2002-10-06 - 4:53 p.m.
#113: No Need for a Holiday Pt. 2
Note to self: Someone should do something about the size restrictions on diaryland entries....
And now, back to the entry that was so rudely cut off! I actually wrote this up the next day, simply to get some rest and gather my thoughts.
Friday, 4th October: (continued)
And now, after complaining about the state of SBS programming in this day and age, I now go on to complain about the state of grandchildren in this day and age. Namely the grandchildren of the people living here. I've always thought I was the kind of person who found children to be cute. The kind of person who could take up some sort of living looking after small children and would not feel out of place at all. The kind of person who was paternal down to his very bones. After the first twelve hours upon arriving in this house, I had to reevaluate all I thought I knew. 139 hours later, I was certain that if I had access to several rolls of duct tape, a small box, and a heap of stamps, I would have bundled those adorable little children up and mailed them to Abu-Dhabi where they could live out the rest of their lives as part of the thriving slave labour trade. Oh, how that image warms the very cockles of my heart.
See, the thing you have to know about the grandchildren is: They never seem to go home. Every day, the mother would drop them off here in the morning and then go off to work (or studying.... she may work in the local university) and then pick them up again in the evening. And sometimes, she doesn't even pick them up at all, but leaves them here under the grandparents care and to cause uncontrollable twitches in my left eye as the blood vessels beneath my eyelid threaten to burst. I suppose for a working mother who (may be) earning very little, dropping the children off at the grandparents place for the holidays is much more cost-effective than a daycare activity centre or hiring a babysitter.... But why in GODS name did she have to drop them off with us every single day of the past week? Don't these kids have OTHER grandparents? Or some other people they could be staying with? And why is it that my morning routine now involves waking up to the sound of those children as they burst in through the front door? I don't even have to set an alarm clock anymore, thanks to the regularity of their morning appearance. And no matter how convenient that may be, waking to the sound of screaming, running children on a regular basis is not an experience I'd prefer to keep. Hence I am writing this to pass this experience unto as many different people reading this as possible, so that you too may feel my pain. Or as much pain as empathy permits.
Oh dear, they've just started screaming at each other again. Ah, how touching it is to hear the bonds of siblinghood shatter over the seating arrangement in front of the television. Why, I can barely hear the sound of my sanity creaking with every increasing decibel of their rising tirade. I would do something inappropriately brutal with a handy rolled up newspaper about now, but I must concentrate! and try and let the words flow into this entry. I should probably tell you about the grandchildren themselves. The first child I met was Michael, a four year old with a rather brutal-looking cut down the side of his face, apparently a result of a playground brawl. At first, he was perfectly fine. Confronted by the presence of complete strangers, even a child must be struck dumb by these strange giants who have suddenly strode into his life.
For the first two hours of meeting him, everything was peaceful. And then the question started. No, not questions: QUESTION. And that question was, "Where's my Pokemon card?" And you'd better know the answer damn fast, otherwise you'd get it over and over again. "Where's my Pokemon card?" "I don't know." "Where's my Pokemon card?" "I don't know." "Where's my Pokemon card?" "I don't know." Over and over and OVER again. He just would NOT shut up until I dug into every nook, cranny and crevice and found that missing Pokemon trading card from his dogeared set (apparently, he had no clue as to how to actually PLAY the game). Once reunited with the missing card, he rejoiced and skipped around euphorically for a whole five minutes, before dumping the cards somewhere and concerning himself with something important on TV. He uses this "one question" trick for everything. EVERYTHING. Apparently he believes that if you keep asking a single question long enough, sooner or later the answer has to pop out of somewhere: possibly one's ass. And then there's the whole "running around screaming and laughing and screaming again at the top of your lungs aspect" to round off the whole package. If this is but a mere sample of what parenthood has to offer, you can keep that said package and swing it round to Abu-Dhabi.
