Four: Friday 15/07/2005
Sunday, 24 July, 2005
We go to pick up Kathleen from the airport. The trouble is, neither of us have been to the airport at all in Melbourne. Anita has given us clear directions however and we successfully avoid the Citylink freeway.
When we get there, of course we drive into the wrong lane and cannot park so we have to go around again. Melbourne airport is very strange: it has three wings that go Domestic, International and Domestic again. I realise I have absolutely no idea what airline Kathleen flew with. Luckily she SMSs me while we are standing in line to buy another McDonald's breakfast.
It is always a little odd to try and find someone you've never met face to face before in a crowd of people but somehow, using my vague memory of a photo that Deb once posted on her blog, I manage to spot Kathleen near the Virgin Blue carousel and she, simultaneously, spots me. We drive her back to University College, get her some keys and show her around. Both of us have no idea what to do next except for some vague notion that we ought to have a go at catching a tram in this strange city. The tram stop is close by but the tram pulls up in the middle lane. I am not used to the geniality of Melbourne drivers who respectfully stop behind the tram to allow you to cross their lane to get to it. It also amuses me that the symbols for prohibited behaviour include the one on the right:
I make the mistake of talking to tram driver who tells me that my NSW concession card is unacceptable in this state and that I need to buy my ticket from the machine halfway down the carriage. Oh yes, I forgot, no one talks to humans anymore. As we have no idea what a Citysaver is and what it does, we each buy a 2-hour ticket and alight on Bourke St in the hopes of finding an elusive Metcard seller who will let us purchase a weekly (I vaguely remember Bourke St from when I was last in Melbourne at the age of 15).
We part ways with Ben at this point and Kathleen and I go wandering around the city, getting distracted by things like Bookbinders Design (gorgeous expensive journals!),
a second Koko Black, a Babushka shop in the Strand Arcade,
a man in the window of Suga making rock candy by spreading it out on a metal surface and then cutting it up with a pair of scissors (these are the people who made the “Stan and Clare” lollies for their wedding).
We search Myer, David Jones and Accessorize for black cloche hats. Myer has the right shape but the wrong colour. Perhaps I am being too fussy.
Finally we find a Metcard vendor and purchase our weekly tickets for $25 (not bad, methinks, given that you get unlimited travel in Zone 1 which extends a fair way). In Reader's Feast (which has the same price tags and computer system as Dymocks) I buy Deep Secret. It is interesting going book shopping with Kathleen because she has read so many different things to what I've read. She tells me I ought to buy the book as a reference guide for the weekend.
We eat sushi for lunch (perhaps in honour of Neil?) and Kathleen is influenced by me enough to get a seaweed roll. We cannot find the bathroom in this particular shopping centre and so give up and catch the tram to the Hilton on the Park where the convention is being held.
There are all sorts of colourfully-dressed people about and it's easy to see who are convention-goers and who are not. We register and the people on the desk give me a bright green spot for my name tag which signifies I'm on a panel (no, really, I'm just giving a reading!) It scares me that my name is in the program and the convention booklet. Kathleen and I find a corner of the first floor foyer and sit there going through all the stuff they've given us in the bright blue Voyager 10: Celebrating the First Decade HarperCollins canvas bag. There are a bunch of fliers encouraging us to go to other conventions (cons), bookmarks, promotional material for books, a pocket program folded in a really cool way which ought to be used for wedding programs, and the program for the video stream. We discover that Neverwhere is screening at 10:30 pm tonight and the following night. “I'll go if you go,” says Kathleen. It is very tempting ...
We don't particularly want to attend any panels until 3pm when “Evolution of the Fictional Vampire: From Lord Ruthven to Saint-German” is on so we go downstairs to the lounge area and are ignored by waiters until we flag one down and order a green tea (which is divine) and a hot chocolate. It is lovely getting to know Kathleen and she tells me about her family, about growing up in the country, about her passions.
The vampire panel consists of Paul Pulton, Kirstyn McDermott (Continuum chairwoman who wears the most fantastic gothic clothes and a different wig every day), Alison Barton, Stephen Dedman and my old English lecturer, Richard Harland.
The panel discussion is very interesting—I had forgotten that vampires were not always members of the aristocracy and that various countries had different traditions about vampires and how to kill them. The best moment was when someone was explaining about how one tradition says that if you scatter rice on the ground around the grave, the vampire is compelled to stop and pick it up, and someone from the audience called out, “ONE! Ahaha!”.
