167th email

From: Dom Borax
To: Stacey Marchenkova
Sent: Friday July 26th, 1999 18:22 PM
Subject: RE RE RE RE RE RE RE RE Last night’s call

Stacey, I think I’m sitting in the same internet café as you. I’m sure I just saw you.

I’m just going to peer over the monitors:

Yes, that’s you.

I can’t believe it.

Are you emailing me as I email you? How funny.

I’m checking my email.
(A few minutes later)

Okay you are emailing me.

If it helps I feel the same way. I feel nervous and little guilty.

Elsa thinks I’m out with the lads.

I am such a liar.

I wonder if you’ve told Marcus anything.
Indeed do you need to tell Marcus anything?

Sorry.
Whatever.

I shouldn’t be talking about them.

I am so excited about seeing you. I just watched you cross the road and move into the hotel. You looked around the foyer.

You’re back outside now; having a cigarette.

You’re trying to look busy and you are so beautiful.

Maybe you’re in the moment.
I hope so.

I can’t stand it any longer.
See you in a second.

166th email

From: Stacey Marchenkova
To: dom borax < mailto:printthisplease@hotmail.com >
Sent: Friday, July 26th, 1999 18:12 PM
Subject: RE RE RE RE RE RE RE RE Last night’s call

Hey Dom,

I got here early…went across the road to this internet café…I feel I need to write to you before seeing you…it feels familiar and though I have nothing really to say…there’s something right about it…

Perhaps we should take computers into the room and sit on the bed and write to each other…

I’m kinda being serious…email foreplay…me breathing warm air on my blind carbon copy tab as you fiddle with your attachments…

Of course neither of us is going to lug desktops into a hotel…but perhaps we should just speak in blocked sentences or…I don’t know…I’m a little nervous…I’m raving…I told you I have nothing to say…so…

How are you?

How was I?


sxx

PS God, I can’t believe I’m sending this email.

132nd email

From: Stacey Marchenkova
To: Dom Borax
Sent: Monday July 16th July 1999, 23:29 PM
Subject: RE RE Had an adventure

Hi Dom, sorry I missed your messages yesterday…I had to deal with the fallout...

Marcus came over in the afternoon…he was in tears…

I tried to get him to leave but he was a right old mess…he wanted to know what he did wrong and why I was being so blunt…

I showed him the email I sent you…the story of Bill the blind kind woollen underlay customer… (as I’m calling it now)…so he could get a better sense of where my head was at…

He read it…he took his time…

when he finished I hoped that he’d see that my issue was beyond him…but instead he became jealous…

…he demanded to know why I was telling you the story before him…it seemed so personal…

I told him that I trusted you and that I know you’d understand…

This was the worst thing I could have told him…for I had ostensibly just told him that I didn’t trust him and he didn’t understand me…

Logically he was offended… (I actually feel bad for that one)

…he wanted to know how long I’d trusted you…how long you had understood my actions…

I told him that we kinda understood each other from the beginning…since we started emailing…

”Emailing… how long have you been emailing? How many emails?”

At this point I faltered…

“I want to read these emails!” He demanded.

“I’m not going to show you these emails.” I replied.

And as I was saying it…I realised how important these emails are to me...I would never share them with anyone else…they’re deeply personal…they’re the real me…

See… in real life…my emails are quite happy, generous, stupid even…I never tell people how I truly feel…I never share my insecurities…I’d never share my doubts…

“I want to read these emails. Now!” He demanded.

He started railing that I was being intellectually unfaithful and embarked on one of Marcus’ constructed and cruel monologues...

…but as he talked, I wasn’t listening…I was thinking of you…and how you’d seen me deeper than anyone…and though we’ve slipped occasionally…I considered checking into the Hilton hotel, running a bath and writing a list of my favourite things – placing you on top…


Stacey

59th email

----- Original Message -----
From: Stacey Marchenkova
To: dom borax < mailto:printthisplease@printthis.com >
Sent: Wednesday, June 2nd, 1999 23:00 PM
Subject: RE a New week

Is horror at fang rock the one in a lighthouse…?

