Bogan Reporter

On Sunday I found myself, wide eyed and bewildered, on the first of what I hope will be many fine journalistic deployments for a Melbourne magazine.  It was a hoot, but prepared, I was not.

You see, I’d spent the better part of the morning loitering aimlessly around Footscray, occasionally peering listlessly into some shop or another, wondering if I should go in.  My back had been giving me such hell that I’d thrown the towel in and elected to take a valium, despite it being the middle of the day.  The directionless meandering appeared to be some sort of side effect, and so, at the moment the phone buzzed me back to consciousness, I was pressed awkwardly against a glass window separating me from a delicious looking fruit flan.

It was the magazine.  Life is cruel.

The editor needed someone urgently to cover a film fest in the city.  By the time I noticed the alert, there was precisely one hour to go till lift off.

I couldn’t think.  I tried desperately to gather a list of pros and cons for analysis, but all I could come up with was this:  Do I have time to have a shower!?  I’ve never really been honest with myself about how long I spend in the shower, so I don’t know!!  I just don’t know!!

These thoughts were not helping.  Time was running thin.  And so, lacking the mental faculties required to make an informed choice, I figured my only option was to go.  I couldn’t risk living with regrets.

I ran home.  My legs felt heavy and like they were not made for running.  Inside, I accosted Tom with my armpit. 

‘DO I SMELL?’

Tom flinched.  ‘Um, maybe a little.’ 

‘FUCK IT!  Quick!  Lay out some edgy looking clothes for me!  I’m going to cover a festival!’

Tom looked very confused but elected not to question me.  I got in the shower and tried hard to hold my face directly under the flow the entire time, in an effort to blast away the latent effects of the pill.  Once out, I asked Tom if he thought it was a good idea to rush into the city and meet my new editor for the first time unprepared and on valium.  He said yes so we jumped in the car.

At the venue, I ran into my editor.  As in, we physically collided, apologised to eachother, then in a moment of recognition/horror, realised who one-another were.  As we said hello, it suddenly occurred to me that this was a terrible idea, that my editor had obviously intended for an experienced journalist to answer the call-out, and not some doped-up-too-keen-wannabe who clearly lacked the analytical skill to have garnered that fact in the first place.

Too late.  He was lovely and gracious and explained that ‘I don’t really know anything about this thing either,’ and in we went. 

The auditorium was big and shiny and buzzing with young arty types.  I began a process of looking at something, then quickly swinging my vision around to focus on something else, in an effort to discern if the valium was still affecting me.  A girl with orange hair looked at me as if I was mad.  This caused me to realise that my repeated head swinging was probably too obvious a test.  I desisted. 

The first video was in an Eastern European language and it was at this point that it occurred to me that I had been too busy drug-testing to think about what I should be doing.  The video was passing my by!  Should I be taking notes?  I decided yes.  But on what?  The general ambiance or the content of the film?  I wanted to pose all these questions to my editor, who was sitting and laughing at the appropriate times and looking decidedly not-confused.  But I wasn’t sure if any of them were professional enough.  So I scrawled random notes and chortled as convincingly as possible at the Romanian guy.

After what felt like 5 minutes but was actually an hour, my editor explained that he had to go and he would speak to me tomorrow.  And with that, I was on my own.  Just as I was beginning to relax, someone tapped me on the shoulder. 

‘Yes?’  I said to the neatly dressed girl with a clipboard.  I half expected to be kicked out.

‘Hi.’  She sounded very astute.  ‘Katie, right?’

Eeek.  ‘Yep.’

‘I’m Sarah.  Just confirming that you’re planning to stay and cover the awards at 7?’

I had no idea what she was talking about.  ‘Of course!’  I beamed, and she seemed satisfied with this response.

And so the end came and I was turfed out, with hours to go till the fabled awards and only a notebook full of frantic scrawl for company.  I figured I had a choice.  I could begin the process of stressing needlessly over what to record/ what direction the article should take/ whether I was even good enough to write it, or I could go to the restaurant and get a little bit drunk.  I elected to do the later.