After this, Kathleen and I thought we'd get some dinner so we walked down to Bridge Rd and went to a café called Joy! Caf&ecuate; and Bar on 14 Bridge Rd, Richmond, which was, by far, the worst dining experience I have ever had. The waitress was blunt to the point of rudeness and she forgot to give us a beverage menu, they served me green tea which smelled like lemon and refused to do anything about it when I sent it back, and the gristle hadn't been cut out of the bacon of my fettucine cabonara. I tried to refuse to pay for the green tea but the woman on the cashier argued with me about it and showed em the tea packet she had taken it from. She would not back down. I thought $3 wasn't worth yelling and screaming about and potentially irrevocably damaging any possible relationship with this person who is also created in the image of God, no matter how unpleasant she was being, so I paid the measley $3 and told her quite politely I was never coming back. Unfortunately she didn't seem to care for our business.
As we walked back to the Hilton, having missed the “So this is your first convention?” panel mentioned in this article in The Age, Kathleen was righteously indignant on my behalf and I thought belatedly I could have taken advantage of her skills as a lawyer. Oh well. But I could not get rid of the sick taste in my mouth and I temporarily hated all Melbournians. Then I got over it.
We went to the Opening Ceremony which was absolutely packed. I had no idea there were this many people at the convention! (Apparently close to 500 which shocked the organisers too.) I got my first glimpse of Neil in the flesh, wearing his customary black T-shirts and black leather jacket, shaggy fringe getting into his eyes. It was also nice to see the other Guests of Honour in the flesh, though I was less well-acquainted with their work—Robin Hobb, Poppy Z. Brite and, of course, Richard Harland.
Kathleen went to the video room but I went to the launch of Richard Harland's The Black Crusade in the foyer where a very disgruntled Jack Dann was doing his best to plug the book without a microphone, peppering his speech with expletives. Then Kathleen and I and a stack of other people attended the Great Debate: “Humans are Unnatural Creatures” which had all the Guests of Honour plus a couple of extras discussing whether or not humans were unnatural creatures. Jack Dann was chairing but the debaters kept snatching the lectern mikes away from him and saying things to get the audience on their side. It was very funny but also rather rude in places.
Then we attended a panel on European Martial Arts where two guys with incredibly long swords fought each other and showed us how different wards and attacks worked. They also had PowerPoint slides of illustrations from different books on swordplay from the Middle Ages. “Rapiers,” claimed the main speaker, “are silly weapons.” Nevertheless he managed to throw in at least one reference to The Princess Bride.
By this stage it was 10:30 and we were both very tired. We decided to give Neverwhere a miss and called Ben to come pick us up. After hanging up I realised that we could have still caught the tram because it was before midnight. Oh well. Outside, fans were coming back from a football game and there was traffic mayhem everywhere. Nevertheless, we still managed to get back to University college before 11.
Current:
seen: Moon 15/10/2009
read: The Incredibles 11/10/2009
seen: She's the Man 05/10/2009
read: I Kill Giants (Joe Kelly and J. M. Ken Niimura) 04/10/2009
read: Astro City The Dark Ages Book 1: Brothers and Other Strangers (Kurt Busiek, Brent Anderson and Alex Ross) 04/10/2009
seen: Children of Men 02/10/2009
seen: Metric (The Metro) 30/09/2009
seen: 500 Days of Summer 25/09/2009
seen: The September Issue 18/09/2009
seen: Gilmore Girls: Season 1 17/09/2009
read: Flight (Volume 1) (edited by Kazu Kibuishi) 16/09/2009
seen: Ponyo 11/09/2009
read: Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader? (Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert) 05/09/2009
heard: Aimee Mann (Enmore Theatre) 04/09/2009
heard: Ben Folds Solo (Opera House) 31/08/2009
read: Phonogram: Rue Britannia (Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie) 26/08/2009
seen: Northanger Abbey 20/08/2009
read: The Princess Diaries (Meg Cabot) 18/08/2009
seen: The Phantom of the Opera 17/08/2009
seen: Who Framed Roger Rabbit? 10/08/2009
seen: District 9 10/08/2009
read: Shortcomings (Adrian Tomine) 02/08/2009
read: AIR Volume 1: Letters from Lost Countries (Willow Wilson and M.K. Perker) 28/07/2009
seen: Persepolis 25/07/2009
seen: Ghost Town 25/07/2009
heard: Gutter Twins (Seymour Centre) 23/07/2009
seen: Coco Avant Chanel 20/07/2009
seen: Gutenberg! The Musical (Seymour Centre) 16/07/2009
seen: So You Think You Can Dance? Australia Live Tour (Sydney Entertainment Centre) 11/07/2009
seen: Every Little Step 07/07/2009
seen: Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen 03/07/2009
seen: Synecdoche, New York 30/06/2009
seen: Charlie's Angels 27/06/2009
seen: Penelope 26/06/2009
seen: Coraline 10/06/2009
seen: The Sky Crawlers 08/06/2009
seen: The Bourne Ultimatum 07/06/2009
seen: The Bourne Supremacy 07/06/2009
seen: The Bourne Identity 06/06/2009
seen: Stick it 05/06/2009
Comment:
@Sarah: Thanks for the tip RE Australian Breastfeeding Association! I never would have thought to look there. Ditto KMart: I was wondering if they did since Target don’t.
