The Year In Review - December

A December Selection From Richard

Happy Last Day Of Year Day to you all.
Chick flick and tea at the old Turkish restaurant this evening
This is my Aunty Maureen (in)
Hell, Afghanistan, Iraq, Cester
Uncle Steve is here (too) – reading

It's a bit like an ad break in the movie we call life
Where I get ideas for jazz solos

Okay, imagine that it's Christmas day
The mall is very busy and everyone wants money
tra la la la la

When my son was little, I remember taking him into his first music shop
Do you understand duck?
It's time to get down to some serious practice
To play solo at a wedding
My old friend

Very soon
Each teacher will have a code name
There would be obvious limitations:
Ich schreibe auf Deutsch heute Morgen als ein Zeichen der Feier, and
Chardonnay gets you pissed

My mother used to like to say at Christmas,
“Peace on Earth and goodwill to Ian.”



A year is made up of twelve months.

The Year In Review - November

Eleanor turned two in November.

I am still overwhelmed by how large love can feel. Not that there aren't moments of frustration and frayed temper in that love, and not that this love is ever without it's deep undercurrents of fear like sharks gliding the depths far below the surface of life, but that's love isn't it? Love is always love with something else swirling through it. This love of a parent for their child is love with worry about the future. Sometimes it feels like a bubble rising up inside me and threatening to burst.

One morning we went out early to a children's playground on Oriental Bay and to the library. It was a glorious morning.

It is hard to be glum when you are a teacher in November. The weather is beginning it's slow warming rise into the lethargy of Summer, and the holidays lie ahead.

Richard played trumpet at the senior prizegiving and felt a rush of human empathy. I wish he'd give me some money, but he better not start touching my hair.

The Year In Review - October

In October JY and family went to Riversdale for a holiday. It was nice. We stayed in a rented "bach" with some friends. It was one of those new versions of a New Zealand bach that are flasher than the house you normally live in. Eleanor took advantage of the excellent bathing facilities.




JY decided to try writing longer things on his blog less often. Two things happened as a result: JY's sense of humour disappeared, and Richard got sulky. JY wrote a couple of book reviews to see what it was like to write a couple of book reviews (see sidebar).





Richard ended the month playing at a folk festival. Bass players are so rare at these events that he was allowed to play even though he didn't have a pony tail or a beard.


Richard wrote as beautifully as he plays about other things that happened in October too. The Dancing Snifter asked me if I was going to the funeral, but I felt it was a family affair and declined, although our thoughts were with Richard and his family on the day.

The Year In Review - September

What happened in September? There was a dreadful teacher only day in which I was told at three different presentations by the people who had been paid to come and present that they "didn't have the answers". Money well spent there then. Mind you, I spent the year attending the meetings of an area-wide committee that took the whole twelve months coming up with a vision statement. Actually, it's not quite finished yet, but I bet it will be really good - most things written by twenty people over a twelve month period are.

On the upside the holidays started.

It was sort of a good month writing wise, but it was also a bit fragmented. There was this about being an ape (confirming rumours floating around the staffroom for three years), and this piece about New Zealand history.

I seem to have taken very few photos of Eleanor in September, but I like this one even if it's out of focus.

Richard bought a car. It's called a Maxima. In Latin this means small penis. I shouldn't laugh too much, my car is a Sprinter which isn't a very flattering comment on my sexual prowess either. Still, better than the Honda Impotence or a Toyota Flaccid.

The eternal struggle between man and beast continued in the classroom for Richard who was still haunted by his sexuality issues, reflecting on the universe and occasionally saying nice things.

The Year In Review - August

One of the ongoing themes of the year was Richard's problems with men with long hair. This reached a peak in August when he was confronted with pictures of Led Zeppelin on JY's blog. At a teacher only day later in the year JY deliberately wore a bright pink polo shirt to see Richard's reaction. It was a wonderful reaction to see; a series of facial expressions burst across his face in dismay before settling on feigned indifference.

Richard's blog... well, the highlight was probably this:

(Other photo: Eleanor learns how to wear a hat in August)

The Year In Review - July

Because JY is so devoted to his students he spent his holidays in July with 18 students in Japan. It was a great trip. It had been five years since Cathy and JY left Osaka to come back home and do things like get real jobs, buy a house and have a kid.

Eleanor was a hit wherever she went in Japan. This is pretty unfair. I've tried my best to learn the language and embrace the culture and no elderly Japanese have ever stopped to smile at me and pat my head.

Richard had a slow month, but he did write this. Because life doesn't like it when you feel like you know something the following day he was forced to write the sequel. Little did Richard know, it would get even better on Father's Day.

JY didn't write much. A couple of things about sonnets were ok.

(Photo: Eleanor on the train in Osaka in July)

The Year In Review - June

I read through June and it seems like this was the highlight. It actually was a pretty low high point. Richard's post was way better than mine. Actually, Richard had a good month in his bass bag: he started my favourite story of the year, managed to get an American sword swallower on his blog, and started off on a story about knocking on God's door which he really should finish sometime.

The Curmudgeon started whinging. Second fiddle started the 53rd version of his site.

Presumably the sun came up and went down a few times.

(Photo: Eleanor copying Richard's table manners in June)

The Year In Review - May

My favourite post from Richard in May was this one. Otherwise, Richard seemed to be obsessed with getting some guy called Murray to be the Pope. Richard and JY were limping like wounded sloths towards the middle of the year.

