More new adventures in abandonment

It's interesting, I guess, if you want to take an observer point of view on it. Remember how happy and pleased with myself I was on Sunday when I'd got everything, all by myself, out of the storage place, and even risked a nostalgia trip to Killcare, and it was all done? I realise now, well, no, I knew at the time, that I was using being able to call S. to tell him about it as a reward for my hard work. And I called him that night but got his answering machine, and didn't want to call the mobile in case he was in Germany or South America on a motorcycle trip or on Mars or something and the timezone differences made it an inappropriate time. So I emailed him - hey, got everything out of storage, were you serious about wanting the Jag back?

Nothing. Nothing, nothing. No reply. Two days of no reply. I'll tell you, dear readers, that really threw me. Remember, I spent ten years with this guy talking to him on the phone four times a day. By about Year 8 it felt like we were two parts of one person, I just existed with him alongside me as part of my personality and brain. And even in this past year, I guess I have always got a quick response whenever I had to talk to him about anything. This time, nothing. I didn't know where he was, he could have been anywhere, but where could he be that he couldn't check his email for two days?

This upset me far more than I expected. I feel just like a little kid whose mother has just left to go out to dinner. Separation anxiety. Abandonment. Sheer, body-cavity-filling pain. Tears. Fear. And wondering what on earth I did to deserve it all. It's still in there, people, even when you are a very grown woman and should have control of your emotions - the little 3-year-old kid who needs her mom, and whose world collapses when she thinks she has left her forever.

Except he has left me forever.

Tonight I finally heard from him, and no, petrol prices being what they are, he doesn't think he wants the car, so now I feel worse -- a little kid whose mother has gone out to dinner and will never come back, with a $230-a-month storage bill to maintain, and a month more of Sundays trying to list the stupid car and liaise with buyers and go up to Gosford AGAIN to show it and hopefully finally meet someone who will pick it up. I thought it was all done, I was feeling chuffed at my brave accomplishment, but it's still only just beginning (and there are five boxes sitting outside on my front porch waiting to be filed).

I need some fucking closure on this situation. I need to be rid of that albatross Jag full of memories and dashed hope.

And I wish he still called me four times a day and would give me a big hug when I feel this way.

But perhaps the fact that I can actually feel this feeling is important to moving through it and getting over it. I read an analogy recently that something or other was like peeling onions - you keep getting to deeper inside layers, and it makes you cry. Maybe this is like that, and it will be good for me in the longer run. I think in the early days I couldn't even let myself be the little abandoned kid, because I really couldn't have bourne it and would have collapsed.

Please let me know if you all are getting bored hearing me whinge about my broken heart. I am continually impressed, when it backs up on me like this, at the magnitude and duration of the pain involved. I don't think he has any idea. Probably a good thing - I try to deal with dignity.

More wise words from my wise sister

Just in case the Mistake-boy has found this and is reading it...I loved this quote from my very wise sister:

"Great life moments die like the rest of everything. Pathetically and with an element of irritation."

A Big Day

Today I went up and got the last of the small things out of storage. The only thing left is the Jag, which if S. doesn't want it back I will be putting some energy into find a new home for.

Here are some notes from the day:

9:30 am Sunady 24 Sept 2006. Waiting in the waiting area of Thrifty rent-a-car while the busy staff serve two other customers and answer three phone calls - the morning rush. One woman is Australian and has probably been nearby all her life. The other one, the grumpy, pretty one, might be from Indonesia or the Phillipines or India. And I think, how did I get here? How is it that I'm standing in a Thrifty car rental office in Sydney Australia (the customer just before me was a tourist looking for a car for the morning), picking up a car to get get the last forgotten, dust-encrusted thngs from the storage garage where they've been for five years?

Not just how did I end up in Sydney, Australia, but how did I end up here long enough to be winding up a dust-encrusted past?

***

Hot and very windy. If rain at the beginning of a journey is good luck, what does wind at the end of a journey mean?

***

I had been worried about my ability to do this by myself, but on the road down alongside Brisbane Waters, with it all in, I realised that the worst thing that could happen is I might get hurt, a muscle strain or something, and in time it would heal. Very good metaphor, that.

***

Killy (Killcare, where we lived before I put the stuff in storage, and where I drove to today for lunch) is just the same. And it still warms my heart and makes me smile - not like Newcastle which felt like it really was in my past, last time I was there. This place is just beautiful and quaint and easy to be in, and warms my heart and makes me smile.

