Pantsless, Touching Myself In An Inappropriate Manner. -(1/3)-

I'll do the where-I'm-at-and-where-I'm-going-next
thing at the start, for those not likely to make it
through to the end.
I'm in Bunbury, Western Australia, doing the yearly
family stay. But on Monday I'm flying back to Scotland
to spend another year there and around Europe. So if
you're in the area, hey, let's catch up.

Ok, let's see. Things that happened five months ago.
It seems like when I first started writing these
things five years agi I'd send one out every couple of
weeks. Now I'm on like two a year. Mind you they are
so horrendously long that they need to be done in
episodes, so I guess it works out about the same.

I was in Wellington. We were shooting a film, a short
film, which was also a music video. It was fun. And
also a little stressful, as my time of departure was
getting closer and people started dropping out.
Let me be clear: without a lot of people doing a hell
of a lot of work, for free, the filming could never
have been done. I'm actually aware now how kind of
naive I was, thinking I could ever actually do it,
because surely dozens of people wouldn't just leap
forward and gladly donate their time and energy for no
obvious reason? They did.
But still, towards the end it started getting a little
tricky keeping everyone involved (more cast than crew,
my crew were hardcore), and I found I was spending
more and more energy just holding the whole thing
together, which meant less to actually do it. Also I
was doing more of it; when we started I was just the
writer, director, location scout, choreographer,
editor and animator – by the end I was also assistant
director, production manager and in just about every
shot.

The location scouting was the best part. I have a bit
of a thing for getting into where I'm not supposed to
be and this was the perfect excuse to do so. I think
it's fair to say I've now scouted just about every bit
of downtown Wellington. Especially parking buildings,
there where a lot of parking buildings for some
reason.
Wellington is a surprisingly good city for it. The
Ministry of Defense (never been so efficiently shown a
door), the Wellington High Court (enclosed courtyard,
found via Google Earth), I was scouting an area
between three high-rises and looking up realised I was
sneaking past the vehicle entrance for the regional
headquarters of Chubb Security (I can't say that name
without laughing: Chubb. teehee).
Getting one shot required me and a cameraman scaling
the side of a building, sneaking across its front
deck, and dropping down onto the roof of the New
Zealand Post headquarters on the far side. We did it
on a Sunday in the assumption that being government
buildings both would be deserted. Which luckily they
were.
The shot came out pretty good, you can see it at
http://www.sugarandfat.info/previews.htm
It's the one with the sling. It was a bit of work
stabilizing though, it was filmed from a skateboard
we'd lugged up with us and ridden across their roof.
We only got fully bounced once, picking up a quick
shot in a parking building towards the end. This was
the same building we'd spent four hours in a couple of
weeks earlier, filming from the back of a truck and
running down the 'No Pedestrians Beyond This Point'
out ramp. (Again, Sunday. Wellington really shuts down
on a weekend.) We did have a few other close calls
tho. If it had been anywhere other than New Zealand,
statistically speaking at least one of us would've
been shot and the rest deported.

The last day of filming was the day before I had to
leave. I picked up a few shots just of myself, up in a
rooftop scrubland I stumbled across while exploring
earlier. I was wading through gorse, whimsically
running my hands through it and pretending not to be
really really hurting myself. (My trousers are still
peppered with a hundred thorn holes.) I was on my own
so had to devise a system of slinging the camera, on
the tripod, over my shoulder and filming myself trying
not to slip down the grassy slope; thereby making my
last act in Wellington the smashing of a very
expensive and prized piece of video equipment.


Wellington Airport
“Any landing you can walk away from is a good one.”

The day before I flew out all departures had been
canceled due to fog, so between that and actually
surviving the flight I was pretty lucky. (I've had
landings at that airport where, seriously; ok, one
landing gear is down, but should the tip of the wing
be closer to the ground than the other two wheels? And
this is in a 747 (For which the runway is technically
too short.))
I'd spent the previous night at Dale&Emily's, with
Bonne&Eugene, having a meal and being shown off. Emily
dropped me at the Airport very early the next morning
and I boarded the little twin propeller trying
desperately to remember all the things I'd forgotten
to do, which were now somehow going to completely
destroy the last three months of work. It was a great
flight though; I've never flown into Nelson before and
because it's such a short distance there's no reason
to take the plane to any kind of altitude. So I could
make out every wave on Cook's Straight, the banks of
cloud sweeping down over the fjords to the coast.
Loverly.

