the new place and such
I’m now temporarily in a new place, Nat’s place here in Edwardstown. Old housing trust stock, attached to the neighbour, crumbly standard red brick in a compact square, in a light industrial area. Inside, not too squeezy, with broad polished floorboards, pokey bedrooms, and a fair-sized dining section. Not exactly inspiring, but adequate. Not unlike our connected Ridleyton properties. Will miss the internet, and other home comforts, but it’s only for a fortnight, and the job of caring for Nat isn’t too onerous. A bit of yukkiness here and there, with the previous carer having left in acrimonious circs and likely not wanting to buff the silverware etc after being so ill-treated for his pains. So I’ve cleaned out the microwave and removed the pissy old mattress from my bedroom, and I’m ready to baby-sit.
As I’ve already mentioned, I think, my young charge is addicted to playstation 2, the game being Grand Theft Auto, San Andreas. There’s another one, which he’s played out, called Vice City. This is my first exposure to these games, which are like interactive shoot-em-up movies, which seem to go on infinitely if you want them to, which Nat does. I’ve been sitting in this unfamiliar living-room for the past four hours reading Proust and watching Nat’s black character, CJ (not Carl Jung, but Carl Johnson) stealing cars, trucks, boats and planes and murdering hundreds of putative rival gang members, as part of his respect-gaining missions. I know how addictive such games can become, and I need to put some brakes on the lad, who neglects everything, even food, and certainly such basics as showering, properly dressing, cleaning up his environment, interacting (though he talks chirpily enough about his black dude’s adventures) and sleeping, in order to carry out just that one next mission. Take him out to a movie, shopping, the beach, any dose of reality you like.
I’ve now met both Nat’s parents. They are big people, especially his mother, huge-girthed and regular fish and chip and potato crisp eaters. Young Nat’s a beanpole by comparison, which makes me a bee’s whisker. I told Nat to help himself to my fish curry but he preferred potato crisps, of which he ate an enormous packet. When I asked him for some local knowledge about places to go in the ‘hood (that’s Grand Theft Auto lingo), he gave me directions to the local Red Rooster, McDonalds, Hungry Jack’s and KFC. Kind of leaves me speechless, but altogether I’m being too passive with him. Need to be more insistent about eating dinner at table, with TV off, restricting PS2 playing, encouraging a greater variety of activities, getting him to cook more, to go shopping, which reminds me I haven’t received his board yet. A little sit down chat is required.
Proust and his precious hated Guermantes set, they’re such a yawn most of the time, and the talk of inferiors and superiors, in people and out people, becomes so predictable after a while, I’m not always sure why I persevere. The Dreyfus factor, which adds a different element of puerility to the mix, does heighten the interest a little more, but not much. Can’t wait for him to get back to lust, inversion and the nature of memory.
Here at the holiday home in Edwardstown I wake up late, just before 8am, and flip up the noisy blind on the window facing south. The bedroom’s small but so is the bed, so all in all I have more room. This computer has some weird quirks, and it’s not internet connected, so it’s going to be awkward. I’m finding that playing music on this and my own computer as I work doesn’t work, there’s a continual stop-start thing happening. Best to obtain a little portable CD player.
At least got Nat to watch the Sunday program this morning. His views on the death of Arafat, ‘yeah, it’s sad, the Palestinians, they’ve got more people than the Israelis and yet they won’t even give them any land, and when they do they start taking it off them again, they won’t even let them have it in peace.’ And then it was back to video games and car parts, but at least this went further than anything I got from my previous two lads.
A brief time out, at Café Va Bene in Campbelltown or thereabouts for lunch with a tableful of Sarah’s family and friends – or rather Rachel’s. They had been to a ‘dedication’, something religious for Rachel’s youngest child Zach, one year old, held at a nearby Baptist Church. Naturally I wasn’t keen on overseeing the ceremony but was happy to partake of the lunch afterwards. This was acceptable to Rachel and Dave, and more than acceptable to Sarah who was relying on me to pay for her lunch (I should say that since I’m paid relatively generously as a foster carer and Sarah isn’t paid at all as a constantly on call mother and grandmother and hostess to various waifs and strays, I’m more than happy to help her out financially).