And then there's the girl, Sarah. Eight years old and quite possibly an exact duplicate of her younger brother. We had our first encounter with her a few days later after meeting Michael, and it was quite obvious that they were spawned from the same womb. Same "intially quiet and shy" period, followed by the "screaming and the running" period. Evidentally, she was training Michael to be a "Mini-Her". And she was quite obviously the dominant one in the relationship, with her authority being second to only to the mother; as she bossed her younger brother around and forbade him to eat or drink certain treats while she indulged in her own crappulence. I forsee a wonderful career in politics for her. She could very well be the next Margaret Thatcher. One that screams and runs around a lot, naturally.
Individually, they are annoying wasps of undeveloped human. Combined, the two children are a most unholy terror that would put young men off the prospect of marriage and possible children for the rest of their lives. Luckily for me, I don't have much choice (or chance) in the matter but still: If there ever came a time for me to consider marriage, my thoughts would reflect back upon these two children, Michael and Sarah. And in imitation of them, I would run away screaming, trying to get away from anyone who would call themselves "babymaker". Though a one night stand would not be altogether out of the question. Eh? Eh? Oh, nevermind.
But now, onto happier thoughts. And one of the happiest little encounters was meeting one of the childhood friends I mentioned in the previous entry. By a startling coincidence, he was due to arrive in Adelaide from Melbourne on a Tuesday evening; the very evening that we had a family outing at the restaurant owned by his aunt (whom we were old friends with) who was going to pick him up from the airport that night. That just really made my day, that stack of coincidences piling up like that. I almost expected a shooting star to pass overhead with that kind of luck. On top of everything else, he had come to Adelaide to see his orthodontist about the state of his braces, so had no idea that I was here on holiday at all. It's a pity the sister didn't come along so we could have one big reunion, but I lucked out overall with getting just ONE person I knew visiting me; so I'm not too disappointed. Actually, later Saturday evening I'm due to meet another friend I had while growing up, another female who has apparently grown breasts and is going out with someone I presumably don't know. Man, that "growing up" thing sure catches me off guard at times.
Anyway, my friend who had caught a flight here on completely unrelated business: Meeting him again was initially awkward due to that "three year gap since we last spoke" thing. Considering the fact that we both had ICQ and email addresses, this may seem a bit on the unforgiveable side; but you also have to consider the fact that we used talk and play together on a face to face basis, so the switch in communication would be to something that is a great deal less personal. No matter how many smilies and exclamation marks one may put into the message, there's just nothing like dealing with someone when one can gauge their reactions from their facial expressions. Talking to him again after all this time was like loosening ones belt after trying to keep ones stomach in order to impress the ladies (something I'm sure a lot of men reading this would be familiar with).
I've always kept a kind of guard up whenever I talk to people, even with friends I've made since I moved to Auckland. There are just some subjects I'm careful not to broach when talking to them, and I always have to make sure I formulate some kind of humorous remark or witty retort whenever I need to say something. There's even a rudimentary competition in amongst all this, where the winner is determined by the largest number of insightful, informational or entertaining comments they have made (bonus points for combining all three!). I think I've mentioned all this before in an entry some time previous, but all this adds up to a system of conversation that's not unlike dueling, only with words. And I have a tendency to talk with this kind of system in mind ALL the time. This kind of requirement tends to be a bit tiresome after a while.... But I have an image to maintain and relaxing my guard could open a whole pandoras box of circumstances. I mean, when was the last time you told someone how you REALLY felt about them and their little quirks? I'm quite sure that every person has something they would automatically lie about if asked.
But with my friend here.... Oh hell, let's just call him by his real name: Terence. And his little sister is Tammi. I always feel vaguely uncomfortable mentioning other peoples names whenever I write diary entries. It's like I'm invading their privacy without their permission, for some reason. Name dropping is not a habit I frequent. Anyway, with my friend Terence, a lot of the pretenses I mention above just drop away to reveal the unpolished person that I am inside. There's not a lot that you CAN'T talk about when the person you're talking to has known you for about half of your life; and most of your formative teenager years to boot. Besides, he knows all the stupid jokes I used to tell when my sense of humour was about as sophisticated as a fart joke and also the times when I weeped like the sissy mommys boy that I was. If you can't be open with someone like that, then you can't be open with ANYBODY. When someone has the means to blackmail you with embarassing childhood stories, you better pay attention and be right up honest about what you say double quick fast. I think this is the reason why we resent it when parents order us around. I mean, what can we do? They've seen us naked. They've BATHED us. They've changed our shat diapers. Oh, how they could destroy us so, should we disobey them.
