My writing week 4 (16)

Hi all,

Global Warming

I’ve been catching up on my newspaper reading and the global warming debate is not going well. Clive Hamilton in last Wednesday’s Age sums it up well:

“What do Australians want? The answer is clear. We want symbols of action but not action itself. We want to hear words that make us fell good about ourselves but none that ask us to make any sacrifice. We care about climate change, but we hate the idea of having to do anything about it.”

Even with my household’s limited resources and income we have tried to decrease our contribution to global warming, while people on much larger incomes do nothing, except whinge. We have installed solar hot water and a rain water tank. We upgraded the gas heater to one with a thermostat. Every light fitting has one of those energy saving light bulbs in it. We grow a lot of our vegetables and fruit. We don’t have a car, instead we walk everywhere.

The only good thing about global warming is it makes it very easy to write about future dystopias as the lack of water, food and land, will inevitably lead to civilisation’s collapse in the next century. Just as well I don’t have any kids to worry about. I wonder what those with children think the future holds for their offspring. Are they ignorant (the science is clear) or just selfish.

Arrhhh Dentist

I spent more time arranging dentist appointments and visiting doctors and medicare to get onto the EPC programme last week. By the end of the week it was all organised. $4250 of my dental costs will receive a rebate of around $2750. For a moment I felt a bit of relief, but then got the quote from the dentist - $6090. There were three crowns instead of one, fortunately one of the crowns is not urgent. So the EPC will cover all the work by my dentist except for that third crown. I still will need to pay an oral surgeon around $2400 for the removal of two wisdom teeth and other tooth.

I have set myself up for a really enjoyable week starting the 10th of May when the dental works all begins with three fillings. On the 13th of May (and it is a Friday), I trip down to Melbourne to see an oral surgeon for a consultation. The next Monday I go down to Melbourne to the dental hospital. I am hoping they have an oral surgeon at the training hospital who will extract the wisdom teeth for free or not much more. The next day, it is back to the dentist for the start of the first crown.

Oh the horror, the horror.

In the future dentists will be able to plant stem cells into jaws and grow replacement teeth, which will be protected from plaque by nanomachines. I can’t wait.

Writing

Besides organising all things dental again last week, I spent a bit of time as DIY Graham. The plumbers arrived and laid the new pipes I then filled in the trench, which wasn’t as easy as that sounds because I had to make sure the heavy clay soil got under the pipe and down its sides. I also planted a tree.

The next door neighbour’s son – who lives in the garage – decided that the best time to chop wood for his fire was in the middle of the night. I dragged myself out of bed to inform him that it was not. I suggested he make himself a nice pile of chopped wood during the day. He also woke me up on two other nights with his music. I suggested to him that I might contact the council.

I am wondering whether he is legally able to live in the garage. I remember when I lived in Sydney in a share house that one of my co-occupants was kicked out of his mum’s garage by the council. He was a moron as well.

The combination of tiredness, anguish and other things to do, meant that once again I did very little writing last week.

I have decided to change the title of my blog to: Why I didn’t Write Last Week. The change will be made as soon as I get time…

Graham Clements.

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