Darwin has become a second home of sorts, and nowhere is it more apparent than when I turn up to the silent book club which is held at a local bar on a Wednesday evening.
It’s so good to have a community, when you’re not in your own community.
There are some familiar faces now. Or maybe I’m the occasional familiar face.
After getting my drink and a bowl of chips, I sat down in the beautifully air-conditioned room and started to chat with my colleague who first invited me along. There was another girl there who I’ve seen before. I love her green hair. I could never carry it off..
Somehow, we got talking about pronouns. As a cis-gender, middle-aged, straight woman who uses she/her pronouns I’m about his vanilla as you get. My Veridian-haired new mate said that she uses a mix of she/her/they/we.
‘We?’ I asked.
‘Yes. I’ve just been diagnosed with them multiple personality disorder. I’m learning to come out as a we. I’m just trying it on at the moment.’
‘Wow. I’m honoured that you’re sharing that with me’
‘It’s all good,’ she said.
‘I’m still honoured you’re discussing this with me.’
‘It’s cool. You’re a safe person. I feel very safe with you.’
I’m still very chuffed about that.
The next little conversation I had was at the end of silent book club, when we break the silence and start to talk about our books. I got to talk about mine fairly early. I’m currently reading My Brilliant Sister by Amy Brown. I explained how this was a follow on from Miles Franklin’s My Brilliant Career.
There was a young girl who followed me. Her first words were ‘As I’m not allowed to read anything pretentious, I’m reading this fantasy trash.’
As somebody who tends to read more highbrow books, I didn’t quite know how to take this. She was very cool. She was there with her mum, and loves reading and is studying arts down in Melbourne.
She told me after that she had to read tripe to counterbalance when she has been caught reading Alan Ginsberg on the tram.
I had to laugh at that.
I also told her that she really should get onto Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five and prepared to have her mind blown.
I loved her spunk.
But most of all, I love that in many ways when I’m up here, I feel like I’m home. I never thought I would say that.
Darwin is approaching the Dry which is to be expected, but it still surprises.
This morning, I woke, only to go out on the balcony and notice a decided chill in the air.
When I say chill, I mean it was around 22 degrees, with a calming breeze and less humidity in the air. It was wonderful.
Arriving at work, the first thing that was said to me. "It feels like the dry. Better break out the cardigan."
It's not cold enough for a cardigan, but the unrelenting humidity has lessened.
But then, just as I was about to leave work this afternoon, it was bucketing down. Raining heavily enough that I went and put my work thongs on to go and have a pedicure. (Shout out to Dragon Nails on Cavanagh Street. They're lovely).
And the night before, I spent an hour sitting on the balcony watching distant thunderstorms.
As a well-known weather nerd, Darwin is great for weather.
As this is my third wet-season up here, I hate to say it, but I've got used to it.
I got into Darwin at 1:30 am. My bag was one of the first off of the plane, and then it took me half an hour to secure an Uber to the hotel. This is not unusual in Darwin as all of the planes turn up at the same time. Unless you are really lucky, and find that the cab rank is empty, there is no point trying to wait for a cab.
I got into my hotel room at 2:20 am.
After unpacking, drinking the can of non-alcoholic beer that was in the fridge, and jumping under the shower to clean off the flight, I made it into bed at 3 am.
The sun woke me up at 7 am.
Anyway, I am cactus, I am watching MAFS, And then I’m off to bed.
I've largely disconnected from news about the upcoming election because 1) I know how I'm voting and 2) if I have to see another Clive Palmer ad on the telly I'm going to throw a brick at it.
Also, remember that I can have noisy politics, but I'm trying to be restrained. Noisy politics can be boring for other people, of this I am very aware.
But I will say, yesterday, as I was in Caulfield, I really wish I had a texta / sharpie / permanent marker (whatever you want to call them).
You see, walking along Bambra Road, I spot this.
This man has a punchable face. His face is almost as punchable as Peter Dutton's.
Horrible human being.
But then there you go.
And this is not Blockers Road, Myponga in the 1980s where there are very few cars and you could quite happily deface Alexander Downer's election posters with cow dung or by draping fishnet stockings over them. This was pristine, well-to-do conservative Caulfield. In the middle of the day. You don't deface posters in the middle of the day on a busy road.
And, if you deface a LNP poster, like warts and grey hairs, three more will pop up in their place.
So, instead of throwing good money after bad and pouring coffee over dear old Dim Tim, I restrained myself. (Yes, I know that was the name for another Liberal politician, but he was in the State Government and then got booked for drunk driving after being on a crusade about government standards and he since has crawled back from under the rock from whence he came.)
Anyway, I'm going to do here what I wanted to do yesterday, but as I'm a good woman, I refrained.
Do you like this look?
Or this one?
Or this one?
Or, of course, there is the gold standard in defacing political posters.
But I'm a grown up.
I don't deface political posters anymore.
(Thankfully, I'm not in the electorate of Goldstein. If I was I'd be handing out how to vote cards for the standing Teal member. She's grouse. Not some middle-aged white dude with delusions of grandeur.)
