An Overview of What is Wrong with the World.

God, who I do not believe in, made people. Supposedly. But, being the fickle and indescribably hypocritical bastard that he is, he thought to himself 'Well now, they won't be much fun to watch if they do the right thing all the time. Besides, I'm paying Satan down there two Saints an hour - I'm going to need some sinners so that it's not all for nothing'.

Thus, God - in his eternal wisdom and patronistic glory, created vice.

I went to lunch with my godmother last week - a woman who swears like a sailor, drinks like a fish and smokes like the proverbial chimney, but who is also a devout Catholic. She remarked, and rather correctly at that, that I always look for the worst in people.

"And that, Kelly my Dear," I replied, "is precisely where the interest lies". Better yet, vice is always easier to find.

We humans are a delightfully sinful bunch, which is perhaps, the only thing that makes us truly interesting. My idea of what constitutes as the traditional heaven, is a bland swimming pool surrounded by the people who played 'Eloi's' in the original screenplay of 'The Time Machine'.

Now Hell, it sounds a hell of a lot more interesting. Excuse the pun. According to the Catholics, there resideth the likes of Twain and Wilde, for being blasphemous and homosexual perspectively. JK Rowling already has a bed in the hard-edged brimstone waiting for her, and as I hear it, Elvis Presely and Marolyn Monroe host poker every Friday night. And then of course there are the thousands of other sinners - embezzlers, bank crooks, gays by the thousand, Meryl Streep (because God can't stand the idea of competition), rock bands, and last but not least - Heathergirl. These people, most of whom still have popular cult followings today, were too defective and vice-ridden to make it past the door-bitch at the pearly gates. The place will be like one grand, corrupted, flagitious, life-long mardi gras party! I'll bring the tequila!

Alas, I stray too far from my point.

Where was I? Vice? Ah, yes. So we all have vices - tis the stuff of humanity. I know I'm as ridden as they come. Particularly lately.

But wouldn't you rather it that way?

The Wheels on the Bus.

I live in the City. In Paddington, to be exact, which by technicality, is actually the Inner East of the City. Essentially, the two places are one and the same, however the distinction is made because anything past Darlinghurst is not an ideal walking distance from the CBD.

And thus, twice a day, I catch the bus.

The reference Heathergirl makes to camaraderie is interesting, because by all accounts, it is very true. There is no waving from bus to bus as route numbers pass one another. Instead, drivers who take unauthorised breaks just before the Chalmers Street loading zone glare at one another suspisciously over their self-rolled cigarettes. The 2 way radio transmitter box is always alive with gruff voices barking impatient orders, which are easily heard over the din of the struggling bendy bus motors. But just when one thinks all is lost, the driver - who ordinarily stops for nothing short of a roadblock, and certainly not a red light or a stray pedestrian (I once saw a bus literally take out the drivers door of an illegally parked car) - will hold up Oxford Street traffic so that the 380 can pull into the outside lane.

The passengers keep mostly to themselves, and generally fall into one of four categories: tourist, desk jockey, student, or homeless person.

The tourists are infuriating. They sit on the middle fold down seat and open their upside down, thrift store maps onto you inconsiderately. Some have a habit of standing in the middle of the aisle so they can ask every passenger who passes where Town Hall might be. This is generally on a Bronte Beach-bound bus. Others hold up the boarding line either by counting out their change much too slowly, or paying with a $50 note that cannot be cashed. Worst of all, they incorrectly park their extremely unaesthetic prams, still decorated with a QANTAS baggage check sticker, in front of the fold down seats, preventing anybody else from sitting on them.

The desk jockey's are omnipresent. Most are badly paid, polyester-wearing office workers who plainly cannot charge their transport to the company, and are too frugal to spring for a cab like their cotton suit counterparts. They bundle onto the morning city-bound with black wheely suitcases and ugly imitation leather shoes - both, which they generally wedge painfully against your legs - before flipping open their top-of-the-line mobiles to stage, at a stentorian volume, a conversation over the previous night's inebriation. This is generally with a co-worker that they will be seeing in the following five minutes anyway.

