Poor Stevie

This year I took on a tradition started by the J-man’s grandmother and wrote in my day-to-day diary everything I did every day. I’m not sure if Grand J does this, but I made sure I included everything – fights, amusing moments, cooking disasters, whether I was bored, in a bad mood and, often, what I had for dinner. I know, I know you can barely wait to read what happened next …

I started doing it when, at the end of 2008, I couldn’t remember how I’d spent the year.  I found it quite depressing that a whole year had passed and I could only remember that I had Mee Goreng noodles half an hour ago. And I could only remember that because the explosive after effects of all those exotic spices were starting to hit me.

So as a kind of 2009 Year in Review, I’d like to share a few highlights with you:

This was the day before my 23rd birthday and Mum and Dad had come to Sydney to hang out. We went to Harbord Beach, or Freshwater if you so desire. And man, it was the greatest beach day – clear water, blue skies, warm sun and silky, white sand. Afterwards we went to The Oaks pub for lunch and later for dinner with my sisters at Not Bread Alone in Crows Nest. Yes, it was a rather shiny-ass kind of a day. And no, you weren’t invited unless you were wearing boat shoes and a Ralph Lauren jumper knotted casually around your shoulders like a dead fox.

The next day a teenager was bitten by a great white shark at a beach close to Harbord. Great white sharks are my favourite animal and I considered it mother nature’s thoughtful birthday gift to me. 

I really like to think of new and different things to do in Sydney. So the J-man and I took a ferry across the harbour to The Gap. It’s one of the most romantic place in the country, much like Belanglo State Forest or Snowtown or Epping. But, I’m as serious as a Supreme Court judge when I say that this was an amazing day. We wandered around together for a while and then got slightly sloshed in the sunshine at Watsons Bay Hotel. Love is always better with a side of tipsy.

This was the morning after the J-man proposed to me while I was half-naked at a Bed and Breakfast in Leura. After waking up as an engaged couple we had an amazing breakfast, explored the cute village and bought some momentos. I don’t think that I’ve ever felt as at peace as I did on that day. What I particularly like about this diary entry is that I was fully intending to go and attempt to grope Will Ferrell on the Land of the Lost red carpet. It’s very possible that could have been the best day of my life. Thanks a lot J-man, you selfish bastard.

This was the first day of a road trip I took to Bathurst with Tegan, Bron, Liam and the J-man. It was so great to get together and head back to our old stomping ground. We made sure that we ate at all the places we could never afford as students. As you can see, it’s the food and booze that sticks in my mind, seeing as though everything I noted had to do with digestion. Typical, really.

This is the entry for our five year anniversary. On the 25th, we went to Linda’s in Newtown for dinner. It’s a great place to eat, but I particularly enjoy going there because they give you little cups of hot soup before the meal and it blows the J-man’s mind. It’s as if they’ve served him a live leopard and his challenge is to slay it before serving it up with a fruity white wine sauce.  The look on his face is priceless. On the 26th, which is the anniversary of when Joel and I made out at 80s Prom Night at Uni Bar, Joel took it upon himself to do some illustrations. I think they’re cute. I wonder what Freud would think.

Amusing/banal moments of 2009, as revealed in my diary entries:

“Saw Alexander Downer on Market St with a stain on his shirt, bahaha” – March 17.

“Bought jars’ – March 20.

“Saw the dude from Blink 182″ – March 24.

“Awesome satay chicken” – April 5.

“Crazy lady told me swine flu spread by rain” – April 29.

“Discovered apricot toast – OMG!” – June 16

I had swine flu from June 23-June 26.

I had “baad soup” on July 20.

“Lunch with Liam @ fancy sushi train – he pulled handle off the door” – July 29.

“Fell over at HFM [Harris Farm Markets]” – August 11.

“Failed attempt at Florentine cookies” [I forgot the all important corn flakes and they turned into sugary puddles of glace fruit] - October 11.

“Drinks with Joel at the Greenwood. Watched spectacular thunderstorm near skanky girls” – November 12.

