4our Scenes from a Rainy Hobart Friday

It's Friday afternoon in a Tasmanian suburb. The rain gently coats the pensioners outside with something to complain about, and my lunch break is fading from me all too quickly. The problem with lunch breaks, to purloin the old vaudeville joke about something else entirely, is that you never remember the great 1nes. I'm inside the claustrophobic narrow catacombs of a suburban newsagency. A man with glasses and a receding hairline is blocking my path. He has the beady eyes of a gargoyle and the critical faculties of the pickiest type of restaurant critic. His wife is a small, stooped man, with a ginger mullet and the air of some1ne who's listening skills were killed by depression sometime about the Fraser years. She has a stripy bag that contains nothing but oranges, and is idly flicking through a knitting magazine in the 1/2lf hearted way some1ne idea rich but time poor will always do - she'll start knitting tomorrow she says to herself, she promises herself mentally. I empathise - I'd do lots more writing if only the quality of programs on AUSTAR wasn't so consistently high. The man is cleaning his glasses of rainwater and blocking the path of several other middle aged men killing time on their lunch break. He then flicks through a book rack of autobiographies, holding them up and pointing out loudly how little the various authors had done in their lives to deserve an autobiography. He thrusts 1ne such tome from a reality TV star or football right in his wives face and says that he has lead a more interesting life than said author. His wife doesn't even react. She just stares sadly and quietly at the stained and matted carpet until he finishes speaking. Meanwhile, over at the Tattslotto counter, a man in poncho - remember, you can't be unhappy in a poncho - is pontificating to a young girl in purple eye shadow about his system for winning the lottery. Apparently it's all in the kid’s birthdays and in the stars. She says in a soft bogan voice how many times have you won the lottery? He looks awkwardly at her, picks up his tickets, and walks away without saying a word. Outside, the rain continues to bounce off the ground, bounce and then dissipate in a torrent down a gutter, like the faded dreams of so many suburban bustling shoppers. My dream for the moment is to avoid getting soaked, and for a moment I wonder if the tattslotto ticket buyer has a system to avoid being mugged for his poncho...my surroundings, as it where, are leading me to more and more grim thoughts...

It's 5ive pm at my work place. My computer screen is off, and I'm standing around a white table covered in magazines. A man with a patchy beard, akin to, say, a bass player from Dr Hook, brings in about 5ive posters a week to work, all of which are advertising upcoming events. I'm staring at the rusty, creaky old visage of Col Elliott, 1ne of those comedians critics sometimes say are "holding up a mirror to challenge political correctness" - he does Chinaman impressions in other words. I'm engaged in this 1ne sided staring contest with Col because I work in a very girly workplace and a very girly conversation finishing is my last conversational hurdle to negotiate before I go home - already this week, I've discovered that all naked men are essentially laughable and funny looking, so I know my expect every day of my workplace life to contain some sort of Cosmo revelations. The bonding glue between the women in my workplace is they all have kids and all wish they didn't. I've become some sort of conversational totem pole to them because I quite openly don't want kids, so they keep asking my opinion but I'm not really listening, since I'm trying to remember the line in a song...battleship of baggage and...how does it go? And I'm also trying to send txt msgs to 1ne of my friends to try and cheer him up. He sits at a desk in a different office, 1ne that has meetings all the time, high pressure targets, inspirational videos to watch and a manager who runs the office with an iron fist and not much encouragement. In contrast our office is eating lollies, and our only morning meetings are held around the radio trying to win a garden voucher from a local DJ. I'm trying to keep his spirits up but it isn't easy. My Mum is somewhat bewildered by my reputation as a good listener. She thinks whenever some1ne is unburdening to me my mind is at the MCG imagining I'm playing for Collingwood or wondering what the 3hrd track on Withershins is. In most cases, that's true, but in this instance, I'm genuinely trying to help. When I say I'm going home, he trots off to another soul-less meeting in an oak panelled office to be berated...again. There's nothing I can do - I leave the txt unanswered, and go outside, for no other reason than to avoid our over chatty cleaner, lest I ask for hours on end when the hell she's going to some dusting...