By the time I returned for the awards, I was full of merriment and anticipation and cheered along with best of them as the hosts warbled out their show tunes.  I clapped, I laughed, I note-took.  I felt very reporter-like.  During an intermission Sarah approached once more, dropped off her email and bade me farewell.  But the paranoid part of me couldn’t help but notice her reserve.  Had I done something wrong?  I racked my brains, and was just about to dismiss the thought as ridiculous when my hand happened to brush against my head wear.  My beany!  I had left my bloody Collingwood beany on!  As the gravity of my faux pas set in, I wondered if Sarah would report back to the mag.  ‘That newbie reporter you sent,’ she would say in the smuggest of smuggery, ‘wore a novelty beany to the awards show!  Hardly the sort of person you want representing your fine publication!’  And they would laugh and laugh and I would be fired and cast from the industry like the dirty bogan Collingwood supporter I truly am.                       

I took the hat off.  I had hat head.  Then the night was over.

I’m yet to find out if Sarah chose to reveal my true identity to the magazine.  I can only hope she’s not a Carlton supporter.    

On Mental Illness

 

I met up with a friend the other day that I hadn’t seen in a very long time.  We were mates in primary school, and since then she’s gone on to get a well paying office job and a lovely, professional boyfriend.  From what I could ascertain from my brief troll of her Facebook, she was living an awesome, successful life.  So I was pretty apprehensive in the lead up to our lunch- what would she think of my career choice?  Would she look down on me for having spent so much of the last five years bumming around and trying to figure out what to do with myself?  Should I embellish a bit to make myself sound more… like her?

In the end I decided against it.  I’m a shithouse liar and would probably have ended up tying myself in knots, anxiety niggling at me as I analysed the convincingness of my creative additions.  I told her the truth, as we sipped our lattes, and of course, she was encouraging and gracious as ever.  As she marvelled at how generous our country is to support its young creatives through grants, I must admit a hint of jealousy crept into my thoughts.  This woman was not only successful, she was unfailingly put-together.  To me, she had the perfect life.

So when eventually she confided that she’d experienced difficulties with her mental health, I was thrown.  I suppose I’d already put her up on a pedestal.  Finally, I’d been thinking, I’ve found someone who hasn’t struggled through their 20’s!

Is it possible that every single one of us has at some point experienced a mental health disorder?  Whether it’s anxiety, depression, or bipolar, I don’t know a single person who has been let off scott free.  Life is tough.  It gets too much sometimes.  And yet, apart from the odd intimate conversation, we don’t talk about it.  Of course we’ve come a long way, but the accepted wisdom still seems to be that mental illness is a relatively uncommon problem. 

I know so many people who have struggled for years before finally realising that they have a clinical illness; that they need to be treated.  For the most part, once they have sought help, their lives have significantly improved.  I am one of these people.  I denied the gravity of my ‘stress’ for years, labouring under the weight of anxiety day after day until I cracked.  If we talked about it more, if we acknowledged that this is something that happens to nearly everyone at some point, we would be in a better position to recognise it when it happens to us, rather than explaining it away until we’re almost at breaking point. 

In theory, we don’t stigmatise mental illness like they did in the old days.  We have awareness campaigns, education in schools, and famous role models.  This is all fantastic.  But day to day, at work, at uni, we are still under an enormous amount of pressure to be ‘happy’.  It’s not really the done thing to admit in everyday chit chat that we cried into our pillows last night, unable to let go of the sadness we’ve held onto since our grandmother died a year ago.  We don’t tell each other that we’re not just ‘stressed’ over study, we’re tied up in knots of worry so pervasive and complex they are consuming our every thought.  The implicit message, for better or worse, is that there’s something slightly wrong with you if you’re not sparkly and content.  Even if we’re not saying it out loud, the daily pressure to be happy means that there is still a degree of shame surrounding mental illness.  My attitude toward my friend, that she was not the ‘success’ I’d assumed her to be due to her experience with mental ill- health, was simply reproducing the incorrect notion that to have a mental illness is somehow to ‘fail’.

