fatvegan

Libby and I stopped being boyfriend and girlfriend last Tuesday. I still don't really understand why. I think it was the decision that has most changed the course of my life, and perhaps hers. It was the decision I've thought about more than any other in my life. And the one I'm still the least sure about.

I once had a problem of not knowing what I wanted. I think I do now, but I also wonder if I somehow systematically undermine the process of getting and finding it. All my little doubts about myself and my life have become certainties.

My house is freezing and not very good for me at the moment. I would go somewhere else, but I don't want to be there either. I might just be sad.

I really need to go and do something I'm good at for a while.

I hate it. I hate it. How many times recently have I heard someone refer to "cash-strapped governments" or "these lean times" to explain why health care and education are failing. These times aren't strapped for anything but compassion. We have more wealth than our grandparents would ever have dreamed, and yet we spend half our time talking about how tough we have it. We suck bad.

Lib and I have had big problems with cockroaches since we got here. We didn't know what to do. We didn't want to kill them using baits or bombs, because both are pretty awful. Every suggestion we found was either nasty or didn't actually work.

But the other day I was browsing through the supermarket shelves and I found one cockroach spray that didn't say "kill" anywhere on the front. It was "Baygon Cockroach Stopper". I wasn't keen on killing, but stopping cockroaches is something I heartily support (at least in our house). I read the back of the bottle, and I talked vaguely about stopping the female cockroaches reproductive cycle, which is exactly the sort of solution I'd been hoping someone would come up with. It's like an analogy between condoms and genocide. Libby had ethical concerns about the female cockroach's right to control her own body, and thought it might be even more inhumane than killing them outright. She certainly had a point, but we decided that we should give it a try.

And it seems to have worked. I've been trying not to actually spray it on them, since it's main function is meant to be a surface barrier thing that stops them from moving around. But a couple I accidentily sprayed it on didn't seem to mind, which I found very reassuring. Our cockroaches have almost completely gone, and I haven't found any dead bodies, so I'm hoping they've just moved outside. There were thousands of the little guys, so if they'd all just been dying I think we would have noticed. But who knows, maybe one day we'll uncover a mass grave, and all of this will be for naught.

Hackers are a blessing. Imagine what the world of internet security would look like if there were no hackers to fight. Even the most hardcore security paranoids would have trouble staying interested when there was no apparent need for it. Hackers are a continual reminder that we still suck at programming, and that we have to get better. Think about the consequences of not trying to get better. If every government system still had the sort of security we used 20 years, and some other country wanted to disrupt things, all they'd have to do is a spend a little bit of money training up some warrior-hackers of their own, and make a huge mess of things. So I'm glad that there are hackers around.

I'm reading a tops old book at the moment called Palace Walk. It's a translation of a book written by an Egyptian chap back in the 1950s. It's about an Egyptian family. The husband is a big womaniser and sleeps around a lot. All the women in the town love him because he's so handsome and sexy and has a shop and gives out free rice. So he could probably have an affair with a lot of women. What's interesting is that the woman he's trying to seduce at the moment is enormously fat. The author goes into long descriptions of how sexy she is and how sensuous her rolls of fat are. And there's nothing ironic about it at all. All the men who see her fall in lust with her. He describes how the carriage leans heavily to one side when she sits in it, and everyone stares at her arse as her butt cheeks fall over the edge of her chair. Not because they think she's gross. They're all enraptured.

I think it's wonderful. It doesn't take much to turn this woman into a sexy, desireable person. We are so silly. I wonder at myself sometimes. I wonder if I'd marry someone who was 150kg. I guess it's hard to know. If it came to it, I doubt I'd even think about it. After you get to know and like people, you stop noticing that sort of thing I think. Which is fortunate.

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When life seems to have turned it's back on you, then stand up and kick it in the bum.

According to Whereis, this is the distance and driving time for a one-way drive from Hornsby to Appin.