The students are insolent. I have caught the morning 378 five days a week for the past 5 months, and as of yet, I am the only student who has ever given up her seat to an elderly passenger. Some pretend not to hear the less-than-subtle coughs of the tottering aged. They certainly ignore the death stares given by the few that tumble over. The braver among them will actively voice their right to a seat through having paid for a ticket. Others make gesticulative reference to an array of textbooks, laboratory equipment or architecture portfolios to emphasise their overriding need for the space. More arrogant than these, are the students who stand immobile in the aisle with their bulky, Country Road bags, headphones on, directly in front of an empty seat.

The homeless people are the head turners. There is no telling what they'll do. I once had an in-depth conversation with a man dressed in a tatty green velvet tuxedo, who did not hesitate in telling me he had just won the pokie machine jackpot at Star City. I don't think he noticed my distaste for the story as it expanded to include a hotel room, all of his homeless friends, and a Thai escourt service. I was waiting at the pictured bus stop one afternoon, only to be surprised by a woman absolutely screaming obsenities directly in front of me. The airborne spittle was disturbing, but more so was the realisation that she was yelling at her own reflection in the glass of the stop. Going by her abnormally wide pupils, she must have taken soemthing quite potent. A third passenger, weighed down by several cans of Johnney Walker Black placed sporadically in his jacket pockets, imparted his drunken wisdom on relationships to two adolescent out-of-towners. Heathergirl herself was present for his remonstrations...most memorably, the 'ku ku ker chuu' rendition he offered, along with, quite generously, two cans of scotch. And then, of course, there are the regulated fiends, pickpockets and beggars who shuffle up and down the bus, their hair in filthy dreadlocks or knotted quiffs, and their fingernails black with dirt.

A Sydney bus. Crowded, yes - the claustrophobic or olefactory sensitive among us should consider alternate transport, because the likelihood of being forced to make a trip with your face wedged beneath someones underarm is fairly reasonable if you don't snag a seat (and sometimes, even if you do...) That they are unfriendly is inarguable. City folk are not predisposed to be friendly, something that I empathise with completely. Nevertheless, they are interesting.

You might think it strange that I pay so much attention to my fellow passangers. Truth be told, I rather enjoy observing the mish-mash of socioeconomic standings. How could a busload of passengers who live in places as varied as we all do...attractively shabby townhouses, cramped studio apartments, Bondi Junction retirement villages, or the grimey, tiled floor of the ANZ Bank entrance...be anything, if not entertaining?

I like the fact it's taking me away from here.

I spend a lot of time on buses.

I enjoy it. Particularly suburban buses. I like the sense of camaraderie between the bus drivers. They always wave at one another as the drive past, even bus drivers of other companies. This, I have noticed, does not happen in the city. Infact bus-catching in the city is a far less enjoyable passtime. They are always packed the passengers look grim and are always in such a hurry. Atleast suburban buses out her in the west have colourful passengers. Like the disturbed Irish woman who struck up a conversation about reading with me. Interesting woman, off her face, but none-the-less friendly.

I make a habit of thanking the bus drivers as I get off the bus. For their time, for not killing me, for waving at other bus drivers.

The bus carries me somewhere else. Somewhere better than here. In the long run anyway and I am thankful for that.

I have decided that if all else fails I will become a bus driver.

I have a plan for a communal umbrella. i will attach a water proof note to the umbrella reading something like : This umbrella is intended for anyone in need. Use it to get from A to B and then pass it on to someone else who needs its protection. I'm going to leave this umbrella on the 900 and believe in the honesty of people and hope it makes a difference. It's sappy but I like to think about it.

Okay that was off topic. Sorry.

Life with a View.

People don't really think of a ferry as public transport. I suppose that this is because sailing seems to be a sport embraced by the upper middle class - or else, that the idea of everyone owning a boat is not feasable.

I played the truant this afternoon and caught the bus to Circular Quay. I'd like to say that I had this blog in mind when I did so, but I didn't, really. No. It was more a case of the capital weather, and my penchant for that particular part of the city.

