It's currently 7:59pm on Wednesday 26 August. I'm sitting in the front lounge room with Mum while she watches The Guns of Navarone, a 1961 World War II adventure film starring Gregory Peck, David Niven and Anthony Quinn. I have sat here so many times while she watches it, but I've never actually watched it in full myself.
I know the storyline, though. During World War II, a small team of Allied commandos is sent to the German-occupied Greek island of Navarone to destroy two enormous guns threatening British naval forces. Facing treacherous terrain, enemy soldiers and betrayal from within, they must infiltrate the fortress and destroy the guns before time runs out.
My favourite bit involves Maria, a young Greek resistance fighter, and Andrea Stavros, played by Anthony Quinn. Amid all the tension and violence, she simply says, “Mr Stavros?” and, when he replies, “Yes?”, she tells him, “I like you.” I love that bit, and I love it when Mum remembers it's coming up in the film and tells me to watch.
Last week, I had my first volunteer shift at the Art Gallery of South Australia. The role I will eventually be doing is front of house, greeting people as they enter the gallery. For my first shift, I was partnered with an experienced volunteer who showed me the ropes.
They currently have an exhibition on at the gallery, Monet to Matisse, and because of that the front desk was extremely busy. It was so busy that I pretty much had to stop shadowing the more experienced volunteer and jump in and start directing people myself. I felt very comfortable doing that, and I think that came from years of temping and learning to just get on with things on the fly.
I had wanted to do this volunteer role for so long, and the people were lovely, but to be honest, I was surprised that I didn't love it.
I have spoken before about my older half brother, who married into a very wealthy family, and the incredibly pretentious matriarch of that family who is heavily involved with the Art Gallery. I know I've mentioned how much I hate those elitist attitudes towards art in particular, because artists themselves are generally rebels and not like that at all. I didn't come across anyone like that matriarch, but I did get a whiff of the snobbery around art that I both don't understand and deeply reject.
It's funny, when I was standing there at the front desk, I saw a married couple who are both artists and teachers at the Adelaide Central School of Art. They sauntered in and looked so cool, like they belonged there. They didn't need directions because they knew exactly where they were going, and there was a part of me thinking, I don't want to be here.
As I left the gallery, I took the following photo of the front of the building.
Later on in the week, I had my first shift with the organisation that works with offenders. My role is calling people on home detention, mainly to check in on them and see if the organisation can offer them any more support.
The office is in the north-west suburbs of Adelaide and sits within the same complex as a shopping centre which, oddly, has two Romeo's Foodlands. I got there early for a 9:30am start, so I went to a cosy little cafe within the shopping centre and had a coffee. I also ordered a cheese and tomato toastie and asked the lady serving me if she would put mayonnaise on it.
She agreed, and when she brought it out to me, I didn't think anything of it. What I think neither of us realised, though, was that the mayonnaise would liquefy from the heat of the toastie machine. As a result, it dripped all over my top. Luckily, I was wearing a zip-up jacket, so I did it up and no one knew the difference.
As I was leaving the cafe, I noticed a little car ride for children close by. I went over to take a look and realised that it was a convertible Beetle, part of the same family as my car. I took the following front and side profile photos of the car.
I made my way over to the office and, as I went up in the lift, I took note of the graffiti inside it.
I don't know if that is actually considered graffiti or whether it's more a case of someone signing their name. I have heard that people who tag their names or nicknames are able to recognise each other from their particular tags. It's remarkable how similar this behaviour is to a dog marking its territory by peeing on it.
The office is pretty secure, and I know they are very conscious of security in general. When I rang the bell and told the lady who answered that I was there to volunteer, she told me that the volunteer coordinator wasn't in yet and asked me to wait on the chairs outside. I had no problem doing this because, while I was waiting, I spotted what I viewed as the perfect window. You can see a photo of it below.
