A photo I took on Operation: GTFO last year. The same need to up and go has been growing in my shoulder blades lately. The desire for spaces I don't know, soundscapes I don't know, air I don't know. A life I don't know.

I have many things to say, but, I have misplaced my voice. So I shall say nothing.

This is what the shipwreck coast does to life.


Beats it down, makes it small, misshapen.




Conquers it completely.


These small plants out on the cliff tops speak in quiet meek voices.


They say, “and yet, I live.”


I am not a plant. While I feel just as pummelled and low and bristly and twisted and maggoty, there is no satisfaction for me in merely existing. I want to be a person I’m not ashamed or embarrassed of. I want a life that I don’t need to run away from. Can you imagine such a thing?

I can’t.

clutching at straws that broke the camel's back

Don't particularly like the bathroom mirror either.

Maybe when I get back history will have spontaneously rearranged itself and that won't say what it says. Maybe I won't have felt the need to write it. Maybe it doesn't matter because I'll have to take it down in a few days anyway when the real estate agent brings strangers with money around to see if they want to buy the place.

I have to go; I'm going; I'm gone.

you know who you are

Permanent marker doesn't come off easy. I spent the rest of the evening with gratitude stigmata on my palms.

Operation GTFO
Phase 1: successful!
Phase 2: where am I going?

Since my last 7am shift, the Earth has moved so far around the Sun that it is still dark when I leave, and there are stars in the sky.

GTFO. No, Really.

Operation GTFO, Phase #1 -
Current Status: "ask me again later."

(I'm not hopeful.)

Sleight of Mind

There's a huge albino killer whale out in the ocean, fucking HUGE, look at him in comparison to his pod. Biggest, baddest ghost of the sea. Link also contains pictures of various other marine-related albino animals. Leopard slug included.

Operation: GTFO

I have to go. I need to go. When I get up in the morning, I just move from the bed to the floor. Turn the stereo on. Stare at the ceiling for hours, till it’s time to go. No desire to do anything, and this doesn’t bother me. So, I think I have to go. I have a nightshift coming up, oh glory days of hell and horror. I have days off after nightshift coming up after that, and I have to go. I’m thinking of stealing a car and heading down the Great Ocean Road for a few days. Drive with all the windows down and the volume up. I want hot chips on a rocky beach, covered in enough salt to kill me. Maybe with gravy. Definitely with chocolate milk. I’ll take up cigarettes for the weekend, just to watch the ocean wind steal the smoke away. Lug my camera around and pretend I know what I’m doing, that I’m taking cliché photos on purpose. Walk on the sand till my ankles hurt. Throw rocks off cliffs. Watch the waves till the sun goes down and there’s nothing left to see. Eat more hot chips. Give chips to seagulls. Be in some other space, because I know all these spaces around me now and I have to go.

Thus commences Operation GET THE FUCK OUT (GTFO).

Phase 1: convince parental units to let me take a car for several days, ‘cause I can’t afford to hire one.