Hieronymous the Anonymous

Enough!

Every time I pick up a newspaper these days I feel a little bit depressed, and not just for the litany of disasters around the world.

More than anything else I feel myself dispirited by the many examples of mean, self-serving and often hostile actions of people in the news. Most of these are politicians, unsurprisingly. I feel like I have just about reached my limit in the last month. I'm sick and tired at much of the crap, the empty rhetoric, the political posturing, the political correctness that seems to be everywhere these days. Enough is enough!

I pick up the paper this morning and there's more about Rudd's so-called 'Indonesian solution' and how it's becoming unravelled - as it should be. This is a shameless example of another politician abstaining responsibility, passing the buck to the Indonesians who, it now seems clear, don't want to take it. Make a decision man! Cut the tough talk - it's a bit like the Milky Bar kid coming on strong, and just as laughable. Be honest, be real, act with fucking integrity for a change... No-one ever said being PM was going to be easy, but you wanted it - now be the man the office demands. Be above party politics, act according to what is right rather than what is convenient and easy - and take responsibility. Your wife puts you to shame.

Then there is the ongoing fiasco about global warming and how to deal with it. Fuck me dead these politicians put Nero to shame. They'll still be arguing about it and trying to gain some political advantage while planet earth turns into a sizzling ball of flame. Can they not see there are more important things than protecting their sorry arse? Silly question of course - the answer is no, they can't.

Then there is the carry on here in Vic about city violence and booze. This too has become a political football. Every aspect of this is now scrutinised for potential political gain, all clamour and hue. Much of it is a sideshow, the irrelevant theatre the politicians put on trying to make themselves look noble (when will they learn?). In the meantime the real problems and the real causes are ignored because that way lays vested interests no-one wants to put offside. This is a problem of their own making yet no-one is willing to own up to that - and so instead we have this shadow theatre which does not one whit of good.

Of course there is much more than that, but I can't be bothered going on. Let me conclude though with the latest farcical contribution to cultural debate here in Australia.

As I write this picture me with steam coming out of my ears. A couple of days ago some shit-stirring dickhead made a big song and dance about racist biscuits Coles are selling. That's right, racist biscuits! Good grief. The biscuit in question was called a Creole Cream, which according to this prick (Sam Watson you idiot) is another example of the racist nature of Australian society. His claim is that Creole is derogatory word to describe someone of mixed blood.

I'm no expert, but my understanding is that Creole is not a derogatory term and in fact is a description of pride for many people - and why should it not be? It's these cultural Nazis that turn everything upside down and make the innocent evil. For the record  Creole is in fact recognised as a language for one thing, and of course Creole cooking or cuisine is well established. Bah, I don't even know why I'm bothering to explain this. I'm going to go the next person who tells me how to think and what to say.

PS Coles are changing the name of the biscuit.

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Blind tasting

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Thursday night was a lot of fun, but perhaps a little messy. Over the course of 5 hours I had about 12 glasses of wine and two cleansing ales. In between times delicious finger food prepared by the Seamstress cook was brought around on platters for our delectation. The venue was interesting - the suburban offices of Jeremy Oliver - and the crowd varied. I had fun.

The theory was that each of the 12 wines served on the night were matched to the food. There were a variety of wines, from Prosecco and sparkling Shiraz, to Riesling, Chardonnay, a brace of Pinot Noir's and the wine of the year - which we'll leave to later. Each of the wines were introduced by Jeremy Oliver, and were universally good. Really quite a treat for a wine lover.

In between times we mixed and mingled. There were a couple from my footy club I was surprised to see, Alec Epis, a great footballer in his day, recent board member and pretty good wine maker in his own right was one; the other the recently retired CHF of the team, Scott Lucas. I'd like to blame the prosecco, but I found myself uncharacteristically star-struck as I shook Scotty's hand. I've met him before, but I guess that's generally at times when I expected to. On Thursday I fear I may have acted like an awed kid searching for an autograph.

