I brought with me for my trip a small selection of my compilations: CD#3, CD#4, CD#7, Past, Present, CD#13, Love, CD#17 and CD#18. I'll come back to this.
When I first arrived in Brisbane, way back in 2000 (7 and a half years ago!), one of the first things I tried to do was organise a skirmish game for the group I was hanging out with at the time - the guys from #computers on Austnet IRC. It was a good group - about 12 people were coming. I was 17 years old by this point.
I kept a little text file on my computer to try and keep track of everyone's availability. It was only ever going to be on a weekend since some people were working weekdays, but some people every now and then had shift work on weekends too. About a month or two later, it became apparent that my organisation of the event had dragged on for so long that everyone, including myself, had actually lost interest. It was just too hard to organise one date for everyone to show up.
Today marks the second-last day, and the last night, of my trip to Brisbane. It's only the second time I've been here since I moved to Melbourne.
On the plane here, the ocean around the coast was glistening. I was really looking forward to staying here for two weeks instead of the one week I came for last time. I thought I had a better idea of what to expect.
The first few days, everything felt alien to me. Driving around, new places had sprung up, half the city is under construction, and everyone seems to know all of this except me.
It took a few more days after that before I even started up a new text file to keep track of everyone's availability, realising that I couldn't keep track of all this in my head. There was at least one day during the trip where I'd double booked, and it resulted in me being really way too late for
turtledove's birthday outing.
A few more days, and driving around Brisbane felt like riding a bike again. The more I let my instincts take over my thought processes, the less I got lost.
I had intended on going to a few very specific places that I'd missed last time, or even that I'd missed before I left. Dreamworld, Mt Coot-tha, Kangaroo Point. I got to the latter two tonight, simply because time had run out. Either way, it felt like the most appropriate time, even if I was going on my own.
The division among the old groups staggers me. When I asked the reasons why, I heard all kinds of excuses. Relationships getting in the way? Old grudges? Too lazy to organise or stay in touch? Growing up?? I don't get it; how did that happen? People drift for a reason, and you can almost always put it down to a very specific reason - even if it doesn't come back to one singular event. But to say that people "move on" out of friendships just for the sake of it doesn't add up with me. Not after having been the way we were.
Change is a good thing. And there's always going to be new people coming into these groups. But there's no point changing when things are better the way they are. If there was any reason at all for how this happened, it completely flew by me.
On that drive I went for tonight, I figured out there was actually one CD compilation I'd neglected to listen to, despite the fact that I'd played some of the others several times. The one I missed was the most obvious choice for any drive I could have taken on this trip - Past.
When I first arrived in Brisbane, way back in 2000 (7 and a half years ago!), one of the first things I tried to do was organise a skirmish game for the group I was hanging out with at the time - the guys from #computers on Austnet IRC. It was a good group - about 12 people were coming. I was 17 years old by this point.
I kept a little text file on my computer to try and keep track of everyone's availability. It was only ever going to be on a weekend since some people were working weekdays, but some people every now and then had shift work on weekends too. About a month or two later, it became apparent that my organisation of the event had dragged on for so long that everyone, including myself, had actually lost interest. It was just too hard to organise one date for everyone to show up.
Today marks the second-last day, and the last night, of my trip to Brisbane. It's only the second time I've been here since I moved to Melbourne.
On the plane here, the ocean around the coast was glistening. I was really looking forward to staying here for two weeks instead of the one week I came for last time. I thought I had a better idea of what to expect.
The first few days, everything felt alien to me. Driving around, new places had sprung up, half the city is under construction, and everyone seems to know all of this except me.
It took a few more days after that before I even started up a new text file to keep track of everyone's availability, realising that I couldn't keep track of all this in my head. There was at least one day during the trip where I'd double booked, and it resulted in me being really way too late for
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A few more days, and driving around Brisbane felt like riding a bike again. The more I let my instincts take over my thought processes, the less I got lost.
I had intended on going to a few very specific places that I'd missed last time, or even that I'd missed before I left. Dreamworld, Mt Coot-tha, Kangaroo Point. I got to the latter two tonight, simply because time had run out. Either way, it felt like the most appropriate time, even if I was going on my own.
The division among the old groups staggers me. When I asked the reasons why, I heard all kinds of excuses. Relationships getting in the way? Old grudges? Too lazy to organise or stay in touch? Growing up?? I don't get it; how did that happen? People drift for a reason, and you can almost always put it down to a very specific reason - even if it doesn't come back to one singular event. But to say that people "move on" out of friendships just for the sake of it doesn't add up with me. Not after having been the way we were.
Change is a good thing. And there's always going to be new people coming into these groups. But there's no point changing when things are better the way they are. If there was any reason at all for how this happened, it completely flew by me.
On that drive I went for tonight, I figured out there was actually one CD compilation I'd neglected to listen to, despite the fact that I'd played some of the others several times. The one I missed was the most obvious choice for any drive I could have taken on this trip - Past.
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