A step in some sort of direction...

 I'm formed up in an orderly queue between the rows of seats with the backpack holding everything I needed to bring with me for a long weekend slung over my shoulder, thank the hostie on my way past, and with one foot still in the liminal space of the Airbus A320 which took off from Canberra Airport an hour ago and the other about to land in the place that's manifestly Melbourne, I feel the sudden urge to run. 

The story of my life always comes down to: Wage War - Me Against Myself

I've been travelling regularly for as long as I can remember... until this decade arrived bringing lockdowns caused by covid, and ones after that were self-imposed. Growing up the eldest son of a Geologist-Mathematician who's career meant living in or near desperately remote parts of the country because there's not a lot of call for someone who specialises in the regional geological mapping of precambrian stratigraphy and the evolution of tectonic structures anywhere civilised like Melbourne where he and my mother grew up, met, and got married, meant that we were flying back there to see family once or twice a year since before shitting my pants stopped being socially acceptable and "rock" became the first word I uttered. 

I grew up around core samples and trilobite fossils, but beyond a lot of his work involving having the only personal computer within a 5km radius I had precisely zero interest in my father's work apart from it potentially having something to do with dinosaurs - I cared about two (2) things when I was 6: dinosaurs, space, and constructing things related out of lego. The old man might have been the one who took me out to see Halley's Comet through bleary naked eyes late on a chilly night on the 11th of April of 1986, but it's Mother Dear I have to thank for becoming the youngest ever member of the Alice Springs Astronomical Society; I saw the rings of Saturn and the conjunction of Jupiter and Mars through a telescope before I learned how to conjugate a verb. The fact that I now work in a building where the only Ph.D's that outnumber the geophysicists are the ones who spend their days calculating terrestrial positioning through triangulation and trilateration corrected by the practical application of the Theory of Relativity and adjusted through celestial mechanics, and where you can literally 

Touch
the
Moon! 

carries an irony I can't help but find amusing: 

By the time I was 18 I stopped just travelling for obligation, and started travelling for the sake of it. Airports and connections and hotel transfers were second-nature, and if you can scrouge together enough for a red-eye on a budget carrier, find a couch to crash on, and abuse caffeine in lieu of sleep, the world is literally your TfL Card. Somewhere along the line the amount of time I wanted to spend and the amount I had contracted until they reached a ratio of 1 and started slipping into the negative; if I wanted to squeeze it all in I needed to move quickly. I started taking trips for work, often to places I wanted to go anyway, but since they weren't going to pay for me to stay any longer than they needed me there I had to squeeze the things I wanted to do into the gaps and around the edges. I've made desperate dashes to airports more times than I care to remember, and landed at he other end with plenty of time to make it onto the train that would get me to my appointment on time, but only if I was out of my seat before the seatbelt light turned off and didn't care who I shoulder-barged through on my sprint to the exit if I was going to slide across the finish line before the train doors slid closed. 

This isn't one of those trips tho, I've no need to rush, and no reason to run. 

But time needs to stop slipping back to then and slide back into now, because I'm about to slip into Melbourne like a second skin, and the second home that it's been for longer than I can remember. My feet instinctively know their way past the Boarding Gates and the Luggage Claim I won't need to stop at this time around to where I'll catch the SkyBus into town. By the time I've hit the footpath outside Southern Cross Station on Spencer St not one will be able to tell I'm not a tourist - I'm already wearing the uniform; in my black street shoes, structured black tactical cargo's, and black hoodie under my long black coat I look like any other inner-city professional in Friday-casual drag skiving off early to meet his once-valued-client, now dear-friend Pete down in Port for a cheeky mid-afternoon pint. 

I'm sure everyone has a once-valued-client, now dear-friend called Pete, and if they don't the should get that shit sorted because they're missing out. 

I've got plenty I want to do on my first trip back in over 2 years, but the Project Manager I used to be built plenty of slack into my schedule. I'll have a couple of pints with Pete which the company I own will pay for because he's still trying to make his venture work nearly 3 years later and he's fucking skint, but I'll need to stay vigilant because the man still has some pride and will try to get a round in we both know he can't afford. Boldilocks is set to pick me up, and there might even be enough time for him to squeeze in a pint of his own whilst he trounces both of us on the pool table before we head off for dinner and I finally get to meet his partner of nearly a decade, Azzy. I should even be able to squeeze in a tech-support call from Andrew the Shipwright or Occam's Canadian Amy and enjoy a surreal moment where three (3) unrelated characters from my blog will all be in the same space at the same time, then I'll be crashing on Boldilocks' couch for the next few nights. 

