::20.7.05::
Where The Palm Trees Have It Hard
Tonight I had to go to St Kilda. I don't get over to that side of the city much any more. When I first moved to Melbourne, I spend the first six years or so in St Kilda, well the St Kilda area (including Balaclava, Elwood etc). I only left to go to work or occasionally into the city. I thought Carlton was like the outer suburbs and didn't know the difference between Smith St and Brunswick St (and couldn't get there without a Melways).
All my friends lived in the area. I went out in the area. I ate in the area. I had no reason to leave. The only black spot on my lovely St Kilda horizon was the influx of summer tourists from far flung 'burbs filling up my space. Blocking the roads, rubbernecking and not knowing how to go around the Acland Street roundabout.
But all good things come to an end. By the time I left St Kilda, the place had gone to ruin. The Prince had the sticky carpets removed and the fake wood panel torn off the walls. The smackie bar out the back had become a vodka bar. The staff had gotten progressively more trendy. The Espy has held off longer but is going the same way.
Last year I was working at a bank and one of the guys that I worked with epitomised the "new" St Kilda. He was proud of his new townhouse and wanted to go to "nice" wine bars where you didn't have to deal with "those people". "Those people" being the people who lived in the area when he wouldn't have dreamed of living there. Blerk.
Tonight I realised that everywhere in that place has some emotional resonance, every I looked has memories attached. Nothing exciting. No stories to entertain you. Just memories of people and times that are gone. Walking down to the breakwater on a sweltering summer's night with a few beers, a million dinners with cheap and nasty house wine at La Porchetta, a zillion $1 pot nights at the Prince belting out Supremes and arguing over who was Miss Ross, nights in the gutter and nights in limos.
Whenever I think of Home, I think of my flat in St Kilda. I bitched about it when I lived there but miss it a lot. I miss those friends, sneaking stubbies into the Prince, playing pool on a weekday afternoon; selling quilts and handbags in a run down shop; popping pills in Catani Gardens; walking home dressed in drag on a Sunday morning; down and out on Fitzroy Street; drunk and talking shit at the Greyhound; listening to Nirvana on the jukebox at the Grosvenor.
Good days but they aint coming back, good friend scattered. Time to make new memories I guess. It's weird to go back though, it makes me homesick.
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posted by : 11:28 pm
 
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posted by Ozfemme : 2:02 pm
 
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posted by : 10:25 pm
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