Down for a while

Well, I'm back in Melbourne for a little bit, a long, long weekend as it were, because of the Emerging Writers' Festival. Managed to make it down this year because it didn't clash with the Sydney Writers' Festival, where I've become a chief volunteer.

The first thing I need to do is apologise for not writing very much this month. In among writers' festivals, it was also my birthday earlier in the month and I had a party and a whole bunch of other related activities. Then on a domestic front, Boff is moving in and thus I've been trying to sell Sam's junk, plus I had to get the floor in Sam's room relaid and I've been gathering quotes to get a staircase made for my room.

That's in addition to all the usual shenanigans with freelancing, plus normal+++ work (new web ed was poached by Yahoo! and my publisher is on holiday for two weeks so I am looking after the website until the new girl starts).

This blog post has nothing to do with the fact that the Bird sent me an email to ask why I hadn't updated my blog.

I'm not even sure where to start so I'm just going to start with the fact that I am now 30 and therefore a real person. Kind of weird going up a decade because in many ways I don't feel much older than 25—then again, I think people will take me more seriously because 30 seems so much more solid than 29.

My party (at The Arthouse Hotel) turned out really well. A lot of people from different walks of life came along, surprisingly a lot of them boys! I don't know any boys! Well, apparently I do. Most people (more than had planned to) stayed on for karaoke. Ness wanted to party on but I'd been up early to lead the SWF vollie orientation so called it a night at 1am. I won't pretend the taxi that Boff hailed didn't have an effect. The last thing you want after a good birthday out is to have to catch the Night Ride bus.

It seems a month of birthdays. I didn't realise I knew that many people born in May, but this year it just exploded: Sarah from work, Billy and Dan (ex-work), Boff, Gill (ex-work) and the Shawyer twins (clients).

Boff says he'll have a birthday thing next month, after he's moved in properly. He's 45. The moving in has taken a stupid amount of time for a number of reasons. Firstly I had to get the floor in Sam's old room relaid because of severe cupping, which only happened last weekend. Secondly, Boff has a crapload of stuff. At present he has a bunch of books and some clothes at mine, but he is not staying over regularly yet. Besides which, we have to rearrange the whole house, which is a project for next weekend.

Hmm, some highlights: The Cat Empire gig at The Metro (May 13), The Music of Quentin Tarantino at The Vanguard (May 18) at which I was propositioned by a suit named Roy while I was trying to finish an Enid Blyton book, and Australian SF's night of nights, the Aurealis Awards at the Independent Theatre (May 21) hosted by Garth Nix.

SWF volunteering worked out all right this year. I was on the really difficult shifts, being Thursday (first day) and Saturday (busiest day) all day managing Pier 4/5 (busiest area), but also had some cush roles like greeting guests at the opening night party and supervising vollies at the zine fair. There were some stroppy people, especially on the first day, but in the main the reaction to vollies was vocally positive, so I call it a win.

I only saw two sessions at SWF: a paid gig featuring Sonya Hartnett and Markus Zusak (yay, got books signed!) and one on reviewing because I wasn't able to get into the one about journos becoming novelists. On the way to lunch with Skippy, I spotted my high school English teacher with whom I've been corresponding via Christmas cards for years so we've agreed to have lunch this Friday.

Er, what else can I say? I don't have glaucoma and my eyesight has been steady for one year. I really enjoyed the EWF Town Hall Conference this weekend and met a lot of cool people. Boff sleeps really loudly.