I use this page to record daily happenings connected with social and literary projects.
In 2005 I composed two lines of iambic pentameter every day in order to form a poem about the year. It was called "2005: a year's work in iambic pentameter."
In 2006 I gave a flower to a different person every day and created another type of poem about it. This project was called "2006: a year of giving flowers to people."
In 2007 I adapted my life to a calendar of the saints, reacting to the lives of holy people in passionate or ironic ways. The title of this project was "2007: a year with the saints."
In 2008 I followed a different person each day and saw if I was taken to interesting places. I called it "2008: a year of following people."
In 2009 I will spend a year in relation to lemons, spending some time each day engaging the fruit in a new mode, a new action. I will call this project "2009: a year with lemons."
From the banks of Albert Park Lake I held a large yellow lemon, tempting black swans to glide their way towards me and peck. Their disappointment registered as a chorus of grunts and squeaks. Their friends caught on quickly, and I found myself birdless.
My birthday party drink was a fizzy sangria, mixing lemonade, soda water, orange juice and red wine, served in a vase-like container in which sagged a truly gigantic spiral-cut lemon.
I used a hand-picked lemon to make a strong version of a Hong Kong lemon Coke, pouring the cola over an entire fruit, thinly sliced and bobbing. Delicious!
The house on the corner has a trampoline in its yard, fenced in by mesh. I launched a series of lemons towards it, hearing them hopelessly bounce, wondering what the neighbours would think when they found their trampoline fruit-covered next morning.
After the musical we had cocktails, and during the cocktails we played "spin the lemon." If the fruit chose you, you had to kiss someone. I kissed a girl! Girls kissed each other!
Once, hanging clothes at night, I noticed a lemon tree in the yard of my neighbours, just within reach. I clambered onto a platform and stretched my hand across the divide, pushing through leaves and mesh until I was grasping lemons, and picking them.
Australia's "Super 7" lottery had jackpotted to $90 million dollars so I used a spinning lemon to choose my numbers and enter the draw. No luck, but the spinning itself was enjoyable: 2, 8, 9, 27, 33, 37, 40.
It was a strange party. There was an open fire, and a lull at the bar. Sneakily, I switched on a beer tap above a lemon, then greedily sucked off the beer. Retreating, I noticed that the tap was both inaccessible and still running - so much precious liquid lost!
At the State Library of Victoria's Genealogy Centre I placed a thin slice of lemon beneath the lens of a microfiche reader, enjoying the massively enlarged view of flesh, juice and seeds.
On Collins Street I placed a lemon on the tram-tracks and waited for the #109. It glided in, heavily, slicing the fruit and smearing juice over the concrete.
In front of Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance a flame burns and burns. I threw it a lemon and missed, one night, then launched a second with devastating accuracy. The fruit sat there, hissing, turning dark and then white, suffering the relentless fire. I stood beside it for a few minutes, blinding myself. Then it rained.
Do lemons work as rubbers? I tested the hypothesis at work, one afternoon, and disproved it. But then I speared a lemon, and used its juice instead - the writing disappeared, completely washed away.
At the market a man was busking with percussion instruments which he invited children to scrape, hit and jangle. I picked up a cowbell and my newly-purchased giant lemon, using the fruit as a drumstick.
I used an onion slicer on a whole lemon, clamping the device down and pressing tightly. An initial hit of juice, then a slow, crunchy descent of fruit accompanied by that smell. I struggled to find a use for the cubes, so set about washing up.
I dropped a lemon from the window of my friend's seventh-floor apartment. It hit the metal roof of small building below, causing a single crash with no echo.