Araman’s Net User Note: Leaning over the edge of a building – reaching for the Laptop on the balcony below, I typed in this blog with the headpiece of a garden rake – while distracting it’s owner with cleaning up the remains of a dead cat I left on his doorstep, knock and running on his door to ingeniously type my blog from the roof above.

I walk the streets barefoot – for no shoes are able to fit me. If there is a time where I must cover my feet, newspaper, cardboard or even Tourist pamphlets will do – but of course, only on the rare occasion. It’s not the length of my feet, the discomfit my blisters cause me or that my toes grow out from both my heels, it’s that I haven’t clipped my toenails in over 4 years.

You can’t imagine the vast amount of awkward legal and social situations my toenails have put me in. The other day for example, I was standing in the cue at Centrelink, wondering to myself why nobody at all in the building was smiling. Really, by simply looking at it from a mathematical standpoint, the laws of Probability should have it that at least one other person be smiling. But No, this was not to be. Why? I’m not sure. I Certainly had reason to smile – I was here picking up my fortnightly benefit payment of $110 – and straight after that I’d be pissed, off my chops behind the Ridgey Didge Pie Shop, scuttling and clawing my way through their skip bin for any remnants of discarded pastry. Standing well behind the white line – waiting to be called forth by the Receptionist, a mother, making her way back from dropping her child in the play pen, tripped on the pinkie toenail of my left foot. There she fell straight in front of me - to fall on her armful of documents and pens, miraculously, somehow lodging one of her red bens halfway up her nostril. Initially I was shocked. It never looks good when I, or any homeless person is standing next to, or behind a person that has just fallen over spectacularly – people think that we were the ones to push them – purposely with malevolent intent. Upon viewing the pen halfway down her nose, my shock changed to amusement – I started laughing, (naturally, the only one in Centrelink to do so) and I started to realise that my laughter made me look like the one responsible for the situation.

The Police were called; I was interviewed but acquitted of any wrongdoing. I had witnesses. People saw the woman trip – which I was very lucky and thankful for. So I returned later that day to collect my Centrelink payment and got drunk behind the pie store as I had planned. Unfortunately I found no Pastry scraps.
Another awkward situation was the time I intended to open a bank account with the Commonwealth. On my way there, I followed a lady into the revolving doors of the bank – in an attempt to enter the same space of moving doorway as the woman, I accidentally clipped my nail firmly into the lower section of her dress – tearing it from her shoulders, causing her to scream and instinctively drop to the ground where we were both taken care of by the approaching glass pane behind us – two people, in what seemed a spinning jet engine. Needless to say, I passed up on getting the Bank Account.

Today I have actually payed to go online. I'm at an Internet cafe. I believe the Woman at the Counter finds me charming - allowing me to sit in my own little corner with my own rotating fan - blowing my manly stench into the nothingness of wall behind me. I like to keep up with what’s happening in the world. The net acts as a window into the many corners of life I usually cannot see – and every now and then I like to see how other great men and women in similar situations to my own are doing.

After searching I found this site - A terrible site. There is basically no formatting, no sense of a layout, colour or creativity. I’ve put more effort into blowing my nose, than the creator has to this site. I insist you look for yourself. I have also reason to believe that the people the pictures depicted are in fact not real, genuine hobos. I'd outdrink any of them - Give me the chance.

Araman's Net User Note: Broke into an elderly couples home - quite surprising that they have the internet here. I would of asked for some Biscuits and tried the next house if this was the case.

Here’s a truth for you. People who smoke have an easier time climbing at high altitudes because they have become accustomed to lower amounts of Oxygen in their life. The very same can be seen with a Homeless person. Because a homeless man is always exposed to Illnesses and disease’s in any one Urban society – they too have become accustomed and slightly resistant to common sicknesses. That’s why we smell funny – because were accustomed to being this way, and therefore, ignorant to it.

