I am so not ready. There are piles and piles of supplies on my bed. The irony, of course, is that my body keeps telling me it’s long past bedtime. That giant suitcase is placed there for a reason. Maybe if I just… laid down for a little… bit…
It was pretty good I spose. I enjoyed it. But I’ve got some questions: Was that an Australian Cattle dog? What’s with the kid and the steel boomerang? Do people really drive like that? On the left, I mean…
In other less exciting news, I’ve just applied for a tax file number. I have no idea why I’m announcing this publicly. But, you know… the list.
I hope you Aussie blokes are livin’ it up without me. You better be having fun, drinking, beaching, waving all those federation flags, ooohing and ahhing at the fireworks… everything I wanted to be there for. And you better save me some stickers or little minature flags or something. I love that stuff. You hopefully have already, since for you it’s almost over. What is it about 7:30 pm there now? You still got more fireworks. Let me tell ya, though: I am so ready to be there with you… it’s just that I’m not ready to leave.
Funny thing that.
As I sit here in my peaceful bed, writing this from the familiar territory of Cathedral City, CA, on a laptop which I have devoted an entire day to repairing, I’m inspired to make up an adage. Yes, make up:
Every great endeavor in man’s history sees its success or faiure through preparation.
Thank goodness this is no great endeavor, right? I mean, here I am fixing up a blimey laptop when if had to make a list of the things I still have to do, well… don’t make me list them. Don’t. Ok, since you asked so politely then:
Wow that is—indeed—a list. I should probably get started on that.
Sitting here at a job that I’m quitting in two days, and looking for an iPod I know I’ll never find, I just watched as the countdown rolled over from 13 days to 12 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, 59 seconds. Something dropped. It felt like some internal organ or another, but it was in fact my idle detachment from reality. I saw the number 12, and it fell away…
I saw (quite vividly) the plane ride, the packed bags, the blankets of hostel beds… loitering near notice boards written in unfamiliar slang, careful squinting over encoded maps… I saw the teethy smiles of unfound friends. It was a frightening and exilarating sensory experience—like you’re eight and standing on the high board, looking down.
It’s one I should have been prepared for. But, as a human animal I think knowledge is kept in lots of convenient packages. One is the intellectual, cerebral “oh yes, I know that” box. Another is the big-eyed, visceral, gutsy gut-punching parcel that always seems to arrive late and of a sudden. Like right now. Better now than at the airport, I spose. But consider this:
In two weeks I’ll be writing this in Australia.
Damn, look at that sentence! Look at it! Phew. I think I’ll go home now and not sleep for a long time.
Seats 70J, K are some of the only twosomes in economy class. The window seat is afforded some extra space for seat K because of the shape of the fuselage.
Right—so all these pre-departure posts even seem kind of frivolous to me. I mean, I wrote when I got my ticket, when my book came, I even wrote about when I had Australian leg of lamb for my birthday. I’m not obessed. I’m just excited. And that was half the point of even starting this thing. So I guess if I feel the need to actually make note of the particular seat I’m requesting, well… it sure has worked.
But seriously—do you realize, that with that seat, I’ll get to see the great sweep of Sydney before I even set foot on Australian soil? How cool is that!?
