I partied it up with my three best friends in the world (in the world!) and then I made my way back. Seems that while I was gone, the homestead got up and moved without me. I said goodbye to my Mom, who was just leaving Palm Springs for Santa Rosa herself, then crashed on a friend’s couch (in grand backpacker fashion). Then I lost my friends cat, more or less. To be fair there is a hole in the wall big enough for a cat so the evidence remains inconclusive.

Eventually we took the trip north to San Francisco for another one of the friend’s 21st birthday. I migrated to Santa Rosa, which is where I’ll live now. I’m back. You can still continue the trip, back to what has to pass as normal, over at the (real) Glot.

I’m now up against more than half a day in a confined space—but will emerge butterfly-like from this intercontinental chrysalis a whole 4 hours younger. Honestly, how spiffy is that? Half of $1400 spiffy!

I do wish I could’ve spent more time here. That much is obvious. But no regrets. Everything does work out even if you try your hardest to make it feel like it won’t sometimes. I’ll be meeting homeslice Lauren in LAX, and I’ll be partying with her and Juicy till we get up to NorCal where I’m hopefully gonna settle awhile. And between then and now, I’m gonna write the last post on this thing. The last post.

Plan B is just to fly into LAX as I’m already doing. So in terms of how simple it is I should really call it Plan A. Anyways, Plan A involves my excellent bestest-friend Lauren picking me up at the airport before I’ve actually left Sydney… which I know is a headtrip, but get used to it. Then I can spend maybe a week crashing wherever (which isn’t all that different from what I’ve been doing the past four months) and drive up north with them when she has her 21st birthday party. Where, of all places?—in San Francisco! Which is, again, why I’m now calling this Plan A.

But at this point in my day, right after I’d left the travel agent’s, I don’t know this. Which leads me to… the worst computer experience I’ve had over here to date, perhaps ever. I start walking around 12 noon. All over the place. The convenince stores want, like $20 for 5 minutes. And nope, I asked, there aren’t any sexual favors involved. Ok, I’m exaggerating, but it’s hard not to refuse that kinda “convenience.”

Finally I find a place that’s $2/hour. Not bad, but they don’t read USB sticks. Not reading USB sticks = useless internet. I lose a dollar cause that’s the minimum and they’re smart enough to ask for a deposit up-front. Next place I go to reads USBs, but is running Windows 98. Once again, totally useless. That time I was smart enough to just walk outta there. Finally I find a nice little corner shop that sells ice cream, has decent computers running XP with front multi USB-readers. $2/hour. Oh thank goodness. I pop my USB stick in and it doesn’t take the first time. Have to switch computers, and, though it’s “plugged into a non-Hispeed port,” it still can actually see the damn thing.

When what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a crappy anti-virus utility deleting all my programs! –what!? No prompts, no “this file has been placed in quarantine,” just DELETED, DELETED. Ho-God. Pulled that stick out faster than I would my boots in quicksand. Gape-jawed, I approached the counter.

“Uh. Ho lord. Your computer has just deleted a bunch of my programs.”

“Uhh… what you mean?”

“This anti-virus thing came up and just started deleting stuff. I don’t think I have any viruses on there, and I wasn’t trying to install or move stuff onto there, but it just popped up and started deleting stuff.”

“So…”

“This is how I keep in touch. I mean, I need this stuff and if it is infected it can be cleaned. But your computer just caused a lot of damage.”

(makes blank face, as if she doesn’t understand)

Guy next to me: “So the computer just ate your files?”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what it did. Half my programs are gone.”

“Bloody hell. Good to know” (walks out of shop).

“So I guess, just… don’t put anybody on number 27. Can I get my money back now?”

And she gave me a dollar. I got charged a dollar in Sydney for my programs to be devoured. And I asked, “uhh… you’re gonna charge me a dollar for that?” I wasn’t angry, just incredulous. She pointed to a sign saying half-an-hour cost minimum one dollar.

“Boss say.”

“…”

Okay. Whatever. I’m not letting this ruin my day. It sucks gigantic donkey tits, but please, it’s not the end of the world. Just the end of the internet. A big inconvenince too, a waste of a day while I repair the damage, a story to inspire nerdy sympathy. Sigh.

At least I now have a plan to get home, even if it did take forever and get my hardware abused along the way. I’m going to Taronga Zoo tomorrow. It’s gonna be awesome, and it’s not going to rain.Cause it’s my last day. You hear me?

