Sitting in cars and laughing

Today as I drove past another car, the driver, a wild frizzy haired old woman, took a swig from a bottle. It most probably was a water bottle but I easily imagined it to be a hip flask full of some kind of liquor. It just kind of went with the overall kooky instant impression. You know, the aforementioned wild hair, beaten up old car and mischievous glint to the eye (ok, I'm totally extrapolating with that last one).

I found this kind of funny and smirked to myself. Then I remembered how I sometimes spent my time just sitting in cars with friends, two particular friends actually, and laughing at people outside, just making up stories of what they were getting up to. 

Today's incident reminded me immediately of sitting outside a house I lived in North Fitzroy. It was a funny period. I'd had my heart broken pretty badly and was feeling very insecure and unsure of my place in the world.*

Anyway, I was sitting with my friend in her car just fantasising about taking off and going where the wind would take us Thelma and Louise style. Meanwhile a neighbour from across the street drove up, parked her car and got out. My friend noted her appearance - steel grey no-nonsense bowl hair cut, glasses, gnarled yet wiry frame, windcheater and slacks and the house she was going into - wildly unmaintained garden, broken gate and determined she was a Witch. A Part Time Witch. We imagined her witch's hat thrown in the back of the car and left for the next shift. I don't know, it was bloody hilarious at the time but I can see how that's not probably translating right now. Five or six years later I actually used this idea as a premise for a kid's comedy series pilot I wrote for my screenwriting course.

Ok the other one. I can see this is probably heading in the same non-funny direction but whatever!

Quite a few years earlier than the Part Time Witch flight of fancy, I was with another friend sitting outside a 7-11. We were about 18 and I and my friend were still living in our respective family homes and really enjoying the freedom of a car. So what did we do? Drive to the local 7-11, get slurpees and smoke cigarettes. For hours. Over time we did venture out of our suburb and start doing drive-bys and staking out houses of the boys we liked but that's another story.

So we were sitting there and this middle aged woman (probably younger than I am now. Fark) kind of prances into the shop. We watched her the whole way. She had a permed bob and very typical 'mum jeans'. High waisted which showed off her saddle bags well. Around this time, we spoke in character of two older suburban bogans. Their names were Brenda and Gloria and, I kid you not, sounded exactly like Kath Day Knight. We were Kath and Kim before Kath and Kim. Or so we like to think.

So in character we started pretending to be the woman in the 7-11 - while she was in there waiting in line. We imagined her night with the kids, trying to get them to eat their 'tea' of pie from the 'good' bakery and beans. We imagined her complaining about her 'fella' not lifting a finger to help. We imagined her purchases of Nescafe and panty liners. And everything was prefaced with 'Bugger it.' The line that still remains to this very day is the Bugger It Jeans. We imagined her never buying jeans and the ones she was wearing that night were a new purchase. The moment where she went 'Bugger it. I'm buying some jeans'. 

So while all of you out there refer to those ill fitting, unflattering jeans as Mum or Mom Jeans, they will always be the Bugger It Jeans to me. 

* I would have gone on to call it a phase but since I'm still feeling this way almost twenty years later, I can't really do that. I can say that I am feeling insecure and unsure for very different reasons though at least.

Inspiration

I started this blog so that I can get the writing juices flowing.

I think I may have typed those exact words on another blog in the past.

Anyway....Yeeeaas. So I thought I would share WITH YOU ALL - All my little ghosts and pretend people - what my source of inspiration was today.

You know what? I am 99.89% sure I can give you a visual on that.

Woopty Doo...

Yeah! How about that! Shane Warne!

Unfortunately I couldn't actually find the exact inspirational image. That's a shame as it was about his expression as he was bowling. I don't know why I chose the one above as it's pretty nondescript isn't it. Just Shane Warne bowling. 

Woopty Doo.

That's why I was so surprised to be moved and feel those magical stirring of Inspiration when, while stopped in traffic, I clocked Shane Warne's post Elizabeth Hurley plastic features on the side of a truck. I would never, in a million years think that I would be inspired by Shane Warne but there you have it. It even inspired me to add to my flourishing bog, I mean blog. 

The thing is, on reflection, it wasn't really about Shane Warne it was about someone looking so happy doing what they were born to do. Finding their TALENT, working on it and making a successful life out of something they love. It was all about his joyous smile combined with the focus and sheer satisfaction of doing something he was really, really good at.

