Where is the Outrage?

I went to the periodontist today. It was my initial treatment to fix my gums and save my teeth.

He worked on my teeth for 30 minutes and it cost $800. By my reckoning, that is $1600 an hour. $1600 an hour? Now, I don't know what you think, but when I thought about it, that is outrageous. Oh yes, university training, blah blah blah. Sure, of course that is true. Hygiene, oh yes, of course. But, my cleaner is similarly involved in my hygiene and she earns nothing near that amount.

But, even if I paid him, let's say, $100, that would be $200 an hour, which, in my book, is still very well paid. $150 for 30 minutes, $300 an hour. That is also very well paid.

Outrageous, when you consider that it is always a drama  when the lowest paid members of our society ask for a pay rise through the fair work commission and it is always a drama. The commissioners hum and ha over whether is should be increased by $2 or $2.50. How can the lowest paid people always get their cost of living rise cut or modified, or debated and become a part of the national interest when there are people earning $1600 an hour.

Where is the outrage when periodontists raise their hourly rate? I ask you?

Cute Isn't He

He's not mine despite the fact that is me holding on to his lead, but I'd like one just like him. I jumped at the chance of holding him for the owner who wanted to head into an open house inspection. What a cutie. Sam and I went home and looked up puppies on the internet. OMG how confusing was that? They ranged from $200 to $3500, how on earth do you sort through those kinds of differences?
So we went for a walk in the lovely afternoon sun, buying ice creams in Carlton before walking back through the park... dogless poofters.

He's home. Yay!

My pumpkin is home. Yay! I picked him up from the airport at 10am. He's still just too gorgeous. I gave him a big hug and kiss. I think we shocked a woman standing near by as I ran up to him and grabbed him. Swung him around and around and around, as the music played. Crescendo’d. The strings soared. Okay, the spinning round and the violins were, quite possibly, only in my head, but they felt good none the less.

Kiss. Hug. Squeeze.

He sniffed out the car window, on the way home. "I so missed the fresh air."

I rested my hand on his leg, I didn’t realise how much I missed that.

He's slow, though, really slow, moving at a glacial pace. He keeps telling me he is exhausted. A six and half hour train ride, an hours aeroplane ride and then an eight hour aeroplane ride to Melbourne... with stop overs of varying time in between each. So he's been travelling for 48 hours on his journey home. So, I guess he has a case.

We ate Japanese in Carlton for lunch. The sun shone down and a cool breeze blew. We slept in the afternoon.

"We can't do this, we have to get you back onto Melbourne time."

Of course, I kissed him first. Licked him, pulled his clothes off. Big smile.

He's missing his maid from home... but he is glad to be back. He keeps clapping his hands to be waited on and then questions why it doesn't work. He's still funny. Of course, that is more a comment on how he expects to be treated here by his honey, who would be me, than anything that happened back home.

He's laying on my couch with his tongue hanging out. “I’m exhausted.” Clap, clap. "Where’s my drink?" Clap, clap. "Where’s my watermelon?" I'm running around getting him things... and I don't mind one little bit.

I cooked him a sausage pasta for dinner. It turned out rather well. I introduced him to Chinotto, which he hated. Too biter. "Oh the after taste is horrible." Cough cough. "Euw! Yuck!"

He feels nice in my arms, just where he is supposed to be. I can rub his hair again and smell him in long slow sniffs.

He's worried that he won't be able to write computer code. I kissed his handsome face. "Don't worry, babe. The salt mines aren't for three days. We still have the weekend."

I like it when he pats my hair and plays with my ear… nonchalantly.

“I’m exhausted,” he says. “Let’s go to bed. Oh… come on! NOW!”

So, you can see, he’s still bossy.

 

I Tried To Photograph People Secretly... I'm Still Not Very Good At It

He Seems To Have Been Away Forever. Ages. Going on Months

I head to bed around midnight, when the nocturnal rummaging’s of off-his-face Shane start. He’s clearly “on the prowl” probably on grindr trying to entice someone over to play with him. Someone to be tied up, wrapped in cling film, or pissed on. Or all three.

The long slow night of drug intoxication trying to procure a playmate who will come around and bolster his sense of self worth.

I hear his footsteps on the stairs late into the night.

I sit up in bed and read blogs. The cool night air floats into my room, fresh and clean and cool.

I hear a voice from the street with some guy talking. I try to ignore it, but he doesn't stop. 

Blah, blah, blah. Bah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah.

Oh really, I have to go and look.

I head over to my balcony doors and peer surreptitiously over the railing to see this guy standing in the middle of the street in his dressing gown on the phone. He's from the house over the road, as the front door is open. It is hot, TV's blaze through open French doors in upstairs bedrooms. 

I kneel down and push my face up against the tulip balustrades. 

Dressing gown boy is talking, giving instructions in a sexy tone, clearly, he is interested in whoever it is he is talking to. That and his hand seems to keep disappearing inside his robe in search of something. I can't, actually, see the detail, but I can make out what he is doing in silhouette, as his hand fumbles inside his dressing gown. He stands there gazing down the street. A short time later, a girl walks up the middle of the street to him, talking to him on her mobile phone. They sit on the footpath and talk awhile smoking cigarettes, she sits down on the edge of the footpath, he seems a little more toey than that, preferring to remain standing for the most part. Once they have finished smoking, they go inside.

