I Miss Holding Your Hand

[This is a backdated post]

I miss holding your hand.
The way that you didn't give a damn.
That it never occurred to you to care what other people thought.
That you never even paused to consider that other people might care.
I miss the casual, thoughtless closeness.
The warmth and support.
The total lack of agenda.
I miss how it was so easy for you.
How you made it easy for me.
How after a while I didn't even think about it either.
I miss the quiet times as much as the crazy times.
But most of all, I miss holding your hand.

It's Like Being An Archeologist But With Piles Of Tosh

There are some tasks that seem too intimidating to approach.

So gargantuan that it's hard to know where to start.

So daunting that every initial step seems steeped in discouragement.

For me that is the family home's rumpus room.

With the family's 'children' now firmly in their 20s it hasn't been a play room for over a decade.

We still use it to watch TV and my brother has his exercise equipment in there but it has acquired a third and less desirable role over the years - the dumping ground.

Anything we didn't want to get rid of but which didn't have a proper home got popped in the cupboard or in what began as a neat pile against the wall and evolved into a tribute to The Great Wall Of China.

Every now and then we mumble something about how we should do something about this.

Then we have a tentative poke around, become disheartened and leave it for 'later'.

Well these holidays 'later' arrived with a vengeance.

It started with a pile of defunct electronics that we'd put aside to 'take to the tip when we get around to it'.

I gathered them up.
I put them in the boot of my car.
I kicked my brother until he came and helped dig around to see if there were any more bits of electronic crap that needed throwing out.
I dragged him to the tip with me.
We dumped the whole pile at the tip's recycling centre so they could strip out the wiring and whatever else they wanted.


We went home drunk on victory!

Well, I was drunk on victory, my brother felt pretty neutral about the whole deal except the kicking and the being press-ganged into participation.

Once I got home, I was on a mission.

Old paperwork was thrust into the hands of the people it belonged to who were forced to go through it and either find a home for it or bin it.

Boxes were opened and emptied and sifted through.
Stuff was reorganised.
Stuff was thrown out.

Floor space was cleared.
Carpet was vacuumed.

More victory inebriation!

It is ridiculous how satisfying this was.

It probably  helped that it had now been so long since certain things had been stored away that we realised that no, we were never going to use them.

It also helped that we've all gotten past the ages where you attach emotional significance to junk.
I'm not saying we're a bunch of robots who threw out our childhood toys, we've kept those, but there were plenty of other things in there which given a few years we can now recognise as things that don't need to be kept.

We still need to go through the big cupboard, which shouldn't be in too bad of a shape as I went through it in 2007 when I was unemployed after coming back from Europe and Young Endeavour.

What I know is lurking in there, waiting for me, is our VHS collection.

Yep.

VHS collection.


The whole thing.

Taped-from-TV and store bought.

Obviously any home movies will be kept and transferred to disc - if they haven't already been - but the rest of it...

It's stupid I know but I feel shitty throwing out the store bought ones seeing as we kept them in such good condition and I feel annoyed throwing out the taped-from-TV ones when they contain things that haven't been released on DVD yet.

I'm going to.

I have to.

It's an obsolete format that we haven't used in years.

I'm going to feel weird about it though.

I hate throwing things out when they still work.

But my strange and pointless attachment to VHS aside, victory!

People are not going to recognise that room when I'm through with it.

And so help them God if they try and pile things up in it again.

Alien Concepts

It feels like we're in a unique point in history and it's both intriguing and a little bit melancholy.

We've watched huge leaps in technological advancement being built on the achievements of the previous generations, each leap a little closer in time to the last and yet taking us further in concept each time.

This means that we're a generation more used to large changes to our lifestyle and our ways of thinking.

We've seen more of the elements of our science fiction favourites being brought into everyday life and have a better ability to predict what may be possible and to strive for what is on the edge of that possibility.

And all this means that we are able to look at our lives and experiences and predict what things are going to fall by the wayside and how quickly.

I might be incorrect but I get the feeling that even though our parents and grandparents knew that change was inevitable they still were taken a bit by surprise when things that they'd grown up with or used their entire adult lives were rendered completely obsolete within a matter of months or a year by a new development.

I know even for people my age it was a bit startling at first watching VHS getting superseded by DVD (with a brief bit of competition from HD DVD format), but as DVD is nudged in the back by Blu-Ray there's more of a 'ho hum, another one bites the dust' feeling.

Even as something new comes out now we know that it has a finite lifespan and that the new thing will be not far behind.
Whether the new thing will last or not is unknown but we know it's coming.

Of course this reflective train of thought all started with the realisation that 'OH MY GOD, SCHOOL KIDS WILL NEVER AGAIN GIVE CLASS PRESENTATIONS USING OVERHEAD PROJECTORS! THEY PROBABLY HAVEN'T DONE THAT SINCE THE EARLY 2000s!'