@Rae: Thanks for the tip! I’ll check it out.
@Little Rachel: Oh, I’ll definitely be up for visitors! I may not be very good company (brain-dead, etc.) but I’ll certainly appreciate visits!
@Rachel C: CONGRATS!!! So excited for you 
Yours sounds like a good philosophy. One day I shall have to blog about Outliers!
@CafeDave: Thanks for the tip!
@Elissa: Thanks for your kind words! It makes me happy that you and Dave were excited we were getting married! Thanks also for the prayers!
@Elsie: There are lots of other lovely things I could have said about you, but let’s not overload my readers, shall we? ;P
Aww...thanks for the lovely things you said about me! I enjoyed reading this post (as I do with all yours). xo
Congratulations to you both. I know you will be such wonderful parents. You sound WAY too sensible! 
(Sorry to read that there were some unusual comments made about your marriage! We thought it was exciting. We still have a lovely photo of you & Ben in our lovely box of special memories. (I was only 22 when married & I was 30 when we had Bonnie...)
Everyone is different! I nodded through your post. SO many people feel the curious need to share their “horror stories” which is just dreadful. I remember complaining to David who said - go find people who are positive & listen to them. Great advice, which I did. Those people still have a big place in my heart because their advice was honest & gentle.
Bless you & Ben & the little Peanut. We pray all goes smoothly over the coming weeks/months ahead. We sometimes forget what a precious little miracle life really is…
Another book from the dad’s perspective I found helpful was From here to paternity - it’s an Australian book, and was followed up with a blog.
Hi!
I’m so excited for you reading your blog about being pregnant I am 13 weeks pregnant with #2.
You’re so right about all the pessimism “advice” that you get. I got so mad about it but never found a good response. I’ve had such joy right from day one with E that I just don’t want to buy into the negativity (I’m sure kids pick up on it too!).
My philosophy was/is to be a relaxed mum and from that figure out what was best for my baby/child. Get advice when you’re not sure on things or want to know how other people approached things, read books (loved Outliers!) that aren’t all about parenting… but just enjoy.
In a sample size of one to date, I’ve had such a happy, chilled out son right from day one. People say all the craziest advice… glad you don’t do guilt
With love,
R
Thanks so much for writing more! I love hearing how you’re going and all your thoughts.
After watching my sister I agree with you that it seems the first six months are perhaps the hardest. She got quite lonely at home all day; weekends were all right because then her husband was around but it’s just as you say… one feed ends then the next begins! If you are accepting visitors during this period then I hope to use some RDOs to come have grown-up conversations!
The book review of The Second Nine Months makes me want to read it now!
Names: We have one girl name that we both like and no boy names that we agree on. But they are also top-secret… so if anyone else uses them we can’t accuse them of theft! 
Yay Peanut, keep on growing, can’t wait to meet you!
Hello! Thanks for sharing
I loved reading your pregnancy update! I am glad to hear that things are all going pretty well, and I hope the rest of your 2nd trimester is as good.
I just wanted to add, that some other blokes decided that there was not much for the fathers-t0-be, and made a couple of DVD’s just for expectant dads. They are called ‘Being Dad’and i think they are available at big W. I have both though, if you would like me to send them!
Just wanted to wish you all the best!
Love
Rae
re: gluten: no idea!! I didn’t have to go on that diet - it was probably related to the test I didn’t do.
At the risk of adding to your list of advice:
Re: maternity bras - because I’m big I had to look hard for something nice in my size and discovered the Australian Breastfeeding Association. They have a massive range online and most are (dare I say it) sexy.
Re: maternity clothes - Kmart have a nice range of basic stuff.. I only found out towards the end of pregnancy and I would have liked to know earlier!
Re: Parenting classes - if you’re at RPA you can just ring the midwives section (they’ll put you through) and ask directly.
Congratulations again
Don’t laminate your ultrasound picture That is my advice.
Congratulations! This is so fantastic!
Thanks so much for sharing all of this… people swap engagement stories but rarely pregnancy stories! And it’s kind of similar don’t you think, all this excitement leading up to a big day!
So happy for you guys! Actually never been more excited for anyone except my sister! I think it’s because I think that you will both be amazing parents and love the idea that someone could grow up in your family.
Looking forward to many more posts on the topic.
Lovely news, Karen.
Thanks everyone! I will be sure to ask for help when I need it!
