Thursday

10.10am. I go and have a shower. It’s still a bit humid, and a shower with lots of water is the perfect antidote. It makes you feel like god is doing his work. Oh, I just say things like that to make myself laugh. I genuinely feel sorry for people who believe in all the delusional god shit.

10:41 am. I head into the city to get my Kris Kringle present, it is the one thing I have to do today, as I have to produce it next Tuesday. A recorder for [colleagues name]. He’s quite a musician, away from work, and it is supposed to go with his musical back ground. Oh, I don’t know if it is a good present, but it beats chocolates, or wine. Maybe, he’ll play it, maybe he won’t. I don't know.

It’s overcast and grey. There’s a cool breeze blowing. Even if it is just a little bit humid still, the air is pretty fresh.

A guy in a big ute turns right into George Street.  I’m crossing George Street, he doesn’t give away to me, so I tell him off. 

“Hey, give way to pedestrians.”

He stops, and winds down his window.

“Learn your road rules,” I say to his face.

 He absolutely blows a fuse, fucking angry and tries to blame me looking at my phone and my headphones. Great what-about-isim, I think. 

What the? “My headphones aren’t on,” I say.

He opens his door in some kind of threatening gesture.

“Seriously?” Back on your meds, buddy. “Cars give way to pedestrians,” I say.

The whites of his eyes are shedding blood vessels as I look at him.

Big, dark grey ute, and I think it had Wildtrak written on it, but I could be wrong. Did it have the big FORD grill? He was a real ugly bastard. Angry. Bulbous eyes, red eye lids, pale skin.

I was paring my headphones to my phone, and no music was playing, but that is not the point, it doesn’t matter what I am doing when he has to give way to me.

There is that deflection that people do. I blame it on conservative politics, it is what conservative politics does, you are accusing me of what? Look, look over there at that.

I’m listening to Patti LaBelle songs she recorded in 2010 and 2020s, as I continue to walk up Gertrude Street.

10:57am. I’m heading into Little Collins Street, just past The Princess. A guy dropped a joint in the gutter next to me, he’d perhaps had one puff, maybe two puffs, and walked around the corner to The Princess. I could smell it. I picked up and smoked it, I am not ashamed to say, mostly in the lane way that now goes in through the back of the old Metro.

I go to Mitty’s to do my TattsLotto. The old girl behind the counter is really cool, we have a laugh. I do my weekly tickets and get my $250 cash from last Saturday’s win.

11:03am. Standing at Exhibition Street corner, nicely stoned. Whoosh.

The brain tumour building has been demolished, I see, as I walk down Bourke Street to Swanston Street.

11:11am. I’m sitting in the Burke Street Mall, I’ve sat on one of those silver seats, whoosh, wee, whoosh (my dictation has deserted me right in an hour of need) ah, now let me see, what’s all that I have dictated mean. I correct what I have recorded and then record some more, Woohoo my dictation is back in the room. Don’t know what happened there, was it me? Chuckle.

The second David Jones shop is having a complete refurbishment. And something is happening to the buildings next door as well, I see as I wander down the Bourke Street Mall.

I turn left into Elizabeth Street.

When you are stoned, you just obey all the road laws and all the traffic lights and you can’t go wrong.

11.20am. I cross Elizabeth Street at Little Bourke Street, a homeless aboriginal guy gets up from the seat, does something at the bin, I don’t really notice what, then stepped back in front of me as if I wasn’t there at all. I step around him. “Sorry,” I say.

11.25am. I’m in Coleman’s Music in Elizabeth Street. They only have a plastic recorder, so he suggests a music shop in Clarendon Street may have a wooden one.

11.27am. I am catching a tram at Collins and Elizabeth Street to 339 Clarendon Street South Melbourne. It’s kind of nice to get around your own city by public transport. If I was driving, I would never just, drive to South Melbourne now, if I couldn’t get what I wanted in the CBD, I would just drive home.

I so wanna call Sam to tell him I am stoned, but it would be cooler not to.

Standing on the tram stop, I just realised, I can dictate into my phone because many people talking to their phones, that’s what phones are for, and no one will even know that I’m recording my journal, standing on the Elizabeth super stop in Collins Street.

There are no trams in sight, dammit it.

11.39am. The handle of my carry bag touches the bare leg of the handsome Middle East looking guy, in shorts travelling next to me on the tram. I gather it up but somehow manage to brush his bare leg a second time. I scrunch my carry bag right up so it won’t happen again. He has his lunch in a double decker glass lunch box with cut up fruit. And some sort of sausages/meat and rice meal in the other half. Nike runners that look like tennis shoes with no socks. And a canvas puffer jacket. Black shorts.

11:48am. I’m walking up, Clarendon Street. And it dawned on me that I never feel freedom, naturally, any more. Freedom, I just realised that I never feel it. I never feel free. There is always something. Coming to Clarendon Street on a whim is freeing, just heading off on your own with no car, or bike, of whatever appliance to help you. Or is it just the pot? I chuckle to myself.

Midday, I’ve bought the recorder. I could only get a plastic one, pity about that. Everyone is walking their dog in Clarendon Street.

12:10 pm. There’s a beautiful preppy guy sitting at a table on Clarendon Street, some loud, traffic noise happens, and he looks up with his hands in his lustrous wavy hair. Big, beautiful eyes.

I go to Sacred Heart OpShop, The Red Cross OpShop, Cash Converters and The Salvos OpShop. I get Collected, greatest hits of Massive Attack.

12.29am. I see a tram back at the intersection behind me, as I come out of (189) The Salvos. I have to run down Clarendon Street some way as there just isn’t a tram stop anywhere in sight. (Oh yes, the privatisation of the tram network wouldn’t result in tram stops being removed, there you have the basic dishonesty of privatisation in a nutshell) I get to City Road, but the lights let the tram through, but not pedestrians. There is no way I am going to catch it now, I think. I can see it picking up the new passengers and any moment heading off towards the city, while I wait at the red man at the crossing.

“Come on! Come on! Come on!”

I wonder how often the trams come down Clarendon Street.

But… the tram waits for me, is it at City Road? Maybe? He waits way longer than any other tram would ever wait. The tram stop is on the other side of the intersection way past where I am standing at the traffic lights, but I see the doors aren’t closing. The red man turns green. The tram doors still aren’t closing. I start to move quickly across the intersection, the doors still aren’t closing, I look over my right shoulder, and there is a break in the traffic coming up behind me, and the doors still aren’t closing, I start to run, and the doors still aren’t closing, I start to sprint, the doors still aren’t closing, I wave thank you to the driver, I jump on the tram.

He must have seen me running down Clarendon Street from The Salvos. I pull my hoodie off and stuff it in my black recycled carry bag. I always carry a black one, one of those lime green ones is just too tacky.

Spencer Street > Bourke Street > Spring Street > Gisborne Street > St Vincent’s Plaza. My head is still spinning a little, nicely so, as I wander across the multiple tram tracks to the north side of Victoria Parade.

12:50 pm. I’m walking up Young Street, I want more pot. I should call Guido. It sounds like a nice idea, but I’d only get piggy and smoke too much, regret it, and lose 3 days. Pity. I wish I was 30 again and I’d just buy it and enjoy it without talking myself out of it. Who said maturing was good?

I pull my Hoodie out of my carry bag over my shoulder, as the wind picks up, and it looks like it’s got little buds stuck all over it. Momentarily, think it’s the Christmas miracle.

I guessed it was broccoli. 

12.57pm. home.

I ate ravioli with a tomato/salsa sauce. Sam had it ready when I got home.

I save the one song I don’t have from Collected, Massive Attack's greatest hits, the single from that album.