Colin

I’m 23 and live in a share house. In one room is Darren, he’s 23. In another room is Kristian and Caren 22 and 28 respectively.

In the last room is Colin, he’s 64. Strange huh?

He’s lanky but with a belly. He wears thick glasses and a large grey beard. He shakes a little when he talks but that isn’t too often. You could describe him as a recluse. He walks in and if you say hi, he’ll mumble a greeting back and continue into his room. If you don’t say hi he won’t say anything. He doesn’t use the kitchen and rarely the bathroom. I think he works in aged care but I’m not certain.

About 6 months ago he told one of my housemates he was doing a Tafe course in remedial massage. One day he brought in a big cardboard box with “Firm’o'Fold Massage Equipment” printed on the side. He placed it out near the washing machine and outhouse. It’s still sitting there.

Apparently before I moved in he would speak a lot more. Kristian tells me they’d have pretty long conversations but he also said it took about a year and a half for that to happen. Those conversations don’t really happen anymore. For that I feel partly responsible. I’ve never really made an effort. Well I have, but not as much as I could have. I was all weirded out by it in the beginning. I’m a pretty shy and awkward guy myself so I took the mindset of, well if he wants to talk to me he’ll talk to me and that’s cool, otherwise I’ll just live like I normally would. Sometimes he stands by his door while we watch TV. He’ll watch for a minute or two before leaving the house or going into his room. I feel like he’s waiting for me to strike up a conversation. Instead I just keep looking at the screen.

This place used to house a lot of backpackers. People would come and go frequently. Kristian has had something like 15 different housemates in two years. In that context it makes a lot more sense that some old guy who’s a friend of the landlord would end up living with a bunch of 20-somethings. It’s only been in the last year or so that people have been living here long term.

When I first moved in I would hear him cough through the wall we share. His death has crossed my mind more than once. How long would it be before we realised? How long would it be before we ventured into his room? The door of his room is a fascination to visitors. It’s shrouded in mystery. Being an old house, a lot of the doors don’t close properly. His is one of those, so when he leaves he hangs it shut by a piece of green string. That’s how we can tell if he’s home. Closed – home. String – not home. In the year I’ve lived here I’ve never seen into his room. I used to be curious but now I don’t really care.

There are a few theories about Colin.

There’s the ex smackie theory. The one where he was heavy into drugs three decades ago. He got off the gear but not before the drugs had taken a toll on his brain and social confidence. There’s the homosexual theory. The one where he grew up gay in an era where that just wasn’t acceptable, taught his whole existence is wrong and bullied for being weird and different at a young age. He becomes reclusive early and is almost apologetic for his being around.

There’s others too. The war theory, Vietnam or otherwise. The death-of-someone-he-was-in-love-with theory. The ex convicted criminal theory, which is hardest to believe cause of his gentle manner. Every theory is sad.

But these are all just theories, you could speculate on them forever. And until I man up, stop being shy and awkward and talk to him like a decent person should, I’ll never really know his story. Maybe he’d prefer I didn’t anyway. mj

One To Tell The Grandkids.

My grandfather is old. He smells of mildew and scotch. He reads many novels, but they are mostly fiction and there is nothing worse than fiction.  He also has dementia.

Once he drove on the wrong side of the freeway, into oncoming traffic. The people driving past him waved their hands in an attempt to signal him and his mistake. He said he never knew he had so many friends. He does not drive anymore.

He is a quiet man, seldom the life of the party and often too inebriated to be understood or ever taken seriously.

Once he woke in the middle of the night to an aching tum. The old timer had forgotten to fill his belly before bed. He whipped up a bowl of cereal and spent the next three days vomiting in hospital. He had eaten a bowl of cat biscuits.

He is not a smoker, although I could easily imagine him at peace with pipe ablaze. He enjoys war movies and has a large collection of teaspoons from places he has never been. I gave him one from Ayres Rock once.

My grandfather is always kind and always drunk. Yesterday he told me he wanted to sleep with me.  I managed a very loud no whilst holding back vomit. He then asked if I would like to play cards. He has dementia.

- Ang.

The Ideal Man

The other day I was browsing the Cleo Bachelor of The Year website, learning about the ideal man, when my mouse pointer stumbled across this …

The website seemed to be asking me who would I choose? Who would I pick out of these two perfect men? I sat in the glow of my laptop perplexed. I really didn’t know. I didn’t want either. I started stressing out. Fuck, I had absolutely no idea. Such a simple task and I couldn’t do it. Rob Mills, Aaron Edwards, Rob Mills, Aaron Edwards, Rob Mills, Aaron Edwards. Rob Mills was on Australian Idol once, I’m pretty sure he became some sort of heart throb for teenage girls despite being not very talented and having an annoying face. Aaron Edwards is a relatively small name player in the AFL. His most notable claim to fame was getting drunk at one of those Day on The Green concerts one summer and being found rolling down a hill in his underwear.

This was tough. Beads of sweat started to appear at my brow. My knee was shaking. And then I realised something. A wave of cool washed over me. I relaxed. I realised this doesn’t matter, I didn’t need to choose. I’m not even gay and even if I were they’d be out of my league and unlikely to go on a date with me anyway. Relieved, I got up and did some sit ups and squat thrusts so one day I too could be photographed in black and white, shirtless, wearing ripped jeans. mj

Put it up, get this thing rolling

“Alright first we need a name” one of us said. Pretty simple really. What’s in a name anyway? How hard could a name be? Well pretty hard actually. I umm’d and ahh’d over every suggestion including all of my own. The only thing I knew was that I wanted the tag-line to be ‘Bored Narcissists’ cause that’s essentially what we were and what the site would be about.

“Look, I don’t care, you just choose.” Ang was justifiably fed up with me.

Eventually we came up with ‘Like Totes Def’. That irritating slang of our generation, used by hipsters who can’t work out if they’re being ironic anymore and teenage girls. I adore both those types of people so I liked the name. Ang liked it too. We registered the wordpress and Ang did her design thing like the talented little cookie she is.

Then I remembered the now defunct site Like Bitchin. You may remember it, run by Derek Rielly and Chas Smith, two writers who’ve influenced Ang and I. Similar name huh?

What a bunch of second handers we are. Fiddlesticks….

So here is the site, a blog run by two second hander bored narcissists who met on the internet like a couple of kids on myspace. We’ll be going post for post, writing whatever we feel like. These insights to our lives might be interesting, they might not. But at least they’ll always be interesting …. wait. mj