christmas day

my previous christmases have generally been either in CA with my immediate fam and family friends, or in MI with my mother's entire american extended family.  either way its a potluck where we laugh, we drink, we eat turkey with 3 kinds of stuffing and ham and pumpkin pie, and we argue over whose marinara/stuffing/turkey/spanakopita is the best.  and we often play hilarious games.

last year, i spent christmas day with a few wonderful men that i had met a some weeks before, and another man with whom i had been traveling for a while.  we ate pizza, drank lots of beer, and danced the night away in a backpacker bar.  amazing.

this year, i spent christmas eve at the family beach house of one of the men with whom i had the pleasure of spending christmas last year.  the Australian and his family were incredibly hospitable- especially because, like i have said before, i am my mother's daughter, and as such i only know two ways to get new people to like me: get them drunk or clean up the kitchen.

i REALLY wanted these people to like me, so i chose both ways.

christmas eve i decided to make sangria.  its not a tradition i usually import, but i thought, "hey, its got something for everyone!"  i failed pretty hilariously because Aussie's mom doesnt drink, and she had never heard of sangria.  she looked at me like my presence was a mistake.  i decided to remain positive and sell the idea that sangria is really more of a fruit punch (... right?).

naturally when you really want/need something to be tasty, something always goes wrong, right?  this time i spiked the punch with a little too much brandy, so Aussie-man, his dad, and i proceeded to get drunk and kill the entire pitcher between the three of us.  then we put up christmas lights and took photos.  this tradition seemed much more familiar to me.

the next day i shocked everyone when i went for a workout after helping consume so much booze (success!).  we all scrambled in the shower, got ready, and headed out to the middle of the frickin australian bush on some station (ranch) that had to have been 50km (35mi) from anything resembling a town, and at least 10mi from the nearest house.

a house arose like some strange oasis in front of us that had cows, dogs, steer, a random donkey,  about 15 both abandoned and currently-in-use cars and pieces of farm machinery... as well as 15 of the Australian's family members.  we arrived and i felt all eyes gravitate towards me as i exited the vehicle.

"...i get the feeling no one ever brings outsiders to these family events," i whispered loudly to the Australian.

"nope."

fuck.

i was introduced to each member individually and then i immediately snagged a beer and prepared for the long day ahead.

luckily, the Aussie's family is loud and hilarious and appropriately silly and welcoming.  we all got along just fine, although i believe that this is in part due to my love of whiskey (all the uncles approved) and my extreme appreciation for the two-dinner situation the seems to be working in this country.  theres "christmas lunch" at about 3pm, and then everyone either naps or goes on a walk until dinner at about 730pm (my family would normally be napping or making a 3rd plate of seconds).

i decided that since there was an unacceptably large swarm of flies in the yard where i would have napped in the sun, i decided to take a "walk" with some of the Aussie's cousins through the cow paddock.  initially this started as a drive down to the lower pastures to see the donkey, and for Aussie this meant "lets torture taryn and show everyone how she's got a secret fear of cows!"

joke was on him because im not afraid of them, exactly... i just dont like how to look at me with their eyes.  i can never tell what they are thinking...

anyway.  we headed back to the house and joined the rest of the fam on a proper walk that went around the sheep shearing shed (now a birthday or other event space), through the bulls paddock, and up to the top of the hill that overlooked their entire property.  it really was a spectacular view on a perfectly warm and sunny day that would have been slightly more spectacular had it not been dampened by the fact that most of us had been walking through the COW fields with SANDALS on.  ill just let you imagine...

we ambled on home happily trudging through the scrub and cow shit until Aussie's aunt screamed and he grabbed my arm really hard and pointed at an unassumingly-colored, medium-sized snake.  his uncle took off, tearing into the shed a few dozen yards away and reappeared with a large shotgun.  i followed excitedly with ears plugged and watched the Australian's uncle literally shoot from the hip and blow the snake's head clean (?) off.  that's when they all told me that that snake was an eastern brown; the second most-poisonous snake in the WORLD (a fact they are scarily proud of).

