2007-05-08 - 1:34 a.m.

Well, 1.37am is as good a time as any to update- I figure whether I go to bed now or in an hour's time I'll still get up at the same time.

The last week or so was covered in advance in my last entry, but now that it's actually been I'll cover it again. In fact I'll start where I finished my last entry of substance- back on Sunday 22/4. I'd already written three entries that day, and all I have left to cover is Greta Gertler at the Vanguard. It was good. I expected her to be older- considering she was co-writing (well, that's being extremely generous to the other party) songs for the Whitlams as early as 1996. She's also got good legs- I don't know if I've seen anyone with good legs (and a skirt) playing piano before. But that's enough of that. I liked the songs as well- Lucy wasn't overly impressed with the newer ones but I thought most of them were as good as the older ones (it's different when you've had a chance to listen to and warm to the older ones and not the newer ones though). Oysters were off the menu yet again but I took it well- I was very impressed with my steak, and it had truffle oil, which is better than oysters. I don't know why I'm writing in short "this is what I did on my weekend" sentences. Perhaps I'm just in a silly mood.

Thus ended a very full 3 days off. I don't think I did anything spectacularly exciting after work on Monday and Tuesday, but on Wednesday (my changeover) I had a couple of drinks with Kellee at the Exchange before going to trivia at the Townie with Nathan and Lucy (also present were Rowan and Nick- and all in all we went fairly dismally). On Thursday, before heading off to work for an afternoon shift, I booked my plane ticket to New York in July. It really has been an unexpected (but cool) turn of events, compared to only 3 weeks or so ago, when I was hoping to squeeze a visit to New York into the time between getting to San Fran from Singapore in December and Xmas- and Jo was not keen because she wanted to go somewhere different (like Cuba- which I'll be very excited about when we have actually booked flights and accommodation for, because I have this uneasy feeling something's going to go wrong and we won't end up going). So New York in the middle of summer will be packed with tourists, and there'll be queues for everything, but who cares? I've been there once already, Jo's been there twice, we'll shag like rabbits all week and everything else will be a bonus.

We're planning on seeing a show, probably off-Broadway because it will be cheaper, hopefully there'll be a cool gig on, I might head out to Rockaway Beach with Sally on one of Jo's work days seeing as Jo isn't really a beach person, we can do the Empire State Building at night, the Staten Island Ferry without freezing like I did last time, and one night of fine (but not too fine) dining. I can't wait- though it doesn't seem real, it was such an impulse decision.

And I've booked (paid a $100 deposit anyway) my December trip as well. Nathan was heading up to Flight Centre get Travel Insurance for his impending trip and I thought "if not now, then when?" (the New York trip I booked on the internet). So December-wise, I'm flying from Sydney to Singapore on 9/12, my cousin's wedding is on 13/12 (but it's an Indian wedding so there's stuff on for a couple of days before that really), my whole family flies to San Francisco on about 16/12, and I fly back on 13/1- the intended trip to Cuba (that's just Jo and I) will be on or around New Year, and that's the only bit not sorted (apart from Singapore accommodation).

Jet Set... Go.

So that was a bit of a tangent. Thursday and Friday at work were fairly standard. Saturday the plan was to get to work a couple of hours early, and leave more than a couple of hours early (as I had hours owing to me). As well as that, I ended up going for a run with Nathan and Michael (another work colleague) at about 9.30am, followed by Yum Cha, and then to work- I got there at about 1pm and worked until about 7.30pm. It was when I got home from that shift that I wrote my last quick entry. That night (Saturday 28/4) I went to the Townie for Phoebe's birthday drinks. Phoebe was amusingly drunk on many neat scotches. I spent a lot of the night talking to an uber-feminist (I'm not saying that in a derogatory way, but she was very much the hairy armpits anti-objectifying type, not the neo-feminist Christa Hughes reclaim female sexuality type). Anyway, conversation was interesting, and we also talked about music (nothing to do with feminism- mainly Depeche Mode and New Order). Annie was there- briefly, and not looking at all comfortable, but she certainly wasn't upset or anything. Lucy reached her Club Retro limit and ditched Leila for the Townie at about 2am (just after Mark and Phoebe left, but I was there with Steve)- there was talk of Leila coming but she ditched us for bed. We got home close to 4am and Steve stayed on the couch.

Sunday- up at about 10am. Up to King Street with Lucy and Steve and I actually did get to catch up with Leila for a short time. Then off to Jo's Dad's place (with Pete and Mel in tow, and Lucy hitching a ride to Castle Hill) for a BBQ. Thought about heading down to the St Peters' end of King to see the Shouties when I got back (after 6pm), but I was feeling very tired, and in the end I went around to Nathan's place to watch a Colombian movie, and made the mistake of having a coffee which negated my tiredness and kept me awake half the night.

Slept in on Monday, and did very little, but made my day worthwhile with my best ever effort running. Ran to Nathan's place, then we started running from his place instead of further down the track, and made it all the way home- all up about 10km. Made a good roast chicken for dinner afterwards.

Actually I might wrap this entry up at that point. I was back to work the next day (1/5)- only 2 days off, but this was for my "Train the Trainer" course to present the material I talked about in my last substantial entry- I got a day in lieu for it- which made the last cycle pretty disjointed. But more of that next time...

�

previous - next

