My Mum's Bad Diaries

Guess what! We are onto volume SEVEN!!! It's February 1984 and mum is living in the new terrace in Burnley with Patrick. We start the episode strong with a bullet point list that includes the words 'Dad & the murder case', and also mention of a trip to the 'VD clinic' oh my lord mummy. 

Our long time listeners will have flashbacks to season one when it was all about Thrush Talk and Thrushdates (now removed so my husband can't hear about it and get the ick). Now it's poor mum back in Feb '84 struggling with all sorts of vagine issues.

Mum's working at Leader and reading Sidney Sheldon, but then also interestingly mentions another book: Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance, which is INTERESTING because it seems to be another boy influence that we have in common.

There's a trip to Golden Bowl for the first time in months, and mum gets tips again (did she ever get them before or just talked about them? I can't remember) and cuts her own fringe 'a touch' -- what a recipe for disaster! Very dangerous territory.

Then there's mention of 'listening to Leonard Cohen' -- another boy influence! They aren't listening to Adam together, that's for sure.

The episode finishes with a toilet break and we'll continue the reading next time. Enjoy!

As always, listen to experience: cringe, giggles and some real-life shit.

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oh it's another man and more talk about men. enjoy?

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first stop for any beaus, listen in and take notes

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listen to learn about lily's best friend jackie. 

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We continue straight on with the reading in this, our part 2 of The Shift. Mum reads out a Christmas card from Doriane, and we talk about how we first learn about romantic relationships: from those we see around us. We manage to get some contemporary 'boy talk' in (as always) and then it's back to January 1984 to continue with the reading. Mum has noted in her diary that the name of the mainframe computer she was working on at St Kilda Road was The Reality and it's all just a bit too 2001/HAL9000 for me. Mum takes off down to Inverloch with granddad and her siblings and cousins and has a nice time, a break away from the early sneaking suspicions and unhappinesses about P. Poor mum, and she even writes a poem for him!!!

Mum start work at Campion Books doing school 'sells' and seems to enjoy it, she goes to see Pirates of Penzance as well as the Dusk to Dawn cinema -- high and low culture is always the best type of mix. LIz is reading mum's 'novel' and mum is sitting by anxiously waiting for feedback. She's playing Pretenders and Divinyls and writes that she feels she's floundering and can't work out her direction. Sounds familiar!!! She's in a 'horrendous blue funk' that she says she's trying to write her way out of. Love is a Battlefied, both Pat Benatar and mum agree.

There's a big 'talky talky' which mum tries to make sound light in her diary, and which she is also trying to keep upbeat and 'fine' about but we all know how those 3AM chat sessions go with boys. They say everythind is FINE but we know in every cell of our bodies that IT'S NOT. I get my rant on saying that I just don't think we're meant to marry them lol.

We finish with a note about the current Soviet political sitch, that Yuri Andropov has died, and in mum's diary she wonders what this will mean for world peace. We end the reading -- and the volume!!! -- by saying we will be doing this podcast for another 15 years likely, and that as AI gets better and better I'll need to be on AI-mother watch, to make sure I DON'T use it to somehow build a mother replacement for later on, so I can continue talking to her forever. There's something deeply wrong about that, I agree.

Enjoy!

(Next reading we start Volume 7 woo hoo.)

As always, listen to experience: cringe, giggles and some real-life shit.

Follow us on Insta @mumsbaddiaries and thanks for listening!

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Hello and welcome to part 1 of this mega recording, which has spawned two episodes plus multiple side chats lol.

We start by chatting about my 30th birthday and where I am in the world, and we get a brief catch up with all things mum: her next novel, her knee, her recent trips to shops including purchasing a TUPAC t-shirt you heard that right.

Then it's on to the reading and we are back in early 1984 woo hoo, and Mum moves into a place with Patrick. That's pretty quick, I say and wonder if anyone said as much to mum all those years ago. And there's trouble in paradise with mum making tuna casserole and P seeming a little too invested in whether her friend comes over or not. So much so that he GOES TO COLLECT HER.

Of course we have our (my) usual rants; about men, relationships and WHY IS IT SO HARD???!!! Meanwhile back in 1984 mum goes to the all-night drive-in, does a crossword, talks about helping at a stock take at P's workplace, considers factory work (!!!), goes to Inverloch, thinks about becoming a writer (AGAIN), makes chirpy in love entries in her diary and then slides into paranoia, suspicion and misery. Ah the joys of first love.

Part 1 finishes with a treatise on love and a bad poem.

Enjoy!

As always, listen to experience: cringe, giggles and some real-life shit.

