Sven's life in Oz

Last week I announced on Twitter that I neither relished nor resented Valentine’s Day this year. I have been working so hard and avoiding the shops lately, so it has rather flown under my radar, but as the big day approaches it is slowly seeping in through the virtual windows of my life: updates are appearing on Facebook, tips on buying flowers are dropping into my email more regularly, and the Valentine hashtags are becoming a permanent feature of my TweetDeck. The day itself, thanks to the wonders of time differences and universal connectivity, will last about 36 hours on Twitter as the sun rises on 14 February around the world, long after it began to shine on Australian lovers.

This will be my first Valentine’s Day as a single man in over a decade. I keep my old Valentine cards – not as an ego trip, but to remind me when I’m down that people have cared. It’s good to remind yourself that your are lovable, especially when you don’t feel it. And if this post sounds melancholy, it really isn’t: I’m actually quite chipper. Things are going well – work is good, I’m making new friends all the time and laughing more and more each day. I’ve been on a second date with the blind date – Dr Lego, as he has become known – and the latest one (last night) was great. So why am I sitting in bed, typing paragraph after paragraph about a date on the calendar I really care nothing about?

I was pottering about, doing things that needed doing, when I caught myself wondering if Dr Lego would call. Of course I knew he wouldn’t, but sometimes these thoughts just pop into your head. It’s frustrating and distracting and after a while it can drive you crazy, but underneath all the “will he, won’t he?” and the “I’m not thinking about it”, there’s a tiny light of excitement, a little glee in your heart that says “this is what it is like to be alive”.

Now, I’m not mad enough to think that two dates is any kind of basis for a relationship – he might turn out to be an axe murderer or seal clubber or a mime artist – but the beginning, the trepidation, the exicitement and the unknown are all the things that Valentine’s Day celebrates. Even when I check my postbox on Sunday morning and find it predictably empty, and even if he hasn’t called me back because he’s drowning puppies in a sack under a bridge somewhere, I won’t mind too much. Landing on your ass with egg on your face is the tails side of the coin, and sometimes it comes up heads.

As I eat my french toast alone on Sunday morning, I will remind myself that I can feel the things we all feel, that they are waiting for me when I least expect it, quite suddenly, without warning, and not just on one day but on any day; and they are all just wonderful.

Heart like a swinging brick? Whoever heard such rubbish?

A short review of the Eliasson exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney.

I shall let you into a little secret: I don’t pay for my electricity. Not through choice, although I can’t say that I wouldn’t choose free power given the option, but rather through a combination of good luck and bad management. Obviously I shan’t name the company in question, but I will tell you all about it and hope they don’t find out.

When I moved out of the flat James and I shared and into my current home, I transferred the existing electricity account. (We had set it up in my name originally, so it was quite straightforward.) I told the company my new address, had them send final bills for the old place to me at my new home (thus confirming they knew I had moved), and confirmed that I would continue to pay my bills monthly via direct debit. That was last August. I haven’t heard a peep out of them since.

At first I thought I was not receiving a bill, but I was sure they would still charge me. I watched my account religiously, waiting for an unexpected amount to disappear overnight, whereupon I would ring them, berate them and get the matter sorted. Nothing happened. I convinced myself that I was being billed quarterly – no big deal, since I had budgeted monthly and the money was simply sitting there waiting to be spent. Three months went by and still nothing happened. By now I had over $250 waiting to be claimed. I was starting to get attached to the money, but expecting it to go at any moment. It’s still there.

Now, nearly seven months on I’ve got twice as much money sitting in my account, looking at me, waiting to be spent. Now it’s just getting silly. As far as I can see, I have three choices:

1. Tell the electricity company they haven’t been charging me for the past six months. Pay the bill. No harm done.
2. Don’t tell the electricity company and, when they find out, tell them I decided to leave them, then blame them for not transferring me to my new provider properly.
3. Move home when my lease is up and don’t leave a forwarding address.

#3 is a bad idea because I like my home, even if it is a little small and doesn’t have any air conditioning. But #1 would involve me giving up that little nest egg and I really don’t want to do that either. I guess I’m stuck with #2 and living like a fugitive, afraid that at any moment I’ll get a whopper of a bill and try to blag my way out of it. Oh, it’s a tough call.

What would you do?

