Is It Just Me? (6 page)

I once met the amazing Pip Lincolne from Melbourne. She is a master craftslady, has written three beautiful crafty books and drinks cups of tea behind the counter of her amazing shop full of cute bespoke bits and pieces. She has sparkly blue eyes and a blunt black bob and she wears cardigans and has a son called Remy. She's one of those people you meet and within a few minutes you're thinking, “I would not mind at all if I wake up tomorrow and I AM Pip Lincolne.”

This happened to me when I did a TV segment with her in which we made cushions out of old shirts and greeting cards out of op-shop copies of Golden Books. After being in her orbit for just a few short minutes, I had tantalising visions of me making little pencil cases at home in my craft room with a cat on my lap and Carole King on my iPod. I would wear a wooden owl brooch and eat home-made plum cake and drink Lady Grey tea from a polka dot cup. I would be the Queen of Pencil Cases! I'd have a pencil case for every occasion!

All I needed, Pip said, was a sewing machine. Which reminded me, I did have a crack at sewing once when I was in my early twenties and literally sewed through my finger. Twice. I actually had to unpick the stitch out of my index finger with a Quick Unpick.

In primary school I was a dab hand at finger knitting. Who needs actual needles when you have fingers? I made several holey, long, skinny sheaths of wool using only my index fingers. Their purpose is still a great mystery to me.

My grandmother was amazing at crochet. She was a woman possessed, really. She'd spend the lion's share of her pension on hand towels, face washers and tea towels from Best & Less and proceed to trim each of them with crochet. Every time I'd visit her she'd make me sit in front of her chair as she plucked each work of art from a bag, laid it across her lap, and met my gaze expectantly, waiting for a unique reaction for each one.

I ran out of adjectives after the 113th facecloth. When she passed away she left me her timber cribbage board in the shape of Australia and all her crochet patterns. She must have picked me as a fellow craftslady.

So, inspired by Gran and Pip Lincolne and those “Here's How To” pages in the paper, I decided I really needed a sewing machine.

I rallied my sisters and best friend and begged for a Husqvarna for my birthday. Thrilled at the suggestion (apparently I'm hard to buy for and, strangely, none of them had thought of a sewing machine as a possible gift … wonder why?), they dutifully purchased it and wrapped it up, and I clapped when they presented it to me over strawberry melbas and coffee.

I'd had it for a whole week and hadn't opened the box. Then a month passed.

Then a couple of months. Then I had another birthday. Then I had another baby. Then I did my kitchen. Then I started a new job.

Life was certainly busy, but every so often I'd make sure to find a few moments to indulge in a pang of guilt and mourn the loss of my crafty dream.

I now realise it's not going to happen. I'm just not that person. I don't like Lady Grey. I prefer Joni Mitchell to Carole King. I don't have a craft room. Or a cat who likes to sit. Sadly, the sewing machine is staying in its box. It's going to be two years in November.

I might even put it on eBay.

Actually, maybe I could exchange it for a pasta machine! I'm sure they do that sort of thing on Gumtree. I have this vision of making all my own pasta … from scratch.

I can see it as clear as day! I'll spend whole weekends scooping big handfuls of semolina out of a fabric sack and wiping my floury hands on my red checked apron … a village dog will be milling around my glazed terracotta floor collecting scraps and I'll clap and say, “Prego!” then crack fresh eggs with one hand.

Or maybe I'll just go to the local and buy a packet of spaghetti. And a pencil case.

 

29th July 2012

I've been sick. Very sick. This week, I met gastro face to face. And even though I liked it about as much as I like a person who brings out a calculator to divvy up a dinner bill, I am kind of grateful it visited because, weirdly, I learnt some stuff about myself.

I was talking to my friend Mel about the dreaded lurgy. We had our babies a few weeks apart a year ago. She had a long and spine-chilling labour. She gives a softly spoken warning before she tells anyone about it because if it was a movie, it would be classified by adult themes, horror and obscene language. And even Mel said, “Proper gastro is like childbirth. It makes you crazy. If someone offered you a choice between death, or living through it, there's a chance, in your rank stupor, that you could quite easily take the former.” She has a point.

Being out of action when you have small children is terrible. I was holed up in my bedroom, acting like whatever that was that lived under the stairs in
The Munsters
. I was drifting in and out of consciousness, snatching small conversations with my three-year-old, who would tentatively enter the room, climb on the bed and engage in conversations like:

“Mummy … are you okay?”

“Not really, no. I have a bug.”

“Is it a … ladybug?”

Then he'd scuttle away and I'd hear him saying in an adult voice to his dad, “I don't think Mummy's going to make it.”

I wanted to assure him I would, but I was out of it again, flattened like a wounded seahorse, in my nest of towels. Remind me to burn those, okay?

