2.45am, Friday August 14, ....Aunt K’s

It is the end of my last night in New York, America. I had a great time - S joined Aunt K, her husband K and I for dinner and then S and I went for a sing at Marie’s Crisis piano bar.

What I still love about New York: the amount of people on the train to Queens at 2am. At 1.30am French Roast cafe was still serving food and coffee to a good amount of people. Yesterday a man gave me his Metrocard when he saw me trying to top-up my card. I used his card for the rest of the day.

Today I spent several hours with L, J, and their new son. I finally saw their living quarters in Yonkers, which they have been in almost since I’ve been in Australia, said hi to L’s dad, sister and neices, walked around downtown White Plains (where I grew up) and visited A at work. S and L are very excited about how White Plains has changed, but I still find it a completely uninteresting place, though the area where L and J might be moving to is a nice neighbourhood with a mixture of houses, a part of town I’d never had cause to be before.

Tonight Aunt K and I took K to his first Indian meal and the waiters were excited to recommend things to him. They even brought out a little cup of mango lassi for him to try. We had poori, that great puff of thin-fried bread so astonishing on first encounter.

Marie’s Crisis was a bit of a disappointment. The crowd was singing showtunes that S and I didn’t know. There was hardly any Les Miserables. I’m not up on good old classics like Hello Dolly! And Gypsy. Nor have I seen anything recent. So my repetoire is sadly lacking. S has the same problem.

1.00am, Thursday August 13, Aunt K’s ....blissful

It is blissful to be back with a good, beautiful friend in a big city with lovely warm evenings. Being with S gives me energy.

Thanks to my parents I had enough money to enjoy a pricey dinner and $30 bottle of wine in SoHo with S - also due to my stinginess in South America and the excellent exchange rate between the American and Aussie dollar.

S and I put our names into the lottery for Hair on Broadway but we didn’t win $25 tickets. We trundled over to the TKTS stand but the tickets were $90 a person. We stood on a corner with a village Voice searching for movies to see but didn’t find any we particularly wanted see, so we walked around SoHo, found a Korean restaurant and cocktail bar, and got in five minutes before the close of Happy Hour for our $5/6 cocktails.

I had a white peach flavoured coktail and S a lime and jalepeno one. Both delicious. The bartender was young and chatty and he told us a bit about New York history, the Chinatown wars between the Chinese and … that the police let go due to lack of language skills. Also the prevention of a major highway through the Village due to community activism.

S and I talked about Anmerica, politics, boys, sex, personal frustration and change, friendship, all kinds of interesting and engaging things. It is also nice to walk again. My heavy backpack turns out not to be so burdensome after all and I jetted through Times Square, dodging through crowds, not because I was in a hurry but so that I didn’t have to break the rhythm of moving.

6.15pm, Sunday August 10 ....porch

My mom is indirect. She doesn't say, 'When are you planning on having dinner ready?', but 'We're starving.' Or she'll say, 'I'm hoping Rachel doesn't want to do anything for the next few days because I'm exhausted'. My first response, the one that mostly stays in my head, is hostile: 'Well, eat, then.' Or, 'I didn't ask you to entertain me'. This must be how I developed my well-honed sense of sarcasm. N responds to Mom similarly. Given I am so much like my mother I probably have the same problem of indirectness, so a new goal: say things politely - or, just, say what you mean, don't imply it.

Being on a family holiday seems to make Dad more demonstrative to Mom. He kept taking her hand in Boston. Lovely.

Yesterday, after a morning when N had to throw our parents out of the tiny hotel room because they weren't leaving on their own accord to give us space and privacy, we finally all packed up and left.

After leaving the hotel we walked through the ubiquitous Quincy Market. Dad and I decided to go to the aquarium together, Mom and N walked and shopped. I finished my deli tub of marinated mushrooms while waiting on the long, traffic-guided ticket line to the aquarium, and when Dad and I finally made it into the exhibits the exorbitant ticket fee was worth it. While on line we caught a glimpse of the sea lions, and the first exhibit inside is the penguins, endlessly fascinating, playful and cute to watch.

