The Waiting Man

The News in brief...

Was made redundant (again!!!) last week. Only 6 weeks after giving up my own little contract-based (extremely) small business & rejoining the 'workforce', I'm out of it again & wondering if the Flooring industry has delivered its verdict on me - that it's high time I left it behind

As I write this, Long-Suffering Partner is in Melbourne, checking out a Hotel room in the centre of town, its views, large TV & even larger bed. I will be joining her there tomorrow for a few days R&R, before returning to Sydney & facing the existential question: 'What do you want to do with (what remains of) your life?!?'

My go-to answer 'Retire to the far south coast of New South Wales with a few acres, my wife & a ragtag collection of animals large & small' requires a bit more money than we have at the moment, so existentialism will have to take a back seat to pragmatism for a few more years yet...

Vale to Olivia Newton-John, but also to Darryl Hunt, bass-player for The Pogues... which makes it 2 members of that band who have the dubious ignominy of failing to outlive Shane MacGowan - the one everybody expected to go first

Oh... & today's photo is from last week's visit to Sydney's Taronga Zoo, where we recently renewed our annual memberships. After all, it's World Lion Day...

One of a few wrecked ships in Homebush Bay, in Sydney Harbour. This one is well on the way to being reclaimed by Nature...

It's been one of those days where I just feel a bit 'off' at the end of it. No real reason, nothing of note happened... I just have a vague, persistent sense of disquiet - things just aren't sitting comfortably

Blah... I'm going to finish this glass of wine & go to bed. All will be better in the morning

One thing I've noticed, now that I'm using the computer/music room as an office & drawing desk for plans, is that I keep swapping between different reading glasses, depending on what I'm doing

For drawing & reading, I use my current prescription, which I think is about 2.5x magnification... but when I switch my attention to the computer screen in front of me, I switch to an older pair of about 0.5 less magnification, otherwise I get a little ocular distress - not pain exactly, but my eyes aren't comfortable reading the screen at the higher level. Which is weird, because when I was working at my former Debtors Prison, I needed the more powerful lenses for everything - reading, computer & plan-drawing

I'm sure the simple answer is that my home computer screen is a bit further away than the former workplace one & the angle of view is a little different, so I don't need the extra help from the glasses. Either that, or my eyes are slowly, magically regenerating themselves... which I somehow doubt

There is evidence, here in Sydney but probably elsewhere as well, to show that students who attend single-sex schools, rather than co-ed, are far more likely to commit, or be victims of, sexual assault

I went to 'private' all-boys primary & secondary schools & part of me thinks "Well of course... if you don't spend enough time interacting with the opposite sex, both socially & at school, they are a mystery to you" as girls were to me - though I had the advantage of a social group that was very female dominated, thanks to growing up with a similarly aged girl next door (& before you ask - NO she & I did not ever get together!!), so I never had the same level of fear of the unknown that had to be 'conquered'. But as mentioned in the article, I was around when these boys socialised with girls on the weekends & their behaviour was far more primal & basic than you would normally see with any of them. Especially, again as noted in the article, when alcohol was involved. So no, I'm not surprised...

It does make me wonder then, why I'm not a part of these statistics? The simple answer is that it's not as simple as single-sex bad, co-ed good. My opinion is that as parents have handed over the raising of their children to others & fail to teach either basic ethics & boundaries, they have also hamstrung teachers by failing to tell their children to respect a teacher's authority, but then also crying foul whenever a teacher attempts to apply any disciplinary measure - saying "You can't do that to my kid!!!" And so nobody does anything...

My parents, especially my Father, were very hands on when it came to instructing me in the basic requirements of a civilised human being. I may not have enjoyed it at the time, but at least it meant that I never treated the opposite sex with anything less than the dignity & respect they deserve... Indeed - that any other human being deserves...

I apparently have it in for the right-hand side of my body...

Currently, my right shoulder is at 75% capacity, due to an ongoing muscle/tendon/something issue, which restricts movement & also makes carrying things quite the sensory experience. Yesterday, I cut my right palm with a breadknife. Today, I sliced open my right ring-finger with a pair of carpet shears & also picked up another cut on the palm... I don't even know how that one happened

Good thing I'm left-handed...

