with Justin Heazlewood
Having said that, we are entertaining the possibility of an open relationship. My art is open to sharing me with a human, woman-type person.
Being in a relationship is classic Me-in-my-late-teens-and-twenties. I was a serial monogamist. My face (with accompanying haircuts of varying quality) was regularly on the news as the positive story at the end.
Everyone loves you when you’re a couple. Couples are fun. They are trustworthy, somehow. A yin and yang.
Single people = not so much.
Single people are invited to dinner parties more reluctantly and eyed with a delicate, measured suspicion by the community ambassadors of courtship. Or worse, they are vaguely patronised for not making the finals in the synchronised love-diving Olympics of romance.
Not me, though. I’ve rendered myself immune to such petty judgements – attributed to the casual ferocity with which I’ve doubled and tripled down as a troubadour/vagabond connoisseur. Perhaps I’m living a man’s life of luxury. I’ve only been asked whether I have kids twice in my life. Both times I just laughed.
In my mid-thirties and forties, I found myself uncharacteristically unattached. This is the longest lady drought since records began. One must cast their mind back to junior Justin in grades seven, eight and nine, sporting a bowl cut and coke bottle glasses. Oh, how ‘Judster’ watched on with bruising longing as his best mate Billy Good enjoyed a hand-holding hullabaloo with the perfectly pretty Emma Sandman. Their song was ‘Always’ by Bon Jovi. My song was ‘Everybody On The Floor’ by Tokyo Ghetto Pussy.
Let’s face it, single people have more edge. We’re lighter on our feet (ideal for dancing to ‘90s techno) and can survive any cultural conversational apocalypse. Single people are masters of their own domain. Lords of their intellectual property. Couples are half-hiding in each other, too distracted by internal politics to appreciate the raw, calm, nuclear silence of the solitary wavelengths of the world. Single people wake with an excitement at 4am and stare hard down the wrong end of the telescope for a therapeutic flirtation with god.
It’s thrilling, really. A carnival ride for the soul. Boot camp for the heart, with chocolate.
Single people are hard on themselves, but they are kind as well.
That said, I’d appreciate a dating service, ‘90s style. One where you submit a video and an agency arranges matches. I would benefit from the emotional data that a five-minute video interview generates. There I’d be, in my Buddy Holly glasses and cardigan, talking about long walks to the letterbox and my dabbles in poetry and cassette collecting. Some smooth-talking nerd, the comic relief recluse in the montage of unlikely candidates in the quirky-rom-com-hottie-Maggie–Gyllenhaal-type’s attempt to find love.
I’d dig bussing it to an office to meet with my Partnership Facilitation Officer. It would be a welcome change from swiping on a screen, alone in an attic, akin to Malcolm McDowell being face-fed images in A Clockwork Orange. Just another ‘down-to-earth country girl’ with cat’s ears and whiskers.
The older I get, the more I think about Steve Buscemi’s character in Ghost World. A neurotic nerd, fastidiously scouring jazz records at flea markets. The only difference is I don’t have millennials Tora Birch and Scarlett Johansson psychologically manipulating me for sport. Oh, what I’d give for that kind of attention.
Ultimately, Steve’s character goes mad and moves in with his mother. Ha ha. But that’s just fiction, folks. That would never happen in real life.
For now, I will keep my routine of clambering down the coal-mine of culture, to pick away at nuggets of sparkly, valuable truths. Each night, I return home sooty-faced, knowing my art has an empty plate waiting for me.
It’s amazing what fills you up.
Justin launches his new book, Dream Burnie, at Smith’s Alternative on Tuesday, February 11, from 5pm – 6:30pm sharp. It’s a free event!
