Reasons to be happy #336

This morning the train pulls into Auburn and I close my book reluctantly. Reluctantly because it’s a great read – Marching Powder, by Rusty Young, the true story of an English cocaine smuggler who gets busted and spends a few years in a Bolivian jail (sorry, but I refuse to use the ridiculous Australian spelling of this word). This is a prison with a difference where the inmates must pay for their cells. But if you’ve got money you can get a very nice one with ensuite bathroom, kitchen and all mod cons. When the protagonist arrives he is in deep trouble as he doesn’t have a Boliviano to his name, he’s starving (you pay for the food too) and has to sleep on the freezing cold floor in the dangerous section of the prison. Another inmate helps him out and eventually he manages to contact friends in England who wire over some $ and he gets into the position where he can “buy” his own cell. At this point the protag and his new friend chat about real estate on the inside, over a couple of joints and a supply and demand graph which they carve into the table.

I’m also reluctant to get off the train because here we go again (wehey!) another day at the office and all that ... the enthusiasm, tbh, isn’t kicking in. I go to the corner shop across from the station where you can get bargain boxes of tissues so that I can replace the empty one on my desk. I think about the little place I’ve made for that tissue box, carefully wedged between the magazines I refer to during the day and my stack of recycled paper. It makes the cubicle feel lived in. Then I wonder for a second what it would be like to have my own office, perhaps with a view, maybe with a picture on the wall.

And I know all of this has been done already in The Matrix, with much better special effects, but this morning the parallels between the two scenarios give me pause. At what point do we get lost in the game, and at what point do we get let out, or escape?

Anyway, where were we? Ah yes, reasons to be happy ... I’ve been back in Sydney for 336 days, I’m tired, and in all honesty a little bit down. I know that there is a way to live here without giving in to the hunt for a better cell (and that it involves swimming) but I'm yet to find it. My friends are at Glastonbury. I'm happy for them and wish I was there.