Merry Christmas

I love Christmas; it's my favourite time of year. The last two days I've had a great time despite my legs seizing up last night. I'm really tired now so this won't be a long or eventful post but I wanted to write something anyway.

I'm currently sitting in the loungroom at Lala and Cal's place, watching "You, Me and Dupree" on DVD while Roxie runs around playing with her new toys. My feet are killing me.

Yesterday we went to Grandma's for dinner with the family-at-large. It was a great night, full of fun and laughter and many moments of annoyance from Rick. Nobody made comment about my stick though, so I consider it a great night in that respect. When he first walked up the driveway he saw the Christmas lights that I had put up and goes:
Rick: Ummm, these lights aren't waterproof.
Me: Yes they are.
Rick: No they aren't.
Me: Yes, they are. It says on the box.
Rick: Well they don't look like it.
It's hard to convey the tone of voice he used. It dripped in arrogance. Just because he fixes coffee machines he is apparently qualified to tell what lights are waterproof.

AA bought him a television for Christmas. When he saw it the first thing out of his mouth was
Rick: I don't want that! I'm never going to use it!
AA: But it's a really good one.
Rick: I don't care I'm never going to use it; what do I want with that
AA: But it has a two year warranty.
Lala was seething at this point. It broke my heart to hear him speak to AA that way.

Ade was giving an ipod from his father and Grandma. All Rick could say was how crap they were, how they didn't work, how his girlfriend worked in the call centre and there was always problems. Cal said "Shut up Rick, every call centre only receives negative calls."

The girlfriend didn't end up coming although we suspect that Rick went out to see her at one point under the guise of going to the bottle shop. It took an hour and a half. Cal bet $50 he wouldn't come back but sadly he did. He said that he had a flat tyre. I don't think anyone believed him.

We all ate way too much food.

* * * * *

Today we drove to the coast to have lunch at Cal's parents' place with his parents, his bro Nate, Tia, and Lala's siblings. It was a great day with way too much food yet again. It was blissfully free of annoying cousins. Nate is hot. Hotter than Cal. Really really hot. As you can see, he made an impression.

So that's that. Merry Christmas to all and hopefully I'll have the energy to write more soon.

Christmas tags

I've been tagged by the last blogger I thought would tag me: Aramis. Yep, the one who obviously-doesn't-quite-hate-me.

So here goes:

The rules:

1. The player with this game starts with “3 wishes he/she would love to get for Christmas” and also has a list of “3 wishes he/she definitely does not want for Christmas”

2. Then he/she tags 5 friends and list their names.

3. The ones who get tagged need to write on their blogs about their Christmas wishes, as well as state this rules clearly, then tag 5 more victims.

4. And the ones who tag need to leave a comment that says, “You’ve been Christmas tagged!” in their comments and tell them to read your blog.

What I would love for Christmas:

1. For Tom Welling to knock at my door and profess his undying love for me.
2. For Chris Carrabba to knock at my door and profess his undying love for me.
3. For Jon Foreman to knock at my door and profess his undying love for me.

What I definately don't want for Christmas:

1. Socks, underwear or any kind of underclothes unless they have some inherant novelty value.
2. For Rick or AA to annoy me, although sadly I think this may be the one thing in this list that I will definately get.
3. I can't think of another one so that'll have to do.

I tag Mikey/Ryan, DUP, Nick, Calla, First Impression.

The production of Christmas

Christmas is my favourite time of year. The 24th of December is my favourite day of the year: we all go to my grandparents’ place for a huge dinner followed by presents and togetherness. I love it. I’m like a little kid in my anticipation. I’ve even been known to send Lala text messages saying “X sleeps till Christmas!!”

Christmas is such a production in my family. Admittedly, when trying to organise 24 different people into one house on the same night, some productionality is to be expected. However, true to form, the family-at-large tends to add a little more production-value than is perhaps strictly necessary.

Despite the amount of work that goes into setting up such a monumental event, very little can ruin Christmas for me. One cousin, however, is usually behind any attempted Christmas-ruining: my cousin Rick. Rick is, unsurprisingly, the only son of Aunt Agony. I’ve never really liked him; we appear to have a mutual-tolerance policy. To me he’s a jerky know-it-all and to him I am, no doubt, a whinging faggot. But I don’t see him much so I don’t think about him much. Even when he isn’t being a jerk our conversations are stilted at best.

