Are We Getting Older Younger??

Well, it is now 5 days til I turn 20, and it’s dawned on me that I am already feeling old. Now how can this be? I feel as fit as a fiddle, a fiddle with an occasionally sore knee. I don’t call anyone “sonny” (except for Sonny Bill Williams), and I still don’t know where to buy old peoples fragrance… as I don’t know if you’ve noticed but they all seem to smell the same. So in an attempt to see if I was indeed getting older, I compiled a list of things that make me feel old.

Things that make me feel old.

Number one: When you start celebrating pregnancies.

Now I remember back in grade ten, where for a week or two all everyone talked about was this girl that got pregnant. And well at the very least, it wasn't celebratory talk. Yet now when someone has a baby (admittedly they are a couple of years my senior) everyone is like "nawwwwwwww".

Number two: When you start complaining about school kids on the bus.

To be honest i thought i wouldn't do this one for a while. However it seems that today's youth is out to prove me wrong. Sitting on the 385 one afternoon, the backseat was full of 5 private school girls, probably about grade 9 or 10, and they were taking photos of eachother, with a camera (as you do), in the backseat of the bus (as you do)... Anywho, during their review of the afternoons photos, one girl made a comment about another girl looking fat in one of the photos. To which she replied, wait for it, and i quote, "you really shouldn't say that about me, i'm very self conscious you know, cause if i think i'm fat, cause like i'm self conscious and all, i might go on a crash anorexic diet, cause i'm very self conscious. I've done it before you know, remember the last time you called me fat, i totally went on an anorexic diet cause you made me feel totally self conscious, cause i'm like that you know". End quote. Enough said.

Number three: When you've played your first game of lawn bowls.

Admittedly this actually happened quite a while ago. Although there was some hope for my youth as i failed dismally.

Number four: When your body starts hurting after doing new physical activities.

The joy of discovering muscles you never knew you had, and how much they can hurt...

Number five: When you have to ask someone for help with your mobile phone.

Apparently it's now too hard to have a "delete all" function for your sms inbox... so they made a "mark all" function... for which the only action you can do once you have selected them all is delete them... efficiency? i think not.

However, it does seem there is still some hope for my sense of youth. I am still hopeless at lawn bowls, i still have a "facebook", and i don't have a little container for my pills with labels for which day i should take them. Nor do i wear a tracksuit everywhere, or have a tartan shopping trolley with 2 wheels.

11:11am

11:11, thought to be lucky to see (but really... with the same chance of seeing any other time). Others just find it freakin annoying that they always notice the clock at that time. Some others (furthermore) think that it is the symbol of some kind of angels inbetween life and the afterlife (how exactly does that work).

Either way, it would seem that 11:11 is held in a higher (or at least a more noticable) regard than other times. I've always been told that it's lucky and you should make a wish whenever you spot it on the clock. And by clock i mean digital clock. What other kind of clock is there. Jks. But really, did all this supersition start when someone thought it looked kind of funny when they saw it on their first digital watch in the 1970s.

Really as if it happened in the times of the analog clocks. Who looks at their analog clock and think "hey, would you look at that, it's 11 past 11. Probably not.

And also is it still lucky if you spot the 11:11 on the clock, but the clock is 10 minutes fast. So really it is 11:01, so you'd think, no it's not really lucky. But when the time is actually 11:11, you look at the clock again, but you don't think "sweeeeeet, it's 11:21 on the clock, time to make a wish!!!!" But it was argued that it's lucky only to see the 11:11 on the clock, not that you happen to look at the clock at that time. If anything it should be even luckier as it's rarer on a fast clock to see the 11:11 due to the ever so slightly shorter minute making it fast.

Lucky or not, there's a good chance that you wouldn't stop noticing it when you see it. Oh the asthetically pleasing numbers, gets me everytime.

Redskins & Redbull.

It sounded like a good idea at the time.

Honest.

