finally. I smile into my bones with the joy of what he's telling me. It's lovely. There's no need to speak, the late arvo sun deepens the shadows and the sky outside his window. All is well in the world.

He quietly stubs out his ciggy and pulls me into him. I like how he can do that. Strong and softly gentle, all at once. I like his smell. Sweat and cigarettes and something him. Some sharpish skin smell that is peculiar to him alone. It's kinda hard to breathe and I don't really know what to do, so I stay a bit still, and try to get my lungs to function. I find myself leaning closer than I ever dared before. I sigh into his chest as he holds me for the longest time. I think I fall asleep, or into some swoon, and I feel safe in him this day, and that is very heaven.

His arms go 'round me, he strokes my hair, and I am further immobilised in his embrace. I want to kiss the skin of his throat.I want to move in to the circle of his arms and take up permanent residency. I want stuff I have no language for. I want to cry and laugh, and split the world in two with my need to taste the skin of his throat.

My arms mave around his waist as we jostle a little and reconfigure this hug. I nestle into him, burrow really, A soft moan he makes catches me by surprise, I make him do that! I'm certain that's for me! There's power in this hug that envelopes us, it makes me tearful, excited and very very curious for him.

I step back a little, look up a little, and I'm gone for his grin, his big green eyes. I'm a goner for this one and I like it.
- You okay mate? I ask him.
-Hmmmmmn, he replies and he bends down and peers into my face. I ache to kiss his red red mouth.
-You you you, he whisper exclaims as we lean into each others smiles. Eyes and noses blurring as his mouth meets mine, cold hot hunger arcs between us, and we stand locked in kissing cuddle forever and ever amen. My mouth opens under his and Oh! This is what it's all about! My arms go up around his neck, his fall and cradle my hips, and I hang on loose tight 'cos this is one heck of a ride.

I can't breathe for real now, and our tongues have met for the first time, I love him for sure, for real, for ever. My heart is all over the shop and I really need to pee! He is so lush to kiss. I've never kissed anyone, yet I seem to know what I'm doing. Ain't love grand! Oh God I can't breathe, and I still need to pee. I feel damp down there, and I'm embarrassed momentarily, then I don't really care at all. I've no more thoughts, only feelings and I am lost in this kiss with this old chum, and I love him so.

This time the moan I hear is mine. He whispers Gotcha! so hot in my ear that I jump. He pulls me closer and his tongue flicks at my ear. He nips and kisses soft on my neck. and Oh boy! Do I really want to pee now!

-Pete, no... ummn oh... no... stop... I stammer.
-For real? he queries. I'm not so sure. He stops kissing at my hot and bothered neck, our breath is ragged, and I'm too shy to look at him directly.
-Whooooh! I exclaim to cover myself from him looking ar me.
He tilts my chin up gently and asks me if I'm alright.
- I dunno. I'm still avoiding his eyes.
-Hey Annie, look at me will you, your killing me here, sweetheart.
There's something in his tone I can't ignore. I pull back a little, and this time I do look into his face properly.
-Oh, I say quietly.
-Annie Maree Johnson, he says with a small smile.
- Are you okay, or not, my friend? he asks as he lets me go from his embrace to cast about for his ciggies. Scooping them up, he lights up. Through the smoke I see the question return to his face.

-I've never done that before, I say,
-Never? he asks,
-Never! I exclaim, with my first real smile for a while,
-Watcha think? asks the cheeky devil,
-'S alright, I demur not quite meeting his gaze,
-Only alright? he challenges me.
-Yeah, alright then, it's bloody fantastic! I do blush beet red then, and I'm scared to be too keen.
-Wanna draw? he offers, but I shake my head no.
-What? he asks,
-I told Sissy I'd ring if I'm gonna be awhile. Am I?
-Am you what?
-Am I gonna be awhile?
-Do you wanna be a while?
-Yeah, I think I do,
-So go ring home my little turrtle dove, he waggles his eyebrows and his ciggy, and motions me off to the phone. I take my cue from him, and phone home.


-It's cool, I tell Sissy, I tell her I'm invited for dinner, and they'll drop me home after. By 10, she reminds me, and I agree 10 is the curfew.

I go to the loo, raid the pantry for chippies, and I'm back in his room in minutes. He's lying back on his bed, propped on pillows, hands behind his head, but he sits up when I come in.
-Hey, he grins at me,
-Hey yourself, I grin back,
-Cool at home?
-Yeah, cool as a rube,
- Cool,
-Yeah cool, I echo.
-I said your folks'll drop me home later. I'm due in at 10 tops, what's thier eta, d'you know?
-Not till late, 9 or so, enough time to get you home, Annie.
-Oh.

It hangs there heavy in the air between us.

We've got the place to ourselves, there's nothing new in that, but this is so different! I'm outta my depth here, so I wanna make some groundrules with him. If only I could think of some! The house to ourselves, I'm not due home till 10, it's too too much to figure. It's loaded with possibilities, and the molecular charge between us arcs up again.

I move to sit beside him on his bed, instead I sit on the floor across from him. It's wierd how one kiss has me this uncertain, but it does, and I'm not getting too close to him till I can muster a clear logical thought. It could take some time!

