I don’t really feel like writing a blog right now.

I just got some news that someone I care about has cancer.

Another one.

My Dad died of cancer.

Nath’s Dad died of cancer.

Nath had cancer.

Nath’s sister had cancer.

My Aunty died of cancer.

Two of my mates died of cancer.

Two of my patients died of cancer.

Another three of my patients had cancer.

Someone told me the other day that one in two people will have cancer.  I’m not sure if that’s right, it seems like quite a lot, but maybe it is, and maybe that’s why it feels so personal. Regardless, I’ve had enough.

So right now I’m gonna go give my sleeping kids a kiss, sit on my couch, hug my cancer-free husband, watch some Top Gear on the teev, eat some chocolate, drink a beer, and think about how lucky I am that my worst ailments are a blister on my toe and a bit of a sore finger that I suspect might be a bit over-worked. (Even though they are quite sore)

And cancer? You can fuck right off.

Today Liam asked what the silver wee-wall in the male toilets is called.  He wanted to know if it was also called a toilet.

Because I am truthful, and a wealth of information, I told him it was called a urinal and the reason why.  Sometimes, because I love words (and the sound of my own voice) so much, I may* tend to go on a bit with information.  Especially when we are in the car and they are strapped in tight, hurtling along at eighty clicks.

So, urine.  And then I added in faeces, just to round out the conversation.

But of course it didn’t stop there.  The little buggers wanted to know the “astronomical” words for “all of the body parts”.  I tried to steer the conversation in the direction of words like phalanges, sternum and clavicle, but I know they didn’t pay any attention. I could tell by the sniggers, that penis, vagina, labia and anus were much more interesting.

Conversation then went of the direction of changes the body undergoes during puberty. Luckily it’s a short car trip home. I may have had to slighty exceed the speed limit (but only if you aren’t a member of the local constabulary..if you are, I was on sitting on the limit the whole way) to avoid talking about anything menstrual.**

Just the other week, Coco came upstairs because Liam had called her a penis.  Not penis-breath, penis-head or penis-brain. Just penis.  So who knows what is going to happen at the next altercation, with all this newfound terminology.

This won’t end well.

Anyone else think it’s funny that their kids call Dick Caplick Park “Penis Playground”?

What do you call the private parts?

* Who are we kidding? I bloody run an the mouth like Cujo after a stroke.

** I have The Menopause, so I’m done with talking about all things womb related.

****Apologies to all the parents of my children’s friends. You may have some explaining to do.****

We have three bottles of sparkling in our fridge.  One is a vintage Moet, a gift, that shall be kept for good.  One is a mid-range bottle that a friend left here almost two years ago.  One is the derro bottle.  We found it one early morning at New Farm Park, just sitting there all by itself, waiting for someone to adopt it.  We looked around, saw no owners and eventually bought it home and made it our own.  And there they sit.  A trio of suppressed revellers.  Chilled.  Waiting.  For a day when things feel special enough for “champagne”.  A day befitting of sparkling.

Last night we finally had a good bit of rain, and today I woke up to a sun that had been washed clean, and crunchy grass flexing and stretching, and tinging to green.

Today I opened my eyes and looked around at my world and saw a flat, flat, blue sea, fine yellowish-white sand, plump red tomatoes and sweet emerald basil.  I saw the the lime green of my office, the silver of my sign; the freshness of my work.

I saw the many hues of my patients, all shimmering and glimmering and reflecting their own unique shades.

I saw the white rendered walls of our house, filled mostly with laughter and love.

And when I looked in our fridge at the end of my day, I saw three bottles of celebration, primed golden bubbles, subdued by a cork.

Today was a sparkling kind of day.

Cheers

I hope your day sparkled too.

“Come quickly, I am tasting the stars!”
–Dom Perignon

Do you drink champi on a school-night?

What defines a celebration in your house? 

