Tag: moving house

Bad news – 22nd February 1999

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Email with TLJ:

S: Hey sweety – I hope you had a good night. I didn’t unfortunately. I got termination notice from the real estate and now have to look for somewhere else to live. This is a bit of a pain and I wanna talk with you….I want to get somewhere similar to where I am now – somewhere that is convenient for us both…
Anyway later in the evening, the state emergency services were knocking on everyone’s door as a little girl went missing yesterday after school…..this really upset me….her parents must be really worried….Call me

TLJ: I’m really sorry you had such a bad night. Tonight will be better……

S: I hope so! I’m sure it will be too….

T: I’m sorry you have to move again, but i’ll help as much as I can.

S: Thanks sweetheart – you are the best! It shouldn’t be too much trouble – sometimes it’s just getting yr head around these things that is the hard part! I think the financial aspect will be the problem at the moment – it’s just a bad time for this to happen!

TLJ: I was really missing you last night – yesterday in Rent, they had this song – it was asking how do you measure a year – in minutes??? – or in love? – and i thought of you and all the stuff we do together.

S: Measure a year in love – that sounds really nice. Yeah – I think about the things we do together and it seems like we’ve only known each other for a few months but now it has been well over a year!

TLJ: When I went to bed last night I was smiling to myself cause I was imagining you when you pretend to cry like Hayden.

S: Haha – this just made me smile too….you’re cheering me right up!

TLJ: Anyway, the story behind Rent is really sad, cause the writer died the day before the premiere off Broadway. The cast was great. The main guy was in a rock group before doing Rent, and he sounds like it too. When the two main guys sung together, they were sometimes out of tune. M_ and I noticed.

S: Sounds pretty good – do you think I would’ve liked it?

TLJ: D_ asked me yesterday to play for her sister’s wedding (String Quartet). She wants us to do traditional stuff like Pachebel’s Canon, and then modern stuff (like R&B stuff – “All My Life” and Shania Twain and stuff) – and she asked if we could do the arrangements. This is not certain yet though.

S: Your family’s reputation is spreading!

TLJ: Her sister wants a harp player – only the one they looked at was too expensive. K_’s clarinet teacher is a harp player as well, and he charges $300-$350 for a wedding. String Quartets charge about $320 minimum I’d say – that’s like $80 each. I would love to be in a String Quartet making that sort of money!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

S: 80 bucks isn’t much really considering the amount of work you may have to put in – not just the actual wedding. Maybe you should learn the harp though. I suppose you coould do some weekend gigs though. Hey – why don’t you do some busking? I wish i could play guitar so i could go busking….

TLJ: Miss you baby – was listening to your messages on my phone – there are so many messages you start off with “Hey Babe”.

S: Really – ok – I’ll try to spice them up a bit and add a bit more variety! …just went out for a coffee with Janey (you know the ABC who now works in the Software Artistry team) – that was cool – I feel like I’ve worked a full day already! I’m really looking forward to seeing you later – you are the angel of my eyes babe! Love to you prettything

TLJ: you going for coffee with other ABCs already??????????????

S: Yeah – got bored with the blondes and the brunettes…

TLJ: are you going to take her to the server room next?????????????????

S: We just came back from there….hey -what do you think I am? Oh – OK!

TLJ: Anyway, I think you would have liked Rent. They kinda took the piss out of performance artists in one part and it was really funny. There was only one straight couple in the play. And how’s this for a quote “sodomy – it’s between God and me” – I thought that was really funny – as good as “you might think it’s rather odd of me, that i enjoy the act of sodomy”.

S: Well – just classic lyrics! Hahaha

TLJ: One recurring line is – “no day but today” – “there is no future, there is no past, there’s only this”.

S: More classics! I guess they sounded better in context….

TLJ: Some of the music wasn’t that memorable, but the singers were really cool and loud, and quite stirring.

S: I’m really glad you enjoyed it. Sounds pretty cool. Hey – we should go see a play again sometime at that theatre….or what about Shakespeare on the beach….. Actually for lunch I may end up ringing up Real Estate Agents!

TLJ: Email me

S: It’s a done deal angel.

Every single cinderblock, they all gonna blow – 22nd December 1994

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Up and at ’em five hours later, something like six in the morning, Broni puts the finishing touches on our old place as I load all our boxed up rubbish and essentials into the truck, finally after two hours of that, we hit the road being careful that everything we’ve stacked up doesn’t fall over as we turn tight corners and anyway, top speed is only about a hundred and with the weight we’re only hitting ninety.

It’s hot again today but not so sunny, more a stifling mugginess. As soon as we leave the city we feel some relief from its constraints, the beauty of the Central Coast shining in the sun like pictures of Disneyland when I was young, so deep and colourful like paintings, so perfect not sure if they were real.

I have very fond memories of these and the images triggered my imagination deeply. I wanted to go to these places and see the U.S. myself.

