2004-04-14 at 5:09 p.m.
I spent last week up in Newcastle catching up with old friends, bribing the library staff so that I could actually graduate next monday, attending choir rehearsals, being coerced into singing for a church service and then almost fainting from heat exhaustion in the middle of it, writing the second* most ridiculous opera libretto the world has ever seen, and drinking.
Lots and lots of drinking. Well, enough drinking that I was decently drunk at least twice, but not enough drinking that I awoke in my underwear, handcuffed to a pole in the red-light district. No, sir. I'm not letting that happen again.
However, the highlight of the week was a chance run-in with my old nemesis.
Longtime readers of my diary (ie, me) may remember her as the university lecturer who bitched about me behind my back when I played chopsticks during a performance class. Her opinion of me only declined once I and a few of my friends bade farewell to her class by means of a song that got a little too honest. (After that little debacle, she was heard to publically state that she looked forward to seeing myself and my friends in the dole queue a few years down the line. Classy, no?)
Last week, I found myself in the university cafe, preparing to chow down on some delectable hot chips swimming in gravy. Right at that moment, who should walk in but The Nemesis herself.
"Hi" I said, smiling at her sweetly.
"Murgh" she muttered resentfully in my general direction, before heading toward the drink fridge.
I joined the line at the cashier counter and ordered my sumptuous, potato based banquet. The Nemesis rather grudgingly lined up behind me.
"I heard you laughing in the cafe earlier today" said Hazel, one of the lovely cafe ladies, as she doled out scoops of golden, deep-fried goodness. "I heard it, and I thought - that's what I've been missing around here this year!"
Beside me, I could feel The Nemesis slowly tensing with anger. Hazel's comment had essentially come across as - "People miss you here, Michelle. Particularly your sense of humour". And The Nemesis, hater of my sense of humour that she is, could not retaliate in any way.
Sometimes unintentional victories are the sweetest.
I went to the Sydney show for the first time on Sunday. Prior to this, people would look at me like I was some poor, flyblown Somalian orphan on telling them I'd never been there.
"You've never been to the Sydney Show?" they would gasp, gazing upon me with pity. "Here, have a tuberculosis injection and a UNICEF care package".
Well, now I have finally been, and I can honestly say that it wasn't all that great, really.
However, it is thanks to the show that I was able to obtain the Holy Grail of silly noisemakers - a duck call.
I've never been so happy.
*Wagner's 'Ring Cycle' takes first place honours. Some people see it as the absolute pinnacle of operatic art. I see it as a silly story where people turn into dragons for no good reason, participate in all manner of incest, and sing loudly for twenty two hours.
