It sounds strange, but I totally forgot about spring.
You see, I’ve never really had spring before.

Growing up in the Seattle area, spring is the slightly warmer version of the wet and chilly normal but with added drowned earthworms on the sidewalk. It’s not uncommon to find northwestern children on summer vacation yet still fretting about of the possibility of the Independence day fireworks being rained out and wondering if the time will ever come where they can light their roman candles, spinning pagodas and sparklers. Obviously, since we were still stressing about rain in July, it’s a solid given that March/April/May were total soakers as usual.

Now New York is a different story. New York actually has spring and it’s GLORIOUS but notably fleeting. The issue you face there is that the island area of NY State faces a significant climatic variance from neighbouring communities across the Hudson river and above the southern tip of the Bronx. Just like how neighboring Oakland and SF have radically different weather, NYC and the adjacent area face a similar albeit slightly less drastic incongruence. The primary result of this meteorological discordancy in regards to spring is that it ends up being blink-and-you’ll-miss-it quick before BAM! Summer! Sweaty eyelids!
The ridiculously brief spring season was clearly illustrated to me during my first year living in Brooklyn. I moved to the city mid-winter and was anxiously awaiting the first non rain-out spring of my life. I was surprised to find that I had to wait quite a while, and on the last Sunday of April it snowed one final time. Less than three weeks later however, it was 90º and stayed that way. Did you see it? Spring? Yeah, it went that way.

So anyway, the result of my geographical locations through life means that even in my thirties, I’ve still never really experienced an undeniable springtime. You know, the cliché kind with rain, sun, cheeping birds, buds of flowers poking up through fresh earth and months of getting used to it by frolicing, picnicking and kite-flying or whatever it is people do in places with spring. I’m not complaining, I don’t feel like I’ve been given the short shrift on weather experiences that people should have – no, that goes to the millions of adult Australians who still have never seen snow. That said, I certainly wouldn’t spit on living through an awesome cartoon spring.

So Brisbane. I never for a moment expected Brisbane to have spring. One, obviously because I don’t really acknowledge spring’s existence in general; two, it’s August and even though I now live in the southern hemisphere my internal calendar is all screwed up and I still have ingrained expectations; lastly three, this is the sub-tropics! We’re less than a day’s drive to the equatorial zone! What do we need Spring for? BRING ON THE SUMMER!
This morning I spent a not-insignificant amount of time grumping around about the “manic” weather. One day it’s gorgeous and sunny, the next raining as if it wasn’t aware that excuse me, don’t you know we’re in a drought? AND I’m trying to job hunt here? Sheesh!
I looked up the weather forecast and came upon a video of a local newstation’s weather broadcast. While I was happy to hear the weatherman proclaim a bright sunny weekend ahead, I’m sure you can understand the jolt of surprise I felt when I heard his statement of this being a typical spring in here in Queensland and that it’s sticking around for a couple more months before the long subtropical summer kicks back in.

So it seems it’s finally springtime in my life, let the picnicking begin!

What’s your favorite season?

On Thursday, the Mister and I jumped on an airplane for a whirlwind weekend trip to Melbourne.

I’ve been to Melbourne once before and had a great time then as now. That said, my first visit was a relaxation vacation that mostly entailed leisurely wandering and pretending that we lived there yet somehow could afford books and coffee without the obligations of employment.

This trip was significantly different in that we did and saw SO MUCH. It was incredible and I had a great time but more than anything, I feel that this time, I came away with a much greater understanding of what the city really is, and would feel like to live in.
The first time I visited, I came away saying that Melbourne reminded me a lot of Seattle if it had better weather. While I still see some similarities in terms of the vibrancy of music and design culture as well as a striking concordance regarding the quality of the light, I see now that Melbourne is very much it’s own town, and to equate it as “just like X, but with better/worse X” doesn’t do it justice.

Here are some photos.

I wish I could take a photo that would capture how incredibly uncomfortable it has been.

I was warned about the brutality of Australian summer, not that I paid any attention.
When it became clear we were moving to Brisbane, every Australian I know seemed to take relish in the opportunity to regale me with tales of the heat! The humidity! Melting and woe!

I shrugged it off. I figured I’ve felt heat, I’ve felt humidity. All with the added bonuses of a million a/c units pumping more heat onto the sidewalk, endless streams of traffic belching grit and exhaust into the already impossibly heavy atmosphere, and the special misery that is standing around with the stench of piss (not urine, PISS) in the soupy-thick air while waiting on a subway platform mid-summer.

While it’s true that I have experienced the range of misery provided by a New York summer, I see now that I knew nothing, NOTHING about summer in the tropics.

Internet, I beg you, tell me it ends soon.

I got a job today.
It’s nothing too thrilling, just a short-term position at a local university bookstore, but it’s something and I’m relieved. Perhaps I can exhale now. Perhaps I can let myself just be here, for however long that is.

The Mister and I have been tossing around some loose plans for what we hope to happen over the next two years. Nothing is etched in stone, but there will likely be a reunion with our tiny fifth floor apartment in Brooklyn as well as time spent on the west coast of the US. Topping this mental timeline off is the clearing of our dotted-around-the-world storage units and setting up a home in a city new to both of us.

Nothing is confirmed, but I find security in some sort of plan, however loose it may be.

