1. Waiting for an email response that Is. Not. Coming. Once I got confirmation of the shortlist placing yesterday, I emailed the agent who’s still got the full MS with what I hoped was an enticing little update as well as a subtle reminder of my lowly existence. Ever since I’ve been checking my email account with the dogged obsessiveness of a gambling addict plugging a hostile poker machine. STILL NOTHING. It can’t be good. It just can’t be good. Were it remotely going to be good, wouldn’t she email back and say, ‘Hey, good for you, I’ll get back to you re. your MS ASAP!’ or something equally perky? She would, I wager, if she wanted to. But no. There’s still nothing. And yes, she’s definitely there. Just ignoring me.

2. Waiting for Llew to get home before I eat my dinner. You know, I spend all day by myself as it is, so I kind of like sharing at least one meal a day with someone else, namely Llew. Last night, I sent a text pretty early on saying something like, ‘Should I be planning to eat alone?’ Nothing. That’s usually an unintended hint that the answer is yes. Llew really doesn’t like acknowledging this, so often he just won’t respond, as a warped and completely ineffectual way of delaying the inevitable. But I guess that’s partially my own fault, because even knowing how to read the warning signs, still I persist in playing along. So of course I put in a call at some point last night, and he said he was “leaving in about twenty minutes.” An hour passed. I ate a banana and a fistful of peanuts to stave off my Where-the-Hell’s-My-Dinner hunger pains. Then I called again.

“You were leaving in twenty minutes an hour ago. How does that happen?”

“Sorry. Nearly out the door. I’ll call you when I’m on my way.”

I waited. And waited. And then I just snapped and couldn’t wait anymore. I’d made dinner, there was still no call, so I sat down at the table and ate my dinner alone. Still no call. I was done eating and was reading my book on the couch when my phone finally buzzed. Too late, she cried! It was just after ten o’clock when Llew walked in the door.

“Hello stranger,” he said. “My name’s Llew.”

“Who?” I sniffed.

Wow, someone’s ears must have been burning. Llew just called to say he has to work back tonight. I told him he had a starring role in today’s blog, since waiting for him is one of my prime Shortcuts to Crazy. I don’t really know how to tackle this increasingly common situation for a number of reasons, but I realise writing this that waiting, in general, is not a state that sits well with me. I don’t like waiting. Waiting makes me feel passive. Powerless. Waiting rarely delivers.

And maybe that’s the lesson I’ve been so unwilling to learn: there’s no point waiting. Waiting is just another name for a waste of time.

Well, my dears, a high in among recent lows: I got email confirmation this morning that MS #2 was shortlisted in the inaugural Varuna Publisher Fellowships. And a big congratulations to Darkling Jenny, whose latest MS also made the shortlist – nice one, Changeling! Unfortunately only the bastard winners are listed on Varuna’s website (and no doubt they’re all really very nice people), but you can read about the program here. From memory, I submitted 20 pages for consideration; the MS itself is very much an incomplete first draft, currently travelling at about 30,000 words. I guess it does make me feel more optimistic about its chances of one day being a fully realised story. It certainly beats being bitten on the bum.

The current situation is one of sheer neglect: I haven’t touched it in months. All my effort has been focused around redrafting MS #1, although frankly it too has been utterly ignored since my return from the Cottage Pt writing retreat with the Darklings back in mid-September. The rash of freelance work was really well timed, as was the holiday, and it was only yesterday that I turned to Llew and made some noises about starting work on the fiction again. I think I needed the break.

There were a staggering 500 entries in the Varuna Publisher Fellowships. Talk about a tough field! It’s disappointing that #2 didn’t get over the line – boy, that would have been a sweet little pick-me-up – but the shortlist placing is encouraging nonetheless. And I’m genuinely looking forward to getting back to those characters. I think it’s into their world I’m headed, rather than back into MS #1. Right now I’m not sure what else I’ve got to bring to that particular story, so I think that means it’s time to step away. Most of you (and Llew, and the Darklings) feel putting #1 online would be a mistake (thank you for your dissenting opinion, David, I think you really understand where I’m at), so I’m going to listen to your collective wisdom, thank you, and revisit this down the track if and when I conclude it’s lying dead in a ditch from a publication point of view.

