We're off to the country for Xmas lunch at my sister's place with her, her husband and the nieces.
And the dog pack. We all bring our dogs, normally there is about 12 of them running around the farm together. they are a whole bunch of working dogs, and then the two bulldogs.
My sister said not to bring anything, but we're going to stop in at the Italian cake shop and get some cakes to take.
Anyway, I guess we need to get our shit together and go.
6.45am. I was up. Do you know how nice it is to finally be able to fart with confidence, I think. Yay, to the doctors, I guess.
I emptied the dishwasher and made coffee. Ah, the morning, I never really considered myself a morning person, but I guess I am.
7am. Sam was up. It’s kind of early for him, if I said he was intruding on my early morning, it wouldn’t really be true, but I do like my early mornings to myself.
I look for Bob Mizer vintage images. I’d started collecting them yesterday. All those wonderful old images. You know, you start reading about Gisèle Pelicot at 7am and before you know it, you are collecting vintage photos. My morning, welcome to it.
8am. I make vegemite toast and coffee.
8.05am. Otto is up. He comes downstairs with Sam singing Only Love Can Hurt Like This, Paloma Faith.
8.07am. Bruno was up.
Of course, I watch a couple of American political YouTubers, David Pakman, Medias Touch to get warmed up for the day.
I watch Old Skool Only – It’s Ready! LC Torana Build Pt8
I watch Iron Trap Garage – Making Progress On The Custom Chop For The 1939 Mercury Coupe
8.30am. Sam feeds the dogs.
I collect Bob Mizer images for most of the morning.
Sam cleans up, the house and the pond.
Jills Birthday. I sent her a message, Happy 102 birthday.
11:27 am. I go to the supermarket to get grated cheese and butter, I’m gonna make lasagna.
A dark blond-haired boy walks out of Coles ahead of me who has the most sensational legs in a pair of black shorts. Thick, muscular and lightly hairy. I’d like to run my hand up them. Cute face, I’d like to see its reaction as my hand up his leg grabbed his nuts.
11.47am. I’m in St Marks Recycle, just to have a sniff around. Chuckle, I think I like the smell of opshops. They have nothing I want. The nice volunteer asks where the bulldogs are?
“Asleep under the coffee table when I left.”
“It’s a dog’s life,” she says.
“I went to Coles first so I couldn’t bring them with me,” I say.
I’m walking back down Smith Street. Sam has now messaged me for a second time to get long beans this time, before it was bones.
I cross Smith Street thinking I could go to Woolworths to get the beans. But, then I think, Woolies veggies are all the way at the back of the shop, where Coles vegies is at the front of the shop, so I decide to go to Coles and get the beans.
11.49. One of the brainless and unfortunate was walking in the middle of Smith Street, like yesterday when I took the dogs for a walk, there was another one, seemingly oblivious to the traffic. Why is it the down and out seem to have no traffic skills?
11:51am. I am back in Coles to get long beans for Sam. I don’t know how many, so I just grab a few handfuls and stuff them in a bag.
11.56am. I’m walking home.
Midday. I am home.
I’m listening to The Rolling Stones, Tattoo You.
I make cheese sauce.
I put the lasagne together. I made the meat sauce yesterday.
12.50pm. I’d finished making the lasagne, washed the dishes and all.
We ate instant noodles with left over fried chicken for lunch.
I’m collecting Bruce of LA images. I love old black & white photos, you know, especially modern images, or what were once modern. It helps if they are a little edgy, I kind of think an ingredient of modernism.
We take the Bulldogs for a walk. The sun is shining. The sky is blue with wispy clouds.
We turn into Nicholson Street. The sun is shining, it’s lovely and warm out of the breeze.
Douglas, the Scotty Dog, comes running down his hallway to bark at Otto and Bruno, but we passed his gate by the time he does that, so Otto didn’t get to spa with him. Otto always wants to leap about with him from the other side of the fence.
We walk through the side streets and cross over Brunswick Street.
People in the outdoor section of the Black Cat, which was full of people, want to say hello to the bulldogs. Some woman gets them the bowl of water to drink. Another woman tries to bring the attention back to her small curly-haired dog. I am sensing competition. I’m really not sure why. She had ‘those’ eyes, you know, big and demanding. Me me, me me.
