Cold : So Hot Right Now.

It had to happen – a post about the weather - specifically about the winter cold. Are you ready…?

I love it. There is nothing I like better that the ‘snapped rubber band’ ping of air on my cheeks, or numb fingers slowly and achingly thawing out. I like red runny noses, watery eyes, high colour and seeing my breath.
Cheeks reminiscent of a ruddy Prince Edward are a small price to pay for the brisk, crisp, chill of a frosty morning. And my, oh my, doesn’t PN do it well. It is a daily joy to behold the dusting of icing sugar over the lawn and I always give in to the temptation to goose step across it grinning at the immensely satisfying crunch.

Last winter in the 09, we had a single day waking up to a frost. One day in the entire season (such as it is, in the winterless north). My motives for the move south are many and varied, but I would be lying if I said that anticipating a quality winter freeze wasn’t part of the allure; along with finally being able to utilise all the hats, scarves, coats, gloves, and boots that I have accumulated (impractically) over the Auckland years.

So I’m not apologising for failing to join in all the whinging and miserable shivering that is taking place on streets and in workplaces all over town - smell that wood smoke, enjoy a vigorous shudder of cold, tuck yourself around with an afghan and put on the minestrone soup…

Deus ex Manawatu.

I can’t claim I didn’t know that Palmerston North belonged to Jesus – it was mentioned, mentioned and mentioned again (and by mentioned, I mean brandished as a dire warning). What I can lay claim to is the habitual disregard of advise based on second hand experiences. Lucky for me, His heavy hand is everywhere – poking me in the eye as I walk across The Square and idly regard the cenotaph, tugging on my earlobe when I catch the sharp intakes of breath at my frequent, explosive blasphemy and slapping me in the face on a daily basis at work. (If I had a loaf or fish for the number of times I’ve heard that work simply won’t be accomplished on a Sunday (deity forbid having a few lemonades at the local!) I could feed the multitudes – no parabolic miracle required). It shouldn't continue to shock and awe, but it does - clearly, those going to hell are slow learners.

I have every intention of making my mark on my new home town; live long and loud enough anywhere and you can't fail to, but it suddenly occurs to me that the traffic is both ways. No doubt this time next year I'll be a Palmerston North-ed version of my former self; flattened and perpendicular. Would it be appropriate for an atheist to pray that such a version doesn't include church goin'? A dear friend of mine reluctantly moved to PN after a long stretch living joyously amongst the winding topography of Wellington. She remembers spending the first night in her new house on Main Street in the throes of a panic attack, running desperately to the bedsides of her 2 children, gripped with the need to assure them that no matter what, they would never become 'straight line people'.

Dear Baby Jesus,

Please save me from such a fate,

Not yours,
Rachel.

Secret Society.

So I'm loving the Palmerston North Film Society. Pay $85 when you are feeling flush, enjoy a movie a week for 12 months - no more money down.

But wait, there's more....

Screenings are on Wednesday evenings and you know I need a little somethin' to look forward to once I realise that it's only 11.24am on Wednesday morning, instead of the 4.41pm Friday afternoon that it should be, it feels like it should be, it's beyond wrong that's it's not. Added to which, the selections are varied, intelligent and heralded by an emailed synopsis a few days beforehand, so it's easy to avoid a familiar film you aren't bothered to see again.

All this is as it should be and not at all shocking - what does disturb is the number of "Say what?" responses I get when I mention the film society at all. Mentions made to PN locals. PN locals who have already professed an open mind, a love for cinema and a belief in the value of mid-week experiential adventures in the CBD.
So what gives? In a town of thwarted social butterflies who grimly challenge all new-comers to try and find anything of interest to get up to, how come no one I bump into seems to know about what IS available?

Speaking of film, best I get a plug in for The Portal (corner of Princess and Main Street), a DVD hire store without rival, best known for it’s comprehensive collection of ‘Arthouse’ (hate that word, but you know what I mean) cinema. If you missed it during the film festival, studied the director during Film/TV and Media Studies 101 or caught the tail end of it once on a wet Sunday afternoon circa 1987, you’ll find it there - along with some opinionated converstion about film at the counter.
And I mean that in a good way.

Sausages: The Deal Breaker.

Palmerston North is many things, but it could never be called vegan friendly. Perhaps it’s because there is a local movement afoot to redefine vegetarianism. I’m yet to meet a self proclaimed vegetarian from the 06 who has ceased to eat meat. Hedging your bets by calling yourself a less strict vegetarian only counts if by “strict” you mean “than actual”. A less strict vegetarian can also be called a flexitarian: ethics so flexible in the face of a barbeque as to be non-existent. For the person who eats animal products and yet labels themselves vegetarian, presumably in an effort to impress others with their ‘special nature’, here’s a thought.

Just BE vegan/vegetarian.

That way you can have the desired effect on others without being ignorant/pretentious/hypocritical/offensive/all of the above.

In a related topic, I wish I had a dollar for every meat eater who, upon finding out that I’m vegan, has cheerfully barked “I could be vegetarian!” To which I always reply “If that’s the case – why aren’t you?” Their faces immediately fall into an incredulous frown. “Oh - but I just couldn’t give up sausages”.

I suppose it’s a bit like saying “I could be a lesbian, but……”

Palmerston North: Your Tagline Here.

