Wet Saturday

6.46am. I was up.

I empty the dishwasher. I make coffee.

I create AI images for my FletcherBeaver blog.

8.11am. Sam was up.

8.30am. I make toast. When I see how much bread is left, I dash to the bakery and get another loaf. I make avocado toast for both of us.

Otto is up. He goes out for a wee. The rain is falling lightly.

Sam makes more coffee.

9.15am. The rain falls quite heavily momentarily

When I get sick of staring at my computer screen, I go out into the garden and chop up the Strelitzia that I chopped out yesterday from around my pond. The once smaller bush of Strelitzia has increased exponentially, and a smaller clump has sprung up which is now challenging the original clump for superiority. I chopped out the second clump completely, and reduced the original clump significantly. 

It’s always kind of nice to do gardening in the light, sprinkly rain. I’m not exactly sure why, I think it has a slightly romantic overtone to it.

The rain fell. I stood back and observed my handiwork. I now had back a huge section of my red brick wall. It all looked much brighter and much lighter. I nodded in agreement with, er, myself of course. Good job done.

What to do on a wet Saturday? What to do indeed?

1pm. We take the Bulldogs for a walk into the city to get a haircut.

It’s overcast but kind of warm.

We met an Aussie Shepherd at our front gate. And while Otto was already to fire up and bounce the Shepherd, the Shepherd’s owner was very calm and proved how much she knew about dogs by not reacting to bouncy boos antics. And Otto calmed right down.

I see my neighbour Jackson Wagg as we walked to Gertrude Street, he says Jill’s been sick and off work looking after his mother for a month. [small world, Jill looks after Jackson’s mother. Have I told you that, after taking some time off, Jill traded the high paced marketing executive career to work as a carer? I’m sure I have mentioned that.]

I called Jill. She’s in East Doncaster having lunch with a friend. No, she hasn’t been sick and no, she hasn’t had a month off.

“Um, er, no, I haven’t,” said Jill. “Not really sure what else to tell you.”

At which point Otto took a big dump on the footpath and Jill and I said we’d talk later.

We walked into the city our usual way. Sam and Otto lead the way

Cnr of Albert Street, there are many people photographing Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, I have no idea why? A Catholic Bus & Truck tour of the sites of Melbourne? I don’t know. We walked through Parliamentary Reserve.

As we pass Pellegrini’s a woman behind asks how old is Brun.

“He’s 6 years old,” I say.

“See, he’s not that old," she says to her husband.

“No, he’s not that old,” I say.

Brun must have got a wriggle on at that point.

“Oh, so he does have a faster speed?” she says.

“Oh yes,” I say. “He has a faster speed alright, he just doesn’t want to use it if he doesn’t have to.”

She laughs.

“They are quite stubborn, and you just have to motor them along otherwise you'll spend all day at it.”

Her husband acknowledges what I’d say with a knowing nod.

“They can run fast and jump high, they just choose not to.”

“They just choose not to,” she says.

“If you offer them a chicken leg, they will jump high just fine.”

She and her husband laughed.

As we passed Florentino’s, the handsome waiter at the outdoor waiter’s station made big eyes at the bulldogs.

So, half an hour later, Brun, Otto and I are in Bourke Street. As we walk to the seat on which we sit and wait while Sam has first haircut, one of the socially challenged is crossing Bourke Street towards us, saying something about the men over the road working on the building site being dirty old men.

I knew straight away she would be straight over to the Bulldogs because there’s nothing the socially challenged like more than a couple of dogs with which they can relate. And I was right, as I got tissues from my pockets with which to dry the wet seat, cursing the fact that I’d chucked that serviette from my pocket only this morning, she was straight over and flopped down on the ground gooing and gah’ing about the bulldogs.

She was dressed in small shorts and a hoodie. She had on very insubstantial shoes. She, of course, had a bag full of rubbish, which seems to be a mandatory fashion item for the socially challenged. She had long dark hair and a not unattractive face, in fact, she could have once been beautiful, could still, in fact, be beautiful, if her, um, circumstance were different.

She looked up at me with dead eyes and asked if she could pat Brun, I said she could, the next thing she is holding Brun by the ears with her face pushed up against Brun’s face telling him how beautiful he is, in baby talk, of course she was. Brun just kind of looked at her expressionless.

We’re a bit later than normal and the footpath is busy with people. People. People. Sam would remind me later it was Black Friday. (Black Friday means nothing to me. I guess it should, but it doesn’t)

A couple stop and tell me that I must stop under feeding my dogs. I told her Brun is very keen on his food and she said she could see that.

Less than half an hour, Sam reappears, just as an Indian chick asks if she can pat the bulldogs because they are just so cute. It is curious timing as I’m trying to get my shit together and hand over to Sam. I have leads, and phones and wallets and dogs going in different directions and Sam asking me questions, and this chick asking to pat the dogs.

So, I’m in the salon waiting. There are four guys before me, and the three hairdressers seem to be doing chick’s hair, which always takes longer.

The ugly cute skinny hairdresser has died his black hair a kind of dead blond grey colour. Awful! Not a good advert for the salon, I wouldn’t have thought.

Half an hour goes by, I finish reading the Guardian and I am still waiting, but reading had passed the time quickly.

A few minutes later, a cute dark haired guy with serial killer’s eyes arrives and sits opposite me.

Not long after that, I should be in the chair, hopefully. The big, boof blond boy is just about finished with the girl owner. The hairdresser with the fire engine red hair has just about finished with his bob style and blow wave. The Ugly, cute guy has finished with his client who is saying she is going to send her husband in for a haircut tomorrow,

So, it’s 2:42pm by the time we’re eating Thai food in Bourke Street in the light rain, but our table has an umbrella over it and also an awning of the shop above the umbrella.

