Confessions

A few weeks back Chrissy Amphlett passed away. That sucks. She was awesome. The positive spin on her death is that a lot of people filled a lot of column inches, blogs and webpages talking about precisely how awesome she was; how inspiring and kick ass and feisty; all beautiful things as far as I'm concerned. There were evidently a lot of broken hearts with her passing. But her passing reminded me of another kind of heartache. It reminded me that my first date was to a Divinyls concert in the shitty Canberra entertainment centre. I'd asked a private school girl that I was madly in love with. Her name, spelled backwards, was my computer password. I thought she was amazing and, because she was a private school girl I also thought she must be a different kind of special. She wore a uniform to school! She seemed to bear with her some kind of air of romanticised sophistication and grace and wealth that, thankfully, I stopped caring about very soon after I passed fifteen years of age (to be honest I kinda flipped to the other end of the scale). Anyway, I remember waiting at that shitty entertainment centre, Chrissy Amphlett about to take the stage, nervous as hell, knots in my stomach, not sure what my fucked up teenage body was crying out for, and, as the foyer emptied and I looked down at the grubby carpet and my shuffling anxious jordans, and the space stopped smelling like cigarettes and booze and people and starting smelling like wet dog, I began realising that, shit, I had been stood up. She wasn't coming to the concert with me. No date. I barely knew what the idea of being stood up meant, but the humiliation was keen and cutting. I would be watching Chrissy stomp and sex around on stage on my own. And damn, it hurt,  it really hurt. But, I looked down at the carpet, shuffled some more, and I looked at the empty foyer and thought, 'fuck it' and  I went into the auditorium anyway. I stood in that half empty auditorium (no Canberra concert was ever full) shuffling awkwardly and feeling the heat of other people who hadn't been stood up or who knew a few more things about girls and romance and dates and love and sex and disappointment and pain. And, then, as now, I decided to just bury how I felt in the sensation of the moment. To just enjoy the fucking concert and to not let it hurt. And that night was as sweet as bush honey for that sudden decision. The lights were brighter, Chrissy was louder and messier and more loveable, the sweat smelled sweeter and the cold night air outside was sharper and darker. So, many, many thanks and RIP, Chrissy Amphlett... you created a sorry-assed romantic with a keen little knife edge. And I don't regret that for a second.