It’s not exactly an environment conducive to recognizing mental illness.  We spend so much time faking it that often we fail to understand or accept that we need help.  In my case, I held the misguided belief that there would be a really obvious ‘episode’ or warning sign, that someone would hold a big ugly placard in front of my head blaring ‘YOU HAVE AN ANXIETY DISORDER’.  For most of us, it creeps up slowly, and our misconceptions on the issue mean we’re not adequately prepared to respond to the signs.  Then, when we finally do accept that we have an illness, we cover it up and discuss it only in the most intimate of circumstances.  We participate in the culture of shame. 

But it’s not shameful to have a mental illness, and it’s not at all uncommon.  We can claim to understand this all we like, but the only way we are really going to believe it is if we lift the lid and start talking.  To talk about it would be to normalise it – to break down the ridiculous expectation that we should always be content.       

Next time I meet up with an old friend, I am not going to omit the fact that I suffer from anxiety.  I am going to challenge the voice in my own mind that tells me I am less of a success because of it.  Wouldn’t it be great if we thought of mental illness in the same way we do physical- we all expect to fall ill from time to time, but we also expect to be able to talk about it, to treat it, and to receive unconditional understanding from everyone around us, not just our closest confidants.    

Lentils and the Vacuum Cleaner Attacker

The weapon in question

Hi everyone!  I’m back from a few weeks of camping in the Blue Mountains with my Dad.  It was magic, especially the Jenolan Caves.  I felt very peaceful traipsing around in the semi darkness. 

Anyway, nice to be back, here’s today’s blog.

The cultural hub of Footscray is Lentil as Anything.  It’s not as upmarket as the city ones, instead functioning as a sort of community center, forever heaving under the weight of the jostling, jovial locals.  Here, old Greek guys shout at eachother over their lattes, newly arrived Sudanese refugees observe politely from the corner table, and the bogans of the West convene to discuss what the fuck is up with Dave, coz he’s been acting like a fuckin’ cunt lately. 

At first I felt a bit intimidated by it all, like it was a noisy, chaotic club I didn’t have the password for.  Everyone there behaves as if they’re in their own private lounge room.  Despite my apprehensions, I took a deep breath one day and entered the fray, notebook in hand.

Scrawling away, I was just beginning to relax when I noticed a hand scratching at the surface of my table.  I lifted my gaze and jumped.  Standing in front of me, sort of swaying back and forth as if he might collapse at any second, was a rather disheveled man.  His eyes were trained in my direction but he clearly didn’t see me, lost in some hazy, swaying dream world.  I told myself he wasn’t a threat and just to ignore him.  But the scratchy-hand advanced further and further toward me, the sways now bumping my table in a sort of rhythmic- heroin- dance.  Bump.  Bump.  Bump.  I began to panic.  What on earth was the appropriate thing to do?  I racked my brain, and just when the space cadet was about to sway his way into my lap, a lanky, smiling guy sat down next to me.

‘Hey dude!’  Yelled lanky man at the intruder.

Mr Spacey’s eyes flung open and he beamed in silent shock at his surroundings.

‘What are you doing?’  Questioned smiles.

‘Ummmmmm….’  Spacey did not know what he was doing.  

Smiley suggested he go do whatever it was somewhere else, and apparently quite happy with this idea, the table scratcher was gone from whence he came.

Part of me felt like throwing my arms around this, admittedly also quite disheveled, man and professing my admiration.  But I refrained, instead offering a thankyou and asking him if he knew that guy.

‘Nah, but he looked like he was pretty out of it to me.’  

Yes, yes he did.  Obligatory chit chat ensued, and if you read this blog, you know how much I looove obligatory chit chat.  I went for a code breaker and asked him about his wrist, which he had been rubbing as if in pain.  What followed was the sort of talking someone does when they have been dying to talk for years, but no-one has bothered to invite them to.  I didn’t mind.  I listened to his list of injuries, and to how he used to be a carpenter but couldn’t work anymore, and to how he was planning to smoke some ice tonight because he just wanted to escape and not have to think for a while.  I felt bad for him and when I eventually managed to remove myself from the conversation, I really hoped that things for my rescuer would work out.

