something else

This post was first written in September 2009, when I was struggling with my role and still suffering from a toxic workplace. I began to question whether I could be happy workign for a `boss', rather than being self-employed, and I began to ask myself what it was that would keep me interested in working. This week it has been Brisbane again. I arrived on Saturday to a temperature of 29 deg, with 30 on the Sunday and 35 on the Monday. Brisbane at it's late winter best (or so a southerner would think). The locals were not appreciative of it, though. Grumbling that it was way too hot for winter. I was dreading working in a Fabrication workshop for the week, thinking that I would be sweaty and hot all week in the mandatory High Vis long trousers and long sleeved shirt, but I found the workshops modern with high ceilings and good ventilation, so that the heat was negligible and with air conditioned offices to retreat to, the work was pleasant. I'm working my way through lots of...

Artificial warmth smothers the fog of rain outside, grey. We're all grey too, Melbourne winter fashion fills the train. There's layers and layers of grey from charcoal to pearl with black over and a coloured bag or scarf here and there. Today is not a grey mood though. I'm light-hearted not quite skipping but OK. The train jams full at each station more grey piles in, shaking drops and puddling footprints. Train hum and tinny beats coming from ipods, conversations, book readers, newspapers. This is definitely NOT a train to take the bike on. I have favourite passages on my commuter train journey. Williamstown Racecourse. Once it was a swamp, probably a good dry season tucker gathering place, open to the sea in between low coastal scrub. Then they built a racecourse, ran a train line out from the busy port town and put a station there. Had a grandiose Victorian grandstand complete with Phoenix canariensis, the`Federation Palm', that bio maps the growth of Melbou...

In Townsville again this week It's still a beautiful city, but too hot, even at this time of year. Tropical queen of the alternate lifestyle, her harbour packed with yachts, streets full of backpackers, riverbanks and rivermouth speckled with men in old shorts, tattered shirts, thongs and straw hats, with fishing gear and time to talk. Walking at night, parkies drift across her open spaces, they don't flit, they dr_if_t in pairs and clusters, all motion designed to save energy, no threat to anyone. I walk busily stretching knees and tendons, Flinders St East - West? Whatever. Scene of my despair. Town to hate, Town to love, too many demons for me, too many memories.