***

I managed to get everything inside my front gate, but not quite inside my front door (I did get one cabinet in later in the night, cleaned and positioned, but everything else is still out there). The unloading was harder than the loading, because I was tired by then, and also had to carry things further and up some steps. But I did it. I'll be sore tomorrow, no doubt! But I managed the whole excursion and all the heavy lifting all by myself. I felt very empowered on the drive back, but when it was all over felt grumpy and sad. The drive from here to the Thrifty place was nearly as long as getting to Hornsby, because Crown Street was blocked off -- I thought because of a fire but actually because of a fallen tree. The SMH reported many fires and fallen trees, one person killed, lots of power outages. Not very good luck, the hot wind, not for all of them.

***

I had been holding off contact, well, for all the right reasons but one thing that kept me going the last week or two -- through the Sept 11 anniversary, through the Knights semi-finals, through the romantic movies -- was that I could call him when everything was out of storage, to let him know. And I called him tonight, but he wasn't home, and I didn't want to call the mobile in case he's o.s. with ho-bag, and so I sent an email, which was much better for the no-contact healing process but then also quite unsatisfying. No one who understands the magnitude of what I did today (finish clearing out the storage place! going back to Killcare!) is around to talk to, and to congratulate me. So I'm glad I have y'all, cybercitizens!

Good on me, anyway.

Vindicated

So I just watched the behind the scenes "making of" video on MTV and I feel vindicated because in it Damian from Ok Go explains that the move on the treadmills where they turn around and walk backwards (which they call the "Jamiroquai"), although it looks simple, is actually the hardest move in the routine.

I should have started with the jumping on top of the handles and standing on them, shouldn't I?

p.s. We won't talk about the fact that the Knights' season ended tonight with a 50-6 defeat against the Brisbane Broncos. Will we.

Kids, don't try this at home

Just thought I'd mention that I went to the gym the other morning for the first time since my Ok Go obsession, and I was on the treadmill, and of course I was thinking about the treadmill video. Their machines much have been a bit smaller than the one I was on because I couldn't imaging jumping up and standing on the top. I thought about trying something small, and just as I was finishing I thought about trying that move where they walk two steps forward and then turn around and walk the other way - and couldn't even make the tiniest gesture toward doing it! Turning all the way around on a running treadmill is impossible! So I can't begin to fathom how they managed to do all the other things.

Ok Go are amazing, and I still think the video is the highest achievement ever made by human beings. Heck with the moon landing, try turning all the way around on a running treadmill!

The Cleansing Begins

So, did I mention that I've been paying for a storage garage up in Gosford for the past five years? The main thing in it is an old Jaguar XJ6, a 1971, Series 1 with a Series 2 engine in it. It was His car, bought in Brisbane and done up, and then driven down the coast to Newcastle to start our lives together, in March of 1997. Then I drove it back and forth on the F3 every day when we were living on the Central Coast and I was working at Amway in Castle Hill. I got very bonded with that car - I remember stopping to put oil in it every three days, having it almost flood one day on the Mooney Mooney bridge when heavy rain had stalled traffic and I was like two hours late (back when we still had the leak in the front left window, and radio wires hanging down out of the dash - luckily water never met wires that day). I remember leaving the lights on and having to call NRMA to jump it, and several other times when it just wouldn't start or wouldn't go. But mainly I loved that car, and it made my heart skip a beat whenever I saw it.

But then I came into some money, and bought a new Hyundai Excel which was much more sensible for the commute, and the Jag became laid up. I remember out last trip home from work together, I was listening to TripleM as usual because it was the only station it would receive, but then I turned the radio off and was just alone with her for a while, listening to the engine growl and feel her two tons of weight beneath me. The plan was always to do her up. The plan was always to buy a big Surry Hills terrace with covered parking, do her up and have her to drive elegant and majestic drives on weekends. So I've been paying the storage, in anticipation of that day, but now I realise it will never come. I will never have a spare $10 grand (and if I did I want to buy property with it), and I don't actually drive anywhere, and this part of town you just can't get covered parking for a reasonable amount. So, I was ready. I'm clearing out the storage facility.

