If you tuned into Triple J’s Breakfast show this week, you would have heard Concetta Caristo on the airwaves. Caristo is a new addition to the youth radio station’s primetime team for 2023, joining co-host Bryce Mills on the mic.
Before she started waking up with the ABC, the Sydneysider cut her teeth as a standup comedian who delivered very funny sets about life as “the most Italian woman in the world” – who has never been to Italy. While she’s been on the comedy circuit since 2019, her standup career was put on hold during Covid lockdowns. That enforced time off gave Caristo a chance to throw herself into an important new passion: making her apartment look as nice as possible.
As part of that extreme nesting, Caristo welcomed a few houseplants into her home, which are still going strong. Here, she tells us about the one potted friend she would rush to save in a fire, as well as the stories behind other belongings.
What I’d save from my house in a fire
Even though my budding live comedy career went into the toilet during Covid, I wasn’t too bothered because it meant my boyfriend and I got to hang out every night guilt-free instead of gigging. The dream!
I had never lived out of home before, so I fell in love with nesting in our new apartment. From that grew my little green thumb. Tending to my plants and watching them grow was a rewarding and transformative experience. I became a mother. I realised I couldn’t leave my apartment for more than a couple of days without arranging for someone to water them, or they could die. I had responsibilities. I now constantly tell parents I can relate to having kids, which annoys no one.
I know I couldn’t take them all in a fire, so if I had to pick one, it would be a stunning miniature fiddle-leaf fig I just bought off a gorgeous girlie from Facebook Marketplace. As I held it in my arms and walked to my car, I was overwhelmed with love and awe. Is this parenthood?
My most useful object
I wish I could say something practical like a Swiss army knife but, in reality, it’s the boring, simple and humble journal. More specifically, it’s one created [in partnership with] James Clear, the mind behind the book Atomic Habits, which is about how to build routines.
It was a thoughtful gift from my long-suffering boyfriend, who has been witness to my breakdowns over to-do lists and attempts to start six new habits all in one go. I love the one-sentence-a-day section, where you can write what you did that day, and the habit tracker, where you can mark off your habits a day at a time. It is my longest-running partnership with a single organisational tool to date.
Damn, I feel like I just sold the hell out of this journal. I promise this isn’t sponsored!
The item I most regret losing
This question is so triggering for me because I lose everything. When I say “lose everything”, I don’t mean I lost my iPhone once. I’m saying I have consistently and constantly lost things of value and sentiment since I was a young girl.
My mum laughed when I told her I had to answer this question. If I may quote her, she said: “You lost your school sports jacket, sports bag, my Gucci sunglasses in a Nick Scali, and you lost that Walkman you got as a gift.”
The Walkman was the most traumatic as Mum had to try and find an identical replacement so that my dad wouldn’t freak out, but she ended up getting the wrong one and, kind of like that scene where Mr Bean ruins a painting then tries to fix it, the situation just kept getting worse.
We laugh about it now, but it was honestly a real pain. So after all that, I’ll say this beanie. No idea where it went.
