the loaded blog

It's Not Me It's Them

2009-12-22T12:23:00.002+10:30

I arrive at an intersection at which I have to give way. In the middle of the intersection, facing the wrong way, a large 4wd with a trailer is stopped. I wait. The driver of the 4wd - a man - starts to gesticulate violently. His face is red. 'Go around' he screams at me then throws his hands in the air. Lordy, he stops for a rest in the middle of a busy intersection and suddenly he's expected to spell out the ways of this cruel world to every wet eared rube that wanders past. Clearly upsetting for him.

I seem to regularly encounter arseholes like this and it makes me wonder: is it being in a car that makes them so, or is it a committed life choice?

2009-11-14T09:12:00.003+10:30

Have you tried children's toothpaste? It's delicious. This means one of two things:

Either it doesn't work and I'm wasting ten minutes of everyday having stand up screaming matches with midgets, or...

We could all just be using it.

Screw your minty freshness, I'm for the sugary yummyness.

Frank Exchange of Opinion on the Grove

2009-11-10T20:36:00.002+10:30

Two blocks away I hear him
foot hard on the accelerator
four cylinders
pounding successive
staccato combinations
down the narrow road
where trees, parked cars and
Stobie poles
all potential starting blocks
for impetuous children
to hurl themselves out in front
of this metal juggernaut.

My children.

He flies into view over the rise
like Bullitt
with pimples and peacock hair
and I give him a slow clap
each steady percussion says:
virgin
no woman will ever touch
your small,
flaccid
cock.

He seems to understand
and responds with
a jaunty middle finger:
whatever grandpa.
What are you, like, forty?
Get fucked.

And I hope the sour taste of it
stays with him
a little longer than with me.

Recent Stone Cold Noodlisms

2009-11-05T21:44:00.002+10:30

Are you magic Neddy?
No, I’m just a killer.

Where do tigers live Neddy?
In cafes.

Am I crazy?
No, you’re not crazy Neddy.
Dad, I was talking to the TV.

He’s a bad man.
Why’s that Neddy?
Because he’s a fucker.

Prayers of Ten Year Old Girls

2009-10-29T20:49:00.004+10:30

Is it wrong to scoff at their sincerity?

Judge for yourself:

'Dear God, please help my cat to lose weight today.'

'Dear God, I pray that my sister is okay when her braces get tightened tomorrow.'

'Hey God, I hope my goldfish had a good day in heaven.'

'Thanks God for letting my netball team win on Saturday.'

No wonder He/She doesn't have time to stop all those children dying of AIDS. I blame those fat cats.

2009-04-06T20:25:00.005+09:30

It is no big surprise to me that the Noodle has been difficult of late; the twos have a certain reputation after all. He is advancing rapidly in some areas and not so much in others and this may be a cause of his frustration and erratic behaviour.
He can, for instance, name a dozen dinosaurs and tell you if they are carnivores or vegetarians (or naughty / not naughty - the intricacies of evolution being, for him, reduced to a question of binary morality). Yet our black dog and white dog are nomenclatutorily interchangeable.
He can recite picture books word for word, even if he doesn't know what the words mean; work a CD player; sort of ride a tricycle and be generally charming. Yet he continually kicks his little brother in the head, throws things, hits his parents and refuses to obey reasonable instructions.
Again not surprising to anyone I suppose, even those who aren't parents are aware that children exist (long gone as those halcyon days of seen and not heard are) and a fair bit of literature and today tonight time is given over to them.
What has hit me recently though, as Knickers and I have been dealing with his behaviour and a teething Pudden, is that there really, really is no end to it. Noodle is not - in three days, three weeks or three years - going to suddenly have an epiphany, 'oh, right, he's my little brother, well then I'll love and cherish him always and we'll never fight again'. No. He and Puddenare going to grow into more and more complex individuals that no parenting skills will transform into good little Stepford children.
So Noodle is balanced between infancy and boyhood, Pudden between baby and infant and both their parents between coping and the madhouse.

It is still a joyous time and I revel in each new development and discovery. Other parents say it gets easier once they're toilet trained or at school or left home, but I'm beginning to think each stage is just as challenging as the preceding one. Maybe we as parents just get better at managing that challenge?

TheyPod IRun

2009-03-21T16:40:00.004+10:30

A la Kath I have been oft pounding the treadmill of late. So rather than actually write something, I'm going to tell you what I have been listening to:

Walk Away - Dropkick Murphys
That's Not My Name - The Ting Tings
Debaser - Pixies
Tundra Rap - from The Mighty Boosh
Farewell Rocketship - Children Collide
Fruit Machine - The Ting Tings
I'm the Hitcher - also from The Mighty Boosh
Chelsea Dagger - The Fratellis
Shipping Up To Boston - Dropkick Murphys
Jungle Drum - Emiliana Torrini
Polka - Yves Klein Blue
Casino - Philadelphia Grand Jury
Stop the Rock - Apollo 440 (I don't care - this is a great running song)
Know Your Product - The Saints
Orgasmatron - Motorhead
Dead Cities - The Exploited

Quasi folky punk seems to feature quite heavily.

Also, I ran 12k in 50:26 yesterday. Which was nice.

New School

2009-03-19T20:10:00.003+10:30

I am soon to start my final prac. Six weeks in a year 6/7 class, and I've been in a few times this week to get to know the students and teacher.

Funny thing for someone who wants to be a teacher, but I still have this fear of kids, that they are all self-centred little beasts who will rup me apart if given half a chance. It really isn't the case. Every school I've worked at I've found them bright, keen to learn and - generally - pleasant.

That is not to say that they can't be terribly cruel to each other, and it is heartbreaking as an adult to witness the social exclusion of some and to know that there is nothing you can really do to stop it. I'm not saying I'd not interevene in a situation where someone was being bullied, or that they bring it on themselves, just that kids have their own society, one of the only things that the adult world can't dictate to them, and we are powerless to recast the order of it.

First off I still have to graduate, which will be tricky enough, but not I fear, as tricky as getting a job. The idea that teaching positions are falling from the trees being a bit of a furphy. But all that done I am really looking forward to being a professional, to having my own class to get to know and work with over a year and be able to fill their heads with trivia that everyone else (in my family)just places straight in the Useless Information file.

Schooling Noodle

2009-03-17T20:16:00.005+10:30

Now that Pudden is getting on a bit - sitting up, grabbing things, cutting teeth and starting to have opinions about stuff - the Noodle is starting to get a wee bit jealous and has taken to body slamming Pudden on a semi regular basis.

Knickers and I have had long discussions on the relative merits of lashing Noodle to the Hill's Hoist for a night or simply slamming him back ourselves as effective measures of behaviour management, but would hate to have to dob each other in as we are now both mandated notifiers.

Instead we are forced to use the less effective tools of reason and time out:

Noodle: SLAM!

Pudden: WAH!

Myninjacockle: Did you just knock Pudden over?

N: I want to have a swing.

M: Look, I know you knocked your brother over, I saw you.

N: Please Daddy.

M: That was very naughty.

N: NO, NOT NAUGHTY.

M: No, you're not a naughty boy, but that was a naughty thing to do. ('Cause the literature says you address the behaviour, not the child. Stupid literature)

P: WAH!

N: NO, NOT NAUGHTY.

P: WAH, WAH for Christ's sake I could have a brain hemorrhage would someone please pay me some bloody attention WAH!

M: (picking up P) Now you have to go to time out and think about what you've done.

N: Don't want to go to time out.

M: Well you shouldn't have knocked Pudden over then should have you. Now you say sorry.

N: (sweetly)Sorry Pudden.

M: Now sit on the time out step.

N: NO, DON'T WANT TO.

M: Get on the step by the time I count three. This is your last chance, ONE...TWO...

(N takes off, M places P on ground and begins pursuit, brief struggle ensues.)

M: (dragging screaming N back to laundry and attempting to deposit him on the step)SIT ON THE BLOODY STEP.

N: (making like ironing board) DON'T WANT TIME OUT.

M: Fine, lie there then (attempts to close laundry door, N leaps up and grabs door)

M: (attempting to regain tone of reason)Now we don't play with doors do we?

N: DON'T WANT TIME OUT.

M: (forgets stupid fucking literature and pushes N off door with foot, closes door.)Now you think about being nice to your little brother.

N: (sounds like pack a of rabid pitbulls destroying everything in laundry) AARRGGHH!

M: (picks up P, makes cup of tea, pitbulls eventually leave, opens laundry door) Now I want you to look at me.

N: (not looking)I want a biscuit please.

M: No, look at me and say 'I won't knock Pudden over again Daddy'.

N: (still not looking) I want swing please Daddy.

M: (Broken) Fine, we'll play on the swing.

Launch

2009-03-16T21:22:00.002+10:30

The book launch has been a long time coming, and kind of like Christmas when I was a kid, my body can only sustain continually heightened levels of excitement for only so long before my adrenal glands give out. That and the major assignments I had due last week actually made for one tired and stressed out little camper by the time I rose to take the mike and give my first ever public reading.

Oh brother was it fun though. Yes I could handle superstardom, but have probably picked the wrong line of work.

Mike Rann was initially, possibly, going to be the guest of honour and he quickly palmed it off to Chloe Fox; who with her recent parliamentary promotion decided she had better things to do and in the end Vini Ciccarello, member for Norwood, drew the short straw.

I'll paraphrase her speech here:

'Well I don't actually like poetry and I only got back from a late lunch this afternoon and found that uppity Fox bitch had palmed this off to me so I haven't had time to read it - but I'm sure it's all very nice blah blah blah. Vote Rann!'

Still we had a great crowd and my co-authors and I had an absolute ball enjoying our shared fifteen minutes of fame. I've had a few reports back that people who also don't read poetry have read some of mine and enjoyed them and that is good enough for me.

And, as my friend Leila said, 'I can't believe you got to say "cunt" in front of all these people and get clapped for it.'

Doing Anything Friday?

2009-03-11T22:08:00.004+10:30

Why not come to the launch of my (okay then, and some other people's) book?

Friday, March 13, 2009

6:00pm - 8:00pm

South Australian Writer's Centre

Atrium 2nd floor Old Malcolm Reid Building

181 East Rundle St Adelaide

**Entry through Cafe Brunelli if the main door isn't open - which it might not be**

How to Avoid Lying

2009-03-07T21:41:00.002+10:30

Don't get me wrong, the lie is the great oil for the wheels of civilisation. Nothing annoys me more than a neanderthal clumping about saying 'I just tell it like it is.'
Well done moron, you are proud of your inability to use any higher brain function to filter your thoughts. Just run them straight from the spinal column to the tongue:
'My sister is hot'
'You skinheads sure are funny'
'I farted'
Way to go boyo.

The trouble with the lie is, however; you can get caught, tangled web, first dig two graves, peacock know thyself, etc...

What I try to develop instead is a cunning repertoire of misdirections such that when Knickers arrives home and asks me - as I stand at the sink pretending to wash dishes having leapt from the couch when I heard the car pull up - 'Have you done the (insert name of pointless menial task here)...?'

I can reply:

Yes, lots of times(just not today)
My word is my bond
What do you think?
I said I would do it didn't I
Why do you ask?
Ask me no questions I'll tell you no lies
Wow you're looking hot, let's get you out of those wet things.
You won't believe what happened
Come with me if you want to live

The only trouble is that none of them work, after all these years she sees through me like gladwrap.

So what I'm offering is a trade, my misdirections for yours, a fresh start for all.
Any suggestions?

Stay Tuned (Fuck You Channel 10)

2009-03-06T20:30:00.000+10:30

Think you know this Poem? You won’t believe how it ends. This poem is being streamed direct from Lower Mitcham. Coming up in this poem is a twist you won’t see coming. This is the poem that shocked audiences in North Shields. This poem is brought to you at a new special time. This is a dramatic movie length episode of this poem. Coming up after the break there will be a shocking intruder poem; you won’t believe who it is. Coming up after the break this poem will reveal the true identity of last week’s shocking intruder poem; or will it? Last week this poem went further than is physically possible, coming up after the break; it goes further again. You won’t believe how it ends. This is the poem that astounded critics in both Keith and Minlaton. Coming up after the break this poem will reveal hints about the hints to be hinted at after the following break. You won’t believe your ears. After the poem has hinted at those hints a special preview of next weeks hints will be alluded to. You won’t believe what happens. You can download tonight’s poem by clicking on the following link. While you’re there you can chat to the author who is online right now. You won’t believe what he does next.

Tow Bar

2008-11-30T21:43:00.009+10:30

We're planning a camping getaway to Yorkes and intending to take the hounds. We took a trip up to Wilmington in October - sans dogs - and could barely fit all the baby paraphernalia into the station wagon, despite my prodigious packing skills and use of the roof rack.

Knickers and I decided we would need to borrow her father's trailer; which meant we needed a tow bar.

This raised a higher level of excitement in me than the idea of a bit of steel bolted to a car chassis should reasonably elicit. Another sign of impending middle age I suppose. Moreover, the potential damage I could cause parallel parking - considering my propensity for low speed impacts - is a real concern.

But after ringing round I decided on a place at Richmond. It was going to take an hour to install, which meant a whole hour I would get to sit and read a book; on my own; during the day. This alone was worth the $280. Which will, incidentally, just about double the value of the car.

Then Knickers had to go and bake a cake.

'I'm hopping on the treadmill, would you please check it when the alarm goes, and take it out of the oven if it's cooked?'

Simple enough, but I had to go and complicate it. I had to use my initiative. I mean I can cook, it's not that difficult, so surely I can bake?

The alarm went and I skewered the cake. Hmm, still a little underdone, I'll give it another five minutes. (Now here you're probably thinking that I went on to burn it. Oh no, no sirree, not me) After five minutes I decided it was surely baked, so there was really no need to check it. Then some flash of memory triggered in the part of my brain that I really have to learn to ignore.

'You need to cool the cake Rob,' it flashed.

