A New Low

I have not posted here for a month and a half which is a new low for me. I could say it's because I have been busy. As a matter of fact, I have been quite busy: I moved house, I started a campaign to ban purple boat shoes from the streets of Potts Point, I spent a lot of time thinking about dimmable lights, and I have also started writing my memoirs*. But to be honest all that has been make-work to avoid the fact that I saw something which left me deeply traumatised and unable to concentrate on simple, everyday tasks. As part of my therapy I will relate the vision here:

A family stepped onto the footpath from a hotel foyer. The young girl (aged about 10) was wearing a sexy Mrs Santa negligee - red dress with fluffy white ruffles at the hem. She had a headband from which two giant candy canes protruded like antlers or - if you prefer hen's night type imagery - like red and white striped droopy penises. Her mother was wearing exactly the same dress in exactly the same size. And just to clarify, the mother was NOT the same size as her young daughter. Nowhere near. There was back cleavage.

At first I thought the two young boys (maybe 8 or so. Definitely old enough to have some agency in the way of sartorial choice) were just in mildly humiliating red and green combination clothes but it soon became apparent that they were dressed as elves with jaunty zig zag hems on their tops. I can't quite remember whether or not there were bells involved. I can see you thinking that the Mrs Santa disaster sounds a lot worse than the elf thing, and that is what I though too, until one of the boys moved so that I could see, written in large letters on his bottom "Santa's Little Helper". I have thought long and hard about phrases stamped on a small child's rear end, and concluded that there is only one phrase that could possibly surpass this one in hideous wrongness: "Santa's Little Helping". Actually, I only thought about it for a minute or so. I'm sure that the next time there is a blackout or a long car trip where the cd player is broken an excellent way to pass the time would be to think up phrases to have printed on the pants of your young children in order to scar them for life. Please keep me up to date with your suggestions!




*I haven't really got past the title yet, but it is going to be called "A ......" I'm still fleshing out the final details.

"Renovator's Dream" Does Not Mean The Property Is Close To Bunnings

So we moved into the amazing apartment and I learnt something useful: NLJ has an apartment identical to ours except that you can see the Harbour Bridge and Opera House through his toilet window. Going on what we are respectively paying for our apartments I have reached the conclusion that being able to see Sydney Harbour is not -as the real estate agents would have you believe- a million dollar view. It is worth precisely $10 a week.

Don’t Press Send

Tallboy and I are moving house. There are several contributing factors that led to this decision but the main one was that the landlord has ended our lease. So we went house-hunting last week and found a total gem of an apartment that we applied for on the spot. I even got my driver's license out (but covered up the photo so we didn't scare our prospective landlady to death). During the agonising 2 day waiting period to find out whether or not our application was successful I wrote the landlady several emails. Luckily, I didn't send any of them:

Dear Di,
Just wanted to let you know how great it was to see the apartment and to meet you. You are awesome! Tallboy and I are very responsible people, to the point of being sad, boring old farts. For example, we quite like to drink tonic water without the gin. We also like to go on walking tours, and to discuss formatting, fonts and punctuation late into the night (sometimes even until 10pm!!!). As I said, it was really great to meet you, Felix

Dear Di,
Just thought I'd drop you a line to let you know that I have been thinking about the apartment and any improvements that could be made on it. And... there aren't any!! It's perfect!!!!
Good luck choosing an awesome tenant for it and let me know if I can help in ANY way at all! Thanks, Felix

Dear Di,
It was sooo great to meet you when we went to see your apartment that I can't stop thinking about it. Tallboy and I have been discussing it and we have concluded that our love for your apartment is greater by far than our love for each other. So it would be a little bit like destiny and a lot like awesome perfection if we moved into it so we could complete the circle of love. I hope this doesn't sound crazy or anything but I honestly believe that if buildings can have feelings then yours has feelings for me and Tallboy. Strong feelings. Romantic feelings. Please Rent Me feelings (don't take that the wrong way). Have a great day, Felix

Hey Di,
You know something? I think one syllable names are so cool. And yours in particular really suits you. You seem like the coolest person I have ever met, and I have met quite a few, even though I am so boring and responsible.
Anyway, it was great to meet you. I loved how you opened the door for us; it was a lovely touch. Look forward to hearing from you soon - but don't rush or anything - I know being fabulous takes up lots of time so whenever you're ready. Thanks again for your time, Felix xoxo

If You Don't Like The Way I Drive Then Get Off The Footpath

I went back to the RTA for a third time today and finally managed to get my driver's license. And you would think I'd be pleased but in fact I am PISSED OFF because I look like a fucking AXE MURDERER in the picture! I know that everybody is supposed to look bad in ID photos but there is bad and there is Baaad. There is looking a bit off colour or tired, and there is looking malicious and arrestable. The only benefit is that I can whip it out like capsicum spray to scare off people who try to attack me.

