change the pear vol. 29 8 Apr 2025

hello! it feels strange to be going into autumn in april, but such is my cross to bear. march was a strange month: after the joy of claire’s visit, i felt muted emotionally and battered physically. i’m trying to be patient with myself and hope that april brings a more even keel.

on repeat

can we talk about isaac?, rachel chinouriri / real lover girls STAND UP

SHELL (OF A MAN), saya gray / love love love this whole album

beauty school, christian lee hutson / played to me by claire in the car, some absolute lyrical bangers in here

please don’t move to melbourne, ball park music / a song for a sunny day with a light breeze and the windows open

link, djo / i hope you guys understand that i mean this as a strong endorsement—this song sounds like a glee song

currently watching

back in february i became briefly obsessed with the story of luka dončić, a basketball player whose trade from the dallas mavericks to the los angeles lakers was so shocking that people believed that commentators announcing it had been hacked. it confused me (guy who knows nothing about the NBA) so asyi had to explain that the mavs had the random luck to draft a top young european player (dončić) and since then have steadily been building a team around him, as he grew into being one of the stars of the NBA. and then they traded him away to the lakers “for a pack of peanuts”. it’s been suggested that it was an under-the-table deal done to ensure the lakers remain the face of the NBA after lebron retires. the fury that mavs fans felt was because over the years, dončić never wanted to leave dallas; he kept affirming his commitment to the city, the fans, the team. even his official statement on the trade heavily hints that it wasn’t his choice. the whole saga made me feel depressed at the state of modern sports teams—the endless cycle of managers, players, etc that just keeps spinning faster than you can keep up. not to sound 5000 years old, but what happened to being a team? what happened to giving people time to realise potential? to finding players that pair right together, that make a cohesive whole? what do i know, i’m just a random 27-year-old woman who used to be obsessed with manchester united, but nothing about club football brings me joy any more and i can’t help but feel like it’s something to do with the way that money shapes and structures almost everything to do with the sport. (and also, needless to say, its tolerance for sexual abusers.)

anyway, shortly after this news broke i was lying on the sofa with cramps and feeling sorry for myself, and i decided i wanted to rewatch the last dance, the netflix documentary that chronicles michael jordan and the bulls’ record-breaking, belief-defying six championship wins. i love this documentary. when abeera and i first watched it, we watched about 3 episodes at a time, because i was so gripped by it. it’s the sheer joyful disbelief of just how good michael jordan is; it’s how every single person interviewed still feels every emotion they had at the time, years later; it’s MJ being the king of petty (“and i took that personally”); it’s the inevitable arc towards glory and the unpredictable nature of sport; it’s about the players’ love for the game and for each other; it’s about an entire city transformed (“mom and dad said we could either have presents under the tree or go to see a bulls game”). the documentary is about michael jordan and his greatness, true, but it also takes time to highlight that he couldn’t do it alone. he needed scottie pippen and dennis rodman; he needed a team of people who wanted so badly to live up to his expectations that they worked their asses off; he needed phil jackson and his triangle offence. it’s not quite “there’s no i in team” because there is the best basketball player who ever lived and it’s michael jordan (the moment where he switches direction and just hangs in the air, three seconds on the clock, and sinks the shot…. i paused it and made hana sit down to watch with me). but it quietly affirms that being the GOAT can only take you so far. to do what he did with the bulls—win and win again, and win one more time, and then do it twice over—the whole team needs to pull their weight. and they do, and it’s magical. could something like that ever happen again? the hope feels ever slimmer as sports teams increasingly turn into corporations fueled by capitalist greed. but there’s always hope.

last seen

• the last forty minutes of the return of the king, on their first night, claire so tired they were like, “is this what dying feels like?” while hana and i cried our eyes out at frodo and sam’s final steps up mount doom, the fellowship’s final desperate stand, the final goodbye and journey into the west on the final ship. entering for the very last moments really hammered home how frodo’s task takes everything he has, every last shred of courage and willpower while being torn apart by forces nobody else could understand. a masterpiece!!!!!

• die hard. what is there to say? this is a perfect movie. so funny, so well-paced, alan rickman is impeccable, so many unbelievably good one-liners. yippee kai yay motherfucker!

• the bourne identity. not as perfect as die hard, mainly because it is too concerned with interiority rather than bruce willis quipping like his life depends on it. it wants to both be an action movie and deconstruct action movie heroes and therefore it can never quite succeed at either.

• in and out. new to me and i had the best time. i love being gay. i love gay people. macho man scene gets 10/10 as does the scene where kevin cline’s student is like “of course people think you’re gay, you BIKE to school”, because i had said the same thing about five minutes before. it’s okay to stereotype when it’s funny!

