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Archive Category: Conversations
- It’s Saturday. She comes up the stairs and stands at the end of my bed.
“It’s a quarter past nine,” she says.
“And?” I mutter from my pillow, “Is that what you came up to tell me? I have a clock.”
What she means when she stands there spouting the time at me is that she wants me to walk to the shop with her to get the paper. Luckily, I can interperet motherspeak. - Down at the Black Rock shops. We go into the French bakery. My mother, as part of her new, post-retirement life, is learning to parlez vous Francais.
“Bonjour!” she carols at the girl behind the counter.
My fifteen year old self awakes with a spasm.
“Mum, only the bakery is French, not the people that work here. Hello?”
“I know that, but I have to practice.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
“Un pain au chocolat sil vous plait,” she carols again, at the girl, who is about as French as I am.
“I’m learning french,” my mother tells her, conspiratorily.
The girl hands her the croissant, slightly glassy eyed.
“Merci bien!”
We leave the shop to the tune of my head slowly shaking… - Later on we headed over to what most normal people could, without threat of an understatement, describe as Hell. A place (I dare not speak its name) that is a collection of factory outlets of well known clothes shops. Out in Moorabbin. On a Saturday morning. Pure mayhem. My mother, desperate to buy me a birthday present, trailed behind me. As time wore on, her sighs came closer together. Particularly when she discovered that I would not choose a purse that has a zipper for access to coins. Then I pierced my thumb with a zipper in Garfunkle, and bled freely throughout the change room (extra points for the downlights though - it was less gritty realism, and more soft focus art house style). Another shop, called ‘Charcoal’ actually had some very nice stuff - my mother bought a scarf.
“This will be perfect for my belly dancing scarf,” she said, tying it around her waist. She then proceeded to belly dance at me in the middle of the shop, while asking “Is it long enough? What do you think?” I stuffed tortured fifteen year old self back in the box, and said I liked it, thinking that it didn’t really matter. To look at us you would never know we were related. - We left Hell, her with one purchase, me with none. This is what happens when she takes me shopping.
- After the first half of Sunday passed by, obliterated by my hangover (never mix champagne and beer, I have done it for you) I slowly came out of my nauseous little shell. I texted my mother, who had gone to the supermarket, to grab me some razors and a tin of Baxters Vegetable Soup. When she returned, in my first bit of humanoid behaviour of the day, I said, with some false optimism,
“Did you get my text message?”
“No.”
My hangover returned with a vengance.
“Can I ask you something? Do you carry your mobile phone for a reason, or is it just some kind of non-ergonomic time piece?”
The sigh. - However, it turned out that she had some killer home made pumpkin soup, so we both scoffed that down. After a walk around the shops (still questing for that birthday present) we came home and I had a recovery nap, dreaming of the tuna casserole that I knew was going to be for dinner.
- I prised myself out of bed, and went like a puppy to the dining table. I ate some tuna casserole. I added pepper, parmesan, a bit of salt.
“How is it?” asked my mother.
I chose my words with care. “It’s, um, good! I like it!”
“Good.”
“But…”
“But what?”
“Well, it could be a bit more, sort of, tuna-ish?”
My mother’s mouth dropped open, and she looked at our dinner plates, aghast.
“Oh my god. I forgot to put the tuna in!”
“Oh my god! What the hell are we eating then?”
“Mushroom soup casserole.”
My turn to sigh.So close. And yet, sooooo far.
Destined to be thwarted
Thursday, 27 January 2005
When we got home yesterday, I put the kettle on to make tea.
B: You didn’t eat that whole packet of chocolate biscuits last night. Did you?
M: No, no. Of course not. I just put the ones that were left in a bag in the fridge.
B: Thank god.
[I promptly forget my chocolate biscuit craving - now I know they’re safe - and decide to eat a cinnamon doughnut that is in a tin in the cupboard.]
B: Argh! Argh!
M: [barely lifting an eyebrow; assuming I’ve seen a cane toad, walked into a spiderweb, left my phone in the rain etc. etc.] What?
B: There’s fucking ANTS in the TIN all over the DOUGHNUTS. [Pokes further into the tin.] And they’ve savaged my Ryvitas. That’s it.
[The words ‘that’s it’ are said in unison with me tossing the ant-invaded tin as far as I can from the back steps into the garden. M starts laughing hysterically.]
M: You’re Homer! You’re Homer!
B: [Muttering darkly] Yeah. That’s right. I’m living Homer’s nightmare.
[I make the tea, savagely stir in the milk, and start poking around in the fridge.]
B: M! Where in the fridge did you put the chocolate biscuits? I can’t find them.
[M’s giggling stops abruptly. I can hear him backing away from the house with sneaky, treacherous little steps.]
M: Um…
B: [Shrieking] M! Tell me. Tell me you weren’t just putting off the inevitable by saying you hadn’t eaten all the biscuits. Tell me that they’re in the fridge.
[M shakes his head mutely, and speaks very very softly.]
M: I. Ate. Them. All.
[I kick something and flounce into the study with my tea. M drives into town for some Tim Tams. Later that night he eats six of them, guzzles a bottle and a third of red wine, eats pasta, jelly, chocolate and awakes in riotously good humour. It just doesn’t seem right.]
