I Woke Up With, What Felt Like, The Beginnings Of Sam's Cold

I woke up with, what felt like, the beginnings of Sam's cold. No happy!

"What are you talking about?" he said, when he came downstairs. "I'm perfectly fine." Then he descended into a fit of coughing.

The timing was perfect, I was secretly pleased, actually, not so secretly.

"Oh yes, I can hear that."

He smiled and looked away. I cleared my throat and he looked back. I raise my eyebrows and tilted my head and looked at him through the very top of my eyes. He gave me a toothy grin.

“What can I say?”

“Nothing,” I said. “But I’ll be needing chicken soup and pats.”

“I see,” he said. He stepped towards me, took my face in his hands and kissed me on the forehead.

“More,” I said.

He kissed me again. He felt my forehead with the palm of his hand, like your mother might. He tousled my hair. “You feel okay.”

“I might have to stay home,” I said in a child’s voice.

“Of course you do,” he said in a mother’s tone.

I Hadn't Seen Sam For A Week

Sam came over after work. I haven't seen him for a week, not since last Friday when we spent the day together and he told me how he was coming down with something.

I vanished that night, saying I was heading home to my bed, as he had the painter coming early on Saturday morning. But, he was under no illusion, I was clearing out because of his dreaded lurgies.

He's been a bit miffed that I had opted to keep away from him while he had a sore throat and felt like he was coming down with something.

"I see," he said.

He wanted to catch up a few times during the week, but I opted for waiting for when he was fully recovered.

"I don't want to be off work and sick at the same time, you must understand that?"

"Oh yes, I understand alright."

So, as you can understand, he was a little feisty by the time I saw him on Friday night.

Very, on the "go" was he. And very relaxed was I.

So, I decided he had to be "calmed" down. It's a devious trick, but it had to be done. I was going at a much slower speed than he.

So, when Shane said he was heading to the supermarket to get supplies for dinner, after he'd gone, I reached for the button on Sam's jeans.

It worked a treat, he was much nicer to lie next to on the couch after that. Besides, I hadn't seen him for a week and I was pretty keen myself.

Big smile.

I Just Can't Feel Work, At The Moment

I just can't feel work, at the moment. You know, that sense of what it feels like to go to work. I can't out-of-body myself and observe myself going to work. It just feels like a foreign concept, at the moment, which people are, increasingly, talking about, but there I am in the middle clueless to what they are talking about.

So, I'm taking that sign to mean that I don't need to be looking for a job, right now. I'm sure, I will feel what it is like to work, so to speak, then I will act accordingly and hey presto I'll be back at work not being able to feel what it feels like not to work.

It's a nebulous concept to explain to people, they can't usually get it.

I went to bed at 3am. I got up at midday. Now, for my first round of "Valarie." Go Amy! I hope, you at least, finished your next album. Today, I started at the top of the Youtube play list for her and played them down, as I did my washing and cleaned up the kitchen.

I'm having a sweet muffin instead of muesli because I have run out of food and I must go to the supermarket. What time do I have?

When I run out of coffee beans, I traditionally head to the supermarket. Then it is a critical situation. Speaking of which, I might have a cup.

Pissing Away The Days

It's late, after midnight. It's cold, the open fire has died down and it is freezing outside. Fucken monkey nuts out there. I must go out and get more wood.

Today, I got up at 12.00, went back to bed because I was cold to watch TV, and fell asleep. I woke up when it was dark again, watched Pimp my Car and Angry Boys, nuyer and ate apples. I woke up at 8pm'ish to chewed apple cores on the floor boards.

Missy is curled up on the couch next to me.
I'm smoking inside, breaking one of the house rules.

I'm watching TV. I love the ABC, I actually say out loud. And I instantly think I have turned into my mother. I watched Judith Lucy, the story of the Titanic, two gorgeous surfer boys travelling the world, even fat old Tony Curtis, although Pamella Stephenson is awful.

I'm pissing the days away at the moment, for sure. Vampire hours come to me so easily. Everybody is starting to ask me if I am thinking about getting a job. None more so than Sam. Good on him for being honest, but he doesn't want a broke boyfriend, who can't do stuff. He wants to go to New York in the foreseeable future, come on get your act together, he says.

I've been glued to my computer this week, writing furiously, but as always, I'm jumping from one thing to another and I have no real out put to show for it.
I've spent plenty of time looking at pretty boys on the net though, gasp! I know you are all shocked by that. I guess it's in our DNA, what would we call it? A strong image appreciation gene.

