Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Black Dog Days
I'm blogging today for the sake of blogging, just to put some runs on the board. No-one has commented on my blog for ages. No-one pins my map. My blogskin has screwed up because of the new blogger navbar and I can't fix it! Why do I bother!
I can't write my innermost feelings on this blog because they are not fit to share and of no interest to anyone but me. What have I done this week?
Well, I've cleared the 200 accumulated emails from my work inbox and in the process begun to think that the hard jobs, the ones that are left to do, are just beyond my abilities and energies. After two days back on the job my office still looks like a bomb's hit it. Boxes and boxes of display gear, packed up and brought back from 3 separate events litter the floor, and every available bench space - there's half a day's work just to tidy up, let alone get any real order or system into the place. I'm being asked to produce ideas and strategies for which my creative juices have simply dried up.
My life away from work is arid. I'm bored with the opportunities on offer. Today I was accosted in an unfamiliar grocery store (I can put it no more kindly than that) by Ilias, a friendly elderly, European gentleman, who proceeded within the space of a 5 minute conversation to:
a) touch my arm 4 times
b) slide his gaze to my (well covered and fairly unimpressive) breasts - 5 times
c) advise me on the type of hammer I should buy because he used to be a builder/handyman/can do any kind of work
d) tell me his life story from the time he came to Darwin 50 years ago, wife's strokes, visits home to Europe to visit 87 year old mother, how he now does everything - shopping, cleaning, cooking. Makes something that he thought I would like, I missed the details but the ingredients were sesame, peanuts and honey, used to run two shops but no-one wanted to buy them, has beautiful pearls and other necklaces and he could bring me some of the concoction and/or jewelry if I cared to give him my address!!!!!
All I said to this man was to respond to his enquiry about whether the plug he was holding was the correct size for a kitchen sink! In case you are wondering he'd lost the previous one with his potato peelings! And his question about whether I lived in Darwin as he hadn't seen me in this store before.
Needless to say I declined his kind offer to visit me, bearing gifts or without, and the details of my address.
But the really spooky thing was when I worked out he'd told me he came here in 1955 at the age of 17, which makes him around 66 or 67 years old (not much older than the males I consider my contemporaries) and I'd seen him as an elderly gent!
Life gets kind of weird in your 6th decade!
I did have a kind of nice thing happen to me at work yesterday when the regional manager, assistand RM and a program manager decided to kit me out in work-safe products and take me for a tour of the new Port. I've no idea why they did this, but it was interesting. Very blokey environment, huge cranes, containers, fork lifts and road trains dodging giant steel cables - and I got a few good photos. Fortunately RM's pesonal assistant rides a motor bike to work and lent me her bikie boots - apparently my sandals aren't work safe either!
Apart from that, how can I complain, the weather is still sensational with a gorgeous cool breeze gusting off the Timor Sea and dear friends and family only a phone call or an email away.
Didn't watch the Olympics at all last night but the previous night I found the man of my dreams. He is married to that woman who got a bronze medal in the 20 km walk - he ran from vantage point to vantage point to encourage her all the way. Now that's true dedication.
I can't write my innermost feelings on this blog because they are not fit to share and of no interest to anyone but me. What have I done this week?
Well, I've cleared the 200 accumulated emails from my work inbox and in the process begun to think that the hard jobs, the ones that are left to do, are just beyond my abilities and energies. After two days back on the job my office still looks like a bomb's hit it. Boxes and boxes of display gear, packed up and brought back from 3 separate events litter the floor, and every available bench space - there's half a day's work just to tidy up, let alone get any real order or system into the place. I'm being asked to produce ideas and strategies for which my creative juices have simply dried up.
My life away from work is arid. I'm bored with the opportunities on offer. Today I was accosted in an unfamiliar grocery store (I can put it no more kindly than that) by Ilias, a friendly elderly, European gentleman, who proceeded within the space of a 5 minute conversation to:
a) touch my arm 4 times
b) slide his gaze to my (well covered and fairly unimpressive) breasts - 5 times
c) advise me on the type of hammer I should buy because he used to be a builder/handyman/can do any kind of work
d) tell me his life story from the time he came to Darwin 50 years ago, wife's strokes, visits home to Europe to visit 87 year old mother, how he now does everything - shopping, cleaning, cooking. Makes something that he thought I would like, I missed the details but the ingredients were sesame, peanuts and honey, used to run two shops but no-one wanted to buy them, has beautiful pearls and other necklaces and he could bring me some of the concoction and/or jewelry if I cared to give him my address!!!!!
All I said to this man was to respond to his enquiry about whether the plug he was holding was the correct size for a kitchen sink! In case you are wondering he'd lost the previous one with his potato peelings! And his question about whether I lived in Darwin as he hadn't seen me in this store before.
Needless to say I declined his kind offer to visit me, bearing gifts or without, and the details of my address.
But the really spooky thing was when I worked out he'd told me he came here in 1955 at the age of 17, which makes him around 66 or 67 years old (not much older than the males I consider my contemporaries) and I'd seen him as an elderly gent!
Life gets kind of weird in your 6th decade!
I did have a kind of nice thing happen to me at work yesterday when the regional manager, assistand RM and a program manager decided to kit me out in work-safe products and take me for a tour of the new Port. I've no idea why they did this, but it was interesting. Very blokey environment, huge cranes, containers, fork lifts and road trains dodging giant steel cables - and I got a few good photos. Fortunately RM's pesonal assistant rides a motor bike to work and lent me her bikie boots - apparently my sandals aren't work safe either!
Apart from that, how can I complain, the weather is still sensational with a gorgeous cool breeze gusting off the Timor Sea and dear friends and family only a phone call or an email away.
Didn't watch the Olympics at all last night but the previous night I found the man of my dreams. He is married to that woman who got a bronze medal in the 20 km walk - he ran from vantage point to vantage point to encourage her all the way. Now that's true dedication.
Comments:
I check your blog from time to time, and I even have you as a link. You would be suprised at how many people read and don't say anything.
I remember when you first started your blog, and then you didn't post for awhile, I thought that you had stopped.
But then one day I came back. I like how you write, keep it up.
I remember when you first started your blog, and then you didn't post for awhile, I thought that you had stopped.
But then one day I came back. I like how you write, keep it up.
Thanks so much Paul and Harmless for the encouragement. Paul - I'd better check with my internet adviser about the Atom link thing because I'm not that comuter-literate and don't know what effect it might have on everything else. Harmless, I used to like your stuff on Blogger Idol and then Darryn stopped doing it and I lost you. I'll rectify that immediately.
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