Provenance...

 When Boldilocks arrived I took him for a walk around Braddon and Civic; he'd been on the road for four-hours-and-change, getting the city you're visiting under your feet is a great way to unclench after a long drive, and as comfortable as the 6th-floor office I call 'Home' might be there'd be plenty of time to drink in the view. Hitting Northbourne Ave we started catching up on what we've been up to since last he graced my presence in April because whilst we're in semi-regular contact and we've heard it all before, it's important not to underestimate how much better it is to hear someone's stories transmitted directly from voice-box to tympanic membrane through the vibration of Nitrogen/Oxygen/Argon than when there's an electronic intermediary, and how much easier it is to read the mind of the man who's been your friend for longer than you care to calculate, even if you still think of him as the Padawan who could never get his timesheets submitted reliably, from the twitch of the muscles in his face than the pattern of white-and-black pixels preceding a blinking cursor on the LED screen of this year's laptop. 

Turning left onto Elouera St, I started pointing out The Sights: 

"There's Bent Spoke; there are two main micro-breweries in Canberra, the other's Capital, but Bent Spoke's my 'local'. This is where Ian and I were sinking pints when I realised I'd decided I was going to move back." 

"Check out the Rainbow round-a-bout ahead - they made it even-more-inclusive a year or so ago by cutting a quarter off the Pride Flag-ring and replacing it with the Trans/Ace/fucked-if-I-know colours."
"..."
"Yeah I lose track, but it's not for us, is it? Nice that everyone gets to feel 'seen' tho, yeah?"

The story I heard was that the rainbow had been painted on the road of the Lonsdale/Elouera roundabout for Pride one year, and when a bunch of wowsers complained the Road Transport Authority at ACT Government went and made it permanent to spite them. It may be apocryphal, but my theory is that if I click my heels together and tell it enough it will become 'true'. 

"Look left? Up there is the bottlo from the 'Deadman' post where I trip because a pretty girl smiled at me."
"Blackhearts & Sparrows?"
"That's the one. We'll cruise past there later. Hang a right..." 

"Hey, remember in 'Going nowhere fast' and I talk about walking past a gym full of people running on the spot, and what both of us are doing is pointless but at least they're honest about it? 
"That's it, right there." 
"Huh. Yeah?" 
"And in the 'chaotic magnitude' post and I talk about a 'pool table in a dingy pub on a Friday night'?" 
I point over at The Civic Hotel, "that's the pub." 

I haven't been back there in years, but I've heard that they refurbished recently and replaced the pool tables in the back-room with a dining area; I could go and confirm, but I have so many fond memories of those days I'd rather keep them intact than replace them with whatever's now 'true'. 

"Oh hey, and in the 'Resurrection Deluge' when I land back here and talk about making three trips to Coles in two days, and 'keeping my feet between my face and the pavement'?" 
"Yeah?" 
"Well," I point my face south-and-east across Cooyong St, "there's the Coles," then down at my feet, "and there's the pavement." 

We cruised through Garema Place to see the Dodgy Sheep and the weird Whispering Wall thing, although the Doug Anthony All Stars plaque turned out to be covered by the astroturf at the pro-Palestine Protest. Back at my place later, the Show & Tell continued: 

"Oh! There on the wall? That's my half of the Art Project!"
"Shit, I spotted that earlier! What happened to the other half?"
"Wound up on the wall in Penpal's daughter's room, she said."
"..."
"Yeah, kinda weird, but apparently she took a shine to it and there was a vacant hook." 

"Oh! Check this out!" I say, handing him a mug with stylised technicolour double-helixes on each side. 
"What's this?"
I pull the business card out of it and show it to him, "that's Occam's Canadan Amy - she gave it to me when I saw her last in Perth." 
"Oh..."
"Yeah, she's real - that's her biz."

"Check this out," I drag him around to the desk-side of the display cabinet in the middle of the room, "see the little plushie octopus in the top-left corner?" 
"Holding a little hand-drawn card?"
"That's the one. After she read the 'It's not you... it's me' post, Bridget asked me if the 'tiny octopus' bit at the beginning was a secret reference to 'giant pacific octopus' by Enter Shikari. 
"It wasn't, but it's become a bit of a thing. 
"She's taken to keeping the side-pockets of her backpack stocked with little plushies from Ikea, gives them out to random strangers at the lights when she's riding her bike, asked if I wanted one. She had a turtle, an orca, or... so I picked that one; thought it was adorb's."
"She really is."
"Shush, you. 
"It's one of two things in this cabinet which faces towards my desk. Can you spot the other one?"
"Behold," he reads, "My field of fucks; and see that it is barren." 
"That's the one.
"Sandra cross-stitched it, mailed it to me years ago, so I found a frame and it used to hang from a vacant hook in my old office." 
"THAT Sandra?"
"The one and only." 

"But hey, speaking of ocean-critters, check this out," I duck to the fridge and grab a stainless-steel flask. 
"The water bottle from 'The thing I do for a living'? That's it."
"Damn..." he said, weighing it in his hand as moisture began condensing on the surface. 
"Yeah, funny thing; turns out I also snagged a tshirt on that trip," I say, waving it at him, "so it WASN'T the only memento I took away. 
"Ain't ret-con'ing the post tho, just sayin'."
"Nah, why ruin it?"
"Exactly. I like that bit - it was punchy." 

We pour a couple of glasses from the bottle of Chivas Regal he'd picked up from the First Choice across the road on Mort St on our way back, and I chuckle to myself as I remember the flight back from my last trip to Perth as we head out to the balcony: 

"That's The Seat I sit in when I'm writing, and over in the corner is the one I bought from a thrift store for 5$. Don't sit in it; it really is falling apart. 
"But seriously, check out the view. 
"There's Black Mountain and Minas Telstra, which is right up there as far as 'iconic Canberra' goes. 
"Over there's ANU, and the CSIRO Lab's."
"From 'Drowning in silence'."
"Yeah. Same dive trip." 
"Shit," he muttered, looking at the flask he was still holding. 
Looking to the right as he leaned against the balustrade, "oh... those traffic lights... but in the fog?"
"Yeah, from 'It's not you... it's me'. Really did happen just as I was writing that bit and it was too perfect not to include."
"Shit, man. 
"It's...
"It's a lot more 'real', standing here, y'know?"
I nod, staring into space. 
"It is real. 
"All of it. 
"The narrative might be selective at times, but not one word of it's a lie. 
"But hey," I look over and proffer my glass, "thank you for the part you've played in making it happen. 
"Throwing me music to listen to, the sanity-checks, the peer-reviews." 
Our glasses meet in the middle with a <clink>, "and hey, thanks for coming to visit."