Something Nice For Breakfast

I woke at 10am, just passed it actually. It was my usual lazy morning in my usual lazy life. Upside down days in a more and more upside down life. All false, of course, unsustainable, sure. This is not going to end well, I’m wondering?

I was hungry. The day was bright beyond my room, out in the street. I stood and swayed a little, then stepped over to my open balcony doors to close them, being careful to stand just out of sight in my skanties, some mornings I just don’t think, not awake enough to think.

I thought about the jobs, which I found on line at 5am, when I couldn’t sleep. I think there were three, which I should apply for, no questions asked. (Don’t tell Sam) It all seemed so easy in the dim breaking dusk of light, so easy when the urgency of the situation had taken hold of me, that I felt a certain flush of confidence ebbing away the underlying stress of the future. Three perfect jobs, every thing about them was right.

In the morning light doubts began to creep in. OMG, I guess they will ask me questions in the interview. Oh! What is the tax treatment of… How is a payment made up when… What is the legislation around LSL accruals… Could I remember? I should have been studying up on these things while I was off. Studying up? This is what I know. I can’t remember, my brain is rusty.

I felt a shiver of terror run through me.

I could feel the stress return, as if it was an IV hit directly into my vein, and I felt it pulse through my blood, through my entire body. Zzz! Zzz! Zzz! Zzzzzzzz! My head swum, my eye balls bulged, like some cheap junkie feeling the monkey scratch. I should be doing some… what?... something? I should be? I should be? I should… I should… AH! I think, I spun around in circles. I know…

I should have, I should have, I should have… What?

Breath.

I was hungry, I knew that. I wanted something nice, something interesting, something to dazzle my taste buds, something to make me feel good, something lovely and good and wholesome. Since weevils had infiltrated my muesli, I’d been eating toast in the mornings all week, but the thought of vegemite toast this morning just made me want to wretch! I wanted cranberries and blueberries and raspberries and strawberries and sunshine and light and happiness and contentment and, and, and, something like that shone and dazzled and exploded in a million possibilities.

OH! I closed my eyes and threw my head back and tried to feel that peace and calm deep down inside that has always been there, that used to be there, that was there once! That I have always had.

I stepped towards my window until the sun hit my eyelids turning the inside pink and orange and red.

I exhaled long and slow.

I would just walk to the supermarket and try not to think until after I had done that.

Food. Coffee. In that order. That is all I had to think of now. As a wise friend said to me recently there are only two moments that exist. This moment right now… and the next one.

It was such a lovely morning that I just had to get out in and taste it. It was a lovely day, really, not too hot, just nice. Another perfect summer’s day, I thought, as I stepped onto the footpath and headed towards Woollies. And it tasted good, bright and sunshiny, like sparkles and lustre and something shiny, like smiles and good intensions and good deeds. The sky was blue, the air fresh, I’m sure the birds were singing, lovely.

I love my street on such days, wide and straight, under the huge afro hair-like plain trees, round and voluminous, casting shadows dappled on the ground, over lapping some where near the middle of the street for me to walk under.

I could almost touch the fresh and bright.

I wanted cherry bites, or caramel bombs, or chocolate chews… well… fruity things encased in wheat wrapping things, small pillows of puffiness that dissolve on your tongue. Poof! I guess chocolate isn’t a breakfast food, unless it is wrapped in pastry and comes with a French name, that is. I patted my round stomach and thought there will be no pastries today.

There was a short rat-face woman with a voice like a squeaky door, I had on my car once, telling her fat little children that she wanted Nutri-Grain. Nutri-Grain. Nutri-Grain, she said like some kind of demented parrot. Then she picked Wheatbix off the shelf, exclaiming, “There they are.”

Huh? Although, why I was looking, or why I was so interested, one might question.

"Did he leave his wife?" said the very camp voice of one, of the two, men walking towards me. The one speaking had one of those swivelling heads that was attempting to give the impression that he’s not at all interested in who may be sharing the isles with him, at the same time not missing a moment that someone might be looking at him. "You know they are all doing it now a days." He tilted his puffy head downwards and gave me a once up and down looking over his glasses.

I felt violated.