In other news, I’ve been feeling a little cramped and crowded in my office recently, so as part of a spring clean (by which I mean trying to reduce the piles of paper in here), I thought I’d try culling some books – something I’ve never, ever attempted before. I was curious to see how I’d fare, so I went through every single one of the hundreds of titles on my shelves, and you’ll be pleased to know I felt able to jettison a full fourteen titles from my collection. Fourteen! Llew peered into the box and said dismissively, “Hmmm, looks like someone got distracted before she really got going…”

No, no, I assured him, I was done. I was even feeling quite proud of myself.

“Why bother?” he said. “You may as well keep these too.”

But I felt lighter and more orderly for the tough decisions I’d made. I felt the significance of shedding those 14 titles in a way Llew would have trouble imagining. It was quite a big deal. A hard ask. And now they’re sitting in a box. Right here by my desk. In my office. Exactly where they belong.

In case you’re all wondering why there’s been a lack of Lady Alzheimer updates recently, Grad’s last comment reminded me to let you all know that, damn it, I’ve tried calling – several times today, and several times this week since we got back from the Happenin’ ‘Hai. The fact is, I can’t ever get Nana in her room these days. No, she’s too busy yucking it up as a lively member of the St Andrew’s Follies to ever be available for a simple phone conversation with her poor forgotten granddaughter – sheesh!! Kate says that whenever she visits and tries sitting Nana down to a caramel tart (because the best way to any of our hearts is straight along the pastry path), Nana’s always craning her neck to see what she’s missing.

“I think I’m supposed to be over there,” she says, gesturing madly in the direction of whatever hijinks are afoot.

Kate has to food bribe her just to get Nana to sit with her for ten minutes. The caramel tarts are especially effective because Nana never thinks she’s had one before.

“This is nice, this thing,” she apparently says. “What is it?”

And then she’ll swivel around in her seat to let Kate know she’s got places to be and people to see. There may be a baleful stare or two thrown in for good measure, the type children who want to play outside tend to give their long suffering mother over the dinner table. Kate regularly updates her photos on Facebook so I can at least see Nana more regularly than I can speak to her. There’s a new photo up and Nana is positively beaming. She just looks so happy. And healthy. So healthy, in fact, that Kate’s had to go out and buy Nana some new clothes – she’s put on enough weight that her clothes are too tight! Fantastic! There she was not so long ago practically off her food – a crisis if ever there was one. Kate and I both nearly cried when she told me. It just means so much to know Nana is not only being well cared for but is genuinely enjoying herself.

She’s never in her room because she really does have much better things to do than sit alone in her room waiting (in that three-second-memory kind of way…) for the phone to ring. This is of course the best case scenario, but, you know, can’t she pick up the bloody phone once in a while?

I’m trying not to worry unduly, but I’m feeling very doubtful that the agency news is going to be good. It feels like it’s taking too long. I wouldn’t think this but for the fact that I know two other writers who are signed to this same agency, and I know the timeline from the request for the full MS to the offer of representation was much tighter than the month I’ve been waiting to hear. In fact, one of them heard back in a couple of days. In fairness (and optimism), the agent who requested my full MS did explicitly say it might take a while to get back to me – but what is a while? I’m not sure, but this certainly feels like a while to me…

I’ve been asking Llew to clear out our P.O. Box downtown for a few days now. It’s on the same street as his office, and en route to the ferry wharf, so it should be a simple enough task. But it’s been getting lost in among Llew’s work pressures, which are back with even greater force than they had before we went away. He’s just got his own stuff to worry about, and I don’t think imagines for a moment how much this is plaguing me. I already know there’s one returned MS waiting for collection; what I want to know is, are there two? Have I not heard anything via email or phone because the MS was returned while I was away? It’s ENTIRELY plausible. And that’s what’s driving me crazy.

