One year old

This blog is now a year old! And it's been visited nearly 5000 times in that year. Thank you all very much for reading.

I suppose I'll keep thinking about stuff, and writing about stuff, and hope that you keep coming back.

SBS Forum

Interesting news for those of you living in or near Sydney. I was forwarded the following email message recently:

SBS Insight is looking to record a program on same sex relationships on
May 12 at the SBS studios in Sydney. If you haven't seen Insight, it is
a 52 minute 'forum-based'' current affairs program which tackles just
one issue per program.

In this program we hope to look at 'federal recognition' of same sex
couples, and discuss what same sex couples miss out on by not being
legally recognised. We will then move into the symbolism and choices
around civil unions and marriage.

We are looking for a range of couples, and singles (not to discriminate) to
talk about their ideas and experiences in same sex relationships. In particular I would be interested to hear from anyone who might have been adversely effected by the current system. I believe this primarily effects workplace issues, pensions and supers. But we'd also be interested to hear from people who have had issues with adoption and child custody - or any other family law issues.

In a perfect world I would also like to talk to couples who have travelled overseas to engage in a civil union or marriage - or who are planning to do so in the near future.

We are looking to have a colourful and lively debate with politicians,
commentators, and members of the general public about the issue of same
sex relationships.

*

If any of you want to attend, please email me and I'll let you know the contact details for the organisers. Heather and I would love to go if we lived in Sydney.

On distance

I've been procrastinating lately. I should be working on the memoir, but I'm not. (I'm busy job-hunting, by the way. If any of you hear of anything, please let me know. Notice, too, that I now have a Not Like That email address in the sidebar. Oh yes, this blog is advancing.)

The problem I'm struggling with is writing about my family. It requires a lot of introspection, this process, and sometimes I wonder if I can do it. I guess the scariest thing is wondering how well you know your own family. Sometimes I find myself wondering if I really know them at all. All I can come up with at the moment are a lot of questions. If any of you want to tell me your thoughts, please do. I would welcome your perspective.

Here's what I'm wondering ... What does it take to really know someone--and to really know your family? Is it a shared history, or a shared present? Or continuity?
How do you negotiate relationships with your family when you are grown, and live far away, and pay your own bills, and choose your own vegetables? It is so commonplace, these days, to live so far away. But sometimes it feels to me like a betrayal, or a desertion.

At our Brisbane wedding celebration, my brother told me, in a matter-of-fact way, that "we don't really know each other anymore." In lots of ways, this is true. He is nearly a decade older than I am, and moved out of home by the time I was nine or ten. He lives a long way away, and I see him about once a year. If I had him and his wife over for dinner, I would not know what to serve. But his statement made me feel so lost. Are my family some people I used to know?

I am close to my parents, but it seems like my brothers and I have scattered as we've grown. The age difference probably didn't help. And now we mostly hear about each other's lives through our parents, not directly. Perhaps this is normal. I just assumed it was, until my brother made that comment. Now, I just don't know.

Those stories and more ...

Today I heard that Matt and Luke are going to be on 60 Minutes (Australia). Matt and Luke are the lovely Aussie newlyweds we met in Toronto just a few days after we were married. We bonded by sharing beers and talking about the overall poor quality of American junk food, apart from Reese's peanut butter cups, which have a dangerous appeal. I'm sure they talked about other, more interesting stuff in the interview. No set broadcast date yet, but I'll keep an eye out over the next couple of months. Can't wait to see it. I only hope that Richard Carlton was not the interviewer. Whenever I see him, I go into strange, involuntary spasms and can only whimper "no, no, please stop the agony". It's happened ever since I was a teenager.