And knowing they are rich, RICH from doing it. 

I really want to be rich.

Well Helloooo,

So, I've been watching the must see TV Series which is not Game of Thrones and which is the other one..Girls. I knew I would love it and love it I do.

Watching Girls is bittersweet because I see so much of my younger self in Hannah. The lofty dreams and awkward moments. The low self esteem and crazy adventures. Watching Girls is bittersweet because I never had that notebook. I always would say to myself, I need to get this shit down but I never did. Laziness had a large pudgy hand in that. I was always too hungover, too addicted to TV, too ready to go and get smashed again. I would have fantastic prose running in my head. Perfectly pitched, funny, charged, amazing. I would smile to myself, no doubt thinking "God, I'm bloody good." Then have a cigarette to celebrate.

Fear also had something to do with the fact I never wrote anything. I was (and still largely am) that walking contradiction of revelling in my own amazing (albeit hidden and untapped) talent while at the same time believing I am as deluded as Ignatius J Reilly.

Watching Girls is bittersweet because it makes me at once jealous and inspired. Watching Girls is bittersweet because it makes me realise I am old and over the hill because Ben Mendelson is my contemporary and he plays Jesse's dad.

I've actually got two stories about Ben Mendelson, both from way back when.

Number one

I think it would have been around 1991 or 92 and I was in Dimmeys in Richmond. For those outside of Melbourne, Dimmeys is a discount department store with a rather hilarious name now that I think of it. It just sounds cheap and tacky doesn't it? Anyway, I was in there because it was the early nineties and Bonds plain dyed T-shirts were all the rage. I was fossicking through the big tangle of T-Shirts which was Dimmeys version of merchandise display and glanced up at the whiney voice next to me.

I am now trying to recall what that voice said. I know he said "But Muuuummm!" like a four year old and she seemed to under react, like this public tantrum was normal yet still embarrassing. I'm sure there was a long suffering eye roll. Mother and son were beside me trying to find a T-Shirt and I think the son was shitty because they didn't have his size. The Mum also told him off. Something like 'Ben, behave yourself!"

Anyway, yes, you've guessed! The whiney man child was, indeed, Ben Mendelson. I remember feeling embarrassed that I was privy to this and didn't know where to look. Knowing me at the time I would no doubt have also gone a lovely shade of tomato red. I also thought it was kind of cute in a puzzling way.

I'm feeling annoyed at myself again for not having a notebook. I'm sure, if I did, this incident would have made it in and I would have been able to tell you exactly what he said. I know it was funny because I used to regale my friend's with this story, complete with Ben Mendelson and Mrs Mendelson impressions...ahh well.

Number two

Around the same time, as in the year, I was down at Torquay where we went for a couple of holidays. Holidays seems to be the wrong word as, for me at least, it evokes civilised family-like fun full of day trips with a respectable AM start, outings to the beach and sunset BBQ's and fish and chips at a fine dining bistro. For me and my friends during this period, however, Torquay was a destination to get drunk and meet boys in. My memory is also playing tricks on me right now as the Torquay of my memory seems so familiar, as if I went there every year for ten years.

However, the reality is, I think I only went there twice.

Anyway, it was during one such 'holiday' that found me in the beer garden in the early evening along with about a hundred other revellers. It was absolutely packed.  Right now as I recall this, I feel like I am walking around that crowded beer garden. I see the couple sitting cross legged and facing each on the concrete under some kind of carport structure and arguing intently. I feel the texture of the beer sogged bar runner as I order a jug of beer because it's my turn. The cigarette machine that gives change from a five dollar note.

I was walking through the crowd and this guy stopped me. It was Nick Barker who was a kind of famous musician at the time. Very cute but he wasn't my type of muso. I was into bands like Ride and Stone Roses at the time and Nick Barker and the Reptiles had a distinctly bogan edge. It didn't matter because of course I was flattered that he seemed to want to talk to me. We talked for a bit, probably lit each other's cigarettes and then he said "Are you Ben Mendelson's sister?" and chuckled. My face must have fallen because he said that I was prettier than Ben. That was that and I felt a bit insulted. I don't know why because Ben is cute.

During the night, every time he saw me, he'd yell out "Ben Mendelson's sister!"

And I honestly don't think he was trying to pick me up.


THE END