I ate five different kinds of pork in a spiced noodle soup. Sam has dry Tom Yum noodles.

Crowds of people pass by as we eat. Lots of people, a never ending parade of them.

3:15pm, we’ve finished eating and I am thinking about something sweet, so Sam goes off to find sweeties.

Some idiot parents have bought their toddler squeaky shoes, shoes that squeak with every step the toddler makes. This idiot kid takes many steps. I want to exterminate the whole family. Seriously, what the fuck were they thinking?

We head home up Bourke Street. Brun continues to be resistant to walking most of the way home.

We get drinks at the optometrist and the dress shop where the people working know the bulldogs and they get pats. Fitzroy is now full of tourists eating.

We’re home before 4pm.

We do screens.

We ate fancy doughnuts that Charlie had bought with tea as soon as we got home. You know arvo tea, despite having a late lunch.

The 9news comes on. The Prime Minister marries his girlfriend.

Jetstar chaos as Jetstar cancels flights due to a software update on A380s. 

The whiny new female leader of the Liberal Party in Victoria has an uphill battle as there is no electorate in the state that thinks the Victorian Liberals are any good.

Skyhooks guitarist Bob ‘Bongo’ Starkie dies aged 73. Starkie has died of leukaemia surrounded by friends and family and ‘listening to Chuck Berry’, his daughter says.

We ate mango and sticky rice.

We watched SBS news and ABC news. We all of the above three times. I don’t think Sam has got over The Project getting cancelled.

We ate Thai sausage.

We turned the TV off.

I continued creating AI images for my blogs.

My eyes are bothering me today, they have been good ever since my eye doctor appointment up until today, but today they are sore.

I wrote my journal. This, what you are reading.

11pm. We go to bed.

Gym

9.45am

I’m on the treadmill, as I write this. I got to the gym early, isn’t that what we’re supposed to do? Get it over and done with, you know, that's how it is.

It was gonna ride the exercise bike, but I couldn’t. There was a couple of old slags on them already. He looks 72, with no hair, she looked 100 kg, with masses of hair. Ha ha.

I'm listening to Miley Cyrus.

10.10am

Anyway, now I’m done and I’m beginning to sweat and I need to go and do weights so wish me luck.

A cute/ugly guy with an oddly shaped head that is weirdly appealing, arrives to use the other treadmill, just as I head upstairs.

There are a lot of guys upstairs dressed in black, except for one guy who has pink shorts on, he kind of looks out of place. Not because they are pink, but because everyone else is in black.

Leg press first, but I suspect it might be the exercise putting my back out, so I substitute Lateral pulldown.

I do the seated row, and another guy is doing that reverse cable pull down and he bents over completely right in front of me and practically sticks his taint on my tongue.

Seated with dumbbells, that’s no way to refer to my fellow gym goers. Boom, boom!

Goblet squats. Why do I picture turkeys, or glory holes, I don’t know?

Chest press. It’s the exercise that reminds me of gay bars the most.

Cable pull down. Does it get gayer than this? White cords in boardies come to mind.

A cute guy with a beefy arse arrives.

I’m now listening to the Teskey Brothers.

I do TRX lunge. The cute boy with the beefy are is on the floor in front of me lying in a pool of sunlight coming in the window, in his tight white singlet, stretched across his great chest. He has his hairy legs bent up just so. And before I have finished throwing my leg back, he is doing downward facing dog stretches right under my nose.

10.45am. I’m finished. That's it, I'm done

I’m going home to rewrite my poems. I bet none of the others are going home to do that.

The sun is shining outside when I head out to the street.

Quiet Time On The Couch

Later in the evening, Milo announced quite vocally that he'd caught something and he was bringing the spoils of the catch home.

This peaked the bulldogs interest and they were straight up on their paws fully alert.

I gazed out the window to see Milo had caught a big rat.

Normally, Milo would carry the carcass inside and eat it in our front hallway, which is his dining room of choice.

He didn't bring it in straight away, probably because of the dogs. I don't know what would happen if he bought a dead rat in though his cat door to be confronted by team bulldog, and lets hope I never do.

Anyway, not long after Sam went to bed taking boof head one and boof head two with him. I lay back on the couch and had a little quiet YouTube time to myself.

Milo appeared, hopping up on the couch with me and snuggling up for a time. Then he wandered off.

I lay back on the couch and got lost in whatever I was watching. It was nice and warm. Lovely. I was so sleepy and relaxed and just about to go to bed myself. 

Then I started hearing Gak, Gak, Gak, Gak, followed by vomiting. 

"Oh! No! No! No!"

Milo had gakked up what looked like an inside out rat just 15 centimetres in on the carpet away from the tiled floor neatly in a large rat size body shape, except it was, essentially, raw entrails glistening with cat saliva.

"Oh? Er?"

As I looked at the regurgitated mess in horror, I could hear Milo making vomiting sounds further into the house.

"Ah! No Milo."

Grimace. "Jasus!" I say as I gaze down at the rat entrails. I'm sure I felt a shiver up my back. Maybe I did a little run on the spot, maybe that was just in my head?

I first head to the kitchen for the pan and brush, but stop and hesitate. The nice clean kitchen white plastic set, I think? I change feet and change my mind and quickly head out the back to get the old blue garden pan and brush instead.

Oh fuck me, I think, as the ooey gooey, so many different shades of pink and red, mess slides on to the plastic blue shovel. Oh please don't make me have to push it around too much.

I walk to the corner of the street in the dark and flick it into the rubbish bin that is there.