If so I do actually like that one. The lighthouse keeper with a beard, huh…? Actually are any of them clean shaven – surely being a lighthouse keeper means you have to have a beard, right?

God, I’m beginning to sound like you…

…If that was the one, I found it really frightening…he had a mad, evil look…and though I actually find ‘doctor who’ really embarrassing most of the time…that one scared me…

I think my folks were splitting up when ABC played it and to offer more punishment I sat down to watch it…I kinda thought me father was the creature…or the lighthouse…daddy’s phallus…or something like that…

Anyway I haven’t thought about it in years…

I actually remember thinking while watching it - well it’s not the end of the world, Stacey…at least you don’t live in a lighthouse or are crashing on rocks…or live in Victorian times…or are being possessed by some evil creature…or are fighting for your life against some inflated afternoon-made monster created by the BBC props department…

…all I am is a chick whose folks are going their separate ways…and good on them…for if they stayed together I’m sure she would possess him or he would try to kill her or both would crash into each other’s rocks at some point…

After they split, I didn’t watch doctor who anymore…see my mother thought TV was generally bad and though ABC was acceptable…she really meant ABC news was really acceptable…so TV just slipped away…

…but I found books then…

my mother approved…and I guess it’s hard to beat bronte…and in a way horror at fang rock and bronte have some connections… rocks, rain…Yorkshire…and a girlish yearn to kiss at least one person in the story…

Oh fuck it…I’ve just reread what I wrote

…I’ve become one of those people I hate…

…talking about childhood and the TV we watched…as if others are interested in kiddie reminisces…and I’m not even drunk…I’m not even trying to find some common place based on try hard pop culture…

See now I’m looking back…shit and fuck…man…how did you do that to me?

Anyway happy to read that you’re back, buster…that’s good…

Happy to read we’re back…that’s better…


Stacey

PS I guess a good name suggestion for your next dog could’ve been Tom Barker :(

PPS If it helps, I forgave you over a week ago…

I forgave you after I read your email about the Hilton…indeed it made me feel more like the monster…it made me feel like I needed forgivness…

So there you have it…Stacey M is actually one of those foam bubble wrap creatures created by the BBC props department to scare the shit out of five year olds on a Saturday evening…hide behind the couch little ones coz here comes Stacey…arghhhhhhh…

48th email

----- Original Message -----
From: Dom Borax
To: Stacey Marchenkova
Sent: Sunday, May 23rd, 1999 12:01 PM
Subject: RE RE RE RE RE So sorry

Stacey,

I feel right shamed by my last email. You must think I’m a lunatic; a real-howl-mooning-Dom-crazy-pants with a collection of aluminium cans and an imaginary friend who has their own imaginary friend that I refuse to admit exists.

See, I’ve never told anyone about my hotel processing before.

Man, I feel like such a wanker.

Please don’t tell anyone. Please.

I know it’s a little nuts. I do. I guess I get a little nuts sometimes.

And my sojourn to the Hilton really helps me put things in perspective.

In a nutsoid way.

And it’s really private. So why the hell did I share it? I won’t ever be able to do it again without truly turning beetroot red.

I have ruined it for myself. You knob shiner, Dom.

See, a large part of me wished I’d never shared it.

Actually it’s more than a large part; every part of my being regrets sharing this.

It’s like admitting you suck your thumb when you’re an adult.

(Which I don’t – I also don’t wet the bed, hurt small animals, start fires or snuggle with a comforter either.

I did however like the Musical Cats when I was thirteen.

“…Of all things can it be really? Yes no – ho-hi oh my eye”

I even indulged in Lloyd-Webber merchandise and purchased the hooded jacket with yellow eyes watching because I thought it was cool and not creepy in any way.

