I find it amazing just how often seemingly innocuous happenings will spark my writing creativity. It's so regular that I will see a metaphor/s worth writing about that it's rare for me to write anything fictional.

I wasn't going to write today, but earlier my dad made a simple comment that set me off. I quickly realised that I could write a decent piece, though I haven't rushed to do so straight away. Instead I had a bath (as usual a long one......I am a shocker for wasting water with showers and baths, the water police should have a warrant out for my arrest, though admittedly this time I had the water quite hot initially so didn't refill the bath at all later on........my brother said in hushed tones that he first did this the other day like he was committing a crime and mum and I said that we do this all the time!) and then made myself (and my parents....I did something for them for a change) a hot drink (coffee, while they have Japanese green tea). They are having hedgehog (this is called something else by most people), but I'm not, as my dad got me a block of chocolate earlier (I am spoiled a lot by my family which is perhaps partly why I sometimes act like a princess)!

They are currently watching and listening to a concert of Human Nature. I probably should be out there with them (I don't really care for covers, but it's harmless fun and when I came out of the bathroom I started smiling when I heard "My Girl" which was followed by "I'll Be There"), but I'm not settled. That's the sort of thing that I will do with my partner. I can't get life satisfaction from doing that with my parents unfortunately.

So what I am doing here is writing to her. Not directly, but that IS what I'm doing.

In just the past fortnight there have been many metaphorical things that I haven't bothered to write about. One of these must have been at least a few days ago. Anyway, my parents were talking about the parrots (they have been a regular topic of conversation lately, we have heaps of birds around here now) and I was in their vicinity. I think it was my mum who said that she sees a lot of them in our Japanese tree. Suddenly I piped up and asked about this tree and she said that it was a Mayple. Or is that a Maypole?

This is one of the things about my writing. I don't think that I'll ever be a great fictional writer. I just don't have a vivid enough imagination. But what I am good at is seeing a deep message within something that seems insignificant and then writing about it in an interesting and clever way.

That seems to be my strength.

What I have realised now (while eating a line of chocolate) is that what my parents are doing just now may be a small reflection on the impact that their sons can have on them. My mum purchased this massive Human Nature collection this morning, which just so happens to follow on from last night, when my brother and I (though mostly my brother, he is more of the argumentative type) were saying that they aren't really into music. Mostly this became my brother having a go at our dad (because he was getting annoyed by our suggestion), with me chiming in from time to time (that's my role......I am no good at holding a conversation). Clearly we (or just my brother) had him defeated. My dad said that he was like Julia Gillard standing up to the grilling from Kerry O'Brian (we were disappointed that John and Brian weren't on), but I felt he was being delusional, so I said that he was more like Dr. Hewson with the birthday cake.

He didn't really have a leg to stand on. He said that he likes Bob Dylan, but could only name one song when my brother asked him to name songs (admittedly I cannot name the actual names of songs a lot of the time), and then he didn't even bother to name any Elton John and Billy Joel songs when he said that he liked them (though I know that he likes them.....I've never heard him listen to Dylan though, but a few nights ago when I said that I had his greatest hits he wanted to put that on).

Personally I think that my mum likes music slightly more than my dad, but both of them are more into television and talk back radio. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I've loved some television shows over the years but I'm not really a television person. And I probably don't listen to enough talk back/news. Often my parents will have the television on just for the sake of it. Again, there is nothing particularly wrong with that, but what I mean is that they'll always be willing to try out something new because it's on the television, whereas I'll be more likely to try out something new with music. But in the past couple of weeks we've actually had music on a lot of the time. Like when we've played a game I've put something on, and usually done so after dad has asked me to. So instead of just having the family conversation and battles (which are still entertaining) I've been bombarding them with Art Of Fighting, Angels & Airwaves, Oasis, Roxette, Sally Seltmann, etc. A lot of that stuff is pretty obscure, but the fact that dad had only heard of about two Roxette songs and maybe hadn't even heard of "Wonderwall" says a lot. Though "Some Might Say" that he just doesn't have bad taste!

Last night we had my brothers Ipod playing with a mixture of ballads. It was a pretty great selection of songs. We thought back to our childhood with Barnes' "When Your Love Is Gone" and then I was very impressed when an obscure Third Eye Blind song came on, because I knew that I had to have gotten him into that (he probably rightfully declares though that a lot of my musical suggestions are rubbish!). He acknowledged that I had gotten him interested in a lot of music (which was nice) and then (I think to get on dad's goat who hates rap) said something about there being nothing like hearing a foul mouthed rap song from the early '90's. That cracked me up.

My brother and dad actually have quite a lot of funny banter. But my brother doesn't always win. He still has never beaten him in an arm wrestle. It was very funny when our dad defeated him last time. It was about two weeks ago and was very close, but he still had the edge. My brother really cares about this too. That's what makes it funny. My opinion is that dad should retire now and remain undefeated, leaving my brother to stew over this even more!

I would lose more emphatically, but I just don't care about that stuff.

Which is probably why dad found it funny when I was getting a bit annoyed recently about the soccer. It has gotten on my goat a little about how much the media have criticized the Socceroos coach Pim Verbeek (I said tongue in cheek yesterday that we could remove the I and make him PM). Australia were arguably in a tougher group then four years ago, we have a worse team, and our results have basically been the same (a win, a draw and a loss). The difference is that last time we just qualified (a little lucky) and this time we just failed to (a little unlucky). Yet Gus Hiddink is placed on the highest of pedestals while Pim is pushed to the ground.....and then kicked a lot. Everyone keeps going on about the Germany game, but we probably would have lost to them even if Pim's questionable tactics had been better (especially as Cahill's sending off didn't help matters). It was the fact that we only drew the Ghana game where we missed out. When Kewell was unlucky to be sent off and Pim and the players did a great job to draw with only ten men.