Welcome to my insanity…

I am hap­pier than I’ve been for a long time and about to be insanely busy and stressed.

I did indeed get a pos­i­tion as Deputy Editor of a weekly main­stream magazine… but not the one I had dreamed of. So, as of August 9, I am work­ing for Mel­bourne Weekly Bay­side, one of those free magazines that ends up in your let­ter­box. It’s the safest of the ten madcap ideas I men­tioned when I fin­ished my thesis, option one, in fact: return to magazine work and save up lots of money with a view to doing one or other of the other nine items in due time.

I met an amaz­ing man on Sat­urday and mir­acle of mir­acles, he stayed a few days longer in Mel­bourne and we saw Dirty Pretty Things on Monday night and spent Tues­day wan­der­ing around ACMI’s screen gal­lery and then went to St Kilda and walked along the beach at sunset and talked about life and the uni­verse and then I got a phone call invit­ing me to do a poetry sup­port gig for Dorothy Porter as part of the Over­load Poetry Fest­ival (!!!!) and then we went and had a cel­eb­rat­ory dinner and now he’s gone back to Wollon­gong. He is smart and polit­ical and beau­ti­ful and he says all the right things. 

I have so many, many things to do. I will still be teach­ing at Mel­bourne Uni in addi­tion to my job. I have lec­tures to write. I have a fea­ture to finish for Mac­world. I have a poetry gig to pre­pare for (August 15, by the way). And the film fest­ival has star­ted… I have booked 39 films so far, mostly polit­ics and culture.

Thurs 22 July
7.00pm: The Party’s Over
9.15pm: Con­trol Room

Fri 23 July
5.00pm: The Graf­fiti Artist
7.00pm: The Sad­dest Music in the World
9.00pm (maybe, not yet booked): At five in the afternoon
11.00pm: Azumi

Sat­urday 24 July
1.30pm: The Cat Returns
7.00pm: Five Sides of a Coin
9.30pm: Human Touch

Sunday 25 July
7.15pm: Let­ters to Ali
9.15pm: Young Adam

Monday 26 July
Teach­ing at Mel­bourne Uni

Tues­day 27 July
Pos­sibly in Sydney

Wed­nes­day 28 July
Pos­sibly in Sydney

Thursday 29 July
7.00pm: Power­point 04: Digital Shorts

Friday 30 July
12.45pm: Whis­per of the Heart
5.15pm: Go Further
7.00pm: Cold Light
9.00pm: Mutiny: Asians Storm Brit­ish Music
11.35pm: Nat­ural City

Sat­urday 31 July
12.45pm: Anthem
3.00pm: Hot on the Heels: New Aus­tralian Short Films
9.15pm: Zohre and Manouchehr

Sunday 1 August
3.00pm: Focus on Cate Shortland
7.15pm: Exiles

Monday 2 August
Teach­ing during the day
7.00pm: Hotel
8.30pm: The Ister

Tues­day 3 August
Lec­ture preparation

Wed­nes­day 4 August
3.15pm: Proteus
9.00pm: End of the Cen­tury: The Story of the Ramones

Thursday 5 August
12.45pm: The Wall
5.00pm: Purity/Almost There
9.00pm: Somnambulance

Friday 6 August
1.00pm: Joy of Madness
5.00pm: Arna’s Children
7.00pm: The life and death of Peter Sellers

Sat­urday 7 August
1.00pm: Three Suns
3.00pm: Twist
5.00pm: The Yes Men
(Even­ing: My Imbolc party, but if not… Death in Gaza and The Corporation…)

Sunday 8 August
1.00pm: The Five Obstructions
3.00pm: Basque Ball: Skin Against Stone
5.00pm: Notre Musique

In between films, you will prob­ably find me at e55, with laptop, fever­ishly using their wire­less net con­nec­tion to com­plete the thou­sand other tasks I have right now. Did I men­tion I’m also fin­ish­ing up the work I have at RMIT and have to do han­dover doc­u­ments? Ah well, good thing I thrive on this sort of thing.

Whee!