There is a wedding at St Marks, which is over and the people are all coming out of the church. The bride and groom drive away in a 1960 220S Mercedes (W111) with cans tied to the back of it. Some of those cans become detached as they drive away and are left in the middle of the street.
They have a coach waiting out the front. They seem to have two more coaches further down George Street.
One of the guests heading to their coach, or car, picked up the discarded cans and put them in one of the nearby houses’ bins.
The house just over Moor Street, which has been sold recently, had what appeared to be its new owners out the front, and consequently its front door was open and their brown Labrador came out to suss out the bulldogs. He and Otto kind of do those dog circles until the labrador’s owners took control of him and ushered him back inside.
Then we’re home.
I continue collecting Bruce of LA images.
The guy who sent me the 3 CD Rolling Stones CD messaged and asked if I received disk number one that he sent.
Originally, he’d sent me a 3 disk collection with two dick twos and no disk one.
He then asked if I had post back to him the duplicate of disk 2. I hadn’t. I had the envelop all prepared to send, but I hadn’t actually sent it. He didn’t send me any stamps for post, like he said he would.
So, he had my address taped on the front of his postal bag with tape, so I peeled it off and stuck it over his return address on the back. Then I wrote his address on the front and taped up the package without putting any more stamps on it.
5.15pm. I walk the bulldogs to the post box to post it. I was only taking Otto, but Bruno looked as though he wanted to come, so I took him. That was a mistake.
We got half way up to the postbox and Bruno wouldn’t walk. He lay down on the footpath.
5.23pm. I asked Sam to come and get Bruno. This was meant to be a simple trip to the post box. Grrrr!
I decided we should walk back to meet Sam coming to meet us. As soon as I said, “Come on, let’s go home,” Bruno got straight up and walked. He is just a brat.
We tried walking all of us to the post box, when Sam got there. We hadn’t gone very far, and Bruno lay down again. So, Sam took them both home, as Otto would look for Bruno if we separated them, and as soon as they started heading home, Bruno walked just fine once again when they were heading for home.
5.40am. I’m home again.
We watched the end of Deal or no Deal. It was a repeat, the one with the 98 year old gut who was trying to win money for a cruise. I’m not sure if we agreed on it being a repeat, but we both agreed we wanted to suck his handsome grandson’s dick.
We ate lasagne for dinner.
We watched Dog House.
We watched Vera. It was a repeat, we’d seen it before, although we couldn’t agree on that fact.
We turned the TV off.
I fell asleep on the couch watching CorvetteBen and the worst. C3 Corvette he’d ever seen and bought, which he bought sight unseen off MarketPlace, or some such selling app.
10.30pm. We went to bed.
I re-watched the bits of CorvetteBen I’d slept through.
11.11pm. Lights out.
I have a knife in my kitchen that freaks me out whenever I see it, and I never use it, it is a murder weapon, long, and pointed and tapering out to a fine point.
It gives me the creeps.
I was making Bolognese sauce, yesterday, and I pulled it out of the draw by accident and then it was in my hand, but I told myself not to be a baby, and just use it. So, I did.
I was slicing mushrooms.
Every time I look at it, I can feel it plunging into my back, over and over, or feel it piecing me between my ribs. No, it's into my back, piercing my kidneys that I feel it. I shiver in anticipation. It's like a bad horror movie.
Within moments, there I am bent over the kitchen bench, face down on the Bolognese sauce, my back peppered with multiple bleeding puncture wounds, pumping blood into the air like the United Nations fountain.
David would say that it was probably something that happened in a past life, and he never really seems to accept that I don't believe in past lives, as most of those new age spiritualist types tend to do.
"Ah." I put the knife down on the bench.
After that, I'd kept sneaking looks at it, I guess, just to make sure it was still on the bench where I left it, making sure it hadn't moved, mysteriously.
When I'd finished constructing the Bolognese sauce and had put it onto simmer for an hour, and I was washing up those things I couldn't put in the dishwasher, I washed that knife and dried it and put it away back in the draw out of sight, first.