It all started not so long ago, in a zone fresh not so far away (roughly a 3 minute drive). Twas a tad before five, and we were all sitting down for lunch, some actually on lunch, others not so. Marissa was looking to get out of doing the milk order (which may or may not have been intentional), and needed a pick-me-up. Like many others in this situation her mind turned to redbull.

Thinking that it would need more sugar, somehow her mind turned to putting redskins in the redbull (inspired by the time old classic of redskins in vodka). And of course we know that red sugar is the best kind of sugar, hence why little kids are allowed very little of it.

And so there sat 3 unsuspecting cans of redbull on the table. Completely unaware of the fate that we had planned for them. Armed with a redskin in each hand, Matt, Marissa and I opened the redbulls and proceeded to shove them through the tiny opening.

I don't know why, but we were expecting something awesome to happen. Like fizzing and exploding everywhere. But alas no, the largest change was it bubbleing onto the top and then dropping back in.

And the redbull tasted pretty much the same.

Pretty anti-climatic. And so there we sat sipping on our redbulls. Discussing every little change in them, which primarily was concerned with the white film that started appearing at the top of the liquid. Possibly not good. We continued drinking. Then Faye walked out the back, overhearing our discussion, and somehow we talked her into trying it also. Somehow it seemed like it was an exciting and normal practise in australia, so Faye willingly accepted the redbull can with 2 redskins. She too failed to see the excitement that wasn't there.

Although it seems that it finally managed to seep some of the flavour towards the end, i suppose it needed time. But it was going flat Marissa complained, although i didn't mind, as i actually prefer my drinks flat.

While it didn't quite turn out as well as we expected, on the brightside, i did get a can of redbull. and 1 redskin (i had to cut the can open to get it, and didn't really feel like the second one).

However, in a moderately painful twist of fate, it turns out that it was a bit too much sugar. Or too much something. About an hour later my stomach was doing summersalts. Then upon further inquiry Faye too had this sore stomach. But Matt not so, that said he couldn't tell the difference after how much he ate for lunch.

That said, it actually probably was the highlight of my day, getting all excited about trying it. So i guess the moral of the story is if it makes your tummy funny, don't do it twice (as i think it was definately worth trying once even if it is just to say that you have done it).

Mr. Victor's Monster

Deep withing the confinds of Mr. Victor's house,
At night when everything was as quite as a mouse,
A certain creature did awake,
That made this Mr. Victor shake.

Poor Mr. Victor had tried everything,
To stop this creature from mingiling,
For it stole the water from the pipe,
In the middle of the night.

It ate all of his cats,
And replaced them with bats,
Ocassionally turning off the electricity,
Making this Mr. Victor very shitty.

For he loved his cats and loathed the bats,
And liked having power for more than an hour,
He was willing to fight to keep his water in the pipe.

One fateful night when Mr. Victor should have been sleeping,
He lay in bed til midnight listening to the creature weeping,
For that very morning Mr. Victor had killed a bat,
And thought that was the end of that.

All the day the creature was crying and plotting,
A revenge for Mr. Victor that was truly shocking,
With every almost silent sob,
It thought about what from Mr. Victor it might rob.

The creature waited til the time was right,
And it just happened to be this very night,
All of a sudden Mr. Victor heard the sobbing stop,
Readying himself heavily armed with a thick book and a mop.

He heard a shuffling in the wall,
Causing him to stand up tall,
Wondering if he was simply just overreacting,
And it was just a bug skuttling being the painting.

But unfortunately it sounded much larger than a bug,
Upon Mr. Victor's heartstrings fear did tug,
Just like normal the lights went out,
In the silence Mr. Victor heard a small shout.

You shalt pay,
For your actions today,
Did you think it was open season,
To kill my bat for no good reason.

Completely astonished that the wall was talking,
Slowly backward Mr. Victor stared walking,
Surprised to hear himself also talking.

But but but,
What what what,
About all of my pet cats,
Whose bones i find under my mats,
All of my water you steal,
Presumably to go with your meal,
Leaving all my taps bone dry,
Causing all my flowers to die,
How do you think I do feel,
With all of this you steal.

