Back to Work

I flew into a sodden, gloomy Sydney yesterday afternoon as an ex-tropical cyclone lashed the city with ex-tropical holiday weather. Okay, alluding that my trip to Adelaide was a tropical holiday might be a reach - although I did see two different types of palm trees there - but there was nothing subtle about the weather that book-ended my vacation. It started with winds directly from the sun in Melbourne twelve days ago, and ended as described above.

The in-between bits were figuratively kaleidoscopic, featuring many many colours: blue courts, turquoise shorts, yellow shirts, red flags, green shoes, pink feet. So, when I had to choose my outfit for my first day back in the office I forewent subtlety and wore a plain, white business shirt.

Plain white is the most average of business shirt designs. No patterns, no checks, wearing it makes me an interchangeable cog in the white-collar work force. To complement the shirt I chose a pair of charcoal pants from my collection of trousers. I always encode my feelings and emotions about the day in the colour of pants that I wear. Charcoal means I'm feeling optimistic. Silver means I'm confident. Light black is for when I'm feeling expectant, peppercorn is for days I'm jaunty. I wear steel when I'm particularly self-assured, ash when I'm feeling fanciful, and I wear my slate pants when all my other trousers are in the wash.

Work went fine, I didn't get rained on much, I bought two things of yoghurt, and exhibited self-control around the coffee machine. Unfortunately after skimming through 500 emails there wasn't a lot to distract me, and I was in that situation where you can still remember all the things that your time would better be spent doing.

I was walking towards the kitchen at one point and I heard a clattering. Instantly I recognised it as the sound of muesli being spilled into a hard, plastic bowl and after rounding the corner I proved to myself that my harmony with cereal is as sharp as it was before my trip. And then I realised that a white shirt is technically every single colour at once!