Talk talk talk talk talk... it was a talkfest today

I woke early… maybe, my conscience is not so clear any longer? I sat up in bed and read stuff on my computer. Puffed pillows. Goose feather doona. Comfy as you like.

I had to take mum to the dentist at midday. I calculated and recalculated my timeframe for the morning. Dentist at midday. I have to be at the home at 11.30. I have to leave here at 11am. I have to start getting ready, at the latest, by 10.30am. Then the count down began, as I lay in bed with my computer. I have 3 hours… 2 hours… 1 hour… 20 minutes.

I am so worried about mum incontinence that it is making me dread taking her anywhere, let alone the dentist. Can you imagine?

Then I had a brain wave. Maybe, some people might say, then my brain finally thought of the obvious, finally realised what, actual, help I have available. Whatever? I rang the home and told them I would be picking her up at 11.30 and could they take her to the toilet just before that. Yes, no problem.

I sat on the front step with Missy and ate muesli and drank coffee. I notice Shane’s car across the road and when I called out to him about going to work, fearing he’d fallen asleep again, he said he wasn’t going to work. He had four days off last week from Australia Day to last Sunday. He had taken drugs for the first few days. He said later that he’d been all things to all people and consequently he hadn’t got nearly enough sleep and that he was just tired today and couldn’t face it.

Yes… well… of course.

When I got to the home, mum was already and waiting by the door. On the way to the dentist mum said that she was very pleased that she had teeth problems because it meant that I visited her and that I took her out on an outing.

I felt the sting of my neglect pierce my solar plexus’.

She had her two bottom teeth removed, the one which had broken off due to decay and the one that had detached from her jaw bone, which was wobbling around alarmingly in her gum. We made an appointment for next week to have numerous teeth cavities filled.

“Please don’t take me straight back. Please can we take the long way around?”

I bought some lunch at a deli in Camberwell Road and we headed to Wattle Park. The deli boys were very cute, all four graduating in age; dark hair, good looks, very nice. I imagined them as brothers… dirty smile. Mum couldn’t eat so soon after the extraction, so she couldn’t have any food. But, she said she didn’t mind, of course.

We sat in the sun at the picnic tables surrounded by gum trees and bush land as far as we could see and shared the blood orange juice, as I ate my roll. It was a lovely, sunny day, not too hot, with a bit of a breeze.

We watched the workmen dismantling the second tram in the distance, the one that had been vandalised and set alight just recently. It seemed such a shame. I still remember those trams from my childhood, so they have been in the park for years, more years than I care to think about. I wondered if it would be replaced. I kind of thought not, as it is not exactly a 21^st century kind of amusement. It really is a relic from children’s playgrounds of an era now past. I thought it was a shame.

We went for a walk on the gravel path under the trees.

The park was lovely, really. It was a perfect day. There seemed to be several young children with, what looked like, their nannies looking after them. Nice for a select few, I guess.

I got mum home by 3pm for afternoon tea. I kind of thought that was a good idea, as she missed lunch.

I wondered if I should have gone in and sat with her for a while, but I wanted to get home before the dread “mum run” at the various schools on between there and home. The mother’s taxis clearly believe they have a god given right to drive as they like and to park just any where because, I am assuming, they are mums. You know, good for them, but I just don’t have to be apart of it.

When I got home, I played on my computer for a while. Shane made a brief appearance, but then seemed to head straight back to bed.

I can’t stop thinking about my work situation. I vacillate between getting a job and renting the rooms in the house. I’m continually trying to work out the figures on it all. Adding and re-adding, trying to make two, not quite preferable, scenarios work. It’s doing my head in.

At 5pm, I went for an hours walk. It was a lovely warm afternoon, I took my camera naturally... still with my current theme of taking shots of people without them knowing.

Just as I was approaching home, my phone rang and it was Dean. He had been talking to Jimmy about the forthcoming birthday weekend, camping in the country. Dean wanted to know if I was going? He may be going with Katarina, if she can get a house sitter, (I’m not sure why she needs a house sitter?) or on his own if she can’t. Either way he is going to hire a car, as he only has his work truck now, and he would pick Santo and I up and drive us there, if Katarina wasn’t going. If she was, the two of them would go together. We chatted for ages, as Dean and I do when we are on the phone.