Tomorrow I'm off to catch up over a late brunch with The Decoys, who didn't have a daughter when I was Best Man at their wedding the last time I was here. 

On Sunday I'll catch up with Mikee, who I bonded with in a whole new way after I told him that he'd accidentally delayed taking a knife to myself by a day. He's been going through some shit of his own, so it's only fair I block out some time to listen to him tell me about it. 

That night Boldilocks and I will go see Wage War play at The Forum, which is what brought me here in the first place, because I impulse-bought tickets for us using Qantas Frequent Flyer Points at 2:06AM one Friday night in the middle of a YouTube binge. Seeing them play Magnetic will be up there with getting to see Pendulum play Cartagena, Hold Your Colour, and Colourfast when I saw them in Sydney earlier this year. 

The story of this year really has gone by in a: Wage War - BLUR

Throughout I'll be putting on a show of my own on Instagram for a pretty blonde girl I call Helen, who's been going through some shit of her own, and isn't in this story: 

But none of that has happened yet, and this is now, so I let my mind slide back into the present so I don't trip over the gap between the plane and the aerobridge. 

My foot finishes its arc and lands in Melbourne. 

And for no more reason than that I want to, I start running anyway. 

Rise Above

Phase 6 Prologue 

I had a thought some time so late on Friday night it was really Saturday morning and I know it was important, but even if you put a gun to my head I couldn't for the life of me tell you what it was which would probably have something to do with the third of a bottle of whisky that was left in the door of my fridge when I dragged myself out of bed sometime around when the sun was reaching its zenith the next day, although I do remember that I spent a good few of those pre-dawn hours on one of my YouTube binges, that before passing out I spent 26514 Qantas Frequent Flyer points on tickets to see Wage War in Melbourne with Boldilocks a couple of months from now, and that I left myself a new Post in Drafts with nothing but a title and a link for context, so expanding that into content for you here, now, feels like a good way to start: GUNSHIP- Tell Me When The World Stops Ending

I bought that bottle of whisky earlier in the evening because I wanted to celebrate; I've been doing that a lot lately, because it feels that I've had plenty of reason to. Friday's excuse was receiving the first proper paycheck from the new gig - more money than I'd earned in the last two months before I landed it, remunerating me for the work, if you want to call it that, which I'd done over the last two weeks of May. I've worked another two since those timesheets were submitted, and some time after I file the invoices for the next two fortnights I'll get paid again. 

And again.
And again.
And again,
for another ten and a half months, assuming I serve out the rest of my current contract, 
assuming I don't fuck up so bad that they serve me my notice. 

Don't laugh, it's happened before. 

Some time in and amongst that I'll get to do some actual work but the lack of effort I'm being asked to undertake notwithstanding, they seem pleased with my performance so far. 

I didn't curse Previous Night's Pete for the hangover I pushed myself through to head down to the garage yesterday afternoon - he did what he needed to do, he knew the consequences even if he wasn't going to have to pay them, and impulse-buying tickets for a band I'll really enjoy seeing with a friend I REALLY owe a visit in a town I've not found an excuse to drag myself to in far too long just goes to show that he had Future Pete's best interests at heart. I wasn't going to wave it off either because I had work to do, and no bike to ride until it was done. 

At the end of my first week in the new gig Scott drove me up to Goulburn to collect my new baby on Friday May 15th, with signed vaccination certificates and notarised adoption papers in hand. By Thursday May 28th I'd completed the required 1000km Getting To Know You Dance run-in, carefully working up and down the gears whilst keeping the needle on the tacho under the prescribed 5500RPM, without letting it sit in any one spot for too long. 

When they emerge from the Hamamatsu Plant in Shizuoka, the black 2026 Hayabusa looks like this

but red ain't never been my scene. Sadly, Suzuki has never made a Glass Sparkle Black Gen III Hayabusa with Pearl Vigor Blue - that accent's always been reserved for the Pearl Brilliant White one: 

Me, I had other ideas in mind. I'd ordered some of the panels using codes from parts lists of the 2024 model. Others I selected from fleaBay and Ali Express. The part I couldn't find was that swoop between the 隼 and the air vent, so last weekend I snagged the two-part spray paint I needed when [insert name of a particular ultra-inexpensive motor-vehicle supplies retailer here] had it was on sale, and after knocking off work from my day-job on Wednesday night I got to work dismantling the fairings so I could finish the fucking job. 

