8.20am
Haul self out of bed, where I planted myself in a sulk last night after The Husband and I had a minor squabble that felt bigger than it was. The Husband is up already, stirring his rice porridge on the stove, ready for Auskick’s guest spot at the MCG.
“Hello!” he chirps. “I love you. Do we love each other today?”
“Yes,” I grunt. Back in the bedroom, I flinch as I pull on my jeans from the bedroom floor, where they seem to have absorbed the morning cold. A glance in the mirror, a brush of eye-shadow, fingers through my hair, and I’m out the door for take-away coffee. The Husband and I rendezvous at the train station, hunched into our black parkas.
8.56am
Train arrives. Sit backwards. Feel queasy. Determinedly sulk out the window.
“Sitting backwards makes me feel ill.”
“Oh, is that why you’re so grumpy?”
“NO.”
“Oh. Okay.”
The Husband resumes his serene gaze over the industrial straits of Kensington and North Melbourne.
9.15am(ish)
We walk from Flinders Street station to the MCG, along the river. The scenery is beautiful: bare-limbed European trees stark against the bleak sky; the Yarra a serene sheet of grey glass. Old-fashioned brick buildings, once sky-scrapers, squatting far below the cold modern columns of the CBD in the distance: the old Herald Sun building, with its block white letters silhouetted in the smoggy air, the gloomy post-splendour of the Forum. A Ferris wheel with pink-and-blue-and green seats stands by the river, beside a gelati and donut van and a roundabout, all of them empty. We cross the bridge over the tennis centre to the MCG and breathy voices whisper and chant by our knees, didgeridoo music swirling behind the song. The disembodied voices, indigenous storytellers, are emanating from loudspeakers built into the bridge. My head spins with the paradox of it: the expelled original inhabitants of the land singing over the sodden green lawns of the tennis courts below. The bridge feels quite literally haunted by those who came before us. In my bleary discontent, I am thrown off balance by it. I stop in the middle of the bridge and catch my breath.
“I don’t like this.”
The Husband laughs.
9.35am(ish)
As we round the concrete stadium of the MCG, the conquerors’ playground, I feel that time to clear the air is running out. Any minute now, we will be deep in a sea of parents and kids.
“I was angry with you,” I blurt out.
The Husband looks at me.
I tell him my side of last night's argument.
“Okay, fair enough.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I’m sorry. I was just sharing my opinions.”
“Okay then.”
I fear I have overreacted, and wasted a good 12 hours on misdirected sulking.
9.40am
The Husband is crushed when he’s told that the game plan has changed, and the AFL honchos running the day have decided parent helpers aren’t allowed on the ground today. He’s not a registered Auskick coach, so he’s stuck on the sidelines with us. He was looking forward to getting out on the lawn almost as much as F was. He’s been talking about this all week.
F bowls us over with a flying hug.
“MUM! THE HUSBAND!”
I look at his legs, pale and purple-tinged. He is wearing navy cotton school shorts with a khaki padded parka.
“Have you got my lucky skivvy?! Look at my footy shorts!”
“They’re ... great.”
I have a thing about F wearing shorts in the cold. He has no sense of the weather at all, only what he wants to wear. It’s part Asperger’s, part small boy. His dad, who is English, likes to argue that at his boarding school in Scotland, boys wore ‘short pants’ all year round and it never did them any harm. We have had shouting-over-the-phone fights about our differing views on appropriate winter clothing. I let this one go through to the keeper. After all, there are other boys in footy shorts. And he’s going to be running around anyway.
The Husband pulls F’s lucky skivvy out of the plastic bag we’ve brought with us, along with his prized footy boots. The lucky skivvy is yolk-coloured, close-fitting, with a number one drawn on the back with a black permanent texta and a picture of grass and a leg kicking a footy drawn on the chest. Artwork courtesy of F, of course. The mythic game where F kicked seven goals, he was wearing that skivvy, he told The Husband on the phone this morning, so it’s lucky, and must be worn to the G.
I watch him, in his yellow skivvy and navy knee-length shorts and long white socks, playing a ferocious game of handball with The Husband at the outside wall of the stadium. His hair brushes his eyebrows in its grown-out mop-top. I realise, ironically, that he looks like a little autistic boy*, surrounded as he is by kids in top-of-the range official AFL gear and smart, camera-ready combed hair. He doesn’t care. Neither do I, not really.
A beatific carrot-topped marshmallow totters past, throwing a small red ball at the MCG wall. He barrels into the concrete and turns back again, as if on auto-pilot. A blonde woman snatches his ball and puts it in her pocket. I am appalled. How dare she steal a strange baby’s ball? The blonde woman looks up. It is The Stepmother. I’m impressed. We exchange wary smiles and she looks away again, following Baby Brother’s trajectory into the crowd, as he heads for the yellow Auskick ball passing between F and The Husband. The Ex ambles over with his own ball, just for Baby Brother. The Stepmother appears at my shoulder.
“Hey,” she says. “I’m going to get coffee from the van. You want one?”
I don’t really, but appreciate the gesture so much that I decide to have one anyway.
“Sure. Thanks.” I fumble in my over-stuffed bag.
“Nah, I’ll get it. Don’t worry about it.” And the crowd swallows her up.
10am
Kids and parents enter the MCG via different lines. F squirms with excitement in the line beside us. We offer parting encouragements.
“Have fun!”
“You’ll be great!”
“Remember to have a positive attitude!”
We don’t want it to be like last year, when the game ended with him wandering a corner of the vast oval, blinded by howling tears, snot running into his open mouth. Punching himself repeatedly in the head, growling “I suck at this! I’m no good! I hate myself!”. Last year we didn’t know he had Asperger’s, or at least we didn’t yet believe it. Last year, we hadn’t briefed the coaches on his condition, or convinced them of the fact that his tantrums were due to something other than over-indulgent parenting.
10.05am
We sit in at the bottom of the stands, just metres away from where F is training. There is The Husband, me, the Ex, The Stepmother and Baby Brother. The Husband stands up in his seat, his eyes hopefully on the oval.
“What are you doing?” I hiss. “Sit down next to me.”
“I’m looking to see if the security guards disappear so I can get onto the ground.”
“Right.”
I leave him to it and look around glumly, unable to get into it. I don’t really know most of the parents here.
“I don’t think we can have another child.”
“Why?”
“I don’t think I can bear the idea of starting again with having to make friends with parents. You know, starting at the beginning again.”
The Husband doesn’t reply. He is intent on the fun he’s missing out on.
10.15am
The Husband and I have moved closer to the action, away from The Ex and The Stepmother. The drills are going well. F is joking around with the kids on his line. They take turns jumping on each other’s backs, grabbing for imaginary balls. They shout excitedly to each other. It looks like there is real interaction going on, not like last year when it was F crash-landing endless jokes against a blank wall of bemused indifference.
‘This is going great,” I say. “Much better than last year.”
“Yeah, it is.”
Baby Brother appears in the row of seats in front of us, propelled by unsteady legs. He is like a jagged game of Tetris: zooming back and forth in one direction, then another, seemingly automatically, often for the sake of movement itself. A shiny red football gleams atop an open bag: a patent leather apple. Baby Brother moves towards it as if hypnotised. He stretches out a small hand to stroke it. The owner of the ball laughs as he pulls it away onto his lap.
“You can’t blame him,” I say. “It’s a great ball.”
He grins back with an edge of forbearance. Baby Brother’s face crumples for no longer than a beat, then he turns and waddles back along the row of seats, into the arms of his mum.
I move to the edge of the seating and take photos. Through the lens, the small figure that is F stops, looks straight at me and waves proudly. They are handing out black and red bibs. The game is starting.
**
And it is sadly, predictably, awful. The four parental figures and one toddler negotiate the maze of seating together to follow the leaping figures on the field to the twinned goal posts where the game is being played. We lean over the pooled water on the ledge of the oval fence and shout encouragement across the ground.
“You can do it!”
“Get in there!”
“Good on you, F!”
“Remember your attitude!”
We marvel at his doggedness, the way he throws himself in front of the ball, under the scrum, his arms clutching for it at every chance, however slim. He is a rag doll, forever flung to the ground, picked back up and flung forward again. Physically, he is remarkably hardy. But it doesn’t take too many setbacks before the first tears come, and once he cracks, he is soon broken.
Normally, they’re not allowed to tackle. The referee, who isn’t usually with this group of kids and doesn’t really know them, shouts for F to get in there and tackle. So he launches himself at the kid and takes him down like a ten-pin bowl. And gets a penalty. Because the coach didn’t literally mean ‘tackle’, he meant ‘knock the ball out of his hands’. And F doesn’t know the difference. He passes the ball to a team-mate near the goal and the team-mate kicks a goal. F was trying a manoeuvre where the kid was meant to kick it back to him once he repositioned himself. So, he was inconsolable over that. There were other moments, including one where he charged a team-mate who had kicked a wide ball to him, stopping just short of thumping him. Once, he listened to me when I said “F! NO! DON’T DO IT!” The other times, I was shouting into a vacuum. Making a fool of myself, I’m sure, but I couldn’t help it.
“You can’t get upset,” says The Husband. “It won’t help him.”
I nod despairingly, watching him drag his feet across the field, pinned by the weight of his melancholy.
11am
At the end of the game, he bleeds towards us, howling his frustration.
“This is the worst game ever! It’s the worst day of my life! My team-mates wouldn’t pass to me! No one would pass to me!”
His coach tries to comfort him, as he has throughout the game, but now that there’s no next step to hurry him onto, no game to pull him back to for a moment, he has come completely undone.
“Come for your team photo mate,” urges the coach.
“No, I don’t want to.”
“It’s to remember the day by.”
“I don’t want to remember this day. I never want to remember this day.”
“Come on, mate.”
F stops to the side of the gathered crowd, the whole of Yarraville/Footscray Auskick, smiling for the cameras crowded on the other side of the oval fence.
“My feet are pinned to the ground,” he wails, holding his whole body determinedly still, his arms rigid by his side, his fists balled. The coach scoops him up in his big arms and carries him over to the group, where he stands him back on his feet. The Husband, the Ex, The Stepmother and I cheer and whoop. We call out that he’s played a good game. Last year, we greeted this kind of behaviour with stern admonitions. I’m still not sure which approach we should be taking.
F plants himself apart from the group, to the side. Separated by a good metre or two from the rest. His arms crossed, he scowls at the cameras.
The Husband and The Ex leap up the maze to meet him as he leaves the oval. The Stepmother and I stand looking at each other. For a moment, we don’t talk; but it’s not awkward, not really. We are joined in this moment. Despair, frustration, confusion, melancholy, embarrassment.
“He said he doesn’t want to remember this day, but he'll remember it now,” she says. “And the pictures will tell the story.”
“Yep. I wish I could pay the psychologist to come here, watch a game, and give me notes afterwards on how to handle this.”
We both laugh.
“I wonder what it must be like for you ...” begins The Stepmother, a little uncertainly. “Do you understand what’s going through his head, what he’s thinking ... you know ... You must understand the way he thinks.”
It’s the first time that she has ever acknowledged that I have Asperger’s, too, and one of the most personal conversations we’ve ever had. Or that I’ve had with anyone outside my family, really.
“Yes,” I say, after a pause. “I do, to some extent. I understand the thinking behind it. But I don’t know what to do about it or what to say or how to help him.”
“I hate team sports myself, I’m terrible at them,” she says. “So, I would never be in a situation like that anyway.”
“Yeah, me too.”
We slowly ascend the stadium, together, bonded by caring about what just happened, by having to deal with the fallout, and by hating team sports.
At the top of the steps, we pause and talk about dealing with F, how much of his behaviour is about Asperger’s and how much it’s kid stuff, and she talks about the division of labour in the house – how she’s mostly with Baby Brother so The Ex can spend time with F. Which I knew, but seems more benign, more practically driven, the way she outlines it. Even as we’re talking, I’m moved by the boundaries that seem to have dissolved between us, maybe not entirely, but certainly a little. And the emotion and interest in her voice heartens me, reassures me that even if she doesn’t ‘get’ F, she does want to.
**
The boys rejoin us and we leave the MCG together, F's family, The Stepmother and I ambling behind the four men.
They pause at the ice-cream van.
“I think one of those would make me feel better,” F tells his dad, with a weariness that is only part affected, and he buys him a chocolate-coated soft serve with coloured sprinkles. I watch him bite into the surface.
“Hmmm, I’m glad it’s you and not me today.”
And we peel off in separate directions, F lost in his sugary consolation as we call out our farewells.
* by this I mean that autistic (or Asperger's) kids/adults often don't care much about what they wear, or about wearing clothes to fit in with what everyone else is wearing.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Monday, June 09, 2008
Love Our Way
It’s a special day at Auskick. F’s father is overseas and he hasn’t seen his little brother for just over a fortnight. He asked me on Friday night if I would invite his stepmother and brother to come to Auskick.
“No offence Mum. I really like this house and it’s really fun ... but I miss Baby Brother.”
His stepmother has never been to Auskick before, though Baby Brother usually comes once a fortnight, with his dad. They live on the Other Side of the Westgate Bridge. I doubt that she’ll come.
To my surprise, she emails back to say that she’ll be there if the weather is fine. (Baby Brother has a cold.) Saturday morning is crisp but radiant: a golden haze bathes the world in a cold glow.
I like the fantasy of a Love My Way kind of blended family. You know: they have dinner at each other’s houses and joint family celebrations, they babysit for each other, the stepmother and real mother occasionally meet for coffee. Sure, there’s the occasional barbed comment, but generally they’re one big family, where all the people who have to see each other on a regular basis all feel comfortable with each other, and invested in each other’s happiness.
We’re pretty good, as these things go, but we’re certainly not the fantasy. F lives with his dad and I on a weekly rotating basis. His dad and I talk on the phone a fair bit about how he’s going at school and how much sugar he’s having and who needs to put in what forms to school. We do run joint birthday parties for F, though we draw the line at Christmas. And we swap days a lot – when his dad goes overseas, when either of us has an after-school-hours meeting or an evening engagement. (And, for those who watch LMW – I’m a slightly dishevelled dark-haired arty type; the stepmother is a cool, organised blonde with a real job.)
Anyway, it’s well known that The Stepmother and F are not the best of friends, which is why I’m surprised that she decides to come to Auskick. He says she’s “cranky”. She says she “doesn’t understand him”. F was almost the deal-breaker in their relationship, but somehow they got past it: bought a house in a blue-chip suburb, got engaged the same day, then married and had a baby. Just add water for an instant happy family. Except it’s not.
It’s a segregated household. When F is there, The Stepmother looks after Baby Brother and The Ex takes care of F. Sometimes they meet in the middle for family time. Until The Ex quit his job three weeks ago, I picked F up from school every day. Every second week, when he finished work, the Ex would drive across the Westgate to pick F up at 5.30pm or 6pm and bring him home for dinner and bed. The Stepmother works from her lounge room at home, often with Baby Brother in the background. But F is not part of her equation, or her responsibility, unless specifically called upon.
**
F’s godmother is also coming to watch him play this morning. She emailed last night to ask me what his team colours are. “There are no team colours,” I write back. “They do wear black or red bibs, though. And his team is North Melbourne. They’re blue and white.”
I spot her as I climb through the hole in the cyclone wire fence separating the skate ramp and the football oval. Her neck is swaddled in an enormous blue and white scarf over a navy knit top. She is buttoned into a 1960s style knitted coat, white with navy pin stripes. It skirts her hips in a jaunty A-line. She is scanning the field from behind large prescription sunglasses. She is a vision of childlessness in a sea of tracksuits, padded parkas and misshapen woollies. She is even wearing lipstick. When she sees me, she responds with the energetic wave of a morning person.
“Nice colours,” is the first thing I say. “I’m impressed.”
She gives a little half-twirl.
“Coffee?” I ask, after pointing out The Husband and F on the oval.
“Any good?”
“We-ell ... it’s okay. It’s not BAD. It’s pretty good for coffee you can get at a kids’ football game.”
“I can only do one coffee a day.”
“Skip it.”
She follows me across the bitumen fringe of the oval and past the huddle of parents standing around the card table where they will later sell $2 hot dogs and alarmingly coloured ‘fruit’ drinks. There is no line in front of the small van parked in the oval’s driveway: a coffee machine, some jars of marshmallows and cartons of milk, and stacks of Styrofoam cups. A small boy takes my money as I place my order for a latte with his apron-clad mother.
“Wow,” says The Godmother.
“I know.”
We sit on a bench facing the oval, within (far) sight of F and The Husband, deep in footy drills. I unwrap a muesli bar from my bag. The Godmother and I exhale gossip in heady clouds: people we work with, people we used to work with, our partners. We talk in the uninterrupted flow of freelancers on day release – which we are. It’s exhilarating, having real world conversations like this at a kids’ event. Worlds are colliding, and I like it. F spots us and sprints across the oval, his face urgent.
“Hi, Godmother! Water, mum! I need water!”
I pull out the Auskick drink bottle he left by the front door this morning and hand it over. He gulps at it, hands it back, and disappears.
The Godmother and I jump the fence and follow him across the oval to stand at the edge of the training drills: rows of small figures, most of them in official AFL jumpers and shorts, stand facing each other across the grass. The coaches and their helpers – The Husband among them – stand in the centre. The lines wriggle back and forth, side to side, as the boys push and shove and wrestle each other. Headlocks, grabbing at torsos, skipping and dodging. I see F. He is a wrestler, his face intent. It’s just fun right now, but my stomach twists with the possibilities of it all.
“I hate the way boys do this,” I tell The Godmother. “I can’t watch him. By the way, The Stepmother is coming today. She’s bringing Baby Brother.”
“REALLY?”
That’s when we see her, standing just outside the fence of the oval, head darting about in search of a familiar face. She is easy to spot: a smooth blonde curtain of hair falling over a sensible black woollen coat; a marshmallow blob of puffy parka and oversized beanie wobbling at knee-height.
“We should wave, right?” I say. “We should go and bring her over here?”
“Yes,” says Godmother. “We should.”
**
The marshmallow is clutching a fist-sized green ball. He is beaming from beneath wisps of orange hair that have escaped over his forehead. He staggers determinedly across the oval, towards the boys and their balls. More specifically, he staggers towards the nearest bright yellow football and bends to pick it up. It is bigger than his head; the size of his torso. He drops it and kicks it along the ground, then follows it with a beatific smile. I have seen him do this before, but it still staggers me. F at his age had no more interest in a football than he did in a bug or a leaf – that is, some, but not much. And he certainly had no idea what to do with it.
“I remember when F was five, his teacher told me we needed to teach him ball skills. I used to kick the footy with him in the driveway after school, and he’d be practically in tears. I used to bribe him, saying that after one more kick he could go back inside to his books and comics.”
The Godmother laughs. I look over at F now, chasing the ball with the fierce, unyielding devotion that usually drives him to tears of frustration at least once a game.