I considered this, and it made sense. I had a cooling rack and a hot cake. Made for each other like unicycles and trips to emergency.

I upended the cake tin a few inches above the rack and gave it a bit of a thump.

Splurk

Viscous batter surrounded by a skin of cake cascaded onto the benchtop like so much roadkill.

Knickers was not impressed, and for my sins I had to take the Noodle with me to get the tow bar.

'An hour at Richmond? He'll go mental.'
'I don't care. Just get out of my house you cake killer.'

But we actually had a great time. The three of us - Noodle, Dog and I - set up camp in a little deli and shared a bikkie and a drink while watching a procession of tradies come through and purchase iced coffee and Villis' sausage rolls. Not exactly a bohemian ambiance but great fun. Especially watching Noodle introduce his Doggy to a gruff, bearded man and have him smile back and say hello and have an imginary cup of tea with a toy.

So anyway, we now have a tow bar and I look forward to the inevitable bruising it will bring to my shins.

Final Assignments

2008-11-20T15:14:00.003+10:30

Despite sitting in front of the damn computer at the uni library for the last three days

and

Depleting my coin on increasingly more potent caffeine and energy drink

and

Telling my subconcious to focus more on teaching literacy

Rather than monsters and falling and poison

...and Isla Fisher

I find my assignments have still not written themselves

And I am again thinking that a brickie's labourer is probably the most satisfying job in the world.

He Just Gives Them Away?

2008-11-19T21:43:00.004+10:30

We have made the mistake of introducing the concept of Santa to the Noodle. One of his cousins was over the other day and had a toy car that Noodle wanted, really quite badly.

In order to placate his infantile tirade upon the eventual departure of cousin and car, Knickers told him that Santa might bring him one for Christmas.

You could see his mind ticking over.

'Santa?'

'Yes, you can sit on his lap and tell him what you want and he will get if for you; provided you're a good boy.'

I'll paraphrase his response here - 'So, ignoring the whole being a good boy rubbish, what you're basically saying is that I sit on this bloke's lap, tell him I want a car, and then I get it?'

'Er, yes.'

'Brilliant. Done. Where is he then, c'mon, chop bloody chop.'

So we've been trying to explain ever since that he will get it on Christmas. Occasionally we add that he has to be good as well, but everyone silently acknowledges that this is a waste of breath.

Santa will be in real trouble if the Noodle does meet him and the jolly man fails to produce said car on the spot. His saving grace might be if Noodle repeats last year's performance; freaking out and legging it at the first sight of the man in red pyjamas.

Until then we will just have to deal with, 'I sit on Santa's lap. I get the presents.' forty times a day.

Fame at Last

2008-11-16T21:13:00.005+10:30

I am going to be a published poet.

Adelaide's Friendly Street Poets hold an annual competition for unpublished poets. They recruit an outside judge, of impeccable pedigree, to select three manuscripts from all (four of) the submissions and then the winners are published in the next installment of their New Poets series. This year my manuscript was one of the three winners and will be published next year in New Poets 14. Hopefully with its correct, singular, title - The Boy Full of Broken Promise.

Judging by the stellar career arcs of the previous thirty-nine winners it is a spring board to fame and fortune. Which is lucky, because several people I've told have asked me - after looking awkward and shifty for a few seconds - if this will help me get anything worthwhile published, or words to that effect.

Don't they get it's all about the love?

I'm still over the moon about it and the vast majority of people have been happy for me, though Knickers is very concerned about her parents reading some of them. I told my year 4 prac students and made them all promise to buy a copy. Bless 'em.

Got to go, my agent is on the phone; probably Hollywood trying to secure the movie rights again.

Like I'd sell out for less than a gold class cinema ticket.

Friday Night with the Wild Bunch

2008-11-07T20:06:00.004+10:30

I am five weeks in to a six week prac. I'm learning lots and enjoying it, but coming home absolutely jatzed every night.
Today was a day off due to the school closing, and how do you think I celebrated? That's right, cocaine and loose women.
That is what I like to call mulch and dripper irrigation systems. Yeh, I know, you can lead a horticulture but you can't make her think.

Actually Roger, my father-in-law, did most of the dripper installation. I just dug holes and shifted seven trailer loads of mulch. Lucky the local landscapers had their best men on today.
'Hi, I'm after a weed suppressing mulch that is cheap and longlasting, but mostly cheap.
'Ug.'
'Right. Mulch. I want mulch.'
'Mumble mumble you're a stupid fucker.'
'What?'
'I said any of those will do' (points at sky).
Surely there is a happy medium between over enthusiastic 'you're not leaving here without buying something' sales staff and those who are obviously deeply offended by your mere presence?
'Are they organic?'
'Mumble'
''Cause I need organic for the rebate.'
'Blast your eyes pine chips I'll eat your liver.'

So we settled on pine chips then, dug in pavers as a border then planted some more seedlings with come cottage mulch, native fertiliser and compost. Roger tinkered around putting in the drippers while Knickers and I covered what had once been dirt, weeds and dying lawn with the mulch.

Meanwhile Daphne, my mother-in-law, had been looking after Pudden and running interference on Noodle - to stop him helping.

After eight hours of hard labour the new garden beds looked great. We thanked the inlaws profusely and celebrated with a well eared cuppa, then turned the drippers on. No drips, but a spreading puddle from somewhere deep under the middle of the new garden bed.

God why can't stuff just friggen work?

Couldn't face more digging tonight, so I watered the seedlings in with the watering can, (which I'd hoped never to have to use again) read a couple of stories to the Noodle, and collapsed on the couch - from where I've only just dragged myself.

Seriously thinking about going to bed now.

Spirit Fingers

2008-11-06T21:44:00.003+10:30

...so then I woke up naked and tied to a goat and the old bloke dressed in a harlequin outfit just kept saying 'no hablo inglese senor' or some shit. Last time I go to one of Todd McKenney's parties.

Here's Luck

2008-09-15T21:51:00.004+09:30

Whenever I have a fifty/fifty chance of getting something right, I get it wrong ninety percent of the time.

(possibly) someone famous

Does luck have a universal constant, like pi, from which you could - if given enough data - derive a formula to calculate, according to your own variables, your own luck quotient (L.Q.)?

The traffic lights on the intersection of Belair and Princes St are green for longer in favour of Belair Rd. I know this because I've timed them. Yet they turn red almost invariably upon my approach along Belair. Similarly Transport SA maintains a train permanently around the bend from the Wattlebury crossing, lurking in case I venture forth.

That is the only possible explanation as, statistically, in off-peak only four trains an hour pass the crossing. Each passing takes around two minutes; so asuming the north/south trains don't cross at the same time (thus increasing the odds in your favour) you have a two in fifteen chance of having to wait for a train if you use that crossing in off-peak time. Yet I seem to catch them all the time. Unless I'm actually trying to catch one of course. People that know me will confirm this statistical anomaly. I don't make this stuff up. Mostly.

So if statistics can't explain it, does that mean that there is some luck factor, and I don't have it? Certainly as far as transportation goes anyway, I'm very grateful for my luck in other respects.

Let's just assume that there is. Can you change it? Does the whole universe have a fridge like setting (but this one goes up to eleven) that we could just crank and suddenly everyone wins the lottery and no-one has to work every again and Dr Phil falls into a burning sack of rabid weasels?

Say it was recalibrated for 10% luck across the board, would that mean bank robbers would be 10% more likely to get away with it, or the coppers 10% more likely to catch them? I suppose it would come back to the original L.Q.

Until scientists et al stop wasting time on the whole cancer thing and actually solve this great luck swindle; I propose a trading scheme. I'm willing to offer a percentage of my coin toss winning and not bumping into old annoying class mates luck, for an equal share of someones no red light or trains luck.

Party of One

2008-09-14T20:09:00.004+09:30

We attended another party today. Such a busy social calendar. Why yes, they've all been children's parties, what's your point?

The Noodle tends to pretty much do his own thing at such shindigs. Today his own thing was stuffing his face with a staggering variety of salt, food colouring, preservatives, saturated fats, carbs and sugars then gathering everything he could find at our friends' house and pushing it under the fence into their neighbour's yard. A sizeable temper tantrum followed the eventual discovery (where's so and so's hat gone? and my handbag?) and chastisement. I keep telling him the only sin is to get caught.

I tried to tempt him into playing soccer with some older boys - approaching school age - but was none-too politely informed the game wasn't for babies. The unspoken implication was that old geezers like me could just fuck off an' all too. Fine.

Then a game of pass-the-parcel was organised. Yes, some enforced socialisation should be just what the doctor ordered. I took Patrick outside to rejoin the circle of manhood and bluff my way through conversations about footy finals, leaving Knickers inside trying to convince the Noodle that, historically speaking, sitting in the middle of the circle is not the way to play.

Some hysterical screaming came from inside, but what of it? It wasn't my son and I'd just gotten into a conversation about books, and Ultimate Fighting, so was feeling much more comfortable. Then Knickers appeared, a sobbing Noddle dug chocolate covered fingers into her white coat and thunderclouds danced around her brow. She thrust him at me.

'Your son just assaulted the birthday boy and stole his chocolate.'

Noodle and J, the birthday boy, have a bit of history. When J comes to our house he plays nicely with the toys while Noodle shrieks and blusters and tries to snatch them off him. Roles are reversed at J's house. That being said they are always happy to see each other and Noodle gets excited whenever we tell him we're going to play with J and E (older sister and co-birthday haver) and they only occasionally attempt to throttle each other.

'No I didn't' howled Noodle. Apparently oblivious to the fifteen witnesses and the evidence smeared over his face and hands.

At this stage I'm not overly concerned about his behaviour, but if it continues or escalates it will be a bit of a worry. Last week at my nephew's party a bigger boy, probably nearly entirely unprovoked, pushed Noodle over and I was sorely tempted to go over and slap the kid (thump. that's for being violent!) so I can imagine what other parent's were thinking watching Noodle strongarm the birthday boy. Thank God it's not my kid for once, most probably.

Meanwhile my wife still isn't talking to me after I stole scrabble victory last night with a last gasp 'fa' (a long, long way to run). She insists it is a stupid, pathetic and cheatery word. I say, mayhap, but it is also in the dictionary.

How Do You Like Them Apples?

2008-09-09T19:59:00.002+09:30

Apples are stupid. Don't ever eat one when you're starving as all they do is stir up stomach juices making you even more hungry.

What's the point of that?

Hindley Street

2008-09-01T14:36:00.007+09:30

the crane is big enough
to seduce the most jaded of passers by
into stopping to marvel
at the grinding wheels of industy
i'm half way past it
when i get the fear
picture its toppling bulk
crushing me like a large ripe olive
i scan the footpath
for a refuge to dive into
upon hearing the first
creak of metal fatigue
or pitched cry of alarm
i discount the metal cafe tables
and various vehicles
settling for scurrying between doorways
a baseballer stealing home

Moving Rooms

2008-08-31T21:17:00.003+09:30

For reasons that are not clear to me now; we swapped rooms with the Noodle today. We also moved the Ikea toy cupboard to the sunroom; the (Ikea) computer unit from the sunroom to our bedroom; the Ikea bookshelf from the east wing (aka Patrick's cell/entrance hall) to Noodle's room and the old lounge from the sunroom to the shed. That was the first time the lounge had been moved since it came off the ark.

I had to pull apart and reassemble two beds and a cot and make a trip to the hardware store and we still managed a visit to friends' for dinner ce soir. I'm very tired.

If the reason for the shift has been lost in a haze of sweat, swearing and wonder at how the Noodle managed to materialise in the centre of every clear spot in which I was about to deposit something heavy - something else has become very clear to me. We have reached possession saturation point and shall purchase no more. The children shall have no more toys and items of clothing will only be signed off on if the tattered remains of the predecessor can be produced in tandem with a department of health certificate authenticating that the item is indeed unfit for the survival needs of a human.

I have spoken.

(Though I've not yet checked with my wife)

Bonding

2008-08-30T22:15:00.008+09:30

Knickers can sit and gaze for hours at Patrick. The stoned look when he's so full of milk it's taking all his concentration to keep from vomiting is endlessly amusing to her. She loves the little sneer his top lip forms when he's particularly windy. His satisfied expression when he fills his nappy is a delight. So when he actually grins she is entranced.

On the nappy filling; Patrick is about a foot long, so how can he have a high pressure bottom eruption that lasts for five minutes? If a train is travelling past a level crossing at 400kph and it takes 5 minutes to go by, then the train is 33 and 1/3 k long. Is math telling me that if I were to hike a distance equal to the length of my son's bowel I would need to pack a tent (and supplies hey WT)? Surely this disproves some fundamental law of physics?

Clearly I think he is pretty interesting too - certainly from a scientific point of view - but I wouldn't say that we've bonded yet. Most other fathers, but not all, of my experience feel the same way about their own progeny: cuteness is great, but when are you going to do something?

Any font of knowledge on parenting (ie: anyone who has ever met a baby) will tell you to enjoy this magical time, they grow up so fast, when they learn to talk they start to talk back yadda yadda yadda. But I really dig the interaction with an ambulatory, talking, just used a permanent texta to draw doggies on the beige couch, now kind of scared because there's a talking toucan on the tv, little person.

Bring it.

The Night is Darkest

2008-08-26T21:45:00.003+09:30

The Noodle is progressing on his way to being a little boy. Pretty sure he's still a toddler, but the signs are there. Some signs are positive, and some of 'em ain't so pretty.

He told his first lie the other day, little Machiavelli that he is. I heard the thump, thump of him jumping on our bed - which he is fully aware is against the rules - and burst into the room to catch him in full flight.

I suppose I'll interject here that I jumped on my bed all the time when I was little. Bloody great fun it was; and I don't really expect him to not jump on them and I certainly don't believe his thirteen kilo frame will do irreparable damage to a queen size bed. It's just that the battle lines have been drawn and we find ourselves on different sides of them. His job is to jump on the bed and avoid punishment, mine is to catch him and mete out the punishment. It's a learning curve for both of us.