So in honour of that, here is a brief list of little memories that the next generation won't get to experience.

THINGS THE NEXT GENERATION IS GOING TO MISS OUT ON

• Doing Presentations Using Overhead Projectors. I don't know about you but I used to love doing these. When you were younger you were set loose with some special textas that wrong on the plastic projector sheets and had to very carefully try to write or draw as much of your presentation as possible onto your sheet so that you didn't look like that one weenie whose last sentence had to turn sideways down the side of the page.
  In university I got to have one last play with an overhead projector and printed a colour photocopy of an Italian Renaissance painting onto a sheet of clear plastic for an Italian Art and History class presentation. I spent an embarrassing amount of time holding it up to the light and just gazing through it from either side. It was like having my own very detailed stained glass window.

Overhead Projectors: They Are Cool

• Get To Play With Cassette Tapes And All The Fiddling That Entailed. I mean really, think about all the experiences associated with cassettes.
  -Rewinding them and listening to that clunky 'click!' as they got to the end of the tape.
  -Winding them up with a pencil when they unspooled or if you were fiddling around.
  -Learning to listen to that moment of emptiness that signalled that it had got past the blank bit of tape at the start and you should start recording from this point onwards so that you didn't cut the start off your favourite songs.
  -Physically turning a cassette over unless you had a 'fancy' deck/walkman that did it for you.
  
  (I know these all sound like the things that old people go on about much to their grandchildren's chagrin but this is the point! We're getting to the nostalgia part of life about 30 or 40 years ahead of schedule!)
• Going To The Video Store To Rent Movies. If video stores last another 5 to 10 years I will actually be a bit surprised. What with downloadable movie/TV series rental services already up and running, purchasing your own movies and so forth cheaper than it used to be and the high incidence of movie piracy that goes on amongst the social bracket that used to do all the renting because they couldn't afford to buy*, the profit margins must be getting pretty slim these days.
  But not having that experience of being given a time limit for picking movies, a SET number of movies that was NOT up for negotiation due to the deals the store was offering, and all the bargaining and arguing that went on with your siblings... Well where is the drama and the excitement with doing that from home?
  If you're sitting in front of the family computer with your Mum saying 'I'm only clicking one more item, which one is it going to be?', where's the fun in that?
• Being Excited About Songs On The Radio. You can still get excited about your favourite songs coming on the radio but now that you can just go straight to Youtube or another online service and listen to any song you like on demand at any time, it just isn't the same thing.
  Waiting by your radio with your finger hovering over the record button to catch a song on cassette helped you develop lightning fast reflexes.

There are tonnes of other examples but these are the ones that have popped into my head which I felt met the criteria without straying too far into 'They won't remember telephones with cords' which is a different kind of deal.

It makes you wonder whether as we become more used to change going into the future whether our growing adaptability will be our biggest asset or whether it will lead us to be so flighty in our attentions and loyalties that we're going to shoot ourselves in the foot as a species.

I guess we'll see.



*This is definitely a big generalisation but the more bogan-y a person is the more likely it is that they're pirating movies.

The Joyful Reunion

In the glory days of my library visits when I almost lived there, I one day found an audiobook version of The Long Dark Tea-time Of The Soul by Douglas Adams READ by Douglas Adams.

It took some blinking and some reordering of brain cells to fully appreciate this amazing fact.

A book read by the author who wrote it, in the fashion they intended it to be received.

I borrowed it.

I listened to it.

I fell in love with it.

Douglas Adams' excitable and energetic delivery was eternally engaging*.

I borrowed it over and over again until the cassettes were so badly damaged by the dodgier cassette players of the other people who occasionally managed to borrow them, that the library had to retire them.

Then for years that was it.

I was neither old enough nor internet savvy enough to go searching for them online**, they were no longer available in the stores and I had no other avenues of pursuit.

In recent years I tried the stores again with no result, tried the online retailers for the first time and found the only version readily available was being sold for over $100 and seemed to be a copy that somebody had made from recording their own set of cassettes onto blank CDs which they were the selling online.

I gave up.

And then the other day my brother found not only Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul but also Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency online and downloaded them for me.

For this he was elevated to the rank of Best Brother! Favourite Brother! Amazing Brother!***

For me listening to that audiobook is like stepping into the past. Into quiet hours after midnight when the only person awake was me, listening with the volume turned down low, eating bowls of air-popped popcorn because the smell of hot oil popped popcorn would have woken everyone up.

It gives me a wonderful sense of calm and deja vu.

Listening to it again for the first time in years made me feel wonderfully happy but also somewhat guilty.