i am reminded at least once a day that this country is out to kill its inhabitants.

i turned to the uncle with the shotgun and asked if he was going to put the dead animal in the trash.  he laughed and told me, "nah.  the dogs or the vultures will get it."

and thus i was reminded how aussies will always succeed in beating nature back and laughing in her face. with a shotgun.  color me impressed.

after the snake incident we decided we all needed a little more excitement, so we chose to go spelunking in the cave system that resides on the property.  its a large network full of stalactites and stalagmites as well as a skeleton of a sheep (just in case you forgot that you were in a deep dark hole in the ground).  we stayed down there for a bit and told ghost stories.  i told the story about how a few minutes prior, their uncle/father/brother had told me to take the ladder down into the cave more slowly.... mainly because he was standing under it and i was in a skirt.

time passed quickly and that was the only relevant story i had.

we surfaced, and i convinced the pervy uncle to let Aussie take me home on the dirt bike.  i rode the back of that thing in my miniskirt like it was my fucking job.  and Aussie was pretty smoking hot too.

we arrived back at the house, had dinner, and i immediately started experiencing a stuffy nose which lasted about 5 days.

the rest of the Australian's and my time together at his parents' house was full of tissues and extended naps... which suited me just fine.

day 3

day 3 of my trip was cause for alarm.  the Australian and i were heading to visit his family in south australia, and i had no idea what to expect.  after a two-hour flight (which lands you in a 1.5 hour time zone because apparently Victoria is a bitch) and an initially awkward 6-hour car ride with the Australian's brother (that is, until i implemented a game that sam selfrige taught me called "hey cow/sheep/emu/kangaroo".  thanks, sam!), we had a great comfort-food dinner in mt. gambier at the brother's house and proceeded on to Australian's parents' house.

right before we arrived at his parents' house, i had awkwardly seen that Australian's ex-girlfriend had texted him.  i may or may not have lost my mind for a hot minute, but managed to pull it together to meet the parents of the man of my dreams. 

later that night, we managed to talk about what happened, and im glad we waited a couple of hours and had some wine in us, because otherwise i would have totally lost my shit.

Aussie's parents are farmers through and through.  they live on a vineyard that is 20 miles from the nearest town, and that has been in the family for at least 3 generations.  they have also intentionally left 80% of their land as natural bushland.  so frickin rad.

in the morning Australian and his dad took me on their version of a safari through the vineyards and to "have a look through the scrub."  this tour included all of us straining to find the resident koalas, bitch about the kangaroos eating the veggies from the garden, and watch all the predatory birds circling in the sky.  Aussie showed me here that one of his many talents is the uncanny ability to name almost every native bird/plant/animal he sees.  i say again: so frickin rad. 

i am clearly my mother's daughter, so when we got home i tried to make myself useful to Aussie's mom by offering to pick oranges from the trees outside the window.  she looked incredulous.  i reiterated that i would love to help in any way i could.  she then handed me a longsleeve tshirt of dubious durability, gloves ("because they have prickers"), and a hat ("in case the ants fall on you.  be careful, because they bite pretty hard.")  oh, ok thanks!  wait... what?

yes, the orange trees had ants the size of your fingernail that bite the bejeesus out of you when you try to steal their food.  i was unaware of this when i offered myself for this job.  awesome.

everything turned out ok and i didnt fall off the ladder and ants didnt fall on my head or down my shirt.  great success.

then we all packed up the cars and headed out to the family beach house in kingston, which somehow reminds me of what santa cruz would have been 20 years before the hippies arrived.  its a really charming little place.

the next few days were a blur of driving long distances to meet friends and family members of the Australian.  luckily, hes a good road trip buddy, and his family is totally sweet.


ill post about christmas tomorrow.  its so good it deserves its own entry.

