My Week

Stephen Cummings: musician and novelist

13 November 1999 - Saturday Extra (page 2), The Age

Wednesday

You might have seen the movie "Groundhog Day". A guy wakes up one morning and is doomed to repeat the same day over and over again. No matter what he achieves during the day, in the morning he's always back to square one. Eighteen months have gone by since the birth of my youngest son, and it's been a lifestyle shift for girlfriend, myself and elder son. The year's flown by and I don't seem to have done much. Working from home supposedly has its advantages, but today I can't see them. Still, we've finally weaned the baby!

Thursday

Girlfriend goes to work. The weather warms up and baby and I spend the afternoon lying on the grass in the backyard squirting the hose at each other. Try to blow up baby's wading pool, but fail. Momentarily get depressed about being unfit and decide to start swimming laps once more. Resolve to begin immediately and am about to head off to the Caulfield pool when I get anxiety attack about being fat and instead go inside and run bath.
Baby and I spend the rest of the afternoon in the bath, listening on the radio to the constant speculation about the referendum. Teenage son returns from school and makes fun of his father and little brother in the bath.
Surprise phone call from film-production house, they want to option my novel "Lightning Girl", for 12 months.

Friday

We all sleep in. Wake up my teenage son and drive him to school. More referendum conjecture on the radio. Girlfriend escapes to work in the morning, but not before dropping a washing basket of wet clothes beside me. "There's another load in the machine." Baby falls asleep and I lie on the kitchen floor and listen to the cricket. Courier bangs on door and drops off bundle of CDs and press releases courtesy of my part-time writing job for "The Eye". Good bit is I get to off-load Rage Against The Machine and Delerium CDs on gullible teenage son. Girlfriend returns early afternoon and I goof off rest of day with friend, making drum loops.

Saturday

Baby wakes early and demands "Teletubbies" and bottle of soy-milk. I disappear to the back porch and have a quick coffee and read the paper. We turn up at the polling booth as the open the doors. Vote yes for the referendum and no for the preamble. Go home, teenage son's 14th birthday. His mum comes to pick him up and we give him his presents: a boogie board and thermal booties.
November is fete month. Girlfriend and self get very excited looking up fetes in local paper. It's come to this! Girlfriend unhappily goes to work and I take baby to a fete at local primary school, where I buy a box of cheap science-fiction books for teenage son.

Sunday

We go for a drive through southern suburbs to see if there are any fetes that we've missed out on. We don't find any, but make notes for future events. We notice that the traditional fete is making way for the high concept/concert of the millennium/floral display-type event. Very distressing. Not surprised by referendum vote, anybody could've seen it coming. The positive spin is we won't have to see/listen/read about Kerry Jones or Phil Cleary for about five years.

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