Just a spot of story.

This morning I was playing on my laptop and listening to Rick Astley. 

Incidentally, this song is amazing.

But anyway. Was playing on the laptop, listening to the Astley, and decided, "Hey. I might write something that isn't an assignment!"

So here you go. Very silly, very short, but I do also need to get out of bed and do things.

I don’t remember why I agreed to this.

I’m panicking.

I mean, if he likes me and decides that he wants this infernal thing to continue then I’m going to have to marry the guy because there’s not a chance on this sweet sweet earth that Nana will let me get out of it and then I’m going to have to escape my own wedding to flee to Mexico and start a new life under a new name –

Carmen, calm the flip down.

Though it is probably still best that I have my getaway name planned. There’s no way I can pull off any South American or, eugh, Spanish accents, but that doesn’t stop me from pretending I’m the love child of two hippies in the Australian bush somewhere.

“Carms?”

I turn to look at Lorena. “Chakra Sunrise Bloom.”

“Are you high?”

“No. It’s my getaway name.”

“Okay. One, you have getaway cars, not getaway names. Two, it’s a little early to be thinking about your escape to Mexico. Yes, I know you have an escape to Mexico planned,” she says in response to my wounded look. “But there is every likelihood you’ll say something ridiculous and he will want the getaway car.”

“What? I’m a perfectly lovely person.”

“You do have the tendency to blather on about directors and films that no one has heard of. That’s another thing – don’t subject him to your idiotic rambling about Bollywood movies. Yes, I know there are so many genres within Bollywood, and that no one appreciates that, but something else? That never improved my life the way you thought it would. I daresay he’s in the same boat.”

Younger sisters. They go out a few times before you do, and suddenly they’re the ones slinking into your room and offering advice before you date.

Then again, it could be vastly worse. It could be my mother in here offering advice.

Or Nana.

“Where is Nana?” I say, just to be on the safe side.

“She’s coming over for dinner, so she’ll be here when you get back.”

Suddenly, fleeing to Mexico becomes appealing for so many other reasons. 

♪ she paints pictures on the wall, she eats all of the garden ♪

I was talking with my brother yesterday about a number of different things, and as Dragon's Are You Old Enough? played on the TV, we wondered about the possibility of escaping, and whether escaping is different to running.

He told me that he would like to 'escape', to use my word, more for the sake of change. To get out of ruts.

Me? I'd like to escape for the sake of escaping. Just to go somewhere else and find out if I'm different when I'm elsewhere.

There are two main places where I'd love to go, and Melbourne is top on my list for it not being too far away, and for it being so very gorgeous. What has crept into my mind, though, is that it's actually a possibility. Melbourne could happen sooner than I think. I sit here, typing away and carefully avoiding assignments, and the realisation hits me that in four weeks, I'm in my final year of study at QUT. After that, I'm free, really. I can go to Melbourne if I want. I can study there if I choose to. I can decide against that, go and get a job, start working full time in media somewhere. It's sort of frightening, really. 

But there's the thing. Part of me wants to embrace the fear.

At the moment, I don't have much going on, and I'm fully aware a year could change that. My life is sort of in limbo at the moment. I'm not sure what's going where, and figuring that out is requiring too much headspace and worry settling in my belly. (Signs, again. People can't we just use flipping signs it would make all of our lives easier and dealing with everyone would become simple. I'm going to make this a thing everywhere.) I wonder if two months at home will clarify that, or if two months at home will make me more confused. 

Who knows. Life is just confusing.

And if it's confusing, shouldn't I just shake it up some more? Adding more confusion to the mix can hardly be a bad thing.

But one day I want to be sitting in Melbourne, in my apartment or in my house, with a job I love and - if God chooses to bless me in this way - a family. Pipe dream perhaps, as much of a dream as London is. Maybe I'm meant to stay in a city (I don't think I could ever go back to Ballina-like surrounds). I don't know. 

This coming year, though - let's say from now til September next year - there's going to be a lot of thought going on, and a lot of things that might change.

Ramblerambleramble

So today I left the house for the first time in two days.

