WHOA. Long time no update.

First of all, I'm sorry I've let these updates slide - we've just been having such a good time that I let it get away from me, somewhat.

FIRST OF ALL, comic-con. In the leadup to the Baltimore Comic Con, which Crow, Blindknight (Tom, for convenience) and myself attended, I was nose deep in finishing my entry to the 50-girls-50 competition and getting some folios together for distribution. Kinko's managed to eat a significant amount of money - bloody print errors - but we made it to the con without a hitch, and the experience itself? Mindblowing.

Imagine several thousand nerds of all races, creeds, genders and levels of cleanliness, leafing feverishly through vast bins of comics, browsing racks of trade paperbacks and tossing through buckets of action figures. There were people in costume, people in superhero tshirts, people in booths and people in awe. I was particularly lucky, in that I was accompanied by Crow, who was dressed as the Black Canary. I'll explain for the sake of any non-geek readers (hi, mum); the Black Canary is a crimefighter trained in martial arts, who possesses a 'sonic scream' that can injure people and destroy large objects - and who wears a leotard, fishnet stockings, a short jacket and a blonde wig. Needless to say, everyone was VERY helpful in directing us to things. Crow even managed to find a Green Arrow (a sort of modern-day robin hood, who's in love with the Black Canary). We got a ton of amazing pictures.

The first day I mostly spend stumbling around in awe, staring at the rank upon rank of booths. It made our own conventions look REALLY tiny, but I missed the familiar faces. We went to see Matt Wagner, creator of Grendel and a fantastic artist/writer, speak on a panel about his upcoming Zorro series, but the main event I was hanging out for was the announcement of the finalists for the 50-girls-50 contest. This illustration contest, which I had spend a painstaking 8 days prepping my entry for, offered a contract for a 4 issue series to the winner, published with Image and paying a whopping 3 grand an issue. I missed the first part of the panel, having accidentally wandered into the George Perez guest panel and being unable to extricate myself (George apparently drew half the marvel/DC universe, is something of an institution and is a delightfully campy guy. I feel compelled to read more of his stuff). When we finally found the Image panel, we were just in time to catch Frank Cho announcing the list of finalists... and I wasn't among them. Yes, it was a bit of a blow, but when I saw the calibre of the other entries it reminded me just how far i have to come as a comic artist. That isn't defeatist, by the way - seeing all those proffessionals just inspired me to try harder.

We consoled ourselves with a little retail therapy. Paying less than $10 US for a comic trade paperback, and sometimes as little as $5, certainly encouraged me to blow holes in my budget. But I think it was worth it. The massive stack of comics sitting at my feet certainly agrees with me. I had a pile of books I wanted signing, but none of my favourite artists were hanging around - the lines to Rob Liefeld and J Scott Campbell obscured most of the tables, and the last thing I wanted was to see Rob, the man who anatomy forgot. So I dragged poor Crow after me, and we went review hunting.

Obtaining a folio review was harder than I thought. None of the big companies (Image, Dark Horse, Dynamite) were offering reviews, so it was with a heavy heart that I stumbled across Top Cow's booth. Top Cow publishes a comic called Witchblade, about a young lady with some kind of organic-metallic fungus for a weapon/costume - the art is fairly decent, though, so I was hopeful. Luckily, they WERE accepting reviews - just not now.

I came back at the allotted 3pm, and hung around hopefully until the harrassed editor took my folio and gave it a leafthrough. He liked my figure-work, at least - he enjoyed the facial expressions, and the composition was mostly solid. He didn't have much to say about my colouring, so I guess that passed muster enough - his biggest critique was my inking. I very definitely need to work on that, and he directed me at some good books to try. I have to admit, I'm pretty wobbly with Inking. However, he was mostly happy with my pencilling, and told me to look for work in a pencilling capacity first and foremost. He was kind enough to give me his card, and told me to email him every six months with a new folio. I call that a bonus.

Our hotel that evening was lacking in a few important functions, like a kettle, but the room was big and cosy and the bed was soft. I'm still bewildered by how terrible much american TV is - and how amazingly good the Discovery Channel is. I'd honestly get cable just for that alone. 24-hour documentaries? Yes PLEASE. I'd brought food along with me to cut costs somewhat, but I hadn't counted on having a Boy with us (hi, tom) and being quite as hungry as we were. We spent the evening eating junk food and pouring through my pile of comics. Not bad, not bad.

