Chocolatl

It's Sunday evening. I went to Max Brenner today and had a spicy Mexican hot chocolate and a chocolate babka with a side of melted chocolate. Then Faun, Corkie and I browsed Kinokuniya until Na, 90 minutes late, caught up with us. Then the four of us went to Cellini's in the QVB and I had a pot of Irish Breakfast tea. I've actually written all of this but, in some weird window-closing accident, just lost the thousand-word record of my week.

Since Tuesday's odd day out, I've been to writers' group, then I spent Thursday writing furiously for NaNoWriMo, then I spent Friday night at the pub. Pub was interesting: had some involved chats with Michael about the Tropfest film I have foolishly decided to make with him and his crew. He wants to use rotorscope, that method of animation where you base the style on real actors (a la Richard Linklater), which I suppose is fair enough as we have all the equipment and talent to do animation. Ian gave me a big, scratchy kiss for rescuing his iPod, Clint burnt his belly button hair trying to light a cigarette and Jess and I found out what an 'eight gauge' was when Rod decided to show us his lip ring by taking it out and waving it around.

The best thing about where I work is that I fall in love with someone every week. Right now I'm in love with Rod. Even though he smokes, plays in a punk band and has greasy hair. I'm not going to admit this to anyone who will tease me about my 'type' (which is, supposedly, tall, younger man that lives on the northern beaches) because Rod happens to be a tall, younger man who lives on the northern beaches. Although, he's not that much younger than me - 24.

Yesterday I forgot it was the 'Walk Against Warming' at Martin Place, besides which I had already committed to going to the Nan Tien Buddhist Temple in Wollongong with Na and Corkie. Na was late, which I'm beginning to notice is normal, so by the time she had finished praying I didn't get to meet up with Peta in town, who had to go to work. The Nan Tien tea cafe is pretty cool. They have a lot of Chinese vegetarian dishes, an original selection of tea and your usual cafe fare, like coffee and muffins. Corkie and I ended up with a pot of lotus tea and some jade dumplings, which were nice.

Na kindly dropped Corkie and I off in the city where we headed for Pizza Hut and had the Works on her insistence. Which was a bad idea. Because then we had to haul our overfull bellies to Surry Hills. The Hopetoun was abuzz when we arrived. My friend Jeff was already 5 minutes in to his 30-minute set. I hung around Gina and Dom for the set and then at the end said hi to Lee and Wendy who were up front, introducing them to Corkie (although Lee had already met Corkie when we went to Newcastle). Then Corkie had to go home so I walked her down to Central and then came up and caught the last song by Richard In Your Mind. I remember Richard from back in the days of Magical Theatre, a regular Sunday night gig out of an Annandale garage featuring goon, pot and predictably-dressed artistes. (FYI I never partook in either the goon, pot or artiste wardrobe). Weird to see him play at a proper venue.

An excellent band called The Maladies followed Richard. They played a dark style of rock, which they call 'Stinging Garage Soul Noir'. I will definitely watch out for their gigs in the future and it will be interesting to see where they go from here. Then the headline act, No Through Road from Adelaide played, featuring the witty Ianto Ware (better known as a zine expert and author of Nicht Das Papierkrieg) on bass. They were cool. They had a lighter sound, quirkier than The Maladies' ominous musical undertow. Plus I love Ianto. He's so cute.

Yeah, that's about it. It has taken me about two hours (including interesting diversions) to recapture what I initially lost and that has eaten into my novel-writing time. I'm going to have a shower, then try afresh to see what I can type in the hour or so I have before I need sleep.