not the motorcycle diaries

 Well, did YOU ever see them in the same room together?

This was the first time in my life I had ever participated in a protest where the police were ordered to prevent us from marching.  I’ve never seen such aggressive policing. They punched people in the nose, yelled insults at us, and pushed us into the footpath.  They actively, deliberately tried to provoke violent clashes - as usual most participants in the rally were peacefully enacting their right to demonstrate, in public, their passionate opposition to war.  Ah, Australia.

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

Things that have happened to me in the last 14 days: 

1. Aforementioned run-in with cyclist and consequent continuing disablement.

2. Contracted cold from Johnny Guatarri who is full of boy germs.

3. Had allergy attack that lasted 24 hours.

4. Lost swipe card on the same day as it was activated for new permanent office space after having swipe card for nearly three years. Now do not have access to either old stupid or new good office space.

5. Left phone at home about 48 times (including today) and missed important calls such as Melissa’s Best Gossip Ever.

6.  Got lost on the way to Erskineville and was an hour late for a meeting that I had rescheduled after I didn’t turn up at all the first time due to aforementioned run-in with cyclist and consequent continuing disablement.

I have also been having recurring dreams where I yell at people at dinner parties.  I am quite sure they have something to do with karma for my general misanthropy (Miss Ann Thropy) which has recently involved not calling back an old friend who just moved to town (no time for picking up an old thread which was based on suburban teenage drunkenness and in-jokes that principally involved Triple J and Richie Benaud), not going to another old friend’s wedding interstate and informing her of this by post the week before (couldn’t afford it, waited to win the lottery until it was too late, then also realised their phone number was in the phone that I had previously lost which was the perfect foil for the gutless letter option), and passionately detesting people who display characteristics such as ‘perkiness’ and ‘charm’ (perhaps I suspect them of other characteristics such as ‘loyalty’ and ‘ability to remember things’?).

Courtesy of ye OBN.

So I was run into by a Cyclist on Monday night and sprained numerous body parts. I can’t really walk at the moment except with the aid of copious codeine and ibuprofen. Duly dosed up on this I left the house around lunchtime as I could no longer stand (a) being horizontal (b) being inside and (c) being sans caffeine. So I decided to attempt a walk to my coffee shop of choice (se chama ‘Bravo’, Rua Enmore). The coffee shop is roughly three hundred metres from my door, and I can average about 30 seconds a metre once I’ve got some speed up. The nice ladies at the coffee shop were horrified at the sight of my ballooning foot and technicolour bruises. They asked me a million questions, including:

Nice lady: What’s your star sign?
Me: I was born on the cusp of Aries and Pisces, apparently.
Nice lady: Ohh, Aries. They’re very accident prone.
Me: Ohmygod! And I was hit by a car once too!
Nice lady (nodding sagely): And you’ll find that you are always attracted to other people who were born on the cusp.
Me: Ohmygod! Yes! I have stacks of cuspian friends!
Nice lady: I was born on the cusp. Of Capricorn and Aquarius.
Me: WOW. SO WAS MY BEST FRIEND.
Nice lady (more sage nodding): You should take care now. I bet you’ve taken painkillers just to leave the house today.
Me: !
Nice lady: That’s three dollars please.

She *knows*, man.

As I shuffled home I thought about how these random accidents intercept otherness for a little while. I feel like I’m getting some strange insight into what it must be like to be hardly able to move on a permanent basis (much like when I was hit by said car and spent two weeks flat on my back in the orthopaedic ward, surrounded by eighty year olds awaiting hip replacements). It is so frustrating. People stare at you. I find myself smiling at people to reassure them that I’m not retarded or psychopathic, just a tad swollen.

But it’s a treat to be tuned into the radio all day. Yesterday they played Klaus Nomi on 2ser. And today they did a story on the Cave Clan, with one notable exception.