Always Eighteen

Brisbane, Queensland, AUSTRALIA


Joined September 12th 2006

Number of Posts:
215

Number of Comments:
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Names and situations in this blog have been modified for the privacy and legal concerns of persons involved.

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Recent Posts

LOVE IN 3 DAYS

October 25th 2009 05:21


I met Eva in a park in Kelvin Grove, sitting on a bench. She smiled.

“Hi, Dean.”

“Hi, Eva.”

There was a hug, and then a scanning over of each other.

“You look… exactly the same.”

“Shut up.” I touched her hair. “You’ve done something to your hair.”

She looked proud. “You like it? I spent ages trying to get it curled like this.”

I didn’t really know what to do. Eva was there, sitting on a bench in front of me and I didn’t know what to do. Was I supposed to keep standing?

“So how long are you here for?” I decided to ask while standing awkwardly.

“Three days. I was only supposed to be here for one, for Rosaline’s birthday, but I thought I’d see how Mr. Dean is up to… you know, if he was still ticking.”

We walked to my car and after a little bit of arguing, I let her drive. She pulled her car seat forward, adjusted the mirrors and changed the radio station. She giggled about something and reversed the car.

“So is your car in Sydney far better than mine?”

“Of course it is. Mine’s brand new.”

We drove for a long time. We drove around the Valley, we drove around neighbourhoods. I didn’t ask her where she wanted to end because there was simply no time to. Our words simply flowed and flowed and flowed.

“I can always be myself when I’m with you, Dean.”

At a red light she touched my hand but quickly let go. Eva was wearing a short, blue dress and sunglasses and a million accessories. She was offensively beautiful. I put my hand on her leg and made my way upwards as she drove on.

“What’s his name?” I asked her. “This boyfriend of yours.”

“Would you even really care?”

“Of course I would.”

“I broke up with him once, you know, because of a friend. But now…”

“You know what, fuck it I don’t want to hear about him whatsoever.”

“If you want to at least be friends, honey, you wouldn’t get so wrapped up in your own ego.”

We found my home. Eva parked the car and we headed inside.

She quickly flashed me, briefly exposing pink underwear. “You like these? I bought them for two bucks.”

“Loving you has always been difficult.”

We rushed into my home and I tried to show her how things inside my life had changed. But she looked in every corner and made me realise that everything had merely lured dust and more dust. I wrapped my arms around her hips and she did the same with mine. I tried to kiss her but she moved her face away.

“I want to kiss you, for fucks sakes! I want to kiss you forever!”

“You expect that line to always work?” She yelled.

“Well it’s not working right now, is it?”

“What’s with those girls, Dean? Why do you never tell me about those girls?”

“There’s nothing to say. There’s never anything to say.”

“I have to go home. I want to go home. Drive me home.”

“You don’t mean that,” I said.

“You try me, you dick, you try me!”

“Well?” I said. “Didn’t we once promise we’d marry each other?”

“Seriously, baby. If there was such a thing as love then nobody would need to pray for heaven.”

I chased her around my world and she giggled as if nothing. I held her hand and she let me. I brought her closer and she let me go, I brought her closer again and she let me go again. I once told her about the nights I couldn’t sleep because of her. She once told me about the nights she’d dream of me.

“You always promise me you’ll move to Sydney, but you never do.”

“You always promise me a lot of things, too.”

“Yeah, like what?”

I didn’t say anything.

She led me to my bed and I thought I’d become a truly happy man.

“Remember that book we half-read together? That Hemingway book?”

“The Sun Also Rises. What about it?”

There was silence.

“I’m sorry for all the things I’ve done,” I said rather sadly.

We were lying down, sideways. Eva scanned my face over and tapped her thumb all over my lips. “If I kiss you again, things will only turn for the worst.” She pulled my bottom lip a little. “Why are things always like this?”

“I blame the fat people.”

There was more silence.

“You’ll get published one day, honey,” Eva eventually whispered in my ear, and at that I hated myself. Eva was the girl who saw my biggest failures. She was there when I entered competitions and lost them all. She was there when I’d been interviewed and rejected. She was there when I lost things, ruined things, when I lied the most. The first time I kissed her was in my car. She was wearing a black t-shirt and a pink bra and once in a while we both caught each other opening our eyes.

Who was the bad kisser just then, I asked, was it you, or me, or a bit of the both of us?

If there ever was a moment where I could come back in time to change things, it would be then, during that first kiss, underneath that spotlight in my car as the two of us still trusted each other.

Eva didn’t stay the night. I drove her back to her friend’s house and gave her one more hug before letting her go.





Eva driving






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HAIL IN BRISBANE

October 14th 2009 00:47



It was around three in the afternoon and it was hailing outside and Jude was sitting next to me, smoking with one hand and holding the remote with the other, putting the volume up and down, up and down, as we watched channel V on his enormous plasma screen television. He kept asking me about bands:

“Have you seen Temper Trap?”

“Do you think Jamie T is handsome?”

“What do you think of the Bloody Beetroots?”

“Dean, Dean, look at this video. Isn’t it the fucking shit?”

But I ignored him. I was bored and I was drifting. I tried to start a relationship with Melanie when I returned from Japan but it was failing. I wanted to tell her things, I wanted to tell her stories, I wanted to provide excited elaborations about what was happening in my life but nothing would come out; all that came out were bursts of one-liners. In the end we would always fight.

