Catch-up Post

Okay loyal readers, I'm ready to fess up. I am now so woefully behind in my blog writing that there's no point keeping up appearances by writing the events of the past several weeks as if I had kept a proper record. I'm just going to have to write one big catch-up blog entry to bring you up to the present moment.

Cursed
In my most recent post I explained the misfortune of my dear friend Marcus and opined that he had done me a favour by reminding me that there's always someone worse off. I have now further proven my own point: there is always someone worse off. Frequently, it's me.

As many of you know, I have been busy for the last two months organising my life for an extended trip to the USA. I've been preparing my job for a ten month leave of absence. I've been preparing my car for sale. I've been preparing my house to be invaded by tenants.

I even prepared my motorcycle to go into the custody of a friend for the duration of my time overseas. I took the bike to be serviced. Then, as I took the bike from the shop to deliver it to my friend's house, only a couple of kilometres from putting the keys into someone else's hand after my last ride for a year, I fell off the bike. I've been riding motorcycles for a lot of years without ever coming off one, but I was finally undone by the unexpected meeting of a nail with my front tyre. This was followed inevitably by a sudden, firm and unexpected meeting of my body with the tarmac. At first I thought I was okay. I was battered and bruised sure, but I didn't think anything was broken, except my helmet and armoured motorcycle jacket.

I arranged to be picked up, went back to the shop where I'd had the bike serviced, arranged to get the bike picked up for repairs, had a shower, had an early night, got up, moved all my worldly goods into a shipping container, had a nosebleed, started coughing up blood, went to the emergency room ... the usual activities for a Thursday. It turned out that there was a little more structural damage than first anticipated, but only to unimportant things like ribs and my shoulder blade. Really, I'm fine. As long as I don't breathe or move my right arm I'm practically my usual self.

Homeless
Viv picked me up at the emergency room, where I had been given X-rays and really strong drugs, and took me back to the house. My mother met us there, then we scrubbed the whole house, patched the holes from the picture hooks, and painted over them. Then I drove my mother's car to the other side of Sydney at 1 o'clock in the morning and tucked myself into bed in a saggy foam single mattress with my freaked-out cats. The perfect end to the perfect day.

Guilty
If you thought moving out of my house the day after a motorcycle accident was traumatic for me, you should see what it did to my poor innocent kitties. Sweet little Skid and Rilke are currently in the custody of my mother and grandmother and five other bigger tougher cats. They were not happy about it and preferred to spend most of their time in the next couple of days sitting on my bruises and looking pitiful. Skid loosened up after a day or two, but Rilke remained pretty terrorised right up until the day I abandoned them completely. Yes, I do feel guilty about it, and no, I don't want to talk about it.

Sad
My gorgeous friends threw a lovely farewell party and made me remember all the reasons I don't want to be on the other side of the world.

Clockwise from left: Blake, Dave, Christo, Viv, Chris, Nat, Trish, Dad, Me, and Juan. Photography by Tiffany.




Jetlagged
The flight was so long and horrible that I remembered how much I hate travelling. I love destinations. I just hate travelling.

Excited
And here I am! The new world! It's the end of my first full day. I'm so tired that the room seems to be moving by itself, and so sore that anyone would think I spent yesterday throwing 30kg bags around airports. But I'm here. My astonishing run of bad luck is behind me and new adventures await.

Watch this space. I'll keep you posted.