And all I take is one measley bat,
It pales in comparison and that's that,
Those words angered the creature,
Who now sought to silence their preacher.

For the creature Mr. Victor had killed,
Twas no mere bat whose blood he'd spilled,
It was my dear lover,
For me none other.

But you are a lonely man,
And simply wouldn't understand,
But have a think about this,
As i come from across the Abyss.

If my lover is a bat,
And that is a fact,
Now before you meet your fate and die,
I'll ask you a question, what am I?

In Mr. Victor's mind the question was pondered,
As he realised his life had been squandered,
All for a silly bat,
And that was that.

If his lover was a bat,
And he sucks the bones dry of my cat,
Not much more thought did Mr. Victor require,
And not soon before long he figured out I was a vampire.

I burst through the walls preparing to pounce,
His poor life Mr. Victor did now renounce,
Soon now on the floor he did lay,
Sucked bone dry for the rest of his days.

Moral Fibre.

It's funny how meaning works. Sometimes we find it in the last places we'd thought it would be. One such place i found meaning was in the movie "The Girl Next Door". Now i know what you're thinking, what meaning could you get from a seemingly typical teen movie about a boy coming of age and falling in love with the porn star that moves in next door.

Well there is this speech that the protagonist gives as part of his application for a scholarship. But this is no ordinary speech, not only is it a speech he gave whilst on ecstasy, but it is one that has stuck with a friend and i for many years.

"it's about finding that one thing that you really care about
that one special thing that means more to you than anything else in the world
and when you find her, you fight for her
you risk it all, you put her in front of everything
your future, your life, all of it
and maybe the stuff you do to help her isn't so clean
but you know what, it doesn't matter
cause in your heart you know
that the juice is worth the squeeze
that's what moral fibre is all about".

Life Begins After Twelve.

This is a story about a boy and his best friend. Pretty simple. Possibly boring (you think). Well that might be, but one thing is story is, it's peculiar. Now nothing was overly peculiar about this boy, he's your average 12 year old, just starting high school, likes chess, is a bit shy, and has braces. Yep, your typical kid. Well as you probably guessed, it was his best friend that adds the peculiar element to this tale. Now, like your best friend, he's got a face, two hands and what not. I mean it's not like he's one of those freak of nature people with like eleven toes, or a second nose, or anything of the sort. But he did like leather, which is a bit of an odd thing for someone starting high school (but not in a fetish kinda way, he had no choice, why?, well if you keep reading you shall find out in the next sentence). This is because Billy's best friend was, a wrist-watch.

Now, many wonder how he could have such an attachment to a mere wrist-watch. As many of you just go out and buy one very couple of years or so. But not Billy. He has owned this wrist-watch since he was born. Another oddity of the story?? (you ponder...). Well yes, and no. As how Billy came to own this watch was moreso due to the stupidity of a relative, as opposed to his own oddities. Good old Uncle Tom. Well there's half of his problem, as Tom is a rather dopey sounding name. But it was the other half of the problem that created this situation. As Tom had gifturightous, a rare condition found in just 1 person out of the entire world's population. Unfortunately it was Tom. And because of this condition, Tom had no good judgement about gifts. Just to properly explain the extent of the problem, last christmas he got grandma's & Sally's (his niece) presents from the adult store, mum's present from the hardware store, and dad's present from the homewares store. And so as i'm sure you have figured, it was Uncle Tom that bought that wrist-watch for Billy as a birth present. As you could imagine it sent the family up in uproar, as why you would buy a wrist-watch for a baby, they simply couldn't understand. But Tom just smiled, as out of the corner of his eye, he could see Billy playing with the wrist-watch.