My one-year-old, we decided, was not to be touched by me at all. I knew I might be contagious and wanted desperately for this little angel to be spared twenty-four hours of acting like something from
The Exorcist
. So he would come in in his dad's arms, catch sight of me, then be whisked away
Sophie's Choice
-style, screaming with arms outstretched. I would mutter something like, “Trust me, kid, this is not the mummy you want today.” But it was terrible. Just terrible. The great news is that after approximately forty dry heaves and feeling like I'd done three days of ab crunches, it passed. Just like that. And I could enjoy Saladas for fun, not survival.

My family is my kingdom. I spend every waking hour making sure they have a beautiful, kind, comfortable and enriching life. It is my life. It is ours. I am present in it every minute of every day. It is my very favourite thing to do. My very favourite place to be. So it is very odd to be absent. To step down. I found it a bit confronting. I don't think I'm a control freak. I just felt like I was missing out on something. Meals were prepared. Eaten. Baths taken. Hair washed. Stories read. Even Buzz Lightyear crises were averted. In the distance, down the hallway at lunchtime, I heard the fridge open and in my head I was screaming, “There's a chicken, sweet potato and chia stew I made for baby Kit in resealable tubs!” But, as in a bad dream, nothing came out.

The world, to my surprise, did not end.

I am not a sickie-taker, either, but I took TWO whole mornings off my brekky radio show. I warned my boss with a text message at 11pm. It was simply a photo of my current view: the toilet bowl and the words, “Something evil this way comes.” At 2am I texted again, this time from over the kitchen sink, and said I didn't think my 4.30am alarm would be obeyed. Not this morning. Or the morning after, as it turned out.

But guess what? The radio show went to air. It was great. The world didn't end.

It is refreshing to find that, despite my belief to the contrary, I am not the centre of the universe. Despite the well-thumbed and scribbled-upon pages of my old-fashioned paper diary, I can put a big fat red cross through two or three whole days and nothing diabolical happens. One rogue microbe, lodged in my gut, taught me that it's okay to let go occasionally and that people will cope.

Thank you, gastro, for letting me give the incredible people around me a bit more credit for their roles as oarsmen in the canoe of our life. Because sometimes that bossy one who rides along the shore on her bike screaming into a megaphone can hit a rock and come a cropper. And guess what? The canoe will still slide through the water just as it always has. Thank you, gastro. Thank you.

 

5th August 2012

I'm being stalked. My tormenter is not clad in a sci-fi merchandise T-shirt, sporting a greasy comb-over, nor is he at my window clocking intimate moments such as me defrosting the mince for dinner or hooking rogue mandarin pips from the mouth of my crawler. No. He is stalking me by phone. From his gym.

I've been a member of four gyms in my life. The first time I signed up and literally never set foot in there again. That “free” assessment ended up costing me more than $1000 and a fair nudge to my self-esteem. The other times I just lost interest because treadmills were boring. But that was then.

This time, I'm enjoying it. I am forking out for a personal trainer, which should be a tax deduction because, Lord knows, the people who really need the help can't afford it. Me included. But it's the only way for me. I'm treating it like piano tuition. I'll stick with the trainer until I have the vaguest idea of what the hell I'm supposed to be doing, then I'll be confident to continue on my own.

I've committed to a half-hour session three times a week, and while I'm still waiting to get that endorphin rush every­one tells me will make me addicted, I love that I'm doing something for my body and making it strong and capable. It's quite fun.

Finding the time is an issue at the moment, though. I've just started filming for a weekly show, which takes a day out of my week. Poof. Gone. I have a normal job, too, and, these two elements, along with a feverish pull to get home to roll around with my kids as soon as possible every day, means I need a gym that will be a bit understanding.

People who work at gyms must have heard every excuse for non-attendance in the book. Most of them, I admit, have been uttered by yours truly at one time or another. In the '90s, I told one place I was sick, then never contacted them again, hoping they would think I was dead. Didn't work.

'90s gym girl: “Hi, Chrissie! It's been seventeen days since we've heard from you! Are you dead? Ha ha.”

'90s me: “Yes. Makes crunches difficult.”

What is it about breaking a gym membership that turns us all into liars? If it were anything else, we'd just say we can't do it any more. So why do we act all crazy?

I think it's because we know we're going to be judged. And no one wants to be called lazy or, even worse, have it be true. So we lie. And act strange. I feel for the gym staff, having to communicate with us when we're acting as if we're a mere three signatures away from being committed.

Yes, I've tried every tactic. But guess what, new gym guy? I'm not foxing this time!

I want to be in your establishment. I like your cross-trainer. I appreciate that lifting stuff until my face quivers is good for me and I'm enjoying it. But I'm busy. It's the truth this time. Is that so hard to believe? Apparently so.

I received a text message from my gym guy yesterday. He hadn't heard from me in five days and he was getting worried. (I'd been flattened by gastro.) It was a picture message. Well-meaning harassment just got creative!

