Articles in “Life, the Universe, and Everything”

I’m not nuts for spring cleaning, but it is a good time to take a look at the house and see what little bits and pieces could do with a sprucing up for the new season. I’m feeling more enthusiastic about spring cleaning this year, too, because we tossed an enormous pile of books and clothes thanks to a fortuitous jumble sale, so we can breathe a little more easily in the house.

(The books, for the record, were pre-stacked in a corner of the wardrobe and had been for a year, so their absence makes no difference to my sorely abused bookshelves.)

But today’s task was my armchairs:

I love almost everything about these chairs: their solidity (they’re hardwood and weigh a tonne), the scalloped backs, the little wooden feet at the front, the wide armrests, the way they slope back, and the fact that they cost me $50 for the two.

Bargain!

Of course, they cost me $50 because they need re-springing, and re-springing just isn’t on the budget. That’s why they have those European pillows shoved down under the seat cushion: it stops us from losing guests down the back of the armchair.

But the orange just isn’t doing it for me any more. And neither is the upholstery, which is the one thing I hate about these chairs.

See?

My mother says it’s fine, but I think they look like they’re crawling with veins. The upholstery also shows dirt a bit too readily, which isn’t great in sweltering summers.

Still, if re-upholstering isn’t in the budget (and it isn’t), at least I can take some preventative measures and get rid of those orange cushion covers.

Viola!

Nice warm brown cushion covers, anti-maccassars that are actually chiffon table-runners (picked up in Sydney for pennies at a bargain basement: I only wish I’d been foresighted enough to pick up another couple to make arm covers from), and my favourite cushions (which look like ex-Muppets), and already the living room looks a little brighter and a little less orange.

Normally, when I’m taking a break from blogging, I let you know in advance. But this time, I was lazy. Or neglectful. Or harassed.

Pick whichever one seems most plausible to you.

(Psst. I suggest “lazy.”)

So I’ve been down in Sydney for a week, and I didn’t blog, and I didn’t even tell you I was going.

But I’m back now, and I’ve lined up a whole series of photo posts for your viewing pleasure. (Or not, depending on how fussy you are about your photos actually being good.)

I’ll start with the strange atmospheric conditions of the Southern Highlands, shall I?

So I took my car in for a service and I said to the mechanic, “If you find anything extravagantly wrong with it, give me a ring before you fix it, okay?”

He said he would.

One courtesy bus, one ordinary bus, and an hour later, I get home, make myself a cup of coffee, and settle down to check my e-mails when the phone rings.

It’s the mechanic.

He says to me, “We were checking over the car and we found mumble, mumble, mumble. Would you like us to fix that?”

And I think, “Oh, no. I wasn’t actually listening to him; I was checking my e-mails.”

But I don’t want to admit that I wasn’t listening, so I come up with a cunning plan. This way, I’ll find out what he was saying before I commit to expensive car repairs, but I won’t have to admit that I wasn’t listening to him.

So I say, “Can you just remind me what that part does?”

And he says, “Those are the things that clean your windshield off when it rains.”

My students seems quite fascinated by the 1980s. I suppose, when the majority of them were born in the 1990s, it seems oddly exotic and ancient to them, a state of mind that in turn makes me feel ancient, though not particularly exotic.

So I tell them the 1980s was a time of unremitting horror, and they should be lucky they don’t have to revisit it.

(I’m actually quite fond of the ’80s, myself, in a nostalgic kind of way, but I seem to have gone a little mad in front of my classes, ever since I started teaching students who were born while I was in high school.)

I could tell them about the sense that we were all going to die in a nuclear holocaust or, this being a giant isolated island, survive in a nuclear wasteland among mutant kangaroos before committing suicide with Armand Assante.

(I may be mixing up Tank Girl and the 2000 adaptation of On the Beach, there, but, hey, it was a confusing time.)

But to drive home the true existential horror of the 1980s, all I really need to do is to show them the covers of Paula Danziger novels:

The tight jeans!