So the first thing Terence told me (after getting over the shock of seeing me sitting so casually in the restaurant. Like, "whoa") was "You haven't changed a bit!" That depressed me. You'd think that SOMETHING would have caused me to look miraculously different to my old friends so they can go, "Wow! You have turned into a veritable stud of a manly man!" And if they were male, the additional, "But I'm not gay! Not in the slightest!". I'm thinking I need plastic surgery, just so that I don't have to hear that line ever again. As for him.... At first, I almost didn't recognise him! Or maybe my memories were just playing tricks on me. When I got a good look at him the second time round, it all seemed to settle back into order in my mind, so I assume my mind was just being a silly little goose. Still, nothing like vastly contrasting opinions about each others physical appearance to get the conversation ball rolling; and roll it did, as we settled down to about what's been happening to us the last couple of years. It was just great. We talked about something and we made sure to talk about it to its conclusion. He was doing a masters degree in media arts design (or some such) and was thinking about his future career prospects once he completed the coursework.
In fact, we even had a talk about what I was expecting out of life (considering the fact I'd dropped out of university, my future was in a greater doubt than his) and it was an actual TALK. Not a quick, "Well, you're a pretty smart guy, you probably know what to do. So good luck with that." if I were to tell anyone else about this problem, but a long conversation wherein he dragged out the reasons for where I was today and how I was going about changing it. Admittedly, a lot of what he said to me could have been his own need to pry into other peoples lives and his ego-driven pursuit of excellence, and a lot of what was discussed has been filed away into various entries all over my online journal. But just to have someone give me a quick walkthrough over the possibilities I was missing out on due to the rigid thinking I'd grown accustomed to.... Well, it was enlightening to hear someone elses point of view on all this.
Normally, all I have to go on is the sound of my own voice (well, in my head anyway. And that doesn't sound completely sane) giving me advice based upon what I know about myself. I think I know myself and my limitations pretty well, but it really takes someone looking on the outside to take note of all the problems I'm avoiding because I can't pin them down by myself. Terence and I spoke about a lot that day, and I'm really glad I had that chat with him. Plus, we cracked a whole bunch of stupid jokes that only work when used between close friends (the kind that would stir all the response of a landed, gutted fish). Now, I have to make sure the self help advice he's given doesn't get shoved away to do "later". Like a whole lot of other things I was meant to do "later", but never really got around to doing. Like the state of this journal 90% of the time.
I'll be meeting him again later on this or next week (He leaves again on a Tuesday) so I'll keep you posted for any other developments in the secret life of Edwyn. The life that I don't put down into an online journal, anyway. Which means that even if there WERE developments, you wouldn't hear about it. With that out of the way, we come to a discussion about a most important part about all holidays: The shopping. I must give a warning at this point that the following passages will be filled with geeky otakuism that may frighten some people with the sheer depths of their obsessiveness. Reader discretion is advised.
Now, when I first started roaming around the city I was positively elated at the range of anime DVDs available in the speciality DVD stores. It simply puts New Zealands selection to shame, although the selection of anime DVDs outside of that said speciality stores tended to be on the slim side: mostly Dragonball Z, which was no surprise. As I roamed further however, (after picking up one DVD I had been waiting for so long to come to Oceanian shores but never thought possible) I began to feel a creeping sense of disappointment at the utter lack of anime related product stores.