But first I'm getting rid of the little stuff, and to that end I went up two weeks ago and took some photos and put things on eBay. I put off the trip, and got there a bit late so the sun was sinking low but I still had enough light to depict everything and enough lack of light that the dust and mold didn't show too much! The things I have to sell are the Jag of course, a weights bench and set of weights including barbell and dumbbells, a collapsable workbench that you can attach things to with a vice grip and saw them and that kind of thing, and a black stereo cabinet and DVD storage unit. I had everything assembled on the bitumen outside the garage, and it's such a blokey collection of stuff, I had to smirk to myself because it just looked like, "Divorce."

Anyway, the auction went for ten days and the weights and workbench sold. The guy who bought the weights picked them up today. He was a very nice young guy, drove up from Sydney with his friend and it turns out the two of them had gone in with a third friend to buy it, so they got a good deal. He wasn't at all put off by the dust or rust. They were able to disassemble the bench and stand just enough to get it in their car. It was pouring rain, on and off, all during this procedure, and they said the drive had been tough, there were some spots where they couldn't even see at all. I told them to be careful on the way back.

I had come up on the train - Ok Go albums on the iPod on the way up, reading a book about a bread baker that Mom got me for Xmas on the way back. Before coming home I had a half hour to wait before the train, so I went and found some lunch - I think it was a pub or RSL, and the food area was closed and being cleaned but the lady said she could heat up some lasagne for me, and then I went and got a schooner of Diet Coke from the bar which was across the room. There were about six tables of people, mostly looking like family, out enjoying a rainy Sunday afternoon, or eating in stony silence and failing to enjoy it, depending on which table. My hair still smells a bit like smoke. On the TV in the corner was the lead-up to the last footy match of the weekend, Melbourne vs Parramatta (#1 vs Cinderella-side-that-just-made the-8). I made it home in time to see the last half of the game - Melbourne pissed it in, and get next week off.

The guy who got the workbench needs to make arrangements for his sister to pick it up, so that probably means another trip up there next weekend, and I stupidly re-listed the black stereo stuff so I have to wait 10 days before getting it (I've worked out where I could use it here, so now I sort of don't want it to sell). I also have four boxes of papers, mostly Philosophy stuff so it's like relevant again, go figure that, and the chandlery from the shelf with the anchors -- but that's a whole nother story, maybe tomorrow night I'll tell you about that one. Anyway, so I have that stuff to pick up, and an old belt sander that is so trashed that it will go straight in the bin, and then it's only the Jag left. Last time I saw pointy-head, he suggested that he was maybe willing to take over the payment of the storage place from me, and that he was thinking next year he'd have enough money to do the car up, so perhaps I can give it back to him and make it his problem again. Or eBay that too - I saw some other ones on there and I think we could get a decent price. I could. I get all proceeds, from taking her care on for all these years.

But anyway, it was a nice day. I guess it's good to get out of town -- maybe I'll make it a Sunday ritual? Tonight I made some weird pasta - spaghetti, broccoli and steak, not too bad but I wouldn't serve it to company. And got some classic videos from the shop for cheap, and watched American Splendour. I hadn't seen it in ages and realise I've learned a lot since then -- I've seen Paul Giamatti in lots of movies, I've seen R. Crumb's cartoons in the New Yorker about living in the south of France, I've met more autistic people so I know folks who remind me of everyone in the film, I've known someone who has gone through chemo. Now I'm just blogging a bit, but have to tear myself away from the computer (before I start watching YouTube all night again), because tomorrow's Monday, start of a new week, and tomorrow I really am going to try to keep my vow to get up at 6 and go to the gym.

So, see ya!

Painters and superheroes

I was at the Art Gallery yesterday afternoon, filling in. They still need extra people this weekend because they extended the Zen show, Lewis Morley is just finishing up, and Giacometti is open upstairs. During my stint sitting on the chair at the entrance to Lewis Morley checking people's tickets, a tour of little kids came by. There were a few children's events on that day, it looked like these ones were looking at some art before going off to make their own. An older man was leading them. The group came up to a big canvas that has been recently re-hung in the main gallery, now that the interactive screens of the Biennale are down, just to the right of where I was sitting. The guide got the children's attention and was showing them how the painting which looked like just multi-coloured squiggles was really an Australian landscape, with rivers twisting and winding, etc. He intoned, "This painting is by a man named John Olsen". A little brown-haired boy, who couldn't have been more than eight years old, exclaimed immediately, "He won the Archibald last year!" Yes, yes he did, said the man, and went back to the twists and turns.

