time after time

July 4th, 2011 § 1

Poor Stevie: A Timeline

1986 – Born in country NSW. My parents take one look at my angelic face and give me a name, meaning “the feminine version of Stephen” in ancient Greek.

1989 – In another country town I get run over by a blind man and ride my trike into a ditch. I am left with a nose that resembles a Picnic, which is actually my favourite chocolate bar.

1990 – I start preschool. My passion for playsuits, cloudy apple juice and naps continues to this day.

1993 – I get busted for “trick or treating”, or demanding other kids’ food in the playground, and am pulled up by the arm to stand in front of the whole school. The image of the smirking flame-haired Kindergarten girl, who dobbed on me after she lost her Smarties to my rebel cause, remains seared into my retinas.

1996 – I am named a state finalist in Nestle Write Around Australia competition for my gripping novella”Where The Big Boys Play”. At the time, I was vaguely Christian and believed I heard the voice of God telling me I would win right before I did. I also prayed for a boyfriend and got one. Take that starving African kids! The Lord has better things to do!

1997 – I am named school captain of my primary school. In my spare time I play tenor horn and take singing lessons on Sundays with a bunch of Christian kids. Retrospect tells me my election victory may have been cruel prank.

1998 – I begin high school and wear plastic pegs in my hair ala Mai from Heartbreak High. Also pick up weird habit of showing my sister’s friends my pink bra straps. People do not want to be my friend. God stops answering my prayers.

1999 – I have my first kiss at a school disco. Boy goes on to tell others I tried to “eat his face”. I did not.

2000 – I try to learn the guitar with a friend. I only learn the opening strains of Hole’s Violet and Everlast’s What It’s Like.

2001 – I get braces to close a gap in my front teeth. I totally nab the hottest guy in school and things are looking up. He is a sweet God botherer, who gets worried when he thinks his mum may have seen me hold his hand. He skateboards and is in a band called Skankn 24/7. I love him, but we break up during rehearsals for Bye Bye Birdy. He goes on to lose his virginity. I do not.

2003 – I study for the HSC. I cry at Big W checkout after finding out I “only” scored in the low 90s. Someone punches me in the face, I wish.

2004 – I start university. I spot hot dude on my first day. Older sister tells me to stay away from him because he does a theatre degree and is guaranteed to have herpes. He goes on to become my husband.

2005 – I move into a share house where plants grow through the floorboards and mice roam freely. I exist on a diet of Sargent’s Pies and licorice allsorts. Housemates spend a lot of time waiting to use the bathroom.

2006 – I edit the university newspaper. During a bitter battle with the conservative student board, I write a blistering editorial under the heading “The pen is mightier than the sword” in the early hours of deadline day. The edition comes back and the heading turns out to be “The pen that is mighter that teh sword;;”

2007 – We move to Sydney. We acquire a yellow couch from J-man’s aunt. Vinnies go on to refuse to take the now-brown couch off our hands.

2010 – We get married and travel the world. Burt Reynolds and Jon Voight go on to star in a movie based on our time in Bulgaria.

2011 – We return to Australia. On the anniversary of the day we left, July 4, I wake up with conjunctivitis.

 


vale

June 14th, 2011 § 1

A couple of weeks ago I visited my grandmother Mamie in her bright room at a nursing home near Newcastle. She was bedridden after a stroke six months ago. Sitting up in bed with her hair freshly washed and bouffant, she asked me to open the curtains so she could look out onto a garden as she dozed. That afternoon, with my mum, uncle and two aunts, we sat around her chatting. I stroked her hair, held her hand and cleaned her nails for her. As we all finally left for the afternoon, she said: “Abyssinia Samoa”. I didn’t understand at first, but mum translated the 1940s-style play on words for me as “I’ll be seeing you some more”. As I left the room I looked back in to see the others saying goodbye and, with her face left almost expressionless by the effects of the stroke, her eyes twinkled back at them.