Shane was still in bed at this stage… so his presence at home wasn’t really disturbing me. Yay!

Santo cooked me dinner. Cute, huh? So I was able to make a complete and clear get away before Shane came down to talk about dinner.

Anthony called to tell me about the near car accident that he had in the shopping centre car park, when some idiot sped through at 100 kilometres and hour and Anthony had to pull up in a hurry, feeling the slip stream from the hoon's car gust through his open car window, it was so close. He had to come home and put his sling back on as his shoulder ached from the jarring of his car screeching to a halt.

Anthony asked me if Santo was at my place tonight. "Is Santo with you?"

"No... not tonight."

"Oh... where is he then?"

"He's at his place."

"Oh?"

"I'll see him on Friday night."

"Friday night?"

"Yes, he comes over Friday night and heads off to work from here on Monday morning."

"Oh... well... I see."

Well, that conversation got me to thinking. It is something that I have thought before, however. I’m a free agent, I have a car, I don’t have to get up and go, well, anywhere in the mornings, why don’t I see more of Santo during the week. He is often home by himself, after all.

So when he messaged me a short time after I spoke to Anthony and said he was cooking noodles and did I want some, I said yes.

It was 7.15. “I’ll just need a shower, so I probably wont be there until 8pm.”

“Ok.”

“I’m cooking now.”

“Move!!”

He was cleaning his fish tank when I got there. I couldn’t help but comment that he religiously cleans his fish tank to a demanding schedule of fish tank cleaning, but, he has a very high rate of fish death. Maybe, he should lighten up and set the fish tank cleaning to “loose” and see how the fish survive? He’s the “gotta have a plan” one in the relationship and I’m the “let it loose” one.

The noodles were lovely, as per usual. I do so love it when he cooks for me, because he cooks me lovely food, more so than the fact that I am a lazy arse. But, I cook for him too. Hmmm, he might not exactly agree with that statement. I cook for him too, when he puts pressure on to cook. I’m not a, shall we say, naturally enthusiastic cook.

Santo wanted to come to my place after dinner. Oh I felt bad, when I said no. How could I leave my gorgeous little dumpling (do you like that) when he wanted to come with me? But, it was a school night and he goes to bed really early, 10pm and if he is with me, I have to go to bed at that time too. And I wanted to head home and write my journal, this here, so I said no.

“But honey, it will be switch it off! And go to sleep at 10pm.”

“I see,” he said. He didn’t seem too disappointed, I hope he wasn’t.

I felt mean driving home and vacillated between wishing I’d said yes and feeling mean and thinking that it was okay to want to stay up late and write my journal.

Shane was watching Notting Hill when I got home. I made tea and lay on the other couch. It seemed like the perfect brainless piece of fluff to wind down to.

However, Shane seemed to be very chatty and wanting to talk, a consequence of him being home on his own all day. He doesn’t like being on his own, remember. I didn’t feel like chatting, part of me was still with Santo back at his place and I just wanted to be still and feel the decision that I had made about coming home on my own, to make it feel like the right decision.

Shane said he’d had the best weekend, but he’d tried being all things to all people and consequently he hadn’t got nearly enough sleep and that he was just tired today and couldn’t face it. There was Bruno’s on Sunday night. Sebastian had been at Bruno’s all afternoon cooking. (Of course, there is no show without fucken Sebastian) And where Bruno used to get to the point of eventually boring Shane, he’d recently renovated his house and he had also travelled extensively recently and he had now finally grown up and was more interesting to be around. And D is sooooo in love with Ashley and Ashley is soooo in love with D that it is lovely to see.

Will this “back to me” self focus ever end, I thought? I just want to lie still and not think about too much. The trouble being that I had been talking with people all day and Shane had been home on his own.

So, despite being very comfortable on the couch, I went to bed fairly soon after... just too much chat. Really. Or as Santo says, nyp nyp nyp nyp. Am I a terrible person? I ask you? My tea was still hot and still more than half full… that’s how far I made it. Nervous. Smile. Shrug.

Stressing out

I woke at 7am and couldn’t get back to sleep. It was much colder today, very cool, so I got up and closed my balcony doors early, at that time, sometime just after 7. Then I couldn’t go back to sleep, I couldn’t drift off, I lay there. I rested, I closed my eyes, but in the end I had to stop trying to sleep.

