Rosanne's Lounge

One of the many things I did today was a trip out to Customs House to pay for Jezebel’s export permit. They said they couldn’t stamp her passport with an official AQIS stamp, but they did stamp the inside page with a “quarantine matters” stamp.

For those who haven’t seen it yet, here’s the genius that anthonybaxter made for me:

I have just sold Alsvidir to subtle_eye (may you both scoot well) and Serendipity is in the shop having a service. A note for those who don’t know already: Serendipity will be available for borrowing in the Melbourne area and for longer-haul trips. She has a bed in the back for sleeping on, an esky inside for storing food and a large water container. crystal_storm will be the holder of the keys. Borrowing fee will be a proportion of service fee and rego. Please borrow her and keep her running well!

I have been wandering Westgarth this evening, saying farewell in odd ways. The cinema struck me especially: if I don’t go and see a film between now and Monday, that could be it. I had lunch with Matt at Babka. Another “last time”. And I realized that we’ve probably had our last movie at Nova followed by dinner and red wine at Ti Amo, especially since he’s going to New York in September. It’s not a tragedy: we’ve had an amazing time, this city and I, in my varied states of singleness and coupledness, in my times with good friends and great lovers. And now it’s over. Even if I come back here, chances are everything will have changed, me included. In fact, if it hasn’t, something will be wrong.

I feel detached from it in many ways, like I’m on a conveyor belt. The phrase that keeps recurring to me is: I slip through this world, a wriggling fish.

Meanwhile — and I rarely do this, so believe me when I say this one’s good — have a video:

I feel like I’m in the home stretch now. I haven’t quite said goodbye to Melbourne yet, but the rounds are starting.

Friday was an intimate party at my place, excellent people, the best going-away present ever and a world-record attempt for number of people in my bathtub at the same time (five). The present was from anthonybaxter and it’s a superb replica passport for Jezebel, complete with cat photo. He said he’d send me the digital file so I can post the inside cover here (*prod, prod*).

Finished up around 4am and it seems everyone had a great time.

The next day, post-recovery brunch, I dragged Josh and Amy, my new tenants from Portland, out to the Dandenongs. We went for a lovely walk in the forest and then ended up at raven_’s for cheese and wine by candle light for Earth Hour.

Out again to Angel Circus where I caught up with, ironically, exactly the crowd who weren’t able to make it to the party. Across the road was a full moon hippie event at playspace and I ended the night stretching to chants.

Today, the peace rally, a wonderful, colorful parade of Nuclear Fools (see the radioactive roo on the right). Managed to catch up with most of the political folk who I always see at rallies, had a lovely time lounging in the sun with crystal_storm and a new friend from New Zealand, listening to music, and then other new friends, bottleofred and running_snail turned up and massages started. They told me about a spa and sauna night at Collingwood Leisure Centre, so I’ve just come back from three hours of hot tubs and sauna and massage. Divine. Relaxing.

I’m almost packed. Many loose ends to tie up, but this is definitely the way to leave a country!

There are a couple of people I’m really sad I didn’t get to see this weekend. One in particular, I’ve been calling every other day for about four weeks to talk about moving but he hasn’t called back at all.

I’m now processing the sense of change. My best friend, daisynerd, lives in Holland. As she wrote on a comment here this weekend, sometimes it’s hard for us to coordinate and really chat. My other two close friends are in Melbourne, and in September, one of them is moving to New York.

I’ve already been through that ‘moving cities’ loss of friends, people I had lunch with weekly who suddenly never called, people I never called. And also the people who lived here that I expected to be friends with and it just didn’t turn out, people who moved down after I did where I was thrilled to see them but they’d changed, I’d changed, we just didn’t mesh any more.

I’m hesitant to have expectations about SF. I’m looking forward to stepping into the wonderful landscape that mizchalmers describes (mostly as yatima_feed) but can’t predict whether we’ll be friends as we were or how I’ll fit in with her amazing crowd. I know jetspeaks from incredibly brief encounters in Melbourne and then again in Berkeley last year. We’ve wanted to get to know each other better, but haven’t had the chance. Will we become close? And then there’s thorfinn’s friend, anthologie who I’ve started to know online; who knows whether that will translate into a real-life thing. Apart from anything else, I won’t actually be in “the city” but in commuter distance. Will that hour or so turn out to be more difficult to bridge than the timezone difference to Holland? Will I just join a local film appreciation society and meet new people? Will I turn to you, the ephemeral flickers of online comfort, bonds that when well-tended turn strong like any other?

I think about this new global landscape, intricate webs of friendships across the world. Not enough time to keep up with everyone, choices and distinctions about how we will measure a relationship, Orkut even asks you to rate people “friend”, “acquaintance”. Livejournal has layers and layers I can use and do use to draw circles of trust and interest around people: these ones will care about my magazine news; these ones won’t judge me when I’m filled with self-doubt.

I randomly picked a card out of an “inspirations” deck at the chiropractor this morning. It said “I am willing to change” and on the back talked about letting go of negative thoughts and moving towards the positive.

I am stepping into the unknown. I am willing to change.

I wrote the line above in a poem for my grandmother. And Sydney has just done me proud. In town to farewell friends and family before I head for the US, I have had a perfect time so far.

My party at The Different Drummer was upgraded to the top-level room with the superb view of the Sydney skyline, all the way to the bridge, with a clear, warm night to enjoy it in, garlic prawns and other tapas to savour, jugs of sangria followed by raspberry cocktails and a superb turnout melded from the old Manning crowd and my editing friends and one of my favorite cousins, Joanna, and the lovely pollyanna_n to represent the Melbourne crew.

Then Joanna and I went back to her place and talked until 4.30 in the morning and emerged into the day weary but happy. I went down to Divine Monkey Lounge for delicious brunch and a spot of working, over the road to the Glebe Markets where I found Karmababy, a magical stall filled with eco-fair trade baby toys and bought some for Ada, turtlesnake’s baby, found another with gorgeous amber jewellery called Forever Amber and talked with them about custom settings for wedding rings.

Wandered down to Newtown to go to Satellite, because I wanted one last bite of poached pears with vanilla ricotta (mmmm) and since it was so insanely hot added a pineapple mint frappé to that. Then over to Waterloo and L’il Dynamoes for Ada’s party and most of the other folks from my times in Sydney: Phil and David, their new partners, and all the people we hung around with back then.

On my way back to Mum’s, walking down a tree-lined street on Sydney’s North Shore, the heavens opened and thunder sounded and all of a sudden I was racing up the road, soaked to the skin, laughing madly with the joy of it.

Tonight I’m heading for a comedy performance by my old friend Daniel Cordeaux, who I knew at ATYP.

Thank you, Sydney, for the wonderful farewell. One more day to go (if you want to catch up with me tomorrow in Sydney, call for details of where we’ll be).