Naive Psychologist

There’s been a bit of talk about ‘s*x’ in this house lately. Not the act, but the actual word. ‘You’re a s*x* lady’, for example, has become something of a refrain bandied about in that way children do when they know that they don’t know what it means, but are seduced by the knowledge of potential subserviseness. You know what I mean. You’ve all been children.

When I hear them messing around with words with each other in the back yard, I do let it go a bit. I think it’s important that they have a chance to experiment with the words and so on. Plus, like, I do swear a bit, so, you know, I have to wear it a bit if they embarrass me when they’re out. But I also make quite an effort to point out that words have meanings, can hurt people, will offend people and so on. I find ‘well, would you say it at nana’s’ to be the best way of making my meaning felt. They seem to know instinctively, and I just love the looks on their faces when they say ‘well, of course not’. Like, how dumb do you think we are?

But apparently, while I have been in here tapping away at something I feel should not be taking quite so long to write, Andrew on PlaySchool said as he pointed to the sponge cakes he was about to transform into lamingtons ‘we’re going to s*x it up’. Both of my children reckon that’s what he said, and they’ve got those smiles as they tell me that’s what he said. The ones they have when they get to say something they’re not really supposed to be saying.

Really? Did Andrew really say that? Not that I’m going to write letters to the editor about it or start voting for John Howard in protest at left-wing bias on the ABC if he did. It’s not a moral outrage or anything, and it’s a pretty good description of what happens to sponge as it becomes lamington. But I’d kind of like to know. Just because…I dunno, just because it’s interesting if that is what he said. So if you were supervising your children’s viewing this afternoon, could you let me know? Thanks.

Did you see me? Last night? On the tele? Performing in the final at the Melbourne Town Hall? There was a card in the letterbox this morning from my neighbour, so I guess they were watching. I reckon my two best jokes (I think we call them gags) didn’t make it to the telecast. But I would say that, wouldn’t I?

I tell you, watching that was worser than the actual perfomance. Am I really that fat? I said to the mister. Do I really look that fat? I really have put on weight, haven’t I? And so on. Stopped short of saying ‘I really should stop drinking so much’.

So that’s that. One of the most surprising experiences of my life finished with. I remember watching the Raw final on the tele last year and even then doing stand up hadn’t even crossed my mind. I never said you know, that’s something I’ve always wanted to do…I should do that, I mean I could do that, I’m as funny as that. Never thought it once.

Overall, I would say my best performance was the one I gave in the state grand final, but going to Melbourne and standing on that beautiful stage in front of 1400 people who laughed at my jokes (and applauded three of them)…my goodness, that was something.

In another big move, I started teaching myself cross-stitch last night.

Right now, if I could do anything I wanted to do, I would get into bed and go to sleep.

Because the sound – which is a short, dulled tap on reinforced glass made by the beaks of piping shrikes come one at a time to sit on the window sill and peck at the insects into which said shrikes have put no personal harvesting effort beyond that required to balance on the window sill which, despite being part of the contemporary extension and not of the bluestone original, is not a particularly narrow or unstable one – is, even now, after three years of living here, the kind of sound which makes me jump and wonder but what was that and so is the kind of sound I would forget were I not reminded of it every day, because of that, I will leave the cobwebs on the outside window frames.

You know that eight things meme? The one where you have to tell the interwebs eight things about yourself?

Well, I’m not doing that. But I’ve been overcome with the urge to let you know that I really used to love Knot’s Landing. I feel it is the most underrated of all the eighties soaps. It was heeeaaaps better than Dallas ever was. Especially when it was on at eleven o’clock on Sunday night and I had nothing to get up for on Monday morning except Chinese lectures and I’d already missed so many of those that missing another one wouldn’t hurt. I got a lot of knitting done in those days. And no, knitting wasn’t funky then.

Did I ever tell you that my first trip overseas was to China? From Port Pirie to China via Adelaide. The person in charge of us introduced us to some people who did the dubbing of television shows and that’s how I came to meet the woman who was the Chinese voice of Alexis Carrington-Colby. And that was good. But I would have preferred to meet the voice of Valene. Me and my mum used to say ‘va’alene’ a lot and then roll on the floor in fits of laughter. Sometimes we discussed politics and that, but it was more fun to say va’alene.

When I was eleven (or possibly eight, it feels like those were the years when I was at my most unbearable), I told my mother we would no longer celebrate Mother’s Day as it was a commercial conspiracy and isn’t that why we didn’t have a dishwasher and wasn’t that the reason she wouldn’t convince my father to join Rotary so that she could be a Rotary-ann. As you can see, I had a broad but unsophisticated understanding of my mother’s politics.

In hindsight, that was a short-sighted decision on my part.

And in hindsight, I can see my mother’s inward grin.

So, Happy Mother’s Day Mum. I’ll think of you while I’m not unwrapping my new dressing gown.

Today I shall be drinking less red wine and finding the thing which is making the fridge smell like the bin.