On the other hand, I was reading your always heartening words of encouragement today and Tuesday, and it occurred to me that I really do feel pretty fulfilled here at DoctorDi even though ostensibly there’s nothing in it except my writing and your reading. Of course I say ostensibly because in the case of my fellow bloggers, we do have the friendships – curious though they are to people who don’t engage in this way – that have built out of reading each other’s writing. And I know other friends of mine, some in Australia and others overseas, read this blog without commenting or letting me know that they do, and that’s lovely for me too, because it keeps us connected. Writing is and always has been an end in itself for me, the act is a force within me – I really don’t want to compare writing to urinating, but it’s that basic. When you’ve gotta go, you’ve gotta go, and not going is extremely bad for you. Well, that’s writing (and reading, like drinking water is to peeing) for me. So I don’t question whether or not I’d continue doing this even if all of you were to stop reading it, because the fundamental truth is that I would, of course I would, if not here exactly, then in a diary or letter or some other field of the written word.

So it’s an end in itself. Okay. This and recent conversations in the context of something else entirely have made me question why conventional publication is so important to me. It’s always been the Holy Grail: a novel, published by a reputable house with my name on the cover. I have dreamed of such a thing for most of the days of my life. That, I know, is because books really are holy to me, and the articles themselves precious. Properly published novels are the gold standard and they always will be. And yet I’m realising being recognised in this way is slowly sliding down the ranks of significance for me until I’m beginning to wonder if it really matters so much at all. When I read Grad’s comment the other day, and responded that it’s enough for me that she thinks this mystical thing will happen, I realised with a jolt that I really did mean it, which means I don’t need the mystical thing after all. I just need Grad. And the rest of you who find what I do here interesting enough that you come and spend some of your all too precious time with me. Isn’t that, finally, what it’s all about?

Yes.

So this radical realisation on my own part is making me wonder about whether or not there’s merit in simply posting my MS here for those of you who are interested in reading it. Or uploading it on a ‘fiction for a fiver’ basis, or something like that, because I think Llew would have a total fit, and fair enough, if I simply published three years of work online. This is particularly because of the amount he’s worked to make it possible for me to spend that time writing it. It would be plain disrespectful to say, ‘Oh yeah, I just posted it on my blog, I decided not to worry about that whole publication thing.’ Anything I decide will be in consultation with him. But I’m just wondering. If all I really care about is trying to communicate something in writing that other people might like to read, then why not?

In other news, Australian writers have had a win, and it’s a biggie: the Government has found in favour of retaining parallel importation restrictions – hooray!

I was supposed to be at a book launch this evening, but I lost my wingman to work – how quickly we return to normal routine – and I didn’t feel up to going it alone after the recent rejections. So here I am, sort of regretting not going because I’m spending the evening alone anyway. I undoubtedly would have had more fun toasting the success of others. But I do want to tell you about this anthology, because I think it’s going to be an absolute cracker. It’s edited by Charlotte Wood – one of the contributing authors, and already known to some of you thanks to her delectable food blog How to Shuck an Oyster – and it’s called Brothers and Sisters.

Brothers and Sisters is a collection of mainly short stories (there’s a non-fiction essay in there as well) featuring some of Australia’s best writers, exploring the frailties, challenges and rewards of the sibling bond. It’s a great theme for a collection, because while every family is different, there’s something wonderfully universal about the experience of having a brother and/or sister. Even in the past two days of being back in Australia, I’ve had occasion to recall aspects of my childhood as it pertained to being the second child. My sister is two years older than me, and I largely credit her with the fact that I learned to read quite early. At its most basic, this was an act of adulatory mimicry – I recall wanting, more than just about anything, to be able to do whatever it was she was doing. As I noted in a comment on the Varuna blog only yesterday, I think I chased my way into her books as a way of trying to be part of her world. Look at me, let me play, can’t I join in?! Of course, what I found were other worlds instead, but I think I first started eating up books in the hope of one day catching up to Kate, and finding her in the pages of one.

