when life turns you around so quickly you suddenly realise you're staring at the back of your own head...

have you ever stood on top of a mountain looking into the distance and wondered where it all went wrong? it's usually not too hard to trace back the steps, tally up all the times you zigged when you should have zagged, when you said just the wrong thing to the wrong person or went in half-cocked and find the total sum of your mistakes. this is where you look at the untidy calculus of your own failure and vow to do things right from now on and all that nonsense that keeps you moving forward in life and on to the next fucking debacle.

you know what's really fucked up? it's when you're sitting outside with a coffee after one of the most fantiastically awesome weeks you can remember while the cool change rolls in trying to work out where you went RIGHT. you look at the trigger points and think nah, couldn't be...

like how you started frequenting the same cafe every week on a Wednesday and through sheer happenstance met some interesting new people...
or you decided to be friendly to someone who looked a bit lonely and made a new friend...
or how you showed respect to someone who deserved it, and received it back tenfold...
or how you spoke your mind at work once too often, leading your bosses to give you the shaft...
and how getting the shaft was the best thing that had happened to you in ages...

see, a week ago i lost my job. it came time for my end-of-probation meeting, i was asked to meet my boss (who'd come down from Sydney for the occasion) offsite and was told politely-but-firmly that they considered me a poor fit for the team and so would be terminating my employment as at that moment. this was a bit of a surprise to me since they'd relied pretty heavily on me over the last 3 months, but fuck 'em. i was going to ask for a massive pay rise with the threat that overwise i'd walk, so the result was the same. an hour and a bit later i was sitting at coffee with 2 interviews lined up for the next 2 days, chatting with Lil' Andrew and Cathy (whom i barely knew, but seemed good value) and pondering my future. Andrew i've known for years - he's a nice kid and he's made a point of coming to meet me for coffee on my weekly Cafe Essen runs because craves same the regular social amusements i do and he seems to be using it as a catalyst because he's regularly inviting other people to come along which is how Cathy wound up being there. 2 hours later i had someone to go drinking with on Saturday night. by the time i got to Thursday morning's interview i had another one to go to later that afternoon, and i'd received a message from Wiza, the Intern back where i'd been working saying

"hey, where are you?"
i got fired yesterday, hasn't anyone told you?
"WHAT?"
meet me up tonight, i'll tell you all about it

by the time we met up that evening i already had a job offer.
by that time the next day i'd sat another 2 interviews and had another offer on the table.

2 days had passed since i walked off site and i already had job offers. it's like when you break up from the girlfriend who was pissing you off, but not so much that you were quite ready to dump yourself, step out in the blinking sunlight of singledom to find out that you've somehow started to exude sex-appeal and all the pretty girls want your phone number.

Sandra and Alison are in fine form when they get home and want to go out on the town and i tag along as designated-driver (we're going to go dance, can we leave you with our-) handbag minder until they decide they've had enough at 2AM and it's time for bed. i've not been out on the town for a few games of pool and a bit of a groove in so long it feels as if the last time i was in a night club i had to dodge Neanderthals on the way to the mens, so i was having a great time, even when the girls were happily dancing with each other and i was propping up a wall and sipping the Light Beers the girls were bribing me with.

Saturday arrives and i have a chilled out day with my traditional morning coffee and the last chapter of Bioshock (which i was replaying in preparation for the sequel to come out) that leads into a pleasant evening sitting by Lake Burley Griffin sipping Gin & Tonics with Cathy while the sun sets and Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog back at mine when the wind picks up too much to be comfortable and ends with me dropping her off in Civic after politely declining an offer to come out dancing. 2 nights in a row's a bit beyond me at the moment - i'm no longer quite in the form i was in back when i was in central Europe. catch you up next week? you betcha.

on Sunday i sleep and chill out and watch some TV that's piled up while i've run around like a crazy person. on Sunday i tentatively accept a job from a company i'll call Q who's 3 business lines are "IT Virtualisation" (translation: Computer Black Magic), "Commercialisation" and "Motorsport". yeah, they've got their own fucking Rally team. Rachel (who works for the client i was looking after and has more clue in her head than the entire company who just fired me combined) is good mates with Denis who runs Q and has been badgering me to take the job with the vague promise that they'll "make it worth my while". fuck it you know, why the hell not? i decide, and hit Send on the email.