Billy took every good care of this wrist-watch. Every year on his birthday he would take it into the watch-guy Willy's store, to get the battery changed, so that it never stopped. Willy, who could see that Billy loved this watch very much, would also give it an extra special clean each year too. The wrist-watch only left Billy's arm for three reasons, 1) to get the battery changed each year, 2) when Billy took a bath each night and 3) when he would sit it on his bedside table before he went to sleep each night. And this is almost where our story begins, As Billy carefully laid his beloved wrist-watch on the bedside table as his mother tucked him into bed. (The story was supposed to start here, but on later thinking i thought it would be stupid to start a story with Billy going to bed, then sleeping for ten hours... way to grab the readers attention...).

The following morning Billy woke up when his mother was drawing his curtains. Billy rolled onto his side, looked out the window and sighed. He sighed for two reasons, firstly cause it was raining really really heavily (so heavily that there was almost as many raindrops as there were men flocking to see Pamela Anderson signing copies of "baywatch: when we used to be stars" edition, but not quite as many, there were more men...) and secondly because today was Billy's first day at high school. Now Billy wasn't very good at meeting new people (as was stated in the first paragraph when i said that he was "a bit shy"), as all through primary school it was just Billy and his wrist-watch, and now high school is just a bigger land mass with twice as many people to try and ignore. That thought made Billy feel blue. He finally decided to roll out of bed some minutes later, he put on his wrist-watch, and went down stairs for some breakfast. After a moderately tasty (half cold eggs, chewy bacon and cereal) breakfast, Billy gathered his books and headed out the door to school.

Billy opened his umbrella, as it was still heavily raining, looked at the time of his wrist-watch (it read 8:15), and Billy thought to himself, "hog-diggity-dang, im going to be on time this morning" (pun not included), as he walked out the front gate and down the lane to school. As Billy was turning off Toad rd. onto Feet st. he saw a girl across the road struggling with her umbrella, as a huge gust of wind came down and swept up her umbrella into the sky, Mary Poppins style (only without the person attached, much to this little girl's dismay). And so this poor little girl stood on the sidewalk with an umbrella, getting completely soaked, looked around and quickly spotted Billy standing across the road, wearing the same uniform. Realizing the desperation of her situation, she ran over to Billy and asked if she could share his umbrella the rest of the way to school. Billy suddenly got all nervous and shuddery, and quickly offered her a spare umbrella he had in his bag. Without waiting for her answer, he quickly dived into his bag to look for it. And wa-la, he pulled out and umbrella and handed to her without even glancing at her wet white shirt (that's how much of a gentleman he was, oh how his mother raised him well...). The girl gave Billy a slightly nervous, sideways look as she took the umbrella and thanked him for his help. And with that they both went their separate ways to school.

As Billy arrived at school, he checked his wrist-watch again (this time it read 8:20) (no pun included there either), and Billy thought to himself, "wow, i can't believe i made it in five minutes..." as he brushed the odd bit of water off the face of his wrist-watch. And with that he quickly proceeded to his form room to get out of the pouring rain that seemed to be getting heavier.

Billy walked into a rather small cosy room in the food studies block. He could smell the wofting smells of muffins coming from down the hall. He slowly walked into the room of about 20 other quiet and nervous looking people, and found a seat by himself. The boy who came in after him however was very loud and did not seemed troubled at all by the thought of starting high school. He struted into the class room, and pushed Billy off his chair, while loudly stating that he wanted to sit there. Billy who was a nervous wreck and not looking for any trouble, quickly scampered in the other direction in desperate look for a seat, any seat. And he found one. Unlike any other seat he had ever sat in before. As there was someone right beside him. Billy slowly turned his head to look who he had sat next to, and it was that same girl that he saw this morning, she gave him a wry smile of comfort, as she had seen what happened, but quickly drew her attention to the front as the teacher had walked in. But Billy barely noticed, all he could think about was the look that girl gave him, it made him feel like there was a museum's collection of butterflies in his stomach. But after almost missing his name in roll call, he looked at his wrist-watch (to check the time, go figure) and got stuck into his work.