The next day? Sheer MADNESS. I'd decided to try and track down a figurine for Rowan, because being mauled by a 13-year-old for not bringing home a present is not high on my list of priorities. I ended up with another armful of comics (the customs guys are going to hate me), a signature from Matt Wagner and his assurance that inking with markers is not in fact cheating, and we eventually blundered our way into the Stan Sakai panel.

for the uninitiated, Stan is a tiny little japanese man who writes and draws Usagi Yojimbo, a comic about a samurai rabbit. Not only was he astonishingly sweet and helpful, and oldschools the SHIT out of the inking process, but he did a demonstration of the thumbnailing process and used MY con experience to illustrate it. That's right. I have a personalised stan sakai scribble, of me running around a convention. I walked on air for HOURS.

After that? well, in the post-sakai glow, I managed to ditch a folio at another small publisher (top shelf, i think it was), get a signature from Robert Kirkman (creator of Walking Dead) and spot a whole pile of amazing costumes. There was one chap who'd made an Iron-man suit from SCRATCH, which was startlingly impressive, but the Skeletor behind him was pretty darned spiffy as well. A guy wandering around in a skintight purple suit with a skull mask has that affect on people. However, Western Australia should feel pretty proud of itself - our cosplay is on average miles better than the Baltimore standard. Rock on.

Must run, more scribbling to do! Love you all,
Pixie

Just got back from Baltimore Comic Con.

I had an absolutely AMAZING time, and had a great opportunity to meet some of my artistic heroes as well as get tons of incredibly cheap graphic novels and figurines; I'll post more of an update when i'm not exhausted/sore from lugging my giant-arse backpack around.

Highlight of the weekend? Stan sakai, creator of Usagi Yojimbo, drew me a thumbnailed comic page of my con experience - for free. It's signed and everything. Happy is me <3

love,

Pixie

Not that much has been going on recently! Life has settled down somewhat - Crow and I have been mainlining episodes of Supernatural while i work on a submission for Image. If i get the position, it's $3000 an issue, and all the boobies i can draw. Not too bad. And the art stores here are AMAZING - i've been stocking up on cheap gear, forking out for the good quality comic paper that inks like a dream, and have produced some of the best work i've done in months. I really hope it goes alright.

It's been raining somewhat heavily over the past couple of days, and with the art deadlines sneaking up we've stayed indoors. American rain isn't as sharp as australian stuff - it's sort of thick and soggy, like wet bedding, clinging to your limbs like a damp handshake and filling the air with the cakey smell of loam. All the foliage is flourishing, swollen with water and an eye-smarting shade of green.

We met a couple of police horses a few days ago. One was a pretty (but enormous) quarterhorse named Rosie; the other was a giant of a clydesdale called Sampson. They're apparently used to break up riots. Police here are fun, chatty, and quite prepared to chat to annoying strangers who ask all sorts of questions about riot control. Apparently, punching a police horse gets you two charges - assault on an officer of the law, and cruelty to animals. I don't think the horse would notice. Both of them were built like mobile fortresses.

I sampled american Pizza, which is sort of thin and floppy and tastes like a pancake with attitude and tomato sauce - a pleasant texture, and surprisingly filling.

Crow and myself had the pleasure of running into a friend of ours from the Internet, who was in town by coincidence. He goes by Blindknight on the web and Tom IRL, and we spent a fun afternoon gossiping, sketching and raiding art stores. Since he'll be around for a while, we hope to see more of him.

Must dash - i have to buy replacement dinner and work on this dangfertootin entry. Winsome women in space suits won't draw themselves.

Lots of love,
Pixie

Whoo! Sorry about the lax posting - things have been rather busy round here.

What to start with.
Crow and I have been keeping ourselves occupied. I took over the job of kitchen-wench, and demanded appropriate equipment, so we sallied forth to grab an electric frypan and a kettle from Chinatown. It has since contained bolognaise and curry, so I think it's been well used. The wee kettle is adorable - tiny and stubby and just fat enough to fit a packet of noodles. Perfect student food.

