Poor Stevie

I’m really starting to make like big bird and nest. I’m pretty sure J-man, the little cookie monster, is thrilled.

Recently, I decided to get creative by stealing someone else’s great idea of making a suitcase table. Because it was so much fun – not to mention being really great for our marriage – I have decided to share the process with you:

Step one: Go to Surry Hills markets and buy an overpriced vintage suitcase from a hipster conman. Feel empty, betrayed and bitter for the rest of the day.

Step two: Tell your husband to high-tail it to Bunnings and pick you up some table legs, some lacquer and some T-nuts. Set aside T-nuts for personal use.

Step three: Stain the legs on your white kitchen floor. Lean the freshly stained legs up against your white wall. You won’t regret it and, I swear, your landlord will love the new “bespoke” detail on his precious property.

Step four: Tell your husband to re-do your nails. And do it now, baldy!

Step five: Ask your husband to take a photo of you posing Charlie’s Angels-style with your new power drill in your messy kitchen. He won’t mind!

Step six: Drill some holes in that suitcase. Try not to let your mind wander to whether the Romans or whoever used asbestos to make their suitcases.

Step seven: Tell your husband to figure out what the hell to do with T-nuts. He, of all people, should know how to handle those babies with care.

Step eight: Don’t get angry at your selfish husband when the T-nut strategy goes balls up. He really is a good man deep inside and you can forgive him once he returns to Bunnings with his man tail between his legs to get plates and screws instead.

Step nine: Allow your husband to take over the drilling once in a while. It’s good for his sense of manhood.

Step ten: When he starts doing annoying things, like being reasonable and telling you to be careful, start swearing and calling him names until he storms out and says “I’m going to the gym”. Continue drilling and muttering under your breath.

Step eleven: When it becomes clear this really is a two person job, use your cutesy puppy voice to ask him to stay and help, promising you’ll never call him a “pain in the arse” or a “little poo” again. He’ll obey because he knows what’s good for him.

Step twelve: Admire your finished product! You have worked so, so hard to make this perfect. To celebrate, go and sink one of your husband’s expensive beers. You know the ones – the precious American ales he saves up for and stores away for special occasions. He’ll be totally cool with it, I promise!

I’ve been without internet, so please forgive the huge gap between nail-biting life updates. You see, I’m only just now transcribing these words from stone tablets. And this loin cloth is kind of chafing. And I’ve only just figured out how to make fire by scratching stone with the bones of a dragon. J-man is away for the night clubbing baby bears to death to provide us with meat and fur coats for the winter. So I’m doing what any other prehistoric babe would do, I’m hanging out in our new cave tonight and I’ll probably watch a movie starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Oh boy, that’s bam bam right there.

Allow me to update you on our evolution:

- We moved into a new place and it is more amazing than I could have imagined. Our old place was a one bedder, but was kind of like a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and laundry all in the one room, which made toilet breaks really quite awkward. Now I can close the door on J-man while he plays Call of Duty 2 or Sparkly Unicorn Smack Down, or whatever it is he does, and pretend that we never really got married.

- That reminds me. We celebrated our first wedding anniversary a couple of weeks ago. J-man was in America for work and, as a little man treat, took himself on a road trip to his favourite brewery, leaving me at home. How quaint! The night before we turned one, I had a dream that I was having Shaq’s baby. It was one of those completely convincing dreams that I could not shake when I woke up. Every so often I would figure out the time difference to see whether it was an appropriate hour to ring Joel and tell him I’d gotten busy with an NBA great and I was leaving him and taking the Dick Smith peanut butter with me.

- J-man is now the proud owner of a really manly red scooter. When he perched on the seat for the first time, I told him he looked exactly like Audrey Hepburn. It was a really great buy on his part. Does he have a licence? No. Do we have somewhere to store it? No.  Did he run the major purchase by me, the treasurer of this exclusive club? No. I guess that’s what you have to love about him. He’s spontaneous, good looking and probably the most annoying person I know. To get him back, I set up a reading nook in the corner that he previously vetoed.  What’s that old saying? Oh yeah, revenge tastes like a big ol’ plate of cold barf.

Yesterday, J-man and I casually closed the door on the little yellow apartment that has been our home for the last three years. We talked about how strangely OK we felt about it. Maybe it was because we’d spent the last couple of weeks packing our things, double-checking we hadn’t kindly left behind any pubes for the new tenants and scrubbed melted cheese off unexpected surfaces. Maybe we were just ready to be done with the damn thing. Really, we’d been thinking about leaving for over a year and we knew the break-up was coming. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t love you sunny, little number eight.

