I make it a point to leave the Maple Lodge every day, sometimes for hours at a time. It’s really strange to have no responsibility and no structure, really difficult to imagine that just six weeks ago I still had a job and a bus pass and I had to be places at specific times. I like still being on vacation but I admit I really hope to be working soon, actually, and not only for the positive cash flow action. Being here is a little strange because I don’t exactly feel like a tourist…I go to New World pretty much every day, have a coffee card at Espressoholic and am planning to join the library today…but I’m not really a part of the city yet. Why this should surprise me when I’ve only been here a week is unclear.
In the meantime, though, I am getting into a tiny itty bitty routine here. This morning it went: wake up and dart into the shower, using Fijian sulu as a towel. Do twenty minutes of fake yoga, hearing your dance teacher’s voice in your head and missing her a little, put on octopus shirt. Eat breakfast of muesli and sadly-non-FAGE-0%-with-honey yogurt, talk to other non-job-having-breakfast-eaters about what all they’re doing today, wash bowl. Go upstairs to put in earrings and shoes, consult with non-job-having-breakfast-eaters about where exactly the library is, run back upstairs to grab hat and purse. Hear some startling news about the fact that it is supposed to hail today and run back upstairs to get jacket. Make it almost all the way to the door but then think that if it’s going to hail then it might be good to bring another layer. At bottom of stairs, remember iPod. Curse softly on third trip upstairs in five minutes but make it out the door and nearly get knocked off feet by strong wind coming down steep hill.
I come here to the Two Dollar Internet Place every day via Courtenay Place and Cuba Street mall. There’s the Japanese souvenir shop called Mr. Thank You about which I am very curious, as well as a coffee place called Fidel’s, with big pictures of Castro all over it, which make the Miami girl in me cringe a little and look over my shoulder. I’ve been to the Botanical
Gardens and Mt. Vic Lookout and I’m doing decently well on my quest to have chai tea in a different cafe every day (although frankly when I found the bowl of cream and hot chocolate at Espressoholic my zeal for that quest diminished a little). I hope to go to the zoo soon as well as to
I’ve spent, so far, a lot of time at Te Papa. Like, a lot. I think I’m going to go there today after the library, in fact. It is a seriously great place and even though I’ve been there four times in the last week I still haven’t seen it all.
Last week I was feeling pretty down and I sort of slunk there through the rain and wandered sadly up to a tiny little exhibit about animal adaptation and was instantly cheered by the displays of shark teeth and sea urchins, of harlequin beetles and fossilized ammonites. There is something about taxonomy that is inherently soothing, and I was already feeling a lot better by the time I got to the kakapo exhibit, which has in it the single best educational video I have ever seen in my life, ever. I wish I could find it online somewhere and post it here, because before you have seen footage of a flightless ground parrot attempting to copulate with a rolled up towel, you cannot seriously be said to have lived. At all. Oooh, and then, right there in the display case next to the video, is this crazy plastic helmet that they bird conservation people made specifically for this one kakapo who, according to the signage, “often attempted to mate with humans’ heads.” They really need to save this bird, you know, so they thought they’d take advantage of the parrot’s fetish and get a…sample…that way. Hence the helmet. But! Sadly! The display informs us that “this kakapo was not attracted to human heads wearing the helmet.” This is the kind of curation that keeps me going back, my friends. It is really the perfect museum.
When I’m not checking email or buying groceries or watching parrot sex videos I sometimes meet people for dinner or go to a job interview, but mostly I am on my own during the day, just walking my new city. I hardly know it yet, but I like what I see of it so far. I think it suits me. Part of me still wonders what I’m doing here, but every day I get a stronger and stronger sense that it’s all going to come clear, that I’ll find a place to settle in, soon soon soon.
Comments
7 responses to “What I Do Every Day”
Some of the birds at the parrot rescue I volunteer with will try to mate with human hands, perches, or really anything that’s ‘accessible’ to them. There was a lorikeet with a rubber glove fetish a few years ago. So, it doesn’t surprise me at all that there’s a kakapo with a head fetish. :)
And kakapo’s are fascinating birds! I doubt the video you want is there, but there’s a good site on the ongoing efforts to save them here: http://www.kakaporecovery.org.nz
Just a note to say I am loving following the first days of your new adventure. Can’t wait to see what comes next for you! :-)
I looooooove Mr. Thankyou! The bags you get when you buy stuff are hilarious as well.
I wrote that comment before I finished reading the rest of the entry, so caught up in Mr Thankyou am I. I love Te Papa – I only got to go there once when we were performing for a singing thing, but I really liked it and I’d like to see more. That parrot sex thing is hilarious!
Te Papa doesn’t seem to have that video online, but the picture is hilarious. Also, the mechanical kakapo.
Way to go with the adventuring! Things will settle down soon.
Some things are frustrating about the adjustment – like the fact that I went to the Zoology department 3 times trying to find the head of department to ask what the schedule of graduate classes were only to find out that they haven’t offer any of the 20 or so courses printed (just last year) in the catalogue under “freshwater biology” for the last few years! But the good part is that, by the time I have treked to a department several times (and it isn’t just zoology), I am finally confident enough to actual ask my question to the very official person, who is always very nice about telling me that no they can’t help me, but I should go here and talk with someone else. The point being… I really like the repetition of going places, the routine of repeat visits, rather than being frustrating, it makes me more calm. I am glad that your little routene is giving you a sense of place too!
May I have a bowl of cream and hot chocolate, please? I am so proud of you! Your routine sounds excellent. I can’t wait to hear more about Mr Thank You.