Living With My Mother: Part One
Sunday, 1 May 2005
There are many good things about shacking up with my mum for a bit. She cooks me things, lends me her car now and again and drops me at the station in the morning. However, this will never become a long-term arrangement: factors that have contributed to this statement are as follows;
The Phone Ranger
Saturday, 11 June 2005
I have done an almost world beating long-jump in the realm of mobile phones. I began with a phone donated to me by Dylan (who out-gadgets me on a regular basis) - it was a Nokia so old that it probably didn’t even have a model number. It had red glowing LED and was insanely chunky. I thought it was totally the biz. So I had that for a year or two (back when I still wore glasses) and one day it rang just as I got out of the bath, and in groping blindly for it, I knocked it from the table and it fell in and drowned 
After that I got an Alcatel, which was my favourite thing, but the ‘9′ key was dodgy. I met someone else who had the same phone with the same fault. My admiration for it waned.
Though it did have one stand out feature, which was that you could run it on three AAA batteries if you needed to…
So then Dylan passed another phone my way…my trusty Nokia 5110, which I have had for about five years:
Until last night at the British Star hotel in Smith Street (you should check it out) where I met my small brother’s former flatmate who is over from London for a fleeting visit. My small brother had remembered his promise, and had bequeathed me his phone when he upgraded. His former housemate was nice enough to drag it all the way to Melbourne, despite having about one hours sleep due to excessive partying, and delivered it to me (with a couple of gin & tonics - thanks Liv!) in the front bar. Today I bought a travel plug converter, and I am feeling slightly bewildered by all the options it has - but I’m glad I can now have more than 30 numbers in my address book. I also have bluetooth, a camera and probably other stuff that I haven’t yet stumbled on. Now, if I could just figure out how to get my pictures from the phone to my computer…
Oh…and predictive text is insanely annoying, but I’m hoping it will improve with time.
Who’s been eating my porridge?
Thursday, 21 July 2005
Went to gym this morning. Got there at 6am. They looked puzzled. I thought it was because they’d never seen a person so unfit before. Turns out, they’d written me in for 6pm. She said, in the sparkling tones of someone who is accustomed to being awake at such ungodly hours;
“You’ve done the hardest thing - you’ve got out of bed and come here! You may as well make it worth it and do half an hour on the treadmill.”
“You’ve got to be joking. I’m going home to bed.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
I came home and made porridge for me and M, who wasn’t up yet. I had rhubarb on mine. In my coltish, girlish way, I was quite pleased with myself that I’d made him a hot breakfast. He got up, stepped into his clothes and looked non-plussed at the idea of porridge. But he didn’t say “No, I don’t want breakfast this morning as I ate too much pizza last night.” He just took the smaller bowl of porridge that I had put out for E. Turned his nose up at the rhubarb and asked if it was the stewed blackberries that we’d had at my dad’s on the weekend. Then muttered after a few mouthfuls that he wasn’t going to have breakfast this morning, and could he just eat half the bowl…?
At which point I left the room to escape his presence, restrain my urge to repeatedly bang my head against the wall, and to work on my resume. He came in to say goodbye.
“Don’t have the s@#%s with me, B.”
“I don’t,” I said, lying, looking at the computer screen.
“Don’t lie. I wish I’d never seen you this morning.”
I found this mildly shocking.
“Bye.”
“Yeah. Bye.”
At least now we’re in Melbourne we have places to go, and appointments to keep; so we don’t have to retire to separate ends of our acre in Queensland and hiss like cats when we see each other.
My horoscope says:
Promise Now: ‘I will not freak out this evening and quit my degree/thesis/project/book/movie. I will ride the existential crisis wave into tomorrow when I will laugh at my paranoia.’
Replace the words ‘this evening’ with ‘this morning’…unless this just relates to my 6PM gym appointment. His says:
Try to find a place where you will not be able to make a phone call tonight. Full Moon in your 10th house triggers feelings of crisis - that the ‘career’ is shite & there is no point. It’s illusory; the Sun also Rises.
Great. Hurry up sun.
The resin. The resin!
Friday, 29 July 2005
The phone conversation went like this:
“Hello M, I just wanted to…”
“Hello, B. What do you want? I’m sorry, I’m just in in a big rush…”
I begin to dither under pressure.
“I wanted to know if you still want to see the Go-Betweens at the Palais, because, um, it’s on tomorrow night and…”
“Tomorrow night. Tomorrow night? What…oh, god, look, I really have to…I want to go. Can you book it?”
“I can’t book it, that’s why I had to call you, because when I was on the phone to you earlier and I was using the bank machine, and I was in a dither…”
“Yes yes yes….”
“I lost my card, someone found it and cut it up and now there’s a stop on my account and…”
“Yep. Yep, yep.”
“But it’s $62 for dinner and show!”
“God. Look. I have to go. I’ll do it. Just email me. Yep? Bye.”
Ten minutes later he calls back.
Mindreading
Wednesday, 3 August 2005
B: “I know exactly what I’m going to do as soon as my last pay comes through.”
M: “I know exactly what you’re going to do when your pay comes through.”
B: (suspiciously) “I bet you don’t.”
M: “I do so. You’re going to go to the bottle-o in Sandringham and buy a slab of Coopers green for forty bucks.” [grins]
B: (gobsmacked) “Am I so tranparent? That’s exactly what I’d planned.”
Op-Shop Speak 1.1
Monday, 15 August 2005
“Hello Joyce, how’s the back?”
“It’s my knees, actually.”
“Oh, your knees. How are they?”
“They appear to dislike the cold weather very much.”
“Oh, terrible, isn’t it.”
“Terrible.”
Champagne and Congratulations
Monday, 5 September 2005
Someone in our house yesterday mowed a proposal into the front lawn, and then threw oranges at an upstairs bedroom window to make someone else lean out and read the proposal. I was in my downstairs bedroom, and M was in the country, so it was nothing to do with us. Congratulations D & E, our most tolerant and long suffering housemates. You’re getting hitched!
