Work choices - yeah right!

I've just seen the Commonwealth Government's 'Helping people to move into work’ advetisment again and realised why I have such an ambivalent reaction to this campaign.

I am strongly in favour of the concept of flexible workplaces which allow mothers, older people, carers, people with disabilties and anyone else with constraints that prevent 40 hour commitments to employment move into jobs. The mother who says 'I really want to work but have the kids to think about' highlights exactly what I think Australia's work culture should be built on - an ability for everyone to combine work, family, and life.

However I can’t help but think of the motivation behind the current push for workplaces to become more flexible – saving money on welfare support. The fact that this strategy of government support and promotion of flexible work practices is tied to a mandated reduction of Centrelink benefits for those being accomodated makes me so angry.

worry

Why do I still crave your kiss? Why do I so painfully relive your touch, your presence, your mind? I know I have smoothed out the bad, leaving myself with a phantasy of your existence colliding with mine. But why?

Is it because I worry? The fixation, repetition, obsession, rumination that plagues and blesses so much of my thought is enacted in thinking about you. I want to be over you, to be rid of you from my head - but the worrier in me keeps you here, closer than you were in the flesh, but a (mere) phantasy.

smell...

When you walked into the room I wanted to run: run from my textual behaviour; run from the pain of still wanting you; run from the inconvenience of my worry. That desire to be elsewhere remained, fed by snippets of conversation escaping down the table, your mere presence and your acknowledgement of mine.

Dissapated.

You weren't the you of my memory. Situated in my life and phantasy you are not the person there tonight - the clothes, the plans, the conversation, the swooning over him, the him.

Ambiguity. Envy and anger. I am not sure the two are mutually exclusive, like so many strong emotions.

Enter the power of smell. Recognition of the you of my mind. The fear of proximity, until now tempered by misrecognition, becomes warranted.

Lust. Love?