I know, get therapy. Pfffff! Get rid of the knife, is the cheaper option. But, how do you get rid of such a weapon?
Today is the day. Hospital, sweetie.
8.33am. I leave home for my 9.10am appointment. I walk down my street to Victoria Parade. A woman walks up the street towards me clutching what looks like a big box in her hands held out in front of her covered in geometrical print material, as if the contents were precious. Of course, I imagine cream cakes, or French pastries.
Actually, the best pastries I ever had were in Belgium, when we were crossing the border to catch a ferry back to England, and we spent all the change we had, to get rid of the currency, and it turned out we had more money than we thought, and they gave us an enormous box of pastries, and we sat them on the bonnet of my Citroen and gorged on them.
I cross Albert Street.
I’m listening to The Rolling Stones Loving Cup.
Should I wear my Hoody or not, was the question before I left? It could’ve gone either way. It’s nice and sunny and warm in the sunshine, but kind of cold in the shadows. I would’ve been good either way. I’ve been wearing shorts for such a long time recently, it is difficult to get used to jeans again. Shorts are addictive with their superior air circulation, I guess that’s it? They feel better once you’ve been wearing for a time. Free and easy. Jeans feel restrictive.
I walk through the Fitzroy Gardens.
What do these sudden health issues mean? I don’t know? Getting old, I guess. I don’t feel it, not for a minute, I don’t feel any different to how I have always felt.
An old woman with tanned leather skin, in active wear leggings and a white top, jogs towards me, as I get to Powlett Street. She’s attempting to fight inevitability, I think. 25 years and I’ll be with her.
8.46am. I arrive for my 9.10am admission time.
The receptionist doesn’t want to take my medical referral. She points to some place off in the distance and says, “The referral is for the doctor.”
I take a seat and wait.
'Today' is on the large flat screen. A Pizza Hut is having throw back 25 year lunch deals $4.95 pizzas, which apparently have gone viral. Those in the studio have a selection of pizzas to eat, of course. I tune out to it.
8.50am. I listen to Black & Blue next, well, I have listened to Goat’s Head Soup and It’s Only Rock and Roll recently, and I’m choosing Black and Blue in anticipation of its Deluxe release, apparently in the new year.
A woman with post-middle-aged-woman-henna-red hair arrives. She’d be 70, I'd guess.
Not long after, a 60ish year old man arrives in triple white striped black track pants.
They are both over weight.
She pulls out a novel as fat as she is.
He stares down at his phone.
She has bags she rifles through. I see she has enormous breasts that she looks like she has trouble seeing over. Imagine lugging those things around?
His is a study in stillness.
9.15am. My 9.10am admission time comes and goes.
9.27am. The nurse calls me, but I have music in my headphones. My two waiting room companions make it obvious to me I am being called. I’m ushered in behind the door.
9.46am. I’m processed by the nurse who collects me. She asks me many questions and fills out many forms in a folder. At the end of which she says, “Get changed into your hospital clothes. I’ll close the door, when you are changed, open the door again.”
9.55am. I’m in hospital clothes. Strange see-through knickers that would be more at home in a Chubby Chasers Delight video. Blue shoes and a blue hat. An open at the back gown and a towelling robe. I wonder how many people have a fetish about this getup?
10.05am. More questions from a nurse, confirming all the previous questions. Back over the information. There is one person in front of me.
The anaesthetist comes into the room. She is like a ray of sunshine, really lovely. She reminds me of Jessica Chastain. Kind of. What a wonderful bed side manner. You can’t help but instantly like her.
I’m really hungry. I can’t wait to wake up in recovery and eat the sandwiches.🥪
I sit quietly.
I remember when the backs of my hands were unblemished.
I get out my headphones again and switch The Rolling Stones back on.
10.24am. I see my doctor. He is very charming, with cold hands. He explains the procedure to me. He’s going to go into my bowel and have a look around.
“Any questions?” he asks.
“No,” I say. “I think I get it pretty much.”
“20 minutes now,” he says. He gets up and leaves the room.
Music back on.
10.45am. A nurse arrives. “Follow me.” We head out of the room. It seems like we pass through 3 doors and we are in the theatre.