Araman’s Net User Note: Outside the open window of a Tax Accountant. I’m typing this blog by throwing small pebbles (at a distance of approximately a metre) onto the individual keys of a keyboard – so far, it’s taken me half and hour to write this much.

Last night, drinking again – Simon (a friend of mine) and I were talking about life - The Up’s and the downs. Simon declared that life was a beautiful thing – we’re lucky to be apart of it. I felt the complete opposite – look at the hand life dealt us – we’ve been bitten on the bum. The conversation progressed into how Simon comes to appreciate the world. How he looks at the subtleties of life and values them. A lot could be learnt from this attitude, I was told. So welcoming this new outlook – I decided that If it could help Simon, then it quite possibly could help me also.
I had made up my mind to watch the Sun Rise. I couldn’t think of anything as corny and clichéd as watching the rising of the sun and concluded that this must be one of the subtleties Simon was speaking of. As Night swung around, I made myself the pledge to get up early, before daybreak to watch sun’s progress into the cold morning air. My dilemma was that I had awoken the next morning in full daylight, 6 hours after..

Araman's Net User Note: Susan and I are having a Tea Party, in exchange for her not telling her Mum I broke into their home, and accessed their Internet Connection. "More Tea, Dolly?"

Today people were celebrating. It marked the 26th Anniversary of the Ingall Battered Ice Cream. A nauseating combination of batter, ice cream, 100’s and 1000’s, chocolate sauce and powdered sugar – I’d prefer a bag of salted clothe-pegs to that, any day.

Being the person that I am – a sharp, insipid weed surrounded by a valley of unyielding timberland, it was only likely to deduce that I would overlook the event. Had I attended, my presence would swiftly be noted and I would be removed by the tail, flung into the garden beyond, leaving myself the chore of picking dirt from my teeth. For my noon walk – pausing my efforts on a bottle of sherry – I walked to the nearby Convenience Store – leaning against the glass with my head pressed upon the window. I stood there, literally wetting myself, transfixed by the overwhelming attraction of partly deformed chickens, slowly rotating on a spindle, and crisp Pies, with their warm and gooey pastry shell.

They were my last thoughts before waking up; my grey-checkered pants now stiff but dry. There I had fallen asleep standing with my head against the window. There was a cramp in my legs, my neck and generally my whole back. Trying to increase blood flow in such areas proved problematic as my lips were glued to the glass – my saliva admix with Sherry surprisingly replicating a mild glue characteristic. After working for several minutes on regaining movement I realised there was this wet creamy substance upon my head – Bird shit, it appears the pigeons had not yet forgotten me.

Upon walking home – assaulting a cyclist at a drinking fountain in order to drink from it first – I noticed the festival had finished. By one side of a truck stood three Fairy Floss machines – each with wheels and unguarded. Taking the opportunity I grabbed one - wheeling it home unheeded, marvelling at my good fortune.

By surprising a middle-aged woman walking by my alleyway – I managed to collect ingredients and method information on fairy floss. The only problem was that the woman was American, and it took us 10 minutes to bridge the link between Fairy Floss and Cotton Candy. Needless to say, once that cultural divide was behind us we were like a couple of old lumberjacks.

I spent hours trying to make it work. Again and again it failed me. I was doing everything right. Pushing all the correct buttons, closing the lid and waiting for the cycle to stop. Almost giving up I decided to place a cup within its bowels – scavenging through a skip bin I managed to find a relatively clean coffee mug (without its handle). Following the exact procedure I let the cycle run and my resulting concoction was anything but fairy floss, or cotton candy – I had a hot glass of cloudy pink water.

Drinking it down, wincing from the heat and chemical-like properties of the liquid – I was forced to sit down, clutching my head in discomfit, the world starting to spin. I awoke the next day vomiting sherry and an assortment of biscuits stolen from a couple picnicking. Finally regaining enough strength to stand – I pushed over the machine – puzzled by its nauseating effects, hoping to find something to clarify my sickness. Quite humorously there was much clarification. On a silver plate written in black blocked lettering, screwed into the bottom there was the words Sanitizer.