Mark and Luke call at 3am from Ho Chi Minh City, from their somewhat sartorial, read tacky, hotel room. They laugh.

"Gorgeous isn't it."

They have not long checked in and are tired. They will catch a connecting flight tomorrow.

I’m awake around 9am, just before. My balcony doors are open, of course, and I pull on my black track pants so I can stand in the open double doorway to survey the morning, feel the temperature and not get arrested, before I close the doors.

I need a piss so I head into the bathroom. I sit down on the toilet, like a girl, because I am barely awake and it is nice taking it slow in the quiet of the morning.

As soon as I sit down, I hear movement in Shane’s room and clearly someone is getting out of bed and coming into the toilet. They are on their way. I finish quickly and get up and stand in front of the mirror, just in time to stop a sweaty, stocky guy in a dog collar from entering the room.

“Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry,” he says. I push the door closed.

Shane’s need for approval, a relationship, a boyfriend, need not to be alone, has always outweighed his judgement, somewhat. I mean, this guy could have been perfectly nice but, you know, I have seen first hand the, shall we say, low bench mark Shane is willing to accept and this guy, upon a fleeting glimpse, is right up to scratch, or should that be, down to the depths.

Anyway, I’m sure it won’t be long before he parades this loser downstairs and I’ll have to be nice to him and make small talk knowing all the while that I will never see him again.

I head down to the lounge room where I make coffee and prepare muesli and switch on my laptop and read the entertainment news. Sam would roll his eyes.

"Do you think I care about, so called, celebrities?"

I read about the new film J Edgar. I note that the first session is at 10.50, over an hour away. Sweet. But, I also note that it is opening day and a public holiday and do I really need to mix it with the great unwashed when I can just as easily go to the delightful $6 Monday on Monday. Then I think about Sam and think that now that he is home, nearly, tomorrow, I should wait and see it with him.

Mark called from Ho Chi Minh City to ask for Jane’s phone number, so he can call Jay. He and Luke are good and looking forward to crusty bread and jam and coffee for breakfast Vietnamese style.

Don’t you love Skype? I know I love Skype? I talk to Mark and Luke, no matter where they are in the world and it costs me nothing? It is great!

It’s quiet at midday, just the wind blowing outside, under the blue sky and the golden sun.

Sam messages me good morning. He messages me instructions to start looking for a job. Come on! Chop chop! Apparently, we have to make investments and travel overseas and generally amass wealth and think about our future. Really?

I agree. I keep him talking, messaging, just because I miss him… not because I could care about the future.

He’s home tomorrow. 10am. Yay! He seems to have been away forever. Ages. Going on months.

Shane comes down with, who turns out to be, McKenzie who is really very nice and I should be eating all my previous nasty words. Well, I mean, my words aren’t really meant to be nasty, just a record of events, and they are not meant to be judgemental, just a statement of fact.

Reading back over this, it is hard to actually make that claim with any kind of credibility, I realise, but I am going to none the less. Just because McKenzie is nice it doesn’t make the previous any less true.

I don’t mean it is true of everyone Shane hooks up with, of course that is not true. It is just that it can be true when Shane is on drugs... and one just has to wait and see which way it is going to go.

Everything I have said is probably true of me when I am single and on drugs too.

I think I have met McKenzie before, although I can’t remember where?

They disappear upstairs again to do god knows whatever to each other and basically I am on my own for the day.

I wanted to take photos all day and I did wander up the Victoria Parade and take some earlier in the day. It is a gorgeous sunny day, perfect for taking photos. Late in the afternoon, I take myself off for a walk (exercise) around Carlton and I take my camera and take photos on my way.

Sam calls from KL airport and we chat on Skype. He looks so handsome. Not long now, a few hours and he will be getting on the plane.

He’s halfway home.

Travel safe. May the universe look after my precious cargo.

Shane heads off to McKenzie’s in South Yarra saying he can’t sleep in his bed because it is wet. I hope that is with perspiration and not anything else.

The house is quiet, still and serene. Nothing stirs, nothing at all. Over and out.

We never learnt anything about building ugly buildings, now did we?

Nice Porsche

Maybe I'm Completely Deluded And It Is, In Fact, Me Who Is The Bitch?

Missy is emaciated, compared to her old self. Mark thinks she looks fabulous. Thin is always better with Mark… even the cat, my god, Mark’s mother did a great job on him regarding “fatness.” It was his mother who spread the phobia, as she power walked in her pink tack suit with weights in each of her hands extolling the virtues of "slim is best, dear."

Missy now looks like a slim cat, where before she was a fat cat. It’s not that she looks bad now, but there has been a dramatic change, for no other reason than her more expensive food has been changed for cheap food.

This is one area where generic branding may have to be reviewed? Missy has lost a huge amount of weight since I have had her on cheap generic food. Maybe it is not nutritious enough for her. Tim says she is over 20 years old, so maybe she has moved into the geriatric cat phase. Or maybe she is sick? Sickness seems the least likely, a she seems happy enough. She still seems to be her old self. Her behaviour hasn’t changed in anyway. So I’m going with the need for more nutrition and I’m going to buy her a bag of her old food to see what affect that has on her.

