My Life in the Slow Lane

Dear Pop,

It’s been so long since I’ve seen you. It feels like a decade; it’s been 3 years (and two months and four days) since you left. So much has happened in that time… I’m like a totally different person now… There’s so much I want to catch you up on: The Midnight Cat is now a permanent fixture in my home, I’m living with Janek now (and three others), I’ve resigned from one job and have another one now, and I’m having one of these blog posts published in a book in April.

So for a start, I turned twenty-six on Monday. I am now officially hurtling towards the outer edge of the “mid-twenties”. When you were twenty-six, it was 1940. You were married, had a daughter and another on the way, and (or so I thought when I was little) the world was eerily in black and white. You were working full-time, a fully qualified draftsman in a small firm in Martin Place in the city, living with your wife and daughter at your parents’ place in Hammond Ave. You were soon to leave for Port Moresby in the Royal Australian Air Force during the war. When my dad was twenty-six, it was 1981. He had already been married for three years, though I wasn’t to come onto the scene for another three. What is it about thinking of you and Dad as young men my age that makes me feel vaguely inadequate? The trippy thing is that the twenties are generally regarded as “the best years of your life”—full of parties, live bands, sex, drugs, alcohol, and very little responsibility—and that’s where I am (though without some of these features, admittedly). This is where you were in 1940!

So Janek and I took the plunge and moved in together. After The Proposal, it was kind of a foregone conclusion that we would eventually move somewhere together, since our respective leases ended at the same time. They were due to finish in November, but we were lucky enough to find a room in a sharehouse without really trying. We moved in during October. It was interesting. I suddenly had half as much space as I was used to, with twice as many things to cram into it. Janek, God bless him, has been incredibly patient with my messy tendencies and has even promised not to clean up my stuff because when he does I can never find anything. He has revoked this promise twice thus far, when it got too much for him to ignore.

We live with three other people: The Child, The Writer and The Clubber. The Child is gay, twenty, totally incompetent in that fresh-out-of-home way, and totally annoying on a daily basis. He doesn’t do the dishes without being asked, doesn’t clean the bathroom or kitchen at all, and his personality grates on me. The Clubber is the only girl in the house, so she has the bedroom with the ensuite. She’s a lot of fun and we really get on well together. The Writer is my favourite. He’s straight, my age, and works by day as an accountant. He’s like Clark Kent in that way: at night he is a party animal and a writer, working on a novel and writing short stories. He’s amazing and great to be around.

The fourth roomie is the queen of us all. I am referring, of course, to The Midnight Cat. After we moved I missed her terribly. I even cried on a few occasions because I missed her evening cuddles. Though by the time I moved she was spending most of her time either with me or Janek, technically she wasn’t ours so we had to make the difficult decision to leave her behind. One Saturday, I arrived home and was greeted by Janek’s enormous grin. “Guess what!” He said, beaming, “I have a surprise for you!” I was about to ask what it was when I saw a movement in the kitchen, just behind his left shoulder. I focused my vision. The Midnight Cat meowed and sauntered over to me. It turned out that Janek had been driving home, feeling miserable after spending the weekend with his family, when he decided to stop by the old place because he wanted to see her. She materialised at the sound of the car’s engine, Janek picked her up, chucked her into the back seat, and drove her here. We called the owners, of course, and were told they hadn’t seen her in three months, and had assumed she’d found a new home. She had. She now rules the house with an iron paw, which she swipes at The Child when he gets too close to her. You’d like her. I know that everyone thinks their cat is the best, but mine totally is.

I resigned from my job a month ago. After clashing heads with someone else in the organisation, Ada, my (former) manager resigned in November. I was determined not to resign on a knee-jerk, in perverse solidarity with Ada, although I did know deep down that my time there was numbered. Janek begged me to resign months before I actually did, always asking me “Did you resign today?” when I got home. It was starting to affect my health and I knew I couldn’t work there any further, which is very sad because until recently, it was my dream job. Ultimately, I clashed heads with the same person and resigned. That day was contacted by a lady at uni that I have worked with in a voluntary capacity and she offered me some casual work over the next few weeks. I have since got a little more, and though it’s all short-term contact work, so it likely won’t last, it’s a step in the right direction. The pay is better, the people are nicer, and I’m really enjoying it.

Finally, I have some big news. I received an email in October from an editor at a publisher, asking if I would give permission to publish one of my blog posts—“Reality and Truth”—in an anthology. I said yes, if I could combine it with another post—“Retraction”—and it was accepted. I’m currently trying to write a short bio… It’s really, really hard! I can easily spurt out 1000 words, like this little letter, but for some reason I seem incapable of only 150.