I also had a crush on RuPaul for some reason when I was younger.

When I was a kid I wanted to be an archaeologist/hairdresser so I could finally find out why Cleopatra’s hair was so shiny.

And when I was 15, I became obsessed with the movie Mermaids and had many a dream of Winona Ryder licking my leather jacket. I even posted her my Cats leather jacket with detailed instructions of where she should place her DNA)

Anyway – whatever – with all these admissions, I still think my last email trumps them all.

God I’m an idiot. I hope you can just delete the last email. Please delete it.

Please.

Man, now I feel so indulgent too.

And whiny.

I’ve become one of those indulgent whiny men who end up running the country for far too long.

Can you forgive me for that too? (not running the country – for I’m certain if I had that job, my in-house parliamentary memos would be so indulgent that the Reserve Bank’s interest rates would quickly lose interest and the country would be weeping over a tub of vanilla ice-cream an insurance commercials come the end of the year)

Anyway hope my lame attempt at humour might have softened the blow of the wailing wetness of the proceeding.


Yours in dickheadedness

Dom.

47th email

----- Original Message -----
From: Dom Borax
To: Stacey Marchenkova
Sent: Sunday, May 23rd, 1999 11:31 AM
Subject: RE RE RE RE So sorry

Stacey,

When it all gets too much for me I book myself into the Hilton Hotel in town for a night. I’ve been doing this for the last year of so when the black dogs come calling.

I checked in last night.

I do this because I need to go to a place that is anonymous; a place where there is nothing of me to get in the way; a place where my smell is faint and the sheets are clean.

The first thing I do when I get to the hotel is run a bath. A really hot both. I take out my toiletry bag and remove soap, shampoo, shaving foam and razor.

Once the bath is filled, I don’t get in it. I let it ripple, close the bathroom door and climb into the king size bed.

Once in the bed, I ring room service. I order a club sandwich and a bottle of wine. Once it arrives I eat, drink and watch about half an inhouse movie. (Rushmore, if you’re interested)

All the while the bath is still filled and losing heat.

Once the movie is finished, I open my suitcase. Inside is a shine of cleaning products (not sure what the collective of cleaning products would be; shine will do for now)

I get my cleaning products out and then I clean the room. I know the room is clean, but I clean it again. I really clean it. I polish and buff. The windows become sparkling and each crevice and cornice is grooved with cotton buds removing any speck of filth.

Once the bedroom is cleaned I move into the bathroom. I clean there too. The toilet is scrubbed, the sink is scrubbed and the floor is mopped.

But I avoid the bath. It’s still filled with water; getting colder now. The steam is dissipating but there’s condensation on the white tiles.

I dip my hand in the water. I’m always surprised that it’s still warm. But I don’t get in it. I can’t get it. I want to so badly to get in it, but I don’t. I have one final task to do.

I leave the bathroom and return to the bedroom. I sit at the desk and take out some hotel stationary.

I grab a pen and start writing. It’s self addressed and the contents are a list of all the good things in my life.

The list always starts with Oftenbark and family and tends to make its way down to such things as my adequate way with words and my ability to make some strangers laugh. (In regard to making strangers laugh - I’m talking about this homeless guy outside Central Station who laughed at my unconscious impression of the arrivals announcement over the PA system. However he also laughed at his own middle toe that twitched involuntarily seconds after. But I’m still gonna claim this one for Dom’s house of chuckles.)

Then I take the letter and return to the bathroom.

It’s time to get in the bath.

I climb in, it’s colder now and my skin bubbles with goosebumps.

I clean myself first; I need to be clean. Then I read the letter out loud. And last night was no different, except for one key element:

You were on my happy list.

Oftenbark was there, my flat mate was there, my family were there and you were there. You were on my list of good things.

Thank you for that, even if it was just for one Saturday night, thank you. I’d so hate to lose you.


Dom


PS See I am a depressive after all; it wasn't just a costume.