 

Loving The Sun In The Front Yard

It is another absolutely gorgeous day, it is as if the gods – you know, if there were, actually, any – are taunting me with my holidays coming to a close very soon.

A buddy of ours, Ellis, came to stay for a couple of weeks.

I went out the front and pruned some of the front garden. We've got a plant, shrub, that grows out over the front path until we are all turning sideways to get to the front door, so I pruned that. I have to prune that regularly.

I put Labelle's Blows Your Mind live album on in my headphones.

The two bulldogs came and hung out with me. Otto lay down on the front path with me, Brun lay super dog pose in the doorway to the house. That was when the two of them weren't keeping guard at the front gate, of course. They relaxed into it with me, though.

I used the sheers, first up. But, eventually I got the secateurs out and trimmed each longer-than-I-wanted stem individually because the sun was nice and I was loving listening to LaBelle live, it was all kind of meditative, all-the-time-in-the-world kind of thing. I just wanted to stand there at the front gate and listen to music in the sun and drift off to my happy place. And, I did, pretty much. Oh, my one true skill, wasting time, I am built for it.

I would have still been standing there if Ellis hadn't want to get past and head out the front gate, which concerned Grandma Sam who just happened to witness - perhaps, he was coming to check on me - who clicked his fingers from the front door, to bring me out of my trance, pointing to Ellis wanting to leave, after which Grandma rounded up the dogs ushering them back inside and closing the front door.

I guessed, I was done by then, party over, and I came inside for lunch. I might just click my fingers for food. Ha ha. Kidding. I don't even think I am physically capable of doing such a thing.

We ate pasta with a tomato sauce with salami.

Monday Gym Day

It is a bloody gorgeous day today, it is just sparkling out side.

I pissed about all morning, before I took myself off to the gym. 

The fat, sweaty guy who glistens with moisture was on the exercise bike to me. He really looks like the excess hair Gell he applied to his black hair melts and runs down his face. He puffs and pants and grunts and wheezes, ugh. Good thing I have music to drown him out.

There was a 20 something guy dressed all in black who was on all fours in the middle of the gym with his arse in the air. What can I say?

Who should walk in just as I am dissolving into a bag of sweat on the exercise myself, but Charlie. It was a surprise to see him coming up the stairs, well, not so much a surprise as a mind shift seeing someone where you never expect to see that person. You know what I mean? Of course, he is still glued to his phone even in the gym so he doesn't see me.

I go over and chat between exercises. He says he changed gyms recently. I kept exercising and I lost track of him. My gym has a predominately free weight area downstairs, I assume he went down there.

The sun was shining down beautifully when I came back outside, all sweaty. It was a nice day. Later, I wore shorts for the first time this year. I like it, in fact, I tend to like it so much I hate it when I have to put long pants back on when the weather turns cold again.

It felt good. The sun, and the gym. I felt worked out, and the warmth. I like the days I like the gym. I just need to learn to like getting ready for it, which is not always the case. I like it when I am there. Earphones. Music. Ignore everyone else.

I'm still on holidays.

I walked the dogs in the afternoon.

Messing Things Up

We were supposed to be going to a function with my car club today.

We were supposed to go to a car show day a month ago but it was rained out on that Sunday when we had torrential rain.

So, the cancelled function was transferred to the function today.

Those tickets that we bought for the car show day would just transfer over to the function today.

Okay, no problem, we just have to go on the new day.

Sam wasn't all that keen because he is never really keen to come to car club things, but he does come. The car show day we can take the dogs and wander around at our leisure looking at the other cars and talking to whomever we want. It is a nice day, we both enjoy it.

The function today is at a venue and it is much more structured and we can't take the dogs, so Sam was less than keen, although he was coming.

So, I just had to look up the address for the new venue and we just had to get ready and leave.

I went back through my emails to find the address, coming across an email I hadn't read that said we still had to register our attendance and buy a new ticket, even if we had the previous tickets, as they needed numbers for the catering. Today's function is a big deal.

Oh damn! I'm sure I read that if I had the previous tickets I didn't need to do anything further. Bugger it!

Oh, I hate it when I mess things up. Stupid me. How did I miss that email?

You know when you wish you could fire up the Time Machine and just whizz back a few weeks so you can dot that 'i' which would change things? You know that moment in your life? Damn it!

Sam said, "Oh, that is a shame I was so looking forward to it."

I looked at him, he smiled.

As an aside, I have been feeling nauseous all morning, which is really annoying, why won't it go away? I wish it would go away. Not only is it not going away, it is now developing rapidly into a head ache as well, so, I'm not getting the fighting spirit to get ready and go anyway and sort it out when we get there, as I might otherwise have felt.

And the weather is shit. The world looks miserable outside.

We decide to get food delivered. Sam endlessly reads out options for food until my head is spinning. I just wanted a salad. No, not a green salad, a nice salad with just a little oomph! Caesar, Nicoise, roast vegetable with goat's cheese, something nice. How hard could it be?

My holidays are starting to come to an end. Shudder. Oh, I don't know how long it is, I'm too nervous to look at the calendar, but I know it must be only a few weeks to go. 

I haven't missed one single thing about work. Nothing. Boris even messaged me and asked if I wanted to go in the Kriss Kringle and go to the Xmas party and I said no.

Oh sad face. I didn't resign. What is wrong with me. Just do it, my still small voice is telling me. How much time have we all got left, climate change being what it is? I ask you? No, really.

We went and ate Japanese in Carlton for lunch. It was a nice walk.

Sam is now asleep on the other couch, both bulldogs have cuddled up to him on the couch.