What was even worse was the fact that the two comic stores I used to frequent had suddenly upped and vanished: their lots empty and full of dustbunnies where shelves of comics, action figures and other nerd-related merchandise once towered. That was a bit of a blow, considering that I bought my first manga and "non-Manga Entertainment Australia" relased anime from one of these said stores. The one that had an owner who was in the habit of rounding the prices of purchases to the nearest whole number, and often rounded DOWN to a far cheaper price. He was a really cool guy. Far cooler than the owner of the other store, who had a crap selection of mainstream titles and obviously counted his cash carefully. But even so, it was a bit sad to see them both disappear at apparently the same time.
The next couple of days of shopping proved to be a bit on the dull side. Picking carefully through the various shopping malls, I managed to locate a couple of gems, including a store selling action figures/sculptures: both anime and non; as well as an Electronics Boutique store that was having a 50% discounted sale on some of their anime related figurines. But I was still finding it hard to believe that two of the (only) comic book stores in Adelaide had gone walkabout like that, so on Friday morning I decided to comb the entirety of Rundle Mall and beyond to see if I couldn't turn up any new ones that had taken over. I needn't have worried in the first place. The first store I found was that of the stingy comics guy, just a few blocks down from his old location. Despite the change in location, it was still an extremely small shop with an even worse selection of material available. At least he had a shelf of anime VHS to sell, although on closer inspection, I found them all to be a bit on the suspect side.... Not a single one of the titles on display DIDN'T have some picture of a woman in some form of undress; but then again, considering the way anime is marketed sometimes, those covers could well be for perfectly unhentai anime.
The third store I managed to find was for the generous comics guy, whom I was quite pleased to see still operating the store. He probably didn't recognise me, though. I visit like, what? Once every two years? Anyway, this particular store hadn't actually moved from the arcade it was originally in at all. It just moved a couple of lots over to a smaller one, which made me feel a little sheepish not finding it the first time around. I mean, not immediately finding the first shop was understandable since he'd moved a couple of streets away, but not able to find a shop that was still in the same building and not a hundred metres away from the old place? That takes some real potent stupidness there, I reckon. In any case, while I was happy to see the store was still around, it just didn't have QUITE the same range it used to. It was still a good store overall, and the owner still gives those carefree style discounts (despite his apparent financial troubles.... The new store has a far smaller floor area than the old, possibly a result of the GST being introduced to Australia) but I have to admit, my enthusiasm in finding the place alive and well was dampened due to finding another store before this one. The SECOND store.
Now the second store had to be the most joyful find I never thought possible in Adelaide. It wasn't a comic book store, it was far, far better than that: for it was a miscellaneous anime merchandise store, with an emphasis on figures, plushies, keychains and just a whole bunch of stuff one would never think to find concentrated in just one store. Least of all, one in a city as quiet as Adelaide. Here, in this city, was a store that was selling the 1/6th scale figures of characters from Final Fantasy X. Rei Ayanami plushies. Rurouni Kenshin gumball figures. Limited edition Valkyrie toys from Robotech. Lagunas ring and necklace set from Final Fantasy VIII. The first time I passed the store, I nearly tore my neck off doing a double take. There was just so much to love in this store, and so little budget to splash out onto it. The only problem was: when I first found the store, it was closed. You can't imagine the sheer desperation I felt, as I plastered myself all over the display windows of the store, searching for some way to force my body to undergo the process of osmosis through the pane glass. Or at least searching for the trading times so that I could return later to molest the items that were on display. And return later I did when it was open, and I was happy to make an entire list of what I wanted, although the thought that I would not be walking away with it all made me a bit unhappy. But for the gleefully otaku side of me, just seeing this sort of store here in Adelaide is good enough for me. Huzzah!
But now, I want to finish this entry off and go to sleep. It's taken me about a day to finish writing this all out, almost certainly a sign of my lagging enthusiasm. I really need to gain some stamina in terms of long term writing. It simply does no good to be stuck on the wording of sentences all the time. Ah well. More about me and my trip in Australia another time, then! Farewell, commited readers of mine!
