The small stuff

   



The phrase 'don't sweat the small stuff' has always irritated me. I understand it conceptually, I even agree with it to a certain extent, but you know what? I love the small stuff. My three weeks in Kalgoorlie has been all about the small stuff - good and bad.

I adore the fact that everyone here has a Ute, or a Holden or one of those yummy mummy 4 wheel drives. It amuses me no end that there is a house around the corner entirely decked out in Fremantle Docker's colours. And it makes me literally laugh out loud that the same team has recently changed their strip.

 

I love that it is so quiet here at night and that the birds wake up when it is still dark, 3.30 - 4 in the morning. I am encouraged by the fact that I can afford to purchase real estate - something entirely unobtainable, for me, in Sydney.

My faith in mankind is restored when I receive a hearty farewell when I leave the local pub. And that these same people remember small details of conversations previously had. And it's kinda cool that I get to sit at the bar and the bartender will automatically bring over a refill when I'm close to finishing my glass.

I am relieved that the dry climate has cleared up my problem skin and that I haven't had a frizzy bad hair day since I arrived.

On the other hand.

Every bloody householder owns a dog, generally a Staffordshire Bull Terrier, and it is those same dogs that bark CONSTANTLY. At night, or from behind a tall fence, or the back of one of the aforementioned Utes every time I walk past. Combined with the incessant early morning chirping of the birds, the silence is less and less attractive.

The same Utes and cars may also have a 'Fuck Off We're Full' sticker proudly displayed across the back. The misappropriation of Australian imagery far exceeds that of Cronulla in the wake of the riots some years back. Without putting anyone offside - I'm not terribly fond of Southern Cross tattoos. At one of the other pubs in town, I saw a perfectly lovely, normal looking girl with one ON HER NECK. At another I saw a skimpy (lingerie waitress - in polite terms) with one on the small of her back. 

It is the same sense of community that gives rise to the whole of bar farewell, that works to exclude anyone that operates outside of what is considered the norm. Indigenous patrons are blatantly, and often forcibly, removed from establishments. There is such absolute and open hostility toward the community and quite frankly I find it appalling. I have also learnt that I should keep these opinions to myself.

My frizz free hair comes at a price. The dry desert climate has left my sinuses completely stripped bare - I wake up with a bleeding nose some mornings and I'm prone to spontaneous and simultaneous sneezing and coughing fits. I seriously sound like a cat with a fur ball.

I am having fun though. I have made a new 'friend' and a new friend. The former is a lovely boy - quite gorgeous really - though it is nothing to get too excited about. And the latter is an absolutely fabulous girl - a Sydney girl originally - with a sense of humour entirely too close to mine.

I still have my moments when I think I'm getting back on a plane next week to go back to my little apartment and my lovely pussy cat, only to come crashing back to reality. And I did have a face in my hands 'Mummy, I want to go home' episode not so long ago...

What I'm trying to say, I suppose, is that it really is the 'small stuff' that can make or break me here. It's up to me to decide what to sweat.