So I turned on my laptop and fluffed the pillows. I did phase out again, just for a short time, as my eyelids got heavy and my body zzzzzz’d.

I’m stressing about everything, I’m worried just about everything in my life, everything except Santo are in a state of worrying flux. Not the least of which is the fact that I forgot to take my mum to the dentist. She had broken a tooth and the second of her front teeth was loose, last Sunday when Gill and I went to visit. I was supposed to call and take her last Monday, but it slipped my mind. It wasn’t until last night when Jan asked me how mum was?

“Oh fuck, fuck! I can’t believe it, I was supposed to take her to the dentist.”

How could I be so stupid? How can I be so useless? Why am I so useless? Of course, it is true, you know…

So at 9am, I got and called the dentist. I have to take her at midday tomorrow.

OMG! Oh please let it go okay. Please universe let her not shit herself in the process of going to the dentist.

OMG! Oh please let her second tooth be still attached. Please universe let her have as many teeth as possible still in her head.

Oh, is anyone going to employ me? Can I remember anything? Am I going to work again? Ohhhhhhh? Shake! Shiver! I’m shit!

Oh, for goodness sake… shake yourself, slap if need be… just be positive, just be a glass half full, stop being so negative.

I head to the periodontist. I’m there by 11am. It was my initial treatment to fix my gums and save my teeth, with the new guy.

It hurt. Nerve zzzzzz!!!!!!! Varrhh!!!!! Ahhh!!!!! Oh!!!!! That pointy spike thing. I think he was cleaning my jaw bone, at varying times.

“That will be $800 dollars today.”

“Um… oh… I thought it was going to be $250?”

“That’s for maintenance, this is the first treatment, deep clean, so that’s why it is $800,” said the nice dental receptionist. “Didn’t we go through the payment plan.”

“Um… no… I don’t think we did.”

She peered at the screen as though she was looking up my details. “Oh… um… maybe we didn’t,” she said. She took my card. “So is that credit.”

That’s it? No we didn’t go through the payment plan. “Should we look at the payment plan then?”

“Well?” She looked at me blankly. “We’ll see you in four weeks and then it will be $250.” She shrugged and smiled.

Okay? So that is it? Then? Oh my bank balance.

He worked on my teeth for 30 minutes and it cost $800. By my reckoning, that is $1600 an hour. $1600 an hour? Now, I don't know what you think, but when I thought about it, that is outrageous. Oh yes, university training, blah blah blah. Sure, of course that is true. Hygiene, oh yes, of course. But, my cleaner is similarly involved in my hygiene and she earns nothing near that amount.

But, even if I paid him, let's say, $100, that would be $200 an hour, which, in my book, is still very well paid. $150 for 30 minutes, $300 an hour. That is also very well paid.

Outrageous, when you consider that it is always a drama when the lowest paid members of our society ask for a pay rise through the fair work commission and it is always a drama. The commissioners hum and ha over whether is should be increased by $2 or $2.50. How can the lowest paid people always get their cost of living rise cut or modified, or debated and become a part of the national interest when there are people earning $1600 an hour.

Where is the outrage when periodontists raise their hourly rate? I ask you?

I headed to lunch with Beck and Mel. They were waiting out the front. They were chatty, chatting about meeting, about the day, about lunch. I was mute, a little nervous. “Can you talk?”

My hand raised to my mouth. I wasn’t sure. “I’m not sure.” It was kind of the first time I had spoken. I sounded like I had cotton wool in my mouth. “Woob woob woob woob.”

They laughed.

“I think I need zouph.”

“Soup for you,” said Mel. “Soup.”

Both Beck and Mel are good. We went to a café over Collins Street and ordered pasta bake and coffee.

It was a Black Law Firm hate fest, of course. As Beck said, we had a good thing going, we had a good working relationship, we had it all set up and running smoothly and then they wrecked it, they destroyed it and we got thrown out for no good reason. Beck was pushed. I was sacked.

I told the two of them how I still kind of worried that I was shit and that no one would hired me, that I was really no good.

They gave me that sideways look, that look you get when you are telling truths, real truths, real emotional truths, that get people’s attention.

“You’ll get a job,” said Beck. “Don’t worry, you’ll get a job.”