Mingled with a few others, including a antiques auctioneer I'm hoping to see, some attractive types, a few winemakers, and the various scions from good families, nice people all.

We left at about 1am I guess, but that was not before we'd each had a glass of the wine Jeremy Oliver awarded wine of the year status to. Perhaps it's no surprise it went to one of the great labels of Australian, if not the greatest: Grange Hermitage, this one the 2004 vintage.

It was lovely as you would expect of a wine that retails around the $600 mark. Speaking later to the winemakers they raved about it. And towards the end of the night when I asked Jeremy Oliver what was the best Australian wine he'd ever tasted he said the 1953 Grange - but this was next best and still had a lot of improvement in it.

I slept like a baby.

Living it up

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Much to share, no time to share it.

I'm sitting here at my desk with the sun shining outside and a headache splitting my head bi-laterally. It's almost 5pm, yikes, and at some point soon I have to have a shower and dress before the publisher gets here. We're off to a book launch tonight, Jeremy Oliver's Wine Guide 2010. There'll plenty of wine tasting naturally, good food, the wine of the year will be wheeled out and a good time will be had by all. You know I'm always up for a good time.

Notwithstanding a visit to the dentist yesterday, good times are abounding at the moment. It's that time of year, Spring, the weather improves, the sun comes out, Christmas is really only a hop, skip and a jump distant, and all the winter stuff is behind us. On top of that here in Melbourne is the Spring Racing Carnival. That's a pretty big deal.

I'm off on Saturday to the Cox Plate at Moonee Valley, and will be attending the Melbourne Cup just over a week later. I'm going plush this year, catered affairs with all laid on, pretty girls in their best frock and waering the annual fascinator, boys like me in the funky suit and tie. I'm even wearing a hat.

In the meantime the same old stuff - dinners, drinks, book launches and sundry celebrations.

Now I have to have my shower.

Without apologies

I spent another hour reading de Montherlant yesterday. I'm now up to page 180, and the way I'm going it wouldn't surprise me reading the whole 600 odd pages in gradual increments, picking it up occasionally to browse and dipping through the pages.

It's pretty easy reading. He's a very good writer, and an interesting one. And despite his indifferent rap I find the protagonist -  Costals - a very attractive character. He was widely described as a misogynistic, but I think that is inaccurate. He may be cynical and sometimes less than completely honest, but it is not directed at women only. He is a writer, one of those characters who sits on the edge of society and describes it with an acerbic eye, while maintaining his own affairs in a fashion consistent with that perspective. He's much more a misanthrope, though I think he is a decent man at heart.

One of the reasons I like Costals so much is that I identify with him. We're very unalike in some ways, but often there are words coming from his mouth that I could easily have said myself. Sure he plays the angles sometimes, but he is also witheringly honest. He has no shame as they say, and no embarrassment at his more predatory ways. I like that. I don't like hand-wringing of any sort, and least of all the hypocritical sort.

Reading last night I thought at one stage that this would be a good book for women to read, if only to get some idea of how men really think. But then I thought there would be many men up in arms at that, and not just because they might feel exposed. Many would feel slandered, and by their lights possibly with good reason. Not every man is like Costals, not by a long shot, and many would be aghast at the comparison - yet I would contend that most men have some Costals in them, even if only occasionally or in the past. Most men would not be nearly as smooth with it as Costals is, and fewer still reconciled with that aspect of themselves.

Once upon a time I wanted to be the 'best' man I could possibly be. Without being aware of it it is something I have given up in recent years, and not just because it is impossible to know what 'best' is. There are certain standards I wish to conform to and there are principles that will always be important to me - which I could summarise perhaps as being honest, fair, objective and true. They're well enough even if they sound like a boy scouts oath.

