Author: Adrian's Got the Moose

December 2019 I landed home after my epic one month trip through Jordan, Palestine and Israel. I honestly thought my next trip was going to be in a year’s time, just long enough to save some money and holiday pay, and come up with the kind of vague plan that that could be written on the back of a ATM receipt.

I’m still dreaming of that next trip, and it doesn’t seem much closer now than a year ago when I should have been booking tickets. Not cancelled, I will still make that trip as soon as I can, but I have been thinking about how travel will change when we are finally able to. I’ll intersect my predictions with some of my travel memories, so this doesn’t end up being too dry.

Proof of Vaccination:

This one is fairly obvious, but if you think you will be able to travel any time in the next ten years without proof of a mainstream COVID vaccination or without a medical condition contraindicating the jabs, then I think you are dreaming.  People tend to forget that sovereign countries have the right to deny entry to travellers,  and safety is a fairly reasonable reason for cancelling a visa. Judging by some comments on travel Facebook groups, people seem to think this is some violation of their rights, which strikes me as naive considering how many countries have similar rules in place for financial checks, Yellow Fever vaccinations, etc.

Leaving Bangkok in a mini-bus, Two Israelis started singing Spanish love-songs in Hebrew. Between songs I spoke my first words since getting on the bus, I have no idea what you are singing, but its beautiful. I spent much of my evenings in Kanchanaburi with those two. 

Testing:

You know porn stars in the USA get fortnightly tests for HIV?  One of those facts that I learned that refuses to exit my brain. I expect you will need a negative COVID test two to four weeks before you travel, and another one within forty-eight hours of travel. I suspect a whole industry will be created to administer these tests in a timely, and affordable manner, perhaps the cost will be included in your plane tickets. I imagine immigration staff won’t let you legally leave the country without proof of the results, and airline staff will check again before you board.

Lombok, my first day and I’m invited into photos. School kids and groups of young guys were treating me like a minor celebrity, which was good for my ego. Lombok seemed to be a popular destination for middle class Indonesians and private school trips. One man tried setting me up with his beautiful, but way too young for me daughter. Obviously I declined, but I often find myself wondering what happened to her.

Masks:

I suspect having mandatory masks laws will be implicated at a moment’s notice in countries when there is an outbreak, and possibly at all time for planes and other public transport, potentially all tourist sites as well- If you refuse to mask up you will be denied entry.  The anti-mask brigade amuse and frustrate me, I wear P2s a fair bit at work, they are more annoying than the surgical masks people get so upset about, but I still wear them when spraying higher schedule herbicides or handling asbestos.

War Remnants Museum,  Saigon.  Unapologetic anti-western it is, but I couldn’t spot anything that was a blatant lie. Highlights include a stillborn baby, mutated by Agent Orange, in a glass jar with Formaldehyde. 

Contact Tracing:

Another condition of entry will be submitting to some form of contact tracing, whether an app to  scan QR codes on entry (which is what Australia has been dealing with for the last nine months), or an app on your phone that reports your GPS coordinates every hour or so, or something along these lines. In a number of countries every time you check in to a hotel or hostel they photocopy your passport to send to the government, so the system is already there.

Phnom Penh, Cambodia- I was walking back to my grim hostel after visiting some sites and by accident I ended up alongside the US Embassy. I paused a moment to consider that US embassies always end up looking like castles built out of concrete with good gardening staff, when I noticed a local man hurrying past, complete with acid burns. my pre-trip reading taught me that throwing acid at political enemies is very common. 

Numbers of travellers:

I can see that a lot of the casual, “I heard the beaches were nice”  kind of tourists are simply going to give up traveling entirely due to a perceived lack of safety, or limit themselves to only travel to places just as boring and sanitized as their own home. Hopefully this will lead to a reduction of drunk Australians vomiting in gutters the world over.

Selchuk, Turkey- Exhausted, I found my way to the hostel I found most appealing in my Rough Guide, the ANZ Guesthouse. I opened the gate and stepped into the courtyard, where my fellow backpackers were gathered smoking a water pipe, sat on traditional low couches. I was invited in and immediately was introduced to Fran and Miles from New Zealand, Eloise from Melbourne, Amanda from Spain, John the American and our host Mehmut. As is often the way at the best backpacker places, within minutes I felt like I was among lifelong friends.