The short jeans!

The socks that match your magenta-and-black-striped jumper!

The magenta-and-black-striped jumper!

The blue slip-on shoes!

The polka dots!

Truly, an impending nuclear holocaust would always have been slightly less terrifying than those lemon-coloured, three-quarter-length leggings with white high heels and matching plastic bracelets.

We’ve only a little house, and we’ve already filled it to the brim. Yet we keep buying things—not bulky things like furniture (at least, not often) but books and prints and the like.

And we’ve finally run out of room for them.

After buying another set of three prints.

So I’ve been wondering how to husband a little space for the new prints (which turned out to be bigger than anticipated), and I decided to hang my old family photos (only half of which I could display in the old location, anyway) down the spaces where my hallway bookcases meet.

I strongly suspect I stole this idea from somewhere, and I think it might have been the Canadian adaptations of Nero Wolfe, but I’m not certain any more.

I’m unconvinced by the result, myself. On the one hand, I like having them where I can see them as I pass . . .

But on the other hand . . . actually, I’m not even sure why I object to them. I think I think they make the shelves look rather crowded, but perhaps it’s just the shock of the unfamiliar?

Or perhaps it’s the head injury? (Yep, not done milking that just yet.)

As Nick suggested, I’ll leave them a while, see if they grow on me. I hope they do, but I’m still not sure.

If you imagine that I’m listening to Poison as I post this, then these photographs pretty much sum up the last fortnight:

(Well, Nick is pretty much a constant, of course—thank goodness for that.)

You know what’s noticeable by its absence above?

Books.

I haven’t read a new book in weeks—though I have a brand-new Diana Wynne Jones that I had to shove on a shelf out of my sight because it was staring at me accusingly. And the new Jasper Fforde. And the first book in a boarding-school series that I’m fairly sure doesn’t include vampires but is bound to include some other kind of sexy supernatural creature who makes a surprisingly good boyfriend.

But I can’t risk getting caught up in a book I can’t put down. Frankly, I’m surprised at myself: I’m not normally good at delayed gratification.

I’ve been writing, though. Writing, and writing, and writing.

I’ve teased out issues of law and social custom in the U.S. Deep South in the 1930s, something that involved some fairly unpleasant Googling.

I’ve raised a dark menace from the sea, deleted a king, and nearly drowned two fictional children in a chameleonic city with no name.

I’ve tried desperately to keep up with Steven Moffat’s whipcrack dialogue.

I’m loving the writing.

But this, after all, is The Circulating Library. It would be fairly egotistical even for me to only read what I’ve actually written myself.

Still, I’ll have time to read Enchanted Glass soon. Surely?

I wasn’t going to tell this story, because it seemed, for a while, as though I had committed a serious crime.

But it turns out that I’m just an idiot.

On Saturday night, Nick and I took a bus into the city to see Handel’s Messiah performed in Brisbane City Hall. On the bus, I glanced at my driver’s license for the first time in years.

And I saw that the expiry date was 2007.

I think you can imagine the panicking that ensued then. (Quiet panic, at first, because we were on a bus. But as I became more and more hysterical at the thought that I’d been driving illegally for two years, it culminated in an argument in a restaurant. You know, as it does.)

But that was later. Back on the bus, I said to Nick, “My driver’s license expired. Two years ago!”

He said, “That’s impossible. They would have sent you a letter.”

“But they didn’t!” I said. “If they’d sent me a letter, I would have renewed my driver’s license, and I wouldn’t have been driving illegally for two years!”

“Well,” said Nick, “just go into the city on Monday and renew it.”

“I can’t !” I said. “I’m a naturalised citizen. I need papers to renew it, because it’s been expired for over two years!”

“Take your citizenship certificate in,” suggested Nick, who at this point seemed to be taking far too much pleasure in his unaccustomed calm-and-sensible role.

“I can’t do that, either!” I said. (It was at this point that the panicking shifted into full argument mode.) “You know I was a minor. You know I’m on my father’s certificate. And you know my parents are in Tasmania for another week!”