Monday's spent hanging with AB, doing surgery on my old laptop and modding it to accept his graphics card. it's a free upgrade for him and a chance to offload a hand-me-down for me so we're all winners. i catch up with April which i've not made time for in ages and i grab kebabs with the boys. it's low-grade amusement, but it's relaxed and the tension of the last few months has been leaking out like the condensation from my Audi's air con. i'm in just the right frame of mind for Tuesday. it's Australia Day and Wiza from Indonesia is about to get a taste of a good ol' fashioned Australia Day Party. she'd dropped me a line early on Monday asking if i had plans for Tuesday, so i invited her along.

it's a slow start - i'm sleeping like crap and it's killing my mornings so i don't pick Wiza up until midday and we're not there until 1PM, by which time the party's in full swing and Matt & Jules' place is packed to the rafters. i can barely get in the fucking front door, my arms full of drinks and Wiza trailing in my wake wondering what the fuck she's got herself in for. i can't take a step without returning a greeting - hey, how you doing? fancy seeing you here and i'm not 2 steps into the living room before i'm screaming WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE!!?? because bold as brass in an armchair sits Jocelyn who lives in fucking Perth! through the living room minefield and into the dining area i'm not surpised to see Amanda. The Redhead. The Ex-Girlfriend Formerly Known As Kitten. i'm not surprised because Matt's a fucking champion and he messaged me when she arrived so i wouldn't get blindsided. i eject out the back door shortly thereafter, all the beers now in the fridge apart from the one in my hand. i've made my arrival and take shelter from the heat down the side of the house and enjoy the breeze while the party ebbs and flows around me. i could circulate, or i could sit right here and let people come to me so i sit and drink beers and talk to whoever shows up, dishing out and receiving insults from anyone who comes into range in equal measure.

after a while Amanda emerges and seeks me out. the last i'd heard of her she'd managed to get knocked up to some guy, married him and named the resulting spawn Samantha. i cop the sympathy plea pretty quickly - the guy's an arsehole, the marriage is in a shambles, she's moving back in with her sister (who's own marriage was on the rocks when last i saw her 2+ years ago), he's threatening to take the kid away, blah blah blah. i am unmoved. i cannot be swayed. i've heard this fucking story before and the last time resulted in us diving in the sack less than 2 hours later, thus commencing our infamous "second go of it" which eventually resulted in me buying a one-way ticket to London (fuck - i never quite got around to thanking her for that - i should do that next time i want to put the boot into her). i have no sympathy to give here, but somehow i manage not to be directly insulting.

that sounds horrible. give me a call sometime and we'll grab a coffee somewhere, i say to her.
"Yeah, that sounds great! Except I don't have a phone at the moment..."
really? well that sucks. i'm sure you'll sort something out...

yes, i'm being uncharacteristicly petty. you'll have to forgive me. or you can build a bridge and get the fuck over it. it's not that i hate her anymore. it's simmered down to a thick, creamy ambivalence with big chunks of disdain that emerge when she makes the mistake of assuming that i might still give a fuck about the hole she dug and buried herself in up to her teeth. i'm just happier than a necrophile with a key to the morgue that there is no possible way that her child was fathered by me, is all i'm saying.

ok, i'll admit it. i'm a little bitter, but with a crisp finish and the aftertaste of a cricket bat in the face...

meanwhile, i'm having a hell of a time. everyone's having fun and i'm in fine form. Matt, the Tinman and i are bouncing jokes off each other at an post-graduate level, and every once in a while Rick has us all rolling on the floor amongst the empty beer bottles and cigarette ends. even glancing across the group to see Wiza having an animated conversation with 3 of my ex-girlfriends doesn't put a crimp on my day, but eventually the sun starts to dip and i remember that i promised to take her off to find a good spot for sunset photos.

we hit the Cotter, but the light's wrong. she's loving the chance to see the bush and i'm having fun playing with her DSLR, but the clouds have rolled in and killed the light so we head for Mt Ainslie - it's a cliche, but a worthy one and the sunset we get is totally worth it. we find a nice spot on the rail and take it in turns to rattle off photos and talk composition and lighting until the fireworks kick off, marking the end of an awesome day. the rest is just dinner on the way to dropping her back at her place and a wind-up chat in the evening breeze while we re-hydrate and just past midnight i collapse into bed with a smile on my face and massively high blood sugar from drinking the wrong sort of beer steadily through the day.

