Withholding

The person I've been closest to for the best part of my life happens to be my cousin. We've gone through varying degrees of closeness since we we up and right now we seem to be inching our way back towards something like it was when we were still at uni and in constant contact with each other. It's a funny relationship in many ways, though. The politics of the family mean that there are some things we just don't talk about. Largely our own fault, of course. The best way to deflect quests about your own life is to volunteer information about the life of someone else, and who else's life did we know so intimately growing up? The number of times the family grape vine worked against the pair of us and our tattling ways is beyond counting. The upshot is that while we are close and consider each other almost as sisters, there are enormous gaping holes in our knowledge of each other now. I've been trying to bridge this lately, feeling the need of a confidant who knows the whole back story, who I can use short hand to fill in. Someone that I know will be a sympathetic ear for all that we are hugely different people. But I'm stuck with the knowledge that there's a good chance anything I tell her will go to her mother, our grandmother, and then my mother, by which stage it will have been garbled and blown out of all proportn. But I need to talk to someone, some girl friend, and right now L is caught up in her own world of longing so she's off the list, and I don't have that many others who can offer the same support. The penalty for letting go of all of my university friends almost as soon as I left uni, I guess, having already jettisoned all bar one of my school friends. But I want to talk to someone about my life, and where it is headed. About hopes, dreams, longings, and unfulfilled planning. I want to vent the frustrations of being stubbornly single, to have a shoulder to lean on, someone who has seen me emotional, and someone who brings a different perspective to the table. As a married mother, Cuz certainly does that. We are very different, the pair of us, but there is a strong bond there all the same. We seem to have switched roles over the years. Where once I was the loud, confident one, she now plays that part while I'm the quieter of the two. We can stil make each other cry with laughter, though, can raise a giggle with just a look, and have a long list of short hand jokes, triggered by anything from a nod, to a phrase, to a raised eyebrow. I admit I let the friendship drift when she got married and had a baby. I was insanely jealous of her for having the things that I always wanted, always felt entitled to. Ad I want to talk to her now at I'm starting to consider the idea that I might have neither in my future. It's a selfish need, I know, but I also know that she needs adult company, stuck at home all day with a baby not yet one and a husband who works all hours and comes home exhausted. Right now, we need each other as much as ever. If only we knew that we could trust the silence of the other...

The new kid in town

I've been a bit absent from blogging lately. I'd love to say that there was a good reason for this, but really, there's not. In fact, there's a few reasons that I should have been blogging, but the sad fact is that I've been lazy. So, to continue with the laziness, I've decided to roll what could have been several detailed, and no doubt hugely amusing posts, into one. Because it's 11:45 on a school night, and that's how I roll. Or rather, that's how I lie in bed typing. Whatever.

The first thing is by way of general announcement. I am an aunty again, this time to a nephew. His parents had the wisdom to name him H, which is moderately unfortunate given that our surname also starts with H. HH. He's going to get teased at school, I can see it now. The argument over his second name is still ongoing, I think. I'm guessing my brother is making a case for something region specific, given that he asked me about the origins of our surname, and was very disappointed to discover that our family are only from England, not the wilder parts of Scotland or Wales. He cheered up a little when I explained that it was the wilder parts of England - although perhaps not by the current standard.

Either way, the little man has the look of an old soul. The first photo I saw of him, he looks like he's already aware of his surroundings, taking things in. He did not look like a baby less than an hour old. The follow-up snap shots look equally old. I'm curious to see how he grows up, what sort of person he is. Is he going to be as stubborn and strong willed as his big sister? Or will he be completely different to each of his parents, and take on some of his grand parents' traits? One thing's for sure, though, his aunt is planning on teaching him a few things about how to be a decent guy, right now.

I had a date last Friday night. The guy had seemed reasonable enough, quite intelligent, not bad looking. But I was having a terrible wardrobe day, and nothing looked right on me when I raced home from work to get ready. Which meant that I wore a dress I probably wouldn't have otherwise worn. Girls love this dress, a home made number, but guys just don't seem to have the same appreciation for it. I knew there wasn't going to be a follow up date from the moment that I took my coat off and saw the guy run an appraising eye over me in the most obvious way. I don't think he was impressed with what he saw, and I most certainly wasn't happy with being sized up like a piece of meat. My nephew is going to learn that while it's fine to check someone out, it is not so fine to judge them solely by looks. And it's not cool at all to be so obvious about it.

I'll say this for the guy, he didn't have one drink and leave, but the drinks did drag on a little. A 7 o'clock meeting usually signals dinner to go with the drinks, assuming things are going well, but 10:30 came around and we were still in the bar, on our third drink each. Almost as soon as he finished, he was getting out of there, it was obvious. It was not a terrible date, for me at least, but it was definitely not a great date. So little H is going to be taught how to gracefully extract himself from uncomfortable situations, because his aunt feels that this skill is something that would have stood her in good stead sometimes.