It’s so strange to think of having a real home that isn’t Seattle, the city of my youth, or New York, the city of my adulthood. Brisbane is where we live, but it’s not our home.
Just after we arrived in Brisbane, we moved into our little apartment and the Mister caught me daydreaming. “Live in Brisbane for a year and see then what you really think about staying”.
Two months later, I see his point.
Despite the mangoes and the frangipani, the evenings sitting in the backyard grass, despite the beautiful outdoor pool where I float on my back and the sky is blue forever, despite all these things that I love, this isn’t our city. This isn’t our home.

I’ve been going though a bit of a rough spot lately. Homesick for New York and heartsick for the friends and family left behind. I have no regrets about coming here. It’s a given that I will wholeheartedly do whatever is necessary to support my husband in the persual of his career but there is no comparison to friends that have known and loved you for years or the city that has literally everything.

I don’t want to go back in time, I’m simply trying to find my way forward on a very new road. Step one: get a job.

Step two: I have no idea.

Perhaps it’s cheating to use a photo for project 365 that I didn’t actually take, but dammit, I wanted to be in this one.
What with the uproar in my recent life over our mango-stealing landlord, I made it my business to get some of those mangoes for the consumption of our little household.
Well actually, it was the husband who duct-taped the broom to a strip of timber we had leftover from a recent project, but it was a collaborative effort to get the mangoes from the top of the tree, mostly involving me running around like a maniac under the tree trying to catch falling fruit and failing miserably.

Today was a very frustrating day in the administrative sense, so in reward to myself for dealing with a bunch of tiresome international banking beeswax, I declare a photo OF me can replace a photo taken BY me.

In other news: LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THOSE PUPPIES!

While the world around me celebrated the New Year! New Decade! I seem to have stood by with a blank look.
This was the first New Years Eve in a very long time that I did not spend working.
Bartenders refer to it as amateur night, and if like me, you work in an establishment where your bread and butter is regulars, it could also be an enormous amount of work for a relatively meager financial reward.
I’m no longer a member of the service industry though and as such I was able to spend my New Years at home with my husband doing pretty much nothing.

As I read the blog entries, text messages and emails of friends and family, I’ve realized that other people actually feel something on New Years. And wow. I don’t. How embarrassing.
My feelings for the holiday aren’t grinchy. I don’t dislike it on any level. It’s just kinda, oh, there.
It inspires me with excitement equal to what I feel on flag day.
Do other people feel magic and hope?
Really?

The only thing we celebrated that night was our long-awaited reconnection to the internet. THAT was exciting.

I love holidays. Thanksgiving and Birthdays are HUGE to me. Halloween is a giant fun party, and Valentine’s may be over-marketed, but the heart is still in the right place.
I think that my problem with New Years is that I simply don’t acknowledge it as the beginning of my year.
When I reflect on my personal history, I never say I finished college in 2001 or met my husband in 2007. I finished college when I was 22 and I was 27 when I met the man I refer to as Mister.

My birthday is in January, so my personal point of year change is admittedly pretty close to the Roman calendar version but regardless those two weeks between the 1st of January and the 17th still remain a bit of a no-zone for me.

As I mentioned a couple days ago, I don’t make resolutions. Birthday goal/plan lists yes, but resolutions no.
I’ve been working on my goal list for the upcoming year and high on it is exploring Australia.
We have no clue how long/if we’ll be living here beyond the next 12 months so just in case this is it, I want to see some things.

Specifically, these things:

photo via mrdehoot’s flickr

The Glasshouse Mountains.

A flat plain punctuated by the cores of volcanos extinct 27 million years. “Discovered” by Captian Cook in 1770, Aboriginal people considered them a family (with the tallest peak as the mother) that’s suffered from some serious discord.
Mt. Beerwa, the previously mentioned mother mountain is 556 meters/1,824 feet tall and takes approximately 4 hours to climb up and back down.
I’ve done a fair bit of hiking in my life, but no actual climbing. According to the internet, it’s mostly a hike with a short, easy climb section that requires no special gear.
The mountains are located about an hour’s drive north of where we currently live, and I’m excited to give them a go.

photo via msdstefan’s flickr

Sydney Opera House.

I know. I KNOW.
Maybe it’s cheesy, but it’s also a beautiful and iconic.
The mister tells me that when it was built people loathed it. Now? well, now to say there is some pride in the most famous architecturally edgy building in the world is putting it a BIT lightly.
I hear that the opera house is actually functionally pretty crappy. You know, for Opera purposes. I don’t care and want to see it anyway.

photo via shastadaisy’s flickr

Opium poppy fields in Tasmania.

Don’t worry, this opium is farmed for pharmaceutical purposes so is not likely to be patrolled with automatic weapons like I presume most poppy fields are in the world.
I actually had no idea that this was something I wanted to see until I started searching for photos of Tasmania. Even though I’ve never taken an opiate in my life and have really no interest in doing so, I think a poppy field is definitely worth seeing. Really though, I just want to see the rumored wonderfulness that is regular non-drug-related Tasmania.
Such as this:

photo via shastadaisy’s flickr
Seriously dudes, that is some beautiful right there.

photo via jasoncward’s flickr

A kangaroo in the wild.

Some friends of mine traveled to Australia a couple years back for a bike messenger event and saw loads of kangaroos from the car. I’ve lived here for months and I’ve only seen the roadkill versions.
I’ve never seen anything more impressive than a moose in real life (and even that was in yellowstone where you have to be blind to NOT see a moose) so it’s time I saw something good. I’m way behind on seeing my fair share of animals.

What do you think of this new year beeswax?

Do you measure your years by the calendar? By your age? Pivotal events? lunar cycles?
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