“Ask your brother to post it up,” said Nick.

“Oh, yes,” I said. “As though my brother knows where the citizenship papers are.”

In this, I slandered him, but I didn’t know it at the time, and I wouldn’t have cared if I had.

When I remembered that I might have some spare certified copies of the certificate filed away, from the last time I’d applied for a scholarship, I calmed down enough to enjoy the Messiah. And, sure enough, there were copies in my filing cabinet.

Of course, I was too terrified by my new status as an illegal driver to want to drive out to Nick’s mother’s house for lunch the next day, so we had to ask for a lift from Nick’s father, who was passing our way.

“Don’t tell them that my license expired two years ago,” I hissed to Nick. “I know you don’t like lying to them, but do not tell them that.”

“I’ll tell them it only just expired,” he said.

“Don’t tell them that it expired at all!” I said.

So we told them that I was just inexplicably too tired to drive anywhere.

“It’s been a long week,” I said. “You know, final grades and marking.” That seemed to deflect any questions they might have asked.

On Monday morning, I packed up my certified copy of the citizenship papers, my proof of ID, and my proof of residence, and I dashed into the city as early as possible, desperate to make my covert driving activities legal again.

The woman behind the counter asked me if I’d filled out a form. I hadn’t, but she didn’t make me queue again. I filled out boxes about my height (which I couldn’t remember offhand), my eye colour, my hair colour, my need to wear glasses.

I said, “I have my citizenship papers here.”

She said, “Oh, you don’t need those. You have the license.”

We agreed that $73 was a small price to pay to renew my license for five years, and I happily completed the EFTPOS process.

And then she said, “Oh.”

I froze. “Oh, god,” I thought. “They’ve spotted I’ve had a car registered to me for two years. They know I’ve been driving illegally. Stay calm.”

Thankfully, it was 32 degrees and about 80% humidity, so I didn’t have to worry about telltale perspiration. Or, at least, I didn’t have to worry about it being telltale.

“I can’t renew this license,” she said.

“Oh, god,” I thought. “Fight or flight? Fight or flight?”

“Why not?” I asked.

“It’s already valid until 2012,” she said, and she flipped the license over to show me the renewal notice glued to the back.

I didn’t start laughing until I was halfway back to the bus stop.

Then I drove everywhere for the next two days.

Nick was making a pasta bake out of last night’s leftover rustic pasta with lentils, carrots, and celery, shredding part of a roast chicken to put over the top, when he found the wishbone.

“Let’s pull it and make a wish,” I said.

He came out on to the back verandah, and we wrapped our fingers around the bone. But it slipped out of Nick’s grasp. We tried again, and it slipped out of my grasp.

“I’ll dry it out and we’ll try again,” he said.

“No,” I said, “that’s a bit revolting. We don’t need to make wishes. We do okay.”

“I think we won a moral victory,” he said.

“I think the wishbone won a moral victory,” I said.

Once you’ve purchased your new Victorian Barbie from Harrison and Smythe’s new spring collection, surely you’ll feel the need to be able to put her into situations that threaten her virtue, her sanity, or even her life?

With Harrison and Smythe’s new collection of Victorian Barbie playsets, you can!

Victorian Barbie’s Colonial Adventure!
Not all Victorian Barbies need to be either confined to the centre of London, or locked in a Gothic mansion deep in the heart of Ireland, surrounded by mastiffs and irritating bucolic servitors.

No! Now, with one of our Colonial Adventure playsets, your Barbie can be imperiled in one of the many exotic locations available across the British Empire.

Wild West Escapades

Comes with
Frontier Barbie. Watch her complexion redden as this wilting English rose faces life on the prairie! (Note: reddening complexion may stain clothing.)
Sinister Native American Chief
Baby of Suitable Stealing Size
Horrified Friend

Sold separately
Lynch Mob
Best-selling Treatise on Theft of Innocent (White) Baby by Sinister Native American Chief
Setting Back of Colonial — Native American Relations For Decades to Come

Vaguely Sub-Continental Villainy

Why does Victorian Barbie need to travel halfway around the world to be imperiled by someone other than an English baronet? With our Vaguely Sub-Continental Villainy playset, she doesn’t!

