Happy birthday your royal highness...

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It was the Queen's birthday long weekend and I headed down to Melbourne for a mini rendevous with Man from Mars.

It was an excellent weekend full of renting $2.95 dvds from oovie vending machines (Up in the Air is such a top film; Sherlock Holmes also very enjoyable); fine Man from Mars company and Archery Wii.

The hightlight though?

Having lunch on the Tram Restaurant- a beautifully restored old school tram equipped with a tiny gully for the tram chef, antique lamps and velvety tunes of decades gone by. I waved gaily (like a nerd) at pedestrians (who occasionally kindly waved back) and everyone on board was in stitches as the waiter (Steve) impressed us with his quick humour, sharp wit and attentive service.

Man from Mars and I grinned like happy larries the entire trip- it was romantic; a slow meander through town where you had a chance to sit still, be spoilt with simple tasty food and enjoy the cosy warmth of the golden lighting, the sound of laughter and the exchanging of stories.

When we got off the tram it was like stepping back into a different country- cold, windy, grey and cloudy-- people running around like headless chooks (my year 4 teacher's favourite turn of phrase) at Crown, the crazy sound of the polkies against the swoosh of the entrance waterfall. We looked back at the tram and vowed we'd do it again.

The next day I flew back to Sydney and went over to my sister's place to spend the night. She's living in Glebe and we watched Masterchef while eating vegetarian moussaka and a second course of lebanese bread, hommous and babaganoush. I found a super long red curly hair in my moussaka courtesy of my sister's house mate, and after my initial recoil, my sister made me focus on the fact that her housemate washes her hair more religiously than I change my bedsocks (well they're bed socks!). So, I conceded that the hair wasn't so bad and I tried not to think about it too much...

Another long weekend's come and gone and now the next one won't be until October. Why, creator of NSW calendars, why??

In other news, work is going well. I love listening to guys talking about the issues they're having with their girlfriends. I don't mean serious break-up worthy issues; I mean guys feeling completely bamboozled, hard done by and unhappy because their girlfriends are going off at them when they absolutely haven't done anything wrong. The number of times I've said "Look, your girlfriend probably wasn't even mad at you! She was probably just taking it out on you cos she could!" is more than I can count, and the insight makes me cringe at the number of times I've ticked off at Man from Mars purely because he was there to take my wrath, and by the way, take it in a classy way. If I were him, I would've blasted his ears off right back, but 99% of the time, Man from Mars lets me chuck a sook, calmly tells me that I'm obviously stressed about X, Y and Z and then proceeds to allow me to hang up so that no further damage is done.

I'm also enjoying D & M emails I'm exchanging with a friend from my old work- Miss Glam-ela. She's super tall, glamorous and wise and I always come away from those emails feeling like I've learnt something valuable. On Thursday, we were sharing our deepest fears. Hers is public speaking- a mildly annoying issue given that she's a lawyer and has to give presentations every so often. Mine is driving- again, a mildly annoying issue given that most people compare it to walking and really, it's not that hard. Plus, am I going to walk everywhere my entire life???

Voicing a fear is cathartic. Admitting a fear to someone else who offers their own fear in return is a hundred times better. I think we both inspired each other to do whatever the hell we need to do to get over them. I entered the weekend with a renewed enthusiasm to drive as often as I can and she signed up for an introductory Toast Masters meeting. A fear is after all, something that's become disproprionately problematic because someone else has (somewhere along the way) made you think it was scary. That, or something happened when you were little and it's made you insecure about whatever it is, ever since.

Everyone has fears, but like I said to Miss Glam-ela, most of the time you forget, because everyone comes across so damn confident all the time.

Thems my profound words for the week.