Total travel distance: 80.86 km, Estimated travel time: 1 Hr 39 Mins

Yesterday morning Howie invited me to have lunch with him and Tinku at the food court. It was 1pm. I'd had a hard morning at work, having been at my desk since before midday. Jane and I had gone out for some coffee and foccacia, and then we'd gone to visit grandma. Grandma was in such a good mood that we agreed to sew back on some of her gowns buttons. According to her it had been about 18 months since they'd fallen off, leaving her exposed to all the world for all that time, so we figured it was probably a fair enough request. I searched around for some thread strong enough to satisfy her - she demands the very best thread.

So you think you've had an adventure
Grandma also told us about her aging underpants. How she'd had several pairs of underpants for over 25 years. Their longevity can no doubt be ascribed to the use of strong thread. She asked us to re-sew the elastic in her underpants, but neither Jane nor I felt we were up to challenge. Perhaps Grandma won't live for another 25 years. But if she did, and she outlived the elastics we'd sown, we'd never be welcome in her unit again. We knew the risks involved, so took the easy way out and changed the subject to the difficulties of pooing. In general.

I thought I'd had an adventurous morning, running around a retirement village looking for thread and having the gall to sow buttons on the gown of a woman with 25-year-old underpants. But it turned out that my morning had been nothing in comparison to Tinku's glorious adventure.

Tinku had got up that morning, earlier than I think he'd ever got up in his life, to take Jo to Liverpool. This would be a selfless act for any normal human being, but for someone like Tinku - who can never wash his sheets because his waking hours and Australia's clothes-drying hours never seem to match up - this is a sacrifice worthy of note. Anyone who might have in any way doubted his absolute passion and commitment to Jo has been silenced. He'd got up at 7:15AM. Yes, you heard me right. That's before midday.

First Steps
So the dear boy sets out at 7:15 to take Jo to Liverpool. By all accounts they get there without incident. Jo is dropped off in time for work. She gives him some pointers on how to get home, since he hasn't been in Sydney very long. She tells him to take the Hume Hwy to get back to Hornsby. Now I've lived in Hornsby my entire life, and I don't know where Ryde is, let alone the Hume Hwy. Fortunately Ryde is well sign-posted so if I ever, for some reason, had to go there I'd probably make it. But the Hume Hwy is a whole other kettle. For instance, there's no Humesville, though intuition would suggest that there was. No Hume Station. No Hume Rd. Only a highway and some dead Australia explorer. I think Tinku actually making it to the Hume Hwy at all - which he did - is amazing. I've heard the path he took was actually quite efficient.

He hit the Hume Hwy, wherever it is, and "took it". Meaning he headed south. NB. For not Sydney people, Hornsby is north of pretty much everything, and south of nothing much except Mt Colah Pizza Hut. So heading south to get north, when you are already very far south, is not something most experienced Sydney drivers would do. I myself would be an obvious exception to this generality.

Heading south he "took" a left. And therein is the problem. Tinku no doubt uses dictionary.com to brush up on his informal English. However, dictionary.com uses The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language as it's primary source. For starters, hardly. If you call what's in that dictionary English then we may as well let the Macquarie into our schools. More importantly, Americans have quite distinct meanings for the terms "take" and "hang", whereas is Australia we use them interchangeably. Please refer to Figure 1 for details. Jo suggested he "take" the Hume Hwy, assuming he would use his initiative when he arrived as to which direction he would take. Tinku on the otherhand, with his imported American slang, understandably assumed she was telling him to turn left, otherwise surely she would have said "hang a right at the Hume Hwy".

I can only guess at this, since I have no idea where the Hume Hwy is in relation to Liverpool. However, the end result is the same. Tinku started heading south. Not being from around these parts, passing suburbs with names like Campbelltown and Rosemeadow would ring few bells for Tinku. I personally thought Rosemeadow was out near Richmond and Mulgoa, so I don't blame him. So it wasn't until he started to notice the cows on either side of the road that he started to suspect that something was wrong. A glance over his shoulder at signs in the opposite direction stating that Sydney was 78km behind him must only have confirmed these suspicions.