I was lucky enough to witness a game of street hockey, played on rollerblades, on the way home the other day. The best thing about the roller-hocky? It was played OUTSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE. A bunch of young to middle aged men zooming around, waving sticks and chasing the ball every time it rolled outside the 'court', watched suspiciously by a bunch of guards. We sat and watched for a while. The poor players spent far more time chasing the escaping ball than they did actually scoring, but it was a lot of fun to watch, and doubtless more fun to play.

The weather here's been unaccountably warm - a last, desperate play by summer before it's obliged to slink, grumbling, underground for another year. We've been wandering around in shirts, watching in bemusement as students amble past in shorts and singlets. The day before yesterday we made a bid to stay cool by visiting the National Aquarium - smaller than I'd expected, but nonetheless containing some fascinating specimens like dogfish, grumbling moray eels and a particularly lazy snapping turtle. It was a pleasant way to spend an afternoon - wandering past glittering shoals of tetras, making faces at podgy newts who scrabbled against the glass like tiny, portly racehorces, and spending fruitless minutes trying to coax a spotted moray out of its nest in an old engine. The best bit was the helldogs - like a giant axolotl in a skin three sizes too big. The poor thing looked like it had been dressed by a schoolmaster, but it had chubby fingers and a frantic little face, and i fell instantly in love with it.

Yesterday was the day of the Mattress. On the way to the local Safeway, we discovered a large, clean and apparently whole mattress out on verge collection. We wandered past it, did our shopping and resolved to ignore it for the time being. However, on the way back it was still there, taunting me. After a furtive examination, and quizzing some of the apartment block inhabitants, the mattress was ours. The main problem was dragging it the five or so blocks back home.

We tried carrying it on our shoulders. We tried lifting it bodily with one on each end. Each attempt, we'd stagger maybe a third of a block before collapsing in a dizzy, panting heap, our limbs threatening to give out. Mattresses seem to feel the pull of gravity more and more with each passing block. In the end, we resorted to flipping the damn thing end to end down the street. We might have rested more often, but we were passing a bunch of frat-houses and were gripped by the terrible fear that one of the drunken inhabitants might try to have sex with our prize. Luckily, we were rescued by a good samaritan, who helped us drag the mattress for the last block, before we were faced with the delights of jamming it in the elevator and installing the bloody thing on the bed. We made it, at long last, and it got a decent sponge bath to clean the Street off it before we commenced sleeping on it. I needn't have bothered, really. DC has some of the cleanest streets I've ever seen. Even the pigeons go into the shrubbery to shit.

This story has a happy ending. That mattress is the most comfortable thing I have slept on in AGES, and it fits us both admirably.

Today is not likely to be adventurous. After the strain of mattress-dragging, we're spending a couple of days indoors, working on comics and the like. Luckily, Baltimore Comic-Con is just around the corner, and we've decided to go along. I can't wait. This is my first american con, and it'll be amazing.

I miss everyone at home - mum, dad, stephen, elaine, lei and shelly, the lot of you. Sue, i hope percy isn't giving you too much trouble. I'm thinking of you all.

love,
Pixie

Hello, everyone!

Haven't updated in a couple of days, alas. It's been, as I'm sure you can all understand, rather busy.

When last I posted, I was lounging in Auckland airport. Despite my previous grumpy report, Auckland was actually a fantastic airport to stay in (for all of 12 hours). It was large, spacious, there was a good security presence and vast, green faux-leather couches that were easy to lay claim to. I spent a blissful couple of hours dozing on one, wrapped in my sleeping bag and draped across my carry-on luggage (which i stuffed in the sleeping bag for safekeeping). There was even shower facilities, with hire-towels, and decent (though expensive) internet.

My Air New Zealand flights themselves were delightful. Not only were the seats comfortable and the entertainment good, but the food was good enough to pass for restaurant fare. I had chicken, a weird pineapple-and-lemon salad and REAL icecream. Made with egg yolks and all. I spent a good chunk of the voyage chatting to my seat-mates - a pleasant pair of marathon runners from LA. The best bits about travel are meeting people, I swear.

LAX, alas, was not so delightful. What was originally planned to be a 3.5 hour stint evolved into twelve excruciating hours, after the incoming plane we were to board hit a bird and incurred mechanical damage. It took two hours to get a new plane in; we were ushered onboard and seated, only to discover that United, who had not replaced their planes since the crucifixion, had discovered a mechanical fault. Apparently the door wouldn't shut. On an aeroplane. Something of an issue. Also, the company had managed to keep its air crew hanging around long enough for them to exceed their maximum hours, necessitating an unplanned shift-change. Just when we thought it  couldn't get any better.

