picture from Sticky Institute

The zine includes a couple recent articles I published online, as well as background on sex work and feminism in the UK, with a focus on the effects of the Swedish model and ‘end demand’ approaches. It has a few reviews of sex work themes in films, books, and theatre, and a quick guide to spotting media bullshit. It’s also illustrated by the very talented Kazimir Lee Iskander.

Also currently available is the first issue of Sex Industry Apologist, which was originally published in early 2010. It kicks off with my essay Belle De Jour Is The New Pretty Woman, before sharing a bunch of reflections on harm reduction, feminism, and the media, all from my perspective as a former staff member at a sex work project. It also includes a list of resources on various issues related to sex work.

For ordering info, see jinxremoving dot org.

I live in Kuala Lumpur, currently. My 32-hour stopover in February wasn’t enough, so seven weeks and six countries later, I came back. I’m here temporarily, but for a longer period of time than I spend in most places. I’ve been exploring the city, learning Malay, cooking and eating epic food, following lizards around, and waking up next to someone I’m completely smitten with. And last Saturday afternoon I found myself in front of the Lotus Hotel in the city centre, surrounded by protesters who had just been tear gassed.

Behind me, two young women were crying “Allāhu Akbar.” I got out of the way as a trampled body was carried into the hotel. Bottles of water were thrown to the street from the upstairs windows, and eventually a couple of emergency fire hoses were aimed from them as well, to cheers from the crowd down below. Protesters offered salt and water to each other. Riot police paced at the corner of the street, so I figured I wasn’t going anywhere for a while. Masjid Jamek LRT station was closed, but its metal shutters had been broken by people desperate to escape the gas, and police would later follow them in to beat them.

Hotel provides water to tear gas victims

I’d lost my friends shortly after the tear gas came out. We’d been heading towards the front of the demonstration when the first cloud of smoke appeared, and we’d turned back at once. When Kaz and Tom stopped at the corner to help trapped protesters escape over a railing, I was swept up in the rush. I was touched that strangers had wanted to protect me. I also felt a little sad and awkward at one point when I overtly received special attention because I was a foreigner, even though others around me had been considerably more affected by the tear gas. I had a face mask and a bottle of salt water, and had made it around the corner before things got worse and panic spread.

Panic as protesters try to get over barrier

Some Bersih basics: the Malay word for ‘clean’, Bersih is a movement for cleaner and fairer elections. Although some news outlets call it an opposition movement, that’s misleading – its supporters do include political parties, but the two categories are hardly interchangeable, and certainly plenty of protesters resent what they see as attempts by the opposition to hijack the movement. Bersih’s demands to clean up the electoral process are pretty basic, even boring: they’re not calling for anyone to resign, they’re not calling for regime change. They’re calling for things like indelible ink at polling stations. It is, therefore, quite hard to fathom why so much aggression is aimed at the movement, particularly its co-chair, Ambiga Sreenevasan, the recipient of numerous death threats.

Election Commission cheating voters. Resign!!!

Bersih 3.0, held this past Saturday, was intended to be a rally at Dataran Merdeka, a public square in central KL, but the authorities closed it off. Just a few days before Bersih, they offered a couple of alternative venues. These were far from the centre of town, hard for people to access, and too short notice for the Bersih organisers to change their plan, but still enabled the authorities to claim that they had made a reasonable offer. In the absence of access to Dataran Merdeka, the goal of Bersih was simply to hold a symbolic march to the barricades.

We arrived early in the morning: the roads into the city centre were expected to be closed and we suspected the LRT might be shut down as well. Although we came prepared for arrests, tear gas and water cannons, the initial atmosphere was friendly and upbeat, with participants of all ages. The state-controlled Malaysia Star eventually put the numbers at 100,000; the Bersih steering committee considered it to be more like a quarter of a million. Thousands of protesters were dressed in yellow for Bersih, and many were in green to show opposition to the toxic plant in Kuantan owned by the Australian corporation Lynas. Several dozen postal workers passed by on motorbikes, sounding their horns in support of Bersih and getting cheers in return. A ninja dressed all in yellow sped past on foot. Yellow and green Angry Birds balloons were a feature, with Bersih and anti-Lynas slogans written on them in marker pen. In maroon shirts, the Unit Amal people, employed by PAS (Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party), were there to act as security for the protesters and ensure that things went peacefully. (Faiq: “Those are some brave motherfuckers.”)

Protesters gather in front of Central Market

Aunties wait for the march to begin

Unit Amal on stage before the march

Anti-Lynas placard

Protesters on the march, with the crowd reflected in the building behind

About half an hour – if that – after the march commenced, we came to a halt and sat down in the street near Masjid Jamek. There was some confusion as to what was going on. We learned later that Ambiga had made a speech round about then to say that Bersih had achieved its goal of getting as close to Dataran Merdeka as possible, and that the crowd should now disperse. We had no idea where she was or that she had said anything, and a lot of protesters were finding that they couldn’t access or share information via Twitter, prompting suspicions of frequency jammers in the vicinity. This was when we started heading towards the front to see what was going on.