Anyway, a quick recap: thump, thump, Elliot Ness impression, aha etc.

'Were you jumping on the bed?'

Silence. He looked wildly about, a furtive expression crept weasel like across his rosy cheeks.

'No, I wasn't jump on bed.'

'Oooh you little bugg...bear.'

'Cuddle Daddy?' he said with arms outstretched and pats of unmelted butter spilling down his chin.

It was funny, but surprising, because all our child cursed friends have been telling us how their progeny are incapable of speaking with forked tongue until, well I'm not sure what age, but older than two anyway. I'll be the besotted parent and chalk it up to a lively imagination and quick wit rather than a heart of pure evil; at this stage.

Although we have decided he can't watch the news anymore after his chants of 'kill, kill, kill' during the report of a murder last night.

My great fear is toilet training. Yes I'm bloody sick of cleaning up other's poo. But nappies provide a measure of control as to where and when the cleaning takes place. Ideally it doesn't take place in supermarket aisles, roadsides or anywhere else far from home when you're down to your last change of the child's clothes. Nappies provide a measure of control that I am loathe to lose, even if the rewards are ultimately there.

We've got a way to go yet before we seriously start it, maybe science will give us toilet training in a pill by then? I wonder how you would administer it?

Mr Culturally Sensitive

2008-08-25T18:52:00.001+09:30

Me: You look pretty tired.

Mohammed: Yeh, I had an engagement and a funeral on the weekend.

Me: Oh, an Islamic funeral or a regular one?

Me: Fuck...sorry.

Asking the Man in the Street (to punch sacred cows)

2008-08-22T20:32:00.006+09:30

So MITS who is more boring: Radiohead or Cold Play?

I'm glad you asked. Bit of a tough call really. Clearly RH's music is just self congratulatory wank, but by Christ don't CP just drone on.

I would say that CP are Nickleback to RH's Matchbox 20. No, wait, the other way round.

Oh who cares.

Arseholes.

Except for Creep obviously. Brilliant that is.

(hums to self)

Burning Questions

2008-08-22T12:06:00.005+09:30

Has anyone named Jenkins ever achieved anything more than being a meek subordinate to an overbearing superior?
'Excuse me sir?'
'Yes Jenkins what is it? Come on man, speak up.'

How long do cows that give us long life milk live?

Does the expression 'flat out like a lizard drinking' mean you're really busy, as in a lizard lies very flat when it drinks; or not particularly busy, as in they actually drink with slow sedate movements of their lizardy tongues? I've heard it used in both contexts.

Archery - Drawing Long Bows

2008-08-19T11:50:00.003+09:30

Christ, why can't we just be happy with what we've achieved at the Olympics without having to beat it up?

On Sunrise the other morning (I don't watch it - I just fell over and accidentally turned it on) Kochie was banging on about Australia and showing a medal talley...adjusted by per head of population...and look, aren't we just the friggen master race. We're winning! We're winning! If you turn it sideways, colour code it and reverse the polarity.

How about we do another talley based on the average annual income or available clean drinking water of each nation? Or money thrown at support and training by sports obsessed governments? How good would we look then Sunrise? Nothing to say? Thought not.

To win an Olympic medal would be a fantastic achievement honouring the skills of the recipient and validating all the time and support the family and friends had put into the athlete.

But unless you're one of them, or involved with the particular sport. It means sweet Fanny Adams to you personally. No one is going to root you because someone you've never met did something marginally better than someone else you've never met. Well, they might if they were drunk and horny but I'm sure they'd regret it in the morning and that's drawing a long bow anyway.

Heartbreaking

2008-08-18T21:05:00.004+09:30

N1's boys regularly jump over the fence to fetch errant footballs. I am somewhat suspicious that they also go through my shed and play on the swings as they seem to have a working knowledge of the swings, my punching bag and bag mitts. This is fine as long as they don't hurt themselves and sue me.

Tonight the Noodle and I played soccer with them and then showed them the new treadmill (which we've also had the repairman out for today - I was rightly suspicious of a product bearing a badge inscribed 'designed by U.S.A.'). I asked the oldest boy what happened to their side fence.

He replied. 'Mum was driving to watch me play soccer, but she couldn't find it, so she got really drunk and then she crashed into some stuff, then she came here and crashed into the fence and the police came and took her away in handcuffs.'

I felt terrible that I'd asked him, and that he'd answered so honestly. We'd heard the bang on the night of the accident and heard a woman sobbing. Knickers suspected it was their mum, who lives there periodically, so I should have been a bit more sensitive and asked N1. He is always happy to give up the goss.

I spoke to him later and he cheerily confirmed his son's story. She blew over .2 and had just got her license back from a previous DUI conviction. She apparently damaged every panel of her new merc, crashing into various parked cars and fences around the neighbourhood.

I don't want to know what sort of effect that will have on their boys, or all the other children around the country in similar circumstances.

Excuse Me

2008-08-16T22:11:00.003+09:30

This happened a few weeks ago, but has remained with me.

Girl At Uni: Excuse me, your shirt is inside out.

Me: Umm, no the seams are just like that (jeez, get with the fashion lady).

GAU: Yes, but the tag is showing.

Me: Well the tags are on the outside (I've got a live one here).

GAU: No, the tag on the side.

Me: Yes, that one too (Spoken in a rather patronising manner).

GAU: No, the washing instruction tag.

Me: What? Oh - yes you're right. It is inside out...thanks.

Me (sometime later banging head against wall): What did I do to you oh Lord?

Meme

2008-08-15T21:11:00.003+09:30

Thanks to Meredi for tagging me in a moment of profound un-inspiredness. Here's 10 things you don't know about me:

My first ever trip to emergency was to have a blue square of Lego I had stuck up my nose, removed.
For many years I believed Cold Chisel's Saturday Night to be from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. This never struck me as odd.
My great, great, great, great, maternal grandfather, Owen Cavanough, was a marine on the Sirius and - according to family history unsubstantiated by any actual record - was the first man ashore from the First Fleet when he jumped out to hold the longboat for Governor Phillip.
For a few years in my youth I went to bed every night worrying that I may have contracted AIDS from cutting myself on a barbed wire fence. I was too embarrassed to have this confirmed but continued to worry nonetheless.
I have danced naked atop Devil's Peak.
I have nightmares every, single, night.
I have eaten more Continental - creamy bacon carbonarra - pasta and sauce than any other person, living or dead. I never wish to do so again.
I would love to be committed to an upper class mental institute set in a stately home built on lush, idyllic grounds. It would be fully and professionally catered with a complete library and fresh Irish linen daily. All the other inmates would be completely catatonic except for a few Napoleons, Cleopatras and Christs for amusement value.
I am obsessed by the inevitability of my own death and have so far failed to come up with a way round it.
I'm trying to develop a facial expression to wear when walking towards someone I don't want to make eye contact with that doesn't look like the one most people use; the rigid and slightly panicky 'I know you're there so I'm staring as hard as I can into the middle distance.' I plan to patent it.

Farewell to Shady 'Bloody' Glade

2008-08-13T21:42:00.005+09:30

We had dinner up at Dad's last Saturday and Knickers and I were bemoaning the Noodle's recent obsession with a Thomas the Tank Engine book his Godfather Mike, a regular reader, presented him with.
'Hmm, sounds like Shady Bloody Glade,' said Dad.
'Farewell to Shady Glade? I loved that book.'
'Well your mother didn't; "Shady Glade, read Shady Glade again Mum." Was all she heard from the four of you.' Dad used a very unkind voice for his imitation.

Shady Glade is indeed one of my all time, top-five, picture books. Man those bulldozers were scary. Considering my own recent experience it shouldn't suprise me that Mum became heartily sick of it and took to calling it, according to Dad, Shady Bloody Glade. Which would be, to put it in context, like you or I calling it Shady C*nting Glade. Apparently she disappeared it in the end. Still, I have such great memories of her reading to us all every night. She never let on that every nerve fibre was itching to get us off to sleep so she could stagger back to the kitchen and smoke half a pack of darts.

I guess it is the parents' burden to feign delight when the offspring bring home a painted rock they've stuck some string on, or - another recent thing for the Noodle - run at you index finger first shrieking 'I got the boogers. I got the boogers.'

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Running Man

2008-08-11T21:38:00.004+09:30

Ever since I returned to Adelaide in 2000 I've been telling people I'm going to run the City to Bay in less than an hour. That means running at at least 12kph for, well, one hour.

I've had two tilts at it, the last being maybe four years ago, and the goal still stands. My training regime then was less than ideal though. As the days counted down I kept revising my fitness plan until it became a 4k run today, tomorrow off, then 6k on Friday and the race on Sunday. Of that attempt I can only say that I managed to run, Cliff Young style, the whole way; and that there is no shame in being overtaken by female walkers who started 1/2 an hour after me.

Things are going to be different this time.

God knows we can't afford it, but we bought a treadmill a few weeks ago (what would Peter Singer think?) and nearly every second day I've been firing it up and pounding out the days frustrations; after the frustrations have been put to their respective bed and crib.

I used to be a treadmill cynic. When I lived in the Territory I used to run regularly on bush tracks. Those tracks provided privacy for my red-faced endeavours, fantastic scenery and the odd adrenalin burst when I encountered a snake or a water buffalo. The hard straight lines of the suburbs are comparatively dull and I hate having to straighten up, hold my breath and pick up the pace every time I pass a pedestrian or fellow jogger. Pride does indeed come before the infarction. Anyway that, and the control a treadmill provides, made me agree to the purchase (although my agreement was purely decorative) when Knickers suggested it as a means for a post baby fitness kick.

I'm alternating a slow one hour run with a faster paced interval run for between twenty and thirty minutes and making some improvement in my fitness. The best I've managed is 11k in an hour, so Istill have to squeeze in an extra k somewhere over the next four weeks.

While the fitness is improving, the ageing body is packing up. I had to run for the train this morning and the pain in my cold knees and ankles was near crippling. I fear one of these days I will find out that stretching before and after exercise is not just another lie brought to us by the 'don't eat and swim' people.

Rejection

2008-08-10T10:32:00.007+09:30

I received this email in June and am only just starting to get over the disappointment

Dear Rob,

I’m finalising my selections for Cordite 28: Secret Cities, and would like to publish your poems Flood and South From Belconnen, if they are still available …

Can you let me know as soon as you can? I’ll also need a bio (50 words) and a weblink (if you’ve got one) …

Thanks to the funding of the Australia Council, we offer payments to our Australian contributors.

We’re expecting the issue to go online at the beginning of July. I’ll be in touch with more details soon.

Warm regards,

david

You might say, 'What are you whinning about Rob? They want to publish Flood and South From Belconnen. They want a bio and they're going to pay you. You'll be rich and famous like all those other poets.'

And I would reply that would be true...for the author of Flood and South From Belconnen. Who isn't me. It's someone else.

I fired a rather hopeful email off to David advising that there seemed to be a bit of a mix up, but my poems were still very much available if they were what he wanted and he'd just gotten the names of the accepted pile mixed up. He replied fairly promptly and confirmed that there had indeed been a bit of a mix up and no, he didn't want my poems.

I know you have to have a thick skin and it's only my second rejection letter (from two submissions) and there's no need to go all Bernard Black on his arse blah blah blah. It's just that the raising of my hopes - nay, the befriending of them with an arm draped chumlike across their shoulders with an air of camararderie - before the inevitable brutal betrayal and beating from behind with a whiskey bottle and the stomp on the neck finale, was particularly cruel.

And then he advised it was due to ' a mix-up in numbers/ anonymous submission meltdown.' Right

a mixy-up meltdown, not a fuck-up on his part. Psshht, whatever girlfriend.

Incidentally, I read Flood and South. They're alright, if you're into that whole poetic poetry with no swearing, cruelty to animals or references to masterbation kind of thing.

I actually started the bio.

Sob.

Smelling the Flowers

2008-08-04T21:36:00.001+09:30

Spent an hour on the blower to my mate Mike the other day. He lives in Cairns and is a recently separated father of two. No matter what other difficulties he's going through he continues to be an excellent dad and remains one of my parenting idols.

He was telling me how he takes his girls for walks; stopping whenever they want to look at something, explaining which spiders you can touch and which you shouldn't - a fairly easy sorting job for most of us - lying down to look up at the sky and generally whiling away the hours doing whatever the girls want.

I resolved to be more like that with the Noodle. So when I took him and the hounds to Mortlock Park the other day I decided to let him guide the fun.

He decided the fun was to be had playing outside the men's toilet and change rooms, picking up items of interest and throwing them down the drain. These items included used strapping, bottle tops, cigarette butts and pieces of broken glass. At that point I decided I was comfortable with our previous arrangement and dragged him, kicking and screaming, to the jungle gym.

Hmmm, just re-read the previous paragraph and noted that I said my son likes to pick up outside men's toilets.

My other son continues to thrive on mother's milk and now tops 4kg. His oft crossed eyes are beginning to focus, his tiny hands grab and pull at anything they can catch and today he gave me what may well have been the beginnings of a smile.

My Two Sons

2008-07-11T22:03:00.002+09:30

Knickers woke me up to yell at me the other night. Apparently I kept rolling over in my sleep, thus preventing her from getting some precious shuteye.
I drifted back off, pondering how the slumbering mind might bring the free wheeling body to heel.
Another elbow to the ribs.

'Your son needs you.'
'Mmmich one?'
'Noodle.'

I should have guessed, my non-lactating body is of precious little use to Patrick in the wee hours of the morning. Ideally he should go a minimum of three hours between the start of feeds. Ideally I should have enough money to not have to stand in supermarket aisles pondering if 800g for $3.89 is better value than 600g for $3.25.

The Noodle had had an attack of the night terrors, obviously brought on by my bedtime reading of The Gruffalo, which he didn't care for, and the sudden onset of silence as Patrick took a break from his erstwhile incessant shrieking.