We pick up the keys and pay our bond and arrive at the drive of our new home. The drive is incredibly steep and we realise everything in the truck will fall over if we try to tackle it so we park on the road and have to carry things down one at a time or put the old tea chests on the trolley we hired too. Back and forth till I’m saturated in sweat, in our brief rests we marvel at our new spacious home and it’s beautiful surroundings.

Everything’s off except the washing machine, I stick the trolley under it and bring it up towards the ramp, then with a big pull it drops the six inches off the truck on to the ramp and then hovers in slow motion, teetering on one wheel of the trolley and I’m pushing to stop it from tipping but it’s too heavy and I have to jump and watch as it upends and lands on it’s top corner, crash on the tarmac, front and sides slowly peeling away.

Me and Broni laugh our socks off, can’t be bothered with anger and worry, just pick the thing up and drag it down the back to the laundry room. We don’t think it works and we’ll ask Broni’s dad to have a look at it when he comes on Christmas Eve.

I hop in the shower and hot foot the van back across Sydney while Broni unpacks here at home. The drive is mad and hectic but I manage to find my way across the traffic straight to the rental place which had been broken into last night and had everything taken, did we get out in time? The city is gonna explode, pick a city any city, time limits for destruction.

I run to the train station still full of adrenaline energy, knowing I’m gonna be dead on my feet tomorrow but hell I can’t stop myself in my mad enthusiasm, back on the train up to the city and then up to Gosford and then the bus to Terrigal, all this takes a couple of hours or more and then in Terrigal, still running, still pumping energy I run around the streets trying to discover the best ways to get to our house from the seafront.

A light drizzle now from the dull grey sky but still warm and humid, still surfers in the water. I run the steepest hill I’ve ever seen and look at the map and work out where I am and then run down and up the next hill and down into our street set in the bush and the rainforest, I later discover this way looks the quickest on the map but didn’t account for the two hills, but I didn’t care, I loved the feel of new muscles pushing against my tight skin, pushing me on and on, fell into the shower and into some beer and into bed – fucked!

Say hello, wave goodbye – 31st January 1994

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Seven days later and phew!  Monday and Tuesday my baby worked herself silly and spent each evening zombie-like and sleepy while I continued with the boxes.

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday found us under more and more boxes and our tempers were getting frayed.  We will survive a million tiny bickers – I don’t anticipate a major argument between me and my baby for several centuries yet!

Pete and Kathryn increasingly upset us with their sad attitudes to life.  Pete being particularly antagonising.

re-enactment
re-enactment

Thursday went to our future abode where Ally was busy packing, Fatty out collecting some furniture.  When the Fat Man turned up, one tyre repair later, a brief discussion regarding deposit money ensued.  Simon asked me not to give Fatty the deposit until they’d sorted out the bills – this just after I told them I would!  Oh well – awkwardness abounds.  Not til later I found out they had an argument over it (Fatty arguing the most I’d venture) Fatty threatening to beat up Simon!  The first of a hundred crazy stories John and Simon have told us about Fatty and Ally – now I’ve heard both sides of the story.  I find John and Simon much more believable and ‘correct’

Friday found us seeing off Gordon and Nikki as they trek around the world or as far as they can go.  Mick and Lisa graced Poole with their presence to catch of glimpse of Rich next door singing Pogues numbers with Hoedown at Hanks, with that nasty John Otway hater drummer who took over my room at 86.

Saturday and Sunday were big move days and a lot of the time was spent cleaning and trying to remove cat piss odours off all the carpets and removing stains from the nicotine browned walls.

After much quarrelling me and my baby slept like lambs in our new room.  We love it! Right at the top of the house – I trod those stairs a hundred zillion times already – the sun shines in a-blazing!

Sunday was a beautiful sunny day and everyone was smiling.  John, Simon and Mary – our new housemates – all seem like really decent people and we feel rejuvenated for more exciting times to come.

Bronwyn is going down with flu – I’m sure from all the chemicals we’ve been spraying to relieve our house of the odour of piss.  Spoke to her this morning and my heart beams over bridges on lakes a-plenty for her.  I will see her tonight and tell her this.

—

1st Feb 2018 – Initially I was just going to put these old diary entries up as is but on going through them has prompted some thoughts and reflection on them.  The main one is the traumatic events around the ending of a friendship with Fatty.  It’s clear to me that at the time it was something I needed to do.  It also has become clear to me that the trauma was caused by the deep love and affection I had for him and our friendship.

Fatty and I were very much alike so we got on really well but in the end I wanted to change myself and I felt like I was getting his support in that effort.  Of course, this is all over 20 years ago now, we are all, hopefully, much the wiser.  I believe that I have learned many things about and since that time.  I don’t have many people that I would call very close friends, if any at all.  Possibly this is a reaction to the way things happened with Fatty, and quite likely, an odd reaction to Steve, being so selfish to go and die on us all like that.

Fatty and I are now Facebook friends and we still chat about music and comics, never bringing up the past.  If I get back to England again sometime in the future and the opportunity arises, I’d go and share a beer with my old friend.