Monday, December 20, 2004
Beware of Hungry Dog
There's this sign on one of the houses in my estate that reads "Beware of Hungry Dog."
Everytime I walk past it I have this strange desire to stick a large notice on their gate that reads "Beware of SPCA".
*****
I stood on an AGV today while it wandered around the hospital.
It was good.
People here are so uptight. I was going to wheel myself around from OT to the recovery room to deliver the patient op notes which I'd just typed up, and all the other doctors in my team were genuinely shocked. They stopped short of telling me that it would make a bad impression, and I stopped short of asking - a bad impression on whom, exactly? The other theatre staff? All the patients in recovery are unconscious!
Sigh. No sense of humour.
*****
Body Combat
I finally signed up with the gym today, and tried a bit of my usual machine-weight stuff.
Unfortunately membership came with a price (whatever happened to good old "membership has its privileges"?? - the friend who introduced me to the gym (huh?? It was my gym first!! in the UK!!!) wanted me to try out body combat.
Being the sweet, kind, generous, selfless (heh. not) kinda guy I am, I agreed. (it has nothing to do with the friend being rather pretty. honest. many of my female friends are pretty. I try my best to forgive them for it.)
So there I am flailing my arms around (it was actually kinda fun) in a huge crowd of sweaty, bouncing women and I can't help but marvel how full of energy they all are, what with their HAAAIYAAHS and HYAAAHS as they viciously punch, kick and claw the air in front of them to its constituent molecules, and why is it they can't feel that invisible mack track running over them repeatedly as it is doing to me??
Anyhow, much later the friend showed me what I was doing wrong. I was doing the moves like I really meant it. Real kicks and punches. In body combat you keep everything really small and controlled and neat. Probably the only person you could knock out with those jabs are little old ladies prone to fainting fits.
Nonetheless, for some warped reason it was fun, and I am going to attend the "clinic" to learn how to do the moves like I am acting on a hollywood movie. Small, neat, controlled TV stuff.
*****
More Random Memories
Right temple pressed tiredly against the lukewarm glass, eyes turned dully heavenwards not-really watching the long silver-orange lines of slow-motion raindrops cascading down onto him, preserved for a moment in the weak glow of the intermittent streetlamp flashing by.
Gazing through the tear-streaked windows to the soul of his parent's car, with his own eyes dry, he just feels too tired to think.
Too tired to live.
Another rivulet smears down the side of the window, turning the world into soft, gentle halos of red lights and yellow-orange blobs. A more poetic writer would postulate about the sky crying blood.
He just watches.
*
On the way to work, the taxi passes a road that is instantly familiar to him.
He remembers walking this way once, to a farewell party. To the beginning, of the end.
For a split second, he feels the wind on his skin again, and he's right there, outside the taxi, standing in the green-turfed middle divider waiting to cross.
*
En route to home, the taxi passes a turn-in, and he remembers an opulently lavish house, complete with ferrarri. He remembers other stuff too, but he remembers most clearly the pleasure he felt when someone he wanted to show up, really did show up.
*
The steps of Sydney Uni. Late at night, bathed in floodlit orange. Sheer and utter silence.
Breathing.
*
Everytime I walk past it I have this strange desire to stick a large notice on their gate that reads "Beware of SPCA".
*****
I stood on an AGV today while it wandered around the hospital.
It was good.
People here are so uptight. I was going to wheel myself around from OT to the recovery room to deliver the patient op notes which I'd just typed up, and all the other doctors in my team were genuinely shocked. They stopped short of telling me that it would make a bad impression, and I stopped short of asking - a bad impression on whom, exactly? The other theatre staff? All the patients in recovery are unconscious!
Sigh. No sense of humour.
*****
Body Combat
I finally signed up with the gym today, and tried a bit of my usual machine-weight stuff.
Unfortunately membership came with a price (whatever happened to good old "membership has its privileges"?? - the friend who introduced me to the gym (huh?? It was my gym first!! in the UK!!!) wanted me to try out body combat.
Being the sweet, kind, generous, selfless (heh. not) kinda guy I am, I agreed. (it has nothing to do with the friend being rather pretty. honest. many of my female friends are pretty. I try my best to forgive them for it.)
So there I am flailing my arms around (it was actually kinda fun) in a huge crowd of sweaty, bouncing women and I can't help but marvel how full of energy they all are, what with their HAAAIYAAHS and HYAAAHS as they viciously punch, kick and claw the air in front of them to its constituent molecules, and why is it they can't feel that invisible mack track running over them repeatedly as it is doing to me??
Anyhow, much later the friend showed me what I was doing wrong. I was doing the moves like I really meant it. Real kicks and punches. In body combat you keep everything really small and controlled and neat. Probably the only person you could knock out with those jabs are little old ladies prone to fainting fits.
Nonetheless, for some warped reason it was fun, and I am going to attend the "clinic" to learn how to do the moves like I am acting on a hollywood movie. Small, neat, controlled TV stuff.
*****
More Random Memories
Right temple pressed tiredly against the lukewarm glass, eyes turned dully heavenwards not-really watching the long silver-orange lines of slow-motion raindrops cascading down onto him, preserved for a moment in the weak glow of the intermittent streetlamp flashing by.
Gazing through the tear-streaked windows to the soul of his parent's car, with his own eyes dry, he just feels too tired to think.
Too tired to live.
Another rivulet smears down the side of the window, turning the world into soft, gentle halos of red lights and yellow-orange blobs. A more poetic writer would postulate about the sky crying blood.
He just watches.
*
On the way to work, the taxi passes a road that is instantly familiar to him.
He remembers walking this way once, to a farewell party. To the beginning, of the end.
For a split second, he feels the wind on his skin again, and he's right there, outside the taxi, standing in the green-turfed middle divider waiting to cross.
*
En route to home, the taxi passes a turn-in, and he remembers an opulently lavish house, complete with ferrarri. He remembers other stuff too, but he remembers most clearly the pleasure he felt when someone he wanted to show up, really did show up.
*
The steps of Sydney Uni. Late at night, bathed in floodlit orange. Sheer and utter silence.
Breathing.
*
