Diary days...

Since I posted about my early days as a U2 fan last week I've been thinking about those years quite a bit. So I ventured to my bookcase this afternoon. This bookcase has one entire shelf dedicated to my diaries, which go back to 1982. (In fact, one of the things that annoys me about blogging is that I don't keep a diary for myself any more ... anyway.)

I pulled out the diaries from 1988 and 1989 and once I'd finishing cringing (BIG cringe factor involved for me in any glance back THAT far!) I decided to share a little from them.

Last post I mentioned that I sent Bono and the boys birthday cards - yeah, well I also cut out the paper bag from Coonabarabran Newsagency, the bag in which the card was carried and stuck that into my diary. Okaaaaaay.



I also had a bet some years ago (in fact, I have been meaning to go back to this one because it gets mentioned at family get togethers). My sister bet me I wouldn't like U2 in a year. Ha, no worries there. And my brother bet me $50 (a handsome sum indeed - he wouldn't have even owned such an amount back then) that I wouldn't like U2 in 1995 ... read it and weep, bro!! Oh, and you owe me 50 smackers.



I also found this:



It's the nearest I got to seeing U2 on their Lovetown tour in 1989.

All these years later it still kills me to think of how close I got. As you'd expect, I had a countdown in my diary for MONTHS prior (the excitement builds on every page). My parents made the 900km round trip to Sydney in our old Econovan to take me and my sister to this concert.
We were across from the Entertainment Centre at Darling Harbour just a couple of hours before the show when we heard on the radio that Bono had lost his voice.

Oh, the horror.

Talk about upset! Months and months of anticipation had brought me to this point and out of the 10 or however many shows they had I had to have a ticket to the one that cancelled.

Naturally I cried. So much that a kindly security guard at the Entertainment Centre gave me a piece of paper and to write my name and address on it and he would try to pass it to the band for me. So for months I clung the vague hope of an autograph or something materialising in our mailbox. Of course it never did; he was just being nice.

The band did reschedule that concert, after they'd been to Japan they came back and played for the ticketholders who missed out.

Sadly - oh, SO sadly - I couldn't get to the rescheduled concert ... it fell right in the middle of my exams.
Sob.

Anyhow, it still pains me to think of that missed concert. I have, however, made up for things somewhat. The next time U2 came out to Australia I was finished uni and working.

I bought tickets to every night they played.

Twenty years!?!

The other day I was out for a walk, with my MP3 player on. I was listening to Stay by U2 when it occurred to me that - gasp! shock horror! - it is 2008 (yes, I know, it's well and truly 2008, being September and all).

The reason I stopped in my tracks is because I was hit by the revelation that I have been a U2 fan for 20 years now. TWENTY YEARS. It's amazing how things like that creep up and tap you on the shoulder every now and then.

My worship of this band started in the long, hot summer holidays of 1988. I'd finished Year 10 and had the hormones to prove it. Which meant I spent a lot of that six weeks in my bedroom with the curtains drawn and the door firmly shut.

This was about the time that U2 released Desire and - whoa - I'd never heard anything so fantastic, so addictively good. At first I taped the song from the radio, as you do - or as you did back then. I'd get up at the crack of dawn to watch the Top 50 (or was it 20? Can't remember) chart songs on Rage.

Anything for a glimpse of that rock god who will forever surpass all rock gods: Bono. The black and white film clip for Desire is thus permanently etched in my mind. Bono caresses the microphone stand; the lovely Larry Mullen Jr, in all his sleeveless-top handsomeness, belts those drums; Adam Clayton looks like ... well, the man I want to marry most in the whole world at that time; The Edge works that guitar like there's no tomorrow.

One three-minute glimpse of U2 would make my week.

I moved on to purchasing the cassette of Rattle & Hum from the local Retravision store. I then proceeded to play it over and over and over and OVER. (I still have the cassette - which is quite astonishing; it ought to be worn out, believe me.) That summer I played Rattle & Hum morning, noon and night (especially at night, with the light out and volume on low so my parents wouldn't hear it).

I would close my eyes and visualise Bono singing Angel of Harlem with a choir; I'd dream (and daydream) that the lyrics were for me and me alone. That one day we would meet and our lives would be forever changed when Bono realised it was me he still hadn't found (until then!).

Oh yes, then the scrapbooks began. Any morsel of news, any tidbit about Bono and the boys, even articles about Ireland in general were meticulously cut out and pasted in. I had some experience in doing this - having collated a similar scrapbook about Boy George (my very first crush!) some years before.

It escalated from there to getting a subscription to the fanzine, the copies of which I still have (unless my mum has thrown them out - I hope not!) and to sending the band members birthday cards and taking a birthday cake to school in their honour. I'm serious.

One of the biggest thrills of my teenage years was when I actually got a reply to one of my birthday cards - from Adam (well, let's face it, from a staff member at the U2 management office). It said he had actually been in Australia on that particular birthday. How bittersweet that was - if only I'd known...

Mind you, a farm outside Coonabarabran is a looooooong way from Sydney and, well, anywhere you're remotely likely to find a rock star hanging out. Still, I could dream.