I open and offer him the pack.
-Nah, thanks.
The chips taste like glue, but having committed to the mouthful, I concentrate on my chewing.
-So far away you sit, my friend, he says as he reaches out his hand to me.
I take it, and in one movement I'm on my feet, he's on his feet, and I'm up close to him once more. Our lips touch and man! I'm fire! He is such a good kisser.
-You are so good to kiss, Annie, he murmers as we pash on for ages,
-Straight back atcha, I mumble not long after. As the kiss goes deeper, my legs turn to jelly, and ny hands have somehow found thier way, crept, up and under his shirt. His back is hot and he quivers at my touch, which stirs me in my gut.

We pause, draw breathe and grin the grins of idiots. Love makes fools of us all, I think gleefully. He changes the record, lights up a ciggy, and taking my hand, we climb up on his bed. He leans back against the pillows, legs drawn up, and I sit Injun style against the wall near to him, loving how he looks as he thinks and smokes and looks at me.

-Well, Annie, he begins, pauses, puffs away on his smoke, looks long and hard at me, and starts again.
-I like you heaps Annie,
-Me you too Pete, I interrupt
-Okay, so the liking's a given, how best shall we proceed?, he queries,
-Gimme a ciggie, please, I interrupt him again.
-What? Sure, help yourself kiddo, he passes me the packet, and lights me up.

I remember to take little puffs and not to draw back too much.
-You're a quick study, Annie, he gently mocks,
-I'll be taking that as a complment, good sir, I mock gently back,
-Oh no, he chides,
-If it's compliments you're wanting, then babe! Have I got flattery for you!
-Oh yeah?
-Oh yeah!
-Like what?
-Like you are the best girl ever! I think you're excellent, Annie, truly really, you must know that! you're pretty, and smart and funny. I love to hang about with you. You're goodliest company, Annie. His eyes, those green eys are shining, my heart is soaring, as he grins cheeky smiles my way.
-And, he stops, draws out the suspense and continues,
And um, and I'd be delighted old bean, if you'd consider to be my girl.
-Oh Pete! I'd love to be your girl! Will you then be my fella, Pete?
My smile's so big that this time I really might grinsplit my face open. I'm stoked to be having this grin to grin chat with him.
-For real, Annie all jest aside, for real?
-Oh yes Pete,very very for real.
-Good. That settles it. He leans across to rummage in a bedside chest, tells me to close my eyes and hold out my hands.
-No peeking now Annie, he admonishes.

He puts a small soft something into my hands leans in and kisses me long and hard, holding my face in his hands, pulling away he says,
-Open it.
I do
In my hands is a velvet jewellers bag. Undoing the rope, I turn the contents out and into my hands, Oh! It's a plain silver ring.
-Oh my! I exhale
It's stunning, and its heavy. Silver from Italy he says. It's plain, simple elegant, and inscribed on the inside are six words 'Ain't love grand! Pete loves Annie'
-You bloody beauty!
-This mean you like it?!
-I love it! It's gorgeous, you're gorgeous Pete, truly you! Thankyou thankyou thankyou!
- Shall we see if it fits love, he asks
-Too right, I reply and I pass the ring to him. He takes it, and my hand, the moment solidifies, and we get a little solemn.

-If it doesn't fit we can get it sized at the jewllers, he says, looking at what he is doing. He slides the ring onto my finger, it fits, and looks good.
-Beautiful, I knew it would be on you, Annie, he whispers, kissing my hand. My heart breaks, I cry a little, he notices, leans in, draws me to him, and kisses away my tears. He folds me into his arms, making all the right soothing noises, and this kindness lets me howl down the front of his shirt. He holds me tight. I bawl like a baby, as he rocks me into his chest. I let his rythns settle me down.

-That's for your Dad, hey babe, he asks quietly
-How'd you get so smart? I ask in admiration.
-Only smart for you cos I care big time, y'know that hey Annie?
-Yeah. I do know honeybunch, I do know you care.
-You know I reckon I love you big as all outdoors AnnieMarieWoodwardJohnson!

My heart stops dead in it's tracks. Pete has used my secret double barrelled surname, and in conjunction with his running together of my first and middle names, I know beyond all doubts that he is serious!

-I know you care Pete. Man! I trust your love, I reckon it's always been there-from the start eh.
-Yeah from the start. From the word get go, he adds for emphhasis
-Oh you big dag! I love you more than I have words for PeterJosephAnthonyJones. Which is huge if it renders me speechless, hey Pete.

-Oh beautiful Annie. You love me and I love you, and the night's still ours. Watcha wanna do? He waggles his eyebrows and wiggles his ciggie in a lechy Groucho marx kinda way. I do love him, hey.

-Food my friend, I'm fading fast, let's rustle us up a little grub, my friend.
-Man doth not live on love alone, he intones, and suddenly the game plan's much less flimsy than we thought.

We make half hearted stirrings, it's difficult because I want to keep close to him, and he to me, then it hits me that there's no rush, we'll get to food sooner or later, or not at all. I'm so keyed up.

The name thing he and I did-it blows me out. It's part of the glue we use to stick together. It cements the bond of who we are to each other. It's a formal acknowledgement that only we know these private details about each other. It's a thing we do, like blood brothers mix blood, we share the intricasies and secrets hidden in our names. It's a matter of honour that we use them sparingly so as not to wear out thier significance.

He smokes a leisurely ciggy, as we lounge and sprawl contentedly for a bit, entwined and exploring this whole other universe that's opened up between us. We linger in his room, eventually hunger wins out. We make our way down the stairs, bumping hips, for the kitchen. 

                                               
                                            fini

How good's that then reader dear? A gun writer who remembers and celebrates what it is to be young-a regular scribe for the tribe.



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