I'm listening to Marcia Hines.

It seems much hotter than early 20 degrees, still, I'm not complaining.

Later, Otto jumps up on the couch with me and decides he wants to lie in my lap. Otto weighs 34 kilos.

Rewriting Is The Best Writing

Oh, um, Friday. I rewrote and generated AI images for old blog posts, all day.

Yeah, I don't know about the merits of rewriting old blog posts, but I still do it. Sometimes, when I go back I think they are terrible, and I just have to rewrite them, even if no-one is ever going to read them.

I rewrote a bunch. Stupid, I guess. Does anyone go back and read old blog posts? Probably not.

It's going to be too much to, actually, add AI images to every past post, but it doesn't mean I can't try.

So, that's what I did all day.

The waste of time olympics, yeah, sure, some of you may think that, but? It's still writing, and that's what I like to do. That's no secret.

Don't make me say, a writer writes.

Off To The Gym

Okay, I have farted around long enough this morning, I'm off to the gym. I have been going to go since 8.30am. Ah? Nyr? Not bad. The sun is shining, it is a lovely day, not that I am going to see any of that from inside the gym.

Sam has joined me up to Spotify, so I guess I will give that a go.

I have a sore on my foot, which is like I have something in it, like a splinter, or it is an infected bubble, like a pipmp I need to pop. I haven't been able to get it to do any thing like that, so I will just have to ignore it. But, it is sore, so I am just going to have to ignore that. I wish I'd thought of it when I was at the doctor the other day. Grrr!

The only sympathy I get from Sam is the sentence, "Put some tea tree oil on it."

Oh well. Such is life.

Later…

There was a guy in the gym who stank so badly of BO that it made me feel physically ill to be near him. And he seemed to be following me around on the machines. Not that that really mattered so much considering he stank the whole gym out with his BO.

Sam said, "You should have told him to go and have a shower, the gym provides showers after all." 

Yeah, as if. 

It is one of Sam's number one pet hates, BO. It sends him nuts.

Now I am going to eat fried rice.

Hump Day Nothingness

Oh, I did very little, really nothing much. I uploaded some old DVDs I bought for $1. And I watched car YouTube channels while I uploaded the DVDs.

That was my day. Lovely, really. I sat on my arse all day, barely moved out of a few square metres radius. I guess, I should feel some sort of guilt and, I guess, but nah. If I search my soul there is, perhaps, a pinhead sized spot that has some anguish about doing nothing, all day, but that's it, nothing more than that.

It's hardly worth generating an AI image for this. I really don't know what? Let's see what I can come up with?

Oh yes, I got an email about my online order of the new Rolling Stones CD being delayed, JBHiFi won't have stock now until early December. Talk about useless JBHiFi.

Tuesday

9am, I went to the eye doctor. I like an early appointment, you know, get it out of the way. I've been getting dry, sore eyes and I wanted to make sure there wasn't anything seriously wrong.

A couple of middle aged chicks arrived in the waiting room after me, seemingly stressed out about parking. 

Oh luvs, chill, I thought. So uptight over nothing really. Parking. Catch a train next time, if it is such an issue. One of them was pacing. I guess we all get tied up in our own shit.

I was waiting for them to draw me into their parking drama so I could say, smugly that I walked, but they didn't draw me into it.

I pushed play on my music.

There is nothing wrong with my eyes, as such, which is good news. Maybe the tiny glands on my eye lids that, what, er, regulate the tears in my eyes maybe a little blocked, um, perhaps a little faulty, um, aren't doing the job they should be doing, which could be causing my dry eyes by the end of the day.

"Apply some heat to them, is what I suggest," said the nice eye specialist. "It should help."

"My partner (Sam) gave me a wheat bag to heat up in the microwave and then apply."

"Yes, that is a good idea." Sam will feel vindicated when I tell him, as he fancies himself as a medical advisor, despite holding an IT degree.

I didn't tell her that I can spend 15 hours a day looking at my laptop screen, ah, er, probably not relevant.

I had trouble with the sun dazzling my eyes after all the drops they put into my eyes for all the tests, when I headed back outside. I walked through the Fitzroy gardens with my eyes closed. It was like a Fellini movie with all the trees planted along the pathway taking on surrealist greens and shadowy colours.

I was home long enough to make a coffee.

Then I took myself off to my GP. Apparently, my bi-annual blood tests have come back and the doc wants to talk to me about them. Actually, I went to see one of the junior doctors for the blood tests, so it would be he who requested the discussion about the results.

All I could think was, what disease have they picked up.

I walked to the GP. It's a 45 minute walk, which I thought was a good way to get some exercise if I'm not going to the grym. My eyes were still a bit sensitive, but it was still good to walk.

"Okay, let's look," said my (lovely) doctor. All good, was the answer. everything is good.

Yay.

I walked part of the way home, when I remembered I didn't get him to test my blood pressure. Ah, well, it's normally just fine.

I caught the tram half way back down Brunswick Street.

I stopped in at the Middle Eastern bakery and picked up lunch which was my reason for relenting and catching the tram, as Sam was waiting for me to bring the lunch home and there was a good chance he was tapping his watch by this stage, the two of us being breakfast discordant. I always eat breakfast, Sam doesn't normally.

A1 bakery, makes good food.

I'm listening to Pete Murray, Blue Sky Blue. It's good walking music.

Team Gay

I have had the feeling that LGB is quite different to the TQ+. You know. It's nice to be inclusive, and give a bigger minority - or is that a smaller minority - a place to call home, but, really what does a gay man have in common with a trans man? What does a gay woman have in common with a trans woman?

Not really a whole lot.

