No Sleep 'Til

On May 21st, the day before my birthday, I got on a plane and left Brissy to come back to the US. It sucked, but there was plenty of good stuff waiting for me.

The plane ride was epic. Six or eight hours from Brisbane to Bangkok, a few hours in the airport there, then 16 hours and 40 minutes to New York. The food was the best I've ever had on a plane, all Thai or Chinese stuff, and they had no qualms about keeping my wineglass filled, which helped for the sleepy sleeps. I even totally lucked out on the Bangkok - New York leg by having two seats to myself. I watched about 6 movies 'cuz they had one of those sweet interactive systems where you can choose your own movie from a huge list and pause it and stuff like that. 'The Departed' was good. So was 'Deja Vu'. So yeah, hearty recommendation for Thai Air.

Bangkok airport is a very strange place. It's HUGE. Like, the size of downtown Brisbane. I probably walked about 2-3 miles in there all together. It's way high-tech and has big fake palm tress all over the place, and statues of multi-armed gods in front of Gucci and Coach outlets. It has a weird feeling of being very isolated, too, because the windows are kind of reflective from the inside, so you can't see out of the building at all. Because it was the middle of the night, and the airport was built to accommodate future increases in air traffic, there were huge tracts that were totally deserted, which was spooky. Had a chance to walk around and buy some presents for people and take photos. They don't do the place justice, but still interesting I reckon.

www.engrish.com

I arrived at JFK Airport at about 6am on my birthday. My awesomest of friends, John, came to pick me up and we headed to Brooklyn for an egg and cheese bagel. It made me happy. We then turned right around to go to a softball game he plays with his workmates every Tuesday in the glorious Prospect Park, one of my favourite places on earth. Despite my total out-of-it-ness I joined in and even managed to get on base once. After the game John pulled his big bottle of bourbon out of his bag and poured shots in honor of my birthday. Just what my jet-lagged and confused ass needed. Ta, John-boy!

Next I took the train up to New Haven to see my Mama and my little sister. Was awesome to see them again after so long, although they were both stressed with the end of school so there wasn't much quality time.

Mama's house, including 300yo tree.
Ruby being gorgeous for no particular reason, as she does.Me with Mama's awesome doggy Virgil (and bad-ass t-shirt I got at Bangkok airport)
Mama and Ruby have been keeping their horses on an amazing 18th century farm.
At this point I was still feeling pretty sad about leaving Australia, but sitting in the grass made me feel better.

Ruby got invited to Prom by a grade 12 boy, so of course I took some photos. She looked awesome in her vintage dress and her Granny's pearls.

I also got my first photo assignment when I was in CT. My sister needed a picture of a clothesline for an article she wrote, and I was happy to provide a couple. Yay! My first published photo in ages. You can see it, and the article here. Here's one I liked but they didn't use:
I got to see my uncle Timmy and aunt Marjo who were in town for Mama's graduation.

Virgil again. Such a sweet boy.

So next it was back on the train down to Brooklyn. The New Haven train station is nice. Not anywhere near as big or impressive as Grand Central, but I was always in a rush going through there, so no photos.

My Destination was Smith St. for the party Syd had planned in honor of her getting a job, and my and Jackie's birthdays. My good friend Katie is a bartender at a restaurant there and Syd's friend Joey's band, Supermonster, played. They rock. Lots. Not many photos 'cuz I didn't drag the camera to the bar, but here are some key players, and I'm hoping to get a few shots from Syd later.

Syd.

Katie.

Morgan (of Supermonster) & Wendy.

After a great night and about 2 hours sleep, I got up at 7am and made the long trek, BACK into Manhattan to catch the train BACK to New Haven to be there for my Mama's graduation from Yale Law School. There were SO many graduates and it really looked like something from a movie. My graduation was in a basketball stadium and there were a few hundred of us, and no one was wearing velvet, I can tell ya that (except my uni's president who had this ridiculous Mr. T style medallion). Anyway, there was one big graduation for the whole school, which was so packed I couldn't even catch a glimpse of Mama who was up on stage. These are other members of her class as the main dude declared them graduated:

Formal wear, Aussie style!
Some of the different schools did cool stuff to their hats. These are the forrestry and envi studies kids.

Morpheus visits 17th century England in his time machine. Someone write a screenplay.

Then all the schools broke up and had individual ceremonies, so off to the law school. There she is, my little graduate. They grow up so fast!

Here she is giving some love to the dean of the law school on stage. I'm pretty sure she was the only one who got a "Yeaaaaaaaah Mama!" as she walked across. What, you think I'm not gonna scream for my Mama 'cuz it's Yale? Pansy-ass Ivy League families don't know how to cheer, dammit.
My great aunt Janet was there, which I know meant a lot to Mama. She's an awesome lady and was married to uncle Fred (I'm his namesake according to some) who was a prof. at Yale Law back in the dizzle. They called him Fred the Red and he hated lawyers. If you want a good laugh, read this, which he wrote in 1936 and is still totally relevant.
The graduation was also the first chance I had to see Besha, Grace and Felix, the 3 people I missed more than anyone the whole time I was in Australia. It was more like relief than happiness to see them, just this feeling like things were okay again. We spent the rest of the week hanging out at Mama's place and playing with Felix and taking him to the farm and stuff.

Two whole posts without a bug shot? Not on this blog , baby!Okay, I'm sure I've bored you enough with my fambly, who I am super proud of (can you tell?). I'm happy to hear feedback, so tell me if this post was too long to hold your interest. Next time the subject will be the wilds of Brooklyn, which if you've never been, are worth exploring from a frog's eye view.