Snakes alive, I have had a crazy couple of weeks. Wouldn’t it be good if it was just ride after ride after ride.
Well it wasn’t. Sometimes it was cab journey, sometimes plane and dammit if I didn’t even take a bus once. Crazy.
At the very least. I went to Sydney. The place where everything seems shinier and the ladies wear white below the waist.
I love Sydney (not least of all for the ladies wearing white below the), and it didn’t let me down this time either. Partly because I have never had to live in Sydney, or deal with its traffic, or to just deal with the constant white before the waist, so I just like the place. Also, if you live in Melbourne (and let’s trade in petty rivalries here) you know that there’s always a point at which you can congratulate yourself all you like about the culture and the coffee and the freaking shopping – but eventually, somewhere around July 15 – you’d kill yourself for a weekend away in Sydney where basically they have reasonable culture, coffee and shopping enough to kill yourself stupid spending money. And it’s 5 degrees warmer than Melbourne all the time.
And, whoop, there it is. A few nice fellows wearing their helmets, off to some car park in the sky (or ground as the case may be) and about to go longboarding. I was lost, and they seemed nice, and I figured – if I’m going to ask directions, it might as well be from someone that I think enjoys headwear and wheels and the vehicular combination of the two.
Allegedly, in the longboarding community (is it a community? is it a noun as such? is it even a verb?) it is quite normal – nay, even considered important, that one wear a helmet. I like these peeps. My goodness, do you know these people? I don’t think I know these people, but hey, if you’ve got two minutes to spare, just roll on through this and tell me if this is not very strange? Naturally, I find the “sexy girls” a bit unnerving, but no more unnerving than a man who is prepared to cover his good self in rollerblade wheels. Of course you should do this. How do we discover this as a hobby?
Ultimately, I don’t believe the question of the French man, his wheels and sexy ladies was important to them. They just seemed to enjoy the fact that it was a sunny afternoon, that they had time on their hands, carpark to kill and the wherewithal to enjoy it. More power to them. Bless you all. I once tried to learn how to skateboard, in the lovely South Lawn Carpark at Melbourne University. Only, by that time, I was aware of how much dental work cost and how much my body didn’t bounce. Lesson learned. Roll on crazy diamonds.
(Editor’s postscript: yes, a helmet fetish is kind of strange, but hey, it’s a better than Farmville. Check out the Sydney City Bomb Squad if you’re in the neighbourhood.)
eleanor j jackson 