I staggered into Noodle's room and collapsed onto the bed next to him. We pushed and shoved for a while, as he shares his mother's proclivity for holding the centre of the bed, but eventually settled with him lying on my chest with his nose in my ear. He then proceeded to narrate the sounds of the night for me.

'Freight train...big freight train...like Thomas...freight train gone. Peacock gone, where'd it go? Oh, magpie...magpie gone. Noodle squash daddy (a wrestling game we play, I'm heaps better at it than him)...squash, squash...etc'

Finally his spring ran down and he fell asleep, his tiny body moulded across my neck and his snores reverberating in my ear. A truly beautiful parenting moment which I savoured for six seconds until I also fell asleep, leaving the dawn light to seep unnoticed into the room.

We've had good days and bad days as Patrick adjusts to his new life, and we also adjust accordingly. He's a healthy baby and no more work than the Noodle was at the same age - but bugger me if a 'normal' baby isn't hard work.

Patrick Marcus

2008-07-06T20:29:00.013+09:30

...was born on 3rd July 2008 at 6:16 a.m. It was a difficult birth, my feet ached from standing, my thumbs became a little strained from massaging Knickers' shoulders and all her moans and shrieks became tiresome.

As far as mother and baby go all went well. The waters broke at 1:20, Knickers woke me up to say that she wasn't sure if both fluid sacks had broken (both? that was news to me too) but a sudden pop, gush, splash confirmed that they both definitely were now.

Too excited to sleep we rose and made tea and snacks and turned Wimbledon on. We were very cosy until the contractions started. I had the same notebook to hand in which I documented the contractions for the Noodle. Knickers was concerned about being turned back from the hospital if she wasn't advanced enough and wanted to have statistics to back up her claim.

Within twenty minutes she had gone from, 'I think I'm having one,' to ',Mother of God make it stop.'

I called her parents to come and fetch the Noodle, who was quite happy to be bundled into their car in the middle of the night. 'Good sleeps' he announced - this signifies for him the end of the sleep process and prefixes the start of the playing and eating. Not a good sign for his poor grandparents, but the least of our concern at the time.

Drove through the near deserted city, past prowling taxis and a lone garbage truck and into the assessment office of the WCH. Knickers was 7cm dilated, so no chance of being sent away. The midwife took her up to the birthing room while I went and parked the car. I was fortunate enough to get a park nearby as I only had one disgruntled possum to compete with.

Knickers was determined to have an epidural this birth but there just wasn't time in the end. She made do with hearty gasps of the gas and Patrick was born within an hour of me returning to the room.

We're still all operating under seige mentality as we adjust to the arrival of the newest member of the clan. Sleep is being snatched in hourly increments rather than swathes of the day, and an outing is taking the hounds for a wander around the oval, but all our friends and family have been fantastic. Of special note have been the care packages from Nana and Granddad containing the finest soups known to humanity; and the books from Aunty Margie Ping is about all I can handle at the moment.

More Home Remedies

2008-07-02T14:29:00.003+09:30

We had really convinced ourselves that, because the Noodle came a week early, WUO would follow suit as is - according to popular mythology - customary.

Complete bollocks apparently.

Which means the mad scramble to finish assignments and the 'extension' has been complete and we now find ourselves in limbo.

Knickers is throwing her hat further into the murky ring of folklore and witchcraft. We've tried all the well known ones and we're now just making stuff up.

My suggestions have included:

Making trifle (I love trifle)
Watching UFC dvd's
Freezing cold showers
Confusing WUO with handstands
Hiccup curing scares
Drinking bleach (only a capful)

At about that point I was told that my making another suggestion or saying 'not long now' again will result in serious harm to my person.

Today is the actually due date. The doctor from the Women and Children's said they won't induce for at least a week.

I fear for us all.

Pagan Accountants

2008-06-30T22:14:00.003+09:30

Whether you describe it as a credit to the progress of man or decry it as the loss of spirituality and closeness to nature; the fact is that most of us are mostly removed from the shift in season and the vagaries of weather.

I think it's a good thing. I wouldn't fancy spending the entire winter cloistered up with a herd of goats, forced to burn dung to defrost salted herring and melt icicles from my wife's beard.

What we have lost, however, is a genuine cause for celebration. Okay apart from New Years Eve, Christmas and Easter; well the latter two aren't for everybody, are they?

Where's our midwinter feast? Solstice, Equinox, chanting monks?

I'll tell you.

(drum roll)

End of financial year.

Our work is finished, now the beans must be counted and a symbolic tithe offered up to the gods of taxation in the hope that it please them and they reward their humble servants with an extra large return and a reduction in medicare levy.

There should be days off, feasting, pageantry, bonhomie and packs of shit faced accountants throwing up in taxis and getting it on with each other in massive, bacchanalian orgies on the piled heaps of the years paperwork.

File it away, a little sticky and worse for wear, and begin the new financial year with the sun on your face and the wind in your hair.

Marching Orders

2008-06-29T21:03:00.005+09:30

Your picture fixed to the fridge
With a magnet from the dentist
Showing you during
The twenty week scan
The ultrasound shining down
Like a reading lamp
On the profile
Of your skull
Jaw
Nubs of teeth
Feet flung out
At the end of tiny tibia
Joy, rage... stretching?

We've been staring so long
At that picture of you
We're wondering if you're real.

And do you know
Your lease on the womb
is about to expire?
Nine months nearly up
And if you're not out shortly
We will commence the process
of eviction.
(Hot curry, hot sex)

So,
Do the grown up thing
Pay the piper
Face the music
It's time to cut the chord.

Little one.

Don't Want It

2008-06-26T09:37:00.004+09:30

The Noodle's favourite expression of late and one he finds is especially applicable in the morning. He applies it to taking off his pyjamas, changing his nappy, putting Oof back to bed, putting on shoes, putting on a jumper, sitting in his chair, eating Weet Bix and a host of other things his parents would really like him to just shut up about and accept.

Really have to see his point though. If I was in a clothing store and an eager shop assistant came rushing up brandishing two pair of pants and demanding I choose one (ah, the illusion of choice - just like democracy really) and I declined both of them; how would I feel if he didn't take no for an answer but instead, knocked me down, sat on me, tore my perfectly comfortable pants off and replaced them with another pair.

I would probably struggle and shriek, 'Don't want it,' repeatedly also.

Still, both Knickers and I are getting pretty jack of it. Is this the terrible twos?

Home Straight

2008-06-25T13:48:00.005+09:30

I have a tic striking my bottom-left eyelid like a giant trevally on 10lb line.

My skin is cracking and drying as it pulls away from my skull under the exsertion pressure of a barrage of caffeine.

A dirty great ulcer throbs on the inside of my lip where I prod it incessantly with my tongue.

My muscles are wasting away, fat rushes in to fill the void.

The hounds whine miserable and unwalked at the back door.

I snarl and curse back at them.

My son no longer acknowledges me and my wife shakes her head in disgust at piles of empty soft drink cans and chocolate wrappers which surround the living wreck I have become.

I have one more assignment to finish.

Practical Advice for Trainee Teachers

2008-06-11T23:11:00.002+09:30

Don't tell 10 year olds to stop playing with their balls.

The Noodle Turns 2

2008-06-09T20:23:00.007+09:30

Just stay there WUO. I ain't sharing today. Actually most days I'm not real keen on sharing, unless it's your stuff to start with.

Everyone looking sufficiently awkward and in different directions? Good. Click.

Seriously. I'm terrified.

Bit further down the yard kids, we can still hear you fighting.

Homemade birthday cake prior to being drenched with spit.

Cash from great-granddad? Let Dad mind it for you.

2 solid days of preparation. 2 hounds locked despairingly in the shed.16 adults and 11 kids. No deaths and only 1 injury from falling in my hole. I did warn them.

Happy Birthday for yesterday Noodle.

Memed

2008-06-08T19:51:00.010+09:30

Thanks Kath for fulfilling my unspoken desire to be memed. I'm starting to feel like a real blogger now.

Apparently, there are rules to adhere to:
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 Ten Years Ago?

Quite a few periods of my life when I could have answered 'not much', but luckily I was living in London 10 years ago. Lucky for making me sound more interesting, not lucky for my life to be rapidly slipping through my fingers.
I was sleeping on the lounge room floor of 99 Tooting Bec Road, Tooting Bec. I'd just moved there from Jabiru and was discovering, after 5 years of life in remote mining towns, that it was possible to go out for a drink without a) getting into a fight with a bearded fuckwit, and b) hearing Status Quo's Rocking All Over the World.
And girls. Girls with their own teeth; girls on trains and buses; girls in cafes and clubs. Girls! Girls approaching me on the common on a slightly hangover Sunday morning while I walked about marveling at squirrels and at fathers screaming at their 5 year old sons that they'd never play for England if they kept kicking like fairies.

Girl: Hiya
Myninjacockle: G'day
G: Do you want the business?
M: Pardon?
G: The business.
M: What? Oh, right...um...no thanks. Sorry.

And there I had been thinking about Wombles.

Five Snacks I Enjoy in a Perfect, Non-Weight-Gaining World

Cheese
Tim Tams
The Noodle's leftover custard (waste not etc...)
Peanut butter and jam sandwiches. White bread, and butter.
Gingernut biscuits

Five Snacks I Enjoy in the Real World

Pretty much exactly the same.

Five Things I Would Do if I were a Billionaire

Have you seen the film The Game with Michael Douglas? That's what I'd do. But not with a happy ending. I'd recruit a team of top operatives and have them locate everyone on my hit list. Including 'man with beard who refused to turn loud stereo down in forgotten Queensland caravan park' and 'kid who badged my car sometime in early naughties'.
Then I'd have exhaustive dossiers prepared on each (all good espionage undertakings require dossiers), containing their dirty little secrets, and begin a long campaign of psychological warfare. This would culminate in my enemies being abandoned by all their loved ones and being committed, completely and utterly broken, to an insane asylum.
I would get little video updates on a weekly basis, detailing my operatives breaking into the slumbering victims' bedrooms and thinning their hair, injecting them with lard, moving their car keys and stealing one sock from every pair and replacing it with a slightly different coloured one.

(Note: if you are putting on weight, losing hair and can never find your keys; chances are you've made an enemy of a vindictive billionaire.)

Four more? I dunno, the first one would keep me pretty busy. It's a long list and there's only one way off it.

Five Jobs That I Have Had

Customer Service Manager - WBC Jabiru (the pinnacle of my banking career)
Removalist
Debt Collector (in a call centre, so not as cool/evil as it sounds)
Administration Officer for a charity (giving food to junkies, marketing, arguing with government departments, collecting furniture from dead people, saying 'sorry, can't help with that' to desperate people, fixing ageing photocopier)
Labourer for expo company

Three of my Habits

Whenever I'm sitting still, I count things. I count corners, windows, cars, birds, bricks. It's compulsive. Furthermore, if the total doesn't come to an even number, I experience a mild unease and have to expand or contract my selection criteria to round the number off. Yes, I cheat.
When I'm driving by myself I play a game where I challenge myself to hold my breath for a certain distance, say the next two sets of traffic lights. I also cheat at this.
Picking my nose. I hope that by outing myself I will move society towards a more tolerant, less ridiculing, attitude towards those of us who are digitally inclined towards our nasal passages.

Five Places I Have Lived

Sydney - West Pennant Hills. My parents were living in Castle Hill when I was born but moved when I was 3 months old. So I don't think that counts.
Orange - I started school there, and saw snow for the first time.
Henty - Sladen Street. Henty is the home of the header. I remember we used to ride our bikes 'round the silos, catching hold of the back of wheat trucks and getting towed along. I don't ever recall an adult telling us that this was not a clever thing to do.
Port Lincoln - cnr of Gloucester and Abeona Tce. Here we used to climb for hours through the storm drains. Ditto for parental cautioning.
Darwin - 4 Giles St, Fannie Bay. The Missionaries of Charity were located up the road from us. I was given my instruction for my first communion there and also performed the role of Joseph in a nativity play. Among the audience of about 10 was Mother Teresa. I thought this unremarkable at the time.

People I Would Like to Know Better (okay, I already know most of you far too well. I just don't know that many people)

Day 2: Called Into Principal's Office for Inappropriate Touching

2008-06-07T21:35:00.004+09:30

Thursday was my second visit to my prac school. Watched in horror as my school chum J stole blank notebooks from the classroom while we were supposed to be marking more spelling during the student's library time.

'There's my pay for the day,' he rationalised as he shoved them in his tucker bag.

I considered my options.

Considered dobbing, but can't bring myself to do it, though he truly deserves it. Considered punching him fair in his face then putting him in a rear-naked choke until he 'did the chicken', but violence never solves anything - and he could find out where I live. Considered simply doing nothing and hating myself later.

I hate myself.

Later in singing I positioned myself near two of the boys who are really struggling with their school work. Neither of them were impressed when I pointed out that the original, and superior, version of My Island Home had the line, 'six years I've been living in the desert' rather than city. Then they started fighting and one of them grabbed hold of me in the fracas. The dispute was over fart ownership, not musical taste.

We all got sent to the Deputy Principal's office. My role was witness for the prosecution but I still felt nervous. Both the boys were let off with a warning and sent back to class. I was given a pep-talk on behaviour management by the Deputy.

I really like her and all the students respect her. Her manner of bouncing from talking to you to embarking on impromptu role plays is disconcerting though. I'm never sure if she is talking to me as a teacher or an imaginary student. It's like playing theatre sports in a dementia ward.

I have to volunteer at the school for a few hours a week for the rest of the school year, also as part of our assessment. I've chosen to help out in a special program for remedial readers. I'm quietly confident that will cure me of any lingering fantasies I may posses about getting all students to love reading as much as I did.

Next Time: Javelin

2008-06-04T20:45:00.005+09:30

Had to teach a PE lesson for 15 year 7s yesterday as part of my assessment.

My God they're animals.