Before long it came to lunchtime, and because of the heavy rain the teacher requested that they eat their lunch in the covered areas just outside of the classroom. And so the class filed outside, Billy included, and they all sat down on the seats and proceeded with their various lunches. Billy looked down at his wrist-watch again, it was exactly 12 o'clock, when he noticed that the second hand was no longer moving, Billy began to panic, as he started playing around with the buttons on his watch trying fruitlessly to get it to work again. The large, loud kid (the one that pushed him off the chair earlier) noticed that Billy had a rather spiffy looking wrist-watch. So he marched over to where Billy was sitting and demanded to have a look at it. Billy, recognising the kid from before, quickly refused, and went back to trying to get it to work. The large kid, obviously not used to being rejected, grabbed the wrist-watch off Billy's wrist, using so much force that he couldn't keep his balance, and slipped over as it was a rather wet day. And because of the force of the fall, he was unable to keep a good grip on the wrist-watch, and so it went flying up in the air. Billy, who was overly upset about these events, made a dash to grab the wrist-watch before it hit the ground, but he tripped over the large kid, as he too fell to the ground, and all he could do was watch helplessly as his beloved wrist-watch flew through the air and into the rain. For Billy, time just seemed to stop (like in those matrix movies), as if it were slow-mo, as the wrist-watch performed it's final spin, before it collided with the concrete, the glass on its face shattering on impact, the sound of it hitting the ground seemed to echo in Billy's mind, as he watched it bounce along the concrete and into the drain.

Quickly realizing the gravity of the situation, Billy briskly got to his feet, and ran until his legs collapsed. About half an hour later, the girl Billy sat next to, eventually found him to return his umbrella. She found him curled up in a corner, near the change rooms, crying with his head in his knees. She slowly walked towards him, with the umbrella in her hand, when she stepped on a burger wrapper. Billy slowly glanced up to see who was there, and he saw the girl, he slowly lowered his head back into his knees, realizing that a girl had seen him crying. She continued to walk towards him, and instead of just returning the umbrella and leaving as she had planned, she went and sat next to Billy. And there they sat for the remainder of lunch, not uttering a word. Eventually she turned to him and said, "by the way, it's 12:45, so we better be getting back to class", as she hopped up. Billy slowly glanced up at her, wondering way she was still standing there, when he saw that she was offering him a hand up. And for the first time in his life, Billy took her hand, and even though he was soaked to the bone, and stone cold, he felt an odd warmness inside. When he finally stood up, Billy turned to her and stuttered, "oh, I'm Billy...", in the smallest voice he could manage. The girl turned to him and smiled, "and I'm Lilly, it's very nice to meet you Billy", as they turned to walk back up to class. All of a sudden the rain stopped, and the sun started to poke it's face through the clouds for the first time today. Lilly quickly turned around to face Billy, remembering why she was looking for him in the first place, and handed him back his umbrella, "looks like I won't be needing this anymore."

And that's the story of how my nephew found his new best friend. And no, not the writers nephew, as this is a fictional story, my nephew. As you probably figured i am Uncle Tom, and it has been my pleasure to be your narrator today. But i must be off now as i got a vegetarians birthday to attend... i hope they like what i got them... it's a famous Australian barbecue... called the steak-eater...

City Night Lights.

You know, many people will tell you about the beauty of the night sky out in the country or ont hte beach. And how you can see more stars than you can count on your fingers and toes, and the fingers and toes of everyone you know for that matter.
Don't get me wrong, the night sky on the beach is truely something to behold. And many believe that it's the be all and end all of night skys. But I beg to differ. As when I stood at the top of my street tonight, gazing back at the city, and thought, I wonder how many people would appreciate this beauty. The yellowy orange glow of the lights and buildings that give a pink glow to the low overhanging clouds that mask part of the night sky.
And while yes it is true that you can see less stars because of the city lights and clouds, but I believe that it unmasks the sky's true beauty. As it allows you to spot that special star, the one that shines brighter than all the rest, regardless of the city lights and clouds, it continues to shine.
And in that brief moment, it felt almost magical, just like the first time that I met you. So I just wanted you to know that you were on my mind that night, as I continued to stand there, looking up at the night sky, wishing you were there with me.