I miss you. I love you. I still want to call you up and talk to you, tell you everything that’s been going on. I just tried your telephone number, in fact, and it rang. I want to know who has your phone number now, but I chickened out and hung up after one ring.

Well I should get to bed. Night.

It’s a scary thought to think that right now I am living in the proverbial Best Years Of My Life™. Even though I’m twenty-five-and-a-half, I certainly don’t feel like the Grown Up™ that I am supposed to be, and I certainly don’t feel like the Grown Up that my parents appeared to be at this age. I look back at photos of my parents from back then, circa 1979, and cannot believe that I am, in a way, at the same point in my life that they were back then, given that in many ways I really don’t feel it at all.

Twenty years ago, as a child, I poured over the same photographs—they were only ten years old at that point—and seeing my parents’ twenty-something faces smiling back at me I thought to myself that they were just the same as the parents I knew, only slightly younger and presented in colours slightly faded. But they were Grown Ups, that was for sure.

But nonetheless, here I am, Grown Up™ (at least on paper), and living life smack bang in the middle of the Best Years Of My Life™:

I’m halfway through a degree at university. Although at this time of year (and again in November) I am generally loathe to talk highly of academia in any way, shape or form, I am really enjoying it at uni. Currently I have two 2000 word essays due within the next three weeks: the first about the assimilation “experiment” in relation to Indigenous Australians, the second about the ways that the Catholic Church prescribes heterosexuality and gender roles in society. Both topics I’m interested in and passionate about, particularly the second one, but it’s a lot of work!! I also have a 100 question multiple choice exam for psychology to study for. Terrifying.

I’ve got a job I love. It is very stressful lately, I grant you, because we are undergoing a process of Quality Improvement which entails us filling out 17 evidence-based competencies. This, in turn, involves us wanking on about how we do or do not meet said competencies. It’s necessary, yes, but a very stressful endeavour for all involved. Ada, my manager (so named because she bears an uncanny resemblance to Ada Nicodemou), and I have been pulling out our hair and smoking out our lungs trying to get it done on time. It’s due today (being the end of the month). It’s not done. It will be handed in, late, on Monday. We both worked late on Friday, including locking ourselves out of the office at around 5pm when we went for a smoke break.

I have a cat I adore. It seems the slippery slope has been slipped, and the cat is now, for all intents and purposes, mine and Janek’s. I was explaining the situation to my grandfather, by far the most morally upstanding man I know, and he pointed out that what is important here is that as far as she is concerned, she is ours (or, as he put it, we are hers). This means I can now take her to the vet to get her claws clipped with a clear conscience. More about her incredible cuteness at another time. Probably with photographs.

And finally, though by no means least(ly), I have a boyfriend I love. It’ll be a year in six days. Wow. Things are great; nothing much to report really, but then no news is good news. Or so they say, whoever “they” are.

So that’s me. I look back at the faded faces of my twenty-something-year-old parents in those photos from 1979, but I don’t feel as Grown Up as they appeared at the time.

I’ve decided on a name for the (not so) new flatmate, formerly The New Guy; he will henceforth be known as Space Cadet, Junior. He is like The Space Cadet only without the sociopathic tendencies, midnight showers or loud music. He loves his marijuana, he never seems to be quite with it when you speak to him, and he has an angry streak. Unlike The Space Cadet, however, he is a really nice even if a little difficult to speak to at times.

The anger became apparent one night when he arrived home, drunk, and had an altercation with his screen door (his room is an external room like mine). It was about 11.30 at night and I was just getting ready for bed. He opened the screen door of his room, then his door, then I heard three loud bangs that made me jump out of my skin almost. Suddenly a calm descended on the house. I ventured outside to see what was going on. As I approached his door he hurled something at the window, which hit just as I was walking past, then threw something at one of the walls inside. I went back to my smoking chair and lit up. A minute later I heard a scream, “FUUUUUCK!!!!!!”, come from his room, followed by a low groan. I was about to go over and ask if everything was ok when the lights went out so I gratefully went back to my own room and went to sleep.

So that’s my neighbour. What is it with that room?

Janek and I arrived at The Homestead on Friday after driving two and a half hours, past two accidents and hence two detours, on what should have been an hour’s drive at the most. As neither the Christmas tree nor the fairly lights were up yet, it was decided that Janek, Sister and I would do it the next day.