How freaking cool is it that after a hundred thousand
years of human evolution, we're born into the one
generation where the act of actual flight is as simple
as catching a bus.
We're pretty lucky for buses too, don't get me wrong,
but whenever someone says they don't like flying, or
worse just sits there reading a magazine rather than
looking out the window I just want to grab them by the
ears and scream AT WHAT POINT DID YOUR PASSION FOR
LIFE CRAWL AWAY AND DIE?!?!

But that's one sure-fire way of not having a
successful flight, so I restrain myself.
(Rather than have the flight crew do it for me.)

I love Google Earth. When I was in Melbourne about to
leave for New Zealand I knew that my flight would be
arriving after all the public transportation had
finished for the night, so, from space, went looking
for a spot near the airport where I'd be able to pitch
my tent.
In the end Rosie convinced me to just get a taxi.
Arriving at the Nelson airport (where I hadn't set
foot in nineteen years) I thought I'd sorted out, from
space, how to get to a decent hitching point to head
south.

Nope.
Completely cocked it up.

I'm not sure how, but I simply hadn't acknowledged the
entire town in between. Luckily though I was not too
far into it before getting picked up and driven to the
other side, it would've taken at least two hours to
walk.
And now I'm standing in a nice little spot, and the
hitching down to Christchurch to visit my friends and
sister, then through to the Southland to see my
father, begins.

I grew up in the Nelson area. We moved there when I
was like, half, and stayed until nine when we
relocated to Canterbury, further south. The Nelson
Bays are a great place, sunniest part of NZ, lots of
farms and hippies (mostly old Germans, for some
reason), artists and folks who generally take things
pretty easy. Good hitching.
So, then, can someone please fill me in as to why I
Waited For Two And A Half GodDamn Hours Without
Getting Picked Up!?

It was surreal, frankly. I was in a good spot, just
out of town, room to pull over, drivers could see me,
before a corner so not going to fast. Fine weather.
Then it rained a bit. Then it cleared up. Then rained
some more before turning nice (this is New Zealand
after all) but, What? What the hell? I never wait two
and a half hours. Never. More than an hour and it's
officially a very long wait, hour and a half happens
occasionally but only if there's no traffic or some
other mitigating circumstance (like it's pitch black,
raining, and every article of clothing I own is dark
blue), once or twice it's gone to two hours, but only
those times I experimented with actually hurling rocks
at the passing cars while pantsless, touching myself
in an inappropriate manner. But still not two and a
half. Not ever.

O well, must have either been a freak occurance, or
while I've been away Nelson's gone the way of
neighboring Blenheim, where I know of people who've
waited ten hours before giving up and catching a bus.
But eventually I did get picked up, by... someone.
(After a while they all just blur into each other,
this must be how prostitutes and retail workers see
their days). No wait, I do remember them, it was a
young couple and they took me all the way to
Christchurch. They were kewl.

In Chch I stayed with my good friend and ex-flatmate,
Lucy.
Lucy has, since last I saw her, reproduced.

Everyone _everyone_ asked me when I was back in NZ,
so, Daniel, When are you going to stop traveling and
settle down? Huh? When?
I don't know.
I don't really, to be completely honest a) see the
point of it, and b) fully understand the question.
Settle? The double meaning of the word says it all.
Why stay in one place when I can stay in whatever
place I choose for as long as it suits me? Why try to
make a go of it in the country I happen to have been
born in when I can go to the place which is going to
most help me do what I want to do? There is a whole
planet out there. I can be anywhere. I can do
anything.

And look, I'm not having a go at anyone, I'm honestly
not being all like pff, you people are all losers and
your lives suck. Why stay in one place? = Lasting
relationships, community, because you happen to really
dig it, the opportunity to realise goals that take
longer than ten months and don't mean having to renew
your visa, a career, etc... I get all that. It's just
not for me. Chances are it will be at some distant
time, but, but... (but there's a whole world out
there... I just, I just have to see, ok? I just need
to see what's beyond this next stretch of open road. I
'm in love with the earth moving beneath my feet...
it's just not in me to stop yet. (there's a whole
world...)

And Lucy, whom I love dearly, has a child. And it
freaked me out.
Actually it turns out that three of the four women I
lived with in my last flat in New Zealand have since
sprogged. (I had nothing to do with it, don't even go
there). The fourth, Amy, I caught up with in
Wellington. She's a surgical nurse now and planning
her escape, but can't go back to the Uk just yet
because last time there she skipped on an eight
thousand Pound (that's Pound) credit card debt.
Respect.

And so, ok, at the start everyone was all with the
When you settlin' down? but then as I was leaving, and
I'd talk about the trip from Malaysia across land to
India, suddenly they were all I'm so jealous, wish I
could go, etc.

Well then... which is it?