I’d stolen a Sanitizer from the Medical Booth – not the junk food booth. The taste of the liquid was horrific – and it made much sense now – why it wasn’t working, and why a form of sugar could make you vomit so terribly, which then brought me to a conclusion. Know what your stealing before you go and steal it.

Araman's Net User Note: After showering in the Park fountain, smelling less like Dog Urine and more like Chlorine, I broke into a book store and accessed the net to update this blog, while catchung up on some Greek Mythology.

Stumbling along one of the many thousands of city backstreets, blind-drunk and famished, I was unexpectedly drawn towards a small hole in the ground like a toddler to a red button. Situated on the left side of the road - completely open, unguarded and alluring there was a hole that went directly downwards. Looking down, there was only darkness. In what seemed like an immeasurable amount of depth, the first thing I thought to do was to drop something down it.

As the only thing currently in my hand was the bottle of Scotch Whiskey, I released it from my grip falling from the top of the hole, listening and waiting for it to end its deep, dark, downward journey. With a shock, almost equivalent to realising you’ve fed your pet Cat, Snail Pellets, and your garden, Cat food in it’s stead – It took me no time at all in realising the downright idiocy of my actions. With a low thud – glass onto mud, the bottle reached the manhole’s end, unbroken. Incredulous and infuriated by what I’d just done, I took to lowering myself into the hole, feet first, lowering myself down to my waist – squeezing tightly, sucking in as much air as I possibly could. I was going in to fetch my drink.

Disregarding my intentions – what they were while I was heading down the hole, and what my idea was upon climbing back up once I had retrieved my bottle – I became exceptionally stuck, immobile and stagnant. In hindsight (which to me, simply means thinking clearly after intoxication) this was the best possible outcome to attempting to climb down the hole. I didn’t want to even consider what my fate would have been had I actually made it down to the bottom – probably death as Rat fodder. And there I stood, reduced to only half my height, stuck from my waist down in a dark, alien hole (nothing like the Drain pipes near my alley.)
It was only until daybreak when a Meals on Wheels employee drove past, noticed my situation and stopped, got me out after almost half an hour of pulling and squeezing and gave me some carrot sticks and water before sending me on my way.
Upon inspecting my waist line, I found that there was one long, red and purple line that ran around my body in a perfect circle – and upon inspecting my Hessian shirt, I found that the odd stray dog, urinating on me in the wee hours of the morning not only smelt awfully bad, but had given me a matching red rash on my neck and upper back.

Araman's Net User Note: This blog entry is being written under the false impression that as soon as it's finished, i'll donate my heart and lungs for the Organ Donor Transplant program.

On a weekly basis, I venture around the city looking through Waste Bins and Rubbish piles for anything of value. Usually, the things I find are of little interest – rotten goods, sour milk, old newspapers, cardboard boxes, dirt and lots of dust. The reason I do it, is because of that little element of hope. That small quivering chance that I might find something of use - like a pair of pink handlebars, fitting for a little girl’s bicycle, or an unopened bag of chips, still crisp and salted. Unfortunately, the only thing of value I found was a pair of old dentures, covered tightly in Cockroaches in much the same way you would find moths to a light bulb.

While growing up…my parents, who had the same level of financial backing as a stray cat - unable to afford braces for their youngest son – I found that now was as good-a-time as any to rectify the slant that my teeth attained. After swiping away the cockroaches and then wiping the dentures delicately on my Hessian shirt – I placed them in my mouth and moved on.
I awoke the next morning to discover that my teeth were now all facing inwards like that of a shark’s, and it occurred to me that the dentures were much too small, and only causing me further deformation.

Araman’s Net User Note: I’m at Centrelink, stealing internet credits from the Boss’ Computer while he takes a Whizz.