A Letter to my Small Brother
Wednesday, 21 September 2005
Dear Small Brother,
How are things in London? Are you fondly anticipating the visit of our mutual female parent, so recently Australian? I hope you are prepared to suffer the onslaught of family gossip and commentary that I have been shouldering on your behalf since you left some years ago with the intent to drink your father’s homeland dry.
For all I know I may be writing to you as you lie supine in some private hospital bed as your blood is pumped out, detoxified and readmitted to your temple-like carapace, a la Keef. Or maybe you’re just somewhere in a darkened room trying to recover from the primary school teacher type voice messages that our mother will most definitely have been leaving on your phone.
Just remember, if you organised her accommodation, every dripping tap, scratchy sheet and dodgy minibar is going to be On Your Head. Maybe start working on your neck muscles instead of spending so much time on squash?
Now email me, or I shall continue to embarrass you in front of the Internet.
Your elder, but mechanically defunct, Sister.
P.S Can I borrow your car?
Dear Dr Grass
Wednesday, 5 October 2005
[Brief Explanation: M spent some time tonight writing a spam letter to his great friend who got a Phd in Stuff about Native Grasses quite recently. This is what it said….]
Dear Dr Paul,
My name is Mr G. Knoll. Let me describe my work. My aim is to discover something. As you are aware grass seed and sock are naturally occurring attractors. Can this be the key to unlocking the mystery of something? Yes, I believe so too.
My students are sent into the field wearing only socks. Each student has a unique pair. We have male students on the team as well. Students spend a day in their special places doing stuff in their socks. This brings me to why I contacted you. My Nigerian backers and I are convinced we will discover ‘a very big thing’ when we analyse the seed from each sock. Dr Paul will help us? Will you get the seeds out the socks because we don’t want to.
Sincerely,
Mr Grassy Knoll.
“Believe me, my young friend (said the water rat, solemnly), there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half as much worth doing as simply messing about in grass.”
The Arse of the Rat
Wednesday, 16 November 2005
Last night before we went to sleep, M and I were lying on our new mattress chatting about nothing in particular. During the course of the conversation M said…
“I don’t give a rat’s arse.”
I lay there for a while and pondered.
“That is such a weird thing to say. A rat’s arse?”
“A rat’s arse.”
“Sooooo. When would you ever give a rat’s arse to anyone?”
“Never. That’s the point. You’d never give a rat’s arse to anybody.”
“But someone must’ve…”
“Yeah. OK. Well, it’s the absolute last thing you’d ever give to someone.”
I pondered again. “I dunno about that…”
“Think about it. It would mean that you really meant it, because it woudn’t be easy. You’d have to find a rat and chase it and catch it. Then you’d have to cut its arse off.”
“…or out…”
“Yeah. You could cut its arse out. Then you’d give it to the person.”
“And say - I GIVE A RAT’S ARSE!”
“Right.”
“So you only actually hand over the arse of a rat when you really, really care?”
“Erm. Yep.”
“Right.”
There was silence. Then…
“Can you imagine if you cut the arse off…or out, and then wrapped it up in a little California roll for someone to eat?”
“Stop now. No more rat. You’re grossing me out.”
“Rat’s arse, rat’s arse…”
————————————————-
Note: I have real trouble with apostrophes…you might have noticed. But I assume that the arse in question belongs to the rat and thus “rat’s arse” has to have one… but I’m only guessing.
Innoscent
Thursday, 1 December 2005
I dance thrillingly whilst dousing myself with angled bursts of Light Blue, the [miaow] scent of the moment.
“Yummmm,” I swoon.
I spray it into the air and walk through the cloud like a proper lady.
M watches, perplexed.
“I can douse myself in gallons of this because it just disappears after a few hours,” I explain. “It’s very frustrating.”
M shakes his head.
“Just because you think it wears off… other people might still be able to be knocked out by it. You don’t want it to be too overpowering…”
“Don’t I?” I inquire, artfully squirting my ankles. “Are you afraid that if I wander about, reeking of expensive perfume, that I might be construed as the ‘wrong’ type of woman?”
“No, I’m just saying…”
“Well don’t.”
It’s now half past four and I can smell only the most tiny bit of it left on my wrists. So sad. Just went and got L.I. to sniff my wrists. She agreed that it was barely there at all! Am heading into the city for dinner with L and so will top up at David Jones. Just grayshsh.
Just a little bit…
Wednesday, 14 December 2005
One of the things I like about this blog is that bit on the sidebar which is called Blast From the Past. It usually has in it something I posted one, two or sometimes even three years ago. So I clicked on it a few days ago and starting laughing at the pure synchronicity that sometimes occurs.
When we were at Meredith last weekend, we were down to our last five bucks and were feeling snacky. M decided to get a sausage in bread from the Meredith Tucker Tent, which is run by Meredith locals as a bit of a fundraising opportunity. He emerged about five or so minutes later looking pink and bemused, if not slightly frustrated.
“What happened?”
“I went in there and asked for a sausage in bread, and…”
“And?”
“And it happened to me…again…”
——————————————————–
M: I’ll have a sausage in bread please.
Sausage Guy: I know you mate. I know your face. Are you on TV or something?
M: No. I just want a sausage in bread thanks.
SG: Are you a Geelong boy mate?
M: [baffled] Um. No.
[The Sausage Guy has a sudden revelation]
SG: Hey. Hey! HEY! I know who you are!