We opened the box full of decorations to discover, to my total horror, half a set of fairy lights. At first I saw the set and thought “That’s odd, this is a 150 light set, and it looks like it only has twenty lights.” Turns out there were in fact only twenty lights on it. I ventured into the garage to find the second set and found, to my absolute horror, the remaining 130 lights. Upon further inspection, I found each half of the set had its wires ripped apart, the bare copper wires unsheathed. I nearly cried. Someone had wrenched the poor, innocent set of fairy lights so hard that it had snapped in half. Who would do such a heartless thing? Massacre such a beautiful creature, one that only brought happiness and light to the world?

The mystery will probably never be solved.

I am exhausted. The new guy seems nice enough. I met him and have now “put a face to the soap” as Janek put it. He seems nice enough, though I’ve only met him once and that is the only time I’ve spoken to him.

The Optimist and I met him at the same time. He had his earphones in when he walked up the passageway and we said hello and moved towards him. We all chatted briefly about what people are studying etc, The Optimist and I told him how “fucken insane” his predecessor was, and then we went our separate ways.

I haven’t spoken to him since, and have only seen him twice. He’s already annoying me. He showers in the morning and they wake me up. If I can’t get used to it in two weeks I’m going to give up and get another room I think cos there is no way I’m going through another experience like I had before, even if his only sin is morning showers. Anyway we’ll see.

I haven’t decided on an alias for him yet. I’ll have to wait till I get to know him a bit better.

The other week I returned home and, as I walked up the side passageway, I discovered that my dirty clothes bin (a milk crate) had been displaced. Not only had it been displaced, but it had been removed from the house entirely and sat, quite despondently, in the passageway. After being pissed off at this total lack of respect for my property, I was intrigued; could I, perhaps, have a new housemate?

It would appear so.

Since the exodus of The Space Cadet, nearly two months ago, and my re-claiming of the bathroom, I have set an empty toilet roll behind the door that leads to his old room so that I could tell if anybody entered the bathroom when I was not at home. Last week, the day of the milk crate’s displacement, the toilet roll had not only moved, but the door had been left open and held in place with a brick. At the time I thought it might have been a cleaner, though the bathroom wasn’t any cleaner than when I had left it that morning. Upon further inspection, I discovered the heater in the other room had been left on. Not wanting to have the door open when I was trying to shower or use the toilet, I shut and locked it and turned off the heater. The next day, when I checked, the toilet roll had moved again, though the now reinstated milk crate remained. I was going to call the Housing Manager and ask her who the hell had been in my bathroom moving my things, and make it quite plain that I don’t mind if people go in there (as it is technically a common space within the house) but that I do not expect to return home and find my belongings outside with doors left open, however with work I didn’t have a chance to call her in business hours.

Then today, I went into the bathroom when I arrived home and discovered it had moved again. This time there was more evidence: the light above the mirror (which plugs directly into a power point) had been unplugged, and someone had left some green soap in a soap container on the basin. I mentioned this fact to The Optimist:

TO: Hey man!
Me: Hey Optimist, have you seen anyone new in the house? I think we may have a new guy in The Space Cadet’s room…
TO: Nah, I haven’t, but that’s good anyway. Someone else to help do the dishes.*
Me: Yeh well see I put the toilet roll on the floor, like I told you, and the last few days it’s been moved. I thought it was cleaners at first but then today someone has left soap on my basin.
TO: Well you’d hope it was a new housemate then. Cos that’s a pretty creepy thing to do: break into someone’s bathroom and leave soap.
Me: This is true.

*There is a perpetual pile (some would say mountain) of dirty dishes in this household. The Optimist, The Exerciser and I all kinda wash up as we go (doing everyone’s dishes, not just our own) and in the end it all works out that we do an even amount of washing. But it is a never-ending process. Interestingly, The Accountant doesn’t appear to eat. Or, at the very least, he doesn’t use dishes.

So it looks like I will be sharing the bathroom with someone soon. To be honest, I’m not too pleased about this development; I thought I would have the bathroom to myself until February but as long as the guy isn’t a freak who smokes goodness-knows-what and makes a lot of noise, then I’ll be happy.

All I know for now is that his soap is green. I’ll keep you posted.

Since The Guyanan moved out a fortnight ago, we now have a new housemate living upstairs. He came last week with the Housing Manager to have a look around. He seemed nice enough; certainly if he had any faults they wouldn’t come close to the high standards set by The Space Cadet.

The night he came to have a look around I was speaking to The Optimist in the kitchen and mentioned that we’d had someone come by. “What’s he like?” The Optimist asked me. “He seems nice enough, I guess. I dunno… he’s not like The Space Cadet, that’s for sure. And he’s cute!” I said. “Well that’s the first thing I look for in a new housemate,” he said, laughing, “you know, in case there’s a nuclear apocalypse or something.” At this point I told him not to worry, I’d fuck him if there was an apocalypse. He seemed happy with that.

