Small Crosses.

1. I'm working Modays to Fridays. This is so incredibly civilised I can scarcely believe it. Still, I can't see myself ever turning into one of those people who await Friday nights with tragic, terrible fanaticism, but if you don't get out much Friday nights are pretty null and void no matter what schedule you keep. 

I leave home at the same time sharp every morning. Not because I have a rigid start-time - I don't - but because I am happiest when running a tight ship. I negotiate the kangaroo and koala-strewn road encased in my metallic womb and most mornings I pass two other men, similarly encased in their metallic wombs, both heading in the opposite direction. The way I imagine it, all three of us are on keel, up on our own small crosses, running to our own small schedules. We wave to each other, by way of lazily lifting a partially stiffened index finger some way off our steering wheels. I just love this. Two and a half cups of coffee and this small ritual of the road five mornings a week go a long way toward steadying my psyche. And I appreciate the gentle reminder that although I am at the centre of my world, it is not the only world.

2. My boss has taken it upon himself to screen potential men for me. He doesn't know it yet but he has no idea what he's got himself into. Terminal tiredness and decay will creep into his eyes over the course of the next month or two, forcing him to abandon the cause. In the interim, though, I am enjoying his particular and peculiar brand of insights. He is a hatchet faced 55 year old Collingwood fanatic, so on paper, at least, he is highly qualified. Even so, it won't last. As it stands he's already working overtime to keep those he deems undesirable at bay.

I mentioned that I make a relatively relaxed girlfriend (I lied) but that my car is extremely needy and high maintenance so maybe a mechanically minded man would be best. Him: "Oh yeah?"  Me: "Yeah. Bear it in mind."

This has been going on for the last week or two. Today was notable for two reasons. The first was that I got caught in a violent downpour and had to take off my pants and drive home in my drawers, and the second was this exchange, between me and my boss:

-"That new guy hasn't been over here sniffing round has he?"
-"Who? I haven't seen anyone"
-"Good. He keeps saying 'who's that nice blonde girl' and asking to go next to you and I said 'YOU STAY AWAY FROM HER!'"
-"I haven't seen him"
-"Keep it that way. You'll wish you hadn't"

Afterwards it occured to me, (not for the first time), that I really do prefer my interactions with people to be fleeting and brief. The fact that the exchange of raised index fingers between myself and several strangers, both encased in metal chambers and both heading in opposite physical directions nourishes me and helps me hold against the tide attests to this.

Glazed eyes, the shame of unlived lives and the lying dullness tend not to show through windscreens when you're driving at speed.

Keep the pedal to the metal.
Drive on, straight on.