Along with my evil, piercingly santanic stare, my head ended up looking rather boxy in a root vegetable, news reader sort of a way so I look like a fugly , boxy, axe murderer. I thought all the hours I have spent watching the Top Model franchise shows online would have helped me to develop a great technique for staring at a camera and waiting for it to take a picture of me, but apparently not.

Of course, it has occurred to me that the problem, rather than being with a badly taken photo, lies with the fact that I look like an evil Rob Kelvin* dressed up as a sweet potato but I think if that was the case then surely somebody would have mentioned it to me by now... right?



*If you are not familiar with Rob, one of Adelaide's most boringly staid news-readers, then just imagine what David Hasselhoff would look like if he were an upstanding member of the local Uniting Church, never drank alcohol, bred pigeons, and had a name like "Rob" or "Reg" and you're pretty much there. Now imagine this person looking like a sweet potato with a scarf around their neck and you know exactly what I look like in my license picture.

Eavesdropping Is Awesome

I really, really like sitting around on ugly plastic chairs in waiting areas where an automated voice calls out numbers on tickets and tells you which counter to visit. I like it so much that I decided to go back to the motor registry place on my day off last week just so I could be told there was nothing they could do and I should try again next week, which is what they told me the week before. It was awesome.

The cherry on top to my wonderful banana split with extra choclate and nuts of an excursion was at the expence of the woman next to me (ticket number T45, counter 4). The woman behind the counter asked her what her previous address was and she said "22 Queen St Woo-Wah-Wah". The poor, poor dear - of all the suburbs to live in when you have a quite significant speech impediment. I only hope for her sake that she didn't leave Woolhara only to move to Wooloomooloo or Warriwee.

There's No Emoticon For The Way That Makes Me Feel

I have spent the past week stuck in bed feeling like shit and most of it has been a complete waste of time. A very large proportion of my time has been taken up with blowing my nose, and while this was extremely useful in the short term, in the long-run, it is an action that will not be remembered. It will not change the world, or be useful to others, or help me to make a name for myself in perpetuity.

However, in between nose blows I had a lot of thinking time. And I mean a LOT. It began to bother me that there is no emoticon for the phrase "Christ on a bike!". I have been using this phrase quite a bit recently so it seemed a great pity. I spent hours obsessing over the stupidity of it all and then put my bedridden status to good use and I invented one myself. Christ on a bike! So here it is: +!8

Now that I have invented something I can die in peace. Or maybe I'll wait a bit longer; I still have a custard tart in the fridge that ought to be eaten.

The Problem With Inception

Tallboy and I saw Inception the other day and it wasn't bad but I got to thinking afterwards that my biggest problem with it is that it wasn't dreamlike enough. Unless, that is, we are talking about the dreams that special effects artists have. I don't know about you but I don't tend to dream about things that look visually amazing in an expensive, technological sort of way. For example, I had a dream a couple of nights ago where I was a journalist tracking down some underworld heavies. I'm pretty sure I was a man too, but it's hard to be objective; it was just a feeling; not like my friend NC who regularly dreams of people walking around naked with one or two extra penises for added impact.

...anyway, I got chased into my house and while trying to stop my pursuer from breaking down the door, I started yelling at Stephen Page (who in the dream was my son but in real life is the Artistic Director of Bangarra Dance Theatre) to call 000. "Stephen. STEPHEN!!! Call the police!!! Stephan, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING? For Christ's sake call the fucking emergency services! Don't just sit there!!!" My recalcitrant child stared moodily at me but didn't move so I raced over to do it myself. I punched the bowl of raw meat strips in front of him three times with my finger. Lucky it was a push button phone or things would've become messy.

Photos:
My son (third from the left) and my phone