owlrigh

I saw Ben's dad, Dan, in the companionway of his boat one afternoon, as Ben and I were coming home.

"Put a shirt on!" I shouted out the window of the car as we went past, down to where my boat is in the yard and parked. We got out and played with one of the local yard dogs, and then --

"Did you say something?" came Dan's voice from behind us.

We turned around. He was standing on his deck, stark bollocks naked, and we swung around quickly again and made faces at each other. Urgh.

"Geeze, what's wrong with him?" I asked Ben.

"I dunno." He looked thoroughly disgusted.

Both of us avoided looking towards Dan's boat, and eventually I made my way up into the boat and tinkered.

There was a knock at the back of the boat.

"Hey, yeah, sorry about that," said Dan, poking his head over the transom.

"Oh, hey! No worries," said I, "I've seen my fair share wrinkly old men naked. No harm done."

"Oh, okay." He talked about what he was going to do with his boat before he left.

"You should put in a canopy over your cockpit, what with your newfound penchant for nudism," I put in. "You wouldn't want to get burned."

Later on in the day I was talking to one of the owners of the boat yard, and he came up in conversation. I told her what he'd done and she grimaced at the image.

"Where's he going to go now? Which of his women?" she asked. He has a couple of them on strings. "I don't know what they see in him! Although you'd know!"

"Not much to see, no, I wouldn't be standing around on deck if I were him," said I, and then we laughed ourselves silly until her husband turned up to see what the fuss was.

Just before work Ben and I went to have coffee together. We eventually got around to discussing the incident.

"Ha, he would have come over to see your reaction. Did you tell him why you'd seen naked old men?"

"Well, no, I thought you didn't want me to say."

"Thanks," said Ben. "You should bring it up all the time now, to embarrass him. When we go out to dinner, 'oh, hey, can you read this on the menu for me? My eyes haven't been quite the same since you flashed me,' that sort of thing."

We laughed uproariously, getting strange looks from other customers.

Since then, thankfully, he's kept his kit on; maybe he realises it's inappropriate to flash your son's partner, even if she is giving you the shits...

I was rugged up against the cold, walking down the street towards the convention hotel. A guy walked up towards me, unshod and slightly unclean, hair stringy down his back. I smiled at him from habit, my eyes sliding away, shoulders hunched inwards.

"Good morning!" he said just as I passed.

"Good morning," I replied, twisting backwards, feet still moving forwards.

"You have a lovely smile," he continued.

"Thank you."

"You've the loveliest smile I've seen today. People have said good morning, but you've the loveliest smile."

"Thank you very much," said I, walking backwards now, ever closer to the hotel but not game enough to present him with my back.

"Have a good day!" he called as I carried myself further away.

"You too!"

And then he was gone.

I faced forwards once more, firmly on track, and another man slowed just as I was to turn the last corner.

"Hello," he said, and waited for my attention.

"Hi." I looked slightly off to the side of this man's head.

"Are you Indian?" he continued, looking somewhat eager.

"No, South American."

"Oh. Sorry," and with that, continued on his way.

( Finally I get to the convention... )

You can't walk down the main street of Airlie without coming across "Help Wanted" signs. They're only there for a day before they are gone -- help presumably gotten -- but some other store pops up quick enough with a similar pasted sign.

There are plenty of jobs to be had in Airlie.

Years ago there was a segment on some news show of a couple of Sydneysiders, a brother and sister, who couldn't find work. They made much of the fact that they had looked and weren't finding and so couldn't be, in all earnest, be called dole-bludgers.

Come the hotelier of one of the islands around here -- he contacted these newspeople and offered them jobs. The brother and sister said no. Why? Quite simple, really: appearance.

I was in one of the employment agencies when I was shown the Hayman Island standard employee contract. It looked about as stringent as the Woolworths one, but better: they put down what you could and couldn't wear on the island, where you could wear certain things, hair length for men, and the death knell for me: no piercings, except for one in each ear, and very discreet at that.

( Eventually, I get a cool job. )

Arriving at the convention in middle of yesterday meant I was a wee bit late for the Gaiman reading -- something funny from some book I am not certain of. The bits of the film based upon his work, Mirrormask, were very strange indeed. I am not certain I would like it -- what works fine in the paper medium at times does not make easy translation to film. It looked completely bizarre and like an exercise in CGI.

It's just as well that I think so, because Sony hasn't picked up distribution rights in Australia and if I want to know what the story about I'll be having to read the book. There is a letter writing campaign being organised -- petitions do not work, so everyone was encouraged to send physical (not electronic!) letters. One letter is symbolic for a hundred people or suchlike.

( The few panels I attended )

The "Worst Ever" panel ran overtime, and everyone was kicked out of the room while things were set up for the closing ceremony.

After the ceremony I walked back to the backpackers despite it having finished sufficiently early that I could have caught public transport. I needed the time; I cried as I walked back (on the dark part of the street) and otherwise felt horribly insulted and sorry for myself.