Duduk bantah

The first tear gas canister was fired in response to a small number of protesters crossing the barricades to Dataran Merdeka. (Footage has subsequently incriminated Anwar Ibrahim of PAS as having given a signal for this to take place. He denies this.) A few minutes later, however, tear gas was fired at the protesters en masse, causing widespread fear and panic, and endangering thousands of lives. PAS has accused police leaders of spreading a false rumour of an officer’s death to incite aggression against the protesters. On the flipside, the police’s excessive use of tear gas and chemical-laced water cannons was easily enough to provoke protesters, but additionally a police car lost control and crashed into two of them, adding to the rage. (They overturned the car: reports vary as to whether this was out of anger or because someone was believed to be trapped beneath it.) There was also the potential that, just as we’d seen men in yellow Bersih shirts harassing Ambiga at a debate a few nights previously, there could be plants among the legitimate Bersih protesters, aiming to cause trouble and discredit the movement. In any case, a back and forth continued for several hours; Kaz saw police kicking the shit out of one man for ten seconds before the crowd surged forward to rescue him. In light of all this, the home minister’s claim that police acted with “utmost restraint” was laughable, and while the Malaysian media continue to promote this line, international outlets have a different take on it: Al Jazeera’s equipment was smashed while documenting police brutality, while Malaysian TV channel Astro found itself at the centre of a censorship scandal after tampering with a BBC World report on Bersih. An Australian senator (invited by Anwar), who was tear gassed along with the rest of the crowd, was predictably unimpressed (although the Malaysian media attempted to discredit him based on a combination of his support for LGBT rights and made-up allegations of Islamophobia), and Human Rights Watch said that the government “should stop patting itself on the back and investigate why unnecessary force was used.”

This reggae club only let white people in when protesters were fleeing the tear gas last July. And who’s that on the roof this time? Why, a whole bunch of white people! I am just saying.

Long after leaving the scene, the sounds of Bersih were still taking up space in my head: loud bangs, shouting, and a generalised crowd roar. I watched a lot of footage from it and read a lot of accounts. There were multiple possible readings of every aspect of the day. But as Kaz said, it didn’t matter what happened at Bersih: it was going to be written off by politicians and media regardless. Even if some blame lies with a minority of protesters, the thousands who showed up that day saw unjustified force and violence, followed by media coverage that was out of touch with reality. Perhaps as a result Bersih 4.0 will be even bigger.

I had 32 hours in Kuala Lumpur and my principal interest was finding the Syrian embassy. I couldn’t deal any more with the disconnect between the atrocities documented every time I checked Twitter and the conversations I had with people around me when I surfaced from the internet: “What, there’s something going on in Syria?”

I didn’t know if there would be a protest and I didn’t know how to find out anyway; I just went, hoping that showing up on a Friday might increase my chances. I was right. Riot cops hovered around the periphery while flags, fists, placards and voices were raised. I caught only one or two keywords from the mainly Arabic speeches, but the pain, horror and outrage was clear. I had come here not only to show solidarity, but because I had reached a point where I desperately needed to be among other people who cared about what was going on. The attendees were mainly Syrian students, people directly impacted by the violence. A Somali who had just moved to Malaysia after twelve years in Syria told me of his classmate, Sardasht Ali, who was shot dead in the street, eighteen years old. He hoped to return to a Syria free of Assad. Insha’Allah.

As the demo drew to an end, we headed back the way we had come, before a large group of Malay Muslims passed us by, heading too for the embassy following Friday prayers. A second protest, this time with locals showing their solidarity.

And I wonder what it will take for white Westerners to pay attention and get angry now that there are no prominent fictional lesbians in the movement. Is the name Hamza al-Khatib as familiar to my peers as that of Amina? Hamza’s body was returned to his parents last year after he had been detained for protesting; they found that his jaw and kneecaps had been smashed, he had three gunshot wounds, he was covered in cigarette burns and his penis had been cut off. Whenever I see a photo of him, a smiling thirteen-year-old, my heart feels shattered. This is what the Assad regime does to kids. As one of the signs at the demo read: “The regime is committing massacre while the world is watching silently.”

I

Cobwebs are everywhere here, and spiders with ugly bodies and long legs. They hang curled up like closed umbrellas, then reanimate to trek across walls and blankets. The house is a rickety old thing that sits on a hill. The door is never locked. When the big earthquake comes, I don’t fancy this place’s chances, but last week’s shaking and rumbling didn’t bother me. Maybe I adapt too easily to my surroundings. The people who live here find the earthquakes scary.

The wifi password wishes death to the multi-millionaire landlord. The people who gather here talk about protests, stick and poke tattoos, dodgy hitch-hiking episodes and sex work. A collection of bangles conceals the words SLUT LIFE. Terms like genderqueer, fatphobia, cultural appropriation are known and used. Clothes come from op shops and chance discoveries in the street. Peggy Lee makes frequent appearances on the stereo. I drink vast quantities of genmaicha, make grilled cheese sandwiches and read Sexuality And The Stories of Indigenous People.

II

Variations on a theme:

I am on the other side of the planet (again). I am about as far away from home as I could be. Often, I don’t know how to start explaining to people what I’m doing or how it all came to be like this. I don’t have a long-term plan but I’ve gotten used to that and I know that it’s okay. I listen to music that links me up with past times and past places and sometimes I feel electric because of all the memories.

Things I probably shouldn’t write about:

My lifelong project of just Figuring Stuff Out. The self-betterment pep talks I have to give myself every so often, coming up with plans that involve the triumph of logic over emotional headfucks. The cringe – there remains no better word for it – that shows up whenever I look back on some usually tiny thing I did that I wish I’d handled differently. The notion, ludicrous and yet strangely compelling, that I’ve used up my allotted quota of action and romance and from now on it’s just going to be me, myself and I. (“You’re travelling,” people say, “it’s hard to meet people when you’re travelling.” I am unconvinced by their insight, seeing as I am meeting people all the goddamn time. But then I remember that even when I lived in one place and had a bedroom that saw an obnoxious amount of traffic, my travels rarely involved picking anyone up. I haven’t finished concocting a theory yet for why this should be the case but I’m wondering if it might be something to do with having more confidence when I’m on my home turf, maybe.) (There’s also this stupid age-related headfuck to go along with the above: this idea that nobody is interested because I am suddenly too old, even though nobody would guess my age if I didn’t tell them, but I’m not into hiding simple facts of my life, and if anyone really did have a problem they’d be welcome to fuck off: and yet, STILL.)

