Tag: Bronwyn

We got that attitude! – 24th March 2020

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I am so happy and grateful to be motivated to help Amy this morning. We did an hour cleaning the terrace and it was fun.

24th Mar 2023 – A disadvantage of having a relatively big house and garden is the time to maintain and clean it. When I moved to Australia and started doing more adult things (!), Bronwyn and I lived first in an apartment before relocating for work to a house with a garden. We thought that would be great – so much space to do with what we wanted. I soon discovered that that space did what it wanted with us.
As we were renting there was no real connection with space that made me what to spend too much time keeping it together.
Even now I would rather pay someone to do our garden work. I wonder how much of a step it would be for me to hire a cleaner for indoors? Somehow I just can’t imagine that unless I was incapacitated. Even considering this kind of thing is a privilege I am thankful for.

You are a human-in-training and that making mistakes and having slips of integrity and mediocre moments are a part of life, not unforgivable sins.

Dan Millman

To-do list

  • Record new TCRAH first thing ✅
  • Sort some CDs
  • Write one lesson ✅

Spent some time actually doing things today. The days go quickly either way. A few weeks ago I was motivating myself with challenges and now I feel, with more time on my hands, less challenged and therefore less motivated.

I like this feeling because I may get less done but what does it really matter? I had less time before because I was working so it was important to allocate time to getting other things done. Work can be rewarding but starting to feel unnecessary. Luckily, I’m in a position financially where it’s not a big issue.

27th Jun 2024 – I don’t know exactly how I was feeling when I wrote this because I feel almost the opposite now. I don’t enjoy not having anything in particular to do. I’m good at filling my time but feel much more motivated when time is limited.

And see how his face glows – 26th December 2019

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Yesterday I was completely lifted by having three good fun lessons which the students and I all enjoyed. Then I went to visit CRPAO again.

The feeling there is still not good (for me, anyway) but my old classes were very happy to see me and I was surprised at Simone’s students who smothered me in hugs and were very affectionate. I made a point to see Funfai – she’s so cute! She said she misses me and it was very lovely. I felt very much appreciated after that.

27th Dec 2023 – I just last week found out that this wasn’t Funfai at all but another student (Funfai and Lydia thought is called) Sugus.

I was still tired when I got home but felt more invigorated. Today is my easy day so everything has come back together nicely. I’m glad I didn’t let that glum feeling get me down at the beginning of the week

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to have met the students at CRPAO and was very surprised at the reaction of Simone’s kids, they jumped on me and pulled me to the ground they were so happy to see me.

To-do list

  • No complaints out of your mouth.
  • Finish week 15 lesson – have lots of time.
  • Compliment another teacher.
  • Positive feedback for students.
  • Study next Thai video and more Drops.
  • Think about when can record more TCRAH.
  • Consider what to talk with Hayden and how he is feeling.

Did it list

  • Wrote to-do list in the morning.
  • Deleted all games off phone.
  • Stayed calm all day.
  • Noticed when I complained and stopped myself.
  • Read three chapters of book.
  • Stayed calm when I found out we’d be staying at Rak’s house for dinner even though I had hoped to return home.
  • Even though got home late, went and watched Thai video. Also did Drops today.
  • Rang Hayden and tried to sound positive without being overbearing.
  • Finished week 15 lesson.
  • Told students it was their decision if they want to do homework.

After reading an article I instantly deleted all games off my phone. The article was simple and direct. ‘Don’t play games on your phone. You are an adult.’
I got a message from Bronwyn in the morning saying Hayden was upset by the messages I was sending him, trying to help him and to call for Christmas. This message made me a little mad – why doesn’t he just call me and so what if he’s upset. He should be upset and be motivated to improve his life. I wrote a note to myself to think about later – ‘things I like about Hayden.’ I tried to think about how he was feeling and called him in the afternoon. He sounded fairly upbeat and was talking about becoming a firefighter. I’d like that to happen.

Mr. Right says ‘what is a sin in difficult times?’ – 8th June 2019

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Last entry in this journal was 11th August 2003.

Things change a lot in 16 years. One thing that doesn’t though, is a parent’s concern for their child. Sometimes I wonder how I can be so much more for other children than I can for Hayden. I guess I just wasn’t there enough.

I won’t beat myself up over this though. Not like I might have done in the past. I can’t change the past. I offer myself to Hayden but I think sometimes he’s afraid to ask, doesn’t want to bother me. Same with his mum. We’re both busy for sure but I don’t think there can be a time when I would refuse to help.