I've been playing "Valarie" in the back ground as I type, poor Amy. Her voice was the last great musical revelation that I can remember. I was in a music shop and they were playing "Valarie" and I listened to her, forcing me to go over to the desk when she had finished and ask, "Who is that incredible singer?"

I should go and live in Paris and learn French.

Euw! I Laughed, I Couldn't Help It

I had a late night, I stayed up pissing around with photos and pretending to write. You know, as you do. And suddenly, my bedtime television is Sunrise instead of Lederman.

I was groggy when I got up, after midday. Doing the shift work, for sure. Vampire hours. It's so easy to get into the habit of it.

I made coffee, that was all my single issue, male brain could cope with.

The toe nails on my left foot, have been long for about a week, well, that's the time I've been meaning to cut them. My hand seemed to come down on the nail clippers, I I rested them on the bench and steadied myself waiting for the familiar rumble of the cooked coffee pot to sound in my ears.

I took a cigarette from my packet and headed outside with my coffee. (Yep, smoking again) The sun was shining, but it had no warmth in it. I sat in one of the wicker chairs on the back veranda. I put my coffee on the ground. I found I had the nail clippers in my other hand. I pulled my left leg over my right knee and focused, rather bleary-eyed, I have to say, on my toes.

I clipped my big toe first. It was like a claw, dirty and gnarled. How long had it been? I was sure I was a cleaner human being that the evidence my big toe was showing me. Euw! Click. The nail shot straight up in the air, completing the most perfect arch right there in front of my eyes and plop! Straight into my coffee, as perfect a dive as Matthew Mitcham.

Euw! I laughed, I couldn't help it. Welcome to the fucking day, I thought.

 

I Got Up Late

I got up late. I made coffee. I checked my messages. I poured my muesli into a bowl. I headed for the mull bowl.

Guido paid one of his rare visits. I didn’t organise it, I swear. Shane did. Earlier in the morning, Shane had broken his last cigarette to which I replied, Oh damn, we’ll have to get some pot now, so as not to waist the cigarette.

Sam is sick in bed at his place.

It was quiet, this morning. I lit a fire to take the chill out of the air.

Shane got up after 2pm and wanted it confirmed that it was still okay to get up and go straight for the mull bowl.

“Is it bad to head straight to the mull bowl, first thing after good morning?”

He hasn’t slept since Thursday night, he tells me after the first herbal gasper. Still on that relentless search for Mr. Right.

“No, it’s never wrong.”

Shane laughed. “Just because that was a rule for so many years, are you saying at no age it needs to be reviewed?”

“I don't understand the question? It is never too early to have a joint on a Sunday...” I held my hands in the air, “everything else being as it may. You know, in peace.”

Stoned on a Sunday at home, it has been awhile.

I decided not to say anything about the pot to Sam, so I can’t see him today. He’d be cross.

Choosing mari over him, he would say. But, he is sick and should stay in bed, and besides I don’t want to push my luck, the last thing I want right now is to be sick, that could set me off the work course by months. It’s true... possibly. I just have no want to work, still nothing. Numb. I’m praying on tattsLotto, that’s all I’ve got.

It doesn’t mean I have to be in stasis just because he is sick.

He’s taken tomorrow off though, he’s been to the doctor today, so that will make it hard.

Later, I fessed up to Sam, he didn’t seem too concerned. He’d been to the pharmacy and spent one hundred dollars on potions and pills, so he was feeling better, he was feeling more confident.

The Sun Was Shinning

How fucken cold was it, last night? Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Funny, because it was such a lovely sunny day.

I left Sam's just before midnight and the car was perfectly covered in dew, like an icing sugar dusted cheese cake, it looked quite beautiful sitting there under the street light. The kind of surface you just want to take your fingers and draw patterns on, decorate it with 1960's daisy patterns. It was that lovely picture perfect image of winter, cold and snug.

It was cold inside, like an ice cave. I felt myself shiver as the cold seat hugged me.

I love that foggy exhaust of a late winter night, like little chimneys puffing out into the cold.

Of course, my windscreen was completely fogged up and I couldn't see a thing, but be that as it may...

I woke up at 6am

I woke up bing! awake! 6am... so I got up and took photos, of course. It was a lovely morning watching the dark gradually change to light.

Sam's Birthday

It was Sam's birthday, oh, my, I so messed it up. I didn't buy him anything. I didn't know what to get him and he wouldn't give me any ideas. A geek IT boy who has every gadget known to man? (He even has 3 robot dogs) What do you get him?