Then I wonder if I just have some sort of inbuilt bigotry? Ah?

The stories of each group don't really have a lot in common, not really.

And now there is a kind of LGB revolt. We've always been used to poofs and dykes, as that is what we are. Poofs & dykes. And, I guess, when you look at it, any number of additional letters won't change the fact that we're poofs & dykes.

I'm not really the same as a trans person, not really, because I am gay and I am a part of the gay men & women team. I mean, I am a supporter of trans people, I am all for them making it the world, I wish them well. I will give supporting them a go, but I don't really understand them, because I am not trans. I am gay, and I have my own gay team to which I belong.

Funny, straight friends have asked me more than once to explain 'the trans thing' as they put it, or 'the non-binary thing' and while I used to try to explain it, now a days I reply with, "Ask a trans person. Or ask someone who identifies as non-binary."

You know, gay men and gay women have an interesting relationship all of their own, we're together despite having less in common than people think, but have the, er, um, same lived experience, so we hang together like brothers and sisters, we didn't exactly ask to be born into the same family, but we were, so here we are.

But being trans is a whole other story, which I am not, really, privy to. 

I'm for trans people. I'm happy for them to be trans. I think it is terrible how conservative politics is using them as a political football, essentially, because they can't sell any of their other policies.

But are gay guys and girls really on the same team as trans? I don't know? I'm not even sure I want to write this post as I don't want to give the impression I am not an ally, because I am. But am I the same?

Really?

So, I can understand the LGB backlash against TQ+. Even if I, probably, think we are all minorities and it is that similarity that should unite us to support each other.

Euw! No!

What are you saying? 

In the Epstein files there is, allegedly, an image of Donald Trump giving Bill Clinton a blow job?

What? No. That can't be true? Euw!

No, I don't want to see that.

Although, as we all know, Trump is a b!tch, and it would make sense he is performing the Monica role, hey.

Show me Donald Jessica Trump's blue dress, then I'll believe it.

19/11/2025 Update  - It was assumed to be Bill Clinton as the person 'receiving' was referred to as Bubba, Bill Clinton's nick name, but apparently the Bubba referred to is someone else, and it's not Bill Clinton, according to Mark Epstein, Jeffery Epstein's brother.

Going To The Doctor

I had an 8.30am doctor’s appointment, as I wanted to have a cholesterol, blood sugar and prostate cancer blood tests, not that the prostate cancer blood tests is a starvation blood test, but the other two are. So, I make the earliest appointment that I can so the starvation aspect of it goes on for the shortest time possible.

I get up at 6am, like I always do, and the time to leave takes the longest time to come around, but come around it does.

I decide to catch the tram, where normally I’d ride my bike, but the starvation side of it was making me feel a little wobbly, so then I was going to drive, but it was a sunny day and the thought of being chauffeured there, even if it was in a tram, with the GP, just seemed appealing.

I walked up Gertrude Street, as I walked my right headphone wasn’t working, and I just can’t abide listening to only one headphone working, I find it is a bit discombobulating, translation really fucking annoying. 

So, I was feeling irritated by the lack of food and coffee, and then I was feeling frustrated on top of that due to my non working earphone. 

I was fiddling around with the head phone all the way to the tram stop. I was turning it off and turning it on. I was picking different music just in case it was the track, really, all the way knowing, that if I had bought the headphone case, and if I put the headphones back in for a moment, that would, in fact, turn my headphone back on. But, I didn’t bring the headphone case, and so I was fiddling around with it, really in vain, hoping beyond hope something would spark it back into life, knowing full well it probably wouldn’t.

So, I am on the tram and there is the voice over. I have taken my headphones off and put them in the small pocket in my jeans. I am already feeling irritated and a bit wobbly and there is that voice over. 

“The next stop is Buttfuck Street and the doors will open on the right side of the car.”

“The next street is Jellywobbletits Street and the doors will open on the left side of the car.”

“The next street is Wereallgoingtohell Street and the doors will open on the right hand side of the car.”

Seriously, a relentless fucking voice over that was making my tune out meditative tram ride state impossible to achieve. Grrr!

So, none of this was really going well for me.

Now, in the back of my mind, as I was seriously trying to tune out to the voice over, just breathe, just breathe, just breathe, I was vaguely thinking to myself, why can’t I picture, you know, the mental mapping to the clinic? Why can’t I see where I am going in my head?

It was all more than familiar to me, of course, but somehow it just wasn’t gelling. But fuck it, I didn’t care, I was feeling crappy by this stage, as I said.

The other thing, somewhere in the back of my mind, as I continued trying to tune out to the relentless fucking voice over that just would not stop, the tram ride was taking longer than it should.

It wasn’t until I passed the end of my mate’s, Charlie and Lenny’s, street that it suddenly all came very very clear to me. 

I had made a big mistake. I was on the wrong tram. I think of the trams in my area as the 86 and the 96, I have always had a bit of a blank spot for the number 11 that runs up Brunswick Street. I'm not really sure why. I should have caught the number 11.

I was now more than a considerably big block away from where I should be. Thinking about it a little more, I was now many blocks away, across and further out, from where I should have been.

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! I jumped to my feet. I pushed the red getting off button. I looked at my watch. It was 8.25am. I would have been right on time, as I usually am.

Then, I thought, as so many thoughts rushed through my head, there is no use getting off at the next stop in the middle of nowhere when I can see the end of the line up ahead at a major cross roads.

5 fucking minutes. I have 5 fucking minutes. I’ll catch a taxi, that would be the best thing, but is there going to be a taxi to catch, that is the question.

