It's going to be impossible for me to just abandon this site, but I've now got a dedicated travel site set up (well, functional at least) for myself over at Strange Blue Sky.
Because I'm going to be spending the next significant chunk of time traveling, writing things like what I think of Douglas Adams as an author (brilliant!) or the idea of conceptual errors that lead to my misreading then wanting to develop a piece of writing to go with the title Dude, Where's My continuity? (as opposed to Michael Moore's "Dude, Where's My Country") is just going to have to be put on the back burner for a while. They're ideas in progress however, and I'm going to have to write them down sometime, provided I don't get too distracted first.
In the mean time, the travel writing I'm doing has been keeping me occupied (along with short bursts at attempts to get the site more than just functional). I've only been in Auckland 2 days, but there's already been so much to write home about. I hope I can keep it up semi-regularly, at least. Go check it out.
Okay. Originally, this was going to be a "as I think the sentences, they will appear on the page" kind of post. But there are some difficulties in this kind of blog posting, the foremost being that I am most definitely intoxicated.
But I'm here, I'm typing and that, at least, is a bit of a mystery, if not a miracle in itself. And I just happened to notice an experience worth blogging. Never mind the fact that I went to the same (excellent) restaurant twice in two days, never mind that I saw more of one person that I thought I would and less of others, never mind that it is now after two in the morning and I'm still not writing those sentences which I thought to be so brilliant when I walked in the door an hour ago.
See... I don't live here. And though I have keys, and though I feel completely at ease here -- sometimes more than I think perhaps might be appropriate, I can still remember that this place is not my home. So I come barging in the door, I place my bags wherever I please, I have a room, a bathroom, an internet connection on my computer to myself, I can play whatever music I wish, or watch whatever movie takes my fancy. And yet, I cannot walk from the foyer past the point where the tile turns to carpet with my shoes on.
Maybe it's years of this non-habit ingrained into me. Maybe it's the respect I have for this place that belongs to another, but I absolutely cannot cross that threshold without the greatest discomfort. And so, there I stood, at the border where carpet meets tile, thinking "I cannot cross this line," as I wobbly bent over to untie my shoelaces.
The very fact that I thought all these things to myself as I was experiencing them should prove to be a kind of (post?) post-modern line of thought and I revel in such idiosyncratic behavior I almost elicit from myself. Ah what it is to be young. Okay, so I've never experienced much else, but I'm fairly sure that I am, in fact, young, and so I shamelessly attribute my experiences to that character trait over which only time has any control.
Okay, so maybe it's not really an experience or an event worth blogging and this whole post is just a bunch of drunken tripe. In that case, I've successfully wasted your time but now you'll have to find another way to not work.
I am now out of my place and into next door. Funny how things work out... Really, that just means I store my stuff next door, and I pretty much live as a vagabond, sleeping and eating where I will. It would have been my car and couches, but I sold it. My next door neighbour bought it, but he left yesterday to work up north. I’d say it worked out well: he took the car and I stay in his place. It makes no difference whether I’m there or not; he'll be gone for at least a week. At any rate, I still have the neighbourhood and still have the convenient location.
I was pretty amazed at how well the packing and moving went, actually. I thought I was doomed when my parents were going to show up by noonish and I could barely get out of bed at nine. Somehow, though, I managed. I think I was a lot more organised, with a lot less junk than I imagined when I looked around my place. I managed to get most the kitchen, the entire bathroom and the majority of my room packed before they even showed up. Everything was loaded up into the truck by suppertime and we were able to enjoy a beer on the lawn before heading over to Jamie's place for food. We visited a little cafe nested into the neighbourhood that sells gelato for desert. I ended up tenting in the backyard with Gayle that night, which was fantastic. The long grass that hasn't been cut for ages provided a nice soft bed and we visited well into the night (and the next day).
Now, all I have is the things I'll need for traveling, this week of work (I finish Friday!) and camping, and a box of mostly books that belong to an assortment of other people! I'll bring all the extra stuff home when I visit this month and then I’ll be living out of my bags for god knows how long. At least I've got it all under control. For now.
