I'm flying to Perth tomorrow (and will be gone till tues so there will be a blank space where new posts are supposed to be). My godmother is getting married. Very exciting. Taking a six month old baby on a five hour plane trip, not very exciting. Will let you know if any tantrums were thrown (by either me or the baby) when I get back.
September 27, 2006
Full house
My little house is bursting at the seams today. My four year old stepson is staying with us at the moment, and I think he should be renamed the mini-tornedo. He leaves a trail of blocks, toy trains, gumboots and jocks (don't ask) where ever he goes.
He's a good little helper though. I can get him to fetch things while I'm tending to the baby. Sometimes he gives me a look as if to say ''I know you could get the nappy yourself but your just laszy". I put on my most innocent look and ply him with pretty pleases, and he eventually goes off and gets whatever it is I've wasked for.
The baby thinks the four year old is very funny. The pair of them giggle and giggle and giggle. They sat across the table from each other yesterday in stitches. To me, nothing was evidently funny. To them, EVERYTHING was funny.
Little four year old went to get the mail earlier to day and got his shirt stuck in the mailbox. It was me who was giggling then.
September 26, 2006
A pair of scissors and some craft glue
It was a Sunday, raining, and I was trying to stretch the baby out between sleeps. So were did I go? Spotlight, naturally. I just couldn't walk past this material (plus it was cheap). So I took it home, cut it up, and stuck it on some canvasses.
They now hang on my wall because I'm trying to bring some life to the house. The walls are quite barren. There's plenty of photos on all available mantlepieces, bookshelves and desks, but skint on the walls. The joys of renting - no love for hooks in the walls. Luckily the canvasses are super lightweight and can be held up by blutac.
I've got a fair bit of the material left so I might make something summery with it, maybe a skirt. Or maybe I'll just dump it in my junk room with the rest of my left over material.
September 25, 2006
What are you guys looking at?
This is a photo I took of a friend of mine and her adorable little baby. They were just kicking back at my place one afternoon and I snapped them looking out the window in a quiet moment. I love that they are both looking out the window. I live on such a busy road so they were probably just checking out the traffic, but you could believe they were taking in something much more peacefull and beautiful.
I'm always snapping photos of the baby, and he's getting very used to the big black camera. He'll pretty much smile on cue. Clever little cookie.
September 24, 2006
Growing Up WonderGirl
SHORT FICTION
WonderGirl keeps her thoughts in a Pez dispenser beside her bed. The plastic Pluto stands at attention; neck full of sugared lollies and head crammed with dreary ideas. Giving him a well-deserved wink, WonderGirl shrugs on an ill-fitting jacket and strides out of her house.
WonderGirl coasts into her local shop and buys lollies that taste like toothpaste, three tomatoes and wine from Con the grocer.
“When are you going to settle down, get married, WonderGirl?” he says packing her purchases into her green nylon bag.
“When I find my Superman,” she smiles, handing over a fist full of shrapnel.
WonderGirl goes home, paints her toe nails, ignores the television and falls asleep on her thrift shop couch.
She wakes up in her Peter Alexander Pyjamas and wonders why the autumn morning looks exactly like a winter night. She feels old, but won’t admit it, and secretly wonders how long she can keep things up.
WonderGirl goes to the pub, gulps beer from smudged glasses, and doesn’t want to go home when they turn the lights up. She hides in the guys’ toilets and stares at her name written on the back of the grimy stall. Apparently someone thinks she’s a good time, and was kind enough to leave her number for anyone to call.
WonderGirl lives in the middle of her street. Her neighbours stare and whisper “she can move through time”.
Reading The Age and thinking she is smart, WonderGirl struggles with the pages and wishes they didn’t make them so darn big. She scrunches her way to the travel section. Suddenly she is sitting in Japan again, slurping noodles and dreaming of home.
The mismatched steaks in WonderGirl’s hair could tell a few stories of lonely car rides, books ready by firelight and stray men with straying hands. “I’ve been there, done that,” she thinks, putting it all down to what her mother calls “experience”.
When she takes the train to visit her mother, WonderGirl regrets it as soon as she stepped onto the front porch. “I don’t know who you are anymore,” her mother blurts out when she greets her daughter he doesn’t look as young, as happy, as she used to. WonderGirl reminds her mum of the inked name that used to get imprinted onto the tag of her school dress every year. Her mother rolls her grey eyes. “But Girl,” her mother starts, but WonderGirl is already halfway down the garden path.
WonderGirl is tired. Her breath is thick. She just wants to go home.
WonderGirl pours hot water over her fourth tea bag of the day while standing over the sink in her renters delight. WonderGirl thinks of her mother, of a time when she wore long socks and polished shoes, of a time when expectations were only something she would have to live up to in the future. The tea bag goes funk in the bottom of her empty garbage bin, and shuffles with her cuppa in hand, to bed.
WonderGirl lifts the head of her thought-filled Pez dispenser. She drops half her name inside and lets it snap shut.
WonderGirl falls asleep and wishes she was something she is not; girl.
September 23, 2006
110 on the highway home
SHORT STORY
You are making a four year U-turn as you pack your life into your yellowed Carrolla and put it on the road.
Home is no longer where the heartache is; at least that’s what you told me as you left our conventional flat in North Carlton.
You are heading towards a job that comes with a business card with a title on it that you are yet to earn.
The job is in the town where you used to ride your bike to school and get grease on your school dress.
You told me once you left it with a mouth full of swear words about how you would never return.
But now you push 110 on the highway as though you can’t get there fast enough.
You’ve got your happy-go-lucky T-shirt on despite being ankle deep in autumn. It’s the palest of days. Despite the cold you wind down the window and battle the wind to light a cigarette.
Squinting into the sinking sun you hit the new bypass which brings home to your fingers just that bit quicker.
You used to sit on our bedroom floor and cry boredom and itchy feet, but I never thought you would fill your car with petrol and drive it away.
The ‘I’ll see you round’ you uttered over the exhaust fumes seemed as euphemistic as the ‘call you soon’ I offered back.
You said you didn’t need my Melways to get you where you were going; ‘I’ll just follow the back of my hand.’
You take the bends like you built the road. The road less traveled, but the one that leads straight to home.
Your car radio is as unfocused as you are.
Clutching for clarity you push in the mixed tape I fused together for you in the hours before you left. You hum without really listening and I hope understand there is more than meaning in the songs I chose for you.
Your fingers tap the gear stick unconsciously as you push away thoughts of the life you are leaving behind.
I used to tell you that you were too young to start sentences with ‘remember when.’ Now I know that you’ll put me at the end of the phrase that always made me cringe.
My shadow is already shortening in your mind as the digital clock on your dashboard ticks over into the future.
You look forward to driving past the lake that’s chaffed with weeds and the tower you were never game enough to climb. Will you learn to love again this town with too many football teams?
The afternoon has left the valley cold and you notice the river is high as you cross into familiar territory.
Two hours and a diet coke later, you pull into the driveway and notice the bins need to be brought in. Slamming the car door and heading through the front gate with an arm full of your favourite books you wait for the moment everything changes.