My mind also went back to getting on the tram, when I touched on, I noticed my Myki balance was 50c. Great! To think Sam said to me just the other day, I’ll show you how to recharge your Myki card with your phone, and I replied, “Yes, yes, another time.”

Grrrrr!

I’m standing on the corner of Blythe Street and Nicholson Street and my watch says 8.27am. Oh, shit! Shit! Shit!

Apart from anything else, I didn’t want to miss my appointment as I didn’t want to do this fucking starvation thing again.

WHERE IS A FUCKING TAXI WHEN YOU WANT ONE!!!!!!!!

Then, out of the corner of my eye, a bus came trundling down Blythe Street towards me. I look around, and by chance, I was standing at the bus stop.

“Do you go to St Georges Road,” I asked the driver.

“Yes, we do,” he says.

So, I get on thinking about my 50c Myki card balance, but tickets are two hours so it shouldn’t be a problem. As I looked down the bus at all the miserable peak hour traveller faces, I see that all the Myki card readers are showing Out of Service. Oh well there you go.

In a few short minutes we’re at St Georges Road. We’re stuck behind a long line of multiple cars turning left and we miss the first set of green lights. Then I realise we aren’t, actually at a bus stop. I look around and I can’t see a bus stop in sight. 

The light up ahead is now red. So what to do, what to do? I walk up to the driver to ask him to let me out, fully expecting him to say, “Sorry mate, I can only let you out at a bus stop." But instead, he simply opened the doors. 

"Thanks," I say.

I run to St Georges Road, dashing across the road to the middle where the tram stop is, at the same time the bus I was on swishes along Blythe Street and off into the distance, who knows where it was actually going to stop next.

There are bikes everywhere on the bike track running down the middle of St Georges Road all waiting for their light to turn green so they can shoot off.

Momentarily, I couldn’t see the tram stop, but then I did, kind of over to the side, and I march off over to it. I can see a tram coming in the distance. Oh, I could finally exhale.

My phone says 8.35am.

My phone rings. It is the clinic. At this point, as if to be really fucking annoying, just for the sake of being annoying, my damn headphones take the call. I hit the button to bring the call back to my phone, but we get cut off. I call them back. “Sorry I am late, I will be there in 5 minutes.” 

“Okay. Good. We’ll see you then.”

The tram is full of school kids who get on and off at the next stops all the way down St Georges Road. Until, they all finally empty out, and we can all breathe again in the relative quiet of the nearly empty car.

I get off at the next stop. I run up the street.

I get to reception at 8.40am. The receptionist tells me, “As your appointment is nearly over the doctor may only be able to see you for 5 minutes. Please take a seat in the waiting room.”

Sam had been at the doctor the day before, and the doctor he was seeing kept him waiting ¾ hour in the waiting room. I am very tempted to bring this up. I think of that Seinfeld episode about this very thing. I don’t say anything. I head to the waiting room. My arse had literally just made contact with the waiting room seat when the doctor came out and said my name.

Sorry, Distracted

I'm too busy/addicted to generating AI images to write anything today.

Usual transmission will resume shortly.

I've been sitting on my arse all day, it's been glorious.

The bulldogs have been sitting on the couch with me.

Sam has been at the doctor's.

I stopped what I was doing briefly to go to the bakery to get a muffin while Sam was otherwise, er, else where. 

Sam has come home and ordered food from Hungry Panda, then he has started his afternoon of meetings, glad it's him and not me.

I should go to the gym. I might after I have eaten lunch. Maybe. Feeling pretty lazy though, I have to admit.

Open Fire In November

It rained and rain and rain on Saturday and we had an open fire. We had an open fire mostly because we continue to throw cardboard and paper products into the fire place when we're not having fires, so much so that every now and again we have to set them alight to clear them out. Sam did this on Saturday night and it was warm for a minute, so I got sticks and threw them on.

This morning, I got up early, as I do, and the rain is falling like the whole world is crying again and I was sitting here feeling cold, until I thought, fuck it, I don't have to feel cold and I lit another open first to keep me warm.

We have never had open fires in November. Never. Our open fires always stop around the middle of September and here we are in the middle of November and we've had two open fires.

What gives?

Does anyone think the climate might be changing?

The problem was, I got wet going out into the back yard to get fire wood, so I am now colder than I was before.

Grrrr!

The rain hasn't stopped completely for days.

My recently repaired kitchen roof leaked in all the rain we had on Saturday. The roof guys are coming to look at it today. I'm hoping it is just the two handsome sons and not the old man father.

We'll see.

 

I couldn't help myself, how gorgeous does he look? I always love a guy when he cries, it stirs something deep down inside me. And it's not always just sympathy.

That has led to some interesting moments with ex-boyfriends, where they are teary sad about something and there I am being comforting, but secretly getting all hot and flustered at the same time.

They go for a hug for to be consoled, and I'm puckering up trying to, er, kiss them, but pulling away at the last second to give them a squeeze and some sympathy. "There, there, it will be alright."

Oh, I do laugh now when I think about it. I'm not sure they have ever really realised. No, I don't think they have.

Is that weird? I guess it’s a bit weird. But it’s an emotional thing, crying, so maybe it’s not that weird. Maybe, not so weird.

I don't know, I have never really thought about it before. This is the first time I have said it out loud.

Ah, the things you do.

Eating The Chocolate Elephant

(This is an excerpt from my journal)

6.56am. I was up. It was still raining outside. It is still raining, I say out loud, before I have really clinked into my consciousness.

7am. In the lounge room and the rain start to fall hard. Really hard. Torrential, it seems. It is over as quickly as it starts, but I still wonder if that caused flooding anywhere.

I make coffee.

