1. Ya mum.
2. I never liked you anyway.
3. So is ya face.
4. Yeah, well.
5. I hear you eat Homebrand.
6. Build a bridge.
7. I lied. You were adopted.
8. My dad hates you.
9. You are.
10. I didn’t invite you here. My mum did. Play with her.
11. At least I’ve got hair. (To someone who doesn’t).
12. Wow. Good story.
13. Can I offer you a mint?
14. Blank stare.
15. Yawn.
1. Death Cab for Cutie. This is possible, of course, only if you have a ticket or if you somehow manage to appropriate mine, a task that will not come easily or happily. I will see you, sprouting your unsightly legs through my window, and I will cut them off with a machete that I have hired for the purpose. I will then hand you the ticket and drive you to the show, gladly push you out the door and watch you pull yourself by the arms to the entrance. You will proceed to dance only with your upper body and head. It will be a new experience and you will learn many new things, the least of which being that you must never fuck with Tegan.
2. Speak in third person. As I just did. This fun activity should not be limited to this weekend. It is good for times when you are bored and must amuse yourself. The challenge is to make it seem convincing, authentic. For instance, my business teacher in year nine was a genuine third person orator. Her mad utterings were something along the lines of:
And if you do not rule a margin three centimetres wide, Mrs Cupples will be very angry. And when Mrs Cupples is angry she will stamp her feet and shake her fist. And she will not let you depart from this class when the bell doth ring.
Part of the reason she was so convincing was that she had a mushroom hair cut. And that she taught business. You may not want to go this far.
3. Smith’s Big Red. Back by popular demand and for very good reason. Get yourself to your nearest chip-stocking store and purchase the biggest bag there. Wash down with a glass of Juice of Orange and you will not be disappointed. I have also just received confirmation that Samboys has also brought back its Atomic Tomato chip. I will be conducting my own compare and contrast between the two. I am sure the results will make it onto a list sometime in the very near future. Stay tuned.
4. West End Markets. A bearable substitute for when you can’t make it to the morning markets in the tiny providences of northern France. You can buy tropical items, such as pineapples and figs, and more homely items, such as potatoes and onions. Lamb and lamb only is featured on one stand, if you happen to love lamb and lamb only. And on a piece of blue tarp on one stretch of dirt, a middle-aged hippy guy displays a wide and varied collection of second-hand books (fiction and non-fiction), all of which are available for sale. Other highlights include any number of quality coffee vendors, and merchants of all shapes and sizes selling assorted compact discs, rugs and throws, and jewellery. A few baker stalls, with their loaves and pastries and other carb-goods piled and stacked haphazardly in crates and wooden boxes, may even convince you that you are indeed a tiny French woman with braided hair and a well and chickens to tend to once you return home.1. Animals. They disco on roofs of tin. They scamper along fences, waltz along tree limbs, and fall out of bushes that look deceptively sturdy. Some have the ability to traipse walls and some fly. Some, however, are less fortunate. They seize the room, and appear, at first, to have conquered. They circulate like specks of dust in the air, but are swiftly punished. If not before pilfering human blood, always immediately after. They are smacked flat into a human palm. They are slapped and squashed and dragged down a wall, across a bench. I would like to ask them, perchance they should learn English, just whether it is worth it. Perhaps I would suggest to them that they must evolve into possums or bats if they are to look forward to things like retirement villages and hovercraft transport vehicles.
2. Candles. The yellow glow is gentle on the skin. This I enjoy.
3. Stars. Travel to Dalby or even further to Warra if you’re game. Take a look at the silken sky and count the lights that twinkle. Record the tally in a diary, as proof that you have read this list and followed my instructions. What’s that? You can’t? Well, fool, I tricked you, I did. In Dalby, there are too many stars for anyone to count. They fall and grow and shine as they please and all we can do is shout to their spangled splendour. Now shout, fool, shout!
4. Red paint. In the night time, we put on our shoes and out we go. We carry brushes in our handbags and helpings of paint in tiny silver canisters. We are artists and have access to brick walls, pavements, park benches and alleyways. We paint them all. The music plays.
5. Specials. If you take great pleasure in marked-down food items, you’ll agree that night is a special time. Chew grass, swallow paper, do whatever you can to stave off hunger and head to the store in its later hours of opening. You may just get a whole year’s worth of chocolate milk for a dollar. The only downside is that you will have to drink it in two days. Before it curdles and sours and potentially kills you.
6. Cicadas. We do not see them, just hear them. And we only hear them in the early evening, in the twilight. This is the time between day and night and if you’re quiet and move on your tiptoes you can slip into the gap and take a moment for yourself. As the afternoon draws to a close, keep your ears open, as the onset of the cicada chorus will provide an appropriate introduction to what is the perfect time to read or nap. If you do happen to see the cicadas, particularly if in a swarm or plague, then you must run and do it quickly.
7. Sleep. Comes easily. We nestle and snooze. We don’t want to be woken by insects, alarms, raw sunlight cascading through the window. We only want the sky to grow darker and to continue to sleep. We do not want to pee. We want to sleep.
8. Dreams. They follow. In the morning are gone.
