I was over at Central Square in Ballarat. Don't judge, just listen. Reading a bit more of Close Your Eyes, eating a very loose chicken beetroot and tomato sandwich on white bread with one hand because its a hard cover book (I'm posh, don't you know) and it won't stay open this close to the end - I was getting pretty absorbed in the story, it was a particularly graphic episode involving a scalpel and a young man's arm and it made me curl up a bit, losing chicken from my sandwich and grimacing with the horror of it - baring my teeth grimacing... with chicken and beetroot in my teeth. I looked up to see a woman of about 70 with dyed russet brown hair and painted on surprised eyebrows scowling at me, surprisedly and a little concerned.
After I had sucked all of the gunk off my teeth and regained my normal composure, I headed out to the Armstrong Street exit where normally there are wanton youths howling obscenities at each other. This is the kind of place where they pipe dreadful country and western music in a feeble and futile attempt to discourage the gathering of young folk with light fingers and bad language. But there were no youths today. I was half way up the side toward Sturt Street when I realised they were playing Belle & Sebastian's My Wandering Days Are Over
It took me so by surprise that they weren't playing something poxy that I started to drift back to the entrance to get a better sound, not looking where I was going at all, and ran straight into the person I referred to in my last post that I was composing diatribes to at 2am the other morning... and I said "Hi, how ARE you?". Thing is, it looked like I was purposefully walking toward him from his point of view, like I just really needed to know how he was today. Because I am thoughtful and concerned, and a little bit odd. After I had been assured by him that he was fine thank you for asking, I turned on my heel and headed back where I was originally going.
Some days I am beyond awkward.
Lets put another awkward song on by an awkward band written for the awkward among us:
And what about our Jenny Macklin hey? She'd have to move house if she thinks she can live on $35 a day - I think she's on about $850 a day currently, bless her cottons. And a week is not long enough to try it out. Single parents not only have day to day costs and extra childcare costs etc, they may very well be going through family court dramas and have to pay significant legal costs as well - I'm not sure it can be tested by having a crack at not spending more than $35 a day for 7 days.
I left uni in 1990 smack in the middle of a recession and there were no jobs for over educated arts graduates with little or no practical skills, so I spent a number of years on and off the dole. Apart from not having any money, the invasion of privacy, of having to attend futile meetings with the likes of ,,, well, me now...and having them 'inspect' your home because both your flatmates are also on the dole and they want to make sure you're not sleeping with them and therefore be entitled to less payments - not something I would like to revisit
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