Rick is 25 this year. He is desperate not to be counted with “the kids”—ie my generation—and sets an invisible line between him and Lala (the next in line at 23): on one side of which are the adults and on the other are the kids. This line has crept up higher as the years have gone on. I remember once-upon-a-time when above 20 was an adult. Then it was 21, then 22... you get the idea. This year it will be 25. Last year he thrust a bowl full of small pieces of paper into my face upon my arrival. “Pick one” he said. I picked one. “That’s your job for the night” he said. I asked what his job was and he told me that his job was to make sure we all did our jobs. He then proceeded to ask each of “the kids” if we’d done our job; if we hadn’t he’d ask why not and if we had he’d come up with some way in which it was not done correctly. He is definitely his mother’s son.

So anyway, I was at Grandma’s on Tuesday hanging lights on their back patio. Mum and Sister were there too, putting up the tree. Lala, Ade (Lala’s brother) and Ade’s friend were helping me. Lala’s dad was there too although he didn’t help at all. The phone rang and Ade answered. It was Rick. He wanted to speak to Grandma. Ade told him she was in the toilet or something and he’d get her to call him back. He said he just wanted to know if his “girlfriend” (and I do use the term very loosely) could come to Christmas dinner. When Ade relayed this message to Grandma I swear you could have heard a pin drop.

You see Grandma doesn’t like the girlfriend. AA doesn’t like the girlfriend. I don’t like the girlfriend. Lala definitely doesn’t like the girlfriend. No one likes the girlfriend. The girlfriend is a prostitute and a junky, which while not being worthy of hatred in and of themselves are compounded by the fact that she has stolen from AA to support her drug habit, emptied Rick’s bank account to support her habit (the idiot gave her his keycard), written off Rick’s car while driving without a license (probably drunk and/or high) and been caught sleeping with another man who wasn’t a paying client.

Maybe in a normal family this would be much less of an issue and Grandma would just say no. I wouldn’t know; my family isn’t normal. Bringing boyfriends or girlfriends is fraught with intrigue at the best of times. Interestingly it was always Rick who objected to Lala bringing her boyfriend (the one before Cal) to Christmas—Rick didn’t like him and I can’t say I blame him—and made a big fuss each year saying “you should only bring a boy/girlfriend if it’s serious”.

This year I am not going to let him get to me. If he thrusts another bowl in front of my nose I will tell him I have already spent the day light hanging and decorating and suggest that he takes my job instead. If he refuses I will politely suggest he stick the bowl up his arse. I will have my stick with me as my legs have not been good lately so if he makes a comment about it I will—politely of course—stick the stick up there myself.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Blogging casualties

So here's what happened with the address:

• My google account is in my uni email address, which will be de-activated soon, so I decided to make a new gmail account and have the blogs on that account.
  
• On the 5th of December I created a new gmail address, added the gmail-google account as a contributer of the blog, and deleted the old uni-google account. This is where things started going pear-shaped.
• The blog was not deleted with the uni-google account, but as the gmail-google account wasn't the primary contributer it would display on my dashboard but not to the public.
• I emailed blogger on the 5th, asking them to reset it.
• I waited for an answer.
• On or about the 10th I gave up waiting and created a new blog on the gmail-google account. So now there are two blogs in play: the old "no dash" (slowlanedan.blogspot.com) and the new "dash" (slowlane-dan.blogspot.com).
  
• I slowly transferred most of the posts from the "no dash" blog (which was still there but unviewable to the public) to the "dash" blog.
• Then I registered www.slowlanedan.com and had that redirecting to the "dash" blog.
• I received an email on the 20th from blogger asking me to prove that I owned the uni-google account, which I did, and voila, the old "no dash" blog was returned.
• So now I've moved the handful of newest posts from "dash" blog to "no dash" and changed the redirection of the URL to the "no dash" blog.

What this means for you, the punter:

• If you want to read the blog, go to www.slowlanedan.com and despite whatever calamity that befalls it, this will be the place to find me.
• If you own a blog and you changed the link to the "dash" blog, can you change it to www.slowlanedan.com
  
• If you use feeds, then these are the links:
• Posts: http://www.slowlanedan.com/feeds/posts/full
• Comments: http://www.slowlanedan.com/feeds/comments/full

I will try not to let this happen again!