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welcome to part 2 of the mr bali side chat which we've had sitting in drafts for ages, since recording it november last year. long-time listeners will know that there was a boy in bali last year and this is the ending of that. we've waited for it totally to blow over and fade into the distance, but figure some people may be interested in the discussion around relationships, situationships, intense connections and what happens when it all falls apart. here is the ending after it all fell apart.

we talk mr bali, relationships more generally, life stages, expectations, the taxi cab theory, the engagement ring theory and how things feel when it doesn't work out.

As always, listen to experience: cringe, giggles and some real-life shit.

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this is a short side chat we recorded back on 20 October last year while i was in a romantic whirlwind. facetiming for hours each night, dreaming of the future.

as it turns out it didn't turn out. this is part 1 of mr bali...

As always, listen to experience: cringe, giggles and some real-life shit.

Follow us on Insta @mumsbaddiaries and thanks for listening!

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Welcome to our next episode, it's a biggie and I'm patching in from old London-town, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. Mum recorded a note at the beginning, about the editing approach for this one and about how she contacted her ex to check in about the project.

We open up with me patching in from London, and mum talks about her morning routine (5 hours??). We tried recording this ep the night before but mum was too tired and 2 glasses of wine didn't help. So we're trying again. I had a bad night sleeo the night before, the Brits are just not prepared for the heat, there's no 'heat education'. We have a knee update and quick chat about House of Stassi, then it's on to the reading.

Mum's helping a friend with a college application. She buys a Stuart Membery dress for $85 which is pretty steep for 1983; all that Palais cash she's earning now. There is a note from Patrick, and mum says now she doesn't know why he liked her so much. There's food: Topolinos, nachos x 1 and souvlaki at somewhere called Twins in Lygon St. Some SCV folders at Leader and then Stalactites for dinner. Mum has her period and doesn't really want to go, but Patrick insists. Turns out there's a surprise party for her, lots of her friends are there.

She's still working on her folio for the photography interview at RMIT, and when the interview happens is told it's unlikely she'll get in. Mum moves onto Plan B. Granddad buys 18 pregnant cows and mum reads the agnotes. Her journal entries are getting slack, she's missing too many days and trying to backfill them in. There's a $30 parking fine, an RACV function in the Stardust Room, and a birthday dinner with Nanny and Pop-Pop at Topo Gigio's -- at first we think it's in St Kilda but Google tells us it was in Toorak. That makes more sense!

Meals x 2 at La Surcouf, the French restaurant in Camberwell, and one night mum's eating spaghetti bolognaise at 2AM, such young digestion! Also, thrush rears it's head... and so it begins. Mum and Patrick are doing Christmas together -- lunch at her aunt's and dinner at his relatives. It's a lot. We spend a bit of time talking about why mum is doing P's Christmas shopping. Christmas Eve they go to the Prince of Wales, decide not to go in because of a $7 cover charge and leaving, mum falls down the steps and stuffs BOTH ankles and Patrick has to carry her to the car. 

We finish with another note, 'superb' as mum calls it.

So many notes. I'm a bit jealous. Maybe my husband will write me notes but to be honest I find it hard to imagine.

As always, listen to experience: cringe, giggles and some real-life shit. 

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We're straight into the reading and it's a short ep this time around! Sorry but we were pressed for time and needed to just get it DONE.

Mum has her waitressing gig at the Palais and then goes shopping at Swan St, Richmond. She's developing photos for her folio, so I'm glad she hasn't just ditched that idea (after the robbery I'd understand!)

Mum talks about gran's 'yummy dinners' and we talk about meal anxiety these days, and mum tells me she and Mario are going to make their own sausages soon. He got the skins and she has the mincing equipment. Just need to do it!

One diary entry has 'a very interesting and NOVEL day' and mum then proceeds to relate how she lost her (new) camera. She doesn't write it in the diary but is 100% sure she put it on top of the car and drove off... There's more nachos + margs and sleeping with boys (I mean sleeping in the same bed, and how hard she finds it with another body in the bed).

We talk about the importance of giving and receiving cards (is it a dying artform, like leaving notes for people?), then it's on to hymens. A No Nonsense mention then a bit of trouble in paradise with some emotions coming up between mum and P. 

And finally after a late night seeing the Allniters in Armadale, mum goes home and 'eats the legs off [granddad's] lobster' and watches the end of a Bronte doco. 

What a life was had back in 1983!

As always, listen to experience: cringe, giggles and some real-life shit. 

Follow us on Insta @mumsbaddiaries and thanks for listening!

We'd love to read your comments or questions! Send us a text!