There is another side of me though that I have long since let off the leash. It worries me not one iota, and in fact I take a lot of pleasure from it, and not just because pleasure is the object of it. I see little point in dressing up something as noble when in fact it is something just about primeval. I've given in to my natural instincts, allowed myself in many circumstances to go the way I feel. When I've got in trouble in the past it's often been because I've gone against those instincts and tried to act according to a higher standard. No more.

I enjoy this book so much because I relate to it very strongly. I'm not Costals and I'm not living in 1920's Paris, but not much changes in the passage of time and space. I know myself well and that's the first step towards any kind of contentment. The next step is accepting yourself for what you are. What I love about Costals is that he is so completely and unapologetically himself, with little regard for what others think of him. This doesn't make him a monster - he is capable of tenderness and kindness, but they are what they are, not affectations but simply another part of his complex self.

Ultimately you don't do anyone any favours by being anything other than utterly yourself. Sure, there are constraints on how we can act, just as there should be, but I'm giving you the tip - happiness comes from accepting who you are and being true to it.

The wisdom of old books

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As the dark falls I lay on the couch with Rigby curled into me, sleeping. Outside the rain falls in a pleasant, soothing hush. The only light comes from the flickering images on the TV I am watching, a movie, Knowing, better than I expected until the end of the world unexpectedly arrives.

It feels early still when the movie ends. I feel restless, as if there is something unfinished. I wander up the hallway with Rigby in tow, check my emails and follow up on a couple of sites. I get up and walk over to the bookcase in the hall, opposite the front door. This is where I deposit my daily things, keys, loose change, sunglasses. the headphones for my iPhone. There is a large smiling Buddha on top, his hands clasped together, and a tall stylised figure made from metal - a straw hat sits on its head, my headphones slung over an arm.

I get down on my hands and knees as Rigby watches curiously. He's wondering if I want to play. Instead I peer into the books arrayed on the wooden shelves of the bookcase. My eyes pass over the titles on the well worn books, not searching for any book in particular, but searching for something. I'll know when I find it. Then I reach in and pluck from the shelves a thick book with a black spine striped with white from all the occasions it has been opened and closed, all the times it has been read. I wander back into my study and put it onto my desk, and turn.

I pad back down the hallway and to the kitchen. I pack the dishwasher and turn it on. I wipe the bench and close the back door. On impulse I pour myself a glass of port. It seems the right thing to do. I flip off the lights and in the loungeroom turn off the TV - Whitney Houston is singing.

In the silence I return to my study. I sit down in front of my PC and after glancing at it pick up the book from my desk. It is a collection of four novels by Henry de Montherlant entitled The Girls. It was famous in it's day, but that day is more than 50 years previous, and it was in Europe, France particularly, that that day shone brightest. It is a book I have read three times perhaps. There are 639 yellowing pages in it.

I flick through those pages, reading the first few words of the introduction before moving on. It is a book about a famous author and the relationship he has with the four women in his life. One, I remember, is a religious virgin who writes obsessive letters to him. He is cynical, world weary, he enjoys his life even if he doesn't think much of it. Pierre Costals is his name. It's a great book.

As you mature all sorts of things influence the person you become. Much of that is family and friends, the environment you grow up in, the seminal moments of your bourgeois life. Music is there too I guess, at least as a soundtrack, and for me books also. This book was one of those that stayed with me for reasons I could never explain. Perhaps I saw something of my burgeoning self in the character of Costals. Perhaps it is the time it is set in, and the place, Paris, that captured me and drew me back again and again.

I recall the first time I read it I was embarking on what was to be a troubled relationship. I had to that point lived freely, easily. I felt comfortable with myself, with the man I saw in the mirror, with the man I presented to the world. The days would slide by, work, then the weekends, easy conversations, sunshine, drink, and like a kaleidoscope different experiences, a variety of them, coloured, bright, vivid. I ate them up, feeling myself in every moment and waking the next morning with the sun streaming in through the window and wondering at what had happened, wondering at the wonder of it.