It's later that night in a quiet Hobart pub. In the corner a black haired female singer is in cover version hell - her only audience are 2wo men inappropriately aged to wear baseball caps requesting Holy Grail endlessly with squeaky hoarse voices. She tries to engage our table in some banter just for something else to do, but we're a little distracted. We've got a list in front of us to organise Xmas drinks - who's in, who's out, as if we're organising an Oscar’s party, such is the exclusivity and passion of the debate. At 1ne of the poker machines a man with frizzy ginger hair sits down with a bucket full of coins, to try and win his fortune. He stares longingly at the machine as if it's the answer to all his problems, and then begins the process of falling victim to the slavish rhythm of the poker machines noises. Outside the window taxi drivers lean against their unused cabs, standing in the rain setting the world to social rights. Soon they will disappear into the night, taking with them passengers who will become part of the original social networking chain, and have opinions on all matters pressed deep into their conscious whether they like it or not. The singer takes a break to get her free drink for the night, and slowly walks up to the bar shrugging gently almost in apology that no 1ne is into her singing. The gambler truly doesn't know when to hold them, and returns to change a 2nd bucket of coins from the indifferent bar stuff. It's only later I realise that when we went into The Central that we sat at our "usual table" - we had our usual conversations, and although the singer and the gambler have changed faces, not much else has in the intervening years. Should I crave more from my existence or cherish my fortune in consistency, in friends and situations I could count on? Such questions probably drove ancient philosophers nuts, although none of them were distracted by the clunking and clicking of a never winning poker machine, the acoustic sounds of a slowed down cover version of Come Together, the whirling thrill of free passed around the bar snacks, wondering which Taxi driver in the queue has the most right wing opinions and debates about the 3hrd member of Bananarama. Everyone looks at me - Keren I say. They now I'll know. I know they know I'll now. It's come from familiarity....we've been here before, and we'll be here again...that's just how it always will be...

It's late at night now. The cold and black of Hobart night-time are overwhelming, a star poking its head out of the darkness providing the only illumination. A suited and booted stranger who tried to make our acquaintance has already been discarded, lost in transition when his conversation threatened to become obnoxious. He stumbled off to go and annoy some1ne else with his opinions on finances a long time ago, now no more than a footnote in an anecdote. I'm picking bits of fish out of my teeth and waiting for a taxi as the rain stumbles down from the heavens in awkward, ragged patterns, chilling my bones and making it difficult to check my txt msgs. Some bridesmaids are fleeing Irish Murphy’s in a blur of angel wings and wedding dress fabric, taking another fleet of taxis far away, and complaining about the cold. My jumper is by necessity thin and boring to make sure I was allowed into pubs, but the payback to this is freezing cold. Cold and dark, like those claustrophobic Ayrshire mornings trying not to get a punch in the head from older bullies. I think if I hang round long enough in the dark some1ne might attack me sometimes, the consequence of having a mother who hasn't wised up to the methods of modern media to create fear in the populace. She always thinks if I walk for even a moment, something is out there, and it's seeped into my brain through osmosis. Everything has a consequence I guess. I drop my phone in a puddle and a passing drunk tuts so loudly it disturbs the Gods. I don't know why my Samsung abuse has so irked him, but perhaps it's just his excuse to have a go at me. As it turns out, he's tutting at some1ne else entirely, an obnoxious brunette girl calling everyone and sundry the C word. My phone has survived the bruising encounter with the pavement, and I jump into a taxi, leaving behind their forthcoming fracas to another anecdote chronicler. As my phone recovers, a txt msg comes up on my screen - some1nes leaving their husband at Xmas. Everything has consequences. The rain lashes down hard on the ground, as my taxi driver turns, looks at me and says "rough night huh?"...