U-turns and the One True Journey
Various people have asked him why he didn't turn around as soon as he realised. Why did he continue some 40-50 kilometres down the road before turning around. After a conversation with Jane that very morning, that coincedentily was about this very issue, I think I have an explanation. Wrong turns are a fact of life. Getting to Newcastle on your school holiday trip before remembering that Canberra is south-east, happens to the best of us. It's how one deals with these unexpected adventures that gives us a real insight into one's soul. Simply making a U-turn as soon as you realise, implies that travel in any direction apart from your intended one, is wasted. The true traveller knows that this is not the case. The One True Journey is about petrol gallons and speedo miles. It's not about superficial things like destination and punctuality. By adamantly following the set path amateur journeymen can be led astray, at least figuratively.

Tinku, being a seasoned and thoughtful traveller, knew not to subvert the beauty of the One True Journey, by making some gaudy U-turn across the highway. Instead he continued gently onward until he could gracefully and inconspicuously replot his course at a round-a-bout or town. Appin was such a town. And though the people there may not have been aware of the significance or length of his journey there, they couldn't help but be sub-consciously moved by this fine young man's sensitivity, and demonstration of the core principles of journeymanship.

Bangladesh is a small country with even smaller people
To understand this better, a bit of background on Tinku is needed. It's for all those people who haven't read Tinku's, Tom's or Howie's blog, or who haven't met Tinku in the flesh, or who haven't spoken to Jo, who discusses Tinku quite freely. Most people probably don't need this Tinku FAQ, but it gives me a chance to make some rude generalisations about Tinku and his homeland.

Tinku is small, let's get that out of the way right now. He's skinny and brown. He's easy-going but knows what he likes - eg. Jo, sleeping and butter chicken. He's the sort of bloke that takes 10 minutes to befriend, but a lifetime to comprehend. He's an all round top bloke, with a shaky grasp of Sydney geography but a fine understanding of the One True Journey to compensate.

Bangladesh is also small. This Tuesday morning Tinku drove at least 160km. At it's widest point, Bangladesh is about 210km from East to West. People from countries as small as Tinku's have no need for maps or locational awareness. Your best guide are the borders surrounding you. In Bangladesh, you know that if you hit the Indian border you've gone too far. In Australia we don't have this luxury. In our great land you could starve to death before you hit a national border, so it's very hard to get handles on where you are. Anywhere in Bangladesh you can say "I know at least that I'm in Bangladesh," and you will know pretty precisely where you are. The country just isn't big enough for there to be many options. Australia on the other hand. Saying "At least I know I'm in Australia" is like saying "At least I know I'm somewhere in Texas or Florida or the top bit of Mexico." Interesting, but not very useful if you need to get somewhere quickly. This I think goes right to the heart of what happened on Tuesday.

Joanna the Fearless Navigator
Jo deserves a special mention. Her navigational skills have improved dramatically over the past few months. It wasn't long ago, that with me driving and Jo navigating we could make a half hour drive last for over an hour. We were still far speedier than I would have been alone, but it wasn't great. However, recently her UBD recall and geographical problem solving abilities seem to have made a quantum leap. And Tinku's story is testimony to that. Look at the difference between the route of the French car with Jo's aid, and it's route after she disembarked. I think the rather large increase in the return trip time speaks for itself.

Recommendations/Conclusion
You may be asking "How can we as a society stop this from happening again?" Perhaps not. I don't have any concrete answers, I wish I did. Perhaps in-car GPS is the solution. Perhaps mandatory education of immigrants about the Sydney street-scape is it. Perhaps simply having more round-a-bouts on highways would mitigate the impact on confused drivers to the extent that the point became moot. There are deeper issues at work here, and we can't possibly hope to solve them all in a post as short as this.

Appendices

Figure 1

take    ( P )  (tk) v. took, (tk) tak·en, (tkn) tak·ing, takes v. tr. To get into one's possession by force, skill, or artifice. To grasp with the hands; grip: Take your partner's hand. To turn, typically to the left. Take a left into the ALDI carpark.

hang   ( P )    (hng) v. hung, (hng) hang�ing, hangs v. tr. To fasten from above with no support from below; suspend. To suspend or fasten so as to allow free movement at or about the point of suspension: hang a door. To turn, typically to the right. They hung an intrepid right across 3 lanes of oncoming traffic.

