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2006-07-26 - 11:01 p.m.

So anyway, after getting over my car troubles, I had a proper weekend off (15-16/7), which was taken up with my cousin's wedding. I'd never been to the wedding of a fairly close family member before, but now I have had the experience of getting stressed out over a wedding, rather than just enjoying it. I mentioned the disorganisation involved with suit shopping- it was pretty much a theme through the weekend. Don't get me wrong, it was all very moving, and more than anything else it was good to see a lot of relatives I hadn't seen in ages, but I guess a good example of what was frustrating me was the day before the wedding (which is itself a ceremony/party) our whole side of the family was running a couple of hours late, but my cousin still didn't want me to find my own way there- I had to convoy, which involved a diversion to a sweet shop, got stuck in traffic for an hour, then into my cousin's driveway only to turn around again because there were people who knew their way there but not to the next place.

Also pretty much the whole family were involved in most of the ceremonies in some way, but none of us knew what we were doing- even if we had designated seats at the wedding (it was said that we did but then people just sat anywhere anyway). There are so many intricate details to Indian weddings yet there is no rehearsal.

The other thing that was getting me down that weekend was the feeling that I didn't fit in among any of my cousins. Some of them I remember when they were born, and I was King of the Kids, and now they're over 20- I've never had to contend with that before- really makes me start to feel old. Actually a lot of things are making me feel old. The US thing is stressing me out because part of me thinks if Jane was here living with me now it would almost be time to start thinking about weddings, or at least engagements, but there's this whole 2 years over there thing that we still need to do, and by the time I have kids I'll probably be too old to see grandchildren grow up. I shouldn't be thinking about this sort of stuff- I should be thinking about when the next beer is.

Anyway, I'd go into detail about the various ceremonies but... I'm not feeling that descriptive. The Hindu Priest at the wedding ceremony itself was a riot- he would explain in English to the guests the gist of what he'd just said, throwing in modernisms, such as that a particular incantation about the sanctity of marriage was like saying that they had a firewall- no hackers. Or something like that.

After the wedding and reception (which were at the same place) I decided to just go home, because I didn't want to catch a cab back to Beverly Hills from Concord only to find nobody was staying up longer than half an hour and then having to catch another cab back to Marrickville. Plus the weekend was jam packed enough- I didn't want to just go back somewhere else after the wedding in case doing so would offend somebody, only to offend somebody some other way. Basically there are a lot of people in my family who like things to be "just so" I think, and on top of that the weekend was full of traditions that I was in the dark about, and didn't get a briefing on. I find it all very interesting, especially the whole link to my heritage thing, and I'm always keen to partake in any custom, but I feel like I'm not given enough information to do it right anyway.

So Monday (17/7) was my third day off, and I slept in late but still had time to pay my bills for the month, go for a walk with Nathan, have some Vietnamese and rent another mediocre to average DVD ("Hostel"). I chose that one, so Nathan and I were one apiece with movies that didn't meet our expectations, so later on my changeover day we watched "Lord of War", which was the movie Nathan had wanted when I chose "Hostel". It was pretty good. What else happened in the last cycle at work? I paid my tax, which I'm pretty happy about- if I'm lucky I should get over $6,000 back (they always overtax me because I never filled out a form to say that I'd paid off my HECS debt). Went grocery shopping after a morning shift- which is always an achievement considering I usually just want to crash for a few hours. Had a couple of drinks at the Townie after one of my afternoons, then Yum Cha the next morning. And then my last afternoon shift was a long day indeed.

I ran (at least half the way anyway) in the Sutherland to Surf. Last year I walked it with Jane, and I was determined to at least run what I could this year. My calves are still hurting. The last kilometre I really pushed myself, running the whole way including a little sprint to the line, and I pretty much ran the whole first 3kms without breaking to walk. I did it in under 70 minutes, while last year we took about 130 minutes. So I was pretty happy with myself, and figured that if I did any decent sort of training I probably could run the whole way (albeit at a slower pace than some of my little bursts in the middle). Kel finished in 55 minutes running the entire way- I think breaking an hour if and when I did it again would be a realistic but challenging goal.

So then we had a few hours to kill before work, so I watched "Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest" with Kel and Peta (her flatmate). Then followed that with a fairly hectic nights work. Overall an active and healthy day, which I naturally had to counter with hedonistic excess on my days off.

More on that later.

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