Totally obsessed by... way more than I should be. Got through almost 7 episodes on the weekend. I think I prefer the total immersion technique for hobbies and interests - engulfed and then over with. I will be a 6FU fan for one week and then move on. Hobbies that linger - who has time.

Riddley riddley ree, there's something I can see and it starts with....

E (my essay lingering like a bad smell)
N (my nose - blocked, red and shining)
G (green for the new emerald city earrings I made)
B (bike, yah to riding even on silly Sydney roads)
C (chickpeas - straight out of the can = chickpea salad. Tasty and ridiculously high in both vegetarian cliche value and protein)

Hose it out and start again... my days as a local government drone

In the chamber...This week we have faced local politicians who: want to tackle the 'recycling juggernaut'; promise to launch programs (that we already have) if elected; report back rapturously on projects completed in their term (that we have never heard of); who despite the colour of their party politics amble out of cafes with polystyrene cup in hand. And they all have awful giant smiling heads with bad hair - every single one of them. Where is the good hair and half decent fashion party when you need it?

On the streets...The resident who rang to emphatically stress that they want this 'reckless talk' of pond draining and 'mass kill mentality' to end. (We are talking about goldfish in a pond girls and boys.) The other resident who rang to demand a program be rescheduled because she will be away that weekend. Oh dear.

Back in the cube... we were indignant about flu shots and lack of notification, ads in papers without consultation and time slots given for talks. Uh huh. Friday night party pash gossip rippled back to me - at least it was movement in the stale gossip air. Today I made my fingers sore typing sensible reports and writing project plans ("maybe if I type fast enough I can do a year's work in the next 3 weeks before I go"), drank so much tea I sailed through the afternoon on a tea and pee pendulum. Or maybe it was a juggernaut.

Last week a highlight was when I lost my pen and had to use a rainbow coloured pencil to take notes in a meeting, the challenge of avoiding yellow kept me on my toes.

Another talk to a group of expectant faces - 16 people, putty in my hands. This is such a funny way to see people, all ages, keen, transformed into the little kids they once were, excited about rainwater tanks and planting days, itching to wander about the community garden and poke at plants and announce names triumphantly. The keen ones (is this like I was?? but now I am the teacher??) wander alongside me as I walk asking questions and really they are saying 'I like you, I trust you, lets share stuff' and I do and they smile and nod and suggest things and we together we are part of something. And this part of the job I like, this part I will miss.

This almond-eyed
Steely gaze
From a sleeve-rolled Buddha
Turns me school girl
Cheeks shot pink
in some retro gesture to romance past
Totally out of place
In our laminexed
KPI driven
Pinboard clad
Relationship

We talk about market transformation and all I see is the heart breaking overbite of the fresh faced waiter who, from nowhere, fills my glass and carries his transforming potential, nonplussed between our tables.

***

One month left in my country
One month left of dirt in my veins
Of pomp and strutter
Of city grit I know

One month and I pencil in
All my aspirations
like so many appointments to be filled
Projects to be brought to satisfactory completion -
Time allowing

***

Nothing to say today that hasn't already been said

Looks like the panel have decided - I am being voted off the island ;) No really, thanks guys for input, has been a weird decision to make and I appreciate your thoughts and encouraging words. Monday will be the big day, going in especially to resign. Hear that? Actually resign. This might be crazy. I might need reassuring words and cups of tea over the next month. I might need a couch to sleep on or dinner at your place in a few months time. In fact... who's up for celebratory cocktails Monday night?? (This might count you out 3773 - unless we teleconference).

Relocate??

Just got a letter of offer and job description (nice order don't you think?)

Random thoughts:
- imagine getting a contract in Australia that talks about acting in a 'loyal, honest and trustworthy manner' (hello, is this Sunday School) and specifying that one's out of work activities must not discredit the company (you mean no table dancing?? no binge drinking and falling in gutters? no shagging the Christian Office Manager or the Married Business Director??)
- are noodles in the bush better than staging the revolution and drinking cocktails in hand?? (I know that is an awful sentence, but I know what I mean)
- Can I be nicely behaved for 2 months??
- Is this a stupid idea or a good one that's just hard to make...?

Am I going to go?? Fuck it I don't know.

Any decision that involves use of multiple question marks is ultimately a scary one...

Fractal

Are you one of these people who are less than they present to the world or more?

I am sick of this snippering, simpering cultural web that draws us close with shared references and not much more
Sick of the flicker of gas fires and the cool light they cast on our stricken faces
Sick of competing like trained dogs for the favours of our masters
Sick of women with tight smiles and their throw away lines that swim clear in the water and once swallowed tie up our guts
Tired of the horded detritus that we adorn our lives with to look cool
Cool, that we subjugate our desperate selves to
Cool that we make a pact to service

How can two weeks feel like months? Last week was the party and post-party recovery and pre Hawaii was the Slit Magazine launch and fairy wings and little butch posties and dancing all night and before that was hospitals and ringing relatives and texting baby weights. This week has slowed right down and is in the dim warm house that is quiet and filled with little activities like cups of tea and naps and washing and pegging and burping (the baby! not me) and rocking and wiping and mopping and cooking. Looking after puppies and babies and each other. And I'm ridiculously happy doing it all. I think the baby hormones are seeping into my brain and making me smile into his little face asleep in my arms and not want to be anywhere else. It is surreal just how fundamentally scary it is to look after a little life and how precarious it is, every laboured breath, and yet how normal it feels when you get over the panic. I just keep reminding myself that I come from along line of people who manged to do this, way back to caves, way back to monkeys, when back when.

Back to Brissie tomorrow (oops, this) morning. Mum and baby got home today at 9.30 and so far so good. I feel a little fractured and worn thin popping back and forth life to life. Movement vs a warm spot on the couch. Spontaneity vs losing things in the scattered winds. Settling down vs tasting little bits of all the possible lives out there for you. Hmmm. Am I angsting over my decision because I haven't heard back and got confirmation yet?? Maybe.

(Just hold your breath and jump)

I think I've decided. Circumstance may conspire against me - it might not happen (the footnote, the disclaimer) but at least I've finally squeezed out a choice.

(And then exhale)

Interstitial

The gap between the things that are the main thing
The not done and not said that define us more than their obvious cousins
The space that we give to let people step up into
The tiny pores that let us breathe, the nothing that makes up most of us
The jagged breath between phrases that makes us love a singer more than their pearly notes
The lost hours that are filled with mystery and wonder
The end of the book that was never written
The spaces in dirt that after drought spurn the deluge, but softly does it will oblige by holding water and feeding life