His mum and I have different ways to deal with these things. We try the best with what we have. I do wish I could’ve been more involved in raising Hayden, not particularly in formal education but in life education. I think I set him a good example in many aspects and while I worry about where his motivations are coming from, I consider how useless I was at his age and how things have come right for me since then. I needed certain people to push or pull me in the right directions.

We thought we had no future get here we are. I do wonder the future for the next generations though. With the whole world at our fingertips, it feels like the starry-eyed wonderment has dissipated. It’s no surprise the attitude of each generation might feel this way.

It’s not my fault but I try to offer hope and a positive outlook as much as I can.

Should I Stay Away? – 5th November 2001

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Such a fragile thing
Why do I want to break you?
Touch your delicate face
Afraid you’ll crumble to dust

I want to feel your warm breath
In night-time clenches
But afraid I’ll throw you away
When you become too familiar

Maybe I should stay away
But I feel a need to be saved
A continual desire for a companion
An ever-decreasing circle of self-fulfilling prophecy

18th Oct 2024 – Questioning myself about my pursuit of Lorraine as I was conscious of the deep love that I had felt for, firstly, Bronwyn and then for TLJ and what drama I had caused them. I had not been without a girlfriend for about ten years and TLJ noticed this as a weakness (particularly relevant to her, as I had transitioned my relationship from Bronwyn to her without a break). Although TLJ and I had broken up by this point I had been meeting Lorraine (outside of work) and we were figuring things out between us.

*Angel – 18th December 1998

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Email to TLJ

Well, was a bit busy yesterday, and really there are no excuses but I failed to write you a mail so here I am!

Watched a great movie on Wed night – 6 Days 6 Nights – you have to watch it with me – it was awesome! Has Beatrice Dalle in. I’ve seen it in the video stores before but never got it out – it was on SBS so I taped it. You will love it I reckon!

Went to the city after work yesterday to do some Christmas shopping – was looking for a present for Bronwyn but I still didn’t know what to get her. I went to Market City to get some dinner – got lemon bean curd with crispy noodles – you’re supposed to have it with rice and they gave me a funny look when I asked for it with crispy noodles – like, why would you want it with that! Also had a sago dessert as usual. Was packed out for dinnertime – mostly by white people. I looked around the shops but there isn’t really that much there I reckon – I thought it was bigger.

Anyway was walking back up Pitt St and popped into Red Eye’s secondhand shop just on the off chance. Found some goddamn bargains – including a 29-track CD by Rob Crow – the singer/songwriter from Heavy Vegetable – and for 5 bucks! I walked up to the mall but couldn’t find anything suitable as a present and was getting pretty pissed off with it all. So walked back down George Street to Sponge House where Oren was playing that night. Met Oren’s girlfriend (or should I say fiance) outside with one of her friends and went for a coffee (Christain hadn’t(and didn’t) turned up).

So I asked these two ladies what I should get and they came up with a good idea of a free beauty treatment thing of some sort – like a facial etc so I was pretty pleased with that – now i just have to find somewhere that will do vouchers – and today!

Anyway, this other girl (also called Bronwyn) was a video editor so I told her about the equipment I have and may get in touch with her to come and have a look at it sometime. Went into Sponge House – you have to see it babe – it’s mad – just a little room with equipment in one corner and a bench in the other!

This girl the others there (all 9 or 10 of us) knew came and sat down and babbled on about some records she’d bought and then said she’d been around all the sex shops and around Chinatown giving out flyers. I looked a little puzzled – she said “Yeah and I’ve already got one call from some guy who wants to be tied up and walked all over – fine with me!”. I was like, right-io! She was a bit barmy but quite funny and completely unpretentious – I did wonder if she was cracking on to me for some business though.

Anyways, if you’d have come you wouldn’t have been the only Asian there – one guy and one girl – not sure if they were together or not. Anyway, the music was great – Oren on guitar and Pheebee on other things – she played in Alternahunk and is quite well known (apparently!) – and it was cool to hear the traffic on George Street just outside. I was really inspired! I will try to go back there soon.

Tomorrow night is Not From There and Gerling and Sunday is Vicious Hairy Mary, a Jap band and Testicle Candy (another band Oren is involved in). I’m sure I’m gonna run out of money before Christmas!

All right babes – I keep looking forward to hearing from you – and really looking forward to seeing you again and having a big damn cuddle!

*This morning – 9th July 1998

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Email with TLJ:

S: My princess, this morning, this cold morning I pulled out of the driveway and onto the road to prison, my personal prison but my day would not be clouded by these dark thoughts. In the dullish light of the day, a beautiful silver-leaved tree shone out to me and spoke in a way I hadn’t seen in a long time. It spoke the whispered words of love and light and life. Without doing anything at all the tree made my day. Within that thought was a vision of you. Thank you.