“Flourless, sugarless cake mistake!!” – November 17.

Movies I saw in 2009:

Frost/Nixon, Vicky Christina Barcelona, Gran Torino, The Wrestler, Brokeback Mountain, 2 Days in Paris, The Queen, The Reader, Rachel Getting Married, Revolutionary Road, Baby Mama, Burn After Reading, Taken, Friends with Money, American Teen, The September Issue, The Siege, Annie Hall, Adventureland, Broken Flowers, Valentino: The Last Emperor, He’s Just Not That Into You, (500) Days of Summer, Dead Snow, Moon, Away We Go, Zombieland, Where The Wild Things Are.

Live Shows:

Sydney Festival First Night, Eagles of Death Metal, Animal Collective, Why?

Let’s hope I spend less time notating my favourite foods in 2010 and more time going to shows and hanging out with people who aren’t on a screen.

This morning I was sitting in a doctor’s waiting room with a young dad and his daughter. She was super cute, wearing a pink outfit with shiny curly hair. But when her dad wouldn’t let her play with the water dispenser thing, it was all over. She collapsed face down on the carpet, kicked her feet and pounded her fists and screamed like a possessed rabies victim for a good 10 minutes. Far from annoyed, I wished it was acceptable for me – a 23-year-old woman – to join her.

You see, I’ve been on holidays for a bit over a week and I go back to work tonight. I woke up this morning feeling like I was Sean Penn in Dead Man Walking. I wanted a cigarette, I wanted Susan Sarandon and I wanted someone to explain to me how I, a convicted murderer, could access so much hair gel. Also I felt like it was my execution date, obviously.

One of the things I had planned to do in my holidays – apart from eat my body weight in nachos, sleep until noon and watch a lot of Oprah – was look through my childhood photos. And boy did I find some good ones:

Clearly I was born a very camp man. I don’t have a lot to say about this picture other than “Hello laaaadies”.

Oh my goodness that fringe looks like a piece of wholemeal Helga’s hanging from my forehead. This is me on a very exciting trip to the Zig Zag railway in the Blue Mountains. And I’m not even being sarcastic, it was exciting.  I used to wear this jumper to pre-school and, somehow, whenever I ate kiwi fruit it would end up covered in blue, red and yellow strands of wool. I also remember blaming this on my friend Hannah. She deserved it.

That’s me in the blue hat smoking the pipe. Not the old guy to the left, in case you were confused. The old fella is my grandpa, Da. He was a true character. We’re sitting on the verandah of my grandparents’ house on the Central Coast. It was the best house ever for kids – heaps of room, right near the beach, a packed sweetie jar and pretty sweet-ass grandparents. The pipe I’m smoking like a pro was one of those plastic ones filled with sherbet. They’ve probably outlawed them now along with fads, golliwogs and flammable pyjamas.

Here I am just casually relaxing in the garden. What a surprise to see you! You’d think I’d be ashamed of my unconventional layering – I know my dad sure kept his distance from me in public when I dressed like this. While I can see now I look a little bit like someone who might have a penchant for dreamcatchers and poor bathing habits, it was actually the beginning of my interest with experimenting with fashion and clothes. I got the singlets from a sale in Miss Shop, the green petticoat from a hippy-ish shop in Orange and I made the purple skirt underneath. While I’ve ditched sewing my own clothes – because I was utter crap, with no sign of improvement – I still raid sales like a truffle pig and find treasures in most unexpected places.

This is me at the beginning of year 12. I’d just cut off my waist-length hair in a moment of teenage heartbreak – a story that could actually be the script for a box office flop. You see, I’d started dating this weird dude who talked about nunchucks a lot (you can’t judge me, I was a teenager and there’s scientific evidence to show teenagers date losers obsessed with weapons because their brains aren’t fully formed yet. That’s right, I skim New Scientist magazine). A few weeks into our love affair he announced he was leaving town to join the Army. He said he would call and write and visit when he could. I was actually semi relieved because I wanted to nail the HSC and make like a shepherd and get the flock out of Orange. I got one letter which was a vague break up letter. Then I found out he’d been back in town to bone one of the predictable mingas in my year. Sigh! Anyway, it turns out I got a great haircut and he got to shoot stuff. Win/Win.

