I’m standing in line for security at the airport. People are
nervously chucking papers and jackets and backpacks into bins. Irritable TSA
workers are irritably shouting irritables. There’s a girl that looks French. You
know, she’s French in the face.
The second question I get about going to Australia is “What
are you gonna do there?”
“I have two interviews”. I’ve been lying. I have two and a
half leads, nobody’s agreed to meet me yet. “One’s for a consulting group and
one’s for a start-up that sells fancy backpacks and things online” truths. The
last half lead involves catching invertebrates for science.
I caught a glimpse of the girl’s ticket, she’s going to Charles
De Gaulle.
I’m caught straddling two basic ideas for Australia. 1) Get
a big boy job, like the aforementioned ones, and become an Australian
Australian. Working for the man. The Australian man. He’s a just a little more
tan and laid back than the American one, and he’s got a shepherd dog named Taz.
But they’ve both got suits and I like that. The goal here being, I uproot and sow
myself into an Australian plot. Become as Australian as I can be, and carry my
career in that direction.
Arms up, legs spread for the machine.
The second idea is the standard backpacker’s idea. Stumble
around the red rock working on farms and seeing the things to see. I’ll meet
some people in the hostel and maybe join a caravan. Maybe not. But I’ll spend
10 days in Sydney at the hostel, and then if I don’t get any real boy jobs then
I’ll head to the tropical north. I’ve always been a tropical guy anyway.
I’m through security and there’s a little girl with a little
hat sitting in a little stroller and she’s saying “Goodbye!” to people and planes. There’s an
emphasis on the “i”.