My final visit to her perfectly summed up the Mamie I loved and the woman I hope to emulate.

Her shiny ebony hair dotted with a trim of bright silver was the final hint of her glamour. I never thought she dressed like an old woman; she wore bright blouses, red lipstick and Chanel perfume. She would wear beautiful, delicate rings on her olive-skinned hands.

Her request to open the curtains to look at the garden was kind of symbolic. She managed to take pleasure in the smallest of things and was always sunny and positive. Mamie would often loudly give thanks for everything around her – the music, the view, a vase of flowers, a friend who had sent her a card, a good article in the paper, an excellent cup of tea, a delicious chocolate.

Her silly joke to me was also pretty typical. She had a cheeky sense of humour and would have a real belly laugh at jokes, with her head tilted right back and her hands gripping the couch cushions. When she got a bit tipsy from her nightly scotch or a couple of glasses of wine, her cheeks would go red and the jokes would get as close to dirty as she could muster.

Her twinkling eyes were something she saved for people she loved. She would twinkle for her children, her grandchildren, her beloved sisters, her friends and, in the end, her loyal carers, and even her pharmacist. She had a habit of referring to everyday people as “my friend” because she was social butterfly, constantly seeking out good company. Everyone who ever got to know her well got the privilege of her twinkle.

Even though that afternoon was my final moment with her, I will also always remember the years when she was able to play with us in the surf, climb rocks, collect shells, indulge herself and us at the David Jones Food Hall or makeup department, take us to concerts at the Opera House, dance around the house to our choice of music, play imaginary games with us and chat for hours on the phone, often about her world travels and childhood.

Lots of people look underwhelmed when you say you’ve lost a grandparent. For some, I think it goes hand in hand with “I have a cold” or “the dog ate my homework”. But my sisters and I were fortunate enough to build real, loving, long-lasting relationships with each of our grandparents to the point where I felt they were an extra set of parents.

I’m not sure I’m doing Mamie justice. I think my sister Julia did it much better, so did my sister Mary.

Goodbye, darling.

50 foot queenie

May 16th, 2011 § 2

I read so many crappy columns written by women about why they wanted to watch the royal wedding, despite being feminists in favour of a republic. I read things like “All girls secretly love weddings!” “All girls secretly love romance!” “All girls secretly want to be princesses!”. Well, it turns out I must be a big ol’ man – one of those unfortunate ones born with their junk on the inside – because I don’t secretly love any of that.

Sure, I look at a lot of wedding photos, but that’s only because it’s so satisfying to see what my high school enemies are up to. Quite often their weddings involve XXXX Gold, a cavalcade of Holden Commodores and a child who does not have the same skin colour as its father. I don’t particularly enjoy romance. Look up the phrase “dead inside” in the dictionary and you’ll find a picture of me. Frowning. And I could never be a princess because I think they gave the title Duchess of Potato Bake to Fergie.

So here’s where it gets real. Some people love heroin, others like to binge drink, but my dangerous and unpopular vice is a love of all things royal family. And, as I’m sure Prince Harry would say, if you don’t like it you can suck it.

