First day at Worlds here in Perth, Western Australia, and they keep booting me off the wireless internet.

Turns out that, in Australia, it's not uncommon to nickel and dime everyone to poverty. Oh, you want ketchup (sorry, tomato sauce) with that? That'll be another 20cents. Oh, you want a second room key? That'll be an extra five dollars a day.

Because of the nickel and dime culture, complimentary wireless internet at the hotel costs $30AUD a day (or about $24/day on current exchange rates).

It's kinda annoying.

The only free wireless is at the fields, and they keep bumping me off the connection. Must be the massive uploads I've been trying to do to Flickr. Sigh.

We won our first game 17-11, against Dis'chords, a Montreal based team. The next game is against Endzonis, a German team, so we expect the style to be considerably different. Should be fun.

"Why does this fly keep divebombing my nostrils?"

Megan offered, "Because you smell good?"

"What? Because my boogers smell good but the rest of me doesn't?"

I'm a mountain girl. I'm not a water girl. Give me a hike in the mountains, through the forest, and around the lake over a swim in the ocean or a day lying around at the beach any day.

There are exceptions to my general mountain over ocean preferences: an ultimate game on the beach is preferable to a death march hike through the Grand Canyon, for example. For the most part, though, mountain over ocean.

For some reason I'm not quite clear on, I keep ending up at the ocean at these ultimate tournaments. Nationals was in Sarasota, Florida (a gulf more than an ocean, but a large body of water nonetheless), Worlds is in Perth, Western Australia.

So, in Perth, we're staying (ick! mixing verb tenses!) at a beach apartment complex, across the street from the beach, so all of maybe 50 yards from the waterfront. We wandered across the street to the beach,

"It's cold. I don't want do it, but I want to have done it." I smiled and said, "Well, the only way to have done it is to do it. Let's go."

The water was cold, close but not quite unbearably so, so we rushed out into the water, letting the waves crash higher and higher up our bodies. Eventually Kris went under, and a few waves later, I followed. I didn't go completely under, so chose to ride the next wave back towards shore.

I pushed off poorly on the next wave, but started swimming as fast as I could toward shore. Unfortunately, I also started after the wave started crashing. Instead of getting an easy ride to shore, I was dumped under the water, with the wave crashing over my head.

As I went under and couldn't find my feet under me, I kept thinking of my scuba diving qualification dive at Zuma Beach, and felt the brief tickle of panic that accompanies that memory when I'm in the water. Before it could become panic, my feet struck sand, and I surged forward, running to the shore.

I can now say, I have swum in the Indian Ocean. Kris can say the same.

I suspect I'll be heading back in the next few days, though. Once doesn't seem quite enough.

Come on, people, I don't freakin' know. I don't know. How many times do I have to say it, I don't know?

I'm not your mother. I'm not your guardian. I'm not even your team captain. I'm not the team organizer. I'm not the housing coordinator. I'm not the ride arranger.

I'm not responsible for your well-being. I'm not responsible for your ticket. I'm not responsible for your food. You know what? I'm not responsible for Kris, either. He is his own person, and he makes his own choices. He can even act and thinking independently of me. Shocking, eh?

You know what else? You are not my responsibility, either.

Start thinking for yourself. Figure it out. Look around. See what's there. Find the solution by solving it yourself.

Stop asking me. Stop depending on me. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it!

Because, damn it, I don't fucking know.

And I'm tired of the hundred questions.

Update: Kris commented to me in passing when I complained to him about everyone asking me questions, that, hey, you know what, I'm listed as the team captain on the tournament records. I submitted the bid, so, I'm the captain.

Great. Abdicating responsibility. I suck.

Time to embrace. Come on, world, ask me anything. My new answer is going to be, "Doesn't matter."

Clearly, I'm not supposed to travel out of the country.

In a Truman Show-esque catastrophe, everything seems to go wrong when I do, or at least attempt to, travel out of the country. Take Italy with Mom and BJ: My luggage was lost, then delayed by a strike in France that affected only my luggage, and not my mother's or my brother's. My mother wondered who replaced her daughter with a changeling, when I didn't scream and have a fit, but accepted the loss calmly.

I ended up wearing my mother's underwear.

Our honeymoon beginning and end were so traumatic that I've been unable to transfer my written journal entries here without singing "My Humps" off-key at the top of my lungs to avoid the memories, which have thus far always caused convulsions and uncontrollable drooling. Even the travel agent commented that trip seemed cursed after I told her about the birds pooping on my head.

Yeah.

So, imagine my uncontrollable frustration this weekend when, after about fifty hours of sorting, clearing, cleaning, arranging, looking and shuffling, I am unable to find my passport.

I had it two weeks ago. I took it to Vegas Baby Vegas with me, because I hate using my driver's license for travelling. I see no reason why I should show a complete stranger my name and address and, hey, look, I'm heading out of town! See here? Here's my flight information! Call your buddies, rob my house!

A passport doesn't have an address on it, so, even though you know I'm going out of town, you don't immediately know where I live. Not that figuring out where I live is that difficult. I just like to make it harder than looking at a card that I handed you with detailed directions on how to get there.

I don't recall having my passport when I went to Florida.

I did have it on the one day between Vegas Baby Vegas and Florida. I remember dumping all of my bag contents on the floor and having it spill out on the floor. I even remember thinking, "Huh, that's not in the approved location."

I haven't seen it since.

I have an appointment with the Passport Agency on Tuesday morning. I've heard it takes two days to get a new passport, so I'm going to head up tomorrow morning to see if I can get in today, to receive the passport today or tomorrow at the latest.

I keep thinking, oh, it'll show up, just one more box to go through and I'll find it. At some point, I'll have to give up and accept it's gone.

Writing about leaving town is always an internal struggle. On one hand, I'm heading out of town, it's what's happening to me at the moment, I want to talk about it. On the other hand, it's an announcement, "Hey, look everyone, my house is going to be empty for a few days!" I hate that. This time, however, we have house guests staying at the house, feeding the doggies, maybe even petting them if Bella decides to STFU already (though, I'd be surprised at that).