I'll get these out of the way early, all the while packing for tomorrow night's trip back to Darwin. The cat has been deposited at his second home (where he is loved and has found a place in the cupboard, where he seems to like to sit) and my place feels very empty. Never to mind, I'll be back in a week.
Questions have been supplied, as always, by the Sunday Stealing site.
1) What's the longest you've gone without sleep?
About 24 hours. That was a long time ago. Thankfully I can function on only a little sleep, as I will be proving on Monday when I get into Darwin at 1.30 in the morning, then being due at work around 8 a.m. What fun!
2) What was the highlight of your last week?
Last week was a pretty unremarkable week. I got some cuddles off my cat. That was nice. I've been gently chatting to a fellow on the apps. That was nice. Work wise, I got a handful of documents we're been working on through all of the checks and balances. That felt good. And I went to the gym a couple of times. It was a quiet sort of week.
3) You have to give a 10-minute speech to a group of high school students. What's your topic?
I think it would have a title of something like. "You're not going to listen to me, but back yourself, and start doing it now." It would be a lesson in resilience.
4) What is the single best decision you've ever made in your life?
That would be moving to England in 1991. It formed how I live my life. And I grew up very quickly.
5) If you could ask a coworker, friend or family member a question and be guaranteed an honest answer, who would you choose and what would you ask?
I really have no idea about this one. It is no business of mine what other people think of me. It took me a long time to work this one out and I don't want to go back.
If I had to ask anything, it would probably be something superficial like, "Does my bum look big in this?" or "Is my hair looking okay from the back?"
6) Do you cook for yourself when you're home alone?
Yes. Normally simple stuff, but I do cook for myself. I live with a cat. He's not going to cook for me.
7) Do you most often access the internet from your computer, your phone, or your smart watch?
I'd say that I access the internet about the same on my phone and laptop. Depends where I am and what I'm doing. I can't access the internet from my watch, other than a few basic apps. (e.g. the weather and a bit of music.)
8) Do you have more email addresses or phone numbers?
Although I have two phone numbers, there isn't a phone attached to the landline, so really, I have one functioning phone.
I've got about four working emails, five if you count my work email. There's the one that gets the most traffic, an old Hotmail account, my writerly ID gmail account and one I use for anonymously stalking people under another name. The last one rarely gets used, but it's good for covering your tracks.
9) What's the biggest source of anger in your life right now?
There's one situation, but I'm not going to talk about that here.
The situation with the Trump Administration makes my blood boil - and I'm not even American. We have an election in a month and seeing Clive Palmer on the telly all the time makes me want to throw bricks at him. He's a multi-millionaire who wants Australia to mimic America and the autocratic rule we're seeing at the moment. We see through him.
Oh, and for those interested, with our elections in Australia:
Voting is compulsory. You get fined if you don't show up. You don't have to actually vote, but you need to get your name marked off. There is nothing stopping you writing "Mickey Mouse for Prez" on your ballot paper and leaving it at that.
Voting is done by pen and paper.
We only vote for whichever part is up for election at the time (Federal, State and Local elections are completely separate)
We don't vote for things like judges, dog catchers, school boards etc.
Voting is done on a proportional representational basis.
We have an Upper and Lower House - think Congress and House of Representatives.
Our Senators have an eight-year term. The House of Representatives are elected every three years.
At every election there are a multitude of scrutineers overseeing the count. None of these voting machines. Pen and paper all the way. Normally the scrutineers come from the three major parties.
Generally, you don't have to show your ID to vote, though they can ask for ID if they so wish.
To change the Constitution, they have to hold a referendum, For a referendum to be successful and the alteration to the constitution to be passed, a double majority vote must be achieved, which is: a majority of voters in a majority of states (at least four of the six states) a national majority of voters (an overall YES vote of more than a 50 per cent).
When you register to vote, you are not identified by the party you tend to vote for (e.g. you're not seen as a Republican or a Democrat, you're just a voter.)
And if you turn up to a polling booth on Election Day and not buy and eat a charity sausage, you're seen as unAustralian. (I tend to vote early, get it out of the way.)
And here is a little video about the Democracy Sausage. Seriously, this happens across the country.
If you have to vote, you may as well make it fun. You're only going to end up with a politician, you may as well enjoy yourself when you're in line waiting to do your civic duty.
10) Mondays make me feel _________________.
a little despondent as I would rather be in bed still and I have to go to work.
Who has been in them? Why weren't they straightened? What did they feel like? What were you doing in them? Did the person who laundered them use fabric softener? What was the thread count?
And yes, these were the sheets on the massage table after I had a session the other night.
We live in a city of colour, vibrancy, where even a mundane laneway is transformed by colour, yet kept earthbound by an eponymous shopping trolley in the foreground.
There is no stink of piss, no needle fodder, no rubbish, no graffiti. Just a clean laneway and a Tuesday afternoon, well-kept and quiet.
It goes against the grain of inner-city laneway code of Melbourne.