The Stepmother and The Godmother and I settle into a rhythm of small talk, mostly about working from home, which we all do.
“How’s it going with The Ex working from home now?” I ask.
“Well, he hasn’t been here much.” Pause. “But he’s ... I guess you MUST have heard about the new MacAir laptop?”
“Yup.”
“He loves his toys. Anyway, the week before he left he spent all this time playing with the computer and trying to get the Macs to talk to each other and I was in the lounge room, working, and the network was going down because he was playing with it.” She sighs. “So, I’m getting more work done now he’s gone. But a week’s long enough. I’m ready for him to come back now.” Baby Brother is snuggling into her chest, his little arms diving into her armpits.
“Muuummy!” he wails. She holds him close.
“It’s his cold. He’s a bit clingy,” she says. “I had to take him to the toilet with me this morning. I had to sit him on my lap.”
“Wow. That sounds awful.”
It’s conversations like this that convince me I don’t want to have another child.
This is alright, I think. This is really going well.
Baby Brother totters across the oval again as we talk. He stands, transfixed, between the goalposts. A flock of boys swoops back and forth in his direction, following the ball sideways towards him. The Stepmother runs to rescue him. While she’s gone, I start telling The Godmother about my fights with Australia Post this week, and the fact that I’m not getting my mail. The Stepmother comes back for the end of it.
“You should get a PO Box,” she suggests.
“I did. That’s the problem. The redirection isn’t working. Parcels are going to my house. Or they’re just going missing.”
“Oh, I hate that,” says The Stepmother. “I’m always having to chase missing parcels for work.
“The Husband won’t let me talk to Australia Post anymore,” I admit. “After I swore at them the other day.”
“You swore at them?”
“Yeah. I ... it was after a couple of weeks of phone calls, and they’d been really stuffing me around. They kept saying that everything should be working, and then this woman realises that the parcel redirection has never been activated at all. And that she couldn’t do anything about the missing parcels. She suggested I ask everyone to send everything registered mail.”
“You can’t do that.” The Godmother.
“I know.”
“Yeah, I get that at Christmas. Parcels going missing and they tell me that nobody took them. Yeah right! I bet lots of people would like a new tent for Christmas!” The Stepmother manages a camping supplies business.
“So, what did you say?” The Godmother asks me.
“Oh, I told them to go fuck themselves.”
“What?”
“Yeah, I said fuck you. She was going to hang up on me. She said ‘goodbye, Ariel’. And I said ‘Oh, fuck you.’ I know.”
We’re all laughing now. I am emboldened.
“Yeah, that’s right, before I said that, the thing that made her decide to hang up on me, I said ‘if you weren’t owned by the government, you’d have to be accountable. I pay for a service, you wouldn’t be allowed to not deliver it’. So she said ‘goodbye Ariel’ and then ... then I said ‘do I have to call A Current Affair on you to get a result?’ And then she said ‘goodbye Ariel’ again. And THEN I said fuck you.”
The Godmother and the Stepmother are looking at me in disbelief.
“I know ... I know ... I don’t know why I said that. I don’t know why I threatened to call A Current Affair on someone.”
I decide not to tell them that, after I swore, a small voice piped up from across the room and a small head bobbed above the couch and said “MUM!”
And that I said: “I know darling, that was so naughty of me. I said it after they hung up, but it was so naughty of me.”
“You said it after they hung up, huh?”
“Yep.”
“That’s $2 in the swear jar.”
I’ve revealed bad behaviour to the other side of the family, though only part of it. But we’re all laughing, we all hate Australia Post, and we’re all exclaiming over Baby Brother’s ball skills and cheering for F when he gets the ball. This is going just fine.
**
At an Auskick earlier this year, the second of the season, things between The Stepmother and I didn’t seem to be going so fine. She wasn’t there, of course. She’d been a bit short with me on the phone lately, and I asked The Ex if she had a problem with me.
“Oh, no more than usual,” he replied distractedly. “You know, no more than she usually does.”
“What do you mean by THAT?”
“You know, nothing more than the usual.” His eyes glanced off me and skittered over the field.
“What problem does she USUALLY have?” I asked.
He turned and looked at me blankly, deliberately, stretching out the moment.
I walked off and took a seat by the goalposts alone, too irritated to follow the conversation further. I sat and glared into the game.
About ten minutes later, The Ex came to squat beside me, Baby Brother following some metres behind him on precariously steady legs.
“He-eyyy, what’s GOING ON between you two?” asked The Ex. Nothing much, I’d thought before this. I told him that it was just her tone on the phone lately, and that last time we’d come to pick F up, instead of inviting me in, she shut the door in my face and went inside to get him.
“Oh dear,” said The Ex mildly, and drifted off again, drifting back a minute or two later. Just standing there.
“I mean, I’m always nice to her. The Husband is always nice to you. And it’s not like she’s the best stepmother in the world either. F isn’t dumb. He knows she doesn’t like him and he reacts to it. I guess it’s not her fault if she doesn’t like him. But still.”
I didn’t mean to say any of this. But after I had, I was shocked at The Ex’s reaction. He didn’t deny it; he didn’t try to spin it. He just stood there, accepting it. Which chilled me to the bone, because I’d hoped I was imagining - or at least exaggerating - the situation between F and The Stepmother.
I’d nursed a subterranean, complicated anger at The Stepmother ever since.
**
The Stepmother and The Godmother and I are chatting. I mention that I am doing something mundane, like taxes or cooking meals more often. Something too boring for me to remember what it was.
“Why?” asks The Godmother.
“She’s becoming a GROWN UP!” says The Stepmother, gleefully. I look at her. Did she really say that? Has she forgotten who she’s with? Does she think she’s in the kitchen with The Ex?
“I wouldn’t want to be a grown up if it means being like you,” I think, cattily. “So what if I don’t own a house and I don’t earn a lot of money? At least I’m interesting. At least my work is interesting. At least I’M NOT LIVING WITH YOUR HUSBAND!”
We move on, quickly.
**
It’s the final moments of the game. F gets the ball in a daring semi-tackle. He runs towards the goal posts, aims and kicks. It’s a goal! The three of us cheer and call his name. He runs in a circle on the field, his grin visible from the sidelines. He directs princely nods at his team mates, acknowledging their admiration even before they give it. The boys gather in a tight circle, then scatter. F runs towards us. The game is over. He runs, smiling, in a straight line. He is going to hug someone. He bends and embraces his brother in a running tackle, picking him up and running him towards us. Baby Brother’s arms flail at right angles from under his embrace; his legs dangle as if bracing for a fall. His orange head nestles in F’s chest. Happy (muffled) squeals emerge from his resting place. F puts him down and smiles into his face, their eyes just centimetres apart.
“Did you see me kick a goal at the siren?” he asks us.
“Yeah!” says Godmother. “We all cheered your name. Didn’t you hear us?”
“No! Did you? Thanks for coming, Godmother. Thanks for bringing Baby Brother, Stepmother.”
And the brothers are off, following The Husband across the oval to kick the footy one last time.
The Stepmother, Godmother and I continue to chat. We talk about the boy next door, who I love.
“Oh ... he’s so difficult,” says the Stepmother.
“REALLY?” I say.
“Oh, well he used to be.”
“I never have any problems with him. Though if he ever spoke to me the way he speaks to his father, I’d be giving him a good smack! But he’s fine with me.”
“Oh, YES!” says The Stepmother. “And where do you think he gets THAT from?”
“His mother?”
“OH yes. She’s AMAZING.” Said in a tone that implies she’s not really amazing at all, not in a good way.
I actually really like Boy Next Door’s mother, who is almost the age of my own mother, but is also practical, sensible, and has child-rearing ideas that are surprisingly similar to my own. She’s a bit of a drill sergeant in manner, but she’s got the proverbial heart of gold. She does nag her laid-back husband to death, but he’s the kind of old-fashioned bloke who stops at the pub and has a beer and a smoke while he’s waiting for his fish and chips to be ready to pick up. (At 5pm in the afternoon.) Their whole dynamic is based on her being the in-control nag and him being the put-upon husband who gets to roll his eyes when he’s told to do things. They seem to like it that way.
“I like to listen in on their conversations,” I admit. “F and Boy Next Door, I mean. The other day I heard BND imitating his mum. It was hilarious. ‘HUS-BAND, do the dishes! HUS-BAND, fix the dishwasher!’ He said that he reckons women do all the work because his mum’s always telling his dad what to do. I told him that his mum’s the one who makes sure the work gets done, and that I’m sure she actually does plenty.”
We all laugh at the imitations, united in judging someone other than each other.
It’s in this spirit that we get a bit carried away.
“I have to be at work soon,” says The Godmother. “If we’re going to get that coffee ...”
“Yeah, I’m going to get a coffee, too,” says The Stepmother.
The Godmother and I look at each other.
“Why don’t you join us?” says Godmother.
“Yes, go on.”
“Um ... okay, sure.”
And so we all end the morning squeezed around a 1950s laminated table built for four (The Godmother, The Stepmother, Baby Brother, F, The Husband and me), eating muffins and sipping lattes/hot chocolates/babycinos and continuing a polite conversation that is beginning to strain at the seams, but manages not to tear.
Maybe we’re not quite so far from Love My Way after all.
Even if The Husband and I do get home and exclaim over the way The Stepmother talks about how F “comes to stay” with them. (“He LIVES there half his life!” we exclaim, a little self-righteously.) And I’m sure I saw her file away the fact that I gave F a hot chocolate, even though the two families have agreed to minimise his sugar intake.
Ah well. The road to blended family heaven is paved with barbed comments. But at least we’re all trying.
* btw, this all happened a week ago, but I'm a slow writer
“No offence Mum. I really like this house and it’s really fun ... but I miss Baby Brother.”
His stepmother has never been to Auskick before, though Baby Brother usually comes once a fortnight, with his dad. They live on the Other Side of the Westgate Bridge. I doubt that she’ll come.
To my surprise, she emails back to say that she’ll be there if the weather is fine. (Baby Brother has a cold.) Saturday morning is crisp but radiant: a golden haze bathes the world in a cold glow.
I like the fantasy of a Love My Way kind of blended family. You know: they have dinner at each other’s houses and joint family celebrations, they babysit for each other, the stepmother and real mother occasionally meet for coffee. Sure, there’s the occasional barbed comment, but generally they’re one big family, where all the people who have to see each other on a regular basis all feel comfortable with each other, and invested in each other’s happiness.
We’re pretty good, as these things go, but we’re certainly not the fantasy. F lives with his dad and I on a weekly rotating basis. His dad and I talk on the phone a fair bit about how he’s going at school and how much sugar he’s having and who needs to put in what forms to school. We do run joint birthday parties for F, though we draw the line at Christmas. And we swap days a lot – when his dad goes overseas, when either of us has an after-school-hours meeting or an evening engagement. (And, for those who watch LMW – I’m a slightly dishevelled dark-haired arty type; the stepmother is a cool, organised blonde with a real job.)
Anyway, it’s well known that The Stepmother and F are not the best of friends, which is why I’m surprised that she decides to come to Auskick. He says she’s “cranky”. She says she “doesn’t understand him”. F was almost the deal-breaker in their relationship, but somehow they got past it: bought a house in a blue-chip suburb, got engaged the same day, then married and had a baby. Just add water for an instant happy family. Except it’s not.
It’s a segregated household. When F is there, The Stepmother looks after Baby Brother and The Ex takes care of F. Sometimes they meet in the middle for family time. Until The Ex quit his job three weeks ago, I picked F up from school every day. Every second week, when he finished work, the Ex would drive across the Westgate to pick F up at 5.30pm or 6pm and bring him home for dinner and bed. The Stepmother works from her lounge room at home, often with Baby Brother in the background. But F is not part of her equation, or her responsibility, unless specifically called upon.
**
F’s godmother is also coming to watch him play this morning. She emailed last night to ask me what his team colours are. “There are no team colours,” I write back. “They do wear black or red bibs, though. And his team is North Melbourne. They’re blue and white.”
I spot her as I climb through the hole in the cyclone wire fence separating the skate ramp and the football oval. Her neck is swaddled in an enormous blue and white scarf over a navy knit top. She is buttoned into a 1960s style knitted coat, white with navy pin stripes. It skirts her hips in a jaunty A-line. She is scanning the field from behind large prescription sunglasses. She is a vision of childlessness in a sea of tracksuits, padded parkas and misshapen woollies. She is even wearing lipstick. When she sees me, she responds with the energetic wave of a morning person.
“Nice colours,” is the first thing I say. “I’m impressed.”
She gives a little half-twirl.
“Coffee?” I ask, after pointing out The Husband and F on the oval.
“Any good?”
“We-ell ... it’s okay. It’s not BAD. It’s pretty good for coffee you can get at a kids’ football game.”
“I can only do one coffee a day.”
“Skip it.”
She follows me across the bitumen fringe of the oval and past the huddle of parents standing around the card table where they will later sell $2 hot dogs and alarmingly coloured ‘fruit’ drinks. There is no line in front of the small van parked in the oval’s driveway: a coffee machine, some jars of marshmallows and cartons of milk, and stacks of Styrofoam cups. A small boy takes my money as I place my order for a latte with his apron-clad mother.
“Wow,” says The Godmother.
“I know.”
We sit on a bench facing the oval, within (far) sight of F and The Husband, deep in footy drills. I unwrap a muesli bar from my bag. The Godmother and I exhale gossip in heady clouds: people we work with, people we used to work with, our partners. We talk in the uninterrupted flow of freelancers on day release – which we are. It’s exhilarating, having real world conversations like this at a kids’ event. Worlds are colliding, and I like it. F spots us and sprints across the oval, his face urgent.
“Hi, Godmother! Water, mum! I need water!”
I pull out the Auskick drink bottle he left by the front door this morning and hand it over. He gulps at it, hands it back, and disappears.
The Godmother and I jump the fence and follow him across the oval to stand at the edge of the training drills: rows of small figures, most of them in official AFL jumpers and shorts, stand facing each other across the grass. The coaches and their helpers – The Husband among them – stand in the centre. The lines wriggle back and forth, side to side, as the boys push and shove and wrestle each other. Headlocks, grabbing at torsos, skipping and dodging. I see F. He is a wrestler, his face intent. It’s just fun right now, but my stomach twists with the possibilities of it all.
“I hate the way boys do this,” I tell The Godmother. “I can’t watch him. By the way, The Stepmother is coming today. She’s bringing Baby Brother.”
“REALLY?”
That’s when we see her, standing just outside the fence of the oval, head darting about in search of a familiar face. She is easy to spot: a smooth blonde curtain of hair falling over a sensible black woollen coat; a marshmallow blob of puffy parka and oversized beanie wobbling at knee-height.
“We should wave, right?” I say. “We should go and bring her over here?”
“Yes,” says Godmother. “We should.”
**
The marshmallow is clutching a fist-sized green ball. He is beaming from beneath wisps of orange hair that have escaped over his forehead. He staggers determinedly across the oval, towards the boys and their balls. More specifically, he staggers towards the nearest bright yellow football and bends to pick it up. It is bigger than his head; the size of his torso. He drops it and kicks it along the ground, then follows it with a beatific smile. I have seen him do this before, but it still staggers me. F at his age had no more interest in a football than he did in a bug or a leaf – that is, some, but not much. And he certainly had no idea what to do with it.
“I remember when F was five, his teacher told me we needed to teach him ball skills. I used to kick the footy with him in the driveway after school, and he’d be practically in tears. I used to bribe him, saying that after one more kick he could go back inside to his books and comics.”
The Godmother laughs. I look over at F now, chasing the ball with the fierce, unyielding devotion that usually drives him to tears of frustration at least once a game.
The Stepmother and The Godmother and I settle into a rhythm of small talk, mostly about working from home, which we all do.
“How’s it going with The Ex working from home now?” I ask.
“Well, he hasn’t been here much.” Pause. “But he’s ... I guess you MUST have heard about the new MacAir laptop?”
“Yup.”
“He loves his toys. Anyway, the week before he left he spent all this time playing with the computer and trying to get the Macs to talk to each other and I was in the lounge room, working, and the network was going down because he was playing with it.” She sighs. “So, I’m getting more work done now he’s gone. But a week’s long enough. I’m ready for him to come back now.” Baby Brother is snuggling into her chest, his little arms diving into her armpits.
“Muuummy!” he wails. She holds him close.
“It’s his cold. He’s a bit clingy,” she says. “I had to take him to the toilet with me this morning. I had to sit him on my lap.”
“Wow. That sounds awful.”
It’s conversations like this that convince me I don’t want to have another child.
This is alright, I think. This is really going well.
Baby Brother totters across the oval again as we talk. He stands, transfixed, between the goalposts. A flock of boys swoops back and forth in his direction, following the ball sideways towards him. The Stepmother runs to rescue him. While she’s gone, I start telling The Godmother about my fights with Australia Post this week, and the fact that I’m not getting my mail. The Stepmother comes back for the end of it.
“You should get a PO Box,” she suggests.
“I did. That’s the problem. The redirection isn’t working. Parcels are going to my house. Or they’re just going missing.”
“Oh, I hate that,” says The Stepmother. “I’m always having to chase missing parcels for work.
“The Husband won’t let me talk to Australia Post anymore,” I admit. “After I swore at them the other day.”
“You swore at them?”
“Yeah. I ... it was after a couple of weeks of phone calls, and they’d been really stuffing me around. They kept saying that everything should be working, and then this woman realises that the parcel redirection has never been activated at all. And that she couldn’t do anything about the missing parcels. She suggested I ask everyone to send everything registered mail.”
“You can’t do that.” The Godmother.
“I know.”
“Yeah, I get that at Christmas. Parcels going missing and they tell me that nobody took them. Yeah right! I bet lots of people would like a new tent for Christmas!” The Stepmother manages a camping supplies business.
“So, what did you say?” The Godmother asks me.
“Oh, I told them to go fuck themselves.”
“What?”
“Yeah, I said fuck you. She was going to hang up on me. She said ‘goodbye, Ariel’. And I said ‘Oh, fuck you.’ I know.”
We’re all laughing now. I am emboldened.
“Yeah, that’s right, before I said that, the thing that made her decide to hang up on me, I said ‘if you weren’t owned by the government, you’d have to be accountable. I pay for a service, you wouldn’t be allowed to not deliver it’. So she said ‘goodbye Ariel’ and then ... then I said ‘do I have to call A Current Affair on you to get a result?’ And then she said ‘goodbye Ariel’ again. And THEN I said fuck you.”
The Godmother and the Stepmother are looking at me in disbelief.
“I know ... I know ... I don’t know why I said that. I don’t know why I threatened to call A Current Affair on someone.”
I decide not to tell them that, after I swore, a small voice piped up from across the room and a small head bobbed above the couch and said “MUM!”
