i go figure draw on saturday afternoons now, it's nice. my camera is a shitty shit so the pictures aren't very good, i'll have better stuff up sometime. these are all about ten minutes long.

I can't sleep.

Some pukehead wanted me to update, so I guess I'll start doing that. I poked around my computer for some pictures of Australia, because it was really cool, and didn't come up with much.


We went walking down a beach where there were some very strange rock formations. This seagull was there when we walked down, and still there half an hour later when we came back. Farther down the path, we saw a steep hill with a mess of tarps and ropes on it. Turned out some guy was living there in a makeshift tarp palace. I was worried he was going to slide down into the sea.


I didn't see any kangaroos in Sydney other than in the zoo. When we got up to Katherine I found out that kangaroos and wallabies are like our squirrels here, huge pests. They start being active around dusk, just when people are speeding down roads with their headlights on, and the roads are littered with smashed wallabies. I counted twenty three dead ones before I even saw a live one.




The beaches in Sydney were really pretty. My dad and sister and I took a couple surfing lessons there. I spent most of my time faceplanting and gulping saltwater, but I managed to get up a few times. My dad tried too hard and had back spasms for the next couple days.

It was a crisp chill Wednesday Afternoon in the city when the fog descended. Prior to this invasion of airspace it had been grey and sharp, a trite crumbly, almost like sharp cheddar. The air certainly had the smell of cheese, carried on the back of a faint wind. It had been a marching-goose day, pedestrians walking at a rate that far surpassed ambling. Citizens had been sharply stepping along, moving like jelly jars slammed on a conveyer belt, surprised to find themselves propelled along to packaging division and distribution. The fog fell at a shocking rate, faster than any fog in the recorded past. The citizens slowed on their walkways, eventually screeching to a stop. Mrs. Catherton, stepping out of the hat store with a feathered fedora in her hand, just had time to say “There is something odd” before the words falling from her mouth tumbled and melted into the fog. Within fifteen minutes of the onset of the fog, the occupants of the city were frozen in place, hands held in a prolonged gesture and feet raised in the midst of a step. Pooling around certain sets of feet were puddles of slogged words, sluggishly circling around in no set pattern. Each head was lolling in a thick slime of congealed ideas and half-formed thoughts, floating more or less in place. Around Mr. Lither’s head there was a small red worm, translucent, struggling in place. This worm was his last thought before the fog: “I hope to god Laurie won’t know why I’m late.” There was not much danger of anyone knowing Mr. Lithers was late at this particular moment. In the ground, burrowed far under the sidewalk, ants had paused in their frenetic scuttling. Worms, dazed as ever, were slitching their way through the fog pervading the very soil. Go up a few levels, rise into the trees, and birds were perched on the edge of their nests, feathers wriggling in an odd struggle. Sparrows were suspended in the sky, looking for all the world like they had died and were ascending slowly to birdy heaven. Up higher still, and the last tendrils of fog drifted off and dispersed into the air. Airplanes overhead flew on, oblivious to the troubles below.

I came across a man one day,

Sitting glum beside the quay.

His head was down, his hat askew,

His fingers mottled, cold and blue.

He did not stir as I walked near,

His face was numb, his eyes were queer.

I cleared my throat, he raised his head,

My stomach dropped, all full of lead,

This sad and silent man was dead.