the sun doesn't go down
it's just an illustion caused by the world spinning round...

life over here is crazy. and good. and i am alive people! and will email you kids on hte weekend; my silence is just an illusion caused by the slowness of the net here...

out of touch

ok i have pics and stories and they're all on my magic stick...and there's no usb port on this machine...and it's taken me 20 mins to log in anyway...and i just read hunter s thompson died two days ago

tropics

humid but not too hot; and hotel has a pool!! such a treat (thanks to stories from j in lae i was ready with my shorts). and pisin is a laugh to learn. net access is difficult to come by so this is it for a while. and no photos! of the geckos or the slowly swinging fans (inescapable and man, essential), funny mid-sized hills which are there in the corners of your eye, and that tropical green

some kind of farewell

'You could only describe the future by exclusion; say what will not occur ... much less easy to say what, in a month's time, you will have become.' (Hilary Mantel)

*

and such a nice evening too


- and so i'm signing out for a while, though i hope to be around in some form (keystrokes, mirrors, wires), soonish...

and thank you

getting there

small tasks get a lot more onerous without the car. out of boxes, you walk down to the village post office and buy one, walk back with it casually under your arm. past the bowling green where grandpas say hello; village life is so civilised.

pack the box. address it c/o your future self. realise you've no packing tape. walk down to the village and purchase some. walk back. seal the box.

heave 12.9kg beast under your arm - nope doesn't fit - rest it awkwardly on one hip and kind of hug it, struggle opening door, struggle closing door, struggle with gate and leave it open. stagger down past school it's lunch time past bowling green take back route through rose garden consider dumping box and running but stagger on. past school number two where it looks like exercise time for those under 100cm consider throwing box down and running away stagger onwards. realise pathetic lack of muscles in arms. arms hurt. glimpse village's thoroughfare, onwards...

great luck the p.o. door is open heave missive onto counter pay leave feel victorious despite cost...

*

apparently betel nut chewing improves your capacity to work . ('studies have shown that supposedly...')

things to do before you leave

when your vision starts to go askew you remember: food!

1.

2.

3.

4.

and there's no picture for 5., but it was: magic tricks by magician in bar. really: there we were having a chat and a drink and the person to the right turned and tried to impress z by performing magic tricks (one card trick, bit lame; another, better: putting his burning cigarette into a fold in her clothing, pressing it in, and - magic! - pulling away his open hand to reveal no burn and no cigarette. this one impressed me, but i turned into that annoying person who really wanted to puzzle it out; meanwhile z had turned around, unmoved by magic boy. no score.)

such a nice, neat city

of course, that doesn't mean 'clean'

do you think anyone's told them?

well, they must be pretty hardy; prettier cockroaches

it's a bit last minute but: cash; it suddenly occured to me that it might be useful. who would have thought that there'd be bundles and bundles of kinas on hand in adelaide? (lucky for me.)
*

…a part of her said, things happen everywhere, and after all…there’s only the world. Travel ends and routine begins and old habits which you thought you had left behind in one country catch up with you in the next, and old problems resurface, but if you are lucky you carry as part of your baggage the means of solving those problems and accommodating those habits, and you take with you an open mind, and discretion, and common sense; if you have those with you, you can manage anywhere. I make large claims for myself, she thought…(Eight Months on Ghazzah Street, Hilary Mantel)

And she does - make large claims. But who wouldn't? It seems so reasonable. What she isn't counting on are the differences between countries and cultures, and their affects. That is: she doesn't count on an environment where she cannot use her reason to 'manage'; an environment which doesn't run on her reason. The book is excellent; the clarity of its descriptions of increasing ambiguity make it unnerving. a bit like the feel of 'The Yellow Wallpaper', but where the latter offers a neat end, this one refuses reconciliation.