We left the house by 9.30, to get Mark and Luke to the airport by 10am. It was much cooler this morning, much nicer than the sweltering heat of yesterday. I dropped them off at the door to the departures, waving them good bye.

I parked behind the shops in Smith Street, on the way home and went and got a haircut. For Sam for Friday. He hates long hair and not that mine was long, as such, but it was beginning to get volume and length beyond short, if you know what I mean. Smile. He’ll be back Friday. Bigger smile.

I sat in the chair with my eyes closed, for the most part, enjoying the touch of my fat-boy barber’s hands. Sometimes I think the artificial effort we put in with the hairdresser and conversation is just too much. Today I didn’t feel like "the talking", so I didn’t. There is something nice about closing your eyes and just letting the barber move your head as he sees fit. Side to side, like the lapping of the water on a boat's hull.

Then, I went to the bulk billing doctor and signed up to see him. Finally. Do it now! Don’t procrastinate! You don’t have to give it any more thought.

I got to the door when I realised I forgot my glasses, so I headed back to the car to get them. When I got back, there were two Sudanese chicks with kids and prams who’d got in just before me, who had just turned up as well and I had to wait for them and their children to have their turn, clearly, in a surgery which had been empty before the five of us arrived. I cursed my stupidity at forgetting my glasses, otherwise, I could have been in and out in practically five minutes. I laughed at myself thinking that I didn’t have a full day of appointments ahead of me and to just relax and stare at the wall blankly, as calm people do in waiting rooms. It did give me time to think about the implications of a doctor’s surgery that, obviously, wasn’t popular. I got a script for Nexium and had the wart frozen off my chin. No more witchy pooh!

The best bit was that it cost me nothing. My usual doctor charges something like $70 per consultation now, some of which I get back, of course. But is there any sense in doing that when it is only a script that I, so often, want? It is apart of my “going homebrand” for the sake of the budget... and unemployment.

I came home and pissed around for a short time, turning my PC on to check my blog sizing on that computer. The sizing seems different on a Mac to a PC, it seemed to be huge on a PC, I’m not sure why.

While sitting at that computer, I saw all the bills that I hadn’t paid, which were now over due. "Oh damn, the late fees."

"Slack", Sam would say… if I told him. (Not to self – he reads your blog. Grin. Hi Babe. Wave.) 

So, I got them all together and headed to the post office and the Westpac bank, post haste, despite it being 12.30 and lunchtime. "Are you mad," as Anthony would say.

I should rent out my spare room again and get the cash in, or set up Internet banking, there is no in between.

Oh the lunch time crowds… why?... when you can do it at anytime during the day. I walked down to Smith Street with a sense of trepidation…

But YAY, people must still be on holidays and there weren’t any queues anywhere. You’ve got to love that, you've got to love it when the great unwashed are absent. It makes a change from when things are in the full swing of the business year and there is a queue out the door and onto the footpath even at the bakery.

Of course, I blame it on all the medium density housing that has been going on around here. The terrible traffic jams are all so to be blamed on the flats "they" are building everywhere.

I read today they is a major over supply of apartments in Melbourne. With the way they are building them EVERY WHERE that is no surprise to me.

I came home and re-wrote passages on my blog. Is it a case of needing to put in more effort, put in more time rewriting and perfecting, rather than thinking that I am wasting my time with my blog? Maybe the problem is that I am not taking my blog seriously enough?

I didn’t think about jobs.

The news is saying that job positions are drying up as we head for another GFC.

I don’t care.

I ate scrambled eggs and ham for lunch. It was lovely too.

My ex-girlfriend Leah was supposed to drop in for coffee around 16.30, but she didn’t turn up. I didn’t really pursue it, as I’m not at all sure that I want to see her anyway. She has turned into such a “Sydney” person that I’m not sure I can be bothered with her. But, I guess, I should at least try, we’ve known each other since we were teenagers... lost out virginity together and all that.

However, I can’t really hide the fact that I am relieved when she doesn’t turn up. (Ed note - from who? You are home alone at the time) Oh well, maybe the correct out come is arrived at?

I decided that I’d rather go for an hours walk in the warm afternoon sunshine, than chase her up. Maybe the problem here is that I am not self focused enough as the rest of them, as Leah is. 

I need to be more self focused on me… maybe. It’s always been my problem, really and what I should learn from all of this. Too laid back = too lazy, in my case.

Actually, my problem has always been a lack of confidence in myself. Shrug.

I saw the cutest house open for inspection in X Street. #233 the white house behind Woolies. If Sam wants to buy another house and one in Fitzroy, at approx. 700K and gorgeous this one is perfect.

I decide to give Leah one last opportunity and text her sometime after 6pm regarding our meeting, when I get home.

I get in the shower.

Shane came home saying he has a four day weekend. He headed out later saying he “has things to do.”

I know that this translates into he’s heading out to buy drugs.

Leah called and said I didn’t confirm our coffee date so she didn’t think it was on. “What the fuck are you like,” she said. “I didn’t hear from you... blah blah blah.”

Surely, the conformation was in the organisation of the coffee date, I thought. But then, pretty soon, I couldn't be bothered with her at all, after that.