days 1-2

days 1 and 2 of my trip were absolutely wonderful.  the Australian is an exceptionally caring and attentive man who alternately let me sleep off my fijian frustrations and showed me around brisbane.  we did laundry, drank rose wine in the backyard, made dinner, and napped excessively.  it was perfect.

flying to AUS

the flight to australia was hands-down the worst flying experience i have ever had.  cyclone evan delayed my plane by 12 hours, but none of the passangers were informed until about 2 hours before the flight.  un/luckily for me, Queen Chrisann had just dropped me off at the airport and wished me bon voyage not 10 minutes prior to some airline employee casually walking by me mention that "oh, if you havent heard, youre going to be delayed 12 hours."  so i quickly called the Queen and she swung back by to take me home, because ill be damned if im going to be this close to home and sleep in a shitty motel by the airport. 

so i finally got on the 915am flight to Nadi, Fiji.  the 14-hour flight really wasnt that bad, and the airport itself looked pretty much unchanged from the last time i was there- last year.

so i hurried up and waited in the trasnfer line for a layover that i knew was going to be 14 hours.  clearly, i was thinking that this is going to give me plenty of time to walk outside the airport, take in a couple of sights, have soem local food, etc. 

no.

i was dutifully informed- after waiting an hour in this line- that i needed to go back downstairs, outside the airport, to the front desk and rebook my flight because even though there was a cycone, i apparently missed my flight.  i rushed downstairs to rebook the same flight that i was already booked on. 

i start this comment by saying that i recognize vast cutural differences in a number of suddenly obvious ways.  fijians live in a wonderful time/space continuum called "island time", where western definitions of work ethic just cannot be applied.  there is quite literally no sense of urgency, and oftentimes there will be 5-8 other employees wandering around and admiring the mayhem occurring around them. 

this would have been highly entertaining if you werent the one waiting in line FOR 6 HOURS to rebook your flight with the 100 other people who needed to do the same thing.  this would not have taken 6 hours had they simply turned on another computer and had more than one person working the front desk.  because of "island time", the other workers stood around, watching all of us miserable passengers pleading for their help, and all of them saying that it wasnt their job. 

it actually is hilarious looking back on it now, probably because i know that i will never vacation to that country and probably never use it as layover destination either. 

all turned out well in the end, because since i was the very last person to be helped at 1130pm (i had arrived in fiji at 2pm), the only hotel with room still available on the entire island was a 5-star resort.  so i spent my last 5 hours on fiji, sleeping, in a stunning, beautiful room on the beach... with non-fuctioning AC... because its "island time".

nothing extraordinarily funny has happened to me in the last few days.  just the normal stuff while living at home and working at a bar, like so:

mom- "taryn, dont say 'penis'!  good thing youre going to austr-"
me- "mom!  if i cant make dick jokes, you cant make dick jokes!"

random patron- "youre serbian?  my friend here is serbian!  well, hes russian.  thats the same thing, right?"
me- "actually, its not."
RP- "well they are both in eastern europe."
me- "..."


my life is the alanis morissette version of 'ironic': white-girl, mildly frustrating "problems".  like so:

its like youre on a skype date with your pseudo-bf and his parents decide that that is the best time for their weekly phonecall.

its like when you get super excited about a gift you bought for someone for christmas and you cant wait to tell them but when you do youve just spoiled the surprise for them and for yourself.

its like when you live with your parents and they keep buying the shitty cheap wine instead of the good cheap wine.
its like that.

ahhh thanksgiving.  twas indeed a day of thanks.  i stayed in bed til 2 watching reruns of Angel and then drove 45 minutes to my aunt's house, only to get lost because my dad's dyslexia reared its ugly head and left me stranded in front of macy's at the lakewood mall.  awesome.