( I was invited to be fan guest of honour for the natcon, but you would be forgiven for not knowing. )

"There's a yacht dragging on the other side of the river," said my father last night. "He's nearly on the rocks."

Damien and I raced abovedecks and saw the faint outline of a tiny yacht on the other side. She was so far that way she was nearly up on the mangroves.

"The mast appears to be broken," continued Phil, looking at her through the binoculars. "Damien, go over and see if you can put the anchor down if she's got one."

Damien disappeared off into the gloom before I managed to return with my torch. The outboard spluttered and died several times and my brother floated a fair way down the river before he took to oar instead. There was no way he was going to return for me.

Luckily, however, the boy off the yacht in front of us was gearing up to go investigate as well. I hailed him over under the guise of giving him the torch and hopped into the dinghy, and off we sped.

We were up next to the yacht when we saw that there was a guy upon it. It was the tiniest little yacht you ever did see, a trailer sailer, and its mast was not broken but only not assembled. He had his anchor down.

"I went to sleep," said the guy, "and I found myself here. I don't have a fuel tank," he said in response to something my brother said. "I was going to get one tomorrow."

( You see a lot more by daylight. )

I noticed that I had barely over a dollar upon checking my wallet this morning. Definitely not enough to get me home, in any shape or form, and I didn't feel like asking the one I'd stayed with overnight for money to do so as I tend to end up doing. I decided to walk it.

It should be understood that by train it would have taken me an hour to return to my suburb. On foot I had no idea how long, but thought that trekking it into the city proper would give me some idea.

It wasn't such a bad idea; I got a good eye for the suburb, trudging along until I stepped onto something gooey. Gooey? I prodded at it with a toe, then bent to pick it up to play with. Yay gooey thing in a shell, fallen from a tree. It looked very familiar, so I sniffed at it -- tamarind!

( So I ate it, walked until I met a weirdo, and tried to rob a telephone. )

I don't like telephones, when it boils down to things. I haven't gotten to the point that I dread it ringing, for whenever it does it's generally for Damien, and besides whenever I actually answer chances are it's for someone else. It's when some calls out for me, phone! that I begin to worry.

There are three people in particular whose calls I dread. One of these phones during the day and the other two during night, so it's not like I can figure out to "not be home", either.

The day person lives just down the road from me. I dread her because she'll tell me in great detail every little niggling thing she can think of possibly to say. She's big into gardening so I get to hear every little detail, how she managed to foil dastardly snails from getting to her lettuce, which was done by eggshells beneath them and she told this to her brother who was amazed, AMAZED, I tell you, and did you know there were these other natural ways of foiling aphids and things? Was that no? I'll tell you all about them, natch.

The problem with this particular person is that she's on medication which makes her forget what she's already told you, so I've heard all, and I mean ALL, of her stories before. I'm sure I can tell them better than she can now. It's bad enough that she tells all of these stories ad infinitum, but she tells them not in summary form but:

"She was standing like so, and her facial expression was like this, and then she said 'blahdiblahblah'. So I went ..." She usually does something rude and expects praise for it, which I always smack down. I'm getting pretty rude about it myself these days.

I generally wish to stick forks in my ears whenever she's around. It's bad enough she does this all on the phone, but in the end she says "and so come over" and I feel sorry enough for her that I normally do and then she tells me everything she did on the phone all OVER again. When on the phone it takes me about an hour to get rid of her, too. In person? Two hours and I'm dying to have my hair set alight, have a heart attack, anything, to get away.

The second person also lives nearby, and she doesn't have the horrible tendency to tell me everything twice, luckily. Yay. But she does tell me all about her family, her work woes, and in depth stuff about her fandom when I'm just not interested. The phone call will culminate with "come over!" ... and I'm already dying not to, but I do anyway. So she'll tell me all about her fannish stuff all over again, when, guess what? Not interested. So I fear that phone call.

The third person I don't get to see face to face often, thankfully, so I only get a phone call a couple of times a year from her. She lives very far away. Hers are almost the worst of all.

Last two times she called she went in depth about every single mailing list she was on. Itemised. In great, excruciating detail, while I went "uh-huh" and even wandered away from the phone to get a drink and came back and nobody noticed. I do this to all three people and they never notice. The listing of mailing lists nearly killed me; she went on about it for 40 minutes. The phone call itself was nearly two hours long, and she only went away then because my brother was trying to use it.

Worst of all that particular phone call was when she told me excitedly of how she'd gotten the face of Data of Star Trek: Next Generation tattooed onto her back, and wasn't that just a splendid idea? I was already trying to disassociate myself. It only got worse when she started saying she was going to get two Enterprise character faces on her back as well, and then the Enterprise herself. Then show the face of the character to the actor who plays him at an uncoming convention.