These were our texts

11^th Jan texts

“I’ll be in town for 25^th, do you want to have a catch up?

I said, “Yes I’d be in town that would be lovely.”

“I’ve got a meeting at 4.30, I’ll come around after that.”

And because I didn’t confirm after that, she said she didn’t hear from me. But I had already confirmed.

I tried to be breezy, told how I’d seen this great house and how I should down size.

Then she started with her criticisms, about how awful my house is. Disgusting, I think is what she said. "The Amityville" horror house. She only understands modern chic stainless steal and glass, I guess, she doesn’t comprehend period style. She has that non-style of Sydney, you know, where style is whatever is in fashion for that particular millisecond. (Ha ha, her house in Sydney was really very nice)

Then it was why don’t you sell it? 

Why aren’t you travelling? 

Why don’t you do this? 

Why don’t you do that? 

You don’t have any goals? 

You never have any plans?

And, not far into the conversation I just wanted to hang up. She is judgemental, which comes across as aggressive... bitch, she really is, and that's what I am over.

Fortunately, Rachel turned up wherever Leah was and Leah said she had to go and I took the opportunity to, practically, hang up in her ear. Not that she would have noticed though, she had already turned her attention to Rachel and whatever it was that they were doing together.

Well, that went well, I thought. It kind of reinforced the actions I have taken.

Jill called about the invoice for the work I did for her. I told her about Leah and how I was through with her. Jill wondered why she wasn’t invited out for dinner with Rachel, Fat-David Monsoon and the poisonous Harry Whit.

“Because we are losers Jill, face it.”

Jill bristled at this description but, basically, I think it is true. Leah judges the two of us to be the least successful of all our old group of friends. (Ed note - read the least uptight, furiously networking, pretentious corporate wannabe tragics who think they are somebody important)

Even the obese, pretentious, kaftan wearing Fat-David gets a higher rating than the two of us, mainly because he can offer Leah something – a place to stay, in the city and in the country and a corporate pat on her back telling her how great she is.

Leah once told me that she inspires a whole corporation to do better. I wonder if the reality of that statement is that she inspires a whole corporation to hate her? Sorry, but my recent dealings with her make me think? Essentially, she is completely self-focused and judgemental with the self belief that she can say anything she likes to anybody, in a completely tactless way, because she knows best, as she is the one to inspire and encourage something better out of “lesser folk.”

She once told me that you just have to let some friends go some times. Well, you know what Leah, this is me letting you go.

I ate spaghetti with tomato and lentil bean sauce. I cooked it after Shane had come home and had gone to his room, assuming, knowing full well that he wouldn’t be eating. I didn’t see him again, except for a brief glimpse, which only confirmed my earlier beliefs about him smoking crystal.

I wrote the beginnings of, We have Eggs, a story that had been going around in my head while I was walking.

I watch TV on my own in the dark. It was lovely.

Smile, you can't help but smile

Summer's Back, For Sure... and I Head To The Movies

Today’s the day I should be applying for jobs. No, it is. This is the day. Really. This is it, as Michael Jackson said. Does that mean I should take an overdose of sleepers? (Something smooth) Oh, kidding, it's a joke. It should, of course, be anaesthetic. (which I don’t understand at all... where is the journey?) Ha ha, no, no. Too soon?

I wrote my journal, as I drank coffee and ate my muesli. Mornings are lovely, they just slip away too quickly

It is a bright, hot sunny day. I can almost feel the heat seeping into the house through every crack in the buildings airtightness. (Is there such a word?)

Oh? Find a job? Fuck it. Is another day really going to matter? (Am I going to regret this?) Of course, the very next moment they are talking about the GFC and the job market shrinking.

Instead, I decided to take myself off to the movies. I wanted to see Iron Lady, at the Nova. 12.10 was the next session. I didn’t look at the movie times for the day until 10.30, when the first session for the day was starting, right at the moment I was looking. 

Why does that happen? (Sam would say this is because of the lack of a plan) Is that Murphy's Law? I guess that isn't something going wrong? Well, I guess it is, in a sense.

It was hot walking there. I tried to walk on the side of the road with the shadows, except that it was midday. Ha! It was nice walking under the elm trees in the Carlton Gardens, though. That was a little shady respite from the scorching sun. Just for a minute. I wanted to take my shoes off and walk barefoot in the grass... but I didn't. I should have? What was I scared of? What could there be to be scared of walking barefoot in the grass in a public park? I ask you?

I was surprised by the number of people waiting at the box office, but, apparently, it was $6 Monday. I must have been hanging out at Gold Class Cinemas too often, which is really not like me, and it must be a comment on the company I have been keeping. I’m so much your independent cinema kind of movie goer. But, if the box office boy had said $25 I probably would have paid it. But, $6 was lovely. 

I was even more surprised at the queue to the cinema when I got upstairs, as it was already quite long. I said to the group of women standing in front of me, when they commented on the queue in front of us,

“I expect there to be only 3 or 4 people in the cinema when I come.”

“That’s what I expect too,” said the smiley member of the retired women’s appreciation society, in their trousers and hand knitted jumpers. We all laughed. I’ve always had middle aged women charm, they love me. Truthfully, they were just a bunch of “girls” as they would have referred to themselves, who now lunch.