So last week The Exerciser moved in. He is so named because he’s studying exercise science and nursing and is one of those health nuts that goes for a run every day. For once, the first impression appears not to do him enough justice; he’s the perfect housemate. He has brought in a shitload of dishes, cutlery and miscellaneous cooking paraphernalia; he cooks actual meals, not just black-and-gold baked beans with black-and-gold two minute noodles; he washes his own dishes immediately after each meal, unlike The Optimist and I, who leave it and do a big clean up at the end of the day; and he actually makes conversation with us when we’re in the kitchen together, unlike The Space Cadet who, at best, would gruffly acknowledge our presence before fleeing the scene in a cloud of smoke.

I was lying in bed watching TV with Janek this morning when I noticed a trickling sound outside. I’m used to the sound of running water, both the outtake pipes for the two upstairs bathrooms run down the external wall outside my window, but this was different: this sounded like water was falling from the ceiling and landing on the pavers outside.

On closer inspection, I discovered this was exactly what was happening. Water was dripping, quite quickly, from the ceiling onto the pavers outside my door. (My bedroom is an external room really, there is a small walkway that has a door on either side, one to my room and one to the main house). I went inside the main house and was greeted with the sight of water cascading down the stairs (well ok, that’s a slight exaggeration, it was trickling, but it was still just as shocking). I went into The Accountant’s bathroom (which is directly above the area outside the doors) and found a pool of water around the base of the sink. This seems to be the source of the leak, and the cause of the newly established river system that courses its way from The Accountant’s bathroom to the hallway and down the stairs.

I’ve called Housing and they’re apparently sending a plumber to have a look. In the mean time I’ve turned off the mains water. Wonder how long it’ll take them?

Over the weekend I cleaned the bathroom, formerly the sole domain of The Space Cadet, that is between the two rooms. With The Space Cadet gone, the bathroom is all mine!

When I ventured in there the day he left I was disgusted by the state of it. There was mould and mildew growing on the grout in the shower, soap scum on the floor of the shower, and a pervasive smell of smoke throughout the room. Upon opening the wardrobe that lives in there, a thick smell of weed smoke enveloped me, as if he had been smoking inside the wardrobe. The floor was putrid too, as were the surfaces. The toilet, however, was practically sparkling in comparison.

I started with the odour and, after a rather heavy-handed application of Glen 20 (a fairly heady disinfectant), the room smelt much more neutral despite its obvious filthy state.

The shower was next. I bought a product that advertised itself as a “professional mould destroyer” and it did not disappoint. The mould came away surprisingly easily so the shower was fairly easy to clean too, the only downside being that I had to practically scrub every inch of grout with a scourer or toothbrush, while trying not to breathe in the fumes too much. I cleaned a section of tiled wall next to the shower, then the surfaces, and finally the toilet for good measure.

While cleaning the walls, I rinsed using a bucket that caused water to run over the floor (the best I could do in the floor-cleaning stakes since I have no mop) and then into the floor drain in a great tidal wave. All was going fine until I noticed two things: the water pooled around the drain wasn’t receding, and that it was actually growing deeper the more I used the sink. I set up a dam, made of towels, and then I ran the sink and found, to my horror, that the water ran out of the floor drain at about the same rate as it went into the sink’s drain. I ran the shower and found the same thing. With images of shit floating around my floor I gingerly flushed the toilet and was quite relieved to find that the blockage must be above the toilet junction because the water on the floor didn’t move. Thank goodness for small miracles.

I went to Coles and bought a plunger. It cost $2.30; the trip there and back cost $1.80. When I returned I found the water had dissipated. I ran the sink briefly and got the water level back up to where it was before so that I could use the plunger and plunge the blockage away. After about five minutes the blockage was gone.

For my protection, I wore gloves, sunnies and a hankie tied around my face while cleaning to prevent any burns from what turned out to be a concoction of mostly bleach, detergent and water, however after I took a smoko in the middle I neglected to replace these items and proceeded to get bleach-burn on my hands, feet and face.

They really hurt after a while as the skin was very dry and brittle, so I rubbed some emu oil into them to try to relieve the pain and moisturise them. That didn’t work for long so I used a little bit of massage oil. That didn’t work either, and I was just about to resort to using lube as a moisturiser, when I thought I may as well check The Optimist’s bathroom and see if he had anything more suitable. I was slightly amused to discover that my (straight) housemate had hand cream under his sink, so I pinched some of that and now have lovely moisturised hands that no longer hurt when I type.