So, according to my cross-feed over at LiveJournal, I posted 329 times this year, with, on LiveJournal, 115 comments on those entries. Here on DW, that would be 328 times, as I know I posted to LJ once from Instagram & DW won't let me do that... & I know for certain there would be far fewer comments on my entries here - despite a bit of friend/reader crossover between platforms, people still seem to comment more on LJ than here... or so it seems. A shout out to Paserbyp, who comments on nearly all my entries here on DW. I should comment more on yours!!

Even so, it's not a lot of expressed interest in my content - be it political ranting, photographs, pontifications on the personal front, or being pissed off about the decline of western civilised behaviour... & more photos. Not sure how I feel about that - whether 'tis nobler in the mind to stick to my guns (& lens) & just keep doing more of the same, or go back to how I've been with my Journal in previous years - kind of sporadic, mostly reclusive & probably busy with other things. Certainly this years approximately quadrupling of entries hasn't seemed to strike much of a chord with too many people, but I'm quite proud of the effort & definitely stand by every single rant & pronouncement... even if it seems to be the equivalent of an old man sitting on a park bench yelling at things only he can see, while the rest of the world quickens its pace as it passes by

A cooler day than the weekend, but still very humid, so every time I lifted something, carried something, or got on my hands & knees to cut 2 lengths of carpet into smaller pieces, the sweat started...

A peaceful kind of day, after the work-related issues & stress of the weekend left me wondering if I'm actually any good at this bloody job, or if it's any bloody good for me. I know the answer to the 2nd part, still wondering about the first. I had a nice long delivery trip through the lower towns of the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, to deliver a large pallet of flooring & was joined on the trip by L-SP, who was at a loose end on her day off & fancied a road trip, even if it was work-related & nowhere near as long as the ones we do for fun. It was nice to have the company & the conversation in the ute was better than it normally is

An impromptu Sushi Train dinner in town, then home to a hungry cat. It's a very still evening - no breeze to take the edge off the remains of the day, so it's off to bed soon with, I think, both bedside fans doing what they do best... blowing incoming mosquitos off-course & keeping the temperature at a sleep-friendly level

And finish with a photo... taken in the Stockton sand dunes, about 2 hours & a bit north of Sydney

Off to Canberra today, back tomorrow... some time

Poor old Bella is staying at the Vet - she has a cone around her head to stop her licking at her would, which they're still cleaning out with disinfectant. We went down to see her last night & she looked less than impressed - it's going to take a few treats & pampering to win her over again, I think

See you when we get back...

It's 11.30pm... I've had one & 1/2 generous glasses of single malt scotch & a large glass of red wine I'm just finishing as I write & I'm not tired. What I am, is angry as hell...

I'm not looking forward to tomorrow's inevitable, terse conversation regarding the leave situation & the worst-case scenario of telling the boss that he can treat those 2 weeks as my notice & either way, he can damned well pay me for it. Given the uncertainty of employment in these times of Plague & the very recent rebuttal from a potential employer, I don't want it to come to that, but by Christ, it's tempting...

All I really want to do right now is either make some music, or go somewhere & take photos. The creative side of my brain is obviously fighting to contain & harness the anger. Trouble is, it's 11.30pm & there's bugger-all chance of doing either of those things right now

This could be a long night...

Like the old, Cold War, there appears to be a game of brinkmanship going on at work... & they seem to know when to pull back, just before everything explodes

But there's still tomorrow, when I have to deal with both cow-orkers at once. Today, there was only one of them. I'll try to not get M.A.D.

...

Just while I'm thinking... & drinking about it...

How I Started Liking Coffee

My Father was a coffee drinker & I grew up with the smell of coffee being made in the kitchen several times a day. I always loved that smell - rich, steamy, kind of like chocolate, but not quite - enough that, of course, I was curious about this dark brown, hot drink, that Dad seemed to enjoy so much. When I was about 9 or 10, he let me try it...

I should mention, at this point, that it was always Nescafé Blend 43 instant coffee that he made, first with one teaspoon of sugar, then a few years later with one sugar substitute tab. By the time he offered it to me, it was with the aspartame tab...