III

I drink in the park, get ID’d by the shopkeeper while buying a bottle of rosé wine that tastes like honey. It’s a day after my 34th birthday, my first summer birthday. I guess I now look half my age. My dad called me on my birthday. It’s hard to put into words how much that means now that my family feels so fractured.

IV

Memories fly up out of nowhere and hit me. A random selection, like clothes I used to wear, or the scent of my best friend’s skin twenty years ago. Recent weeks seem improbably distant, from small-town Georgia to the snowy mountains of Armenia, an airport terminal in the desert, the Sri Lankan coastline, and a day and a half in Kuala Lumpur. Once in New Zealand, earthquakes reached me groggy in the middle of the night, imagining for a few moments that a subway train had passed by underneath. I drove south in a free rental car, an automatic, picked up a couple of Chilean hitch-hikers on the way but neglected to stop for a juggler.

V

I go to a punk gig and drink cheap cider. “You’ve just come from Auckland?” says one girl to another. “I hope you got tested. They all have AIDS there. Ha ha.” I excuse myself to go and get another drink. I scrawl something in my notebook: “Maybe what is happening lately is the thoughts in my head are not getting shared in conversation and therefore they get lost.” The thoughts in my head are clearly pretty goddamn profound. Reading them sober, it crosses my mind once more that perhaps I have never shaken off my teen angst.

I’ve been trying to figure out why I feel so bad at social interaction lately. I ration my dealings with people, frequently sequester myself when the crowds get too big. I walk to the harbour to sit on a rock and stare at a jellyfish. I visit the library often. I reach the flying fox in Central Park just as the rain begins, and I note the regulars on Cuba Street. This city and the circumstances that led me here. It’s all a whirlwind, 2011.

VI

“Okay, this is my confession,” I wrote in my notebook, the day after Christchurch Zinefest. “That despite everything that’s gone on this year and before, I mean everything on this literal journey that I’m on,”

and then I got interrupted, and sat on the porch talking zines and politics with a succession of people in the sunshine while bees disappeared into holes in the armchair. What was my confession?

Mostly, I recall Ariel Gore’s Atlas Of The Human Heart and how she ran away to China and Tibet and Nepal and even then, in the middle of all the new experiences she was having – and she was so goddamn self-sufficient, and also she was sixteen – she’d obsess over all the dumb things she’d ever said and done, have them play out over and over again in her head.

I go back to the library, intending to spend a day re-reading the book, but it’s not there. Tuva Or Bust! is in the catalogue, but it’s not on the shelf. I read Emel magazine and Bitch magazine. I read Latasha Natasha Diggs’ essay The Black Asianphile in Everything But The Burden. “Dogon cosmology is as deep as Buddhism,” she writes, “but […] I will be long dead before it is referenced in a Sprite commercial.” I sit in the cafe and read a poetry zine. I find a Khaled CD for $1 in the library sale. I don’t want to acquire new things – my rucksack has mysteriously found its way from 12 kilos to 14 – but at that price, I can’t resist.

VII

When the punk gig ends I’m feeling antisocial again. The non-stop rain is illuminated in the street lights and I’m looking forward to the walk home because I like walking in the rain even when I’m not mopey. Most folks were drinking vodka tonight, so maybe when I make myself scarce my absence won’t be noticed. Making myself scarce has started to feel like a liberating thing, taking matters into my own hands and doing what feels best for me. But wait! I already made myself scarce from Berlin, from Edinburgh, from gainful employment, from all the settled stuff that 34-year-olds are supposed to have going on in their lives. And now I am making myself scarce in my day-to-day dealings as well! It’s all so goddamn profound.

play Parlovr – Hell, Heaven

Some men were shouting as they headed down Istiklal Caddesi carrying a giant Turkish flag over their heads. 22,000 Turkish troops had entered Iraqi Kurdistan that morning but the world seemed to have reacted with its customary disinterest, and anyway Gaddafi’s death was the big headline that day. I recalled February in Leipzig, wondering where I could find a ‘Gaddafi’s dead’ party when the time came. He was still in charge back then, his presence causing more to die every day, and the immediacy of the situation made me believe that his death would allow the Libyan people to live. In the end, he was dead not because of self-defence but revenge. I could understand why it had happened this way, but I didn’t feel like a party any more.

The following day, I was afraid I would miss my flight. I threw up intermittently through the afternoon and spent long periods of time sitting on the floor, activities like standing up and walking upright having become excruciatingly taxing. I hadn’t drunk all that much – at least, not by the standards of a million other nights out – but maybe it was bad wine or maybe I simply hadn’t eaten enough before I started drinking. At least it had been a good night: I recalled conversations about sex work, Islam and Defiance, Ohio; a blurry recollection of kissing in the street (how did this come to pass?); the tattooed former sailor who ran Zurich, the metal bar. The aftermath, though, formed the worst day I’d had all year.

Eventually Asli came home and took charge, insisting that I eat some bread while she prepared medicine. “I don’t feel like eating bread,” I said. “That isn’t really the point,” she explained. I sat on the sofa and ate the bread painstakingly slowly, eventually zoning out so I could chew mechanically without being too conscious of the horrific act of eating. The medicine was a big cup of lemon and mint tea, which sounded and smelled appealing but was less than appetising. But now I felt able to take an illegal taxi to the airport, saving me from being around crowds, and I no longer had to consider wasting 70 euros by delaying my departure.

