October 02, 2002 @ 12:07 a.m.
Keeping it in the Family

I found out yesterday through one of my sisters that my mother thinks I want to leave the porn shop because of my boyfriend. As in, he's expressed displeasure at my working there, and I'm quitting to appease him. This proves two things:

1) Mother believes she's raised me to not be able to make decisions on my own, and that I don't do things because they're what's best for me, I do them to please other people.

2) She doesn't know Stuart very well.

When I told her the other day that I have a job interview for a barwench position, she seemed less than impressed. I initially thought it was because she's a sour old bitch and nothing I do meets her approval (get out your violins, everyone), but now I realise that there may have been another motivation. See, something else my sister told me last night was that Mum freaked out when I got the porn shop job - but not the "oh, my baby's working in a porn shop!" freakout. She seriously didn't understand what the shop was (even though I explained) and what my job involved, and she thought I was, as my sister tactfully put it, "selling myself". Deary me. So she probably assumed that I'm applying for a job as a topless barmaid. Which isn't something I'd actually considered, because despite what the yobs in Holdens who drive past me when I'm waiting to cross the street seem to think, that ain't something people need to see. I keep my bosoms well restrained. Partly because I am a modest young lass, and partly for fear that, unleashed, they might go destroy Tokyo or something. Although I was reading an article in a Uni magazine the other day about how hard it is to find a job that pays worthwhile money while studying fulltime. The author mentioned a friend of hers who worked as a topless barmaid for something like $25 an hour, with the added option of letting guys lick cream off her tits for $100 a lick. The author was ranting about how disgusting and exploitative this was, but my interest was piqued. Not enough to do anything about it, but piqued nonetheless.

But oh, my mother is something of a worry sometimes.

It was good to see my sister again (to jump around some what), although her visit was unexpected and initially an imposition. We had a huge talk about everything and nothing, but mostly about our immediate family and how uncharmingly dysfunctional it's gotten over the past few years. It was excellent to talk to someone, because I thought I was alone in my feelings of isolation and exasperation with the immediates. But no. I feel a lot happier (in a perverse sort of way - "hey, you think we're fucked up, too! Cool!") and closer to my sister for our talk. Of course, my life being my life, it happened two weeks before she moves to London for an indefinite period of time. Fucking typical.

We sat in the loungeroom on one of the ratty sharehouse couches, looking at and avoiding each other in equal measure. Conversation moved from dark to light and back again, and it was good to say stuff that I couldn't say to anyone else and have them say "yes, I know exactly what you mean". Good to compare notes and realise that we are not evil, bad daughters (or not entirely anyway). Good to bond with someone who's pretty much flitted in and out of my life for the past ten years or more.

At one point, she was gazing around the room said "wow, you guys really like videos". I followed her gaze and realised she was staring at a stack of fifteen or so porn videos I'd stacked on the shelf nearest the TV with the intention of watching when and if our VCR ever works.

"Um," I said. "Er, that pile's all porn. My porn."

There was a brief, tense pause.

"Oh," she said. "You've got quite a collection there."

"Actually," I admitted, "that's less than half of it. One of my housemates who's not here at the moment has heaps, and Stu has some of them too."

She started to laugh uncontrollably, and asked how I'd ended up with so much porn. I explained to her that I was not above accepting donated porn collections from customers who'd been sprung by their wives or whatever and had to get rid of it nownownow. Her laughter subsided to occasional giggling, and she seemed much more cheerful for the rest of the night.

I do what I can.

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