And, I'm not a good present buyer at the best of times. I always leave it to the last minute, hoping inspiration will come to me, or at least, better inspiration.

What do you want?

Nothing, don't worry.

But, I could tell he wasn't being completely honest with me. Give me some idea?

I don't want anything.

But, I could tell by the look in his eye... you know when you know. He did want something and he wanted me to surprise him, charm him, be clever.

And I forgot he was taking the day off, which I, kind of, gave away when he said he was coming over last night.

"Oh, that will be nice?"

"You don't remember, do you?"

"Um... remember what?

At 7pm, I realised I should have cooked him the Red Velvet cake that I had been planning to cook him. Make it, put candles on it and sing him happy birthday. That would have done it. Idiot! How could I forget?

If I'd had my very own Masterchef moment in the kitchen, involved him in the process, been together as I made it and then had gone viola at the end, he would have been charmed, he would have loved it.

But I didn't. (sad face)

I'm a crap boyfriend.

Gettin' Stroppy

Gyod! They get stroppy, now don't they.

Okay, so I went to the country last Tuesday, saying I'd return Wednesday morning, in the process cancelling a date with Sam on Tuesday night.

It was lovely in the country, lush and genteel. Luke was working 12 hour shifts and Mark and I hung out chopping wood, watching teev... and smoking pot, sure.

Oh, once up there, I seemed a million miles away from all my problems (I mean, such as they are. People still live close to the crippled nuclear plant in Japan and they still die from malnutrition in Ethiopia, however) and the drama of seeing lawyers – or not seeing them, as the case really is – and getting a job. Oh, it was nice and peaceful and relaxing and a lovely diversion.

Now, I guess I should have known better, Sam being the "must have a plan" type of boy that he is, than to let the days drift and my return day with them.

Okay, I did say I'd be back on Friday night, to meet up with him after work. Yes I did. I'd hardly say it was a promise, however. But, you know, as stated before, it was lovely in the country.

I messaged him in the afternoon saying I wouldn't be home and his reply was "so I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yes, of course."

I stayed up late and went to bed way after midnight, problem being that I'd left my phone on my bed, rather than having it with me. So, at 3am I read this message.

"Clearly dope is more important than me and always will be, and I don't want a boyfriend like that, so I don't want to see you any more, have a nice life. I'm sure you will meet some nice pothead some day who you will be very happy with."

Oh? I thought. Damn! Actually, my first thought was, Maybe I don't want a boyfriend who is going to get shitty with me spending some time away from him.

I knew, eventually, he'd admit he was jealous (for want of a better word... disappointed, maybe) and just wanted to be with me doing the same stuff, I knew that.

Anyway, I came home Saturday. I messaged him on the way back and said I'd drop in, but he said he was meeting a friend.

Fine, I replied.

After he'd seen his friend, he messaged me and asked if I wanted to see him and I couldn't resist the response, maybe? Well, if I was going to be berated for hours, you know "maybe" is the truest response... me, lying on the couch in solitude in front of the open fire with Missy purring next to me, you do the maths.

He knew what my "maybes" mean and said he'd be at my place in 20 minutes.

And all is well again in Christianland.

PS. Shane says we should stop messaging each other and pick up the goddamn phone and talk to each other, which is probably true.

Even if I pointed out to him that I have a boyfriend and he doesn't, so I wasn't sure whose theories were working best. (Shane craves a boyfriend now)

Oh well, I am gay after all

Chop Wood, Carry Water

It's a bit bloody cold, I have to say. Brrrr! The cold goes straight through clothing, chilling one to the bone, as the breeze blows. It's a good chill though, fresh and alive, you know you are breathing and feeling something.

"Woooooo oooooo," calls the wind from the trees, as we head out into the forest to chop wood.

I pull the collar of my jacket up around my ears, as I go to get the ute. Mark gets the chain saw, he has already sharpened the blades, chain, whatever you call it? The ute starts first go, as it always does. It is a wreck now a days and it is a miracle it still goes at all. But, it is a HiLux and you know what they say about HiLux utes. Unbreakable.

We head out into the forest, the eucalyptus scented, mulch covered, mossy-floored forest. Mark walks ahead. I follow behind, the old ute chugging along in low gear. The muffler has gone, so it is a bit noisy, noisier that it once was. But, as I said, it is on its last legs… wheels. Mark has on his checked lumber jacket and work pants, so he looks quite the part. I’ve got on my wool lined jacket and old jeans. I’ve got several pairs of gloves lying on the seat next to me.