It’s important to have a sense of identity. It gives you a framework from which to present yourself to the world and helps you decide whether those shoes are really ‘you’. Things that can disrupt your sense of identity are based around loss; of job/relationship/family member/faith. Leaving behind an adored hometown of 15 years to try and put down roots in Palmerston North has shaken my sense of identity and I feel the aftershocks almost daily. But what I really want to write about is Palmerston North’s sense of identity. Let’s not get carried away, I’m not going to personifiy the town to the point of sentient self awareness - which raises the question, if a town can have no awareness of its ‘identity’, what’s the tag line about?

You know – the tagline, so popular with Block Buster Amercian movies and self help books (Believing in Yourself - A practical guide to building Self-confidence; Asserting Yourself: How to Feel Confident about Getting More from Life; Naming your book: Just How Much do you Need to put into the Title, Hasn’t your Editor told you about Writing the First Chapter as an Introduction?).

The latest incarnation of a tagline for PN is 'Palmerston North: Student City'. For reasons of brevity, I’m going to leave the presumption inherent in the word ‘City’ alone, in order to deal with the broader concept. Let’s play word association. I’ll say "Student" then you say whatever comes to mind..................I thought so – binge drinking, slovenly habits, squalid living conditions, the smell of unwashed hair and cheap black jeans. And that’s just the chicks.

And if the town has no sense of these connotations then what we are identifying here isn’t Palmerston North, it’s us – he tangata, he tangata, he tangata. If that’s the image the people of Palmerston North want to cultivate in front of the world then they have begun the best way possible with the blunt instrument that is the tagline ‘Student City’.

Obviously, there are alternatives and I don’t see why I shouldn’t claim the right to create the tag line that fits my vision for the PN I want to live in (maybe initially this is regardless of the reality to be found being holed up by the Armed Offenders Squad outside my Roslyn window on a Sunday night, but I’m a firm believer in the transforming power of the noun).
In light of that, here goes........

1.Palmerston North: The thinking woman’s backwater.
2.Palmerston North: Not better or worse, just different.
3.Palmerston North: We don’t know nothing about a good time.

Let’s throw this open to other locals. A recent informal, liquored up survey resulted in:

4.Palmerston North: Take it and like it.
5.Palmerston North: Let’s get laid........back.
6.Palmerston North: You’ll touch yourself.

(So maybe alcohol isn’t next to Godliness, but at least that proves #3).

Of course in an ideal world, we would keep ‘Student City’, drop three letters and live happily ever after.

When You Get Caught Between the Moon and Palmerston North.

So you move from a bigger town to a smaller town.

Now what?

Now you are living on a need to know basis. Some things in life are flexible, negotiable, and full of the potential for compromise. And some things just aren’t (like food, drink, music, movies – fill in the bourgeois blanks). But you are resourceful and tenacious. These are good things.

So you email people you know in the area, meet up for coffee with people you know in the area, talk on the phone with, go for walks with, accost in corridors people you know in the area and two things happen.
Firstly, you lose a lot of people you know in the area - people who, faced with resourceful tenacity, see relentless pretension*. (Poor fools, they won’t be invited to one of my 4 course thematic dinner parties. Suffer.) Secondly, you walk straight into a wall of hopelessness (if I were the sort to extend a metaphor I would add, mortared with ineptitude*).
No, people, I think you misunderstand me. When I say “Who cuts a quality ‘mullet with irony’ in this town?” you don’t say “Who cares/Who gives/Who associates fish with irony?” Work with me.

So you go online and browse for blogging locals who might be able to give you a heads up about the where, when, how and hey there now watch out for. But ‘cept there is nothing out there (and by nothing, I mean so so few and none that do the business).

Looks like I’m going to have to little-red-hen-it and do it myself.

One Man’s Offensive Object with No Discernable Purpose is Another Man’s Treasure.

There is a lot to be said for the ‘so ugly it’s beautiful’ aesthetic. (To which anyone who has been witness to the Crotchety Nana Throws A Tea Party In A 70’s Bachelor Pad styles found at my place can attest). Inspired by the ‘so wrong it’s right’ school of thought, this philosophy of decorating is accessible to anyone, provided they have a robust sense of humour and are prepared to defend their lounge room at short notice.
(Phrases useful for such defence include: “Don’t fight it – you know it works”, “I asked myself, What would Buck Rogers do?”, “Well I didn’t invite you over because I thought you had vision” and “Stop laughing, you’re spraying soda stream on my shag pile”.)

In one of those mystical acts of alignment, I have discovered Palmerston North to be home to the sort of deliciously dodgy second hand objects that a connoisseur of fugly lives to possess. Favourite sources include Roslyn Trading Post on Russell Street, The Red Cross Store on Pioneer Highway and Arohanui Hospice Shop on Ngata Street, 3 of about 10 worth browsing.

To fully embrace this panache you have to take it beyond the breakfast nook and onto your person. Alladin’s Cave on George Street is a stone cold God send. It’s an experience beyond the printed word; a narrow and dated interior, saturated with stock and making no apologies for it’s ‘quantity > quality’ world view. (Don’t take a large bag/umbrella/lapdog and attempt to turn around. You jangle the bejesus out of it, you bought it.)

My theory on the appeal of mustard yellow formica, textured wallpaper and squat, orange salt pigs is that it’s an attempt to recapture the environment in which you were happiest as a child. The strange thing is I don’t remember living in Bruce Forsyth’s conversation pit the first time around.