Nothing is Certain.

Hello, I haven’t posted in a long time. Like since Australia. There is a post that I wanted to write about the trip I took to the Outback that I’ve been trying to write ever since I got back from it. That’s the hold up. I am compelled to write about things in order, so nothing else can be written til I finish that post, except this, to tell you that I can’t tell you anything. I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to write that post, but some day I’ll finish it.

Some day.

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As I sat in the Hungry Jack’s, eating, I watched as a man outside on the corner methodically cut through paper and tape to remove all signs of the fliers that covered the light pole. Then watched as not five minutes later another came along and taped a new flier up to the now bare pole.

Now there is a man behind me with a power drill. There appears to be a problem with one of the stools and he thinks now is the time to repair this metal stool with a power drill. It seems a strange time to be doing it. Especially since there are already people sitting at that table. Also, he’s one the phone and it doesn’t seem to be about the chair.

At some point while I was looking at the man working on the stool the new flier was removed. But now there is a different flier in its place, with different wording, but advertising the same thing. Shared housing. Amazing! While I was writing that another flier has appeared below it. This one advertises a master bedroom for rent.

I looked down and back up and now there is a third.

Clearly I need to get the job of tearing these things down. I’d never run out if work.

After Hungry Jack’s I walked through a mall where in one store they sold cigarette lighters and bottle openers made from kangaroo scrotums.

As I mentioned before I’m staying near the Asian part of town, they have arcades here with claw games and some of the prizes are Gloomy Bears!

At 3 on my first day in Sydney I got on a Greyhound bus to Canberra. The 6 hour trip ended up taking 7 hours, but it made me think more about things I hadn’t thought about for a while and I had a good time.

Here in Australia and also in New Zealand they have “classic music” stations that play all the music that I really like.  I guess that could make a person feel old, but it makes me feel young. It makes me feel like I’m back in Paso Robles, one of my favorite points in life.

I’m still very happy with the kin I put on my iPod, Phryxus. Besides the fact that it makes me happy to look at the Tokyo subway map, it has some sort of magical clingy surface. I can set it on the little ledge of the bus window and it doesn’t move. I don’t have to worry about it at all. Even better I can put my other iPod, Mr. Fix, on top on of Phryxus, and it stays put too! Go form AND function! Take THAT Bauhaus!

I really enjoy traveling by bus. Getting around without having to do anything about it. Having the time to do whatever I want. Almost forced to because there isn’t anything else I can do. I’ve got books, music, movies, writing materials, games. I find myself checking the time to make sure we AREN’T there yet.

It reminds me of when I was little when I would play a game where I would pull all the chairs from the kitchen table together and pretend it was a raft in the ocean of the kitchen. I’d get stuff to draw with and some cereal and just float around.

When I was little I always wanted to design my own house. It would have all sorts of cool stuff,  a ball room like the Mcdonald’s playgrounds, and a trampoline room, I wanted to have a glass dome at the bottom of my pool that would have air circulated into it so that I could just sit at the bottom of the pool and still breathe.

My house would also have a secret passage behind a grandfather clock like on Webster, but my passage would take me to my secret art room.

In this room there would be space for painting and sculpting and other arts, but most importantly, there would be the cockpit of a spaceship. It would look like the front of a jet, but it was a spaceship. Inside would be just enough room for one, but there would be a drawing table instead of controls. Out in front of the cockpit there was would be a big TV screen so I could watch movies and TV in there too. The feeling I had when I imagine myself in my spaceship, that’s how I felt on my chair raft in the kitchen and it’s the way I feel on the bus. Like it’s my own little world.

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Australia is great!

I had booked a hostel before I left NZ and was supposed to get picked up from the airport by their shuttle, but due to some weird cloaking effect I had, it took me 5 calls to the hostel to have them send the shuttle before they gave up. They claimed they had sent the shuttle out every time I called. There was a specific place I was supposed to stand, and I stood there for over 2 hours. I told them what color shirt and jacket I had on, but it just wasn’t working out. Finally they told me to just get another shuttle and they would give me the would give me 8.80 when I got to the hostel. Which was strange because the shuttle was supposed to cost 12 dollars. I guess they were sorry, but not completely sorry.

Even then things didn’t work out very well. I walked over an told the shuttle booking guy that I needed a ride and he told me to go back to where I had been for the last 2 hours and he’d let me know when the shuttle guy was there.

When the guy showed up, he took his time actually having us go out and get in the shuttle, I guess he was hoping for more fares or something.

To get to the shuttle we had to walk and walk because they thing wasn’t parked anywhere near the arrival gates, fortunately I had to smarts to have gotten one of the luggage carts and I wasn’t lugging my monstrous backpack around on my shoulders.

Then when we got out there and I tried to pay him there were more problems.

He wanted $14, $2 more than I was going to pay for the other shuttle. That wasn’t the problem though. The problem was that the ATM had given me $50s and he didn’t have any change.

There was another person in the same boat as me. This girl had been waiting for almost as long as I had, but they weren’t going to the same place as I was. She also needed to pay the driver, but all she had was a $20.