Here I am celebrating with a glass of champagne after finishing my last HSC exam. My last one was three unit English and by that time I had completely run out of puff. There was one subject in year 12 that I pretty much had to teach myself because the teacher was unaware of a fangled, crazy idea called a syllabus. It was months of unadulterated torture. There were panic attacks, tantrums and thoughts of driving myself off something very high into something very hard. I remember watching the final two minutes of that horrible period tick by on the clock in the exam hall, waiting for life to begin. It was the most glorious feeling ever.

This is the J-man and I in our second year of love. I think we were just coming out of the stage where people couldn’t bear to be around us. God, couples can be gross. I’m sorry to all we offended with our public saliva swapping, declarations of love and groping. Now we just settle for the good old train station/supermarket/party/pub spoon.

As I walked to work a few days ago I passed a shop that was being painted. The strong smell of fresh paint transported me immediately to my Catholic high school classroom in winter. There was no particular memory but suddenly I wasn’t walking to work frowning; instead I was sitting on the crappy green carpet in my thick maroon kilt/dress, which Catholic schools enjoy because it guarantees you look so much like a sack of potatoes noone will ever love you or touch your ungodly bits.

But I just love that feeling when something – a smell, a song, a taste or a sound – makes you instantly relive a part of your life in real time. So I decided to take a little more notice of it to see where else I could time travel.

PEANUT BUTTER: I love peanut butter. Love it on toast, straight from the jar, mixed with chocolate, blended in milkshakes or licked off strangers’ faces. I probably eat it everyday – it goes so well with coffee. During uni I discovered another great way to eat it was smeared on those corn thin crackers. Around about this time I did work experience at a place I shall call The Lame-o Crud Face Company For Jerks (TLCFCFJ). Unlike a lot of other places I did work experience, the powers that be at TLCFCFJ gave me sweet fuck all to do. Even when I kindly asked, said I was free or introduced myself to new people – you know, all the soul destroying things people recommend you do as a work experience dweeb – I was abruptly rejected. I was staying in a town hundreds of kilometres away from my home and feeling very vulnerable, so I took it all a bit personally.

TLCFCFJ also had their internet heavily filtered so I could only really look at their intranet and ponder the mysteries of their HR protocols. Every day I would watch the clock, holding off having lunch until about 2, so that when I finished I only had 2 hours until I could leave. So I would sit in their sunny lunch room eating peanut butter on corn thins. As I discovered, swallowing peanut butter and choking back tears simultaneously is hard work. I ended up feeling okay about the experience in the end when, at the end of the two weeks, just as the boss was giving me a fairly average assessment, his mobile phone signalled he had a text message with a farting sound. Dude, I don’t need your approval. Anyhoot, I can’t eat peanut butter on corn thins now without being immediately transported to the most crushing two weeks of my life. Up yours, TLCFCFJ.

WATTLE:  The smell of wattle actually brings back a lot of memories. But the strongest memory by far is the time I pooped my pants during sport in primary school. Actually, pooped my netball skirt would be more accurate.  I was a little dramatic in Year 2 – a totally unreserved show-off, bordering on bully. But that all changed one fateful, hot Friday. I guess maybe I’d told my teacher I was nearing death one too many times because when I told her I had an enormous pain in my guts, so sharp it took my breath away, she ignored me and told me to come with the rest of my grade to a sports oval near the school for cross-country practice. She let me sit under a wattle tree with my best friend and another disturbed girl who was known for coming to school sans underpants and using … that … as her news item.