Great pic!! Peanut is cute! :D
Praying for you all!
xx
:D
I had a similar sort of morning sickness.. except I threw up! I’m suitably impressed that you coped OS.. that must have been tough.
It sounds like you’re doing marvelously otherwise!
Book recommendation on something a bit less technical and a bit more human: ‘Birth’ http://www.birthnet.com.au/
Praise be to God indeed! Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.
Congratulations, Beilharzen! Welcome to the slightly-bewildering world of pregnancy (and birth...and children...). God has blessed you greatly with this new life. We’ll be praying for Peanut’s growth and development, and for you guys as you prepare.
I’m sure you’re surrounded by baby veterans, but always happy to help with books/advice/recommendations/listening.
B&L;
Excellent job Karen! You SHOULD be pleased with yourself!
Have you discovered http://www.ravelry.com ? It is an excellent site with thousands of free patterns in its database, lots of support, tips, forums etc and of course - friends like me? Look me up when you get there - fionag77
PS Are you just wearing a bulky dress or are you sporting a bump under that dress?
oooh.... It’s done and it looks great on you! xxx
Well done on all that hard work! It looks great and will be very snuggly come winter!
Thanks for letting me know, Timo!
Hi there,
Thanks for pointing out the shortcoming on our website. I’ll pass it on to my colleagues and hopefully it will be rectified soon.
The documentary at Fashioning Now was by Holly Kaye-Smith; I’d be more than happy to put you in touch with her if you’d like.
Again, thanks for the comment, much appreciate it!
Kind regards,
Timo Rissanen
Thanks Mark! Much appreciated!
Rich survey, Karen. Particularly I was struck by the notion of Jesus being clothed with our sins. I heard recently somebody suggest the crown of thorns was a kings crown but it was made of the symbol of the curse in the Garden - thorns. I would like to read your thoughts about Joseph’s coat of many colours.
Looking forward to the next installment. Regards,Mark
It is lovely - and looks great on you.
You’ve made me want to read it - though I may need an interpreter at times!
Well done with the sewing!
I think it looks good - very relaxed and spring-y.
Hey Sandra! Thanks for the tip! I read it yesterday, but I struggled a bit because Lewis doesn’t start from the Bible. I wasn’t convinced by his argument. What did you think?
Interesting post Karen - Thanks
I like the ending too! :D
xxx
Fantastic post, Karen. Just great. Thanks!
Thanks Bec! Eternal life just keeps getting better and better ...
I do like the way you ended this post - excellent thought.
Personally I don’t feel that way. Maybe that’s something you should blog about?
Wow. Lots of things to pick up on there. It’s been interesting to see the changes to your blog these last 6-12 months: Twitter is certainly more immediate, but are there (gasp) downsides to having its constant buzz in the ear?
Is our (already fractured) ability to concentrate on a single relationship at a time further jeapordised by the regular buzz of tweetdeck (and worse yet, by the imagined sense of loss that goes with being off the grid)?
Or am I just projecting my own fears?
Hi Karen!
If you’re still thinking about this… I just read CS Lewis’s essay “Learning in War-time” which exactly addresses this issue (ie. how can we justify cultural & aesthetic pursuits when people are going to hell around us?). Have you read it? i’d be interested to hear what you think..
(i have it in his little volume “Transposition and other Addresses”, but it’s easily findable online)
I’m doing my own series on the trials and tribulations of writing on my own blog here http://sedshed.blogspot.com/search/label/From%20Head%20to%20Hand
It’s coming along slowly
Coincidentily, I stumbled upon the above Phonogram vs. the Fans cover when digging around for ID concepts for Salt. A disturbingly brilliant image.
Thanks Karen. At the very least, this post gives some context to your myriad of phonogram tweets. At best, it has reinvigorated my stagnated appreciation of comics.
Seriously, though 4,549 words. Is that the best you can do? I say, longer!
Blinks:
Why non-religious parents are starting to home school their children. Problems with American public schools. New models for education that will work (instead of just rote learning and teaching things to kids earlier).
Maybe discomfort is better for writing.
Showing her daughter that women are great by doing tours and walking in the footsteps of famous women. I like that this article is about engagement.
Jordan White, editor for Marvel, answers questions.
Jamie McKelvie answers questions.
Vision therapy as a treatment for ADHD, learning disabilities and even autism. The scientific community's opinion. The results of concentrated therapy.
Kieron Gillen on Phonogram, Siege, Ares, Loki and his collaborative relationship with Jamie McKelvie.
Superheroes and how they have changed the way we see urban landscape. Their attraction to New York.
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Comments
Hi there,
I think we may have met at Stan and Clare’s wedding, the mention of the lollies sounds very familiar.
I have lost touch with Clare and was hoping that you could forward my details to her, or vice versa.
Thanks so much!
Ebony de Souza
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