Last Thursday rugby training started again. I turned up at the field despite every muscle of my body pulling me in the opposite direction, and spent two hours running around in the pouring rain, throwing a ball around while a thunderstorm raged all around us. It was not the best return to training ever; Sydney’s summer has been pretty lame so far and I feel a bit cheated, frankly. Where is the sunshine? I might as well have stayed in England.

It’s quite nice to back at rugby, especially since I have been indulging on the cakes/pies/booze all over Christmas on the promise that I would return. The theory that “if you put it quickly on, it’s comes quickly off” makes up in rhetorical value what it lacks in scientific accuracy, and it has kept me going over the past few months. Now it is time to balance that equation through exercise, sadly. But it’s not all exercise and pain, of course – it was lovely to see my team mates again after a long break, even if we were all dripping wet and slipping over every ten minutes in the mud.

Not content with one training session, I decided that the rugby run on Saturday morning was also a good idea – in for a penny, in for a pound, I suppose – and was on the beach at 9am to run the Bronte-Bondi return trip. This is nothing short of a miracle for three reasons:

1. It was a Saturday morning, and the night before I had drunk the lions’ share of two bottles of wine at Greg’s house. By rights, I should have slept till noon.
2. I hate running. I consider it the most tedious, least rewarding form of exercise known to man.
3. It’s exercise. Enough said.

40 minutes and 8 kilometres later I was in the sea, splashing about and swimming around in the swell. No one is at liberty to remind me I said this, but it was actually one of the most refreshing and invigorating ways to start the weekend. I went home, stretched out and felt fantastic, if a little sore. (There was also the added bonus of feeling virtuous despite eating a chocolate brownie at the MCA Cafe on my blind date. I seldom regret eating food, but it’s always good when you feel like you deserve a treat, don’t you think?)

So, my goal this year is to be thin and fabulous for my sister’s wedding in October. I figure ten months of running around a rugby pitch (including, potentially, the chance to play in the Bingham Cup in June) should do wonders for my waistline. Now all I need is some sunshine for a decent tan. Sadly, it seems that is just too much to ask.

Sometimes writing is good to get things off my chest. Other times, it can be good to put off writing about something until I have thought about it some more. At these times getting it down on paper is more like ordering my thoughts; like running them through a sieve to get all the crap out before I can make anything out of them. This is one of those times.

I am having a good time being single. However, lately it seems that the whole world wants to settle down and get married. Every man I meet is looking for a boyfriend, which is fine, but when I say that I’m not that guy things go decidedly sour very quickly. Most recently a guy actually told me off for leading him on because, I can only assume, I didn’t tell him right at the start that I wasn’t looking for a long-term relationship. (The idea of ‘looking for a long-term relationship’ is odd to me anyway – I always thought these things happened organically. It appears I was wrong.) This latest episode got me wondering whether everyone is looking to settle down, or if I am the cause of my own problems. Turns out it might be a bit of both.

Last week in the pub, I lamented my sorry tales to the NEC, who told me that my problem was being too nice. “You are friendly,” he said. Ordinarily it would be a compliment. “You need to be more shrewd. You can see why people get the wrong idea. Don’t text back straight away; leave them hanging for a while. They’ll get the message.” The problem is I’m crap at that kind of thing. I like to text back straight away or I forget – just ask my sister. I adore her, but I’m rubbish at keeping in touch. If I don’t do it immediately, you’ll be waiting till Christmas to hear from me. Whatever the relative merits of playing games, I hate it when people do it to me and I’m dreadful at doing it to anyone else.

When I discussed it over cocktails with my friend, Sarah, we came out with quite a different answer. “You’re not too nice: you just can’t help it. It’s not your fault you are charming,” she said. Of course people would want to settle down with me, the conversation went, I’m freakin’ fantastic. I’m a victim of my own loveliness, it seems. Whether it’s true or not (and there are days when I assure you it most certainly is not), friends who can take your crushed confidence and turn it into ego-restoring compliments like that should be treasured forever.

Finally I talked about it with James, and he looked at me incredulously. He often wonders what planet I live on, and this was definitely one of those times. He cut straight to the chase.
“People are looking for love,” he said. “Maybe you aren’t, but most people are. It’s what people do.”
He could always tell me what I needed to hear when I didn’t want to listen – in this case: “it’s not all about you”. I’m not too nice: if anything I’m rather selfish. But he made me see that there’s nothing wrong with that, so long as I remember that the rest of the world doesn’t necessarily see things my way. So you want to date me? I’m flattered, not faulty. Thanks but no thanks, and that’s all there is to it.

Right, what’s next?