Blame it on a Scorpio Moon

 A Toa sister met me out the front of the supermarket today, while I wrestled with numerous rolls of toilet paper, an eighteen month old bull mastiff, a bicycle and a sense of righteous injustice.

"I've been having real problems keeping sane, too," she told me. "I've been sooo angry. I don't want to be an angry person ... but I'm fucking ropeable. What's going on? And do you want a ride home?"

We both made each other feel a bit better by indulging in some mutual slandering of the full moon in Scorpio. "Yeah, like, what the fuck is it with that moon? What did I do to piss her off so much?"

Me, well it's being going on for a week or more. About a week ago I wrote and sent a letter to the fishing shop guy. I think that was the day my rage began. Then the piglets died.

One piglet dying is sad : (  One thousand, two hundred piglets getting burnt to death in an intensive farming shed, along with two hundred of their mothers, could be construed as an horrific event. Even more horrific and obscene is the West Australian's take on this story - 'will the price of pork and bacon rise this week?' Yes it will, and I'm upset, already.

And then, mine and others' experiences with social services reminded me that, to access social services in this country, we must submit our souls to an inquisition of our morality. You want community housing? Don't ring us, we will ring you, after we have gathered references from social workers and your family and passed all grotty, private details of your life between all government departments in a small town. We won't tell you where you stand on the list. We won't tell you where your details are stashed. When we decide you are not eligible, we will keep those letters and references in our 'archives'.

Need a job? Feeling depressed? Hand your doctor's file and psychiatric profile to the local job search agency and see what they can do with it.

Is humiliation, personal compromise and loss of privacy an insidious prerequisite when accessing social services? Yes.

And how does the Albany Port Authority have the juristiction to dig up our harbour and fill in that precious little cove, forever? How did they get the right to do that - and why are the state government so enthusiastic to sign off on this vandalism?

It got worse. My ability to purchase toilet paper was curtailed by, no not poverty, but my preoccupation with my own rage - every time I entered a supermarket, I forgot everything I was supposed to to hunt and gather and instead wondered why these guys are importing shitty old navel oranges from America or snow peas from Nairobi. I see the regional manager of the Port Authority musing over avocadoes and bags of English spinache.  And the bacon. Oh the bacon.

Consequently, felicitous feelings, vitamin C deprivation and shitty arses were the norm at home, all week until today. Because, today I clawed back some practicality from my idealistic rage and bought some toilet paper. And I also talked to my sister ... who said, 'It's just the moon, girl,' and then gave me a ride home in her station wagon.

'(God) grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.'

Please.