Georgia had been on my mind for more than a year, ever since I left Berlin. At the time, I had been wandering aimlessly, sad and tired. I didn’t know where I wanted to be, and was feeling pretty suggestible when Murdoch recommended Tbilisi; I appreciated that somebody had stepped in to give me a lead, any lead. I had never even met anyone who’d been to Georgia, and my knowledge of the country could be summarised quickly: Mariam Romelashvili represented it in the 2007 Junior Eurovision Song Contest; it was bombed by Russia in 2008; there were eucalyptus trees in the breakaway territory of Abkhazia; and Georgian wine was really, really good. Murdoch knew someone who had a room available for absurdly cheap rent, and I emailed her to ask about it. While I waited for a reply that never came, I found myself reading guidebooks in shops, picturing a new life. Berlin had been a false start; maybe Tbilisi was what I needed. Having failed to unlock the next level of German, I would turn my attention instead to learning a new, curly script. My basic Polish and recollection of half the Cyrillic alphabet might bridge a gap or two while I found my bearings. I would live cheaply and quietly and far from anyone I knew, and if I was still sad I would just fucking deal with it.

In the absence of a response from Tbilisi, I held on to the city in the back of my mind. My plans and locations started to change, but I needed to at least check out the path I might have taken.

It was almost 3am when my flight landed.

My life is not your Monopoly board

I would not be able to look my children in the eyes and tell them they had to live like this because I did not dare to fight

Rise up! We are 99%

People of Europe rise up

We are all Greece

Social inequality is more violent than any protest

1) We’re getting out of your speculative spiral
2) Corporations have no soul to save and no body to incarcerate. They have no inherent right to exist!

PPSOE guilty
[PP and PSOE are the two main parties in Spain]

I only distinguish right from left when I masturbate

1) Those who do not move do not notice their chains. – Rosa Luxemburg, Marxist ideologist
2) It’s obsolete but they call it Neo. It’s the oppressor but they call it Liberalism

We’re neither the left nor the right, we are the underdogs and we’re coming for the overlords

Real Democracy Now
Sorry for the inconvenience, this is a revolution

There isn’t enough bread for so many sausages!
['chorizo'/'xoriço' means 'sausage' but is also slang for 'burglar']

Housing is a right, not a business

The ideals are bulletproof. Justice, equality and liberty are more than words, they’re goals.

You can’t kill the idea

Good news! The market’s going really, really well!

The difference between revolution and evolution is the ‘r’ for … responsibility! It’s within our grasp to change the world

Welcome to Corruptland

Journalists: If you know that your radio station, TV station or newspaper manipulates the news and you don’t denounce it, you are complicit in deceiving the people, your parents and children

Unite the struggles

Neighbourhoods, hospitals, workplaces: if they’re cut, general strike!

Democracy is voting for someone to represent you, not choosing IMF puppets

Where are you, democracy?

IMF, Goldman Sachs etc: You are the plague, you will go to hell
Wall Street is War Street

#Spanishrevolution from Spain to the rest of the world
Italy – Mexico – France – NYC – Ireland – Argentina – Berlin – Copenhagen – London town – Stuttgart
We are all Iceland

Daddy, how was the freedom like?

No work
No home
No education
No future

Democracy? Hahahahaha

[Barcelona stock exchange, plastered with 'Guilty' stickers]

Rebels without a home

Enough already! Society is in a state of total helplessness. We need you!

We want a Europe run for the people, not by the ‘markets’

Privatisation: it isn’t health, it’s business!

1) With health you don’t speculate
2) Health cuts = murder

Enough! I’m not selling my future

Through ignorance we descend to servitude, through education we ascend to liberty!

What’s in crisis is the system

This is not a crisis. It’s fraud by corrupt politicians and bankers

There’s still time

Banks and markets are the cancer. Don’t feed them!

1) Re-evolution is possible
2) We are not afraid!

Mortgage: Till death do us part

The system is dead
The people are living

Don’t count any more
We are one

1) There is no future. Do it yourself
2) UK Uncuts #unitedforglobalchange

I got a lift to Berlin with a German, a Hungarian and two Iranians. Wind turbines sped by as we talked travel and life. Two of them reckoned they could maybe use my help editing their academic work, and I handed out my new home-made business cards. (As close to home as I’ve been in a long time, anyway; I can say now that I live in Leipzig twice a year.)

The last time I flew out of Tegel airport, I was basically a wreck. On the outside I was keeping it together – I maybe looked physically drained, but at least I wasn’t a sobbing heap, which was what I felt like and what I had been for most of the preceding week or so. I was actually on the brink of a big adventure, except I didn’t have the energy at the time to even consider things from that perspective.

Yesterday Tegel airport was just another place I was passing through, except there were hundreds of police around it, which turned out to be because the Pope was on his way and not, as I had somehow decided, because someone was filming a music video. But I bypassed all the action to queue up at the check-in desk. I was listening to I Am Nothing by Withered Hand.

it’s a victory just seeing out today

And suddenly I was thinking back to a Withered Hand gig in an art gallery in 2009. While the rest of the audience stood dutifully to attention, Neill was sitting on the floor eating beans and complaining loudly about every band that wasn’t Withered Hand. He was accompanied by his sidekick, who he referred to as The French, a notoriously wretched twentysomething with low standards of hygiene. The French didn’t think much of me for a while until I offered to break a drug dealer’s legs for him, which apparently scored me some points. There was the time, also, when the three of us went to the Edinburgh Mela and I watched The French absent-mindedly take out his pocket knife and hack away at some dead skin on his thumb, while he reminisced about the time he didn’t wash for two weeks and got the most action he’d ever had. He was last heard of taking an excess of drugs at Roslin and chasing people around with a dead goat or some such, before running away into the hills. At least that’s how Neill tells it.

