Laura Seabrook's Ramblings

I've decided to give the Mardi Gras Parade a miss this year. Apart from a certain degree confusion and chaos around me as to who's going and who isn't (I won't go alone), my left heel has been playing up, and hurting when I walk too much. The idea of walking up Oxford and Flinders Streets, and maybe later to Central and even 12 km home - with a really painful foot - doesn't inspire me to go.

Next year maybe.

However, the parade is being broadcast on Arena (Foxtel). Are you watching this? Can I join you?

I've had some sleep now and I think I made some big mistakes yesterday that contributed to my panic attack. They are (in no particular order):

• I swapped groups. I think I should have stayed with Amnesty International;
• I forgot my inhaler. My asthma was playing up a lot in Sydney;
• I wore a bra. Don't laugh - I have problems with finding good fitting bras and all night it felt like a great hand was crushing my chest;
• I wore my should strap bag instead of a backpack. It had the same effect as above.

All of which contributed to the panic attack. Never mind, damage done now. If I got to a march again, it will be only if I know friends are with me. I'm OK when I'm with friends, but if I'm not and I'm surrounded by a crowd of people I don't know, it often triggers a panic attack.

That may be the last one I bother with.

I was checking out timetables to get me to Sydney on Saturday by 3pm and noticed that there's track work on the Newcastle line and I'll have to catch a rail bus.

Funny about that - it seems that 6 out of ten times I've gone down to the parade, there's track work on. I wonder if that's deliberate?

I went down to fair Day yesterday with friends. It was a good day and I enjoyed myself.

We left at a reasonable, and came back earlier than I normally would. It was wet and windy yesterday and maybe there were only 40,000 people there instead of the average 70,000. But it was enjoyable. I met a few folk I haven't seen for a while, bought a raffle ticket for a moped. It was good.

When I got home though I felt really tired. The dogs had been locked in the house for about 8 hours and I took them for a walk and had chips for dinner. And then I seemed to collapse. Just couldn't stay awake, so I went to bed about 8pm. Woke up about 6:30am this morning feeling very groggy. Still do. Guess it was a big day for me, with lots of walking.

Another day mostly at home I think.

Woke up at 6am this morning to the sound of thundering rain. Here's the weather map for right now (more or less):

Not that bad really, but it rained all day yesterday as well, and there's a minor flood warning current. I was going down to the the Mardi Gras Fair Day today with friends. Will it be on?  Here's the map for Sydney:

Doesn't look that bad. Maybe it will have cleared up by 10am. Will my friends still be going? I hope so!

Funny things happened while I was reading Snow Crash - on several occasions I had really strong cases of Synchronicity.

The first odd thing occurred when I borrowed the the book. I'd just finished a Food for Fishes mystery by David Wishart, and was looking for another book to read. I've been reading fiction again since late 2006 when I started Tales of the Galli. Most of the books read were detective stories set in ancient Rome. But on this occasion I decided I needed a break. I turn a corner in the library just after deciding this and there was SNOW CRASH just sitting there in front of me!

Later in the week, after I'd started the book, I bought a copy of the Valentine's issue of Time Magazine. I put it in the toilet as something to read and the next time I had to go picked it up and opened to a page at random. There on the page was a pull-out that said that "China had experienced a Star Crash". We don't get much snow here in Australia  (and so far as I know that's not a term we use here), so the coincidence was a surprise.

The second coincidence was last week. I turned on the TV and there was a weather report that said the Hunter should expect heavy showers. No sooner had those words been spoken when it poured down with a thunderstorm!

Now this sort of synchronicity normally tells me that I need to pay attention around me. Sure enough, something did turn up and I've chosen to pay attention. Not an entirely random incident, but none the less.

When I was on the train from Central back to Erica's after the Mardi Gras parade, I happened to sit down next to the Women's Officer at Flinder's University who is also part of the Cross campus Network, and also knows Catherine Cummings (who edits Polare and has published copies of Queer Stuff in that mag). We had a bit to talk about, especially with experiences of being tokenised in Women's and Feminist space. I outlined my current idea for my Masters and she thought it was a good idea, and also suggested that I attend the NOWSA conference (which I'd done in 1998) for this year in Adelaide .

It's nice to have feedback on my proposal from someone with an academic background. And maybe NOWSA (and not Queer Collaborations) would be the right place to go this year (assuming I do get accepted and can afford it). Last time I was there, I was the "token trannie" and as such "represented my species", as I put it. Be nice to go back as just another student.

Got through to Erica, and she will put me up for tonight and tomorrow night. That's a relief. She'll be out for most of the day tomorrow, but so will I (in fact, I might just spend some quality time Saturday with the graphic novels in the Ashfield Library).

Actually, it was good to talk with her after her fly-by visit some days ago. Seems that things after her Nan's funeral were a lot better than expected. I'm pleased, because she deserves a new start.

Went down to Sydney yesterday to go to the Amnesty GLBT pre-march party. It was due to start (with talks from original Mardi Gras parade participants) at 6:30pm and end at 8pm. I got there at 8pm!

Track work between Gosford and Wyong meant changing to a rail bus in the middle of the trip. This is a lot more disruptive than taking a rail bus all the way down, like I did on Sunday. I got away late and missed the train to Wyong that I was attempting to catch - bleagh!

As it was, I got there just as they were finishing the speeches, and the informal party began, so it wasn't too bad. I hung around for the planning session afterwards. Seems the group need drivers for trucks in both the parade, and for returning lights and stereo after the parade (everybody else wants to go off and party).

I was glad I went, but it was a l-o-n-g trip. I left Barnsley at 3:15pm, and didn't get back until 3am! At one point I considered going to "Women's Night" the Sly Fox, but physically I was stuffed. This time around the trips took a lot out of me.

I helped make some candles yesterday.

This is for the Amnesty International entry in the Mardi Gras parade. I thought we'd all be dripping wax over wicks. Instead, it happened that the candles were human sized paper mache constructs, as per the amnesty logo! We used masking tape and knives to construct cylinders as a base for the final construct. I'll be going over there at least another day to help out.

Thing was, I loved it!