“Hop up on the bed,” she says.
The nurse puts a tube in my nose. “This is just oxygen,” she says.
Joan Armatrading is playing in the theatre as I am prepared. I think it was Someone Who Loves You. I make a comment. One of the nurses says, “Yes, it’s my favourite.”
The anaesthetist is then next to me. She is still a ray of sunshine, you feel better to have her around. “I’m going to make you comfortable now.” She puts a canula in my arm. “Roll over onto your side.” So, I do. “It won’t be very long now…”
11.45am. I’m in recovery, feeling fine. I think I am observed for a short time. After which, the nurse observing me says I am ready, I assume to nurses off in the distance chatting to each other.
They don't move immediately.
Come on people, I think, I have food to eat.
They are in no hurry to come and get me.
Ah, come on, I think. A guy could die of starvation over here. I haven't eaten for 36 hours.
I will them over, as I watch them talk about what they are going to do on the weekend, or that hot new doctor who just started recently.
Eventually, one of them saunters over. And I’m wheeled into the next room. I get food. Sandwiches. Cheese and biscuits. Apple juice. Coffee.
Sandwiches and coffee, never tasted so good. I don’t care about anything else right at this moment. I go into a carbo bliss out.
Sam has been called, I’m ready to go in half an hour.
The doctor comes in. Everything is fine. He thinks I am suffering from constipation, from the Ozempic, rather than diarrhoea. The constipation eventually leads to diarrhoea, but it is the constipation that needs to be treated. You know, that makes sense as there were days before the diarrhoea where there was just nothing back there.
Midday. I ask for more sandwiches. Oh fuck it, I have no shame. I kind of like the sandwiches
Nurses come. And nurses go.
I’ve still got a Canula in my arm.
12.04pm. The 70 year old woman from the beginning of the day is wheeled in. She seems nice, as she jokes with the nurses.
12.10pm. Sam says he is on his way.
Strangely, I fancy minced pies. You know, the bakery will still be open when we get back.
There is a 30-something Asian chick opposite me, who was in recovery before me, who is now dressed and waiting to leave. She has put on brown socks and sandals. You might want to rethink that, I think.
She has a barcode sticker affixed to her glasses, which I find annoying. Take it off your glasses, luv. Come on.
12.25pm. My doctor comes in and talks to the 70 year old, everything is fine, she had some bowel polyps which he has removed, but everything else is fine, about which she seems to have great relief. “Happy Xmas, here I come,” she says. “Excellent, thank you.”
12.30pm. Come on people, I’m ready to go now.
I find my headphones and switch on Black and Blue, Slave, thinking as soon as I do that, they’ll come and say get dressed. Which of course they do.
The nurse comes to talk to 70 year old, who I think is Denise. She may experience bleeding due to the polyps being removed. I try not to think about that.
12.36pm. I’m getting dressed.
12.40pm. Sam is getting impatient in the waiting room.
I have to go to the toilet before I leave, I assume, it’s a criteria of leaving, I guess it has something to do with the anaesthetic, getting things working. I see they say it to all the people who are leaving.
A nurse walks me out to the waiting room.
There’s my lovely Sam. Truthfully, it is probably my grumpy Sam by now, but I don’t care.
I head down in the lift with him, telling him all about what has just happened.
12:45pm. I’m out and on my way home. The sun is shining outside, it is a warm day. Sam wants lunch before we go home. I’m feeling fine.
I had a very nice hospital experience thank you very much. I don't know what the news is on about our failing health system. I have private health insurance, does that make a difference? I guess it does make a difference?
1pm. We’re eating Japanese in Smith Street, Papirica. We have Okonomiyaki Japanese pancake and Giang Tran, eggs with mushrooms.
1.23pm. We’re still waiting for food. Grrrrr. There is a big group in, to be fair.
Still, it is a gorgeous day, I’ve got the all clear, we don’t have much to complain about. Sam and I have nothing in life to complain about. Everything is great. Life is good.
The Japanese food was very nice, though, I'd recommend it.
1.38pm. We’re walking home in the sunshine.
We get gorgeous mince pies on the way home from Fatto A Mano, our local bakery.
