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When it Rains, it Pours
January 16, 2004, 10:53 p.m. Well. Today was just not my day. It started off well enough – I’d told Sixten, who was at home with a bad knee (ice-skating incident), that I’d be round at her place at midday to visit her. So there I was, striding down to the train station with the Whitlam’s Love This City playing. I thought I arrived on time, but nope, apparently I’d missed my train, and the next one was only going to Ashfield (two stops down the line) when I needed to go to Burwood (four stops down the line). So I got off at Ashfield and changed trains, and got to Burwood. Things were going okay, as I was in time for my bus. However. Then, I sat listening to my discman, looking out the window, but not really looking at the window. Suddenly, I saw it. “Launcelot St.” Hey, that’s where I’m supposed to get off! Just then, the bus pulled out. Dammit! Oh well, I thought, and pushed the button. I’ll just get off at the next stop. But the next stop didn’t come. And we turned corners! And ten minutes later, I was in Campsie and it was raining. So I began the long walk back up to my last bus stop. In the pouring rain. Without an umbrella. That’ll learn me to leave house without one. So anyway, I kept walking, trying to remember the turns, but I suddenly had no idea if I was going north, south, east or west (damn clouds) and had to call Sixten for directions. Fortunately, I was going the right way, and so eventually arrived at Sixten’s house at one o’clock, an hour after I’d said I’d be there, “dripping like a mermaid,” to quote a good book (tell me which book, and I’ll love you forever). Well – Sixten isn’t a big girl. She’s a little slip of a thing who wears sizes sixes and eights. Same with the rest of the women in her family. And I’m not a big girl either, but I have, ahem, womanly curves. I borrowed the only size ten clothes they had, but they weren’t the size ten I was used to. Way to make a girl feel fat : ) Anyway, I introduced Sixy to the glory that is Chicago, and she introduced me to the glory that is Bollywood, by screening this movie called Dil Hai Tumhara (apparently My Heart is Yours). Oh it was great! This woman finds out her husband has another family, just before he and his mistress get killed in a car crash. He makes her promise just before he dies that she’ll look after his child, so she does, and doesn’t tell the child that she’s not her mother. She raises her, but doesn’t love her, but her other daughter does. Then there’s this whole thing with a factory and trying to save it, but that’s not important. Suffice to say that the two sisters meet this man and both fall in love with him, but he only loves the foundling back. There’s this great song where he can’t handle a real relationship with her, so he keeps running off with fantasy-her – Sixten scoffed at that interpretation, of course. Anyway, there’s this mistake which leads the other sister to believe he loves her, so the foundling breaks it off with him so he and her sister can get married (which really isn’t fair to either of him, but it’s all about the self-sacrifice, doncha know?) and then everyone’s miserable, except the other sister. Then there’s this whole thing where the mother realises that she really does love the foundling, and eventually the foundling and the hero end up together, but not until everyone’s broken into song a thousand times and the foundling has endured “one vital struggle with two tigers – jealousy and despair” and had her “heart torn out and devoured” (more quotes from that great book!). Like I said, it’s all about the self-sacrifice. Ah, it’s great stuff. And then it was time to go home. My clothes were all warm from the dryer – except my socks! Forgot to put em in, dammit! I borrowed some, and it was okay, except I left my keys at Sixten’s, so her sister had to run them up to me at the train station, which meant I had to watch a train go by, and then one after that was late – but ooh! I saw a cute guy! He was reading a Discworld book (couldn’t see which), so major plus points, but he was a fidgeter. Kept playing with his hair, chewing his nails, changing his position. And he drank from the bubbler using a straw! Bizarro. Anyway, that was my day.
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