photo credit: shapeshift

My apologies for not updating on schedule for the last week or so. I’m not sure where this schedule is, but I feel guilty, so there must be a few red crosses next to my name in some higher dimension, and a blog role-call matron tut-tutting under her breath. There is no particularly big reason behind not updating, just life expressing its desire to get a workout and a backrub every now and again. With me it usually has to settle for a DVD and a promise to take it out to dinner sometime, but I am a firm believer in the notion that it’s the thought that counts. If that didn’t make sense to you, you’re not alone. I’m looking wondrously at my fingers and wondering whether they actually have any connection to my brain, or if they are just stringing me along for the ride.

Ahem. In any case, I can’t really remember much past the Thursday just gone–which was my computational chemistry group’s pizza expedition, which yielded some delicious olive-centric pizza tastiness–because this weekend has been so exciting and busy it’s displaced everything else in my brain that wasn’t of the utmost importance. It started with an invitation to see my brother Matthew’s daughter, Amber, getting christened in Esperance, the home place of his partner Melanie’s parents. The journey had been planned, and accommodation booked for quite some time, and knowledge was frely available regarding a cocktail party on the Saturday night before the big day on Sunday. The drive down was about as fun as a seven and a half hour drive can be, and we spent a pretty relaxing first evening catching up with Matthew and settling into our unit for the weekend. The bed had a television, a novelty for me, and I spent the few hours beofr ebed indulging in the rare act of being horizontal with absolutely no thought in my head bar that of which way the ball was going to bounce in between the ranks of men and poles (Aussie Rules Football, you filthy-minded children).

Saturday morning brought with it acall from Matthew announcing that he and Melanie had actually gotten engaged. Mum proudly announced that she had thought that they were going to do this–mother’s intuition, no doubt. Unfortunately, that same intuition couldn’t have guessed what would happen later that night at the immediate-family-only cocktail party, and if it had I would have kindly knocked it unconsious to prevent it letting the secret slip. When all the guests had arrived, the newly engaged couple announced that sorry, our bad, we’re actually getting married. Tonight. The celebrant is on her way and we’ll be ready to start in five minutes or so. Cue excited feelings of awesome from everybody. The ceremony was simple and genuine, and the rest of the night was filled with the kind of warm, family feeling that I pray will be the standard in their lives. Another congratulations bro, from your nerdy brother.

Sunday continued with the planned christening. It was the first time I had stepped into a church for quite some time, since at least high school. The ceremony was short and sweet, and Amber only really revved up the crying engines near the ultimate water splashing moment (she’s a really quiet baby, actually). The drive back was about the same as the drive down, with the addition of a few hundred litres of water pouring down on us from about an hour out of Perth. Fortunately I was asleep on the front seat, having turned the latter half of the journey over to Mum. Score. So, there you have it. I’m still somewhat shellschocked about the whole thing, but in a very good way, not a limbs-blasted-off-bleeding-and-screaming way. Regular posts will continue as soon as I’ve caught up on all my university work.

In other news, I’ve reworked an old story, and I still have another sitting around waiting for a particular magazine to open up their gates for submissions (actually, I believe they just did, I should download the submission sheet). I’m hoping that I’ll get at least one in, and if I don’t I guess it’s back to the drawing board. I’m also participating in NaPoWriMo this year (National Poetry Writing Month) during which I will be posting one poem per day, written on the day, to an undisclosed location. I may let you know where this is, I may even start posting the good ones here, or I may tell you all to bugger off and mind your own business. Who knows, and really, who cares.

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