Good morning,
as unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, I'm going to take the floor, strange expression.
Also despite all evidence to the contrary, I'm very much looking forward to thanking my sponsors... I tell you, it was a funny thing to be sitting in the department of internal affairs at 9 at night before leaving the country, taxi-ing my internal state into a bit of a spin of coffee and sleeplessness, with a security guard sitting next to me 23 Punjabi, Civil Engineer, we talked about our lives, it was like a contemporary play but no-one was shot in the end, and the emergency passport call out team,( who refused to let me pull up the transaction on my internet banking page so they could cross reference the transaction number, preferring instead to phone me from upstairs, interrupting my lesson on the antiquities of Northern India ... "but before 1896... hang on" to say, "Hello again Genevieve thanks for your patience, do you remember who served you on Monday, Do you remember what she looked like?" ) Earlier that evening various staff members had paved the way for my callout team to get in touch on the grounds that Internal Affairs had lost my passport application, muttering things into the phone on my behalf to ease the suspicion of the process like, " I don't know, it never got made. . . .Yes it was an error on our part, Yes I just don't know, maybe Gary's department. . ."
I tried very hard to feel a surge of Bourne Supremacy coming on, and looked around for foothold on the walls security cameras to block, and balconies to jump to through the glass, didn't much like my chances off pulling off my parkeur moves however and the high energy pursuit fantasy effect was subdued largely by the fact that the senior officers "Ok hi Genevieve I'm a senior officer", were all women younger than me shuffling around the passport office in their their polyester slippers and dressing gowns.
You see previously by four days, Bob Orr and John Pule, rang me to say they were off to visit Dave in Sydney and did I want them to take a message. In two days they were going. I slept on it and the next morning I rang them back take me too I said I need to film you guys, sorry to totally crash the party, but you can't go without me, and I have no money but I'll raise the funds. So as I put it to Martin, touched by the kind philanthropies of my friends and poets and poet friends, I had my air-fare all sorted out. Then I realised my pasport needed refreshing. So I raced around a bit, and now I have a new passport with a picture of a harrassed middle aged mania on the face of a woman in it. ( I am secretly pleased when customs officers do a careful double take).
I raced into Poetry Live all excited and crashed the party there, most happily and strangely they didn't have a guest poet and so kindly they let me take the koha, and encouraged people to buy some pieces of paper from me with writing and pictures and my book Mine sold a few copies, so I left the country at 4am on two hours sleep, with enough to cope and manage, and a plan, and a camera with senheiser shot gun microphone, and stupidly in my socks and shoes and coat.
four and a half hours later I considered throwing the coat across a Sydney rubbish bin but figured no one would want it unless they were leaving. Really a second hand goods exchange at the airport would be a good idea. I fought my way through blindness caused by the temperature and the QVB once I worked out What the QVB Was, and that I was in it; got lost then in a 5 storey high Supré store after buying a giant $5 dollar singlet to live in, exasperated a few locals and arrived in Balmain. Balmain looks like Spain, downed two excellent coffees (good Australia), and befriended local real estate Agent with easy flattery to get a sense of my spatial surroundings, and rang Nigel from under a Jacaranda tree. Who picked me up as I was just getting camera ready, and we drove straight over to Bronte Beach to see Dave.
Wonder, I got quite hot around then, partly because it was 29 degrees in the breeze, and I was all camera operator and not very Australian. You may have guessed that I haven't visited Australia very often, couple of times in transit, a couple of times to see Dave and Sara, once pregnant once with family, I'd never had more than a day to observe Sydney before, What was that I asked Nigel? That's the native birdlife he replied. Between us we organized to ambush Dave with the Camera, and up on the balcony of the hospice where he's living. Dave halted when he saw me out the corner of his eye and wouldn't sit till we had a big hug,
as unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, I'm going to take the floor, strange expression.
Also despite all evidence to the contrary, I'm very much looking forward to thanking my sponsors... I tell you, it was a funny thing to be sitting in the department of internal affairs at 9 at night before leaving the country, taxi-ing my internal state into a bit of a spin of coffee and sleeplessness, with a security guard sitting next to me 23 Punjabi, Civil Engineer, we talked about our lives, it was like a contemporary play but no-one was shot in the end, and the emergency passport call out team,( who refused to let me pull up the transaction on my internet banking page so they could cross reference the transaction number, preferring instead to phone me from upstairs, interrupting my lesson on the antiquities of Northern India ... "but before 1896... hang on" to say, "Hello again Genevieve thanks for your patience, do you remember who served you on Monday, Do you remember what she looked like?" ) Earlier that evening various staff members had paved the way for my callout team to get in touch on the grounds that Internal Affairs had lost my passport application, muttering things into the phone on my behalf to ease the suspicion of the process like, " I don't know, it never got made. . . .Yes it was an error on our part, Yes I just don't know, maybe Gary's department. . ."
I tried very hard to feel a surge of Bourne Supremacy coming on, and looked around for foothold on the walls security cameras to block, and balconies to jump to through the glass, didn't much like my chances off pulling off my parkeur moves however and the high energy pursuit fantasy effect was subdued largely by the fact that the senior officers "Ok hi Genevieve I'm a senior officer", were all women younger than me shuffling around the passport office in their their polyester slippers and dressing gowns.
You see previously by four days, Bob Orr and John Pule, rang me to say they were off to visit Dave in Sydney and did I want them to take a message. In two days they were going. I slept on it and the next morning I rang them back take me too I said I need to film you guys, sorry to totally crash the party, but you can't go without me, and I have no money but I'll raise the funds. So as I put it to Martin, touched by the kind philanthropies of my friends and poets and poet friends, I had my air-fare all sorted out. Then I realised my pasport needed refreshing. So I raced around a bit, and now I have a new passport with a picture of a harrassed middle aged mania on the face of a woman in it. ( I am secretly pleased when customs officers do a careful double take).
I raced into Poetry Live all excited and crashed the party there, most happily and strangely they didn't have a guest poet and so kindly they let me take the koha, and encouraged people to buy some pieces of paper from me with writing and pictures and my book Mine sold a few copies, so I left the country at 4am on two hours sleep, with enough to cope and manage, and a plan, and a camera with senheiser shot gun microphone, and stupidly in my socks and shoes and coat.
four and a half hours later I considered throwing the coat across a Sydney rubbish bin but figured no one would want it unless they were leaving. Really a second hand goods exchange at the airport would be a good idea. I fought my way through blindness caused by the temperature and the QVB once I worked out What the QVB Was, and that I was in it; got lost then in a 5 storey high Supré store after buying a giant $5 dollar singlet to live in, exasperated a few locals and arrived in Balmain. Balmain looks like Spain, downed two excellent coffees (good Australia), and befriended local real estate Agent with easy flattery to get a sense of my spatial surroundings, and rang Nigel from under a Jacaranda tree. Who picked me up as I was just getting camera ready, and we drove straight over to Bronte Beach to see Dave.
Wonder, I got quite hot around then, partly because it was 29 degrees in the breeze, and I was all camera operator and not very Australian. You may have guessed that I haven't visited Australia very often, couple of times in transit, a couple of times to see Dave and Sara, once pregnant once with family, I'd never had more than a day to observe Sydney before, What was that I asked Nigel? That's the native birdlife he replied. Between us we organized to ambush Dave with the Camera, and up on the balcony of the hospice where he's living. Dave halted when he saw me out the corner of his eye and wouldn't sit till we had a big hug,
