Stormy Weather

In an otherwise busy, busy day at work – one where I barely spent five minutes looking away from my computer – I looked briefly out my window. And there, to my surprise, was a rather spectacular Sydney skyline.

Within minutes, I had a group of colleagues in my office taking advantage of the view, and desperately trying to remember the names for different cloud formations we learned during primary and high school.

Pretty quickly, though, we were all back at work, since Fridays are usually a fairly busy day in my particular part of the second floor. We don’t “wind down” on the weekends, we get busy.

And for me, it was an especially busy day as I had a deadline to meet. The deadline wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t already had two days at home sick in bed. Thanks to the wonderful help of a colleague, I was able to meet that deadline. Still. I ended up at the office far too late on a day when I probably should have stayed home.

It’s been a funny illness. I thought it was just some hay-fever. And then it became a bit bronchial. Sick enough to stay at home, but well enough not to be totally incapacitated. I didn’t worry about going to the doctor, since I know if I had he or she would have just said, “go home and rest”.

In fact, despite the rather bronchial cough, I felt quite okay about going back to work. I guess it’s just the hours I worked today were too long, and so when I came home tonight I was feeling pretty stuffed.

But on the positive, it meant I got to see a colleague who works nights and who I never see all that much these days, so that was really nice.

And then on the negative again, I was both too busy and not feeling well enough to catch up with my friend Andrew who had invited me for a late-afternoon beer. We have made plans to catch-up next Friday instead when I’m sure I’ll be much healthier and without any looming deadlines. That said, the last time we caught up for a late-afternoon beer, there was an earthquake and tsunami which provided a bit of a work-related distraction.

So even though I’ve had two days off work, I’m still looking forward to resting up on the weekend as a time for doing not much at all.

Tomorrow, of course it’s election day, so I’m looking forward to voting, and looking forward even more to the Bourke Street Public School’s sausage sizzle. And then around lunchtime, I’m planning to head to a lunch-time talk by the artist, Ray Cook at the Australia Centre for Photography.

And then on Sunday, I’m somewhat intrigued and may attend a “Fag Tag” event at the nearby Ray Hughes Gallery. “Fag Tag” is a flash-mob approach to creating “gay spaces” at places all over Sydney, not just gay bars. The fact that it’s about a 90 second walk from home makes it even more appealing. Anyone wanna join me?