We have it pretty good in this country. I know I do. Most of us have a roof over our heads and access to reasonably useful food. And for those who don’t, there’s access to services, welfare and community aid programs. No-one in a privileged place like Australia really has much to complain about.

And yet…

I’m having a hard time finding a job. I mean… I have a job, but my contract expires in June and there’s no funding available to keep me on after that, so I’m looking for a new one. I’ve had a couple of close calls for jobs which would have been fantastic, but even after making it to the interview stages, I’ve been denied. So that’s disappointing.

Another thing that’s annoying me more than it should lately is the NT Literary Awards. More specifically, my failure to get shortlisted for them. I don’t want to seem like a bad sport or like I have a higher opinion of my own writing than I should, but I was quite disappointed not to make the last round with a play I submitted. That’s fine. I decided to submit a request for feedback to find out what went wrong. I got this reply from the organisers:

Unfortunately, of your four pieces, only one has received written comments. It’s one of the hardships of dealing with a panel of volunteer judges, that you can’t tick them off for failing to follow orders! Please find one piece of feedback attached for Traditional English Hospitality.

I don’t want to bag the Lit. Awards too hard, because they do a great job promoting NT writing, but I do wonder how they made the decision not to shortlist me when there was no feedback on anything I’d written. Well… whatever. I’m not bitter. I’m never at home to Mr Bitterbottom.

And it doesn’t matter anyway. I’ve always been of the opinion that as long as I’ve got my keyboard and my car, there’s nothing I can’t do. It seems a strange thing to base my independence and self-confidence on, but there you have it. If I can go anywhere and I’ve got Samantha with me, we’re all good.

On Saturday night my car broke down. This is a calamity in anyone’s life, but in Darwin it’s particularly disastrous, as buses tend to come about once every fifteen years. And for me it was a double blow as I watched the otherwise faithful GSS Unity being hoisted onto the tow truck: Genius that I am I left my keyboard sitting on the back seat.

Fortunately I’m in a position where I can walk to both work and church from my house, so the loss of my car doesn’t cripple me completely like it did when I was without a car in Palmerston. But here I am in the middle of the year when everything was supposed to be falling into place for me and I can’t get a job, apparently I can’t write, and now I have no car and no keyboard. At times like this a man falls back on the only recourse left to him: Whinging about it on his blog. I mean… praying.

Fresh from last week's spectacular demonstration of things going right for me, I'm just a little frustrated at my seeming inability to catch a single break. Ah well. One Body and Happy Yess comedy are both coming up. Hopefully that will turn things around.

Make of that what you will.

Garry with 2 Rs

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