My dear friend

I hope this email finds you spending much less time standing in front of the washing machine, hands on hips, watching the clock tick down, waiting for a certain click and hoping that this time—this time!—you have fixed the problem, than I have done.

A broken washing machine symbolises to me a certain kind of suburban chaos from which it may one day be impossible to recover. I don’t do many loads of washing these days, and certainly none that anyone relies on; but in the days when my life was much less settled than it is now, there was something deeply comforting in the gentle rush of the powder being poured into the slot, the clunk of the door, the water through the pipes, the rhythmic churn. The thought of it being without this anchor leaves me feeling on edge.

Mind you, it’s the oven I have lain in front of, allowing myself a moment to cry while saying, ‘Why won’t you start?’ In a haze of exhaustion a few days after we moved into a new house, I had bought a pre-made lasagne to make it easy to feed my children. Because the power had been off, the oven had reset and I couldn’t get it started. These were the days when Adrian was still living overseas, so I was the only adult in the house. I only sobbed for a moment before I rallied: ‘Get off the floor, Tracy! It’s just an oven! You can make it work.’ I hit at the buttons with my palm until somehow or other it started.

Anyway, good news! Adrian wasn’t travelling yesterday and so I messaged him: ‘Heads up! You need to fix the washing machine.’ Then I sent another message, because I didn’t want it to seem like I hadn’t even tried: ‘It has error sc which is something to do with a draining problem.’ He’s an engineer, he’s unfazed by an error message on a washing machine. And this morning, there is washing drying on the line; and tonight, I will sleep under a quilt wrapped in a freshly-washed cover.

That is still nothing to compare to this achievement which, by some coincidence of November, I notice is from exactly two years ago today:

It’s from the year I had a few too many wines at a fundraising dinner and bought two spaces as clowns—one for me and one for my brother—in the Christmas Pageant. And my dear friend, I know it’s not your style, but this morning Adrian and I have (with grudging help from our youngest child) moved the small armchair from the living space to the space near the piano, which made room to move the long lounge out of the window over to the living space, then the coffee table slightly to the right, all to make room to put the Christmas tree in the front window. Look, I do agree, it’s a little early even for me, and I’m not actually putting up Christmas decorations yet, but Adrian’s away a lot over the next little while. I’ll be able to cope if the washing machine gets off balance again, but I can’t get the tree down by myself; and while the adult-child did help to move the lounge, he’s pretty grinchy plus he’s got exams so I don’t want to impose on him too much. So the tree is down from its storage place, but not quite up. If you get my meaning.

On the note of Christmas, Maggie and I have started work on Tracy Crisp’s Annual, One-Night-Only, World Famous, Live Christmas Letter Reading (now for two nights!) and tickets are on sale here. I’m nervous, because we’re doing two nights this year and that’s a lot of tickets to sell. But as always I’ve got Adrian ‘encouraging’ me to push things a little more. We do sell out one night really quickly, and it is a lot of work for just one performance. But still, my heart is racing a little whenever I check the ticket sales.

I have been trying to encourage Adrian to do a small renovation of a room that we are repurposing. Pull up the carpets, polish the floorboards, the kind of thing we used to do all the time. Adrian said he’s retired from that kind of thing. I said, ‘But we love pulling up carpet and polishing floorboards.’ He said, ‘Do we? Do we really?’

I said, ‘Yes, what about all those times we did it? I can still picture them in my mind.’

He said something like, ‘What’s happening in those pictures, babe?’

I looked a little closer at the album in my mind, turned the pages of pictures of us renovating and redecorating. I did have a moment of realisation that when I am imagining the romance of renovation, every picture I have of myself is of me, sitting on an upturned box, coffee cup in one hand, pastry in the other.

So the carpets are staying down, the floorboards are staying unpolished.

I am currently fighting the fires of capitalism on two fronts: the ongoing battle to keep my ageing computer in action despite the corporate efforts which include, but are not limited to, ceasing to offer software updates beyond a small number of years; and the cancellation of streaming services. My son has counselled me against the first, ‘You can’t win,’ but offered hope for the second, ‘They’re all the same now, anyway. You can win that one.’ I’ve got one streaming service going at the moment, but I’ve done a thorough review of all my subscriptions. It’s taken ages! I had to comb through my bank transactions and a stack of emails and I think I’ve stopped everything I want to stop. With all the software and streaming and apps and journals and newsletters there was a lot.

Once you’ve started saving money though, you do get into a strange mindset. For example, we went to see Suzi Quatro at the Entertainment Centre last week, and when I saw the cost of the carpark I said, ‘Well what was the point of cancelling Netflix to just blow it all on the entertainment centre carpark?’ And because we were running a little late we had to park a lot of blocks away. I didn’t mind the walk because I was wearing my glittery boots and a longer walk meant that more people had a chance to admire them and say, ‘I love your boots,’ and I could say, ‘thank you,’ as if I had anything to do with them except engage in a capitalist exchange of money for product. Still, I’ll take my wins.

Suzi Quatro herself wore denim for the first set:

then came back in leather for the second:

The concert was magnificent, and I knew all the words to all the songs, and I will never not love her.

I will write again next week, I hope with news far more interesting than I have brought you this week. Until then I will think of you often and with love,

You friend,

Tracy x