Comes with
English Rose Barbie
Villainous Baronet Ken
Vaguely Sub-Continental Villain, Who Might Be From India, But We Don’t Really Feel the Need to Specify Anything Other Than “Foreign” (And, Also, Did You Notice How Short He Is? Tell Us That’s Not Villainous)
Luxurious English Interior (For the Better Creation of Contrast)

Sold separately
Generations of People Who Somehow Think You Can Use the Phrase “The Sun Never Sets on the British Empire” Unironically

Boating Barbie and Ken

Nothing says peril quite like a boat, especially when you’re wearing your own body weight in petticoats and crinolines. But think of the possibilities available to you with this Barbie and Ken Boating playset! Are they eloping? Is she being abducted? Or is this all going to end in something that might be suicide or might just be a tragic accident, depending on how you read it?

Comes with
Ambiguous Barbie (Is that fear? Is it secrecy? You decide!)
Boating Ken (Now with Rowing Action!)
Boat

Sold separately
The Mill
The Floss
Debate About Whether It’s Even Possible for That Catastrophic a Flood to Occur in Low-lying Fen Country (Note: debate only available with the John Sutherland add-on playset for older and more pedantic children.)

Second-Wife Barbie

Even wondered what happens to Victorian Barbie after she marries that wealthy baronet who won’t tell her anything about his past life? With the Second-Wife Barbie playset, you can find out!

Comes with
Second-Wife Barbie, Who Should Probably Have Asked for More Details
Mysterious Baronet Ken
Broad Terrace (the Ideal Surface for Mysterious, Possibly Ghostly Footsteps)
Italian Statuary (for Casting Mysterious Shadows)
Insane Previous Wife (or Possibly Just Some Poor Dupe Who Looks Exactly Like Second-Wife Barbie Except Mad)

Note: Like Bigamous Ken and Meek Governess Barbie, Second-Wife Barbie also fits our Fatal Conflagration playset.

Despite the superior workmanship that Harrison and Smythe (Toy Suppliers to their Royal Majesty) insist on from the manufacturers of their Victorian Barbies and Victorian Barbie Playsets and Accessories, the constant seduction, destitution, unplanned pregnancies, attempted suicides from Putney Bridge, hairs-breadth escapes from over-enthusiastic baronets, and the occasional attack by a pack of rabid wolves on the Russian steppes often leaves the Victorian Barbie—and her wardrobe, bought separately—looking a little worse for wear.

So why not celebrate the new season by purchasing something from our new spring collection?

Investigative Journalism Barbie!

No, Investigative Journalism Barbie can’t actually write the stories herself! But, with the help of this new doll, she can be at the centre of a Completely Legitimate Newspaper Investigation into How Easily A Thirteen-Year-Old Girl Can Be Sold into Prostitution.

Sold separately
Best-selling issues of The Pall Mall Gazette
Moral Panic
Criminal Law Amendment Act (1885)
The Death of Responsible Journalism (available only with the Roland Pearsall Worm in the Bud playset for older children)
Life-long Psychological Scarring

Victorian Gothic Barbie!

This season, Harrison and Smythe offer two new additions to our range of Victorian Gothic Barbies:

Gothic Barbie and the Mysterious Trunk

Comes with
Perpetually Curious Barbie (Morning Dress Version)
Mysterious Trunk That, Fifty Years Earlier, Would Have Proved to Just Contain Linen or Something Innocuous Like That.
Your choice of either A Manuscript Revealing a Hidden Tale of Villainy, or A Laundry List.

Sold separately
Your choice of either Wealthy but Ultimately Evil Ken, or Wealthy and Ultimately Not Evil Ken, Who Can Never Remember Where He Left His Laundry List.

