There's nothing better than a cocktail at Ellis Street Lounge to beat those Tuesday blues. Wouldn't you agree, Sparkles?

I have never been one to get up before lunch on weekends. With the short days of winter, I see about three hours of daylight on my days off. I care little for breakfast, or brunch. So it was without surprise that the one meal I had at Tiffany’s was late afternoon tea.

On a lazy Saturday afternoon, after yum cha at Shark Fin House, Sparkles and I debated the plan for the rest of the day.

“How about a stroll around the Botanic Gardens?” I asked.

“I need to go to the loo,” Sparkles answered, “and the nice loo in David Jones is not on the way.”

An idea suddenly sparked. “What about Tiffany’s?”

“Yes!!” Sparkles replied, eyes sparkling.

“But we’re not allowed to buy anything! Stop me before I start buying,” I said with as much honesty as an alcoholic at happy hour.

The signature Tiffany jewels dazzled inside the polished counters. We were in heaven.

“Look at those earrings!” “I like that bracelet!” “Miss Unsubtlety has that necklace!”

“I passed my CA exams last week,” Sparkles said suddenly. I knew exactly what she was thinking.

“Well…I suppose you can get a silver necklace as a self-congratulatory present.” I said, before rationalizing, “And my birthday IS coming up soon.”

“That Atlas necklace could be an early birthday present to you from me,” she said, pointing to a delightful silver sparkler I had drooled over.

“And I need to give you something for passing your CA exams,” I said, nodding my head toward the Elsa Peretti open heart.

Transaction was completed in less than twenty minutes. We happily walked out with our first ever little blue boxes in little blue bags. At Laurent, our current favourite French Patisserie, we exchanged presents.

“Aww, you didn’t have to!” “It’s exactly what I wanted!” “How on earth did you know?”

According to a Melbourne urban myth, Barbie dolls stripped of their itsy-bitsy clothes walk the city streets on late nights. One night, while out with Pixie, Cartman and several other visiting friends, we came across our first ever wondering Barbie. A passerby was as amused by her as us and insisted on being in the photo.

I have a cold. My nose is a leaky tap that refuses to be turned off. All I want is some hot tea.

But hot tea is one of the commodities that I will have to live without -- hot tea and heating and everything that is powered on electricity.

All I have is a lavender scented candle and three hours of battery life on my laptop. The power to the little house in Brunswick has been shut off. Some git at the power company thinks our name does not exist on their list. Some other git’s name is on their list and that git has not been paying his bill. So by some strange logic, we do not have power and I’m shivering in the cold comforted by a lonely candle.

Nevertheless, it was fun for a while. After dinner (a romantic meal by the candle light courtesy of the Colonel), I got out my guitar and sang a little ditty with my Loopy Flatmate entitled “O Brunswick, Why Art Thou So Shit”.

It was very catchy.

Oh, dearest loveliest laptop, how I missed your fully-functioning ways!

I have been incredibly slack in writing. So much for the New Year's resolution of writing at least 5000 words per week. I think I'm averaging less than 100 words per month, and most of which are crap. Unless one counts the vast amounts of email I'm sending to Pixie and Gigglesworth everyday from work. They are gold. And get me through the seemingly endless days of staring at the computer screen.

But all dramas (laptop and otherwise) are behind me. Tonight, I feel an incredibly sense of serenity; a wonderful zen-like state. The flood gates are now opened, updates on Polly's high-life in Melbourne will appear shortly. Maybe even as soon as tomorrow. I promise.

There's a daddy-long-legs in the corner of my room. It has probably lived here longer than I have, so I always felt a little rude (and scared) to just whack it dead with a rolled up newspaper.

A few minutes ago, a beetle (I think) of those annoying flying kind managed to get in here and caused a buzzing ruckus. The beetle (I think) flew around and around, bumping into walls and doors like a girl who's had a few too many on a Friday night. I was not impressed with the beetle's (I think) lack of self-discipline.

The beetle (maybe I should just name it Betty) stumbled into daddy-long-leg's corner. Perhaps hoping for a free drink, or perhaps hoping to score daddy-long-leg's phone number, Betty stayed a little longer than usual. Daddy-long-legs, vindicative and ironic like any other man, decided to make Betty's stay slightly more permanent.

Betty and daddy-long-legs are now one. Daddy-long-legs wound himself around Betty, most likely never letting her go, feeding himself on her vivacious soul.

They lived happily ever after, sharing my corner of the room, until tomorrow when I will run down to Coles first thing in the morning to get a can of bug spray.

“How’s the house?” Farm Boy enquires everyday over lunch or email.

“Meh,” I would begin unenthusiastically. We both know that the share house is a point of great angst for me. But once the topic is out in the open, I would continue the story of my rundown Brunswick granny flat with much animation.

“I started to cook pasta last night. In heels, because I was too lazy to change out of them and I like feeling tall.” I said over lunch today with my fellow grads. “But I knocked my head on the rangehood and slabs of built up grease fell into the pasta.”