Perhaps I felt something of my life in this book, perhaps I sensed the transitory nature of my life in the descriptions of life Montherlant described in his books. Certainly at times I dwelt on the characters of the women and the relationships between them and Costals and their conversations, the dynamic between them, as if it was something I was learning even as I understood on my own. I lived, I enjoyed, I celebrated and I slept around and toasted it all even as I lay there in the morning light with a smile on my face - and I saw through it all.

Then that relationship I mentioned took off and I saw something else, in me and in the book. As my life changed so to did the way I read. And I suppose it was like that all the other times I read it, a variation on not stepping into the same stream twice. Now, much later, the book lies open on my desk again.

Reading randomly from the pages the story feels real, lived. Much of it is composed of letters and in the intimate, occasionally anguished voice there is something immediate. I can sit here reading this now as I did 20 years ago and be aware that the author is long dead and the characters he created creations only, never real, and even if they had have been they too would be long dead while I go on walking the earth and living my own modern day version of the sort of life he described.

What it is is true though, and truth is timeless. I'm not here to laud the book, that is not my attention. Rather I discover as I write that I want to draw attention to the reality of my life and everyone else's. Well that may seem a bit weird, but it is not really so. There are times you feel more alive than others, and they are times generally when you remember that you are alive, unbelievable as it is really.

Reading the letters in this book I might have written them myself at some time, or more likely received something similar from one of the girls who have careened through my life. Moments of intensity, of intimate importance that slowly fade away into the past. And the stories here, the conversations, even the rueful thoughts of Costals may well have been mine once, or still to be.

If we're lucky we live intensely, and in the middle of the storm. Even bad is better than nothing. To feel is to live; better still to feel and to know it, and seek to understand it. I'm at the midpoint of my adventures and don't know what is to come. I know reading through the pages of this book that nothing is new, everything that is has been before, and that no matter how much we burn up with feeling that this is the central human experience.

Spring springing

Image by [ r ♥ c e y t ♥ y ] {I br♥ke for bokeh} via Flickr

Today is one of those glorious Spring days that pop up from nowhere. The sky is a perfect blue and the sun a lovely shade of gold. Quite naturally your mind turns to summer, to music, to bright evenings and cold drinks and attractive girls. You feel it sizzle in you, like sherbet I guess, sweet and surprising.

I don't know what the temperature is - probably no more than 21 or 22 - but the direct sunlight is warmer than the ambient temperature, so warm in fact that I've spent the last hour reading the newspaper in the front courtyard with my shirt off. Rigby frolicked, chewing on bark and wandering around with his mouth open, his breath menthol sweet from the eucalyptus he had eaten. A day like today reminds me of the summer days to come, those eternal, timeless days when the sun burns the earth. 

Perhaps this is the best of it now. Earlier I was out scouting for breakfast, cruising through the backstreets of Clifton Hill before landing at Koby's in Brunswick. The coffee was good - they roast their own - and the crowd there varied, attractive blondes and regal, Germaine Greer look-alikes amid young families and, of course, us.

I can't really explain what I felt as we drove around town. People were out and about. They smiled, it seemed, more than usually, as if they had come out of a long hibernation and re-entered a golden, happy world. Both of us hummed under our breath (Under The Milky Way for me), observing the action and quietly commenting on the plans we had. 

I felt myself whole again, as if I need the sunshine to properly wake, a flower turning its face to the golden rays. Ah, that's good, and as I felt that and considered all that it meant I felt ready, alive, vibrant, and oh so hungry...

Hero or villain?

Some random media news from the life of H:

I watched the news the over night and saw a girl I dated a few months back, on top of a swaying pole in a promotion for a show her company is putting on in the Melbourne Festival. She's a dancer.

And a mate of mine is making a CGI fantasy/sci-fi movie and wants me to voice one of the characters. Either the commander in chief or a villain. Villain might be more fun.

