I Got Off The Couch

The rain has finally stopped. I make myself go and get changed. Just get up and don’t think about it. Then, I’m heading across to the gym.

I ride the exercise bike first, like normal. A skinny, what looks like a nice Jewish boy in a crop top comes and rides the bike next to me, but he only rides for about 5 minutes, so he is finished again pretty quickly.

Next a chick comes and rides the bike next to me. She spends an inordinate amount of time making adjustments to the bike before she rides it. I get the distinct feeling she is going to chat to me, and I am ready to say to her, “I’m sorry but I’d prefer not to talk.”

When I speak to David later, he questions if I’d really say that.

“Yes, sure I would if I was riding the bike, I don’t want to chat then. Maybe, at a stretch, I’d talk in between exercises standing on the gym floor, but not when I am riding the bike.”

She didn’t talk to me, as it turned out. She had this very strange slumped bike riding style, like she was totally defeated before she started, like she was defeated by life.

11.51am. Fridays must be oldies and chicks’ day at the gym. Every time I look around there seems to be girls with their patooties in the air.

I would have guessed the old thinking on the gym held up, now what was it? I can’t even think what the old thinking was now? Fridays are the quietest because people are now thinking about the weekend, where Mondays are the busiest as people are guilty about what they did, and ate, and drank over the weekend? Or was it the opposite to that? Oh, I can’t remember now. 😬

There were more people exercising that I have seen before, so maybe the theory of it being busy on a Friday in preparation for the weekend stands true. I don’t know.

12:11pm. I leave the gym walking into bright, warm sunshine where the rain appears to have only just stopped as the ground is very wet and the trees are still dripping with rain water.

We ate instant noodles for lunch. I could only manage half, I'm getting used to stopping eating when I am full, yay. It sounds like a simple proposition, hey? But it’s not.

It started raining again. The rain is solid. Incessant. Driving me, everyone, inside. It’s wet. It is just the day for lying on the couch with Bruno and Otto, they are furry and warm.

I start watching Car restoration shows. Handsome Dustin Jennings and his 1923 Franklin model 10 that has been parked for 76 years.

When that is finished, I watch another YouTube channel. I don’t want to move, I don’t move. What else are dogs and days off for?

1.28pm. I spoke to David.

He says he is 98 kilos. He said how unmotivated he is, not wanting to do anything. “I don’t want to even leave home.”

I tell him how I have been going to the gym. I tell him I’ve been losing weight, but I look like a hag as a result. I tell him, “I’m not looking 20 again, though, so I want my money back.” We laughed.

2.22pm. I finished speaking to David.

It is still raining.

2.25pm. The sun comes out. The rain stops. The weather is kind of tropical, warm despite the rain.

I drink Mandarin Juice. I really like mandarin juice. Sam bought mandarin juice. I usually just drink coffee, or water, but Sam has a juice habit, which has worn off on me. It feels like sweet nectar as it slides down my throat.

I look at more car renovation channels on YouTube on the couch. IronTrap and their 1934 sedan delivery, Mortske and his Model A.

I fall asleep. Bruno and Otto snore. Friday day off perfection.

3:36pm. Sam wakes me up to take the dogs for a walk. I am resistant, I am too comfortable, but I have to get a script filled though. We take the dogs for a walk. The rain has stopped. The sun is shining. The sky is full of clouds.

It’s hot/cold, fresh/humid outside. Which makes it t-shirt wearing weather.

3.56pm. We’re in Chemistwarehouse getting pills 💊 and anything else Sam can find, so it would seem.

I’d started to get the wobbles, feels like low blood sugar, or was it too much time lying down, ha ha, and I was going to get an energy drink from Chemistwarehouse, to fix it, but we were just up the road from the muffin shop, so we headed to the muffin shop.

It was raining when we stepped out onto the footpath. We got to the muffin shop. We were going to have a coffee and the muffin sitting out on the footpath tables waiting for the rain to stop, which I though was a good idea, but in the end, we just got the muffin and headed off.

The rain started to fall heavier than it was earlier, not deluging down, but enough in which to get wet. We headed back up Brunswick Street. We stood under verandas and waited for the rain to stop, but it wasn’t stopping. I was eating my muffin, so I didn’t really care. Nyr!

We stopped under verandas all the way up Brunswick Street, but in the end, we ran out of verandas and we walked in the rain for the rest of the way to Gertrude Street, as the rain showed no sign of letting up, with us getting quite wet on the way.

All shops should have verandas, and they probably all did once, but they have been removed in a nod to modernity back in the day, as it would be lovely to walk under covered verandas in the rain. I’d even say it was romantic in an urban expedition kind of way. . Old world charm. Building owners should be made to put them back. Surely there is a sustainability argument that could be argued?

We walked under shelter all the way home along Gertrude Street.

4.45pm. We’re home. Close the door. Rain all you like. I’m home, I don’t care.