I'm not that into downloading things from the internets.
I don't mind watching something once if I've missed it on TV or in order to decide whether I like it or not but if I do like it then I want to own it.
I like to pay money for the things I like and to own them properly in lovely complete formats.

Now as hard as I tried when it came to Douglas Adams and his marvellous reading voice, I couldn't make this a reality, I could not find a legitimate copy anywhere. So I made peace with this by making a donation to Save the Rhino which I'm sure Douglas would have been happy with. I don't know who is in charge of his estate these days but given his passion for conservation I think he'd agree that his executor/heir could do without the royalties if it meant helping rhinos****.

And now with my conscience soothed I can get back to listening to this wonderful, weird man rambling gloriously, letting the chaos of his brain spill out into the world, and regretting all the things he never had time to write but being grateful for the things he did have time to give us.



*Whee! Alliteration!

**Many of the online retailers we rely on today may not have existed or at least existed in their current efficient incarnation at that stage anyway.

***Heh, he's my only brother.

****I would find it wonderfully amusing if the benefactors of his estate were wildlife charities in any case.

One Or The Other Or The Other Or The Other

I'm not very good at having 'favourite' things.

Mostly because I have this wandering memory and if it's been a while since I've seen/read/heard/experienced something, I may not think of it when the question is asked.

I have lots of things I love and am enthusiastic about but if you ever ask me point blank what my favourite book, movie, band, TV show or celebrity hairstyle is I simply will not be able to answer you.

I'll be able to give you a short list in each category of things that I like but I can't elevate one above the other, I don't grade them on a bell curve.

I don't know, maybe these things don't resonate with me on the perfect level they do with other people which allows that level of passion or maybe I'm more aware that the passion I feel for a particular book, show, movie, author, style of dog Halloween costume is partially influenced by its newness and novelty and I'll have to reevaluate my feelings in 6 months time to see if they hold up.
Whatever it is, I'm not good at favourites.

Even seasons.
For the most part, people seem able to declare at least their favourite season without even stopping to think about it.

Even here I struggle.

When it's winter, winter is my favourite season.
The wonderful bracing contrast between the warm inside and the cold outside and how satisfying it is to be inside looking out and knowing how warm you are, or outside looking in knowing how warm you're going to be.
All the scarves, jackets and gloves.
The warming food.
Reading in front of an open fire when you have the chance.
The crazy frost patterns that mean you have to fiddle around with water and wipers for minutes before you can drive to work.

When it's spring, spring is my favourite season.
The new growth.
All the animal babies.
The smells in the air.
The rain.
The touch of cold that still hangs in the air.
The hints of warmth creeping in.

When it's summer, summer is my favourite season.
The sunshine.
The picnics.
The BBQs.
The swimming.
The joy of air-conditioning and cold drinks on sweltering days.
Christmas with the family.
The long days and warm nights.

But autumn, autumn is my favourite season all year around, even when I'm playing at the other seasons being my favourite season.
As the days shorten, a crispness begins to creep into the air and the deciduous trees begin to shed their leaves.
As you get to mix and match the best clothes of summer and the best clothes of winter without having to shed two layers every time you walk in the door.
As the urge to eat harvest-type foods pops up.
As the outdoors becomes more invigorating and the indoors becomes more comfortable.
As your pets start pretending that they love you more than they usually do so they can start poaching your body-heat in preparation for the thermal-vampire routine they'll take up in winter.

For some reason although spring is perched between the two more extreme seasons in exactly the same way, autumn appeals to me more.

So I guess I have one favourite thing.
For now.
Until I get distracted.
And forget again.
And remember again.
Every single year.

But unless I need to answer thee these questions three my inability to commit to or remember my favourite anything on a reliable basis shouldn't actually kill me so I doubt I'll lose any sleep over it.

Instead I'll just stand out here taking deep breaths of the brisk Eucalyptus-scented air and feeling - almost impossibly - aggressively peaceful.

Knot What You're Used To

When it was first explained to me that I wasn't going to be growing a big old beard when I grew up I was incredibly put out.

Beards looked cool.

If you got sick of them you could slim them down into all sorts of moustache configurations.

If you stuck with it you could end up with face fuzz long enough to braid.

None of the female landscaping I found out about later seemed anywhere near as versatile or interesting.

And God help you if you suggested to young Ricochet that shoes, clothes or accessories were on the same level as something you could grow yourself for free and use to disguise yourself when you were on the run from the law.

I've never had peener envy or any of the other associated psychological complexes but I did feel ripped off about beards.

Also ties.

I remember being in primary school and having a friend explain to me with all the confidence of an eight year old that girls get to wear ties as part of their uniform until they finish high school but then after that they don't get to wear ties any more.

That also seemed stupid and unfair.

Ties can look business-like and impressive or you can loosen them at the end of the day to indicate 'THAT'S IT! I'M DONE!'