“Eww,” cried the girls.

“Cool,” said the Farm Boy. “Makes great condiments.”

“No sauce-in-a-bottle for you. It’s all ready made on the rangehood,” said the Heartbreaker.

I am beginning to suspect that I was not of sound mind when I agreed to take up on Aunt T’s offer to live here.

The share house is situated at the back of a laneway on Brunswick Road. It isn’t too far from the Melbourne CBD – a twenty-minute tram ride, or three minutes by car. This is the only pro I can think of.

Three weeks ago, when I first moved in, the sight of kitchen and bathrooms brought tears to my eyes. The bathroom floor was probably tiled, but it is now carpeted in loose strands of hair (some very short and curly, eww). The kitchen can only be described in one word: sticky. Years of grease has been built up and it is now as oily as a car repair garage.

The state of my room was almost enough to send me back home to Sydney. The room came furnished with the bare essentials -- a single bed, a desk and a built-in wardrobe. My only thought when I first burst in here was: I am never going to get laid here.

The wardrobe door was falling off the hinges and I spent a week with my suits on the floor (which of course was covered in hair before I vacuumed it) until Aunt T sent someone to fix it. It’s still not fixed, the wardrobe is without doors, but at least my suits are now off the floor.

It has been a little more than a nightmare. Sometimes I feel like a spoilt little princess whenever I start the whining. But I’ve lived in horrible places before – the dorms at UBC were not so flash – this just tops it all. I shower, go to the loo, brush my teeth and sometimes cook with my eyes closed.

It is time to look for a place where this swell mademoiselle can shower with her eyes open.

Work is a many strange splendoured thing. My brain has spent the last week and a half bombarded with information and I keep a pleasant demeanour whenever I am at the Rather Large Bank’s headquarters. I feel very uncomfortable at my own pleasantness; the usual horrid sarcasms are eager to be let off the leash.

There are four grads in Risk, all of us are from interstate. Farm Boy is from the wheat and sheep belt of Western Australia. Gold Buttons is from the wine country of New South Wales. They’re probably both delightful young men, but I’m not too sure if they get me when I let the horrid sarcasm out at lunch breaks.

Of course, there is also the very fine looking young man from Brisbane. He is devastatingly handsome, outrageously tall and very well built like all heartbreakers. I think I am very likely to fall for the Heartbreaker and get my heart broken. I have a fondness for heartbreakers.

Every time I see the Heartbreaker at a distance, I quietly sing to myself the Streets song You’re Fit But You Know It before he is close enough to hear it:

I am not trying to pull you,
Even though I would like to.
I think you are really fit,
You’re fit, but my gosh,
Don’t you know just know it.

Of course, the Heartbreaker has a girlfriend. But nevertheless, he is one hell of a funny guy to talk to. We are very similar. Even down to the “fit but know it” mentality. We both strut around with a “hey baby, how you doin’?” smirk.

At lunch today, we were gossiping about people in senior management.

“Have you noticed that Certain Head of Department (CHD) has a wonky eye?” asked the Heartbreaker.

“Yes!! Yes!” I replied ecstatically. It was something I had wanted to say for about a week.

“Sometimes, I just don’t know if he’s asking me a question or the guy next to me.” I confided to the Heartbreaker.

“I think the trick is to focus on just one eye,” explained the Heartbreaker.

“Yes, but the challenge is to figure out which one is the good eye to focus on.” I said.

Wednesday, 2 February 2005

My mum left for Sydney today. The reality of living here by myself has slowly started to sink in. I am still here at Aunt T’s house, quietly amused by Manchild’s strange behaviour.

The following is a small collection I have noted in the past few days.

The boy -- I cannot call him a man, I think you will soon see why -- is either deaf or exhibits selective hearing.

“Did you sleep well last night?” asked Mum courteously one morning. He had complained about feeling nauseous the night before.

“What? You’re leaving today?”

“No. Sleep. Last night. Did you sleep well?” Mum tried again.

“I stayed at Five Dock the last time I was in Sydney,” Manchild replied.

Mum gave up soon after.

The boy cannot do anything on his own. Worse, he is a two-year-old in a 28-year-old’s body. Every morning his father, Uncle L, trudges up to his room to get him up.

“儿 子啊！(Son!) Time to get up! Your breakfast is getting cold,” Uncle L would call through the door of the main bedroom that Manchild has taken over from his parents.

When Manchild finally makes it to the kitchen, Uncle L reheats everything and places them directly in front of his son. Vitamins and other supplements are carefully laid out for him in a pill box next to a cup of water. He never cleans up after himself when he’s done eating. Empty bowls and plates with scrap pieces of food are left strewn on the table for somebody else to look after.

It’s usually better when he doesn’t talk during meals. Last night, we went out for dinner. Midway through the ginger and shallot mud crabs, he stood up from the table.