It does concern me that I am crap and that I am a second rate employee who gets the sack.

Beck said that money on my mortgage doesn’t count towards money in the bank for the dole. I think about going on the dole and renting out my two spare rooms. I’ve never been on the dole, I wonder if that would work?

I went to Medibank afterwards and put in claims for $1000 worth of dental work and got refunded $40. Periodontal is not dental, but major dental, it is different, of course, so it is not covered. The new Medibank benefits/regime/payment details do include periodontal, but my payments would increase by $50 per month, or so, if I did that.

“Okay, how about if I delete my extras and just have hospital?”

Well, with the changes in the payment structure, if I reduce my cover to just hospital, my monthly payment would, actually, go up by $5… because I signed up 12 years ago and I have the cheaper payment plan.

“Okay then, we are done here, I guess.”

If I get rid of my cover all together, when and if I take it up again, I will be penalised 2% every year for ten years and then that penalty would stay with me for ten years, something like that, before it is dropped off again.

Do I want to drop my health insurance? And risk that.

And then, of course, there is the tax penalty, which makes it almost impossible to not pay medical benefits, as you get taxed more if you don’t have it. Of course, I don’t work now, however, that, sadly, is not going to last.

Who still believes that Australia has a free medical scheme?

I walked across Elizabeth Street. By now, I was feeling so stressed by “my lot” that I couldn’t think. So, I sat in the mall in the sun and listened to a man play guitar and harmonica wonderfully. Great. Really great.

And I took photos of people, all the people, lots of people, none of which really turned out that well. Ah well. I didn’t have my camera with me, sadly, just my phone, with the crappy HTC camera. Oh well, boo hoo.

I came home and took to my bed. Of course. Lovely. Locking myself away in my room, shutting the world out, depressed? Oh, I don’t know if I am depressed, just less enthusiastic… with life… with it all.

A cool breeze blew, which made a nice change.

Jimmy came to get his brown polyester suit. We sat in the lounge room and chatted for quite some time. He invited me to his 40^th birthday on a hill in Castlemaine. Camping, with Santo.

Jimmy tells me there is gaggle of welfare abusers in Castlemaine. I tell him about my ideas of renting rooms and the dole and wonder why this has come up with him? Is the universe trying to tell me something now?

“I used to want to get to the end of my life and want to be able to say that I had never been on the dole,” I said. “But now, fuck it, I’d abuse the system if someone would show me how.”

We both laughed.

I spoke to Anthony and told him about my worry about mum shitting herself in the dentist chair tomorrow.

“Don’t worry, dentists are highly qualified medical professionals. If it happens it happens, don’t worry.” He laughed. “Shit happens.”

Some how it didn’t make me feel better.

He’s been told to take his sling off. His two shoulder blades are better now.

I spoke to Adriana, on Skype. That was after thinking about her for the last few days, week. David would say “nszpitipsssszzzzpppttee. See the universe answers you. There are no coincidences in the world,”

Adi and I are going to Nova on Monday night to watch The Descendants.

Santo called me while I was talking to Adi, that hasn’t happened to me on Skype before. It’s a modern world.

I called him back, we chatted for ages.

He tells me I should rent out my two spare rooms and not think about working. I tell him how Beck said that money on my mortgage doesn’t count towards money in the bank for the dole. That I can rent the two spare rooms, three in total and go on the dole too.

“Do it,” he said.

I don’t know, I can’t see it.

Then again… fuck it!

Where is the outrage?

I went to the periodontist today. It was my initial treatment to fix my gums and save my teeth.

He worked on my teeth for 30 minutes and it cost $800. By my reckoning, that is $1600 an hour. $1600 an hour? Now, I don't know what you think, but when I thought about it, that is outrageous. Oh yes, university training, blah blah blah. Sure, of course that is true. Hygiene, oh yes, of course. But, my cleaner is similarly involved in my hygiene and she earns nothing near that amount.

But, even if I paid him, let's say, $100, that would be $200 an hour, which, in my book, is still very well paid. $150 for 30 minutes, $300 an hour. That is also very well paid.