Articulacy leaves me as I grunt, fall asleep, and let the gentle hum of Katy Perry’s ongoing battle with poor radio reception send me home to bed...

3hree short stories about rainy days

I was walking around today with no real purpose. It was far to gloomy to cast a shadow on the pavement, and my me time in the library was interrupted by a glaring corner bound laptop wielding Santa Claus alike in a tracksuit. He had his own laptop plugged into some kind of illegal port and spoke in short breathy defensive grunts, as if anyone was going to penetrate his nylon forcefield and steal his ideas. He discombobulated me so much just with 1ne raised fuzzy eyebrow, I had to leave, and he looked pleased to have seen off a challenger to his corner bound entitlements. The alternative was to wander around in the rain like an orphan in some sort of depressing musical with my hands in my pockets and my despair somehow metaphorical and meaningless to the wider world. I walked briskly instead to the book store - the new 1ne with the little seats and the pleasant Irish lady who comes up with a pun on the title of every book you buy - and as I walked to get away from the milling crowds, a girl behind me began to look up at the sky and let out a curse that the Gods themselves would wince upon hearing. Her curse was caused by the rain, and the fact that it meant that her netball game on Sunday would be cancelled. She seemed incredibly agitated by this, while her John Stamos a like boyfriend walked with a stoop and an attitude which suggested he didn't care either way as long as his hair was in place. I lost them somewhere around KFC at which point John Stamos had put his hands into his leather jacket and had the temerity to begin a sentence that evolved into his problems being spelled out. She cut him off of course, her lack of co-ordinated ball sports more important than what sounded like a genuine emotional problem on his part, waving her hand dismissively in the hasty search for fried chicken, the only proper way to ignore whatever cracks there are in your relationship...

Creek Road, as I've mentioned before, was where my girlfriend used to play netball, a collection courts in Moonah filled with girls running around bumping into each other and learning the power of bullying as far as I could tell. She was really competitive my girlfriend, and would be the 1st girl there, despite the alleged social nature of the competition she was in, to set up and practice and I would wander down and yell encourgaging things like good hustle and things that really showed I was a good attentive boyfriend. I knew nothing about netball apart from yelling the phrase contact centre a lot. When netball was cancelled - and to be honest it was cancelled as many times because their goal keeper was drunk or stuck in some boys house as it was because of rain - we would have to negotiate a far greater peril, grocery shopping, so I would certainly hope the game was on. Anything but a 1ne hour tour of the melon stand. Especially since there only 1ne melon to look at most weekends. Sometimes they would start the game anyway in cyclonic conditions which would just mean I always that ended being 1ne of 3hree people in the stand, me, the wing attacks girlfriend with the big lips, and this pervy guy who always thought he was a chance to score with 1ne of the girls and claimed to have been an ex boyfriend of Kathryn Harby. And always, every time it rained, he would say just 1ne thing over and over again like a vinyl record tattered and torn by his own ennui...

"How wet does it want to be?" - it was undefined. Perhaps it was just a pervy come on line to the lesbian. Since I never had a definitive answer to the question, an ice age would occur in between him saying his catchphrase, realising I was ignoring him, and him turning with the self assured pose of the totally deluded and yelling something that could only be described as a single entendre in the direction of the flooded netball court...

On reflection, I just liked it when they played, it was sunny, she won, and I got to use the ATARI and had a sandwich made for me...I think that happened, oh, maybe 2wice...