Yahoo indeed

How strange it is to be sitting here after dinner and for it to be light still outside. Daylight savings helps, but it's also a sign that we are well and truly heading towards summer. It may seem a long way off on cold days like today and with hail forecast tomorrow, but it's very welcome.

I like the winter well enough. It's an introspective time. You rug up, you eat well, you read and lay on the couch to watch DVD's. The footy's on to, the red wine goes down well, and life is slow and rich. Its allure fades though eventually as one short cold day follows another. You find yourself thinking of summer, of long, warm nights sipping on cold drinks in the company of good friends in a beer garden somewhere, or maybe just at home. As you pile on the layers of clothing you recall the simplicity of slipping on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, and sloping around the place in your flip flops.

Then it slowly comes, gradually, inch by inch, day by day. You feel yourself enthused with the prospect, knowing that it's coming, yahoo. Sure, I'm in a thick jumper right now, but I've got a glass of honey vodka on the desk, and before I ran in the slow fading dusk feeling like a kid again.

That's the great thing about seasons, and why places who don't have them miss out big time. I love the transition from one to the other, and the feeling that never passes that there is always something to look forward to.

Gone and still to come

Friday night I went out drinking (La Buena Vita and Cabinet), which culminated in a midnight feast at Crown gulping down KFC and Krispy Kreme donuts. In other words, a typical, unhealthy Friday night.

On Saturday I was content to take it easy. The sky was low with cloud, it was cool, and through the morning a few showers passed by, which became late in the afternoon a heavy, hushed rain. I stayed in bed late and when I got up I tended to the usual Saturday chores and routines.

In the afternoon I set myself a task. I have about 300 odd CD's crammed tightly together in the draw of my entertainment unit. There are few I play with any regularity, and even those are rare. I'm almost ashamed to admit that most of my music is now heard in mp3 format or something similar, in my iPod or iPhone, through the iTunes on my desktop or streamed to remote speakers. CD's seem very old hat these days. And so I decided to clean out the drawer, toss the CD's I don't want (giveaways, prizes, ill-considered purchases), pack away the CD's I never play, and generally make space in the drawer for the CD's I listen to, and the growing collection of DVD's that don't have a home.

There are worse jobs than this. I sat on the coffee table in front of the unit sifting through the CD's putting them into different piles while outside it was cold and dreary. I played an audiobook as I worked, a 'young adult' book as it happens by John Marsden, Tomorrow, When the War Began (pretty good). Time passed quickly and easily as I paused to decide which pile a CD belonged to, or stopped to consider a CD I had long forgotten.

One of the piles was of CD's I wanted to listen to again for olds times sake, and possibly to rip to my iTunes library. Towards evening I took these CD's into my study and began sorting through them on my Mac.

One CD I bought many years ago was by Rickie Lee Jones. Though it was an unusual CD for me I had searched for it a couple of months ago wanting to play a song from it. The CD is Pop Pop, a collection of covers of classic songs. It's a better CD than you might think, though for me now the CD is inextricably associated with a time in my life. It has sentimental value.

That's one of the things we love about music. How it frames our lives, our consciousness. It is great in itself, but of course there is a lot we come to associate with particular moments, or eras in our life. Music is a memory carrier, we need only hear certain songs to be transported back to other times.

That's how it was for me again on Saturday. As I played Rickie Lee Jones and listened to her sweet, slightly slurred delivery I remembered Berni. In particular I recalled a bright, warm Saturday afternoon when I lay on my couch in the early nineties - '91 perhaps? - and listened to this very CD. As I lay there I thought of Berni. Earlier in the day we had met at a house warming party of a colleague of ours, a Canadian girl called Maria and her husband Terry, at their new home in Burwood. 