The Iron Lady was sad, as it was predominantly about Alzheimer’s disease. It made me cry in places, as maybe it is too soon for me. It’s a cruel disease, really a sad, unkind disease. And, I guess, it is a subject close to my heart.

So, the Academy Award? As usually, Streep’s acting is fine. She has those almost perfect small mannerisms. That near perfect detail, physical details. The eyes – beautiful blue – the mouth, the inflection, the expression.

But, surely the stars of this movie, deserving of the Academy Award, are the makeup artists. 

At varying stages, Streep was an old lady, an old lady played well, of course, but she could have been any old lady. Was that old lady Margaret Thatcher? I don’t know.

At certain other moments, it felt like caricature, and in just a few moments she reminded me of Faye Dunaway playing Joan Crawford and in a couple of other moments she reminded me of the Little Britain Boys, or Catherine Tate, or was it French and Saunders?

When I came out, it was very hot. I thought immediately about going to interviews in a shirt and tie in that heat and wondered how long I could put off looking for a job? I could hear Anthony’s voice as I crossed the road. “Are you mad?”

I bought some bananas at the Woollies downstairs, to eat on the walk home. As I was coming through the checkout, the man after me was buying large boxes of Nutri-Grain. As my items were scanned, the said man removed the outer boxes from the Nutri Grain packaging flattening them out carefully and precisely, like someone with OCD. He had seriously creepy, deliberate spider-like fingers and dead eyes. He then slid the boxes in behind an ice cream freezer at the front of the supermarket and got on his bike and rode away with the inner plastic bags in supermarket carry bags. He looked like a serial killer? Or maybe that was just me? So familiar with serial killers, as I am.

I thought that the walk to The Nova in Carlton would be enough exercise for the day, but at the last minute, or at least, late in the afternoon, I decided that I should go for a bike ride, because I should try to keep up the momentum of keeping fit, of trying to get back into good shape, trying to speed up my metabolism from, what I believe, is the disastrous effects of my stop start, quit, not quit, habit of smoking and my now re-slowing (is there such a word, it scares me not?) metabolism, now being starved of nicotine.

So, around 5pm I decided to go for a bike ride. It was hot in the afternoon, the sun blazed, the sky (seemingly) burned. The moisture was being fried out of the atmosphere.

When I got home I was hot to the point of burning up; my face was beetroot, my hair slicked with perspiration stuck to my forehead. I’m sure you could have fired eggs on my cheeks. Every part of my body felt the effects of the hot sun, my pulse pumped in my neck. I was still dripping sweat profusely as I stepped into the shower. Oh that cooling water was so gorgeous running over my head and down over my skin. Is it too cliched to say like silk. It is, but fuck it.

Shane cooked sausages and lentils and a green salad with tomatoes and nectarines.

We watched three episodes of the Big Bang Theory, my favourite TV show at the moment, one of them was the new season, after which was the gorgeous Joanna Lumley on Nile.

Anthony called. He said that I shouldn’t even entertain looking for a job at the height of summer, it is just madness. He said it was going to be hot tomorrow and if I dared go out in it I was just asking for trouble. I told him I had to go and pick Mark and Luke up at the airport at 4pm.

“You must take a parasol, then,” he responded. “I have one protecting my tomato plants.” He laughed. He's got that funny matter  of a fact way of saying things, which makes me laugh too.

I came back into the lounge room. I knew Shane had heard me mention Mark and Luke’s names, there wasn’t a chance he would have missed that.

“So? What is this? Mark and Luke are coming down?” asked Shane.

“Yes, tomorrow at 4pm.”

“Oh… really… why are they coming?”

“They are going to Vietnam on Wednesday?”

“Oh… I see,” said Shane nervously. “So… um… are they staying some where?”

Are they staying somewhere?

Shane has this really weird denial of Mark and Luke fitting into my life, and there fore, more apparently into his life. He always discounts their existence, rights… oh I don’t know, how do I explain this? It is subtle, really. It is a continual and constant disassociation of them, always in the way he speaks about them. It is as though they are not his friends, members of his inner circle of friends, so he always questions their rights and presence when their orbits coming in contact with his.

It's a little bizarre, the way he reacts to them, so often, as though they are the enemy and I am on his side, totally discounting the fact that they are my best friends.

I’m not at all sure if he realises that they don’t like him because of this stuff. I honestly don't think he does.

Look at that blue sky through the trees

Dinner and a Show

It was one of those lazy afternoons. I was making a coffee in the kitchen when Shane came in.

“Oh,” sigh “My quiet afternoon going to see the Muppets, on my own, has been turned into an event by Sebastian, who insisted on drinks and nibbles and now everybody is arriving at 3pm to drink vodka.”

Oh yes Shane. Of course. I’m sure you objected to an event of yours being aggrandised and made more fabulous. “Really? Who?”

As it turned out it was just Sebastian and D and Ashley.

You see, even Shane’s rhetoric is grandiose. Please, who are you kidding? Three people, thank the universe.

Really, I thought. The Muppets? Apparently is it a childhood thing.