Have to admit I was disappointed with first viewing of the guy as well, but I like to think I hid it better. That's the other thing H is going to learn - how to avoid the necessity of internet dating. Because it is a necessity when you aren't going out anywhere to meet people, but still want to stand a chance of dating. As my sister-in-law says, you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince. All well and good for those who have found their prince, I'm sure. I'm still trawling through the frogs. And H, well, he may look a little froggy now, with his lose gummy mouth, but he's not going to grow up to be one, even if it means taking him aside regularly for instruction.

You'd think he was my kid the way I'm talking about him, the lofty ambitions for the sort of person he'll grow up to be. But I'm a childless aunt. It's my job to look out for nieces and nephews. And if he's anything like his sister, he'll have a will of iron to stand up to anyone who tries to bend him anyway he doesn't want to go. The old soul already looking out of his eyes is hopefully the soul of a gentleman, that way we both get our way.

So welcome, H. I look forward to spending a whole lot of time with you. And eyeballing-date-man? I look forward to not spending any more time with you.

Ladies who lunch

While I was putting together my cheese and toast sandwich today, I was suddenly hit by a memory. It was a hit, not a gentle reminder or anything so subtle. It was the cheese that did it. Or rather, the foil that the cheese was wrapped in. But in order to understand why foil-wrapped cheese could trigger a moment of vivid recall, I need to start way back in September, during my trip back to Melbourne for a few days.

It was Mum's birthday. I was jet lagged out of my mind, feeling the effects of a horrendous plane trip that had ended at midnight the night before. The flight was awful, not least because somewhere between Singapore and Sydney, or Sydney and Melbourne - I still can't narrow it any further than that - I lost not only the denim jacket that I'd been carrying, but also the scarf that was with it. Beyond that, there were delays, annoying people and a malfunctioning entertainment system. Another day on Qantas, essentially. But I digress.

The jet lag had left me a little silly by the time in the afternoon that we made it to Nana's house for the hello visit. After the usual welcome back conversations ('When will you be back for good?' 'Have you seen Anabelle yet?' 'When do you leave?' 'Have you got a boyfriend yet?' 'You should go on Farmer Wants a Wife.' 'I got served by a lovely boy in the supermarket. So helpful, he was. I thought of you. You should get his number.'), talk shifted to the dinner plans for the night. We were off to the Cross Keys, a local pub that used to have a somewhat seedy reputation but now does a half decent meal and, most importantly, has discount vouchers on the back of supermarket dockets. The gist seemed to be that Nana was all prepared for the dinner already.

It seems that the meal sizes at the Cross Keys aren't to Nana's liking, though. Too big, apparently.

"They give you two enormous pieces of fish," she told me, gesturing with her hands. She could have been the fisherman describing the one that got away, with a piece of fish as large as the one she demonstrated.

"One that size is too much." I agree with her. One piece of fish that large would see me through a week. But Nana, ever-resourceful and always known for such behaviour, went to her handbag and showed us her solution; she had a freezer bag and a couple of pieces of paper towel already stashed, ready and waiting to receive the extra piece of fish and as many chips as she didn't want to eat. She's always been known for loading up on dinner rolls from the table, but it seems she's been picking up bad habits from her friends in the day club. I feel sorry for the bus driver on their outings, a load of senior citizens coming back from some destination, each with a piece of battered fish concealed in a wedge of paper napkins in her handbag. The stench must be mind-numbing by the end of a two hour trip.

"The only trouble," she told me, "is that it all goes a bit pappy by the next day. After ***'s birthday the other week, it was a soggy mess when I pulled it out of the fridge."

You have to remember, I was jet lagged. I was feeling silly, and I was still adjusting to having to conceal my giggles. And I'm always a little bit of a smart arse - er, always helpful. So I offered a suggestion, a hint.

"You should take some foil, keep it crisp."

Her eyes light up like the flashers on a winning pokie machine. It's all she can do to keep from running to the kitchen and stuffing the roll of foil into her bag there and then. She manages to contain her excitement, somehow, and the rest of the visit goes off without a hitch. ('You should be saving.' 'You need to come back and settle down.' 'About as welcome as a red-headed step-child.')

Later that night, clustered around the family dinner table, I heard a rustling from the far end of the table, and suppressed giggles from the cousins and their partners lined up opposite me.

"Was that foil?" demanded the newest addition to the family group, the girlfriend of a cousin. She sounded incredulous. I looked down the length of the table and there sat Nana, forcing the zip of her handbag closed over a clearly bulging foil-wrapped parcel. She looked up at me and beamed. I don't think I've ever made her as happy before in my entire life.