The prevailing pedagogy righteously forbids us from inflicting the trauma of making them pick their own teams. We've all read Lord of the Flies. I had decided to teach soccer and to pick teams asked them to line up shortest to tallest in order to number them off.

How hard could that be?

Rock as it turns out. Two separate power blocks started their own lines. A splinter group of two broke away from them, but at least they could agree on their order. Even if they couldn't it didn't matter as, mathematically speaking, any two points form a line.

The remaining group just milled around pushing each other in the chest and claiming to be the tallest.

Half my alloted time ticked by. My voice grew hoarse. My whistle began to rust from spittle exposure. They formed teams.

'As a warm up we're going to play rats and rabbits. Who remembers how to play from last week?'

No-one as it turned out. Several eons of, largely wasted, explanation and questions later:

'Okay. You lot are rats. You lot are rabbits. The group name I call will have to chase the other group to their home line.'

'Rats!'

Pandemonium. I believe that's a level of hell. They keep year 7s there.

I cut rats and rabbits short, skipped most of the skills practice and went to the game. I'd changed the rules to make it like netball in that defenders, mid-fielders and strikers had to stay in their respective thirds; according to my rules. Not the kids' rules.

Pandemonium revisited.

Most of the boys were suddenly strikers. For the same team. Most of the girls formed a circle and began a discussion. They would have sat down but the ground was wet.
An SSO appeared from nowhere dragging two boys. One with autism and the other sight impaired. Does every class in the country have a sight impaired child, or just mine? Who cares? They joined the fray.

My fellow teaching students went into overtime scribbling in the 'What could have been improved?' section of our observation notes.

The lesson finally ended. None of the students cried out, 'captain, my captain.'

Sods.

Uber-believer

2008-06-02T20:21:00.010+09:30

...there's nothing more distressing or uncomfortable to look at than a philosopher who's thought himself into a corner. And that was the first night I got a good clear look at his corner, his terrible corner, his sad dead-end, where Dad had inoculated himself against ever having anything mystical or religious ever happen to him...I understood he was not just a sceptic who doesn't believe in a sixth sense, but he was an uber-sceptic, who wouldn't trust or believe in the other five either.

A Fraction of the Whole - Steve Toltz

I'm over halfway through this terrifyingly funny book, and finding some of the author's scathing diatribes cut a little close to the bone when he derides religion, parenthood, love and the aspirations of the general population.

It would be great if I could laugh along thinking, 'Hyuk, other folk sure are dumb-stupid,' but mostly I find I am the other folk.

I identify with Martin, the dad, in the above extract, but at the other end of the spectrum; I'm an uber-believer. Not so much in raiki massage, Buddhism or tarot; but in the status quo.

I've always felt bad whenever I've examined traffic rules, the gear ratios on my pushy, the layout of stock at the supermarket, and been unable to fault them. Likewise I've never been able to contribute anything of note to a work suggestion box. I find everything is the perfect system for right now.

Sure things can change and require adjustment. But the fact is that better minds than mine have been looking at all of these things for centuries now, and pretty much cracked it.

Also this doesn't apply to larger issues of social justice. Hell, no-one seems capable of working that shit out.

So does this mean I'm incapable of thinking outside the box? Maybe. Probably. 'Though I reckon the ability to accept that other people, occasionally, may just possibly know what they're talking about, is also an advantage in life.

Anyway. Do yourself a favour. Read the book.

Men At Work

2008-05-31T12:01:00.006+09:30

I write this quickly now prior to fleeing with the Noodle (as soon as he wakes) to the relative sanctuary of my Dad's house before Knickers returns from a pre-baby girls' weekend away.

She has only been gone since yesterday afternoon but the house is already a disaster. Dirty mugs are scattered throughout the house. They sit piled up with tools, DVDs, volumes of poetry, novels, graphic novels, text-books, dirty dishes, dirty washing and clean washing. The Noodle has gotten into the whole while the cat's away spirit and added scatterings of picture books, bottles, bibs and boots. The hounds have been allowed up on the, normally, verboten couch and contributed the lion's share of fur (that is, enough to make a lion out of) which must now be thoroughly vacuumed.

It's not that I haven't been cleaning, its just that I've started seventeen different projects and completed none. The beginning stage of most projects involve getting everything out and ready, having a cuppa and slice of toast to consider where to begin, deciding it's all too hard and moving on to something else. Of course before commencing the next I would need a palate cleansing romp with the Noodle or lie down with a book, depending on his desire and/or availability.

One of the tasks, assigned by Knickers prior to her departure, is to assemble the new linen cupboard. She is deep in a very large nesting frenzy. Larger than the house actually. This is causing me all sorts of headaches as I try to explain that we don't live in the Tardis and I 'cannae change the laws o' physics.'

Knickers despises science fiction and is suitably unmoved by my protestations.

So, back to our new and expensive linen cupboard. The Noodle and I put the frame together, realised the shelves were on backwards and took it apart. Back together again and decided it would be more stable with the top shelf a bit higher. Took it apart again. Adjusted. Reassembled. Nailed on the thin backing. Refer photo below.
I'm now in a bit of a bind. Sure I can blame the Noodle. After all he did bang a few nails in. I just don't think admitting I let our nearly two year old son let fly with a hammer, in the close confines of the house, is the best strategy to deflect attention away from the topic of my irresponsibility.
It would explain the dents and chips caused by some of his wilder swings. Again though, Knickers is much more likely to dock my pocket money rather than his. Oh for a baby face, what havoc I could wreak!

No. Best to keep shtum while she gets over the initial outrage and be convicted of incompetence rather than incompetence and irresponsibility.

Now I just have to convince the Noodle not to walk around saying, 'Noodle hammer. Very helpful.'

Then What Is It?

2008-05-30T13:56:00.003+09:30

It's not porn or anything
Penny says handing me her phone
Pixels firing.

I watch a man
Sneak up on girl in the street
And reef her boob-tube down
The footage shows the girl
Shocked, then mad as hell
Chase her assailant
Clopping along on high heels
Errant breasts bouncing
As if excited by the chase
One hand attempts to corral them
Back into her top
While the other wishes
Desperately for a gun
She gives up pursuit
Impotent rage writ large
On her seething features.

I hand the phone back
That's terrible
Why? It's funny as
Says Penny
Yeh.

ROFL!!!

New Cars

2008-05-27T20:53:00.003+09:30

At a time when petrol prices are rivaling bank fees for sheer ballsiness, nearly everyone I know is buying at least one new car.

Even my brother.

Mind you, with his penchant for faded glory, shopping on a six pack, poor impulse control and annoying our father; 'new' is probably not the best adjective to describe a 1989 Nissan Navara with an HRT engine and gearbox , illegal air-filter and little silver skulls for door locking knobs.

'Who would know it's illegal?' I asked.
'The cops.'
'Ah, that's a pity. They're just the sort who have the authority to book you. I mean if it was hairdressers, well, you'd be in the clear.'
'Hmmm funny. The engine is tagged too.'
'What's that mean?'
'You know, like the tags put on your water meter when it gets cut off for non-payment. Only it stops scrotes messing with the calibrations.'

Bless. I love the way he assumes everyone has a working knowledge of evading debt collectors, defrauding real estate agents, laughing at threats of credit listings and being aware of the two remaining video stores you can borrow from in the greater Adelaide metropolitan area.

And just to finish.

What I want to know is: how can a two year old freeze a computer, call emergency services on the phone, or (when in at the hospital) press the emergency button on the patient's remote control - all within three seconds of getting access to the buttons? How? It's not natural. Seriously.

Measure Twice, Bugger It Up, Scream and Kick Something

2008-05-25T20:59:00.008+09:30

AIM

Crib the WUO (Today's gut feeling: girl) in the front room until s/he is sleeping through the night, then, throw them to the Noodle. We're sure he'll cope really, really well with sharing.

I'm sitting in the front room now. It measures 2 x 2.5m, and contains the computer, doors to our bedroom and the front yard, a round window and a doorway to the lounge. Obviously we'd move the computer. Can't have a baby screaming in my ear while I'm trying to study.

Though it's not all bad. One clear advantage of storing a child by the front door would be that if a mad dingo pack chewed their way in they'd be temporarily distracted by the baby, giving us enough time to bail out the window and make a run for it.

METHOD

Today I attempted to add another door to the doorway. That way the WUO won't be exposed to the Big Brother Final Eviction in her/his first few weeks of life. A neighbour three houses down left some doors out on the road a few weeks ago. I scurried down like a rat under the cover of darkness and liberated one. I hope no-one saw me in my shame.

Luckily it was 40mm too short. Lucky because the universe would implode if something just worked out nicely. I measured carefully and went and purchased a length of timber - same width as the door and 35mm thick - some new hinges and some screws. I cut the timber to length and spent a fair bit of time screwing it to the bottom of the door.

What I hadn't measured was the other side of the door frame. It happens to be about 20mm shorter. This made my extended door 15mm too tall. Fine, whatever, I'll just trim it down.

I unscrewed the timber, put it in the vise, marked it and attempted to trim it with a circular saw. The saw jagged and the timber split.

RESULT

I unplugged the saw and placed it gently down. Then I kicked the shed wall. It made a very satisfying thump. I swore a bit and thought about kicking the saw. Decided against it. Thought a little longer about kicking one of the hounds, but they'd scarpered. No fools those dogs.

CONCLUSION

DIY is for fools. Stay in school, earn more money. Employ someone competent to do it.

Fall From Grace

2008-05-23T21:51:00.004+09:30

So, I got some scratchies for my birthday and I won seven dollars. I used the winnings for more tickets but didn't win anything.

So then I maxed out the credit card and sold a kidney. Still nothing. In desperation I started hanging around outside the toilets in Mitcham shopping centre, asking people if I could do them any favours for money.

Security asked me to leave.

Curse scratchies.

They Called Me Mister

2008-05-22T20:38:00.004+09:30

Today was my introduction day for the primary school at which I'll do my first teaching prac.

I really enjoyed it. Loved the school, rated the kids (year 4/5's) and loved listening to the bitter whingeing of the ageing teachers in the staffroom.

The deputy principal was appropriately manic, the female librarian was a fuddy duddy and the dance teacher was camper than a row of tents. So I can check all my stereotype boxes.

The only dark cloud was my co-student teacher. He is studying to be a tech teacher and is, to put it bluntly, a bit of a wanker.

Some of his comments made in all seriousness:

(About a little girl crying because she fell over) Fuck, no wonder so many of our kids turn into fags.
Autism? What the fuck is that?
(Upon learning that brandy - the game - is banned) These cunts need to take a spoonful of cement... and harden the fuck up. (boom tish)
(About the deputy principal) What the fuck is up her arse?

Our mentor teacher asked if we wanted to mark some spelling for her while the kids were at another lesson. My co-student - let's call him J - just gave them all ticks because, 'I can't fucken spell anyway,' then stole some stickers to put in one of the cool kids books. 'Is this book his? Oh, who's she? That tubby bitch, fuck her. Fuck she's ugly.'

So rest assured Australia. Your future generations are in safe hands.

Return of the Maiden

2008-05-21T16:11:00.004+09:30

Suddenly Iron Maiden t-shirts are everywhere, I'm not sure why.

'Cause even back in the day they weren't cool. Guns and Roses were cool, Metallica were bad, Sepultura were dangerous. But Iron maiden? For a start they sung about Edgar Allan Poe stories, Samuel Taylor Coleridge poems and popular Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals. Whoa!

Why did they have such a penchant for men referred to by their middle names? Why leave out Winnie the Pooh?

So many questions.

Another one is, are the pimplesque blemishes appearing on my arm a minor skin irritation or the precursor to a disease that would make the elephant man look a more bankable option for a GQ cover? How about the twitch in my eye?

Oh Valencia

2008-05-20T21:38:00.006+09:30

I'm not the kind of man that can look at a Seville Orange and weep for the glory that was Spain.
Lennie Lower - Here's Luck

Valencia?
Yes, it's an orange
It's also a town
And a name
A beautiful name for a girl
Should we have one
Orange Australia?
No, they grow apples there
No, not like Gwyneth's
Orange is named for a man
Named for a house

(Oh it was the biggest mix up)

Proving all that should matter
Is the name
Rolling from the tongue
Like juice from a ripe
Orange.

Making Smooth with the Ladies

2008-05-19T21:46:00.002+09:30

Purchased a bag of apples today and asked the Noodle to hand over the money and accept the produce back. Which he did.

'Say thank you,' I prompted.

'Thanks darlin,' he said.

'Pardon?' said the lady.

'See ya darlin.'

I got him out of there before he asked for her number.

Birthdays in the Over 30's Retirement Village

2008-05-18T13:40:00.004+09:30

Went out with our friends with kids group this morn (I'm sorry, I don't make the rules that's just the way it is) for a birthday brunch.

I proudly wore my brand new flat cap (the Noodle is terrified of the blower vac, so obviously it couldn't come) which I received after a concerted campaign of whining and some online support. Knickers' was dubious about my choice but I insisted they were very popular. And lo I was right. Two resplendent octogenarians wheezed past our table during the course of our meal, heads warmly ensconced in plaid caps.

Mine is a monochromatic grey. When Knickers was making the purchase the shop assistant asked how old I was and, upon being told, directed her away from the jazzy patterns to the sombre designs for the older gent. As it happens I wanted grey anyway but I resent being pigeonholed, and implicitly labeled decrepit, by some old bag who has never met me.

Who cares, it's my birthday. Yay me.

Umbrellas

2008-05-16T20:15:00.004+09:30

It has rained all day. Fantastic.

But...

It has also brought one of my pet hates squelching home to roost. Umbrellas. Or more specifically...maybe a bit of back ground before I leap into my whinge.

I don't own an umbrella, only have once and I promptly lost it. I'm a take a chance kind of guy, kind of have to be with my level of organisation.