At one point I remember the pain moved further down in my guts until, I can’t put this delicately, I parped and then pooped. And let’s just say I must have had bad vindaloo the night before. Other than the telling pain, there had been no sign it was going to get to this point. I remember just looking at my friend as she looked back at me in stunned silence, we were both thinking ‘this is it, this is the end’. Worst of all really, I was wearing a netball skirt so there was no hiding my shame. My teacher made me walk at the back of the group on the way back to school and I remember looking down at my newly , umm … tanned, legs, burning with utter shame. Weirdly though, no one made fun of me. I probably pooped myself at exactly the right time in life when kids looked at me and felt sympathy, knowing it hadn’t been so long since they were in nappies. The school called my dad to come and pick me up. The poor fella took me home, put me in the shower and once I was clean, took me to his office. I remember one of the receptionists saying “you do look flushed you poor thing”, and when I looked at my dad he just had this unforgettable expression on his face, which told me I should never, ever talk about this day again.

RADIOHEAD, KID A: I love this album. But it was the soundtrack to a very painful few months of my life. At least at the time it was very painful. Now it’s just a great story to tell over and over again to my friends in group therapy. I had met the J-man at uni, fell for him hard, kissed him a few times, shared my bed with him once and pretty much did everything I could to tell him I loved the hell out of him. I more or less walked around wearing a sandwich board saying, “You will be mine”. The beginning of uni alone was a very confusing time for me. I had begun living in a dorm with about 20 others and, since that day under the wattle tree, I can be very reserved around new people. Aside from one girl, the people I lived with did not react well to this. I wasn’t freaky peer-at-you-through-the-key-hole kind of quiet, but just didn’t participate in conversations about the weirdest colour my puke had ever been (ask me about my poop and there’s an epic greater than Homer’s Illiad) and I couldn’t join them at the uni bar for a long time because I was underage. So I just did my own thing, which I think they found difficult to understand. I mean if you can play drinking games every night with your dormies, why wouldn’t you? Right? Right? Holler!

I was also really, really  reserved around Joel at first as well. While I understand it was difficult for him, I still stand by my behaviour in those first few months of sporadic makeouts. He was a theatre student.  A loud, confident, popular theatre student. I was always nervous that whatever I had to say would not compare to whatever one of his theatre mates had just said about Bertolt Brecht. And you know, I wasn’t sure if I should be talking to him in character, singing or using symbolism to communicate. One night we sat together in dining hall with a lot of my dormies looking at me and giggling. So of course, I had nothing to say except *blush* *giggle*. And that was the beginning of the end (well, until he proposed three months ago, sucker!), he didn’t see much point continuing to hang out if I wasn’t going to talk to him. Fair enough, really. But it made me hate myself. I thought I had been so desperate and pathetic. I wished I could talk to him, show him how cool I was, listen to music with him and just be together. So every night for what felt like months, I would put on Radiohead’s Kid A and listen, discovering new things about it on each listen. I would cry, think things through, resist temptation to call him, and fall asleep to its spacey sounds.

It sounds like I’m a rock and roll preacher but with enough listens I got the strength to move on, delete his number and attempt to forget about him. Until one night, he sent me a text message about Bjork and the rest is history. I can’t listen to this album now without thinking about those nights I spent under dull light, not knowing how things would end up.

MY TAXI DRIVER’S B.O: This story might make you gag. I was certainly surprised, confused and disturbed when I got in a taxi after work a couple of nights ago, took a deep breath and rode the wave of my taxi driver’s B.O right back to a high school disco. The old cabbie’s pitts were emitting a strong scent, barely masked with what must have been the Lynx deodorant so popular among boys at my high school. Suddenly I wasn’t in a taxi anymore, there I was nervously quivering in the arms of someone I shall refer to as Barry Otter Young. I had the biggest, longest-running crush on BOY in high school. He was my first kiss, he played guitar and he was older. As appears to be a theme in my love life, I was convinced we had to be together but he was very resistant to my persistent charms. The only time BOY would ever come near me was at school discos, where he would hold me in his arms and attempt to bump and grind. I’m actually pretty sure, looking back, he liked to do it to torture me. “Here’s another taste, little lady,” I imagine him saying. Once you graduate from teenage-ship I don’t think you ever feel that same adrenaline-rushing-heart-pumping-mouth-drying-hyperventilating-headache-loin-tingle thing every single time you think about or see your crush. You get a version of it when you’re older but it’s not quite the same. But breathing in that scent the other night, I got a small replay of that feeling. I’m pretty sure if the taxi driver knew what was going on, he would buy that deodorant in bulk and set up a whole different kind of business.

