Fairweather Accent

I scrapped my Aussie accent for the one I used to have, the one that’s been long dormant like a volatile volcano, so I’m using that and treating the other like ash. When I first came to this country, I picked up the Aussie accent straightaway. I was a type of Zelig person, a human chameleon.

After almost eight years, my original accent, if that’s what you even call it, it’s from a different country, surely it must be something, is now sounding really exotic to me, so I’m reverting back to that, whatever ‘that’ is. Sadly, my Aussie verbal jangle doesn’t captivate me like it used to. I’ve even started pronouncing the ‘r’ in Melbourne again. For any listeners out there, I still put a ‘tree’ at the end of cemetery, but I’ve officially dropped “to-mah-toe” for “to-may-toe”.

It’s kind of odd because I go for my immigration interview on Saturday afternoon. Some of the things I’ll appreciate about being an Australian citizen if they allow me to be is firstly being one; then voting the prime minister out of office, the odious little lap dog, the utterly spineless micro-manager who's guaranteed a legacy of pure rotten to-may-toe-ness; having a second passport and just voting in general.

Easter was fun. I went and saw lots of bands. Saw Deerhoof. They were tops. De Campo got a black, Bonds-t-shirt and a CD by LCD Soundsystem called Sound of Silver. It’s a modern dance record with punk cred and it’s monstrously good. Decampo gave me a book of essays by David Foster Wallace called Consider the Lobster. Read some of that, yeah. It’s freaking great but his intelligence is so bracing the prose comes off as mechanical sometimes and there’s so much information it occasionally reads like it’s computer-generated brilliance, but eventually you realise it’s impossible to fault it and you end up loving it, but become a bit numb with envy because he’s so far ahead of the pack with the brain of a scientist, the sensibility of a hipster and the dazzle of a magician. Disconcertingly great. I’m currently in the middle of an entertaining essay he wrote about the adult entertainment industry. After opening gifts, we rode our bikes to Pascoe Vale and ate prawns with De Campo’s family in the backyard of her sister's place over looking the city. It was our first trip out of Fitzroy (excl. city) and it was excellent.

Otherwise, I spent too much money and partied loads (hi Mom!). Gregarious Melbourne, I spoke in a Romanian accent the entire time. I bought the Velvet Underground in Print at the remainders shop. It’s Loaded and I'm penniless.