Saturday, October 2, 2010

Changing Rooms

Remember that show - Changing Rooms - where with the help of a homosexual designer (who'd later go on to host Ready Steady Cook) two friends would redesign each other's rooms? Ya remember that?

Well when I moved to Sydney, I left a room in a crappy sharehouse vacant. Alvin took that room. So Alvin lives in my room. But now that he lives in it, it is no longer mine, no, it's his. Alvin lives in his room... which used to be mine. Umm, anyway...

I recently visited Melbourne for the first time since I moved to Sydney. I went to my old house and visited the room. Still taped to the window (albeit behind the curtain) were the little pictures of my ex girlfriend and me that I'd put up when we were together and never got round to pulling down after it all went to shit. The bed was the same. The curtain I'd made out of an old bedsheet was the same. The little pile of incense ash on the shelf was the same. Even the couch I moved in there for my going away party was still sitting in the corner.

The room hadn't changed at all. His room is not his room, it's my room. But if he's living in it, does that make him... me?

I looked into it further... his friends - all my old friends. His clothes - similar to my own. The places he hangs - my old hangs.

Alvin is living my old life. Even though I have left Melbourne, I still exist in that city. And My name? My name is Alvin.

This leaves one question: If Alvin is me, what has become of Alvin?

Stay tuned...

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