T: thank you sweety.
S: Anytime (when I get the time – that’s a song by the Descendents – ‘When I get the time, I write a little rhyme – for you’)
T: i was just thinking the other day “how come shaun never writes me any poetry any more?” i suppose it’s because the wooing is over……..hmmmm?
S: Are you wooed? The poetry isn’t over – it’s being written every day.
T: i haven’t seen anything you’ve written lately, which is a shame, cause i was hoping you’d never stop writing.
S: I promise to never stop.

T: i remember when you started writing poetry when i first got to know you. you wrote this poem because hayden
had fallen while on some play equipment and about how worried you were – you told me about it.
S: Hmm..I don’t remember that – but a lot has happened since then.

T: i’m really sorry about what you and your wife and hayden have had to go through over the past week.
S: It’s been rough but I’m really glad Bronwyn and I have been able to still be parents for HJ despite us being separate.
T: thank you so much for your support too – it has been much appreciated. i really hope your wife gets to england and hope hayden’s 200% better by then.
S: I do too – it would be excellent for them both and everyone in England.

T: it’d be great for her to catch up with everyone. it’s only a shame you can’t see your friends and show hayden
off together.
S: We’ll take him when we go shall we?
T: and you really need to see your mother – she’ll sort you out!
S: She got me into this mess in the first place!!
T: missing you,
S: Not as much as I’m missing you sweety
T: i really hope hayden gets better soon,
S: Me too
T: and that you get to england soon,
S: we..we get to England.
T: love you, tlj
S: LoveUtoo sh

*Back and forth, between the good and the bad – 28th January 1998

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Email to TLJ

My head is going crazy. I have a bad headache this morning. The thing I fear most is losing you. You are very special to me – I love everything we do and know we can work it out. I think about all the things we could do together and I want that more and more. I know people may be against us but I still think things can work. I wonder if you feel the same way though – if you have doubts about your lasting love and the c-word everyone else says you are afraid of – commitment. I don’t ask anything of you in that way – I know you are young and free and my love may choke you. I know you may not stay even after I may leave my wife. My decision on that part is not something I am taking lightly. There are many more factors involved than just those involving you and I. I really would like you to be around if my decision was to leave her – I would definitely need your help and love – I know you do not want to be involved in my decision and I understand that but you have to be involved in some part if that is what I decide. In reality, the decision does not involve you because I know you cannot give me any guarantees (remember I ask for none). It is between myself and her. Please please don’t leave me now. I want to share times with you at the beach, in the city, with your friends, with mine (if I still have any), at uni, with work and study, everywhere (but only when you want it!).

Dead thoughts
Ban the bomb
Or bring it on
I hope they drop one
On London
Time is running out
You’ve heard it before
About the threat
Of nuclear war
I hope they drop
A bomb on my head
It’ll be an advantage
Being dead

You came to see me this afternoon – man it was hot! I’m glad you got home OK afterwards – I hate watching you walk off into the distance! I was already missing you. I know I have said it before but you are the best! I had fun exploring today and hope we can go do it again next week – I really like to find my way around new places like that. I used to go explore my local suburb and find all the hidden paths next to houses and stuff like that – can be an advantage sometimes when you have to run away from the police or something! Sweet angel TLJ – you make my heart race and my head spin – all the poetry within me is for you. Hold me.

*…do all the things that lovers do! – 23rd January 1998

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Email to TLJ

Thank you very much for meeting me in the city yesterday. Your face is so beautiful I want to wake up next to it – kiss gently on the forehead and rise and make you breakfast while you slumber longer…we talked about fantasies..mine are no longer physical (ok I could think of some if you really wanted!) I want to be with you, baby.

I Feel
I feel rejected
I must be obsessed
Must be you
I want the best
I feel heartbroken
I must be annoyed
Must be you
I’m feeling paranoid
I feel in my head
I must be true
In my arms
I feel you

You’ll be in the mountains by now I guess. I wish you’d ring me – I want to talk with you for hours into the night, watch the moon rise and fall and do all the things that lovers do! Don’t want to go home tonight – I don’t like it there. I just found out I can’t go out tomorrow cos she doesn’t want me to – she thinks St Peters is a rough area (which it may be but who cares). Of course, I could say fuck it and go anyway and I know sooner or later it will come to that and one day I will go and I won’t come back. Jeez, I’m pissed off (maybe unfairly – but I can’t help the way I feel). Anyway, I’m thinking of you as always and wishing we were together (and wanting it more each day and the more I think about it the more it seems possible to me). Did you like the last poem?

Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll #156 All Australian Special – 1st May 1996

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Arriving in Sydney, Australia I soon made it an objective to find the punk scene here. I found the record stores, the pub venues and slowly fell in with those making it happen. It wasn’t exactly the same as I was used to in Southampton but close enough.
One of the first people I was introduced to was Sean No Deal (his record label was called No Deal) and Bronwyn and I hung out with him, his girlfriend and friends around Newtown sometimes. Everyone was friendly but obviously, I was the outsider and it wasn’t easy to break into this group’s inner circle.
Coming from cold England where we kept ourselves busy doing things so as to stay warm I sometimes found the laid-back attitude of Australians a little frustrating. I thought I could take advantage of this and get involved somehow in making things happen a little quicker. I just had to figure out a way.
I’d already been up on the Central Coast and got into DJing on the local license-seeking PCR-FM where I played the most out-there music that I could find. I’d also stumbled upon the folks behind Phlegm and the soon-to-be-launched What Is Music? Festival.
In hardcore punk terms though, Sean seemed to be the one guy everyone told me to talk to and after doing so I found out that he’s pitched to Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll about doing an All Australian issue of the fanzine and had already started work on it. Awesome – that sounded like something I could really help out with. I threw around some ideas which were agreeable – ie – go for your life!
In keeping Sean up to date with my ideas I asked for all the contacts he had around the country and then to see what he’d done so far so that I didn’t double up. This is when I found out that next to fuck-all had been done so far and some of that was already out of date. It surprises me that Australians ever get anything done sometimes but that’s also one of the things to love about their laid-back attitude.
I took everything Sean had and decided now was the time to throw myself into something. Bronwyn and I were back in Sydney from the Central Coast, with a baby on the way and me just starting my career in IT. I needed to get this done before the baby was born and do it I did.
About four months after sending off a package of papers, pictures and floppy disks a free copy of the fanzine arrived in our mail and I was quite proud of what I’d managed to achieve in such a short time.
In the end, there were many other contributors who provided scene reports, interviews and information and I was really just the focal point to bring it all together to make it happen.
I’ll add some posts here with some of the interviews I did and the whole magazine is available at archive.org.

Proud to be alongside these legends. In the following decade, I would also meet Mykel Board and Adrienne Droogas along with Lawrence Livermore again.

The one thing that got pulled from being printed was an interview with Oren Ambarchi and Phlegm and the What Is Music? Festival, which is a shame because that was what I was most interested in at the time.

Letter from Rob – 3rd November 1994

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Hi Shaun, Hi Bronwyn!

You guys still having fun!? Yeah, I thought so – keep on the good work of just being yourselves – that’s all I could ever ask for!! This is just a very short note to say hello, and that I’m thinking of you. I’ve got one or two things to tell you – one about the Green Day gig we all went to in London a few weeks back and why I felt a bit low but I’ll tell you in one of my long, rambly letters that I’ll write to ya soon (when I get about 3 hours by myself, alone, with only some Sebadoh albums, some coffee and a pen and paper).

Sorry my writing’s so small, but I’ve just been writing in my diary about today – the 2nd of November. It’s taken up over a half page of a plain A4 sheet with writing the same size as this! I’ve seen lots of people today – because I’m on holiday (back to work tomorrow) and so last night I had an excellent long take with (illegible) André – a Norwegian guy we stayed with when me, Rich and Paul J stayed in Norway to see Life…But How To Live It’s last gig in March this year. He’s a well cool guy whose views are pretty good, but I think I talked some stuff to him that he’d never had thought of before, which was good. I wonder if he’ll think about my crazy views when he goes home – I expect so, but who knows?

Well, it seems like our letters have crossed in the past, so as soon as I’ve finished scribbling on this here bulletin, it looks like I’ll have to start again on another letter to let you know of all the scandal and drama that’s been going down in the STE recently! Again, I think I’ll write in more detail of what I thought about your letter Bronwyn, to me, in the next letter that I’ll write, but rest assured, I thought the quote from Jackie Orzasky was a beautiful thing. Maybe I’ve been going through life with my eyes closed all these years. Maybe I’ll be able to get through tomorrow without making the same mistakes and without taking too many liberties and be able to do just that little bit extra that I never thought that I’d be able to do….

There’s one or two things to sort out before I book my ticket – if I wanna stop off in LA, then I’ll have to contact Ian and Jeff and the only way to do this is by phoning their mum, and hoping she’s got their address and phone number and then getting in contact but don’t worry, If I’m lucky everything will be ready by this weekend, and then I’ll give you a bell to give you the good news (any excuse to say hello).

Love you
Rob

22nd Jan 2024 – Rob was planning his trip to come and be our best man at my and Bronwyn’s wedding in March(?) 1995