after getting it all sorted out, we proceeded to sit at the kids' table (which is suddenly now the "cool table") and drink the many bottles of nice wine that i brought before breaking into the cheap shit and getting wacky and playing dirty board games with our parents (because apparently thats what you "get" to do when youre old enough to drink and all of your family members are out of college.

the last few days have been somewhat normal.  i actually cleaned my bedroom and unpacked the last few boxes (i moved back in 8 months ago...), and in the process located a lizard and accidentally chopped off part of its tail (mom- "omg!!  will its tail grow back?!").  so there's that.

then i hit up a local brewery with a friend and had a perfectly fabulous afternoon talking while drinking craft beers.  i came home to my mother having a pinched nerve and in an obviously large amount of pain, so i shoved a prescription-strength painkiller and some wine down her throat and handed her a hardboiled egg.

ill check on her in about 20 minutes.  i think itll be fine. 

tomorrow is my first day at "TR".  TR is an interesting place and i have no idea how it is going to work out, but its a paid internship and i am thanking my myriad of lucky stars that i have this opportunity.  im supposed to fill out paperwork and take over this woman's entire caseload, but we'll see what happens.  either way, im so unbelieveably fucking stoked to be using my brain again (hello brain!  i missed you!  how have you been holding up under the massive quantities of wine and no sleep?).  im excited to be doing what i am good at again, and i am doubly excited to be making a difference in the world.

a good friend told me the other day that i should start writing here again.  her confidence in me was inspiring and ive determined what with getting hired at a couple of big girl jobs and giving up my bartending gig, i need to find an outlet where i can be an ass, a crazyperson, and tell dirty sex stories about myself and others (natch).

SO.

im batting .000 for clients showing up to our sessions at my new place of employment, so no need to break out the ipad camera to remember this moment, mom.

also, when you are 26 and your parents try to take photos of you on the first day of your new job, its probably time to move out.  i am repeatedly buffeted by these kinds of instances, and thus repeatedly reminded that im an adut with sexual urges who needs her own space and needs to feel like an adult.  as it stands, my only adult activities involve dancing in my underwear when my parents are at the gym (together, yeesh) in the morning and i have a few minutes to snuggle with my dog and drink coffee in the sun... sans pants.  

being without pants is my homage to my evasive young adulthood.  i have spent much of my time as such living at home and amassing a large fortune, or what laypeople like to call "student debt". 

enough of that.

i am currently sitting in my bed that is without sheets because of unfortunate dog-related incident today.  my friend quipped recently that these kinds of things can spiral quickly, and i certainly discovered that to be true.  my blind dog wiped his prolapsed asshole on my bedsheets, and i attempted to grab and toss a sweatshirt out of the line of fire, but knocked over a half-filled coffee mug.  onto my bed.  classic taryn.  so i ripped off my sheets and now you find me here: in my uncommonly messy bedroom with most of my clothes on the floor and an empty wine case as a makeshift trashcan.  

ok... so im not the neatest of people.  or the most organized.  or the most creative when it comes to interior decor.  i dont care.  im an unfortunately typical graduate student whose food pyramid consists mainly of booze, dysphoria, sparkling water, pasta, highlighter, horrifyingly large amounts of awful television, and whatever is being served at her school or job of late.  what a glamorous life we lead.

moving right along at a clip known only to people experiencing mania and hopeless cases of ADHD, today at work, someone asked me "what i was doing before this?"  i deftly and totally not awkwardly replied, "...uhhh... watching a marathon of Flipping Out with my mom..."  he responded with "um no.  i meant where did you work before coming on here?"  awesome.  ive met this guy all of twice and here i go spilling the beans on the fact that im an idiot who watches too much bad tv and lives at home.  and here i thought i could support the illusion for slightly longer than that...

 

say, this was fun!  i feel slightly lighter than i did 20 minutes ago.  so here goes: i will write here more often.  i intend to write about things that happen in my life in an uncomfortably unadulterated manner.  dont read if i make you uncomfortable, and i dont apologize if i do.