volume eighty-one

i’m with the band

When I was sixteen my boobs arrived. I was far behind my peers, and I had been using hankies and tissues stuffed into my teeny tiny bras to form weirdly shaped mounds under my polo school shirt up until then.

But something happened one May, as I was getting ready for my friend’s fairy-themed birthday party, I began spilling out of my costume. Those were the days of film cameras still being the go-to in most households unless you were fancy rich, and my mum snapped a photo of me in my mauve tutu and matching tiara and wings and when we got the photos back I couldn’t stop staring at my body. I had arrived.

My hips were close to follow and suddenly my waist was bookended by curves.

Not long before all that happened, I was hanging around my self-proclaimed emo friends a lot (not from the fairy group, obviously, and I am happy to report they “won” when my emo BFF soon dumped me as her friend in a heartbreaking and dramatic scene on the playground).

Being with these dark and edgy friends (as I would describe them then and certainly not now, anyone can wear thick eyeliner, you know) meant going to a lot of local concerts. Concerts where “men” who were probably nineteen or twenty years old, toured the country screaming at indoor skateparks to fifty teenagers who all admired them being straight edge. And me. Hanging at the back, scared of the moshpit.

In order to follow suit, we all decided were all straight edge, too. What did this mean? It meant no alcohol, no drugs and no promiscuous sex. In hindsight, that I have chuckled about for many years now, as an almost sixteen-year-old I was just obeying the law. You know, come to think of it, I am *actually* straight edge now. Nearly two years of sobriety under my belt and as a demisexual I don’t fuck unless we really, really bond, usually after several months. I am kind of the real deal. Take that, phonies!

Attending a concert with my friend — who I know now to only have liked me because of how close my house was to the venue a lot of these bands played at compared to her family farm outside of town — I dressed in my best. I sported a black lace dress with straps that crisscrossed between my shoulder blades. I brought it all together with a deeply swept side fringe of dyed jet-black hair, thick eye makeup, black ankle boots borrowed from my mum, and a wrap-around red belt pulled so tightly that my waist was almost invisible. I could barely bend, and best of all, I wore it high enough it gave the illusion of boobs.

I knew I looked pretty and I knew I turned heads, not because I was vain. Far from it. But because I had tried really, really hard to do so. When I approached the merch stand between acts, the band manager/merch stand guy having spoken very few words to me but obviously liking what he saw, gestured to a handwritten sign on the wall behind him that said:

“[THE BAND] needs somewhere to stay tonight if you can put us up!”

My excited response? “Oh sure, I just have to check with my Mum”.

Fast forward to the end of the night, an older boy from school who attended these concerts told me he heard the band were staying at my house. I thought not much of it. They needed somewhere to sleep. We had a fold-out futon and mattresses. This was the nice thing to do.

“You know they party hard and expect orgies when they stay at people’s houses, right?” he asked me in a tone that was certain he was telling me this information for the first time. Telling me: The obvious virgin who had barely kissed anyone minus during my first blackout drunk experience — clearly before I went straightedge — who was always just there with a group of people considered much cooler than me.

I don’t remember what I said to that boy but my internal monologue thought “Oh fuck”.

My friends and I went ahead to the house as the band packed down. We got mattresses ready and set up beds in the living room for approximately seven people if I recall. Safety in this family house meant there would be no orgy but my teenage brain was so nervous about how they would respond when they saw that in response to asking for somewhere to sleep, that is exactly what they got. How would I recover from this blunder? Meanwhile, my very not demisexual, far more experienced friends seemed completely unphased.

The night was fine. There was an excited conversation that my mum eventually shushed. When the three of us went to bed in the room just off the loungeroom my mum had to say “Bedtime for you, too!” to one of my friends. That was it. My friends and I chatted ourselves to sleep and were eventually playfully shushed by someone from the band.

In the morning I got ready to go to my casual job at the local cinema and the band manager/merch stand guy drove me into my shift in their big, loud van. He stopped by Starbucks and got stuff for everyone, including me to take to work, and including for my Mum to say thank you.

The whole band visited me at work later on and brought me a signed poster to say thanks and told me all about their morning drinking coffee with my Mum on the verandah in the sun as she made them all vegemite toast. Wholesome, lovely stuff that helped me learn that sometimes on the road you just need somewhere comfy to sleep and breakfast from a mother.

A few months later I stumbled across/lurked heavily on their MySpace pages where I saw an exchange between the band manager/merch stand guy and his friend. 

Friend: “Oh sure, I just have to check with my Mum”.

BM/MSG: “Dude, you have no idea”.

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here are three things I struggled with this week:

🥵 Hi! It got to 38 degrees celsius here in WA the other day.

✨ Creating a sacred space in a new home is often exciting. My current space is a bit sparse and I have been trying.

🥹 I miss Nan and Pop.

here are three blessings from this week:

🙏Thank you modern medicine and doctors and surgeons for what you did this week for someone very special to me.

🌕 THE GOSH DARN MOON ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

🐶 I am in doggo company and when I am in doggo company I am a very happy lady.

here are three goals for the coming week:

🎙️Continue watching Australian Idol even though without Nan next to me commentating it is far less entertaining but I must be up-to-date for our weekly phone calls and I must continue to be annoyed at how rude Harry Connick Jr. can be so that my crush on him eventually evaporates.

⛹🏻 Take regular breaks between work and writing, which is far easier to do when you have a dog to play fetch with.

🗺️ Explore Perth! G’day WA! I have been wanting to be here ever since I learned about Heath Ledger’s existence at a young age and longed to come here and have him fall in love with me. As I grew up, I have longed to be here for your beauty! Arts! Culture! Beaches! Wildlife!

here is something I enjoyed this week: 

Another talented friend you should all know about!

Ant Heald

from

The Inertiapreneur

has just set the goal of releasing WEEKLY substacks! I always find it a delight and treat when these land in my inbox, and in an effort to share his work, I want to tell you all to go and subscribe for free for wonderful words and excellent storytelling and reflections.

pics or it didn’t happen:

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? This is unreal, and it was done in the space of a 50-minute Writers’ Hour. I am so filled with gratitude to be part of this series, thankyou Varosha!

varosha

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I love you. I’m so grateful to those who read my substack 🧡 because I really love writing it to you,

LD

xoxo