How it is

Last Thursday we had the talk we've needed to have for a long time: not about the past and what went wrong but about the future and how to manage it. It was really good, we worked out how to go forward in a positive and companionable way. Next morning, Friday, we woke up to an eviction notice, the one thing we had not factored in to our plans was the need to find another house - almost impossible in this place at this time of year. Saturday I went down to vote and then started cleaning out the garage, a task that has been waiting a long time; I had this pleasing notion that all our accumulated junk might be thrown out along with the Howard government, not that that seemed very likely. At some point I opened an old suitcase and found the box of badges I used to wear in the days when we wore badges: among them was the one I used to pin on every election day, saying No Matter Who You Vote For The Government Still Gets In and wished I'd worn it down to the local hall that morning. The election was of course a disaster, but not until I checked the news Sunday morning did I realise the Xtian fascists have won the Senate was well. Now they can do all those unspeakable things they've wanted to do for so long. We will regret this result for a long time, I thought, even those who voted for it. Later on that day I lost my glasses, which I've had for more than ten years, which I love, and which I've feared losing as long as I've had them. Last time I remember wearing them was playing scrabble with the kids; they seem to have disappeared from the face of the earth. Did the young sulphur-crested cockatoo that's been hanging around suggesting we owe her/him a living make off with them? Or the testosterone-enraged brush turkey that's building a mound in the yard next door but one? I simply don't know. I had a script to re-read so I could make some notes for the next draft - deadline today - but that was of course impossible. This morning, Monday, I tried making the type bigger on the screen but it just didn't work. So, in amongst getting birthday presents for the kids and a new spring for the driver's side windscreen wiper on the Falcon, I bought a cheap pair of menu glasses from a chemist. They work, but not so well as my old ones did. I have to peer at the screen like one of the myopic electors of this my adopted country, which today I love and hate in about equal measure. So: no house, no good governance, no glasses ... these are not major afflictions when you think what some people in this world have to live with. And I refuse to despair.