Category: being

So I guess this must be autumn

‘You should have been here in August,’ people say. It was hotter then. More humid (one hundred percent humidity). I stand in the school corridor recovering from the walk, the sweat so thick it is a second skin.

When we first moved to Port Pirie my Mum would say, ‘There’s only two degrees of hot…there’s hot and bloody hot’. She was wrong. There is this.

Later, at the intersection, one of the mums I recognise but do not know calls from her 4-wheel drive window, ‘Hop in.’

‘It’s okay,’ I call back, ‘We’re nearly home. But thank you…thanks so much, that’s really kind.’

She furrows her brow as she winds the window up.

We are nearly home. If it is thirty degrees. Even if it is thirty five. But it is forty degrees. Humid. And two o’clock in the afternoon. I am carrying all of our bags. Those ten minutes are long.

‘It’s all right,’ I tell the boys, ‘we’ll have the car tomorrow, or maybe the day after that at the latest and then we’ll drive until the weather cools down again.’

Like everything here, the car is taped in red. The buyer and the seller must be present at the buyer’s bank, the seller’s bank, there is a valuation not more than 5 days old, a trip to a government department, forms, more forms, photocopies of forms. But it all goes smoothly and we take possession of the car. No, not ‘we’, the mister.

Our car is a humble one. It is not gold-plated. It is not a Lexus or a VW Golf. It will spend its nights parked next to a Hummer. Again, not gold-plated.

I have always preferred to walk or bus or tram. Here, that I am trapped without a car makes me feel twice as trapped. It is an odd kind of claustrophobia.

But my google reader brings hope. Look, it’s spring at Cristy’s and at Pav’s While you spring, we will cool down, and in a month or so, we will be out of the car again. And in the meantime, I can enjoy an Australian spring, without getting hayfever.

From 13th street

Settling in

We did indeed move the lounge, and it looks much better over there under the window. Funny thing I hadn’t realised is just how many photos of my Dad I brought with me. No teaspoons, not enough clothes and barely any books, but photographs everywhere. There he is: there and there and there. I might put one or two of them away. Not because I love him less, but because it’s too much. It’s just too much.

The lads have gone back to school today. Nervous, they were in their own different ways. They didn’t know which class they were in or which friends they would have. One of them worries his shoes will pinch, the other realises that he has outgrown Lightning McQueen and gratefully accepts my black backpack.

I remember those nerves, don’t you? And it’s not so much the nerves, but the fact that when you are six, you have no idea that everyone feels this way. In that respect, it’s easier being forty than it is being six.

Nerves wore off quickly, and excitement settled in. They hugged their friends, made bunny ears behind each other’s backs, then started thumb wars. And in that respect, it’s better being six than it is being nearly forty one.

So, here I am, alone for just a few hours in the house, about to get my butcher’s paper and textas out and get to novel work, bouyed as I am by this rather lovely review.

Homecoming?

And when, after an early morning and a not-bad plane journey, we arrived back at this place, he followed me as I walked around looking at the house I had only ever seen unfurnished, and he said, ‘Of course we can move the lounge,’ (an enormous blue thing that we snaffled for free) and then he said, ‘And we can rearrange the clothes’.

Until, in the end I said, ‘It’s okay. I’m not going to cry.’

On genre (a beginning – believe me, there’s more to come on this topic)

Learning lots. So, so much. And answering a great number of the questions that I hoped doing my first solo show would help me answer.

But I’m wondering, still wondering, which section of the fringe I should be registering myself in. When I first registered, I spent a lot of time tossing up whether or not to put myself in comedy or theatre. I steered away from theatre in the end, because I’m not an actor and I don’t have a director. But then, in festivals at least, ‘comedy’ feels so closely aligned to the gag-punch style of comedy that I’m not sure I really fit in there either. Obviously, I want there to be laughs, but I don’t necessarily want it to be stand-up, and I’m not sketch or character comedy mostly because again with the ‘not an actor’.

For the Adelaide Fringe, I was thinking maybe I could put myself in the ‘writing’ category, but does that imply something more literary? Poetry slams and spoken word and so on.

And not that I think I’m some sort of genre-defying genius. Flicking through the Fringe guide here, I see plenty of other shows and performers that are more theatre than they are comedy, more music than they are theatre and so on.

Maybe the guide needs sub-categories. Which leads me to wonder: do other people worry over this stuff or is it just because I’m a librarian?