• To be a father I want to be a father who loves his kids desperately. I want them to be aware of that sub-consciously every day, but not ever consciously.
• To be a husband I want to be easy to be married to. I don't want my partner to ever have any reason to think I'll cheat on them. Cheating sucks big time.
• To be tangibly useful I'm going to study economics and development stuff, because I think that all the nice things you get from intangibles you get from tangibles as well. But not the other way around. I doubt want my faith in my own usefulness to be matter of how I'm feeling on a given day.
• To be soft I don't want to become a capitalist or a right-wing person or a conservative with the answers. I don't want justice to be my only yardstick for morality. I don't want to blame people for not being more in control of their lives.

We went to Villawood yesterday. It was good fun. I really like spending time there. Everyone is all bunged in together and too bored I think to be rascist. So there are Indian guys babysitting Vietnamese children, and Albanian fat guys trying to force-feed skinny Cambodian journalists. And everyone is nice and friendly to us.

I brought some Vietnamese food to my Cambodian friends yesterday. They seemed to like it, though they'd already eaten so they didn't eat it while I was there. They said there was a freezer and a microwave inside, so they'd eat it tomorrow. But they kept saying "very thankyou" and they walked to the gate to say goodbye to us, so I think they thought they would enjoy it.

I met a lovely woman called Heather who goes to St Johns, but I've never spoken to before. She works for an international organisation that does micro-finance. She was cool. She told me a about a youth ambassador position in East Timor doing micro-finance projects. It's exactly the sort of stuff I'm going to uni to learn to do. But it's about 3 years too early, and kind of conflict with going to uni at all. It's a bit sad. Probably the East Timorese will be all set by the time I finish uni and there won't be any more work to do. But I guess that's the risk with making that sort of thing your whole purpose. We sorts would probably all be wise to have backup careers just in case we one day accidentily build a fair-dinkum utopia.

All I ever learn from love was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you. Jeff Buckley

I told Heather my idea about making a micro-finance ING Direct thing. At first she didn't understand, but finally decided it was a good idea. I might write a proposal and put it on my site. Or something.

Mr Howard said part of the problem was that the federal government had no say in the chairman's appointment.

"It's a bit rich. We fund (the ACCC but) we don't have a vote," he said.

There's a quote from John Howard in the paper, about appointment of the new chairman of the ACCC. He isn't supposed to have any real say in the decision, but I get the sense that everyone is meant to vote for the person he points at anyway. This time the trade union sorts haven't listened to him and have refusen to take his side. John's quite upset, wondering what the world coming to, when scungy state level leaders get to vote for the chairman of a federally-funded commission. Surely whoever pays for something should have control over that something. Sweat-shop labour is a good example. Why should this be any different?

"I think it's a pretty poor thing that the federal government funds but we have no effective say in the choice of a chairman."

Surely he can see how silly this sounds. By their very nature, stable democracies need to have pies that the government doesn't have any fingers in. Does he believe that the federal government should have a say in the outcome of judicial cases. You could equally say "We fund the judicial system, why shouldn't we decide who gets off."

We went to Villawood yesterday. I met some nice Cambodian people. I said I'd try and bring them some Vietnamese food, because they never have any inside the prison.

We took a lot of dates and some nuts. They nuts were very popular.

Henrietta isn't a real person - but she could be. Millions of families, every year, (someone of them probably with mums called Henrietta) pick up and move on, for no reason better than They'd Best Be Going. It's bad enough when you're at someone's house, the clock strikes 9pm, and you start to feel like you've stayed too long. Why has time, as community glass ceiling become so prevalent? We'll be examining this and other fascinating sorts of issues in the paragraphs to come.

Like many things, it's easy to call it another one of life's unexplained idiosyncracies, and get in the station wagon. But is that good enough? This person doesn't think so.