You can knot them around your forehead if you're going into battle, use them to choke people in exciting urban combat situations, use them to tie things when a length of cord-like material is needed for survival, wear them to work I guess...

And I took my friend's word for it.

You didn't see many ladies on TV wearing ties in office dramas or cop shows; it was all open necked shirts and discreet blouses or tough, no-nonsense, ballsy long-sleeve numbers.

After a while I forgot about it.

Then when I was in university and going through my pretentious stage*, I went into a particularly mismatched kitschy looking cafe and the girl who brought me my giant latte was wearing a tie.

She wasn't just wearing the tie, she was rocking the tie.

Short sleeve button up shirt with ragged sleeves, knee length black skirt, distressed stockings, lovely scuffed berry coloured boots and a tie.

A tie!

Just hangin' there, as natural as can be.

I had a jealous.

And then I had a revelation!

If she could do it, then I could damn well do it!

When I went home I dug out my old school tie, stared at it blankly for a bit and tried to remember how it worked**, flopped it over my neck and then after a few false starts made it look not like a turkey barfing up its own head.

And I never looked back.

I may never grow a truly awesome beard but I will enjoy every minute I'm flaunting a tie.

Because some things are just fun for no particular reason and those are the ones you should make a point to enjoy for themselves in all their unexplained glory.

Even if there was an explanation how could it be better than plain old 'I just feel damn fancy'?



*Well, entering my pretentious stage, I've never really left.

**My memory is very efficient at clearing out anything it deems no longer necessary. If I changed my phone number today I can almost guarantee you that it would be gone in less than a month from the meat storage slot it currently occupies in my long-term memory.

You're Going To Die You Know: A Community Service Announcement

Imagine you've spent all day at work.

Your boss has been riding your ass all week.

You missed lunch because you were trying to meet a deadline.

You have 10 minutes to yourself before you get the train home and straight into 'parental responsibility zone'.

Waiting at the pedestrian crossing you light a cigarette and let yourself unwind just a little bit.

And then you feel a small hand tugging at your trousers at knee level.

You look down and smile tiredly at the little girl staring up at you.

"Hello love," you say.

"You're going to die you know," she pipes in a cheerful fashion.

You stare at her blankly.

You didn't need that, you think to yourself, as the child's mother apologises and drags her away. You could have done right without that.

"Sweetie, you do NOT say that to people!" the mother says as she herds the kid down the street.

"But he was SMOKING! And you said that smoking kills you and-"

"You do NOT say that to people! It isn't polite!"

"Neither is DEATH!"

"Where do you GET this stuff?"*

What did I do to deserve that? You wonder as the light turns green and you cross towards the train station.

Nothing fella, nothing at all.

~~~

To the man minding his own business at the pedestrian crossing and all the people like him, on behalf of my four year old self - I apologise.

But honestly my intentions were good.



*And no, I don't know where I got it either.

Taking Back The Grey Matter

Alright, that's it.
I've done it.
I've turned off the spellchecker and the autocorrect on my computer.
It is banished.
And maybe now I can remember how to spell all by myself.
And my brain will stop melting.

I used to be good at crosswords.
Really good.
Of course I was living with my grandmother at the time* and used to be called in whenever she was stumped.
Woe betide me if I dared to give her the answer for a non-requested clue that she 'was getting to in a minute' but oh the basking in the shared word nerd satisfaction when I identified a word that unlocked a whole section of the puzzle.

I hadn't tried one for a while and then a few months ago I had a crack at the quick crossword in The Age, got two of them fairly quickly and then just ground to a halt.
I couldn't remember any of the... word thingies...
I got stuck on one possible interpretation of multi-definition words and couldn't even think of appropriately sized synonyms for them.
I got cranky and gave up**.
I decided to write a friend a balanced and objective email about how stupid the crossword was and how back in my day they picked words that didn't suck so much.

I got halfway through composing the email and I realised the following:

• I couldn't remember how to spell one of the words I wanted to use and had been retyping it in a few different ways, waiting for the little wiggly line of failure to disappear so I knew that I had it right.
• That whilst my already quick typing had become quicker that was because I was getting lazy with my keystrokes and depending on the program to autocorrect my ham-fisted attempt at English.
• My email was peppered with z's I hadn't put in there and lacking u's I had because despite my best efforts the damn program keeps resetting to US English.
  

So I've turned it off.
And saints be praised, yes I do remember how to spell and dear Lord has my typing really gotten that bad and check it out I've remembered another word for incessant*** all by myself without hitting Shift+F7 because I couldn't be bothered thinking about it.

I have bought myself a book of crosswords.
Let it begin.



*Another side effect was watching The Bill which was actually quite good until it turned into a soap opera.
**Yay for being an adult! Eff you perseverance!
***It's ceaseless!