And that I said: “I know darling, that was so naughty of me. I said it after they hung up, but it was so naughty of me.”
“You said it after they hung up, huh?”
“Yep.”
“That’s $2 in the swear jar.”
I’ve revealed bad behaviour to the other side of the family, though only part of it. But we’re all laughing, we all hate Australia Post, and we’re all exclaiming over Baby Brother’s ball skills and cheering for F when he gets the ball. This is going just fine.
**
At an Auskick earlier this year, the second of the season, things between The Stepmother and I didn’t seem to be going so fine. She wasn’t there, of course. She’d been a bit short with me on the phone lately, and I asked The Ex if she had a problem with me.
“Oh, no more than usual,” he replied distractedly. “You know, no more than she usually does.”
“What do you mean by THAT?”
“You know, nothing more than the usual.” His eyes glanced off me and skittered over the field.
“What problem does she USUALLY have?” I asked.
He turned and looked at me blankly, deliberately, stretching out the moment.
I walked off and took a seat by the goalposts alone, too irritated to follow the conversation further. I sat and glared into the game.
About ten minutes later, The Ex came to squat beside me, Baby Brother following some metres behind him on precariously steady legs.
“He-eyyy, what’s GOING ON between you two?” asked The Ex. Nothing much, I’d thought before this. I told him that it was just her tone on the phone lately, and that last time we’d come to pick F up, instead of inviting me in, she shut the door in my face and went inside to get him.
“Oh dear,” said The Ex mildly, and drifted off again, drifting back a minute or two later. Just standing there.
“I mean, I’m always nice to her. The Husband is always nice to you. And it’s not like she’s the best stepmother in the world either. F isn’t dumb. He knows she doesn’t like him and he reacts to it. I guess it’s not her fault if she doesn’t like him. But still.”
I didn’t mean to say any of this. But after I had, I was shocked at The Ex’s reaction. He didn’t deny it; he didn’t try to spin it. He just stood there, accepting it. Which chilled me to the bone, because I’d hoped I was imagining - or at least exaggerating - the situation between F and The Stepmother.
I’d nursed a subterranean, complicated anger at The Stepmother ever since.
**
The Stepmother and The Godmother and I are chatting. I mention that I am doing something mundane, like taxes or cooking meals more often. Something too boring for me to remember what it was.
“Why?” asks The Godmother.
“She’s becoming a GROWN UP!” says The Stepmother, gleefully. I look at her. Did she really say that? Has she forgotten who she’s with? Does she think she’s in the kitchen with The Ex?
“I wouldn’t want to be a grown up if it means being like you,” I think, cattily. “So what if I don’t own a house and I don’t earn a lot of money? At least I’m interesting. At least my work is interesting. At least I’M NOT LIVING WITH YOUR HUSBAND!”
We move on, quickly.
**
It’s the final moments of the game. F gets the ball in a daring semi-tackle. He runs towards the goal posts, aims and kicks. It’s a goal! The three of us cheer and call his name. He runs in a circle on the field, his grin visible from the sidelines. He directs princely nods at his team mates, acknowledging their admiration even before they give it. The boys gather in a tight circle, then scatter. F runs towards us. The game is over. He runs, smiling, in a straight line. He is going to hug someone. He bends and embraces his brother in a running tackle, picking him up and running him towards us. Baby Brother’s arms flail at right angles from under his embrace; his legs dangle as if bracing for a fall. His orange head nestles in F’s chest. Happy (muffled) squeals emerge from his resting place. F puts him down and smiles into his face, their eyes just centimetres apart.
“Did you see me kick a goal at the siren?” he asks us.
“Yeah!” says Godmother. “We all cheered your name. Didn’t you hear us?”
“No! Did you? Thanks for coming, Godmother. Thanks for bringing Baby Brother, Stepmother.”
And the brothers are off, following The Husband across the oval to kick the footy one last time.
The Stepmother, Godmother and I continue to chat. We talk about the boy next door, who I love.
“Oh ... he’s so difficult,” says the Stepmother.
“REALLY?” I say.
“Oh, well he used to be.”
“I never have any problems with him. Though if he ever spoke to me the way he speaks to his father, I’d be giving him a good smack! But he’s fine with me.”
“Oh, YES!” says The Stepmother. “And where do you think he gets THAT from?”
“His mother?”
“OH yes. She’s AMAZING.” Said in a tone that implies she’s not really amazing at all, not in a good way.
I actually really like Boy Next Door’s mother, who is almost the age of my own mother, but is also practical, sensible, and has child-rearing ideas that are surprisingly similar to my own. She’s a bit of a drill sergeant in manner, but she’s got the proverbial heart of gold. She does nag her laid-back husband to death, but he’s the kind of old-fashioned bloke who stops at the pub and has a beer and a smoke while he’s waiting for his fish and chips to be ready to pick up. (At 5pm in the afternoon.) Their whole dynamic is based on her being the in-control nag and him being the put-upon husband who gets to roll his eyes when he’s told to do things. They seem to like it that way.
“I like to listen in on their conversations,” I admit. “F and Boy Next Door, I mean. The other day I heard BND imitating his mum. It was hilarious. ‘HUS-BAND, do the dishes! HUS-BAND, fix the dishwasher!’ He said that he reckons women do all the work because his mum’s always telling his dad what to do. I told him that his mum’s the one who makes sure the work gets done, and that I’m sure she actually does plenty.”
We all laugh at the imitations, united in judging someone other than each other.
It’s in this spirit that we get a bit carried away.
“I have to be at work soon,” says The Godmother. “If we’re going to get that coffee ...”
“Yeah, I’m going to get a coffee, too,” says The Stepmother.
The Godmother and I look at each other.
“Why don’t you join us?” says Godmother.
“Yes, go on.”
“Um ... okay, sure.”
And so we all end the morning squeezed around a 1950s laminated table built for four (The Godmother, The Stepmother, Baby Brother, F, The Husband and me), eating muffins and sipping lattes/hot chocolates/babycinos and continuing a polite conversation that is beginning to strain at the seams, but manages not to tear.
Maybe we’re not quite so far from Love My Way after all.
Even if The Husband and I do get home and exclaim over the way The Stepmother talks about how F “comes to stay” with them. (“He LIVES there half his life!” we exclaim, a little self-righteously.) And I’m sure I saw her file away the fact that I gave F a hot chocolate, even though the two families have agreed to minimise his sugar intake.
Ah well. The road to blended family heaven is paved with barbed comments. But at least we’re all trying.
* btw, this all happened a week ago, but I'm a slow writer
Saturday, June 07, 2008
Sex and the City and the Big Screen
As I sat at my laptop at my kitchen table, dressed in my pyjamas, I couldn't help but wonder ... why are women flocking to the Sex and the City movie in such numbers? Why did I line up for a ticket, just this afternoon? And why did both papers I read – The Australian and The Age – choose male film reviewers who admit they never watched the series to review a movie whose audience is made up almost entirely of female fans of the series?
I’ll try to answer the first question first ... Female fans of the series are lining up to see the movie for a reason that has been around as long as stories themselves. It’s the same reason that the king in Arabian Nights stayed wily Scheherezade’s execution over 1001 nights: to find out what happens next.
That’s the answer to the second question, too: it’s why I lined up outside Yarraville’s Sun Cinema to see the movie this afternoon, after missing out last night and heading dejectedly home to eat chocolate and watch a DVD. (I arrived at 8pm and the 8.20pm and 9.20pm sessions were both sold out. As I walked home down Anderson Street, towards the railway line, I passed squads of girls dressed in their best skinny jeans and heels squealing about Carrie and Miranda and co., on their way to get the same bad news as I had.)
And why did we all want to watch the movie so much? I’ve read – with interest – a series of articles in the past month debating this issue. And, love it as I do, I know that, in many ways, the show is shallow and materialistic. And, of course, supremely unrealistic. As if a once-a-week columnist could afford Carrie’s clothes, shoes, party lifestyle and Upper West Side apartment. The best article I’ve read (fittingly, from New York magazine) claims that the appeal of the four feisty women is that they are the female equivalent of superheroes. No, not superheroes with capes and nifty gadgets, but women who can do the impossible. Women living fantasy lives.
“Superheroes exist outside the laws and boundaries the rest of us have to abide by; while men want to see themselves flying and fighting, women are more interested in pushing other limits. How old can you be and still be hot? How many times can you break up and still be in love with someone? How many hours of the day can four working women conceivably spend together? Pointing out that Carrie could never afford her apartment, let alone her wardrobe, is about as useful as questioning Robert Downey Jr.'s ability to create cold fusion in a cave in Afghanistan — it misses the point of the movie entirely. Why is it okay for Iron Man to collect expensive cars but materialistic for Carrie to collect shoes? Surely her carbon footprint is the smaller of the two.”
Genius, I think. Carrie’s gadgets are her wardrobe, apartment, shoes and lifestyle. And the relationships – between the four women and their men – are what make the show so appealing, for me anyway. Personally, I couldn’t give a toss about Manolo Blahnik (I can’t wear heels and prefer to wear my zippered Doc Marten boots everywhere). I like clothes, to some extent, but have no desire to ever attend a fashion show. I’d read Vogue at the hairdresser’s, but that’s about it. But I think I would like to live in a New York apartment and eat out for every meal, be witty and attractive, write a well-known column about pretty much anything I like for a living, have a publishing contract and successful books ... And I tend to analyse relationships as relentlessly as a Carrie Bradshaw.
To drill down still further, the core appeal of the show is that it presents four different but attractive female archetypes, all different in personality and looks. Most fans will identify with at least one of the women. The four have an ideal friendship, one that holds through all manner of crises, one where they can always rely on each other. Is it feminist? Obviously not, in all kinds of ways, but it is in the sense that the central tenet has always been that, while a man is a good thing to have, it’s not necessary. The women can always fall back on each other. With or without a relationship, they will never be alone.
The Age’s Jake Wilson (who I often like) says: “Too bad for those of us who never caught a single episode of Sex and the City on TV, and now find ourselves enduring a round of hasty introductions to a group of people less amusing than reputation would suggest.” At which alarm bells start ringing loudly, for me as a reader. Why would you like a movie that is basically a continuation of a TV series if you have never seen the show? Then he describes Mr Big as “a bland Victor Mature lookalike whose eyes dance ironically without giving any hint of his thoughts”. Again: if you don’t like Mr Big, you probably won’t like the show, or the movie. He makes some good observations, and, as I don’t think it was the best movie in the world either, but that’s not THE POINT. The point is, you should at least start with an appreciation of where the movie is coming from to review it.
Evan Williams (who I also often like) was the lucky male novice to the series who reviewed the movie this weekend for The Australian. “I watched a couple of episodes of SATC on pay TV in preparation for writing this review, which of course makes me an expert.” And yes, I do sense a tongue firmly in cheek there. But he makes some pretty irrelevant criticism as a result of his scant knowledge of the series. “Here is an unashamed celebration of materialist values, an orgy of labels, brands and product placements as sinful, by implication, as the behaviour of the characters.” Bloody hell. It’s a series where the main character once figured out she had spent $40,000 (the equivalent, apparently, of a deposit on an apartment) on shoes. Where she announced that a Vogue fashion column was her equivalent of poetry. The materialism is not new.
He says that “the film has more depictions of sex, in its many athletic variations, than were permissible on the small screen”. Just not true. Remember Samantha on the swing? Or maybe just Samantha in general. It seems to me to be business as usual as far as that’s concerned. Not that it’s a big deal.
And – last criticism here: “Carrie is something of a celebrity and her writings are largely based (to no one’s apparent objection) on the sexual experiences of her friends”. Once again ... it’s the basis of the whole show. Why bother to poke holes in it?
Basically, I would have liked to have read the opinions of women who liked the show, instead of men who were dipping into it. I’m now waiting for when they ask Sam Brett to review Indiana Jones. (A bit unfair – the woman is an idiot and these men are not. But still. In terms of suitability for the material, it fits.)
So ... my opinion ... as someone who loved the show. SPOILER ALERT (I think).
Yes, the materialism did get on my nerves, perhaps because I haven’t seen the show in so long. Perhaps it always did. Yawn, yawn, get on with it. And there was a New York fashion show scene that felt redundant. In the show, there were fashion shows that were relevant to the plot, and funny (remember Carrie stumbling down the runway in tall, tall heels and sequinned undies?). This was just THERE.
I don’t think the film was funny enough: it lacked the sharp wit and observational humour that the show had.
The Jennifer Hudson character – Carrie’s personal assistant – felt embarassingly tokenistic (‘ooh, let’s have a black character’) and had too much of a touch of Mammy to Miss Scarlett about her. Though, to be fair, I guess that the job of personal assistant to a writer with connections would be sought after. Still, as she was the only black character, the dynamic made me uncomfortable.
I thought Carrie over-reacted to Big’s mistake at the altar. I wouldn’t even call it a ‘dumping’. He got nervous about the spectacle of the thing (which he’d warned her about the night before) and took a turn around the block, before coming back to say, as she whacked him over the head with the bouquet, that he was ready now. He was bad, but not THAT bad.
I thought Miranda made a mistake ... but then, so did the other characters, so I guess that’s not a criticism, that’s a comment.
But, criticisms aside, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. Don’t know that I’d see it a second time, but it was immensely satisfying to re-enter that world and follow what happened to the characters. I confess to getting a tear in my eye a couple of times about the fates of the couples I liked most (Carrie & Big, Miranda & Steve).
I liked the play on fairy tales. Carrie reads Charlotte’s daughter Cinderella and then turns to her and gives her a solemn lecture about how things don’t always turn out happily ever after in real life and she should know that now. The little girl watches with big eyes, then asks for the story “again”. Carries smiles to herself and opens the book at the start. It’s a nice wink to feminism and to the fact that sometimes women know the whole palaver is a fairy tale, but they want it anyway, as much as they try to tell themselves they don’t. (Not all women – but certainly Carrie.) There’s a nice ongoing Cinderella reference, too.
So, in conclusion: a couple of smart moments, but mostly fairly standard chick-flick stuff that will be satisfying if you like the characters and want to spend a bit of time with them, but not otherwise.
It’s superhero escapism, for women.
Some facts about me! meme (or: procrastination)
Some facts about me! meme
Courtesy of Elsewhere. Thanks for the procrastination material!
1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3. At the end of the post, the player tags 5 people and posts their name, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they've been tagged and asking them to read your blog.
What was I doing 10 years ago?
I had recently moved to Melbourne and I didn't yet have a child. I was living in a flat in Elwood with a view of the sea with the man who was to become the father of my child. He was very bossy. We had a big stand-up fight outside the local supermarket once because he said no girlfriend of his was going to buy two-minute noodles and I said I wanted it, it was MY comfort food, and no one was going to tell me what to do. Wow, how surprising that we broke up. I worked as a marketing manager at an academic publishing company and I was secretly terrified they had given me the job by mistake, not realising how incompetent I was. This turned out to be partly true: I was very good at one part of my job and didn't have a great grip on the other. My boss at the time was too busy shagging a girl from customer service behind his fiancee's back to notice. My best friend from Adelaide decided on a whim to move to Melbourne and crashed on my couch until my partner kicked him out. Then he invited my 17 year old brother to come live with him in a share house near Southlands with the head chef from his work, who turned out to be a gambling addict and stole all their money. The two chefs ignored my brother (their kitchenhand) for a while because they were both in love with the 21 year old head waitress, a blonde from the Gold Coast, who was in love with my brother.
Five snacks I enjoy in a perfect, non weight-gaining world:
1. Magnum Envy (chocolate coated with mint ice cream)
2. Chocolate coated raspberry bullets
3. Haigh's chocolate almonds
4. Lindt orange filled chocolate
5. Gelati from Al Fresco's in Adelaide. Preferably mint choc-chip, hazelnut or chocolate. Banana and mango are also good.
Five snacks I enjoy in the real world: (or really my favorite snacks 6-10)
6. Um ... all of the above when I'm being bad. When I'm being good, almonds and Carman's muesli bars, cut-up Granny Smith's apples and barbecue rice crackers.
Five things I would do if I were a billionaire:
1. Stop working and travel the world, writing immersion type journalism stories and other stuff. (What Elsewhere said. But probably would have to wait ten years, due to nearly-nine-year-old. Or maybe I could bring him.)
2. Buy two houses. A Victorian terrace in North Fitzroy (with a pool if I can find room in the backyard) and a beach house at Airey's Inlet.
3. Buy houses for my family. Big family, so a lot of money eaten up there.
4. Start my own publishing company. And hire good staff to do all the things I can't.
5. Make a fat donation to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre.
Five jobs that I have had:
1. marketing manager (publishing)
2. deputy editor (magazine)
3. bookseller
4. public relations consultant (this one felt a bit too formal and poncy as a job title, I'm not sure why)
5. deli counter at Coles (worst. job. ever.)
Three of my habits:
1. over analysis (self and others)
2. general domestic slovenliness
3. judging other people's parenting and then feeling guilty about it
Five places I have lived:
1. Norwood, Adelaide
2. Golden Grove, Adelaide (actually Wynn Vale, but nobody really knows the difference - and it WASN'T MY CHOICE)
3. Carlton, Melbourne
4. North Fitzroy, Melbourne
5. Yarraville, Melbourne
Five people I want to get to know better: (A nice way of saying TAG!)
1. http://castironbalcony.media2.org/
2. http://halfheartedhack.blogspot.com/ (maybe it will lure her back onto the blogging wagon?)
3. http://eglantinescake.blogspot.com/
4. http://blurbfromtheburbs.blogspot.com/
5. http://blakkatruminations.blogspot.com/
Courtesy of Elsewhere. Thanks for the procrastination material!
1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3. At the end of the post, the player tags 5 people and posts their name, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they've been tagged and asking them to read your blog.
What was I doing 10 years ago?
I had recently moved to Melbourne and I didn't yet have a child. I was living in a flat in Elwood with a view of the sea with the man who was to become the father of my child. He was very bossy. We had a big stand-up fight outside the local supermarket once because he said no girlfriend of his was going to buy two-minute noodles and I said I wanted it, it was MY comfort food, and no one was going to tell me what to do. Wow, how surprising that we broke up. I worked as a marketing manager at an academic publishing company and I was secretly terrified they had given me the job by mistake, not realising how incompetent I was. This turned out to be partly true: I was very good at one part of my job and didn't have a great grip on the other. My boss at the time was too busy shagging a girl from customer service behind his fiancee's back to notice. My best friend from Adelaide decided on a whim to move to Melbourne and crashed on my couch until my partner kicked him out. Then he invited my 17 year old brother to come live with him in a share house near Southlands with the head chef from his work, who turned out to be a gambling addict and stole all their money. The two chefs ignored my brother (their kitchenhand) for a while because they were both in love with the 21 year old head waitress, a blonde from the Gold Coast, who was in love with my brother.