I couldn't believe that something which smelled so good throughout my childhood, could taste so bad. Talk about a loss of childhood innocence! After that one sip, that was it - I hated coffee. That therefore, also went for coffee-flavoured cold milk, coffee-flavoured chocolates, anything that described itself as having a coffee taste, I wanted none of it. I still liked the smell though...

Fast-forward a few years to the point in my teens where I'm starting to take an interest in girls & wandering the maze of emotions, expectations, contradictions & confusion that comes with the territory. I'd fallen in with a group of friends that was made up of boys from my (all boys) high school & girls from a childhood friend's (all girls) high school. It was a comfortable group that survived 'til well after we'd all left school & gone to our various universities, colleges &/or jobs. None of us ever wound up 'with' each other... possibly because of the bond of friendship, possibly because one of those bonds was that we were all socially awkward in one way or another & could never articulate those sorts of desires & emotions with, or to, each other. Anyway, we'd regularly find ourselves in coffee shops & it became a standing joke that I'd always order a milkshake, while everyone else would have cappuccinos, or flat whites, but that I'd always run a finger across the froth of their coffee & taste that. Especially if it was a cappuccino with the sprinkled chocolate on the froth. This was the case, if not always the practice, well into my late 20s - though I had eventually stopped the finger taste testing, probably because a girlfriend (I did manage to have a few of those!!) had broken me of the habit

Fast-forward a few more years to my early 30s where, single again, I'd arranged to meet a girl I was interested in at a coffee shop - her suggestion I think &, of course, I agreed. This presented me with a dilemma. She didn't know me that well & might think it a bit weird if I ordered a milkshake, so it looked like I was going to have to order a coffee. My mind raced through what I knew about the stuff, trying to remember which one was the smallest amount I could get away with. Espresso... that was it!!! So I had an espresso, with a healthy dose of sugar, to kill what I knew would be a horrible taste. The things we do for lust...

It was wonderful!! Completely unlike the old instant stuff my Father drank... this wasn't 2 teaspoons of granulated chaff, drowned in water boiled in a jug & 'sweetened' with chemicals... this was made on one of those mysterious big machines behind the counter that rumbled & hissed steam. Now I knew what that machine did... so I ordered another, without the sugar this time, just to see if it was actually the coffee I liked, or just the sugar hit. Yep - it was the coffee after all. I don't remember who the girl was now, but I've always remembered that first 'proper' coffee... even after the thousands I've had in the last 20 years. So - no thanks to my late Father, who stuck with his instant goop for the rest of his life, preferring it to any of that fancy café stuff, but a huge, life-changing thank you to whatshername, for presenting me with such a significant fork in my road

I still hate instant coffee!!!

In between stuff to do & a couple of excursions, it's been a nostalgic photo processing day - I mean processing older photos

There's something comforting in looking back at the shots from our short trip to the USA in 2016 & I'm still finding good photos that have, until now, languished on the hard drive...



Arches National Park - Window Arch



North Rim of the Grand Canyon



The hills above St George, Utah

Had my annual eye-test today... I'm going 'up' a level in reading glasses, which I kind of expected & they took a photo of a lesion on the back of my right eye that, to me at least, looked like Olympus Mons on Mars... the red eyeball with this raised, slightly grey-ish scar tissue. God only knows how it got there - nobody's ever punched me in the eye or anything... Anyway, it doesn't affect my vision & they didn't phone an ophthalmologist, or an oncologist, so I'm not going to worry about it 'til one of those three things happen

Back to work tomorrow &, having seen my schedule, I already know it's going to be a bit of an epic trek, with more Herculean feats expected. I'm tired already...

What to do... what to do...