“I’m going to go take a dump.”

“Don’t say that,” Aunt T softly warned. Mum and I exchanged bemused looks.

“What? Nothing wrong with taking a dump.”

He is very lacking in common manners.

After mother left today, I decided that I would try my hand at cooking dinner -- kind of a test for survival before the real thing next week. I was quite competent and managed to whip up three easy dishes in less than one hour.

Manchild came home just after I finished. While Aunt T and Uncle L busily went about setting up the table, their prodigal son sat down and started eating away at the prawn omelette. By the time we all sat down, the omelette was pretty much all gone. But Manchild carried on eating without a care in the world.

“Gimme more potatoes,” demanded Manchild for the mashed potatoes to be passed down.

I grudgingly did, knowing that it would come back empty.

“Say thank you,” Uncle L reminded him.

“Thanks.” He said gruffly.


A few days ago when mum and I were waiting for the bus, we had a little discussion about Manchild.

“Tell the truth. You’re beaming with pride that your daughter is pretty much perfect in comparison to him, aren’t you?” I asked.

“I suppose you’re not too bad.”

“No. I want to hear the words,” I persisted. “Come on, say it with me: I am beaming with pride.”

“I am not beaming. Remember the time you quit piano lessons?”

“Come on, that’s nothing compared to ‘taking a dump’ during dinner.”

“You’re not perfect,” said Mum.

“I am an angel in comparison. Just say it: I am beaming with pride.”

“I am beaming with pride that my daughter, perfect in most ways, just made us miss the bus,” she said, pointing to the bus that just pulled away from the curb.

“There’ll be another one in ten minutes. Gives us more time to say it again. Now repeat after me: I am beaming with pride that my daughter is perfection.”

Friday, 28 January 2005

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a young sassy Shanghainese mademoiselle with a sensible job and of suitable child-bearing age must be in need of a male equivalent.

This universal truth has brought me to my new home in Melbourne, though perhaps I should elaborate further lest you think I’ve somehow been sold as a child bride.

Two days before I left, I was still without a place to live in Melbourne. I was convinced that I would end up sleeping on the street for the first week. Then, on the day before my scheduled departure, I got news that my grandfather’s old colleague has a spare room in a flat that she leases out. It was arranged that I would stay at Granddad’s connection, Aunt T’s house, until the room is vacated by the previous tenant the following week.

Aunt T met my mother and I at the airport. She even took to the trouble of making two trips because we arrived on different flights. I was a picture of perfect Chinese upbringing, addressing her as Aunt and her husband as Uncle upon first meeting. I am sincerely grateful to them for letting me stay, so much so that I address her son as gege (older brother).

“There’s no need for that kind of formalities,” said Aunt T.

“Really no need,” said Uncle L.

“We don’t have any other kids,” continued Aunt T. “When you start work next week, feel free stay over here on weekends.”

“Yes, I’ll make nice healthy Chinese broth,” said Uncle L.

“She’ll be like a part of our family,” Aunt T assured my mother.

“Broth with abalone and corn fed chicken. Very good for nourishment,” continued Uncle L.

Gege is a man in his late-twenties. He is generously proportioned and lives at home with his parents. At dinners, he slurps his way through the soup and literally throws his food down his throat. Sometimes, he leaves the dinner table half-way through, but not before announcing: “I’ve got to go poo!”

Did I mention that he is in his late twenties?!

One morning when he was running late for work, he gulped down his breakfast while Aunt T fed him his vitamins in between bites.

Have I reminded you that he is in his late twenties?!

(Pixie, are you getting a kick out of this yet? Obviously couldn’t tell you this over the phone while still under their roof.)

One night I joined Aunt T, Mum and gege for a game of mahjong. I was confused for most of the game, but very much entertained by the prodigal son who decided to sing Communist revolution songs of yesteryears. They went something like this:

The Party teaches us great things.
From humble peasants we become hopeful children,
Children of the Party with bright red futures.
The blood of the revolutionists make us strong,
Our voices sing their songs.
We sing with strong hearts,
We sing a mountain song for the Party.

I am not making this shit up. He was singing non-stop for an hour or so before he left us to “pee”.

“He seems to like singing.” Mum said, ever so diplomatically.

“He’s not like this usually when we have company. I think he’s so comfortable with you here that he sees you as family.” Aunt T told Mum.

“Yes. Family. You're like family to us.” Uncle L reiterated. “I'll make broth this weekend.”

I am fucked, I thought.

I'm alive! And well!! Despite living in the yuckiest sharehouse in the history of sharehouse living.

Have much to tell. Much. Too much. But I'll have to update another time. Going out to have dinner (and possibly movie too) with a friend of Hermione. Hmm, maybe he could be given the alias of Harry Potter.

Feel like ditching dinner and just sit here and reveal all about my adventures here. But obviously can't. Both Pixie and Hermione are eagerly awaiting news of meeting with Harry Potter.