Author: Noni

I thought about you tonight. Felt like the first time in years.

I was waiting for a bus, kicking the dead leaves of June, like a child in red gumboots. I could feel the eyes of my soon-to-be fellow travellers, all staring at me, asking, “Why? She should be more mature than this! She is wearing lipstick, and has a handbag and has wine in her shopping!” But I didn’t care. I had to pass the time somehow.

Then I remembered you. I remembered how you held my hand to stop me chasing seagulls. I remembered how you got angry about taxes you didn’t have to pay yet, and talked about marriage like it was a matter of fact.

Like we’d picked a date.

Like you’d even asked.

Like I’d have considered if you did.

I was sixteen, back then. You were three years older. It feels like an age ago. It almost is.

But we both moved on along our respective paths. You found a wife and a new land. I found my own adventures, and what adventures they have been.

I’m older now than you were then. And I still kick the leaves. And I still chase pigeons and seagulls. And I still dance in bus shelters for no reason at all, where everyone can see me.

And whenever I do, and that memory of you creeps back into my head, I just softly smile and think the same damn thing.

“Thank Christ I dodged that bullet.”

Because to live the life you wanted for me would have killed me.

That subject header may be confusing you. Don’t worry, it’s meant to. Unless you’re one of those freaky hippy health nuts, or a resident of Hawaii, in which case, good on you.

As you may already be aware, I share my first name with Morinda citrifolia. This plant is also known as the great morinda, Indian mulberry, nunaakai, dog dumpling, mengkudu, Kumudu, pace, beach mulberry, cheese fruit or, probably most commonly, the noni fruit.

There are many reasons why I am not particularly delighted about this particular plant being my namesake.

First, let’s just take the completely shallow angle on the issue. This mofo is UGLY.

I mean, that’s a fruit not even a mother could love. It looks like it’s covered in festering pustules, and could be mildly contagious.

Then there’s the various other point about the fruit that aren’t that appealing:

• The fruit is a multiple fruit that has a pungent odour when ripening, and is hence also known as cheese fruit or even vomit fruit. VOMIT FRUIT. Wow, there’s a species to name your child after!
• It contains many seeds. It is sometimes called starvation fruit. Wow. If you don’t gag on the smell or the bitter taste, YOU MIGHT CHOKE ON A SEED!

But there are some pretty cool things about this fruit.

• It has been used in trials to treat cancer. It has however proven to be completely useless.
• There is quite a high level of Vitamin C in the fruit. But not as much as in a raw orange. Also, it’s much higher in Sodium than oranges, so probably not the best option…
• The green fruit, leaves and the root/rhizome were traditionally used to treat menstrual cramps, bowel irregularities, used to treat diabetes,liver diseases and urinary tract infections. Which is cool, but not quite curing cancer, is it? (Also, let’s be frank, they’re all pretty gross things to be able to cure…)

CONCLUSION: The Noni fruit is a shitty plant to share a name with. It’s fugly beyond imagining, is full of seeds, and is pretty much useless medicinally. (Because lets face it, nobody wants to be named after a plant that treats “bowel irregularities”.) If I didn’t like my name so much, I think I’d wanna be an Apple. At least then I’d be rich, famous, and my dad would be in Coldplay.

x Noni
(The Doll, not the Fruit)

PS. If you want to know more about Noni, then http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noni is where I stole all my stuff from. Wikipedia FTW.

Seriously, I don’t envy the job of people in call centres. Usually, when they call, I am the picture of politeness. (“Yep, look, sorry, I’m not interested. Can you please take this number off your list? Thanks. Bye.”) I know they’ve got a shit job, so I do my best to make it a little less shit.

But sometimes, all my buttons are hit incorrectly in the most wrong sequence possible that I cannot bear to be even vaguely kind in my response.

Case in point: this afternoon. I’d had a seizure at work at about 9am, and Dad had to drive me home. I slept solidly from 9.30am to about 1.30pm. Even now, I still feel like death warmed up, and am particularly irritable. Seriously, no bitch wants to mess with me right now.