I didn’t realise what I’d started.  

The next time I went to Lentils he happily spotted me and came over for another chat.  About two thirds of the way through my latte, one of the staff rushed over and positioned his face right next to Sam’s.  

‘You better leave,’ the waiter breathed angrily, ‘Right. Fucking. Now.’

Sam immediately launched into a stream of defenses; ‘I’m innocent!  It was that motherfucker who punched me!’  

The waiter stood firm and said he would call the cops, at which point Sam stood up, walked into the kitchen and started ranting to the staff about being wrongly accused.  Unsurprisingly, they were shocked dumb and stood there, at a loss.  Sam continued his tirade, now walking round the café and trying to drum up support for his cause.  He approached one of the Sudanese girls; ‘Sara!  You know I didn’t do anything wrong!  That guy was feeding his dog from the human plates!  From the human plates, Sara!’

Sara’s lack of support was the final straw, and the enraged Sam finally stormed out.  

‘Don’t come back!’  Screamed the waiter as he locked the door.  ‘You’re banned!’

What had just happened?  I needed to know!  But I couldn’t work out if it was appropriate to ask.  Fuck it, I thought after some consideration, and walked up to the waiter who’d done the dirty work.

‘What happened?’  I asked.

‘Do you know him?’

‘Not really, he just talks to me when I come in.’

‘Uh, ok.  He’s a regular so we’ll put up with a certain level of bullshit, but lately he’s been really bad.  The other day he came in with a weapon, and went and threatened this dude out the front with it.  If I hadn’t have stepped in he would have used it.’

That didn’t sound good.  ‘What was the weapon?’  I inquired.

‘A vacuum cleaner head.’  

I had to stifle a giggle.  ‘Like, the end of the tube thing that comes out of the vacuum cleaner?’

‘Yeah, that.’        

Confused, I thanked the waiter for his bravery and walked out.  I guess my friend really is disturbed, I thought.

Ok, so that should have been that.  But now I have a little problem.  Every time this guy sees me, he comes right over, happy as Larry, sits next to me and starts chatting away.  To be honest I don’t harbour any fear that he’s gonna use his vacuum on me, but it’s really tedious.  I don’t know how to get him to go away.  And he's one of those people who are completely immune to normal 'winding up the conversation' cues, like saying, 'Well, it's been really nice chatting to you but I should really get back to...'

'And then this dude started being the biggest dick, blah blah blah...'

Even if I’m working, he just sits down and talks over the top of my computer.  Usually I have to excuse myself and physically leave in order to exit the situation.  

So now when I walk in somewhere I have to, like, scan around and make sure it’s all clear.  I've taken to working in really obscure Asian cafes in the hope he won't find me there.  

Just another story from the heart of Footscrazy.           

A Saucy Story: Attack at the pastry party

I was struck down last week by that lame half-cold thingy that’s going around.  It didn’t hit nearly hard enough to justify laying on the couch and moaning about life’s injustices, instead just mushing up the contents of my brain and rendering a week-long series of what political observers call ‘gaffes'.

Despite my handicap, I elected to go to a friend’s party on the Saturday night, feeling like ‘temporary stupidity’, wasn’t a good enough reason not to.  The thing about me and parties is, as I’ve gotten older and less cocksure I’ve developed a pervasive and often disruptive fear of ‘the walk in’.  I always feel like I’m going to forget the name of a good friend, or fail to recognize anyone I know, forcing that awkward, standing-around-panning-the-middle-distance-as-anxiety-rises-by-the-second kind of scenario.  The whole thing is rendered a million times worse if it’s dark, because then you’re forced to peer into an indiscriminate cluster of loud drunk people, trying to pick out which loud drunk people are your friends.