When I saw her again a couple of days later, she was still beaming.

"That was a lovely bit of fish I got from the Cross Keys. It stayed all crispy. I'll have to tell Mary to keep a bit of foil in her bag."

Channelling my mother

Time, they say, waits for no man. No woman, either, if I'm any judge, because it seems I must be getting old. It's been a busy week since my last attack of blogging. Not en eventful week, really, but one that has kept me busy enough that I've barely had a moment to think about what I'd writer here. Bite sized chunks of the day just disappear into nothingness where I have no idea what I've done. I look at the clock and there's half an hour of my life gone, on what I don't know, because I have no memory of anything other than the last time I looked at the clock.

That's not entirely true. This whole time-weariness mood has come out of a few things. Last weekend was a busy Saturday. A date in the afternoon, a leaving party at night, and somewhere in there study, too. The date was unremarkable except for one event, which I'll get to later. the party was fun, in spite of my budgetary constraints, because there were good friends in a nice bar, and everyone was there to have fun. But more about that later too. Back to the date.

I'm not going to dwell on this one. He was nice enough, if a little bland. The place we went to was very nice - must go back there sometime for afternoon tea with the girls. But the main reason I'm even mentioning this comes from something else. I've just passed the three year anniversary of my arrival in London. For that entire time I've lived a fifteen minute walk away from a cousin and never seen her. We don't move in the same circles, we never spoke in Melbourne. We each know the other is there, and that's about the limit of it. Until I saw her coming out of the restaurant as I went in. Three years, not a glimpse, and I see her when I'm on a date and desperately don't want to. The only consolation about this was that it was quite clear she didn't want to see me any more than I wanted to see her. We successfully ignored each other and life resumes its normal course. Ships passing in the night? Not really. She might not have even recognised me - I can't remember the last time we saw each other, but I'm fairly certain I was still a teenager, and a young one at that.

So I moved on, and the party was the perfect antidote to the awkwardness of a mediocre date and a potential glitch with a family member. We had a booth, in the grand tradition of the big party in a central London bar, and were perfectly positioned to watch all the comings and goings of everyone else. Which leads me to another reason why I think I must be getting old. There were plenty of young folk out and about, it being Saturday night. And I found myself turning into my mother. I couldn't believe the outfits the girls were wearing. Were they dresses, or tops that they'd forgotten to put something with? And how could they walk in those shoes, I asked myself. Surely they'd be doing irreparable damage to their feet. I gave a self-satisfied smirk at my knee-high brown biker boots with the sensible block heel, and thought to myself that they'd be sorry later. Then I almost cried at how much like my mother - or worse, my grandmother - that sounded. Yep, I'm getting old.

Which brings me to the other reason why I haven't posted lately. It seems that I can no longer match it with the kiddies in areas other than the ability to wear anything, no matter how uncomfortable or ridiculous, provided it's fashionable. I can't party all night without consequences. Sure, I'm a night owl, always have been. I do my best work by moonlight (which may explain why this post is a little disjointed, and the daytime date was a less than sparkling affair). And I've been burning the midnight oil of late, trying to get my last essay done. And it's hard work. Especially since I keep getting sidetracked by a minor addiction to Spider Solitaire that I seem to have developed. In fact, I've been burning the 3am oil, as well. I remember doing the same thing when I was finishing my architecture degree. Sure, it was tough, but I could cope. One good night of sleep and I was fine again. Now? Even people I work with have noticed that I look exhausted.

Perhaps it's the looming deadline of 30 - not that I'm freaked out about it. It's just that as a milestone, for women it does kind of mark the ending of many things. By the time you're 30, as was pointed out by a friend, you have to concede that you aren't going to suddenly discover a hidden sporting talent. Or almost any hidden talent, really. You're supposed to have reached the end of you carefree irresponsible ways, have settled down with a family; if you haven't, turning 30 starts the clock ticking the countdown to a time when it's no longer an option. 30. It's just a number. But it's a number perilously close to the age at which my mother had me, her third and of course, most perfect child. I look at her life then, settled with two children, on her way owning her home, and I compare it to mine: single, all but homeless, with only a head full of memories to show for all my time. But most of the time, I wouldn't trade it. Sure, there's nothing anyone outside of me can see, but who cares what anyone else thinks? And there lies the real difference between me and those girls in the bar. Because no matter how fashionable it is, I refuse to wear a belt as a skirt and to make myself into a ludicrously tall giant on spike-heeled instruments of torture, simply because some fashion bible tells me to. They'll learn. And by the time I'm in my sixties, where my mother is now? Well, I can already see where I'm heading. It's not a little bit scary, let me tell you. Those orthopedic shoes are just terrible.