M: [in a tiny, tiny voice] You do?
SG: [speaking to everyone in the tent] It’s a WIGGLE everybody! There’s a WIGGLE in the TENT!!
[Pandemonium ensues. M continues to bleat plaintively for his sausage in bread.]
M: Mate. Mate! I am NOT A WIGGLE.
SG: Yeah. Righto mate. You’re ‘not’ a Wiggle.
[He reverently hands over a sausage in bread.]
M: I’m really not. I-am-really-not-a-Wiggle.
SG: Yep. Riiiiiiight.
[M backs fearfully out of the tent.]
——————————————————–
Two days later I click on that days Blast From the Past and find this!
UPDATE: Thanks to Dennis we have discovered the Wiggle in question. It’s the YELLOW Wiggle.
Latest news from Small Brother
Wednesday, 15 February 2006
The email reads…
We’ve got travel insurance and we are expecting to be mugged. Everyone that goes to Brazil gets mugged.
I’m going to take my phone but I won’t have it with me most of the time but I’ll try to make contact with one of you sporadically while I’m there.
ha ha! I’m going to Rio!
We’re looking for houses
Tuesday, 16 May 2006
So there is one place right near the area where we will be building the MoFo catamaran that is for rent. It has been for rent for over a month, and I have kind of been ignoring because the ad reads:
IDEAL RETIRED COUPLE OR SINGLE PERSON
Small two bedroom unit situated on farm away from main residence. Small living area and kitchen. Very private. Rental includes power and water.
M had to go past there yesterday with my dad, so I called the agent and arranged for him to have a look at it. WHY didn’t I get him to take the camera with him - or at least give him a checklist? The location is great - the farm is not a working farm, but has cows, horses and one ostrich. There is a carport for the Humber and not a bad sized garden shed. The house, however… I knew when I read the word ‘unit’ that what it meant was ‘a relocatable cabinny kind of thing that the owners have plonked on their property to make a bit of pocket money’. Yep. I was right. It’s a relocatable.
B: So what’s it like? Really hideous?
M: Well, it’s very small. It’s kind of bachelor quarters. I mean, I’d live there if you weren’t on the scene, but…
B: Is the garden nice? Could we have a vegie garden?
M: Are you kidding? He said we could ride the horses whenever we want, and offered us the ostrich!
B: Right. So, the second bedroom. Could I set up my recording stuff in there?
M: Yeah. No problem.
B: So my big desk will fit in there?
M: Ummmm. There’s a really excellent wood heater!
B: Are there wardrobes?
M: Um. I don’t think so.
B: How big is the bathroom?
M: Oh, the bathroom’s a good size I reckon. There was a little bit of rot at the bottom of the vanity that I noticed.
B: Is there a bath?
M: Is there a bath? Hmmmm. I’m not sure.
B: How can you not know if there was a bath or not? Is there a laundry?
M: Ummmmm….
B: I think I’ll just go and check it out on Thursday.
M: Your dad reckons that you’ll turn into trailer trash if you live there, so you better just check it out yourself.
Doing the wallet dance
Monday, 3 July 2006
It happened last week, and it happened again this morning - as it has happened on several occasions before. M misplaced his wallet. If I was not a participant in the situation I would find it sort of cute, how each time is like the very first time. But I am a participant, and an increasingly unsupportive grumpy one.
It begins like this. He says “OK, bye!” and heads out the door. A minute later the door opens and I hear rustling. The rustling them moves from room to room (this process is quicker now we live in a four room trailer instead of a nine room Queendslander). Then the vocals kick in.
“Have you seen my wallet anywhere?”
I want to groan. I can sense that the wallet dance is looming, but try to hide it. “No. No I haven’t.”
I swear to myself that I’m not going to help him hunt for it, and snuggle further down into the bed.
His searching becomes frantic. He starts going through the laundry basket, turning out pockets, re-looking in places he’s already scoured. I can’t help myself.
“Have you tried the van?”
He tries the van. Again.
He returns empty handed.
“I remember I had it at the cafe yesterday when I paid. Maybe I dropped it in the carpark on the way to the van… It’s gone. It’s not anywhere. And now I can’t get petrol. Um… Do you have any cash?”
Of course I don’t , I never seem to have cash. So now I have to help, but in a good way. Search with my mouth shut. I heave out of bed, whack on the tracky bottoms and poke around a few places. Nothing. I pull on my boots and head out to the van. Look under the seats. In between the seats. M starts looking too. I open the side door. There’s a coat on top of his piles of mank that’s pretty much exactly the same as the one he’s wearing. I pick it up. It holds the wallet. I hand it to him and return to bed. The wallet dance stops.
I think it’s because I didn’t speak during this entire process that he didn’t organise to have lunch with me today.
UPDATE: M did return for lunch, and responded very charitably to my suggestion of having a spot where he puts his keys and wallet when he gets home. Yah!
M is for Mange
Thursday, 3 August 2006
M and I actually WENT OUT the other night. To a PARTY! Yes, we took time off from the shed. But because we (well, more like just he) hadn’t socialised for so long, M’s hair had gone from short, to Greg Brady (who I just discovered is actually Barry Williams) to a kind of enraged Greg Brady with extra volume. Girls would kill for M’s hair. However, although he had many years of ‘pretty hair’ (i.e. long and shampoo commercial-lilke) he now craves only one thing. Automatic hair*. As we didn’t have time or inclination to get him to a salon or a barber, it was me, the sewing scissors and the nail scissors on the porch at dusk. He wanted me to cut it dry. I hacked away at it for about 40 minutes, hoping for the best. He was very patient, and almost invisible under the pile of brown fur that had accumulated as a result of my efforts.
