Kill Flies with Books; Returning to Queensland

Days After New York: 9

Meals Cooked: 2 - Saturday: Pappardelle with Spicy Meat Sauce (only with Penne instead of Pappardelle and Paprika instead of Red Pepper) and Monday: Cottage Pie (filled with frustration because one should be able to cook while angry. Making the Mashed Potatoes reminded me of how I helped make Mashed Potatoes for Thanksgiving in 2009 with Molly, which helped me not be angry.)

Flies Killed: 3 (possibly 4 if the one I whacked with John Green's novel, Looking For Alaska, finally kicked it.)

"God, I'm a murderer!" I exclaimed to my reflection in the bathroom mirror as I watched the fly I had just pelted over and over again with walter swirl down the bathroom sink.

The remorse didn't last long, as I had a plan to stick to and a day to fill up with Unimportance. Read: Distraction: so that I don't realize that I'm not going to be in America any time soon and don't even know if I want to be. Meanwhile, a fly buzzed furiously over my head.

It's been fulfilling to make dinner. To take out the ingredients and line them up and then combine so that right amount of heat cooks for the right amount of time to taste just about right, and I clean as I go, so as to feel like an organized, functioning adult. I've received praise so far, but I don't like going against the recipe, but my Mum is all for it. So whereas my meal might come out as a clumsy one-act, my Mum's own choices in the kitchen would lead to a polished piece, no matter how small the portion. I suppose I will learn this spontaneity, this art, in time.

One of the ways I'm keeping busy is by waking up early, usually at 6 but always before 8:30, and filling my day up with pointless little adventures. Last week it was mainly setting up bank accounts and health care and identification and posting off Christmas packages and this week it's been more about trying to get down to work. Though it has proven difficult. A thousand other things need to be done. Oceans to walk past, mountains to climb, papers to use and then vanquish... Checking ones email thoroughly can take up quite a lot of time too, and I have 7 accounts.

I become overwhelmed, and then I become sad, and so I take any opportunity to go to the shops and walk around with Mum or to walk by the beach or to climb the not-so-far-off mountains.

Other than climbing mountains and wading in it's streams as baby pythons circled around my Mum's partners hand friendly enough but attacked and shied away from his cell phone that was simply trying to capture the moment in terrible resolution, was to see the ballet.

I saw The Nutcracker, but it was different, original, as is always the way with the choreographer, Francois Klaus and his company, The Queensland Ballet. I adored it. I had my binoculars and found great joy in the seeing the expression on the dancers faces, seeing the lines, so long and beautiful up-close and feeding off the dancers energy, hungry for more.

It was nice to see two Second Years performing amongst the rest of the company, who I no longer recognized, apart from the principal, Rachael Walsh. I remembered them from when I was a First Year (and only ever a First Year) and was just happy to see people make it out from the suffocating grasps of adolescence. It seemed like such a breakthrough, even though, in person, I'm sure they haven't changed all that much. Either way, I was still proud to be watching my peers.

Another activity I have been busying myself with is the great task of reading all the books I own. I've finished two since I arrived and am about to finish the third (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson) tonight. The great thing about Queensland is the fairly long commutes on buses and trains. I can begin a journey only half-way through a novel and find myself having to slow myself down by the bus ride home so as to not finish a book on the bus, a very emotionless ending, I'm sure, when you have to try to "keep up appearances" and pretend you're just as sane as every one else while your emotions are spilling out all over the place as the story, your story, your journey, ends.

I'm going to read The Book Thief next. It was recommended to me by a friend Emma back in 2009 (or was it 2008?) and while I was in Santiago, both Emily and Ryan raved about how much they adored it. I hope I too have a similar experience. I will keep my mind open so as to hopefully not ruin it for myself.

With Hunter S. Thompson leaving me tonight, I've only read a total of 7 books this year (more if I count some more graphic novels and maybe the odd little book I may have read and forgotten about). My Mum says that you can waste your whole life reading, but I feel that I've spent a lot of this year living. Throwing caution to the winds and just being in the moment, if we can ever truly live in the moment. I'm happy to give my life to some stories for now, at least for December... at least until this pile is read. I can't keep carrying it around from place to place and I certainly won't leave it behind and I can't just let them sit there anymore.

I have more stories to tell of my time here, but this ending, this sigh of relief as book dust falls on my head, well, I hope you let out a little sigh, too. When one has the luxury of a page to turn, every thing is not as bad as it may seem.