Day 38 - September 16th

Day 38 - September 16th
OW, MY ANKLE
Couldn't break into building site
Drunk spot @ Voltaire and mushies in da Richmond hood

        For about six months in 2012-13, my ankle was swollen and tender because I'd decided to buy a skateboard. I also grew my hair out and tied it into a top-knot, and for about three weeks had a real, concerted crack at growing a beard until I caved and admitted that it was itchy and I hated it. Every now and then I'd go down the city skate park at the top of St Kilda Rd with Brodie, who was a very good skater. He taught me a few basic flips, but I was learning so I'd land wrong all the time, and it fucked my ankles up, especially my left one which would always land on the kick and roll when I didn't catch the board properly. Evidently you're supposed to learn all that shit when you're 13 and your bones are still made of ballistics jelly, so even after rolling your ankles all afternoon you can pretty much walk it off. You learn by failing, and you do it young so by the time you reach the ripe old age of 22 you're past the point of eating shit constantly. I was already over the hill, and even with the ankle brace I bought from Chemist Warehouse at the bemused advice of a doctor whose time I definitely wasted – “I fell off my skateboard a lot, what do you think's wrong with it?” // “Well son... it looks like you fell off your skateboard. A lot.” – I limped around the city for months.
        One morning around sunrise I was drinking with my workmates at Yah Yah's after a shift. I went upstairs to pee and on the way back I bounded down, taking them three at a time – like always – I guess out of impatience? I honestly don't know, but I've always liked to get that part of my life over as quick as possible, because, as small, Greek bartender once said to me, “You're never having a good time when you're on stairs.”
        My ankle gave way somewhere at the top of the first flight, and I lost control completely. My face came down to meet the floor with what to me seemed like an enormous crash. I limped back down the second flight, but was too drunk to realise just how badly I'd hurt myself. The fact that none of my workmates in the bar seemed to have noticed the sound I'd made when I fell suggested to me maybe it hadn't been that bad. I'd expected to come down and answer a volley of questions about the sound they'd all heard. Or maybe, I thought, they'd all have guessed what the sound was, and would instead greet my return with a joyous round of applause? But no, not so much as a raised eyebrow, so I brushed it off. By that night I could barely make it out of my bedroom.

        I skated a lot less after that, and whenever I did again I was scared of hurting myself, which meant I never committed, so I fell more. I couldn't land anything, so I bought some bigger wheels made for rolling around the asphalt, and decided to just use the thing as a mode of transportation. One night on the way to a show in Collingwood I slung my deck over a fence before climbing over myself. As I hung it by the trucks on the top rail of the fence, one of the wheels fell off (somehow?) and bounced away into the darkness. I looked for a while, then gave up and went to the show. The deck sat in my room with three wheels, disused until 2014 when I sold it to the highest bidder in a comedy show to help fund my move to London.

        Oh, and I guess, according to this card, this was the morning when I was shooed away from the building site near my house by security after jumping the fence in search of one more adventure before Sunday Morning Bedtime. I barely remember that – ha. What an explorer!

CLick here to read the next part - Day 39 - September 26th