Plenty of Air

I woke up just before 9am, to shut off the expected warm air flowing in through my open balcony doors now that the cool night had turned into warm day, but Missy looked so comfortable curled up on the balcony, one eye open to check what I was doing, I went back to bed without closing the doors to the day time elements. Besides, it wasn't so hot. She is the most ardent fan of the balcony. I think cats like to be raised up, looking down.

I was feeling deliciously lazy, so I scratched my arse and drifted back to sleep almost immediately. My legs didn’t even have time to uncrinkle before I was horizontal again. Yawn. Stretch.

I woke again at 10.30, sure I'd heard Guadalupe arrive, with the sound of the front door opening and closing. Click, clunk. No, let that be the wind, or my imagination, a dream. Someone in the street. Birds, I don't know. Please let her be on holidays… or sick… or dead… my mind pondered the possibilities.

I woke intermittently after that, not being able to hear any cleaning going on. Suspiciously cocking an ear towards my bedroom door whenever my eyes cracked open. Hoping. Wishing. Wanting. Is she? Isn’t she? Maybe? Maybe not? Oh please…

I wondered if there was any therapy for cleanerphobia?

I woke again just before midday. 11.45 and I thought, well, I should get up then, nothing else for it. Lovely, 11.45, how could I sleep so late? So easily really. 11.45, really, how time flies when you are having, um, er, slum… ber. Ah!

So, I pulled on some shorts, you know just in case, and swung my bedroom door open, to see the vacuum at the top of the stairs and to hear the tell tail scratching and the scraping going on downstairs.

“Damn!” Gotta get out. Gotta leave. Gotta go. Exit. Clear out. Vamoose.

I was in and out of the shower 2 ½ minutes later. Dressed 4 minutes after that. I hit the ground floor at the 5 minute mark.

“’Ello Mrsta Chreese.”

Ah! There she was with her hair scarf (Jackie O hair wrap, don't draw the wrong conclusion) and her jiffies. “Yes, yes, yes.”

I was half way to Smith Street 10 minutes after. It was 12 pm. If Guadalupe had, in fact, come at 10.30, I then only had… counting on my fingers… staring at the blue sky... counting on my fingers again, oh, bugger, 1 ½ hours to go. Exhale. I’d better have a long breakfast.

I ordered the biggest baguette I could see, beef, cheese, cherry tomatoes and beetroot relish, I think it would be called a twelve inches at Subway, or a swingers club, that thought amused me as I ordered the largest mug of coffee they had. I opened my book, Dorothy Hewett and settled in. The café was filled with people and surprisingly I wasn’t annoyed by any of them, so there’s a thing. Good book, or Fitzroy people rather than tourists?

The old post office looks a treat as a cafe. I still remember it as a post office when I first moved into the area. Ah, the gentrification of Fitzroy. I guess it has given us more coffee houses and bigger muffins. But, what else has it given us? I don't know? A noise problem and drunk gen y's from the suburbs on a Saturday night.

I tip toed back to my front door, like a thief in the night… er… day time home invasion, I guess, was more accurate, just before 13.30, turned the key like I was trying to hide my entrance, laugh, not really sure why, to be greeted by the whir of the vacuum.

“Grrrrr!”

I sat outside on the wicker chairs waiting for Guadalupe to finish. It was so lovely out there, but my laptop was hot on my thighs. What is that called? I’m sure it is a syndrome? But, I didn’t want to go inside. So, I got my mum’s antique rosewood table and set that up outside in front of the wicker chair. It was lovely too. Not that I really suffer from cabin fever, but with the wind blowing and the birds singing and the smell of lavender in my nostrils even the hint of being a shut in was lifted up and floated off me and away.

I read on the internet rather than writing myself. Oh yes, Christians who are acting anything but… oh, that’s right… no oxygen.

I went for a walk in the late afternoon, around my big walking track. I’m still not game to go bike riding. I know, I know, there are so many directions I could ride in, but I do like riding on a bike track. Cars and bikes really are not meant to share the same space and while the Aussie Open is on, I’m so happy to walk the footpaths and not to dice with the pent up anger of the motorist. And I don't want to spend too much time thinking about exercise, otherwise I can sit back and not do it.

I went out to dinner with David and Shane. We sat on the footpath outside on Smith Street and ate. Ah, al fresco dinning, an excuse for the cafe owners to commandeer the streets. I'm wondering if we are going to regret that move one day, when there are more tables and chairs than pedestrians on the footpath. Shane had calamari, David had chicken salad, I had risotto. And the three of us decided that we would have the main serving of fish cakes to share as an entre.

A main serve of fish cakes to share between the three of us as an entre… did you get that? I would venture to say, that this is not a very normal request. Not that it is hugely abnormal, I grant you, but out of the ordinary enough to make it memorable, don’t you think?

David told a story about some guy at the gym on Sunday nights who paraded around the change room with his enormous penis on show. It is huge, apparently, so much so that it stopped traffic, could be seen from out of space and caused grown men to stop and stare. Gobsmacked.

“Down to here,” said David karate chopping his leg at the knee, swivelling in his chair to face the pedestrian walking towards him. “Enormous!” legs spread and chopping his knee again, you know, presumably, in case the pedestrian had missed the gesture the first time. “You could choke on it,” he said to the back of the departing pedestrian, as David's head followed him.

Exclamation. “This big!” he said, swivelling around 180 degrees in his chair once more, scanning the footpath for another unsuspecting passer by. “FAT!” he announced down the footpath, “Beautiful!” Practically, laying back in his chair and rubbing his crotch at man 2. “OMG!” Fanning himself with both his hands flat, as man 2 exited stage left.

“Like this!” Looking back down the footpath for audience member number 3, holding his hands a metre apart. “Enormous.” Eyeing man number 4 up and down, grinning wildly.

Hands in the air, huge grin, exclamation.

“The whole change room’s eyes were fucken glued to it!” He may as well have been on his feet, with his arm around the next pedestrian’s shoulders, intimately explaining the joys of cock flesh, such was his loud, animated enthusiasm.

I wasn’t sure if he was trying to pick up some random guy in the street with his antics, or if it was simply an extension of David’s chronic “look at me look at me” syndrome that we all love and hate him for in equal measure.

David’s chicken salad arrived first.

“Oh weren’t we having the fish cakes first?” David asked with narcissistic outrage that his wants weren't being met. Crossing his t's, dotting his i's and s'ing his s's, you can be sure. His pointer finger was distended as if in question.

“Oh… um… er… sorry. Yes, sorry,” said the waitress. Big eyes. Then she was gone.

Next came the calamari and my risotto.

“Sorry, sorry, the chef got it wrong." The waitress grimaced apologetically. "They’ll be four minutes.”

Some time after we’d finished our mains the fish cakes arrived. You know, and the retail/shops wonder why people shop on line. I know, it's not quite the same thing, but really, hopeless. The service was hopeless. Actually no, it is not okay for the entre to be served as the desert. In which reality would that be acceptable? Call me old fashioned.

We went to Sircuit for a beer on the way home. David left quickly saying he had work to do. I will always admire that about David, he fits in socialising and then he gets down to it and gets his work done.

I don’t know how I grew up to be a one task a day type of guy. Why aren’t I driven and productive and successful like David.

Just a lazy bastard at heart, really, I guess.