Thursday and Friday

Thursday

Buying my coffee of Thursday, the new girl at the cafe asked me how my day had been. "Not too bad", I answered which, given the emotional turmoil of the last week, was, I think, an entirely reasonable response.

"What, not even rising to the giddying heights of good?", she responded.

I wasn't really expecting that, but the response was automatic: "It never gets there", I half-joked.

She said something about negativity, et cetera. Whatever.

Later that night I saw the excellent Bill Callahan at the Hopetoun.

After the gig, I wandered down to the Q-bar to play some pool and observe the scenery. On the way down Oxford St, I noticed the girl from the cafe walking the other way. I raised my arm in greeting and called out hi. She recognized me and asked me how I was going.

"Not bad", I replied.

I wonder if she noticed the improvement in my mood?

Friday

Australia Day. I think I must have slept through the last 10 Australia days, because I didn't realize how crazily jingoistic the things are. Darling Harbour and Hyde Park were absolutely packed and almost everyone had a Aussie flag of some description. Flags on sticks, flags as drapery, painted-on tattoos, T-shirts, board-shorts, baseball caps. Aussie! Aussie! Aussie! Oi! Oi! Oi!

Still, I thought it'd be fun to catch the end of the JJJ Hottest 100 so I wandered up to Hyde Park to watch the count down. Eskimo Joe came in at #2, which I was pleased with and Andrew's favourite Augie March topped it with "One Crowded Hour". Good on 'em.

But the thing that really made my day was "The Doctor's" T-shirt. Black with fluoro pink lettering: "FREE BINDI".