So The Orwell Prize has commenced publishing Orwell’s own diaries as a blog. A pretty novel idea I reckon, and a great way to try and bring a deceased writer’s diaries to a new audience, using the medium most are comfortable with. The entries are being posted exactly 70 years to the day after they were first written, so they will continue to unfold as the readers drop by. Kinda cool.

Got me thinking though about the whole notion of ‘diaries’ and journals. Writers, artists, activists, politicians, and other people used to keep journals as a matter of course, in eras gone by. Nowadays we have some people blogging and so on, but I wonder if there are diaries we will discover or see published once people pass on, just as they used to.

Does Andrew Bolt have a secret, personal journal detailing his actual love for all things Left? Does Jessica Simpson keep a diary about how hard the transition from bleach-blond-manufactured-but-successful-personality to country-starlet-still-lacking-integrity-but-now-without-the-record-sales-to-point-to has been so far? Will we one day read about George Bush’s ongoing struggle to conform to his buffoon-idiot persona so he can wage a war his daddy really wanted?

Who knows, perhaps people do keep diaries and journals still.

Personally, I have started a diary about 10 times over the past 10 years and always throw in the towel after a few weeks. I like what I put in it but I invariably miss a few weeks and then give up or start writing things just so I fill in the pages, eating any credibility my notes might have (hopefully!) had.

I love the idea of shoe boxes full of Moleskine notebooks and may give one another go and see what happens, but I also think that I am doing much the same thing through the world of blogging that’s now available to me and not hanging on to the leather-bound notebooks of earlier times. I mean, it makes a little sense - people’s stories were once an oral record and presentation, then paper came in and people kept diaries, so now that the internet is about, people move with the times.

Regardless, it’ll be interesting to read what Orwell thought worth recording.

There’s too much of this death thing going around. It’s everywhere and no one seems safe. The most frightening aspect of it all is that it seems to be discriminately picking off young family members in the prime of their lives. Every time someone goes I find it that bit harder to not cry over someone I didn’t know.

It started, in my consciousness, with Troy Broadbridge, the Melbourne footballer who died in the Asian Tsunami while on his honeymoon. While on his honeymoon!

Since then we’ve had Steve Irwin, one of the most animated people I’ve ever seen on TV, being pierced in the heart by a sting-ray and entering folklore as someone who could tame crocodiles but not big flat fish with eyes a metre apart.

There’s Belinda Emmett, who in the words of her husband Rove McManus, “turned the lemons of my [his] life into lemonade”. Poetry.

There have been others not-so-famous but equally sad - Brendon Keilar, who was coldly shot dead coming to the aid of a woman who didn’t deserve his help, as it turns out. He left behind a young family who now grow up without their father.

Since I found out my wife and I were expecting (read about it all at beingadaddy.net) I’ve become acutely aware of the fragility of life and how important it is to take care of oneself. I quit smoking in an effort to be around for a lot longer and tomorrow I start on a fitness regime that will help me drop 15kg and be in the best shape I can be so I’m up to the rigmarole of being a parent.

But then today I see a newsflash that Jane McGrath has passed away at 42. Glenn and the two young kids are now alone and will have a gaping chasm for a mother for the rest of their lives. How can you not cry at that?!

Lately I’ve been feeling very old and out of touch. Party I think it’s because I am soon to be a father and perhaps the ‘boring’ gene is kicking in? But I also think it’s because lately people seem to be focusing on the things that are less important. The prime example of this is alcohol and merriment.

The past few weeks seem to have been a real watershed for most of my Facebook friends; so many of them have status updates related to booze. In the past few weeks I reckon I’ve seen example after example of the following:

• “is hungover”
• “can’t wait to hit the piss in 5 hours and 19 minutes”
• “needs some good hangover food”
• “loves when he hits the town for a night of beer and boob”
• “wishes headaches didn’t hurt”
• you get the idea by now.

Now a status update, whilst not a legally-binding or really serious contract, is pretty flexible. It allows you to let your friends and acquaintences know how you are or what’s happening in your life at present. So, given there is all the choice in the world, do so many people choose to relate their state-of-being to whether they will soon be, or already are, inebriated? Is it that good?