To change gears here a little, I think my fascination comes from my beloved paternal grandmother, Corelly. I cannot describe how cool my grandparents’ house was to visit as a little kid. There was an orchard to run around in; a silver bowl filled with sugar cubes to suck on while hiding from adults behind a couch; tins of home-cooked treats; honey on toast cut into soliders every morning; a freezer full of choc-coated ice creams; rooms with spacemen and soldier wallpaper; a cupboard full of old, weird books and a vintage telephone; a ride-on lawnmower; a ping pong table; a sheepskin rug to tiptoe on; a dresser full of beads and costume jewellery; a cappuccino maker used to make cups of froth; a giant organ to learn Beatles songs on; a long hallway to run up and down and a scary staircase to lock your siblings/cousins in. When I was old enough to read, I started spending a lot of time flipping through my grandmother’s stash of Woman’s Day, New Idea and Women’s Weekly. Nan totally loved the royal family and it was something I felt I could bond with her over as a primary school girl. Princess Diana died on the day of my confirmation and I remember hearing the news on the radio as I drove home with Dad, feeling strongly for the first time like I was living in a historic day. On the day of her funeral, I was sleeping over at a friends’ house and her mum made us sit and watch while she cried on the couch. Around the same time, Mum and I would spend Sundays watching a dramatic series about Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson as we snacked on salty chick peas. As I got older, my interest in the royal family was also an easy way to learn about different periods of history. My fascination with King George III and his mysterious purple wee informed my knowledge of the Georgian era (and wee!). Edward and dirty old Mrs Simpson helped me get interested in learning about the lead-up to World War II. One of my favourite books is The Royal Book of Lists, which is a collection of trivia about which kings died of syphilis (King Henry VIII and King Edward VI) and which royals were related (all of them).

So it was only natural that I wanted to watch the royal wedding, despite being a bit of a femmo and a republican (as in, the go-away-royal-family kind). There was little to no cooing over the dress, the kiss or the fact that she was becoming a princess. No indeed, I was dressed as King Edward VIII, got totally sloshed on Pimm’s and made a lot of royal dick jokes. And as Prince Charles would say: “Oh God, I’ll just live inside your trousers or something”.

the hangover two

April 19th, 2011 § 0

Yeah, so where were we? Oh, yeah. That’s right – me being all lame in Las Vegas.

I can assure you, that lameness continued during our second day in Vegas. Unlike everyone else in that crazy city with their fake boosies, Flinstone houses and sparkly fanny packs, I hate spending money. I’m a cautious person. Just now I scolded J-man for washing the hand-held blender while it was still plugged in and told him to cook the chicken through. You have to be so careful when it comes to electricity and chicken.

So J-man had to convince me to re-marry him before Elvis Christ. Over lunch that day he talked me into a $200 wedding package at Graceland Wedding Chapel, the very same place Jon Bon Jovi Christ married his wife in 1989.

On my real wedding day, I spent the morning painting my nails, doing my hair and sweating. On the morning of my second wedding day, I walked with my love through Red Rock Canyon. It was truly one of the most beautiful national parks we visited. It’s just like the America I imagined – magnificent and slightly eery, with plenty of places to hastily bury bodies to the sound of duelling banjos in the background.

red rock

Later that night, we went back to our seedy motel room and got gussied up. Just after night fell, a stretch limo picked us up and drove us up the strip to the chapel. J-man had never been in a limo before and was pressing all the buttons and marvelling at the television screens tuned to AV and the (empty) in-car bar. Oh J-man, what a novice. I, on the other hand, was once taken to a Justin Timberlake concert in a stretch hummer with a bunch of strangers who plied me with alcohol in the name of building professional relationships (I never heard from them again, like most people who have a) talked to me and b) seen me dance while mouthing the words to Sexy Back).

When we went inside the chapel, Elvis was not in the building. The two blonde receptionists, complete with teased hair, entertained us by showing us photos of Hamish and Andy’s wedding at the very same chapel. We all agreed it was strange that Andy would marry Hamish, when he had steak at home.

They pinned a rose on J-man’s shirt and handed me a bouquet and then a very sweaty Elvis appeared. It was a Tuesday night and it was clear Elvis would have preferred to be at home gently stroking his shag pile carpet. He quickly ushered us into the chapel, gave us a little run down, before walking me down the aisle; something I didn’t let my own dad do in the name of being an Independent Woman (the rock I’m rockin’, I bought it).

I walked down the aisle to Only Fools Rush In, exchanged Elvis-themed vows with J-man (“I promise never to step on your blue suede shoes”) and hammed it up for the cameras:

elvis3

elvis1

elvis2

Photies by Graceland Wedding Chapel.