The phosphorescent, large-lipped and expressive-faced fish were a wonder, and I also enjoyed finding tiny camoflauged frogs, watching corals float in the water, and especially loved a tent of transparent small jellyfish with trails of lacy tenatcles and long, long threads. They were exceptionally beautiful and delicate creatures.

After meeting back up with Mom and N, we all, starving, tried to find a nice place for lunch, but we were walking through the business district on a Saturday, so no open restaurants. Finally we found an open cafe, and though it had no ambiance to speak of, it did have decent cheap food. I enjoyed a goat's cheese, fresh basil and pesto foccacia sandwich.

We then walked back to the central gardens. I kept walking, circling the park, while everyone else sat in the sun. Finally Dad decided it was time to go. He took a different route back to NY, one that involved getting lost and frustrated again. It was a much prettier route through rural New Hampshire.

The past Wednesday and Thursday I spent in New Hampshire with L, a work colleauge from my Ellery Queen days. We met up in Woodstock, where she and Mom communed over kintting, and then L drove me to her old, odd and characterful house. She and her husband J had finished putting antique-blue floor to ceiling bookshelves on one wall of the dining room and the house had a half-furnished, just moved-in look even though they'd been there for 4 years. Wood-floored, the large kitchen had a severely sloping floor that led to a screened-in porch with table and benches as well as chairs and coffee table - a lovely spot.

Upstairs had one very large bedroom and another smaller bedroom off an adjoining front room, a strange design. Their cat, a fat tabby, took to me and allowed me to pet her, whereas usually, according to L, she swats visitors. We spent Thurs evening at a meeting of L's book group (not as good as the group we were all in together in NYC - I still miss that group!) and drove to Hanover on Friday to meet Mom and her friend E after a morning of kayaking between the shores of Dartmouth College.

12.11am, Friday August 7, bed at Boston Mariott ....closer than necessary

I am writing in the bed that I will be sharing with my mother and sister in our little room at the Marriott. Dad is in a cot bed at our side. I guess I came home to be near my family... I use the opportunity to bond with N.

I knew that driving here and finding the hotel was going to involve my Dad stressing and my mom exacerbating his stress by trying to help. It was sweet, though, how as soon as we picked up N, Dad was more laidback, as if driving around Boston was exactly what he wanted to be doing.

The four of us spent a couple of hours walking around the park, the Beacon Hill area, and the river. Beacon Hill is lovely old brick rowhouses with bay windows, sometimes copper roofing, window boxes of geraniums and cobbled sidewalks. It is the first part of Boston I have really liked and is, of course, the most expensive bit.

We then walked to a building of art spaces and looked at the work in several studios - wire sculptures of cats, women, animals and people; oil paintings using images from old photographs; landscapes; abstract paintings. We had a nice patio meal outside at a fancier sort of restaurant than I am used to - $20-26 for mains. I had a nice plate of gnocchi with a fancy cheese I've never heard of, corn, and peas. We also shared zucchini fritters, teumpura-like ,and I had a ginger shandy - wheat ale, ginger beer, lemon and mint.

Afer filling our stomachs my family went to see Funny People. It amuses me that we go all the way to another city to watch a movie, but this is normal for us. I guess it saves trying to figure out something else we all want to do. Free Shakespeare in the park was the first suggestion but I really don't like Comedy of Errors so I voted no on that one. Funny People was very good, though - I laughed and laughed. We laughed more than the rest of the full theatre because we understood all the joking at the expense of Australians. For example, the scene where they are watching a rugby league game and Adam Sandler's character says, 'Where are the black guys?' Mom, N and I were hysterical.

7.00pm Saturday August 1, my parents' porch ....bugs

It is still light and warm here in upstate New York. I've awoken from a nap. Today Dad and I went for a picnic and a game of miniature golf. Dad made falafels and yoghurt dip this morning; Mom made her mother's Russian eggplant dip; I chopped up some tomato. We ate our middle-eastern lunch at Lock 9-C, where we watched a tall yacht and its four sailors rise up on the water and pass through the iron gate on their way to Chesapeake Bay.