Innocence and flirting

Yesterday we (Lala, Cal and I) headed to the plaza for more christmas shopping. Again I hired the wheel chair and again people stared.

Towards the end of the trip we went into a shop to buy a present for Cal's mum. The guy who was serving Cal was obviously gay and quite obviously flirting. Cal, being the innocent creature that he is, had no idea. If this were an isolated incident it wouldn't bear mentioning but this kind of thing happens all the time--boys and girls alike flirt with Cal and he is totally clueless, thinking that they are just being friendly. Lala and I just watch in amazement.

Some time ago we went to lunch at one of those family restaurant chains. We ordered from a fairly cute guy and while we were waiting the cute guy flirted with Cal--some small talk about credit cards or some such. When we got back to the car one of us said "That guy was totally flirting with you."--"Nah he wasn't."--"Yes, baby, he was."--"No way, he was just being friendly, right Dan?"--"Sorry mate, he was flirting."--"Oh well."

Yesterday the same thing happened. The guy flirted; Cal took it as being friendly and, as a consequence, flirted back without knowing. If he had have figured it out, it wouldn't phase him at all. But even so, it's amusing to stand back and watch.

A similar thing happened at a party. Lala left him alone for one minute to get a drink and discovered on her arrival that another girl was sitting in her seat next to Cal. It would appear that the girl had been waiting for Lala to leave to sneak in on Cal. Lala just decided to sit somewhere else; as she looked over at them she saw the girl doing the 'you're-so-funny' laugh--a classic flirting technique--while touching his arms and "helping him" in his poker hand. After the game Lala said to Cal "You do realise that she was flirting with you, right?"--"What? When?"--"When she sat next to you when you were playing poker."--"Oh. I didn't even realise."

Lala doesn't really mind that other girls--or guys for that matter--flirt with him. Her philosophy is that no woman wants a man that other women/men don't want. Besides which, he is so clueless it's not like he'd act on them anyway. Even if he wasn't so clueless, she knows he wouldn't do anything anyway.

Politics of politeness

Yesterday Lala, Cal, Bee, Tia and I went shopping at the big shopping centre. I hired a wheelchair to save my legs the trauma of walking around the maddenly sprawling centre. It is all one level -- why they didn't think to build up levels rather than spread out sideways is beyond me. So anyway we arrived at 5,30 and picked up the chair from the customer service kiosk. I sat down and Lala pushed me towards Target. It was weird not being in control of my movement. Apparently everyone was staring at us, although me being so much shorter than everyone else I didn't see it. Which is good because I hate people staring. Have these people never seen anyone in a wheelchair before!?

Anyway I've noticed how inaccessable some places are. We went to the digital print thingo in in a major department store which shall remain nameless and the counter was a might too high. I couldn't angle the wheelchair to face the little computery thing so I had to be sideways. I had to go up to the front counter to ask a question and when I got back to the computer there was a bloke there in a store uniform. "Excuse me," I said, "can I use this machine?" I was assuming he was helping the lady on the other computer whom I knew was having difficulties but it turned out that he was intending to use the machine I wanted. "Oh, were you about to use this?" I asked. "No, don't worry about it now." He said, huffilly, and walked off. I hate people who feel entitled because of their disabilities -- don't get me wrong, there are some instances where concessions should be made -- and I had unwittingly become one of them!

I've noticed that the demeanour of the staff changes when you are in a wheelchair. Many of them lean over the counter, like they do for little kids. It's so weird to be so much shorter than everyone.

We ran into a mate of Cal's, who was with his wife (who Lala can't stand) and her parents, at the food court. Everyone said hello and I wheeled myself over to their table and said hi as Lala introduced me. "What have you done to yourself?" the mother said, looking me up and down. I said "I walk with a stick so this makes it easier" but I wish I said "I have a cancerous tumour in my calf bone so I can't walk." It shits me when people ask me that. If the woman wasn't the mother of a friend of Lala and Cal's (although I use the word 'friend' loosly) I would have said "none of your fucking business bitch" but alas my polite streak won out.