Now I like a drink as much as the next person. I am pretty happy when having a beer or wine and shooting the breeze with good friends. But here’s the rub - it’s the friends and the chat that make it worthwhile for me. I’m pretty happy doing the same thing over a coffee or cordial. The best nights are when you have a few quiet drinks, a good meal and talk about the world with your friends. It’s the people, not the piss.

Am I already old and boring beyond redemption? Am I now in the land of ‘grump old man’ because I view alcohol as an ingredient and not as a main course on its own?

As my wife will attest, I sometimes have a short fuse when it comes to service and competence. I’m not one who tolerates being given the run around or not being provided with the service I am paying for. It may well stem from my earlier working years of customer service in supermarkets and video stores – I took great pride in being really good at my job and when others don’t, it shits me no end.

Lately I feel as though I am being tested; pushed and prodded by fools who want me to explode with rage at their stupidity. In his book “How to be good”, Nick Hornby’s male lead is an angry man who had a newspaper column where he rants about the nincompoops he’s surrounded by. I DON’T WANT TO BE THAT MAN, but I feel like I’m being forced to. For both catharsis and the sake of keeping this puppy a little fresh, here are the reasons I am shitty:

Real estate agent
We moved into a new home 3 weeks ago and made arrangements for the phone to be turned on that day. Telstra came and tried to connect it for us but they weren’t able to as the cabling between the house and the street was either not there, or faulty. So we made the real estate agent aware of this, and it’s only two days ago that they told us the problem had been figured out and arranged to be fixed (on Monday, I am told). In that time, I’d sent emails galore, left plenty of messages and been short on the phone a few times. Realtor staff have been on leave and their colleagues ignored me. 3 weeks since we raised it and we are still at the ‘almost’ stage of having the home phone (and therefore internet) on. Pathetic.

Newspapers
When organising utility connections for the new place, I also arranged for ‘The Age’ and ‘The Weekend Australian’ to be delivered on weekends. I bought them most weekend days anyway so thought it might be nice to read them over brekkie and while still in my PJs. Three weeks later, neither paper has arrived. ‘The Age’ have at least been honest and ‘made an error’ on two occasions and are sorting it out and crediting me for the missed weeks. Rupert’s mob at ‘The Australian’ though, haven’t replied to my two emails and their call centre is closed on weekends! Next weekend I will be away so it may turn out that the first delivery of the papers isn’t able to be enjoyed!

Baby’s cot
Two weeks ago, my wife and I paid for and ordered a cot for our baby. It was the perfect cot and we loved it. When we paid, we were told it wasn’t in stock but could be ordered and would be here in a couple of weeks. I had also promised my three-year-old nephew (who loves handyman work and seems now to be warming to the idea of a new cousin) he could come over and help me put it together. So I call the store this morning and ask if it’s in and when I could come and pick it up. The lady tells me it hasn’t come in yet and asks when the baby is due. I tell her September and she says “it should be in by then”. After picking my jaw up off the ground, I tell her we were told it’d be here in 2 weeks and ask for a more definite timeline of arrival. She can’t give me one and I say that the 2 week order was a big reason we paid in full for it and can’t understand why she won’t give me a timeline of “1 month” or “6 weeks”. She apologises for the false advice we received and says she’ll inform the manager of my complaint. I’m asked to call back on Monday to speak with ‘the ordering person’ who’ll be able to give me a more definite timeline. I hang up in disgust.

One of the above things would piss me off (and I think quite justifiably) but for all three to be happening at once, it just blows my mind. I’m sure everyone wonders at times whether they’re a part of a ‘Truman Show’ type conspiracy; recent events make me think twice! Just kidding.

But some people shouldn’t be in time-sensitive and service-related enterprises – cause they’re shit!

Dear Dad,

Ten years ago today you fashioned yourself a noose and bid the world goodbye. A large part of me thought you a coward then and an even larger part of me thinks so now.

