I was in bed by 11:30pm, but a hard ride into work today and a slightly earlier start than normal has proved my undoing. I’ll begin with overall tiredness causing me to open a large can of sardines and spray sizeable gobs of oil (think 20 cent piece sizes) all over my work shirt at lunchtime – down the left sleeve, up to my neck and to the belt. Completely undisguisable. I have a spare shirt, so visitors at the Travel Lodge adjacent to my office window may have spotted some raw male torso if they were glancing my way around 12:15. So, heading into various Chemists and Photo-Labs in the city, seeking a seemingly impossible red-backgrounded passport photo for my Indonesian Police Permit, I soon come to the conclusion that it just isn’t possible unless I buy a red towel somewhere. I falter when I find a place that can do a blue background (apparently used for Indian passports) and using the Hollywood blue-screen theory that if I photoshop the pic, it will be easier to change blue to red than white to red, else risk turning my eyes into fireballs, I buy a CD of the image, and forget to get my $23.95 recipt. Then, stupidly, they print me out a set of blue-background shots anyway – ones which show stinging eyes needing a decent sleep, and a chin tucked in ridiculously, trying to avoid flash glare. No I won’t post it here. POSTSCRIPT: I got a red background!
Since I was so far into the bowels of the city by this stage (and hopelessly late on my lunch break) I decided to use my birthday present $50 Dymocks Gift Card on two books that I carefully selected over 15 minutes (Grushin’s “The Dream Life of Sukanhov” and Sebold’s “Austerlitz”). Then I found I was in Reader’s Feast, not Dymocks, and had to leave them at the counter. Heck they’re virtually the same anyway. I decided it was really time to curl up under my desk and sleep for an hour to right this awful wronging and avoid the now inevitable bike accident on the way home – but I came back and wrote this and drank a rare soft drink. Wish me well on my journey home tonight. I will be riding extra carefully.