Sydney’s not so bad. I mean, it’s a lot colder than it was last time. I now know better than to stay at the YHAs, or buy AUD at a rate of $0.80 USD. I know how to ask people for stuff, and how to answer “how y’goin’?”. It’s not so bad… especially when you know you’ve only got those three days. I’m not feeling homesick at the moment although I am still trying to sort out my airfare. As usual for all Australian cities, everything of importance is closed on sunday. My travel agents back home are closed, too. Nothing better to do than do my internet thing in a convenience store, of all places. Took a long walk this morning, saw some cool stuff, and got to upload it right after. Thank you, king and country, for untimed internet access.
You know, on second thought, Sydney’s pretty awesome.

• have a fun homecoming party
• call all three homeslices (or visit if I can!)
• sleep in a tent in the backyard
• construct time capsule for all this junk I have
• transfer my money back into real American currency
• ride my bike
• rollerskate around somewheres
• practice the ukelele
• eat a hamburger and french fries
• play a frickin’ video game
• write final post on OzGlot
• start posting on WordGlot again
• fix up some websites: PieLove, OzGlot, & the Homepie Homepage
• clean up the iPod (Macquarie–rename from Macquarie?)
• download music heard on the trip
• unload MiniDisc recordings, all 20 tracks of them
• retouch and tag and organize and group all those Flickrpix
• upgrade The Archive and WordGlot to Wordpress 2.0
• scrap laptop for parts
• get new computer moniter (since the old one’s been sold :-P)
• get a job
• figure out where I wanna live next

Now doesn’t that sound like fun? It’s more fun than having no hot water by 8:00am, anyways. That’s what matters. Travelling sucks.

Today started off unusually, although it certainly sounds like something I’d do. I ate a breakfast of coconuts. Coconuts, mind you, that I’d shaken off a couple trees near the Airlie Beach boat club. Nothing to get you started in the morning like pounding large wooden objects with rocks. Mmm, good breakfast. Guess I was still caught up with the native lifestlye after reading Mutant Message yesterday.

After that I just had a wander around town. I took a few more photos, had some fish ‘n’ chips near the lagoon, and generally pissed away the day with no purpose. It was awesome. And after coming to the internet cafe to get the reference number for my flight, I realized… holy sunburned tourist, I could be flying home today. Wow. I mean, I realize I’m still flying home at some point in the very near future. It’s just that It coulda been now. And that makes this lazy, do-nothing day all the more precious.

Mutant Message Down Under, by Marlo Morgan, isn’t about mutants. It’s about The Real People: atribe of ancient aborigines stalwartly unchanged by “civilized” society. To them, we are the mutants. We’ve lost touch with the natural and perfect organization of things. For them, everything easily falls into balance, everything comes and goes as it should. They live in abundance, even though to us mutants it would seem they’re in one of the most arid and inhospitable climates on Earth. Magically yet quite expectedly, all is provided for them. They are given food, offered water when needed, they sing and have each other although keep nothing for themselves. The focus of their lives is entirely different. They don’t have birthdays… instead, when they realize they have reached a new stage or betterment of their life, they choose to inform the rest of the tribe. Only then is a celebration to be had.

And how can the author know all this? Because they chose to take on of us with them. Somehow the fifty year-old American woman became known to them through her work with aboriginal youth. Although the book is officially a work of fiction, she repeatedly states it is based on real events. She did actually go on a life-altering walkabout ith them through the Australian wilderness, although she is sworn to secrecy regarding their sacred sites and how to find them. It is suggested several times throughout the book that it is in fact “her destiny” to meet these people and experience their ways. I guess I believe it.

Near the end, in their last sacred sanctuary deep in the desert, it is revealed their ultimate purpose in bringing along such a stranger. They are leaving this world. It is their choice, since they realize they won’t long be able to live off their shrinking land or evade the government which decrees they should live under the rule of numbers like everyone else. We live with time on our arm; they understand it’s sole purpose is to give us the chance to change.

When you read a whole book like that in that beautiful setting it can really affect you. Mutant Message, so named because it is their message to all us mutants, was received, by me. It makes me want to live more wholly, more spiritually, more aware of myself and everything else. Maybe even be live off the land. Don’t quote me on that. But I think this head-place I’m in will lead to better things and better experiences.

By the way thanks for giving it to me, Dad. I’m glad I finally got around to reading it, this far into the trip.

Which is bad news when the van starts jerking like its engine is trying to break free. The choke seems to be… err, choking the engine. So we head back to town. Call every mechanic we can think. Take apart the carbeurator. Somehow manage to find a retired mechanic walking across the street. Clean some intake jets, pop the carbie back in, and we’re back on the road. Bam!

