So at 6pm on Friday night I sat on a conveniently-sized wall outside Customs House looking for a man in black holding a motorcycle helmet. This was his agreed garb. I told him I would be wearing a red scarf and the two opening lines of dialogue would be:
- "Danny?"
- "Adeline?"
And that I would be interested to hear how he pronounced my name. (FYI he said it like my family say it, 'Ad-a-leen', which was made funnier when he said his mother's name is 'Madeline').
What was he like? Well, he's about half a head shorter than me, with a slim build, about 10 years older* and possibly gay**. If not gay, then I can safely say neither of us felt anything for the other, which was great because the rest of the night was very comfortably spent chatting about the bits and pieces we knew of each other through written correspondence. So, to answer a previously asked question, it was not a date and I don't think he ever thought of it as one.
We ate dinner at Young Albert in Customs House, then headed up to the Opera House Drama Theatre to see the play. In the interval we dissected the first three acts and after it was all over (3.5 hours later) we both verbalised our initial review. I think the general verdict was "interesting but not all that great". It should have been called 'The Comedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark' as there were more laughs than tears. Then we went back to our respective abodes to have our own weekends. I expect we'll still exchange irreverent banter over the suburban fence (I work in North Sydney, he in Crows Nest).
(* probably about 5 years older than I expected, to tell the truth)
(** I've never had a very good gaydar so I could just be making this up)
Saturday was a far more interesting day. Apart from the two SFF films that I saw, including the premiere of a series of three docos 'Anatomy: Skin, Heart, Muscle', which the three directors, two producers and most of the subjects attended, and 'Man on Wire' the doco about French tightrope walker Philippe Petitt's plot to walk between the World Trade Center towers in the 1970s, I was also compelled to drop in at my editor's flatwarming party in Cremorne.
'Man on Wire' ended at about 7:30pm in Circular Quay so by the time I'd walked back to Wynyard and caught a train home it was about 8:15pm. I don't know where all the time went but I baked some cookies (I'd made the dough earlier so it was chilled when I returned from the film) and made myself a cheese melt sandwich, ate, washed up, got changed into something more suitable for going out at night, then went online to find out the public transport options I had to get to her place, discovered that the one that involved the least amount of walking (train/bus) was leaving in 3 minutes so scrapped that because I hadn't put the cookies in a container yet and ended up walking to a bus stop in Miller St, about 15 minutes away.
According to the timetable I had to wait 12 minutes. I was standing around minding my own business when I saw a ringtail possum dash out, trying to cross the road. A car swept past. I closed my eyes and shouted 'No!'. There was a thump but fortunately not a death knell. It'd been clipped, so stood unmoving in the middle of the road scared out of its wits as more traffic cruised past.
When the road was clear I went out to the middle to try and shepherd it to the other side of the road, its destination. Fortunately I was wearing my bright red jacket or it could have been the last wildlife rescue mission of my life. I wasn't sure whether it'd been hurt in any other way so I didn't want to pick it up in case I did some damage but it didn't want to move so I had to prod it along. When we got to the curb it wouldn't mount the footpath so I did end up carrying it up and the little bugger bit me (not painfully, just a nip - you can carely see the scar).
We sat around on the pavement for what seemed like several minutes and I kept saying encouraging things like "there's a tree just over there where you'll be safe" but all it did was sit there. I called my friend Vanessa to get the number for WIRES off her, because I thought she'd be one of the few people at home on a Saturday night (turns out that it was one of the rare times when she wasn't). When I couldn't get through to directory assistance I went back across the road to a restaurant and bailed up the receptionist there for a phone number, which she called for me.
The WIRES lady said they didn't do pick-ups at that time of night so could I take the possum to the nearest 24 hour vet in Crows Nest? Apart from being on foot, I didn't have anything to put the possum in but I took down the address and thought I could probably use my scarf and the plastic bag into which I'd placed the container of cookies and a bottle of wine. The restaurant receptionist kindly gave me a beer carton in case I needed it and I went back outside to see if the possum was still there.
Keep in mind that at this stage I was already frightfully late - it was nearing 10pm and I'd said I'd be there at about 9pm. So I go outside and it's there, still sitting on the pavement where I left it. I unwrap my scarf to pick it up but then it scampers off into the undergrowth, so I figure if it's healthy enough to scamper, then I don't need to take it to the vet. I return the box to the kind people at the restaurant and manage to make the 9:57pm bus.
I finally reach my editor's block of flats. It's about 10:30pm and I know I'm late but I figure I have a pretty good excuse. The only problem is I'm ringing #19 and no one's answering the door. Either I've got the wrong flat number, or it's too loud for them to hear it, or they've all pushed on to the pub. I call her but she's not answering. At this stage there's blood on my left hand from the bite and I start to worry that I could get infected by something. So I do a turn around the building and locate a sink with handwash, wash my hands and feel a bit better about things. Then I think, if she doesn't call back in the next 10 minutes I'll try again at the door (and maybe a couple of other numbers too) and if that doesn't work I'll go to the pub.
Luckily her flatmate hears the buzzer and lets me up (apparently it's a pretty temperamental buzzer) so I get to recount my possum story, meet a bunch of random people, get praised for my excellent cookies and get handed drinks all night. I remember having at least two Jager bombs, three glasses of champagne and a white wine and am fortunately smart enough to throw in three large glasses of water.
I think I'm in love with Jen's flatmate's friend Tom.
Then just after 1am a neighbour complains about the noise so we all head up to Minskys, pretty much my favourite 'last stop' place, to dance at the piano bar. I'm sustainably tipsy at this point, which is absolutely perfect for a good time at Minskys especially because it means I don't have to buy a drink or stop dancing. So I don't stop until we all get ushered out at 3am and I manage to get a taxi back to mine costing a mere $11.
Yesterday was largely spent sleeping, followed by several hours of finishing the last, reprieved pages of my TAFE assignment (instead of working on my novel, mind - this is where honesty gets you) before going to see a late screening of 'Fantastic Parasuicides' in the city, followed by more assignment until I decided I didn't care, so I printed it out and I'm truly finished for this semester.
Novel-writing resumes tomorrow after I hand in my assignment.
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