Five snacks I enjoy in a perfect, non weight-gaining world:
1. Magnum Envy (chocolate coated with mint ice cream)
2. Chocolate coated raspberry bullets
3. Haigh's chocolate almonds
4. Lindt orange filled chocolate
5. Gelati from Al Fresco's in Adelaide. Preferably mint choc-chip, hazelnut or chocolate. Banana and mango are also good.
Five snacks I enjoy in the real world: (or really my favorite snacks 6-10)
6. Um ... all of the above when I'm being bad. When I'm being good, almonds and Carman's muesli bars, cut-up Granny Smith's apples and barbecue rice crackers.
Five things I would do if I were a billionaire:
1. Stop working and travel the world, writing immersion type journalism stories and other stuff. (What Elsewhere said. But probably would have to wait ten years, due to nearly-nine-year-old. Or maybe I could bring him.)
2. Buy two houses. A Victorian terrace in North Fitzroy (with a pool if I can find room in the backyard) and a beach house at Airey's Inlet.
3. Buy houses for my family. Big family, so a lot of money eaten up there.
4. Start my own publishing company. And hire good staff to do all the things I can't.
5. Make a fat donation to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre.
Five jobs that I have had:
1. marketing manager (publishing)
2. deputy editor (magazine)
3. bookseller
4. public relations consultant (this one felt a bit too formal and poncy as a job title, I'm not sure why)
5. deli counter at Coles (worst. job. ever.)
Three of my habits:
1. over analysis (self and others)
2. general domestic slovenliness
3. judging other people's parenting and then feeling guilty about it
Five places I have lived:
1. Norwood, Adelaide
2. Golden Grove, Adelaide (actually Wynn Vale, but nobody really knows the difference - and it WASN'T MY CHOICE)
3. Carlton, Melbourne
4. North Fitzroy, Melbourne
5. Yarraville, Melbourne
Five people I want to get to know better: (A nice way of saying TAG!)
1. http://castironbalcony.media2.org/
2. http://halfheartedhack.blogspot.com/ (maybe it will lure her back onto the blogging wagon?)
3. http://eglantinescake.blogspot.com/
4. http://blurbfromtheburbs.blogspot.com/
5. http://blakkatruminations.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Diabetes
They say that medical students go through a stage of thinking they have every disease in the textbook. Reading through lists of symptoms, they mentally tick them off and imagine they have all kinds of diseases and syndrome, however rare. They learn to discount them.
It’s a Saturday afternoon. Rain is sputtering outside my window. I’m curled up on the couch in front of the heater, reading The Good Weekend. In the article, a woman recounts having a dry mouth and unexplained fatigue, going to the doctor, and discovering that she has diabetes. I mentally freeze in my tracks. I’ve had a mysteriously dry mouth for a week or so, and had toyed with the idea of Googling the symptom. (It worked when I was trying to figure out why F had a sore bottom: worms. I even Googled handy hints on how to capture a sample for the doctor.) And I’ve been tired lately. Very tired. For no reason. I’d thought it must have been work, but now that I think about it, I haven’t been working that hard.
I put down the magazine, untangle myself from the blanket over my knees, and practically dive for my laptop. I key in ‘dry mouth symptoms’ to Google. Guess what comes up? Diabetes, and not much else. Tired? Check. Lost weight lately? Check. I’d thought it was because I was eating better, but maybe not. Loss of appetite? Well, maybe. After all, I am eating less, so I must have less of an appetite. Going to the toilet a lot? I’m not sure. But I probably am, because I always seem to be getting out of bed early in the morning to go to the toilet.
I try to settle myself back on the couch with the paper, but now I am convinced. The doctor’s office is closed on the weekend. The next two days stretch before me. My dry mouth situation escalates from an annoying feeling to a searing desert in my throat. I pour myself a tall glass of water and ring my mother on her mobile.
My sister answers. She and mum and my nana are all having a girl’s day out, lunching and shopping. We chat about her job for a while before she asks why I’m calling.
‘I had to ask mum a medical question.’
‘Again?’
‘Mmm.’ Mum wanted to be a doctor when she was a teenager (and got the marks for medical school – she just lacked the self-esteem to apply). She had five kids, who all survived various ailments. Those two factors - and her innate practical nature - qualify her to be my doctor when there are no doctors around. In fact, I usually call her for medical advice before I go to the doctor. ‘I think I have diabetes.’
My sister laughs. When she has finished laughing, she asks me where I got the idea from. I tell her. She laughs some more. Mum takes the phone.
‘Do you have a dry mouth?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you tired? Do you feel flu-y?’
‘Yes. Yes.’
‘Do you go to the toilet a lot?’
‘I think so.’
‘Hmmm. Gerta had all those symptoms.’ One of her best friends has adult onset diabetes.
I hear a voice in the background, faint but clearly audible.
‘GO TO THE DOCTOR!’
‘Nana says go to the doctor.’
‘I hear her.’
‘So, Gerta had those symptoms huh? I feel a bit faint.’
‘You could fall into a diabetic coma if you don’t get it checked out.’
‘I know.’
‘That’s what happened to Gerta. She had a really dry mouth, she said she was climbing the stairs at work and practically foaming at the mouth ... and she fell into a coma and had to be taken to hospital. That’s how she found out.’
‘Oh my god.’
‘Guess who’s here now? Wait, I’m putting you on speaker phone.’
‘HI ARIEL!’
It’s my other sister. They’ve just stopped the car and picked her up. Now they’re on their way to the local shopping centre, for more shopping. They are dedicated shoppers, my Adelaide family. It’s practically a mandatory Saturday activity.
‘GO TO THE DOCTOR!’
‘Hi, Nana.’
‘Hello!’
‘Is F there? What’s he doing?’ It’s the sister who just climbed into the car.
‘He’s watching TV. And reading a Digimon comic.’
‘What’s Digimon?’
‘It’s like Pokemon. Only not.’
‘Oh. HI F!’
I turn away from the mouthpiece and repeat the message for him. He lifts his head from the comic, just the slightest movement, and nods.
‘Uh huh.’
‘He says hi!’ I report. There is a satisfied chorus of adoring sighs.
‘So, what’s up?’ says the newly arrived sister.
‘She thinks she has diabetes,’ says Sister 1, sounding faintly amused.
‘Oh. Right.’
‘GO TO ...’
‘I’ll go to the doctor on Monday, Nana.’
‘Good.’
‘Anyway, why are you calling me?’ asks Mum, the thought only just occurring to her. ‘What can I do? I’m not a doctor.’
‘Mum, I always call you for medical questions. You know that.’
‘She does,’ says Sister 1.
‘But why?’
‘Because you always wanted to BE a doctor.’
‘But I’m not.’
‘Yeah, but you have the NATURAL INTEREST in medical matters.’
‘Oh. Okay.’
‘Mum,’ I say, ‘I have to go in a minute. This call is costing me a lot of money. But ... if anything happens to me, and they call you, can you tell them that I might have diabetes? You know, if I fall into a coma.’
‘GO TO THE DOCTOR!’ says Nana.
‘Ariel ...’ says Mum. I hear my sisters laughing.
We say our goodbyes.
I look over at F, sprawled, seemingly comfortably, across the hard wooden floor, his head bowed over his comic. My heart floods with affection for him. Then I wonder: what would he do if I fell into a diabetic coma and no one was here? What if it happened this afternoon?
‘F, darling,’ I say, trying to seem as casual as I can so as not to frighten him.
‘Mmmm?’
‘If anything ever happens to me ... and, you know, no one is here ... can you just call Nana and tell her? You know her number.’
‘Sure.’ He doesn’t look up. I feel pleased at having successfully not frightened him. I am satisfied that if he called mum, she could tell the hospital or whoever about my diabetes. I am covered. But what if she’s not home? What if she doesn’t pick up? What if the hospital just calls The Husband first?
I dial the bookshop where he works and chirp a friendly hello at the person who answers. The Husband's voice comes on the line.
‘Hey there.’
‘Hi darling. I’ve got something I need to tell you. It’s going to sound a bit odd. I don’t want to scare you.’
‘What?’
I look at F and sidle out into the hallway, shutting the door behind me. I lower my voice and stage whisper into the phone.
‘I think I have diabetes.’
‘What? What are you talking about?’
He doesn’t sound scared. He sounds annoyed.
‘I read this article ... and it says that the symptoms of diabetes are a dry mouth and fatigue and I have both! Remember when I told you that I’ve had a dry mouth and I wonder what it is?’
‘Sort of.’
‘Well ... I Googled ‘dry mouth’ and it confirmed it. Practically the ONLY THING that came up was diabetes.’
‘You don’t have diabetes.’
‘Don’t worry, I’m going to go the doctor on Monday and have it checked out.’
‘Maybe you’re drinking too much coffee. Maybe that’s why you have a dry mouth. The caffeine.’
‘I hardly drink any coffee. Maybe two cups a day. And I’ve been drinking water ALL DAY and it’s making NO DIFFERENCE.’
‘Right. Do you have headaches?’
‘Um ... no. But that’s not a symptom.’
‘It would be. You’d have headaches from the high blood sugar. And you don’t.’
I don’t know what to say to that.
‘I really have to go,’ he says.
‘Okay. But ... if anyone calls and anything happens to me ... can you tell them that I might have diabetes?
‘You don’t have diabetes.’
He’ll be sorry if I DO have diabetes! I think as I hang up and return to the lounge room. Maybe he just doesn’t want to think about bad news. Maybe he is trying to be positive. I look at F across the lounge room.
‘Do you want grilled cheese and cut-up apple for lunch?’
‘Yes please.’
‘Do you know THe Husband’s phone numbers at work?’
‘No.’ He looks up and frowns a little. ‘No, I don’t.’
‘I’ll tell you what,’ I say. ‘Why don’t I write down The Husband’s phone numbers – work and mobile – and put them up on the pin-up board? Just in case you ever need them .. you know, if anything ever happens to me. Not that I think it will.’
‘Okay. Good idea, Mum.’ He goes back to his comic. Success! I now feel fully prepared in case I fall into a diabetic coma.
When The Husband comes home, I am still safely ensconced on the couch. No coma. But I have developed a massive headache. And, now I think about it, I have had headaches on and off for a while.
‘Sorry about calling you at work to tell you I think I have diabetes,’ I say. ‘I guess it must have seemed a bit weird?’
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘It was. Very. And you don’t have diabetes.’
‘But I have a headache! In fact, I’ve remembered that I HAVE been having headaches.’
‘Not drinking enough water.’
‘Remember? I’ve been drinking loads of water. At least, today I have. And I still have a headache.’
The Husband lets out a deep sigh and fixes me with a straight-talking gaze.
‘Ariel. Every time you have PMT you are fatigued and you have headaches or feel light-headed or whatever and you think you are pregnant. And you never are. Do you have PMT right now?’
‘Um ... yes.’
‘There you go.’
After dinner, F I sit side by side on the couch, sipping hot chocolates and prodding gooey marshmallows with our spoons. We are wearing flannelette pyjamas and reading books. We are warm and content. The Husband clears our dinner plates from the coffee table and takes them to the kitchen. He pauses at the doorway on his way back to the couch.
‘Why are my phone numbers up on the pin-up board? I’ve never noticed them before.’
‘Ask F,’ I tell him. He looks at F, his eyebrows doing the questioning.
‘Well ...’ F thinks hard, pausing before his face lights up with the answer. ‘It’s in case anything ever happens to Mum! So I can call you!’
‘Ah.’ The Husband looks at me, hard, his face teetering between amusement and annoyance. ‘Like a diabetic coma?’
‘Exactly!’
‘But you don’t have diabetes.’
It’s a Saturday afternoon. Rain is sputtering outside my window. I’m curled up on the couch in front of the heater, reading The Good Weekend. In the article, a woman recounts having a dry mouth and unexplained fatigue, going to the doctor, and discovering that she has diabetes. I mentally freeze in my tracks. I’ve had a mysteriously dry mouth for a week or so, and had toyed with the idea of Googling the symptom. (It worked when I was trying to figure out why F had a sore bottom: worms. I even Googled handy hints on how to capture a sample for the doctor.) And I’ve been tired lately. Very tired. For no reason. I’d thought it must have been work, but now that I think about it, I haven’t been working that hard.
I put down the magazine, untangle myself from the blanket over my knees, and practically dive for my laptop. I key in ‘dry mouth symptoms’ to Google. Guess what comes up? Diabetes, and not much else. Tired? Check. Lost weight lately? Check. I’d thought it was because I was eating better, but maybe not. Loss of appetite? Well, maybe. After all, I am eating less, so I must have less of an appetite. Going to the toilet a lot? I’m not sure. But I probably am, because I always seem to be getting out of bed early in the morning to go to the toilet.
I try to settle myself back on the couch with the paper, but now I am convinced. The doctor’s office is closed on the weekend. The next two days stretch before me. My dry mouth situation escalates from an annoying feeling to a searing desert in my throat. I pour myself a tall glass of water and ring my mother on her mobile.
My sister answers. She and mum and my nana are all having a girl’s day out, lunching and shopping. We chat about her job for a while before she asks why I’m calling.
‘I had to ask mum a medical question.’
‘Again?’
‘Mmm.’ Mum wanted to be a doctor when she was a teenager (and got the marks for medical school – she just lacked the self-esteem to apply). She had five kids, who all survived various ailments. Those two factors - and her innate practical nature - qualify her to be my doctor when there are no doctors around. In fact, I usually call her for medical advice before I go to the doctor. ‘I think I have diabetes.’
My sister laughs. When she has finished laughing, she asks me where I got the idea from. I tell her. She laughs some more. Mum takes the phone.
‘Do you have a dry mouth?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you tired? Do you feel flu-y?’
‘Yes. Yes.’
‘Do you go to the toilet a lot?’
‘I think so.’
‘Hmmm. Gerta had all those symptoms.’ One of her best friends has adult onset diabetes.
I hear a voice in the background, faint but clearly audible.
‘GO TO THE DOCTOR!’
‘Nana says go to the doctor.’
‘I hear her.’
‘So, Gerta had those symptoms huh? I feel a bit faint.’
‘You could fall into a diabetic coma if you don’t get it checked out.’
‘I know.’
‘That’s what happened to Gerta. She had a really dry mouth, she said she was climbing the stairs at work and practically foaming at the mouth ... and she fell into a coma and had to be taken to hospital. That’s how she found out.’
‘Oh my god.’
‘Guess who’s here now? Wait, I’m putting you on speaker phone.’
‘HI ARIEL!’
It’s my other sister. They’ve just stopped the car and picked her up. Now they’re on their way to the local shopping centre, for more shopping. They are dedicated shoppers, my Adelaide family. It’s practically a mandatory Saturday activity.
‘GO TO THE DOCTOR!’
‘Hi, Nana.’
‘Hello!’
‘Is F there? What’s he doing?’ It’s the sister who just climbed into the car.
‘He’s watching TV. And reading a Digimon comic.’
‘What’s Digimon?’
‘It’s like Pokemon. Only not.’
‘Oh. HI F!’
I turn away from the mouthpiece and repeat the message for him. He lifts his head from the comic, just the slightest movement, and nods.
‘Uh huh.’
‘He says hi!’ I report. There is a satisfied chorus of adoring sighs.
‘So, what’s up?’ says the newly arrived sister.
‘She thinks she has diabetes,’ says Sister 1, sounding faintly amused.
‘Oh. Right.’
‘GO TO ...’
‘I’ll go to the doctor on Monday, Nana.’
‘Good.’
‘Anyway, why are you calling me?’ asks Mum, the thought only just occurring to her. ‘What can I do? I’m not a doctor.’
‘Mum, I always call you for medical questions. You know that.’
‘She does,’ says Sister 1.
‘But why?’
‘Because you always wanted to BE a doctor.’
‘But I’m not.’
‘Yeah, but you have the NATURAL INTEREST in medical matters.’
‘Oh. Okay.’
‘Mum,’ I say, ‘I have to go in a minute. This call is costing me a lot of money. But ... if anything happens to me, and they call you, can you tell them that I might have diabetes? You know, if I fall into a coma.’
‘GO TO THE DOCTOR!’ says Nana.
‘Ariel ...’ says Mum. I hear my sisters laughing.
We say our goodbyes.
I look over at F, sprawled, seemingly comfortably, across the hard wooden floor, his head bowed over his comic. My heart floods with affection for him. Then I wonder: what would he do if I fell into a diabetic coma and no one was here? What if it happened this afternoon?
‘F, darling,’ I say, trying to seem as casual as I can so as not to frighten him.
‘Mmmm?’
‘If anything ever happens to me ... and, you know, no one is here ... can you just call Nana and tell her? You know her number.’
‘Sure.’ He doesn’t look up. I feel pleased at having successfully not frightened him. I am satisfied that if he called mum, she could tell the hospital or whoever about my diabetes. I am covered. But what if she’s not home? What if she doesn’t pick up? What if the hospital just calls The Husband first?
I dial the bookshop where he works and chirp a friendly hello at the person who answers. The Husband's voice comes on the line.
‘Hey there.’
‘Hi darling. I’ve got something I need to tell you. It’s going to sound a bit odd. I don’t want to scare you.’
‘What?’
I look at F and sidle out into the hallway, shutting the door behind me. I lower my voice and stage whisper into the phone.
‘I think I have diabetes.’
‘What? What are you talking about?’
He doesn’t sound scared. He sounds annoyed.
‘I read this article ... and it says that the symptoms of diabetes are a dry mouth and fatigue and I have both! Remember when I told you that I’ve had a dry mouth and I wonder what it is?’
‘Sort of.’
‘Well ... I Googled ‘dry mouth’ and it confirmed it. Practically the ONLY THING that came up was diabetes.’
‘You don’t have diabetes.’
‘Don’t worry, I’m going to go the doctor on Monday and have it checked out.’
‘Maybe you’re drinking too much coffee. Maybe that’s why you have a dry mouth. The caffeine.’
‘I hardly drink any coffee. Maybe two cups a day. And I’ve been drinking water ALL DAY and it’s making NO DIFFERENCE.’
‘Right. Do you have headaches?’
‘Um ... no. But that’s not a symptom.’
‘It would be. You’d have headaches from the high blood sugar. And you don’t.’
I don’t know what to say to that.
‘I really have to go,’ he says.
‘Okay. But ... if anyone calls and anything happens to me ... can you tell them that I might have diabetes?
‘You don’t have diabetes.’
He’ll be sorry if I DO have diabetes! I think as I hang up and return to the lounge room. Maybe he just doesn’t want to think about bad news. Maybe he is trying to be positive. I look at F across the lounge room.
‘Do you want grilled cheese and cut-up apple for lunch?’
‘Yes please.’
‘Do you know THe Husband’s phone numbers at work?’
‘No.’ He looks up and frowns a little. ‘No, I don’t.’