Quite spontaneously, I bought a ferry ticket and went joy riding. I love ferries. The world seems a very different place when viewed from a boat.

I tend to lose myself when I'm sailing. Just a little. Truth be told, I hardly see how one could be anything but encapsulated. Escaping the shadow that is reality seems so much easier with the sun on my hair, the wind in my face, and nothing but an unmitigated expanse of glass-surfaced water as far as the eye can see.

I occupied my seat, at first willingly, and later because I was frozen to it, for an entire round trip. I was freezing, absolutely frostbitten...but I was sorry to alight. Everything just seemed so peaceful...as though all was right with the world.

I feel the same way about buses, and on the rare occassion, trains too. I don't know. Being able to look out of a window with the breeze in your face, and the landscape quickly passing you by is a curious thing. You almost feel as though you own it...just through being able to appreciate the view.

It could merely be that I am too curious. Undoubtedly, views of all description interest me. I enjoy, not unlike the concept of the Baudelarian Flaneur, creating self-identity through the art of observation.

I wish I had a balcony.

For the meanwhile, I shall satisfy myself with another ferry ride, I think.

Here's to Hoping.

I had no idea. Not a clue.
You never told me.
Couldn't?
Wouldn't?

It is of little significance.

I wish we could go back...
transcend the damage time has
rendered irreparable.

It would help a lot, I think.

You Can Look Me in the Eye, but I don't do Surprises...

The worst thing about surprises, is that they always occur when you least expect it. But perhaps that is the point...

I am, for the most part, a great advocate of surprises. To me, the word has always connoted exuberant bursts of positivity, rather than a foreboding mess of what's and if's. When I think of surprises, I think of presents - ever the materialist - streamers, bulky furniture and dimly lit rooms overflowing with guests waiting to pounce on the unwary birthday girl. I think of gift boxes with air-holes punched in the top, of visits from old friends...of Colin Firth on my doorstep...

Unfortunately, this is reality - or so I am told - thus statistically, not all surprises are bound to be pleasant. This confronting revelation in itself was a most unsettling surprise.

The inescapable point here is that sooner or later, some morbid bastard is going to rain on your parade. We humans are an altogether daft bunch...capable of creating wreck and ruin, but not of anticipating it. A horrible surprise is inevitable.

It makes no difference. The thing that I both admire and despise about surprises, quite at the same time, is their unpredictable predictability. But I hardly expect you to understand this...

The old-element-of-surprise.

Well, this is a surprise! Sitting here at nine in the morning, home alone for the first time in goodness knows how long. Good Surprise, definitely .
Surprise: [what definition shall I use today, dear?] Surprise.. it’s a noun! [1.amazement] a feeling of shock, wonder, or bewilderment produced by an unexpected event.

I don’t know how I feel about surprises. Oh. What a shocker (surpriser?) there.. Heather doesn’t know how she feels? Woooooow…. (I like sarcastic surprise…that’s a kind I know I like.)

‘I hate surprises’ is never a sentence my parted lips have produced and rightly so, because I don’t hate them. There are too many good surprises to hate them in general. However there are some surprises no-one will ever like . Take for example: Surprise! French tourists stole your thongs! Or Surprise! Your Mum has cancer-good luck in exams! Or Surprise! Santa isn’t real- we’ve just been lying to you your entire life!

Come to think of it I can’t call to mind any surprises I actually liked. (Does Surprise! Miley Cyrus actually belted out some decent (?) music! count?)
Shock horror… Do I hate surprises?
Okay- let us, for the purpose of answering the above question, think back to the last surprise I remember encountering: A week ago, my father (somewhat surprisingly) purchased a game for me. Not to sound ungrateful…but I’m not very adept at this genre of game, on top of which... his surprising niceness rattles my rather firm contempt for him.

To like surprises, or not to like surprises- that is the question. When all is said and done, at the end of the day, despite it all, I must give in to my shattering optimism and continue to think myself a ‘surprise-liker’… Perhaps that is the biggest surprise of all?


Oh and Frenchy.. if you ever read this- I hope you enjoy the thongs…Surprise! I gave you a foot infection! (Just Kidding!... maybe.)