I am fascinated with how dysfunction is passed down - a legacy of genetics and poor parenting could stretch back generations.
It's probably the case in my family. Finger and toes are crossed that I arrest the process.

As I get older I realise that I have a past full of very funny, and very sad tales. On occasion they burn in my chest, but as time passes the colours fade and I am left with tatty little memories that are losing their emotional punch. So it is time to start remembering the good and the bad taste. I have enlisted my sister to help me along. Hopefully between us we can preserve in technicolour some of those moments that shaped us.

Our recorded memories may help our kids understand us in time, the way the patchy stories of my mother's bitter childhood in part explain the woman she is, and in a way, the women we are. (I say patchy as she has a casual relationship with the truth.)

I am thinking that I would like the narrative arc of this episodic life story to be comedic - happy, sad, happy - because despite all the past crap, life is pretty bloody marvellous now. So why not get started with a funny tale...

Around 1986 my mother, Rae, hooked up with a 27 stone maori guy called Arnie. I first met him one night outside a pub in Auckland, where my mother had been imbibing and socialising. My 2 year old sister, Jane, and I (10) had suffered an evening in a cold, old Corolla, scanning the dark car park, willing each shifting shape to be her. Eventually, two shadows approached. One of the shadows was immense, and as the person hulked into view, I was surprised to see that second shadow was not a child, but was in fact my diminutive mother. When Rae introduced Arnie, he seemed genuinely concerned that we had been left to our own devices for so long. Rae told us that on hearing that she had two bairns outside, he had insisted on moving their party of two to the car. That night, Arnie came home, for what I think was Rae's first "stranger sleep-over" following the marriage break-up (although other vague acquaintances had shared her bed previously). Arnie went rapidly from one night stand to live-in boyfriend. This jarred for us, the children, but as years passed we became accustomed to virtual strangers becoming sudden housemates. And Arnie proved to be a generous man with a big heart and an appetite to match.

At this time, Cheryl lived next door. She was, a sad, small, pale and bedraggled mother of two who bore a passing resemblance to Jimmy Barnes. She appeared to have suffered through a hard life of drinking, smoking, and poor treatment. Luckily, she had found an angel in her new partner, Terry, who treated her like a princess, and protected her in a way I am sure no man had ever done before. Terry was a robust, large and jovial woman with a florid complexion who drove a forklift at a local timber yard. Terry and Cheryl's relationship was a source of fascination for our family, not just because lesbianism was a novel concept to us, but also because they were physically and emotionally an odd pairing.

Obesity wasn't all that common in 1980s North Shore and Arnie's capacity to eat was a talking point for the family, and the neighbours, even though Terry was, herself, no waif. One day, this reputation came in handy. Around the time of Arnie's stay, we had a problem with a local dog shitting at the top of our driveway. We suspected it was Terry and Cheryl's dog, but they denied it. Rae, ever the mischievous plotter, hatched a plan with Arnie. The next time a dog left a brown present, Arnie took the usual step of transferring it to Terry and Cheryl's driveway. As was her usual response, Terry sent it back. Arnie crept it over again, and over the course of a Saturday, this poo to'd and fro'd between the two properties. Rae then concocted a faux poo from cocoa, flour and butter, and deposited it at the top of the their driveway, while Arnie disposed of the original offender. When Terry returned the cocoa poo to our driveway, Arnie called out to her, and asked her what she thought she was doing. "You know bloody well what I am doing, keep your shit away from my house!", she fumed. Arnie strolled up to her, and said, "I can do better than that". He casually leaned over, retrieved the poo, and slowly, deliberately, chewed his way through it. "Jesus, Cheryl," she called out in alarm, "he's eating shit!"