Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense
Posted 04-26-2010 at 11:08 PM by stu.kay823
[I][COLOR=#000000][SIZE=2] This blog had been prepared for publication last Friday, but owing to circumstances beyond my control, was not. I hope you guys are happy to play catch-up, because I have a feeling that this is the first this week. [/SIZE][/COLOR][/I]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]With caffeine levels freshly elevated to “obscene” and my state of alertness somewhere in the order of “schizophrenic feline” – after ploughing through yet another mug of instant in the wake of my third consecutive sleepless night – my thoughts tumble with a strangely comforting, if fiendish, celerity. It has been requisite this past week. I advise against second-guessing a Melbournian any time in the foreseeable future. I keep wondering when [I]March of the Gladiators[/I] is going to burst from the sky, given that this city has devolved into circus this week; but more on that in a moment. [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]Tiny shards of rain on the windshield glint red in the brakelights of the vehicle in front. In the right-hand lane, a car swooshes past, making that sound unique to vehicles on bitumen and precipitation. I smile to myself weakly as a memory bubbles to the fore. God ... ... how long has it been? Any reply ought to include a “far too.” Mind you, a week is far too long. [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]I had been scrawling across the page furiously in the back seat of this government limousine. Halting in traffic also brought an end to my train. Peeling the spectacles from my bridge and slamming the pen into the pad in sheer frustration, for the first time I felt the crushing weight of my exhaustion. Rubbing at the inner corners of my eyes with my thumb and forefinger, I gazed quickly out the window to see the sun rising, and the somewhat familiar streets of the suburb I was born. [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]Crawling along the avenue, the reason for our delay was quickly apparent, not that I could see much as drizzle became shower, though the yellow high-viz jackets and lights strobing red and blue were indicative enough.[/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]Accelerating up that slight hill past the eponymous public gardens, the city museum, the oncology hospital and the catholic cathedral, I braced myself for what was next: the site of my greatest childhood trauma. Almost two decades on and the sight of those awful burgundy/brown bricks still manages to reduce my blood to ice. [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]It seemed to take an eternity for the fistful of miles back to my bed to dissipate. Winding through Richmond, South Yarra, Toorak and Prahran, we turn right. It’s the wrong side of the street; let’s hope the rain stops in time. [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]I autograph the receipt before alighting. A quartet of Hassidic rabbis leave the chevra kadisha, passing behind me and acknowledge the morning as I stand there in the eaves, waiting for a sufficient break in the rain. “[I]Now[/I]!”[/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]A fellow resident is leaving, so I slip in before the door snibs shut. No wait for the elevator this morning and up a floor. It is a lonely walk up the corridor. I fumbled with my keys at the door, before Rachel, towel robe-clad and sipping tea, yanked the door open. It may have been more than a year since we broke up, but I still trust her, and some days it’s just nice to see her face. From that you might be asking why we never repaired things. Short answer is that I did not think it fair, when I would be wishing for another. “Friends and colleagues” is fine.[/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]Pushing her aside gently, I headed straight for the bed, unceremoniously dumping my work case on the couch. [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]“Thanks for staying last night: making the place looked lived in.”[/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]“The bed’s not made.”[/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]The thought went through my head that I could not care less. “I was going to change it anyway today, just as soon as I wake up.” I paused to clumsily remove my shoes, jacket, tie, shirt and belt. “What day is it?”[/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]“Friday morning; it’s not quite 7.30.”[/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[COLOR=#000000][SIZE=2]St George’s Day: a day for two sad anniversaries. “Rach, are you gonna be OK today?”[/SIZE][/COLOR]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]She nodded tersely in silence. “I’ll call you if I need. I’ll catch you a bit later on.”