Joel...

The world stopped today, or it should have, because Joel isn't in it anymore. The guy with the filthiest sense of humour, the biggest heart, the loudest quickest laugh, the cheekiest smile, the most alive person I know, is no longer, and it kills me to write that, because it still doesn't seem real. No car crash could wipe out that life, surely? And now the wine bottle isn't deep enough because I'm here, and he's not.

He's not in America, which he has been for the past year or so; he's not back in Melbourne, watching the football, or flying a plane; he's nowhere. It's too soon for me to know details - apparently even his family don't know for sure what happened yet - but I know enough. Joel has died and an enormous gaping hole has opened in the world where he used to be. There will be no more emails filled with innuendo and jokes. He will never make the flight he had booked to go home in a couple of weeks. I will never get to be hown the sights in America by him - no more night of debauchery like we had planned for a weekend in New York come February. There is, in short, no more Joel, and I am desolate, and alone with nobody here who knows him who can tell me about the way his mouth would quiver and twitch when he was telling some story that he knew would make us giggle like school girls. There will be no more great parties thrown by Joel, no more hilarious speeches that have been havily edited by various friends wot make sure that he doesn't embarass anyone - most of all himself - too much. The world must surely stop now that Joel has gone from it.

I've only just heard, it's true. Most of this is an effort to convince myself that it's true, that he won't be popping over the Atlantic and lobbing on my doorstep like he was threatening to do in his last email. His mother, who had planned a party for his trip home in a couple of weeks, is left to contact the friends on the guest list and tell them what has happened while we, his firends, the people who grew up - at least in height - with him, the biggest kid of them all, try to come to grips with the idea that what she tells us is most certainly true. And somewhere out there, his American wife, married in a whirlwind romance so typical of Joel who always fell hard and fast for any girl, has to fill in the details for his far too distant famly and friends while dealing with her own grief. My heart goes out to anyone who knew him, whose life will always be that little sadder now he's gone, but that lot brighter for having knon him in the first place.

I've run out of my own words. I'm sure Joel, the king of the paraphrasers, won't mind if I resort to a quote to fill the emotions that threaten once more to swamp me with tears. Because whilst he wasn't my north my south, my east or my west, he was a whole chunk of my life that is now gone. And given that he was a pilot, it's only right that the planes should circle in the sky and proclaim the news, he is dead, however long he will live in memory. In the mean time I'll just keep hoping that, somewhere, someone has made a terrible mistake and I'll be getting a phonecall any minute from him, laughing at the commotion he's caused, for all that he would never play such a cruel joke on any of us.

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

. . . . . . . . .

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

-W. H. Auden

RIP Joel Parkinson, 1980-2006

London calling

Yes, that's right. I, Killi, am now a fully fledged Londoner, complete with employment and umbrella. I have the regulation postage stamp flat that costs the entire gross domestic product of my country to rent for a month and needs copious references to get the priveledge of handing over your first born to live there. I now have a job that, miraculously, takes just under an hour tog et to - I'm considered lucky for my 45 minute journey; envious others I know travel upwards of an hour on an average day with good connections. I walk around with a suitcase on my shoulder in place of a handbag because of the combination of diary (like I can remember where or when anything is, given the whole week of gruelling interviews I've just subjected myself to) A-Z map of the city (because nobody, but nobody, not even the famous cabbies with "the knowledge" can get around without one of these little babies to tell them where they live and where they're going and everywhere in between), umbrella (an English essential which is also carried in a bizarre number of shops; my guess is that it's more in case your current brolly breaks from overuse, rather than catering to those who don't have one. Even tourists bring them along in the middle of summer), and an assortment of other bits of paper that seem to breed and multiply during the course of the day. I glare at anyone who has the nerve to walk at a leisurely pace up the middle of the footpath when I'm trying to hurry around them in heavy traffic - because there is ALWAYS heavy traffic. I sweat it out with my jacket on in the sweltering temperatures on the tube trains. I talk on my phone as I walk along the street, ignoring the looks I get from others with my obvious strine accent.

So, at the end of my first "business week" (notice, not work week. For all the exhaustion associated with it, three job interviews a day isn't classed as work; you don't get paid for interviews. But that's an argument for a whole other post), what are my thoughts about being in London? How am I filling my time? Am I over the horrendous jetlag associated with the 25 hours it took me to get here in the flight from hell? Well you might ask.

I spent today in and around Oxford St, the shopping hub of London and tourist mecca. It was crowded, it was noisy, it was a battle just to stop from being swept in the opposite direction to the one I wanted to go. Which would be the main reason why, in spite of the fantastic shops available there, I didn't accept the job offer from the company who seemed to be gobsmacked that I aced the phenomenally easy CAD test they set me (I know people who could have aced it in 2nd year uni...really, people, what are they like here that being able to do fairly mundane things blows their mind??? Maybe I should have taken that one afterall...). Flattering as it is to hear how brilliantly you've done in something you've done everyday for ages, I couldn't handle the thought of fighting my way in and out of the office everyday, only to sit and stare at a computer screen for hours with what seemed to me to be minimal social interaction. So what did I do? I took the one at the Oval, pefect for summer lunches at the cricket!

So, am i glad I've come halfway around the world leaving all my family and all but one of my friends behind, as scary and lonely as that promises to be? You bet your life I am!

