Tuesday, December 06, 2011

Gotta do Something

Midday. I decide I can go and have a haircut, that much I could do today. No, really I could. Which means one would have to have a shower… one would. Check. Shower. Check. Clean teeth. Check. Out the door. Check. There are something’s you just have to leave the house for… funnily enough, having said that, haircuts isn’t one of them, but I will proceed…


As I close the front door and reach for the mail, I remember that mum’s twilight home rent is overdue, I told my sister that I’d pay it Sunday night. Not that that is here nor there, the point is it is Tuesday and it still isn’t paid.

Clunk.

I can do it tomorrow. What will they do, kick her out?

She will call.

I hate that. She’s had to call once, I don’t want to be known as the “family” who doesn’t pay on time.

I can do it tonight. I take a step away from the front door.

But, I really want it to get there tomorrow.

I have to do it now, be realistic. I step back to the front door.

You will forget it you don’t do it now.

How long can it take?

My new resolution, nothing takes long once you make a start. Do you like that? Really?

Where is my key?


I take back the dvds, I am shattered to see one of them is for two days and not a week. I sooooooooooo hate video shop fines, I pride myself on it. Even I have control issues about the pathetically small number things that I can, actually, control. The world momentarily shudders to a halt.


Post a letter, return the dvds, get your haircut.

Post a letter, return the dvds, get your haircut.

Post a letter, return the dvds, get your haircut.

Post a letter, return the dvds, get your haircut.

Post a letter, return the dvds, get your haircut.

Post a letter, return the dvds, get your haircut.

Post a letter, return the dvds, get your haircut.


The sun is hot, as I step out into it.


Gosh I’m hungry. I buy two bananas on the way, from the Lebanese grocer, I hope the hot son is on today. If I was a chick in my fifties, I’d do the father. He’s nice, always smiles and says hello.


Clunk go the dvds in to the bottom of the shoot. I resisted checking they weren’t empty cases for the second time, just before I let go.


I’ve finished both bananas by the time I get to the hair guy. I’m hoping for no banana residue on my hands, as I will have to sit for the entire haircut before I could wash it off my hands. I hope that doesn’t sound too OCD, and banana residue isn’t so unpleasant, except for the gritty texture it leaves on your fingers.


I look like I’m 100 years old in the hairdresser’s mirror. My beady, half closed, bleary, red eyes stared back dumbly at me. No expression.

When did I get that line?

The new hairdresser guy asked if I’d been there before, or was it the first time, despite him cutting my hair the last time.

“No… you,” I feel like I am pointing like Edina from Ab Fab.

He’s fat. His stomach apron would hang down over his penis. Nothing five hundred sit-ups a day wouldn’t fix and possibly some minor surgery. He’s cute, otherwise.

As I stared and gazed and he stared and gazed, I started filming us in my head. An avant-garde, minimalist, 70’s Australian art house movie. Gritty, grainy. Concrete floors. Concrete footpaths. Haircut sign. No expression on either of our faces. Shot from odd angles.


On the way back, I was so scheming for two Michelle’s chocolate éclairs. You know, when you scheme with yourself, when you know you are doing the wrong thing? I was even willing to compromise with Sunny’s muffins, but they didn’t have any when I went in. So, it was back to the éclairs. Sheets of starchy fat, swags of dairy fat, sheets of chocolate, they are huge. Big and chocolaty. You have to take them home, they are just too piggy to gormandise in the street.

“So, which part of diet then do you understand?” I said to myself, as I trudged along Smith Street; grocer; juice shop, Xmas decorations on the footpath. Bright sunlight. “How do you want to feel when you catch sight of yourself in yet another shop window?


So, I went home for a Rapid Loss meal replacement shake… and a brownie, of course.

 

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