It’s Sunday night and I’m sitting at the Convenience Store on the corner of Devonshire and Crown Streets. My computer won’t start at the moment and so I have to take it for repairs sometime this week. But until then, it’s me and a couple of others typing away while observing the passing parade of people going to the service station, the Blockbuster video store and the Erciyes pide house which are located opposite. In the last six days since last I wrote a fair bit has happened.
The biggest highlight was a visit this weekend by Sue (from Melbourne) and Anthony (from Canberra). They arrived yesterday morning. And although it’s been a fairly leisurely weekend we’ve managed to pack a fair bit in, including dinner last night at Prastits Thai on Crown Street and Marigold Yum Cha today (as well as a visit to the Greek exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum with Andrew (from Alstonville). We also spent a fair amount of yesterday afternoon at the Sydney Writers Festival where, although I had to work for a while, we mostly sat around, chatted, drank Chardonnay and observed other members of the chattering classes. Sue observed the Sydney Writers Festival differed from the Melbourne Writers Festival in a couple of ways: people wore colours other than black; and the view from the wharf was pretty spectacular.
Sara (from work) and I attended the Opening Night Party on Wednesday which one of the Sunday papers had declared one of this past week’s “hot tickets”. Amongst the many celebrities we spotted on opening night were overseas authors, Alan Hollinghurst and Augusten Burroughs. I’d read a couple of Hollinghurst’s books many years ago and so was keen to see what he looked like in real life. And I’d met Burroughs earlier this week. He was the bloke who wrote “Running With Scissors” about growing up in a freaky family. And then this weekend, we saw the likes of some of our home grown writers: Helen Garner, Christos Tsiolkas and David Marr. There were also a thousand and one well known ABC-types including Ramona Koval, Stephen Crittenden etc. I also had to work at the festival on Friday night, so by now I’m all a bit “writered” (if such a word exists) out.
Work has been both busy and interesting. I’m having the day off tomorrow, actually, and I think I might ask for Tuesday as well. I’m not stressed nor tired, but I do need some silence in my life. Although I’m not contemplating a Buddhist retreat or anything, I think I just need a day of not talking, nor listening to others.
I’m also keen to go home to Lismore soon. I got an email tonight, actually from my niece, Michelle which says Mother Bob said send jim a line to see if he is still alive, and to ask you what do you think of this years lot of house mates. Get rid of Gianna.. I love my family… especially for reminding me it’s probably time to go home to watch Big Brother!