splendour...

where's tani?



talent



aaww









making friends








tanibreni


2 heads


yup..


Warren Ellis



neat pleats



look over there ->


e is for eddiee


long lunch...





hail the sparkly things


sunset.

Mean Girls

My sister is a bit of a wanker magnet, and growing up she had a few of them who followed her around. One of them, damian smolchski was this psycho guy I was totally scared of, he was into the army and used to follow her home on his bike and try to ram her. And there's another guy, from learn to swim class..

The other night, I was stuck in town in the rain and I hailed a 99b, but the driver pretended to drive off without me, then stopped and made me run to get on, and said, ‘gotcha’ and chuckled to himself… it was really hilarious... really… Anyway, I recognized him as soon as I got on even though he looked pretty different. He must be about 33 but he looks about 45-50 and he used to be tall and goofy looking but now he’s filled out and a bit wrinkly.

He was in my sisters learn to swim class at the local pool, and he invited her to his birthday party. Our mother in all her wisdom forced her to go, I’m not sure why, something about not being rude, it was a very degrassi junior high moment. When Claire talks about that day, she says all she remembers is that the house had concrete floors, there were no other girls there and that a pack of 12yr old ferrel boys chased her down the street. After the party, about once every 6 months or so, this kid would just turn up at our house without warning, and hang around for a few hours, and then his mum would come pick him up in a station wagon packed with other goofy dirty looking kids.

Being cruel young girls, we would hide from him and make mum and dad lie and say we weren’t home, or we’d just ignore him and he would just sit in the courtyard and watch everyone go about their thing. One time when I was around 15 (and in the midst of extreme teen angst), he came over and I was watering the plants, I remember telling him that Claire had gone to Iceland on an exchange and wouldn’t be back for a long time, then I wet him with the hose and told him to go away. At this point I think my mother realised that her initial reasons for making Claire go to that party years ago had sort of backfired.

Anyway, a couple of months ago my sis got a letter from this guy, explaining how he had been truly in love with her ever since ‘learn to swim’ class in 1984 and how since then he has been through a lot of stuff, and even after a serious accident which had meant 3 years of rehab and caused massive amnesia, during that time he still remembered his feelings for her. Now he had discovered that she was getting married, and he was happy for her, and had heard that Nic was a good guy….

Reverting to our mean girl behaviour, all the letter did was provide some comedy and a few concerns about stalking. And when I got on that bus, all I thought was omg I’ve gotta get away from this guy. Anyway, I recognized him and he recognized me too, he said ‘hey, your face looks familiar’ and I said ‘I don’t think so’ and tried to walk quickly to the back of the bus, but he called me back ‘come here and talk to me..’ so I did, and I did. And he showed me his name badge and said ‘ring any bells yet’ and I confessed to knowing him. He told me about his accident, and how he couldn’t walk, and was in hospital for months. Bad habits die hard and as soon as we got close enough that I could walk mostly under shelter to my bus, I got off and hid til he left. He seemed pretty happy driving his bus though. I'm glad.