james o'brien

“Are you okay”, I said to the cab driver just a short while ago, noticing his hands were shaking.

“Yes, I’m fine”, he told me, “but could you wait a while and be a witness?”, he asked.

A minute or so earlier a car had run up the back of us on Parramatta Road.

I don’t exactly know what happened, except that a couple of seconds or so after we stopped at the traffic lights, a car had run up the back of us with a loud thud.

As the driver was a little shaken, I wrote down the details of the driver’s licence and number plate, and generally looked after the situation fairly calmly.

It reminded me of my first (and worst) car accident years ago in Brisbane.

The car in front of me stopped, I stopped, but the car behind me didn’t stop, and went right up the back of us.

I remember organising the traffic, I remember finding a place to make a phone call to the place, I remember being completely in control.

And then I remember coming home and seeing my flatmate and bursting into tears.

I haven’t wanted to burst into tears tonight, though you never know what memories might be dragged up.

Overall, today was a bit of a car-crash, as flu has continued to make its way through my workplace.

The only bright spots in the day were tonight, as usual, at the pub (for a Wednesday night) earlier in the day securing tickets for the Liza MInnelli concert in October at the Sydney Opera House.

The website there crashed too, as they had “unexpected demand” for early ticket registration.

Thankfully, we have scored EXCELLENT tickets for the Saturday night show.

A few people I’ve told about securing the tickets have smiled, laughed. “Isn’t she past it?”, they’ve asked. “Is she gonna be out of rehab by October?”, they’ve joked.

Even if she is, I’m still looking forward to the show, because I feel she’s one of the great performers of the last forty years.

I can’t wait!