“OK. Go and have a look in the bathroom mirror and see what you think.”
He disappeared into the bathroom. There was a prolonged silence. And then a wail.
“I’ve got MANGE. You’ve given me MANGE.”
“Ah - get in the shower and wash it, it’ll turn out all right.”
No one at the party suspected a thing.
———————————–
*Copyright of Small Brother
Hot and Slow?
Wednesday, 16 August 2006
Went to my latest cafe for lunch today. The normal. Toasted cheese and tomato sandwich and a drink. The guy there is very chirpy and chatty. After I’d finished, I went up to pay.
“How’s your day been going?” he asked.
“Oh, yunno - kind of slow.”
“Slow?”
He gave me my change and wasn’t quick about it, “Hot and slow?”
YOIKE!
I think I muttered something about “um, no, just slow…bye!” as I scuttled out the door. Did he really say ‘hot and slow’? How could I have aurally invented something like that? His wife was cooking in the kitchen. I really think I might have heard wrong (and I’m definitely a long way from looking hot atm) - so maybe he said “Got to go?” or “Blot the flow?” or “Lots to know?”
Jeeez. I puzzled over it on the walk back to work for all of, oh, 57 seconds.
(OpShop score today? One Pyrex-esque casserole dish, and two books: Man & Boy and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang - some history of film…
UPDATE: Have discussed this with Lee (my workmate) and she admitted to thinking the guy in question is a ‘pantsman’. PANTSMAN ALERT.
Do not ask me to fix stuff.
Tuesday, 19 September 2006
(At least for a week.) I got to work this morning at 10am as usual, and by 11am I was being whisked back to my workmate’s house to try and fix her new DSL connection. TWO AND A HALF hours later, after some truly bloody shocking ‘tech support’ from IPrimus they finally listened to me and are sending out a techie to check the exchange tomorrow. My workmate, who is voluble and very French, really did her nut and finally got things moving, but it was so hard to explain to her what I was doing and why I was doing it. She didn’t want to understand, she just wanted it TO WORK (and at this point I wave at my sister). ARGH!
So, goodbye to two and a half hours of work - and I was already behind as it was. I called my mum after getting back to my computer and asked if I could stay there tonight because I have to be back here in the morning. No problem. But…
“You’re probably not going to want to, but we’ve set up my email and everything on my new laptop [I start to shudder] but none of my old mail is there?”
I began to hit my head lightly and rhythmically on the desk. This is why I got out of tech support - I went insane.
“Why would your old mail be on there? It’s all been downloaded to your old laptop.”
“But I need it.”
“And I need a tolerance transplant. Sorry. Does your new lappy have a floppy drive?”
“Um…”
“It probably doesn’t. So we’d have to put your old mail on to a flash drive and transfer it to your new lappy like that.”
“I can’t understand what you’re talking about.”
Oh god.
“…and I packed up my old laptop and put it away.”
“Well, if you want me to get your old email off it, you’ll have to get it out and unpack it. Leave them both out. I’ll look at them when I get there.”
“Oh,” she added, “there’s no food, so…”
“Don’t worry, I’ll get fried rice. Yah!”
“B, I worry that you’re not eating properly.”
“Well mum, you’re the one that has no food, are you a Breatharian?”
[I didn’t actually say that last bit, but grant me some poetic license.]
And it was then that I remembered that I’d lent M my flash drive for the day. D’oh. After that brain boiling episode I went to try and print from my Macbook to the office printer. Yeah - they’re supposed to work right out of the box, aren’t they? (If you stick a whole lot more RAM in, she added snidely.) Ten minutes later I hear a shriek and multiple French curses. The printer and my Macbook did not get along, and the printer vented by going through an entire ream of paper, printing on about one third of the pages. Stab. Kill. Am beginning to miss my ThinkPad (shut up M) but am determined to persevere. Gah.
2006 Letter to London
Monday, 25 September 2006
Dear Small Brother,
It has been some time between chats. I have not been driving your car of late, the ignition hanging from several wires started to get me down. Also, I began to wonder whether it was actually designed for a tall person - swinging my arse so close to the ground to get in and out started to get a bit old. I’m feeling generally traitorous - with the coming of Spring my thoughts have turned, finally, toward a new set of wheels. I test drove another Humber today, but it didn’t really cut the English mustard.
So, you’ve caught Pearl Jam in Barcelona and spent a good eight days in Ibiza since I heard from you last. I mention these things to M and see a little furrow form on his brow as he begins to worry that my trailer life will pall in comparison to your exciting European Travails. However, the truth is that I tend to hope that my trailer life could be even a little bit more boring, if only so I could spend more time on my caravan and actually record some music. Having a dedicated digital audio workstation that hasn’t been used since we moved here provides a small but delightfully immovable block of guilt that sits just near my left shoulder. Also, my new Macbook appears to need a RAM upgrade in order to function with any sense of ZIP! - which seems a bit unfair, considering what it cost to start with. Gah.
Was sorry to hear you missed the chance to hang out with U2 and Green Day at the pub, and hope you are not CAVORTING somewhere FRIVOLOUS next time the opportunity arises. There are certain responsibilities that come with being my Small Brother, and this is most definitely one of them. If you ever plan to get around to sending me your old phone, I would be more than appreciative, as the last one you sent has taken to becoming very sluggish of a morning. And the colder the morning, the longer it takes to wake up - I expect that it will soon request its own electric blanket.
