owlrigh

We stepped out onto the street, heading for the Melbourne Convention Centre where Aussiecon 4 was being held, when I looked at the cyclist waiting at the lights and laughed.

"I can tell I'm in Melbourne," I said.

"Why?"

"Look at him!" I pointed at the cyclist. "Steel fixie, Crumpler bag, and Nutcase helmet! It's so pretentious we couldn't be anywhere else."

She just looked at me, the finer subtleties of cycling culture whooshing over her head.

It was, however, funny. Really.

There are heaps of cyclists all around the convention centre, and there were times I thought I was going to be done in by a collision with a cyclist as they went riding past at speed. There's a reasonable cycleway happening all along the river and around the whole area, and so: while on foot, you need to keep an eye out for all moving objects. We did manage to reach the place safely in the end.

( At the con! Panels: as panellist, other people's panels. )

( Tomorrow, When the War Began )

There were four North Americans sitting in the same First Class train carriage from Sydney to Melbourne, and no sooner than we had sat down that we heard--

"We just came down from Ayers Rock," he said, and we missed the next bit, for we stared at each other, aghast.

Ayers Rock? Surely he would know better from all the signage up there, the cultural information for why the name has been changed to Uluru, and why it's just rude. We put it down to typical loud American tourist, for we didn't know--I didn't know until I started looking at "also attending" authors on the A4 website, and saw photos--that it was, well. A particular well-known writer.

It wasn't like we were eavesdropping inasmuch as inadvertently overhearing, as did everyone else in the carriage whether they wanted to or not--his voice is just that loud.

What tipped us off that this was a pro attending the convention was this thrilling phrase:

"We're staying at the Hyatt. Did you know they're letting fans stay there too?"

( WTF, Americans. )

"We have fifteen minutes!" she called through the door, and I quickly dumped everything on the bed and hunted around. I was still missing my multitool, which I was going to need to dismantle the bike.

"Come on, we have to go," she said fifteen minutes later, when I opened the door, multitool still not found. I grabbed my bags and headed for the door.

I still had to remove the pedals off the bike, because I wouldn't be able to do that at the train station, and Postie, our third housemate, had the tools to do it with in the garage. I was also planning on pinching a couple of his allen keys, seeing as my multitool was not to be found.

I set the spanner to the pedals, but they wouldn't budge.

"Go wake Postie," I said after they wouldn't move with some tries, and danamaree dithered for a moment, then headed back into the house. I pushed down with my whole body as leverage, and it moved!

"Don't worry!" I called out, and she came back. I got one off, and then sweated through the next ... and time ticked by, time we didn't have.

"We need at least fifteen minutes to get to the train," said danamaree, and upon checking the time, we found it was up. Right--a cab.

While waiting for one to turn up--and he did, very fast--I dashed back in to find my multitool. Just as well that I did, for I'd forgotten my ticket, armwarmers, and a couple of other doodads. The multitool was cunningly hidden: under a dress on the floor. I mean, really, what reasonable person would leave a multitool there? Oh, right! Me!

I dashed around as the cab arrived, and pulled things on down the driveway. I had just about gotten ready to climb in when I remembered that I'd left the front rack for the bike lying on the back deck. I ran back and grabbed it, and was about to dash out to the cab again when I realised some pieces were missing, and quickly hunted them down, nabbing a spare tube while I was at it.

"Right, ready to go!" I said, jumping into the cab. The cabbie started reversing. "Wait!"

( Start off a journey with a bit of excitement, yes? )

I've been listening to the sound of a woman's husky, warm voice for hours over the past few weeks, inviting me to share into her world. Her voice is melodious and captivating. I've been listening to Clarkesworld Magazine's podcasts (clarkesworld), and the owner of the voice is Kate Baker. (At first I thought she was saying Kage Baker, and went--wait, isn't she dead? And she sounds awfully young...)

For those who haven't come across Clarkesworld before, they're a Hugo- and World Fantasy Award-nominated ezine who're getting good short works from reasonably well known short fiction writers, publishing sf fiction and articles and--best of all--freely available. The site first came to my attention a couple of years back, when I bought one of Gardner Dozois' mammoth-sized Years' Best; his annual review is invaluable.

The first podcast I listened to was "A Sweet Calling", written by Tony Pi, with the patter the podcast audiobooks picked up at the beginning of the year. The story is a slice-of-life scene from a marketplace, where a sugar-spinning candy seller who can secretly do magic steps in to save a city from a spurned man's moment of revenge. She made the world so dreamlike and otherworldly I couldn't help but go download all the other audiobooks Clarkesworld has so far done, and boy are there a few.