I spent the next few hours making friends with a Tennessee native who worked as an admin for the american consulate, returning from a two-and-a-half-year stint in Papua New Guinea and heading to Oslo, Norway. He was a rather dry individual with a sage striped shirt and a bifurcated nose-tip, who told me about an attempted hijacking he'd experienced when flying over Italy. He described the whole experience as intensely boring.

Finally, after fighting with United, I secured a replacement red-eye ticket to DC, which would arrive a full seven hours later than I had planned. I contacted Crow and managed to sort out the kerfuffle, despite the payphone service's determined attempt to eat every quarter i could lay my hands on, and whiled away my time by kvetching with a couple of dowager Aucklanders about the state of airlines these days. If i become a jaded old globetrotter who swills gaterade and pops jetlag pills like lollies, then don't be entirely surprised.

One vaguely uncomfortable flight later, I was finally re-united with Crow, who a whole seven months later is looking more sveltle and gorgeously bohemian than ever. Shorter hair suits her - she's currently snoozing on the futon behind me, not suffering as i do from Jetlag. I can't describe how wonderful it was to see her again; i'd need to develop a vocabulary like shakespeare on a cocktail of ecstasy and viagra to approximate it. She even remembered that my favourite flowers are Irises, and decorated the apartment with a bouquet. I'm sure I only mentioned this in passing, too. And it's quite safe to gush about it on here, because she doesn't read my LJ. I think. I'll get back to you on that after she's disembowelled me for waxing too romantic.

Ever since dragging ourselves back from Dulles airport to the apartment, we've seldom left, save for the occasional neanderthalic excursion for food. It's mostly been an exercise in making up for seven months apart, and sleeping off the harrows of travel and worry. She's so peaceful right now, i don't have the heart to disturb her. Among the first things i did was buy a large tub of raspberries (a fond memory for travel, as they're in season now, very cheap and we bought lots of them last time) and establish firmly my tea-drinking ways. I still can't believe that we don't have graham crackers at home. They're stupidly tasty, like a digestive biscuit  but with more of a wafery shape, and crumble JUST right in tea. And they apparently contain wholegrain flour and vitamin extracts, so there's a bonus there.

Perhaps we'll go exploring today. I've been looking forward to it ever since I got here - the deciduous trees are green and thick as porrige with leaves, somehow contriving to be lusher and more alive than our arid eucalypts. It's like someone spun green flakes of translucent toffee on the end of a broom and planted them haphazardly all over the place. I've discovered that DC apparently has a botanical garden, so I'll get some good snaps while it's still green for mum, who's developed an accute addiction for horticulture.

Much love - I'm going to go try and catch a few moments of sleep, before i drag Crow out to chinatown to hunt for cheap kitchen accessories. There will be wokkage, upon my oath.

Love,
Pixie

Arrived in Auckland airport at 6.30 am today, after no sleep thanks to tiny bastard child behind me kicking my chair and whining every time i tried to put the headrest back. I was flanked by children on three sides, who considered flying to be terribly exciting and declared so noisily. Already my organs are objecting to Foreign Tea.

My hopes of free wi-fi and comfy couches were crushed in Auckland - the former is non-existant, the latter constantly occupied. I shall probably go to sleep shortly, maybe read a bit. Bringing a sleeping-bag as in-flight baggage was the best idea i ever had. Instant naptime, anywhere, and i don't care how much it makes me look like a hobo, If i try REALLY hard, I may be able to sleep through the entire journey - either that, or watch enough gimcrack disney to convince myself that i'm dreaming.

Lots of love,
Pixie

(mostly for the benefit of non-dA watchers)

I recently returned from the USA, from staying with a very dear person indeed - my writer and brainwife, Crow. Just before leaving, her laptop died on her - and proceeded to stay irretrievably dead.

I'm sure i don't need to express how vital it is for a thesis student to have a computer in the house, and a new one is too expensive at this stage.

So I'm taking artistic commissions, in an effort to help raise the funds for a new computer.

Follow this link to find out how you can help, and view samples of my work!

http://manic-pixie.deviantart.com/journal/23308850/#comments

Thankyou very much,

Pixie

The plan was to regale you all with blow-by-blow chapters of my american adventures. But one thing led to another, and I ended up so caught up in a tornado of fervent activity and exploration that i forgot about posting.