That brings me to my final prediction. Hopefully when we can travel, a lot of the firm lines between different kinds of travellers will be blurred, and people will mingle much better, joined together by the simple pleasure of visiting other countries and meeting new people. I can only hope.

Expectation:

You walk into the shop, spot the click and collect counter, and throw down some ID.  “I have made a purchase, fetch it, you superfluous swamp-donkey”  The person checks your ID, looks you up and down in disgust, and says “I don’t want a malodorous miscreant like you in my fine establishment one moment longer than I have to”  He disappears, and moments later throws your package at you and turns his back on you in disdain. Total elapsed time: five minutes.

Reality:

You walk into the shop, spot the click and collect counter, which is deserted. Eventually someone arrives and asks if you need help. You inform them you have a click and collect, this causes confusion, and once they manage to accept that click and collect exists, they send someone to find the paperwork, when that’s found they go looking for the item on the shelf. Now they try to make you pay for it again, and you attempt to show emails, bank statements and obscene hand gestures to prove that you have already paid. Eventually they decide its easier just to let you leave without paying for the item, and you can finally leave. Total elapsed time: half an hour, if you are lucky.

It was shaking up to be a perfectly decent Thursday evening. I had the Xbox fired up, a stomach filled with Chinese food, and a six pack of Thailand’s finest import I was making a dent in. However my alcohol and gaming-induced relaxation was shattered by a small brown blur making laps between behind the heater, to the bookcases, to the tv and my desk. It took me a while to soak into my poor brain that it was indeed a mouse, a small one and one that didn’t seem at all concerned with my lack of my offering it sacred guest right. To make the situation worse, I couldn’t enjoy my gaming with this little fucker running around, so I went to bed and read some tedious science fiction.

In the morning I went to the Big Green Shop, the most expedient answer among the array of rodent dealing gear was baits, so I bought a pack of Ratsak rodent baits, and threw a few behind the bookcases and the heater. That evening I sneaked up to the mouse, and observed him nibbling on one of the baits. I returned to my couch, smug in the knowledge that this interloper will soon be hemorrhaging out of various orifices and will plague me no more.

In the morning the baits were gone, but that evening the mouse was seemingly unconcerned with the LD50 of Brodifacon.  Had this mouse found a Ring of Poison Immunity in some previous encounter? And one that could fit on its tiny paws?  Clearly a different tact was needed, this time I decided to go old school. I got my hands on a pack of those cheap, horrible mouse traps with the wooden base and the stainless steel spring loaded trap of death. I loaded one with white chocolate, set it and slid it between two book cases.

Next morning, I discovered that the little fucker triggered the trap, and judging by the mouse blood splash up the wall,  injuring himself in the process. However the chocolate was gone. Excellent, I thought to myself, surely he crawled away and died with a curse on his lips and regretting many of his life choices. Sadly a week later he was back, running his insane laps and unconcerned by his brush with death.

Back to The Big Green Shop, and this time, my credit card screaming in pain, I got something that doesn’t so much resemble a mouse trap as a mouse maze with a trap door. A week later I accept that this is not at all appealing to this mouse, and I buy a trap that has been banned in various EU countries due to the violence of its method of killing.  I load it with peanut butter, set it and shove it behind my TV.  Unfortunately the thing is clearly designed for bigger prey, and my antagonist manages to steal the peanut butter without  triggering the trap, no doubt giggling in glee, and saying mocking things about my numerous physical, emotional and sexual shortcomings.  I am at a loss how to continue, as my only other option would be to call an exterminator, which would go against my DIY ethic, and my bank account.

A few days later and I am playing Xbox again, refusing to become a vampire (again) and playing with a Leatherman knife I had assumed I had lost until I did some tidying in the spare room, when I spotted my nemesis again, running up the wall, and then hiding between my desk and the exposed brick wall. Was this mouse actually some kind of Russian spy trying to learn secrets from my aging desktop computer? Enough was enough, and it was time to go medieval on his arse.