Outrageous, when you consider that it is always a drama  when the lowest paid members of our society ask for a pay rise through the fair work commission and it is always a drama. The commissioners hum and ha over whether is should be increased by $2 or $2.50. How can the lowest paid people always get their cost of living rise cut or modified, or debated and become a part of the national interest when there are people earning $1600 an hour.

Where is the outrage when periodontists raise their hourly rate? I ask you?

Cute isn't he

He's not mine despite the fact that is me holding on to his lead, but I'd like one just like him. I jumped at the chance of holding him for the owner who wanted to head into an open house inspection. What a cutie. Santo and I went home and looked up puppies on the internet. OMG how confusing was that? They ranged from $200 to $3500, how on earth do you sort through those kinds of differences?
So we went for a walk in the lovely afternoon sun, buying ice creams in Carlton before walking back through the park... dogless poofters.

He's home. Yay!

My pumpkin is home. Yay! I picked him up from the airport at 10am. He's still just too gorgeous. I gave him a big hug and kiss. I think we shocked a woman standing near by as I ran up to him and grabbed him. Swung him around and around and around, as the music played. Crescendo’d. The strings soared. Okay, the spinning round and the violins were, quite possibly, only in my head, but they felt good none the less.

Kiss. Hug. Squeeze.

He sniffed out the car window, on the way home. "I so missed the fresh air."

I rested my hand on his leg, I didn’t realise how much I missed that.

He's slow, though, really slow, moving at a glacial pace. He keeps telling me he is exhausted. A six and half hour train ride, an hours aeroplane ride and then an eight hour aeroplane ride to Melbourne... with stop overs of varying time in between each. So he's been travelling for 48 hours on his journey home. So, I guess he has a case.

We ate Japanese in Carlton for lunch. The sun shone down and a cool breeze blew. We slept in the afternoon.

"We can't do this, we have to get you back onto Melbourne time."

Of course, I kissed him first. Licked him, pulled his clothes off. Big smile.

He's missing his maid from home... but he is glad to be back. He keeps clapping his hands to be waited on and then questions why it doesn't work. He's still funny. Of course, that is more a comment on how he expects to be treated here by his honey, who would be me, than anything that happened back home.

He's laying on my couch with his tongue hanging out. “I’m exhausted.” Clap, clap. "Where’s my drink?" Clap, clap. "Where’s my watermelon?" I'm running around getting him things... and I don't mind one little bit.

I cooked him a sausage pasta for dinner. It turned out rather well. I introduced him to Chinotto, which he hated. Too biter. "Oh the after taste is horrible." Cough cough. "Euw! Yuck!"

He feels nice in my arms, just where he is supposed to be. I can rub his hair again and smell him in long slow sniffs.

He's worried that he won't be able to write computer code. I kissed his handsome face. "Don't worry, babe. The salt mines aren't for three days. We still have the weekend."

I like it when he pats my hair and plays with my ear… nonchalantly.

“I’m exhausted,” he says. “Let’s go to bed. Oh… come on! NOW!”

So, you can see, he’s still bossy.

I tried to photograph people secretly... I'm still not very good at it

He seems to have been away forever. Ages. Going on months

I head to bed around midnight, when the nocturnal rummaging’s of off-his-face Shane start. He’s clearly “on the prowl” probably on grindr trying to entice someone over to play with him. Someone to be tied up, wrapped in cling film, or pissed on. Or all three.

The long slow night of drug intoxication trying to procure a playmate who will come around and bolster his sense of self worth.

I hear his footsteps on the stairs late into the night.

I sit up in bed and read blogs. The cool night air floats into my room, fresh and clean and cool.

I hear a voice from the street with some guy talking. I try to ignore it, but he doesn't stop. 

Blah, blah, blah. Bah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah.

Oh really, I have to go and look.

I head over to my balcony doors and peer surreptitiously over the railing to see this guy standing in the middle of the street in his dressing gown on the phone. He's from the house over the road, as the front door is open. It is hot, TV's blaze through open French doors in upstairs bedrooms. I kneel down and push my face up against the tulip balustrades. Dressing gown boy is talking, giving instructions in a sexy tone, clearly he is interested in whoever it is he is talking to. That and his hand seems to keep disappearing inside his robe in search of something. I can't, actually, see the detail, but I can make out what he is doing in silhouette. He stands there gazing down the street. A short time later, a girl walks up the middle of the street to him, talking to him on her mobile phone. They sit on the footpath and talk awhile smoking cigarettes, she sits down on the edge of the footpath, he seems a little more toey than that, preferring to remain standing for the most part. Once they have finished smoking, they go inside.