My Macbook has asked me to tell you that it would also really like to meet your IPod Nano if you insist on saying things like “I haven’t used it for ages - but it looks so cool!”
In winding up I have to say that I hope that you will get around to visiting the trailer (AFTER I have finished renovating the caravan), although I have to point out that there not many similarities between the trailer and Ibiza. Eddie Vedder hasn’t dropped by recently either. Otherwise, let me know if you’re going to haul yourself to Hawaii and I’ll try and stowaway and meet up with you there. Thief sends his regard from behind a Coopers Pale Ale on the couch.
Love
The Elder.
P.S This post disappeared for a while as it caused relationship friction. Note to the World: I LIKE LIVING IN A TRAILER AND WORKING THREE DAYS A WEEK WHILE M BUILDS A LUXURY CATAMARAN. Is that clear enough? I wouldn’t want the Internet to think I had been forced to live in a trailer somewhere near Cranbourne against my WILL or anything. I trust that the Internet
a) knows me better than that;
b) doesn’t give a toss anyway; or
c) realises I don’t care what it thinks, thus rendering both a) and b) null and void. Is that clear enough? Gah.
Yellow Wiggle to leave? My mother spasms.
Thursday, 30 November 2006
A phone call from my mother this morning attracted my attention to the plight of the Yellow Wiggle. I had heard he wasn’t well, but now it sounds like he is is actually going to be stepping out of his yellow skivvy. This is a sad thing for millions of Wiggle fans. But not my mother. She was almost exultant.
“B! The Yellow Wiggle is quitting! He’s really sick. Do you think M would do it?”
“What?”
“M would be great. Don’t you think? He should get on to it, because they’ll need a replacement for him!!”
“Um.”
[M, meanwhile, is making porridge with a look of increasing trepidation at the sound of my side of the phone call.]
“Just think - even if he did it for a year, how much money he would make! T is really gung-ho about this. He knows an agent in Elwood that he could speak to about M.”
“What? Are you serious? I have to tell you, mother, that M would rather operate on himself with a blunt stick sans anaesthetic rather than wear a yellow skivvy and entertain small screaming children. There is no money that could make him do it.”
[M nods energetically. His porridge stirring brightens.]
“Oh gahd, B - that’s just ridiculous. He’d be great.”
“Right. You know when you come over this afternoon? Please don’t harrass M to be the new Yellow Wiggle. We live in a trailer you know. He’s forgotten a lot about civilisation. He might bite. Or fibreglass you to a wall or something…”
UPDATE: It’s true. The Yellow Wiggle gave up his skivvy. He has orthostatic intolerance. And he has a long time understudy who is going to take over. And. It. Is. NOT. M.
Six Feet Stupido
Wednesday, 6 December 2006
(…actually, it’s more like five foot seven.)
I was speaking quite eloquently to my mother just over a month ago.
“We went out and saw the first four series of Six Feet Under on sale. M had a spasm and bought them on a whim. We just started watching the other night, and now we’re addicted and can’t stop! This hasn’t happened since the Twin Peaks video marathon of 1997. We’ve never owned a series on DVD before. In fact we only own two proper DVDs that aren’t to do with bushfire. We’ve got Dangerous Liasons and Reservoir Dogs. We watch them on my laptop - and did I say we bought Six Feet Under? It’s excellent. We own it you know.”
What my mother heard;
“Something about some kind of DVD sort of thing. I like Six Feet Under. It’s really great.”
In the meantime she went to Vietnam, bought a bucketload of highly suspect latest release movies on DVD and then came to visit on the day the Wiggle was de-skivvied, last week. I began again (so limited are my topics of conversation):
“So we’re now into series three of Six Feet Under and it is SO GOOD. We watch a few episodes each night, and I’ve just realised that there five series, so we’re actually missing the last one and I’ve just been looking at it on Ebay and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah,” I said, as my mother looked ever increasingly pained. In the end, after about 45 minutes, she snapped.
“OK! OK!! So I might as well just tell you that we got you the box set. The BOX SET of Six Feet Under. Right? And you’re telling me you’ve already got it. Are you?”
I squeaked. “No - I’m telling you I’ve got all of them but the last series. Which I’m assuming will be in the BOX SET. BOX SET,” I said again, just to say it.
“Well you can stop watching any further episodes as of right now,” she snarled.
I shook my head in mute refusal, Six Feet Under being my current opiate of choice.
“I mean it,” she insisted, “I don’t want either of you watching one more minute. Or your present will be completely ruined. Where are they? I’m going to take them home so and you can have them back after Christmas.”
“I don’t THINK so. Just because your cheap-and-excellent-and-looks-expensive Christmas present is dead in the water. If you’d listened to me in the first place when I kept parroting on about it you would have known. It’s not showing on TV - I obviously had it on DVD. Gah.”
I think she wanted me to believe that the humidity had gotten to her over in Vietnam, and so when she thought of me while standing in the DVD shop, all she saw were my lips saying Six Feet Under, Six Feet Under, with no other associated information. Personally? I think all her brain cells are getting exhausted from too much pilates.
I really have to stop posting about conversations with my mother. I can already feel Small Brother shaking his head over me in London.
Imminent Arrival
Friday, 9 March 2007
Dear Small Brother,
This time next week you will have landed on Australian soil for the first time in quite a while. Last time you were here you were “Path Boy“. I anticipate that this time you might very well be known as “Cabin Boy” or “Hull Turner Number Two”. We shall see. Whatever you do, don’t lose your passport or your mind, because the files I have worked on recently regarding people in detention in this country leave me limp with fury and a desire to move to somewhere a bit more humane, like New Zealand. Where I hear the white wine is also good.