We knew hardly anyone there and so Berni and I stuck together. Our relationship was always so delicate, and in this period we had slowly begun coming out of one of the difficult phases where she pulls away, uncertain and afraid of what she felt, and of the perils of commitment. She was bright though on this day sitting by my side in the bright sunshine, playful and cheeky and at her best. I was relieved to see this and delighted, and responded in the same way. Like this we bat things backwards and forwards between us in the style that always had other people smiling and shaking their heads at the wit and inventiveness and sheer affection that bounced between us.

What was notable about this day was after all these months of fraught relationship negotiations she slipped and made comment about when 'we are married'. I said nothing and made no sign that anything unusual had occurred, but I was secretly thrilled. This was a breakthrough of sorts, an acknowledgement by her of our relationship. What was significant was that she said it aloud, had made some sort of public commitment she could not rescind.

Once said though more came. We discussed what it would be like and what we would do and pondered what the children would look like. I went along with this gently, not pushing too hard or too fast, not revealing any of my own excitement. I acted as if everything was perfectly normal, afraid of giving her fright.

I think that's what I thought about on my couch as I listened to Rickie Lee Jones. There was one song which caught me more and which in the weeks and months after as our relationship fluctuated that I found myself coming back to again and again. Comin' Back To Me is a melancholy seeming tune that seemed to seep into me as I lay there. I didn't know what was to come. I didn't even know what I should think of our conversation hours earlier. All I thought was how I cherished her and wanted to hold her close to me, and shelter her; and how complex she was. The day dwindled into dusk and I lay there not wanting to get up from where I lay, not wanting anything to shift for those moments.

That doesn't happen though. Things shift and change always. At some point after that we argued and came together again and argued then for the last time. We shared good times in my home and hers and there came a time when I believed that the promise of that day was about to be realised, only to find a day later that it was all over. In time we parted and never saw each other again. Then years later I heard of her death, something I can never forget.

I remembered all that as I sat at my desk playing this long-forgotten music.

That might be end of the story, but it isn't.

I went out yesterday to a party at my Mums. It was surprisingly good and I got home at about 7pm with a few more wines under my belt. For the next few hours I lay on the couch and flicked through the TV stations. At some point I happened across Notting Hill, and stopped.

For a start the scenes in bustling Notting Hill reverberated in me for reasons I'll explain shortly. Then of course Hugh Grant meets Julia Roberts and though it's very unlikely they share a moment. Most blokes at that point would have accepted it for what it was, taken it as great story to tell the mates down the pub. Of course in the movie Hugh Grant contrives to meet again the unattainable movie star, and of course, in the way of movies, ends up landing her. No doubt they live happily ever after.

As I watched I felt my excitement grow as if this meant something. Here was a message or a meaning.

On Saturday morning I had woken to find an email waiting for me from a head-hunter inviting me to apply for this you beaut job in London for double the money I was earning in my last job and with a 40% bonus. My first thoughts were sounds great, but...why don't these jobs come up in Melbourne? It didn't seem feasible, and though I ruminated on it over the rest of the weekend that seemed pretty much it.

Seeing this movie re-awakened that possibility. I could be living in those streets, I thought. Why not? What is there to lose? It dawned on me then how quickly things can change. We never know what's around the corner, and even when things seem darkest it does not take much to light things up again. I watched Hugh Grant in his clumsy pursuit of Julia Roberts and I admired his persistence - he lived the dream, and though it's only a movie, he got it. That's the thing, you have to for it. You have to believe in the dream and live it.

When I heard of Berni's death and found she had killed herself I was profoundly moved, as you might expect. There is one abiding outcome from that which may seem odd. I grieve for Berni, I loved her with all my heart and even all those years later she had only to call on me and I would be there to help her. That was not to be. Her life seems sad and unfulfilled, and I was part of it. I have felt ever since that I have to live for her as well, that in some way I had to make-up for what happened. 