Now that I’m a member of the beige, frowning army of lemmings known as the employed, I pine for my university days. I think I made the most of them – I drank enough beer to cultivate my own little wobbly gut, I met my beloved man friend, I learnt things, I slept more than I care to say. I also once let off fireworks in a paddock behind my dormitory before painting my face army-style and carrying a giant log around campus just because I could. I remember the sheer relief I felt every Sunday afternoon upon finishing work behind a checkout. Yep, my working “week” was over and there was nothing ahead of me except five days of blue skies, half-burnt Sargent’s Pies and trivia Tuesdays. Dudes, that was the shiz.

A couple of weeks ago, a few friends and I decided to return to the scene of several crimes, but this time do it in style. Without a student budget the possibilities were endless. Bottles of wine! Sirloin steaks! Clean underpants! Warm jackets! Cocktails! Antiques shopping! Buying narcotics from teenage mums!

So here’s a little trip down memory lane:

This is the fringe and eyes of my friend Tegan as she drove out of our driveway and onto the freeway of…freedom. It should be noted that not only is Tegan incredibly stylish and smart but she’s a kick-ass driver. Which is a relief because even I get sick of driving with me and my white knuckles.

One of the first things we wanted to see when we arrived was the street I remembered as being action-packed. Everything that happened happened right here. Clearly I was so focussed on getting to the amazing French patisserie down the end of the road that I didn’t realise I was living in a city abandoned in the year 80BC.

I found this graffiti a little ironic. Because in my experience of ghetto life, those who draw devils on public property are unlikely to be in school themselves. Alanis Morrisette was going to include that insight in her hit song but it didn’t quite fit.

After exploring the town we had our long-awaited Sirloin steaks at a classy restaurant we could only dream about as students. As it turned out the waiter was distracted, my steak was over-cooked and there was nothing on the damned menu served with gold leaf.

Then, much to the joy of those in our company, the J-man and I wanted to revisit the seedy corner of a beer garden where we first kissed. It was exactly like it is in this picture, with him sitting daintily on my lap and me stealing his innocence right out from under him. It later emerged he made out with two other girls on the same fateful eve. Ah well, gotta take ‘em for a test drive.

Later we hit the dancefloor at a pub where the DJ clearly had no sense of fun. You do not, I repeat do not, put weird house beats clumsily over a perfectly dance-worthy Pink – sorry P!nk – song. This photo makes me smile because I spent two whole years mesmerised by my friend Bron’s ability to shake her bootay. For real, this girl can dance.

The next day, some of us having taken a puke for old time’s sake, we went up to uni to remember on-campus life with all its perverted dormies, gastro bugs, conjunctivitis and nudie runs. In true student style, tea bags were stuck on the wall next to us, obviously having been thrown in a moment of reckless spontaneity. Two of us had to wee and it was nice going in to the heated bathrooms with the familiar smear of post-adolescent boy poop stuck to the bowl. We did get caught by the residential advisor who, after some convincing, let us stay so we could relieve ourselves.

And, our final stop, the first student house I lived in. There are many tales to tell from the year I spent living here with my sister, her boyfriend my friend Liam. I’ll just give you snippets. Junkie fights across the road. Beer on the deck. Vines growing up the interior walls. Epic CD listening nights. Broken fridge. Halloween movie marathons. Mice plague. Treats from the corner store. Oven with dodgy thermostat. Over-the-top Jesus decorations.  Hallway for a bedroom. Village Fair champagne breakfast.