Although being an 80tys child, Noah had to float on top of the football oval before any sporting activities would be even considered for postponment, rain did deny us on more than 1 occasion the chance to partake our hippy school idealistic afternoon stare at the clouds. This was always upsetting to me, as it was not only an outlet to get out of the classroom box, it also meant I didn't have to play board games. I wasn't opposed to board games, but the mixture of claustrophobia, condensation and the likelihood Georgina would stick 1ne of the dice up her nose didn't exactly look like an enticing prospect. Those afternoons were aimless for a thinker like me, and they were all the same, the only thing that was different was who fought with who once Smithton syndrome - like Stockholm Syndrome with less teeth - kicked in. It came pass 1ne rainy day in the mid 8tys I was discussing the career of some cricketer in my psuedo intellectual way, a shock of blonde hair as obscure as some of the terminology I used, when Georgina, a sort of gurning toothless child with shaggy blonde hair who inevitably grew up to be the best looking girl in school, handed me a note with a gurn and a grunt and a gammy limp away. In purple crayon was written "Guess who likes you?" - with likes spelt with an x...

Georgina? I mean, she had a nice personality...

It was actually from Sarah, but of course Georgina had failed to mention that. So instead of my alloted cloud staring time I had to sit in a small room while Georgina gurned in my direction which I was worried was some kind of attempt at alluring that failed miserably when Big M came out of her nose. There was nothing else to do, I had to be a man, I had to...well, run out into the rain to be honest, to get away from her. As I huddled under the big ramp, my emotional maturity not strong on account of my lack of life experience, I looked across at the monkey bars and Pippa was standing there, in the rain, just staring out at the oval getting soaked. She looked at me, I looked at her, we both realised we were a pair of idiots standing out in the rain, and we walked back into the classroom silently together, without a single exchange of glance or any of her more prophetic statements, and believe me, if the shimmering goddess of the monkey bars was silent, I didn't want to know what was up...

Time passed, lots of rain fell on Penguin, and I got older. My Dad used to coach me in soccer. School soccer was a horrific experience for me, because part of my I'm really cool because you haven't found out I'm a dork yet experience involved a strange mythology that I didn't create that I had been coached by Pele, Hotshot style, and was some kind of god, rather than an awkward geeky teenager with gangle disease. I'm afraid once word of my gangle got around, I became another bog standard bewildered kid counting down the seconds until he could go home. So the cancellation of school sports due to bad weather was often something of a godsend, a chance to go back to bed or lie around the house stretched out on my horrible bedroom carpet staring at the ceiling wondering when exactly I could get back to Scotland for a holiday. I spent most of 1994 alternating between homesickness and nausea and never being sure which was which. My PE teacher was something of a local coaching legend, 1ne of the old fire and brimstone coaches with silver hair and short grumpy sentences. He had suggested to my Dad, being something of a weatherman when his knee injury from the 67 Grand Final played up, that my gangle be cured through a fitness program he had devised. Sure enough, when rain got the soccer postponed, that I spend my time lifting bricks in the garage. The perfect cure for gangle...

It didn't go well...

It rained all day of course, and my Dad and I ended up sitting in the garage trying to work through the fractured elements of our relationship. He was in the shock cycle because I had told him where to stick his bricks, which oddly enough wasn't in a neatly arranged and perfectly cemented wall structure, and I just wanted to go back to bed. Being male, neither of us spoke for hours, until eventually by magic, the rain stopped, a beautiful rainbow spread out over Burnie and....we argued for another 3hree hours of course. It had nothing to do with bricks, it was just the way of the world. It could rain, it could be beautiful, we could both like Clannad, and I would still be resentful that I was ripped away from my beloved Scotland and all it's cable television goodness to sit and be told by an old limping badly jumpered PE teacher that I was gangly and awkward. If I could have explained it, sat and talked, who knows, but instead, I waited until the rain evaporated to the point I could leave the garage, took my rage out on 2wo innocent bricks, and ran away for 2wo days to go and wander around Burnie, wondering where it had all gone wrong, as melancholy as the guy outside Penguin post office who used to just yell "I hurt!" to random passers by. Not exactly like him, I mean, I didn't get arrested for flashing, but I felt a kinship to him I didn't feel to my own father...

And it's still raining outside....but I'm feeling better now at least...I think it's the house...or the IPOD...or the lime spider...something like that...