We went and donated blood yesterday. I've done it twice before, in Australia, but Adam's never donated before. He's not a big fan of needles and "guts and blood" either, so I'm very proud of him for doing it. The process was very similar to how they do it back home, though the paperwork etc. side of it took longer I think, and they don't bring you magazines to flip through while you're donating or make you yummy milkshakes afterwards - though they do offer drinks and snacks.

Actually, we did have an ulterior motive, though we will do it again. We need to find out what blood type Adam is, which will be on his donor card when we get them in the mail. I already know I'm O Neg, so if he's anything positive we could have problems having children. Just something we need to know, but thankfully they have medication for it now. My blood type is like the best and the worst. I'm a universal donor because anyone can have my blood, but I can only have O Neg. And the baby thing. That's pretty sucky. I wonder how many miscarriages in centuries past could be explained by this peculiarity? I bet quite a few.

Finally rented Picnic at Hanging Rock for Adam to see, and watched it last night. I love that movie. The atmosphere is amazing, the mystery chilling. Wonderful music. Adam found it a bit boring and slow and didn't understand where it was going (which is surprising because he's not an action movie kind of guy, he's more into documentaries and talky films). Is this one of those Australian things? I was telling him all about the national identity being partly tied into the notion of the bush as wilderness and alien Other, and the long history of people going missing in it - not just getting lost, but being drawn in, lured, compelled.

I studied it in a wonderful course at uni, "A place in the wilderness", and did an essay on the topic. I have an excellent book called The Country of Lost Children all about children disappearing in the bush, and in another book, No Place for a Nervous Lady, which is a collection of journal entries written by colonial women during settlement, there were similar accounts, like one woman whose maid was hanging the washing on the line when she just put everything down, turned around and walked into the bush, never to be seen again. Gives me chills. I love it.

But Adam wanted to know what had really happened and kept thinking that one of the young men had done away with them or something. It's spookier when you think of the rock as doing something to people, like how at midday the clocks would stop and people would fall asleep. Ms McCraw was seen running toward the rock in just her underwear. So ominous. Anyway, the nature of the Australian landscape has been a fascination of mine since uni, when several uni courses really opened my eyes to its beauty and harshness and this weird kind of anthropomorphism, wherein the bush becomes some kind of supernatural being almost. I know that they've since put back the chapter in the book that explains it, but I haven't read the book and I don't think I want to know. The not knowing is part of the magic. Knowing would spoil it.

*sigh* I could practically smell it, while watching that movie. Smell the bush and the dry grass and red earth. Sometimes missing it makes my heart ache.