It all seemed a little implausible - you were 35 and had four sons, aged 16 (me), 14, 9 and 3. Sure, your wife divorced you a couple of years after you walked out and moved away, but do you blame her? You refused to support your kids financially yet benefited from their unblinkered love for you, which for me bordered on worship. I know now what a fuck-up you were, but still now, looking back, it seemed to me that at that point in time at least that you’d finally come to peace with your flaws, but then you left permanently.

I mean, yeah you were seeing a strange woman at the time, but we all need an ego boost at times right? I say she’s strange, yet when you died there was an air of blame toward her wafting around. What is she to blame for Dad? You reached that tipping point and gave in. You consigned four boys to a fatherless life. And you will never know my beautiful wife or the child we’re expecting in September. You are to blame, Dad. You listened to the voice, gave in to temptation and You Hanged Yourself In Your Garage.

So anyway, what’s been happening with you, what have you been up to? Me? Wow, where do I begin…

You died in 1998, I was in Year 11. I went on to finish Year 11 and then Year 12. During this time I was with my first proper girlfriend. Never could ask you how that should all unfold, could I? I made do though. After Year 12 I spent a year in a video store haze before moving to Canberra for uni. That first year of uni was full-on! I fell in love, had my heart broken, made some great friends, learned what good writing was, got drunk a lot, got stoned a bit, lost a lot of weight and lived the stereotypical uni life, basically. Then I went home for summer and recuperated.

Second year in Canberra, 2002, I fell in love again and would spend the next two or so years in love with that girl. That was a pretty good year 2002, the first nine months of it anyway. The next year and a half I kind of stumbled through in a bit of a daze, lost interest in most things. The relationship was on-off and eventually died the death it needed to when I got blind drunk and came a cropper off a bridge, landing on a road 7m below and breaking my pelvis and left wrist. I’d been visiting Canberra that weekend, having moved back home to spend a year working and taking some time out to weigh up what I wanted to do. After that incident, I spent 3 months in bed and it was then that I think I finally laid to rest the demons that had hovered since you died. Six and a half years, and I finally felt like I was getting somewhere. Thanks, Dad.

Strangely, just as I was banishing you to my past and learning to think of my future and what I wanted to do with myself, some money of yours turned up. It wasn’t much, but it meant I could pay my mother back some money and also get a tattoo. I got a Celtic Circle Cross, just like you liked. I wanted to mark your memory in some way so that I could let you go properly.

The great amusement of this is that the very day I ended up getting that tattoo, is the day I met the woman who would become my wife. It was only that I happened to be on my way to the tattoo guy that I stopped by and visited a lady I worked with, and who had her niece visiting from Melbourne. That niece is now my gorgeous wife and is carrying your first grandchild. I guess in some way I should thank you, as when i finally started to let you go, I found my new life. And now, I wouldn’t change a thing.

There are some times that I really miss you Dad, and some that I don’t. I wish you were at my wedding and I wish you were helping me to get ready for fatherhood. I pit this, though, against the fact that you weren’t the greatest father, truth be told, and I come to believe that some of the greatest lessons that you taught me were those that I shouldn’t follow. I won’t be divorcing my wife as I will always work on my marriage if it ever needs it. I won’t be leaving my kids as I know how they’ll be if their father pisses off. Mostly, I won’t be a stubborn prick who bottles their bullshit up and lets it corrode my soul. You showed me what that can do.

Don’t get me wrong Dad, I don’t hate you. I have loads of great memories of you and in particular I will never forget the conversation we had when I was 15 and you were visiting. Those words have stayed with me and I do try to live up to them.

So now it’s a decade since you were last here, since that final voicemail on my NEC Fido mobile phone that you said was an expensive waste of money! It’s been an interesting decade, though I can see it’s made me into who I am. For kicking off 10 years of discovery and the building of me, I do thank you.

If there is something beyond the earthly world (I keep changing my mind about whether there is or not), perhaps we’ll cross paths then. You’ll be able to pick me out - I’ll be the one who looks a bit like you but who in a delicious conundrum, is ten times the man you were, partly thanks to you.