I wondered if Shane was going to ask me to go? He doesn’t tend to ask me to things. I don’t know why? I think it is that he is far too self focused and I’d need to be pandering to him more to make him feel as special as he’d like to feel. I’d need to blow far more smoke up his arse, like his other friends do. 

Or maybe I’m just a sour bitch? Smirk. Either way…

Oh, I didn’t really want to go. I should have been bike riding instead, trying to exercise some of this fat stomach off. But, that would mean trading social outings for doing something at home, on my own, again. How would it feel? Hiding away? Would I regret it? Probably not. Wince. 

I didn’t exercise yesterday either.

Oh, I should say yes, I should stop saying no to things? Shouldn’t I? Convince me. Yes, I should. Say yes, be apart of it all. Or am I just being as sucked into a constructed social whirl as I think other people sometimes are?

We've all got to be more fabulous, don't you know.

Shane did ask me and I did say yes. He then said he had to go out and buy vodka and nibbles. Reluctantly make an impression, no doubt. Ha, ha, I jest. He likes approval, does our Shane.

I made avocado toast and a nice cup of tea for lunch and retired to my room with my laptop to wait for the onslaught. The shadowy world of my bedroom, it is where I like best.

Everyone would be here at 3.30. Of course, the first ring on the doorbell sounded before Shane hadn’t returned from the shops… now there is a surprise. I was lying on my bed and I was so comfortable that I ignored the first couple of rings. Well, I could have been asleep. I would claim that I was asleep… if I had to, if I cared enough. Oh please let it be D, I thought, as I finally headed down to open the door, on the third ring. It was Sebastian.

Oh, try not to groan, Christian.

Sebastian cooked sausages, immediately. They were lamb and had paprika in them and the fat in the pan turned the most glorious red colour.

There was cheese and pate and meat loaf and gherkins and beetroot relish and olives and gluten free biscuits, which tasted like old bits of parchment that had been dried in the sun, on a rock, in a desert, on the hot side of Mars. Shane made martinis, which are really just pure shots vodka in a glass, after all, mixed with a little water from the ice, when stirred. We talked about the skill of making a dry martini. I was a barman way back when and I can wank on about the subject with the best of them… as though, I am masturbating in a playground with a trench coat. But, I never really drank them. I’ve always been a vody and tonic boy, ever since I was a kid.

D and Ashley arrived pretty soon after, with Ashley reeling from the pot, which had been, one could on assume, forced down his throat at Perry and Wes’, where they had just come from.

Shane produced the dope cookies for he and I. Sebastian can’t eat them, of course, because of his gluten intolerance. Poor bitch. Sly smirk.

D drove us all to Victoria Gardens, to the picture house. He was the designated driver for the after noon. I hadn’t been in his fully imported, German design, whatsit, replacement from his parents after his last car, Korean, drowned in a blocked rain in one of those torrential down pours we had. It was smooth.

The Muppets were on in Cinemas 7. No problem. We weren’t as much of a disturbance at the box office as we could have been, in fact, I think we brightened up the box office/candy bar chicks afternoon. We were funny and charming and colourful, well, that’s how if felt on my side of two martinis. We stumbled into Cinema 7 relatively on time. There were only about four other people in the cinema, which seemed odd. Surely, this movie is practically in its first few weeks? The lights went out, the trailers started. After a few adverts and shorts, there was a trailer for Toy Story 4, some therapy session for Buzz Lightyear. It seemed to go on and on… and on.

I thought, this is a long trailer. Then I thought, this is a very long trailer. The third time I thought that it seemed inordinately long, I followed that thought with… this isn’t a trailer at all.

“Are we in the wrong movie?” I asked.

We all started to laugh, as the Toy Story 4 trailer continued… and continued.

D and Ashley went out to investigate. When they didn’t return, I went out to investigate too. The two of them were heading back to the cinema doors, as I stepped out into the main walkway.

“Apparently, it is on now in here,” said D. We headed back in and the Muppet movie had started.

WTF?

So, I don’t know what went on there. If it was a combination of the booze and the pot we had consumed, or if the Toy Story trailer was a particularly long trailer, you know, just for effect, some new marketing ploy. I don’t know.

The movie started off with some Muppet kid being befriended by two humans, who were concerned about the old Muppet Theatre because it was about to be demolished for oil drilling. It could be saved if they could raise 10 million dollars and the way to raise 10 million dollars would be for the original Muppets to put on one final show. 

So that is the premise of the film.

After the first half an hour, or so, of the show, it was shaping up to be a very bad Xanadu. I turned to D and said, “This movie is worse than tragic.” Everyone else shifted uncomfortably in their seat and giggled nervously.

The dope cookie was kicking in, sure it was. It felt good.

There had been a couple of songs, a few big production numbers and apart from the Muppet kid, no Muppets.

I turned to Shane and said, “Where are the fucken Muppets?”

He started to laugh.

It was the Muppet Movie after all, and thus far just some dopey looking humans and an even dopier looking, unknown, puppet kid.

Well, the Muppets did turn up, eventually. We rounded up the crew with Kermit in his Rolls Royce. I quite liked how they gave the Muppets a life in the real world, that much I liked.  But, it was a weird movie, strange. Sheldon Cooper turned up announced at some stage. They tried to make it eclectic with different realities and that nearly worked, but in the end, it was just a strange little movie.

