I am at the point of my saga-some Xmas/NYE tour of the east coast where I become so paralytic with tiredness, I can hardly type. I’ve just gone Katoomba-Melbourne-Sidders in a very short period of time. I spent last night sleeping in a room the size of a cupboard last night: a cupboard is all I’m up to, at the moment. I often have a preference for dives when travelling, as long as they’re clean. I think the smallness of their rooms means less external stimulation so it’s easier to sleep.
As I commented in FB, I’ve been sitting in Potts Point next to a table with yummie-mummies in designer label tops, talking about life’s privations. I’d forgotten these people existed. They used to come out at a certain time (9-11 am) on the streets of Balmain when I lived there. This pair has been talking about talking about the need for 'a safe space for women -- to work out while their kids are in childcare' – i.e. a kind of gym-cum-childcare centre (other forms of exercise – walking, cycling, swimming, etc – aren’t good enough, apparently). I would have thought gyms with childcare facilities abounded in Sydney. In Alice Springs, a safe place for women is one where they don’t get bashed.
God, I’m such an inverse snob. It’s not that there aren’t women whose conversations are mainly about gymming and kids in Alice, tho they’re a lot less upwardly mobile. This kind of stuff makes me wonder whether I’m going potty: which surreal reality –- Potts Pt mums or disenfranchised Aboriginal women -- is the more real.
Having just flitted between Sydney and Melbourne, a little surreal in itself, I’ve found myself drawn into the Sydney versus Melbourne game, of weighing up the various pro’s and con’s. It’s a boring parlour game to be sure, which today goes something like this: Sydney – more raffish, more racy, yet more blatantly racist. Melbourne – more cultural, more socially aware yet more parsimonious, etc. Etc, etc, etc. I’m sure Melbourne has its own soma-taking yummie-mummie brigade anyway.
But swayed me more towards Melbourne over the last couple of days is that they have the ‘little conversation’, a transaction in which totally strangers (e.g. vendors and customers) sometimes acknowledge each other’s existence. While I was trying to choose a slice at Melb airport (see FB post), a cleaner came up to me and said, ‘People often go for XX but I recommend YY.’ (No, nothing to do with Mendelian genetics.) I reckon this would almost never happen in Sydney, tho I did used to have the little conversation with shopkeepers I came to know in Balmain. People tend to glower at you if smile at them on public transport or swap pleasantries in exchange for service in Sydney.
The upside of Sydney…high
humidity. My skin suddenly looks
like it did 6 years ago, instead of something that would look more appropriate
on one of the inmates of Eric Worrell’s Reptile Park.
I am quite dependent on those little Melb. conversations - they tend to make up for all the other ones I don't get time for because I'm looking after K. Love 'em.
And yes, there are plenty of those mummies down here too. Though all of them are pretty cute really - they can all blink and it will be over, bang, baby will have a phone and partner and god knows what else. Hopefully someplace to rent...!
Posted by: genevieve | January 09, 2010 at 09:19 PM
On the other hand... back on the flight to Alice, I saw one person I was no longer on speakies with, and another I'd worked with several years ago, but wasn't in the mood for talking to...familiarity breeds contempt.
Posted by: elsewhere | January 10, 2010 at 03:02 PM
Well, all right, not all those conversations then - that is an exaggeration. But certainly some.
Posted by: genevieve | January 10, 2010 at 03:40 PM