( Clarkesworld Magazine's short fiction in audio. )

Kate Baker also reads for other magazines. One is StarShipSofa ("the audio science fiction magazine")--while you're there, check out their free ebook anthology of shorts, unfortunately only in PDF. Another is Escape Pod ("the science fiction podcast magazine"). Both of these have hundreds of hours of science fictional audio for one's delight, and although I have not sampled much as yet, it's on the cards.

[ Clarkesworld Magazine on: iTunes | Podcast Alley | rss feed ]

"Hey, baby," I called out as I walked into the back dock at work, only to draw up short. "Er. Sorry, I thought you were--where is he, anyway?"

Akai pointed behind a high pallet.

"Hi, baby," said Pip, appearing with some boxes, and thrust them at me.

Pip is gay, or bisexual (although he seems really, really gay), and highly dodgy. Anything around him becomes fair game for innuendo, and I soon proved to be his match--he stared at me when I came up with a quick remark, and everyone else gave me fish-eyes at discovering they had not one, but two people willing to twist their words.

And so Pip and I get on like a house on fire.

Somewhere along the line I outed myself to him--and only him--and Pip took it upon himself to educate me in the Ways Of Teh Gay In Brisbane, amid my protests that I had lived here before, if I were inclined to make new friends. One attempt involved a free magazine which, he assured me,

"will have a list of gay bars and hangouts and stuff about lesbian nights!"

"Uh, sure?"

The night he brought it in he looked around furtively and called me over. "Quick."

I stood beside him as he paged through it, and when other employees appeared for their break he quickly folded it in half to obscure the oiled, inviting man on the front.

"What the hell is that?" one of the guys asked, pointing at the magazine.

"What's what?" We presented him with a unified front of innocence.

"That!"

( A magazine has two covers. )

I may have just purchased a ticket to go see Adam Lambert perform at the Tivoli. In October. moorspede's post made me aware that he was performing in Australia--I was even thinking about going interstate!--and then I saw that he's doing so in Brisbane! Yay!

And then giddygeek posted about how awesome he is to see live, and so of course I am now poorer. In pocket. Richer in glee!

OMG I AM GOING TO SEE ADAM LAMBERT IN CONCERT.

SO FULL OF GLEE.

I never got to see *NSYNC when I was all squeeing about them, or Christina Aguilera when I was squeeing about her--I was sad I couldn't afford to see Stripped World Tour, or Timberlake's Justified & Loving It. So very sad, most especially seeing as just before he was touring I was in Melbourne for a convention and there were posters everywhere taunting me.

Must look at Christina Aguilera pictures to make myself feel better and then watch some Adam Lambert videos to cap it all off.

OCTOBER!

It will be the most splendid way to finish off my holiday. Tonight will be my last day of work for weeks.

... is not happening in time to be posted to Merlin Big Bang, hosted over at paperlegends. Damn it. Stuff Has Been Happening; most of which I have not written about here, but will probably post slowly over the next week, the major of which was selling of Gecko, my yacht.

I'm sad that I won't be able to participate in the Big Bang, but I guess this way I can iron out flaws a little better than if I'd done the rest in a mad rush, pushed poor moorspede for a fast beta, and then put out something I wasn't entirely happy with. On the bright side, it's a 40,000+ word story already, and probably will grow when I go over it again! I can never resist with the tinkering, with the hey, this other phrasing conveys it better.

My second Worldcon arrives over the corner--my second AussieCon--and this time I'm on some panels! It occurred to me today that I've been on panels the last two cons I've attended, too, whereas prior to that I never participated as panellist at any. Or: I got hauled up to one of the panels at Worldcon last time, when someone didn't show up, but it was over ten years ago and my memory doesn't quite make the grade, although I believe it had something to do with small press publishing.

When danamaree and I finished watching The Age of Stupid, we had an animated discussion about how flying is evil for the environment and how even short haul flying is as bad as a year of daily living emissions.

"We should go down by train!" she said, and I shrugged: okay.

I'd done it before, after all, and I'd always met interesting people on the train, buses, and in the train stations, before it became cheaper to fly places than take the rail or bus. Once upon a time all my con-going within Australia was done the long way. Airports are so much more boring in comparison. I love meeting new people. [From 2003, on the way to Melbourne, and then more new people on the way back.]

Plus she's afraid of flying.

27 hours by train it is, with an overnight stop in Sydney; possibly having to shift to a bus in Albury and making the trip the rest of the way by road to Melbourne.

