Transitions

My next problem is that I can't alter the dates on the drafts of the photographs so that they go up in the correct date sequence. This post, for instance, will appear out of chronological order. There must be a way to fix it but I'm not sure what. Last day of the working week for me, pay day, and I'm glad it's all over for another week. Seven days.

I had this hunch, premonition, looming suspicion, whatever you want to call it, that my life ran in seven year cycles; but I'm not sure what the current seven year cycle is. Things are on the move, in a subterranean way; if I had the money and the kids weren't still in school then I'd think seriously of moving on. I may be strategically placed in the heart of the Australian media; with my physical location indicative of other things; but part of me pines, and has pined for a long time, for a different life.

That said, it's all a matter of practicality; and the comfort of the familiar. Pai was just so nice, it offered a real alternative to the frazzled life that we all live in this town, but there was a peace, a wholeness, a feeling of being at right with the world and the surrounding landscape, that you just don't get here.

I finished work at midnight and there was nothing to do. I lingered, finishing off some paper work, and suggested to one of the gay boys that we go out somewhere, do something; but he didn't take the bait and I was left alone; with the streets quiet and nowhere to go. There had been a shooting on Oxford Street; coming, shooting, plays on words didn't work. You're pathetic, a voice said, and yes, those sort of jokes just don't work.

A body lies on the pavement and I'm trying to make a joke out of it because whoever it was hit the pavement on the gay strip, one of the only parts of town where there's any life at all late at night. For a town the size of Sydney there really is very little activity. I think, for whatever reason, of the main gate to the old town of Chiang Mai; back in Sydney there aren't any food stalls, there isn't the smell of cooking in the streets. There aren't people who are happy with their lot; or even the high pitched voices of the katois, the drag queens, looking for one last customer as the sun rises. They try to attract your attention, follow you down the street, no doubt ready to rob you if they could corner you in a back lane; and I say as politely and as firmly as possible, no thank you. But with sympathy; for as the Thais say, the life of a katoi is a hard one. I pass through the gate of the pensione and lock the grill; safe at last; and they drift away into the lightening dark, tripping on their high heels, another chance having passed them by.

We're so controlled, so down trodden, that the inappropriate analogies of a Stalinist era grey aren't that far off the mark, even if the colours are all wrong. We are herded; victims of a controlling social agenda; the instrumentalities of social order dampening us all down. The voices of control are the layers of bureaucrats; the politically correct voices of authors saying all the right things, mouthing social justice agendas which at the end of the day really mean nothing. My own role in this, the piece of flotsom with the camera eye, being tossed in the surf while trying to maintain and internal order, keep body and soul together; make a home for my children; all of it open to review.

THE BIGGEST STORY:

Sydney has once more descended into traffic chaos; with some commuters stuck in carriages deep underground for almost three hours; unable to get off the trains. Couldn't think of anything more claustrophobic. One train broke down on the Harbour Bridge, in a great piece of symbolism; having a ripple effect which meant trains were stranded between stations across the inner-north shore lines. City grid locks once again; all in the run up to the election. Debnam, for once rising to the occasion, said a broken down train was just the beginning of a political culture and inept public administration bringing the state to a halt.

ABC:

Probe launched after thousands trapped on Sydney trains
The New South Wales Transport Minister says a full investigation will take place into last night's transport chaos in Sydney, which followed a train breakdown on the Harbour Bridge.
Thousands of rail commuters were left stranded after the train broke down between the bridge and Wynyard Station around 5:45pm AEDT.
About 14 other trains were also stopped along the North Shore line due to the blockage, with some passengers trapped on trains for about three hours.
Other trains were delayed