next thing i know i'm waking up and it's today. i stagger out of my room in a haze that i'd love to blame on drinking too much, but which i know is because i've fucked my diet and let my sugar levels slip well and truly into the "forget pills, find some fucking insulin before your feet fall off" zone. while i come up with a game plan for how i'm going to get them back down again i check my email and drink the coffee that i crave more than life itself and find out that Denis has accepted my politely phrased demands and agreed to pay me the Golden Figure.

see, 4 and a bit years ago when i was working in my first real Government job at the tender age of 25, someone asked me "what are your career goals?" now, at the time i was pretty happy with the world. i had a hot little Redhead in my bed each night, a gorgeous, fast bike and a sharehouse that was like one rolling party. i was young, dumb and full of... potential, so i said the first thing that popped into my mind:

well, i don't know LONG term, but by the time i'm 30 i want to be a Senior Tech and/or a Team Leader and i want to be earning [insert a suitably large, round number here].

somehow, as time went by, this became more and more serious and it started driving me on. how was i going to get that sort of cash? for starters, i had to be better than good, so i went out to be The Best. i had to take on more responsibility, so it took on Everything. when it came time for contract re-negotiation i went in hard and when they argued the point i was out and in a higher-paying job before the door had a chance to swing closed, and so it went. my confidence was rarely more than half a step ahead of my arrogance, and together we fired up like a caffeine-guided missile right up until i turned around one day and said nah, fuck it. i'm off to London and the focus changed.

when i got back in the country i didn't think too much about my old 5-year plan. the months of begging for a job in London had left me in the mindset that a job was a job and if i managed to not take a back-step in pay then i was lucky. 3 months later and i'm back in form with enough cash that i'm not desperate for the next gig and the theory to test that if you don't ask you never get.

so i asked. and i got.

Senior Server Engineer. promise of Team Lead for projects. pay rate bang on the number i pulled so blithely out of my arse way back when i was just an arrogant little shit in a polo shirt.

in a week i've gone from Zero to to Hero with a pinch of Caligula rolled in. the Perfect Storm of having made the right moves at the right times and the right people deciding to lend a helping hand for no other reason than that they can and they seem to think i deserve it for some reason you don't completely understand.

a week ago at coffee Andrew and Cathy asked me what i was going to do and i couldn't tell them. go to Perth for a while, maybe? or i could apply for jobs in Melbourne or Wellington or something... take the chance to look outside Canberra for a bit. it took less than hours for all those thoughts to get knocked clear out contention, as if the Universe decided to interrupt and say "Bad Pete! Sit! Stay! You're going to hang around Canberra until further notice whether you like it or not!" for a moment there it looked like losing my job was going to give me a good excuse to look further afield. further reflection seems to indicate that i'm exactly where i'm supposed to be until further notice and really, who am i to argue with the Universe?

taking stock amidst the settling dust...

some months ago i stared at the blank screen of my Eee and realised i couldn't fill it. my fingers jabbed at the keys for a while and a trickle of incomprehensible uselessness chased the cursor what i sat on the Ausabout bus until i gave up and stared out the window and watched the Austrian countryside slide by. over the next month i opened the text editor a few times and it returned my blank stare with an impassionate LED-backlit glare until i time and again admitted defeat and went off to do something else. the words didn't want to come so i left them where they were and moved on.

tonight i found myself staring up into the matt-grey sky and felt the falling droplets evaporate the moment they touched my skin while i wondered where it all went wrong. but they didn't go wrong. or right. they just went their own way and i let them carry me on while i waited for something to happen.

pulling back into Canberra was like waking up again after a longer-than-normal dream, Shadow standing at Canberra Airport looming like a brick-shithouse wrapped in teddy-bear fabric with a grin on his face wider than the sky over the desert, Sandra dashing up the stairs in front of the house and hurling herself at me for a tackle-hug. the old town hadn't changed and to be honest i'd expected nothing else. i couldn't remember the names of some of the streets, but i could remember the way without having to think about it. some people i caught up with couldn't believe i was standing in front of them again. some people had barely noticed i'd left. a week after landing i had a car and a job and a place to sleep and in the 3 months since i've been pretty much just rolling along in a semi-aimless fashion, waiting for something to happen.