• the polka king. FIVE STARS… jan lewan the polka king, claire’s mum’s irl friend, has a wild life story and jack black puts his entire pussy into playing it onscreen. you have to see it to believe it. there’s such warmth, humour and heart to this movie. now i’m rapping polka !

reading

imagine you’re six years old and you’re the bastard son of the king-in-waiting except when your existence is revealed he abdicates the throne (and later dies so you actually never saw him at all) and then you’re taken to the court to grow up but nobody really takes an interest in you except your father’s old right hand man who happens to be the stablemaster (dad stand-in number 1) except one day the king notices you and decides to turn you into a weapon so you then start getting assassin training in secret from the king’s bastard brother (dad stand-in number 2) but nobody can know about it and then you start seeing the king’s fool around and he sometimes says weird riddles or sings a love song to you and so you’re kind of friends but you also don’t know if he’s mocking you so honestly you don’t really think about it much and then your youngest uncle tries to murder you like three times and also frame you for murder when you’re on a diplomatic mission to try and find your other uncle (now the king in waiting, but most importantly dad stand-in number 3) a wife but you somehow survive and secure the diplomatic marriage but now youngest uncle is out baying for your blood. oh and in the midst of all this you realise you also have a type of despised magic that means you can bond with animals and nobody knows except the stablemaster who also despises you for using it.

anyway then you’re back at court and you secretly bond with a wolf but honestly that’s the least of your problems because the king is dying and your assassin mentor (also the king’s bastard brother, see above) keeps being really weird about it and also your kingdom is at war with these red ship raiders and you have to go and fight off enemies with your axe and then your uncle who’s the king-in-waiting goes off on a quest to reawaken these ancient beings called the elderlings and meanwhile your youngest uncle is draining funds and partying and calling himself king-in-waiting while also slowly draining the life force from the actual king and trying to kill you and your absent uncle’s wife and her unborn child so you and dad stand-in number 2 hatch a plan to spirit her off to the mountains with the king’s fool except everything goes wrong and you get betrayed and end up framed for the king’s murder and youngest uncle arrests you and beats you and tortures you to death but you survive because you manage to soulbond into your wolf’s body and then dad stand-ins number 1 and 2 dig up your corpse and call you back into your old body. and nobody else knows you’re alive not even your girlfriend who is carrying your child but you don’t even know that because you’re kind of hopeless on picking up signs so you basically give up on things and drive away your dads and live as a man-wolf for a bit but then decide you want revenge on youngest uncle so you try to kill him but fail miserably and while you’re doing that dad stand-in 3 tells you through a command in your brain using the ancient magic of the royal bloodline (that you never quite mastered because the guy teaching it to you tried to kill you and yes you do carry an unreasonable amount of shame and self-punishment around this matter) to come find him in the mountains and assist him and you take your wolf and travel all the way there and meet some characters along the way including like 4 women who want to sleep with you because you’re really sexy even though you have no self-esteem but you’re also being pursued and hunted by youngest uncle whose underlings capture you but you escape and then get shot in the back by an arrow and you walk in agonising pain to collapse at the feet of someone who turns out to be the king’s fool and he thought you were dead this whole time and he tells you you’re beautiful twice and that he missed you and presses his brow to yours and says “if there is another my fate is twined around, i am glad it is you” and also tells you that you are destined to save the world together which he already kind of told you and you didn’t believe him but now that shit is getting kind of real.

and then you somehow recover from this arrow wound that probably should have killed you and you go on a quest with the fool and your uncle’s wife to find your uncle (the good one) while being pursued by your uncle (the bad one) and eventually you find good uncle carving a dragon out of stone and to make the dragon you need to dip your hands in liquid magic and put all of your memories and sense of self into it and he’s been doing that alone but when you get there he manages to get help from one of your party so he can complete the dragon but before he disappears into the dragon bodyswaps with you so he can have sex with his wife one last time to produce an heir. oh also btw remember dad stand-in number 1? he’s now in love with the woman who you thought was the love of your life and also has had your bastard child so you end up putting some of your own pain into a dragon and while all of this is going on it seems like the fool is making more and more predictions that turn out to be true so maybe his whole thing about being a prophet is real and then good uncle puts himself into the dragon and then it turns out that you can awaken more stone dragons using your animal bonding power and they all fly away to defeat the red ships and save the kingdom and you decide to stay behind and before the fool leaves he kisses you on the mouth.

all this AND MORE happened to my good friend fitzchivalry farseer. read assassin’s apprentice, royal assassin and assassin’s quest if you want to suffer like me!

ps do my 100 books list challenge of my favourite/formative books! since making it in an adrenaline-fueled haze in about 30 minutes, i’ve obviously remembered about 15 key books that i left off, but i can’t edit it now so i guess we’re standing by it.

miscellaneous

hugging claire in canberra airport!!!!!! [the crowd goes wild] long walks in the sun unravelling our hearts. blasting pop punk music in my car. craft beers on the porch. wine in the sun. the frozen yuzu cocktails from lazy su. kangaroos around mount ainslie. claire’s affinity with the long-necked turtle at mulligan’s flat. the scampering quolls with their laser-point eyes. how silly the possums looked when they jumped up the trees. running mt ainslie and jerrabomberra parkruns! visiting the koalas in tidbinilla. claire’s dahl. taste testing australian chocolates. ash saying capoeira in a perfect portuguese accent. taking claire climbing! vegan duck bao. hanging out with an echidna and banh mi. driving us to the beach dressed in our dad outfits. finding vegan golden gaytimes. the huge monitor lizard and the multitude of kangaroos around our cabin. beach sunrise! labelling everything -genius (bettonggenius, froggenius, birdgenius, treegenius). gay people music video night. crying on the floor together on claire’s final night. big sichuan grilled fish + hotpot with ping. driving around wollongong with bee! their incredibly huggable plushies. the spray from the waves at the jetty. seeing many red-browed firetails on our walk. drinking vermouth on bee’s couch. the lookout over the sea. two sausage dogs at the climbing centre. fabrizio’s tomahawk steak. $12 margaritas. my first time at korean bbq. dressing up as cowboys for amy’s party. dumplings with amy and weggs. my new hoka recovery slides. saskia’s nonna’s chicken soup.

take care of yourselves out there. i hope april brings brightness to you!