‘I’ll tell you what,’ I say. ‘Why don’t I write down The Husband’s phone numbers – work and mobile – and put them up on the pin-up board? Just in case you ever need them .. you know, if anything ever happens to me. Not that I think it will.’
‘Okay. Good idea, Mum.’ He goes back to his comic. Success! I now feel fully prepared in case I fall into a diabetic coma.
When The Husband comes home, I am still safely ensconced on the couch. No coma. But I have developed a massive headache. And, now I think about it, I have had headaches on and off for a while.
‘Sorry about calling you at work to tell you I think I have diabetes,’ I say. ‘I guess it must have seemed a bit weird?’
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘It was. Very. And you don’t have diabetes.’
‘But I have a headache! In fact, I’ve remembered that I HAVE been having headaches.’
‘Not drinking enough water.’
‘Remember? I’ve been drinking loads of water. At least, today I have. And I still have a headache.’
The Husband lets out a deep sigh and fixes me with a straight-talking gaze.
‘Ariel. Every time you have PMT you are fatigued and you have headaches or feel light-headed or whatever and you think you are pregnant. And you never are. Do you have PMT right now?’
‘Um ... yes.’
‘There you go.’
After dinner, F I sit side by side on the couch, sipping hot chocolates and prodding gooey marshmallows with our spoons. We are wearing flannelette pyjamas and reading books. We are warm and content. The Husband clears our dinner plates from the coffee table and takes them to the kitchen. He pauses at the doorway on his way back to the couch.
‘Why are my phone numbers up on the pin-up board? I’ve never noticed them before.’
‘Ask F,’ I tell him. He looks at F, his eyebrows doing the questioning.
‘Well ...’ F thinks hard, pausing before his face lights up with the answer. ‘It’s in case anything ever happens to Mum! So I can call you!’
‘Ah.’ The Husband looks at me, hard, his face teetering between amusement and annoyance. ‘Like a diabetic coma?’
‘Exactly!’
‘But you don’t have diabetes.’
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Yo! Mama’s Day
F told me last Saturday, rather grandly, that he was going to treat me “like a queen” for Mother’s Day. “You deserve it!” he continued.
“Why thank you,” I responded, also rather grandly, tossing my hair with smug entitlement.
We were passing through the Myer cosmetics department at the time, and I think the phrase made me think of all those snarmy ads with the models assuring you that ‘you’re worth’ expensive face cream and nice shampoo. I was getting into the spirit of things.
Cycling home from school on Thursday, he called back along the footpath through the wind and the traffic: “For Mother’s Day, mum, I’m not going to get you anything. I’m going to donate money for breast cancer instead.”
Something about his tone made me suspicious. I’d just shut down a request to make his own lunches from now on ... which, I’d quickly surmised, was so that he could stack them with banned substances (mainly sugar). Though his professed sentiment was noble, his high-handed tone teetered between generosity and punishment.
“That’s lovely, how nice,” I said.
Silence from the bike ahead.
“We-eellll ... actually, I’m going to pretend Mother’s Day doesn’t even EXIST.”
“That’s fine,” I called smoothly. “Because I was planning to do exactly the same thing about your birthday.”
“My BIRTHDAY?”
“Yup.”
“This year?”
“Uh huh.”
“Oh. I’m only joking, you know.”
“How interesting.”
That night, watching Gordon Ramsay and eating takeaway noodles, I told The Husband about F’s breast cancer plan.
“He TOLD you?” he asked.
“What do you mean? You mean he didn’t make it up to piss me off?”
“No. Something about donating to breast cancer came on TV the other night, you were here, we looked at each other and nodded.”
“Oh. So he was doing it to be nice. At least, at first. Good.”
This morning I was woken by a hug.
“Good morning, your majesty.”
“Hey!”
“Happy Mother’s Day, my queen. Would you like breakfast?”
It was very early.
“Um, maybe later.”
“Can I play the computer?”
“Absolutely.”
Some hours later, I was instructed to sit in the study while he put the finishing touches on my presents. I got chocolate almonds (my favourite vice) and cupcakes (also a hit), both from the school Mother’s Day stall. He made me a handmade book about Ben 10, his latest cartoon craze. And I got a card with a Mother’s Day poem:
Lovely. My favourite present.
Then we went out for breakfast in a cafe down the road, where I ate poached eggs, sautéed potatoes and roast tomato, and F ate crumpets with honey. I read my way through the weekend papers and F read the latest AFL kids’ comic and excitedly opened his new packet of footy cards. I probably got three sentences out of him.
I ran into a friend, eating at a table across the room, his laptop on a chair beside him. (A business meeting on a Sunday? Life of a freelancer!) F barely looked up from his mag as my friend tried to make conversation with him. He got about three sentences, too, though. My friend and I had been at the same party the night before. And I only realised when I left the cafe that this meant he would realise I was still wearing the same dress I had on last night. The dress I was wearing when he DROPPED ME AT MY DOOR at 1am. Embarassing.
In the old days, being seen in the same dress from last night’s party meant I’d got ‘lucky’. Or got so trashed, I’d crashed on someone else’s couch. Today, it meant that after he dropped me home, I’d fallen asleep in front of my laptop under a quilt on the couch, watching successive episodes of Veronica Mars on my laptop until 3.30am. And that I was so tired when I woke up that I decided – what the hell – I’d keep the dress on for breakfast.
My, how life changes ...
This afternoon, The Husband, F and I went to the Sun cinema to see Iron Man as our Mother’s Day outing. We took the boy next door, and the kids were so exciting that they ran down Anderson Street shouting. I loftily reminded them that this was a MOTHER’S DAY trip, so they should make it pleasant for me. At the cinema, they’d run out of Choc Tops and the ATM had run out of money. No EFTPOS. The Mother’s Day crowd was not pleased. My particular little crowd included. We ended up with popcorn and soft drinks. I was so disgruntled to miss out on my Choc Top sugar rush that I went for raspberry lemonade instead. The ultimate non-alcoholic headrush.
In front of us in the line for tickets, is the parent who thoroughly disapproves of F and periodically asks his kids not to play with him because he doesn’t like “his attitude”. (As I type, F is shouting and screaming in the backyard over football, so I do sort of get it, even while I despise him for it.) The boys are thrilled to see each other. They grab each other’s arms and squeal. In the theatre, we sit directly behind F’s mates. They are eating pieces of fruit their father pulls from a backpack. He slowly, methodically peels a banana and bites into it just as F and Boy Next Door burst into their first bout of squabbling over the chips and soft drink that I – foolishly – bought them to share. To SHARE. In the dark. While they are also supposed to be quiet.
The movie is great, for the sort of movie you can see with a couple of primary school boys. Two hours with Robert Downey Jr is an excellent Mother’s Day present. F’s verdict: a bit gory (he hid his face quite a few times, with me telling him when he could look again), but good. And he gave the soundtrack 10/10. I was impressed when he spotted Marvel comic guru Stan Lee in a cameo (playing Hugh Hefner for three seconds). A nerd in training.
I have a brilliant son who loves me and thinks I deserve to be treated like a queen for a day, and a husband who spent half his day kicking the footy in the backyard with my son and his mate, and babysat for me last night while I went out to a party. I’m doing pretty good.
Peace out, y’all ...
... and happy mama’s day ...
“Why thank you,” I responded, also rather grandly, tossing my hair with smug entitlement.
We were passing through the Myer cosmetics department at the time, and I think the phrase made me think of all those snarmy ads with the models assuring you that ‘you’re worth’ expensive face cream and nice shampoo. I was getting into the spirit of things.
Cycling home from school on Thursday, he called back along the footpath through the wind and the traffic: “For Mother’s Day, mum, I’m not going to get you anything. I’m going to donate money for breast cancer instead.”
Something about his tone made me suspicious. I’d just shut down a request to make his own lunches from now on ... which, I’d quickly surmised, was so that he could stack them with banned substances (mainly sugar). Though his professed sentiment was noble, his high-handed tone teetered between generosity and punishment.
“That’s lovely, how nice,” I said.
Silence from the bike ahead.
“We-eellll ... actually, I’m going to pretend Mother’s Day doesn’t even EXIST.”
“That’s fine,” I called smoothly. “Because I was planning to do exactly the same thing about your birthday.”
“My BIRTHDAY?”
“Yup.”
“This year?”
“Uh huh.”
“Oh. I’m only joking, you know.”
“How interesting.”
That night, watching Gordon Ramsay and eating takeaway noodles, I told The Husband about F’s breast cancer plan.
“He TOLD you?” he asked.
“What do you mean? You mean he didn’t make it up to piss me off?”
“No. Something about donating to breast cancer came on TV the other night, you were here, we looked at each other and nodded.”
“Oh. So he was doing it to be nice. At least, at first. Good.”
This morning I was woken by a hug.
“Good morning, your majesty.”
“Hey!”
“Happy Mother’s Day, my queen. Would you like breakfast?”
It was very early.
“Um, maybe later.”
“Can I play the computer?”
“Absolutely.”
Some hours later, I was instructed to sit in the study while he put the finishing touches on my presents. I got chocolate almonds (my favourite vice) and cupcakes (also a hit), both from the school Mother’s Day stall. He made me a handmade book about Ben 10, his latest cartoon craze. And I got a card with a Mother’s Day poem:
Mother’s Day is like, a day for ya mama,
So don’t give her no drama,
Let her wear pajamas
while this day is a mama o’rama
YO!
MAMA’S DAY
Lovely. My favourite present.
Then we went out for breakfast in a cafe down the road, where I ate poached eggs, sautéed potatoes and roast tomato, and F ate crumpets with honey. I read my way through the weekend papers and F read the latest AFL kids’ comic and excitedly opened his new packet of footy cards. I probably got three sentences out of him.
I ran into a friend, eating at a table across the room, his laptop on a chair beside him. (A business meeting on a Sunday? Life of a freelancer!) F barely looked up from his mag as my friend tried to make conversation with him. He got about three sentences, too, though. My friend and I had been at the same party the night before. And I only realised when I left the cafe that this meant he would realise I was still wearing the same dress I had on last night. The dress I was wearing when he DROPPED ME AT MY DOOR at 1am. Embarassing.
In the old days, being seen in the same dress from last night’s party meant I’d got ‘lucky’. Or got so trashed, I’d crashed on someone else’s couch. Today, it meant that after he dropped me home, I’d fallen asleep in front of my laptop under a quilt on the couch, watching successive episodes of Veronica Mars on my laptop until 3.30am. And that I was so tired when I woke up that I decided – what the hell – I’d keep the dress on for breakfast.
My, how life changes ...
This afternoon, The Husband, F and I went to the Sun cinema to see Iron Man as our Mother’s Day outing. We took the boy next door, and the kids were so exciting that they ran down Anderson Street shouting. I loftily reminded them that this was a MOTHER’S DAY trip, so they should make it pleasant for me. At the cinema, they’d run out of Choc Tops and the ATM had run out of money. No EFTPOS. The Mother’s Day crowd was not pleased. My particular little crowd included. We ended up with popcorn and soft drinks. I was so disgruntled to miss out on my Choc Top sugar rush that I went for raspberry lemonade instead. The ultimate non-alcoholic headrush.
In front of us in the line for tickets, is the parent who thoroughly disapproves of F and periodically asks his kids not to play with him because he doesn’t like “his attitude”. (As I type, F is shouting and screaming in the backyard over football, so I do sort of get it, even while I despise him for it.) The boys are thrilled to see each other. They grab each other’s arms and squeal. In the theatre, we sit directly behind F’s mates. They are eating pieces of fruit their father pulls from a backpack. He slowly, methodically peels a banana and bites into it just as F and Boy Next Door burst into their first bout of squabbling over the chips and soft drink that I – foolishly – bought them to share. To SHARE. In the dark. While they are also supposed to be quiet.
The movie is great, for the sort of movie you can see with a couple of primary school boys. Two hours with Robert Downey Jr is an excellent Mother’s Day present. F’s verdict: a bit gory (he hid his face quite a few times, with me telling him when he could look again), but good. And he gave the soundtrack 10/10. I was impressed when he spotted Marvel comic guru Stan Lee in a cameo (playing Hugh Hefner for three seconds). A nerd in training.
I have a brilliant son who loves me and thinks I deserve to be treated like a queen for a day, and a husband who spent half his day kicking the footy in the backyard with my son and his mate, and babysat for me last night while I went out to a party. I’m doing pretty good.
Peace out, y’all ...
... and happy mama’s day ...
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Mean mummy: My war on boredom
I am waging war against the words “I’m bored”.
I’ve never been very tolerant of that complaint. I believe that kids need to be bored sometimes, and to develop the ability to find something to do. Which is what my mother always said to us if we complained we were bored. What came next was the ominous or I’ll find you something to do.
Thanks to a chance encounter with a cousin in Adelaide a few months ago, I have a new and lethal weapon against boredom.
My cousin and I ran into each other during a session at Adelaide Writer’s Week. We hadn’t seen each other for about three years – since her brother’s funeral, actually, which made for a charged atmosphere as we sat through the session, a panel discussion on death. Afterwards, we withdrew from the crowds assembled by the tents and sat under a tree high on the hill, overlooking it all. Voices drifted up to us, strangely disembodied, channelled through the speaker systems. In the shadows of this very public conversation, we talked intimately – for four hours straight – about our families.
Among the heavy issues, we laughed about how my approach to parenting often echoes my own upbringing. Our mothers, sisters-in-law, have always been close. We realised, unsurprised, that they also shared a lot of the same mantras. (“I’m hungry.”/ “Eat an apple.” / “I don’t want that.” / “Well, you’re not that hungry then, are you?”)
We got onto “I’m bored”. My cousin was surprised at my mother’s punchline.
“We NEVER said we were bored,” she laughed. “Because my mum would give us a chore to do!”
“Really?”
“Yep!”
“I might borrow that ...”
**
A few weeks ago, F and his best friend, the boy next door, were asking if they could play the computer. “No.” Could they watch a DVD? “No.” Deep sighs. They stretched out on the dining room floor.
“But we’re booooored,” they moaned. "There's nothing to doooo."
“Right!” I said. “Clean your room, then.”
“WHAT?!”
Their mouths literally fell open, their eyes wide. I wanted to laugh.
“I warned you a month ago about this.”
“We’re sorry! We didn’t mean it! Can this be a warning? We won’t do it again.”
“Nope. You had your warning.”
F had been absolutely charming all weekend. Polite, affectionate, fun. Now, from the bedroom, there came banging. Stomping. A low-level growl (the best friend) and a louder, black-toned barking (F).
“I HATE my mother! I wish someone else was my mother!”
Stomp, stomp. Shuffle, shuffle. Bang, bang.
“This is SO UNFAIR.”
I stifled giggles. Despite the anger, things were obviously getting done.
“Whose STUPID idea was this anyway?” called F.
“It was my cousin.”
“Well, I HATE your cousin. I wish you didn’t HAVE a cousin!”
“Maybe she’d hate you, too,” I replied serenely, and returned to my keyboard.
Twenty minutes later, the boys had called me in to inspect the room, and had eagerly bounded outside to find something to do. Success.
**
This morning, as F shelved his toothbrush and toothpaste, he sang out from the bathroom, apropos of nothing “I’m bored”. Pause.
“Okay, you can clean your room then.”
“But I’ll be late for school! I’m not really bored!”
“I know.” I looked up from cling-wrapping a sticky clump of frankfurters for his lunchbox. “You just wanted to see what I’d do, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
I let him off, in the spirit of healthy curiosity and – more importantly – getting to school on time. But this is one weapon in my parenting arsenary that I’m holding onto.
Thank you, cousin.
I’ve never been very tolerant of that complaint. I believe that kids need to be bored sometimes, and to develop the ability to find something to do. Which is what my mother always said to us if we complained we were bored. What came next was the ominous or I’ll find you something to do.
Thanks to a chance encounter with a cousin in Adelaide a few months ago, I have a new and lethal weapon against boredom.
My cousin and I ran into each other during a session at Adelaide Writer’s Week. We hadn’t seen each other for about three years – since her brother’s funeral, actually, which made for a charged atmosphere as we sat through the session, a panel discussion on death. Afterwards, we withdrew from the crowds assembled by the tents and sat under a tree high on the hill, overlooking it all. Voices drifted up to us, strangely disembodied, channelled through the speaker systems. In the shadows of this very public conversation, we talked intimately – for four hours straight – about our families.
Among the heavy issues, we laughed about how my approach to parenting often echoes my own upbringing. Our mothers, sisters-in-law, have always been close. We realised, unsurprised, that they also shared a lot of the same mantras. (“I’m hungry.”/ “Eat an apple.” / “I don’t want that.” / “Well, you’re not that hungry then, are you?”)
We got onto “I’m bored”. My cousin was surprised at my mother’s punchline.
“We NEVER said we were bored,” she laughed. “Because my mum would give us a chore to do!”
“Really?”
“Yep!”
“I might borrow that ...”
**
A few weeks ago, F and his best friend, the boy next door, were asking if they could play the computer. “No.” Could they watch a DVD? “No.” Deep sighs. They stretched out on the dining room floor.
“But we’re booooored,” they moaned. "There's nothing to doooo."
“Right!” I said. “Clean your room, then.”
“WHAT?!”
Their mouths literally fell open, their eyes wide. I wanted to laugh.
“I warned you a month ago about this.”
“We’re sorry! We didn’t mean it! Can this be a warning? We won’t do it again.”
“Nope. You had your warning.”
F had been absolutely charming all weekend. Polite, affectionate, fun. Now, from the bedroom, there came banging. Stomping. A low-level growl (the best friend) and a louder, black-toned barking (F).
“I HATE my mother! I wish someone else was my mother!”
Stomp, stomp. Shuffle, shuffle. Bang, bang.
“This is SO UNFAIR.”
I stifled giggles. Despite the anger, things were obviously getting done.
“Whose STUPID idea was this anyway?” called F.
“It was my cousin.”
“Well, I HATE your cousin. I wish you didn’t HAVE a cousin!”
“Maybe she’d hate you, too,” I replied serenely, and returned to my keyboard.
Twenty minutes later, the boys had called me in to inspect the room, and had eagerly bounded outside to find something to do. Success.
**
This morning, as F shelved his toothbrush and toothpaste, he sang out from the bathroom, apropos of nothing “I’m bored”. Pause.
“Okay, you can clean your room then.”
“But I’ll be late for school! I’m not really bored!”
“I know.” I looked up from cling-wrapping a sticky clump of frankfurters for his lunchbox. “You just wanted to see what I’d do, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
I let him off, in the spirit of healthy curiosity and – more importantly – getting to school on time. But this is one weapon in my parenting arsenary that I’m holding onto.
Thank you, cousin.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
A lady is smoking
"Ladies can smoke?" The small voice behind me rings with disbelief.
"Hmmm."
Pause.
"Ladies can smoke." Wondering, amazed. "Men can smoke, too!"
"If they're silly enough."