The driver took one of my $50s to one of the other drivers to try to get change, but he came back with two $20s and a $10, which didn’t help at all. I told the driver that I could get change from the hostel when he dropped me off. He seemed to agree and off we went. After a few blocks he told me and the girl that he would only charge us $10 each, so I gave the girl a $10 and she gave the driver $20. That was great for me because I was getting $8.80 when I got to the hostel!

Then the driver pulled over and turned around! He had gotten a call on his radio and there were three people at the domestic gates that needed a ride and he had three spots left. We got to the gate where two of the people were waiting, they got loaded in and then the driver disappeared to look for the third, and didn’t come back for almost half and hour!

Eventually, I did get to my hostel, which was the second cheapest one I could find, and it live up to that title in every way.

But, Sydney is great! I didn’t realize at the time, the time being the entire last month, but I think New Zealand was stressing me out on some level. Finally in Australia, I walked outside, it was after 8pm, and there were shops open!! And there were people walking around all over there place, and cars, and the buildings were more than 3 stories tall! I was so happy I went to a restaurant I’d seen all over NZ that I’d never gone to, called Nando’s. I got a veggieburger and chips and then poured hot sauce on the chips that was so hot it made my lips feel like they were bleeding, but it was delicious. I’ve rediscovered something that I already knew, but I guess hadn’t noticed was true to such a great extent. I’m a city mouse. I need a certain level of civilization to be fully content. As much fun as I did have in NZ, at some level I’d not been happy.

Even better I seemed to be staying very close to the Asian part of town. There were internet cafes and even stores called Shibuya and Harijuku.

And I found a comicbook store!

The next day I left Sydney to go to Canberra, where I have friends that I’d met on 3 other continents! I’ll be back in Sydney for a week or so before I leave Australia.

Tomorrow I will regale you all with random thoughts and observation I had on that first day in Australia.

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Australia, shuttle

So there’s been some hold up. I’ve been having a good time in Australia and not spending a whole lot of time putting up pictures on Facebook or updating this here thing.

Part of the problem was my bungy jumping post just wasn’t panning out.

I have part of it written, but it wasn’t really flowing.

There is a part of me that think this is because I glossed over the thing when it was actually happening. I spent a lot of time both not thinking about it and trying to psych myself up about it that when it actually happened it was a bit of a blur. I enjoyed it, but it was all over so fast.

Now I’m going to have to do it again. At some point. It was so fast I might just forgo bungy all together and move up to skydiving. When I compare my video to my friend Nat’s skydive video, there is a lot more falling in hers.

Which is strange because she says that she’s never bungy. There are actually a lot of people who say they would be way more willing to jump out of a plane than bungy. There are two major reasons that most people say this.

The first is safety. They think they are safer skydiving. For me I like to be able to see the rope firmly attached to me and the thing I’m jumping off of. That seems safer than jumping out of a plane in the hope that there is actually a parachute crammed into that backpack you have on, and that it will open with no problems.

The second thing that they prefer about skydiving is the other guy that’s strapped to you. They like the fact that they don’t actually have to make the final decision to jump.

They prefer murder to suicide.

That wasn’t a problem for me… is that a problem itself?

Before I left for my trip there was a thought in the back of my head that I would probably bungy jump. While I was on the North Island I still thought I was going to do it.

When I got to the South Island, I was not longer that sure. I felt like I really didn’t care that much one way or the other.

I really don’t like doing things because they are something “you must do”, just like I won’t read classic books that I have no interest in.

Then, after my glacier hike I started looking at the brochures and by dinner I was pretty sure I was going to do it.

I got really nervous when I booked the jump, partly because it looked like they were going to have an opening for me that day, and I needed a day to prepare, which in hindsight might have been the problem. I prepared too much.

Everywhere I went I was already seeing myself after the jump doing the same things perfectly safe. I was already past the jump a day before it happened. When I would get a twinge of what I was planning to do I’d stop and imagine myself on the platform ready to jump, “yeah, I can do this, no problem” I’d think.

I wasn’t feeling nervous when I got out to the jump point, and I got strapped in and jumped without hesitation, partially to get it over with and partially to keep myself from noticing what I was about to do.

I did a lovely swan dive and it wasn’t until halfway down that it sunk in.

On the video you can see it. About half way down my swan dive becomes mad flailing for a moment as I try to stop myself in midair like Bugs Bunny. Then my arms move back into swan dive position.

Also I cussed, and I think I might have thrown up the tiniest bit. ALSO!, and I just realized what this was, at the bottom a weird thought stuck me. I didn’t know where it can from and I can’t really tell you clearly what it was, but…

For a second I think I thought I was a baby.

It just now came to me that my life must have decided to flash before my eyes! Just as I got to the bottom of my fall. So I only got the very beginning before my brain figured out that I wasn’t going to die.

Thank goodness that wore off quick…

So, anyway, that’s why there’s not post about my bungy jump. Sorry.

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bungy