*
bean. i will miss the early morning coffees, but it's not those beans i mean; it's you who will be missed keenly. i try not to think about it.

this time - this sunday - it's real. have got ticket and visa in my hot little hand. woohoo!!! woohoo!!

nearly a vanilla post...
more satisfying than a cherry one...

domesticity

**
and when they finally came home from work (ok ok i admit it i am bored), we went to a new playground i found. it didn't seem designed for the toddler.

the slide gave you a quicker ride than expected; this came from someone stumbling out of the way as i whizzed down - oh my god here she comes -

this you jump on, hold on tight, and spin; it looks like a harmless noodle but you've gotta hug the slippery sucker tight and no laughing -

ditto when you walk the plank: starting from the far right you realise it ain't so easy - those planks are thin and they want to tip - and ok it was wrong to jump on the other end when someone tried to cross:

digital ash

a mate suggested last week that i draw up my will before i leave. i almost snorted into my drink. he's a lawyer and suggested that we whip something up straight away; i was a bit more hesitant. still, it is a reasonable suggestion, and perhaps something i'll do this week; at least, i'll think about it. (hm, how to divvy up my millions, my mansions, my medallions...)

it's a trick i'd forgotten since last summer: how to spend your days when you've nothing to do. after the initial adjustment (ie. panic) things settle into a very comfortable situation, where you simply make up a task and do it - or not. i have lunches (such a lady!) with people after they work and before they go back; and of course i can make knock off drinks or whatever else; i go for walks; i cook; i read; i visit places i want to see one more time; sometimes i do nothing but think, and watch the light move across the backyard; and sometimes i can stop and explore a place that i'm even-only-vaguely curious about, like today. there were headstones in german. (above this it said "hier ruhet in gott".)

you play games to keep yourself amused; without any irony: you're a child. what's the oldest date on a headstone? 1847. look: you're surrounded by adelaide's names: thiele, gibbs, cleland, moody, le lievre, elder, pilgrim (flinders' niece). what's the most bizarre headstone you can find? this one:

(referring to the death of george; but also looking at jane's epitaph - 'relict' isn't a word i knew before. there you go.)

you're in a good mood all the time ... you're probably annoying. but you're relaxed so it doesn't bother you. you play. and maybe think about the idea of writing up a will.

through the looking glass

bumped into a friend this morning who's heading off for a new job in dubai. i've got png hovering on the horizon. makes me laugh; waking up nowadays, everything is rich and strange.

surprise package

book i've been hanging out for! and who has the best sister in the land?

every weekday workers dutifully turn down the no through road and come to a halt within the fenced-in quad, under the watchful eyes of several spycams. if it's around nine am the driving gets a little nervy; the quad can only contain so many cars, and you wouldn't want to leave your car outside of the eyes' view: this is walkerville.



the workers then cross the bridge and file into the appropriate building. they leave the quad as if leaving an island, crossing over to the mainland, the office.



every single worker i have seen doing the crossing has slumped shoulders as he/she walks, dejectedly or defensively, towards work. when i look from the bridge i wonder if sometimes they dream of swimming off down the stream like the ducks do. it'd be better than imagining leaping from the bridge; the water's only knee-deep, you'd only break your neck.

the cars roar away from five pm, tearing round the bend up over the hill towards alternatives, leaving behind the no through road and its quad. the quad, empty and at night, is eerie; its orange lights shine, its wire stays taught; the spy cams keep watching.

can it be...yes...no...yes, i'm not leaving for another week. it's making me laugh, but they promise i will definately be on a plane soon...

and just after i found out, a magpie swooped me on kintore ave and its claws actually scratched just below my eye! (shaking fist in air). i felt very tippi hedren...

**

last week's farewell. i am getting good at them.

we'll just have to do another one now.

**

finally, permanent net connection established. no more scrabbling handouts from pals. don't try calling; today i am heating up that line.

getting into grooves

when i was packing books recently i found an old copy of kundera's 'the unbearable lightness'. i last read it when i was a teenager, and have been rereading parts. the section on the death of karenin (tereza and thomas's dog) has been on my mind, particularly the statement that happiness is repetition (or happiness is a longing for repetition, which is different, and i'm not sure if he means both or it's the translation).

it seems that at the same time as we know people can't offer that repetition, we ask it. or we fall for it. i went to perth a few years ago and met a boy who was almost exactly like one i had just ended a relationship with; different stories, sure, but ... the same physical mannerisms and general approach to life. despite the western talk of everyone being an individual blah blah blah, there seem to be certain types of people; we're not as particular as we like to think. just look around at blogs; mine included; when you think about the possibilities of the form it's stunning that there's so much sameness.

i've been wondering if we are drawn to certain types of people again and again. and maybe if in this repetition is happiness.

of course, there's danger there too.

**

this morning's email said departure might be delayed by another week. arghhhh!! but it might not. fingers crossed. patience. another week to drift along. what was that about repetition and happiness? yer...