Sitting here two days away from my long trip back to the USA, a trip I'm reluctantly making, but making because it's easier to do my final changes in person than by proxy, the phone, or the internet. I think it's funny that the internet will take your credit card as your identity for a multitude of purchases ranging from iTunes to some of the most sordid pornography one has ever accidentally <my story and sticking to it> discovered while Googling. You can't legally change your name in another country, and to be completely honest? I have no Australian healthcare, but pay for American healthcare and my sight woes and sight ability these days are as important as Free HBO you get on cable for those weekend passes..... I want it for as long as it's available, but I won't be surprised the day I find out it's been discontinued with no warning... after all, easy come, easy go, right? But it never hurts to stop by the cable company and apply for an extension.
I've had as much fun as one can have in a new country that's also supposed to have become my home over the last eight or so months, I can now shop and be unapologetic when I push people out of the way to get what to what I want, like say.. the counter. Being rude isn't an instinctive quality, but I prefer 'survival of the fittest', here, if you don't nudge your way in eventually? You're not getting in without assertive tactics... from the teenagers with absolutely no time to spare or the elderly ethnic woman in or out of the rascal scooter, who also apparently has more pressing issues than you; It's obvious from the way she runs over your toes with not so much as a look in your general direction but the minute the sales clerk says 'Who's next?' and you honestly assert that it was you? That's when you get the look of disdain whether it's from behind a spectacled white haired Aussie woman or the more emotional gaze you receive from someone in a full burka. The eyes really are the windows to the soul after all, aren't they? Do you know what it looks/sounds like when you're receiving a curse from a Greek woman? I do now thanks to my transplantation here, and my inability to be endlessly polite when I too would like to make purchases and return home at an appropriate time to lunch.
I would not like any cheese with my whine today. That's not my point. I'm nearly sure it isn't.
I've decided to make my trip now because under existing law, I need to leave the country for at least ninety days before I can be issued a new Visa. There's a show called 'Custom's Wars' that I watch with fear; Fear that I'm ultimately going to be the next 'contestant' who gets nervous, befuddled, insulted, and turned away at the border of the country that separates my husband from me. Being turned away comes with a bonus prize of a 'three year exclusion', three years without seeing John unless he comes to America may as well be called 'three years without seeing John'. For him it was a nice place to visit, but it's not in his top fifty places that he'd like to return to right away. Dare I have to save money for months on end to be reunited with my loved one in Istanbul? Indonesia? New Zealand? I have no problem going to these places as long as I don't have to speak. Once your American accent is recognized everything is more expensive, everyone talks more quickly so you don't hear ALL the insults, and I have to admit when John and I shop even in Sydney I tend to shut up in spite of my all to ready and willing middle finger which makes appearances by reflex, it's like I honestly have nothing to do with it anymore. It is my alter ego which is unrecognizable only to me. Did you know the middle finger is NOT the universal sign for 'f*ck you'? I can tell you it's not. I had a series of pictures taken of me and when Mr. Middle made his appearances, everyone thought I was pointing and would look in the general direction he was directed at. It's humiliating to not be able to quickly and quietly insult people as you have the right as American to do as well as I once could. I feel less empowered without that....er .. power.
Anyway, after ninety days, I should be able to reenter the country for another questionable period or permanently, depending on the decisions of the parliament, if they decide to act at all or put it off for another year, as happened in 2012. I have however promised not only John and our newly extended family but also dear friends of ours that I would be attending our wedding anniversary, John and I have birthday's separated by only two days in November, there's Christmas on Bondi Beach which is supposed to be a midnite bonfire experience that would be cold if it weren't for the summer weather in Sydney, southern hemisphere capital of the world. Crosby, Still's, and Nash' 'Southern Cross'? Yup, we've got it, though I have to admit the song is better than the actual constellation, which I found boring compared to say 'delphinius' or 'o'rien'. I've also invited and intend to honor introducing all these wonderful new people in my life to a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, complete from the beginning nuts to ending pie. I have a separate entry as far as Thanksgiving food and how I address it. My father worshiped Archie Bunker the way some people here idolize Mohammed, and let's face it, Thanksgiving is this weird holiday with a history of betrayal, underhandedness, accidental intoxication and manipulation of emotions, and separation of good and evil spirits' intentions at the table. That's only in my family Thankgivings, with NO regard whatsoever of the HISTORICAL significances of the holiday. Try explaining to anyone who isn't American why Thanksgiving is a national holiday and make it a game of counting how many times you have to say 'no, you don't understand' before figuring out that you probably don't understand how ruthless and barbaric it is to celebrate it. I'd feel worse about it but hell, we're in sunny Australia and when someone points out how horrible we were to our Nations original civilization at least I have the ability to throw in my two cents about theirs, and we can sit and argue about who treated who worse over too many cocktails, a myriad of food, and a cornucopia of different personalities all ready to chime in their idiotic, drunken opinions. And isn't that what Thanksgiving's always been about? Or was that only at my house? See you in the States, you big old sillies.
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