For about four minutes. Then, the same damned thing happens. We jerk our way to the last remaining Auto supply store, TJ there let’s us in 5 minutes past closing, and we but a new fuel filter after figuring out that fuel stored in a plastic container for 2 months in the outback tends to leach out the plastic and get a film. Pull the van behind the shop a little ways, siphon out all the fuel (about 40 liters) into a big empty garbage can, then filter it back through into the tank with some hand towels from the local RSL. Twice. Fantastic! Back on the road about 7:00. By this time Susan had ditched us for “the bus,” so it was just me and two Czechs.

Slept through a lot of the night surprisingly. We stopped in Bowen sometime around 2:00 am. Wait, the story’s not over. Slept until maybe 3:30, then proceeded to get more petrol. Or, rather, try to get more petrol. Everything is closed in Bowen until about 6:00. And even then, our gas station waited around till maybe 7:30. When we woke up about 7:00, Petr quite promptly knocked the side door off its track. Putting it back on took, oh, a good half hour while we waited for the place to open. Airlie Beach was a ridiculously short trip after that.

Two of the only times in my life where I was happy to be in an auto parts store and a gas station. Ok, that’s the end of the story. Comments?

The best part about the trip was the people on the boat. Dont get me wrong; the wreck of the Yongala was fantastic. Without the people I met, though, it wouldn’t have been worth going. My dive buddy, a Lauren-esque shrimpboat-workinhg backpacker from Holland, was very a lucky pick. I’d even like to travel with her or some of the others a little more. We’ll see. Later today I might be going to Magnetic Island, just off the coast of Townsville. What the heck… it’s there. Or I might head off to Aerlie Beach with a bunch of other backpackers.

I would talk more about the Yongala, the other two reefs I had the chance to see, how I finished my diver training then lost the pretty certificate, but you know what… I’ve got about 2 minutes of credit left.Promise, I’ll write back soon.

Fr’instance, I just bought a dive course. I chose to go with ProDive, for several reasons. They’re close to where I’m staying, they provide meals and accomodation on the boat, it’s 5 days instead of 4, they’re PADI instead of SSI, and they’ll allow me to dive the Yongala come next Friday. But the clincher? The Maritime Museum was closed so I had nothing else to do between 3 and 4 o’clock.

So that set me back more than expected, about $740… fuel surcharge included. For those of you following at home that leaves me with a balance of $126.73 to work with come next Saturday. But hey, that’s a week from now, right?!

In the meantime, I need some shorts. Townsville is tropical. I’ll apply my new decision-making method to this conundrum. Oh look, here’s some scissors! Goodbye, bottom third of my jeans! Fantastic system, truly.

BTW, Mom / Dad, the reason I’ve not called you yet is because I discovered (after making a morning’s worth of calls around Australia) that I have $0.36 left on my calling card. They don’t take my EFTPOS card. And I don’t think there’s a recharge store in this particular town. So, you know… if you want to, in the next 2-3 days or so, do call me. Only if you want to.

In the meantime, I’m doing my research. I’m reading the Lonely Planet constantly–including the two flights I’ve taken in the past week. I do believe the most strenuous part of travelling is the actual travelling. But for now I’m gonna have to leave it at that. This computer, while still frustrating, is at least up to 2001 spec I’d say.

1. buy storage space near hostel
2. pickup luggage at train station
3. try to get train to Rockhampton @ 12:55, to get to Great Keppel Island
4. make to State Library for email (You’ll note this is crossed off as, tragically, the Queensland State Library is stuck in 1998. They still use CD-rom based databases, for crissake.)
5. call Qantas and officially reshedule for June 7th
6. make appointment for dive medical check at 3:30
7. call Hostels in Rockhamptom, Great Keppel, for rates and reservations
8. call dive shops on Great Keppel Island
9. totally reconsider and back out of trip to Great Keppel Island
10. book flight to Townsville instead, tomorrow
11. realize you have nowhere near as much money as you need

My time is so out even though I’ve got more to write. That’s right, more. Mom, if you’re reading this… you can probably expect a phone call of the sort where I ask for something I need really, really nicely.

24 days! I can’t believe that’s all I’ve got left! Things always seem to feel like forever, except when they’re about to be done. Pretty soon I’ll be saying: “24 hours! I can’t believe that’s all I’ve got left!” Or something very very similar. My time here has been good. My time here here, though, is over. Melbourne, you’ve been great.

I’m ready to go. My plane to Queensland will be leaving at 9:30 pm outta Tullamarine. But before that, I’ve still got postcards to send, a new friend to email, and a blog entry to write. Wait…

Nevermind.