And on the way home we got rained on

Did you know that there is a Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre? Neither did I. But there is.

These dudes, Clewis Productions seem to be associated with it, and we went to their Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes which was as much fun as you would hope it would be. The more I read and listen to his work (which is a lot around these parts these days), the more I am struck by the enormity of Roald Dahl’s storytelling talents.

Also, watching this performance with my newly-formed performer’s eyes, I was in awe of their ability to take volunteers from the audience and give them such substantial roles. Unpredictability, she be frizwiggling to me.

Lots to say, but too tired to be articulate…

I have so much to tell you, but I’m tired…so very, very tired. My venue has Sundays off, for which I am extraordinarily grateful. Sitting on a couch (which is draped in a spread of dubious colour to hide the dubious colour of the lounge), flicking around the interwebs and listening to The Archers. (rock and roll? we has it)

I’m pleased. Extraordinarily pleased. For all sorts of reasons I will tell you about eventually, but am too tired to tell you about now. For now, suffice to say, still love my script and I’ve had lovely, gorgeous people in my audience.

On the matter of audience and getting one to come along…I made a good decision back there when I decided that if I was going to come to Edinburgh to have a look around, I may as well bring my own show. Honestly, if I’d come just to have a look like I originally planned, I would never have brought my own show.

I was completely unprepared for the…erm…exuberance of the Royal Mile. It’s just amazing down there. The thought and energy that people put in to selling their shows (okay, so getting around in your underwear isn’t that thoughtful, but there’s lots more than that). Looking at it, I feel all at once overwhelmed and inadequate and it would have scared me off if I had given myself an opportunity to think about it. Now, I look at it and think, ‘My goodness me, I’m part of this.’

All of this is not completely unrelated to the following brilliant sentence I read on Pen’s blog earlier today:
“So here is my advice to budding researchers – ask yourself a question you really want to know the answer to, not a question that fits what you think you can find out.”

And now, from my window, I can see a truck, the tray of which is overflowing with people banging on drums. At the insistence of eldest child we’re back to Our Dynamic Earth today, then Still Breathing which I think my boys will love.

PS Sorry I can’t show you any photos just now, but I don’t have enough byte in my giga. Shall see if I can find a coffee shop that sells good coffee and has wireless at the same time that I have both my computer and my camera in my bag.

Rite of passage

My youngest boy quickly realises that commission-based flyering isn’t the deal that he thought it was. I have told him that for each person he convinces to come to the show, I’ll give him one pound – after only one day he is demanding fee-for-service.

I knew this time would come. My dad’s political career saw me cycling all the way around our country town, putting pamphlets of my surprisingly well-groomed father in people’s letterboxes (there were no ‘no junk mail’ stickers back in those days). ‘A new packet of pencils,’ I would say. ‘Only if I can get my ears pierced.’

We start the dealing, my youngest boy and I.
‘Fifty pence is over one Australian dollar,’ I tell him.
‘Yes, but we aren’t in Australia, are we?’ he says.

We settle on a daily fee. It doubles his pocket-money for the week and my financial loss is already so great that it makes no real difference to my bottom line.

We stand on the Royal Mile, the four of us, one adult for each child. The mister manages to give away two flyers.
I give away a few more.
They fly from the children’s hands. Almost no-one says no.

‘I think it’s your clothes, and the way you speak, Dad,’ my eldest boy says. ‘And also, you’re not the cutest.’

We get offered quite a few flyers too. ‘That’s a good ploy,’ one of the flyerers says and nods towards our boys. ‘Better than a bright coloured T-shirt,’ he says pulling at his. From the resignation in his grin it is clear that he has been here before.

The children aren’t a ploy, but when the cast of another production walks past, some of them in suits, the others in boxer shorts, I agree with the mister: ‘I’m glad I don’t have to walk around in my undies.’

‘Are they allowed to walk around in their underwear?’ Youngest boy asks. We are a world away from the robed malls of Abu Dhabi.

There isn’t anyone at the show who hadn’t pre-bought tickets. No walk-ups, flyer in hand. I always told my Dad that how-to-votes at the polling booth would make no difference to the way that people voted.

We go out for a post-show celebratory meal. ‘Mum, giving out your pamphlets is the best job in the world,’ my eldest boy tells me after the first slug of his soft drink. And later, on our walk home, he is still holding a small pile of flyers in his hand, and handing them to people with his politely-worded question: ‘Would you like to see my Mum’s show? She’s hilarious.’