I know, miracle. It's a bit weird being in the house by myself. Either I wake up with the desire to do something and it's raining, and no one is here to motivate me to leave, or I wake up with the desire to sleep for days.

Today, I woke up with more of a necessity to do something, and no rain. So I went.

Anyway, it's weird leaving the house after you haven't for two days, and also after you've had no real contact with anyone for the same amount of time. I did have human contact on Saturday, and I think I must have forgotten how to pleasantly converse with another human being in the time that I'd spent alone. Really, it's quite embarrassing and traumatic. It took me a little while to remember. I was quieter than usual as I remembered how to converse. 

That... that probably makes me seem really special.

After spending nearly a week by myself, the amount of people who had flocked to Southbank for Riverfire was just... astonishing. I think I must have forgotten that people all flock for fireworks, and that there'd be plenty of them. I really am quite forgetful. You could hardly move anywhere. We got an absolutely amazing view, though, quite by chance.

Oh man, oh man, I can't even write now. This is just embarrassing.

To sum it up before I start blithering like an idiot even more than usual, I had quite a lot of fun. This fun is a good fun and I like it and repeating fun like this is probably good. Wheeeeefunnnnn! (Really did not accomplish the 'not blithering' part. My career as a writer is fading rapidly.)

To the next point.

My parents have ventured down to my grandparents' place - the one that I sell so well - and thus, have no reception. Sometime between 1am and 8am, Sirius kicked the bucket, and so I called my father at my grandparents' house.

My grandma answered the phone, as is her custom, with a muffled, "207."

"Grandma?" I said. "It's Tash. Are my parents there?"

"Why would they be here?" she asked indignantly.
"Aren't they visiting you?"

She sighed. "I'll go and ask Grandpa." I heard her leave her room and shuffle to the kitchen, where I could hear my mother's voice plain as day. "Grandpa, have you seen Colin?"

Colin is my uncle.

"No, Grandma," I tried to say. "It's Tash."

Evidently, Grandma did not hear me. "Elouise can't find Colin."

"GRANDMA!" I shouted. No luck.

"I don't know why she thinks Colin's here, anyway." She must have put the phone back to her ear. "Elouise? Your father's not here."

I gave up. "Can I talk to Aunty Merrilyn, then?"

My mother came on the phone. "Ellie? Can't you find your parents?"
"I can. I'm speaking to my mother."

My mother hooted. "Mum," she called. "It's Tash, not Ellie."
"Well, why didn't she say so?" Grandma said, affronted.

I seem to be going well today in the realm of phone calls. I called my other grandparents, searching for my cousin, and instead reached my Nana. Expected, and all good.

Nana is not subtle when it comes to presents, however.

"Nana," I said in my best Spanish. "Can you please, somehow, find out which James Bond books Tata has? I am going to buy him some as a present."

"Okay, niña. Viejo! The nieta wants to know what James Bond books to buy you!"

Tata immediately wrenched the phone from her. "Nieta, don't buy me James Bond! I've read them all."

"I wasn't going to buy you James Bond," I said in English. "I just wanted to know which books you have, so when I buy some for me I don't double up and then I can borrow yours."

"Nice try. You don't like James Bond. You like silly novels."

Which is, unfortunately, quite accurate.

Now Teddy is staring at me from the iPod dock I have shoved him into, Sirius being unavailable to play music. (There's an ominous scent coming from him. I'm a bit worried. Dad also sounded worried, but pretended otherwise. Nice try, Padrecito, but I know your wow Tash you've really screwed up your computer this time voice very well now.) In between playing Joe Anderson's cover of I Want You and Split Enz's Message to My Girl, Teddy has decided charging is a violation of all he holds dear. Yet... somehow... there is no battery power being lost.

I don't think I will ever understand this technology thing.

Yeah. That's about it. I think I'm done rambling for the day. I should really do some form of uni work.

In attempting to format this post, I found a half-finished, non-rambling post that I could possibly have uploaded instead. Did I do that? No. It seems even now I prefer incoherence to brilliance.