I thought I should include a photograph of the kind of style you might be expected to encounter when you come and visit M and myself in TrailerLand. Unfortunately for you, the caravan is nowhere near ready to receive you into it’s embrace, and you will instead be made welcome on the floor of the spare room. You will also have to be introduced to the necessity of the famous ‘Poo Song’ - a loud song played on guitar and sung loudly in the loungeroom to mask the sound of your ablutions. We do try to remain civilised at all times within our faux wood walls.
I will take you to meet my new horse, Blossom (OK, so I fed her for a week, but that gives me some kind of ownership, right?) , and you can also feel free to marvel at Mow the Cat and his Amazing Personality Transplant. You will then be dared to sail out into Bass Strait with us and around through the heads into Port Phillip Bay, where we have secured a mooring at a swanky new Marina, a short walk to a City Circle tram stop.
Am still trying to think of all the cool stuff I should harrass you to snap up on your Singapore stopover but have only come up with some aftershave for M. Which, now I think of it, would just make it seem as if he thinks he’s better than all those other trailer dwellers out there. So just forget about that (Happy by Clinique) and he can just go right back outside and pat Blossom for a while - Eau du Olde Ponye.
See you Sunday. When you come out the doors at Tullamarine, we’ll be the one’s restraining your mother from jumping the barrier and running toward you - the way she used to greet our grandparents when we were small (but strangely resourceful at camoflaging ourselves by blending seamlessly into other nearby families).
Love,
The Elder Sibling.
Canal living
Tuesday, 24 April 2007
M is having the rest of his root canal today at the wonder-dentist. I called him to commiserate before dragging myself into work this morning around 9.30am. Late.
“Hello, my poor little M, I’m ringing you to say…”
“Ow! OW! OW OW OW OW OW!” It sounded like someone had trodden on a Labrador.
“M! Where are you? You’re not at the dentist yet, surely?” (Why did it not occur to me that he wouldn’t be answering his phone from the chair?)
“No. OW! I’m still at the trailer, but I’m just getting ready for what’s going to happen. Ow. OW. OW!!”
Wagon Wheels
Thursday, 3 May 2007
After a birthday conversation with Small Brother, I reinstated my abstinence. Conversation went as follows:
B: “So that postcard that was addressed to someone else inside the envelope addressed to me that I got from you last week…”
SB: “Yeah…”
B: “Well, what did my postcard say that was in an envelope addressed to someone else? Did they get it?”
SB: “Que?”
B: “Did you realise that you’d accidentally sent me a postcard addressed to someone else as soon as you’d posted it?”
SB: “What? WHAT? What are you talking about?”
B: “Niceness please. Birthday niceness.”
SB: [modifying his tone; probably not for my benefit, but for the benefit of his open plan office, scourge of corporate Britain]
“You mean you haven’t sent it yet?”
B: [blankly, as if somewhat simple] “Sent it?”
SB: [moans softly] “Don’t tell me you’ve still GOT IT? I am going to be in TROUBLE. I SAID that I had sent this person [obviously female, and obviously unconvinced of SB’s good intentions toward her] a postcard from Australia. It needs to be POSTED from AUSTRALIA. And that is WHY… I mean, you want to be a detective. I don’t understand - why would you think that I sent you a postcard obviously written to someone else?”
B: “Ummm. I thought you were drunk when you posted it?”
SB: “But we DISCUSSED this. I told you all about it!! You SAID you would get it and post it on for me - thus saving my skin??! Remember when I spoke to you that night you were visiting Dad?”
B: [takes a horrified breath and sits down gently] “Not THAT night? That was the night I wrote myself OFF! I don’t remember anything you said to me. [taps self on head hopefully. nothing. nil. nada. finito.] Oh. My. GOD? I have killed your plan with my red wine! It’s all my fault!!
SB: [Shrieking quietly] “But you’re supposed to be into detection - there was FIVE DOLLARS in there for you to buy the stamp? Hello? Wasn’t it obvious?”
B: “Um, no. I just thought “that was nice of him, he’s sent me five dollars” and then I bought some milk with it.”
SB: [deep measured breaths]
B: “That’s it. I’m back on the wagon. See me? I’m wagoning. Wagon wagon wagon. I will send the postcard first thing in the morning. I will rub dirt into it so it looks like it’s lucky to have survived the journey! She’ll never know!”
SB: “Oh my GOD. We shall never speak of this again. You are RETARDED.”
B: “Birthday?”
The need for a permanently implanted babelfish
Thursday, 24 May 2007
“I’m really sorry B,” said M after we got home from dinner last night, “but there’s some dirty dishes on the sink that I didn’t get around to doing.”
OK. So I was disarmed. And then this morning, on his way out.
“Would you mind doing those dishes B? There’s only a few.”
I stared at him with bleary eyes from the bed. “OK.”
