My new husband is Franz Kafka. Say hello, Franz.

I have plucked out 12 grey hairs now, mostly from my fringe.  I first found grey hairs when I was 17, doing the HSC.  I attributed it to stress and they didn’t seem to ever grow back.  I think now I just have to accept it’s happening for real.  It comes from my mother’s side.  We all end up completely grey by 30.  

I’m also senile.  My memory is still getting worse.  But then on Sunday, I spent an hour obsessed with rainbow lorikeets.  I don’t like birds.  But I made the Palex and I some scones and chai, and we were sitting the backyard enjoying the sun and the uncut grass (I hate mown lawns, I like the grass to be long, and then the sourgrass gets all these cute yellow flowers… omg, what am I saying?!)  when some rainbow lorikeets came along.  Then I spent over an hour watching the lorikeets.  I gave them bread with golden syrup so they’d stick around.  They were hilarious.  They do this weird dance and it looks like of like yoga and kind of like trying to throw up.  But over an hour?   Who does that?  Old women do.   I told the Palex he had to sit still so he didn’t scare the birds.  For an hour.  I’m senile.  

Plus why the fuck do I keep getting such an insane craving for scones all the time?  Senile!

I can’t remember words enough to complete a crossword in Mx.  Mx!   Senile. 

At boxing class, the training dude tried to make me skip.  I tried skipping, but then I felt like I was in danger of becoming one of the ladies in a Depends ad, so I made an excuse to go to the changeroom for something, and hid there until the skipping part was over and I could hear good ol’ safe punching noises again.  Nothing really happened, I just felt a bit anxious about skipping for some reason.  Senile. 

I hand-sewed the Palex a library bag and I don’t even know how to sew.  Senile. 

Sometimes at work I realise I’ve been sitting staring at the back of my cubicle for 5 minutes doing nothing but practically drooling.  Sometimes I don’t notice and James has to point it out for me.    Senile. 

I keep having the weird feeling as I wake up in the morning that someone is in my room, or just walking out of my room.  I even saw the outline of a person’s face the other day.  I’m not freaked out by it, at the time it seems normal, but I think the rational explanation is that I’m senile.  

Across the road from where I used to live there is a private hospital sort of nursing home for senile people.  One time I was walking past and a lady was standing at the front gate, calling for help to passing cars.  I reluctantly went up to her to see what was the matter, and she told me that everyone inside the nursing home was dead, mumbling some gibberish about something.  I didn’t let her out, I just went inside and told the staff.   Then recently the staff were out on the other side of the street having to physically pull the same lady back towards the grounds of the nursing home, having a big argument with her about it.  Someone had let her out.   Now they have a sign on the fence telling people not to let anyone out and not to listen to any of the old people in there because they’re all senile.  

Is it possible to be infatuated with someone you’ve never met and has been dead for 90 years?  Like, not in love with their corpse, but in some imaginary version of them?   Most of my waking hours I’m daydreaming anyway, so I think this counts as a real relationship; as real as any other I’ve had.

I have left two lemons next to my computer and I can’t remember why or how they got there.  They look kind of like boobs.