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Thursday, October 2nd, 2008

After Brendon left for work this mornig (I felt like a stay-at-home wife) I fell back asleep. This was around 7:30 am. I woke up about 4 hours later, during a crazy dream about a captive killer whale who ate a giant moray eel, who had my arm in its mouth (with me still attached) ... Obviously my brain was telling me, in no uncertain terms, "It's time to wake up."

Earlier in the morning (or was it last night?) I had struggled with the question "What the hell am I going to do all day?!" I can't honestly think of a time when I've been on vacation for "real" before, and not been at home. My other vacations have been climbing trips. With days full of purpose. Or rest days, but always with someone else to hang out with. I am faced now with the challenge of spending significant amounts of time with only myself. It's a bizarre thing.

I asked Abby and she said "Relax. Hang around. Read." I guess she's right. I think I will go crazy though. I think I'll try to take surfing lessons. Maybe. Maybe I'll just run a lot. Maybe I'll go to Taronga Zoo. Sarah will kill me...

I've spent the majority of today trying to get photos edited, uploaded and online. Brendon's computer is such a pile of shit it's crazy though. It barely worked when I used to live here (3-4 years ago,) and let's just say the years have not been kind... Anyway, I'm still without success... I can't bring myself to pay for Flickr.

I read something great in David Sedaris' book, that I will transcribe... hold...

"There's a lot to do in Sydney, but first on my list was Taronga Zoo, where I hoped to see a dingo. I never saw that Meryl Streep movie, and as a result the creature was a complete mystery to me. Were someone to say, "I left my window open and a dingo flew in," I would believe it, and if he said, "Dingoes! Our pond is completely overrun with them," I would have believed that as well."

That killed me. Brendon will be home soon, so I'll have more to say later...

... Later:

Well, we went for an amazing run. After driving for what felt like hours, we arrived at Coogee beach. It was dark out though (it gets dark at like 6 pm here now...) so we couldn't see much. We found the beach walkway though, and started out. Per usual, Brendon ran at his preferred pace of "insanely fast." The problem was, it was a very hilly run. Anyway, we sweated and struggled and eventually made it.

The highlight (aside from the intense suffering) of the run was when a huge group of teenagers started whistling at us, when we ran by. Maybe because we weren't wearing shirts. Maybe because my abs and Brendon's pecs were rippling like the sails of a tall ship in a storm. But anyway, they whistled. There were about 15 of them? Maybe? Drinking, loitering, etc. It was all I could do to not say something back to them. It took every ounce of willpower to not say something, and I think I only didn't because I would have felt bad if Brendon had been beaten up. I felt, however, that seeing as we were in running shoes and insanely fit, there's no way they could have caught us. Or, as we discussed later, we could have ran until a narrow point in the path, high above the rocky shore below, and like Leonidas in 300, turned around, stood our ground and yelled "This is where we fight!! This is where they die!!" and then watched as the teens paused and reconsidered their advantage.

In the end though, we just settled for straightforward running struggle instead of battle struggle. Boooooorrrriiinnnng...

Later, some crazy good pasta rounded off the evening. Our run, a 12 km loop to Bondi and back, would definitely have been more scenic during the day (I highly recommend it), but it was awesome. We'll have to do it again sometime, I guess!

Bondi to Coogee walk
Of course the actual walk doesn't really follow the gmap roads, but you know. You get the idea...

This is where I am staying with Brendon, by the way, for your interest's sake: New Canterbury Rd.

further to our evening's conversation, I should visit Canada to smell roadkill skunks. - M, 2008-10-08, 05:33:18 Skunks have two glands, one on either side of the anus, that produce a mixture of sulfur-containing chemicals (methyl and butyl thiols (mercaptans)) that has a highly offensive smell that can be described as a combination of the odors of rotten eggs, garlic and burnt rubber. When a cricket ball is dropped from a height of 2.0 m onto a heavy steel plate, it bounces to a height somewhere between 0.56 m and 0.76 m , see http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~cross/cricket.html No evidence on consistent pitch orientation to north/south alignment. Enjoy Cairns. Don't get a stringray barb through the heart.