19 | April | 2012 | DJ GLAD RAPPA

This is my mum. It is her birthday today.

Here are TEN things about her.

1) She is a ginger like me. (In fact my Dad is a ginger too – even though he had the blackest hair I’ve ever known.)

2) My mum was born in Ipswich (like me too!) She was 2nd of three born. Maybe she had middle-child syndrome, but whatever she had – it made her smart.

3) And then she was Dux of Ipswich Grammar. I have seen the volumes of school-notes she made. Epic. Although it made me feel quite dumb, I knew I had just a fraction of her talent which was enough I thought.

4) My mum has the most amazing handwriting you will ever see. It’s incredibly stylised – but so lucid and legible and with the deepest rightward slant you could imagine possible. My mum thinks she was actually left-handed as a child but forced to be right-handed by our stupid education system which frowned upon such sinister activities.

5) Although she was ultra-brainy, mum started, but never finished a University degree. Yet she worked her way up and eventually had major 6-figure salaries. She was the media spokesperson for HUGE companies and even multi-nationals (ones you would have heard of) and was regularly on the TV news but I didn’t pay too much attention – cause it was my mum and how uncool is that?

6) My mum can seriously paint and draw. Like – she’s really good. And I am pretty fussy about what I like in Art. The “lonely girl” pic below is just a fraction of her talent – but my fave.

7) She’s a great writer – not as good as me of course! But she’s written a book which I haven’t really done.

8) She has INCREDIBLE taste in mid-century modern design and furniture. Her apartment in St Kilda is like a museum. A FUCKING cool museum. So just imagine you were at GOMA visiting a mid-century modern exhibit and the bar actually has booze and cocktail paraphernalia you can use. All of these skills have bled somewhat into me – but she should take all the credit.

9) She’s a talker! In fact I wrote a song earlier this year called “I talk too much at parties” – but it was almost more about my mum than me. Cause I remember her telling me how when she was a teenager and drunk she would spend all night at parties talking too much. I never really got invited to parties as a teenager and to very little more in my 20s. But now it’s like I am sprinting all the time to catch up on all that terrible conversation I could have had!

10) She’s (almost) always goes with her heart over her head. For example as soon as she could afford to – she bought the best. I guess she realised quite early not to do things by halves. If you want something – buying the cheepest option is just going to bite you later. You won’t love it – it will be barely functional and you won’t care. From my perspective I suffered for 10 long years with furniture my parents donated or others were going to dump. And then a bunch of second-hand bullshit. I love the fact that now – despite my brain screaming at me “DO NOT WANT!” – I bought the most expensive and beautiful house I could afford and the right furniture – no matter what the cost. It is a dream to come home and a bit of my heart explodes when I (temporarily) leave.