Mark finds a suitable dead tree still standing. He raises his hand and I kill the engine. I throw him a pair of gloves.

The chain saw is noisier than the ute, but only just. In no time, there is that familiar crack of timber piecing the serenity of the surrounding forest, and the sound of rushing air as the tree collapses and falls to the ground. The earth seems to shake just a bit as the tree lands between us and the ute.

The chainsaw buzzes, higher pitched and lower pitched, as it slices through the thick trunk like a deli slicer. I pick up the pieces, as Mark continues with the segmentation. Pretty soon the long, luxurious trunk of the tree has been segmented into burnable sized blocks. I pick them up one by one and hurl them into the back of the ute, where they land with a thud, which echoes into the trees closing in over the top of us in a thick canopy.

We fill the ute with wood before we head back to the house.

I Kinda Forgot To Go Home

Still in the country, kind of forgot to go home. It's been nice, you know, a break from all of it, warm open fires and being cooked for. Ah, the wide open spaces, depth perspective. Ha ha. Lots of teli and a walk around the lake. I was going to head back to the city yesterday... maybe tomorrow. 

It's a bit, bloody cold though, isn't it? Brrrr! goes straight through clothing, chilled to the bone. 

What Did I Learn?

What did I learn watching Ben Ten with the kids, in the country? That Kevin is way hotter than Ben Ten.

My Week to Get Things Done

Mark called as I walked back from the city having just had lunch with Sam. I was heading home to get on to things, stop pissing around, make some calls, update my resume. No excuses. I'd practically said the last word to myself when the phone rang.

"Loli's up here (Bolago), she said to call you and ask you to come up, she'd love to see you."

Oh well, why not? Guadalupe comes tomorrow, I have to get out of the house anyway. I see Loli. I come home first thing in the morning, what's the harm.

Sam had bought me the new part to fix my home wifi. "It's a present from me babe, you're broke, don't you worry about what you owe me." He was coming over tonight to install it. I stopped home long enough to pack a bag and send Sam a cancellation text.

Then I drove to the country.

Can You Tell They Are Identical Twins?

Some May, And Do, Say That I Am A Bitch. I Simply Say That I Tell The Truth

Mark sent me a photo of a tattoo that our estranged friend, Julien, has had drawn on his arm, the name of a drug addled pop diva, which was kind of fitting as Julien's life pretty much followed the same trajectory, possibly with less glamour. Funny how life imitates art... um... er... His life spiralled out of control via drugs like all the old cliches about drug addicts, to the point where he lied and cheated us all to get "his fix" to get "his way" to cover up the true disaster.

After exhausting us all he disappeared to parts unknown a few years ago... and nobody was that sad about it, sad to say.

Mark's email was entitled

Ah Facebook .....how appropriate Julien....probably off down the same road....

My reply

Oh yes, I saw it the other day. You can look at his photos, he looks fat and old.

Mark's reply

Well, I don't suppose we can talk too loudly.

My reply

That may well be true, but I rather feel that you and I had so much more to offer our friends and the world than just our good looks, sadly Julien never did.

She’s back boys! Lock up your medicine cabinets… and your wallets.

He botted off all of his friends, telling lies and conning us all. He cheated, connived and used us all. And then when we all caught on and said "no more!", he turned on us and told us that we’d all been mean and made his life miserable – which is probably true, but for exactly the opposite reasons to which he said we did. We made excuses and allowed him to carry on the way he did for far too long, therefore inadvertently facilitating his demise, we should have cut him off years before we did. I think Tim was the first to catch on, I think I was the second to realise.

Then, when none of us would give him the excuses we had previously, he pissed off interstate and then he departed for New Zealand.

Then there was that moment when it all came unstuck for him in New Zealand a year a go, or so, after that, and he hi-tailed it back to Melbourne and we all paid his bills and gave him shelter and looked after him, only to have him abuse our good natures all over again and probably in a more “junkie” kind of way.

But, that didn’t last long before we turfed him out saying, (with a very, big loud groan) “No, not again. ENOUGH! No more!” And he hightailed it back to New Zealand saying that he couldn’t trust any of us to look after him.

Well, I think, that towards the end of 2009.

Now, I can see, that he has just logged back into Facebook for the first time since then and he is tentatively making contact with us all again. Not me, or the rest of us who had the good sense to de-friend him from Facebook, but I can see that he has made contact with the others who are still connected. And he hasn’t set his privacy settings, since the new profiles wiped them out, so any one can go and look at his profile, he never was that, shall we say, thorough.