This was the trip of a lifetime. And now it's over.

I don't know if i feel cathartic or grief-stricken at the prospect. A little of both, i suspect. I'm sitting in narita airport, kicking some internet out of a jurassic monster of a steel PC that appears to digest information at the speed of snail-sex. Right now, i'm too bloody tired and emotionally drained to relive the whole thing by typing it out - so you lot can hang off some morsels for a few days till i recover from my jetlag and claw my way back into something resembling function.

And yes, stephen, i touched the moonrock. :D And went on a pilot/gunner simulation ride with crow that proves that a) i am the worst pilot ever living and b) it is actually harder to shoot down a moving target when some dipstick at the helm is flipping the entire contraption every five seconds.

We went drinkin' with lincoln, i rickrolled DC, saw an emerald the size of my fist, rode a dragon, discovered that Australia is a poorer place without Ben & Jerry's, read Deadpool and the Runaways, gooed over sloth-bears, made mobsters, farted under the covers and had my world expanded in a way i never knew possible.

I'll miss you. All of you.

love pixie

Whoo. The simple fact is that i have been a) a lazy arse and b) Having so much fun that it's been hard to actually GET to the computer.

For starters, we got SNOW yesterday! Actual snow! In which to frolic! Coincidentally, that was the day we said goodbye to Del and spent several hours wandering around the smithsonian making rude comments about malachite formations. I love this city. You can't walk more than five steps without tripping over culture.

There are now just the two of us - Crow and myself. Lil had to bugger off back to the west coast on account of university. Mornings are typically spent sleeping in painfully late, attempting to dutch-oven each other and then falling out into the climate in search of something vaguely resembling food.

What else...well, we converged on the Washington Monument chanting 'bacon', we met Black Aggie (sinister statue of a shrouded woman; if you sleep in her arms overnight, she's supposed to crush you to death), i chased squirrels and did a barbeque in honour of Australia Day on Crow's wee grill. Met Lincoln, too - the statue, not the real man. He's curiously benevolent, like the kind of uncle who reads you stories and sneaks you chocolate when your mum isn't looking. I can see why people go up there to think so often.

Wow...wandering around here is astounding. The walks are peppered with comments like "Oh, Teddy Roosevelt used to go swimming in that pond. Pissed his staff off no end"; we regularly just STROLL PAST THE WHITEHOUSE, JUST LIKE THAT. It'd be nice to leave the Obamas a welcoming present like a bundt cake or something, but the security's so bloody tight that i doubt it'd get to him.

Oh, speaking of security. There's more coppers per square metre around here than anywhere else i've ever been. I've never felt safer wandering around. I couldn't spit without hitting someone in uniform.

Speaking of non-linear posts, Del, Crow and myself coincidentally chose the eve of Chinese New Year to go to chinatown for dinner - after stuffing ourselves on dumplings and noodles, we wandered out into the MIDDLE OF ANOTHER PARADE. Dear god, this city just spits 'em up like a baby with hiccups. The dragon dancers seemed to like del - must have been all the orange. Del adores orange, and dresses like a tiny traffic cone.

Where was i. Oh, yes. I got my snow, and a snowball fight to boot. The thing to watch out for is the 'volunteers', who are actually hobos handing out city maps and pointing out where the monuments are. "Hello, i'm terribly polite and helpful and offering this free service, now please give me two dollars." I lost about eight dollars before i clued in. Sneaky little buggers.

I think we're hitting the portrait galleries today. Difficult to tell - we've been working like mad on Hunter and Niko's saga, tentatively named i-have-not-the-faintest-idea. They now have a pair of rival mobs to mess with, as well as a psychotic assassin.
This is going to rock faces off.

lots of love,
Pixie

I am successfully in americas. And it has been sufficiently awesome that i have not yet had time to yatter at you all yet. So, feel free to catch up here. I warn you, it is excessively tl:dr.

<lj-cut text="Leg 1: Airport">

Monday 19^th

10.15am, Narita Airport

Japan

 

I cannot for the life of me figure out the conversion rates or find a currency exchange centre, so until I do that’s goodbye wireless internet.