When I look back at the photos, it’s clear I’m kind of getting over it towards the end and probably, judging from my bloated face, jonesing for some curly fries. But I remember leaving the chapel feeling absolutely euphoric. I was happy that we capped off our American adventure with something completely frivolous and crazy. And dudes, I may make fun of J-man all the time, but I would totally marry him a third time.

the hangover

April 12th, 2011 § 0

I wasn’t really looking forward to Las Vegas. I don’t drink a lot, I like to go to bed at 10pm and I can only play snap. Translation: I have a huge stick up my jacksie.

Driving into Vegas, I wasn’t exactly reassured because, in the harsh light of day, it looks like a freshly shaved armpit:

vegas

That night we decided to go to the strip. I painted my lips red, put on a new jacket and did my hair in an 80s bun, ready to hit the town. But I needn’t have dressed up because, despite what the documentary The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills would have you believe, Las Vegas isn’t the most glamourous place. There are a lots of desperate people sweating over their chips, sad-looking morbidly obese people wheeling around in mopeds and midgets trying to force you to into live porn shows. And boy was I getting sick of doing live porn.

Also, I was worried people would mistake me for a dealer in my cheesy jacket:

vegas jacket

Also, Celine Dion was there:

celine

Also, even the sky was fake in Vegas:

sky

Later, we had accidental $30 drinks at The Bellagio, almost paid a $12 transaction fee at an ATM and J-man got elbowed out of a Blackjack game. It was a little depressing, so we sought out some wildlife at The Flamingo:

flamingo2

Yep, actual flamingos at The Flamingo. Trust the Hiltons to make money from their pink bits.

flamingo

But turns out Flamingos smell like Flamingo poop, so we did the walk of shame back to our motel, having come to Vegas and failed at gambling, drinking and having fun.

The next day we had to up the ante. Let’s just say it involved a limo, Elvis and tears over tapas.

Here’s a little peep show:

wedding

To be continued.

orlando magic

March 25th, 2011 § 1

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.

like i love you

February 27th, 2011 § 0

Sometimes people ask me why did you marry J-man? Sure, he lets me eat food off his plate, buys me flowers twice in one week and strokes my head while telling baby animal stories when I can’t sleep. But just now? He made me soak his white t-shirt after he’d spilt homemade pizza sauce on it while making my dinner. It’s a lot for me to deal with when I’m trying to watch TV.

So it’s just as well he has the world’s stupidest sense of humour:

lunchbox

The reason this makes me laugh is not so much the fact that I can imagine J-man, who insists he’s some kind of professional, will leave it somewhere after a really important meeting. It’s mostly because it reminds me a lot of what I was like as an eight-year-old neighbourhood roughian. This is the kind of stuff I used to write on my wooden ruler. Once I sent an invitation to a picnic to a boy in the street with instructions to: “eat my shorts”. This is the same boy to whom I sent an anonymous Valentine’s Day card bearing the greeting “You Tickle My Fancy and I Fancy Your Tickle”, not fully understanding the glaringly creepy sexual overtones. I hate myself, I really do. It’s lucky I even found someone to marry.

PS. Just FYI, I’ve been meaning to BRB lately, but I’ve been trying to sort out the backend of my life. You may think I finally booked that appointment with the backend doctor, but I really mean “backend” as in, “offline”, life. We need to find a house! LOL.

for hire

February 4th, 2011 § 0

A list of weird things about being non-employed (I don’t like the word ‘unemployed’ as it has connotations of drinking XXXX Gold, eating dog food and spying on my neighbours through two toilet rolls I have come to believe are x-ray glasses).

Caring too much: Today I walked past a newsagent and gagged on my cola slurpie when I saw a tabloid revealing why Kim Kardashian wants to adopt a baby. For the next 10 or 15 minutes I thought about that poor baby. Who is going to take care of it when the girls are doing a classy photoshoot on the beach next to a big dollar sign? What about Kim’s boozy new series based in New York? And, you guys, she said she would spend her year as a 30-year-old enjoying being single. She’s just so irresponsible. I started getting a little riled up. What about those of us who might not get a chance to have a baby because we have no bed, no home and currently store our underpants in a grey plastic bag? And then I realised … actual THINGS are happening in the world.