Eleanor had a little operation to put grommets in her ears. At the time this was upsetting, but since the operation she has been a much happier little girl.

JY wrote about how 300 was a movie that promoted fascism (see sidebar), but Richard thought it was just an excuse for more pictures of nearly naked men on this blog.

(Photo: Eleanor in May)

There are photos of Richard on this blog because, well, I'd rather look at Eleanor.

The Year In Review - April

Richard began posting about his long repressed fascination with Jesus, and then he went to Tauranga. In Tauranga he met some students. The followers of Richard's blog couldn't decide if this story of meeting ex-students busking was comic or tragic.

JY wrote a long series of posts about nearly-naked women and Prince. This was very frustrating for Richard. Often he would log on hoping to see a woman in a swim suit and instead he would see an skinny little man with bum fluff. In the end Richard got quite angry.

He should have remembered that for every trip to Tauranga there is another term at school to pay for it.

(Photo: Eleanor in April)

The Year In Review - March

In early March JY spent a couple of weeks at home nursing his injury. Having a broken collarbone means you can't do monkey impressions that involve flailing your arms up in the air. This severely limited JY's ability to teach.

Richard no doubt complained to someone else about 9YJ while JY was away. It was a rough month for Richard. He quit his band because they saw the gift that he bought JY for his birthday (a box set of Samoan music) and made some unkind comments. Moths and stick insects featured heavily on his blog.

The Wine Guy debuted by telling us to drink 22 litres of wine (or something like that).

JY wrote the equivalent of a blovel (blog novel, a word coined by FM) about a man with a normal sized penis who liked to jump around in tights (Nijinsky - see sidebar). Richard seemed concerned about this fixation with the male form. In the end both bloggers took a break. When Richard staggered bleary-eyed out of his blogging den Shelley called the police because she thought there was a strange man in the house.

It turned out she was right.

(Photo: Eleanor in March)

The Year In Review - February

In February of this year we all went back to school for Term One filled with pointless optimism and hope. By Friday of Week One Richard was already complaining about teaching 9YJ Music, little knowing what horrors lay ahead in the class of 9AD. JY blithely mocked and ridiculed Richard, and smugly wore a green T-shirt to Athletics Day with a sign on it saying "imagine this is yellow". Richard, finely attuned to the easily angered nature of the Gods, suspected that Athletics Day would not end well for JY. It did not. Tragically cut down performing superhuman feats on the sports field JY broke his collar bone. So noble was his bearing after the accident that those who witnessed the event were moved as a man to cheer him from the field.

While the ambulance was taking our hero to the hospital it took a detour to go and check in on someone else. The paramedic asked JY if he minded and JY told them it was fine, and that they could go ahead and pick up some groceries at the dairy as well if they wanted. The paramedic got a bit snippy after this and kept asking him to rate his pain on the Powley-Prowse Face Pain Scale. JY found this difficult because there wasn't a face with the caption: "It f**king hurts."

At the end of the month Richard almost had to be rushed to hospital in an ambulance after listening to Ornette Coleman "play" the violin.

JY wrote a series of posts about an Austrian pop star called Falco (see sidebar), and Richard was reduced to petty insults to cover his lack of knowledge about the 1980s Austrian pop scene (exposing an embarrassing gap in the knowedge of a so-called music teacher). JY, forced to take time off school, began to formulate a long, Panadol-addled post about Nijinsky's penis (amongst other things).

(Photo: Eleanor in February)

The Year In Review - January

This is a photo of my favourite view from our backyard. At the bottom of our garden there is a small pool of lawn surrounded by trees. I like to go down there with a blanket and a book and watch the leaves.

Looking into the depths of the branches reminds me of the idea that you can see the infinite (sorry, Richard) by getting smaller and smaller as well as bigger and bigger in scale. When Eleanor was a new born I would look at the skin on her face when she was sleeping. I found that it was only if I took my glasses off and leaned in until I was almost pressing my nose against her cheek that I could actually see her skin. It existed in a whole other layer of fine detail that you cannot see in a glance.

I think it is a common enough to sometimes feel that you are letting most of life pass you by. When it bothers me enough I make myself notice by drawing things. I like to take a notebook and sketch when I go on holiday. This is probably the only way I will meditate on something. Getting lost inside music can erase your ego (unless you're Andre Rieu), but concentrating on drawing a building or a landscape makes you hyperaware. How has a building, or a tree, or a mud flat bleeding out into the silvery, tidal rivers and reeds, how have they been put together?

Like sketching, writing this blog has made me notice the year a bit more. I have decided to return it to its former shape because I like it better. Even though this is a generic template it still suits me more than the other thing I was mucking around with. I also miss the gravestones (like I miss Nostradameus on RBB). While I was looking over the year of posts on this blog I realised that for the first time in my life I have actually managed to keep a diary for an entire year. I have quite a collection of abandoned diaries around the house so this is a real landmark.

I'm going to go back and tidy up some of my old posts and then put them on the list to the right. So far I've only done one. It was January, there was a sense of optimism in the year, Richard had a spring in his step and a rising sense of dread in his stomach. Even though school was drawing inexorably closer he knew he could get some relief by hitting the bottle and reading: My Mother's Records.