Most days it don't rain, and if it does well we spend most of our time in air-conditioned comfort anyways, and if not we can always run, and if you can't run then you've probably got bigger problems then getting wet. Things are tough all over.

So... specifically my problem is with the overfed, mouth-breathing product of expensive private schools for boys who, upon waking, views the low-hanging firmament and decides he might get his Italian leather shoes wet on the stroll from the car park to the office. He decides he better grab the brolly. Oh no, the little woman has already left for pilates and I don't know where she keeps them. Conundrum!

Then something like a primordial neuron fires deep down in our heroes cerebellum. 'Huzzah', he cries 'my golf umbrella.' and off he lumbers to transfer it from the back of the Jeep to the beamer.

Later that morning he happily strolls down the crowded city streets, resplendent under his brightly coloured, oversize, umbrella. He whistles a jaunty number as the tips rip eyeballs from passing pedestrians and force others out onto the road into the paths of oncoming trucks.

Gah.

Do That Not

2008-05-13T21:39:00.006+09:30

The Noodle's language skills are improving daily. Today he counted, '124689'. So, not a math prodigy (unless he was calculating pi to twelve thousand places), but impressive for his age and considerably improved since he used to refer to all birds as ducks - and say 'fuck' all the time.

What's really getting to me is trying not to say 'Don't'. Like there's a better way to begin a sentence in which I'd like to express my desire for him to decease from putting toast in the video, drinking bubble soap, eating dog food or washing his hands in my urine stream.

I can't even remember what friggen new age parenting manual came up with the idea. Will we damage their precious little psyches by confronting them with such a negative word? Surely third degree burns or a broken limb would be more distressing then a few well placed, timely 'don't s'? But of course I've signed up for it and so find myself constructing some very vague sentences of dubious grammatical merit.

How about we stop throwing cans in the supermarket?
If you want to browse the internet on Daddy's phone, how about you pay the bill?
Well Daddy can see how much fun climbing the bookshelf is, but have you considered the law of gravity?
Sure spiders are fun, just like trips to emergency.

Obviously what Daddy also has to work on is refraining from referring to himself in the third-person.

The Law of Swings and Roundabouts

2008-05-12T20:59:00.005+09:30

Proof perhaps
Clues contained
In increments
Of time ( t )
Taken to mash potatoes ( m )
With implement ( i )

slow for fork
fast for masher

But weighed against
Time taken to clean ( c ) said instrument

fast for fork
slow for masher

Giving us:

t = im + ic

And the inverse relationship of m and c
Ensures t remains a constant
No matter the value of i.
Proof of God,
No matter what
The self-satisfied
Richard Dawkins has to say,
But sadly also proof
Of His esoteric humour
And the fact that
You won't win
You can never win.

QED

Family Curse

2008-05-11T22:09:00.003+09:30

We have a family curse. Not as impressive as lycanthropy or second sight, in fact kind of the opposite of second sight, more of a (I shouldn't have done that in) hindsight. Some would call it a genetic predisposition to blurt out witticisms before considering any possible consequences. But the level of co-incidence required for them to go as horribly wrong as they do is where the curse comes in to play.
Case in point; Knickers and I were at a party, sitting next to each other but talking to others, after a while Knickers leans over and taps my arm:

'Remember that guy that drove us home from the party the other week?'

(I did, the bloke had been a dickhead. Who wears a Jim Beam jacket?)

'Yeh. Dickhead. What about him?'

beat

'This is his brother.'

My brother Ben is the truly gifted one though. A couple of years ago my Aunty Maureen and Uncle Tony were over from NSW and we had a family dinner up at Dad's. Ben was was still working as a chef then and had flogged some deserts to bring up.
'Who'd like some tart?' he asked.
'Tony loves his tart,' said Aunty Maureen.
'Give it a rest woman. It was back in 1977 - would you just let it go,' joked Ben.

What he didn't know was what Dad had confessed to me the previous evening over several bottles of red. That Uncle Tony - one-eyed Uncle Tony mind - had had an affair back in....1977. Gasp!

'What's that supposed to mean?' snapped Maureen. You could see the confusion on Ben's face, possibly the hairs on the back of his neck were starting to prick up. Not again.
'Just a joke. You know, tart.' And there was nothing I could, or would, do to help him without revealing that I actually did know about the affair.

Some of his other notable incidents include:
The 'how was I to know they were German?' debacle.
And the 'Oh, you're really Kate Fischer's father?' affair.

Hang-Noodle

2008-05-10T21:49:00.003+09:30

We've got somewhat of a lawn again, it's a bit sparse post drought (though I might be a bit presumptuous there with the 'post') so I'm growing it long like a comb-over.
Whatever its condition I've really been enjoying playing with the Noodle on it around dusk, before he goes inside for his dinner, bath (in the laundry tub) and books. There's something exhilarating about running around on cool green grass in the lengthening shadows of the gloaming, I don't know if it just resonates from my own childhood or if everyone loves that thang.

Today we played soccer.Our games involve me kicking him the ball and him picking it up and running round shrieking with delight while I chase him. When I catch him I give him a whizzy then I get to laugh while he staggers around and falls over.

Then we wrestled for a while. Our routine is for the Noodle to push me over, jump on my neck and head butt me. Then I sweep him and squash him until he begs for mercy. I rule the under 2 division with fist of iron! Today the hounds were desperate for attention and also came and sat on me mid bout, pawing at my face in case I hadn't quite noticed their presence and also to let me know their bellies were in desperate need of scratching.

Finally we played hang-noodle, a complex game of strategy, the basic gist is I lift him up onto the rings of his swing set and he hangs there as long as he can before plummeting several inches to the ground, then he gets up and demands 'more hang.'

Knickers does not sure my hope that it'll stretch his arms to the proportions of an orangutan.

Thongs

2008-05-10T13:08:00.004+09:30

If it crosses your mind that your thongs aren't clean enough for the party, you probably shouldn't be wearing thongs.

The Loneliest Dad

2008-05-09T14:20:00.004+09:30

It's a modern world. Australia is, slowly, moving towards equality for same sex couples. The USA may be about to see its first female or African American President. My dad is thinking about buying a microwave.

Just don't tell the Stepford wives at Mitcham Playgroup.

We've been taking the Noodle there for a few months now, Knickers mostly but me if she's working, and every time I go I get shown a shoulder that's colder than a well digger's arse.

The Unley wannabes raise their manicured eyebrows (the only emaciated features on their overfed bodies) and hustle their Fred Bare clad offspring away from the unshaven man like I'm a barbarian invading the inner sanctum of Acca Larentia.

So I make myself a mug of tea and follow the Noodle about for an hour and a half as he pursues his own solitary entertainment. At the end they have a singing session. He is still a little reluctant to join the other kids on the mat so he sits on my lap and helps me do the actions. Then we pack away our chair, take off our name tags and go home. It is really bizarre.

Surely other dads go to playgroups? I hardly think I'm a pioneer in the brave new of shared parenting. Surely the odd, 'Hello' isn't too much to ask?

I'd stop going, but we've paid for the half year, and the tea is free.

I Dodge Death Again

2008-05-08T21:47:00.004+09:30

From ABC News

'Year 4 student Aiden Bott received serious head injuries when a branch from an african mahogany tree fell on him as he ate his lunch in a St Mary's school ground in Darwin's city centre. The year 4 student died after a week in intensive care.'

Had that tree branch fallen some twenty-five years earlier it might have been me and not poor Aiden taking the deep six holiday.
After moving from Port Lincoln to Darwin in late 1983 I spent one miserable term at St Mary's under the apathetic tutelage of Mr 'Dickflop' O'Brien. I missed my friends, it was the build-up, I was about to enter high school - I may well have embraced the falling limb poised like the Sword of Damocles for all these long years.

Other places I have cheated death:

Phuket: One year prior to the tsunami.
Brixton: Several weeks prior to the nail bomber
Mitcham Train Station: today, when a train rumbled past exactly where I'd crossed the line only minutes before.
The Universe: where I missed the Big Bang by a mere 15 billion years!

More Seedlings

2008-05-02T20:25:00.007+09:30

The Noodle and I went up to Belair Nursery/National Park again during the uni break. After we'd done purchasing seedlings (though I surreptitiously returned the ones he snapped off at the base to the back of the racks) we went and played in the tunnels and saw two emus. Bit of a relief for him as he is getting pretty sick of me pointing out koalas up at Brownhill Creek.

'Yes Dad, another motionless sphere of fur, high in a bloody tree, oh be still my beating heart.'

Emus, on the other hand, freaking rocked. For a few days after he would yell 'two eeoos' every time he woke up. Holding up a random amount of fingers to indicate that, yes, there were indeed two.

I find that the information given on plastic tags for plants is similar to the hyperbole found on wine labels. My apologies to all sommeliers out there for any offence. For the same reason you can't write 'Red, tastes like wine, ambitiously priced' ; nurseries would be courageous to ascribe 90% of their stock with the tag 'shrub-like, green leaves, small flowers may appear sporadically.'

Wilson's Honey Myrtle (melaleuca). Prefers sandy soil in full or part sun. Flowers spectacularly if not trampled to death by rampaging toddler.

Hakea bucculenta - sounds like someone with vomit streaming from their nostrils, smells somewhat better.

Grevillea Wilkinsonii - Likes to summer in the south of France. Denies ever being involved with Lara Bingle.

Geraldton Wax (Chamelaucium uncinatum) - distant relative of the Labrador. Inexplicably loves Chekov's plays.

Birthday Conundrum

2008-05-01T20:00:00.004+09:30

I've got a birthday coming up. Knickers broached the subject of presents yesterday:

'I've got an idea. I'm not sure you'll like it.'
'I'll bite. What is it?'
'A blower vac.'

beat

'A blower vac. Are you kidding?'
'Well I'm the one who always sweeps up the leaves out the front.'
'Well I'll get you a blower vac for your birthday then.'
'I'm happy to get a new wok for my birthday.'
'Bully for you. I want a real present.'
'It's just that money is a bit tight at the moment.'

sigh

'Fine. Get me a blower vac.'
'Good. Now what about a present from my family?'
'Oh yeh, I was thinking the Colin Meloy Sings Live! CD.'
'A CD? Can't you just download it?
'Jesus Christ, we need dog food, how about you get me dog food?'
'Okay calm down.'
'You know you're turning into your grandparents. At least they have the justification of going through the depression.'
'I said okay.'
'Well, really.'

I don't care how old I get. I love my birthday and I love getting presents.

My parents, by my age, settled for getting each other inexpensive, practical gifts, but my co-mid-thirties friends are still getting themselves X-boxes and mountain bikes for their birthdays.

Oh for a moral compass to navigate my way through this dark and stormy sea of waste and consumerism.

Islington

2008-04-29T20:20:00.005+09:30

There's a stop on the Gawler line named Islington. Located bang in the middle of sparsely weed strewn paddocks dotted with abandoned warehouses and rusted bogies.
Who named it that? What part of it reminded them of the crowded terrace houses of the namesake north London suburb?
Something about naming less than salubrious locations after iconic areas depresses me.
Part of it is a fear that I suffer from cultural cringe, that deep down I reckon it, my life, would be better lived in Dublin or Toronto or Tokyo.
I had my time in London and it was fantastic, free and wild. But when I returned to Adelaide - after a seven year hiatus - I found much to love about this city too. Guess it's that I associate Islington with certain friends' flats, with parties that went for days, with meeting and bonding with interesting people and with having no responsibilities whatsoever.
Looking up from a dry textbook to find my train stopping at a platform in the middle of whoop whoop is a stark reminder that those halcyon days are behind me. I can deal with that, I just don't like having it thrust in my face in the form of a rusty white placard declaring (this is not) 'Islington.'
The truth is we create our own lives regardless of geography. You can be miserable in New York or happy in Ceduna.
But I also think we should refrain from naming quiet suburban streets 'Piccadilly Circus.'

I Seek Them Here etc...

2008-04-27T21:16:00.005+09:30

Dying hours of the long weekend. We've been out and about for a fair bit of it. Lucky petrol is so cheap.
The thing I've noticed is that every long weekend the police announce a major blitz. Lookout, fire and brimstone, they'll be friggen everywhere. Then they never are.
The only John Hoppers we saw were at the seven car pile-up on the freeway last night. My God, if it had happened two hours later it could have been us. Ha, I cheat death again.
What I reckon is; they announce a blitz, (major clue of Nazism if ever there was) clap each-other on the back for a job well done then declare a long weekend for themselves and disappear until sometime Wednesday.
Of course anyone else who found themselves on the wrong side of the thin blue line this weekend is entitled to disagree.

What's With Kids & Fashion?

2008-04-24T20:59:00.003+09:30

The Noodle has been working on dressing himself lately. Quite insistent on it in fact.

Nice that he isn't sartorially constrained by any aesthetic need for symmetry. Or any need to not limp.

Family Fun Day

2008-04-21T19:46:00.003+09:30

Today was a rare day when we were all off and we took the opportunity to go to the zoo.

I have bitter memories of the Adelaide zoo after my work experience back in 1988. At the time I wanted to be a vet and thought how cool it would be to hang around with the zoo vet. Me and several thousand other kids I suspect. I spoke to one of the keepers on the phone:

'You'll have to spend some of the time with the keepers - what animals do you like?'
'Mammals.'
'Fully booked I'm afraid. You can have birds or reptiles.'
'Oh, reptiles then.' (snakes are cool)

Spending the whole week cleaning out cage upon cage of vermin though, was somewhat south of cool. Positively Antarctic. I never even saw a vet, just the feed room. My only human contact was the keepers who would occasionally wander in, grab a handful of baby rats or mice and hurl them against the wall to kill them before feeding the carcases to the reptiles. Adult rats were swung by the tail into a heavy wooden chopping board.

