Two minutes to midnight...

 Initial musical accompaniment - More Freak Kitchen: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHkLU0BgeM8

I'd a romanticised thought a couple of days ago as I sat here in my one-size-fits-me outdoor chair how cool it would be to write you every day through this last week, without purpose or subtext, for no more glorious a purpose than to drain the ideas from my brain, provide some light entertainment for both parties, and because really what better have I to do? Tonight I feel I am undone. I know not what to say. 

So I thought I'd start with that. 

In the interest of saying that which need not be, but cannot be claimed to have been said otherwise, there is of course no reply expected. Read, consider, enjoy (should it so inspire you), and comment if and As You Like It (flashback humour; see what I did there?). 

The FrogRocket left today without incident, and with it the last of the bulk possessions I'm sending over. Whatever doesn't fit in my Qantas allotment goes to my tenant (although there's still a box of fragiles which I'll bundle up carefully tomorrow and organise to be couriered). I hiked over to my mother's house (only 2km) to collect her VW Station Wagon. Tomorrow I'll hitch a rented trailer to it and use it to deliver my bed (which I'm sure I've mentioned before won't fit in the new place) to a friend who'll use it as a spare until I one day ask for it back (it's almost entirely Jarrah, and the mob who made it no longer exists. Jarrah is a beautiful hardwood native exclusively to the south-west, the colour of drying blood. Look it up). With that gone I need to do a rapid clean of what used to be my bedroom, stuff things into my suitcase, then drink anything alcoholic left in the fridge. 

And hang out with Ricky, of course. We'll probably go sit by the river; it's pretty down there as you've now seen both in day and night, and it's kinda my Thing. 

This whole episode has been exhausting and painful. I will, I expect, crash hard come Sunday. It's served as a valuable distraction from work which has been a whole different eyeball-melting flavour of stress. I've been spared much of it by my lack of proximity, although that carries a stress all of its own; when you can see the effects, but not the cause, it's easy to assume that you're being cut out of the loop For Reasons. I've anecdotal indication that it's Not Just Me, but Bosslady's facade finally broke enough today to show the strain she's under; she actually admitted to how much she's looking forward to my being there which, whilst gratifying, is even more terrifying (where you, Becky (I still have no idea how you feel about that - your email address formed my nickname for you. I find it glorious in a way - so ostensibly vacuous, so fundamentally misleading. It's like suggesting that jumping in a puddle is the same as falling into the middle of the Pacific Ocean at terminal velocity because either way your feet will get wet, or describing stepping out into a tornado as "a bit breezy". On the other hand, you call yourself "Bec" which somehow feels diminutive and dismissive. I, on the other hand, am the only person I know who calls me "Pete"), have mastered the art of communicating in half-spoken allusion, Bosslady communicates exclusively in negative-space. For her to express a direct sentiment like that goes beyond a cry, into the territory of screaming for help). 

"It will all get easier once [I'm] [there]," has become a recurring phrase in our conversations. 

I'm increasingly convinced that this staggering fall across the finish line is not so much the end of a long Exodus into the land of milk and honey as it is the prelude for another march to war. After the last year of fighting on beaches, landing grounds, fields, streets, and hills. I've become thoroughly sick of constant, total war. This year was supposed to be the time where swords were beat into ploughshares, not taken up as arms against a sea of troubles. 

This was supposed to be my return to Eden, not a new Battle for Utopia. 

"But," I remind myself, "this is why they pay me the big bucks." 

I've not been so singular in my purpose, let alone idle, this last year that I arrive without a path laid in advance. I keep reminding myself that I don't need to fight every battle through to the last; I just need to set up the field and pull the trigger. 

"Gort, Klaatu barada nikto." 

Another day, another melodrama. I'd be ashamed if any of this was planned more than a few sentences in advance, but that would spoil the fun of finding out what I'm going to say the same way you are; one line at a time. The time for scheming is long-since past. We're deep into execution-space now, and as the hours tick by I'm rapidly approaching the end of my plans. By midnight Friday the hands on the clock will have lined up at the vertical: Pete-Zero. 

The Pete-pocalypse. 

What happens next is anyone's guess, but I've no doubt that you'll be listed under 'I' on my RACI at the very least. 

Regards, 

Peter.