I sneak up to the desk, and stabbed two and a half inches of Japanese steel at the mouse. the mouse bolts away and disappears, and while I see no blood on the blade, I am sure it met resistance. Two weeks later and there is no further evidence of mouse activity in the unit, and I can declare victory. I have named that pocket knife Mouse-bane, and if I had a mantle I would mount Mouse-bane above it.

I have noticed that since the Night of the Short Knife, my humble abode seems a tad too quiet and still. This mouse was the closest I have had to a housemate since I moved in nine months ago- My need for some extra cutter has been dynamically opposed to my need to live alone after twelve years of living with other people- But now I don’t have anyone to swear at. A frog has recently taken up residence in my backyard and does his mating call for a few hours in the early evening (I know how he feels) but it’s not quite the same. Maybe I should get a cat.

UPDATE 01/05/2021:  Last night while watching Netflix at my desk, I heard a sharp metallic snap. It was the only mousetrap I hadn’t bothered packing up and putting away catching and killing the mouse. He must have been driven indoors with the rain.

Due to financial hardship leading on from the COVID pandemic, in Australia there was a ban on rent increases, and evictions due to non-payment of rent. This helped people a lot, along with Jobkeeper, and might be the first time our government took homelessness even slightly seriously.

Now the moratorium is ending, and many tenants have been reporting that their rent is increasing by a hundred dollars a week, others have not had their contracts renewed due to the houses going on the market. This is all to a backdrop of unheard of vacancy rates- my town’s is 0.5%-  People don’t have anywhere to go.

People who own investment properties tend to say that this problem can be solved by renters buying property. This ignores the simple fact that not everyone has the steady income to get a home loan, or the ability to save up a deposit while paying half their income in rent. The only reason I can type this up in my own place is because my lovely and long-suffering parents lent me a sizable sum towards the deposit, which is a privilege most people don’t have.

A cursory glance at the comments on any post about the rent increases and evictions will quickly educate a person that the majority of landlords are entirely unsympathetic  to the plights of tenants.  Landlords view themselves as responsible Aussie battlers, and tenants are careless dole bludgers. As a renter, you are at best considered a necessary evil, at worst scum of the Earth.

Its amazing how common the idea is that tenants have all the rights and landlords are passive and downtrodden.  This completely ignores that few people choose to rent, and no one is forced to own investment property and to rent them out. If the investment doesn’t turn out, they can get out of the situation by selling up. What can the tenant do? Their choice is between homelessness and paying increasing percentages of their income on rent, hardly a choice at all.

Most people who own investment properties can only do so with the income from rent to cover a large percentage of the mortgage and other expenses of the property. This is fine during good times, and as long as rents remain affordable. Considering the massive debts involved in mortgages, this is a highly tenuous position in the best of times, yet landlords are shocked that people will have trouble paying rent during a pandemic. Meanwhile, if you told someone to get into debt for a figure multiple times their annual income for an investment that may or may not turn out in their favor,  they would laugh in your face. This is how cult like investing in property seems to be.

Part of this problem is that for the last fifty years, governments, financial advisers, bank managers and every white person’s grandparents have been telling everyone that property is the best investment, and that property values will only ever go up. These ludicrous claims have been made on the back of people who try to get their own piece of the Australian dream, many of which fail.  How this is not a pyramid scheme is mostly ignored.  So you will have to forgive me for not joining in with the whole “Landlords are the cornerstone of society” bullshit.

The more you think about it, the more you will come to realize that things don’t have to be the way they are. The system heavily incentives property as investments over home ownership. We can change this, if the Australian people and the parasites we call politicians prioritize home ownership over profit.

My brother and his partner have fulfilled their biological imperative and procreated.   Some people have made the claim that I would be a good uncle, completely ignoring  that I avoid children, they are too close to my maturity level for my comfort. But I have been thinking what advice I might give once Abigail becomes more interesting.