“I don’t know where I’m heading,” I told Jude. “Where am I heading? What’s the end? What’s the season finale?”

Jude nudged me. He was smiling. “Let’s take our shirts off and run around in the hail.”

We took our shirts off and walked to the door. We stood there for a while, not saying anything.

“Should we really?” was all I could ask.

Jude shrugged.

We opened the door and ran outside. We ran around the lawn, screaming in pain or what we thought was pain. We ran back inside, laughed, cried a little bit, and then didn’t talk to each other for the rest of the day.









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UNDER THE MOON FESTIVAL

October 5th 2009 08:21



I’d never heard about the Moon Festival until Saturday night, when I was invited over to a person’s house to eat mooncakes and stare at the moon. According to the most reliable source of information in the world, Wikipedia, the Mid-Autumn Festival, or the Moon Festival, or the Zhongqiu Festival, or the Zhongqiujie Festival, or the Lantern Festival, or the Mooncake Festival, is “a popular harvest festival celebrated by Chinese people and Vietnamese people (even though they celebrate it differently), dating back over 3,000 years to moon worship in China's Shang Dynasty.” It is held when the moon is supposedly its fullest and roundest.

I was with Melanie, who, for some strange reason, was incredibly interested in the event. She bought us both these expensive mooncakes from Sunnybank and when we went outside to stare at the full moon, she stopped talking completely. She merely looked up, smiling.

I wanted to light a sparkler but Melanie wouldn’t let me. So instead I ate my mooncake, which actually tasted quite nice. It consisted of egg and nut and something else.

“You have to taste this,” I said. “It’s the shit.”

She ignored me. She was hypnotised. Her hand was quivering a little. I looked at the moon. It was round, fat, white, distant. I suddenly remembered the nights when I’d be driving home alone and the moon would be yellow and daunting, and it would look like a giant ball of yolk just about to dip itself on the city.







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TWO GIRLS ONE VALLEY

October 2nd 2009 17:41


Dear Brisbane. Life has become scattered lately. I ended up in the Valley with a few friends from high school, drinking, talking, not listening. We went to a night club that used to be a church; “I need a drink,” my friend kept saying, “just one more drink and I’ll be able to talk to chicks easier.” We found a seat and watched these two girls intimately dancing with each other. We watched them for a good ten minutes


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FALLING IN LOVE IN PARKLIFE

September 30th 2009 14:21


Now there’s a rumour going around our group of friends about Simone, nineteen, who fell madly in love with a boy while in Parklife last Saturday


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As the title of this post implies, I had a picnic in the dust storm with two people I met at the Brisbane Writer’s Festival. For those of you who don’t know, Brisbane was hit by a sandstorm yesterday, blanketing everything pretty much yellow. I woke up and saw something like this:

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RETURN TO BRISBANE

September 22nd 2009 01:34
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NEVER LET ME GO

September 10th 2009 06:17
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LAST EVENING

September 7th 2009 04:18
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UNTITLED NUMBER 1.

August 30th 2009 13:13


There were often moments in the dark when I had pondered on things I wanted to feel, when I had urged myself to do certain things, but in the end, I merely lay on my futon (brown, electric, gave heat), and looked up towards nothing, really


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Recent Comments

Comment by Always Eighteen
on A Ghostly Couple?

October 25th 2009 13:01
Cool! I vote the plug outfits. Will you be wearing any of those this coming Halloween, Lara?

Comment by Always Eighteen
on Strange Party in Brooklyn NY

October 25th 2009 05:31
Damn, wish I could go there. One day I'll end up in New York!

Comment by Always Eighteen
on Watchmen (2009) - Trailer Included

October 24th 2009 03:35
The Watchmen is one of my all time favourite novels.

Comment by Always Eighteen
on TV Jerks Women Love

October 24th 2009 03:30
In my experience, the same can also be said about women. I've always been the most heartbroken over the ones who were never as possessive, the ones who cared the least. I've written the most love letters to the ones who've never written back!

Comment by Always Eighteen
on The Motorcycle Diaries

October 18th 2009 14:53
I loved this movie! It woke me up to a new light.

Comment by Always Eighteen
on Twisted Shoes

September 29th 2009 06:07
Wow that's cool. I'd like to see a woman (or man) wear them.

Hey guys,


Thanks for commenting!

Hahaha. If you haven't already heard, the dust storm came back again on Saturday night. I was driving to a friend's place from the city; I had to keep my windows shut and the aircon off to stop any dust from coming in. It was incredibly hot. It was the longest drive of my life.

Lara: Yes, I have been back for some time



Comment by Always Eighteen
on Divine Popeye Pasta

September 25th 2009 06:38
I haven't had spinach in YEARS! Maybe this dish will bring me back to it...

Comment by Always Eighteen
on RETURN TO BRISBANE

September 23rd 2009 06:41
Patricia! Shit! I wrote you a comment but for some reason it wasn't posted!

Anyway, I was just thanking you for visiting my site and for agreeing with me, as I don't get agreements too often

Yes, I decided to end my journey with words from a Japanese Englishman. I suppose it's hard to separate holidays from just being holidays - we can't escape ourselves and our routines forever.

I'm still yet to see Hong Kong. I have a feeling I'll be visiting it within the next few years!

Comment by Always Eighteen
on Pet Peeves...

September 23rd 2009 06:23
Whoa Lara is that your toilet seat? It's awesome! Reminds me of Nemo