I never see four-pane windows anymore. I thought it looked absolutely breathtaking. I know it's just a simple window, but it had a magical quality to it. If you look closely, you can see the view through it, which was of a beautiful, cold and wet winter's day.
When the volunteer coordinator arrived, we went inside the office and I settled in at my desk. She had a meeting and told me to have a look at the list of people I had been assigned and go through their case notes. Of course, due to confidentiality, I am not going to write about what I read.
But I will say that on more than one occasion, I read that an offender had been affected in one way or another by having a police check. One person said that once they were asked to undergo a police check, they withdrew from applying for that particular job. Another said that if their employer found out about their conviction, they would resign.
My reason for wanting to call offenders was because I understand what it's like to have issues with police checks because of a criminal conviction. I have one for talking on my mobile phone while driving. I know some people laugh or think that really isn't an offence, but it is a very serious offence. If you use a mobile phone while driving, you can cause an accident and you could kill someone. I have read about people who have done just that.
In saying that, my conviction is different from the ones I read about, but to me, I am the same as them. On paper, we are all convicted criminals, and unlike at the Art Gallery, I knew I belonged in this volunteer role.
I ended up calling two offenders on my first shift, and they both went through to voicemail. I left messages, and my volunteer coordinator told me I had a lovely phone manner, which I really appreciated, seeing as talking on the phone is really my trade.
I made the calls in a small meeting room with the volunteer coordinator, and in between the two calls we got chatting. She would be around my age, and she talked about how passionate she is about working with offenders. She talked about people making mistakes and then those mistakes affecting them for the rest of their lives. She said she liked knowing that she had made some difference in an offender's life.
I think you can look at it from a number of angles. The most obvious would be the victim of a crime and how they might feel about the perpetrator of that crime moving forward with their life and having the opportunity to start again, when in fact the victim may never start again. I think about all the different crimes a person can commit and the infinite number of consequences that can happen as a result of them.
But at the end of the day, someone has to be in the offender's corner. I'm not necessarily in their corner, because I am actually very tough on crime myself. But I am like them. On paper, we are the same.
I've mentioned previously that I entered into a conversation with a man named Liam, who I was involved with a society with. Things got sexual and very flirty very quickly, and now I sit here a couple of weeks later realising that I seem to be a magnet for B-grade men.
Don't get me wrong, Liam is a lovely person. He is a nice man. But he has got a partner, and he is always complaining. He talks about how much debt he's in and how he doesn't have any money. Do some men think this type of talk actually attracts a woman?
He doesn't even read the newspaper or watch the news. I cannot imagine that, and the thing is, he doesn't care that he doesn't know what's going on in the world. I would never in a million years get involved with a man who didn't follow the news.
Money means nothing to me in a partner, but there is something a little bit obscene about constantly going on about how much debt you're in, how much you need to save money and how you download shows because you can't afford to buy them. Liam is 55 years old. He told me he's been looking for a new job for ten years.
So I asked him for a copy of his résumé and, with my friend Hussein, we fixed it up. Now I'm going to help him find a government job, and I'll do the job and person specifications myself until he gets something.
I want to be there for people, and I don't want to judge, but at the same time, I think I can do better than this. If you're living on a prayer, do it with some integrity. Don't whinge, complain or victimise yourself.
It has got me thinking, though. I'm 45. What if Liam is the last man who ever shows any interest in me? Or, if I do ever get into a relationship again, is it going to be with a man like Liam? I want so much more than a man like this. It's not the money, it really isn't, but there's got to be something more than this out there for me. There just has to be.
Last Friday night I went to my friend Hussein's house to do Liam's resume. Hussein got me a birthday cake to celebrate my birthday which was the Sunday before. You can see the cake below.
He's so lovely. We usually celebrate our birthdays together every year. His wife and all three of his children are normally there, but his wife and oldest daughter are currently in Iraq for a special Muslim pilgrimage. Hussein got his other two kids to sing Happy Birthday to me, which was sweet.