Edinburgh had its moments, you know? Before I had to get out. I want to see Neill again, and others too, but I can no longer comprehend going back to a place that’s so familiar. Why settle when I can keep moving? For all I know I could change my mind two months from now, but at the moment I can’t see it.

I’m insignificant, that’s my size
in the greater scheme of things I am nothing

play Withered Hand – I Am Nothing

The greater scheme of things makes it so much easier to bear everything: the petty, transient bullshit that bugs me for an afternoon, or the genuine pain, whatever its source. Maybe the song wasn’t intended to be uplifting, but it works for me.

On the plane, I sat next to a Puerto Rican living in Berlin (“yet another artist,” he said) and reluctantly paid five euros for a glass of orange juice and a box of vegetable chips with excessive packaging. We circled Barcelona several times before landing.

play Withered Hand – New Dawn

I. Where I have been and what is going on
II. The importance of balance, which I will attempt to outline without sounding overly self-helpy
III. Stuff that is good

I
Listing all the countries I’ve been to since July 2010 feels like a pointless exercise, because who really cares besides me (there are a couple maps in the sidebar, anyway), but the new ones were Lithuania, Iraq, Sri Lanka and New Zealand. In addition to these I pinballed around quite a bit. It’s all about cheap flights and creative overland solutions and whatnot.

I think it’s about time I mentioned that I’m not actually a wreck any more, okay? I mean with regard to the whole break-up angst that prompted my departure from Berlin. That episode left me with a couple of issues, such as: reduced faith in humanity (oh, the melodrama!) and newfound fear of rejection, but those have faded somewhat with time. However, it’s hard not to tell my story without referencing it to some extent, since it was the impetus that caused me to begin travelling.

Berlin remains kind of a no-go zone for me for the foreseeable future, apart from its airports, which are handy for Leipzig purposes. But I’m okay with this. A big reason why I left Berlin was because I didn’t have a support network there to help me cope with the break-up. Some people opt to endure unpleasant situations to prove they can do it, in order to ‘win’. Whatever. I won by taking back a little control and getting the fuck out. Berlin still makes me feel kind of weird and uncomfortable to think about, which is why I don’t want to revisit it, rather than for fear of running into my ex or something. But that’s okay. Other people can have Berlin. I have the rest of the planet.

My only plan is to continue travelling. I’ve gotten into this mindset where it’s hard to imagine returning to Edinburgh – much as I still love it – unless circumstances conspire to make me. So I guess I will keep on moving for as long as I feel like it and can afford to. I have a few definite locations on my list and then some probables/hopefuls, but I like to keep some things as a surprise, plus you never know whether things will really happen until they happen (see: being stranded in Kurdistan). Income continues to be something I try to patch up as I go along. Results are not spectacular, but at least I can sustain this for a while yet.

II
You know how we’re all products of our experiences, both good and bad? I kind of woke up to that notion back when I was fifteen and got dumped by my pseudo-drug dealer punk boyfriend of two weeks and was all kind of miserable so I went into a second-hand bookshop in Bangor and treated myself to a book by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Who, it would seem, was in fact pretty goddamn creepy in his behaviour towards women followers! And I think there was some sexist and/or homophobic stuff in the book too but I can’t remember for sure and I never read the whole thing anyway. But there was this stuff about how you need a kind of balance, you need good and bad to co-exist, because if everything was all super wonderful all the time then you would have nothing to compare it to, blah blah blah. Perhaps he even used this perspective to legitimise his own creepy behaviour, which is not so great.

However, I read this when I was fifteen and I distinctly remember going WHOA. So I guess I kind of needed it; I think it gave me a better perspective on the sadness that seemed to be an inescapable part of me. (Also, not everything in my life was pre-empted by a break-up; it just maybe seems that way because I like writing about mopey things.) Anyway, the upshot of it all is that I guess I have accepted the bad things that have taken place in my life, because without them I would be on a different path, and I really like the one I’m on.

III
Which brings us to: stuff that is good! This is an effort to redress the balance of what I write about, based on my own perception – no-one else has actually raised this, although maybe they’re just being nice – that I focus too much on sadness and loneliness and things like that. I mean, that’s never really been the plan: I don’t want to make myself known as the mopey one who had a short-lived relationship in Berlin and was in bits forevermore, or some shit like that. And I find it worthwhile to record how I’ve coped with things and found my way through bad times and so forth. But if I write about family problems or bereavement or break-ups or anything else that makes me sad, it should not be inferred that these things are a) everything about me, or b) everything about any given day in my life. And this travelling that I’m doing? Sure, it was prompted by bad circumstances, but then it became its own thing.

With that in mind, here is an alphabetised rundown of some good things from the past few months.

Animals
Looking after other people’s pets every so often allows me the opportunity to relax and have some space to myself. Additionally, a lot of the people I stay with have their own pets. Currently I am staying in an anarchafeminist household in Auckland where a neighbourhood cat calls round every day and is known only as CatWithGoldenPaw. This cat is ludicrously affectionate as well as delightfully chunky. Prior to this, I was staying in Brisbane with my old friend Amanda, who has two new cats, Pickle (short for Piccolo) and Captain, also known as Squirrel (so named on account of his bushy tail; I call him Captain Squirrel). In addition to my dearly missed canine charge in Armidale, a noteworthy dog from recent months would be Footstool, the aptly-named Basset hound of Malaysian film-maker Linus Chung. Linus also breeds cockroaches, but was considerate and did not force me to have direct contact with them.

