My Own Fresh Hell
On my laptop, I have a patch covering the Apple logo on my MacBook. It’s a black and white vortex of sorts and in a yellow serif font the words FRESH HELL hug the inside edge. I saw the patch whilst on holiday in Tokyo. My sister and I were in a store that may have been linked to a gallery, though we never actually went to the gallery. I could’ve bought every item created by Alex Da Corte. An artist I’d never heard of, and have only seen the work of briefly, whilst trying to confirm their name for this very piece.
The situation in which I bought it is not unique; I saw something I liked the look of, and I had to have it. I was also in a holiday mindset; money being spent on more frivolous items was more easily justified. As they can be when you’re performing loose currency conversions in your head, and you don’t know if you’ll be able to get back there to buy this thing you just so desperately had to. I could spend some time talking about how holidays are more than the souvenirs you bring back for them, but this was pre-shift in my attitude towards money. And like I’ve said, I was on holiday.
I chuckle every time I open my laptop, the patch is some sick joke that allows me to settle into my pessimistic and analytical nature. I don’t deem my days some version of hell, fresh or otherwise. It’s the same part of my brain that loves Daria and was into Emily the Strange and I’m sure that’s the same train of thought that suggested I get my eyebrow pierced. I’m not really a rebel. The Fresh Hell patch in replacement of the Apple logo simultaneously covers it and draws attention to it. Sometimes I think about a computer that isn’t so corporate greed and then I think that if I want to live in the world and participate in it to the extent that I seem to, this element of participating seems unavoidable. Perhaps this is a weak response, and if I really wanted a satellite phone, I’d go get one. But I like being able to send pictures to my friends, and AirDrop them to my computer… And just like that, I’m my own undoing, creating my own fresh hell every time I open any device.
When I was 10 or 11, I went to see British boyband 5ive at Rod Laver Arena (capacity 15,000). Last Friday, at the age of 34 I went to see them perform at Billboards (capacity 200).
I would like to caveat the following with the fact I had a good time. My friend and I had fun but being at that concert made me feel like I had entered the upside down. And it was 90s themed.
5ive, named that way because they have five members, now has three. Yet they still go by 5ive. They are singing the songs of young men, yet the years do not seem to have matured them or brought extra meaning to their lyrics. They don’t crouch quite so low when they dance, and I think it has to do with their knees. This isn’t meant to be ageist, but just a commentary on what happens when you choose to live in the past. The whole time they were performing I was thinking how Beyonce would be aghast at what was before her. As if Beyonce would be watching 5ive anywhere, let alone at Billboards Melbourne on a Friday night. But I imagined she would have been disappointed by the fact they were just going through the motions, or that they were whispering on stage, or the fact that they kept commenting on the heat. Look, it was boiling, but a bit of escapism never hurt anyone.
I keep remembering my younger self with the posters all over the walls. The excitement and pride that 5ive was my first show.
I’m relieved it won’t be my last.
I pick up my phone.
I scroll through Pinterest.
In annoyance, I throw my phone back down again. Generally, into a bag, a black bag in which my phone gets lost, until a few minutes later when I stab around trying to hit the screen so it will illuminate, and I can find it again. This happens multiple times a day. I’ve somehow locked myself out of my own Instagram account. On the weekend I thought I should start posting on The Middle Part’s Instagram again. My desire to create gets conflated sometimes. I’m not sure. I’ve managed to give them (my personal account and the other) the same password, and now I continually sign into the same one. I’m sure it’s an easy fix if I did anything other than login or out, but today I was thinking, what if this is it, what if this is how I break free? Again, my thoughts allow me to evade responsibility. It is my phone. And it is in a way. They’re made to be like that, these apps. I remember watching The Social Dilemma and the CEO of Pinterest wouldn’t let his own children use the app. I don’t have anyone monitoring my phone usage, just every so often my boyfriend gets pissed off that I’m in phone land when I said I wouldn’t be. But we’re both hypocrites about it.
I’m in the habit of Pinterest telling me what I like. You can see how it got here from my searches, but sometimes I don’t know how to redirect it, or take it back. I can see remnants of what I’m after but I want to evolve, just not in the way it wants me to.