Hence the hesitancy to go in my compromised state.  And of course, my fear ended up being a self-fulfilling prophecy, because upon walking up to the door I was faced with a big fat sign reading; ‘go around the side please!’  I sighed and proceeded toward the noisy, chattering back yard.  Staring into the darkness, I cursed loudly as I noticed the costumes.  Great!  Now not only was I that girl who didn’t dress up, I couldn’t for the life of me make out who anyone was.  Feeling alternately panicked and sorry for myself, I lumbered around awkwardly until Jim, the birthday boy, saved me from myself.  

‘Hey, you!’  He beamed.

‘Oh hi!’  I noticed a large cardboard structure around his neck and pawed at it clumsily.  ‘Is this a camera?’

Now it was Jim’s turn to look sorry for me.  ‘It’s Star Trek!  The theme, Katie!’

‘Oh.’  I had nothing.

Cursing my stupid brain for forgetting the theme and proceeding to make that fact glaringly obvious to the person whose idea the theme was, I made an excuse and ran inside to where there could be no more darkness-induced incidents.  There, I hid in the corner eating chips and attempting to compose myself.  Just when I figured I was about to hit that critical mass whereupon lone-chip-eating becomes loner-eating-chips, I spied another un-costumed guy wandering around aimlessly.  Noticing me, he swanned over.

‘So, what’s your excuse?’

‘I’m sick.’  I said, immediately realising I should have thought of a better line.  He seemed unimpressed, and this set the general tone of our discussion.  It was one of those conversations that you’re only engaging in because the other option is to stand there alone.  Both of us keenly aware of this fact, there seemed to be this sort of mutual resentment developing, because we were both mildly shitty that we even had to be talking to eachother in the first place.

 

‘Do you like running?’  I asked at one point.

‘Running?’  He replied with a smirk.  ‘Are you kidding me?’ 

I can’t stand those types of responses.  It’s not that I give a shit about your feelings toward exercise, it’s because if you say something like that, it completely shuts down that line of conversation, forcing me to labour to come up with an entirely new thread of acceptable discourse, when I don’t know you and the options are limited as it is.  Anyway. 

It was into this setting that Caitlin emerged from being hidden under a cape all night and announced that she was plating up some homemade vegie sausage rolls.  Both loner boy and I perked up at this news, making a B line for aforementioned pastries.  A couple of bites in, I noticed my unlikely buddy was indulging in some seriously smushy double dipping action.  Seeing an opportunity for a playful dig, I swooped in.

‘I saw you double dip.’  I whispered in faux-disciplinarian voice.

‘What?’  He yelled, apparently having suddenly gone deaf.

‘I saw you double dip!’  I repeated, with emphasis I had not originally intended on including. 

The look he gave me caused me to check I hadn’t accidentally told him his mother was a whore.  He was silent, staring sharp daggers at me.

Concerned, I attempted to back-peddle.  ‘I didn’t mean to….’

Too late.  ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’  He yelled.  ‘You need to chill out!’ 

This would have been quite enough reproachfulness, and I was just about to open my mouth to explain when he beat me to it.

‘What is your fucking problem?’  At this point his eyes became possessed by some sort of double dipping demon, and he extended his hand, tore my veggie sausage roll from my grasp, and proceeded to smash it, saliva side down, into the sauce bowl.  He smeared it around until it was a complete mess, then, staring mockingly into my face, shoved it back into my hand.

I was in utter shock.  I looked back at him, at a loss, before whispering quietly ‘It was just a joke.’

His expression turned quickly from incredulous disbelief to mortification.  ‘Oh, um, I guess I should be the one to chill out.’  He said, sheepish.  But the damage had been done.

There was a time when I would have laid into a meany like this, but all I could feel was a weak sense of injustice.  I turned around, wondering what I had done to cause him to develop so much hatred for me so quickly, and walked off.

I’m becoming such a pussy as I get older.  In the past I would have exploded and then felt a bit guilty afterwards.  Lately, I’m becoming familiar with that you-done-me-wrong feeling, because I don’t pipe up the way I used to.  I’m not sure why, exactly.  I think it might just be that brainless confidence of youth waring off.  I guess I just need to accept that I shouldn’t go out unless I’m feeling 100%.  And if you’re reading this, tomato sauce boy, fuck you.     

