Work is interesting and life is busy. There's the story involving three Germans and a rabbit that I was going to tell you about, but I try not to start my day by getting wigged out about airline rules so it can wait. That's right, I'm uploading in the morning. Thanks to certain small black cats who somehow got on Australian time while our Australian visitor was here, she thought 3am was a fine time to demand attention. When she didn't get it she set about waking us up: climbing onto precarious piles of stuff, running her claws down the blinds ("just stretching here, what's the problem?"), purring loudly in my ear and walking on my head.
Yes, we had an Australian round for a couple of nights: Julian Warner, current winner of the Down Under Fan Fund, representing Australian science fiction fandom at various conventions in various cities over the next month, culminating in an appearance at the World Science Fiction Convention in San Jose over Labor Day weekend. I did the same thing in reverse in 1987 which is when I met Jules originally. It was splendid to have him here, to stay up late talking about mutual friends from Perth and Melbourne, and whether Justin Ackroyd lived in Geelong or was just from there, and how sad it was that Andrew Brown had passed away, and so on. He got a whirlwind tour of San Francisco, an evening of drinking and dinner with a dozen mid-Peninsula fans in Palo Alto (so he'd feel he already knew some locals when he got back for the Worldcon), and a fair amount of me yammering at him about what I'd been up to for the last eight years.
The last time I saw Julian, he and his girlfriend Lucy Sussex stayed with us in Nashville. 1994, he says, and I am sure he's right, but those years blend together for me in a kind of miasmic haze of denial that I was ever really there. I took much pleasure from hearing his accent as it reminded me of how much I enjoyed my sojourn Down Under. It was, in fact, one of the happiest times of my life. And why wouldn't it be? I was making lifelong friends, I was feted and made much of by everyone, given presents and taken out for meals, welcomed into strangers' homes, and introduced to new customs and foods. Winning DUFF was one of the finest things that ever happened to me. I'm glad I could repay the debt of hospitality a little.
But he's off on his tour of the U.S. now, and those Germans and "Bunny" need me, so I'm off to work.
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