Maybe it's the early hour, maybe I'm not fully awake yet (it's 7am, on a day off), but my mood's a bit down. I've had a look over the last week & bit's worth of DW/LJ entries & am having a bit of an existential crisis - one of those "Is anybody even reading this? Maybe I should just keep a private diary & forget about it" moods. This is more a LJ issue than DW - where I only have a few contacts & they're pretty good at letting me know they've noticed I'm alive, but over on LJ, I'm even starting to miss the antagonistic comments from the person I blocked a couple of weeks ago - at least it meant someone was reading the damn stuff, though the last exchange we had is what made me step back from socio-political ranting & start posting more photos instead

Sometimes I do wonder who I'm writing/posting for... over the years of being on LJ, I developed a writing style that tries to speak outwardly, rather than just personally... in other words, I imagined an audience & began talking to them, instead of just recording an inner monologue & catalogue of events. Lately I'm starting to feel like one of those channels on Foxtel that nobody watches, or like the midnight-to-dawn DJ on a remote country radio station... there may be someone out there, but FIIK... which stands for 'Buggered If I Know'

For my part, I try to engage with other's entries where I feel I have a comment to make, or appreciate a photo, or video they've posted & I'll continue to do so... maybe, but as for my own Journal... either I'm going to start writing just for me, without bothering to link to articles, or post photos, or I may just give it up entirely & keep a personal journal offline...

Maybe I'll feel completely different in a while, after a coffee... or a few of these...

I don't know... Here are my answers to the 'Last Time' meme going around... as if it's the end of days or something...

Last time I travelled abroad: March last year on, of all things, a cruise ship... We went to Noumea & a few other Pacific Islands & came home with no unwanted bacterial viruses

Last time I slept in a hotel: December last year, in Lakes Entrance, on the Victorian south-eastern coast. Parts of Victoria & New South Wales were already on fire, making the journey home a bit fraught, but nothing like what it became just 2 weeks later...

Last time I flew in an aeroplane: 27th October 2016, flying home from Los Angeles after our 2nd trip to & through the USA. Next time, we won't do it in an election year...

Last time I took a train: Some time earlier this year, from work to a site inspection in the middle of the city, where parking would have been a nightmare...

Last time I took public transport: About a month ago, either to or from work...

Last time I had a house guest: Human - a looong time ago... at least 7 years, maybe more. Animal - we have L-SP's sister's dog staying with us now...

Last time I got my hair cut: I think it was January some time...

Last time I went to the movies: Avengers: Endgame last year... we even managed to miss the last Star Wars film... Not sure when we'll go again at the moment either!!

Last time I went to the theatre: Blue Man Group at the Luxor Las Vegas, October 2016

Last time I went to a concert: Ben Folds at the Sydney Town Hall, March 6th 2020

Last time I went to an art museum: Art Gallery of New South Wales, probably about a month ago...

Last time I sat down in a restaurant: Maurice & Linda's local French restaurant on Valentine's Day

Last time I went to a party: An erstwhile bandmate's 60th... I think it was around August last year

Last time I played a board game with more than two people: Does Cards Against Humanity count? It'll have to if we're talking this millennium...

Last time I went to the office: Today... (un)Fortunately, we're still somehow considered essential, as we're affiliated with the building industry, so haven't been shut down - it would be pretty hard to do my job from home...

Which is really Monday morning, come a day early, as it's kind of the start of my working weak. At least it starts at 10am, so I have a little more time before abluting & departing

Started a 2nd new musical project yesterday, adding to the covers band a friend wants me to play lead guitar in. An erstwhile band-mate has a home studio setup & would like to record some of the songs & instrumental pieces I've stockpiled over the last 10-15 years, as he's heard some of them & really likes them!?!? This makes a nice change, as I've carried those pieces around with me, through various bands & collaborations that always ended up with me contributing a lot of time & work to other people's music, while, somehow, we never got 'round to any of mine... Let's see...

My paid Flickr account has expired & they want an exorbitant amount of money to renew it. Flickr was taken over by another company about 2 years ago & when my account automatically renewed last year, the amount wrested from our bank account was significantly larger than the 10 previous years & did not make L-SP happy. This year, with the Australian dollar tanking because of that virus & its global effects, the renewal amount is astronomical & I'm not sure it's worth it. I have a number of friends there, some of whom I met in person during 2 trips to the USA & would hate to lose, but, then again, there's e-mail if they ever want to find me...

What I'd like to find is another high-quality photo hosting service that won't take so much money from me that I'll never save enough to buy new camera equipment, or afford the journeys which provide the photo opportunities to use it!

Any thoughts, hints, or suggestions, O Netizens Faire??