Today went along way to erasing the bad memory. I was a bit concerned that the twenty-two month old Noodle would be a little young to appreciate the zoo, but he friggen loved it.
Meerkats were a strong favourite. There was a glass barrier along their enclosure and the noodle delightedly got up close and personal with them. Screaming, stamping his feet and pounding on the glass. I hope we're not turning into those sort of parents who look fondly on while their offspring run riot. I reckon it's only fish tanks you're not supposed to bang on anyway. Strangely the only thing that scared him was a goat in the petting zoo. Freaky kid.

My highlight was seeing monkeys picking each-other's arses. Everyone loves that shit.

Why I Need A Rewind / Delete Button

2008-04-17T14:26:00.004+09:30

A few ladies of our acquaintance recently had dinner at a pub and were later complaining about the appalling service they received from the bar tender. Forgetting a lifetime of pain and work with the stop, think, speak principle I blurted out, 'It's because you're getting old. You've become invisible to younger men.'

One day I'll learn.

At the movies with Knickers the other day and one of the previews showed a couple doing the wild thing in the back of a car.
I leaned over to my heavily pregnant wife and leeringly whispered, 'you know, we've never done it in a car.'
She considered this, her eyes lost focused, time passed. She did all but count on her fingers and toes.
'No. You're right, I don't think we have.' she finally answered.*
'Jesus Christ how many...never mind, I don't want to know.'

* Knickers has approved publication of this post but would like it noted that it is not in line with her recollection of events.

Shopping Bags and Car Keys

2008-04-14T21:22:00.004+09:30

Muse, I beg you guide my hand
As I attempt to scatter these words
Artfully across the page.

So somewhere, someday, someone
May pump their fist and cry
Yes!

That is exactly how I feel
When I load my shopping
Into my right hand
Reach into my left pocket
For the car keys
Only to discover I placed them
In my right pocket

Every

Fucking

Time.

Well, Me Old China

2008-04-13T20:41:00.007+09:30

Another tale from uni

In my class preparing us for actual prac teaching we were assigned a group task of coming up with some practical methods of getting to know students, staff and parents at our assigned school. I was teamed up with M, a Chinese student. She was scrawling away at a million miles an hour while I wrote, 'Ask about pets', 'letter to parents' and 'social club' then started drawing jellyfish. After the alloted time we had to share our responses with each-other.

'What did you put for students M?'
'I will implore them with glorious example of the superior culture of China which is over 5000 years of civilization.'
'Right. But what specifically are you going to do? I reckon ask them about their pets.'
She blinked.
'Specifically I will model them to display the example of the intellectuals who will make the decisions for them and those that do not choose to make decisions will see that our culture is superior...'

It went on for quite some time and I wish I could do her grandiose soapboxing justice.

I couldn't tell if she was terrified I was going to report, Stasi style, back to the Communist Party if I thought she wasn't toeing the line, or if she actually meant it, or if it was just a major communication breakdown. Maybe Mandarin is an incredibly ornate language that just translates like that? Restaurant menus would certainly indicate that to be the case.

Kinda funny, a little sinister also.

Dead Grandpas Under the Floor Boards

2008-04-12T20:52:00.005+09:30

(Note attractive Oof dangling from mouth)

We've got creaking floorboards right next to my side of the bed and outside the Noodle's bedroom. So when I fumble my way to the dunny twice a night I perform a bizarre and ungainly ballet in an attempt to not wake my slumbering family.

Sort of a two step, twist, dodge sideways, smack into open cupboard door, curse loudly, tread on friggen board anyway, give up and stomp to toilet with everyone now wide awake and cursing me.

It has reached crisis point and rather than see a doctor and/or cut down on caffeine the Noodle and I went to the hardware store yesterday (Home on Goody Rd - really helpful/knowledgeable staff). I was very prepared to start banging nails into stuff.

'Talcum powder,' said the bloke.
'Talcum powder?'
'Yep, works its way in and stops most squeaks no worries.'
'Not a nail gun and oxyacetylene welder then?'
'Nope. Talcs what you need hey Doug.'
'Yep, Talcum powder alright.'
'Talcum powder,' concurred some wandering, shifty, bloke in a bomber jacket.

So denied the opportunity to buy myself something cool we went to Woolies and purchased a canister of Imperial Leather and $20 worth of coffee (irony didn't escape me) as I didn't have any cash on me and needed to use the credit card.

Spent an hour sweeping the talc into the gaps with the result that the squeaks are moderately reduced and the house smells like an old folks home.

Review of Books What I Haven't Finished

2008-04-10T20:23:00.009+09:30

Ulysses - James Joyce
Best book in the world as voted by those who struggled through it and want some goddamn recognition for their suffering. As no-one can finish it without feeling this deep sense of achievement the claim remains untested by impartial observers.

The Iliad - Homer
Achilleus, Atreus and the Achaians are just the A characters introduced in the first friggen paragraph! My brain, knowing when it is beat, disconnected power to my eyeballs at that point.

The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen
Got about fifty pages in and was enjoying it, but then got distracted by several other books and forgot basic premise and the names of all characters. I'm left with the quandary of not wanting to start at the beginning again, but knowing I'll be flying blind if I pick up where I left off.

And De Fun Don't Dun - Robert G Barrett
I love the early Les Norton novels. This was really flogging a high horse in the mouth.

Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
This is so named because it is what bookshop staff inflict on you for fun when you walk in and ask them to recommend 'something good'.

Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
The world's shortest book. I've started it eight times and am beginning to believe it contains some trigger for a repressed memory of some considerable suffering I have previously endured (possibly attempting to read Infinite Jest). After each attempt I wake several days later, covered in vomit, in Whitmore Square and decide to rent Apocalypse Now instead. The horror, the horror indeed.

Atonement - Ian McEwan
Lost me early with a seventeen page description of a vase. Knickers has since picked it up and assures me it is only about a paragraph, but I know what I read. Maybe she has an expurgated version. Anyway, it'll be out on dvd shortly.

Going to Meet the Man - James Baldwin
I'm just not as sixties hip as I thought I was.

The Cockatoos - Patrick White
The Cockatoos. Sounds relatively harmless doesn't it? Probably similar to The Magic Pudding or The Muddle-Headed Wombat. I'll give it a whirl.
Aghh!
Can someone please tell me why all Australian literature is mired in misery? It's not like we all live in Elizabeth.

The Unknown Terrorist - Richard Flanagan
The author made the same mistake as Andrew McGhan with Underground; confusing rabid hatred of the government with literary endeavor. I read the later out of respect for previous achievement but felt I owed no such debt to Mr Flanagan.

Reality Check

2008-04-08T21:26:00.003+09:30

Had my first teaching experience today. They put us in groups of three and sent us out to a local primary school to put kids through a basic PE skills assessment.
We'd planned a lesson around throwing, catching, skipping and were assigned four six-year-old kids to inflict it on.
It all came tumbling down like a pack of cards.
One of the girls was vision impaired. Somehow didn't seem right to kick soccer balls at her face so there went half the plan.
Another kid was special needs and spent most of the time tying himself up with a skipping rope.
All of them just yelled and screamed and ran around doing whatever the hell they wanted.

Us student teachers took it in turns to be teacher, assistant or observer. I had great fun observing Sue.

Sue: Okay we're going to be running round so check your laces are tight.
(Bit of a fuddy duddy - she bends down to check a kid's laces)
Kid: Something stinks!
(Sue straightens up, soldiers on)
K: It's gone now.
S: Right, you know Simon Says? Well we're going to play Sue Says.
Special Needs Kid: Why can't we play Simon Says?
S: Because my name is Sue.
SNK: But I only know Simon Says.
S: It's exactly the same.
SNK: Then you can say Simon Says.
S: No. We're playing Sue Says.
SNK: I don't know Sue Says.
S: Fine. We'll play Simon Says.
SNK: Okay. Simon Says run away.
(all kids run away)

My turn came last, by which time the kids were over it. I couldn't even make them come over to me to listen to the instructions. I used their names, tried to sound enthusiastic and energetic, clapped my hands, crouched down to their eye level and came very close to begging. Nothing worked. It was very deflating.
I just kept thinking that if they'd been my class they would have lost all respect for me on day one - can you get it back from there?
Partly I didn't feel it was my place to give flat out orders to these kids, but I'm going to have to at some point and realise now I'm not sure how to do it.

Spare me from being one of those shrieky ineffectual teachers who seem permanently on the brink of nervous exhaustion.

A Shock to Them I'd Imagine

2008-04-07T21:00:00.002+09:30

One of my fellow students was on the same train today and we got to talking. Nice guy. He was telling me about this girl in one of his other classes, who apparently asked him what the difference was between English and British.
'I couldn't believe she didn't know that they're exactly the same thing!' he said.
I didn't say anything. Maybe I should have. How many people will she tell? How many students will they both teach this to? If enough people believe it, will that eventually make it true?

Got choked with my own arm at training tonight. Hurts when I swallow.

Oh, Wanking.

2008-04-06T19:20:00.004+09:30

My little sister Merry, her partner Paul and son Gib have just been over from country Victoria for a visit. Gib is 10 so I study them to see what the future might hold for a pre-adolescent Noodle.
Merry told me they all watched the Transformers movie a little while ago, and in one scene the mother demands to know if the teenage boy is playing with himself.
A few days later Gib asked her what the mother meant by that.
'Well', said Merry, 'when boys get older they start to develop different feelings and their bodies start to change too. When this happens they sometimes find it fun to touch themselves.'

Gib thought about this for a minute.

'So is it like wanking then?'

True Love

2008-04-05T19:48:00.007+10:30

'Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, too rude, too boisterous,
and it pricks like a thorn.'

Romeo and Juliet

Someone was recently bemoaning not having met her life partner. 'I meet guys, but I'm not sure about them, and in the end, I can't be bothered.'

In this day and age do people, grown people, really believe they have one predetermined lover that they just have to stumble into before the sparks can let fly and the lifetime of bliss begin?
Where does the nose picking come in? The farting? The regular fights because one of you, when unpacking the dishwasher, apparently can't tell the difference between a serrated dinner knife and a non-serrated butter knife? No matter how many freaking times I point it out. She just doesn't care and throws knives in the drawer like a fourteen year old attempting to hide his skin mags stash while his mother breaks down the bedroom door.

Sex, sure, by all means start with the desperate, urgent, "can you wait 'till we get home, 'cause this pub's toilet cubicles have locks?" sex. It'll pass; and then one horrible, grey, day you'll find that both CSI: Wherever and Law & Order: Dog Squad are repeats and you have to talk to each other about something.

Your star-crossed, eye-glazed, slack-jawed love ain't going to help you out of that one.

Love is not some external force, striking you down like Ebola. It's not going to happen to you. You have to build it, and to do that you have to commit to it.

Take your object of affection, strip away the finery, add tracksuit pants, uggies and five kilos. Picture him scratching there because it's comfortable, or her running away leaving you holding the dog when it craps in the water in front of fifteen beach-going families.

Now love that with all your heart.

The Graduate

2008-04-04T21:54:00.004+10:30

Knickers, Dad and I attended my graduation ceremony at the Festival Theatre yesterday, an event eight years in the making.
Really glad I went. Made me feel like I had a future. I know, I know, a BA and $5 will get you a cup of coffee. And I have not been deafened by the sound of the career doors opening for me - but I did get to wear a gown, in public.

The guest speaker was Doctor Pamela Ryan, founder of Psychology Beyond Borders (How did it make you feel when the Janjaweed murdered your parents in front of you?) and, despite the fact that she was as mad as a meat-axe and clearly wearing a black tennis dress beneath her academic finery, she was a very inspiring speaker.

One point marred it for me though. Some arse-clown - insecure and desperate for attention because of distant daddy, smothering mummy, chronic bed wetting or just good old fashioned only one testicle - made a dog and pony show of dropping his degree, bending over and slapping his bum, veering over to leer at the good Doctor Ryan then exiting stage right.

There are dozens of reality tv shows all vying to pay people to showcase just how vapid, narcissistic, self-centered and ultimately pointless they truly are. Seriously boyo, go and audition for Australia's Next Corey; you're a shoe in.

Don't people realise that the ability to queue in an orderly fashion while not making a fuss is the keystone of civilization?

Had lunch with the family after. Ben gave me a copy of The Choirboys and Margy gave me a pop-up book of Moby Dick for reasons she explained but are not yet clear to me. Knickers and the Noodle, out of sync with the unrelated present giving, gave me a well-wicked briefcase.

God family are great.

Mining Town Prayer

2008-04-03T20:32:00.007+10:30

Six months and my hitch is up
And I’ll only take with me
The red bauxite dust
On the soles of my shoes.

6 months
180 greasy takeaways
1080 green cans
360 quick ones off the wrist.

Don’t let me die
In this bare bessa brick bedroom
With the smell of the Arafura Sea
Wafting through rusty fly-wire.

'Cause if I do
My ghost will stay
Lost eternally
In a temporary landscape.

The Prudish Noodle

2008-04-01T21:50:00.002+10:30

Onto the home straight for the WUO (Gut feeling today: how the hell would I know, isn't it kind of like Schrodinger's cat? Prove me wrong quantum physicists.) as we enter the last trimester. By we I mean Knickers, who has shouldered the bulk of the gestation load. You do what you can.

So, I've been talking to Knickers' belly to try and get the WUO used to my voice. Mostly just with creepy Darth Vader impressions, 'I am your father...' etc, and trying to encourage The Noodle to do the same.

Won't have a bar of it. Just backs away from her bare belly shrieking, 'Nuh, nuh, finish, finish.' I don't know if he senses the competition (frankly I don't think he's that developed), feels guilt at being confronted by his mother's stretch marks (badges of honour) or is just a prude.

5 Koalas

2008-03-31T20:58:00.003+10:30

Thats how many the Noodle and I saw up at Brown Hill Creek yesterday. He is now of the opinion that every tree has one. Fuzzy little tree attendants. Heh.

Finished two assignments today.

Put on 16 kilos as can only write essay with chocolate in mouth.

Hate 'puter.

Go bed.