( Panels I'm on. )

Our accommodation will be a hostel nearby; we've booked a four-bed dorm with ensuite, and will be sharing with calla_s and a local Brisbane neofan whom I will be delighted in dragging around for at least the first day.

The way back won't be by bus or train. When we agreed to take the slow way there I went another step further: I could go even slower! How about I ask for some time off work and ride the rest of the way home, ambling away on my bicycle?

I put this down onto the table at work months ago and they stared at me as I were nutty, which was completely bizarre on their behalf, as it is an entirely sensible and awesome thing to do. Totally normal.

"Okay," said the store manager. "I'll give you five weeks off work. You'll have to write it up and say it's a charity ride or something. Not just that ... you're mad."

I beamed at him. All the others took their turns staring at me in befuddlement upon finding out my plans, which run thus:

As soon as AussieCon is over, I'll jump on my bike and take around three weeks to get back to Brisbane, although the route I have plotted for myself is sufficiently squiggly that I might have to jump on the train at Grafton and thus return the rest that way. I've already done the North Coast from around there--no need to revisit it so soon.

Five weeks holiday! With Worldcon first, on four panels which promise to be really interesting, and then bicycle touring! I have been awaiting this most eagerly.

Before my sister-in-law and nephew went over to Brazil, she made me promise to stop my brother from renovating the house any further, as in jackhammering up all the terracotta tiles.

"He'll do that and then he'll spend the next month getting the rest done. He never finishes anything! Look at this bathroom!" she said, dragging me to their third bathroom, which--yes, not finished. Small touches here and there which need doing for it to be done completely, but the major stuff's been done.

(Three bathrooms!)

She showed me the plan she drew up for how the house will look eventually, when they get moving.

Damien, my brother, rang me to ask if I was going to be visiting the first weekend she was gone, and in the background I could hear noises. Suspicious noises. As if he was in the process of tiling, or renovating the house in some way.

"Sure, okay," I said, and made the hour-long trip to the Gold Coast on the train half asleep, for there are few hours to sleep on the weekend if I want to be at all social. I dazedly stumbled over to his car, and dozed the rest of the way to the house.

I only woke up a bit better when I saw the carnage outside of the house: a mound of broken terracotta tiles piled up high, with the fence dividing from the property opposite nowhere to be seen.

( My bro and his home improvements. )

The large heaps outside the house were long gone, replaced with neat heaps of small shards from where he'd jackhammered up the exterior terracotta tiles. I couldn't resist climbing to the top of one and standing on it, stomping.

"I stand upon the ruins of civilisation!" I cried, and stomped to the satisfying sound of cracking terracotta.

My brother and his friend just looked at me.

"Righto then," I said, and climbed back down, dusting myself off. "Never mind that."

I've been foaming at the mouth about "lifestyle minimalism" all over Facebook of late, much to the bemoaning of people over there, I'm sure. (That's where I post all the awesome links I find throughout the day, and I find some interesting stuff.)

Bike Snob's one of the blogs I follow regularly--his sarcasm kills me--and of course, Boing Boing. As everyone else in the world very possibly does. (Boing Boing when I can't be bothered with metafilter, for that's where most of their links come from anyway.)

A couple of years ago I was somewhat nerdily reading lots of stuff about self-sufficient living and doing things like making my own burgers and pastry and all that homemaker stuff; I have given up on this time-consuming cooking business and now write fanfiction instead. Whlie I was encased--ha, a pun!--in the barefoot kitchen I came across the cousin to self-sufficient lifestyle, simple living, where people are all about making your own stuff--there are recipes for hand-shaving soap and then making your own laundry powder out of it. It's all about using everything to the very utmost of needed and reusing everything and keeping things simple so your life isn't overrun by inessentials. This, in turn, was eyed by the less stay-at-home mother types (one presumes, for most of these blogs were entitled "green mom") and more by technologically inclined types.

I guess the Getting Things Done trend had a hand in there somewhere, because GTD is all about streamlining one's life, although it looks mindbogglingly complex at times, with their 43 folders (twelve months+31 days) for keeping track of all the stuff in your life, and while you're at it, trim off redundancies.

Out of all this was thus born the Minimalist Lifestyle.

Or: people making self-important lists of what they "own" and then putting it up on their blogs, saying things like "I only own 300 things!"--which was the original bit, and now we have people claiming to own only 57 things or 10 things or something like that.

Really?

( GAH! Le ranting. Minimalism for the NO. )