There were car spaces in Victoria Street, unusually, as we headed towards home. “Do you want to eat now, or go home for more martinis?” asked D.

We went home for more alcohol. I think it was me, unusually, who suggested we head home for more martinis. I’m not really sure why I did. I think it was that “moreish” feeling of feeling, shall we say, “enhanced” and wanting to feel it even more. Maybe, my logic had been diminished by the pot and the piss.

Once at home, Shane threatened to pike and not make it out again, he was so fucked up, as he put it, sitting back on the couch, that he wasn’t at all sure if he could stand again. I'd had the same as him, I scratched my head.

D was keen to get going, as he was designated driver and he wasn’t having so much fun remaining sober, so we told him he certainly didn’t have to drive, not if he didn’t want to. It wasn’t far, we could walk, if we had to. 

We caught a tram back to Victoria Street. It was kind of nice walking to the tram stop in the fresh early evening air, as it was kind of nice standing under the shade of the elm trees in the middle of the wide plantation in the middle of Victoria Parade waiting for a tram to romantically slide down the steel rails and stop at out feet.

A breeze blew, cooled by the giant trees.

We went to the bottle shop and bought Mai Tai Vodka and four bottles of rose. Really? Six bottles of alcohol amongst the five of us… two of them spirits, well, spirits’ish.

Sebastian wanted to eat quail. He was very keen to eat quail. He calculated how many quails we would eat. He’d been banging on about the quail all afternoon. He led us to the restaurant that specialised in… the… quail. Unfortunately, it was full. We would have to wait for at least half an hour for a table. Sebastian, of course, was keen to wait.

Now, I’m sorry, but in a street, which specialises in food and is jam packed with restaurants, I have never been able to see the point of standing around for a table for any one particular establishment, I’m sorry. 

“No, I’m not waiting half an hour for a table.”

So we went to Minh Minhs, which was full. Then we went to Ha Long, which was full. Then we went to iSpicy. Sebastian ordered the food, you know, it gives him some credibility. It is his one claim to authority. Only claim. (Oh, other than being the child of Satan) Sad that Luke thinks his food is unexceptional, at best. 

Luke shrugged. “Sorry, I’ve tasted much better food.”

Sebastian, the great chef. Well, you know, ever since I have known Sebastian he has been the great waiter. Luke is the one who has made a living out of cooking, so...

The food was nice, except for one sausage dish. Other than that, lovely. Sebastian had asked quite clearly that all the dishes needed to be mild as far as chili content was concerned. Thai food and chillies, eek ads! you have to be careful. Right at the end, the pork belly and greens dish came out, which was so hot we were all visibly burning up. You could see it in all our faces, red and glossy. I said I was happy to send it back, which I did.

“This is too hot, we can’t eat it, can you please cook us replacement dishes.” There is no point being vague – be direct, ask for what you want and more often than not, you will get it.

Everyone said my directness was a consequence of going out with Sam and seeing how he treats Asian waiters and restaurants. Sebastian, yet again, related it to him living with James Wang. It’s a funny kind of racism and simply not true.

I've always been direct.

It left me wondering, how did I get so undervalued amongst my friends? (Maybe, I should read back over this a couple of times?)

This was at the end of the meal and we ordered the bill not long after requesting  the replacement meals to be brought to us. As we were calculating what the bill was, D and Ashley were outside having a cigarette, or something, so Shane, Sebastian and I paid. Then they came back and we left.

Shane wanted to catch a taxi, but my head was spinning and the last thing I wanted was to feel enclosed in a confined space, somewhere airless. No thanks. With some idiot taxi driver asking for directions for what amounted to one right hand turn.

“No, come on, we’ve all got tram tickets.”

That didn’t sound very convincing, even as I said it. But, some how, the foggy-headed, collective pissed brains amongst us simply seemed to accept what I was saying and they started following me. (This was how Jesus started out)

There was no tram in sight in Victoria Street.

I was really happy to walk it off, let me tell you.

“Let’s walk to the corner of Victoria and Hoddle. There will be a tram here by then.”

But, there wasn’t, once we got to that corner.

The tram stop had been moved to the other side of the intersection, as is the fashion at the moment, which for this intersection, one of the largest around, seemed all the way “over there.” But, as luck would have it, the lights turned green and the little man appeared green in our favour, as far as I could see, so rather than ask, I just lead the way and the motley selection of drunks followed me without question, yet again.

A born leader? No, I wouldn’t say that.

We continued up the middle of Victoria Parade, like the Night of the Living Dead, almost silent in our inebriation. The green grass stretched out in front of us, slipping along under the elms like a giant pool table, wide and expansive, separating us admirably from the rush of traffic all around us. We seemed to be in our own little microcosm of stillness and serenity floating towards nirvana.

We pushed forward up the gentle incline and the rest of the world seemed to fade away, if only momentarily.

The shiny things in the Porsche show rooms took our attention for a time, as we stared at the magnificent machines with our mouths open at phone numbers for price tags.

At home they sorted out the bill, however, I think, it was Sebastian who got the extra money. You’ve got to watch him really – even Shane has confirmed this – male Italian child… he’ll take what he wants.