I start re-writing my fiction blog.

7.59am. Sam is up.

8.30am. I make Vegemite toast. Sam makes coffee.

Sam feeds the bulldogs.

I re-write UTR posts. I’m trying to make those scraps that are left into something more closely resembling a story. A short story, to be sure. A very short story, sure. But with some sort of resolution such as it is, but a resolution none the less. Okay, it may be a stretch of the definition, but at least it has some sort of fulfillment for the reader.

9.30am. The rain pours down again. Okay, enough with the fucking rain already.

I start creating AI images for FletcherBeaver. The aim is to create an AI image for every post that doesn’t have an image associated with it. Yeah, sure, that is a big ask, FletcherBeaver has been going for over 20 years. Still? What is it they say, There is only one way to eat an elephant: one bite at a time. (I like it, have I ever shown you my elephant collection?)

9.45am. The sun comes out.

Sam cleans. I do the vacuuming. It is Sunday, there is no getting out of it. What? No, I wouldn’t call Sam bossy, he says out loud while nodding his head in the affirmative.

I continue creating AI images for my blog. My fiction blog is complete, every post now has an image.

I have a shower.

11:39am. We take the Bulldogs for a walk to the Vic Market. I fancied Pho. It’s overcast, and warm, and windy, and we’re risking the rain falling on our heads.

The rain starts to fall as we walk up Gertrude Street, in fact, we only make it to Napier Street. We assume that it’s gonna be raining like this all day, so we turn around and head back to Smith Street.

There is no shelter once we really get along the way to the market, and if the rain falls again we would get soaked.

Midday. We’re at Wasabi saloon, it’s only just opened, eating on the tables outside.

A handsome guy comes walking down Smith Street. He pulls his pants up as he walks. His pants must be made of soft fabric, as when he hitches them up, not a whole lot is left to the imagination.

The rain has stopped, even if I am in a vulnerable position with my back to the street and the closest to the elements

That once handsome aboriginal boy lies on the footpath closer to Gertrude Street and smokes a cigarette. I’ve watched his decline over the last few years.

An equally challenged aboriginal woman, foetal alcohol syndrome, perhaps, with purple hair and a limp engages with him momentarily but then walks away.

Customers enter Wasabi Salon. So, we are only the first customers by moments. But then I look inside and there are two tables of punters, I never saw when the other table arrived.

I had Katsu Curry Chicken. Sam has Ramen.

The challenged Aboriginal boy walks passed and I notice he is still very handsome. It seems such a shame he finds life so difficult. I mean, I know looks don’t really come into it, sure.

You know, I remember not so long ago our lunches used to cost $40? Then went to $50 and now they’re $60.

The challenged aboriginal woman has taken up her position outside Coles with an equally challenged aboriginal man, both in the have-you-got-changed-position? They both look as though they have had a hard night.

12:33pm. Brun, Otto and I are waiting outside Woolies while Sam looks for specials.

The day has turned sunny, in fact the son is quite hot, er, we always like a hot son, but it is the sun that is quite hot. The sky is even turning blue. The grey sky is breaking up into clouds. The day suddenly looks sunny and bright.

A Hot boy in black shorts comes out of Woolies. He’s got a slightly pointy face and a Nero haircut, pale skin and hairy legs.

The Asian woman who wanders the footpath outside Woolies non stop starts to walk the day

A very handsome brown skin boy with a buzz cut haircut, a kind face, a gold jacket and expensive looking leather boots, leaves Woolies.

Sam reappears at 12:45pm.

We got a monkey face and one of these jam shortbread I never know the name of, at the Italian cake shop on our way up Smith Street

12:55pm. Brun, Otto and I are waiting outside Aldi out of the son, always a shame, er, sun and in the wind whilst Sam  shops. I can see the son but I can’t feel it any more. Oh, my dictation is too much. I’m in the shadows and I can’t feel the sun any longer.

Two women stop to ask what sort of dogs I have. They say how incredible they think they are.

12:58pm. Sam is back.

We see Lenny the Golden Retriever as we walked down Smith Street. There is a guy with an oodle at the same time. The dogs all say hello to one another like they always do.

1:11 pm. Brun Otto and I are sitting on the window sill of the Bonds shop whilst Sam goes to Coles.

A young woman comes along eating an ice cream who looks down at Brun lying in his super dog position and says, Oh my God it’s too much.” As she walks away, I look at her huge dimply arse with pale grey/silver tights that look like they are painted on so it looks like she’s just walking naked from the waist down with blue skin. She looks like a cadaver in a puffer jacket.

The day is getting greyer, as the sun is not shining as brightly as it did a short time ago. Of course, it just came out brightly when I said that. The breeze is getting just a bit stronger. And sitting in the shadows it’s feels just a bit cooler.

A Pretty Asian girl comes along gazing at the Bulldogs, she smiles that wide mouthed smile of someone who wants to say something but doesn’t quite know what? She’s followed by her big solid Asian boyfriend who’s in loose blue cotton shorts that kind of hug him, you know, down there.

1:19pm. Sam returns

1:26pm. We’re home.

Sam falls sleep on the couch, as I make tea and prepare our shortbreads. Sam drinks his tea cold anyway, I know, grimace, so it doesn’t really matter. He wakes up just long enough to say half/half on the shortbreads.

All About Ex Boyfriends

Yesterday, it was a day for ex-boyfriends, as it turned out. 

Mark called me up about a new singer Luke James. He sent me clips. The guy has an amazing voice, it is true. Mark wanted to listen to it at the same time as me so then he could get my reaction in real time.

Mark is still my best friend in the world. I never see him though.