He had seen a billboard with my face on it spruiking the fact that I'm on breakfast radio. This thing is massive. He'd artfully positioned his camera to make sure his head was next to mine. The resulting photo was my giant, beaming face next to his faux-angry one. Accompanying the pic were the words, “It's time for Chrissie & Gym Guy time. Monday!”

I laughed. Then I realised that no matter what I said, he would hear, “Blah, blah, lie.”

I started to compose a text message, which was, of course, lies, despite the fact the reasons for my temporary disappearance were legitimate. I immediately went into the kind of panicky avoidance you indulge in when you're in the supermarket looking like hell and buying tampons and you spy the mean girl from school. Avoid! Act dodgy!

Then I called him. And I told him the truth. I told him I love his gym. I love the half an hour I put aside to make my body stronger. I told him I'd been stymied by illness and a change to my workload. I said I'd be back next week.

He was quiet for a minute. The truth? He almost didn't know how to handle it. And I almost didn't know how to tell it. I felt so empowered. And I promised him I would not be calling him in six months to tell him I'd contracted something, moved interstate or had, in fact, passed away. How grown up.

 

12th August 2012

I haven't lived a life full of men. In fact, quite the opposite. I am the youngest of three sisters and my parents separated when I was five. Dad moved to Adelaide while we all stayed in Melbourne. We had four boy cousins, but they all lived in Queensland. Or Canberra. Or somewhere. Add to that the fact I went to all-girls' schools from Year 3 onwards and you could be forgiven for thinking that my life was loosely modelled on Louisa May Alcott's
Little Women
. I even have a sister called Beth.

For the first twenty years of my life, men were a great mystery to me. Growing up, I never knew how I was supposed to act around them. I got all my cues from movies and TV. Greg Brady, Darrin Stephens and Pa Ingalls all added pieces to the jigsaw puzzle of what men meant to me. I gathered this info and concluded that men like flares, crazy paving and slopping up stew with cornbread after a hard day's woodchoppin'.

I met my first true love when I was studying teaching. I followed him to his pigeonhole and learnt his name was Lee. Later that month, I ran into him by chance in the city and we sat in a greasy spoon and fed coins into the little jukebox. We bonded over our mutual appreciation of Massive Attack and Madonna. We stayed together through share houses, graduations, internships and jobs. We had two fights in seven years. The first was over whether or not Ginger Spice was sexy and the second was over whether or not he should go on a tacky bucks' night at a strip joint. He went. And got decked. That was the end of his foray into sleaziness.

I've been lucky in that I haven't had too much exposure to the men your friends have warned you about. I just haven't met them. Or if I have, I haven't let them into my world. I'm sure they exist … but not in my universe.

When I worked in advertising I met dozens of creative, hilarious gentlemen. They never wanted to sleep with me, so I was free to love them with complete fervour. I caught up with one fellow eight years after he first gave me my chance at a career in advertising and I thanked him. He told me he never hired anyone he wouldn't like to sleep with.

We guffawed over this. And I was flattered. Not horrified. There haven't been too many men in my life who have hit on me, and frankly I'll take attention wherever it comes!

I've always appreciated a man's uncomplicated nature. All the women I know are also as transparent. It's a trait I like.

People say that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, and I probably would have agreed with that statement in my teens. The boys on my tram, smelling of a curious “boy blend” of pencil shavings, hockey sticks, orange rind and cheap deodorant, were the most intimidating people I'd ever seen. I'd stare at their school bags just to see what was inside. I was fact-finding. Like Miss Marple, but with newly shaved legs and navy hair ribbon.

But as I've grown, mainly into myself, I can't muster one example of a man I do not understand. The one I live with now is a dream. Funny, honest and hard-working – like all the women in my life. And I have two little boys of my own and five nephews (no nieces), so now I'm swimming in boys. They are all I know. My sisters and I are trying to raise these tiny human beings to be empathetic, kind and industrious. Just as we would if they wore tutus instead of tool belts. They are defined by their lack of drama. They are a good influence on us all.

When I was twenty-nine, I was thrown into the
Big Brother
house and it was there I learnt the most about men. I remember thinking at the time, “They're so fun!”

Men have taught me to not sweat the small stuff. They run at life without considering the drama of it all, the consequences. Life is a trip.

Last night, in a sea of toys and kids' stuff, with four baskets of washing to fold and a 4am wake-up looming, I was attempting to get my one-year-old into a romper suit for bed. It was like trying to get an octopus into a plastic bag. Sensing my panic, my partner looked at me with his shiny eyes, scruffy beard and a wry grin and said, “Marriage, kids … the whole catastrophe, eh?”

How do they do that? With one sentence I was able to let it all go and enjoy the chaos.

Men. Maybe it's true, you can't live without them. And why would you want to?

 

19th August 2012