However it didn’t surprise me in the least that one of the first persons to speak to me when I entered the café was the infamous G-G (aka Winifred, Sarah’s mum, Rachel and Catherine and Fiona’s gran, Michael and Isabelle and Olivia and Courtney and Zach’s G-G). ‘Were you at the church?’ she asked me accusingly. I told her in a firm tone and with a cordial smile that I wasn’t, half-hoping she would ‘make something of it’. However, Sarah, ever-hovering, interposed with the remark that I had a ‘prior engagement’. I was molto peeved about this, but it’s typical of this family, in which major issues are never openly discussed for fear of causing offence. So I was given the option either to acquiesce in Sarah’s lie, or to contradict her, in effect showing her up as a liar in front of her mother. But there was a third option, that of silence, neither confirming nor denying, which I took. None too satisfactory, for I would’ve preferred to confront this controlling busybody head-on. Her response was ‘well, you don’t get to eat then’, with a great laugh, to indicate the obvious fact that this was too ridiculous an instruction to be taken seriously. In other words, she’d ‘chickened out’ and deprived me of the opportunity of giving her the right royal bollocking that she deserved, that everyone knows she deserves and that nobody has the heart or courage to give her.
It occurs to me sadly that since I dislike religion mainly because it’s a ruse to deny or transcend (via the human ego) the unbearable fact of physical death, I’m allowed to avoid going into a church except when funerals come along, when it would seem churlish to hold out on entering a church merely on principle. And of course it’s usually during funeral ceremonies that this denial of death is at its most hysterical. Can’t win. Feel surrounded by aliens sometimes (imagine if I was living in America, not to mention Iraq or Afghanistan, or Israel…).
Locked in my small new room with Nat bored in the lounge, playing stations, both in his game and on TV, wondering about money having paid for three meals (Fiona’s too, and she had scrubbed up rather well, I know I know), thinking about stepometers and gymnasia and Penis Rising once again, all isn’t lost, tomorrow must ask what Nat’s doing tomorrow, I’ve got a La Luna meeting to prepare for, a finance report and some payments, and this stepometer, really, and Centrelink to chase up just in case, and maybe I’ll approach Catherine about this cheque that Barbara Lloyd’s dad may not have received, that’ll be a worthwhile device to start a careful regeneration of friendliness, but probably not tomorrow it being La Luna day and Tuesdays are her co-op days, maybe Wednesday, these things must be planned, but I feel confident now, I’m working myself up. Confident because it’s so far away, timewise? Tempted to bring it up with Sarah but that would get me nowhere, and I shouldn’t think poor Sarah, she gets a lot from me, just about as much as I can give.
Something cheery from King John:
the glorious sun
Stays in his course and plays the alchemist,
Turning with splendour of his precious eye
The meagre cloddy earth to glittering gold
Unfortunately though it’s a mechanic’s handkerchief sky again.
Apart from yesterday’s stint at Café Va Bene, a quiet time reading, mainly yesterday Moorehead’s pacey account of the allied campaign in North Africa, with a bit of Joyce and Proust to slow things down. Today to look forward to, cleaning, shopping, La Luna work, maybe a stepometer, dragging things from home. Floppy disk, power board, shirts, jumper. Would like to buy a mini CD player if it’s not too much.
Castleplazaland, not as big as it seems (it’s a small world after all), bought a stepometer (every step you take), which in a matter of two and a half hours has already reached over 3000 steps (don’t trust it as a measure, but useful as long as it’s internally consistent, that’s to say as long as it uses the same dubious measures day in day out). They say 10 thousand’s the lower limit to aim for, which seems about right, even if steps are measured strangely – hooking the thing on took up 10 steps, though I hadn’t moved from my bench seat. Visited Target, looked at portable CD players (too expensive for now), bought some floppy disks, plus the stepometer, a New Scientist and a latte.
Soon I’ll be leaving to spend a few hours first at Exeter Terrace then at Nieass Place for the La Luna meeting. I must ring Centrelink, and I must take, but it probably won’t happen today, 100 points identification plus the AGM minutes to the Hindmarsh branch of Bank SA. Maybe tomorrow for that one, today I must try to finish October’s Finance Report, and especially prepare the October SACHA and Comhouse payments. This is all voluntary, mind. Tenancy’s another matter to be dealt with when all that’s over. Also, need to work out my rent situation properly.
Sitting down to read New Scientist is always a treat, and I often think, yes, I’ll devote my life to this, to the understanding of and expounding upon scientific developments, if only to myself, because it’s something I believe in, something that energises me, I world I’d like to inhabit, even if the cutting edges give my brain some pain. Or even to write something fictional with a ‘rational’ narrator, science-obsessed, who tries and fails to woo a few lovers, on scientific principles. Something tragic-comic, as usual. So maybe that’s what I should focus on, for a laugh. Sex and science.