Here are some things I will always remember about our first apartment together:

- On one of our first nights, I was still shell-shocked about living in the city and having a job and having a serious relationship. J-man, in his eternally positive and hopeful way, tried to cheer me up by cooking dinner. I can’t remember what the whole meal was, but it included hash browns. As J-man proudly served it up, I took one bite and declared “This tastes like oven cleaner” and burst into tears. Why he ended up proposing, I’ll never understand.

- Our unfriendly neighbours. I have a bit of a penchant for dresses about four sizes too big, which I wear with a belt around my waist. One day soon after we’d moved in, I walked up the stairs as a neighbour and his girlfriend walked down. The boyfriend and I exchanged cheery ’hellos’ while the girlfriend ignored me. As I unlocked my door, she said loudly: “She looks pregnant in that dress”.

-  Our yellow couch. It was in a perfect, sunny position next to glass doors and was the perfect spot for reading, watching telly and making whoo- nevermind. Unfortunately we didn’t really have room for a dining table so it was also where we ate our dinner. It ended up more of a beige colour with tomato sauce and chocolate splatters as well as mysterious head patches. Gross.

- Crows Nest, Neutral Bay and Cremorne really became our stomping grounds. We’ll never have enough money to live there properly again but it really is a nice part of Sydney. Water views, awesome pubs, a historic cinema, green parks, good bookshops, cafes and heaps of purebred dog owners. Plus the weird Hare Krishna place that smelt alternately of spicy vegetarian cooking and wizz.

- Stir Crazy. My favourite place to eat in the whole world. For a little while it was our Friday hangout, until we started saving hardcore for our trip. The curry puffs are to die for and don’t even get me started on the fish cakes, baby.

- Cruddy appliances. Our first washing machine didn’t take in water, so we had to fill it with buckets and constantly re-start the bastard. One load of washing would take three hours. Our oven wasn’t fanforced so everything, no matter what, would end up slightly burnt on the bottom. I’m a good cook, I sweeeear!

- Beers in the park. Quite a few times, J-man and I would lie in a particular part of the park that’s really close to the freeway but has a view of Sydney Harbour. You could close your eyes pretend the woosh of the cars was actually the ocean. I always felt content lying there, half-tipsy, looking at all the other people in the world.

- The 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208 buses. One stand out memory is catching a bus into the city one weekend morning with J-man. As we got on, a younger looking guy asked me where Wynyard was. As I tried to explain, he asked me to sit down across from him and talk. I could immediately tell he was a Christian - something about the glint in his eyes. At first I thought he was trying to spread the good word, but it soon became obvious he was trying to hit on me, in that awkward way Christian boys have, as J-man looked on in bemusement. Conclusion? Christians are weird homewreckers.

- The time(s) J-man defrosted chicken breasts on top of the water heater. I have a life-long fear of getting Salmonella poisoning. I don’t know why really, it just sounds awful so I’m always cautious about chicken. In my opinion, J-man has always had some pretty suspect ways of cooking with chicken, but he used to work at KFC and declares himself an expert. One night, mum came to stay and my sisters came over for dinner. When I arrived home, there was a terrible smell wafting around the whole flat. I thought maybe someone farted or had just used the bathroom and, being senstive about that issue myself, decided just to ignore it and subtley open a window. As the night progressed, the smell turned from bad fart to bad poo to bad corpse-decomposing-after-violent-death-at-the-hands-of-a-deranged-serial-killer. When mum went to use the shower, I suggested she give it a few moments because obviously J-man was having some pretty serious butt issues. I don’t know what made me think of it but I looked towards the water heater and noticed a package of chicken sitting on top. We had planned to have a chicken dish the night before but had decided to go out instead. And, even though I constantly pester him to be careful with chicken, J-man obviously didn’t think that ruled out defrosting it on the heater. By the way mum looked at both of us that night, I knew we lost a couple of points. It was shameful, embarrassing and foul. And a couple of months later, J-man did it again.

- Other random flashbacks: dust bunnies, carpet stains, brown hot water, succulent pot plants, uncomfortable bed, dead other plants, our cactus Admiral Fitzwallace, bad internet, Doritos, Crust pizza, spooning, weevil disaster, love.

