So I’m back in Adelaide.
I’m back in the office. The office that I was more than happy to completely forget about for 6 weeks. The office that wants to eat my soul.
I feel like time travel *is* possible because here I am again, sitting in front of my computer, as if nothing has changed. And nothing has changed, except my brain. It has changed a lot. Still, Clarion seems like a mass hallucination that was shared by people who aren’t here with me. So I’m beginning to suspect that the whole time it was just me, sitting here, hallucinating. For 6 weeks, changing nothing. Or that I went, and now have stepped 6 weeks back in time, and here I am again.
Except that I have 7 new stories (yep, over-achiever Lisa went for 7 instead of 6) and a group of excellent new friends.
The other half of my brain, my dark twin, the lovely Angela, is still in Brisbane (obviously) and I am sad. The separation surgery (which took place at Brisbane airport on Saturday at 2 pm, and was supervised by the devilish petermball) was painful, and if it wasn’t for an allen key mysteriously appearing in my carry-on bag at the airport then I think we would have sobbed and sobbed until I could float on a river of tears back to Adelaide. Melodramatic? Perhaps. But it’s Monday morning, I’m back at work, I haven’t had a coffee yet, and I am tired. So there.
In other news, Chad has nothing to do with me being sad to be back in Adelaide. Chad is wonderful and greeted me with presents, and delicious things to eat, and roses. We watched back-to-back-to-back-to-back episodes of Cowboy Bebop on Saturday night and ate smoked salmon (my favourite!) and brie (another favourite) and drank fizzy red. Glorious. I’m completely spoiled 🙂
Yesterday we went out to breakfast, then perused the Rundle St markets, then went to see Ip Man:
This was a brilliant film, all about the Wing Chun expert Ip Man (Bruce Lee was Ip Man’s disciple) — an excellent film for the action scenes, but also an engaging story about the conflict between China and Japan in 1937-1945. Donnie Yen is fucking brilliant.
Last night saw me further avoiding reality by watching more Cowboy Bebop and a bit of Buffy. Oh, and an episode of Angel.
This week will see me:
- Working on the 4 reviews I put off while I was at Clarion
- Attending 2 meetings, and sending out the agenda for a third
- Dealing with the T-shirt people, who have failed to fill our Clarion T-shirt orders (grrrrrrrrrrrr!)
- Doing the final touch-ups on my Clarion Week 1 story, then sending it out
- Sending out the flash piece I wrote in Week 4
- Expanding the ideas I had on the plane home into a new story
- Re-acquainting myself with the albatross that is my thesis
- Slowly reintegrating myself into non-Clarion society.
- Work my way out of the post-Clarion funk. Any suggestions?
Lisa L. Hannett 
RE: Point 9 – Write something. Get it critted. Revise it and send it out. The easiest way to see your clarion peeps again is if you all become wildly rich and famous because of your writing, so get to it already. Besides, think of how many of those people you’ll now be dissapointing if you don’t write 🙂
Semi-regular chats with folks via IM seemed to get me through okay as well.
You are a fountain of good advice, Mr Devil. And I suppose I should be grateful that you didn’t phone me at 9 am on Sunday to tell me to start writing… 😉
I’d never goad people via phone call – it’s too easy to ignore. E-mail, LJ comments and Text Messages have a greater capacity to linger about un-deleted due to inherent human laziness, and thus does a better job of causing guilt about not writing over an extended period…
Waaaahhhhhhh! Half of my brain is gone. How can I be expected to function???
There is no functioning required today. All functions are on holiday until further notice.
WAAAAAAAAHHHH!
Sorry to hear about your horrific de-twinning 😦 the angst will fade with time, and if you keep working with your peeps over the intarwebz this can help stave off funkiness.
Plus there is the alleged Natcon so hopefully some of these people will come to your home-town!
Good to hear that you’re hitting the ground running, but don’t expect too much of yourself for at least a week or two 🙂
Well, if the alleged Natcon is a Not-con, we’ll still party like it’s 2009 here in Adelaide. Many people (including the lovely Ms Slatter and the Devil that is my friend and yours, P.M. Ball) will be lured down here one way or the other.
And while I have managed to hit the ground running, I am apparently running on the spot… so I think your ‘don’t expect much for a week or two’ prediction is going to be too too true…
Good luck with the rewrites. 🙂
Thanks, Aidan. And that post you just put up on the Clarion group was hilarious! Made me smile (which is quite a feat to have achieved today, so thanks!) 🙂