I think I’ve finally caught something. Sitting on a public bench situated only feet from the road – I was wasting away the hours by lighting up and smoking the remains of discarded cigarette butts that I found in the ashtray of one of the larger, iron rubbish bins. After going through about 2-dozen, I realised that I was building up a substantial amount of phlegm that inhibited me from breathing correctly. Although frequently clearing it – scratching my throat with a sharp outtake of air – my throat was in the same situation – packed with gooey phlegm again, after only several short minutes. It was only when I put down the diminishing butt of a smoking cigar that I marked my turning point - my convalescence.

Wrapping my lips around the end of a tap, I turned it on expecting my mouth to be awash with refreshing water – what I found instead, was a dead gecko, a hornets nest and a variety of insects, swishing and swaying around the sacred inner section of my mouth.

What I can draw from my experiences is that the shit from the tap, tasted better than the cigar.

Araman's Net User Note: The wires of a Heart Monitor machine placed on each temple, allows me to compose the preceeding text mentally.

Another cold wet day. The rain kept me thinking about the diamond ring incident – depressing me. Attempting to pull myself out of it, I came up with an idea to make myself laugh. Choosing a moderately empty rubbish bin (the metal basket-like kind that sits waist height upon a metal pole) – generally unused, I hopped in and waited for the odd passer by to discard anything on my head – acting as a silent cue to spring out of the bin, and bamboozle them.

It was uproarious until startling a 3 year old Asian child - bounding out of the bin in discomfort after having a strawberry thickshake hit me on the side of my face – to run progressively down my shoulder and lower back. The father, a rather solid man, instantly elbowed me in the face, threw me behind a car and hooked my Hessian shirt to the towbar of a Torago, which co-incidentally drove off almost instantly until I managed to unhook myself in the drive-thru of a Burger King.

I would like to share with you something that really made a mark on my day. One night, a while ago, we had some heavy rain that lasted for about 20 minutes, followed by the odd sprinkle until the sun reappeared. On the verge of the downpour ending, a funny thing happened. As the rain was still thrashing, beating and rolling around on the roof upon the building that makes up the left wall of my alley – the sun started to show through, as if nervously peeping to see what it looked like when it rained. As the downpour was hitting the spouting so hard, it caused the water to bounce back up 30 centimetres or so until the water was so thick in the air, that at any one moment it was at just the right consistency to create a rainbow – although it wasn’t quite a rainbow – it was like a bright light, a refraction of vast colours with the an intensity equalling the strength of a small sun. You couldn’t look at it for very long before needing to turn away, allowing your eyes to recover.

When the rain stopped, so too did the light. I thought little of it for the next few days, and did nothing about it until I was lying on my back one afternoon, contemplating if a pigeon would taste more like a chicken or a duck – then unexpectedly, one of the very birds lands upon the spouting, on the same spot of the rainbow. Not something to get too excited about – slight coincidence right? But then another one joins it – to its left. They start purring or hoo-ing away – whatever sound it is they make, bobbing their heads up and down in perfect unison, somewhat ritually. When one bird’s head was up, the other bird’s was down. Up and down, up and down, purring and hoo-ing. This became quite amusing – and continued for some time until they were joined by two more on the first birds left. More joined, this time on it’s right, and then more and more, until the whole spouting was covered with pigeons. Purring and hoo-ing, bobbing up and down, they were making noise so inconceivably loud, you couldn’t have heard yourself unless you shouted. At this stage I had risen, walking back and forth down the length of my alley trying to ascertain the most accurate number of birds as possible. There must have been over 300 of them and some were now even gathered on the adjacent spouting upon the other building, and they too bobbed up and down just as rhythmically and consistently as the first ones. Then, with a suddenness to scare even the most hard-boiled Horror enthusiast, they pissed off – startled by the Town bell signalling Noon – in a great gust of feathers, foul air and a rain of beige coloured bird shit.

