TWO HOURS IN TOWN

Oh, the 11th, census night tonight. On saturday I was trying to 
match the adjustment nut position on an inner tie rod (AKA steering 
rack end, AKA inner ball joint, AKA steering link arm - I don't 
know how two mechanics ever know what part the other is talking 
about) from the Jag (#1) while I was surprised by a green hatchback 
quietly pulling past the shed. Usually the only vehicles besides my 
father's to come in here are a few brave couriers. It turns out 
this one was driven by an older lady handing out the census papers. 
Luckily in this cold weather I wasn't up to doing my backyard 
mechanic work naked, and in fact have taken to looking rather 
professional in overalls (which I've discovered help a lot with 
keeping warm too). Mind you she was sufficiently lost in the 
routine of the census-delivery process that she might have hardly 
noticed either way, as she ran me through the instructions already 
written on the census form for how to fill it in online or complete 
the paper copy. Of course I avoid any government website like the 
plague, so I'll stick to the paper form, which they're obviously 
still providing by default to me. All the same as last time I 
suppose, home alone, unsure whether I'm an Atheist or a "no 
religion", leaving the name field blank to make it a little harder 
for any future totalitarian government to blacklist me on the basis 
of my responses, then into the mail box in town on Thursday to fate 
unknown somewhere inside the Australian Bureau of Statistics. What 
is a bureau anyway? Dict.org reports via DICT, somewhere between a 
writing table and a fancy American chest of draws, that it's 
probably a government department. I think people these days would 
actually be more willing to inform a statistically-curious piece of 
ornamental furniture than the government. At least I do remember 
reading on the ABS' website that there are statistically slightly 
more women than men in this country, so that gives me more hope for 
finding a woman myself at least.

The part of the Jag (my one that actually drives) was reportedly 
the cause of my uneven tyre wear, as assessed by the tyre shop in 
the nearest large town when I took in in a week earlier for a wheel 
alignment, as well as to have them puzzle over and finally fit some 
modern tyres to the ancient rims off my trailer - believed by most 
to be off an early Volkswagen. After about and hour underneath the 
car wobbling the wheels around by hand I eventually got half a clue 
what they might have been talking about, but boy I'm not sure I'll 
ever get a grip on diagnosing steering and suspension issues, it 
always seems to me like such a fine thing between "like new" and 
"completely stuffed".

In again yesterday for more hours wandering around the town waiting 
for a call on the mobile while they tried the wheel alignment 
again, having made the rare concession to take my "car phone" with 
me and leave it turned on for that purpose. I'd already done my 
"big town" shopping last time, so just wandered around. I checked 
out around the railway station, noticing that they still have the 
standpipes at each end of the platform for filling up steam trains 
with water, but a cd lot of the old electrical equipment that was 
in a little niche of the station building has been cleared out. 
There's a "rail trail" leading off, eventually, out into the forest 
along the path of a narrow-guage track used to transport timber 
until the 1960s. I followed that for some way, enjoying the view 
into the old industrial buildings behind the old goods sheds in the 
disused railway station yard, one apparantly now some sort of dance 
studio.

Breaking off the trail well before it left the residential 
back-streets, I wandered back to the town centre and want back to 
my usual circuit of op-shops to look mainly at DVDs. But I've got a 
bit tired of most movies lately. I've actually been getting into 
old russian films uploaded to YouTube by the Mosfilm state film 
studio, which are strikingly outside the mould of Hollywood 
productions, and to a lesser extent also unique from european 
movies when comparing with russian films from the soviet era. I've 
been meaning to write a post about that for most of this year. 
Anyway I just just got three $2 DVDs of much more mainstream film 
in the end, from three shops. I saw women who I'd have liked to try 
talking to but I don't know how. Wandered around the very lavish 
and ornate WWI memorial with its much lower-key additions to 
commemorate WWII and a collection of brass plaques for later wars. 
The fountain was working again. I sort-of hoped a woman my age 
would come wandering around at as much of a loose end as me, but 
just an older man in the corner having a smoke. I'd at best have 
exchanged some awkward sentences that reaffirmed my distance from 
the rest of humanity anyway.

Wandered back past the tyre place, saw my car parked out the back, 
probably done. No messages on the phone still, so I took at look 
over at the cinema, which I haven't been to since I was a child. It 
seems to have closed, though it looks like they've set it up for 
private functions, of which I doubt they get many. It was a pretty 
new cinema, part of a government building complex built around 
2000, so probably getting maintained now at the taxpayer's expense. 
I discovered the local historical society has a little museum there 
too, but it was closed.

Back to the tyre place, diagonally-opposite. Different people in 
the office now, but one somehow recognised me as "the Jag owner" 
anyway and immediately asked "didn't you get my message?" before 
even confirming who I was. It turned out they got the phone number 
wrong. Presumably it had been waiting for a decent portion of the 
two hours I'd been wandering around town, but that was OK.

This is probably a really boring thing to share with the world, I 
should go back over it and elaborate on some details to try and 
convey what makes it seem interesting to me, but there's no time. I 
guess it's just an experience for me, going from out here in 
farmland listening to birds chattering and cows mooing for days on 
end with not a human interaction outside text on a computer screen 
and a couple of minutes at the post office. Being somewhat shocked 
just by a car arriving to deliver a census form. Then into the 
artificial world of a town, not a busy one, least of all on rail 
trails or railway stations (both deserted actually). Unfathomable 
in some ways, though not nearly so much as walking around 
Melbourne. Its facinating to observe, but it represents a different 
world, a world that thinks I should be a part of it, but which also 
feels like a prison to me, with everyone tied to their place and 
their job, as planned by countless others in the countless office 
rooms that everyone drives past and ignores, except me peeking at 
those windows and wondering what people are actually doing inside, 
though probably nothing I really want to know.

Anyway maybe the striking thing is that I have actually been 
getting out for a lot of things lately. Twice to that town for 
wheel worries, all Sunday at the local fire station/shed to compile 
the yearly inventory with my father (who I drag along because it's 
really hard to pull things out of jumbled-up fire truck lockers 
while juggling a laptop) - required by higher authorities so they 
can tick a box but then never to be looked at by another living 
sole, plus a big trip into Melbourne a few weeks ago which I didn't 
have energy to write about. And now my father's just rung up to ask 
me to help him pick up a table this afternoon. I guess I've been 
jolted out of my isolation a little, going from an observer of 
society back to more of a participant. Even filling out my census 
form in its neat little machine-readable boxes. But I much prefer 
to be the observer, from 'outside' all that, and I wonder how much 
I'd have to move away from that in order to have a real chance of a 
relationship with a woman.

 - The Free Thinker.