Downwardly Static: relationships

Showing posts with label relationships. Show all posts

Thursday, December 31, 2015

Goodbye 2015

I haven't made any New Year's Resolutions for the past couple of years, and I'm not at all inspired to do so this year either. After all - years are just arbitrary numbers on a calendar - and the cycles are not always in tune with good timeframes for planning to achieve stuff, etc.

Still, there are plenty of both natural as well as societal things that come in yearly cycles, and - arbitrary calendar or not - around this time I like to reflect a bit on what happened over the previous year. As well as look at what's coming up in the New Year.

2015 was a pretty good year to me. There was quite a lot of awesome travel, lovely new friendships/connections in my social/"dating" life, and work has been relatively good and flexible around it all. I've been slightly underemployed at times, and we'll see what early 2016 brings in that regard, but for the moment I think it should be fine. I'm quite loving my whole work to live lifestyle, and am not tempted to make an attempt at getting back into a proper fulltime "career" just now, but who knows what the longer term future might bring....

The biggest change that is definitely coming for me in 2016 is that I'll be moving into my parents' apartment to house sit - from February until late in the year sometime. They are going on a massive trip around the world, and the overall situation involved just doesn't lend itself to leasing the place out. This should work pretty well, since my costs will be lower while I'll still get to live on my own, as well as still be based quite centrally, and in quite a nice apartment.

Other than this, there are no other huge plans just yet. There'll definitely be some local travel adventures, and possibly a bigger overseas one if things time well with when my parents are overseas in an interesting place where I can crash with them, but that possibility is still extremely vague.

So anyway, not much to say here, just another rambling end of year reflection post!

Happy 2016 to everyone!!

January - Grand Canyon, USA

February - Lunar New Year at Crown

March - Flinders Island

April - Fitzroy Street Art

May - Last Light at Birrarung Marr

June - Melbourne Street Art

July - Sunset in St Kilda

August - Last Light at Treasury Gardens

September - RJ Hamer Arboretum

October - Evening on Swanston Street

November - Toora Wind Farm

December - Sunset Light over Melbourne

Saturday, March 21, 2015

Flinders Island Adventure

Actually, maybe "adventure" is a bit of an overstatement - this was probably the most relaxed vacation of my life - just chillin' and hanging out with my non-girlfriend down there. No high adrenaline "adventure activities" to be had at all.

Oh, except maybe for the flight over - that was an experience in itself. We flew on a 19 seater Metroliner, but it only had 11 onboard, because the runway they normally use was under maintenance and wasn't long enough to take off with more weight.

The airline which serves the island uses Melbourne's old airport at Essendon, which was an experience in itself again. The place is a bit of a time warp, and hasn't really been updated since the 1970s. And on the other end, Flinders Island Airport is basically just one small building the size of a house, plus a couple of sheds and hangars. Still, everything went quite smoothly, except for a bit of turbulence coming in to land on the island. These little planes get buffeted around pretty badly in the wild Southern Ocean winds. After coming down we settled in to our pub accommodation, at the Flinders Interstate Hotel.

Flinders Island Interstate Hotel

Flinders Island Interstate Hotel - Interior

Not sure if it's a bit of a relationship anarchist failure to even be wondering about this, but I've just been thinking what I could "classify" this trip as. In many ways, it was basically what most people would call a "romantic getaway", but then, it feels odd to call it that - considering that the relationship involved is not a classic romantic relationship at all.

It's actually great how the label doesn't matter. It was what it was, and it was great! Super relaxing and easy.

Whitemark Beach

Pacific Gull

Flinders Island is really the sort of place where you can just relax and enjoy yourself doing nothing more than chilling out and hanging out and looking at stuff. The scenery is spectacular, the wildlife encounters are easy to come by, and the local produce is fresh and delicious. All the local pubs and cafes serve locally sourced food - including the likes of wallaby burgers.

One day blended into the next down there, and it was mostly sightseeing, driving around, eating food, and much good conversation and cuddles at night. It went quite fast, but now it feels like I've been gone for a pretty solid week or ten days - even though it was actually just four full days really.

The most unusual highlight of the trip was getting to play with a couple of orphaned baby wombats, which happened in the last hour before our flight back to Melbourne.

Misty Peaks

Cows and Hills

Cloud Capped Mountain

Whitemark at Dusk

Friendly Wallabies

Flinders Island Countryside

Country Road

Granite Coastline

Sun Rays

Freddie

Freddie and Sammie

And now, back to reality....

Sunday, February 1, 2015

America Trip, January 2015

I just got back from spending my January travelling around America. It most definitely qualifies as a "trip of a lifetime" level vacation, on so many levels!

I don't really know where to begin, and if I tried to write about everything that's in my head then this post would become insanely huge, so I'll keep it (relatively) short and simple. More of a quick synopsis and a showing of holiday snaps than anything else.

Asexy Solo Poly Adventures

The initial motivator for this trip was to meet up with two special online friends whom I have an (mostly online version of) asexual solo polyamorous triad with. I had already met one of them last year, and the two of them met each other before as well, but this was the first time we were all coming together in-person.

It all went amazingly well! So much so that I don't really have much to say about it right now. It doesn't really need analysis or (in the spirit of relationship anarchy) even a strong definition, it just is what it is. And spending time together in-person was great. We went road tripping around the Southwest, spent two days sightseeing around the Grand Canyon, and there was much great conversation, quality time, and warm and fuzzy snuggles!

Admittedly, the distance involved is not ideal. It would be great to be able to get together and do something like this more easily and spontaneously and often - say, a few times per year or so. But it's still great to have these kind of connections, even if they're going to be long distance and mostly-online things indefinitely. I've been looking at love through the relationship anarchist lens for a long time now, so it's getting easier than ever to accept each connection for what it is, and to cherish it for what it is.

Overview And All The Rest

Without getting too long-winded and prosaic, let's just say that my vacation was split into two parts: first the meeting above (from 3rd January to the 12th), and then solo travel from the 12th onwards. I flew in and out of Los Angeles, on the 2nd and 29th January respectively...

Being a bit of a train travel nut, I decided to cross the entire country by train, so I took the Sunset Limited from Los Angeles to El Paso on the 2nd, which is where I got off, rented a car, and went on to do the Asexy Solo Poly Adventure stuff for nine days. Then I rejoined the Sunset Limited in El Paso on the 12th and went down to New Orleans, arriving there on the 13th. After a few days in Nawlins, I rolled across to New York on the Crescent on the 17th - which completed my coast-to-coast crossing of the USA. Then I flew over to San Francisco on the 24th for a few days and took the Coast Starlight back down to Los Angeles, where I flew out the next day.

Overall, New York was definitely my favourite city in America, with San Francisco coming in a close second. By contrast, both New Orleans and Los Angeles felt like quite brutal cities - and although they were definitely fun to visit for a bit - I didn't get the slightest bit of curiosity about wanting to live there.

I spent the vast majority of the solo portion of my trip just strolling around and taking it all in. It's typical of my travel style (as well as lifestyle), which is a big part of why I liked New York and San Francisco so much - they are similar to inner city Melbourne in that sense. You can really do that there, friendly and safely. Other than that, I have to say I quite liked the food in America, especially at the casual diner level.

So I'm back now, and easing into "normal" life again. Probably only starting work again later in the week, which is good. I didn't actually blow my budget with this trip or anything, so I'm not too desperate to jump straight into heavy hours right now.

Here's a smattering of holiday snaps. I didn't take my proper camera, so they're basic smartphone snaps, but some turned out pretty good I think.