Your eldest,

Joel.

Danny Katz has it spot on - no one is happy being what they are anymore. Please read:

What happened to calling a couch a couch?
Danny Katz
March 13, 2008

Driving down Dandenong Road, and I get stuck at the lights beside a builder’s ute — I know it’s a builder’s ute because it’s got a builder’s ladder strapped to the roof, and a builder’s wheelbarrow tossed in the back, and a big boofhead builder sitting in the driver’s seat. But no, I’m wrong, this is no builder at all, because there’s a logo on the side of the ute that says “Building Practitioner”. Oh sorry, this guy is clearly a highly qualified DOCTOR OF BUILDING, a surgeon-in-residence of residences, with a PhD in the Biochemical Cardiology of Bathroom Renos (Honours, No Job Too Big Or Too Small).

What a wanker, I think to myself, and I lean out the window and give him a you-big-wanker stare, but after the lights have changed, and he’s two blocks away, and I’ve done a U-turn and am facing the opposite way.

Driving some more, I pull up at a furniture shop; I’ve come here to buy a new couch because my old couch is all frayed and limp and upholstered in a finely woven blend of take-away Pad Thai noodles and liquefied thigh fat. But I’m wrong about this place, this isn’t a furniture shop at all, because the sign out the front says “Homeware Gallery” — oh sorrrrrrrr-eeee this is clearly an Art Gallery Of Furnishings, a place where you’d buy a Jackson Pollock-spattered bookcase or an ottoman from the Ottoman Empire.

I go inside and a furniture salesman comes up to me, all Saba-suited and slick-haired — but I’m wrong again, he’s not a salesman, because the label on his lapel says “Domestic Interiors Consultant”. He says, “Can I help you sirrrrrrr?” and I say, “Why yes you cannnnnn, I’d like to look at your range of couches please” and he says, “Oh you mean our COLLECTION of urban MODULAR units”, because couches now comes in “collections”, and they’re all “modular”, so that every bit of couch can be swapped with every other bit of couch, like some kind of saucy, sordid sofa swinger’s club.

This is all too wankish for me, so I go next door to another furniture shop, but I don’t bother going inside because this one’s called The Sofa Workshop and I don’t particularly want to see sofa-beds workshopping scenes from Greek tragedies, or a Jason Recliner doing a Theatresports exercise and pretending to be a big French pouffe.

Driving back home, I pass suburban restaurants that have mysteriously re-spelled themselves into “Ristorantes”, and fruit shops that have magically turned into “Fruitisseries” and I start thinking about how nobody’s content to be what they are any more — we live in a euphemistic world where everyone and everything wants to sound bigger, better, more bitchin’ than they actually are.

Now, stay-at home parents are called Domiciliary Progeny Engineers. Council garbagemen are Civic Toxicological Hygienists. Stenchy old boozers sleeping on bus benches are Olfactory-Impaired Al Fresco Dysfunctionistas. A dog turd in a public park is a Municipal Colonic Canine Installation.

Everything’s talking itself up: you can’t just buy chocolate ice-cream from an ice-cream parlour (a Techno-Frappa Gelatorium) — now it’s called Wickkkked Heavenly Cocoa n’ Creme Therapy, but it tastes the same as the 40-litre tub of brown ice-confection from Aldi. You can’t just buy a normal pizza from a pizzeria (a Wood-Fired Peasant Mountain-Bread Trattoria): now it’s all tandoori abalone pizza or minted prunes pizza. Dominos is now doing a pizza called Seven Meats — I didn’t even know there WERE seven meats.

How I miss the old days when a couch was a couch and a pizza was a pizza and a builder didn’t practise laparoscopic pancreatic wallboard surgery.

Those simple honest days before we turned into a society of jumped-up, grandiloquent, self-important pomps living in a state of chronic WANKORIFFIA.

I AM GONNA BE A DADDY!

