Electionista

Well here we are on election night (those of us in Australia that is), and as the ballot counters take stock and let us know what tone the next few years will have for federal politics, I am making lasagne, thinking about stuff, and feeling very ovulatory (is that a word? If not, what is the word for how you feel when you ovulate?), with heightened sensations, everything feeling charged and slightly erotic. Perhaps it's the political charge of possibility, perhaps it's the full moon, maybe it's hormones, probably it's all this and more. This afternoon I trailed through my suburb, enjoying one of those kinds of weekend days where you have no agenda except to have no agenda. Where doing anything is fine, in the name of whimsy and rejuvenation. I did dishes and took great pleasure in wiping cupboards clean. I had a leisurely breakfast at home, squeezed organic oranges to make juice, drank tea. I read a new zine I bought in Melbourne. I thought about art and hope. I thought about sex. I thought about dinner.

I had this hankering for making fresh lasagne, with the newishly acquired pasta maker I bought. I thought about the silky sheets of fresh pasta that I could use to layer between vegies. Ithought about roasted roma tomatoes and basil. So I wandered to the vegie shop to pick up some semoline flour and other bits. I bought a cheese, 'pepato' which is smelly and tangy and delish. I bought watercress that is so big as a bunch that it spilled out over the top of my cloth bag, and is peppery and I might make into a pesto, or maybe float in stock and swim ravioli in it.

I wandered into a little art gallery, stumbled across three very cute animated films by college of fine arts students, mixed media, claymation type, jerky, with blunt australian voiceovers, funny small stories. I peered at shiny oils and tall jagged scultures. I wondered about striking silver pendants. I had a quick sneaky late afternoon coffee in one of my fave bookshop cafes. Served by an incredibly clear eyed curly blonde haired barista, frank, wide eyed, and in my current mood, electrically sexy. He looked a little like some renaissance cupid grown tall and lanky and cool-seeking, but not quite having grown out of the clear vista of life in the clouds. I worry that my hormones are like some prank-loving friend standing behind you in a photo aping to the camera while you try for sophisticated and reserved up front, some inate contradiction. I sip my coffee in a nice corner on a cushioned stool, with plants and graffiti and wooden bookshelves all in eyesight, I read more of my zine, almost finish it, try not to slip into morose feelings along with the narrrator in his trainspotting-esque mattress on floor existence.

I walk home and see people, people with dogs, in cars, holding children, dragging children by unwilling wrists, siting on milk crates drinking beer with two friends, people talking meanly with spit to people not there, people dressed up and out, people holding a wrappped present in a hand streaming beside them as they look for a taxi. The sun drops and the clouds are pink-blue and peep out illuminated between the jagged squares of blocky row houses, criss crossed in black telegraph wire - just like some old painting but drawn over now with angled modern scrawl. Beautiful.