At work today we had a really lovely birthday cake. It was rich and chocolatey and caramelish, and was enjoyed universally by the people I work closely with. We also had some chocolate in a meeting I was involved in. Aside from that, and some lovely calls and wishes, it’s been a reasonably quiet birthday. I had visions of doing something special for my forty-fifth, but at the end of the day I couldn’t be bothered. I think I’ll save up the celebrations for my fif…. fif…. fif…. fifitieth in 2015.
“It’s the invisible age” I told a bloke at work today. He’s a younger gay bloke – ten years young than me – and he asked how I felt about my birthday. “The thing about this age”, I told him, is that you become “invisible”. It’s an issue I’ve discussed with female friends of a similar age. You’ve lost the allure of youth, but haven’t quite reached the interest level of being older. You go into a bar, they serve the young people first, then the older, and somehow you get completely ignored. It’s the same on buses and in shops. It’s the “invisible age”. “You should go to bars where they serve old people”, he told me.
Despite this, it’s probably the best part of life. You’ve gained wisdom and feel more confident in who you are as a person, and the mistakes of youth are far behind. You haven’t learned everything yet, and there’s still lots more to learn. And yet you’re still physically fit enough not to have to worry about the ailments of aging. Career wise, I’m still “on the way up”, and I don’t think anyone has started to look at me with the “are you still here?” look on their face.
Even though it’s the “invisible age”, it’s also a great part of life. Roll on.
Customs at Sydney Airport this morning was an absolute nightmare. Although my baggage came off reasonably quickly, there were still delays.
I have one of those new “electronic passports” which, strictly speaking, speeds up the process of coming through customs. You’re supposed to swipe your passport, stand in front of the camera, and have your photograph taken, and then the door opens and you’re free. This morning, however, the camera failed to work for both myself and the people in front and behind me and so we had to re-join the queue. The queue which had the stupidest people in the world, by the way. “So, you don’t know what flight you came on, or what city you got on?”, I heard the customs officer say – infrustration – to the people in front of me.
Going through quarantine we had four lines coming into one which had its share of frustrations, as you might imagine. Worse, since a lot of people didn’t understand the Sydney traffic custom of allowing each row to have access to the queue one at a time. I only heard one person get angry, but there was a great deal of tension as we made our way SLOWLY through customs and quarantine this morning.
I didn’t bother with a taxi, since the queue there was just as bad, preferring instead the extortionate price of $15.80 (it’s gone up again, hasn’t it?) of the train from the international airport to Central.
Finally I was home and wide awake. Wide awake. Well, until I passed out after a couple of hours. It’s funny how after a flight you go from completely perky to drooling on your pillow. I didn’t expect jet-lag, since it’s only a few hours difference from Beijing, and I slept reasonably well on the flight, but I sure as hell slept well for most of the day. And here was I thinking working might have been an option today. Wrong.
Late this afternoon I woke and called my friend Graeme. Co-incidentally, he had just texted me to see if I wanted to catch up for a beer. It would have been great, though we had simply crossed paths. Instead, I’ve found myself still a bit jet-lagged and enjoying pizza on a Friday night back in Sydney. I’ve also been listening to a bit of the Chinese pop I bought as a souvenir of my visit. I quite like Khalil Fong.
I also passed the hours in my jet-lagged state by making some sense of my photographs and offer you the following…
I sent a text to my friend Graeme this afternoon to see if he wanted a beer after work. I haven’t seen him in a couple of weeks due to conflicting schedules. He was feeling a bit tired and was heading straight home from work. I still went out for a quick beer on Oxford Street. I also had a bite to eat and took a look in the Taylor Square Newsagency.
There was a time, not so long ago, when I used to buy lots of magazines. Computer magazines, fashion magazines (seriously), gay magazines. I’d even occasionally buy a gossip magazine, From what I recall, the last magazine I bought was a Swedish gossip magazine nine months ago. I’ve been reading it – slowly – ever since. So I wandered around the newsagency for a while, thinking maybe I’d like to buy a magazine, but there was nothing which appealed.
Taylor Square newsagency magazine rack
So with that certain restlessness out of my system, I wandered home.
