What could possibly drive a latte-loving city girl to throw out all her new shoes and move into the passenger seat of a beat-up Mazda with dodgy air conditioning? This laughter-filled memoir proves that love is the best reason to do anything. When fate decided to connect an inner-city journalist with an unlikely comedian at a wacky astrology night, a few hours was all it took to fall in love. What followed is a love story like no other, set against the backdrop of the uncompromising Australian landscape. From supping with bikers in the desert to filing fashion columns from skimpy-clad pubs in gold mining areas, this memoir is an exploration of the balance between passion and security, love and freedom, and what it really takes to live your dreams. This adventure is for anyone who has ever wondered what happens when you turn your back on city life and hit the road with a laptop full of hope and a hair straightener in the glove compartment. Louisa Deasey is a freelance lifestyle journalist who has had more than a thousand features, interviews, and columns published in such newspapers and magazines as the the Age , the Australian , the Daily Telegraph , and the Sydney Morning Herald . Love and Other Uturns By Louisa Deasey Allen & Unwin Copyright © 2010 Louisa Deasey All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-74237-341-6 Contents Prologue: Many returns, Part 1: Once upon a time, 1 The accidental waitress, 2 More than a croissant, 3 Venus meets Pluto, 4 Interstate stalking, 5 Love dust, 6 Road-tested, 7 Sprinklerville, 8 Sugarcane moon, 9 Outworn objects, Part 2: The road, 10 Outsiders, 11 Unfamiliar terrain, 12 Living history, 13 Bundy, bikies and bearded dragons, 14 Nullarbor dreaming, 15 Another country, 16 A touch of Paris in the goldfields, 17 Australian style, 18 The Aussie work ethic, 19 Fertile soil, 20 Honeymoon at The Rose, 21 Wheatbelt sushi, 22 Dog day afternoon, 23 Wicked winds and missing Kremes, 24 The peace of cucumbers, 25 The Fremantle doctor, 26 Nuts on the road, 27 Dust on my tongue, 28 Kimberley sky, 29 The wedding from hell, 30 Eclipse, 31 Full circle, Acknowledgements, CHAPTER 1 The accidental waitress 'What are you going to write about if you don't ... live?' The year I turned twenty-nine, I stopped being able to lie. Not little lies – I've always been good at ignoring phone calls, screening appointments, saying I'm going to the bathroom when I'm really leaving without saying goodbye, that sort of thing. But the big stuff – like, who I am – I'd never really been sure of before. I don't know when it happened, exactly, but I just seemed to cross some threshold into a new version of the me who didn't lie about it. I wasn't clucky, didn't want to settle down, and didn't see the point of a mortgage or a miserable job if it made you take up drugs or any other series of addictions just to handle it. And I was increasingly running out of the ability for chitchat with people who did do all these things. This excluded me from what felt like ninety-nine per cent of the population my age. I was leaving parties like the one just a night ago, left, right and centre. My best friend had talked me into going to the party because it was my birthday. In the eight years we'd known each other, we hadn't gone longer than a week or so without doing something together. But something was changing in me. I'd been hiding away, cocooning. Sally saw it as an unhealthy level of antisocialness. 'Come on Lou ... what are you going to write about if you don't ... live?' She spoke directly to my deepest fear. Guilt got the better of me, mixed with a very superficial urge to just get dressed up for something. So I went. The party was a friend of Sally's workmate. Neither of us knew anyone, which has always been my favourite kind of party. It was in a warehouse in Fitzroy. Thumping techno music greeted me at the door as I made my way in. Sally had been there for a while, by the looks of things, and was already stumbling. 'Lou! Meet Hayden!' she squealed as soon as she saw me, and I shook the clammy hand of her new friend. Hayden wore a slick top, flashed his teeth in a canine-like grin which implied either cocaine or ecstasy, and spent way too long staring at me without blinking. Still, Sally seemed to really like him, and was smiling more than I'd seen her smile in a long time. So I left them to it. As I walked away I could hear him angrily talking about his work and his boss, while she nodded, entranced. I found a plastic glass and poured myself a drink, glancing at the throbbing party which, by all measures, was 'going off'. Glossy girls in knee-high boots poured through the door kissing the air and disappearing to the toilets, re-emerging rubbing their noses, giggling and laughing their way through a dance floor of flashing lights with suddenly wide eyes. The men reminded me of prowling wolves. Glowing teeth from the neon lights flashed whenever th