I gave my old computer to Hussein's young son, and he was so happy that he gave me two big hugs, which was lovely because he usually just sticks to himself when I'm there.
Hussein and I spent the night doing Liam's résumé and just talking. I love spending time with him. I really admire him and his whole family.
The five of them, Hussein and his wife and their three children, migrated here from Pakistan with $10,000. I know that is a lot of money, but that was it. There was no safety net. They had to rent a place, pay for everything and they had no guarantee of an income.
Hussein worked hard. He first bought a bike and did Uber deliveries on it. Then he bought a car, and eventually he got a job in tech. His story tells me that anything is possible, and it is people like Hussein and his family that Australia should welcome with open arms. I have known them for quite some time now, and they have become like family to me.
I went to the doctor the other day. It was the young, precocious one who wanted to see me about my toe. She just wanted to do a final check to make sure it had healed over, and it had completely. She couldn't believe it, and she also asked if she could take a photo so she could show the other doctor who had been involved in its treatment.
Of course, I let her take the photo, and for a moment I thought about how seriously these two doctors had taken my toe. The severity of the wound didn't seem to have registered with me.
I got off the bed in her consulting room and she asked if I had any other medical needs. I said I was fine, but she looked at my file and saw that I was overdue for a cervical cancer screening test by something like 19 years. Back when I last had one, it was a Pap smear, but now you can do it yourself.
She handed me a swab-like thing, looked me in the eye and said, “This is like a RAT test for your vagina,” before telling me what to do. I couldn't help but think about my old, retired GP, who I'd had since I was a child. In some ways, he was quite youthful and modern. For example, he went surfing, but he was mostly a traditional doctor. I wondered what he would have thought of her description of it as “a RAT test for the vagina.”
Just before I left, she looked at the computer once again and told me I was overdue for my bowel screening. I told her I had literally just become eligible because I had only just turned 45, and she said she wouldn't hassle me about it yet. I'm yet to complete the cervical cancer test, but I will do it over the weekend.
I made fun of this doctor a little bit before. She has a youthful arrogance, but around two weeks ago I had an appointment scheduled with her to check on my toe. I received a text message from the clinic to confirm the appointment, and you could write back Y for yes or N for no. I couldn't go, so I typed N and thought nothing of it.
But later that day, this young doctor called me and asked if I was okay. She told me she wouldn't be able to sleep that night unless she knew my toe was okay. There's something to be said for that. She didn't have to call me, and I thought that if I really do end up alone in the later stages of my life, hopefully I'll have a GP who cares enough to ring and check up on me if I can't make it to an appointment.
I sent 75 local letters out the other day. They were addressed to bakeries around Australia, asking about sausage rolls for the project I am putting together for the Attorney-General. You can see the letters at the post office below.
I've been waiting on news about the call centre job. I was offered the position subject to a hearing check and a police check. I have my hearing check tomorrow morning, and I have applied for the police check through the process they asked me to follow, but I am still waiting on a response.
I got a call from the recruitment agency today asking if, assuming the hearing check goes okay tomorrow, I can start next Monday, to which I said yes. They didn't say anything about the police check. I wonder if they are assuming it will come back clear. It should come back clear, but there is always a chance my conviction for using a mobile phone while driving will come up. I'm just going to hope like hell it doesn't.
I saw the sad news that Dolly Parton had died. I loved her. I thought she was a force of nature. I read a lovely tribute from talk show host Jimmy Fallon:
"And even though we did all that, I would still get butterflies just being in her presence. And that's kind of what I think of when I think of Dolly. She's like a butterfly. Beautiful . Magical. Dreamy. And like most butterflies, they stay for a moment - captivate you, fascinate you, mesmerise you and then fly away far too soon. I love you Dolly. I will always miss you."
I teared up a little when I read it. I thought it was a beautiful way to capture the sadness of losing someone like Dolly.
