I’ve decided I need to perform some sort of end of winter exorcism, to shake myself out of the fugue I’ve been wallowing in since uni finished. People often tell me that I can’t complain about the cold in Melbourne since I grew up in Tas Vegas, but believe me I bitched about it then too. I do not function in the cold. Give me stupidly hot days and nights any time, but not like the week that led up to Black Saturday, because that was obscenely hot, and also ended in Black Saturday.
So, I play this song to banish the winter ghosts.
Winter doesn’t end for a few days, but it’s been such a lovely weekend in Old Melbourne Town and it has made me appreciate where I live even more. It’s also Melbourne Writers Festival time, aka Christmas in Brionyland, so I’ve spent all weekend reading down by the Yarra and hanging out at Federation Square and delighting in the assortment of people who love the festival as much as I do.
This has been the first MWF I’ve been to as a patron and not a volunteer, and I kind of miss it. It’s been good to go and see the festival from a different angle though, (highlight so far has been Jonathan Franzen living up to my imagination) but the fact remains that I’m halfway through the festival and I HAVEN’T BOUGHT A SINGLE SOLITARY BOOK AND WHAT IS THIS ARRRRRGGGGHHHH. Every time I go into the pop-up Dymocks store I get an itchy wallet finger.
Speaking of books, the September 1 is the starting date for my involvement in A Novel Challenge, also known as the grown-ups version of the MS Readathon where Australians read to raise money for research into a cure for Multiple Sclerosis. I used to do the readathon a a kid, I was awesome at the reading part but useless at getting sponsors. I’m hoping this time, with the useful nagging capacity of the Internet, I will do better. Plus, every person who sponsors me gets a cookie, and by cookie I mean hug. (If you’d like to sponsor me, I’d really appreciate it!)
YES!!! hot is a million times better than cold, objectively speaking.
also, i have decided not to read A SINGLE BOOK during the month of September, which is the OPPOSITE of you. i am through with reading, forever. blarg. i will be taking up some other hobby instead. i’m considering the following: curling; quidditch; papier-mache; sanskrit; probably not cooking.
more truthfully, i have a list of things to read between now and december taped to the kitchen wall by my microwave. it is three pages long (two columns per page). i feel stimulated.
YOU SHOULD TOTALLY TAKE UP CURLING. I said I was going to in Year 10, after I watched the Winter Olympics in Nagano and decreed curling THE GREATEST SPORT EVER. I’m still convinced that curling was invented by some pissed Australians at Whistler in the 70s.
I’m with you on the Quidditch though. And I’m such a nerd that I’m scheduling books MONTHS IN ADVANCE. I’ve decided December is ‘Read Something Russian’ month, if you’re interested =D