The boy had the same excited tone of voice that I've heard from little boys at the footy, saying, "That's Andrew Johns. Andrew Johns just kicked that. Dad, where's Andrew Johns now?" This kid followed the Archibalds like those kids follow their local team. It made me smile.

The Archibalds attract criticism that they appeal to the lowest denominator of culture, that they inspire mediocre art, that it's antithetical to the artistic enterprise to run a big competitive annual prize like a horse race, etc. But I figure if they get a kid like that excited about a crotchetty old painter like John Olsen, and if the kid knows the names of major Aussie painters by the time he's half-way through elementary school, then it's as legitimate as the footy.

New-cas-tle!

My team just won its first semi-final of the season! It was actually the first semi-final of the season at all, the Friday night game, vs. Manly. We finished 4th so played it at home (I didn't go, after much weighing of pros and cons, but watched it on tv). It had everything! A 110-metre run, some razzle-dazzle play, some gutsy hit-ups up the middle, some clean strategic tries, a lucky plucked-out-of-air try, a gutsy bulldozer sheer strength try, a clever and sneaky yet heroic field goal in which a mantle was passed from mature greatness to young talent. Several fights, three sin-binnings, two of our players put on report, one player blew out his other anterior cruciate ligament, not the one that's been reconstructed twice but the other one, so his career is probably over almost before it got going. We were behind 0-12 at halftime and were not looking like a premiership-winning team, but thing just accelerated in the second half and we got up to 18-18, and then the field goal to pull ahead 19-18, but then they got a penalty and if Orford had kicked it it would have been 19-20, but there was a swirly breeze and he was just far enough out that it went wide to the right. And then in the dying minute superstar Brian Carney was for all money tackled, and then just got up and carried the other bloke on his back over the line and put the ball down, so the last seconds were an exultant Andrew Johns kicking a sitter from almost in front and grinning a grin that made him look like his old larrikin self and erased some of the heavy weight that's been hanging on him all season. Oh, the sound the crowd made! It's everything you watch footy for.

Stay tuned for next week!

Oh, I forgot...

Oh, I forgot, the idea that started my intention to write the last post is, it's raining so hard that I'm sure that it's raining in our old house. The skylight was really badly constructed and if you had a period in which a few leaves fell, the guy hadn't been to clean the gutters for a while, and you had a lot of rain in a short time, it would just cascade in, buckets and buckets of rain. It got so any hard rain would make me anxious, even when I wasn't home, and the worst was in the middle of the night, you'd hear the telltale crashing of the wall of water on the tile floors and would have to get every pot and pan out to catch as much as you can, and get every single towel sopping wet to mop up the rest. I thought that thought, and then thought, I should write to S tell him, and then I didn't because I've been very good about no contact, and so I think it's a great sign that by the time I actually opened my post composition window I had forgotten all about it.

Rainy Night

It's raining really hard. Lightning and everything. I guess it's been a few weeks since a big rain like this. It started on my way from work to Philorum, had been raining when we came out and went to dinner, was raining in on us at the pub through the leaky roof, and was pouring as I walked home and I got my nice new Dansko shoes all wet in the cascading ravines filling every indentention in the road or the footpaths.

I'm ripping the Ok Go CDs that my sister sent me. The obsession continues - I have stayed up too late many nights and maxed out my bandwidth watching every bit of miscellany I can find on YouTube or wherever. Full blown obsession, and they make it easy because there's so much stuff out there.

Rain is supposed to be very good luck at the start of a journey, and my friend L. is leaving tomorrow for 6 months in France, at two different art residencies, to work on her novel. She has been planning (and hoping and dreaming for) this for three years, so it's amazing and wonderful that she's really going now, the time has arrived. Bon voyage, friend L.

Summertime

Today was the first really warm day. On a Saturday, no less! I noticed at the Art Gallery the difference between the people who were in shorts and thongs and tops with spaghetti straps and those who, like me, still wore all black with long sleeves and long pants. Some people have obviously been hanging out all winter to break out the revealing gear, and some, like me, want to wear their coats until the last possible moment when they are forced by heat and discomfort to denude them. Some people are summer-wishers and some people are winter-wanters, and you could tell them apart today.