Of Brides and Suitcases

My friend got married yesterday. The flow of emotion through the day was something I'd kind of expected, but not the to the degree that it ended up happening - and it wasn't just me. There were tears and laughter through the whole day. And then it was all over, and I was left to deal with assignments (yes, I'm procrastinating again) and packing my suitcase, something the blushing bride accomplished for her honeymoon the night before the wedding. She's already gone on a plane, on her way to Tahiti and a cruise ship at 5 this morning. I have planned to go to the airport and visit her, but realistically I was never going to make it.

It's strange to think that the wedding, which has dominated so much conversation between a little group of people, is over. What the hell are we going to talk about now? A whirl of a day that didn't seem real in it's fluff and fantasy of sunshine, satin and flowers - and by her own account didn't seem to have happened to the brie eithe, as she sat beside me at the bridal table last night. Perhaps that is why, for the most part, it was more a night of laughter than the obligatory tears of parting. In fact, the laughter was a constant, even through the tears. But at the end of it, in a whirl of satin and lace and tulle, she went out the door of the reception place and into another part of life - the life of a married woman who lives half an hour from my own childhood home, instead of the 10 minutes it has always been before.

I know I'm going to be going off on my own adventure next weekend - and the thought is starting to scare the crap out of me, to be honest - but this is really the first hint of just how much things are going to change with that step. I won't see the bride again before I go. Unless she comes to visit me, that's it for the next 2 years, all going well. It hit me some time during the reception, and I had to dash out into the bridal changeroom to indulge in some tears with another bridesmaid trying to help me pull myself together. It was further helped by the arrival of the best man and one of the groomsmen wanting a photo taken, then commenting that during the whole process one of them had been staring at my chest (not the first time he's passed comments like that and, if he runs true to form and staysa close friend of the groom, probably not the last) - I've discovered that fighting the urge to slap someone is quite the remedy for high strung emotions!

I think the hardest part right now is knowing that we didn't really get a proper goodbye. Much and all as there were hugs on the day, and two big teary hugs before she disappeared out the door and into her new life (or rather Mum and Dad's car, waiting to take them to their hotel for the night), it wasn't a proper farewell. There was too much else going through our minds, too many others to hug, and a bunch of the groom's mates trying to convince him to throw her into the fountain as they nearly knocked him out by attempting to carry him through the doors on their shoulders, disgruntled bride in tow). So now i'm stranded with only phone calls and the very occasional email to keep me in touch with her - and none of that for the next two weeks either. Oh, and a very large suitcase that is in need of filling. Well, at least there's something to distract me...

The times they are a-changin

Somehow I've managed to go ages without writing anything here - or anything full stop, to be honest, apart from a couple of abortive attempts to get a couple of assignments rolling before I've finished my research, never a smart move in all honesty. So what the hell have I been doing instead? Interesting question...

Well, there was my venture (thankfully over now) into the wierd and wonderful world of office temping; a land where nobody knows your name, or bothers tof ind out because you're just the temp and therefore not worth the effort; a place where it is quite acceptable to pay someone the rates of a skilled draftsperson (ie more than I was getting in my last job) to print out a website all day, or do filing, or collate pamphlets into folders, jobs that would be done by anyone with about a quarter of a brain. But my working life in Melbourne finished up last week, even if my desperate struggle to get that cash into my bank account didn't, thanks to one of my employers not yet verifying my hours - thanks heaps boys, it's not like I'm leaving the country or anything, and need to change my cash into pounds, but hey, you can enjoy using my drawings as much as you like, huh.

Since then? Well, there's been what should be lots of things, but now I come to think of it, doesn't seem like too much to have filled a week with. See, whatever there is behind me, it's what's looming up in front of me that somehow seems to keep distracting me. On Saturday my friend gets married. We went out for our last traditional shopping odyssey last week - junk food by the river and four hours wandering the shops aimlessly afterwards. Our real lives kept intruding, though, since we've both got big events on the horizon. We were later than normal because she had to stop off to pick up her honey moon travel documents and had the world's most thorough travel agent who went through every detail of her trip in annoying completeness. Then I actually had to break with tradition and buy useful things while we were shopping - a cardinal sin in our tradition where we normally go out shopping with good intentions and come home with bags of things that we don't need, but desperately want. From now on, it's going to be very different for the two of us (what with me living in London and all by the time she gets back from her honeymoon...).

In another stroke of pre-departure genius, I went out on Friday night and met a boy. A lovely, sweet, cute boy who goes to Canada a week after I go to London. We're in the process of trying to arrange another meet-up before I go away, in spite of the fact that it seems fairly aimless right now gien the situation. I literally just got a text message from him, so I'm kind of smiling right now. But it's typical of me. I go out week after week for months and only meet slime balls. Then, two weeks before I leave the country (and three before he does) I meet the best guy and, what's even more unusual, he seems interested in meeting up again. Now I've just got to think of a suitable reply, and find time to meet up with him! He wanted this weekend, but what with the wedding and all, I can't. Talk about bad timing...Maybe a trip to Canada is the only way to sort it out! Now there's a thought...

Meanwhile, I'm trying to get through my pre-departure list...Failing dismally but trying. Tonsilitis doesn't help my cause (hmm...possibly not the best idea to have gone out Saturday night as well? But surely the alcohol in the disturbingly large number of cocktails would have scarred away the germs? Maybe that's why I feel better now? Surely the anti-biotics couldn't have worked already?). So, it's backt o the books while I deliberate actually calling this guy to sort it out properly. Text messages are ggreat, but rather hard to deal with on this front! Meanwhile the clock ticks by. Can't decide if that's good or bad!