She often felt like she was from another time, or should have been, such was the sensation of subluxation from her schoolmates. They loved Madonna and Bon Jovi: their wrists encircled in rubber bracelets, their fists aloft and clenching to ‘Living on a Prayer / Like a Prayer’.  She only wanted to listen to bands that were dead or should have been.  They only wanted to listen to songs bursting with life and promise.

And then she found Dylan.

He was squashed flat between Duran Duran and Electric Light Orchestra in the woodgrain-finish Pioneer stereo cabinet. A thin film of dust gave cover-art Bob a hazy look, yet something about his arrogant profile made her take that record out of its sleeve and place the needle in the groove.

The next five hours were lost to her.

She listened to that nasal whine and that keening harmonica over and over until she felt the thin membranes of her ears might burst with the pain and the burden of the poetry, of a society past.  Passed and past, yet somehow matching everything she sensed was right and wrong with the society of now.  And once she knew these things she could not unknown them.  Subluxation became dislocation.  And so it goes.

It was 1985, and in that when, context could not be gleaned with the whizz of a mouse, so she had gather background and perspective from people of actual flesh.  Their memories were unreliable and insufficient for the immersion she required.  She wanted to be subterranean, not sprinkled.  She wanted to feel it all.

She longed to stand, shoulders strong, singing ‘I Shall Be Released’ or ‘Masters of War’ and force her voice to be heard.

She longed to lie, bodies supple, serenaded by ‘If Not For You; or ‘Just Like A Woman’, and allow her heart to be heard.

The years rolled by, and Ah-Ha were replaced Wa Wa Nee, and still nobody was listening, nobody noticed. She screeched ‘A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall’ at the top of her lungs as they danced on the ceiling, followed by the Locomotion.

Every dribble of drivel propelled her further into earnest righteousness, until she thought she could never love the world again. Bob joined in on ‘We are the World’ and she wished the Cold War would end, and end it all.

Then one day she met a melancholy boy. They united, in Dylan, and in all ways. They slept on the cold city concrete to get the best seats possible. Someone bought a guitar, and someone else a blues harp, and the eerie sounds bounced off their urban campground as they pretended they were disenfranchised, bundled as they were, in duck-down sleeping bags from Paddy Palin and Ray’s Tent City.  They were in love with ideology and each other, in that order.

By the time the tour started, there were cracks in their philosophy, and by the night of the show, they were chasms. They were as interested in each other, as Dylan was in his audience.  He looked at his boots and his guitar as if they fascinated him. They looked at each other as if they didn’t.

And when she said to the man on her right, “Aren’t you Mark Seymour” he despised her for not knowing it was his brother Nick.  “Still trying to be indi”, he said.  She looked at him blankly.  He wanted to slap the blankness away.

Dylan finished his droning, and stumbled off.

He handed her a book and strode off.

It was a book of Dylan lyrics and she knew the song he meant for her. It Ain’t Me Babe

Got a favourite break-up song?

She saved up all her pay every week for what seemed like her whole lifetime, and maybe it was. A thirty five dollar ticket takes some saving, when you work two and a half hours a week and you get paid three dollars an hour. But it was the Oils at Kooyong, and she was allowed to go. Without parents.

She cajoled three friends into loving Midnight Oil too, and so her Mum got them tickets from Bass on her Bankcard, and they were going. Actually going.

It was early Summer, and a rare Melbourne night of moist warm air.  The breeze tickled her skin, smelling faintly of Reef Oil and Australis perfume.

She wasn’t allowed to catch the train by herself, so her Dad drove them all the way across that precarious Westgate, and as close to the stadium as he could get. Traffic was bumper to bumper for what seemed like hours; cars and cars and cars of parents emptied out their kids and scuttled over the tram tracks, taking U-turns back to suburbia until it was time for pick-up.  Landmarks were checked and checked again so that everyone was clear on where to meet up in case they were cleaved.  If mobile phones existed in that then, they would have only been in ‘A View to a Kill’.