[/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]And I immediately crashed face first into the nearest pillow. Though I am not certain, I am pretty sure that Rachel came to the door purely for the sake of her own amusement. She would have left shortly after that, not that I heard her. [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]I stirred again a few minutes before one. Well, that was the time that I rose. I was in that blissful state of altered consciousness where you are awake, but entirely unable to open your eyes for a little while. The osmotic pressure between sleep, life and hunger became too much. My reunion with my pillow was a happy, if slightly short-lived, one. [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]Fixing myself a lunch of scrambled eggs and toast, I sat in a concerted effort to deconstruct and divorce myself from the events of the week, perhaps unsurprisingly lost in an eddy of newspaper headlines, ministerial sound-bites, OHMS communiqués and ennui. [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[COLOR=#000000][SIZE=2][B][I]Monday[/I]:[/B] It is reported in the city’s tabloid that the public purse is paying the $8000 school fees of a convicted ‘serial killer’ (and I use that term as loosely as possible – explanation to follow), drug kingpin and underworld figure.[/SIZE][/COLOR]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[COLOR=#000000][SIZE=2][B][I]Tuesday[/I]:[/B] Same underworld figure is murdered – with the seat and stem of an exercise bike – by a fellow inmate in the exercise yard of the maximum security HMP Barwon. [/SIZE][/COLOR]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[COLOR=#000000][SIZE=2][B][I]Wednesday[/I]:[/B] Calls from all corners for judicial inquiry into corrective services / police corruption (Victoria is the only state [B][I]not[/I][/B] to have done so in the last 25 years). As an aside, a man faces court on a fifteen year old previously unsolved murder.[/SIZE][/COLOR]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[COLOR=#000000][SIZE=2][B][I]Thursday[/I]:[/B] It is discovered that our now deceased underworld figure was left unsupervised for the 25 minutes prior to his death. [/SIZE][/COLOR]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[COLOR=#000000][SIZE=2][B][I]Friday[/I]:[/B] Melbourne’s national rugby league team is stripped of three premierships, two championships and all points for the current season after it is discovered that secret payments totalling $4.1 million over five years (including $700,000 to date this year) were made to players.[/SIZE][/COLOR]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]And as it turned out, on Saturday evening, part of the shopping centre in the town where my folks live was partially destroyed by fire. [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]Break Sunday and Monday. I’m gonna take some time to see some relatives. [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]That’s enough for now; I will post more of an update later on this week. [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]With caffeine levels freshly elevated to “obscene” and my state of alertness somewhere in the order of “schizophrenic feline” – after ploughing through yet another mug of instant in the wake of my third consecutive sleepless night – my thoughts tumble with a strangely comforting, if fiendish, celerity. It has been requisite this past week. I advise against second-guessing a Melbournian any time in the foreseeable future. I keep wondering when [I]March of the Gladiators[/I] is going to burst from the sky, given that this city has devolved into circus this week; but more on that in a moment. [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]Tiny shards of rain on the windshield glint red in the brakelights of the vehicle in front. In the right-hand lane, a car swooshes past, making that sound unique to vehicles on bitumen and precipitation. I smile to myself weakly as a memory bubbles to the fore. God ... ... how long has it been? Any reply ought to include a “far too.” Mind you, a week is far too long. [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]I had been scrawling across the page furiously in the back seat of this government limousine. Halting in traffic also brought an end to my train. Peeling the spectacles from my bridge and slamming the pen into the pad in sheer frustration, for the first time I felt the crushing weight of my exhaustion. Rubbing at the inner corners of my eyes with my thumb and forefinger, I gazed quickly out the window to see the sun rising, and the somewhat familiar streets of the suburb I was born. [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]Crawling along the avenue, the reason for our delay was quickly apparent, not that I could see much as drizzle became shower, though the yellow high-viz jackets and lights strobing red and blue were indicative enough.[/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]Accelerating up that slight hill past the eponymous public gardens, the city museum, the oncology hospital and the catholic cathedral, I braced myself for what was next: the site of my greatest childhood trauma. Almost two decades on and the sight of those awful burgundy/brown bricks still manages to reduce my blood to ice. [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]It seemed to take an eternity for the fistful of miles back to my bed to dissipate. Winding through Richmond, South Yarra, Toorak and Prahran, we turn right. It’s the wrong side of the street; let’s hope the rain stops in time. [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]I autograph the receipt before alighting. A quartet of Hassidic rabbis leave the chevra kadisha, passing behind me and acknowledge the morning as I stand there in the eaves, waiting for a sufficient break in the rain. “[I]Now[/I]!”