525600 minutes

I wrote this letter yesterday to my high school English teacher whom I've kept in touch with. I thought I'd share it.

I’m writing this letter while sitting on the cold, drizzly train station at Windsor. Today I am central-coast-bound, to stay with my cousin Lala and her boyfriend Cal; they bought a place of their own in July this year so this is my first official visit. I’m really looking forward to a week of DVDs and going to the beach after what has been a very long and difficult month. But before I talk about the last month, I’ll tell you what I’ve been up to this year. It’s been a long and eventful year—I’ve certainly changed a lot and come a long way since last December.

The first monumental event of 2006 was my ‘coming out’, although I hate that term passionately. I had been struggling with coming to terms with my sexuality since high school but it wasn’t until late 2005 that acceptance finally replaced fear and confusion. In mid-January I told my best friend Liz. “I know” she said. Lala swears black and blue that she had no idea—and I believe her—but then she has known me for my whole life so perhaps her perception is a little more blinkered than that of Liz and Cal, who have known me for a much shorter period. I haven’t come out to my parents, sister or the family-at-large. It’s more for a fear of their reactions than from not wanting to do it; I just want to get it over with.

This year I started my first year of tertiary study—kinda—at UNSW. With my UAI around the 70 mark and all the time between high school and now, I am hardly the ideal uni candidate—on paper at least. I know I am a good student, it’s just a matter of proving myself with necessary documentation and all that kind of thing. So with this in mind I looked at various alternative entry pathways. The one that suited me best was a course called the ‘University Preparation Program’ at UNSW. It’s a one-year course that has two subjects and gives you a certificate (of sorts) to use as evidence of study so that you can enter university as a mature age student. The first semester’s class was a compulsory unit called ‘University Orientation and Study Skills’ which encompassed essay skills, study skills, academic language, that kind of thing. My final mark was 85 and I learnt a lot of new skills and expanded my writing and researching skills. The second semester was an elective subject drawn from the uni’s general education program. I chose one called ‘Opiate of the People: The Church in Western Society 1500-2000’. It was a fascinating, if at times irritating, course. My final mark on that was 83.

Throughout the year I would stay with my grandfather (Pop) in Croydon. My aunt and uncle live there also, my aunt caring for Pop as he was a little ‘rickety’ at 92 but still with as much fire and ‘joire de vivre’ as ever he had. Growing up I always felt more of a connection to my mother’s side of the gamily with its European ancestry and strong traditions, and—I’m a little ashamed to say—tended to neglect Dad’s side with its Australian banality. I loved my Pop always but felt less connection with him than with Mum’s family. As I have grown and matured this year the facade has began to crack a little where Mum’s family is concerned. What I mean is I am beginning to see dysfunction—I can’t think of another word to describe it—in the family. Increasingly I feel like the black sheep: a gay, disabled, left-leaning black sheep. This year, as the ‘connection’ has wanned on one side, it has grown on the other. Spending time with Pop the last year has brought us both much closer. I spent a week with him in July when my aunt and uncle went away on holidays. His body was weak but he loved to laugh and constantly picked on me for my caffeine addiction. He asked about my course each week, about my travels and goings on; we had a great time catching up one night a week over tea and bikkies.

In November, the week after my course ended, he was admitted to hospital with abdominal pain. Blood tests were done but not much light was shed on the situation beyond picking up a low iron count. He developed pneumonia at some point; I’m not sure whether it was in the hospital or before. He was discharged after a week however he returned some days later for more tests. As one thing was treated, another popped up—he was dehydrated so a saline drip was administered; the drip filled his lungs with fluid, a symptom of congestive heart failure; the drip was removed and he again became dehydrated. It was a vicious circle.

The hospital ward left a lot to be desired. I visited him every second day or so, in the evenings after Dad got home from work. He was pale and slow by the end of November, but his smile remained constant. Dad visited him on the 2nd of December and as he was leaving he said “Tomorrow will be a better day Dad, I love you.”—“Yes it will.” Pop replied. He died the next morning, amid the smell of shit and the sound of loud-mouthed nurses whom I hated. It was such an unjust ending for such a brilliant man.

