The familiarity slump

Between loads of washing, doing the dishes, tidying up around the house and twice daily trips to the Hospital to drop off and pick up Heather from work, I've been doing little else but read and go to the gym. Someone once said that dull women have immaculate homes. The house isn't quite immaculate, but almost, so I'm either a women or dull or both.

It might sound quite luxurious to many - pottering about on hot summer days with no immediate pressure to do anything. But in reality my mind doesn't work like that. How I wish I could put cruise control on and let the RPM's of my brain ease along at around 2,000 as I navigate my way down this flat straight stretch of life I find myself on.

Alas, no.

I have been going to the gym but the body still isn't ready for proper lifting sessions that leave the mind shattered and the muscles clinging to the bones by a thread. And without a job or any other diverting project my mind and body is left under stimulated. The foot as always is flat to the floor, the RPM's are at 6,000 but I'm going nowhere fast and am analysing the life out every minute detail of the world around me. Trying to ignore the fact that I wish I was surrounded by people who don't speak English in a country with customs that would make Marco Polo run for cover.

Life is just too easy, the only challenge is being motivated to tackle the daily administrative tasks of life to the best of ones ability. Indeed I believe I have found myself in that most treacherous and soul spoiling of places - The Comfort Zone. "God, Allah, Vishnu and pals get me out of here", I plead as I 'tsk' at the price of red capsicums in Woolies, then drive home and watch TV until bed time.

The answers to this problem are always easy. But in a way the answers are really just another nail in a coffin that tessellates with everyone else's coffins of normal society. Get a job, join a club, blah blah blah - ie. do what everyone else is doing to forget that they are living the same lives as each other - just ensure there is a veneer of difference to perpetuate our individualistic society.

I just got offered a customer service job for Medicare - I'll have to take it, but the conflict with my Uni course which starts in a few weeks will probably result in my resignation after a month. I've also started planning more travel for 18-24 months in the future - to anywhere that takes my fancy as I stare at Google wondering what to look up.

In other news, we have just got a car for Heather - a little Ford Festiva with air-con and power steering (the only features that differentiate it from the greatest car in the world - '81 Honda Civic) and it is red. Heather must have been looking a little tired when we paid for it because the dealer got her confused with Methuselah and put her age as 925 years old, which required correction for the contract to be valid. Of course.

The road will get windy and tricky again, with potholes to zip around - but in the meantime I'll try not to fall asleep at the wheel or drive too dangerously during this stretch of the road.