perth, western australia - august 24, 2006

i've just moisturized with lindy's cocoa butter formula moisturizer. i smell like a freshly-baked cookie. i am now markedly more interesting to zoe the dog, who demonstrates a precocious, if not entirely self-possessed, curiosity at the best of times. she's a doll--one of those charmingly larger dogs whose frequently inappropriate sniffing hints at the sort of ungainly and, sometimes, insufferable, saliva-streaked bumptiousness that seems directly proportional to canine size, viz. the great dane and the st. bernard. zoe, bless her, is simply charming.

henry is a birman. henry lurks. henry licks. henry enjoys a challenging relationship with his insistent mane of chest hair. henry is a cat. henry is lurking somewhere. i miss henry. henry will come back. see henry lurk. see henry come back.

i am enjoying an entirely peaceful, domestic day in lindy's* lovely villa in the scarborough district of perth. i've washed laundry and hung it to dry outside in the breeze that, fortunately, does not blow directly off the stormwater pond beyond the fence (see pungent). if not for the music i've chosen from lindy's collection (like a version, at the moment), it would be almost perfectly quiet.

i've also washed the dishes. last night before bed, i carefully did not commit not to wash the dishes today. see lindy be delightfully frustrated. see lindy understand that, sometimes, dishwashing allows allan to maintain an essential, even keel. see allan be happy that his head doesn't explode. see allan be happy that neither henry nor zoe will have an opportunity to slurp up the scraps of his sparkly brain from the deep lustre of the jarrah floor. see lindy be pleased. see allan dance for joy. see the lovely clean dishes.

i can't bring myself to bore anyone, including me, with the (inner) drama of the journey from sydney to perth yesterday. see allan dislike unfamiliar options on fatigued arrival in an unfamiliar airport. see allan move from point A to point A.1, A.2, A.3, A.3.1, A.3.2, A.4, and finally to point B.** see allan do laundry. see allan wash dishes. see allan come back.

the abridged version: lugged the luggage by taxi to lindy's workplace, where she programs websites for the department of education. (see allan be reminded of just how hot lindy is.) chucked it all in lindy's car boot. followed lindy's instructions to the cafe and shop district on oxford street (yes, there's one here, too). enjoyed a lunch of chicken caesar salad, while navigating my way through a fascinating emotional response to the sunny-side-up egg perched on top of it all. the egg-bellishment seems to be a trend in australia: on tuesday, my chicken caesar salad in sydney at the hyde park cafe was similarly appointed. (damned if i can find a photo....). anyway. after only a mid-flight muffin from the virgin blue menu, even a disturbing food accessory was welcome sustenance, as were the two flat whites (helpful graphic here).

the bookstore to which lindy had pointed me was almost a disaster, since every title that caught my eye pulled at me like a riptide, especially inhaling the mahatma, by australian writer, christopher kremmer. i may need to read it, so i am (hold on to yourselves) considering the purchase.

currently, i'm reading marisha pessl's rather extraordinary first novel, special topics in calamity physics, which i'd stumbled on in noosa. i almost bought it there when i misread the back jacket excerpt as "I wrote this account one hundred years after I'd found Hannah dead." i expected time travel and quantum weirdness and a new species of physics of a calamitous nature. the sentence, from the introduction, actually reads "I wrote this account one year after I'd found Hannah dead." now that i'm on page 82, i can frankly say that my expectation has not been entirely defeated.

if i'd had any expectations of perth, they wouldn't be defeated either. apart from the crisp audacity of the city itself, i'm loving that lindy has taken voice lessons, owns a drum set, has bravely participated in her first jam, and has explored the world of visual art, all the while subsisting in the stultifying world of state government, but with a vision of a future in the living world, with landscapes and creatures. she is the only other living being i have ever met whose mind works on essentially the same scale and according to essentially the same rhythms and in precisely the same key as mine.*** lindy is a natural superfreak. naturally, i'm a huge fan. in fact, with the added bonus of her ferociously gorgeous intelligence, she reminds me that there are downsides to being on the essentially gay end of the queer spectrum.

point of interest: lindy reminded me last night that we really got to know one another, intially anyway, in the 10 hours or so between tokyo and LA on our flight from kuala lumpur in february 1996 when i was returning from my first trip to australia--leaving james behind--and she was wending her erratic way to costa rica to be with her then beau. i'd forgotten that i invited her to sit beside me when seats opened up in order to "rescue" her from the obnoxious yank who was not only fomenting dissent among the flight attendants in a bizarre, mile-high divide-and-conquer approach to Getting His Way, but was exhorting lindy to send australian stamps and other memorabilia to a list of friends and relatives for whom he had a list of addresses. the sequelae of all that is entirely lindy's story and i learned it only last night (as far as i'm presently aware). it's an inspiring doozy of missed flights, airline frustration and wild, last-minute ad-liberation involving modified flight tickets, etc. but i'll let her tell it if she chooses.

why that brings me back to james and lily tomlin and i *heart* huckabees and love and hope and joy and dancing and death and poetry and strategies for success and choosing to change and finding oneself and letting oneself be found...is a special topic in calamity physics.

*i have yet to hear the story of lindy's evolution from "linda", though i have pointed out the oddly discomforting resonance with lindy chamberlain, who has, of course, long-since been absolved of any wrongdoing

**could this be the secret role of the fourier series in my experience?

***not to be confused with, though it bears relation to, being "got"--i.e. understood in that weird, wordless way