The funeral was simple yet dignified. We did it all ourselves; there was no minister of religion present, as per Pop’s wishes. I think this made it much more personal. Sister spoke about the kind of man and father he was; I spoke about my memories of our time together in the past year; and my cousin, Pop’s eldest grandson (at 48!), spoke of his memories and his character. I barely got through my piece; I don’t know how Sister and my cousin did it! Lala stood behind me, rubbing my back as I spoke through my sobs (although I have no recollection of that). But it was something I had to do—a kind of closure I guess.

So now, I make plans for the next year. I have applied to do a Bachelor of Arts program, part-time to begin with. I’d like to concentrate on English, literature, linguistics and language so as to become a language teacher. I’d like to do either English literacy, ESL or Spanish (of which I am probably 75% fluent). I’d prefer to work with primary-school aged children or adults but I’m open to whatever comes my way.

Needless to say the last month of stressing, worrying and visiting the hospital every week has made a dent in my health, which wasn’t great to begin with. Throughout the year I coped with one day of study per week with only one major relapse in September. I have, however, been walking with a walking stick since November 2005. My legs had become increasingly weak and painful before I made the difficult decision to use the stick—despite looking debonair on occasion it is, on the whole, a pain in the arse. It allows me to walk a little easier, providing support for my legs and knees, which in turn lessens the pain and weakness. Lala, ever my protector, chastises any gawkers (sometimes to my embarrassment but generally it’s greatly appreciated). The pain has steadily gotten worse as the year wore on, so the doctor has started me on an anti-convulsant drug which actually blocks the pain signals in the brain. We are still ironing out the dosage—I still experience pain but it is considerably less intense than before I started the drug. I still have to be careful about monitoring my energy levels and activities but, on the whole, I feel my symptoms have shifted from the fatigue (read: exhaustion) that I experienced in high school to pain in my legs, arms, back and head pain. I’m confident that this new drug will work once we find the correct dosage.

So, that was 2006. As I said, it was a long and difficult year, yet oddly liberating. It was strangely cathartic too. This week, after the funeral, life feels surreal. I miss my Pop. It’s an odd feeling—I saw him two days before he died, talking and animated, and now he’s suddenly disappeared. My logical side understands the mechanics of life and death but my emotional side can’t understand why he’s just gone. It’ll just take some time.

I wish you and your family a very merry Christmas time; enjoy your holidays! I hope to hear from you soon.

Best wishes, Daniel

My new favourite person

Meet Roxy: the gorgeous little dog who owns Cal & Lala.

Getting comfy, or hiding, or both

Hiding behind the blankey

Sleeping

Random ramblings #14

I've been collecting these word verifications for a few weeks and they've been sitting on my desktop ever since getting in the way of my Chris Carabba wallpaper. I was going to do something clever with them but I'm too tired.

Use your imaginations:

Stardom

I'm staying with Lala and Cal for a week on the Central Coast. Lala and I have set up camp in the lounge room watching Queer as Folk. Cal occasionally joins us. He doesn't seem too phased by the sex scenes and even laughs (albeit a little sheepishly) at the jokes. Cal, it seems, has quite a following amongst my gay friends. The following MSN conversation occurred about a week ago between a friend and I on MSN:

Him: Who is the cute boi on the right? [My display pic was of me, Lala and Cal]
Me: My bro in law.
Him: Yummy.
Me: Yeh he is.
Him: Is that your sister?
Me: Cousin.
Him: Ah ok.
Me: But he's her boyfriend.
Him: So you could still do him and it wouldn't be like your actual brother in law.

Lala told Cal about this little encounter. He went all cute and bashful. Apparently he didn't realised he was hot enough for a gay following. Go figure.

This morning at the station ...

Me: A single to Gosford thanks.
Hot ticket guy: How old are you?
Me: Twenty; just an adult ticket thanks.
(I always panic when people ask my age, I never remember how old I am, hence saying 20 in lieu of 22)
HTG: Oh ok, I thought you were younger, you don't look twenty.
Me: Thanks I guess.
HTG: How old do you think I am?
Me: Umm, thirty?
HTG: Higher.
(He didn't look fourty, more like a hot 35, but even so I said:)
Me: Fourty?
(HTG takes ticket back off me)
HTG: I'm thirty-six.
(Gives ticket back)
Me: Thanks, have a nice day.
HTG: You too mate.

Was he flirting with me?