1.43pm. We’re home. Otto goes nuts. “Ah, you have claws in your paws, my little cherub. Ah! Ah! Ah! But, you are such a lovely boy." I look over at Bruno, "It wouldn’t hurt you to get up.” He is lying in the sun coming in through the lounge room window and he doesn’t move a paw. “Look at the difference between the greetings of these two, will you?” I say to Sam.
I make two coffees.
Blue Eyes is out of here in 2 days. As pretty as you are, good riddance, mate. What an insipid waste of space, you really are. The head of HR, off you go. What is it they say, the fish rots from the head.
They are giving him a bloody big payout to send him on his way, not sure why? What's he done to deserve this over anyone else? I ask you? I'd like to believe it is the only way they felt they could get rid of him. The way it has been done raises questions.
And he has proven himself to be as self serving even on the way out. He has a slight tax problem, which amounts to $1000, and he is pushing for the company to pay it. This is a man on 500K a year. Me, me, me, everything for me.
I remember when I first met him, he was suddenly next to me unexpectedly, "Hi, I'm [name]"
Oh, well, "hello," there. Goodness me. All that blond hair and those dazzling blue eyes, I'm sure they have helped get him to where he is in life, perhaps with less merit than his good looks warranted.
Speaking of rotting from the head, it's a pity he hasn't taken his side kick Fillet of Fish with him on his way out. I don't hear much from the buck-toothed, peroxide-haired cow any more, thank to Lordy do dah day, but true to form, I heard from her lately and it was all dramas and recriminations and a big fuss over absolutely fucking nothing, as it usually is. I just think she is stupid and that is the only way she can operate in the world. If she was in American, she'd be wearing a red cap and dreaming of sucking the orange one's cock.
Maybe, the HR department can become unfucked with his departure, here's hoping. The young members of it are all quite good. They just have to weed out the old dinosaurs, and Blue Eyes departure is a bloody good start. Just a couple to go, Fillet of Fish, what a nightmare, and Ponytail, not a fucking clue.
Of course, the secret to life is kindness, and I might not sound too kind here. Sure. But, you have to draw the line with people who are toxic. Besides, if I say it here, I'm less likely to say it to them. You know, while Blue Eyes is history, I may still have to deal with Fillet of Fish, and if I get it off my chest here, its so much less likely to colour my communications with her, when and should they occur. That is, if I can't avoid her altogether, which is the best strategy. Naturally. If you can avoid the shit on the footpath, your shoes will stay clean. Life is too short to be wiping shit from your shoes.
It is Buddy's birthday, he would have been 14. I still miss him, the big Snuffleupagus. Lovely Bud.
It's now weird to think he was my dog for 12 years, and that that is all over. I wanted another 12 years with him.
I don't know why I thought of this, but it suddenly came to me, at the Xmas party a number of the girls in the team said a lot about not having seen me for ages. At the time, I kind of thought it was nice, sort off, but unnecessary. I was a little taken a back, thinking I never thought they cared that much about seeing me in the office.
Today, I am thinking they were trying to bring up why I wasn't in the office like they had to be in the office. I think they were questioning why I was working at home more than I was supposed to.
We're all now expected to spend a percentage of our time in the office, for me, working 3 days a week, I am supposed to work 1 day in the office per week, which I don't do. No, I don't.
I think I have proved I can work efficiently from home over the last 4 years keeping the SS Legal Firm afloat, so I don't see why I should go back to the office now that I have had a taste of the very excellent thing of working from home.
I think they were questioning that?
Bitches! (Ha ha, that's human nature, I guess)
Oh, maybe they were being nice, missing me. Ha ha, no one is that nice.
There was a part of me that was kind of uncomfortable with their questioning at the time, but I just thought it was me finding it hard to take, what was effectively, a compliment, if you know what I mean, but it suddenly dawned on me recently really what that feeling was.
They weren't complimenting me, they were bitching with a smile.
I don't know how this is going to end, and frankly I don't care because, you know, life is too short to be unhappy trudging into the office when I don't want to.
I'm prepared to chuck the job in. Life is just too fucken short, I learnt that from working at the awful law firm before this one.