"Ladies can smoke. Men can smoke. EVERYONE can smoke!"
"Mmmm."
"If they're SILLY enough."
Outside the cafe window, beneath a cobalt April sky, a lady is smoking at her footpath table. She is fashionably draped in black, caramel hair twisted in an artfully messy ponytail. Black sunglasses swim over her eyes. The smoke from her roll-your-own cigarette snakes over her head, over the empty table next to her. One table over, an immaculate baby sits on her mother's knee, barefoot. She examines a pale green lettuce leaf, turning it over in the sunlight. Slowly, languidly, a banner of smoke unfurls above her wispy head.
Across the road, in front of an empty cafe (closed for Monday), a man is smoking. It's the waiter who brought me my felafel, now discarded, half-eaten, at my elbow. He leans against a pole and watches across the road, measuring out his break by the dwindling cigarette.
"It's time for us to go."
I glance over my shoulder. Behind me, the Peter Rabbit books are returned to the shelves and the bill is paid.
"Hmmm."
Pause.
"Ladies can smoke." Wondering, amazed. "Men can smoke, too!"
"If they're silly enough."
"Ladies can smoke. Men can smoke. EVERYONE can smoke!"
"Mmmm."
"If they're SILLY enough."
Outside the cafe window, beneath a cobalt April sky, a lady is smoking at her footpath table. She is fashionably draped in black, caramel hair twisted in an artfully messy ponytail. Black sunglasses swim over her eyes. The smoke from her roll-your-own cigarette snakes over her head, over the empty table next to her. One table over, an immaculate baby sits on her mother's knee, barefoot. She examines a pale green lettuce leaf, turning it over in the sunlight. Slowly, languidly, a banner of smoke unfurls above her wispy head.
Across the road, in front of an empty cafe (closed for Monday), a man is smoking. It's the waiter who brought me my felafel, now discarded, half-eaten, at my elbow. He leans against a pole and watches across the road, measuring out his break by the dwindling cigarette.
"It's time for us to go."
I glance over my shoulder. Behind me, the Peter Rabbit books are returned to the shelves and the bill is paid.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Hungry for the ball
F and The Husband have been in training for the new football season for some weeks. Most afternoons after school, they retreat to the backyard or a local park to practise their kicking and marking.
'I'm so proud of you,' said The Husband after this Monday's session. 'You were hungry for the ball. You were in there, all the time, and that's why you did so well. Good on you.'
F beamed back at him over the dining room table, his forkful of chicken parma (perfect food for footballers) momentarily forgotten.
'If you can do that on Saturday, you'll be set.'
**
Last night, F was curled up over my feet on the couch, his head resting on The Husband's shoulder as they followed the progress of the Bulldogs/Essendon game on the screen. His Japanese manga novel lay forgotten on his lap.
Before The Husband arrived home 40 minutes earlier, we had been reading together: me with a manuscript balanced on my knees over a fleecy red blanket, him furled under the same blanket at the opposite end of the couch, his eyes fixed on his graphic novel. The kitchen was dark behind us; so was the sky behind the cheerful striped curtains at the lounge room window. The evening was quiet, broken only by the drone of the dogs' snoring and F's occasional giggle as he read. 'Mum! Listen! He says absolutely after everything, this guy. Listen, it's hilarious!'
'Ha!' I forced a distracted laugh (hey, I'm being truthful, here), and we returned to our mutual silence.
A symphony of barks broke the mood, followed by footsteps on the boards of the verandah and a fumbling in the lock. The Husband stood in the doorway, dogs leaping at his knees, F exclaiming his greetings, the aroma of grilled meat filling the room. He sat down, unwrapped his burger, kissed us hello, and turned on the TV.
Footy season.
'I'm going for the Dogs!' said F.
'Why?'
'Because I want to win my footy tipping and they're number two.'
'Oh. You're betraying Essendon for that?' He shook his head. Essendon is number three in F's hierachy of teams. (After West Coast and the Demons.)
Later, F's head was on my knee, his hair soft under my touch. I stroked him like a beloved pet. He didn't object.
'Can I have something to eat?'
'You can have an apple.'
'Okay.'
I stood to get it.
'But do you want to go to bed? You've got Auskick in the morning, maybe you should be fresh for that.'
'Okay.'
He stood and trotted obediently across the lounge and dining room and disappeared into the hallway. The Husband and I exchanged looks, impressed. In the bedroom, I sat beside him, kissed his forehead and hugged him tight. His arms closed around me, then dropped away as he rolled to face the wall and closed his eyes. There was none of the usual attempt to string out a conversation as long as possible.
'Good night, darling.'
'Good night mum.'
'Wow, that was very mature,' observed The Husband as I resumed my spot on the couch.
'It was.'
**
This morning, he was up early for Auskick. I could feel his presence beside the bed early. I looked at the bedside clock. 6am. Reached out and pulled him into bed for a morning cuddle.
Up at 8am. He'd served himself a bowl of Orangutangos, the sugary organic cereal that donates money to saving orangutans with every box. He'd convinced me to buy it after much pleading at the organic store yesterday, on the proviso that it was for weekends only.
I don't know if it was the cereal, adrenaline or both, but he was bouncing off the walls with excitement. I set him up to practice singing Green Day at the computer (music homework), lyric sheet in hand, as I showered and dressed.
The Husband and F went ahead while I found my shoes. At the gate, I encountered them coming back towards the house. The football had moved - from about six houses down the street to Yarraville Gardens, a 15 minute walk away. Now late instead of a bit early, we piled into the car.
At the oval at last, dosed up with a latte from the travelling coffee van in the carpark, I was relieved to see other parents dribbling in late, all of them coming via the usual venue.
F bounced and yowled in the line for the drills. He pulled faces, chanted, tackled his friends around the waist, and exchanged menacing shoves with a kid he was briefly friends with in Prep, but has been enemies with ever since. I play tennis (or used to) with the kid's mum, who I like. The kid is tall and blandly handsome - but, more importantly, confident and matter-of-factly competent at everything. And a dynamo at sport. He effortlessly attracts friends and pigtailed admirers in swarms, and has the strut that accompanies his exalted playground position. From the sidelines, I caught taunts every time F flubbed the ball (which was often, he was more caught up in clowning than the drills). The shoves and scowls escalated in intensity, but their lightning spats appeared to burn out quickly enough, even as I smouldered at the sidelines, hands clenched.
Nearer the kids, the Father who doesn't like F has taken up position, arms folded and gaze focused. His kids have told us that he doesn't want them playing with F because their dad doesn't like his attitude. Their mother (yes, The Mother) told me the other day that her throat was hoarse with all the shouting she'd done over the holidays because her kids DON'T LISTEN. ('Really?' I'd said. 'Oh. Well, I don't shout at them. I just have to tell them, you know, loudly, all the time, to do what they're told,' she'd croaked. 'Has it happened before?' I'd asked. 'Oh, yeah. Every holidays.')
'Shall we go closer and stand near The Father?' asked The Husband.
'No! I might say something I'd regret.'
'Yeah, me too.'
I hugged him. It's so great to have someone on your team.
'Those two are the kind of parents who think they're perfect and everyone else is wrong,' he continued.
'Yes. Yes they are.'
L's mum joined us, her coffee in hand now. ('It's crap,' she grimaced.) She caught the end of our conversation and snorted in agreement.
'There's a word for that,' she said darkly.
'What is it?'
'Oh, it'll come to me.'
We watched the boys and commented on what they were doing, on F's shoving, on the hugging and tackling that seems impossible to tell from actual fighting.
'I've got it!'
'What is it?'
'WHOLESOME. You know, those parents who think they have it all worked out. I know someone like that. We're friends, but we have opposite values.'
'Like what?'
'Like ... like, she didn't want to send her kids to [our school] because she didn't want them mixing with all the African children.'
'WHAT? Are you JOKING?'
'No. And I went over there the other day and she had all these private school catalogues on the kitchen table and she was writing down the pros and cons of them all. Private PRIMARY schools. She told me one day: You know, I always thought I'd be a Toorak mum.'
'REALLY?' This was hilarious. It distracted me from the boys. A welcome distraction, really.
'Yup. I didn't tell her that that's how we all think of her anyway. A Toorak mum stuck in little old Yarraville.'
Before the game was played, there was time for questions and a pep talk with a couple of Bulldogs players. F, typically, asked two questions. ('What's Akka like?' and 'Who is your Brownlow pick?') Then there were free team photos handed out and autographs for the kids. Lots of them were wearing Bulldogs team caps and jerseys, so they crowded around to get their clothes signed.
'I'm going to cut this autograph out and stick it on his football card!' F declared triumphantly, waving his team photo at us.
'Mmm, that sounds a bit tricky.'
The Husband said his goodbyes. He had to get to work. F's dad arrived to pick him up. (This was all running well over time by now.) Instead, he was just in time for the show.
**
Game time.
Sigh.
What can I say?
F was, indeed, hungry for the ball. He chased it all over the field. He managed to get it quite a few times.
He also wrestled players to the ground in too-rough tackles and screamed in frustration when those players were awarded free kicks as a result. He yelled and cried when L, one of his best friends, kicked a goal f(he was on the opposing team). In fact, he ran off the field and shouted and cried on the far end of the oval. The Father led him back to the game. (The shame of it.)
And he shoved the kid who'd been needling him all morning to the ground with a flash of intensity and viciously kicked him as he lay on the grass, leaving the kid bawling, moaning and clutching his knee.
Which is where I intervened to tell him off, along with the coach.
At the end of the game, the coach approached me to ask what F's deal was. I explained that he has Asperger's and has trouble controlling his emotions and also knowing the line when it comes to tackling. I explained that he has trouble coping with losing or not doing things perfectly. That he and The Kid had been having issues all moring and that there was a story to why he lost it like that, though it was of course totally unacceptable. That I would talk to him about his attitude.
The coach had a talk to F, and I think he handled it well. We both told him he needs to tell the coaches if there is a problem, not resort to violence.
'Right. So I should be a dobber?' F sobbed.
'If someone was bothering you in the classroom, would you push them to the ground and kick them or tell the teacher?'
'Tell the teacher.'
'Okay, then. The coach is your teacher.'
There were more chats in the car ... about attitude and positivity and teams and sportsmanship. About me being embarassed and ashamed about the day's behaviour, though I am generally very proud of him and he is the best thing in my life.
'F, I'll tell you one thing,' I said, twisting around to face him in the back seat. 'Aren't you glad your coach [The Husband] wasn't there and had to go to work? That he didn't have to see that.'
His face was stricken, the defiance slipping from his eyes, replaced by shame.
'Don't tell him! Please!'
'I'll see. But you have a chance to make a fresh start next week. It's the first game he'll see. Yeah? Does he need to coach you on attitude instead of footy skills this week?'
'Maybe I need both.'
**
God I hate Auskick. And I doubt that football is really a good thing for an Asperger's child. BUT football gives him a much-needed social glue and he seems to enjoy playing it at school. And he and The Husband have so much fun playing it and watching it together. Sigh. I guess anything worth having needs to be worked for. Maybe that includes this.
'I'm so proud of you,' said The Husband after this Monday's session. 'You were hungry for the ball. You were in there, all the time, and that's why you did so well. Good on you.'
F beamed back at him over the dining room table, his forkful of chicken parma (perfect food for footballers) momentarily forgotten.
'If you can do that on Saturday, you'll be set.'
**
Last night, F was curled up over my feet on the couch, his head resting on The Husband's shoulder as they followed the progress of the Bulldogs/Essendon game on the screen. His Japanese manga novel lay forgotten on his lap.
Before The Husband arrived home 40 minutes earlier, we had been reading together: me with a manuscript balanced on my knees over a fleecy red blanket, him furled under the same blanket at the opposite end of the couch, his eyes fixed on his graphic novel. The kitchen was dark behind us; so was the sky behind the cheerful striped curtains at the lounge room window. The evening was quiet, broken only by the drone of the dogs' snoring and F's occasional giggle as he read. 'Mum! Listen! He says absolutely after everything, this guy. Listen, it's hilarious!'
'Ha!' I forced a distracted laugh (hey, I'm being truthful, here), and we returned to our mutual silence.
A symphony of barks broke the mood, followed by footsteps on the boards of the verandah and a fumbling in the lock. The Husband stood in the doorway, dogs leaping at his knees, F exclaiming his greetings, the aroma of grilled meat filling the room. He sat down, unwrapped his burger, kissed us hello, and turned on the TV.
Footy season.
'I'm going for the Dogs!' said F.
'Why?'
'Because I want to win my footy tipping and they're number two.'
'Oh. You're betraying Essendon for that?' He shook his head. Essendon is number three in F's hierachy of teams. (After West Coast and the Demons.)
Later, F's head was on my knee, his hair soft under my touch. I stroked him like a beloved pet. He didn't object.
'Can I have something to eat?'
'You can have an apple.'
'Okay.'
I stood to get it.
'But do you want to go to bed? You've got Auskick in the morning, maybe you should be fresh for that.'
'Okay.'
He stood and trotted obediently across the lounge and dining room and disappeared into the hallway. The Husband and I exchanged looks, impressed. In the bedroom, I sat beside him, kissed his forehead and hugged him tight. His arms closed around me, then dropped away as he rolled to face the wall and closed his eyes. There was none of the usual attempt to string out a conversation as long as possible.
'Good night, darling.'
'Good night mum.'
'Wow, that was very mature,' observed The Husband as I resumed my spot on the couch.
'It was.'
**
This morning, he was up early for Auskick. I could feel his presence beside the bed early. I looked at the bedside clock. 6am. Reached out and pulled him into bed for a morning cuddle.
Up at 8am. He'd served himself a bowl of Orangutangos, the sugary organic cereal that donates money to saving orangutans with every box. He'd convinced me to buy it after much pleading at the organic store yesterday, on the proviso that it was for weekends only.
I don't know if it was the cereal, adrenaline or both, but he was bouncing off the walls with excitement. I set him up to practice singing Green Day at the computer (music homework), lyric sheet in hand, as I showered and dressed.
The Husband and F went ahead while I found my shoes. At the gate, I encountered them coming back towards the house. The football had moved - from about six houses down the street to Yarraville Gardens, a 15 minute walk away. Now late instead of a bit early, we piled into the car.
At the oval at last, dosed up with a latte from the travelling coffee van in the carpark, I was relieved to see other parents dribbling in late, all of them coming via the usual venue.
F bounced and yowled in the line for the drills. He pulled faces, chanted, tackled his friends around the waist, and exchanged menacing shoves with a kid he was briefly friends with in Prep, but has been enemies with ever since. I play tennis (or used to) with the kid's mum, who I like. The kid is tall and blandly handsome - but, more importantly, confident and matter-of-factly competent at everything. And a dynamo at sport. He effortlessly attracts friends and pigtailed admirers in swarms, and has the strut that accompanies his exalted playground position. From the sidelines, I caught taunts every time F flubbed the ball (which was often, he was more caught up in clowning than the drills). The shoves and scowls escalated in intensity, but their lightning spats appeared to burn out quickly enough, even as I smouldered at the sidelines, hands clenched.
Nearer the kids, the Father who doesn't like F has taken up position, arms folded and gaze focused. His kids have told us that he doesn't want them playing with F because their dad doesn't like his attitude. Their mother (yes, The Mother) told me the other day that her throat was hoarse with all the shouting she'd done over the holidays because her kids DON'T LISTEN. ('Really?' I'd said. 'Oh. Well, I don't shout at them. I just have to tell them, you know, loudly, all the time, to do what they're told,' she'd croaked. 'Has it happened before?' I'd asked. 'Oh, yeah. Every holidays.')
'Shall we go closer and stand near The Father?' asked The Husband.
'No! I might say something I'd regret.'
'Yeah, me too.'
I hugged him. It's so great to have someone on your team.
'Those two are the kind of parents who think they're perfect and everyone else is wrong,' he continued.
'Yes. Yes they are.'
L's mum joined us, her coffee in hand now. ('It's crap,' she grimaced.) She caught the end of our conversation and snorted in agreement.
'There's a word for that,' she said darkly.
'What is it?'
'Oh, it'll come to me.'
We watched the boys and commented on what they were doing, on F's shoving, on the hugging and tackling that seems impossible to tell from actual fighting.
'I've got it!'
'What is it?'
'WHOLESOME. You know, those parents who think they have it all worked out. I know someone like that. We're friends, but we have opposite values.'
'Like what?'
'Like ... like, she didn't want to send her kids to [our school] because she didn't want them mixing with all the African children.'
'WHAT? Are you JOKING?'
'No. And I went over there the other day and she had all these private school catalogues on the kitchen table and she was writing down the pros and cons of them all. Private PRIMARY schools. She told me one day: You know, I always thought I'd be a Toorak mum.'
'REALLY?' This was hilarious. It distracted me from the boys. A welcome distraction, really.
'Yup. I didn't tell her that that's how we all think of her anyway. A Toorak mum stuck in little old Yarraville.'
Before the game was played, there was time for questions and a pep talk with a couple of Bulldogs players. F, typically, asked two questions. ('What's Akka like?' and 'Who is your Brownlow pick?') Then there were free team photos handed out and autographs for the kids. Lots of them were wearing Bulldogs team caps and jerseys, so they crowded around to get their clothes signed.
'I'm going to cut this autograph out and stick it on his football card!' F declared triumphantly, waving his team photo at us.
'Mmm, that sounds a bit tricky.'
The Husband said his goodbyes. He had to get to work. F's dad arrived to pick him up. (This was all running well over time by now.) Instead, he was just in time for the show.
**
Game time.
Sigh.
What can I say?
F was, indeed, hungry for the ball. He chased it all over the field. He managed to get it quite a few times.
He also wrestled players to the ground in too-rough tackles and screamed in frustration when those players were awarded free kicks as a result. He yelled and cried when L, one of his best friends, kicked a goal f(he was on the opposing team). In fact, he ran off the field and shouted and cried on the far end of the oval. The Father led him back to the game. (The shame of it.)
And he shoved the kid who'd been needling him all morning to the ground with a flash of intensity and viciously kicked him as he lay on the grass, leaving the kid bawling, moaning and clutching his knee.
Which is where I intervened to tell him off, along with the coach.
At the end of the game, the coach approached me to ask what F's deal was. I explained that he has Asperger's and has trouble controlling his emotions and also knowing the line when it comes to tackling. I explained that he has trouble coping with losing or not doing things perfectly. That he and The Kid had been having issues all moring and that there was a story to why he lost it like that, though it was of course totally unacceptable. That I would talk to him about his attitude.
The coach had a talk to F, and I think he handled it well. We both told him he needs to tell the coaches if there is a problem, not resort to violence.
'Right. So I should be a dobber?' F sobbed.
'If someone was bothering you in the classroom, would you push them to the ground and kick them or tell the teacher?'
'Tell the teacher.'
'Okay, then. The coach is your teacher.'