Random ramblings #13

I sorta deleted my blog last week. I wanted to transfer it from one google account to another but I messed up and deleted one of the google accounts and my blog is in a kind of limbo state, so welcome to the new-and-improved-blog.

Since I've been so busy with the the funeral and all that, I figured I'd leave it and hope it sorts itself out, but alas it hasn't.

I'm actually going to buy the domain name www.slowlanedan.com so that the URL is even easier to remember so we'll see how we go. So far they've double billed me. Not a good start to the business relationship.

My legs have been really hurting lately. I have to call the doctor tomorrow, it's getting ridiculous and I'm taking way too many pain killers.

Life has been so surreal this past week. I can't believe Pop is gone. I mean I believe it, because I know it's true, but I don't understand why, even though I know why. I expect to be able to call him up and tell him what I've been doing or go and visit and it's so surreal to know that I can't. I can really see how kids have trouble understanding death. I mean like I know what's happening and I don't understand it, what change has a kid who doesn't quite know what's happening have?

Anyway I'll write more when it's a little less four-in-the-morning-ish and I'm a little less sleepy.

Good to be back though!

A collection of memories

Pop's funeral was yesterday. This is what I said:

I remember Mum telling me "you're just like your grandfather!" I have inherited his "I'd better save this because I never know when I'll need it again" gene. My bedroom is testament to this fact. Some call it hoarding, Pop would have called it foresight: a lasting legacy of his scout days, of always being prepared, perhaps.

I remember that he was strongly of the opinion that "if something could be fixed, then why waste money on replacing it?" At last count, there were five radio/cassette players in various states of functionality in Pop's house. For him, each one was salvageable.

I remember that he was always fixing something. I'm sure he had difficulty relaxing when he knew there was work to be done. One day when I was alone with him I made an off-hand comment to him about the front door sticking a little when I tried to close it from the outside. I set off to the supermarket and returned an hour later to find him standing on the front veranda, WD40 in one hand and a rag in the other, oiling the hinges and the lock, opening and closing the door, and saying "hmmm" as he tried to figure out where the problem was. He found it eventually and the door was sticky no more.

As he got older, he got very frustrated at being unable to fix things himself. I remember attaching a catch to the garage door for him. He stood behind me, offering advice and checking I was doing it correctly. He asked what size screwdriver was required, did I need a Philips or flat-head, offering to fetch another screwdriver if I thought that would be more appropriate? He always told me that you must use the correct tool for the job. He certainly didn't carry the "that'll do" gene: if you didn't have the correct tool you should wait until you had it; if it wasn't done right you should wait until you had the time or means to do it correctly. Otherwise, you may as well not bother.


I remember his brilliant mind. As a boy I thought there must be few things that he did not know about. As I grew I realised that it was more a case of there being few things that he lacked the capacity to understand. He loved to explain things. He spoke with such precise language that it was easy for me to understand what he was talking about: he explained to me how cameras work and about the developing process. He loved to know how things worked. I think he needed to know how they worked to fully appreciate them. He was always curious about the new gadgets I had with me when I visited. It was tricky to explain what an mp3 player was but I think he got it. After quite a bit of discussion he even understood the mechanics of email and text messaging.

I was lucky enough to have been able to spend so much time with him this last year. I stayed with him once a week, the day before or after uni, and spent a week with him in July when my aunt and uncle went away. I enjoyed just sitting with him and chatting. Even when we weren't talking it was nice to just sit-him with his talking books on so loud even I could hear it and me with my laptop.

I remember that he had a story for every occasion: about his time in New Guinea, the family growing up, his time at technical college or working for JB Wallis. He remembered every car he'd ever driven and often told me all about them. He would ask me about my travels and say something like "my cousin and his wife lived up that way" or "I went on a holiday there when I was a boy". I always learnt something new when I spoke with him.

I remember us playing with my new train set on his front veranda on Christmas day.

I remember the old garage and matchbox cars that we would play with when I was a kid.

I remember the way he said "go on!" when I said something amazing and "hooray" instead of "hoo-roo" when I left after staying with him. I remember how he used to say "hello boy!" when I phoned him.

I remember him getting annoyed with me in July for breaking up a block of chocolate without asking first.

I remember the way he used to split his tissues in half while his nose ran, so he would save tissues.