Anything is possible. You can't curl up in a ball and hope things will right. And I don't think you should settle. I picked up the phone and called the friend I was out with on Friday night. She has been struggling one way or another in recent times. I told her what I thought. Don't give up. Keep believing, keep doing. She began to cry. I reiterated how quickly things can change, and that soon enough we might be laughing at how things turned out. And then, as she prompted me, I told her how it might be in every detail, how it might happen, realistic, but sweet.

As for me, I'll have a crack at the London job. Hard to believe there isn't anyone over there as well qualified as I am, and I don't expect it to happen, but, who knows. Live the dream, right?

To be or to be something else

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As I got out of the car yesterday outside my sisters my phone rang. It was some guy who had called me a couple of weeks ago about a job he had going. He had heard about me somewhere and wanted to ask me a few questions. Mindful that I should be hedging my bets I answered his questions as I walked home through the rain. Yesterday he had one more question to put to me, and potentially a job offer.

I'm not sure how this should make me feel, but in reality I felt very little. It was not really something I wanted to think about, and so I didn't. I hung up from our conversation and went up to see my sister.

This is quite a common experience. At regular intervals I get calls or emails from people inquiring about my work status and about if I would be interested in this job, or that. Almost always I respond positively to them, if only because I don't want to rule anything out.

I don't want these jobs though, not even the best of them. When I find myself in serious contemplation of what is being offered me I feel somehow diminished, as if that way lies defeat. Why then do I even consider these opportunities? Because I must.

Working for yourself is a precarious existence, particularly during an economic downturn of this magnitude, and doubly so when you're just starting off. There are no guarantees, and no certainty. Thus far I've got by with bits and pieces, dearly bought with my time and effort. None of it is easy. In the meantime I've sacrificed a lot to be in the position I am today. Even if I get this project I spoke of yesterday that is just one thing, a thing that has to be repeated over and over again, and if I am to truly prosper, multiplied two, three, four times over. None of this is handed to me, everything must be worked for, even the smallest of opportunities.

Yet I enjoy it. On the upside there is great potential. The business model is sound, there is a need in the market for what I offer - even if the market doesn't know it yet. If everything hits the spot then I'll come out of this both very satisfied and pretty well off. They're good enough reasons in themselves to do what I do, but in reality the greatest satisfaction comes from being my own boss. I feel as if this is something I was made to do. It's not that I think have this great wisdom to share - I know my stuff, but most of it is common sense mixed in with a unflappable temperament and a dash of imagination. All I do is mine though, and as far as I can see in any direction there are no limits on what I can do - and that's who I am. I revel in that freedom, I was made to go my own way.

It's hard now I have a true taste of it to contemplate working for the man again one day. I am free, why would I want to be caged again? Well I guess the sensible answer to that is for the security and predictability a steady job provides. I know what to expect from a proper job, even if it is not what I want. As it is I don't know what next week or next month or next year has in store for me going it alone. Let's face it, there is every possibility that my venture will fail - then what?

And so when I get these calls I respond if only to keep the option open. There is that sinking feeling though. What if I must go back to that? How would I cope?

I don't know the answers to that. Could I go back to working within constraints again? That's always been one of my issues, as if I was in a box I struggled to get out of. I've always felt myself to be much more than the job description I was given, and willing to give a lot more than what it promised - which is often frowned upon. Could I tolerate my horizons shrinking before my very eyes? This is how much you'll earn, and no more, this is your career path, and no different.

This is my dilemma. It's sensible to keep an open mind on these jobs, but what if I get offered one? And yet can I blithely persist with my own plans hoping they'll come good? And for how long? Should I be sensible? Should I continue to dare? Should I back myself to the hilt, and beyond, or should I accept that some things cannot be?

I figure I'll have to find the answers to these questions sometime before Christmas. I know some things. If I must go back into the rat race again then I will do it with a jet pack on my back. You can fuck off your constraints, I won't be boxed, I won't be ambling along. And I'll need something for myself, I know that, if I am to become a job title again, a payroll number, then somewhere in the world I will need something with my name on it, all mine.