Listening to Charlotte’s recorded radio interview about Brothers and Sisters this afternoon, my ears pricked with recognition when she and the interviewer began discussing one of the stories in the collection, which goes into the importance of sibling clothing, such as a particular colour that’s perceived as important or best or preferential, and the competition that invariably ensues as each sibling vies for the choice item: the emblem of being anointed, of being the beloved. However inaccurate such symbolism may be in representing the truth of any child-parent-child triangular relationship, the fact that kids slug it out in this way testifies as to its suggestive power. And again this made me think of my big sister. Kate. How she must have loathed my growth spurt when we were two young girls. Imagine for a moment the sheer indignity of being the eldest child when the younger has the gall to grow upwards until before you know it, you become, horror of all horrors, the unwilling recipient of that intolerable usurper’s hand-me-downs. It must have been hateful to her, and as an adult of 37, it’s taken me this long to fully appreciate what that might have been like for Kate, for the development of her identity and sense of self. Now it seems such a small, trivial thing – of course I couldn’t help growing, nor could I help that we were too poor for new clothes for all – but I hazard to guess it was a big, monstrous thing at the time, something with its own obnoxious personality and stubborn heft.

Did such a thing as inheriting my castoffs negatively impact my sister? Of course only Kate could say, and she may not even remember any such thing. Indeed I hope not, and I mainly want to express how grateful I am that she was (and remains) a reader, because without doubt her reading was a critical component of my learning to read. So thank you, Kate, for showing me the way.

And just like that, we’re home. It feels very normal being here, writing a post and letting you guys know I’m back, but I must say the holiday ended far too soon for my liking… Shanghai was very much the home-away-from-home I expected it would be, but the extent of that immediate knowingness exceeded even my pretty high expectations. I loved it, absolutely loved it. We both did. I loved the firewall a whole lot less – I couldn’t access any blogs – imagine how behind I am! – let alone update you here on my own, and the commitments I had on the Varuna blog became a logistical nightmare for poor Simonne, who had to email me comments that came through in response to my final post, and then had to upload each of my responses. Not recommended, but we muddled through. And the final post itself proved contentious – more than I anticipated it would. It turns out I miscalculated a number of things, and I guess I am still working through some of the fallout, which, though not nuclear, certainly changed the landscape somewhat. That all happened while I was away, and the timing was unfortunate to say the least. Next time Llew and I take a holiday, I’m going to try to ensure neither of us has work commitments of any description by the time we take off.

There are so many things, so many impressions and darts of memory, that I want to share with you about Shanghai. Unfortunately it’s occurred to me that I have to be careful. In a practical sense, I really can’t reveal very much here because I’d be doing myself out of paid travel writing work. I know that really, truly  sucks – and I’m very sorry because there’s nothing I’d like better than to give you a full blow-by-blow – but I can’t use previously published material in a travel piece, and even just writing about it here qualifies. So… with that in mind, I will just say it was so incredibly cool,unbelievably friendly, utterly delicious. We met wonderful people. It’s somewhere I could and would live in a shot. Shanghai extended the warmest welcome, and we ran straight into its embrace at full speed.

I don’t know where to start trying to bring you up to date with everything. Two pieces of bad news on the writing front: MS # 1 was rejected by the same agent who rejected it early this year. Some of you may recall she indicated she’d look at it again if I made significant changes; I made significant changes, and she looked at it again, but it turns out she doesn’t much like my story, or my characters, or my writing. I’m still glad I showed it to her again rather than sending it to a new agent – I’ve lost nothing, since she’d already passed. It’s still with another agency, and they too passed on it previously, albeit back when it was a first draft and was woefully unfit to be taken seriously. Again my thinking is that if they pass, well, nothing new lost. But it’s an important indicator to me that perhaps I need to go back to the drawing board before I try anyone else, anyone new, anyone who hasn’t seen it before. I get the feeling this other agency is going to pass, I just feel I’m on another round of rejection, and if they do, then I won’t immediately send it anywhere else. I think I’ll sit on it, and let it rest, and then go back to the drawing board. Meanwhile the beginnings of #2 didn’t make the cut in the inaugural Varuna Publisher Fellowships. I thought there was a chance #2 might outperform #1, but at this stage, both of them are headed precisely nowhere. Unlike me – I’ve just been to Shanghai and back!