1: Travel

Just travel, it opens your eyes, broaden your horizons. I feel pity for people who think that the country they were born in is the best without ever bothering to learn about other countries. Plus it gives you plenty of stories to entertain/bore people at work, parties and funerals. Just don’t be too concerned when someone tells you a place was better a year, or a decade ago, those sort of people are best off avoided or silenced with a Karate chop to the neck if that’s allowed by local laws.

2: Know when to leave

This can be a job, a living situation, platonic or sexual relationships. Most things move towards their end, even when they don’t end in bitter recriminations, stains on carpets or unpaid wages, there will come a point when continuing any further will be no good for you.

3: Read

Doesn’t matter if it’s Tolstoy or Harry Potter, William Gibson or those time travelling Viking Navy Seal romance novels. It’s escapism and good for killing time while waiting for doctor’s appointments. Also it makes you look smarter than just scrolling on a device.

4: Learn to say no, and sometimes yes to drugs

Alcohol is good in moderation, but can be a problem if you constantly imbue and need it to feel normal. Dope is good in moderation, and probably as legal as alcohol by the time you are old enough to buy beer, but you don’t want to be one of those people whose personality revolves around partaking. Actually that’s true of alcohol as well.  Stay the hell away from anything that you need to snort or inject. Also stay away from cigarettes, they don’t get you high and are horrible for your health. By the time you read this there will probably be options I have never heard of, so you’ll have to work those out yourself.

5: Cultivate some hobbies

Its a good thing to have between work and sleep, and will put you in contact with people who you normally would never be in contact with. Personally I find passion and enthusiasm an attractive quality in people, especially when the subject matter doesn’t generate money or status.

6: Learn when to shut up

You will meet plenty of people who are more than happy to tell you all about their football team, their church, their sex life, regardless of your lack of interest on the subject. Or people who can’t handle silence. Don’t be one of those people. Plus you will be amazed how often people  assume you are deep in thought if you keep quiet for a while.

7: Trust your instincts

This holds true for dating, business ventures or cooking. If something seems off but you can’t explain it, you are probably correct.

8: Accept that you are going to make mistakes

and learn from them and forgive yourself. I’m avoiding typing out the whole reflection/rumination Psy 101 lesson here, so ill just say learn to make mistakes, learn from them and move on.

9: Seek help when you need it

Specifically I am thinking of mental health, but this also applies to finances, moving house or learning new skills. No one is an island, and there is no point in making your life harder than it needs to be.

Then…

A YouTube channel I watch often is called Philosophy Tube, by the creator formally known as Ollie Thorn. The channel obviously features videos about philosophy – such as this, and various issues such as climate change and the UK housing crisis. To set the stage and to tell the story, the creator plays multiple characters using costume changes, make up and incredible acting skills (the creator is a classically trained thespian. Its an incredibly entertaining and education experience. The videos that sucked me in the most are relating to the creator’s personal experience with mental health issues, which have to be seen to be believed… Clicky, but don’t click if you don’t want to find yourself balling your eyes out. The creator receives daily emails stating that these videos have saved the sender’s lives.

Now…

In the last video, that channel creator, Abigail Thorn, has come out as a trans-woman. Abigail did this by having an actor play her former self in part one of the video, talking about identity. In the last section of the first part, the dialogue becomes more personal, and states that living at the moment is like being at war, and how that is no way to live your life. the actor states that he is leaving, but if you want to see him he will be in the old videos. The first part ends with a actor taking a bow on stage, to the tune of David Bowie’s Blackstar.

Part two starts with Abigail strutting into a comfortably appointed room, wearing a black dress with white trim. Abigail introduces herself, and explains that she has been a woman for a long time, and has been presenting as a man only on YouTube. Abigail describes being a woman like changing jobs from a terrible job to your dream job, and how its not a quick fix, but a steady improvement towards a good place. I could go on- and this is probably a quarter of what I originally wrote in my Moleskine about this video, but it would be better to let the video speak for itself.

