TODAY I’m at Luna Park to tackle every thrill-ride it can throw at me. I’m emerging from a lethargic spell and I need a double-shot of adrenalin.
Going to a fairground drops me right back into being 12 years old again, mooching around on the brink of puberty, checking out greasy boys with moody acne and waiting for the buds of neurosis to develop into full-blown norks.
One summer I spotted a roustabout working the waltzer, a boy all of 14 in a Levis sweatshirt (well, probably a knock-off Levis sweatshirt, realistically) and blue jeans. For someone with my buttoned-up existence, this was as close to Rumble Fish as it got. He ignored me completely, and after the fair left town, I pined. I placed a personal ad in Sky, on the off-chance that travellers regularly bought mags with Wendy James on the cover.
I never saw that boy again, but I’m always casting a sideways glance at fair folk to see if anyone swarthy’s at the controls. No such luck in Luna Park, which is about as chiselled as Matthew Newton’s cheeks.
Instead, I climb on board the Pharaoh’s Curse with Clare and get tipped upside down a bunch of times in an unpleasant manner. Woah, that’ll do.
Keeper? No, but must write that Mills & Boon novel I’ve been putting off.
Hey man, now you're really living 
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