Oof. Nearly there. I worked on my story all day and night yesterday – no runs, no swims, no breaks, and I was still at my desk at midnight and back again at 7:20 am this morning – and filed at 9 o’clock. That’s what I call a load off. I immediately ran outside for some fresh air and kept right on running, and now I’m satisfyingly damp and salty, the scent of the Pacific still detectable in my hair. That’s better, my body groaned.

I’m not quite done. Because we fly out first thing tomorrow morning, and because my service provider doesn’t have a roaming option for broadband, I’m a little uncertain about my capacity to get online from the ‘Hai, so at the very least I have to write my final post for the Varuna Alumni blog and send it to Simonne in readiness for next week. Hopefully I’ll be able to find an internet cafe without too much trouble – it’s an international city of 18 million, after all – and post comments from there, but I don’t want to risk the post itself. Speaking of the Varuna blog, Llew appears to have been right as usual. When he read it on Sunday prior to my sending it over to Simonne, he was underwhelmed, casually dismissing it with, “It’s not as good as your other ones. I can’t relate to it.” This naturally set me to a manic panic, but he assured me he thought this was just because he’s not a writer so couldn’t possibly have had the same experience. “But you related to the other two,” I pressed, at which point Llew clammed up as though I’d asked if my bum looked big. So I sent it, it went up, and it’s generated a fraction of the response of the first two, which fills me with regret and an intense, long dormant urge to bite off all my fingernails. Ah well. You win some, you lose some. But you can see why I’m anxious to end on a high note with this final post. I have errands to run for the next couple of hours, and then I. Am. Into. It.

Anyway, the title of this post refers to something I discovered while writing my story yesterday, which is that England’s Alnwick Castle has been the family residence of the Percy family for the last 700 years. Leaving aside the fact there’s something preposterous about that, I’m personally intrigued by this little factoid because my maiden name was Percy. I always knew it was an old English name, and that there are Percys in line to the throne – way down the line, way, way down – but I’d never really looked into it. After going to the castle’s website on an entirely different mission yesterday, imagine my surprise to find this phenomenal spread is owned by…what? Relatives of mine? I find that highly unlikely. And to deter all comers, they’ve helpfully attached a family tree, including only those in the line of inheritance. Unsurprisingly, they forgot all about me.

Oh, the fantasies I used to have about a Little Lord Fauntleroy-style rescue from my life, so there’s something quietly hilarious about the near-and-yet-so-very-far fact of this shared name. Apparently my Nana Percy used to say there was some connection with the English toffs, but given she used to bang our heads together when we fought as children, and raised her ten kids in a tiny two-bedroom house in Bangalow, northern NSW (well before Bangalow became trendy and artistic), and from dim memory didn’t even own a full headful of teeth, I don’t think we can trust the veracity of her account.

In fact, one line I was repeatedly told as a child is forever burnt into my memory:

“In Bangalow, there were the poor, the very poor, and the Percys.”

Alnwick Castle, we hardly knew you.

Another hectic day here at DoctorDi HQ, but my story is coming together. Research, research, research. More on that in a moment. It’s also another perfect day, so I have had a quick run and a swim, and I’m pleased to report that the water temperature has increased by what feels like a solid couple of degrees. How does this happen overnight? I just don’t know.

