Darkness and alleyways

I'm having one of those days again. The kind of day where the bottom of the keyboard refuses to work without me banging on zxcvbnm,./

I have 56 pics of Melbourne laneways in my camera, and about 15 of The Langham, where I had high tea on Sunday. And that's about it.

Ah well, not really. Bottled up inside me is a rant about gig etiquette, after having a run-in at The Cat Empire gig last Friday night. I've already had my rant about becoming more and more deadline-driven (see previous post).

Saturday was all about packing for Melbourne and then panicking about first mortgage payment, which was supposedly due on the 1st March but I haven't got any account details to pay said money. I left a message and sent an email to the solicitors looking after the lender but since Saturday, nothing, so I will need to chase. My life is full of chasing.

Mabs and her boy, Mr G, picked me up from the airport. Turns out Mr G is no longer her boy but her fiance! Visited Mr G's friends for dinner, another engaged couple, Glen and Mel. Mel took Mabs aside and went through her wedding book, which was everything she'd ordered so far - dress, cake, venue etc, $12K worth. Mabs' eyes were as big as saucers contemplating the enormous debt... Glen and Mel also had two dogs (Digga and Sophie) and three cats (Wally, Charlotte and Grumpy) so that was amusing.

Sunday was a leisurely intro to Melbourne's transport system, namely the fact that it took almost two hours to get from South Yarra to the South Melbourne Markets via the city (South Yarra and South Melbourne are technically next to each other). We had brunch with two of Mabs' friends, and then spent a few hours wandering around the laneways before going to high tea at The Langham, which was pretty swish. Alas, I could not eat all of the chocolate offerings at the buffet. I must be losing my touch.

Monday was meeting lots of people. Conducted some interviews at DIIRD in the morning, then I met Trevor Alex (AIPM Vic chapter president and chair of the communications committee ie my responsibility) for the first time for lunch, spent a lovely 45 minutes having coffee with Bill Young (AIPM president) and then stuck my head in at Sticky in Degraves Arcade and couldn't help but purchase a few zines despite my flight's baggage limit.

After hours I met with Martin and Gary, both AIPM members and regular contributors, for a glass of wine and a chat about the magazine before heading to the AIEx conference dinner at Melbourne Town Hall. Was a pleasant evening, nothing too exciting.

Yesterday was the conference. Again, nothing too exciting except maybe the weather, which looked dark and ominous in the stormy kind of way but was actually dry, hot and windy. I feared for my flight but fortunately everything ran on time.

Today was very unproductive. I only have a few days in which to file those 7,500 words I mentioned in my last post. Not a single word written today. Also, I skipped writing group. And I've yet to have my make up lesson for Japanese. Slowly but surely my life is falling by the wayside.