Flight DJ413 ADLSYD / Much Fun / Flight DJ406 SYDADL

Tuesday began with a hurried dash to get to the airport from Bruce and Paul’s Eastern Suburbs Gay Youth Hostel and ended here, typing this, fuelled by fleeting inspiration and half a can of flat Red Bull. The speed of air travel is often a curse to sentimentalists like myself who would prefer a less abrupt transition to the crisp chill of Adelaide’s early autumn after a whirlwind weekend in Sydney. And the real estate agent has chosen this highpoint of my emotional fragility to start leaving voicemails regarding possible renewal of my lease in three weeks. This in turn forces me to consider the rest of the year and what form of legitimised bludging I will use to fill it (work or uni) and where (Sydney or Adelaide), not that I can match pikaporn’s unrivalled domesticity (pictured) anywhere. I managed not to sleep in the same place more than once over the four nights I’ve had away from Adelaide. This did not result from uncontrolled sluttery but just an inordinate and slightly unexpected amount of hedonism and the generous hospitality of several individuals including too_excess, proprietor of Glebe Gay Youth Hostel.When I arrived at Sydney airport on Friday night the boys at the Europcar desk handed me the keys, not to small daggy car I had booked, but to a large daggy car – a Toyota Avalon – at no extra cost. How foolish of them. For four days I hammered it mightily, generally treating it as hire cars should be treated: with complete disdain for things such as high fuel consumption, and no mechanical sympathy whatsoever. The Avalon might suffer from an image problem, being targeted towards buyers in the ‘seventy to dead’ age group, but it proved to be blessed with substantial accelerative ability and an unbridled willingness to smoke its front tyres when given a decent prod of the right pedal. I have consequently left substantial quantities of rubber on various roads around Sydney and Newcastle, but mostly between Darlinghurst and Canturbury since pikaporn, spaced_in and jimpy just lately seem to have conveniently resided within a kilometer of each other in the Inner West. (pikaporn however has threatened on some occasions to leap out while the car is in motion which may be intertwined with the fact that being a passenger in a car I am driving is one of the few life experiences that has tempted his ever present linguistic eloquence to employ expletives.)My single fixed engagement for the weekend was accompanying David, Liam and my ‘first and last girl’ Katherine to the Radiohead concert on Saturday night for utterly chilling performances of ‘Paranoid Android’ and ‘Everything in its Right Place’ to name but two. We later headed to Stonewall to cavort with the adorable gay clique of Sydney Uni. I didn’t need to be reminded, but was, that this place successfully makes Adelaide’s Mars Bar look like a third world country. This made me both elated and bitter: Sydney queers are so fortunate (even if they argue that they aren’t). In line with tradition a visit to Olympic Yeeros followed. The important detail that various receptacles and items of food and drinks became projectiles has been well documented by both Nick and Harley. I had forgotten how much fun we have on clubbing and pizza jaunts especially since the extent of my effort is not much beyond the paltry contribution of some occasional ill-timed wit and an (often questionable) ability to provide co-clubbers with a lift home.Driving to Ronald’s after a dropping off Harley, James and Nick, I called David (which would have been traffic offence number 8324 for the weekend) to belatedly confirm my departure from Stonewall and learned that he had found company for the night. Exactly what David was doing in his co-conspirator’s bathroom when I rang remains a mystery but he assured me that everything was fine and that the individual concerned was sufficiently removed from our circle of friends by appropriate degrees of separation so as not to make the encounter too incestuous.I slept in on Sunday until 2pm since Ronald’s spare room provided much appreciated respite from the bright light outside. The sunglasses came on and I drove to Annandale to have lunch with a friend from engineering who I have for some time been hung up on. Of course my subtle efforts to out him were fruitless and served only to confirm that he is straight. To add to the insult he was looking frustratingly gorgeous in Sydney’s afternoon sun wearing a more-than-slightly-camp black singlet. I don’t think I have had a temporary crush of this magnitude since I met a boy (who shares my first name) at Campus Boys last year.I collected Garret and Nick from the Footbridge and we headed to James’s 21st before a dash to Gay Church and then to Newtown where I had dinner with my dear newsagency workmates Leanne and Maria to reacquaint myself with them and the general gossip. On the way I learnt that the identity of my December car sex cohort of one is now apparently well known among Sydney Uni Gay Clique so I was forced to, four months post-event, justify my choice of someone of such questionable repute by the reality that the Charade is not a very accommodative vehicle and he was of appropriately diminutive stature. The night continued at Stonewall and Olympic Yeeros in a blur of shirtlessness and greasy pizza (respectively). The Americans proved to be a delight. Mind, it was a given that I would get along well with too_excess - I trust the judgement of those who adopted him into the circle - but what a pleasure it was to find that Garret’s character is just as well formed as his jawline.Monday dissappeared in the flurry of a drive to Newcastle and back, interected by a lunch with relatives and a visit to Katherine and boy Tim’s place. On returning to Sydney I was warmly welcomed at Bruce and Paul’s with a much needed glass of wine and a rundown on the final ‘Queer as Folk’ from Chris of UNSW fame. Dropping the Avalon back at the airport on Tuesday morning signalled the sad finish of my weekend holiday and now, like the car parked safely in its alloted bay, these few days are tucked away as a memory of great times in Sydney, my home. I’ll be back soon.