Koko Yama, is a woman I found amongst the growing ranks of people dissatisified with the current community paradigm. She claims that "Children need a stable home." She didn't explain why, so we'll just have to take her word for it. "And what has happened that removes the need for long term community," she continues, "have we suddenly become content to exist as autonomous entities simply because the individual has managed to secure itself a voice." When asked what she thought the way forward was, Koko replied "More public funding of community programs, and more emphasis on building awareness in the community of the value community brings." Some people would suggest that the sacrifices involved are too great, and that given our quality of life, there's no longer any need to band together. Why can't communities simply form when and where they need to. Why do they need to be permanent, and with a particular group of people "They just do, OK," was the, now familiar, response from Koko.

As for Henrietta, and the family she's hypothetically struggling to raise, in, what some are calling, The Age of the Nuclear Family (as in fission, not fusion) - where does this all leave her. Out in the cold? Or merely another contented Land Rover owner, in a community, that's not longer even sure it should being calling itself this.

A guy (let's call him 'Chief Fireburner') at a Letting Lose the Stallion Inside course half-jokingly asks the lecturer 'When are we going to get to the sex?'. The lecturer brushes him off with a 'maybe later'. Chief Fireburner accepts it, and doesn't say anything else. But the lecturer picks up on this later and uses it as an example of how men are too submissive and aren't assertive about what they want. The lecturer asks the Chief's wife (Lurleen Hardapple) 'Is that what he does in bed?' and she nods in agreement.
So Lurleen, it seems like Fireburner here really respects your decisions?
Oh yes, Steve, he does. It's terrible.
So you see folks. The Chief here is a classic example of men, who in respecting their wives, fail to get the sex they really want. Lurleen here would love a good fuck, but the Chief is just too much of a pansy-man to give it to her. And I'll bet a lot of you out there feel the same way. All the ladies who never initiate or say yes to sex even when they really want it, put your hands up.
[Most female hands go up]
And all the men who listen to their wives when they 'claim' that they don't want sex.
[Most male hands go up]

What we have here is a classic male dysfunction. I'll call it for now the 'respect dysfunction'. I'm sure you can all see by now how unconstructive respect in a healthy marriage is.

Deep down, women really want a wild man in bed. It's up to you guys out there to know when to be wild and when to be civilised. Real men know this instinctively. But the boys are going to have to learn it the hard way.

I saw Lantana the other day. I liked it - but it wasn't as good as I thought it would be. I didn't enjoy it as much, at least. But it was interesting. There were no goodies and no baddies. For most of the movie you were under the impression that one person would turn out to be a monster, but it never happened. Which made it very real. I don't know if real life has real monsters. Perhaps people pretending to be monsters. Or people who're not sure how to play the human role, and figure it makes sense to act monstery. And no one in it was sorted, everyone was messed up, and their problems didn't seem like vehicles for the story.

"Free the Arab women from the veil!"
Says the warlord to his wife,
Thinking how she'd benefit
From the plastic surgeon's knife.

Leunig is good

Assistant Commissioner Clive Small said "But now there is a shortage of supply, and we strongly support people going into treatment and taking the opportunity to seek treatment. And once on, don't give it up. Don't go back to heroin once the supply comes back."

I fudged my hair today. It was meant to be purply/raspberry, but it turned out pink. I like it more than the purply/raspberry. I have to take it to work with me on Tuesday though. Should be fun.

I look much sexier. I think women will like me more. Russell said it would happen one day.

• Fountain architect
• Psychologist's assistant
• Journalist
  • Photo
  • Political
  • Scientific
  • Social
• Genetic engineer/designer
• Nanotechnologist
• Information designer
• Human interfaces designer
• Web developer
• Social engineer (political OR a not-political organisation dedicated to making stuff good)
• Permaculture farmer
• Teacher
  • Pre-school
  • Primary school
  • Uni
• UN delegate
• Air force pilot
• Ship builder
• Architect
• Porridge kitchen MD
• Surgeon
• Novelist
• Cartoonist
• Stage director
• Playwright
• Set designer
• Foley artist
• Psychologist
• 'Mission' worker
• Mountain climber
• Java programmer
• Politician
• Poet
• Chef
• Database designer
• Priest
• Director (movie)
• Security system designer
• Mid-wife
• Submarine captain
• Astronaut
• Inter-galactic explorer