I nearly screamed "are you mad!?" into the phone, but restrained myself and suggested that this might weird him out a little. I was a bit more forceful about this when she suggested getting her favourite actor to sign his name onto her skin and run off to get it inked in. I had horrible flashbacks to HLDU4 where people were assuming I was going to get this done. Now I fear this person more than ever.

So I fear phone calls. It's bad enough that I feel horribly idle when on the phone, but when I get weirdos and boring people talking to me on them I wish for a headset so I could at least go clean the bathroom, something, while listening to them jabber away. Instead I'm stuck in the kitchen with various family members giving me the evil eye -- as if it's my idea to get bored out of my skull -- because they want to use the phone, or alternatively have them listen in to everything I say. At least not many people ring me; other than these three, the only other person to ring is again a local, but who doesn't nearly annoy me as much as these three.

My main use of phones is to ring people and find out if they're home so I can go visit, or find out if they're where they're meant to be, or some other thing like that. Not for extended chatting, not usually ... although I've made enough exceptions for this with interesting folk. If there's an extended pause, I want them to let me say "well, gotta go" and not try to make me stay on the phone another half hour. There's nothing worse than a pause and then having the person gabble on in a different direction in a blatant attempt to keep me on the phone. Ack. E-mail. E-mail is good.

I was biking around, as per usual, and was taking the Gilmore-Bardon-First-biketrack-Juers-Jacaranda-Ashton-Chestnut route, which I've done the past week because it doesn't take much effort to think about and is pretty low-intensity. If I want to do high intensity I normally go for the hilly places, but I haven't in over a week because I'm too lazy.

I was on the Juers stretch home and on the sidewalk when a white car came up and pulled up on the side of the road just in front of me. I thought the guy must have been lost since he'd stopped in front of what was a vacant property adjacent to a newly built house. I went past and down around the corner to go into Jacaranda when the car came up again and stopped in front of me. This time I thought it a bit weird since if he was lost he had just stopped about 10 metres before the service station; he could have gone in and asked. When I went past him again he started up and went in front of me, but took the left under the bridge so I thought nothing of it, taking the right into Jacaranda.

I thought nothing of it too soon. I was pedalling away and next thing I know the same car appeared in front of me, coming out of Attunga -- which is notable because the left turn he took was a loop under the bridge and he'd have to have gone up Juers once more to about where he started following me to take Attunga to come up in front.

Once more I went past, and once more he came up behind me and stopped in front of me, coming out of his car. I sped up and took the sidewalk rather than pass him on the road. I heard him say something but kept on going.

He got in his car and went up in front of me again, this time just in front of where Ashton would start. Again I took the sidewalk -- for I'd gone on the road -- and went through the small carpark to avoid the corner. I kind of figured out by now this guy was being weird and instead of going up Ashton like I normally do I took the first turn off Ashton into Roseash, where Jacqui lives. He came up that street too.

Sheesh.

Only now I was going to stop in at Jacqui's and tell them I had some weirdo following me. Instead he kept on going, around the corner of Roseash -- and I stopped, turned around, and went back the way I'd gone, taking the normal Ashton route. I wasn't going around that corner blind, not when I could go another way home.

When at the top of the hill at Ashton I looked back and saw that he was coming out of Roseash, leaving to go back onto Jacaranda. I was over the hill and on the other side before he saw me (maybe?) -- and I didn't have much longer to go.

Ha. I know Kingston like the back of my hand, all the little side streets. I could have led him a merry chase all the way through and then come home without him being any wiser. If he'd been a real dick I could have even gone through the park and come out on one of many different street exits, even. Or gone to the police station, which is right on the edge of the park.

Following me around! On my bike! I've never had anyone follow me around in Brisbane before. That always happened to me in Sydney -- and shitted me off, because it happened every single bloody time. See, that's why I have negative associations with the place. I forgot to get the car's rego, quite stupidly, for I could have dobbed him in. Oh well. He got off this time.

The morning of the second day I went walking along one of the beaches and met a rather strange guy. He told me that the world was going to end sometime between December 13th 2005 and December 2012.

It was funny because we spoke for hours -- I'd been up around 5am and begun walking, and when I got back it was a lot later. His theories went from ... well ... just about everything imaginable. They were so entertaining I have to write about them, and even though I didn't believe him I went along with the conversation because the creativity involved was boggling. It was like a real-life science fiction novel.

The conversation started with his telling me that the east coast of Australia was going to get overwhelmed by a 125m tsunami and that he was going to move to either higher ground or the tablelands to make sure that he wouldn't get swept away by it all. He was most insistent that I do the same to save myself. Somehow this isn't all too unfamiliar. I have the feeling someone's told me that before.

He was really big on the bible as a tool of prophecy, which was odd because just the day before I'd had a discussion about the veracity of the bible in its translated form and in a cultural perspective. We both agreed with one another that the King James translation, although still the most widely selling, is most probably the one most wrong. The way he used the bible to support his hypotheses ... well.

( His theories of alien invasion and other things. )