Lauri messaged me out of the blue about a concert he was going to, wondering if I was going too. We went all those years ago when we were boyfriends and had the best time.

"Remember that?" he asked.

He's in New Zealand now, of course, and will be going in Auckland. 

I'm not going, though. These old divas keep pushing on long past their used by dates. So, no, I'm not going.

"They should all take a left out of Tina Turner's book, she knew when to hang up the pumps." When she was still had all her abilities. Out on a high.

"I think you are right, the backing singers will be doing all the heavy lifting."

"That is exactly it. These old legends can get the best backing singers in the world, who do all the singing, thereby extending their touring lives."

I've wondered lately how close Lauri and I are now. Then we get chatting and it's like we just chatted yesterday, even when we don't chat so much anymore.

Home On My Own

Home on my own. You have to always love it when you are home on your own. What is not to love? That lovely sense of self. That quite calm that is intoxicating. That ability to please oneself. The knowledge you are not going to be disturbed. There is safety and peace also that you can just gobble up at will.

Sam's gone to the office. Charlie has gone to his internship.

There are always a few things a guy does when he is home on his own.

First up, I went to the bakery to get a freshly cooked muffin.

I'm sitting on the floor at my coffee table. The two dogs are spread out across the couch behind me snoring.

The rain keeps falling outside.

Next, I played the music that I wanted without headphones. That sound bar never gets a workout.

Then I simply did as I pleased.

AI, Shmay I

I'm up early, I head over to the bakery to get bread. It is a lovely morning, still and fresh.

Sam and Brun are up next.

I'm still really disappointed about my AI generator and it reverting back to giving me four image, instead of the one it has been giving me, but with a drastic loss of realism. The fake looking images I started to get yesterday were a real let down.

I'd googled all sorts of questions about it, but I got nothing, really, so much for AI generated google.

I wondered if the AI generator is a learning tool and if the system for some reason had been reset, there was some talk in my google answers about a new version, I wondered if it leaned from my prompts and, perhaps, with a whole bunch of new prompts it might learn and we might get back to the realism I was enjoying.

So, I asked google if my AI generator was a learning tool?

And, for the first time, after a flurry of increasingly desperate questions from me, regarding AI generator, I finally got the answer I was looking for. There are two settings. I must have some how switched settings, I have no idea how I did that, although, now that I write this, there is some kernel of a memory about me hitting the wrong buttons, er, um, anyway. I switched settings and voila my lovely AI generator was returned to me. Oh what joy. It's gonna be a great day.

Just one thing to note, the key words of my google enquiries should have prompted the response I needed much sooner than this. One option produces 4 images, the other option produces one, and I kept referencing this fact in my google searches but it never once told me about the two options. It wasn't until I asked a very specific question, is Image creator a learning tool, a question it is fair to say that I didn't really know I needed to ask, that I got the answer to my problem. With the key words I was using AI Google should have given me the answer long before it did.

Oh, yes, I'm sure there is some sort of manual I should have read, but didn't.

Anyway, I'm just pleased it seems to be back to the normal I want.

The difference in the realism of the two settings

Mid Week

I went to the gym.

I sat on my arse for the rest of the day and re-wrote stories on my fiction blog.

I was very disappointed to find my AI Generator has lost all of its realism and has gone back to rather fake images. Boo Hoo.

We took the dogs for a walk late in the day for an hour. That might sound like a good deal of exercise, except the pooches sniff everything and we barely get any sort of momentum going.

Melbourne Cup Day

Melbourne Cup Day, everyone had a holiday, I didn't feel so special.

What am I like?

I'll get back to feeling special tomorrow.

😁

I have no idea who won the cup? Pffff!

Wet Monday

Today it has just rained and rain. It was raining when I got up. It is still raining. The rain is really falling.

It's a day to stay indoors and do nothing. Write fiction. Generate AI images. Watch a movie. Take a nap.

Yeah, sure, I could have gone to the gym, that is a pretty safe wet day activity, sure. But, who wants to go out in the rain.

Charlie went to work. He has got an internship after finishing his degree. He even gets paid. Lucky him.

I feel kind of tired, like I could take a nap. Do you think the rain makes you feel tired?

Sunday

It was a hot day, our first taste of summer. I went out in shorts and a t-shirt for the first time since last summer.

We walked through the park, which was full of people, tourists in my part of town. Still, the park was green and a lovely oasis in the middle of the city.

We ate in Carlton.

A group of twenty year olds sat next to us on outside tables, the most handsome of them was fascinated with the dogs and could help but look at them continually. It was cute. He was cute.

The day just shone.

We came home and lay on the couches and put our feet up.

We chatted. We ate pasta. We squandered the day.

Late in the night, the wind picked up and blew in all the open windows.

Saturday

What a gorgeous day. We walked to the Vic Market and ate Indonesian food in Elizabeth Street. I, unusually, didn't like mine that much. It had a weird kind of flavour, like it wasn't fresh. Sam thought that's how it was supposed to taste.

It seemed like everyone stopped to say hello to the bulldogs and to take photos with them. One chick was practically hysterical with her baby talk voice. She was a whirlwind of yap. I couldn't help but say, when she was safely out of earshot, "What a fucken carry on." But, she said we'd made her day, so that's what's important, I guess.

Afterwards we got hot jam doughnuts in the market. The queue was long, but as the woman who joined the queue after me said, "It moves quick."

I replied to her, "How many times have you been in this queue?"

She laughed.

We walked home under a sublime blue sky and sunshine eating hot jam doughnuts. Brun and Otto padding along with us.

Sam made fried rice for dinner.

Later we ate mangoes we bought cheap at the market.