QF 94

I love airports. There is something timeless about them. And I don't mean timeless like Audrey Hepburn and Carey Grant. I'm talking about 'in the moment' timelessness, in that at any moment it could be any time at all. No one knows where you have been or where you are going. Whether forty-five minutes ago you jumped in a cab from Manhattan, or if you are eight hours into a thirty-two hour journey from Toronto to Melbourne. In practical terms, no matter what time of day it is, in an airport you can always plonk yourself at a bar and order a drink without fear of retribution, on the very solid basis that it is always happy hour somewhere in the world. This makes airports particularly good for introspection. (If particularly bad for drinking problems).

I write from Melbourne, having recently navigated the twenty-four hour trip home for the second time in six months. The flying visit was a whim of my mother's, and a very timely one. General good sense has it that Manhattan is a city to be loved from afar over the summer, and while two weeks of the Melbourne winter should be more than enough to ready me for my final year of grad school, I have to confess that mum's special brand of red wine, open fires, clothes shopping and green tea and sympathy for the soul, will be hard to leave. (Not that she really approves of the green tea... only tolerates it, barely).

In fairness, summer and the city are not without their charms. A day trip to Coney Island, a private jet for a long weekend boating on Lake Squam in New Hampshire, Romeo and Juliet in Central Park really just a few of the highlights in a very long list of the joys of having some time to enjoy Manhattan without school. (Of course, I would also include a trip to Home Depot to buy supplies to build shelves very near the top of that list, so perhaps I am not so very discerning.)

However the last few weeks also brought the end of romance, which seems most unfair since all the good love songs tell me summer is exactly the time for enjoying love and all its accoutrements. In this way, it is appropriate that I have abandoned summer in New York for the much more moody Melbourne winter. Much like happy hours, somewhere in the world, there can always be found a season to match your internal weather forecast.

In spite of its source inspiration, I think I'll resist the urge to turn this update into a relationship column - it seems to me 'Facebook' does a much more clinical job of filling people in. At the click of a button you can update yourself from 'In a relationship' to 'Single'. If only.

Oh I guess that means I am now on Facebook. It is very bizarre. And very addictive. I am convinced it is Big Brother's way of watching. Nonetheless. More regular, and believe it or not more banal, updates can be found there.