PS.  Yes I did still eat the sausage roll.  It was lovingly made and I was really hungry.  Obviously I would have preferred less sauce.      

The Weekly Implosion of the Horneshaw House

Us behaving relatively normally

On Friday nights, Tom and I come back from the farm and I head round to Mum and Dad’s for dinner.  Most of the time, the night proceeds according to the following itinerary:  1. Arrive, greet one-another.  2. Drink wine, talk about things.  3. Drink more wine, talk loudly and laugh.  4. Eat some food.  5. Descend into hysterics.  Argue.  Someone storm out.  Everyone cry except Dad who tells everyone to calm down.  6. Recalibrate, return to laughing and telling stories.  Drink whiskey. 

I am accustomed to this itinerary and although obviously I dream about one day sailing through a drama-free evening, I realise at this point that’s a fairly unrealistic ambition.  My only hope is that we might someday refrain from enacting section (5) when I invite a friend to join us.  So far this hope remains just that.

The last time I invited Caitlin for dinner, things were progressing so smoothly I actually allowed myself to think: ‘well, save for some ridiculous blow-up, I cannot see what could possible go wrong.’  See where I’m going here?  In the end it was an old pair of jeans that spelled our un-doing, in that my sister emerged in them, and they were mine, and my observation of this fact must have sounded slightly on the bitchy-side, because before long all of the requisite components of section (5) had been enacted.  My sister and I have a habit of regressing back to childlike maturity levels when we argue.  It’s like a really un-cute time capsule.  

After the event I was embarrassed enough at my family’s lack of collective control to not invite Caitlin around for a long time.  But last weekend, both of us having run out of cash, the lure of free food and grog was too strong.  ‘Don’t worry,’ read the text to Caitlin, ‘we all get along really well now.’

Charlotte and Will, the adorable spawn of my oldest friend, Katie Rose, were at the door to great us.  Mum looks after both of them on a regular basis, but this was the first time she’d tackled the double whammy and together, they were a buzzing behemoth of loudness, falling over each other to impress the new arrival. 

‘I WANNA SIT NEXT TO CAITLIN!’  Screamed Charlotte as we positioned ourselves around the tiny kitchen table.  By the time the first drinks were poured, the scene had taken on a jungle-like vibe, both kids clamouring all over my obliging friend as music played, Anna rapped and Mum and I shouted our news over the din.  Propelled on by the bleating children, the night’s excitement had built to a stunning crescendo when Mum yelled, ‘Right, kids, time for bed!’

Even I felt my bubble bursting.  For their part, the kids panicked, instantly entering negotiation mode.  ‘But what if we don’t brush our teeth?’  Eventually, a deal was struck.  William would forgo story time in favour of some extra Caitlin-time.  Charlotte caved, and trotted out after Mum to the bedroom. 

‘I need you to look at some furniture I found in the hard rubbish!’  Dad announced as soon as they had left.  So out we went to the garage, drinks in hand and conversation rattling on. 

‘Do you like this?’  Dad enquired, shining his head-torch at many things.

‘What?’  I asked.

‘Hey Katie!’  Anna yelled from behind me.

‘Yeah?’

‘KATE!’  Dad again.  ‘Pay attention!’  Now holding a big white table.

‘Ummmmm… yeah I think I-’

‘Katie,’ Anna now, ‘I have an idea for how I can make lots of money from my raps!’

Suddenly, a shoeless William shot out from inside the house, slamming the door and screaming ‘Wooooooooooo!’

‘Catch him!’  Yelled Anna, and all of us flailed to trap the feral-child.  At exactly this point, Mum emerged, close to tears.  ‘WHAT IS GOING ON?’  She blurted.

Utter confusion reigned.  What was going on?  Mum glared at me and with Dad’s head-torch shining in my face, I was literally a dear caught in the headlights.