I put on some washing, had a shower, said goodbye to M, and thought that I would really rather have my breakfast without the ‘few’ dishes haunting me - so I thought I would do them first. A FEW? After some muttering and loud clattering, my male babelfish engaged and I realised what M had said. It was this:
“Would you mind doing those dishes B? There are heaps, actually. Because after a hard days boat building and helping C run trespassers off his property, I came home and there were still dishes from the night before, including the leftover soup you made that I tried to convince you I would eat for lunch. I disregarded those dishes and made a man-style dinner of a couple of tasty fried cheese, tomato and avocado sandwiches, drank about four or five beers and watched three episodes of the latest series of Spooks you were kind enough to download and burn to cd for me. I passed out went to bed, woke up late, went and did more boat building, affixed flywire to the rabbit hutch, and then met you and your friend for dinner in Edithvale. So you see, I had no time at all to do anything about the two nights worth of dishes next to the sink. And anyway, you always tell me that I’m so bad at washing up that you never want me to wash up again as long as you live, so I thought this was a good opportunity to put your request into action. Bye!”
Best thing since sliced…
Monday, 28 May 2007
It’s 5.08am. I finally get up after lying in the dark willing myself back to sleep. I boil the kettle and make hot lemon and honey drink. I think “Toast.” I haul out the sourdough olive bread we bought yesterday on our jaunt to pick up an infamous lawn roller at the former family home. It was not sliced (the bread, not the lawn roller), and I hack away at it, become more and more irrationally incensed. M has cut the loaf in the way that drives me insane. He’s cut it longways. Despite the fact that our toaster is a stupifyingly normal two-tiny-slices-only op-shop job. So when I’ve finally carved off a slice, leaving the loaf in topological turmoil, I have to CUT THE SLICE IN HALF in order to stuff it in the toaster. Where it burns.
M staggers out. Goes to the loo. Comes back, and suggests helpfully that next time I can’t sleep and get up in the middle of the night to make toast, maybe I could refrain from burning it so the whole Trailer doesn’t reek?
“Maybe next time you start cutting a loaf, you can cut it more in keeping with the shape of our toaster and less like you wish you were back in your Collingwood cafe lifestyle?” I am unable to shut my mouth, due to my outrage that I’d managed to suppress my annoyance the whole time he was wafting around me in a state that said he was going to fall instantly back to sleep as soon as he climbed back into the land of Visco-Elastic.
Sure enough.
“I’m going back to bed,” he pouts, like I’ve just taken a pin to the balloon of his masculinity, daring to question his bread slicing skils. Gah.
We shall fight them on the beaches…
Thursday, 24 January 2008
God knows what people did before Google. If M and I have queries about our current situation, we refer to our search engine of choice. Google - a parenting tool. Who knew? Today M was telling me about the signs that a baby is unwell or dehydrated or both.
“Yes,” he said knowledgeably, “If they are listless or their patternelle is sunken, that’s a bad thing.”
I choked. “Sorry? Their what is sunken?”
“Their…um…patternelle?” He had become cautious in the face of my growing mirth.
“PATTERNELLE? What’s that then? Is that what it’s called because that’s where you pat it? On the patternelle?”
“Shut up! Shut up!” He was pouting. “Stop laughing and just tell me what it’s called.”
I took a deep breath. “Well. That is actually completely accurate. From now on, it will be known everywhere as… the patternelle!”
“OK. Yeah. Right. So I’m wrong.” A pause. “Is it a dardanelle?”
I fell to the floor and began to roll.
M was amused despite himself. “Yes - that’s it. A dardanelle!”
I was gurgling. “So there on Z’s head is somewhere they fought about in World War I? Her own little dardanelle? I’m happy with that. I will relinquish the patternelle for the dardanelle. I didn’t think you could do better, but I was wrong. So wrong.”
It took me some time to compose myself, and while I pulled myself together, M figured out the word. Fontanelle. FONTANELLE.
I found it all the more hilarious as we had been poking Z’s growing double chin the previous day; calling her Winston Churchill while declaiming ‘we shall fight them on the beaches…’ (which our friend Google now informs me is a misquote anyway). Google, google, google.
Trailer Gloom
Friday, 21 March 2008
Dear Small Brother,
You left today to go back to bloody London, where you will be for another few months before relocating to bloody New York - an equally distant location [sigh]. It was fun having you here, though arguably, we probably had more fun last time on our sailing adventure and city holiday. However, baby wrangling is the current priority - and you were surprisingly good at it. You didn’t earn the title of Spare Parent by just buying M a slab of Coopers (although you probably could’ve…)
There were a surfeit of hot, disgusting days during your visit, which was somewhat unfair. Particularly for me, as I was unable to drown them in gin and tonics. I remember this time last year that the weather was far more accommodating. Oh. Glad you liked tooling around in my car!
Just after you left, with the trailer under a pall of gloom, I was putting away a pair of shorts that I’d put in storage for about ten months. In the pocket was a receipt for a pair of jeans I bought that day that you, M and I cycled from the boat to the Collingwood Children’s Farm - the previous night, M had retrieved his bike from the bottom of the harbour using the anchor. By the time we were halfway there, we noted that M’s bum had become a soggy, wet browned thing. The bike seat had not dried out from it’s deep sea dive.
We refused to go to a children’s farm with someone with a butt like a very suspect pond dweller and took M into the big op-shop on the river in Abbotsford. We made him buy more shorts. I also bought a pair of jeans. It was exactly a year ago that I found the receipt for them in my pocket. I tried to look up what else we had got up to and am horrified to realise that it never made it to [miaow] - yet another task for the person who is someone else’s food source and has eyebags you could use to buy in bulk.
We here at the Trailer hope your flight was good, and we also hope that you make it back before the end of the year, at which time PartyPie will be able to run toward you shrieking “Oh! Greetings and salutations Spare Parent. I have been missing you in my own small way. Did you bring me more presents then?”
I will coach her assiduously in your absence.
May your nose not freeze and your lager be plentiful. Come back soon!
Love,
The Elder Sibling