Significant non-domestic animals include the palm squirrels I discovered in Sri Lanka, which I think of as some sort of chipmunk-squirrel hybrid and as such are probably my ideal rodent. Kangaroos, with their peculiar design, also deserve a special mention: the Australian road signs advertising their presence make me smile every time I see them.

Birds
I am not an expert on birds but Australia has some pretty cool ones which make impressive noises and are sometimes colourful and/or funny-looking. Also, there are WILD TURKEYS wandering all over Brisbane, as well as the ibis, with its disarmingly solemn appearance.

Food
Sometimes I am too distracted or lazy to prepare worthwhile food; other times I get really into it. Armidale had a great fruit and veg market where every day there’d be a discount section so I could surprise myself with what I was going to have for dinner. Sesame brussels sprouts became a regular feature: they are kind of the best things in the world ever. Today I had a burrito filled with a hash brown, scrambled eggs, spinach and onion: this was also kind of epic. I like discovering meals that other people make and then incorporating them into my own culinary repertoire as I continue to travel.

Karaoke
Alas! Karaoke Dick finished up on Saturday night before I had the chance to perform my Billy Bragg selection, but rest assured it would have been fabulous. I did, however, sing Breaking Up Is Hard To Do by Neil Sedaka (NO SIGNIFICANCE INTENDED I SWEAR). I was initially taken aback upon realising that my back-up singer had opted to growl her vocals in manner of Cookie Monster, but I took it in my stride and am told the results were marvellous. Admittedly the only feedback given came from a mutual friend, but seeing as I didn’t know anybody else in the room, it’s not of major concern anyway.

New Zealand English
Okay, so my best friend is from New Zealand and I also wound up hanging out with a ton of New Zealanders in Berlin, but it still required me to actually visit the country before I could identify what makes the New Zealand accent different to the Australian one (basically: new and exciting things happening to vowels). Frequently encountered vocabulary: choice, keen, totes, real, true, stink, bro, cheap as, cool as, tau iwi, pakeha, koha, tino rangatiratanga.

Trains in Australia
I am pretty happy about the fact that I covered over 1000 miles in Australia without resorting to planes. (Because obviously, given the amount of flying I do the rest of the time, this totally gets me off the hook. Oh wait.) Although I do not have extensive experience, I am a big fan of Australian trains, particularly compared to UK trains. Namely: they are affordable! Given the time taken and distance covered, they are pretty good value for money, not least because the price remains the same even if you buy your ticket on the day you’re travelling, as opposed to in the UK where you’re financially penalised if you failed to predict your travel plans three months in advance. Also, if you need to cancel a ticket, you can get a refund with the minimum of fuss, as opposed to enough e-mail correspondence to fill a novella followed by a copout that says you’re not getting your money anyway (I’m looking at you, Arriva Trains Wales).

Wellington
I went to Wellington for the first time a few months ago and found myself an instant community. Over the course of ten days I watched cheesy films, went indoor climbing, ripped my trousers pretending to be a competent cyclist, bonded over the taboo nature of non-cyclists in anarchopunk communities, completed my longest (and possibly best, in my own opinion) zine yet, met and was hosted by the cryptic e-mail correspondent I’d had since the previous summer, had a picnic in the Botanic Gardens, read at an open mic night, saw tuatara, visited the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective, hung out with alleged terrorists, played on a flying fox under the stars, finally remembered how to kiss people again, checked out the zine section in the public library, had a potluck dinner for my leaving do, and considered the implications of finding a home (in an overly hilly, wet and windy city) on the other side of the world.

Zines
The Australian and New Zealand zine scenes, as experienced through Sticky Institute, the MCA Zine Fair and Auckland Zinefest (with Dunedin Zinefest still to come) are pretty happening places to be. In the UK, I don’t especially feel like I’m part of a zine scene, but that is possibly due to not living in England, and it’s also possibly due to not making enough effort myself to connect with other zine kids. (Also, it should be noted that it’s not like nothing happens in Scotland: 7 August will see a zine fair in Edinburgh, and attendance is mandatory for any and all local readers of this blog.) But yeah, so here I somehow feel more like I’m part of something, despite being an outsider who only showed up in town for a little while.

I’ve picked up so many fantastic zines in this part of the world that it’s hard to know where to start, but my recommendations would include:

• Blue Floral Gusset: John identifies as a transvestite, and discusses the awkwardness of navigating the public realm and people’s reactions and misconceptions. He wears skirts pretty much all the time, and writes about how his main fear has moved from being targeted for abuse, to concerns about things like ‘having to’ shave his legs. I don’t think I’ve read any similar zines, so I really appreciated his giving me a copy of this one.
• Boy In A Big City: a super cute queer trans comic from New Zealand, which is both educational for people new to the issues, and affirming and fun to read for people who aren’t.
• I Am A Camera #15: Vanessa Berry is kind of the queen of Australian zines, and in this issue she writes about her visit to Dunedin, which has taken on additional significance now that it turns out I’m going there myself. Vanessa and Simon went there on a quest to explore the world of Flying Nun Records, and her trademark attention to detail is always endearing.
• Look Who’s Stalking: an entertaining zine by Mara Coson and Coco Quizon about obsessing over a musician called Jenny Lee Lindberg, and dealing with her performance in Melbourne by getting drunk and overly friendly. The details in the zine revealed that Coco lived around the corner from where I was staying in Northcote, so it seemed like it would be a really good idea to stalk her in turn (and then make a zine about it), but I failed to get started with that project. Instead I’m linking to her blog so that if she checks her stats she might be all HEY WAIT WTF IS THIS.
• Mellow Yellow: a collaborative zine by radical Asian feminists in Aotearoa. This is epic. Topics covered include internalised racism, migrant experiences, western privilege, colonialism, queer identity, and underwear-stealing cats. You can download the first issue in PDF format. Also, I got a homemade No One Is Illegal sticker from their stall at Auckland Zine Fest, which is now proudly displayed on my netbook.
• Mood Dictated By Sunset Gradient: a synaesthetic account of a period spent in hospital by a boy with cystic fibrosis, a terminal condition. Intense, breathtaking, overwhelming and ultimately uplifting.
• Neighbour Cats: a small, charming, and laugh-out-loud hilarious guide to some of the cats of Wellington.
• Not Afraid Of Ruins: my favourite issue is #2, which is about Israel/Palestine, zionism, Jewish identity and Stargate, but #1 is on mental health and capitalism, and #3 is on travelling in Europe; all are super-articulate, intense and valuable reads.
• Strange: Seven Times With You: a deeply personal (you know, my favourite kind?) story of a sort-of relationship.
• Sutures: okay, I haven’t finished this one yet, but I am pretty excited about it as I am aware of only a handful of zines concerning the Middle East. This one is by an Australian woman examining her Syrian, Lebanese and British roots. It is also intense.

