2003-10-04 - 3:55 p.m.

I�ve been absolutely terrible keeping up to date with this thing- let�s see if I can turn it around and write a decent entry :)

Would you believe it�s 7 weeks tomorrow since we moved to Stanmore? I guess if you look at the number of entries I have (or haven�t) written since then you can really gauge how slack I�ve been. It�s a long weekend in NSW and Jane has gone to Orange to visit one of her oldest friends who moved there late last year. I contemplated going but I so needed a weekend to just do nothing. Jane had one of those three weeks ago when I drove to Canberra to visit my grandparents so she can relate to why I didn�t want to go with her this weekend.

It took us 3 weeks to move all of Jane�s stuff from her old place (she paid rent for 3 weeks after telling her ex-flatmates she was moving and we used all of that time. The first weekend after the move we were doing stuff for Jane�s birthday (dinner for two on her birthday, dinner with 10 friends on the Saturday and lunch with her family on the Sunday) as well as moving more stuff from Jane�s old place. The next weekend there was more moving stuff to be done, plus a going away party for my friends Tara and Tristan who are off to Vietnam and then England indefinitely. Plus the first few weeks of grocery shopping was a big thing because we were still building up a supply of all those things you have to buy at the start of moving out like brooms, mops, dish trays and all that jazz.

Then the next weekend there was my sister�s birthday and fathers� day, and we had to fit in going to Jane�s parents place for fathers� day as well. The weekend after we went to Billy Bragg on the Friday, stayed out til about 3am, then I went to Canberra for the weekend. The weekend after was really the first weekend we had no major plans (though I�m sure we ended up going out at least one of the nights) and we finally bought our washing machine. Last weekend I stretched my birthday out as long as Jane did, if not longer. Friday went out with friends to the Bank Hotel for cocktails, then Thai and lots of wine, then the Townie and more drinking. Saturday Jane took me to see a concert at the Opera House. She wanted to take me to something piano-orientated, and it turned out what we went to was not what she thought she was getting tickets for, but it was good nonetheless. Roger Woodward (David Helfgott�s childhood nemesis in �Shine�) doing Rachmaninov�s piano concerto #2 (the third one is better) backed by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, with pieces performed sans piano by the orchestra on either side of the showpiece.

Then on Sunday it was down to the parents� place for a banquet. My parents got me a steel string guitar for my birthday (I�m going to call it �Albee� for you Cindy :P), my sister got me a wine rack and my brother got me some port (aha- some of that wouldn�t go astray as I sit here and write).

Monday was my actual birthday and, aside from going to work, Jane took me to Caf� Sydney in Circular Quay, with a grand view of the harbour, and we indulged ourselves in a $120 cold seafood platter of Oysters, Mussels, Prawns, Yabbis, Scampi, Bugs and the most divine mud crab I�ve ever tasted.

So as you can see, I very much needed this weekend to myself. A weekend where Jane and I can pretty much do nothing would be nice as well, but in all honesty I think having this weekend to myself was important. Sometimes Jane and I need to reassure ourselves that we can function without each other.

Last night I wandered down to the Townie on the advice of one of my friends (cue evil stare at certain people who were in bed when I tried to find out when they would be getting there). Jane stayed home due to her train to Orange leaving at 7am this morning. I spent a couple of hours drinking with Jane�s best friend Mark and a friend of his who insisted (oh okay they suggested and there was no resistance) on a couple of shots thrown in between my schooners. Despite my short drinking time I had a very sore head this morning.

This afternoon I walked up to a record fair in Glebe (it�s a good 45 mins to an hour walk but it felt good to be active for once) and made a few purchases. I got the new Something For Kate album for $16 which was a bargain; Triple J�s Hottest 100 3 for $6 for 2 CDs- super bargain; David Bowie�s �Heathen� for $15, Blur�s Greatest Hits for $14, Placebo�s �Without You I�m Nothing� (to complete the transition from owning burnt/ downloaded copies of all the albums to now owning them all bona fide) for $14, Pearl Jam�s Perth 2003 2 CD bootleg (including Eddie and Mark Seymour doing �Throw Your Arms Around Me�) for $15-ish (3 of the CDs I picked up from one stand I bargained down from $43 to $40 and was very happy with myself), a Cruel Sea album (which I bought because the opening track is a cover of the Velvet Underground�s �Cool it Down�) for $12, Midnight Oil�s �Head Injuries� on vinyl for $3 and David Bowie�s �Stage� double live vinyl for $5. And Smudge�s �Hot Smoke and Sassafrass� (in case Jane didn�t have it but she did) for $1.50!

After a couple of pork buns and a spring roll at the Glebe Markets I wandered down City Road and stopped into Flight Centre on King St to seriously discuss my travel plans for the first time. It looks like my Round-the-World ticket will probably be about $2900 whether I go with One World (Qantas and affiliated) or Star Alliance. It�s all very exciting.

This evening I did some washing, had a nap (yes I know I�m getting old) played my guitar until I could sympathise with whichever Beatle complained �I�ve got blisters on my fingers!� at the end of �Helter Skelter�, and now I�m finally doing some writing.

And that I guess makes me up to date at least in the sense of chronicling what I�ve been doing. There�s plenty of other stuff I can write about- how I feel about work (quite positive in fact), how I feel like I�m having a quarter-life crisis and having daydreams of recklessly indulging in recreational drugs and binge drinking and being a boy slut (with particular reference to the last one I must stress that it�s not so much that I wish I was doing that now instead of being where I am, it�s more that I wish I had that as part of my life experience, because there was a time when I thought that�s what I wanted and I ended up just getting myself involved in complicated situations and I envy Jane�s life because she�s done all the drug stuff and the pashing random boys and going home with strangers and travelling and even though now all she wants is to be here with me she can�t say that those experiences weren�t fun and a valuable part of her life. Yeah I have a stupid head that will never- no matter how good I have it- find complete satisfaction.

I wish I�d done the travelling thing when I was single. Yes part of me likes the idea of having that sort of freedom when I meet people overseas, but that�s not it really. Jane doesn�t like to think about it too much but she has said she�s going to be �horribly lonely� when I�m overseas and I wish I could have had this experience some other time and not left her here by herself for 6 weeks. I don�t want to be away from her for 6 weeks but this travelling thing is really important to me. And Jane ironically was the one who really gave me the push to start thinking about it seriously. I guess neither of us realised at the time how much we would need each other by then (and it�s still 5 months away and both of us seem to be getting more co-dependant by the day).

I�m not going to pretend I�m going to miss her as much as she�ll miss me when I�m overseas. I�ll have all these things, places, experiences to fit into a short amount of time and it will be hectic and great fun- but 6 weeks which almost seems not long enough to see what I want to see is an unbearably long time for someone staying alone in an apartment which only really feels whole with the two of us in it.

�A traveller�s not so sad as the one (he) leaves behind�

The Shouties- �Terowie Song�

I wish I didn�t have to leave you behind Jane. I wish that I could have planned my life to coincide with us happening, as ridiculous a thought as that is. It feels like your life was planned around us happening, as ridiculous a thought as *that* is. Knowing that you�re happier with me than you�ve ever been in your life when you�ve done everything I�ve wanted to do makes me so happy I can�t even begin to describe it.

I love you so much.

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