Gothic Barbie and the Woman in Grey

Comes with
Perpetually Curious Barbie (Evening Wear Version)
Poorly Lit Hallway
Mysterious Woman in Grey, Who Might Just be a Servant But Might be Something More Sinister
Unfortunate Choice of Easily Dropped Candle Holder

Sold separately
Fatal Conflagration playset (also suitable for use with Bigamous Ken and Meek Governess Barbie dolls)

Angelic Skipper!

Comes with
Casement From Which to Look Longingly Over the Rooftops of London
Pigeons That Double, Somewhat Improbably, as a Postal Service
Toys That are Not an Adequate Substitute for Neglectful Parents. (Note: Neglectful Parents dolls not available)
Touching Death from Something That is Probably Consumption, But, Let’s Face It, the Actual Disease Isn’t the Important Point Here.

Melodramatic Barbie!

Pull the string and watch Melodramatic Barbie fall to her knees and indulge in a hearty bout of hysterics!

Comes with
Eventual Lower-Back Problem From All the Extravagant Gesturing

Sold separately
Increasingly Annoyed Ken, Who Spends Much More Time at His Club Than He Used to (Which is Saying Something)
A Nice Healthy Career That Gets Melodramatic Barbie Out of the House Sometimes and Gives Her an Outlet for her Energies

I’ve given a cursory glimpse at my reaction to the Hottest 100 Of All Time here.

But for a much cleverer engagement that looks at the overwhelming absence of women vocalists—two women? Both guest vocalists on Massive Attack songs? Not a single band with a permanent female vocalist?—head over to The Memes of Production right here, where there’s a fascinating post and quite the discussion building.

Why, yes: I am lazily copying content from one site to another. But what happened for (much of) my immediate social group and extended Twitter network was a flurry of tweets on the this weekend’s Hottest 100 Of All Time on Triple J. I didn’t contribute yesterday, particularly, but I did tweet extensively today while streaming the radio over the Internet, and I’m not keen on letting all that material disappear into the ether—or, at least, not my selected tweets.

So if you follow me on Twitter, you might just want to skip this post. But at the very least, it gives you the chance to mock my taste in music.

(For the record, I’m running them in chronological order, starting with the earliest.)

First positive love song Axel wrote? Well, as an adult woman, I don’t care to called a child, but then I’m not the only woman in the world.

Smashing Pumpkins allowed me to strip my bed linen. Spend your early 20s exclusively socialising with guys, & you get over Smashing Pumpkins.

Does anyone else feel compelled to shout, “Run, Rorschach! Run!” while listening to “All Along the Watchtower”?

I will remain silent on the subject of Radiohead for fear of virtual lynching. (“Burst into tears straight afterwards”? Snort.)

Dangling modifier! Hunters and Collectors were never “quietly released as a single,” in the ’80s or otherwise.

If I had my way, Madonna would never sing anything ever, and certainly nothing that Liz Fraser could sing instead.

So number 20 is by a band I’ve never consciously listened to? This is it: I am officially old.

Now this is seriously one (hee!) of my favourite songs. Who is up for a bit of synchronised head-banging?

Ah, Kirk Hammett. I’d tell you I love you, but you’re not actually, you know, within earshot right now.

Now we’re with Muse? Well, guess I’d better be getting my Twilight novels out, then.

I thought I was listening to Muse, but this seems to be Queen’s Flash Gordon soundtrack, here . . .

Radiohead? Wake me up when this is over.

“The feeling of life sucking or being pointless is not the same as the feeling of listening to ‘Bittersweet Symphony’.” Hee!

Come now—the early ’90s were all about self-loathing. It was our schtick.

Hee! [Nick] is playing air-guitar to Radiohead, and don’t let him tell you otherwise.

Oasis? OASIS?! Well, all right then. As long as I can think vicious thoughts about Liam Gallagher while it plays.

Still, Oasis is a good chance to walk around. Bits of me have gone a little “number 53 on the countdown” by this point.