So. Research. For this story and the past two in the series, my research is taking me right around Europe, and I am getting very, very hungry for some more Continental travel. I know, I know, I’m about to head to the ‘Hai, so even talking about it makes me horribly greedy, but I really do find myself poring over certain information pertaining to all these countries and thinking, “What I wouldn’t give…” – nothing whets one’s appetite for travel more than discovering where one most assuredly is not. I love Sydney, I love my home, but there’s a whole world out there. All that history, literature, art, music, architecture… all those people, all those lives. People unfairly think of Sydney in particular and Australia in general as a lifestyle mecca/cultural vacuum. It’s not true, but I can see why the label sticks. Most of the best of our architectural heritage was criminally destroyed, not by the ravages of war but the shortsightedness and poor taste of state politicians and developers. It’s sunny here, a fact some cultural elitists brandish at us with ill-disguised disdain, as though good weather were any sort of impediment to the creation of good art. Still, it’s true we don’t have a visible history of venerating our artists and intellectuals. Some suggest we all but drive them from our shores, but I don’t think that’s true either. I’ve met far too many vastly talented people throughout my life in Sydney to give that idea more credence than it deserves. I’d also suggest that particular hostility is rarely a one-sided thing. Some expatriates do a mighty fine job of coming over all sneery and patronising about Australia from the safety of their Manhattan lofts and London pied-a-terres. It’s like a kind of cultural peer pressure. Say it’s a vacuum, or you can’t join the Euro Club, say it’s a wasteland, go on, admit it, say it, say it, say it, damn you, infernal colonial! Kill the pig, cut his throat, spill his blood. You know the drill.

I don’t think there’s anything contradictory in my love of country and my insatiable lust for elsewhere. So there.

The week has started with whales: a pair of spunky spurters, offshore and looking to be heading south, which at this time of year means they’re wildly off-course. As in, heading completely the wrong way. Maybe they came inshore a bit earlier in the morning and were only just finding their way back out… or maybe they were male whales and refused to ask for directions. Whatever the case, I was very glad to see them. Llew let me know they were out there when he started walking to the ferry (upon reaching which he texted to say there were dolphins and pelicans harbourside – I mean, really, it just never gets old!), so I dragged myself out of bed to catch a glimpse of them before they went under. Some people, I know, awaken feeling bright-eyed and almost frighteningly full of zing, whereas I am always slightly resentful and peeved. Even though I generally find my pep in due course, it does take me a while to wake up. I’m quite grizzly until that moment arrives, and coffee is usually involved in my resurrection. But this is the amazing thing about whales. They cheered me so much that I just wanted to get out there with them, so I went for a nice long run, jumped in the surf, and was at my desk with my cup of coffee just before 9 o’clock. It’s a beautiful day, and they did motivate me to enjoy it.

I’ve spent the remainder here at my desk researching my last story before the Shanghai Surprise begins. And here it is already after six. My word these longer days go faster. Oh, and before I forget, my third Varuna post is now up.

My sister-in-law was supposed to come over for brunch yesterday, but Llew had to go into the office all day – actually, what am I saying? He was there all night too, getting home after 10 pm on a Sunday – so instead I was left to my own devices. This turned out to be a very good thing, because I was and remain pretty shattered, and I needed that stillness we were talking about a little while ago. Hence I slept in until a thoroughly shameful hour, then decided to wander over the headland to Freshwater with nothing more than my book (I’m appalled to admit I’m still reading Lilian’s The River Midnight because I’ve been so under the pump), parking myself at the Pilu cafe, the low-key little outdoor annex that’s opened up beside the main (very good with special occasion prices to boot) Pilu restaurant, surely one of the great sites of Sydney. Really glorious. So I sat back with Lilian’s vilda hayas, a coffee and a toasted sandwich, lamented Llew’s absence, and then decided I’d just have to struggle bravely on without him on this occasion. Yes, it was terribly hard work as I’m sure you can imagine. I stretched my stay until they closed by ordering another coffee, then walked back home for some more sunshine and reading in my courtyard. Truly I can’t remember the last time I was able to just read my book for virtually a whole day like that. It was wonderful. Blissful. I shan’t be leaving it so long again.