There were more chats in the car ... about attitude and positivity and teams and sportsmanship. About me being embarassed and ashamed about the day's behaviour, though I am generally very proud of him and he is the best thing in my life.
'F, I'll tell you one thing,' I said, twisting around to face him in the back seat. 'Aren't you glad your coach [The Husband] wasn't there and had to go to work? That he didn't have to see that.'
His face was stricken, the defiance slipping from his eyes, replaced by shame.
'Don't tell him! Please!'
'I'll see. But you have a chance to make a fresh start next week. It's the first game he'll see. Yeah? Does he need to coach you on attitude instead of footy skills this week?'
'Maybe I need both.'
**
God I hate Auskick. And I doubt that football is really a good thing for an Asperger's child. BUT football gives him a much-needed social glue and he seems to enjoy playing it at school. And he and The Husband have so much fun playing it and watching it together. Sigh. I guess anything worth having needs to be worked for. Maybe that includes this.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
What (not) to wear ... or do to your hair
WARNING: Slightly exhausted narcissism ahead
This week I've decided, without really deciding, that I suddenly care about my looks, after not really caring for a while. I must have glimpsed my self in a mirror and got a shock. Actually, no, it's two things. Three things. One: saw photos of myself and hated them. Two: F told me: 'no offence, but the bottom of your hair really doesn't match the top of your hair. It needs to be darker.' Three: I put on outfits in the morning - winter clothes, for the first time in ages - and The Husband looks at me askance, like I'm all wrong.
When your child is commenting on your regrowth, it must be pretty bad. Even if it IS a typically blunt Asperger's child.
So, I got a garbage bag and filled it to the brim with clothes from my cupboards and drawers. Including a lot of long-sleeved tops that I wear underneath things that have shrunken with countless washes and need singlets underneath them to protect my torso from the elements.
Shopping. One flattering cardigan (to replace about four unflattering ones I ditched) and a long-sleeved black top that fits.
Hairdresser. Chopped off about half the length and asked for a colour that would spawn minimal regrowth. One shade darker than my natural colour (which I haven't seen in, oh, 15 odd years). Almost black.
Reactions? F thinks I need to grow my hair back and that it's TOO dark now. And that my new cardigan looks 'weird'.
The Husband approves of both.
F's father looked at me, paused, then said 'you look very gothic'. To which I sarcastically responded 'I don't think I can take any more compliments today' and walked off. Very teenage behaviour I know, but this week I feel like a teenager.
I feel like maybe I look like I made an effort with my appearance at some point over the past year. But I did prefer not thinking about my appearance too much and plan to return to that happy state soon, which is usually broken only when I see my younger (twin) sisters (a few times a year), which always makes me think I should lose weight. They are very slender, with concave stomachs, and look vaguely like me - which is what makes the comparison so disconcerting. Ah well. They haven't had a child. And they have seven years on me.
Last night, dressing to go out, I walked through the lounge room and The Husband said 'F, look at your mum'. F looked at me and smirked, then started laughing.
'What?' I said and he shook his head. 'No, what?'
'It's just that your bum looks REALLY big in that dress.'
I turned around and returned to the bedroom. I could hear The Husband saying 'F, NEVER do that, really,' in awed tones. 'You should never say that to a woman.'
'Why?'
'They don't like it.'
It was an hour later that his dad made the gothic comment.
Luckily, this week, I don't need to go further than school or the local cafe to buy my chicken pie and latte. That should give me time to get used to not caring again ...
This week I've decided, without really deciding, that I suddenly care about my looks, after not really caring for a while. I must have glimpsed my self in a mirror and got a shock. Actually, no, it's two things. Three things. One: saw photos of myself and hated them. Two: F told me: 'no offence, but the bottom of your hair really doesn't match the top of your hair. It needs to be darker.' Three: I put on outfits in the morning - winter clothes, for the first time in ages - and The Husband looks at me askance, like I'm all wrong.
When your child is commenting on your regrowth, it must be pretty bad. Even if it IS a typically blunt Asperger's child.
So, I got a garbage bag and filled it to the brim with clothes from my cupboards and drawers. Including a lot of long-sleeved tops that I wear underneath things that have shrunken with countless washes and need singlets underneath them to protect my torso from the elements.
Shopping. One flattering cardigan (to replace about four unflattering ones I ditched) and a long-sleeved black top that fits.
Hairdresser. Chopped off about half the length and asked for a colour that would spawn minimal regrowth. One shade darker than my natural colour (which I haven't seen in, oh, 15 odd years). Almost black.
Reactions? F thinks I need to grow my hair back and that it's TOO dark now. And that my new cardigan looks 'weird'.
The Husband approves of both.
F's father looked at me, paused, then said 'you look very gothic'. To which I sarcastically responded 'I don't think I can take any more compliments today' and walked off. Very teenage behaviour I know, but this week I feel like a teenager.
I feel like maybe I look like I made an effort with my appearance at some point over the past year. But I did prefer not thinking about my appearance too much and plan to return to that happy state soon, which is usually broken only when I see my younger (twin) sisters (a few times a year), which always makes me think I should lose weight. They are very slender, with concave stomachs, and look vaguely like me - which is what makes the comparison so disconcerting. Ah well. They haven't had a child. And they have seven years on me.
Last night, dressing to go out, I walked through the lounge room and The Husband said 'F, look at your mum'. F looked at me and smirked, then started laughing.
'What?' I said and he shook his head. 'No, what?'
'It's just that your bum looks REALLY big in that dress.'
I turned around and returned to the bedroom. I could hear The Husband saying 'F, NEVER do that, really,' in awed tones. 'You should never say that to a woman.'
'Why?'
'They don't like it.'
It was an hour later that his dad made the gothic comment.
Luckily, this week, I don't need to go further than school or the local cafe to buy my chicken pie and latte. That should give me time to get used to not caring again ...
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Rebel without a clue: A true story from long ago
It’s not every day that that your flatmate moves their furniture out while you’re at work, disappearing for good. But it happened to me.
I don’t know what it would have been like to arrive home and be surprised by the empty room. As it was, I discovered her disappearance when I rang home to check my messages during the day.
This was my goodbye note, as delivered by Telstra Message Bank:
“Hi, it’s Rebel here. I just wanted to let you know that I’ve had to move out to go live with my sister because her boyfriend has just been arrested in London and she’s had to go over there to be with him, so I have to look after her house while she’s gone. She’s having to spend her savings on getting over there, so she doesn’t have enough money to pay her rent. So, I’ll have to stay living with her even after she gets back, to help her out. I’m really sorry about running out on you like this, but she is my sister and she needs me. And I had to move out suddenly like this, because it was the only time that Tom could help me move my stuff. I’ll call you again later and leave some money for the bills. Sorry. Bye.”
I hung up needing a cigarette. I needed to go outside and think. I definitely needed to get away from customers. How can you think about whether the new Tara Moss is out yet and avoid answering the question about whether it’s any good, when all you can really think about is what you’ll do to pay the gaping hole in next month’s rent?
Sitting in the alleyway behind Little Collins Street, I felt oddly relieved. I didn’t really like Rebel anyway.
She had been better than Bob, the sixty-something retired tradesman who told me he watched TV all day and had two girlfriends, one of them my age. (“Nice big screen,” he had said approvingly of the wooden 1970s box that Jason had bought through the Trading Post and left behind.) She had been better than the truck driver who had asked if he could park his rig in the street. And better than the (really quite sweet) student from the country who said the only problem was that she might have to move back there in a few months. When Rebel turned up at the door, sister in tow, twenty-something, chatty without being irritating and with only a bike to park, I’d been ecstatic to install her in the big front bedroom.
But Rebel was weird. Or maybe she just thought I was weird. I don’t know. The first thing that went wrong was on the day she moved in.
*********************
The room was empty, except for a freestanding six-door cupboard that almost entirely covered one wall. It was a truly monstrous thing, another relic of Jason’s hurried departure. Honey-coloured wooden panelling with mirrors plastered across its breadth, so that your reflection seemed to follow you around the room. Rebel loved it. So, even though I’d been planning to somehow get rid of it once someone took the room, I left it for her. While she was moving her stuff in, there was a splintering crash that drew me running from the kitchen, where I’d been deliberately staying out of their way. Three accusing heads (Rebel, her sister, their friend Tom) turned to look at me as I approached the mess that had been Jason’s cupboard.
“I just opened the doors,” said Rebel.
It was like it had torn itself apart at her touch. The flimsy chipboard backing had sprung free from the nails holding it to the frame and flung itself backwards. And worse, the body had tipped perilously forward, throwing open its outer doors and spewing out glass shards onto the carpet.
“It fell on me,” she said.
Luckily, she had caught it. Together the four of us tipped the whole mess backward and leaned it against the wall. I went to get the vacuum and a rubbish bag for the glass. It was easy to take the cupboard apart after that. Piece by piece, we moved it down the passage and stacked it in a corner of the shed. Tom and Rebel’s sister went home to get a wire hanging rack for Rebel. Exhausted, Rebel made chicken two-minute noodles in the microwave and took her dinner into her room.
She ate her dinner there every night after that, for the whole of the six weeks she spent living in Jason’s old room.
**
This is, as you'll probably realise, something I found while browsing forgotten folders on my computer. All true, even the names. Really, who names their daughter Rebel? What do they expect? I never got any money for the bills. And a trucker and his fiancee moved in after that. One night they saw me reading a book on the couch and responded with dumbfounded awe. ('You gonna read that whole THING?') I was glad to move out of there.
I don’t know what it would have been like to arrive home and be surprised by the empty room. As it was, I discovered her disappearance when I rang home to check my messages during the day.
This was my goodbye note, as delivered by Telstra Message Bank:
“Hi, it’s Rebel here. I just wanted to let you know that I’ve had to move out to go live with my sister because her boyfriend has just been arrested in London and she’s had to go over there to be with him, so I have to look after her house while she’s gone. She’s having to spend her savings on getting over there, so she doesn’t have enough money to pay her rent. So, I’ll have to stay living with her even after she gets back, to help her out. I’m really sorry about running out on you like this, but she is my sister and she needs me. And I had to move out suddenly like this, because it was the only time that Tom could help me move my stuff. I’ll call you again later and leave some money for the bills. Sorry. Bye.”
I hung up needing a cigarette. I needed to go outside and think. I definitely needed to get away from customers. How can you think about whether the new Tara Moss is out yet and avoid answering the question about whether it’s any good, when all you can really think about is what you’ll do to pay the gaping hole in next month’s rent?
Sitting in the alleyway behind Little Collins Street, I felt oddly relieved. I didn’t really like Rebel anyway.
She had been better than Bob, the sixty-something retired tradesman who told me he watched TV all day and had two girlfriends, one of them my age. (“Nice big screen,” he had said approvingly of the wooden 1970s box that Jason had bought through the Trading Post and left behind.) She had been better than the truck driver who had asked if he could park his rig in the street. And better than the (really quite sweet) student from the country who said the only problem was that she might have to move back there in a few months. When Rebel turned up at the door, sister in tow, twenty-something, chatty without being irritating and with only a bike to park, I’d been ecstatic to install her in the big front bedroom.
But Rebel was weird. Or maybe she just thought I was weird. I don’t know. The first thing that went wrong was on the day she moved in.
*********************
The room was empty, except for a freestanding six-door cupboard that almost entirely covered one wall. It was a truly monstrous thing, another relic of Jason’s hurried departure. Honey-coloured wooden panelling with mirrors plastered across its breadth, so that your reflection seemed to follow you around the room. Rebel loved it. So, even though I’d been planning to somehow get rid of it once someone took the room, I left it for her. While she was moving her stuff in, there was a splintering crash that drew me running from the kitchen, where I’d been deliberately staying out of their way. Three accusing heads (Rebel, her sister, their friend Tom) turned to look at me as I approached the mess that had been Jason’s cupboard.
“I just opened the doors,” said Rebel.
It was like it had torn itself apart at her touch. The flimsy chipboard backing had sprung free from the nails holding it to the frame and flung itself backwards. And worse, the body had tipped perilously forward, throwing open its outer doors and spewing out glass shards onto the carpet.
“It fell on me,” she said.
Luckily, she had caught it. Together the four of us tipped the whole mess backward and leaned it against the wall. I went to get the vacuum and a rubbish bag for the glass. It was easy to take the cupboard apart after that. Piece by piece, we moved it down the passage and stacked it in a corner of the shed. Tom and Rebel’s sister went home to get a wire hanging rack for Rebel. Exhausted, Rebel made chicken two-minute noodles in the microwave and took her dinner into her room.
She ate her dinner there every night after that, for the whole of the six weeks she spent living in Jason’s old room.
**
This is, as you'll probably realise, something I found while browsing forgotten folders on my computer. All true, even the names. Really, who names their daughter Rebel? What do they expect? I never got any money for the bills. And a trucker and his fiancee moved in after that. One night they saw me reading a book on the couch and responded with dumbfounded awe. ('You gonna read that whole THING?') I was glad to move out of there.
Another meme: 5 things
Helen tagged me for this meme - sharing facts about yourself, random and weird.
The rules of this meme are:
Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
Share 5 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
Tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names, and links to their blogs.
Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
So, here goes ...
1. I don't like cooking or housework. I wish I did. So many people say they love to cook these days, including a lot of my friends. Sometimes I feel like a bit of a freak that I can't say 'me too' and join in with a recipe tip involving seasonal market produce, or mention the cuisine I'm currently hooked on. But I'm not like that, and I've decided I'm too old to pretend to like things I don't. I cook to eat, and sometimes I put in an effort, sometimes I'm really quite lazy. F thinks I'm a great cook, though, based on my pita bread pizzas with ham, cheese and tomato paste, my family pancake recipe that I copied from my parents, and the salad wraps I make him for lunch (pita bread again). Oh, and cheesy scrambled eggs - yes, scrambled eggs with cheese added. Genius. And there you go ... I have shared recipes, after all.
2. I have Asperger's Syndrome. After F was diagnosed last year, and one too many things sounded awfully familiar, I sat through four sessions and got my own diagnosis. It seems that my dad, my brother and probably my dad's dad (long since dead) have it, too, though they haven't been offficially diagnosed. How I feel about this depends very much on the day/week/month you ask me about it. Most of the time I'm not particularly bothered.
3. I am 32 years old and I don't have a driver's licence and will probably never get one. I don't know why, really, but I'm not mechanically minded, and that's part of it.
4. I got together with my husband at a work Christmas party over seven years ago. He worked in a bookshop down the road from mine, owned by the same people, and he used to volunteer to take the store transfers down so that he could talk to me. Later, he, his sister, me and my flatmate all worked together in the same bookshop at the same time. It was fun. A bit like high school, really. (Only fun.)
5. When I was young, I think about ten or so, I remember wanting to have a house by the sea with a tin roof and an open fire, so that I could sit inside on winter's days and listen to the rain. I'd still like that.
I tag Cristy, Redcap, Audrey, Eleanor Bloom and ThirdCat.
The rules of this meme are:
Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
Share 5 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
Tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names, and links to their blogs.
Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
So, here goes ...
1. I don't like cooking or housework. I wish I did. So many people say they love to cook these days, including a lot of my friends. Sometimes I feel like a bit of a freak that I can't say 'me too' and join in with a recipe tip involving seasonal market produce, or mention the cuisine I'm currently hooked on. But I'm not like that, and I've decided I'm too old to pretend to like things I don't. I cook to eat, and sometimes I put in an effort, sometimes I'm really quite lazy. F thinks I'm a great cook, though, based on my pita bread pizzas with ham, cheese and tomato paste, my family pancake recipe that I copied from my parents, and the salad wraps I make him for lunch (pita bread again). Oh, and cheesy scrambled eggs - yes, scrambled eggs with cheese added. Genius. And there you go ... I have shared recipes, after all.
2. I have Asperger's Syndrome. After F was diagnosed last year, and one too many things sounded awfully familiar, I sat through four sessions and got my own diagnosis. It seems that my dad, my brother and probably my dad's dad (long since dead) have it, too, though they haven't been offficially diagnosed. How I feel about this depends very much on the day/week/month you ask me about it. Most of the time I'm not particularly bothered.
3. I am 32 years old and I don't have a driver's licence and will probably never get one. I don't know why, really, but I'm not mechanically minded, and that's part of it.
4. I got together with my husband at a work Christmas party over seven years ago. He worked in a bookshop down the road from mine, owned by the same people, and he used to volunteer to take the store transfers down so that he could talk to me. Later, he, his sister, me and my flatmate all worked together in the same bookshop at the same time. It was fun. A bit like high school, really. (Only fun.)
5. When I was young, I think about ten or so, I remember wanting to have a house by the sea with a tin roof and an open fire, so that I could sit inside on winter's days and listen to the rain. I'd still like that.
I tag Cristy, Redcap, Audrey, Eleanor Bloom and ThirdCat.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
The price of fame
'I'm a bit tired of being famous,' he sighed, over an after-school apple at the kitchen table.
'Oh?'
'I had someone ask me for my autograph today.'
'Really?'
'Well, they came up and told me they'd seen me in the paper. And I said,do you want my autograph? And they said yes. I was joking, but they were serious. I signed their hand with my pen.'
I try not to laugh.
'And people keep on coming up and telling me they've seen me in the paper. Some of them have even done it twice. And I'm like, I know!'
'Do you say that?'
'No. I think it.'
'Ah.'
'I'm getting a bit sick of it.'
There is a moment's silence.
'I'm sorry,' I say. 'I tell you what, if the chance ever comes up again for you to be in the paper, I'll say no.'
'NO!'
'So, you'd WANT to be in the paper?'
'Yes.'
'Well,' I say. 'I guess that's the price of fame. If you're in the paper, people will come up and tell you they've seen you. You can't switch it off when you want to. You either want the attention, or you don't. It's up to you.'
'I'll be in the paper. Definitely.'
'Oh?'
'I had someone ask me for my autograph today.'
'Really?'
'Well, they came up and told me they'd seen me in the paper. And I said,do you want my autograph? And they said yes. I was joking, but they were serious. I signed their hand with my pen.'
I try not to laugh.
'And people keep on coming up and telling me they've seen me in the paper. Some of them have even done it twice. And I'm like, I know!'
'Do you say that?'
'No. I think it.'
'Ah.'
'I'm getting a bit sick of it.'
There is a moment's silence.
'I'm sorry,' I say. 'I tell you what, if the chance ever comes up again for you to be in the paper, I'll say no.'
'NO!'
'So, you'd WANT to be in the paper?'
'Yes.'
'Well,' I say. 'I guess that's the price of fame. If you're in the paper, people will come up and tell you they've seen you. You can't switch it off when you want to. You either want the attention, or you don't. It's up to you.'
'I'll be in the paper. Definitely.'
Overheard at Flinders Street station
'I like movies about real heroes. Because that's what I aspire to be - heroic.'