“And no religion, too”? “And no religion, either,” I would have thought. But I suppose that doesn’t scan. Fair enough, John.

I’m sorry, Led Zeppelin, but I’m inclined to be highly alarmed by bustling in my hedgerow.

Foo Fighters? Well, I have to admit that I didn’t see this coming. This is becoming the Dave Grohl Hottest 100 of all time.

D’you, I’m genuinely surprised to see “Under the Bridge” up here. It’s of my youth, of course, but I thought we were over it.

“You sit around doing heroin or cocaine, you’re really going to hurt yourself”? Quelle surprise!

Well, [Nick] managed to kill the stream for the entire duration of that song. He needs to stop touching things.

I have nothing else to say about Radiohead. But I might be the only one.

Why, however, am I listening to Wil Anderson on the topic of Rage Against The Machine? Please, no.

I can sympathise with Daniel Johns on the pain of growing up in the era of Warrant.

While listening to Cheap Trick’s re-recording of the Transformers theme song for the new movie.

(Yes, you read that correctly. Cheap Trick.)

NICK: Hmm.
ME: What’s up? You don’t like it?
NICK: Well, I don’t know. I think I preferred the other movie one.
ME: The movie where Optimus Prime dies?
NICK: Yeah.
ME: But was that done by Cheap Trick?
NICK: No, but it was another ‘80s’ hair band. Maybe it was Whitesnake?

(For the record, it was Lion), who are, and I quote, “a 1980s heavy metal band best known for their theme song from the 1986 animated movie The Transformers: The Movie.”)

For the curious, the Cheap Trick version is here.

And the Lion one is here.

(I think that title might end up being longer than the actual blog post).

SCENE: Inside JB Hi-Fi, just after my impassioned rant about the selfishness of people who leave their adorable West Highland Whites locked up in the car, even on a winter’s day, when the poor thing was clearly highly distressed and barking non-stop, which I won’t repeat here.

NICE, WELL-INFORMED SALESMAN: Can I help you?
ME: Yes, Do you have any 400 to 800 firewire cables?
NICE, WELL-INFORMED SALESMAN: No. We’re getting them in, but we haven’t been stocking them because [brief explanation that showed that he, unlike the stoner we subsequently talked to in Harvey Norman, knew what he was talking about.]
NICK: Oh, dear.
ME: Never mind. Didn’t we see that they’re having a sale on Doctor Who DVDs? Let’s go and look at those!
NICK: Okay!

So, while we might not have a 400 to 800 firewire cable, we do have shiny new copies of “City of Death” (“What a wonderful butler: he’s so violent!”) and the E-space trilogy.

I’m not going to make a habit of this, but I’ve spent the day shopping and cleaning to prep. for a dinner for my father-in-law tonight, and I’ve been tweeting the process intermittently.

Now I’m sitting and waiting for my back to settle down after the vacuuming (my lower back and the vacuum are sworn enemies), it seems a useful way of updating the blog, as well.

Is this so far beyond postmodern that it comes around to being cool again? Or just self-indulgent narcissism (which is roughly three steps past normal narcissism)?

Well, why can’t it be both?

Dear Santa, For Christmas I would like a self-cleaning robot house. I am asking in advance so the elves have time to finish it. Love, Me.

I know full well that my bathroom could be cleaner, but the toilet itself is spotless, and “near enough is good enough” is today’s motto.

Am never, ever buying lime-scented Toilet Duck again. Toilet smells like it stumbled home at 4 am after going on a bender on cheap tequila.

I was about to complain that there wasn’t much meat on the roast chicken I was shredding for a risotto when I realised I had it upside down.

I have done the bathroom and the kitchen. The living room? Not so much. I’m wondering how far I can push “near enough is good enough”?

Shame it’s weird to invite father-in-law to a candlelit dinner. They hide so many sins—and, at a pinch, you can distract people with fire.

Not that I recommend setting fire to your own home, but it would be one way to respond to “When was the last time you vacuumed this place?”