Sharing too much Staying at home all day long while the J-man and Julia work at their actual jobs that pay actual money that they can spend on actual things is really lonely. So by the time they get home I’m champing at the bit to talk to someone and tell them everything I know, like “nervous vomit” is the best YouTube search ever. And sometimes I forget that my marriage is actually a sacred, special bond between man and wife and not a semi-homoerotic, incestuous frat party. Like last night when I went into our bedroom and Joel was getting dressed after his shower. When I walked in, he told me I was mere milliseconds away from seeing his inner sanctum. So I yelled out to Julia and told her the good news. And now I’m telling you.

Crying too much  I know this is totally a first world version of torture, so excuse me while I complain about how hard it is, how unbelievably difficult and awful and gut-wrenching and sad that I have to walk past my favourite shops and resist the temptation to buy something. Today I went into Alannah Hill in the city and saw that she has started making short shorts. And not just any short shorts; short shorts in loud 70s patterns with frills, bows and polka dots. I held them up and admired them, my eyes welling with tears, before quickly putting them back on the rack and racing out of the shop. It’s not like I’d rock short shorts at the moment anyway. I mean, you really have to remember, I’m deathly pale from having been in Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, France, the UK, Spain and the US for the last few months. Woe is mine.

Guilt tripping If I am not on Seek, circling job ads in the paper with red texta or working my contacts (Hi Deirdre at Big W Bathurst!) 24 hours, seven days a week, I am mentally beating myself up about it in my spare time. No, I won’t meet you for drinks because what if someone emails me while I’m out. Sorry mum, I can’t talk to you on the phone because I’m keeping the line busy (Sorry Deirdre). Oh hay cousin Sophie, I know I said we’d catch up soon, but what if I miss being spotted by a talent scout while I sit in my pyjamas on the couch. I’m the only person in the world who is suffering. You should all think about that while you sit in your air-conditioned offices, you horrible employed useful members of society.

high five: the most romantic moments

January 19th, 2011 § 0

We’ve been home now for 11 days. I have spent the last few of those 11 days unexpectedly trying to get me a job. So, understandably, I have not been in the most romantic of moods. After you spend all day trying to sell yourself to strangers (on paper, that is), the last thing you feel like doing is getting weird and lovey dovey with your husband. Unless, of course, he pulls an excellent job opportunity out of his pocket and later reveals his generous super package.

So, all poor old J-man can do at the moment is read this here blog and remember the days when we were flushed with cash and in love.  From the bottom of my now cold, dead heart I bring you my five most romantic moments overseas:

lock

This is a neat tradition you see all over Europe. People put their initials on padlocks, lock ‘em to bridges or railings and throw the key in the water. How cheesy and disgusting. I would never do that.

Taking in the view of Florence from Piazza Michelangelo. To get to the top of this hill in Florence, you’re forced to walk past tiny shops with strings of fresh vegetables hanging on the door frames, buzzing wine bars and lovely Italian villas. As I trudged up the hill, I wasn’t expecting that much. It’s a view of a city, I thought, I could care less. Give me Real Housewives of Beverly Hills over this crapola any day. But, as it turned out, it’s not just any view. It’s a beautiful view on top of a lovely hill, where there are stalls to buy wine and warm chestnuts, people having their wedding photos taken and young couples huddling together on the steps. An autumn breeze blew lots of lovely aromas around and I just felt so content, happy and lucky to have such a wonderful J-man to share all of this with. A wonderful J-man who didn’t mind when I forgot that most Italians can speak English and blurted out: “Look! That boy matched his socks and undies! What colour are your undies today?!”