Shane tried to buy some show on Apple TV, but was too pissed to manage it, despite trying for an inordinate length of time. He seemed to be focused on it, but I’m not sure that the rest of us knew what “it” was.

Everyone departed.

I woke up on the couch around midnight, with Shane on the opposite couch, limbs akimbo. I took myself off to bed, after switching off all the lights I could manage without leaving Shane in the pitch black. I knew he would eventually get up and stumble off to bed without switching off anything. I felt remarkably fine and sober, as I nestled into bed.

Off To The Home

My sister Gill arrived somewhere between 10 and 10.30 and we went to visit mum. Now that my sister doesn’t seem to have one of her daughters accompanying her on her “mother” visits, I seem to be her permanent Alzheimer’s wingman. 

And ever since I ceased my twice, to three times, a week visits to mum, I have accepted this. But now I am realising that this has become the norm for both of us.

I must come home and apply for some jobs… you know I can’t seem to stop thinking about it lately, which is a very good reason to do something about it now…

… this was the thought that was going through my mind as I stepped out into the bright daylight with my sister, as we crossed the street and headed towards her, quite ugly really, brand new Subaru.

Mum looked frail and old as she got up from her seat in the communal dining room and headed towards Gill and I. I guess that sounds like a strange thing to say, as she is old and living with Alzheimer’s disease, but somehow, she looked thinner and more frail as she got up from her seat, amongst the sea of tilt, immobile heads, and moved towards us. She stood in front of us with the expression of an expectant child. I'm sure she had shrunk some more.

We took her across the road to the usual café for a cup of tea and a chocolate muffin, something she remembered having and enjoying from the last week when I took her across the road to the same establishment.

The shop was busy so we sat outside at the tables on the footpath. It was quite a nice day, certainly warm enough for alfresco dining and then we didn't have to negotiate tables, chairs, steps, people.

Mum didn’t complain too much about her lot. She only made a few comments about the state of the food at the home, one was that she was being given a toffee for lunch. Hands in the air. She didn’t mention going home to her house too much either, thankfully. A little, but we managed to change the subject successfully each time. She sat there obediently in her thick cardigan and now brimless hat, smearing chocolate muffin on the tea cup, the table, her face and me, as she reached out for my hand, like a five year old.

Back at the home, Gill and I wanted to pee before we left. Mum said she has to go too. I head off to find the visitors toilets but they all seem to be occupied, all three doors seemed to be locked. Ah! Ah! AH! 

Mum took Gill to the doctor’s rooms, saying there was a toilet there. Something’s she does remember. This was where I found them, outside the doctor’s rooms. Gill said mum has just gone and that the toilet was now free. I head in, but there was shit all over the edge of the toilet, the safety scaffolding around the toilet and all down the front of the white porcelain and all over the floor. I come out retching. 

“Oh my god,” I said still holding my hand to my face.

I met an articulate inmate, as opposed to the usual mostly catatonic zombies, in the lift as I was heading up to try the upstairs visitor’s toilet for the second time.

“I think it must be time for a nap,” she said. “I guess it is a little early.” She smiled and adjusted her fringe.

“Oh, I always think a nap is good,” I replied. “Sleep, it is the thing I say I do best.”

“Yes, I’d have to agree,” she said. “It means you have a clear conscience.”

I kind of liked that. I thought about all the people I know who have trouble sleeping.

Gill sets off to find a toilet of her own, as one of the, what are they called, attendants takes mum by the arm and leads her off to the dining table.

I observe the inmates gathered around each and every table. I’m watching the husks of human beings struggling to cope with the simplest tasks of sitting at a table and holding cutlery.

Gill and I kiss mum good bye after that, as she sits at the lunch table, noting that she smells strongly of shit. I wonder if she has even wiped her arse?

I guess I should have said something to one of the attendants, it seems obvious now, but really it sent me into a spiral of sadness as the last thought is strongly of just getting away from my mother... who sits there with an idiot look on her face waving a white serviette in my direction.

Oh, it is just too cruel this disease. Really! Just cruel! What would mum think if she was in her right mind? She’d laugh and look embarrassed and she’d say, “Oh goodness.” I think. I smiled at the recollection of her being normal.

Gill and I discussed euthanasia in the car on the way home. What would mum say? She would say and has said in the past, “What is the point of keeping them alive when they are off their heads?” That’s what she would say.

I can’t see any good reason why we don’t have Euthanasia laws in place, other than staunch opposition from Christian lobby groups in Canberra. I would suspect, it is another area where the religious right has inflicted their beliefs on the rest of society.

Leaving my mother aside, one of my sister’s best friend’s mother, and one of my friends’ grandmother, have both been in, what are essentially, comas for quite a number of years. There is no hope of any improvement from this condition. Why would both these women not be given drugs to end their lives just as a matter of medical course, is quiet beyond my thinking?

There is absolutely no reason other than an illogical, bible/Christian based, belief that all life is sacred, no matter what?

And you know, that particular Christian belief doesn’t even hold up to scrutiny when, let’s just say in the case of America, you take a state like Texas, which executes a huge number of people for the crimes they have committed. 

And just taking a wild guess, I bet the support for anti terrorism wars is very high in the so called conservative Christian states of America.