My wife is 10 weeks pregnant and due mid-September, so excited. Have started a ’side project’ to chronicle it all: http://beingadaddy.net

Wow, I’m the happiest bloke around…

We’ve had a bit of a cooler week in Melbourne, with the nights in particular having a little chill about them. I’ve enjoyed it, it’s been nice coming home from work, getting into my pyjamas and snuggling up on the couch, watching TV and cuddling the wifey.

It’s a little strange though, as last winter seemed to go forever and summer was a very welcome change. Now that we’ve done that though, I am warming (hehe) to the idea of a cooler period and snuggling up and being toasty warm. What I don’t like, and am dreading however, are the bitterly fierce and bastard winds that slice through you. Cold is ok, but being flayed by icy rain and wind isn’t appealing.

In a few months time it’ll be all about bed socks, soup and toast, and hot chocolate. Plus reading in bubble baths and having nice, warm dinners. Also in a few months time I may very well be complaining about the cold and calling for summer to hurry up.

Seems to be the way these things go.

With the exception of a four/five-month break, I have been a smoker for around 10 years. That all ended nearly two weeks ago. I am now a non-smoker.

The origins of this habit began earlier. I had my first full cigarette the day of my 11th birthday and bought my first packet, myself, aged 12. I smoked now and then, on and off, until I was 15 and decided I didn’t want to be a smoker ‘when I grew up’. When I was 16, I started again and as mentioned earlier have been ever since, excepting a short intermission where I toyed with quitting, but if the truth be told, never viewed it as more than temporary anyway.

The past six months or so I was getting closer and closer to calling it quits on the nicotine front. I wasn’t enjoying it quite as much as I did and plans for the future were evolving - plans which required me to be a non-smoker. So I decided on a day and went and spoke to a chemist. After some chatting and divulging of my smoking habits and rituals, using patches was decided as the best way for me to go. I’m doing the 3 month program, where you use 21mg patches for 6 weeks, then 14mg ones for 3 weeks before dropping down to 7mg patches for 3 weeks. The chemist told me that some people are on them much longer than that and if I felt that I needed longer to keep using them. It’s obviously early days (Week 2 almost at an end) but I am comfortable using patches for as long as I need.

The day before Q-Day, I smoked a lot. Every 30 minutes I’d duck outside for a couple and really suck them back. I savoured every breath and tried to imagine how the next day would play out. I think that smoking that much actually helped me quit, as I felt a little ill by the time I puffed my last and climbed into bed. Waking the next day was tough, as I usually showered, dressed and smoked before heading off to work. There were many times throughout that day and the ones that followed where I was at a loss for periods of five minutes - these gaps were previously smoking time but they were now empty.

I came to realise that for me, smoking was a form of punctuation - a way of marking the passage of time: I ate then smoked, I worked a little the smoked, I arrived/left work and smoked, I got home and smoked, and so on. Without the smoking I was a little lost and found myself panicking about how I didn’t know what to do with myself at those previously-critical junctures. So I started having a glass of water, followed by some fruit, each time that I would normally have a cigarette. That helped and I have been eating a lot of fruit and drinking a lot more water than I used to. The first Saturday was tough and I ate a whole rockmelon on one sitting, wondering whether I’d really be able to shake the habit.

Each day has been a little easier, and knowing that my body isn’t psychotically screaming out for a smoke due to the patches, I have found myself getting better and not thinking about them. The other day though I forgot to put a patch on at home and went the day without one.

I was ok whilst at work but when I got home that night I was really struggling. I didn’t want to use a patch only for a few hours so I rode it out, but the wife found me particularly hard to be around and went to her folks for a few hours. Next morning I remembered and it was a lot easier.

So I’m two weeks in and quite proud of myself. It is easier this time also because I am definite in my desire not to be a smoker any more. I don’t want a sore throat any more and I don’t want the wife to roll away from me when I get into bed, put off by my odour. I keep telling myself that “I am a non-smoker” and it’s sinking in. Each day is better than the last (ever so slightly) and I am confident that by following the patch program I can really shake this addiction once and for all.

The kids I will one day have will be glad I live to see them become adults. And I will have beaten an addiction. Both pretty damn good motivators.