Saturday 24 February 2018

Drunk, and north of the Yarra

Hi everyone,

Here I am again: living in a share house in Brunswick just off of Nicholson Street.  It's been a very big week since I shared my last post.  Heavens to Murgatroyd: it feels like I have a world of details to share.  The pictures may or may not be embeds, by the way: I'm back to using my superannuated laptop which is refusing to accept pictures from my phone.

I'm a personal injuries lawyer again.  I'm working for a firm on Queen Street opposite the old Land Titles Office.  I like it.  The work feels like I was never away and the people seem like good sorts.  The office is barely a block from the place where I was an Articled Clerk.


For the last week I've been staying at Second Oldest Sister's place in the mid-southeastern suburbs of Melbourne.  That was good, of course, but it's always a little curious living as a house guest.  In any case, today was move-in day, so I packed my toothbrush and whatnot and drove over the Yarra into Carlton, Fitzroy and then Brunswick, where I will be living for probably as long as this job lasts.  I appreciate that "as long as this job lasts" is a fairly grim way to measure time.  After the last few years, do you blame me?  The digs themselves are clean and spacious if a little spartan.  The one chair in my room is broken and there is no armchair (there may be a trip to the op shop in my future).  No matter.  This is a place to sleep and store my stuff.  Palatial it need not be.

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I keep my sunhat, safety glasses and hi-vis clear to see. Do not forget who you are.

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Well, I should have mentioned that I did bring one or two books with me.  When you like to read, it's what you do!

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When you're a book geek, this is what you pack!

Longtime readers (as in, from back in the old "Joy of Sandwiches" days) may recall that I lived around here once before and I remembered that Our Lady Help of Christians is a singularly pretty church.  I went to vigil Mass there tonight and Praise God they do the Mass "straight" there.  That is, no electric guitars. No pop songs.  Just the regular service in its simplicity.  You need nothing more.  It's a quick walk away, so I've clearly found my parish for the duration.

A post shared by Stephen Tuck (@sdtuc2) on


On which note, the office is also only a block away from St Francis' so I've been to lunchtime Mass twice this week as an observation for Lent (since my attempt to give up swearing lasted all of 30 minute)

And now?  I'm a little drunk (alert readers will have spotted the wine cask in one of the photos).  While I've been typing this I've been playing rock of the mid-to-late-1990s.  This wasn't one of the easier times in my life, but it was also one of the most promising. For my sins, I didn't know that at the time.



Now here I am, in 2018, with a failed marriage, a lot of jobs and 40 years of life behind me.  As I said in my last post, I'm liberated from "what people will think".  Now anything - perhaps literally anything - is possible.

2 comments:

  1. I'm glad you have found a new job and reasonable place to say. It's a good thing not to care about public opinion. What do they know, after all!
    I like having a stack of books nearby at all times.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Janie. It really does feel good. And it feels better not to worry what people think. My friends will say "oh that's just Steve - and he's crazy!". And if they're not my friends... well, who cares?

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