Dawn Spill … Tuesday notes meant for a Monday (3 February 2004)

I must somehow make this day amusing; actually passing through it was not but the raw materials were, I’m thinking now (at the beginning of this piece), sufficient to father a smile.

Firstly, I was up very early. Another Monday (to note that it is Tuesday is a mere quibble); another dawn flight to another city that, over the years, has become everycity. The coffee maker chose today not to work, augury of what was to come. The benighted machine failed to perform not in any conventional way, it chose to make coffee but not convey said beverage into the coffee pot. This is considered impossible, the machine is supposed to be fool proof but, I have decided, it is only idiot proof; against a pure, 100% fool, like myself, it is completely helpless. There are engineered defences against the possibility that the newly brewed coffee might fail to reach its objective, the thermos carafe; for the coffee to arrive at the latter, one must jam said receptacle into a designed space under the filter basket where, by which jamming action, is popped open a valve-like contraption that permits the hot water, freshly boiled, to percolate through the ground beans and the fine mesh paper filter and, traversing a tiny aperture, exit into the stainless carafe below. Today, however, the coffee failed to attain its objective and was, instead, pooled either on the granite counter top or dripping into the open drawer where we keep our supplies of ground coffee, filters, tea, herbal infusions and chocolates. By the time I made my way back to the scene of neglect (after initiating the process by pressing the ‘on’ button, I futzed about, packing and so on whilst all the coffee-brewing excitement occurred), all of these things were semi-floating in about a quarter of an inch of cold coffee (amazing how rapidly the stuff chills on frosty mornings when it fails to land in the insulated container!).

It took me a full ten minutes to sop up all of the coffee and another ten to brew a new pot. At last I had a cup of fragrant, rich, hot coffee! I perched myself in front of the TV and watched the early morning news although, scandalous admission, I did flip over ITV 2 to check the conditions in the Australian rain forest and see whether Jordan’s boobs might have fallen out of her top overnight. The former is sweaty and overgrown, the latter is, honestly, not worth waiting for unless you hold shares in Dupont and think the knocker-on effect will buoy the price. In the event I grew quickly bored and turned back to Sky’s 0530 broadcast of the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather. Mr. Rather, famous for his hugely overworked country similes during the last election, is, fortunately, still fascinated by the U.S. presidential election process, a fascination I share. Somehow, Rather is beyond cynical and simply observes the whole process with a weary wonder.

At this stage, with everything still pretty much to play for, there is a perverse pleasure, akin to the Australians’ delight in ‘topping’ whatever tall poppies their society might throw up, in witnessing the decline and fall of, mostly, egotistical Deomocratic dreams about power and popularity in the bright snows and harsh election reality of New Hampshire or, later, South Carolina or New Mexico. What I fail to understand, the fun and games of primary season apart, is how, in all seriousness, at this time and in this world, any reasonably educated, right-thinking, compassionate American could remain Republican. We owe it to our posterity to rid the country of this man Bush and his cronies. They must be retired! Not only Bush, but Cheney must go! The United State of Halliburton must no longer be the voice of our people!

Americans must grow up. If we are to create the society that we want, one that is just, which provides real opportunity, we must accept that our will can only be expressed collectively via Government and, therefore, Government must be truly representative, just and pro-active, reflecting our hopes, dreams and will. Taxes are the inevitable cost of creating this world. Pay up and be content with the smaller house, happy in the knowledge that, because you have chosen to create as close to a fair society as you can, everyone else has a house as well, that only the hardest core sleep in refrigerator cartons. Be happy that there is a park within easy distance of every kid’s door and that the schools they go to provide an education and are not places to park unwanted or unexpected offspring. Expect that when you go to the emergency room of the nearby hospital, your child’s arm bent strangely after her street-dance recital, you don’t have to wait for credit processing before the doctor will see and treat you. Expect also that the doctor and the staff at the hospital will treat you as fellow citizens, acknowledging your existence in a manner that dignifies, does not demean you, whatever your capacity to afford the treatment that will be meted all equally.

But, I digress or, maybe, this time I don’t …

One thing for sure, my reflections on the American political scene have made me less than amused. Dave Barry has it right; you must laugh at it. We are obligated to cry out for change but it is right to do it through a smile! Lives of quiet desperation are so because those who live them choose to define them that way.

I'll save the story of the two airports, one missed flight, the train, the bus, the taxi, two missed meals and the bad wine for another time when I elect to write my own Gormenghast -- a day in a book.