All this happened and then I experienced an epiphany: the band had other albums. So I set about purchasing them one at a time (limited pocket money, limited range at the local store) and buying all the cassingles (remember them?). I do mean ALL.

These days I am still a fan (of course!!!!). I will be for all my life. But today the band's music carries much more meaning for me than it did when I was a 16 year old. During a particularly low point earlier this year, Bono's lyrics from Walk On (How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb) were imbued with such meaning and resonance that, gosh, I could almost say they redeemed me:

And if the darkness is to keep us apart
And if the daylight feels like it's a long way off
And if your glass heart should crack
And for a second you turn back
Oh no, be strong

Walk on, walk on
What you got they can’t steal it
No they can’t even feel it
Walk on, walk on...
Stay safe tonight

I played that song over and over. Crying every time.

Today, I hear and understand (hopefully) the spiritual in the songs. I still fancy Bono, sure. But I now know that he is the godliest (is that a real word - doubt it) man I have ever encountered.

So, Bono, thanks for 20 sensational years.

Food for thought

I remember reading somewhere - I think it was in The Bible (otherwise known as Baby Love by Robin Barker) - that after a certain age (18 months, perhaps?) a toddler should "take part in the family meal, eating what the family does."

I think I need to get Robin round to our place at meal times because, can I tell you, at three years of age, my son is NOWHERE near eating what we eat.

So that means making two separate dinners every night. Most frustrating, not to mention time consuming.

In short: I'm over it.

But how do I get him to eat what we do? He won't touch anything remotely like a casserole or soup. Will grudgingly eat a lamb chop - but only on occasion (and frankly it makes my blood boil to pay about two bucks for a teeny bit of meat only to have to throw it in the bin). He will humour us by eating noodles - but not with the kind of veg we like to eat in our noodle dishes. (Only tinned corn and frozen peas, please.)

What to do? I guess one option is for us to give in and eat what he eats (fish fingers and vegies, lebanese bread pizzas, pasta with pesto, corn and broccoli). Not very likely.

Is there a way to expand what he eats? Do I need to get tough?

Ideas, anyone?

Have we moved on? Nope.

I don't profess to agree with Sarah Palin's political standings. But I do care that the Washington Post ran a piece on the colour of her lipstick. Likewise, other papers have been reporting the upsurge in requests for glasses of the style she wears.

When will this stop?

I shook my head in dismay at these reports. Why must we always grade a woman on how she looks? This is a politician in the running for the one of the highest positions in arguably the most powerful nation in the world and commentators want to discuss the shade of her favoured lippie.

Please.

STOP.

Never would we see a 1000-word piece on Barack Obama's chosen brand of shaving cream. Can you imagine an opinion piece on Kevin Rudd's choice of ties? No, me neither.

I grew up in the age of Backlash and The Beauty Myth. Have we moved on from there? I'm not so sure.

Father's (and Mother's) Day

In case you hadn't noticed, yesterday was Father's Day. We had my parents visiting and so they got up early with E and took him off to the zoo. Which meant Shaun spent his Father's Day not doing any, well, father duties. And I was off the hook on the mothering front too.

Sensational.

We had a leisurely breakfast at Coogee, did the coast walk, pottered about a bit, went for a beer and then met up with Mum, Dad and E for dinner.

So lovely.

The passing of time

Time really does move in mysterious ways.

Just the other day my colleagues at work were making chitchat, saying 'how can it be September already?' and 'hasn't the year flown?'.

Then on Friday night I turned up at Rose's house to pick E up after his day at daycare to find L's mum there, visiting Rose. I hadn't seen her since the week of L's funeral, when she and her husband (amazingly, stoically, heroically) came around to Rose's place to take part in a small fundraiser we other parents put on for Red Nose Day - the money going to SIDS research ... SIDS being the official cause of her son's death at 16 months of age.

She remarked that time was dragging. And I have to agree with her. It does seem like forever since L died ... when in fact it was June 8. Not even three months yet.

I hadn't seen her or spoken to her since that last time at Rose's place. She appears to be holding up as well as can be expected (what is expected, I wonder?).

In the way that only a teenager can, Rose's 16-year-old daughter bluntly asked her, "So do you think you'll have another baby?" (I guess we were all wondering, but I personally wouldn't ask such a question).

It was then that she said she'd had three miscarriages before finally having L. And that she had actually been pregnant with a second baby this March, but had lost it too.

This is not my sorrow (thank God for that), but I cried in front of her when I heard that.

Just ... how? How can it be possible that life could dole out this set of circumstances to one lovely, kind couple?

So now she and her husband are having some fertility tests carried out and back they will go to the beginning: looking to a start a family over again.

They have so much to endure yet ... but I really, really, REALLY wish for another baby for her. With all my heart.

Spring time

I was planning to write a longer post today, but I am feeling a little bit gross. In fact, I nearly threw up while changing E's nap-time nappy. He had a tummy bug last week (right when I was on deadline at work - natch) and I suspect I have a touch of it.
Anyhow, on a far nicer note, here's a pic I took this morning while we were in the park and before the queasiness set in. It's nice that spring is here.