Take me home.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what a 13 year Catholic education and a brief stint at being a believa has left on me. Let me just say first off, that my few months of being a hardcore Christian where in about year 4 or 5 when I thought god could deliver me a boyfriend or a pair of boobs. And my 13 year Catholic education was, I think, because my olds thought the Catholic schools in my hometown were the best ones.

I spent a lot of my late teens being very cynical about my Catholic teachers and my compulsory religious studies classes. I found it frustrating that my school played the Catholic card to harass girls about wearing makeup or jewellery or make boys cut their hair. I remember thinking that, for the most part, Catholic school teachers were total dumb-asses who only got the job because they’d been baptised. Also, sex education totally blew (ha!) Along with a bunch of other things, it made me resent religion.

But there were some things that I think back on very fondly. And one of those things is Easter time. I always loved Easter church services because by this time of year it would usually be chilly and I thought being huddled in a church with a bunch of glowing candles around was really cosy. Also on Good Friday there’s a fun service where they turn all the lights out, which gave way to the possibility that you could totally make out with someone while we all thought of Jeebus. Plus they always played us the Jesus movies at school, which because they spanned over the big guy’s entire life would block out at least half the day for about a week. In high school, we got to watch the one starring Jeremy Sisto as a mega hottie in robes.

So it’s left me with a real love of the Easter season. I’ve kind of wanted to wander into beautiful old churches and watch the sun stream in through the stained-glass windows and dye boiled eggs and perve on Sisto. I also love Easter at home because as always, my mum puts on a real show with gallons of red wine, warming dinners, good chocolate and candles.  My grandma used to do the same. I’ll try and re-create the awesome in the office on Easter Sunday. Sob.

I have some super lovely memories of Bill Gardiner, the wet-nosed part beagle, part other who died yesterday after a long life of sniffing, biting, barking, drooling and generally living a dog’s life.

When we got Bill I was so little that he could rest his front paws on my shoulders. We got him from a farm, after what seemed like months of going to the RSPCA to look at poor little dogs in cages.

His previous owners had named him Dave, which is my dad’s name, so we had to change it because as mum joked – what would the neighbours think when we called out telling him to get ready to go for a walk or eat his dinner from a bowl?

I desperately wanted him to be called Ranger Dave, or Ranger for short, because at the time I was a big fan of the animal show Totally Wild. Thank god I didn’t succeed.

Bill went missing one night when there were fireworks near our house and I remember we went looking for him in the car, most of us teary. He would often escape in the first days of being a Gardiner and would harrass female dogs in nearby yards. When he got fixed, he became more of an old man who would definitely wear velour slippers.

Bill could sense how you were feeling a lot of the time. I remember lots of tantrums and teen angst moments in the backyard when Bill would come and sit down next to me and force his head under my arm. He shamelessly loved belly rubs, eating, napping and running after rabbits. He was so sweet and I’ll really miss him and his little antenna tail.

 List seven habits/quirks/facts about yourself.

1. The time I accidentally pooped myself in year 2 at a running carnival wearing a netball skirt still haunts me to this day.
2. I broke my nose when I fell off my trike into a ditch while chasing my sisters in the olde towne of Boorowa. The whole thing scabbed over and I still have a small scar under my nostril. My beloved Joel re-broke my nose the very first time I went to visit him in his home town of Copacabana. We were swimming together and he was playing silly buggers under the water and when I bent over to see what was going on, he leapt out of the water like Free Willy and headbutted me fair in the schnoz. He denies he broke it but I ask you what does a cracking sound, heavy bleeding, bruising and a different nose shape generally mean?
3. I have inherited my mum’s habit of throwing everything away. It used to bug me when I was a teenager and I would leave something on the table for 15 seconds only to find it in the bin, but now I am her.
4.  When I listen to my iPod I imagine a movie of my life set to that soundtrack. I have mentally nominated several songs I would like played at my funeral/wedding or convenientlyplaying when someone kisses me in the rain or murders me in an alley and I will then haunt  the killer with Whoopi Goldberg Patrick Swayze styles.
5. The other night I went out and ate heaps and heaps of ribs and it reminded me of the time when my grandpa came to visit in Orange and we went out for dinner and he had ribs. He got the sauce all over his face and hands and when the waitress asked if she could get him anything, he replied, “a bath”. Thinking about that time as I was covered in rib sauce made me really miss him.
6. After my first kiss, the dude told lots of people at school that I had tried to eat his face.
7. I lived above a shop when I was at uni in Bathurst and it was so sun-shiny and beautiful and I really miss drinking beers on our porch that overlooked a manky carpark.