So alls well that ends well, as the saying goes, and I now have a clean bathroom that I can use and actually feel clean!

And here we were, The Optimist and I, thinking it was over. Except for the fact that his fridge, TV and VCR were in the lounge room, he was out of our lives. The funny thing is I thought that we’d be stuck with these appliances for months before he got off his arse to pick them up but he proved me wrong, for once, and came for them yesterday night.

I got home at 930 last night and noticed, as I walked up the back pathway to the kitchen, that The Space Cadet was in there. Still outside, I called out his name, and he jumped and said “Shit, you scared me, man, I thought you were security.” Guilty conscience perhaps? I went inside and, to my great surprise, found that not one piece of free-standing furniture in the lounge/dining room or kitchen was in the right place, except the fridges, but then I suspect that was only due to their weight and not because of any lack of motivation or desire on his part. All the furniture was in the lounge room, squashed in as if it had just been moved in and the movers were having a smoking break. He told me he’s been full of nervous energy so he moved them. If ever there was a smile-and-nod moment, this was it. In an effort to move things along, I asked how he liked the new place. He told me it was shitty but he only wants to stay there a month. I thought, some would say uncharitably, that that’s probably only as long as he’d last anyway if he gets high and wasted all the time, steals food and doesn’t pay his rent, but I kept my mouth shut.

At this point he asked me if I had twenty dollars and told me that if I could lend him some cash he could afford a taxi over to Darlinghurst, and could pay me back at 12.20 am when his Centrelink payment went through. I didn’t. As I was getting increasingly uncomfortable in the room with him, I bid him goodnight and told him I had homework to do (which was true). As I was walking out the door he said the most bizarre thing to me: “Hey man, I’m sorry if I caused you any inconvenience while I was living here.” I was floored. “Forget it,” I stammered. I left the room and he called out to me “Hey man, do you reckon I could have a cigarette?”

At 1030 there was a knock at my door. I sighed. Then I remembered that soon The Space Cadet would no longer be bumming cigarettes, and I smiled. “Yeh?” I called out to the door. “Hey, it’s The Optimist.” I opened the door and he asked me if I knew where The Space Cadet had got to. I said no, The Optimist said “fuck” quite loudly, and then walked into the kitchen. I followed and asked what was up. “The bastard’s taken a six-pack of my beer!”

After a brief sweep of the house, and not finding him anywhere, it occurred to me where he would be. “You know he’s mentioned before that the house two doors down is empty… he’s probably there, since he can’t get wasted in his own room.” “Ok, let’s go,” The Optimist said, leading the way. Sure enough, we found him. Sure enough, he was wasted. Sure enough, he had one of The Optimist’s beers in his hand.

“Are you going to save any of that for me?” The Optimist asked. The Space Cadet said they’re all gone. I quietly marvelled at the speed of this man’s drinking, considering it had all had to have been drunk in less than an hour. The Optimist was pissed: “You know this shit isn’t cool. I can’t afford to subsidise your drinking.” “It’s not like you haven’t fucked me over in other ways!” The Space Cadet slurred at us. At the moment he said that, someone revved a car engine in the alley, so The Optimist didn’t hear him. “What?” The Space Cadet repeated himself as the engine revved again. “Huh?” Now The Space Cadet was getting (more) pissed: “Do you really want me to repeat it again?” he asked, “You’ll understand when you’re thirty.” “What the fuck!?” The Optimist spat. “When I’m thirty I won’t be stealing other people’s beer!” I thought it best to get the fuck out of The Space Cadet’s general vicinity at this point, so I grabbed The Optimist’s arm and told him to drop it.

We went his girlfriend’s place, a few houses down from ours, and he called security and told them that an ex-resident was getting drunk and being a pain on the property. I went back home, through the front door, and didn’t hear anything more. I called The Optimist at midnight and he said that all was quiet at The Girl Down The Road’s place too, and that he had seen the security bloke and explained the situation to him a little more lucidly than he had done while on the phone (TGDTR and I were listening to the phone call he made with amused smiles on our faces because he was so pissed off and consequently speaking a mile a minute and making very little sense) The security bloke told him he’d take care of it and if there were any more issues to call the emergency number. The next morning, the TV and VCR were gone, but the fridge, bean bag and blankets remained. While eating breakfast I bumped into The Optimist and we both expressed our ardent desire that it would rain today. We were disappointed, sadly, but some time between 930 and 1030 tonight the shit disappeared.

So I may just be Space Cadet free now. Touch wood.