I remember trying to explain ebay to him. That was a stressful day for us both.

I remember how he loved the Enya song, Marble Halls. He said it gave him shivers the same way that the screeching sound of a steam train braking did.

I remember making him hot chocolate every night before bed. At about 9:30 he would ask me the time, and then say "about time for supper, I think." I would make the hot chocolate and test it for him, so he didn't burn himself, even though I hated the taste.

I remember how he loved ginger.

I remember him laughing at a lame joke Dad made about his slippers last week in hospital.

I remember the way he spoke about Grandma and the family.

I remember his sense of humour.

I remember his smile-that wry crooked grin that curved up to the left-that he wore all the time. That is what I will always remember.

Goodbye Poppa. I miss you already.

I love you.

The house is a bustle of movement as we prepare for the funeral. Yesterday the front room was awash with pieces of green paper and photos.

Green was his favourite colour.

I'm making a presentation for the wake, kind of like an old-school powerpoint presentation--you know, mounted on cardboard--with photos of Pop and the family. I spent the day printing, cropping (thank goodness for guillotines! I can't cut in a straight line to save myself), laminating and gluing the photos. I have quite a few photos that my cousin scanned some time ago. As I was looking through them I couldn't help but think his brother was really hot.

I hate the word 'eulogy'.

My cousin and I have been asked to speak at the funeral. At first I didn't know if I wanted to or not simply because I didn't know what to say. I figured it was best to say yes and then pike out than to say no and regret it. Last night, in a fit of inspiration and insomnia, I wrote most of what I'm going to say.

I have to wash my black shirt.

I made a mock-up of the little booklet for the funeral yesterday. Dad wanted psalm 23 to have the old-school -eth and -est language. It sounds really nice that way. I had copied it out of my (more modern) bible so we went through and changed the verbs to be ye-olde-english style. Sister came in with a King James version and insisted I change the punctuation to suit. I did. It made absolutely no sense: there were colons in place of semi-colons, full-stops in place of commas. She argued that you cannot go around changing the punctuation of the bible just because it doesn't make sense. The editor in me disagreed. Although I usually steer well clear of arguments with Sister, this one was important. I wasn't going to have Pop's funeral bookletty thing not making sense.

I won.

Stop all the clocks

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Pop died early this morning in ward 11 of the aged care department at Concord Hospital amid the smell of shit and the cold hollow corridors. It is such an unjust end for such a brilliant man.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

I stayed at Liz's last night, after having a birthday BBQ for her 25th birthday. It was a great night, full of laughs. We got up at 2,45pm. Mum called at 3,15 to ask me when I was coming home; it was then that she told me.

I hate telling people. I never know what to say and they never know what to say; we both sit there in silence. I'm too numb to know what to say and they are watching me, ever ready to comfort my tears (which never come). Liz was the first person I told. I was considering not telling her -- just letting her drive me home unknowing -- but I did that when Grandma died and it didn't help at all. So I told her and she got up and hugged me. And I remembered why I hate telling people. It wasn't that her hug was unwelcome or that I didn't appreciate the gesture. I just didn't know what to do or say. Now I will have to field phone calls from concerned family members and friends who want to know how he is. "How's Pop?" -- "He died this morning." -- "Oh, I'm so sorry." I hate it. I don't think I'll answer the phone for a few days.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

When you're a kid you think that things will remain forever. Even as an adult I considered myself lucky that three of my four grandparents were still with me and I guess I got a little complacent in realising what might be just around the corner.

I find the most painful part about death is speech. Choosing the correct tense for verbs when you're talking about the person who died. You say things like "He has been in hospital -- I mean had been in hospital -- for three weeks." Your conversations are stilted. You never know what to say. I feel comfortable enough to make the odd joke, because I know that Pop was a joker and would be laughing if he were here, but people who didn't know him as well as I did wouldn't appreciate this and would think I was being disrespectful.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

I'm not such a drama queen that I think life will end now. But it will be different. That's a little scary.

Ronald Stanley
19th February 1914 -3rd December 2006

One wife, seven children, sixteen grandchildren, eighteen great-grandchildren.
Now forever young with his darling Beryl.

He was -- is -- the most amazing man I've ever met.

Te echo de menos.

