On not being Australian
Ello all. This week I wanted to clear up some fallacies about my person. In my time here in Orem, I don’t go a day without someone asking me where I’m from or guessing that I’m from Australia, South Africa or Sweden (don’t ask). I wonder if there are many other Australian people out there as that is what I’m predominantly mistaken for. Not that I really mind the Australians – for a bunch who were originally British-banished crim’s, they haven’t ‘alf done badly for themselves. They make really good soaps, and I grew up on NEIGHBOURS and HOME AND AWAY.
People always comment on my accent, and while I’m proud of my mudder tongue, all this time it does make me wonder if I should affect an American accent just to avoid the nonsense some people come up with. And by “people” I mean those members of the race I don’t know. All the friends graced with Aunty Lyds’s company have this endearing way of affecting my accent, sometimes without even thinking about it. It just pops out. The accent. The accent pops out, DIRTY.
This leads me to Matina. For those of you in the dark, Matina is a transgender drag artist on the East Coast and for a while, she was my closest confidante. We had been on a cruise and during the first few days everything had been hunky dory, but then a few days later people started looking at me oddly and whispering behind my back. I wasn’t being paranoid, they really were talking about me, I could hear sniggers and whispers (which if you ever do in public don’t bother, people can hear you). Then the day before we were s’posed to come into port, I was in the water closet havin’ a waz and I hear Matina flounce in with someone else and Matina starts spreading awful things about me. Anyway, I burst out of the closet and both Matina and the first mate go really quiet, really quickly.
I slapped her so hard her false eyelashes popped off. We punched, kicked, rolled around on the floor (ugh mingin’ bathroom floors), slapped, poked and I ruined my best sequined Westwood. “Whossitallabaht?” I shrieked, mascara running, lips smudged and nose bleeding all over the place.
Matina’s reply was haunting. She said she didn’t understand me and that I should speak “proper English … proper American English,” and she left the bathroom limping and black-eyed. All I want in life is to be understood and respected. Isn’t that what we all deserve? To this day I don’t know what had happened to make her act in such a way, but I DO have the notion that we should treat people with respect. I wonder if it had anything to do with my havin’ a pash with her Australian bit of stuff. You can never tell with people from New York.
Laters all, and until next time, Luv ya bums.