OK, so it's to complete the circle of life (I guess that makes me Simba) - it was summertime in Northern Michi...no wait, that was Kid Rock. It was 1999, and I had just proven myself the worst law student in the history of the world. Worse than the nervous old Hungarian woman with the flimsy grasp of political correctness, worse than the girl who was 7"1 with the giant man hands...the worst. And I had the marks to prove it. Liverpool had just thrown away a 1-0 lead with a minute to go against Manchester United, and Collingwood were lining up another memorable year under Tony The Tiger Shaw. For me, there was no fallback plan - I'd have to join the workforce. Wait, there's always improvisational comedy to fall back on...no, I had to put the props back in the case and face my fate. Maybe, just maybe, the marks were wrong, it was an 82 not a 28, maybe I could say my Grandma died or I could defer for a decade or I could...no, it's not going to work is it? My parents were naturally very angry, and I couldn't face them just yet - I'd love to say that I showed a Steve Waugh like grit and determination and stuck it out and faced them, but I didn't. To be honest, even though I was facing a lifetime of stacking bottles of lemonade in a supermarket, I didn't seem to care, in my head trying to work out things like who would win a fight between Natalie Appleton and Geri Halliwell rather than thinking about my future. I still remember sitting on the steps after I failed, seeing so many bright young optimistic things though in funky fun GC17 style fashions talking about, like, how awesome it, like, was to be, like, alive (so Avril) and feeling so old, so dis-interested. So that night, instead of going home, I did what I could to get through the night, first of all spending as much time as humanly possible in the Internet computer labs draining the last of my soon to expire password, maybe playing some Sensible soccer or chatting to people about the joys of the banana Milky Way, and then, when that had lost it's appeal quicker than Grape Hubba Bubba (the most maligned of all the flavours), I did the only thing left that I could for the sake of my sanity - I got a six pack of beer from a faculty lounge bar where peoples happiness went straight through me, went round the corner, and went to my girlfriends house, to sit on the porch until morning, and talk about anything but lemonade bottle stacking...
Actually, she wasn't really my girlfriend - if I was to turn into Sid James, I'd simply stay I stayed over, and then do a filthy laugh, but my filthy laugh just sounds a bit rubbish, worse than my impression of a drunk Geordie - because, well, she played netball and had proper dreams and ambitions where as I was like, er...well, I was there also. She had eyes...no, I'm not making the Colin Lane Joke...that were bright and alive and full of interest in the world around her. She quite openly liked someone else, and I was a bit flirty with the single mums at the library, and the whole thing was just totally dysfunctional, and messy, quite arty in the fact that she liked to discuss poetry and literature and I kept only messing it up by mentioning the career trajectory of Burt Reynolds and old episodes of Evening Shade. One night on film night I made her get out Cop and A Half, that was a whole week of frost I tell you. However, don't think it was all Jane and the Dumbarse, I introduced her to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, she made me watch The Woman Who Loved Elvis with Roseanne and Tom Arnold. I can't even remember how we met or what the thought process was behind it - sometimes I think we got talking outside Creek Road netball centre, other times I think we met at uni, other times I think we met on the fourth hole of Moonah pitch and putt in a rain storm and she was more beautiful than...no, it was definitely outside Creek Road netball centre, it's just the fact I can't remember why I was in Moonah that's still got me. It's not exactly a hot bed, and I wasn't hunting around for Reggie biscuits from the bakery...that was later. What was I doing there, was I stalking netballers? Was I hanging out with the Video City skateboard crowd? What was good about all this was that my Mum and Dad, my bugbears, knew nothing about it, so when I was supposed to having job interviews, I was really in her attic playing ATARI, because she bought me ATARI as a present for our two month anniversary...I wish she'd bought me a better game than ET though, how many bugs does that thing have, and I had to go and get Peles Internation...wait...she remembered...we talked about ATARIs one night...she remembered our two month anniversary...oh...
You see, when she bought me an ATARI, and I remember it really clearly because I was outside Sanity sending her a text message and avoiding an interview, I realised that I actually was in a relationship, as opposed to just something that would get me a cameo in Confessions Of a Windowcleaner or something that was passing the time until nap time or just something that was allowing me to listen to different kinds of CDs or something that at times had me in a bad Cheech style state of mind...it was a relationship. With feelings, and presents and dates and trips to netball awards nights and I didn't know it at the time but the guy she liked was actually a jerk who was on trial for displays of public nudity...and it wasn't love, but it was something. We went from a relationship of little quirks like we wouldn't have any kind of Twistie in the house except Cheese, and we picked a favourite one out of the New Bohemians, and then, she was talking about what I could do to find work or what kind of wallpaper goes well in a rented apartment. One morning we even had breakfast together, before I went off to go and play Pacman in a local milk bar and she went off to better herself. I felt incredibly awful that I was being so lazy that I went and had three job interviews that night, and all I wanted for her to be happy, and the best I could do was win her a little pink chicken out of a skill tester machine. It took an hour, but it made her smile. It was to be honest a little sickening, but I felt so greatful to her for her support, and I felt useless around her, embarrassed to be among the unemployed when she was working so hard to get her degree. If I'd known at the time she was struggling so much with her school work and her health, and oddly, was relying on me to cheer her up and make her laugh, I'd have been a lot more self confident, but we were just as neurotic, unsure and...struggling as badly as each other. The difference was, she was trying, and I was failing...
And then, it ended - it was a Sunday, and I had just got a job, and I was sort of distracted, watching some kind of sport or telemovie or something, hoping that my ironic detatched commentary would get me through the day without feeling really guilty about my apathy. She was really quiet, and was baking lamingtons in the kitchen as part of a netball fundraiser. Now, I remember this really clearly, she put the lamingtons on the table in a pyramid, and I am a fantastic judge of lamingtons, in fact I think I took it as a subject in Kindergarten along with not shoving crayons up your nose and advanced nipple cripples, and the thing was, she was a terrible baker, like, worse than me, and I couldn't put beans evenly on toast, but they looked terrific and I know what I meant to say, and how it was meant to sound, but I looked up, and sort of said off hand "Oh, you should have made pink ones" - all I meant was that her netball team had pink bibs, so it would go with the team colours, but it was so flippant, in a way I didn't mean, she just shook her head. Honestly, the way she looked, it was the most beautiful I've ever seen anyone look, just amazingly beautiful in the kitchen light, just standing there in her apron and her own frustration. She just looked at the lamingtons, and sighed deeply. Then, she put her fist right through the middle of the pyramid, sending bits of lamingtons everywhere, and stormed out. I realise now how it sounded - how it sounds when you are slogging your guts out and can't get any support. And how it feels when you think you've done nothing wrong and someone brings your world crashing down. And it wasn't even that one thing, nothing to do with lamingtons, it was just...everything. Everything on top of her. I've thought since that day that the world won't end because of religions or cultural differences or disputes over land - it will end because one person at a conference wants tea and gets coffee, and takes it out on the world. I've seen a million relationships, friendships, families - my Dad and his Dad haven't spoken for 26 years because of a fight over a christening shawl - just dis-integrate over nothing, small, tiny issues, the size of a speck of dust, but it's never just that...it's never just lamingtons...
I saw her a year later, and we spoke for thirty seconds outside H&R Block, and we said how are you, and made a joke about Gal Costa, and that was that...closure....and as she went off down the road, I wished her well quietly, and let it all go after three seconds of wistfulness and regret...I don't know what became of her, but we'll always have The Woman Who Loved Elvis...
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