Family friends

Every alternate weekend, my parents would pile my brother and I in the car and drive over to visit one of their friends, way back when I was a young'n. They had a healthy number of friends, so it could have been months before I saw the same people again. Invariably, their friends would have kids around my age, so we'd go off and get dirty and cut up and make cubby houses and talk endlessly. Up until I was about 10, I actually thought that the kids of my parents friends would, by default, become my set of friends that I would visit when I was married and had kids. I'm sure it does work that way for a lot of people.

Not for me.

When I hit 14, my parents would let me stay at home when they went to visit friends. Growing up in a household where my mum was always at home, ALWAYS, I relished the privacy. In that precious time alone, I'd call up other friends, pig out on junk food, don a long blonde wig made out of cotton wool, turn up Guns n' Roses and Motley Crue really loud on the 'HiFi', play air guitar, sing into an empty toilet roll microphone and stage dive from the coffee table onto the couch. The other 80% of the time I'd be busy jackin' the beanstalk.

Whilst still donning the wig.

I wouldn't always take the stay at home option, but mostly I did. I grew apart from those family friends, I guess, because my interests differed to theirs. I was from the Sutherland Shire. They were from Western or Southern Sydney. I listened to Faith No More. They listened to MC Hammer. I surfed. They fantisized about driving hotted-up cars. I was from the Sutherland Shire. They pissed themselves laughing at me because I was from the Sutherland Shire.

And so they damn well should. That cultureless shithole should be disherited from Sydney.

Not all were as I've described. About as many as those from whom I moved away, moved away from me. I didn't fit their bill. Probably for good reason, too. Hello? Faith No More?! Dorkfest 1.0! If I knew then what I know, not even I would've talked to me, let alone slap boxing the one-eyed champ. But it's these, the ones that moved away from me that I miss the most. Not terribly deeply, mind you, but enough to occasionally wonder what they're doing in life. I hear snippets from my parents sometimes, but I never get a complete picture.

Until you see their picture.



In the Sydney Morning Herald.

And read their story. And get to soon see their story at Tropfest.

Tania Yuki, I'm talkin' 'bout YOU.

YOU, TANIA YUKI, hiding behind John Polson and a pseudonym. At least I think that's a pseudonym. I'm not sure now.

Yes, this is a shameless attempt to write Tania Yuki in my blog entry as many times as possible in the hope that Tania Yuki decides to google 'Tania Yuki' and find that I've come up on top of the Tania Yuki search listings because I've typed Tania Yuki more times than anyone else ever has.

Typed.

Tania Yuki.

The movie is about, and I quote

"a love story that Yuki based on her Japanese mother and Croatian father's cross-cultural relationship".

Her mother

"was less than happy to discover her daughter's film would be screened as a finalist at Tropfest this month".

"She was mortified that she was going to be on screen in front of that many people".

I recently saw Tania's parents (and her gay dog!) at the funeral I wrote about earlier in my blog history. Her parents are about the nicest and warmest people you could ever hope to meet. I can't wait to see them on screen (27th February), which will be weird enough for me, let alone them.

Good luck in the contest, Tania.

And in life too, I suppose.