tales from an ordinary world

2000-01-29

Melbourne. Cold and windy one moment, warm and sunny the next. I seem to be giving it up for this. I dug out my old beanie, bought a scarf, gloves, stuff like that. If I remember correctly, I haven't been in snow since Christmas 1978. Possibly 1984, but I think not...

I went over to visit an old friend, who'd been wanting to catch up to show me her new puppy and to tell me all about her older sister's engagement. Most of the engagements I've heard about lately aren't particularly surprising, but this threw me a little - not really the engagement in itself, but when I saw some emailed photos of this engagement party, it was apparent how much she'd really changed. Apart from a tell-tale grin in one photo, I wouldn't have known it was her. Gone was the difficult daughter who went through so much while she was at uni here. The friend I got stoned with and, once, force-fed chocolate mousse to. The friend who asked me to try and help pull out her nose stud so she could change it with another...and who nearly missed her plane home 'cause she had to go and get her lip-ring removed on the way. All seemingly gone. It's a bit like in the Lloyd Cole song, Love Ruins Everything - leaving behind your drunken friends and getting on with your life. Sometimes I look upon these sorts of phenomena - friends getting engaged, married, having kids, whatever, as a kind of blessing - they can all go on and be responsible for me, in a way. I just don't feel ready for all that adult stuff yet, but at the same time I'm happy to see others getting on and doing it all.

Back in the city, I wandered around a little, poked about in a few shops looking for a better scarf. I even picked up one of those things you tie around your waist inside your shirt and put your passport in, and stuff. It seems a bit too "paranoid tourist" for me, but I'll see how I go.

On the tram home from the city, 3 girls giggled as a mother sat down near them and held her baby up to face them. I sat up the back of the tram, tapping out a Superchunk song on the window-sill as we rolled through cosmopolitan Balaclava, with its Chinese grocery shops, Russian delicatessens, Vegetarian pizza place, "Kosher Express" and Box Noodle shops. It was a nice day to be out.

The town hall up the road is no longer just Caulfield Town Hall, it now has a large sign over one entrance proudly proclaiming it to be the "Glen Eira service centre". For such a nice old building, it seems a bit buzzwordy to me.

Today's listening included :

• Come Pick Me Up, by Superchunk.

• Falling Swinger, by Stephen Cummings.