Currently, I’m unattached – in fact there are times when I seriously wonder whether I’ll ever have sex again. Should I more seriously consider the penis enlargement proposals floating about in cyberspace? Not at this stage. I have a friend who tells me that chat rooms are the go, but for the next couple of weeks I’ll be out of touch with the internet. I should use the interval to build myself up into the kind of super-specimen women look at more than once, though after forty-eight years of neglect, that’s a tall order.
As I’ve already mentioned, I think, my young charge is addicted to playstation 2, the game being Grand Theft Auto, San Andreas. There’s another one, which he’s played out, called Vice City. This is my first exposure to these games, which are like interactive shoot-em-up movies, which seem to go on infinitely if you want them to, which Nat does. I’ve been sitting in this unfamiliar living-room for the past four hours reading Proust and watching Nat’s black character, CJ (not Carl Jung, but Carl Johnson) stealing cars, trucks, boats and planes and murdering hundreds of putative rival gang members, as part of his respect-gaining missions. I know how addictive such games can become, and I need to put some brakes on the lad, who neglects everything, even food, and certainly such basics as showering, properly dressing, cleaning up his environment, interacting (though he talks chirpily enough about his black dude’s adventures) and sleeping, in order to carry out just that one next mission. Take him out to a movie, shopping, the beach, any dose of reality you like.
I’ve now met both Nat’s parents. They are big people, especially his mother, huge-girthed and regular fish and chip and potato crisp eaters. Young Nat’s a beanpole by comparison, which makes me a bee’s whisker. I told Nat to help himself to my fish curry but he preferred potato crisps, of which he ate an enormous packet. When I asked him for some local knowledge about places to go in the ‘hood (that’s Grand Theft Auto lingo), he gave me directions to the local Red Rooster, McDonalds, Hungry Jack’s and KFC. Kind of leaves me speechless, but altogether I’m being too passive with him. Need to be more insistent about eating dinner at table, with TV off, restricting PS2 playing, encouraging a greater variety of activities, getting him to cook more, to go shopping, which reminds me I haven’t received his board yet. A little sit down chat is required.
Proust and his precious hated Guermantes set, they’re such a yawn most of the time, and the talk of inferiors and superiors, in people and out people, becomes so predictable after a while, I’m not always sure why I persevere. The Dreyfus factor, which adds a different element of puerility to the mix, does heighten the interest a little more, but not much. Can’t wait for him to get back to lust, inversion and the nature of memory.
Here at the holiday home in Edwardstown I wake up late, just before 8am, and flip up the noisy blind on the window facing south. The bedroom’s small but so is the bed, so all in all I have more room. This computer has some weird quirks, and it’s not internet connected, so it’s going to be awkward. I’m finding that playing music on this and my own computer as I work doesn’t work, there’s a continual stop-start thing happening. Best to obtain a little portable CD player.
At least got Nat to watch the Sunday program this morning. His views on the death of Arafat, ‘yeah, it’s sad, the Palestinians, they’ve got more people than the Israelis and yet they won’t even give them any land, and when they do they start taking it off them again, they won’t even let them have it in peace.’ And then it was back to video games and car parts, but at least this went further than anything I got from my previous two lads.
A brief time out, at Café Va Bene in Campbelltown or thereabouts for lunch with a tableful of Sarah’s family and friends – or rather Rachel’s. They had been to a ‘dedication’, something religious for Rachel’s youngest child Zach, one year old, held at a nearby Baptist Church. Naturally I wasn’t keen on overseeing the ceremony but was happy to partake of the lunch afterwards. This was acceptable to Rachel and Dave, and more than acceptable to Sarah who was relying on me to pay for her lunch (I should say that since I’m paid relatively generously as a foster carer and Sarah isn’t paid at all as a constantly on call mother and grandmother and hostess to various waifs and strays, I’m more than happy to help her out financially).
However it didn’t surprise me in the least that one of the first persons to speak to me when I entered the café was the infamous G-G (aka Winifred, Sarah’s mum, Rachel and Catherine and Fiona’s gran, Michael and Isabelle and Olivia and Courtney and Zach’s G-G). ‘Were you at the church?’ she asked me accusingly. I told her in a firm tone and with a cordial smile that I wasn’t, half-hoping she would ‘make something of it’. However, Sarah, ever-hovering, interposed with the remark that I had a ‘prior engagement’. I was molto peeved about this, but it’s typical of this family, in which major issues are never openly discussed for fear of causing offence. So I was given the option either to acquiesce in Sarah’s lie, or to contradict her, in effect showing her up as a liar in front of her mother. But there was a third option, that of silence, neither confirming nor denying, which I took. None too satisfactory, for I would’ve preferred to confront this controlling busybody head-on. Her response was ‘well, you don’t get to eat then’, with a great laugh, to indicate the obvious fact that this was too ridiculous an instruction to be taken seriously. In other words, she’d ‘chickened out’ and deprived me of the opportunity of giving her the right royal bollocking that she deserved, that everyone knows she deserves and that nobody has the heart or courage to give her.