[/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]A fellow resident is leaving, so I slip in before the door snibs shut. No wait for the elevator this morning and up a floor. It is a lonely walk up the corridor. I fumbled with my keys at the door, before Rachel, towel robe-clad and sipping tea, yanked the door open. It may have been more than a year since we broke up, but I still trust her, and some days it’s just nice to see her face. From that you might be asking why we never repaired things. Short answer is that I did not think it fair, when I would be wishing for another. “Friends and colleagues” is fine.[/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]Pushing her aside gently, I headed straight for the bed, unceremoniously dumping my work case on the couch. [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]“Thanks for staying last night: making the place looked lived in.”[/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]“The bed’s not made.”[/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]The thought went through my head that I could not care less. “I was going to change it anyway today, just as soon as I wake up.” I paused to clumsily remove my shoes, jacket, tie, shirt and belt. “What day is it?”[/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]“Friday morning; it’s not quite 7.30.”[/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[COLOR=#000000][SIZE=2]St George’s Day: a day for two sad anniversaries. “Rach, are you gonna be OK today?”[/SIZE][/COLOR]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]She nodded tersely in silence. “I’ll call you if I need. I’ll catch you a bit later on.”[/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]And I immediately crashed face first into the nearest pillow. Though I am not certain, I am pretty sure that Rachel came to the door purely for the sake of her own amusement. She would have left shortly after that, not that I heard her. [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]I stirred again a few minutes before one. Well, that was the time that I rose. I was in that blissful state of altered consciousness where you are awake, but entirely unable to open your eyes for a little while. The osmotic pressure between sleep, life and hunger became too much. My reunion with my pillow was a happy, if slightly short-lived, one. [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]Fixing myself a lunch of scrambled eggs and toast, I sat in a concerted effort to deconstruct and divorce myself from the events of the week, perhaps unsurprisingly lost in an eddy of newspaper headlines, ministerial sound-bites, OHMS communiqués and ennui. [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[COLOR=#000000][SIZE=2][B][I]Monday[/I]:[/B] It is reported in the city’s tabloid that the public purse is paying the $8000 school fees of a convicted ‘serial killer’ (and I use that term as loosely as possible – explanation to follow), drug kingpin and underworld figure.[/SIZE][/COLOR]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[COLOR=#000000][SIZE=2][B][I]Tuesday[/I]:[/B] Same underworld figure is murdered – with the seat and stem of an exercise bike – by a fellow inmate in the exercise yard of the maximum security HMP Barwon. [/SIZE][/COLOR]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[COLOR=#000000][SIZE=2][B][I]Wednesday[/I]:[/B] Calls from all corners for judicial inquiry into corrective services / police corruption (Victoria is the only state [B][I]not[/I][/B] to have done so in the last 25 years). As an aside, a man faces court on a fifteen year old previously unsolved murder.[/SIZE][/COLOR]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[COLOR=#000000][SIZE=2][B][I]Thursday[/I]:[/B] It is discovered that our now deceased underworld figure was left unsupervised for the 25 minutes prior to his death. [/SIZE][/COLOR]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[COLOR=#000000][SIZE=2][B][I]Friday[/I]:[/B] Melbourne’s national rugby league team is stripped of three premierships, two championships and all points for the current season after it is discovered that secret payments totalling $4.1 million over five years (including $700,000 to date this year) were made to players.[/SIZE][/COLOR]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]And as it turned out, on Saturday evening, part of the shopping centre in the town where my folks live was partially destroyed by fire. [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]Break Sunday and Monday. I’m gonna take some time to see some relatives. [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000] [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]That’s enough for now; I will post more of an update later on this week. [/COLOR][/SIZE]
[SIZE=2][/SIZE]
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