Now Mum really was crying.  ‘What are you guys doing out here!?’

Under pressure, we seemed to have forgotten the original reason for our mission.  William had ceased dashing around and was bawling, confused.

‘You were supposed to have Will in bed by now!  He’s been tearing around disturbing Charlotte!’  As Mum berated us, Dad scooped up the sobbing child and fled the scene.  It was on me.

‘I didn’t know!’  I said, hard done by.  ‘You should have told me if you wanted me to put him to bed!’

‘I thought I did!’  Blubbed Mum.

And so, with Caitlin standing awkwardly beside us, Mum and I whined at each other in the dark, neither of us willing to accept blame for the wayward child.

From there the scene played out as it always does, with Dad absconding, Anna trying to remain as quiet as possible, and Mum and I relating our feelings to each other until all the feelings have been purged.  The eventual conclusion was that Mum had been at the end of her tether, and that there should have been a clearer decision on Will’s bed time.

But as I emerged back to the lounge room to find Caitlin chatting politely with Anna, it dawned on me.  We’d done it again!  ‘Are we too crazy to keep it together for one fucking night?!’  I moaned aloud, reverting back to tears.    

Caitlin, realising I was genuinely distressed by my family’s penchant for imploding, giggled as she came to hug me. 

‘I don’t think you’re crazy.’  She reassured me.  ‘I always feel very welcome here!’

And for some reason, I knew she was telling the truth about the second part.  I guess from now on, I’ll just have to forward the itinerary to guests before they come over.

The kids in question

Overexposed: My Supermarket Nightmare

 

You know those dreams where you find yourself standing naked in the middle of your office hallway, your co-workers pointing in fascination at your bits as they giggle and smirk?  Then you wake up and thank the powers that be that it was, mercifully, all a dream? 

Well, imagine that, except without the waking up part.

I had been at Mum’s, and as per local custom, had been consuming generous amounts of shiraz, when Tom came to pick me up.  It was late and he had been working so I assumed we were home-ward bound, but when I opened my eyes (just napping!), we were at some random Safeway. 

‘I’ve got to check the bins,’ Tom informed me, ‘so can you pop in and grab some papers for Jenny?’ 

I hadn’t planned on alighting for anything other than bed, but didn’t want to get roped into playing dumpster dive accomplice, so reluctantly agreed.  Tom drove off to locate the free pig food, and in I went.

I knew something was up as soon as I entered the searing lights of the supermarket.  People were glaring at me with increasingly shocked expressions.  I checked my face for food, my hair, my teeth, anxiety simmering as the answer failed to present itself.  It was only when a leathery old man actually stopped to stare, uninhibited, at my ass that I identified the problem.

I WASN’T WEARING PANTS. 

A flush of white hot heat pulsed through my body and I felt my heart actually stop.  For a second, panic stalled my thinking and I stood in horrified paralysis, the entire world of Safeway staring in amusement.  Then my last shred of rationality managed to find its tiny voice; ‘Just make it look like you didn’t wear pants on purpose,’ it advised, ‘Lady Gaga style.’ 

And so I reached inside myself and, after pulling my loose top over my exposed butt, found the strength to march on.  Taking deep breaths to try to flush the red from my face, I whispered my new mantra over and over; I’m a rock star.  This is just how I dress!  Besides, if I held my top down with my free hand, it could almost, maybe, pass for a dress.  Sort of.

Reaching the counter, I leant back on it and craned my neck around to order, trying to make the manoeuvre look casual.  By the concerned look on the cashier’s face, I’m not sure I succeeded.  But no matter.  I had the papers!  I walked slash hopped out of there as quick as was possible while maintaining the Gaga ruse, then ran through the mercifully dark car park to find Tom.

‘YOU BASTARD!’  I screamed at the dumpster.  ‘What sort of sick joke do you think this is?  Why didn’t you tell me I WASN’T WEARING ANY PANTS?’ 

Tom popped his head out from the bin and began trying desperately to stifle errant giggles.  ‘Jesus, Katie!’  He said, jumping over the edge with a packet of pink donuts in hand.  ‘I didn’t know!’

