Friday December 25, 2009 at 16:21

Merry EczemasChristmas is an extraordinary little event in the Cleland household. You can tell we’ve all matured over the last year because we didn’t form warring intrafamily factions causing one side to erupt into tears by the end of lunch. Kicking it off with gift-giving, I was quite upset that I wasn’t awarded the pony I had pleaded and pleaded for, though I got several books and some cash. Whereas in previous years I may’ve felt dismay at the reception of books, I took it in stride with the cheerful aphorism that being given books is a huge compliment. You know who reads books? Clever people. Sure, the medium has been used for well-publicized ill with soppy supernatural teen fiction, but being given the biographies of Van Gogh and Russell Brand speaks volumes about the perception people have of you. I took a few minutes to throw on the outfit I’d been planning since Tuesday (if you’re going to look good, you might as well do it on Christmas) for our trip to the lovely Tolkien-esque region known as “The Dandenongs”, where, nestled amongst its winding roads and forested hills, a Bavarian restaurant lay that we’d been going to every Christmas Day since I can remember. When you’ve been living on a staple diet of toasted cheese sandwiches, microwave dinners, coffee and booze, it’s a tastebud-exploding respite to fill up a plate with oysters, a plate with prawns, and a plate with chocolate fudge cake and jelly. Though the costume was as poorly-received and misunderstood by my sisters as I expected, the thought that all geniuses were just as scorned hardened the galactic ego hiding within the ol’ grey matter.Family meals are problematic for me because I find myself in the gaping maws of the generational and cultural divide. My left ear is regaled by the idiosyncrasies of various tanning methods, and my right buzzes with the drone of stories about people my parents once knew and where they are now. Thus, I must take responsibility for my own conversational entertainment, a task aided by constant exposure to a pernicious mixture of pop culture, high culture and useless knowledge (though a good conversationalist has a knack for parlaying those factoids into launchpads for debate). The lunch was brilliant, though. The constant taunting about my outsider-status from ma soeur eventually abated and turned to admiration, my Mum and Dad got on well and we had a charming time murmuring broken German along with the house entertainer’s yearly yodeling. On The Road home I delicately perused the autobiographical tome of Russell Brand’s “My Booky Wook”, seeking validation via identification and was not disappointed. The perspicacity of his writing and the witty asides were cause for regret that I wasn’t near a Tumblr Dashboard to quote some of the more inspiring parts, especially the ones to do with rebellion against institutionalized education. Very evocative of Zappa, and God knows how much I love justifying my avoidance of school. The whole event was a solid reminder of how much I love my family, for all their foibles and failures, and that even after money, hearts and hopes have been lost, there’s going to be some people there to help us sort out the pieces in the colossal puzzle. It’s comforting.

Merry Eczemas

Christmas is an extraordinary little event in the Cleland household. You can tell we’ve all matured over the last year because we didn’t form warring intrafamily factions causing one side to erupt into tears by the end of lunch. Kicking it off with gift-giving, I was quite upset that I wasn’t awarded the pony I had pleaded and pleaded for, though I got several books and some cash. Whereas in previous years I may’ve felt dismay at the reception of books, I took it in stride with the cheerful aphorism that being given books is a huge compliment. You know who reads books? Clever people. Sure, the medium has been used for well-publicized ill with soppy supernatural teen fiction, but being given the biographies of Van Gogh and Russell Brand speaks volumes about the perception people have of you.

I took a few minutes to throw on the outfit I’d been planning since Tuesday (if you’re going to look good, you might as well do it on Christmas) for our trip to the lovely Tolkien-esque region known as “The Dandenongs”, where, nestled amongst its winding roads and forested hills, a Bavarian restaurant lay that we’d been going to every Christmas Day since I can remember. When you’ve been living on a staple diet of toasted cheese sandwiches, microwave dinners, coffee and booze, it’s a tastebud-exploding respite to fill up a plate with oysters, a plate with prawns, and a plate with chocolate fudge cake and jelly. Though the costume was as poorly-received and misunderstood by my sisters as I expected, the thought that all geniuses were just as scorned hardened the galactic ego hiding within the ol’ grey matter.

Family meals are problematic for me because I find myself in the gaping maws of the generational and cultural divide. My left ear is regaled by the idiosyncrasies of various tanning methods, and my right buzzes with the drone of stories about people my parents once knew and where they are now. Thus, I must take responsibility for my own conversational entertainment, a task aided by constant exposure to a pernicious mixture of pop culture, high culture and useless knowledge (though a good conversationalist has a knack for parlaying those factoids into launchpads for debate). The lunch was brilliant, though. The constant taunting about my outsider-status from ma soeur eventually abated and turned to admiration, my Mum and Dad got on well and we had a charming time murmuring broken German along with the house entertainer’s yearly yodeling.

On The Road home I delicately perused the autobiographical tome of Russell Brand’s “My Booky Wook”, seeking validation via identification and was not disappointed. The perspicacity of his writing and the witty asides were cause for regret that I wasn’t near a Tumblr Dashboard to quote some of the more inspiring parts, especially the ones to do with rebellion against institutionalized education. Very evocative of Zappa, and God knows how much I love justifying my avoidance of school. The whole event was a solid reminder of how much I love my family, for all their foibles and failures, and that even after money, hearts and hopes have been lost, there’s going to be some people there to help us sort out the pieces in the colossal puzzle. It’s comforting.

  1. jakec posted this