It’s not often I feel moved to post on a Sunday afternoon, weekends are generally my time away from the computer, but this past week has been so patchy I basically feel I owe you one before a new week begins. Friday I’d arranged to see an old PhD colleague and friend for lunch as he’s on school holidays at the moment (W’s become a high school teacher, and my god it just sounds like the most stressful job imaginable), and we changed our meeting place because I was veering quite close to his suburb on my passport reclamation mission. Even just rocking into the Chinese Consulate gave me a shot of adrenaline. The scene was one of organised chaos, and most of the people pressing toward the head of the queues were Chinese. I was instantly transported; immediately, I was the Other. It’s a feeling some people really dislike but I flat-out love – out of my comfort zone, away from the familiar, deep in the unknown, it’s one of my favourite feelings, and it’s a big reason why I love travelling so much. I love being rendered agog. Look there, and there, and there, sights and sounds, flavours and scents, people and places I’ve never seen before…I don’t think there’s anything like travel for a pure energy surge.

I can’t wait.

I was out of the consulate quickly as payment and collection queues were brief. I had some time before I was due to meet W at Better Read Than Dead, a great bookstore on King St in Newtown, so I went back down Missenden Rd to Parramatta Rd, crossing the street to the Deus Ex Machina cafe. Llewie spied the cafe when he dropped off the passports early in the week, so I thought stopping in for a coffee was the least I could do. I actually intended to blog while I was there, but administration management ate my homework. Anyway, what a cool space. A converted warehouse with soaring ceilings, the cafe smells just wonderful, a mix of coffee, warm bread and pastries and hearty home-cooking, and the atmosphere is warm, a kind of non-threatening funk. I was sorry W and I had organised to meet elsewhere, and next time I’m over that way, I’m definitely eating here. All the food delivered to the communal tables made my stomach groan, and it was all really reasonably priced. If I lived or worked anywhere near the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, I’d be scooting down to the Deus cafe every day if for no other reason than their coffee is excellent, but the truth is the place has much to recommend it, including the fine machines for sale next door.

It was a pleasant walk back up to Better Read Than Dead, and I found W browsing philosophy and politics titles just inside the door. He’s much more familiar with Newtown, and quickly decided we’d head to the cafe at the Berkelouw Bookstore, which ended up being upstairs in another artfully converted warehouse. We settled in there with good Caesar salads and cold drinks and proceeded to talk for four hours straight. I must say, it’s one of the things I really miss about postgraduate days: great, challenging conversations just as a matter of course. Now I work alone, and I miss the ease with which I used to be able to strike up a conversation that tested my intellectual chops at every turn. Exchanging ideas, debating different theories, really thrashing out the meaning of the things you have read and thought and wondered about. One thing that academia really has going for it is that these pursuits are considered valuable and important. Outside a university environment, I’ve personally just found it harder to find a similar outlet for certain interests of mine. I’m no longer surrounded on a daily basis by those who share them, and so I find those conversations harder and harder to begin and maintain. Everyone keeps talking about Master Chef instead, a TV show that became something of a phenomenon in Australia over the course of its first season, and while I love cooking, I’d rather sink my teeth into a difficult debate than a serve of reality TV. It’s just the way I am. Luckily Llewie loves a good verbal stoush, and we have great conversations, as we do with all our good friends, but I guess there’s still a difference between that and really being able to put all that theory into practice. W and I and everyone like us spent long, difficult years studying the ideas of others while pursuing our own, and to me it’s very much like a dormant bilingualism – the second language starts to die if it’s not used. So it was great to see W and tune my mind into that other frequency. I think I stumbled a number of times as bilingual people do when trying out their second tongue after a long spell using only the first, but there was a lot of satisfaction and pleasure in discovering over the course of the afternoon that my second language hasn’t abandoned me altogether, it just needs to be put to more frequent use.