‘But you watched me walk away!’  I was yelling through the open car door now, having spied a potential spectator hanging around the top of the ramp.

Tom jumped in the car and grabbed me for a hug.  A single guffaw escaped his lips and with that, he lost his battle with the giggles.  ‘I’m sorry!’  He breathed through uncontrollable laughter.  ‘Maybe you shouldn’t have had so much wine at your parents.’

I glared at him.

‘Ok, no, I didn’t mean that.’  He paused.  ‘Hey, at least you’ll get a good blog out of it!’        

Fighting with Tom, the Goat Hoarder

Tom and I had a fight last night.  As our fights go, it was pretty stock standard.  I had been quietly stewing away for a number of days about the prospect of getting yet another goat.  We had enough animals, I thought, and I was beginning to worry that Tom had developed an addiction to procuring more and more.  He was becoming an animal hoarder, I was sure of it.  My fear of an ‘Animal Farm’ style goat revolt was at boiling point, so, with 15 minutes to go before Footy Classified, I made my move.  

‘Tom,’ I ventured, ‘I really don’t think we should get another goat.’

‘What!  Why?’  

‘How can we afford to keep all these extra animals?’  My voice was already cracking.      

‘But it’s a free goat!  And we need it for breeding.  Sooky and Sook don’t have any balls!  You know that!  And anyway we’re giving Lucy away soon.’  It was Tom’s turn to get exasperated.

He had a point, I guess.  But now I was fired up.  ‘You’ve always got an excuse to get more goats!  When are you going to stop?  I think you’re becoming a GOAT HOARDER!’

Tom rolled his eyes in mockery.  ‘I am not.  You always have to pathologize everything I do.’ 

At this point it occurred to me that maybe we didn’t have that many goats and maybe my fears were unfounded, but I just felt like yelling a bit more.  ‘Well, you better not get any more!  And don’t think I’ll be helping to round them up if they all jump the fence into Rob’s property again!’

‘I won’t!’  Tom yelled.  ‘I don’t need your help anyway!’  

And then we had to stop fighting because Footy Classified was on and there is no topic in the whole wide world that is worth the fall if I were to talk over THAT.  I skulked off into the bedroom and looked at Facebook to calm down, and after a few minutes I felt refreshed and suitably placated as to the goat situation.  

Because, here’s the thing: I actually think that fights are good for Tom’s and my relationship.  If I had known two years ago that I’d be writing that I would have been sure I was on a one way trip to crazy town.  But our fights are very different than they were two years ago.  We are both reasonably heated people, with a fair bit of in built aggression, and we used to be really shit at handling that fact.  We’d get into these horrible rows where all either of us was trying to do was ‘win’, which basically meant making the other person feel like shit.  We would let our hot heads get the better of us, and achieve less than zero.  We’d both walk away from those fights angrier than we’d started out, and take hours to cool off afterward.  Those fights were, of course, not good for our relationship. 

But we’ve done a lot of growing up, and somehow, we’ve learned to ‘have it out’ in a way that’s satisfying to both of us.  We get to scream and yell and release the aggression valve, but we’ve worked out how to do that and listen to each-other at the same time.  There is usually a conclusion.  We get somewhere.  For some people, a talk is a good way to get things off their chest.  And don’t get me wrong, we do talk.  But being the people that we are, sometimes we just need to let off some steam and have a good old yell.  

These days, I usually feel better after a row.  It cuts through any tension that’s been building, goes some way to sorting out the problem, and gives us a fresh slate.     

   

It’s too bad society has to label certain, entirely natural, emotions, ‘bad’.  Anger is totes normal.  Yet we’re told that if we express it in our relationship, we’ve got problems.  Wouldn’t it be better if we were taught how to be angry at each-other in a constructive way?  Otherwise we’re trying to stifle something that is inevitably going to arise, and that can only make us feel like shit.  As long as we establish boundaries with our partners, I reckon a good blow up once in a while is healthy.