Hallelujah Kenja

In Melbourne on Sunday night, strolling with Katie. We're invited to join in singing the Hallelujah Chorus by a lady standing on the street.

I enjoy singing and have contemplated rejoining a choir this year. It would be fun to have a vocal blast - it'll start in 1/2 hour I'm told.

The lady handed us a flyer and I read it while we have a coffee.

Kenja Communications are the ones running the night ..... 'Who are they?' we ask each other.

Katie Googles them, gasps and appears worried. She shows me - defined by cult, court case, Cornelia Rau, sexual misconduct, witch-hunt ..... Ummm, thanks, but no thanks!!

We stroll back again, the lady is busy arguing with a policeman about a car parked in a No Standing zone at their doorway, she doesn't notice us as we breeze by.

I'm humming the Hallelujah chorus as we stroll along, happy together in this beautiful and comfortable city.

All jokes aren't jokes -

In response to a FB repost by the enlightening Cathoel Jorss:

http://oforganon.tumblr.com/post/11150747104/to-all-those-men-who-dont-think-the-rape-jokes-are-a

I spent nearly two hours today sitting near the corner of Bourke and William Sts - reading, watching fashion and style, sunning myself like a lizard, observing a crank of cycle couriers coming and going at the gabble of their radios. It was really enjoyable.

How many of those people who were passing by, sitting near me, making eye contact, avoiding eye contact, would threaten or hurt me in different circumstances? I feel safe in the open, in daylight.

I'm male, I'm tall but as I age I feel more and more vulnerable. I have never felt, imagined or experienced the violently personal invasiveness of rape other than as represented in shockingly chilling disgust in some films. How can you joke about that, how could you laugh in response??

When I was much younger I was always uncomfortable with 'boys talk' and crass jokes but didn't have the guts to acknowledge that in front of my peer group.

Through my career as a schoolteacher I became confident in expressing myself and now, over 30 years later, I have no difficulty in conveying my disgust to people who demean, abuse or bully others, male or female.

But I'm worried, and Katie (forever my best friend) is scared, that one day the teen on the train who's swearing and abusing his girlfriend on the phone will turn on me with a knife, that the bombast at the barbecue will king hit me or the drunk in the row in front will 'glass' us both.

I'm prepared to continue to risk it.

The strings of Christmas

It's bustling in Melbourne, even for a Sunday afternoon. A caterpillar of families admiring Myer's Christmas windows, buskers performing- it's fun watching the world of excitement , it's so foreign to me now.
I'm suddenly snatched from my reverie by a man, younger than me, a neatly trimmed red beard. He's talking to me, fast and insistently, asking for money. 'You're hungry?', I ask in response to his request, 'Come with me and I'll buy you a meal at the Ghurka Institute, all you can eat, it's vegetarian' ..... 'No, no, no' he says, 'Accommodation, give me cash so I can sleep here in the city tonight, I don't have a job at the moment'.
'Ok', I say, 'How does this sound, I'll do this for you - I'll buy you a feed, I'll buy you a ticket to Mildura and call the labour exchange, they'll have a bed for you and you'll start work tomorrow picking fruit'.
He's aghast, irate, and tells me that 'Karma will get me', he points at Katie saying 'She'll have a rotten Christmas, you're mean and selfish, karma will get you'.
I sigh and begin to move off. He grabs my arm. I look down at his hand and he removes it.
'You cannot know how happy my wife is, how much she's been through, how often she thinks about life without me and how your call is far too late - it's far too late for your karma to 'get me'!'