So, I’m on the internet in the lounge room, when my mobile phone rings from the other end of the house, in my bedroom.

Thinking it may be a call about one of my many job applications, I figure I should answer it. So after rushing the shit out of my dog-tired self, I do.

And am greeted by a heavily accented female voice, trying to sell me something.

Oh boy, did she get the dud call of the day.

***

Noni: Hello?

Call Centre Lady: Hello, Mrs KERNER?

N: (immediately shitty, and too tired to hide it) No, no, no! For a start, I’m not married.

CCL: Oh sorry, sorry. MIZ Kerner. MISS KERNER. MIZ KERNER.

(Seriously, woman. I get it. YOU DO NOT POSSESS THE ABILITY TO PRONOUNCE MY NAME CORRECTLY. Get on with it, so I can tell you to fuck off.)

Sorry. How are you today?

N: Shit actually. I had a seizure earlier.

CCL: Oh. Oh. Well, I’m calling because we have a promotion for your mobile phone-

N: (cutting her off) No, no you don’t. Take me off your list.

CCL: Oh, sorry. Yes. Thank you.

N: Bye. (hangs up)

Sorry, but if you call me in the middle of the day, on my unlisted mobile, and expect me to be all bright and sunny, then most days you’d be right. But to attempt to continue your pitch after a) pronouncing my surname ridiculously incorrectly, b) assuming I’m married, and then thinking I’m going to be okay with you ploughing on once I’ve told you c) TODAY I HAD A MOTHERFUCKING EPILEPTIC EPISODE, you’ve really got another thing coming.

I’m sorry, Call Centre Lady. I’m sure you’re really a lovely person in a very unlovely job. But seriously, today, you can go fuck yourself.

This blog has taken me hours to conceive. After the down-talk of the last two entries, I was committed to creating a blog post that was at least mildly upbeat, despite the fact that I am only just starting to come out of the pile of shit that has been this weekend.

My first thought was just to do what I’d done with the last two. I figured stream of shit consciousness was about all I was going to get, and for most of today, it was. But I was adamant that this would not be my only output for the day. I had to get over the hump and find something worth writing about.

So I tried. I scribbled poetry, that was so terrible, even by my standards, that I immediately deleted it from being, via an overzealous backspace button. It was so bad, I couldn’t bare to know it existed in an unpublished form, let alone one that could be read by the masses.

I sat at the piano and bashed about. I came across a magnificent tune, but before I could get it down on paper, I had lost it completely. I threw my notebook across the room in fury. You can still see the dent in the paint where it hit the wall. Oops.

I didn’t feel like reading, so I couldn’t bring myself to write anything to add to my other blog, which makes for far better reading than this drivel. I spent most of my day playing The Sims 3, so angry at myself for not having the willpower to do anything with myself other than improve the lives of fictional characters with no real creativity imbued in their false existence. I couldn’t even find the inspiration to write something on things already begun, not even the novel I’m working on, which features a genocide in its first chapter.

Finally, I thought about last weekend. It was infinitely better than this one, spent in Sydney, full of double book purchase madness and taking of advice from drunken birthday girls (well, one in particular) when I should have known better. It didn’t make me feel 100% better, but it reminded me that I *did* have something to write. It may not be for today, but it was there, potentially vaguely interesting, and perhaps something I could be proud of, in my own bizarre way.

This weekend sucked beyond belief. I was out of bed/my room for less than 10 hours from 9pm Friday night to 11pm tonight. I didn’t leave the house at all, and I barely spoke to anyone. I’m still not sure if I can take tomorrow. I’m twitchy and on edge, still highly seizure prone, or at the very least, I might snap and do something I regret.

But now I know I can write a blog that isn’t all doom and gloom. I can’t tell you what a relief that is to me.

At least it’s a start.

– N