You cannot find peace by avoiding life.

Abandoned rose. Marion Bay, Tasmania. March 2013.

It's Theme Thursday and my apologies for the story. It's a true story, but not a pretty one. If you're faint hearted, simply admire the picture and move way now.

You have been warned.

Don't worry, we'll get to the theme. Be patient and bear with me.

There are two toilets in the complex where I work. One is always locked and only people who work in the complex have the key, the other is unlocked 90% of the time, but lockable. I prefer to use the locked one.

On Monday morning I was ready to burst after walking in from the town and immediately went to the unlocked one, as it was closer.

There is also a separate vestibule with sinks, mirrors prior to entering the business end of the equation. I sensed an evil presence as soon as I walked into the place.

Now, in this toilet area there are three seated toilets and three urinals.

In the seated one on the left, the cubicle was covered in urine and there was a generous helping of runny faeces all over everything.

'Nice', I thought to myself.

In the seated one on the right, the cubical didn't seem to have any urine in it, but there was an unholy level of [again] runny faeces all over the seat, cistern and floor.

Someone appears to have gone to some effort. Perhaps they'd saved something special for the third.

In the central cubicle, the faeces was still runny, but it featured a more generous smattering of chunks than the two either side of it. It seemed to be confined to the bowl and seat, but - tellingly - there was a (hastily) ripped open three pack of Bonds underpants on the floor and two faeces-filled pants on either side of the bowl.

I suspect that this has been done over a couple of visits.

Now, the twist on this come with the urinals. The urinal on the right was blocked with cigarette butts and filled to overflowing with urine.

The urinal in the middle was also blocked. By vomit. Thick vomit mixed with urine.

The other urinal seemed to work.

REJOICE.

Life is beautiful.

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke

In dreams begin responsibilities.

A life at sea, that's for me, only I just don't have the BREAD. That's right, Theme Thursday yet again and I post a photo of a yacht dicking about in Bass Strait just off Wynyard. The problem is, I am yet again stuck at work, slogging away, because I knead need the dough . My understanding is that it is the dough that makes the BREAD. And it is the BREAD that buys the yacht. On my salary though, I will be lucky to have enough dough or BREAD for a half dozen dinner rolls. Happy Theme Thursday people, sorry for the rush.

This will hurt me...

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