Finally she was released into the twilight and into the other-world that is the show.

She was proudly wearing the t-shirt that came free in the Armistice Day EP, as it marked her as true. It didn’t matter that it was her Dad’s record (and, by rights, his t-shirt), or that the album was before her time, she relished the looks from other knowing ones as they clocked the shirt.  No brand new, still smelling of paint, “Species Deceases” shirt for her.

From Rob Hirst’s first drum beats, to the final scream of ‘Hercules’ she was all theirs. Screaming at the first bars of each song as she recognised the track. Heart thumping, as Peter clutched the mic and bent his half-mad, preying mantis body into contorted, spastic flailings.  Not singing: yelling, every line to every song.  Together.  Sweat coursing from all their bodies, jumping and jerking individuals were lost as they became one crazed organism.

Together like this they knew they could do anything. Be anything.

Peter cried, from his soles and soul; “Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees” and it was true and he was right and they shouted it to the world. They knew they would never change and that they would change the world. That they would never be afraid to “take the hardest line”.

When the music was over, they stood around for a moment, blinking, separating, and becoming individuals again. Heads down and slightly blush as the sweat on their t-shirts dried to salty lines, and she wondered if she would ever feel such passion and power again.

She spotted her Dad and they slammed the doors.

“How was it?”

“Good.”

Too personal to share. Too big to describe. So she boxed it away, with all of the other memories she hoarded and lorded over, keeping them just for herself. Keeping them for good.

Still now, sometimes, late at night, she sings the words of anthems gone by, takes out one of the boxes of her mind, and shivers, shivers at the strange power of youth.

What was your first concert?

Slightly sponsored post… I received free delivery*, as Taco Boy dropped me placating food, whilst taking my husband out to play.

As you know I don’t usually post on weekends, because: party animal, however this day I shall have to make an exception for I have found culinary Nirvana, and it’s name is TACO BOY.

Here is what he looks like:

Taco Boy at Noosa Junction

And unfortunately, here is what he looks like inside:

Get out of the way Angus, I’m trying to get a pic of Taco Boy

However, if you can avoid or ignore “Charming Prince Angus”, ye shall find great riches reside within. Tonight I sampled the beefy riches.  Unfortunately I’m no food stylist, so you’ll have to make do with my shonky photos, but make no mistake, these crispy tacos were muuuuuch better than my pic implies.

Some of you who have seen me eat know I’m a complete pig when it comes to the amount of food I eat (lots), and the way I eat it (fast), and also that Mexican is my favourite food in the known world, so I’m pretty fussy about how I want it. No beans (gross), just the right amount of cheese (too much = stomach ache) and a bit of spice without giving me ring-regret tomorrow.

But I digress: the beef was tender and perfectly seasoned, just the way I like it. The tacos had crunch, and seeing as I had take-away, that’s no mean feat (take-away Mexican is usually a no-go as far as I’m concerned as it ends up a sloppy mess of stooge and sour cream by the time you get home).

I downed the lot in about 2.6 minutes, and was left feeling satisfied without one of those foul cheese and sour cream induced comas, requiring a good lie down on the couch (I may currently be lying on said couch, but that’s not Taco Boy’s fault).

Would I recommend you go to Taco Boy?  Shit yeah.  Tell ’em I sent you.  It won’t make any difference, what I had will set you back $7.90 just the same, but if you go between 11am and 4pm you can get a deal which includes a free drink.

Now please excuse me, I have schoolies befouling the streets around me, and I need to go and be a grumpy oldperson, and look on them disapprovingly from my balcony, jealous in the knowledge that I am: a) old and b) only one more husband’s-stolen-stubbies away from bedtime.

Night peeps. I shall now retire to have sweet dreams of Victor Sifuentes from LA Law (assuming he was actually mexican..?)

PS Piss off yelling schoolies, in my street, it’s bed time you annoying idiots.

* Delivery is not a thing: that was my “fee”