Oh the pain. I hope he’s not going to make contact with me. You know, I am very forgiving and it takes a huge amount of bad behaviour to reach my limit, but when you do…

We'll see, he's not back in Melbourne yet, apparently, but when he does I can almost guarantee you it will be the same old story. He's probably worn out his welcome in whatever part of the world he has been in.

lunch

Yum

YouTube

Oh, I so love YouTube, you can watch anything you like, all day and life just drifts past you.

I have done nothing all week, except watch Bette Davis interviews and old episodes of What’s my Line, I so love that show. I keep thinking that I have to do something, that I have to get my act together, but when it comes to it, I just don’t want to. Ah! I so don’t want to go out there and work again. Motivation is at zero, interest is nothing. I try to make myself and I just seem unable.

My sister is fine, of course. Everyone lands on their feet, except me. Poor, poor me; the fact I have done nothing has nothing to do with anything. The lawyer said to her that since her old job gave her the company car she was driving, it would be unlikely she would get any more out of them than that. She is currently filling in in her first job from 25 years ago down in the country. She says I should go and see the lawyer, but even that seems like too much work. Oh, I must go and do that, I suppose, it is just hard to think and feel that he will actually be on my side. In a strange demented way, it feels like he will make me justify everything to him regarding (insert name of previous law firm) Does that sound weird?

I guess I should do something, but doing nothing still just seems so good.

 

I Was Sooooo Going To Get My Act Together

I was sooooo going to get my act together, put a plan into action, get myself into gear, start sorting out my life, move forward... but then Sam, who had taken the day off to meet the painter – who never showed up, just by the way – said, “Come over.”

So, I did. It felt like a long weekend, Sam being home and all.

I weeded his garden – no, that is not a euphemism for anything, I really did weed his garden, while he took a shower – and then we went and ate noodles in Preston.

He'd been cleaning his house all morning. I told him if he cleaned his house too often, it would go against him and I'd look at him less favorably. Too much cleaning doesn't make sense, it only gets dirty again and it is such a waste of time. He promised me, nervously I have to say, that he's only clean once a month.

However, he escorted me to the supermarket, after lunch, to buy washing powder, my excuse for not having "done" my washing, no washing powder. He wasn't buying my lack of time excuse. Ha, ha.

I've been buying home brands... do you know how much cheaper they are? I've never really bought them before. Sam now laughs when I ask, "Is there a home brand variant?"
Dishwasher tablets normally $11.50, home brand $5.99. Washing powder normally $15, home brand $3.99. Missy's food normally $70 for 6 kilos, home brand $3.99 for 1 kilo.

We went to the aquarium and bought fish for Sam's fish tank, some blue neons and some lovely yellow fish, gorgeous lemon.

And we bought silicone at Bunnings. I'm a fix-stuff kind of poof. It comes from having a dad who could fix stuff, who I followed around when I was a kid, propped up beside him watching what he did. He didn't teach me as such, but I find I know how to do lots of stuff because watching him.
We went home and Sam put the fish in the tank and I siliconed up the awning over his front door, as it had leaked in the last rain.

Then Anthony, his housemate, came home around 3.30 and I grabbed my things and headed out the front door. Oh, he's uptight and not energy I like being around.
Two Telstra technicians in a Telstra van watched us kiss good bye on the front door step - as Anthony came in the back door - apparently, wide-eyed. I had my back to them. Ah, it's good for them straight boys. Every time a straight boy sees a gay boy kiss another gay boy, a ghost of homophobia past dissolves somewhere in the ether.
The sun was shining, I was listening to Guy Sebastian's Memphis cd, in the car. I was home by 4pm.

Maybe tomorrow I can resurrect my career? Not that I want to, don't get me wrong. I soooooooooo don't want to go back to work, back into the den of cunts. I sooooooooo don't need work to keep me entertained.

Has There Ever Been A Better Looking Man? (Other Than My Boyfriend)

Whatever Floats Your...

I don’t know if I have shown this guy before? I was rummaging through my archives, instead of doing something constructive, when I came across him, if you’ll excuse the expression. There is just something about him that deserves a second showing if, in fact, I have shown him before, if you can, um, see what I mean.

Don't waste your life, Christian, my old gran used to say. That's the one who made a fortune in property, who left it all to me, my brother and my sister, only to have it stolen away from us by our poisonous aunt after my gran died and not the gran who hit the brandy bottle, when her husband died leaving her alone and penniless and drank herself to death, you understand. Somehow, I'm beginning to feel like I am doing exactly that, wasting my life.