After the wet weather of the last few days, it was a lovely evening in Sydney. I’m guessing that’s why I felt restless, by the way. As I looked around the streets, you could see on many people’s faces a desire to get out and about after a few days indoors. I mean, it’s summer, it’s Sydney, and we shouldn’t be stuck indoors.
On my way home I wandered down Bourke Street and observed the cycle-way remains under construction. I noticed a few cyclists – two – passing me who were forced to use the footpath instead.
Bourke Street cycleway under construction
And then, when arriving home I watched television for a while. There was the Julia Gillard cabinet meeting on ABC News 24 which I started to watch but eventually fell asleep during. The highlight (from what I saw) was a Year 12 student singing the national anthem, though the camera focussed on Julia. It was like she was lip-synching. I hope someone’s captured the video as I’d love to see it again.
The next few days will hopefully be a little more interesting. We have a work Christmas Party tomorrow. And then on Saturday or Sunday, I’m hoping a friend will realise he should celebrate his fif fif fif fiftieth and not let it go by. I’m also planning on heading down to Wollongong to meet a relative to discuss family history at some point.
“It was a good class tonight” Grant said to me, and I agreed, as we made our way along the street after tonight’s Swedish class.
Being an inherently lazy person, the one thing I hate about Swedish class are the repetitive grammar exercises.
On the other hand, I LOVE the conversation, I LOVE reading out loud, and I LOVE doing creative exercises.
One of the bits of homework, this week, for example, was to write a short piece about relatives. So I wrote a paragraph about my great-grandmother, Ellen Laing. Interestingly, the exact translation of great-grandmother is “mother’s mother’s mother”. With the way many ways in which Swedes name their relatives, you could also have something like “mother’s father’s mother” or even “father’s mother’s brother”. Etc. etc. etc.
Anyway, this is what I wrote
Jag ar intresserad av släktforskning. Sedan många år, har jag avslutat mina studier. Min mormors mor heter Ellen Laing. Hon bodde i Towamba, en småstad nära Eden i New South Wales. Historien om Ellen var sorglig. Hon hade fyra barn. Alla var illegitima. Två hade pappa, William Rixon, och två hade en obekant pappa. William Rixon var egentligen Ellens kusin. Ellen bodde och arbetade i Bombala många år. Hon var inte gift. Hon bodde en och avled på en utfattig vårdanstalt kvinnor
…which basically means that I am interested in family history and have studied it for many years. My great-grandmother, Ellen Laing lived in Towamba, a small town near Eden. Her story was very sad. She had four children, all were illegitimate. Two mentioned her cousin William Rixon as the father, whereas two listed father unknown. William had a family of his own, whereas Ellen didn’t and she lived for many years alone in Bombala. She lived and died in an destitute women’s asylum.
It’s a great story, eh?
But anyway, that’s the stuff I really love doing. And tonight was a good combination between the creative stuff which I love, and some of the rote learning stuff I know I need to put more effort into.
Though you often hear about the fitness goal of walking 10,000 steps every day, it’s not a realistic goal for everyone. Nonetheless, I’ve tried to walk every day. Though mostly for pleasure, I’ve walked to and from work most days over the last few years. My lower right limb amputation last year put a stop to that. But not for long.
My colleagues at ABC Radio Sydney, working on the Breakfast Show with Craig Reucassel, are running something called their “group assignment” right now. And this week’s Group Assignment involves counting up the steps to see how far listeners can walk collectively.
They invited me on radio to talk briefly about my experiences of learning to walk again, and about the 10,000 step daily goal we often hear about. This is a rough transcript.
Craig: I want you to meet one of my ABC colleagues, James O’Brien, and he has a special experience with walking. Thanks for joining us, James.
James: Hello, Craig.
Craig: So, tell us what happened to you late last year?
James: It was exactly on the first of July last year, when I had the lower part of my right leg removed, I had an emergency situation. I had that leg removed and so I wasn’t able to walk for at least a couple of months. I’ve had a lower limb prosthesis since the 17th of September last year.
Craig: And so as part of that process after getting the leg amputated, have you had to learn to walk again with the prosthetic limb?
James: Well, I had to learn, first of all, to sort of hop along in the hospital. I was in Sacred Heart Rehab at St. Vincent’s, which was awesome by the way, and while I was there I had to learn to slow hop along initially. I was quite amazed that I went from hopping to walking very quickly. In those early days, walking 10 steps was pretty remarkable. As opposed to the 10,000 a day, we often hear about.