It’s not precisely misty – more proto-mist, damp and dour and bathing everything in thick grey, threatening to swoop down and chew on your ligaments at a moment’s notice. The airport staff are stumping around in thick leather overcoats and face-masks, presumably to fend off ghastly foreign diseases. I managed to get a rather nasty blood nose in the toilets – I’d hate to have seen stumpy little mr Yamamoto’s reaction if I’d turned up at the gate covered in gore. I even had a line prepared – “Osutolalia jin desu – hana-wa hen desu.” I’m an Australian person. My nose is odd. Thankfully the bloody geyser stopped and I saved myself the embarrassment of my halting Japanese.

The flight was surprisingly enjoyable. The main reason for this was that I slept through the whole damn thing on two filched seats, with my travel pillow jammed behind my neck and my feet invading the corridor. I pity anyone in the surrounding seats – my left sinus was blocked and vengeful, and the resulting nasal symphony must have been painful. But nobody tried to wake me - or if they did, the polite Japanese couple behind me were being very subtle about it. The food was less palatable. I will never understand the logic behind feeding some 150 people beans in an enclosed area. Our bowel eructation’s were loud and pungent, to say the least. And it’s not as if this is a one-off incident – it happened last time, too.

But back to Narita – they have automated bathrooms. If you wave your hand under the tap, it spits water at you. The soap comes pre-frothed. The water is at hand-temperature, and the hand-dryer adjusts itself to just slightly warmer than the ambient temperature. I spent a gleeful five minutes teasing the tap, but it was always too quick for me.

I can only hope that I manage not to bollock up the next leg of the journey. Considering it’s the most difficult bit, this is highly possible.

I’m off to hunt for currency and internet.

 

11.58 am

 

I found both currency, internet and cheap food – there is no word for how nice gyoza dumplings are here. In its own environment, food attains a certain boldness of taste and variance of flavour. I found a sweetshop selling mochi cakes wrapped in bright paper, and rest assured I will be back.

I’m sitting writing this in a lounge made of fantastic layers of square cushions, scattered like islands in a tile sea. Various sleepers are strewn over the cushions, but I’m far too neurotic to sleep. Plus, I already dozed away half a journey. I’m a little afraid I’ll have to sit out the rest fully conscious.

The whole place is packed with intricate paintings, and across from where I sit is a small shop-cum-museum displaying sprawling gardens, battle-scenes and festivals – made completely of paper. Apparently there are forty forms of sacred crane to fold and join together – here I thought I was doing well with just one.

I’ll buy cakes later, but for now I’ll get on with some sketching before my laptop dies.

 

Monday 19^th

11.00am, LAX

Evidence suggests I survived the most recent leg of the flight. But it was a close-run thing.

I was in an aisle seat squashed next to a pair of near-identical phillipino girls, who seemed to operate as two halves of the same body – sleeping all over each other, eating off each other’s plates and handling luggage without communication. Across the aisle from me, however, was a horrifying pair emerged from urban myth – Demanding Asian Mama and her Doting Son. Watching her eat noodles was an education, and I have no idea what she was putting IN her sick-bags – but she went through a hell of a lot of them. Her son seemed to enjoy the nauseating cocktail of tomato juice, apple juice and green tea, which floored the poor hostesses each time. But the most fascinating thing about Mama was her toenails. They grew gleefully unchecked, as curved as cashews and jutting out of her gold sandals – and each one was lovingly painted magenta and decorated with tiny flowers. It was like Godzilla had shyly started wearing lipgloss.

I did sleep, because if I’d sat through the entire nine hours awake I’m fairly certain I would have gone critical, but it was erratic. I napped in fits and starts, like a narcoleptic cat in a tumbledryer – the intent was there, but there was noise and distraction and the only way my seat would have been comfortable is if I had a spine like an ampersand.

My first impression of LA was a stylishly groomed tropical getaway – frozen in stasis. The wild wigs of birds-of-paradise were clipped back to demure brushes, sedate under the grey sky, and the palms were sleek and free of the scraggy overgrowth one finds in the tropics. Everyone was remarkably friendly, and I wasn’t gunned down in a gangfight – contrary to popular expectations.

Also, you lot are a bunch of scaremongering bastards. I was having heart attacks over going through US customs – but it was as quick and painless as hocking a loogie, and I was spat out the other end wondering what happened. I’m chalking it down to the terrorism status – or maybe the fact that I appear so amiably incompetent that nobody really considered me a threat. I mentioned the jar of vegemite at customs, and the man just laughed. I am under the impression that I may have let the side down.

