and though i’m still in one piece, i’m not entirely well. but i am so glad to be home. i have to ask this, i go away for two weeks, and all hell breaks loose all over the world..?
i’m not only referring to the tragedy in the US, but also the trouble here in Australia, specifically, the collapse of Ansett Airlines, but also the refugee ‘crisis’ we have. add to that, my personal life which has been somewhat pummelled and well-shaken. it’s all a long story, and i will attempt to tell it. though, given that i’ve had about 6 hours sleep over the last couple of days, forgive me if it’s all a little displaced, tangenty, rambly or incoherent.
i arrived there ok, perfectly well, actually.. two good, uncomplicated flights down to the middle of nowhere, NSW. after spending a few days meeting my parent’s friends, and relaxing, hanging around on the farm they’re staying on/working on (it’s owned by friends of theirs), i started getting somewhat restless, and started to annoy the hell out of them all, so they convinced me that i should be working or something. this only gave me reason to get to know some of the guys that work there, and give me ample opportunity to get myself into trouble.
cue forward to Thursday, September 6. my birthday. dad woke me (way too early) with breakfast in bed, then about an hour later, princess called me to wish me a happy birthday. went off to ‘work’ and had well wishes, and cheeky comments from everyone. went out to dinner with mum and dad that night, then ran into a few of the guys, and had a couple of drinks with them, to go home and get some (much needed) sleep.
Friday, was cold and rainy, hence, no work for anyone, so we went for a drive down to the nearest (somewhat larger) town to go shopping. after finding an internet cafe, i managed to post in dislocate, that my sister failed to call me for my birthday. mum tried to call her, 1. to remind her about my birthday, and 2. to ask what my niece wanted/should get for her birthday. she got the answering machine, so she left a message. anyway, my sister didn’t call back.
upon returning from town, one of the guys (Jason) from the farm dropped around, i assumed, to see my parents about something, so i took myself off for a walk around the lake. half way around the lake, i see Jason headed my way.. and once he finally caught up with me, he tells me that he had actually dropped around to ask if i wanted to go out for dinner, for a late-birthday celebration. cool, sounds good to me.
hmm. well, Jason had more on his mind than just that. and i learnt that there are no secrets in small towns.
ahem
so Saturday rocks around, and its still raining.. spent most of the day sleeping, thinking, and writing (i kept a paper journal for the entire trip, snippets of which i will get around to posting in dislocate later).. and waiting for a phone call from my sister, which didn’t happen. mum spent a lot of time telling me not to take it personally.. however, it was pretty much too late for that talk.
Sunday. fine, clear, and cold as Antarctica on a summer’s day. back to work. knowing grins from a few of the guys, notably, from Paul and Blue, both good mate’s of Jason’s…..
before we started work, mum rang my sister. (to get mobile service, she had to wander up to the top of a hill, about 200 meters away from where we were. i looked up to where she was, and she’s waving at me to come up there, so i wandered up the hill, and she hands me the phone.
sister: heya! sorry i didn’t ring for your birthday, we’ve just been really busy here, i’m doing extra shifts at work ’cause someone’s away on vacation, and the kids have been sick, and [insert more babbled excuses here], and here, talk to the kids..
niece: happy birthday aunty angie!
[insert babble between me and my niece]sister: so how’s the trip?
so instead of actually wishing me a happy birthday herself, she put my niece on, (probably) so that i couldn’t stay angry/upset with anyone. it didn’t really work.. i couldn’t be bothered bitching at my sister about it, so i just babbled about having fun, etc, etc…
life’s a rollercoaster at this point, cause just after having hung up from that conversation, Jason wanders over. we babbled, a tad nervously, for a bit, and then both realised that we’d have to get to work, and that was about it. i bitched about my sister with mum for a bit, then just stayed in a cranky mood for the rest of the day.
Monday. another day at work, nothing major to report, really. i was still in the same cranky-bitch of a mood, but i somehow managed to keep to myself, to avoid taking it out on anyone else.