Que descanses en paz mi querido abuelito.

Crazy search stuff

In a (vain) attempt to cheer myself up, I looked at my site stats.

Out of the most recent 100, the following searches were listed as referrals to my humble blog:

• "querida ti": for which I am the 2nd result out 320, which is pretty amazing considering I never used the words "querida ti" (which dont make a lot of sense anyway) but rather "querida tía" which means "Dear Aunt".
  
• "the movie the notebook changed my life": for which I am the 2nd result of 969,000, this was also amazing consider I never said that either, but hey, just goes to show how randomly placed words can get you the number 2 spot!
  
• "lanes quiet life tablets": for which I am the 65th result of 22,600, this person was obviously determined! Not sure what they were after.
  
• "+DNA +magazine": for which I was somewhere between 101st and 110th in 24,561 results, I think we all know what they were after.
  

And the piece-de-resistance:

• "arsnif security": for which I was the 1st of 1 result.

Overwrought

I apologise up front for what I'm sure will be a very rambling and somewhat incoherent post.

I am not a crier. I never have been. If something upsetting happens I usually completely bypass "sad" and go straight to "depressed" or "pissed off". I take things hard, it's true, but I rarely cry about them. The last few weeks I have felt like crying on a fairly regular basis: sometimes for big things but sometimes for downright silly things.

The whole mess with Pop is undoubtedly at the root of all this emotional upheaval. It's so hard to see him so ... unlike himself. He barely talks anymore (because of the pneumonia); he just grunts or whispers. It's so sad. Even when he laughs I feel sad. It reminds me of what I miss the most.

The recent bushfires have had us on edge for the last fortnight, especially with the 45 degree heat we had this afternoon. Just the oppressive heat has upset me (when usually I would get over it fairly quickly). It's so much effort fireproofing a property, especially for a fortnight.

I feel like shit, physically speaking. My legs are aching, my head is pounding, I'm not sleeping, I'm exhausted constantly. On the one hand I should be used to this because this is a fairly common occurrence for me, after seven years of illness, but I feel so useless lately.

Then I finished Holding the Man and finally let loose. I finally cried. At 3,30am. It was cathartic, yes, but didn't seem to be enough.

The other night Dad got home from the hospital and told me that Pop was asleep the whole time he was there and didn't really know anyone was with him, but he kept saying "bugger!" as he slept. I pissed myself laughing and suddenly was filled with a deep sadness and the urge to cry, but no tears came.

I was talking on the phone to Lala the other day and she said her father had called her asking about the fucking secret santa shamozzle. It appears everyone has been bitching about me behind my back. Mum was furious. The irony is they are so family-centric it's often quite smothering, yet they can do this.

Shopping for the Christmas tree the other day was not as difficult as I supposed it would be because I had Liz and James with me, but even so I had the thought at the back of my head "You have to get this tree ASAP because he may not make it to the 24th".

I was chatting with a friend from high school yesterday. He's a journo for a fairly big christian newspaper/magazine/website thingy. I went to the site and tried to find something he'd written but had no luck so I thought I'd search for something and see if he'd written any of the articles in the results. For want of a better search-term, I typed in "gay". The first one was written by him. The article was about how churches in the UK would shut down youth clubs, parish halls, even adoption agencies, in protest to new anti-discrimination laws about to be enacted which did not include an exemption clause for churches. They would rather shut down adoption agencies than give a baby to a gay couple, rather shut down youth hostels than cater to gay teens, rather shut down parish halls than rent them out to gay functions. Usually I would be mad on reading this, but again a deep sadness fell over me. Even sadder was that I realised that in Australia all this is moot, since discrimination against homosexual Australians is built into the law, so companies and church groups don't have to make any effort to discriminate. Worse still, this guy who wrote the piece was saying how many church leaders in Australia agree with what the twats in the UK are doing, which leads me to believe he concurs also.

And finally, for something totally silly and totally unlike me: today I watched the year's finale of Home and Away. It was really funny actually, they did a ripper Christmas pageant which was quite amusing. In the last scene, Sally was stabbed and left for dead. It was fairly upsetting. I was doing fine until they did one of those montages that seem to be in lately to the song Light Surrounding You by Evermore. That nearly set me off but still no tears.

So what the fuck is going on with me?