The next day it occurred again much in the same way, which made the event even more puzzling. There was the same number of birds which always started with that one, individual, rogue pigeon – followed closely by few more, which were followed by another few, again and again until there were enough pigeons present, to establish your own flock of international Carrier Pigeons. Again, they did the same thing as the day before – purring and hoo-ing, bobbing up and down rhythmically until they would abandon their perches again, sacred off by the noon bell.

Once this had happened everyday for more than a week – the walls of my alleyway turning a milky white from the build up of faeces, I decided to finally take a look and see what was up there – I was extremely fascinated to know what exactly was in the spouting. It became a favourite drinking game of mine, I’d have a swig of my bottle (whatever it may be) get up from my cardboard mattress, point at the spouting and shout, “If you don’t come down, I’m gonna hurl a turd up there!” And then I would sit back down, take another swig, think of another new insult and point and shout again.

As the guy who owned the building made and sold pillows, which bore this seemingly holy gathering place for pigeons – getting onto the roof would be as easy as urinating on a hotdog stand on a pavement only 3 feet below. Lets look at the likeliness of a Man who sells pillows for a living turning out to be anything other than a weak, compromising middle aged softy – my assumption was partly right.

Dressed in a nice Suit top that I found caught in the wire mesh of a drainpipe I approached the owner of the building and told him that my son, who had visited friends in the building across the street, had thrown a Playstation controller upon his roof, in a state of deep frustration and aggression. The owner was suspicious, the fat within his lower eyelid, which twinged sceptically upon observing me contained a larger volume of fat then the entire contents of my neck. He complied. I followed him up to the roof where he watched me snoop around, acting like I knew the general whereabouts of where controller would be. After milling around the front section of the roof closest to the road, I made my way to the spouting covered with Pigeons – purring and hoo-ing, bobbing up and down. This time they all departed as a result of my obtrusiveness, and although it sounds rather silly, I got a sense that the birds were more than aggravated as they left – several swooping, spitting and shitting on me (Up until then, I had no idea Pigeons could spit – unless…it was something else entirely?). Kneeling down, I could see what it was – the object precisely in the spot of the intense coloured light, the pigeon’s obsession. It was, in fact, another pigeon – A fat pigeon, with a yellow crest and white feathers.

Now even I, a person with dwindling intelligence could tell, that this Pigeon was one of the higher, more significant Pigeons in it’s society – Probably a great pigeon, a leader or one with great social standing nonetheless. I didn’t know. Nor could I ever really be sure. (I should make a note that I wasn’t exactly sober at this stage.) The only thing that I gave a toot about, being an indigent, dirty bum, was what was in its mouth, the thing it presumably choked and died from: A Diamond Ring.

It made sense now – All of it. That intense light in the spouting was actually the refraction of sun light through the crystal diamond. The reason why I couldn’t see the Diamond after the rain had stopped was probably because the strength of the downpour had shifted the pigeon lower down the spouting. The gathering of hundreds of birds I attributed to the social standing and influence of the dead bird itself. As I said earlier, it looked to be a significant bird – surely missed – and this behaviour of the hundreds of others accompanying it well beyond its passing, was probably due to their inability to comprehend death, or an indication to the bond they shared with the creature when it was still alive. Jesus! The way I rattle on about Pigeons, You could mistake me for talking about a class of people.

Placing my body in front of my hands - In a way so the Pillow-guy couldn’t see what it was I had, or what I was doing, I slowly removed the ring from the Pigeons gaping mouth or beak. The ring was wedged in very firmly. With a firm grip and a sudden twist, I snapped the bird’s neck with unusual pleasure – stripping the bird of its poisoned apple and placed it calmly in my pocket.

Of all the things I imagined to be up there, not one came close to what I found. Sitting on my cardboard mattress eyeing the ring with a feeling of humble content, I made a promise to myself that I would never consider exchanging my treasure for any mere single pleasure – and with that thought, I ended my night.