When I was done laying down the 5th and 6th layers of clear coat the swoops turned out to need, wiring the USB charger in under the right-hand cockpit shroud, drilling holes in the fender eliminator bracket to hold the license plate 9mm higher, working out how to put the ECU in Dealer Mode so I could clear the Oil Change Alert, painstakingly laying down the rim-tape I spliced together out of a set of blue and a set of silver, and completing the 3D jigsaw puzzle reconstructing fairings which Suzuki entrusts to takumi-level craftsmen, I caught up on Super Genius Boy's adventures over the last week and a half since he's got out of a London psych-ward whilst I rehydrated and waited for the pain to subside, then geared up in the helmet I hand-painted Tron-like lines on with a Posca Paint Pen and the hand-written Enter Shikari reference that no one gets, and my hand-made Archangel hoodie, and went to take some photos using the Sigma 18-50mm f2.8 lens I'd splurged on using the paycheck from Week #1 so I could introduce Gideon II to the world: 

It took some shuffling around to get my head lined up with the glowing ball in the dragon's claw, but I reckon it was worth it...

When I was done I leaned against the mural and posted them to Instagram with all the obligatory hashtags, a metalcore cover of that Italian Europop cliché I loved so much I bought the album AND the single on CD back in the day, and a haiku: 

All the red is gone

I've got a shiny new lens

Time for some photos!

...

#suzuki

#hayabusa

#jinbaittai

I followed up with a bit of ChatGPT-assisted editing: 

Unlike that little guy, I got plenty of people to listen, although I don't correct them when they send me messages telling me "she's beautiful!"; I just acknowledge with a deep-blue <3.
It don't matter if they're listening tho, because when I get it over 5500RPM that unbaffled VanDemon exhaust screams like an oni announcing that the world is ending. 
Then the arrival that snarling clarion call announces is backed up with the presence only 30 years of Japanese Fuck You-volution can engineer, hand-built by 匠, ripped apart and clumsily rebuilt into something manifestly unique, and utterly mine, by the incompetent fool who's been a 30-year-old-boy for 30 years now and counting, and is about to climb off the back of it with a shit-eating grin, hook the key with it's DON'T PANIC tag to the carabiner hanging from his cargo's and light a cigarette. When we leave I'll throw my leg back over the solo-seat to dance our way to the 11,000RPM redline on the edge of our Bridgestone S22 Hypersport tyres. 

Meet Gideon II - the "Raven Special" Hayabusa. Mazal Tov! It's a Boy! 

The first time I rolled across the carpark with a cigarette in my mouth and my helmet on the tank of the Triumph, Ava yelled "Holy fuck, you're iconic!"

The last time she climbed off the backpack seat she sighed "Oh, Conor is SO getting laid tonight!" 
I threw my leg over the tank, reached past the vape to pull a cigarette out of my pocket, and as I lit it replied, "well... just make sure he calls you 'Pete'."

But more importantly, what's been running through my head for the last couple of hours I've got carried away listening to 80's-chic synthwave whilst writing this, and adding tabs to my browser as I fact-check in parallel, has been how the peregrine falcon my bike is named for can soar at altitudes of over 5km before it tucks in and stoops, reaching speeds Gideon II is forbidden from reaching thanks to Safety Standards and Gentleman's Agreements, and whilst everyone is focused on "how high" and "how fast", I can't stop thinking about how much effort that motherfucker had to put in to get up there in the first place, and that it feels so good when you are. 

Way back when I was Ava's age, an old friend told me the story of the one time she took her life in her hands and flew Aeroflot on a dare. She chose the shortest route she could find (from Helsinki to Moscow), and after an uneventful flight an announcement came over the PA saying in Russian, Soumi, then English:

"We are about to begin our descent into Moscow. 
"Our staff will shortly be distributing vodka."

At this point, the story goes, the bespectacled, bearded, bear of a man to her left who'd been snoozing since 5 minutes before take-off woke up, came to attention, and did a little dance in his seat singing

"A-hey-Hey-HEy-HEY-VODKA!"
"Why are we drinking vodka?" she asked him. 
He replied, "because WE ARE ALIVE!"

A lifetime later and I still can't dance for shit unless my feet are on the pegs or something's on fire, 
but I've a job that pays which I can do, 
and my choice of bikes to ride, 
but ride now I'm dancing with Gideon II. 

Confused? 
Not sure what that means or was all about,
or where it was going?
Oh fellow-traveller-of-mine, you are amongst friends,
because so am i. 

... and if that isn't cause-enough to celebrate, i don't know what is. 

Welcome to Phase 6.