Radio: Now and Back in the Day

2008-03-30T20:08:00.005+10:30

On my now quasi-free weekends I am trying to re-visit some old preferred weekend activities. One of these was listening to Lone Tony Joe's Hillbilly Help Desk of a Saturday morning on Three D community radio.
When we first bought our house, and I fell seriously in love with my shed, I spent many Saturday mornings tinkering away to the bizarre yodeling/caterwauling emanating from the tinny old shed boom-box.
I was saddened when, on tuning in yesterday, it seemed to have been given the flick sometime over the last two years.
I checked the Three D website and found he is still on, but alternating weekends. So some joy there.
And The Prison Show on Sunday afternoon/evening is still going strong. I reckon it's the voyeuristic quality (is it possible to be a voyeur if you're only listening?) that draws me to it. God knows it's not the rank awful R&B that the boys in the big house request for their ladies on the 'outside'. There is something oddly endearing about the messages that go back and forth between the down and out loved ones and families. Probably best if I don't know what they've actually done.

Many years ago, when it was still called Triple M, my mullet and I would lie awake Wednesday nights, in the dark, both taping and listening to Mal's Metal Show for the latest news and releases in Aussie metal. Iron Maiden posters covered my black painted walls and models of WWII aircraft hung from the ceiling in perpetual dogfight (The effect of both slightly tempered by the gum nut motif on my curtains). I Wondered if a girl would ever let me touch her. I don't know why I couldn't see the somewhat obvious correlation between my virginal state and 'courageous' lifestyle decisions.

Final radio thought: If you are going to ring Super Request there is a fair to middling chance Rosie will ask you what you've been up to. If spontaneous witty repartee is not your bag - prepare something for the ever lovin' lord's sake.

Rosie: So what have you been up to today Melissa?

Melissa: Umm, nothing really.

R: Just chilling?

M: Oh, yeh...I s'pose.

Audience: Aaargh! Stop sapping our will to live Melissa.

Second final comment; The Salmon Dance - Jive Bunny for the Naughties? I think so. I have lost all respect for the Chemical Brothers

No Dummy

2008-03-29T20:14:00.003+10:30

A bit of creative parenting ensures our child doesn't walk around with an undignified dummy dangling from his jaws.

Sharing

2008-03-28T14:10:00.004+10:30

I've observed, participated in, recounted and had recounted to me the following argument many times (though I'm yet to see the gender roles reversed):

Man filling car up at petrol station: I'm grabbing an Iced Coffee, do you want one?

Woman: No thanks. I'm Fine.

(Driving: some time later)

W: Can I have a sip?

M: No.

W: Don't be greedy, give me a sip.

M: I'm not being greedy. I offered to buy you a whole drink all of your own. You didn't want one.

W: Well I want a little bit now. You've got plenty, it won't hurt you to share.

M: No, I don't have plenty. I have one 600mL portion. That's the minimum amount of Iced Coffee scientifically calculated to satiate one person's craving. A drop less will leave me unfulfilled, dissatisfied, in a state of ennui. Do you really want that on your conscience?

W: You're really not going to give me any?

M: Don't make out that this is my fault.

W: You're pathetic...

...And it usually goes downhill from there.

Since having the Noodle, 'though, I have noticed a change in myself. A willingness to share, to actually take pleasure in generosity of spirit.

Maybe I'm growing up.

Mind you, I also steal food from the Noodle all the time.

The Power and the Glory

2008-03-26T16:03:00.003+10:30

Went to a multi-denominational church service on Easter Sunday. We all (seven kids, six adults) walked in late to the old wooden church to discover a performance underway.

I was raised Catholic so am not quite sure about what goes on in what Dad calls 'Happy Clappy' churches. Most Catholics, in my experience, aren't that interested in converting others to the word. Being Catholic is a burden, a misfortune of birth and your lot in life - your cross to bear so to speak. Catholics go to church on Sunday, mumble along with the ritual, awkwardly shake hands at the "peace be with you"s, shuffle up for communion then go home for Sunday lunch; duty done for the week. Being Catholic entails the sort of crazy pride that people have for jobs that involve lots of hard work for little financial reward.

A passionate and pretty young woman was performing a solo dramatisation of Mary Magdalene discovering the risen lord's empty tomb. She really loved Jesus...quite a lot.

She continually moaned and groaned, rubbing her hands down over her belly and pulling at the fabric of her dress stretched taught and smooth over her thighs.

'Can you imagine the pain of not being able to touch him?' she screamed.

'Funny.' heckled the Noodle and earned himself a glare from Ms Magdalene before his mother dragged him out.

The rest of the congregation were ageing, weather beaten sons and daughters of the Yorke Peninsula soil. Descendants of farming stock with sand and salt bush in their veins. What they made of this performance I couldn't say, but the old fellows certainly clapped enthusiastically at the end. Mary took a bow and swept away in her scarlet dress. Later I suggested she'd picked it for the colour, you know, because MM was a scarlet woman. Someone else suggested it was a bridesmaids dress. Who's to say.

Communion time, we were made to circle round the alter, which was fine, have our host and cordial, again fine. Then the minister grabbed the arms of the first two people and joined them together, then the next and so on. I could see where it was going. Soon we were all holding hands and singing, then the minister started swinging her arms and everyone else followed suit. So there I was holding a calloused hand of one bloke in my right and the talc scented hand of his wife in my left, swinging and singing and praying for release while Knickers and the Noodle ran around outside in the warm sun.

I consider that my duty discharged until at least Christmas.

Not Mr Percival

2008-03-24T20:56:00.003+10:30

Had our traditional Easter at Edithburgh in a friend's parent's holiday house. First year we went there we constituted eight adults and one child. This year was eight and seven. Next, touch wood (tree of knowledge), will be at least eight all. Space is now at a premium.
Good Friday was too rough to go out fishing and the pub was closed, so we found ourselves with a dozen other families at the seaside park in Coobowie.
The Noodle has developed a recent fascination with pelicans and I'd promised him (not that he knows what a promise is) that we'd see some over the weekend. So when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a large bird hovering over the beach, I wasted no time.
'Noodle. Pelican!' I took off towards him, flapping my arms, and screaming excitedly, hurdling other small children in my path.
'Pelican, Noodle, pelican!'
I swooped, plucked him from the monkey bars and tucked him under my arm. Several bounds got us to the fence separating the park from the beach.
'Look Noodle, it's a... hmm, it's a seagull.'
'Pelican?'
'No Noodle, seagull.'
'Gull.'
'Yes. Now run to Mummy, Daddy has to slink away in shame.'

Do As I say

2008-03-19T15:29:00.005+10:30

My tutor for Educational Psychology fits some of my pre-conceptions of psychologists. Mad as a meat axe, but in a very dull, constrained, black tennis dress wearing sort of way.
She talks with her eyes fixed on the back of the room, in a monotone that sounds as if all her questions are rhetorical. The rhythm of her speech does not quite align with her sentences, creating a bizarre out of synch effect that has me waiting for the punch line when she has, in fact, made her point, whatever it may have been.
Today she wouldn't accept an assignment from a girl who had submitted it online, but was unable to provide a printed copy because the uni computers were down.
The tutor stressed, to the unfortunate girl, the need to be organised and prepared.
Then she made us wait for ten minutes to start the tute because she couldn't get the overhead projector to work.

...

My Ethics tute is about to start. Two hours of people making unconnected statements like:

'The government is evil and unnecessary'
(Worked that out already have you boyo? Who employs teachers again?)

'I was, like, unemployed for, like, five years and people judged me. So unfair.'
(Now you get to be a teacher. People love teachers.)

'Nothing personal. But you are a perpetrator of class warfare and I'd never let you teach my kids.'
(This bloke screams Falling Downesque anger management issues)

'Who's to say a farmer is more valuable to society than a hairdresser?'
(Certainly not pretty people)

Two days until Easter.

Convergent Spilt Milk

2008-03-18T19:47:00.004+10:30

Noodle is refusing to eat dinner
He wants the lid off his milk.
The house is in a mess
And Knickers has to leave for nightshift.
I take it off
'Hold on tight' I say
'Hold on tight' he parrots
As he upends it on the table
A white tsunami
Engulfs him, Knickers, his dinner, my textbooks
Ride of the Valkyries blares from the radio.

Knickers is in our bedroom
Walking it off.
Noodle is in his cot
Competing with the crescendo.

I tell her Mark texted me today
From Sydney, where I vicariously
Live his single life.
A prostitute threw a carton
Of strawberry milk over him
When he declined her offer
Of $20.00 for the works.
'I know how he feels,' she says
Slipping a clean shirt
Over her Fertility Goddess torso.

I lean against Noodle's doorway
(He raises his fist
Defiant, unrepentant)
And warn him against
The path he is pursuing.

Helping

2008-03-17T20:37:00.002+10:30

The Noodle helped me finish fixing the dog door this morning, dangerous saboteur/assassin that he is.

He started by upending the packet of nuts and bolts then, having both focused my attention elsewhere and lured me into wind up range, cracking me in the head with a spanner while I scrabbled on the ground for the detritus.

He then had a right tanty when I removed the wood glue from his clutches, knocking the drill onto the concrete and snapping the 2mm bit in the process.

We finished up our little bonding experience in separate areas of the house. One of us re-attaching the, hopefully, repaired dog door in the glaring sun and muttering a few choice comments that were barely choked down earlier; the other looking on from the air-conditioned comfort of the back room, screaming and bashing at the window frame with a pair of pliers.

In years to come, in the unlikely concurrence of us still residing here and the repairs lasting, I'll be able to point at the dog door and say to the Noodle, 'See that. You helped me fix that.'

Which would be nice.

It's a Shame About Mr Ray

2008-03-16T21:00:00.007+10:30

The Noodle is starting to develop an appreciation for television. Phew, we were getting worried there.

By TV I mean Finding Nemo. He will accept no substitute. Actually that's a lie, he was jumping to Kriss Kross' Jump on Rage yesterday morning. Pretty fly for a white guy. Jump is another lie, he simply bends and straightens his knees, failing to generate the requisite force for any serious hang time, or indeed any airtime; still baby steps, tomorrows another day... for steel springs to hurl him down the track faster than a leopard...

So, Nemo. Bunkered down in the lounge room (the coolest) during the heat wave I've gotten to watch the beginning of Finding Nemo more times than I'd care to have my legs waxed. During the latest I noticed that Mr Ray, the school teacher, does not display any particular affinity to the tenants of constructivism. Nor does he model his teaching practice on the pervasive pedagogical models; choosing to instead adhere to an outdated and outmoded rote learning system.

What is this Mr Ray, the 1950's? Why don't you just line your students up against the wall and throw medicine balls at their heads?

Well, You Would Be Cross

2008-03-14T22:02:00.001+10:30

The fine people at Helga's halve their Cross budget.

Bang Bang

2008-03-14T21:32:00.004+10:30

Vacuumed the car today, and the lounge. Then mowed the lawn, trimmed the edges and hung the washing out. Replaced two washers for the outside taps. Took the hounds for their walk, worked out and attempted to repair the dog door.

Amazing how much you can achieve in a day, simply by putting it aside to study.

Bit the bullet this afternoon and opened Educational Psychology: Your Descent Into Madness at the same time as the Noodle opened up his artistic side and began pounding on his Magnadoodle with one of the magnet shapes.

'...provides stimulus for the study of learning meta strategies, the teaching of cognitive strategies in the context of performance on academic...'

BANG BANG BANG!

'...teaching BANG of BANG cognitive BANG strategies BANG in BANG the BANG context BANG...'

'Noodle, dad is trying to concentrate, just bang softly.'

BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANG

'Pelican.'

BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANG

'Knickers!' I appealed for parental intervention.

'Leave him alone, he's playing quietly.'

BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANG....

They'll both be sorry when we're out on the street.

Lost and Found

2008-03-13T22:15:00.003+10:30

I needed my birth certificate for my police check. They, understandably, won't let us go on teaching pracs without having one completed. Only trouble was I was pretty sure I'd lost it.
Years ago Dad gave me an old leather document case to keep important papers in. It has a little card upon which is printed a 1966 calendar. The year Australia converted to decimal currency. He'd also added a tiny black and white hospital birth photo of me, or maybe a monkey, we're none of us oil paintings. That was a pretty emotionally charged thing for him to do, he not being big on bonding moments.
For instance; our one and only sex talk took place one Saturday while driving to Clarendon to buy pies for lunch:
'You going to that party tonight?'
'Yep.'
'You'll be careful won't you.'
'Yeh. I won't drink and drive.'
'That's not what I meant.'
'Oh. Right. Yep, I'll be careful.'
'Good.'

Anyway, I thought I had my BC in this case, with the photo and the calendar. But the last few times I'd looked through it I could only find a rejection letter from Duntroon, an incomplete UK tax return, a transcript from my failed year at Flinders Uni (straight out of high school), and my school leaver's certificate with the blistering personal attack penned by my chemistry teacher, Mr Ralston, for failing to develop my, apparently, God given chemistry skills.
Yes, I've constructed my own little psychological torture chamber, all cased in leather.
Anyway, desperation made me have one last look tonight. There it was, right near the top. In an envlelope. With my name on it.
I really should throw the other stuff out. if I can bear to open it again.

Things That Scare The Noodle

2008-03-12T22:49:00.005+10:30

Planes and helicopters
Sleeping without Oof
Strange men
Stories involving wolves
Readings of 'Where The Wild Things Are' utilising scary voice (since banned by Knickers)
The Ocean
His dad impersonating someone sleeping
Waking in the midst of night
Sausages
Trucks

Things That Scare His Father

Slipping in the bathroom and breaking my neck
The manic energy of recently divorced women
Setting mouse traps
That little post-toilet stain on the front of your shorts indicating a couple more shakes may have been prudent
Dieing before getting the chance to punch Doctor Phil in his smug face
Turning on light switches with wet fingers
Crocodiles
The dream in which all my teeth fall out
Saying 'Candyman' in front of a mirror
That death is really the end