Tuesday, 11th September. after starting work, Jason rocks up to tell us that he’d quit. he told us that he’d just had enough of it, he had to leave town that weekend anyway, to go to a family birthday celebration in Victoria, and that he’d just quit earlier than he needed to, to get some stuff done before he had to leave.
after he left, mum says to me: “You know, everyone’s going to blame you” and laughed…
what. the. fuck? how the hell would it be my fault that he decided to leave earlier than he needed to? bah. fuck ’em all. i’m tired of this kind of shit. i really don’t give a fuck what they think/thought. (incidentally, this small town attitude, is exactly why i couldn’t wait to get the hell out of my home town.)
that night, he dropped around.. nothing majorly interesting to report, he just talked to mum and dad about where he was going, what he was going to do after the family thing, etc. oh, and he was planning to leave town the following day.
i woke up Wednesday morning to the sounds of rain hitting the roof, and CNN. news of the terrorist tragedy in NY and DC broke here at about 3am, Wednesday 12th September. (keep in mind that Australian EST is roughly 15 hours ahead of US EST.) i was sitting up in bed, for about 4 hours, watching what was to become 24/7 coverage on 5 of 6 national free-to-air channels, watching, hardly believing, worrying, and getting sick at the sight of those horrifying images being repeated almost constantly.. i decided i couldn’t sit there any longer. i went into town to check my email, and managed to get hold of duck.. talked to him to him for a while, and realised that most people i knew in the US were ok, though more than rattled. when i left, i was extremely grateful to him, for making me realise that there is a human and personal side to it all, as well as the hyped-up, fantastical (in terms of the unbelievablilty of it all), political/militant side that the TV stations seemed to be concentrating on..
i somehow ended up at the pub (arrived there after running into one of the guys from the farm. i’d had a bet with him over the weather.. i owed him a couple of beers.) most of the guys from the farm were there (being a day off and all), and were all talking about the tragedy, politics, etc.
then.. who should walk in? Jason. “Thought you were leaving today?” “Oh, well, you know, day off for you lot, and possibly WW3.. can’t leave town in these conditions”. hmm. this didn’t really bother me, i just thought it was odd.. what did bother me, were the following little comments i over-heard, while i was talking to someone else, half-whispered across the bar from Paul, to Jason.
“Might end up staying a few days longer after all, eh?”
and
“Could end up being another long night for ya..”
…….remembered that men tend to talk, no, wait, gossip, as much as women can.
hrm. i wasn’t a happy camper. it seemed to me, that either of two situations could have been responsible. either they were both being arrogant pricks, or Paul was jealous. either way, it’s not my problem. if they want to behave that way, i sure as hell don’t have to put up with it. and i didn’t. at that point, i was talking to Sue, so i finished my drink, said goodbye to Sue, and walked out without saying anything to either Jason or Paul. life’s a bitch, and i can be too.
i believe that Jason ended up leaving the next day.. he’d said that he’d call, but i doubt it, and i’m not waiting for it to happen. ok, enough about him. i’m getting cranky again just thinking about it all.
so, Thursday.. and first thing i hear in the morning? Ansett has closed down. oh fucking joy. that’s just great. i was supposed to fly Qantas from Sydney to Brisbane, so i wouldn’t have had trouble there… but Ansett owns Hazelton, who fly the regional NSW routes.. and Hazelton had also closed. fuck. instead of working, as i was supposed to, i spent the day on the phone, trying to find another way of getting to Sydney. i could have gotten a bus, which would arrive in Sydney 10 hours earlier than my Qantas flight, or the next bus, which arrived 3 hours late for it. fuck. rang Qantas, trying to change my syd-bris flight time, no luck. with Ansett down, Qantas was booked solid with thousands of stranded Ansett passengers. rang mum at work, almost in tears, with no way of getting home in time for work on Monday (without having to hang around a crowded, and chaotic, and (given the protestational reaction of the sacked Ansett staff, and heightened security following the terrorism paranoia that plagued the entire world) potentially dangerous airport for 10 hours). she asked around the farm, and found out that Blue was driving up to Toowoomba that weekend. woo! i ended up cancelling my Qantas flight (“some other poor stranded sucker can have it”, i thought. i’m sure it was appreciated), and driving home with Blue.
so we left Saturday morning, drove up, arrived home this morning. the only problem with that…. was that Blue, being a friend of Jason’s, quizzed me almost endlessly about it the entire way. i spent the whole time, trying to be politely abstract with my answers.. not wanting to say too much, and create more gossip, and also not really wanting to talk about it at all, let alone let anything i said get back to Jason, as i’m almost sure it would.. and he had no ideas on what Paul’s problem about it was, either. or if he did, he was refusing to say anything about it. goddamn masculine solidarity and/or cluelessness.
but, it was a good drive. no traffic problems, not too uncomfortable, physically, or emotionally. Blue was just curious, he wasn’t demanding to know, and when i said that i didn’t feel like talking about it anymore, he did give up on it.
so there ya go. two fun-filled weeks. and you’re up to date. huzzah! but i’ve arrived home very tired and with a cold, probably as a result of all that cold weather and rain.
thanks for reading… i just needed to babble that out of my system. i’ll shut up now.