After the initial shock of hearing the news of the terrorist attacks in the USA, I got ready and walked into work because it was raining. I stopped by the open but empty Uni bar and saw the first footage of the attacks and subsequent collapse of the towers. It was terrifying, even from the other side of the world. It was hard not to talk about it at work all day long, and the reports that kept emerging illustrated the most audacious terrorist attack yet… noticeably not with nuclear weapons or bio-weapons, but with only the most basic technology and know-how.
It's been an interesting last few days. After the attacks on Wednesday, we all got back to work, however in the afternoon I had coffee with Rachel. I hadn't seen her since last year, so it was good to finally catch up. Her good friend Linda had moved down from Sydney, so that was good. Rachel transitioned at a big tech company not long before, but seemed to be doing ok. We said goodbye after about an hour and I went to satisfy my custard-Danish craving. On my way back through town I bumped into Red and her friend Leila. We chatted and walked back towards the Uni since they were killing time before a movie. For once there was no SCA meeting that night, and no-one quite seems to know where Jenni is.
Yesterday I was in laser physics to measure the last few samples at a different wavelength, and we got them out of the way suprisingly fast with the new laser setup and having Joe (the new Ph.D.) saving the measurements. I was happy to escape the overly warm concrete bunker at laser physics to go home and nap before heading into Café Essen to have dinner with Peta. The good news which we had to celebrate was that she had been up to Sydney to see Dr Haerstch about surgery and she was happy enough with everything to decide to go for it. She hasn't yet booked a date for it, but it seems likely to be sometime in January or February which was very exciting though I will be out of the country. We had dinner, although originally we had planned to see "Perfect Blue", it was on much earlier than I had expected, so we gave that a miss.
Today I was feeling slightly unwell, and didn't get a lot of work done. I went home around midday for a lie-down and then when I came back Tim dropped by and so we went for coffee. After that I dropped by the Jelly-babies barbecue which was celebrating the establishment of the first temporary Queer space at the ANU. So, I chatted away with Red, Emma, Llewellyn and the others there before Emma and I headed into town for a bit of a shopping expedition. We went by the Atelier shop and the girl remembered me from the week before and said they had turned up some black size 16 leather jeans during the stock-take and which were still on sale. Emma tried on a little halter top which managed the rare achievement of showing off all three of her tattoo's at once and I was happy to find that the pants fit. They were tight, but leather stretches a lot, and considering that they were marked down from $370 to $160, I thought I was doing fairly well, especially since on the internet they usually retail for about US$200.
While I was waiting for a change-room to become available, who should come into the same shop but Rachel! That was cool, and we had a good chat. I mentioned that Peta G and I were having coffee at Essen on Saturday morning, so she might drop around there. Tomorrow will be fairly busy with coffee in the morning and then the girl's night out at the Gypsy Bar (School-girl's night out rather). Sunday is the usual archery and armouring with Adam willing to buy back bits and pieces of my armour since I can't really take it overseas.
On the way home from our shopping expedition, Emma and I got into an interesting discussion about how it seems that a lot of the people in the DX household are into "kink". I think that a lot of people are into fetish and/or BD/SM, but it isn't usual to admit that. I don't have a problem admitting that my tastes are far from vanilla and that the correct activities or clothes can get me very interested… but as some-one once said "People who join the SCA aren't normal". Therefore, the current DX interest in hand-cuffs, dog-collars and manacles is perhaps not out of the ordinary for people who are already inclined in that direction.
There has been a long-discussed but never realized idea for a "Good and Evil" party which I think might be an interesting portal to observe otherwise buried desires. Heaven knows that Halloween is so often used by closeted TG people as their one night of freedom per year. I might suggest this as a possibility for my farewell party, we'll see…