Mark and Luke call at 3am from Ho Chi Minh City, from their some what sartorial, read tacky, hotel room. They laugh.

"Gorgeous isn't it."

They have not long checked in and are tired. They will catch a connecting flight tomorrow.

I’m awake around 9am, just before. My balcony doors are open, of course, and I pull on my black track pants so I can stand in the open double doorway to survey the morning, feel the temperature and not get arrested, before I close the doors.

I need a piss so I head into the bathroom. I sit down on the toilet, like a girl, because I am barely awake and it is nice taking it slow in the quiet of the morning.

As soon as I sit down, I hear movement in Shane’s room and clearly someone is getting out of bed and coming into the toilet. They are on their way. I finish quickly and get up and stand in front of the mirror, just in time to stop a sweaty, stocky guy in a dog collar from entering the room.

“Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry,” he says. I push the door closed.

Shane’s need for approval, a relationship, a boyfriend, need not to be alone, has always out weighed his judgement, somewhat. I mean, this guy could have been perfectly nice but, you know, I have seen first hand the, shall we say, low bench mark Shane is willing to accept and this guy, upon a fleeting glimpse, is right up to scratch, or should that be, down to the depths.

Anyway, I’m sure it wont be long before he parades this loser downstairs and I’ll have to be nice to him and make small talk knowing all the while that I will never see him again.

I head down to the lounge room where I make coffee and prepare muesli and switch on my laptop and read the entertainment news. Santo would roll his eyes.

"Do you think I care about, so called, celebrities?"

I read about the new film J Edgar. I note that the first session is at 10.50, over an hour away. Sweet. But, I also note that it is opening day and a public holiday and do I really need to mix it with the great unwashed when I can just as easily go to the delightful $6 Monday on Monday. Then I think about Santo and think that now that he is home, nearly, tomorrow, I should wait and see it with him.

Mark called from Ho Chi Minh City to ask for Jane’s phone number, so he can call Jay. He and Luke are good and looking forward to crusty bread and jam and coffee for breakfast Vietnamese style.

Don’t you love Skype? I know I love Skype? I talk to Mark and Luke, no matter where they are in the world and it costs me nothing? It is great!

It’s quiet at midday, just the wind blowing outside, under the blue sky and the golden sun.

Santo messages me good morning. He messages me instructions to start looking for a job. Come on! Chop chop! Apparently, we have to make investments and travel overseas and generally amass wealth and think about our future. Really?

I agree. I keep him talking, messaging, just because I miss him… not because I could care about the future.

He’s home tomorrow. 10am. Yay! He seems to have been away forever. Ages. Going on months.

Shane comes down with, who turns out to be, McKenzie who is really very nice and I should be eating all my previous nasty words. Well, I mean, my words aren’t really meant to be nasty, just a record of events, and they are not meant to be judgemental, just a statement of fact.

Reading back over this, it is hard to actually make that claim with any kind of credibility, I realise, but I am going to none the less. Just because McKenzie is nice it doesn’t make the previous any less true.

I don’t mean it is true of everyone Shane hooks up with, of course that is not true. It is just that it can be true when Shane is on drugs... and one just has to wait and see which way it is going to go.

Everything I have said is probably true of me when I am single and on drugs too.

I think I have met McKenzie before, although I can’t remember where?

They disappear upstairs again to do god knows whatever to each other and basically I am on my own for the day.

I wanted to take photos all day and I did wander up the Victoria Parade and take some earlier in the day. It is a gorgeous sunny day, perfect for taking photos. Late in the afternoon, I take myself off for a walk (exercise) around Carlton and I take my camera and take photos on my way.

Santo calls from KL airport and we chat on Skype. He looks so handsome. Not long now, a few hours and he will be getting on the plane.

He’s halfway home.

Travel safe. May the universe look after my precious cargo.

Shane heads off to McKenzie’s in South Yarra saying he can’t sleep in his bed because it is wet. I hope that is with perspiration and not anything else.

The house is quiet, still and serene. Nothing stirs, nothing at all. Over and out.