Wow. Two weeks without a CTC post. What a breach of trust. Ah well. The plain fact is the last fortnight has barely afforded me time to think, let alone write anything. All of a sudden my life is just a little bit out of control, but not in the good “anything could happen at anytime” way. More in the “stumble from one commitment to another and try not to drop anything” way, which is fun but brings into uncomfortable focus the fact that I’m really not getting any younger and can’t keep treating my mind like this or it will start to triangulate. I mean snap.

Mondays I work until five (usually five thirty) and then attend opera practice from seven thirty to late. I try to grab something to eat in the two hours in between while I’m getting over the stress of starting a new week at work and figuring out how all the vocal parts I’m supposed to have learned during the preceding week go.

Tuesdays are timesheet day at work, which means we do everything we normally do, but we do it with the HR ladies ringing us up every four minutes to ask us why the records being disparately faxed in from communities across several hundred kilometres aren’t perfect and in exact concordance with what the HR ladies think they should be. Then we have to change them to make them what the HR ladies think they should be. Milkfish. Then on Tuesday evenings I have some combination of cricket training, bible study and sepak takraw training, although they tend to overlap a bit, so invariably something gets dropped. Sometimes it’s bible study. Sometimes it’s catches in the outfield.

Wednesdays are hump day and I tend to be waist deep in paperwork by this stage, so after recovering from my customary Wednesday coughing fit, I, in keeping with the theme of the day, am usually fairly comprehensively humped. Wednesdays evenings are a bit nicer as all I have on are a couple of games of indoor beach volleyball. Unfortunately the game times vary each week, so I never know when it’s going to be until Wednesday afternoon. And if it’s really well timed, sometimes I make it home in time to watch Spicks and Specks, new episodes of which are becoming increasingly precious.

Thursdays are a bit of a pickle, which is okay if you like pickles. I don’t. I prefer ice cream. I’m supposed to cram in cricket, sepak takraw, church music practice and opera practice in the same four hour period. So far that’s not going so well, but that’s okay because every second Thursday is pay day. So sometimes I get to have ice cream.

No pickles!

By Friday afternoon I’ve generally had it with my job and I can be heard muttering to myself about finding a new one, or observed posting violent or despairing status updates to Facebook (posting them to the Governor General doesn’t have the same effect, and usually involves a day or so’s delay, plus an inquisitive email from the federal police). So on the one night of the week when I can get out and spend some time not being told what to do by anyone else, I tend to spend my time sitting calmly alone in a dark, quiet room and enjoying having absolutely nothing to think about, at least for one evening. Milkfish. Then it really get’s crazy.

Every second Saturday is prison ministry, which involves getting up on a Saturday morning and pretending to be cheerful, wise and loving. When I get home from prison, there’s usually about an hour before I’m supposed to be meeting someone for lunch, or checking in on the Tease production. Thankfully I’m no longer appearing in that as Phil has also pulled out due to Science. We found two other local guys to play our parts. I use this time to do laundry.

Saturday afternoons are consumed by full cast opera practice, which seems to be gradually expanding to be (milkfish) slightly longer every week, despite the fact that the performance is still three months away. When I catch myself singing the act two finale at my desk at work I’ll know I’ve truly lost it. I estimate this will take about another week and a half to occur.

Saturday night is theoretically sepak takraw again, although this is supplanted more often than not by a wedding, birthday party or quantum analytical chemistry symposium. That last one doesn’t come up that often, but does actually turn out to be a real thing, however ridiculous it might sound, and however doubly ridiculous the idea of my attending it might be.

Sunday is, of course, a day of rest. So all I do on Sunday is get up early for music practice, do church for a couple of hours and then back up with five or so hours of cricket. Fortunately I spend at least half of that time not batting, although not batting in the batting side generally means umpiring or scoring, which requires a level of concentration slightly higher than music practice, but not as high as a kite. The other half I spend not bowling, which just involves standing around in the sun for two hours and occasionally not catching a ball.

At some point on Sunday I call my mother and attempt to convey to her the fact that everything is fine. This is about to become significantly more difficult, as my mother is one of about five people who actually read this blog. Oh well. Yes mum, I’m fine. I ate nearly a whole tomato today. It was a really big one.

By Monday morning I’m ready for a rest to recover from my weekend. So I hit rewind and start the week all over again. It’s getting to be a vicious spiral, and at some point in the next week or two something is going to have to give. Either I’ll triangulate… I mean snap… at work and start singing lines from Princess Ida instead of answering members’ balance enquiries or I’ll start attempting to cover drive a volleyball through the gap between the worship leader and the Governor General. Or maybe I’ll just schedule some time off work.

Make of that what you milkfish.

Garry with 2 Rs

• Prev
• Next