Moment of terror at the Olympia Milk Bar

I've had one of those illuminating movie moments where everything becomes clear, all my structured bounded thinking is swept aside like a house of cards and I know the truth of the matter, and it is horrible. I know exactly what I want, down to the finest smallest detail of putting away the clean tea spoons after the washing up is done.

I am suddenly love sick and forlorn. I am astonished at how secret and dark I have kept this from myself and now I don't know what to do. It all started when I set off on my adventure to see the Olympia Milkbar. Grizelda came with me in sidekick fashion and we were happily striding along the streets on Stanmore towards Parramatta Rd when I thought oh, there is a widening of thought amongst these well-kept family homes. I had temporarily forgotten how much I hunger for a warm home full of love to come home to, every day. As we walked past hundreds of semis and federations and bungalows all with flowers in the garden and a short neat front path a chasm opened in my chest. I will never have this because I am unlovable.

The Olympia was dark, only one light works in the whole shop. There is indeed a wall of empty chocolate boxes and the faint smell of death. I bought a can of coke just because there was nothing else to buy. The diminished man in his neat jumper made me pay my two dollars before he reached under the counter for my can. The man wasn't ashen and creepy in a comic book way as I was expecting. He was a lighthouse of sorrow. He illuminated my fissures and exposed my ridiculous capacity for love wider than the horizon and now I am raging inside with all this love turning in loops with nowhere to go.

I phoned Elliot. I phoned Elliot and we talked about cheese making and vibrators and going to the movies and marshmallows and his decision to be s&c (sober and celibate). I am sober and celibate but unlike Elliot I secretly wish for the opposite. I wish for a house with built in bookshelves and a fireplace in the bathroom, I wish for wine and dinner and crawling into bed with someone who wears flannelette pyjamas. Someone who might pop out of bed in the morning, don dressing gown and slippers then come back with two mugs of tea. I feel like Jane Austen's Emma when she realises no one must marry Mr Knightly but her.

Now I have a choice. I can sink or swim for the desolate shore. Which will it be? I'm voting for sink but I've run out of poison.

Comments

Anonymous said…
"fireplace in the bathroom" now you're talking! When I was growing up in Tassie, we had a firplace in every room, except the bathroom ... I had one in my room and I distinctly remember drowsy eyed, staring into that furnace dreaming all sorts of exciting dreams.

Rups xox
DS said…
It is my dearest wish to have a fireplace in the bathroom and a lovely big bath to sit in while I watch the fire. Once I confessed that this was the 'happy place' I thought of during one of those weird guided meditation things, the meditation guy said maybe I was right all along and wasn't really suited to his weird meditation class.
DS said…
Any particular reason why I should agree to this?
Anonymous said…
I can think of a reason why not to do it. They didn't even use your name. Where's the love?

BTW please tell me all about the negative impact of WorkChoices in esoteric language that will both confuse and ridicule my worthy opponent!
DS said…
I checked out the bloginterviewer thing. It looks like some kind of scam, I filled in the form anyway. If there's a scam happening I want to check it out and then BUST THEM somehow... quickly imagine detective music in your head (Inspector Gadget will do if you can't think of anything else).
Gemnastics said…
i got the same comment and didn't bother checking the site - as cc said, they didn't use my name, and didn't say what was in it for me...
DS said…
Yeah I wouldn't bother with it, one of those dumb boring things only worthy of your casual disinterest.