The one thing worrying me at this stage is the faint likelihood of the flight being overbooked – being a holidayer, I’m terrified that they’ll throw me off and thus delay the trip. But then again, I’ve been fearing arrest, terrorism, crashes into the pacific and the Breakfast Sausage for 30 straight hours, and nothing’s happened yet.

Touch wood.

(at this point I dispense with dates, as it's bloody confusing and i forgot to keep up)

Well, the american leg of the flights were fairly uneventful. Other than a Beef and Swiss Sub that appeared to have been carved out of bacon grease, the actual flights were uneventful. I saw snow on a mountaintop while flying over the midwest - the landscapes were spread out in a series of channels and rivulets and dunes like some kind of fantastic brown lichen. I'm fairly sure that the large iranian next to me did not appreciate my constant oo0ing - nor my minute bladder.

Next leg was mostly full of sleep. Just about everyone on the plane wore obama shirts. I've decided i love the american habit of narrating their life to any passerby - "I'm scared of goin' up inna sky, mama. The sky's - up inna - i'm scared..."; "I lost my soda. I had a soda and i lost it, i want my soda." "OOh, it is cold in DC. It was not cold in houston and it is COLD in DC." It's as though every day facets of life are regarded with such amazement, and must be communicated. So cute. And one old lady offered me onions.

The actual airport itself wasn't so much fun, as the staff were hell-bent on playing silly buggers with Crow, Lil and myself and had told us to wait at opposite ends of the airport for each other. One hour later, as a hysterical, weeping pixie was being gently bundled out of there by security, Crow and Lil managed to find me. I almost wet myself with relief. Next time, i'm ignoring the information bay.

</lj-cut>

<lj-cut text="Leg 2: Inauguration">
Turns out Crow lives literally a block away from the mall (or, in other words, the park) where the inauguration was being broadcast live. You may have seen it on the news - the massive swarm of about a million people? Well, we woke up at about 10am (being the lazy bastards that we were) and rolled out of bed to literally step out the door and fall into step with a steady lemming-flow of people: people waving flags, people with little badges that read "hello, i'm from alaska!", people with popcorn and dogs and small children, with every eye fixed on the steadily growing sea of wooly hats ahead. I wore my australian flag knotted around my neck like a cape, and it seemed to work; people certainly got out of our way, but that may have been because we were chattering like sparrows.
We found a place right under the jumbo-tron (giant-ass tv screen), between two flags and in front of the world-war-II memorial. John Williams apparently wrote the score, so picking bits he'd ripped from Star Wars was brilliant fun. But the music - oh, the music. The military band played 'amazing grace' and i cried openly - as did others around me. We were sandwiched between a teacher from Michigan, an elderly tap-dancing teacher and a pair of massive black men who shouted at the Tron like a gospel revival meeting. Lil delivered a running commentary that had everyone in stitches, delivering lines like "It's nice to have a first lady who doesn't dress like a sofa", calling george bush a douchebag, shouting at the californian delegate, and general heckling. I wish i had a taperecorder. Then the speech...oh, the speech. I actually heard a president of the US commit to clean energy, improved health and better education (WITHIN HIS LIFETIME) and acknowledge past mistakes. He priotitised science, stated that america can no longer pursue a policy of zero accountability - oh, i didn't no whether to laugh or cry with joy. And to cap it off, it was littered with subtle digs at george Bush. Teehee.

We blundered home and slept - long, gorgeous sleep, only to wake up and stumble back onto the street into the midst of a SEQUINNED PARADE FULL OF MARCHING BANDS. Only in America, folks. Only in america. The Alaskan highschool played 'thriller' which in some way went towards absolving them of Sarah Palin - there was a marching troupe decked out in greatcoats and bayonettes, looking like they were cut out of steel, and tiny buxom baton twirlers shivering in sheer tights, but nonetheless hipchecking hard enough to throw you off the road. The chinese couple next to us pinched a flag off the Boyscout's float, and the mounted brigades were glamorous on sleek black horses who champed and steamed in the cold. I was this close to latching onto them in an attempt to steal the horseheat.

I'm tired as hell now, so i'll update you lot later on the rest.

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