nothing in particular, mind. anything.

i've had a couple of trips to Sydney - one at the behest of my new employers, one to meet up with the Grey Man who'd come back to Oz for the xmas break. i got through Perth and watched my kid brother get married. i passed through Melbourne and saw friends i'd not seen in 5 or 8 years. i'd gotten everything that would require me to be Not In Canberra done and out of the way so that i could focus on sitting around and doing fuck-all for a while, all planned out so that i could get my feet properly on the ground and put some roots down.

of course, it took not even 2 months for me to start going stir-crazy, pulling up lastminute.com.au every once in a while and having a speculative glance at how much flights would be to Wellington or Hiroshima or Cairns, pondering how the remnants of my Bike Fund would last if i put off getting back onto two wheels for another year and burned the cash going somewhere. fucking anywhere. see, while the old girl's exactly where i left it, the people in it are moving on faster than laksa through an octogenarian and i can't help but feeling that i'm just one more wedding away from being a dusty shadow fading in the rear-view mirror. my friends had been in the process of settling down, getting married and having kids (in no particular order, mind) for a while, but when it's happening in front of your eyes you tend not to notice so much. fuck off for a year and the progress becomes far more pronounced. when yet another friday rolled round where everyone was "having a quiet night in with the missus" or "looking after the kid" i gave up and buried myself in my room with a bag of salt & vinegar chips and the latest role playing game on my laptop, or sitting outside staring at the stars while the backlight from the screen flickered with Facebook updates and pictures of motorcycles i couldn't quite bring myself to take for test-rides.

i've found myself stuck in a limbo of my own construction - settling down and building a nest means i can't easily schedule trips to interesting parts of the world, fucking off to travel means i can't easily settle down and doing either would feel too much like admitting defeat so i've wound up in a holding pattern while i try to decide whether to land or to chase that bright spot on the horizon. it's all well and good being a confirmed bachelor when you've got plenty of other single friends to enjoy it with, but when it's down to you and the sad lonely sons of bitches who've been single about as long as you've known them... well, it's time to face the fact that you're hairy, ugly and generally undesirable and should probably just give in to the inevitable dingy bedsit filled with comics, computer parts and cats. there's only so far being the funny, well-travelled guy will take you and after that you're back to staring into another blank screen while the Lynx deodorant fades beneath your own personal eau de desperation.

the thing is that nothing went wrong - i got in and my life reconstructed itself around me... it's just that the old comfortable coat doesn't fit so well anymore. after months of grovelling and begging for work in London the job market couldn't employ me fast enough, but chasing the career just isn't exciting me like once it did. hanging with the old crew has been brilliant, but i just can't get enthused about buying a house when my head's still elsewhere.

there's one thing that constantly resolves out of the static, but it's like smoke, dissipating when i disturb the air by trying to get close, fairy-gold fading to dust in the morning light. there are no answers to be found there and it gets me no closer to understanding what i really want to do with myself long-term. 10 weeks through Europe, then a week in London, a couple of days in Hong Kong, a week in Perth and then another in Melbourne - not a day was wasted in over 3 months, so every day i spend going through the motions here feels like my life is slipping away from me, falling through my fingers... until i remember that this is what most of life is - those boring, unproductive days where you wake up, go to work, spend 8 hours doing something before going home, entertaining yourself before you fall asleep to do it all again tomorrow. i should probably get used to that if i'm to avoid going batshit-fucking-bananas.

so, of course, my survival instinct has given me plenty of buffer before i have to actually make a fucking decision. i'm off to the US in September this year for Shadow and The Boss's 20th wedding anniversary. i can sit tight with the excuse that i'm "saving for the trip" when really i'm really just avoiding laying down tap-roots until something gives me a nudge in the right direction, whatever that happens to be. either way, for the time being i'm trying not to think about it too much, in as much as that's possible for me. it really is a case of "look at the shiny-shiny!" - the more distracted i get, the happier i am. how long i can keep that up? well that remains to be seen...