As it becomes more apparent that I am not career-driven I’ve turned my focus to other things. Namely, being a housewife. There are so many benefits – cooking for my boyfriend, scrubbing my boyfriend’s underpants, folding my boyfriend’s clothes and waiting for my boyfriend to get home. Other perks include watching Oprah, crying and spying on neighbours. This is all likely to end in the birth of child named something like Dorito Daisy Connolly – and that’s just the first son.

I thought I’d share with you my blooming collection of domestic items. I look at these things and I just think – ‘this is what life is all about mother’uckas’:

Here’s a bunch of flowers half tulips, half lilies. I like to think they represent me – pretty but just about to die having been plucked out of the garden of life.

Here’s a clock I bought myself. I watch every excruciating moment tick by.

Here’s where I keep my dry ingredients for sweet cakes. I twitch slightly when I see the cursive labels on them which say ‘sugar’, ‘rice’, ‘tea’ and ‘coffee’ because actually what I keep in them is sugar, flour, brown sugar and teabags. But I can’t fix the injustices of the world can I?

Here’s my collection of champagne flutes and matching ice bucket. Sometimes I drink gin out of them when I’m alone watching David and Kim.

Here’s my pink teapot and knitted cosy. Once I found that Joel had hidden the cosy in the back of the cupboard and that’s why I threw him in the ocean wrapped in black plastic with rocks in his pocket.

And finally, a piece of tasteful craft that doesn’t need an introduction.

Things I will miss about home: A photoessay

Tonight a mean man in a big truck will come and load all my belongings in a truck. In the morning he will kidnap me and take me to Sydney and force me to work in order to pay half of his rent and buy half of his groceries. This horrible man’s name is Joel. He is my boyfriend.

My little stomach is churning a little because I love home so much. My favourite time of the day is when my mum comes home and we drink wine and chat. Then my dad will come home and we will drink more wine and chat. 

I’m lucky to have lived at home for the last couple of months. I like living here because no one can see you. I have done a lot of dancing on the driveway and in the paddocks. Love you Rosings! 

Here are some of the things I will miss the most: 

Goodbye convenience! Hello stinky tea towels and soap suds…

Goodbye satan spawn! This cat is teeny tiny and completely irresistable. But as soon as you pick her up she sticks her claws into your chest, yelps and pushes herself out of your arms. She wouldn’t let me take photos of her so she hid behind the couch and tried to attack the string hanging off my camera. She has learnt the art of playing hard to get…

Ohhhh black betty. Betty is very emotional. Once when mum and dad went away and they took her to the shelter at the vets, she stopped grooming herself out of protest and developed huge dreadlocks. She has done the same recently because she knows her favourite member of the family is leaving. Actually, I have a very turbulent relationship with Betty. There have been many, many times when she has bitten me. See, look at her checking me out through her third eyelid…

This was the bed I slept in as a teenager. Itsupported me through many boy dramas, friend dramas and HSC dramas. I have always slept well on this bed. Ah pish, I would sleep well on a cold block of cement with wee all over it. This was also where I dreamt about Trent Reznor coming to stay over and falling madly in love with me. I don’t like making my bed…

Awww! The snoozing beagle. Bill is very old and I snuck up on him to take this picture. He woke up a few seconds later, looked at me like I was a pervert and came out of his kennel to roll around in the dust. He’s such a loyal old fellow. When I was little, he would come and nuzzle his head under my arm until my arm was around him like he was my boyfriend. I will miss having a dog to pat. Although, he caught warts from our cattle and I don’t want to catch them. Bill, I will never cut your ears off with scissors. Ever. 

Farewell full pantry. The only thing about mum’s pantry is there is never anything you can snack on in there. Sure, there are all the ingredients for tiramisu, but I have to make it myself. There have also always been cans of corn kernels in our pantry for some inexplicable reason. No one ever eats them. Except maybe the poor people we used to give them to at Christmas time…

This car’s name is Gabbi because we bought her from a girl at my school called Gabbi. Julia drove her first. She used to have a horrible tendency not to start when required (Gabbi, not Julia). Under my care, Gabbi has been broken into, pissed on, spewed on and her poor little horn plate was smashed by an unnamed passenger. She must totally hate me. But I love her. 

The amazing view from our backyard. Yesterday there was one of our little steers in that dam all the way in with just his little head poking out of the water. So cute. Check out the huge country sky. Siiigggggghhh!

I will miss my daddy. Sweet Davis

I will miss kissing my mummy goodnight. Goodnight mum! Sweet dreams! Awww…. love you!