Does it seem interesting to anyone else that she had an American accent?
Does it seem interesting to anyone else that she had an American accent?
Friday, March 07, 2008
Coming home
Do you think I was happy to wake up this morning to a gentle drumming overhead? To peer through the curtains at a grey day, spitting raindrops onto the street outside? To pedal madly through the rain, my thin summer jacket moistening to match my shower-damp hair? To wheeze a little as I went, cursing the way my limbs and lungs had grown lazy in just a week of under-use?
Yesterday, I was ambling across the lawns over the road from the River Torrens, a notebook and dictaphone in my bag, a straw cowboy hat on my head. The grass was dry under my bare feet, so dry it crackled under me as I lowered myself to sit under a palm tree on the hill. The sun caressed my exposed arms and legs, stung my eyes as I lifted my sunglasses to peer into the white tent at the base of the hill and the sea of people that spread from it in licks and waves; a tide rising up the hill and across the lawns. After a while, sweat bred under the crevasses of my knees and trickled to my feet in languid rivulets. I basked in the warm glow: the dry, enveloping heat a memory of childhood summers, a feeling like home.
This morning, just 45 minutes away on a plane, eight hours by road; I covered my body to leave the house, sheltering it from the elements. The grey sky overhead seemed to stretch forever, promising an end to summer, not just this summer, but the season, at least as long as I live here – as I have for 12 years now. I felt exiled.
Panting my way up a hill (its slope invisible to the naked eye, only felt by unfit cyclists running late for the end of school assembly), I spotted a snake of red and navy children following a tall brown leader across the asphalt. The tall brown leader was headed for F’s classroom. It was him!
I parked my bike and began struggling with the lock, wrestling it through the loops of the chickenwire fence. A figure broke off from the back of the line and came running towards me.
‘Mum, mum! It’s mum! Can I help you, mum?’
‘Hi darling.’ I blew a kiss through the fence, in front of all these curious spectators, and he caught it in his palm, clutched it tight, and drew it to his chest.
‘Sure, you can help,’ I said, knowing he couldn’t at all, but wanting to say yes. He drew closer, and stretched his arm towards the wire.
The lock was stuck; it wasn’t budging. The class was drifting away, only F now, standing expectant under an incontinent sky. ‘I’ll leave it, it’ll be fine.’
I had an urge, a compulsion, to touch him, to hug him, as soon as I could. He moved towards the gate as I did, his movements mirroring mine on the other side of the fence.
‘I’ll help!’ he shouted as I moved to open the lock.
As the gate swung open, he threw himself into my arms with a look of pure joy, a smile that radiated from his eyes and lit up his being. We held each other tight, kissed, and hugged again. He took my hand and we walked into the classroom together.
‘I brought ALL my book club books mum, for your house,’ he said. ‘And the Pokemon book you let me take to dad’s.’
‘Good lad.’
I sat on the miniature chair at the back of the classroom, towards the edge of his table – my chair. One of the girls from the reading group I work with, the ones who are still having trouble getting the hang of this reading thing, turned and beamed at me. F’s friend, L, waved a navy clipboard.
‘Hi Ariel! I’ve got a clipboard, too, now. See? For my petition.’
‘I did TWO lots of homework, mum.’ F came around the table and hugged me again. Reluctantly, he stood back, ready to return to his seat.
‘I do hope you had a nice time in Adelaide?’
‘Yes. I did.’
‘Good. When I woke up this morning, the first thing I thought was: Mum’s coming home! Mum’s coming home! And I got up and got dressed and ready for school STRAIGHT AWAY.’
He’s right. I’m home. Of course.
Yesterday, I was ambling across the lawns over the road from the River Torrens, a notebook and dictaphone in my bag, a straw cowboy hat on my head. The grass was dry under my bare feet, so dry it crackled under me as I lowered myself to sit under a palm tree on the hill. The sun caressed my exposed arms and legs, stung my eyes as I lifted my sunglasses to peer into the white tent at the base of the hill and the sea of people that spread from it in licks and waves; a tide rising up the hill and across the lawns. After a while, sweat bred under the crevasses of my knees and trickled to my feet in languid rivulets. I basked in the warm glow: the dry, enveloping heat a memory of childhood summers, a feeling like home.
This morning, just 45 minutes away on a plane, eight hours by road; I covered my body to leave the house, sheltering it from the elements. The grey sky overhead seemed to stretch forever, promising an end to summer, not just this summer, but the season, at least as long as I live here – as I have for 12 years now. I felt exiled.
Panting my way up a hill (its slope invisible to the naked eye, only felt by unfit cyclists running late for the end of school assembly), I spotted a snake of red and navy children following a tall brown leader across the asphalt. The tall brown leader was headed for F’s classroom. It was him!
I parked my bike and began struggling with the lock, wrestling it through the loops of the chickenwire fence. A figure broke off from the back of the line and came running towards me.
‘Mum, mum! It’s mum! Can I help you, mum?’
‘Hi darling.’ I blew a kiss through the fence, in front of all these curious spectators, and he caught it in his palm, clutched it tight, and drew it to his chest.
‘Sure, you can help,’ I said, knowing he couldn’t at all, but wanting to say yes. He drew closer, and stretched his arm towards the wire.
The lock was stuck; it wasn’t budging. The class was drifting away, only F now, standing expectant under an incontinent sky. ‘I’ll leave it, it’ll be fine.’
I had an urge, a compulsion, to touch him, to hug him, as soon as I could. He moved towards the gate as I did, his movements mirroring mine on the other side of the fence.
‘I’ll help!’ he shouted as I moved to open the lock.
As the gate swung open, he threw himself into my arms with a look of pure joy, a smile that radiated from his eyes and lit up his being. We held each other tight, kissed, and hugged again. He took my hand and we walked into the classroom together.
‘I brought ALL my book club books mum, for your house,’ he said. ‘And the Pokemon book you let me take to dad’s.’
‘Good lad.’
I sat on the miniature chair at the back of the classroom, towards the edge of his table – my chair. One of the girls from the reading group I work with, the ones who are still having trouble getting the hang of this reading thing, turned and beamed at me. F’s friend, L, waved a navy clipboard.
‘Hi Ariel! I’ve got a clipboard, too, now. See? For my petition.’
‘I did TWO lots of homework, mum.’ F came around the table and hugged me again. Reluctantly, he stood back, ready to return to his seat.
‘I do hope you had a nice time in Adelaide?’
‘Yes. I did.’
‘Good. When I woke up this morning, the first thing I thought was: Mum’s coming home! Mum’s coming home! And I got up and got dressed and ready for school STRAIGHT AWAY.’
He’s right. I’m home. Of course.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Quirky kid meme
For once, I'm being quick on the meme uptake (thanks, Cristy).
First, here are 'The Rules':
1. Link to the person that tagged you
2. Post the rules on your blog
3. Share 6 non-important things/quirks about your kid
4. Tag at least three people at the end of your post and link to their blogs
5. Let each person know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog
6. Let the fun begin!
1. F bought me a stuffed dog for Valentine’s Day this year. The Husband bought me a dog for Valentine’s Day two years ago, and when he was in Mexico, F became very attached to it and started taking it to bed at night and carrying it about the house everywhere – to eat dinner, read stories, watch telly. So, it became his. About a week before Valentine’s Day, I was putting him to bed and kissing him goodnight, and I gave the dog (Puppy) a hug too, saying ‘it’s my only to cuddle him since you stole him’. Ten minutes later, he was up, saying ‘I’m really sorry, mum. You’re right. I did steal him from you. I’m going to save up my pocket money and buy you another dog’. I insisted that I was only joking and there was no need to spend his money, but a day before Valentine’s Day, he asked the Husband to take him to buy me a dog. His name is Sidney and F is very pleased that I like him. He likes to check in the morning to see if I slept with him. I brought Sidney to Adelaide with me for company.
2. F has an imaginary friend named Dexter. He’s eight years old and he’s a scientist. One day, a few months ago in fact, he told me that Dexter had been alive for a million years, and he had been eight years old for nearly all that time. He found a crystal that was cursed and it killed his parents but gave him everlasting life so that he had to live on without them. There was an elaborate story that went with it about Dexter’s adventures through the ages. A few days later, he told me that Dexter had admitted it was all ‘a myth’ – he really was just eight years old; no everlasting life. He said he’d made it up to tell his teacher as part of a school assignment and had just trialled it on F. Dexter has come and gone over the past few years. Sometimes he rides with us to school, or eats breakfast with us. At one point, Dexter had an evil twin brother named Bexter. He used to follow us, or suddenly the Dexter eating breakfast with us would be revealed to be the evil Bexter instead. I wonder how long he will last.
3. Last week, F very solemnly came up to me as I was getting him ready for school and asked if I would put Surf Wax in his hair and spike it up and then put eyeliner on him, so that he’d look like Billie Joe from Green Day. I compromised and just did the hair. I didn’t think his teacher would appreciate the eyeliner. After school, I put the eyeliner on him after dinner. He posed with his electric guitar we bought him for Christmas (lucky child, I know!) as we enthused over him and then I washed it off and tucked him into bed with some books.
4. F loves doing homework. He’s in Grade Three and it’s new to him. They get the homework on Monday and hand it in on Friday. After the first week of school, he wrote a note on the back of his homework paper saying ‘Dear [Teacher], Please give me homework every day. Sincerely, F.’ I watched him give it to his teacher and point it out. His teacher laughed. He doesn’t give him homework every day.
5. F doesn’t like sandwiches. I make him bread-and butter sandwiches (which are acceptable) with sliced carrot sticks, cucumber and cheese on the side, or said sliced items with seaweed rice crackers and BBQ shapes for school lunches. His dad makes him wholemeal bread sandwiches with cheese or ham, often with ziplock bags with sliced tomato and cucumber on the side. He NEVER eats them. Ever. He brings them home in his lunchbox or in his bag, whole and perfect and untouched. I asked him why he doesn’t tell his dad he doesn’t like them. He said that he did tell him - and told him what I give him - and his dad said ‘FORGET it. I will never make you something like that for lunch.’ I guess I remember that I wouldn’t eat sandwiches either, and threw them under the transportable classrooms every day for a year, until someone found all my mouldy sandwiches and called my parents up to the school. My mum started making me crackers and salad for lunch. The circle turns ...
6. F gave us all verbal report cards for parenting the other day: me, the Husband, his dad, his stepmother. We were marked in categories: healthy eating, active, general parenting, and book learning. We all scored well. Me, the Husband and his dad all got five out of five as parents. This was done in the schoolyard before the bell went. The Husband’s Active report began: ‘He’s very active. T is very agile at football. He flies through the air to catch the ball and he usually gets it ...’ I don’t know why he decided to do this. But it was really interesting.
I tag ... ThirdCat, Helen and Penni.
First, here are 'The Rules':
1. Link to the person that tagged you
2. Post the rules on your blog
3. Share 6 non-important things/quirks about your kid
4. Tag at least three people at the end of your post and link to their blogs
5. Let each person know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog
6. Let the fun begin!
1. F bought me a stuffed dog for Valentine’s Day this year. The Husband bought me a dog for Valentine’s Day two years ago, and when he was in Mexico, F became very attached to it and started taking it to bed at night and carrying it about the house everywhere – to eat dinner, read stories, watch telly. So, it became his. About a week before Valentine’s Day, I was putting him to bed and kissing him goodnight, and I gave the dog (Puppy) a hug too, saying ‘it’s my only to cuddle him since you stole him’. Ten minutes later, he was up, saying ‘I’m really sorry, mum. You’re right. I did steal him from you. I’m going to save up my pocket money and buy you another dog’. I insisted that I was only joking and there was no need to spend his money, but a day before Valentine’s Day, he asked the Husband to take him to buy me a dog. His name is Sidney and F is very pleased that I like him. He likes to check in the morning to see if I slept with him. I brought Sidney to Adelaide with me for company.
2. F has an imaginary friend named Dexter. He’s eight years old and he’s a scientist. One day, a few months ago in fact, he told me that Dexter had been alive for a million years, and he had been eight years old for nearly all that time. He found a crystal that was cursed and it killed his parents but gave him everlasting life so that he had to live on without them. There was an elaborate story that went with it about Dexter’s adventures through the ages. A few days later, he told me that Dexter had admitted it was all ‘a myth’ – he really was just eight years old; no everlasting life. He said he’d made it up to tell his teacher as part of a school assignment and had just trialled it on F. Dexter has come and gone over the past few years. Sometimes he rides with us to school, or eats breakfast with us. At one point, Dexter had an evil twin brother named Bexter. He used to follow us, or suddenly the Dexter eating breakfast with us would be revealed to be the evil Bexter instead. I wonder how long he will last.
3. Last week, F very solemnly came up to me as I was getting him ready for school and asked if I would put Surf Wax in his hair and spike it up and then put eyeliner on him, so that he’d look like Billie Joe from Green Day. I compromised and just did the hair. I didn’t think his teacher would appreciate the eyeliner. After school, I put the eyeliner on him after dinner. He posed with his electric guitar we bought him for Christmas (lucky child, I know!) as we enthused over him and then I washed it off and tucked him into bed with some books.
4. F loves doing homework. He’s in Grade Three and it’s new to him. They get the homework on Monday and hand it in on Friday. After the first week of school, he wrote a note on the back of his homework paper saying ‘Dear [Teacher], Please give me homework every day. Sincerely, F.’ I watched him give it to his teacher and point it out. His teacher laughed. He doesn’t give him homework every day.
5. F doesn’t like sandwiches. I make him bread-and butter sandwiches (which are acceptable) with sliced carrot sticks, cucumber and cheese on the side, or said sliced items with seaweed rice crackers and BBQ shapes for school lunches. His dad makes him wholemeal bread sandwiches with cheese or ham, often with ziplock bags with sliced tomato and cucumber on the side. He NEVER eats them. Ever. He brings them home in his lunchbox or in his bag, whole and perfect and untouched. I asked him why he doesn’t tell his dad he doesn’t like them. He said that he did tell him - and told him what I give him - and his dad said ‘FORGET it. I will never make you something like that for lunch.’ I guess I remember that I wouldn’t eat sandwiches either, and threw them under the transportable classrooms every day for a year, until someone found all my mouldy sandwiches and called my parents up to the school. My mum started making me crackers and salad for lunch. The circle turns ...
6. F gave us all verbal report cards for parenting the other day: me, the Husband, his dad, his stepmother. We were marked in categories: healthy eating, active, general parenting, and book learning. We all scored well. Me, the Husband and his dad all got five out of five as parents. This was done in the schoolyard before the bell went. The Husband’s Active report began: ‘He’s very active. T is very agile at football. He flies through the air to catch the ball and he usually gets it ...’ I don’t know why he decided to do this. But it was really interesting.
I tag ... ThirdCat, Helen and Penni.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Boasting
F is on the front page of this week's local paper with a big fat photo and his name in the headline.
It's a story about the petition he's written and is collecting signatures for against the dredging of Port Phillip Bay.
I'm so proud ... and chuffed ... my boy, eight and a half years old.
UPDATE: Here's the online version, which is slightly shorter, but I'm too lazy to retype and I can't cut-and-paste the full version. (Not too lazy to edit out our names though - though if you live locally, you only need to look at your paper to see the real deal. Hello Helen!)
It's a story about the petition he's written and is collecting signatures for against the dredging of Port Phillip Bay.
I'm so proud ... and chuffed ... my boy, eight and a half years old.
UPDATE: Here's the online version, which is slightly shorter, but I'm too lazy to retype and I can't cut-and-paste the full version. (Not too lazy to edit out our names though - though if you live locally, you only need to look at your paper to see the real deal. Hello Helen!)
Headline: 'F'S PLEA'
F, 8, is one of many Yarraville residents angry about the dredging.
AN eight-year-old has taken aim at John Brumby over the Premier's support for the dredging of Port Phillip Bay.
In a show of passion, K Primary School student F was involved in a verbal stoush in his school playground over the dredging.
"I feel strongly about it because I have this friend and he told me about the dredging and how it would make us richer," F said with much aplomb.
"He's for it and really happy about it so I was feeling so angry with him."
Instead of forgetting about the conversation, F decided he wanted to take action.
He wrote the petition himself and started collecting signatures after his mother, Ariel, suggested it,
"I decided to ask mum for advice so she came up with the petition idea," he said.
F has visited shops in Anderson St and attended the Maribyrnong Truck Action Group protest against the dredging last Wednesday.
The Yarraville boy said he was against dredging because it would damage the bay and force more trucks down Yarraville streets.
His petition says "John Brumby should know better" and "The environment is way more important than money!".
Western Metropolitan MLC Colleen Hartland was so impressed with F's petition, she has agreed to table it to Parliament.
F was happy to hear Ms Hartland would table his petition.
"That makes me feel very proud of myself for listening to my mum," he said. "I did the right thing and it makes me feel a bit happy with (my friend) for telling me about the dredging."
As for the playground rivalry, Ms Ariel said F's friend had started his own petition in favour of the dredging and they were both vying for their other friends' signatures.
"It's funny, I hadn't thought too hard about the dredging before F started talking about it," Ms Ariel said.
"But this has inspired my husband and me to find out more about it, which is great. And it's fantastic to see kids getting politically involved in something they believe in."
Mr Brumby said last month Melbourne would become a "backwater" if the dredging did not occur.
He said the State Government had spent two years putting in place the most stringent environmental safeguards to dredge in a way that caused the least damage.
Mr Brumby said channel deepening was about jobs and economic security for the future of Melbourne and Victoria.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Hypothetical trauma
F: Mum, what do you think would be worse? If you fell onto the train tracks and hit your head BUT there were no trains coming for two hours ... OR ... If you were hit by a car but it didn't squash you?
Me: Well, which would hurt more? How badly would I be hit?
F: You wouldn't get hit AT ALL! The car would just sort of roll right OVER YOU.
Me: Oh. Well I guess I'd take the car.
F: Oh no, for me that's easy. It's THE TRAIN! I mean, there's no other one coming for TWO HOURS. So there's no way you'll get hit.
Me: Well, I thought, if you hit your head on the tracks, what if that knocks you unconscious and you're unconscious for the next two hours and then the train hits you anyway?
F pauses, thinking it over. 'I hadn't thought of THAT,' he says. 'You're right, I'd rather get hit by the car.'
Me: Well, which would hurt more? How badly would I be hit?
F: You wouldn't get hit AT ALL! The car would just sort of roll right OVER YOU.
Me: Oh. Well I guess I'd take the car.
F: Oh no, for me that's easy. It's THE TRAIN! I mean, there's no other one coming for TWO HOURS. So there's no way you'll get hit.
Me: Well, I thought, if you hit your head on the tracks, what if that knocks you unconscious and you're unconscious for the next two hours and then the train hits you anyway?
F pauses, thinking it over. 'I hadn't thought of THAT,' he says. 'You're right, I'd rather get hit by the car.'
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