I chose a circle of sunlight in a dappled field of trees for the site of our feast, and Dad and I leisurely ate. Afterwards we walked a bit, but we did not find any paths through the woods, so our exercise was short-lived. Instead we drove off to eat ice-cream in Granville before dropping by C's to see if her children wanted to join us for mini-golf. They didn't.

I had an excellent game of golf for the first half, mostly making par and hitting my shots just right, winning against my father. Once the course started to get fancy, with hills and passageways and shoots, my skills were outmoded. Dad and I tyed, both 9 over par.

Yesterday was a lazy day at home spent listening to the driving rain. Mom and I got out for a walk in the evening when the rain let up but it was mostly unpleasant: bug-filled, with my socks drooping and bunching down my heel in Mom's sneakers. As I said to Dad earlier today, bugs should be an adventure, not a lifestyle. I can barely stand visiting here, let alone image how I could live here amongst the mosquitos, deer flies, Lyme's-diseased ticks and wasps. But everyone's cottage gardens are blooming thickly, so that's something.

11.40pm, Wednesday July 29, N's bed ....this too shall pass

I wanted this trip to clarify things and send me through some sort of fire and back out again burnished more beautifully, but this was not exactly what I had in mind. My work and revelations were supposed to revolve around issues of competence, independence. Instead I feel no more competent and no more independent, but my trials have revolved instead around men.

Today I received two very different emails. One from MS, who in response to my emotional farewell email sent back a couple of sentences with incomprehensible sentiments, as they appeared incomplete and clipped from his previous three-line email. The other was from A, responding to the birthday email I sent him, making it clear that he does not want to hear from me and has a lot of repgnance for who he thinks I am. Fair enough, I guess. He's been telling me for two years that he doesn't want me to bother him and, as usual, I needed him to hit me over the head to listen to him over my own desires.

So, at last, I close this 12-year chapter of my life, and I must admit that MS was a part of this closure. It let me know that it is possible for me to find another man whose generousity is genuine, whose smile is full of joy, and who my body likes too.

I have also learned not to play casually with boys because I cannot handle the end of the play. The feeling of being with M was addictive and I don't like living without it.

For someone who wants to be single, I sure spend a lot of time thinking about the guys who impacted upon me romantically. There's only four, but they are never too far from my thoughts. I think I need to stay single for along while - until I can put men in proper perspective.

D told me that she loved my smile. I think this is the best compliment anyone can receive and I believe this is the first time anyone has complimented my smile. Women - I should stick just with them.

8.00ish pm, Sunday July 26 ....full

I have just eaten too much dinner. It was so good and I wasn't feeling full, until now. D made whole wheat pasta with tomato, artichoke and black olives, while I breaded, herbed and fried eggplant slices.

D's family is lovely. L is the type of man Steinbeck writes about: sweet-natured, smart, competent, patient and great with children. B, the little one, is, like all one-year-olds, self-entertaining. He is squirmy and warm and quite a little dancer. True to form, I've bonded with the baby and the dog, a chocolate retriever with a big, warm, wet smelly tongue.

This morning we joined C and S for a trip to the Cave of the Mound, a large cave featuring the shiny plastic look of stalactites and stalagmites. Anice tour, but I don't find cave formations to be as beautiful or impressive as I should. I preder a forest, which is much more mundane. Maybe it is the unspectacular colours of the formations that don't do it for me.

Last night D and I again talked into the dark, though not so late as the previous couple of nights. After returning home from the caves and eating a lunch of fruit salads and vegie burgers we went to the Sow's Ear Cafe cum knitting shop, located in an imitation Victorian house. A lovely cafe, there was a string of skeletons wrapped in tiny shawls, one with a tiny knitted sock hanging from his foot. There were ladies knitting at long wood tables, armchairs in the window, coloured skeins of yarn hanging on the back wall and male staff, one young man sitting in the back of the shop, knitting. Out front were metal tables with rainbow umbrellas under which D and I sat to drink our coffees.

For dinner I bought a bottle of Penfold's Koonunga Hill Shiraz Cabernet, a not very expensive but quite lovely wine, all agreed.