It occurs to me sadly that since I dislike religion mainly because it’s a ruse to deny or transcend (via the human ego) the unbearable fact of physical death, I’m allowed to avoid going into a church except when funerals come along, when it would seem churlish to hold out on entering a church merely on principle. And of course it’s usually during funeral ceremonies that this denial of death is at its most hysterical. Can’t win. Feel surrounded by aliens sometimes (imagine if I was living in America, not to mention Iraq or Afghanistan, or Israel…).
Locked in my small new room with Nat bored in the lounge, playing stations, both in his game and on TV, wondering about money having paid for three meals (Fiona’s too, and she had scrubbed up rather well, I know I know), thinking about stepometers and gymnasia and Penis Rising once again, all isn’t lost, tomorrow must ask what Nat’s doing tomorrow, I’ve got a La Luna meeting to prepare for, a finance report and some payments, and this stepometer, really, and Centrelink to chase up just in case, and maybe I’ll approach Catherine about this cheque that Barbara Lloyd’s dad may not have received, that’ll be a worthwhile device to start a careful regeneration of friendliness, but probably not tomorrow it being La Luna day and Tuesdays are her co-op days, maybe Wednesday, these things must be planned, but I feel confident now, I’m working myself up. Confident because it’s so far away, timewise? Tempted to bring it up with Sarah but that would get me nowhere, and I shouldn’t think poor Sarah, she gets a lot from me, just about as much as I can give.
Something cheery from King John:
the glorious sun
Stays in his course and plays the alchemist,
Turning with splendour of his precious eye
The meagre cloddy earth to glittering gold
Unfortunately though it’s a mechanic’s handkerchief sky again.
Apart from yesterday’s stint at Café Va Bene, a quiet time reading, mainly yesterday Moorehead’s pacey account of the allied campaign in North Africa, with a bit of Joyce and Proust to slow things down. Today to look forward to, cleaning, shopping, La Luna work, maybe a stepometer, dragging things from home. Floppy disk, power board, shirts, jumper. Would like to buy a mini CD player if it’s not too much.
Castleplazaland, not as big as it seems (it’s a small world after all), bought a stepometer (every step you take), which in a matter of two and a half hours has already reached over 3000 steps (don’t trust it as a measure, but useful as long as it’s internally consistent, that’s to say as long as it uses the same dubious measures day in day out). They say 10 thousand’s the lower limit to aim for, which seems about right, even if steps are measured strangely – hooking the thing on took up 10 steps, though I hadn’t moved from my bench seat. Visited Target, looked at portable CD players (too expensive for now), bought some floppy disks, plus the stepometer, a New Scientist and a latte.
Soon I’ll be leaving to spend a few hours first at Exeter Terrace then at Nieass Place for the La Luna meeting. I must ring Centrelink, and I must take, but it probably won’t happen today, 100 points identification plus the AGM minutes to the Hindmarsh branch of Bank SA. Maybe tomorrow for that one, today I must try to finish October’s Finance Report, and especially prepare the October SACHA and Comhouse payments. This is all voluntary, mind. Tenancy’s another matter to be dealt with when all that’s over. Also, need to work out my rent situation properly.
Sitting down to read New Scientist is always a treat, and I often think, yes, I’ll devote my life to this, to the understanding of and expounding upon scientific developments, if only to myself, because it’s something I believe in, something that energises me, I world I’d like to inhabit, even if the cutting edges give my brain some pain. Or even to write something fictional with a ‘rational’ narrator, science-obsessed, who tries and fails to woo a few lovers, on scientific principles. Something tragic-comic, as usual. So maybe that’s what I should focus on, for a laugh. Sex and science.
Currently, I’m unattached – in fact there are times when I seriously wonder whether I’ll ever have sex again. Should I more seriously consider the penis enlargement proposals floating about in cyberspace? Not at this stage. I have a friend who tells me that chat rooms are the go, but for the next couple of weeks I’ll be out of touch with the internet. I should use the interval to build myself up into the kind of super-specimen women look at more than once, though after forty-eight years of neglect, that’s a tall order.
posted by Stewart at 4:21 pm
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