Post-Mortem

I have thoughts and feelings. It’s damned impressive that Abigail managed to keep this secret through multiple videos, watched millions of times. It’s also a brave thing to come out as trans, even to an almost exclusive left wing audience.  I never realized it, but Abigail as a man became something of a role model to me.  From the perspective of the previous videos, Ollie is articulate, educated without being pompous,  well dressed and groomed in a way I don’t come close to.  But that para-social role model is in my mind very linked to a male role model. How am I going to feel when she releases videos as her true self? I’m holding my breath about how I will feel about new videos. I am sure I will enjoy them, but it will definitely be different. It doesn’t help that I don’t know in person any role models that neatly fit into this niche for me in my real life.

I wrote this in my journal immediately after the article was published, however I got distracted by a zillion other things, so I appreciate everyone ignoring the lateness of this whole thing.

A few days ago (cough) my town’s local rag published an article that our lovely town will be getting early access to the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine in February. rolling out first to members of at risk groups. You can find the article here.

Most of us would think this is a good thing. Many of my town’s most vulnerable to the virus-including my parents- will be less vulnerable. Plus by the time it finally comes to my turn (I always thought I was an essential worker, but apparently not) the local medical professionals will be bloody good at transporting, handling and administrating the vaccine. Also its nice for us to get something early for once, we are four hundred kilometers from the world’s most isolated capital city, and I swear most of the country assumes we ride kangaroos because cars haven’t made their way to us yet.

Of course many people don’t see it this way. The comments, Oh my Dog the bloody comments. People think the vaccine has been rushed to release, and apparently my town has been selected to be guinea pigs, conveniently ignoring that the vaccine has been other countries for months before this announcement. People think that because a handful of elderly people died shortly after getting the jab, completely ignoring that correlation does not equal causation- It would in fact be strange and a sign of fudged data if no one died straight after getting the vaccine. People claim we don’t need a vaccine for a virus that has a 99.9% survival rate, an entirely fictional percentage, which also ignores the people that survive with permanent complications.

Of course there are the conspiracy theorists, its a method of population control , social programming, etc. It’s easier to just ignore these people and hope they don’t hold positions of influence or power.

What I would find amusing if it was not so tragic, is how people expect an impossible high standard of evidence for a vaccine, while happily spending hundreds of dollars a month for supplements with no proof that they do anything other than provide people with expensive urine. I get that Big Pharma is always more than a little problematic, but its definitely a necessary evil at the moment, if we ever want to get COVID in control. These idiot anti-vaxxers would rather be at a higher risk of death from a virus that has already killed millions than trust that the researchers, scientists and medical professionals know what they are doing.

You can find the initial question, and my original answer here. The following is more detailed and personal.

Maybe you don’t want to admit that you need help?

We are rugged individuals, we don’t need help. Admitting you have a mental health issue goes against this. Suddenly you are reliant on doctors, therapists, pharmacists, the faceless goons in your insurance or socialized medical care.

Maybe you don’t want the stigma of having a mental health issue?

Oh boy, informing anyone about your mental health issue is such a roulette spin. Even people who have the same will sometimes react negatively- a former supervisor of mine asked what I had to be depressed about. Get used to shocked, awkward looks, slow shuffling steps away and excuses to leave your presence, as if you are about to pull out a knife and carve them up. Hopefully the more people who admit to having issues this will change, and the statistics back up how having mental health issues is probably more common than any particular religion. This is what drives me to casually mention my depression and medication. Plus its fun to watch people’s reaction once you are self aware and objective enough.

Maybe you don’t want to be confronted by therapy?

Therapy doesn’t work without a solid dialog of honesty, otherwise your therapist would just be an over=qualified life-couch. Its not a pleasant experience, ripping apart aspects of your personality, having it poked it with a stick and then finishing your session, and trying to walk around like a normal person. It’s why I tended to go to the beach or a long walk after my sessions. I can only say that it is worth it, especially when, like me, you spend most of your waking hours trying to suppress your neurosis.

Maybe because after diagnosis, meds and therapy are only the starting point in your recovery?

At least subconsciously, I thought taking Prozac and attending a few therapy sessions would magically solve all my problems. Frustratingly, this is not the case, three years later I am still working on trying to exercise more, socializing more, and generally acting like a functional member of society. The therapy helps me pay attention to some of those issues so I can work on them in a constructive way. Prozac takes the edge off the worse of the depression and anxiety, which allows me to make some better choices. It also helps not being on the verge of a panic attack every time I reverse a ute between two other vehicles.

