storm damage

38° C., about 75% humidity. The storm, a reticent lover, lingers behind the hills, threatens, never arrives. The constant sound is airconditioner noise – next door/here/next door.

The storm hits, 700 kilometres south, 2000 kilometres south. Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra. Hail, high winds. Airports close, planes are damaged. Here we get five seconds of rain.

I cannot write. I blame the oppressiveness but it's not that. I turn into Blogden Nash on the pelican, I leave postings in the comments boxes of other blogs. I look through my Magritte books. I think about revising The Allegrezza Ficcione for publication. Martin Edmond feels that my prose should be more lyrical, that I should be more forthcoming about the eponymous hero. I read his latest post on Luca Antara. He writes that it is the revision he enjoys when writing, the workings toward the finished product once the first draft is complete. That is the part I hate. Let it stand is my motto. Though I rarely adhere to it.

What I really think is getting at me is that I am no longer stimulated by Rockhampton. I've explored it as far as I can. I went to a concert on Friday, in the local municipal theatre. Enjoyed it, but the sound was designed for a larger venue, was overwhelming in the context; & that is almost a summation of my vexation.

In retrospect it was the re-settlement period, the transition from big city to small city, that kept me agile. But now I am settled in, & I look around, & I am living in a bigoted, racist, country-music loving, redneck environment where the shops close at about 7 p.m. & don't open on Sundays.

I think about joining Tom Beckett & Jim Ryals in walking away – temporarily? permanently? - from blogging. Probably won't. I still rely on it. It is a prime source of contact with a milieu that, strangely enough, I ignored when I lived in Sydney. But I knew it was there, even if I didn't take part in it. I think there may be a poet living in Yeppoon, about forty kilometres away from here, on the coast. Then again, it may just be rumour.

So here I am, uninspired, over-perspired. I have just put on my third T-shirt of the day. I need something to look forward to. I dream of California, of Finland, of Portugal. L. is going back to Sydney next month for another conference. I have decided to accompany her. I need the cosmopolitan fix. Big city osmosis.