This cupboard is older than I am. It’s probably older than my mother, too, since my grandparents bought it long before I was born and my mother had me at quite an early age. Since I was born this cupboard has been in every bedroom I have ever had, more or less. I think I only inherited it because no one else wanted it; indeed, everyone seems to loathe it and whenever I move someone asks me why I still have it. “Because I love it,” I say.
When we were very young and my sister and I shared a bedroom, we used to watch a show on television – Choc-a-block or Bric-A-Brac, I forget which – where the presenter would drive in on a little car and pull a bench out of the wall like a drawer. Then he would sit down and tell stories. Kara and I would run upstairs, pull the drawers halfway out and read to one another until our mother caught us one day and put and end to it. I remember her being cross that we would break them but I’m sure she was worried we would hurt ourselves too.
After that, the cupboard came with me wherever I went – across the country to university and around the town as I moved from halls to share houses and dingy flats to beautiful bargain-priced apartments with friends and lovers. It kept my clothes safe and dry even when the whole flat was dripping with damp. Once while I was going through a particularly awful break-up at university I stuck positive messages onto the doors so that when I woke up the first thing I would see was “You are a GOOD person” and “Things will be all right”. The marks from the sellotape still remind me to be happy even though the messages are long gone. (Where they went I don’t know: one morning I woke up to find that a flatmate had replaced them with a note that read: “You smell like a sardine’s minge”. That was the day I realised I was over it.)
Now that cupboard is with me in my new flat on the other side of the world, and I must confess that I have been lying to everyone for years. That cupboard is a pain in the ass. It is an odd size and height, the cupboard part is too large and there aren’t enough drawers. The shelves inside are either too far apart or too close together for whatever you want to put in there, and the finish is a disaster. It is pointless in the extreme, but despite all that I know I will never get rid of it.
Every time I move I find something new about it that makes me hate it and love it all the more, like the sawdust in the drawer slots where the drawers are wearing out, but the half-visible chalk marks of the price (or is it an order number? or a reservation date?) on the back panel. Even though it is worn out and almost completely useless, I keep finding some way to give it a purpose. It’s like an old dog. Yes, it’s embarrassing when he farts in front of company, but you don’t get rid of him just because he’s lost control of his bowels. I put up with its awkward, outdated uselessness because it reminds me that I am a GOOD person who smells like a fish’s fanny.
I think I do love it, after all.
Every day on my walk home from the train station I walk past this window. It’s just an ordinary shop front between a cafe and a Malaysian takeaway but I love it. At the moment the artist is asking passers-by to text their answers to his question: what would you like to leave behind? Then he writes them on some kind of bundle and puts them all in the window. It’s interesting to read how people interpret the question and choose to answer. “Nothing”, “a man who abuses me” and “the ATO” for example.
Aside from its artistic merit, I love this window because it reminds me of my friends. For the final year of my degree, along with the essays and the dissertation (“Is naturalism an excuse for voyeurism in contemporary performance?”) I had to create, perform and review a theatrical composition with a group of my friends; the feared and awesome Final Year Project. I worked with Elsa, Liccy and our friend Carolyn to put on a performance the likes of which had never been seen before. Our idea eventually boiled down to shoes as cultural mirrors – an idea I have seen in various settings since – and we worked our asses off to make it memorable. Carolyn lived in a converted shop and we created a false wall in the window to give us a display space just like the one I walk past on my way home. For three months we created weekly installations on our theme by juxtaposing different shoes and cultural images, before the final week when we staged an eight-hour performance art piece bringing all the static stuff together into one big, crazy, beatnik, guerilla-style performance. It was the talk of the city. There’s no room for false modesty here: we worked bloody hard and I’m still proud of the results.
During that FYP I spent hours, days and weeks with the three girls and their housemates, Monkey, Pippa and Karen; all of whom became fantastic friends. We would work in the mornings, afternoons or evenings, drink wine, make tea, watch daytime tv while we waited for papier maché to set, sleep over and have cocktails. We lamented our shitty love lives, drank like fish, got into trouble, danced like fools and laughed and laughed and laughed.
When I’m walking home from work, seeing this window reminds me of our window, and the friends I made and love.
Let me start with belated Easter wishes for you all, and the usual apology for taking so long to send you news of our adventures. As you will see, we have been extremely busy of late. I shall try not to bore you with too much detail, but there’s a lot to cram in so pull up a comfortable chair, a cup of tea and a biscuit, and when you’re comfortable, we’ll begin.
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Three bits of good news from Tuesday:
1. I had a job interview at a university in Sydney. It’s similar to my previous role, but in a completely different department, and the pay is good so I have my fingers crossed. The interview went well and we all seemed to have a good time (which upon reflection is unusual – should I have been more nervous? Am I too confident? Oh crikey, did they hate me?!?); as I left they told me they would be in touch “very soon” which I’m hoping is a good sign.
2. I was invited along to the University of Sydney Open Day by the MA Creative Writer lead lecturer for a chat. I have decided that the best way to get on a course is by getting my self known, making myself a familiar face and thus an obvious choice when it comes to deciding whether or not to admit me for 2010. I popped over, introduced myself, asked about the course and the writers’ scene in Sydney (as a newbie here I’m taking every opportunity to find out what’s out there) and then listened to all the wonderful things that the course has to offer. I was even invited along to a couple of the lectures (“just let me know which units you are interested in,” he said, “and I’d be happy for you to sit in on a couple of them.”), which I think is a positive sign. He also told me that he strongly recommends part-time study, for which I am very grateful as (a) I’m not going to be able to afford full-time and (b) my sister’s preferred wedding date falls right in the middle of the full-time term. So, all I need to do now is get writing again, get some critical feedback and have an application ready to submit by 31 October. That’s going to come around faster than I think.
3. Finally, and most excitingly, I had an article published! You can download a copy or visit the 3sixtymag website and get it from there. Go straight to page 21 and there it is, complete with typesetting and pictures! I am officially a published writer! My plan now is to simply write and write and write and e-mail editors and pester them until they give in. With one article under my belt, I’m in a better position than no articles: I intend to milk my advantage for all I’m worth. Wish me luck!
