Lovely Sunrise

SMS. 6.46. Lovely sunrise Miss. Faster, higher, stronger! Can you smell the bush fire? – Tom

SMS. 7am. Morning miss. The sun was veiled by smoke, in a kind of artistic kind of way - Christian

SMS. 7.24. The smoke is from the house behind the hospital, apparently. And we could smell the eucalypt! Ha, ha! – Tom

It is hazy as I look across the bay, from the bush fires down at Geelong. Anakie, Brisbane Ranges, hit by fire that encompasses 6,708 hectares and destroys 35 buildings including three houses and three woolsheds. The picture windows in my office – Beck and I have a double office that we share that just has a wall of glass for windows – look directly to Geelong and the air was thick with smoke right across the water. Some days, not on bush fire days, but on the other days, I can stop work and just gaze across the water which is hypnotic and mesmerising.

SMS. 10.29. U should have dashed down to the house with marshmallows on sticks – Christian

SMS. 10.29. I won’t even begin to explain what I was doing up then – Tom

I decided I had better respond to Shane’s crazy phone message.

SMS. 10.39. (Shane) What’s with your car? – Christian

I headed down to the food court at lunch and ordered creamy mushroom and bacon tortellini, one of my favourite lunch time meal. The café in the food court does huge plates of the stuff. Yum, yum, fucking yum. I take my hour for lunch, no matter what, you had better believe it.

SMS. 13.08. Was poisoned by green cookie but did not know I had been. Lost car in Fitzroy after cookie hit after gym. Took me a long time to figure out I was looking for the wrong car, had the work Camry not my car. Went to the pool but ended up at the beat, got trophy and then ended and passed out poolside. Happy ending love sheen x – Shane

SMS. 13.41. Lol! Good to hear it all turned out ok in the end – Christian

SMS. 14.17. OMG, just pulled up beside amazing new car, ended up being a fox in a new Bentley two door coup. Yum – Shane

More mindless beating of my head against a wall at work. Those dumb bitches in Brisbane and Sydney have changed the process and immediately blamed me for changing it. Very clever, they caught me off guard. I so wanted to surprise them all and resign. I could put up with the Sydney office being a bunch of stupid bitches with attitude, but I don’t know if I can put up with Brisbane being argumentative pea-brains, as well.

Who knew fucking Rita would turn out to be such a witch. Some say the South African accent was a give away, but, you know, I’ve known some very nice South Africans, my first boyfriend, Anthony, for example. But Rita is just a sour cunt, seriously. She’s not likely to last as she is more poisonous than the poisonous ones we already have, and that usually gets the existing poisonous ones agitated. That usually ends up with them sucking the blood from the new bitch until their corpse is lifeless and cold. The super bitches don’t put up with newcomers.

SMS. 17.33. …and then you die! – Christian

SMS. 17.38. I sooo hate my job! – Christian

SMS. 17.53. Come & play by the ocean with me – Rachel

SMS. 17.58. Sure! Name the place – Christian

SMS. 19.12. Faster, higher, stronger! My urinary Catheter comes out at midnight Miss! Hooray! How was your day Chris? Tomorrow off? xx – Tom

SMS. 19.17. FUCKED! But that’s good news about ya catheter – Christian

I saw people wave Australian Flags, on the Australia Day special – why it was a day early, I’m not sure – continuously, above their heads, like it meant something. Idiots! Don’t they see what’s happening to them? Mindless patriotism. Mindlessly following the government. Mind control.

We watched Million Dollar Baby. Hillary Swank and that terrible old conservative Clint Eastwood. It’s not the sort of film I usually like, but it was okay. Watchable. We made it to the end, and that’s always a good sign. We didn’t turn it off.

Manny called me, at 11.30pm from the Laird, but I missed his call. I was hanging washing on the clothes horse, ready for the new work week. I was packing to go to Bolago, his voice on my message machine stopped in my tracks. He didn’t call back, though. [2006] Come on, call back, I thought, as I stood expectantly, hopefully by the phone, but he didn’t. I thought about going down to The Laird to find him, but I didn’t, I went to bed instead. I lay in bed thinking I should have gone and hunted him down. I should have done that. 

Shoulda, woulda, coulda. 

I tossed and turned a bit with that thought, but then I must have fallen asleep. (I’m a good sleeper, it is the thing I do best, I have always said that.