I can’t tag seven people because I’m pretty sure I don’t actually have seven friends.

Dear former dormie who now catches the same bus routes as me,

You know, yesterday you really embarrassed me when I waved at you and then pretended to be fixing my hair because you icily ignored my friendly gesture.

I know we weren’t the best of friends when we lived together all those years ago, but we got along okay. Didn’t we? Don’t you think it’s weird where life has brought us? To the same place, well the same bus route at least.

The thing is, I don’t want to sit next to you on the bus either, I just acknowledge you because that’s what two people who lived together for an entire year might do. If you’re worried I want to have an awkaward chat about the old times, you’re wrong.

I don’t want to reminisce about the time several members of our dorm got a stomach bug and I heard you loudly emptying the contents of your bowels and your stomach, sometimes at the same time, for every night for most of a week.

I also don’t want to talk to you about how I heard you giving it to your uptight girlfriend a couple of times.

I probably wouldn’t even bring up the fact that you playing Jack Johnson songs on your guitar over and over made me want to drag a sharp object across my eyeballs.

You might tell me how everyone thought I was little weird because I didn’t like sitting up until 2am every night talking to a bunch of twats about losing my virginity or going to the beach with my girlfriends or why there is always corn in puke.

Or how I really “came out of my shell” after Lip Sync.

Just so you know, I’m not bitter about my whole first year dorm experience at all and I hope you are really happy.

Next time, I’ll just look right through you like it never even happened.

Love,
Steve.

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!

 The Bill is blaring out of my olds’ teevee as we speak. The Bill and I go way back – I remember mum and dad used to send us to bed on Saturday nights before The Bill. I assumed it must be full of sex and other interesting things so a couple of times I hid behind the couch and watched it. When I was finally allowed to hang out with the coppers down the nick, I could hardly keep my eyes open until 9:30. But now, CID, the ‘scrotes’ in uniform and the ‘top brass’ are like my family. And also like my boyfriends. Here are a few of my favourite characters….just don’t grass me, or I’ll give you a right bollockin’

Oh Jack Meadows. You always have been my favourite. You’re so strong and manly and personally, I think you’ve gotten more sexual as time has gone by. I remember when you hooked up with the prozzie, but I forgive you. Just hold me close, that’s all.

Mickey Webb. Again, I’d like to shack up with you and be your missus. It’s unfortunate you were sexually assaulted in a park, but we can work through it together over a few pints down the pub. 

Phil Hunter – pronounced ‘Phiw Hunna’. I think its the whole bad boy, ‘I cheated on my wife, snogged a crim’s laydee, cared for my illegitimate child’ thing. A man with a coupla kids always gets me. He’s also really good at his job and also has awesome lines like, ‘why were my arrestin’ officers sittin’ around pickin’ their noses!’.

Zain Nadir – Oh yeah, a new boy on the block. And just like Marky Mark, I think he’d look good in an underwear ad. Only a top secret undercover underwear ad operation though. 

Steph: Please, take me down the nick. I have something I want to show you all….and it’s in my pants. 
Mickey: Oh yeh, darlin’ what’s that about?
Phil: I bet I could tell ya Mickey
Jack: A little bit of respect for the lady. You are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. You do not have to say anything when questioned…
Zain: *pouty*
Steph: *grenade in pants explodes killing all*  

In fact I think that may have been a plot line when Daniel McPherson was still around.