J’s Diary Entries

Wednesday, 26 April, 1995

Spoke to Mum on the phone today, she had some very interesting news.  Apparently S is not going to Nan and Pop’s for Christmas.  Mum said in definite, emphatic tones, “S and the baby are spending Christmas with you and me, up here at my house.” (as opposed to “down there” at Nana and Pop’s) I think Mum sees this as a big victory for herself.  It must be a sweet victory considering how Dad turned S against Mum for all those years.  And an especially sour defeat for Dad considering how pleased Nana sounded when I said I’d be down there for Christmas with S.  Dad will have to tell Nana the opposite now.  I bet he’s not looking forward to that.

It was Simon’s first post-Kerry day.  Geez, ti’s been a while since I’ve seen real pain.  He’s really down, perhaps he really loved her.  I could do a little to cheer him up.  I bopped him over the head with some rolled up wrapping paper, which is as close as I get to the comfort of human touch.  Simon thinks I’m a fag anyway, so I don’t think he’d really want me touching him the first day after his girlfriend splits the scene.  I don’t know what to do here – I wish people wouldn’t take their pain to town.  At least his sense of humour is intact, he was making loneliness jokes at his own expense, which is OK because he knows no one else will.  I keep telling him to find a Kerry lookalike, go out with her for a week and then dump her, savage-like.  I hopes he knows I’m joking.

Brett rang me at work, we had almost nothing to talk about.  I wish he wouldn’t ring. There’s such an art to letting friendships fizzle out.

Thursday, 27 April, 1995

Dad dropped into work today to return that book on Aboriginal bush food that I bought him for his birthday.  He already has it.  Troublesome man.  If he had any manners he’d pretend he didn’t have it and palm one copy off to one of his friends.  Now I have to try and return it and find a different one. I even went to the trouble of wrapping that damn book.