Two Days A Week

Up early, into the office. Monday. It is now light when I leave home, gotta love that.

Easy day. Day off tomorrow. I'm working 2 days this week. Is that why the year is going by so fast?

It’s quiet at 6am in the morning.

I pull my shit together and leave.

6.10am. I leave home. In broad daylight 

I’m listening to Tina Turner, The Edge album which I recently modified to be just Tina singing.

There are a couple of travellers cnr Gertrude Street and Brunswick Street. They looked like mother and daughter. (The mother looks like the German chick out of Bagdad Cafe) I wondered where they were going? Had they just left an Air B&B, or where they just going to one? Perhaps, they are here for the cup?

6.20am. I’m at St Vincent’s Plaza. 

A pretty 109 comes along. Tram number 3024.

There are quite a few punters inside this tin can. The tram is overheated, of course.

6.31am. At William Street.

6.34am. I’m in the lift.

I sign in and then go get a coffee. I work through all my emails.

I took a huge dump, before anyone else got in, and wrote some stuff on the bog.

All the pretty straight boys standing at the gate, 

Drinking beer and cheering the girls on, mate!

Brendan, and Cameron, and Jack

Rob and Jeremy and Mike

David, Lewis and Carl.

Brendan’s a good bloke who everyone adores. Cameron is volatile, and shouldn’t drink at all. Jack likes his girls young, they seem to like him too.

Rob’s got a secret he’s not telling the other guys, he’s very close to his school chum Kevin, has been for quite a while.

Jeremy likes to dress up in girl’s clothes, at night when nobody else is around, but he still likes girls, something Jessica his girlfriend is please about as she peels him out of her knickers so they can get down to it.

Mike’s got several drunken nights he’d rather not recall, after doing drugs at dance parties getting out of it with a couple he knows.

David is very earnest, he finds it hard to have fun. Lewis is happy go lucky, he never seems to take anything seriously.

Lewis is a singer, he is determined to make it big.

Carl has a young son, he got his childhood sweetheart pregnant in year twelve.

9.45am. I had everything done. Pretty much. Shrug.

11am. I go and buy two cheese and bacon pies for lunch. No lunchbox from home today. Mia says she might just jump over the desk for my pies when I get back and tell her what I have. I read The Guardian.

Scott Morison and Boris Johnson fly into Israel as an act of solidarity with Israel. World War 3 commences days later.

What are those two cretins doing there, we have to ask? Must have something to do with religion, surely, I think.

12.30pm. The midday deadline has past, I upload reports. I complete all the figures, calculations, interpretations. You know, all that shit.

I’m now listening to Cher, until my headphones run out of batteries way sooner than I had expected.

12.42pm. David calls me when I am busy. I don’t answer. I text him, I am walking the dog. He hates talking to me when I am walking the dog, not that he believes me. He’s coming down from yesterday and feeling shitty, but I am busy.

The girls in the office yap on. Headphones are a great thing. Boris is wearing headphones too, I notice. The hours disappear.

2.10pm. Boris says she is busy and asks me if I want to be excused from the finance meeting, I say I do, even though I have everything finished by then

2.58pm. I’m in the lift. Yay.

Mum was having a whinge as I left. Oh, you know, the hard working single mum who has to do everything herself, for her kids. Her kids, her kids, her kids. Throw in a strong Christian faith and you have the complete disaster of delusion.

There is the smell of coffee in the street. People sitting at cafes looking bored. There is an old man in shorts on the seat further up Collins Street. A sweet boyish faced guy in hiviz walking towards me. He smiles. It is just an automatic reaction, I know. People sitting idly at the tram stop. The air is too warm for my jumper, now I have left work I can go in my T-shirt underneath. A guy has his phone on loud speaker. The sun is shining down. A pretty 109 tram arrives, there are no vacant seats inside, I have to stand. People will get off at Elizabeth Street, and they do, and I get a seat. Some young girls yabber on, on the seat opposite me. A woman and her husband come and stand next to the young girls, but she indicates to her husband she doesn’t want to listen to them. The young girls seem to be with their grand parents seated in random seats around them.

I get off at Albert Street, it’s hot, the jumper comes off. I take my jumper off and carry it in my hand with my satchel.

There is a boy in a black T-shirt and shorts walking around the front of the Eye & Ear hospital. His black shorts bulge like he’s got a substantial knob on him. Pretty face. Blond complexation. He squints looking into the sun.

Victoria Parade > Young Street > Gertrude Street

3.22pm. I’m home.

Bruno is too sleepy to welcome me home, until I call him out, then he gets languidly to his feet and comes over and says hello.

3.35pm. Taking Bruno for a walk. It was hot. 29 degrees. It felt hot.

Gertrude Street > Fitzroy Street > Moor Street

4pm. We’re in Whitlam Place. Bruno is drinking from the tap, as the water container has been removed yet again.

Moor Street > Wood Street > Condell Park, where a man enthused about the bulldog to his young son > Condell Street > George Street > Charles Street > home.

Sam walks ahead. I let Bruno off his lead for the last block in our street.

4.12pm. We’re home.

5.36pm. David calls again. I miss his call. We send each other voice messages.

5.43pm. I call him back. 6pm. We are hanging up, but Sam asks David about meeting the cast of Miss Saigon and David talks animatedly about that for a further 10 minutes.

We ate chicken curry for dinner.

We watch 4Corners about Andrew Tate, his War Room and his generals. I fall asleep a number of times during.

We watch Media Watch.

9.30pm. Sam goes to bed with Bruno.

I watch 4Corners again. Andrew Tate. He’s just a monthly subscription scheme.

Now, I am sitting up waiting for the puppy to wake up, so I can go to bed.

My cat, Milo, takes the opportunity to cuddle up to me on the couch, now Bruno is upstairs in bed and Otto is contained in his crate.

My eyes are tired. I might have to go and give Bruno a shove. He's a good sleeper. I'm not complaining. But, I think I'm done for the day.