Craig: Yeah, that’s amazing. It’s interesting with the prosthetic limb, I imagine the lack of feeling, like not being able to kind of feel, do you not feel a foot go down? What makes the walking process difficult?
James: What’s really interesting is that we have this thing that’s often called “phantom pain”, but I just call it “phantom sensation. And the first time I put on my leg, the prosthetic, I put my foot to the ground, I felt like my toes were touching the ground. So it’s not so much the lack of sensation there, it’s the energy that’s involved in actually walking day to day that is quite remarkable. And so when I was able to walk up a hospital like 50 meters, I was just so excited about that. And then it just got more and more every day. So the main sort of thing is feeling a little bit tired from day to day. So every day I walk a little bit more, but I feel tired, and so I might have to come home and have a little lie down for a while.
Craig: So if you started with ten steps, how many steps do you do now that’s kind of more normal?
James: More normal for me now is probably five or thousand per day. But the highest I’ve ever had was just over ten and a half thousand. That was pretty remarkable. One of the things I’m doing right now is I’m in training right now for a major event in a couple of weeks time, which is participating in the ABC float in the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.
Craig: So you’re practicing for that. How long is that? How long is the Mardi Gras worth? I mean, whenever you watch it, if there’s a lot of time not walking as well, a lot of time standing still, isn’t it? Yeah.
James: Look, look, I’ve been at the parade maybe half a dozen times now. And I know exactly how it’s 1.7 kilometers. I did a test run a couple of weeks ago with my physiotherapist, Pieta. I said to her, “I’d really like to walk in the Mardi Gras this year”. And she said, “Yeah, I think you can do it.” We’ve done one practice run, and we’ll do some more. We also have been talking about just sort of building up some strengths around my legs and just to make sure I’ve got enough energy and that sort of thing. But it’s 1.7 kilometers. And we did a test run a couple of weeks ago. And I did it in about 30 to 35 minutes.
Craig: Which is probably going to be a lot faster than you do it on the night. Good on you, James. Good luck at the Mardi Gras.
James: Thank you.
We did a practice run pm the weekend for this year’s ABC float in Mardi Gras. Thank goodness, the dance routine isn’t too complex, and the song is familiar. No further hints, though here’s a sneak preview. Thanks Jen for the photography and for the “wooh!”.
“I’ve never ever heard it called that either”, a couple of friends agreed with me a few months ago. We were referring to the newspaper description of the Surry Hills (formerly Redfern) Shopping Village as “The Murder Mall”.
I have lived in Surry Hills for over twenty years and have never heard it called “The Murder Mall” until a few months ago.
Yes, I’ve heard it called “The Methadone Mall” and yes, I’ve heard it called “The Fruit & Nut Mall” (think about it), but never heard it called “The Murder Mall”.
We agreed, it sounds like it was made up by some people in public relations, confusing the mall with the nearby public housing towers which do indeed have a reputation for suicide.
This is a terrific little shopping centre, only a couple of hundred metres from my home. When it closes, it will inconvenience me for a couple of years until the new mall is built.
To me, the whole discussion about this is around middle class and aspirant disdain for the large public housing population who live in the area. Across the road, they’ve tried twice now to take “The Crown Hotel” upmarket, to get rid of the “riff-raff” as Basil Fawlty would say, but every time the same public housing and working class population keep attending.
I’m sure one day they’ll try to do a “Sirius” on the “Northcott Towers”, turning them into another generic apartment block, moving the public housing people further west, which will be a sad day indeed.
Rant over.
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2 Comments
Women reaching an age where they become invisible was documented a long time ago. And yes, the same goes for gay guys.
Many Happy Returns!
I don’t even think it’s even your age that is invisible…it’s the extreme ends of the spectrum – kids and old folks! That is fine by me though :)
Women reaching an age where they become invisible was documented a long time ago. And yes, the same goes for gay guys.
Many Happy Returns!
I don’t even think it’s even your age that is invisible…it’s the extreme ends of the spectrum – kids and old folks! That is fine by me though :)
P.s I like the new pic header…