Taking the ferry in Venice. J-man, the vulgar romantic that he is, was planning to surprise me with a gondola ride. I pried his secret plans out of him with meticulous skill and then firmly told him no, I wasn’t interested. See, the thing is, gondola rides can cost more than 100 euro. Plus, if you want your rowing man to sing, you gotta pay even bigger bucks. At the time I felt like the grinch who stole my own marriage, but I’m glad we didn’t fork out a kidney and a half for foul touristy dross. Instead, we hopped on a public ferry that took us from our place, near the train station, around to San Marco in about 20 minutes. A lot of tourists had done the same thing, but there were also some genuine Venitian businessmen and families just going about their business and taking the ferry around the city. Plus, Venice is just beautiful and it’s hard not to get all wussy about it. When we got to San Marco, we walked around the square together and happily talked about our future. Gag, I know.

Going to Disneyland.  Throughout our trip, I was hoping that we would have enough money to visit Disneyland when we finally ended up in LA. I went to Tokyo Disneyland on a school trip, but J-man has never been and, you guys, he is the cutest when he’s excited. I would pay $80 just to see THAT. We went in mid-December and it was the perfect time of year to go, with every ride somehow Christmasafied. We started the day slowly, with the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters and the Storybook Land Canal Boats. I could see J-man was kind of bummed. This stuff’s for lame, idiot kids, I could hear him thinking. That was until I took him on the kablamo awesome that is Space Mountain. It blew his mind. Of course, we did the Mad Tea Party, Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and even It’s A Small World (CHRISTMAS!) My favourite was the Haunted Mansion, which was revamped in the style of Tim Burton’s A Nightmare Before Christmas (CHRISTMAS!) for Christmas. But, the best part of the day was when the sun went down and we sipped the famous Disneyland hot chocolate and watched the Christmas parade. It was nice to feel carefree and be swept up in the magic. Barf.

Hanging out in the Malasaña district, Madrid. Spain’s capital was the last stop on our four month trip around Europe and we were exhausted, dirty, a little bit sick and really over each other. Instead of visiting churches, museums and taking walking tours, we decided to take a little break. A little Spanish break, how quaint! So we saw lots of movies, including The Town (hello, Ben Affleck, touch me?), ate until our bellies hurt, drank Sangria, went to crazy food markets and slept in a lot. We spent a lot of time in Malasaña, just wandering around, checking out shops and cafes. One of my favourite moments was devouring an incredible red velvet cupcake in a deserted playground while it drizzled. Life is good, dudes. Vom.

Locking the shit out of our love on the Pont des Arts in Paris. OK, so we carved our initials into a padlock, attached it to the bridge and threw the keys into the water. Gross, right? Our last night in Paris was the only romantic night we actually planned, but it was so much more amazing than I could have hoped. We had dinner at the McDonald’s near the Louvre, in the hopes of having a Royal with Cheese (no such thing, apparently). I remember I was worried about something and J-man worked his usual magic and talked me down from the top of the (figurative) Eiffel Tower over a serve of cold fries. When we left the Louvre to head to the bridge, it was drizzling and, huddling under umbrellas, we happened to catch the sparkling light show on the tower. Then we did the deed on the bridge (edit: some readers have mistaken this for actually doing the actual deed on the bridge. I actually mean this is the point at which we attached the love lock to the bridge). Afterwards we went to a little, empty bar and sipped on mulled wine, sitting on purple velvet chairs. A little part of me will always be in that bar in Paris (lame).

the city sunset over me

January 8th, 2011 § 1

It’s the last ever night of our trip, ever.  It feels weird. We’re drinking beer and trying not to think about it.

One thing is for sure: I’m definitely not the same girl that left Australia on July 4, 2010.

departure

Photo totally stolen from Julia

My hair is longer, I think I’ve put on a  couple of kegs, I threw out those shoes in Greece after finding mould on them and those jeans are now navy blue with a hole in the crotch (I’m wearing them, anyway). Apart from those obvious changes, there a few more subtle differences now that I’ve seen the world, maaaan.

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