Maybe you don’t want an anti-depressant dependency?

Don’t get me wrong, you will take my Prozac and Axit out of my cold dead hands, but im not comfortable with the idea that realizing that I am out of them makes me feel rather nervous, long before any withdrawal symptoms become manifest. This makes me wonder how much I have in common with the junkie looking for the next fix.

Obviously I miss travel, but its strange some of the aspects of travel that I miss. I miss that first gasp of air when I leave the airport, away from the air conditioning and duty free perfume. I miss walking the streets of a city for the first time, gauging the vibe of the place. I miss waking up on planes, having no idea of the time or place, entirely dislocated from reality.

Trump has lost the US election, of course he can’t admit that he lost, the bankruptcies, failed marriages and his university having happened to someone who just looks and sounds much like him. To be honest I was expecting him to win. Apart from it keeping with the completely fucked up year we have been all having, the kind of people who voted for Trump the first time are unlikely to have changed their opinion since then.

The COVID-19 pandemic marches on. The Western Australian premier, Mark McGowan, has a ludicrously high approval rating, mostly due to standing up to other states insistence that we open our borders. This ties into Western Australian’s constant feelings of playing second fiddle to the eastern states.  Meanwhile people are acting as if having to wear a mask in public is the worst thing ever, as if healthcare workers (and chemical sprayers like me) haven’t been wearing P2 masks without much fuss for years. The word persecution gets thrown around a lot, mostly by people who have never experienced it due to their white, middle class privilege.

An aspect of my personality that I wrestle with is a tendency to obsess about a TV show, a cult, an individual or a particular song.  Much of this is similar to slowing down to gawk at a car accident. A typical example of this is my current fascination with the cult known as Jehovah Witnesses, im convinced I know more about this cult that its members. A more positive example is Strange Weather, by Anne Calvi, featuring David Byrne (from the Talking Heads). Something about the dueling vocals, the lyrics I can’t quite understand, and the broken flower aesthetic in the film clip  keeps me watching and listening again and again. At least it makes a nice change from hours of Nick Cave and Russian folk music.

Something I had been avoiding with two moving houses was going through a largish wooden box filled with keepsakes, letters, photos and other paraphernalia. I haven’t opened this box for at least five years. I was planning to downsize this box.

Here is a heap of scarves, photos and a camp blanket from my days as a Cub and later a Scout. Being a Scout was a big part of my childhood, and going through all this elicited a strong feeling of nostalgia, and sadness that I have lost contact with all the people who I cared deeply for.

A pen from a funeral home I did some casual work for.

A stack of letters from an ex lover. I thought I was in love, and apparently that’s the thing that matters. Hindsight is a bitch, and as soon as I ended things I realized how fucked up the whole thing was. As I skim read a few of the letters, I feel a sharp pang of regret, quickly receding into a cold detachment. How can someone whose happiness and presence was so important to my well being now only licit an awareness of misplaced affection? I wish I could have felt so indifferent eighteen years ago. The only thing I keep is a book she gifted me, with an inscription from her on the inside cover.

A certificate for my climb of the Sydney Harbor Bridge.

Photos, yearbooks and notebooks from school leave me feeling cold. My school days were not that pleasant, half because of a caustic, Catholic environment, and half because I was a gloomy, awkward child with undiagnosed depression, anxiety and chronic low self-esteem.

A small pen-knife, gifted to me from my grandfather, who used to own it. I can remember cutting a finger while cleaning its wickedly sharp carbon steel blade.

Letters from two former friends, both women. One friendship ended without a whimper when I realized that the only reason I continued with her was my on/off infatuation with an idealized version of her. The other ended after the usual drifting apart when she got engaged to an ex-cult member who I couldn’t stand. and I decided I didn’t have the energy for either of them anymore.

A bag containing Thai Baht; coins and notes, and the VOIP calling card I used to call Mum during that trip. It was my first solo trip, and nothing was ever the same.

An order of service for the funeral of a school mate.