Overly earnest conclusion
So this is where I’m at, on a sunny day in a place that’s as far from home as I’ve ever been. I have a lot more of the world to see, a lot more to learn about, and a lot more people to meet. At the risk of sounding like a motivational speaker or something, I’m constantly thankful for the experiences that I get to have along the way. People often say to me that they could never do what I’m doing, and I can’t pretend that it is equally easy for everybody – without this combination of white skin and an Irish passport, for example, it’s unlikely I’d find it so easy to get into so many countries, and without some amount of money you can’t leave home at all. However, most of the people who say this to me would seem to have similar privileges and resources, and instead what they’re referencing is fear. I don’t see anything to be afraid of, beyond financial instability which has been a feature ever since I joined the redundancy club anyway. I didn’t know I was going to do this until I did it; I’m not on a round the world ticket or a gap year, and I have no idea what awaits me whether I stop or not. But the people I meet along the way are frequently kind, friendly, and inspirational, and I value the opportunities for us to learn about each other’s experiences and perspectives. It’s a good life.

* tl;dr: short for Too Long; Didn’t Read. If anyone actually makes it to this footnote.

I did some writing and some editing and some audio transcription. I began to structure my days around my 4pm fix of Roseanne, and sometimes my evenings around The Golden Girls and M*A*S*H, and I wept predictably over Go Back To Where You Came From. In one episode of Roseanne, Darlene has a friend round and makes out with him on the couch, which is her first kiss, and plus she gets felt up, and I remembered this episode from when I was fourteen or whatever and how it gave hope to people like me who were being subjected to advice like “if you’d just tie your hair up and wear a little make-up (and look more feminine) then you’d be really pretty and everyone would want to go out with you” and I was all: hell no, these are not my terms and conditions. Also, like all right-minded people, I totally had a crush on Sara Gilbert.

I remembered how whenever I was watching the show my mother would invariably walk into the living-room, pause, and then go, “I can’t stand that woman.” Every time. And I would be like: Shut up, Mother! Let me watch it in peace! I already know you can’t stand her! And it occured to me now that maybe I started calling her “Mother” because Becky does that on the show when she too is exasperated. And on the sixth anniversary of my mother’s death I didn’t know what to do so I just sort of sat out on the deck with a mug of green tea and tried to be peaceful and then went back inside when I was done, but watching Roseanne and hearing my mum’s voice in my head each time the show was on was kind of nice.

I went to the pub twice. The first time, a caged hen farmer in his early twenties took a seat at our table without invitation and began to chat up a vegan. “If you ban eggs from caged hens they’ll just import them from China,” he insisted. “What would you rather have, eggs from Australia or eggs from China?” “I’m a VEGAN,” she reiterated. His bleary drunken eyes swivelled in my direction, as if I was going to back him up. “If the eggs aren’t free-range I don’t want any at all,” I explained. “Where are you from?” he asked. Oh, don’t you derail me. “Who gives a shit where I’m from, we’re talking about chickens!” He seemed confused, turned back to the vegan, got a bit table-thumpy, and eventually went away.

One day I went to the post office and then I got back into the car I’d been lent and sobbed for a few minutes because things hit you at unexpected times. I sobbed for my small family with two members missing, one due to death, the other due to an impasse to which I could see no solution. I sobbed because my refusal to engage with someone who’s hurt me, who has continually demonstrated an absence of respect for me, means that I get to be the one who’s seen as being difficult. I sobbed for a few minutes and then wiped my eyes and drove on, vaguely recalling that someone had maybe said once that I never especially look like I’ve been crying after I’ve been crying.

I located the fruit market and the supermarket and the bakery. I took some clothes out of my rucksack and put them on shelves for a change. I read A Wedding In December by Anita Shreve. (“What’s it about?” asked Holly. “GUESS,” I told her.) It made me think about school reunions, teenage expectations, and who I’d thought I would become. I got to know my surroundings: unfamiliarity dissolved as I discovered shortcuts and worked out where the streets joined up. I got in the car and drove about fifty kilometres to Australia’s second highest waterfall, singing along to mix CDs with the volume up loud, enjoying that the speed was measured in kilometres rather than miles so it looked like I was going faster than I would at home. I saw a peacock-like bird, and another bird that made noises that sounded like a spaceship, and I saw a dead kangaroo by the side of the road. And the sunsets were pretty epic in this part of the world, spreading dramatic colours across big skies that made it feel as if you were driving into a painting.