And, it is with little delight that I reveal to you, for how short a time that promised remained. Noon the next day, itching for a drink, the ring took on the form of different appearance. Ignorant to its immediate magnificence and of the extraordinary context in which I obtained it – I could only see the ring as a means of acquiring something greater.

I have to end it by saying: As dim-witted as I am, the ring and I went upon a journey. And in a few words, I can tell you I returned home, conditionally fulfilled with a Roast Chicken in my left and a box of Johnnie Walker – with its golden liquid, in the other.

Araman's Net User Note: I'm writing this blog suspended by wires from the roof of a bank.

Being homeless isn’t easy. I think most people accept that. There are a number of demanding aspects to being a bum. Many people think that throughout a bum’s short, sweet life he or she retains only one, single shopping trolley. That’s Bullshit! Absolute bullshit. Most bums I know don’t even have one. I’d say about 85% of Bum’s don’t have them. Only the elite’s – which is what I like to call them, get the shopping trolleys.
For those true, honest bum’s – they can be expected to go through roughly 8 shopping trolley’s a year. These bums are the more materialistic ones. The totally serious ones that you find in movies, like my mate Simon, who have created a proud and shining representation of bums everywhere. (Simon’s the bum in the first Matrix film, living down in the subway.) These bums like Simon and I are the genuine thing. The one’s who use shopping trolleys in keeping our possessions in one super-secure and manageable place. It’s not stereotypical – it’s symbolic.

Araman's Net User Note: I'm using one of the Staff's computers at the local Preschool. They've let me online while trying to discern which child is mine.

Today, I was Insulted and yelled at by two elderly women. They chased me away from the park. I know that I was upsetting them, but the fun of it outweighed my guilt! You wonder what I was doing right? I ask you to read this from the viewpoint of having a bit of a laugh. I was down by the local bird pond, throwing bricks from a Public Toilet that’s being constructed under a large beech tree, sinking ducks and geese, and a variety of swans. (Geese are the hardest to sink. If you miss the first time they’ll give chase.) Each woman was sporting a few slices of bread and could travel no faster than about, 4 K’s an hour. It was highly amusing I assure you – them attempting to catch and then thump me, into a bruised and bloody form with their shopping bags of knitting gear and laxatives. The situation eventually became productive when one of the old women realised they simply couldn’t keep up with the pace. Slices of bread started to fly overhead, some striking me while others completely missing. Although not concerning me in the least if their aim was true – the ones that did happen to land on my shoulder made for a majestic duck sandwich in my alley, back home.

Araman's Net User Note: Currently accessing the net through "Hair We Do" - a local hairdresser. (I told them I would compose a huge fart should they not let me online.)

Yes, I do believe I’ve broken my record. I haven’t showered for over 9 weeks. If my Mum and Dad were still alive, they would be surprised by the colour of my skin. Not the general Proolks’ paper-white that my family all possess – more a sun-baked brown. Its quite surprising the colour you can acquire from simply kneeling behind an idle cars exhaust pipe, to gather heat.

Araman’s Net User Note: Currently accessing the net from the Funeral Directors.

Last night I slept terribly. The asphalt, although warm from absorbing most of the days heat, was terribly uncomfortable and sporting varied bits of litter and gum. I turned to my troubling dreams. There was this fixation on space travel. What did it mean? Was this my destiny? I turned to my bottle of Scotch Whiskey for the answers. It gave me nothing – which to be honest didn’t surprised me.

My breakfast this morning was a latte’ and half masticated croissant found on a table close to the sidewalk. As I stole a few minutes lying under a Toyota Land cruiser parked out the front of a Bookshop, I took a stab at being creative for once. I’m a bum I understand that, but without my mind I’ve got nothing behind me. Using my dreams of Space Travel as the catalyst to thinking originally, I tried devising something new and exciting – the only thing I could muster was humming one of the themes from Star Wars.