I heard these scrabbling sounds at night and I thought it was possums but then two nights before my departure I was going through a bottle of wine for no good reason (I woke up the following morning with the hangover of the soul and decided not to do that again) and I heard the noises coming from a cupboard. I opened it. “Oh, hi,” I said out loud, “you’re a really big rat.” For want of any better ideas I closed the cupboard again.

David Byrne’s voice got into my head every so often, that line from Once In A Lifetime: “And you may ask yourself: well, how did I get here?” I recalled the dramatic departure from Berlin almost a year ago, the hurt and the sadness and the bewilderment and the whole goddamn mess. And then all the countries between then and now, all the different experiences, and how unavoidably cliché it feels for the phrase “change in direction” to apply both literally and metaphorically. I thought about loneliness and how it’s ceased to be an issue, and how saying goodbye doesn’t faze me any more because I’m always moving on. I thought about the last time I had stayed in a place for a month or more: that was October, which meant I was getting two autumns in one year, in two different regions both known as New England. I counted how many places I’d slept in the last year: over sixty. Was that all? It didn’t really sound like that many to me, except it averages out to more than one a week which apparently is maybe a lot. I no longer make plans the way I used to; the only time anything is set in stone is when I book a ticket. I may be a year into this way of living but I don’t think I’m anywhere near done with it yet.

He seemed kind and jolly, but he had a sad smile. I thought he said that his wife had died, but I wasn’t sure, and I felt too awkward to press for more details. I do this thing too often where I act like I understand everything that’s been said when actually I don’t.

I’d spent the night in the 24-hour restaurant in Colombo airport, trying to doze through muzak renditions of Danny Boy, the staff nodding off on the sofas next to me. The subsequent flight had passed by in a confused blur. I think I broke with tradition and slept a little.

A million encounters with friendly men had taught me to proceed with caution, no matter how nice and agenda-free they seemed. I engaged with the man from the Maldives, I enjoyed talking to him, but I did not give him my contact details. He said if I ever go to the Maldives I should get in touch. I accepted his e-mail address. I don’t know if I can still find it.

Wellington
My flight got in around midnight. The immigration officer asked me to name the people I’d visited in Sri Lanka and Malaysia, and then I collected my rucksack and walked out into the rain. Contrary to the claims of the guidebook I’d browsed in Brisbane, there was no bus, because it was Easter or something. I’d arrived in New Zealand on a visa run, because otherwise I would wind up overstaying my welcome in Australia. And I also kind of needed to just move on somewhere, because Australia Phase One had been defined by all this bullshit going on in my head that I didn’t really need, lots of feeling mopey and anti-social and out of place.

I shared a taxi into the centre of town with two Norwegians; one of them was studying in Sydney and the other was visiting him, and they were going to rent a van and drive around New Zealand and do things like camping and hiking. They asked about my travels, and “Iraq!” echoed through the cab, making me feel kind of like a phony but on the other hand I was only performing the requested recital. Maybe I should just save Iraq as a trump card for when I find myself in the company of oneupmanship travellers: the ones whose chat is all “Where have you been to? Oh, while you were there did you do this interesting thing and that interesting thing? Did you go to this really obscure part that I’ve been to? No?” and then they tell you all about their superior experiences because yours are never good enough.

The Norwegians seemed pretty nice and I almost wanted to ask if I could hitch a ride in their van, but I didn’t want to impose. Anyway I seemed to be on a roll here, being all interesting and independent and stuff, and part of me was kind of amazed at how quickly I sounded like I had my shit together, after spending the past few weeks with the words What The Hell Am I Doing ricocheting around my head. We pulled up outside my accommodation for the next few nights, which was a radical social centre covered in murals, and I said goodbye to the boys and got out all happy and confident, to be greeted by tea and cake by activists who’d stayed up waiting for me. Maybe the encounter with the Norwegians slightly influenced the idea I had the whole time I was in Wellington that it was kind of like Norway; somehow my arrival and the rain that barely stopped and the hills and the harbour and the wooden houses reminded me of Bergen, and hey, it was cold enough.

Melbourne
The white German boy with the dreads had been sitting in the row behind me on the flight from Wellington to Melbourne. As we started to disembark he leaned across and asked me about my Užupio Respublika badge. He’d been in New Zealand for the best part of a year and now he had arrived in Australia without a place to stay for the night. I regretted that I was unable to help him, but there was something about him I didn’t entirely take to. All the same, he suggested we go for a drink and I figured why the hell not – I had time to kill and we were both travellers.

This is the updated version of the many times I’ve thought “hey, you look like a punk, we must have stuff in common! Oh, wait, we totally don’t.”

“Yeah, I was travelling with a friend of mine,” he said as we waited for the airport bus, “but I’m not gay, so living in a camper van with another guy for three months was too much.”

I didn’t know how to respond to this.

“These guys I worked with invited me to Vanuatu,” he said as the bus moved off. “They’re black guys, but they’re nice.”

I thought about whether he might have said this to me if I hadn’t been white. I thought about the white Canadian neighbour about ten years ago who told me she was moving in with some black South Africans and then offered, “They’re awfully nice, you know, Nine, some of them. The blacks, I mean.” I wondered if there was something about my presentation that made people feel the need to explain things like this to me. I wondered if the German boy had considered that I might not be straight.

Instead of going for a drink with him, I packed him off on a bus to St Kilda, confident he’d find a suitable backpackers’ hostel there. I took a train to my friends’ place out in Northcote and sat on the steps outside their place, reading zines and The Day The Raids Came for a couple of hours until Alex came home and plied me with wine.