A girl with piercings in her eyebrow, nose and lip, like some sort of stapled body parts, breezed passed with a mobile phone attached to her ear, “I was so wasted I’m not sure if it was my vomit or some one else’s. Yeah.”

I looked at the porridge and winced.

The back of her too short skirt was creased up concertina like so I could see the curve of her, shall we say, “grey” undies, grimace, hugging the cheeks of her arse.

Sam sent me a photo of a green bag with chicken head’s poking out of them. Not sure why now.

I never fail to think of those starving in the world (well, nearly always) when I am gazing at the rows and rows packed neatly with colourful packages and boxes.

The Plus Antioxidants with cranberries, blueberries and sultanas won me over as much as the Wildberry fruity bites. I think it was the red fruit, or the red fruit filling, the promises of sweetness it made, that dazzled me the most. Something moist and red.

I was suddenly thirsty, actually I’d been thirsty the whole time it was just at the end of my shopping I allowed myself to think about my dry mouth, so I selected fruit of the forest fruit juice. It was really coffee that I wanted, of course, which I would be quaffing down as soon as I returned home with my booty.

What was I waiting for, I thought, as I walked home, bags in both hands. It is so often the weight of the shopping bags and the sight of the length of the walk home that brings life into perspective, don’t you think? The visualisation of the journey in front of you, where you are going in life, with the weight of your baggage present and apparent. What am I doing? Where am I going? I so don’t want to get a job, equally as much as I don’t want to rent out my two spare bedrooms, that is the impasse I continually find myself at. They are the two options and I don’t like either. So I guess it was a tattslotto win that I was really waiting for. Is that it? Is that what it comes down to? Some kind of delusion? Happy in it, until life gets desperate, being forced to act.

Well, what do I think the outcome is going to be?

I could probably not work for another six months, but then I would be skint, broke, be in a desperate financial situation. I would have nothing in the bank then. Is that what it is going to take for me to act?

Oh please universe give me the strength, and more importantly the desire, to do something before then?

My head spun a little with anxiety and stress as I walked the straight road to my front door.

I made coffee, poured juice and prepared a plateful of Wildberry Fruitybix, yum yum. I dragged the antique rosewood table outside and pulled up the wicker chair and switched on my laptop.


Coasters? It made me think about Sam. He is nuts about his glass coffee table and coasters. It always kind of makes me laugh.

Then the day just slid away. Ffffew. Gone. Over, pretty much. Vanished. The electrical equipment whirring away on the renovations next door the only mechanical intrusion in my garden.

I went for a walk around 4pm. It was a lovely day for a walk. Gorgeous. Perfect. I just don’t know about Mark and Luke moving north, you couldn’t get better weather than we were having right here.

I did my tattslotto in Carlton. Of course, my, apparent, investment in the future.

Then as I rounded the corner for home “it” started. “Oo, oh, er!”

Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle! Oh really? I have been feeling the tell tail signs of my metabolism slowing, it’s been about a month since I completely stopped smoking. Done. Over. I have been feeling myself getting all blocked up. I have been feeling that some what “tight” feeling.

I have been eating lots of bran and I have been eating lots of fruit. Bananas. Nectarines. Oranges.

Then. Brahmmm!!!! Brahmmm!!!! Like a fucken trumpet, or the whole fucken brass section. Brahmmm!!! Brahmmm!!! But what an inconvenient place to start. Well, it had started earlier in the day in a slow and more subtle way, but the walk had sped it up. Brahmmm!!! Brahmmm!!! All the way up my street. Brahmmm!!! Brahmmm!!! I always find exercise is the best treatment.

Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle. Cramp, cramp, cramp.

So, my walk home was a little more frenzied, there was a somewhat greater determination. It was the equivalent of a child crossing his legs and raising his hand to be excused. Miss, miss, miss!

Brahmmm!!! Brahmmm!!!

After I got home, I decided to make tea, have a shower and retire to my boudoir.

It’s the one effect of stopping smoking that I find nobody tells you about.

I was supposed to go to diner with Shane, D and Sebastian, but my volcanic bowels trumpeting the 1812 overture made me want to stay home, not want to go out in public, for sure. So, I curled on my bed and stayed out of sight.

I found out the, shall we say, consequence all by myself the first time I quit the gaspers and I was quite surprised by it.


I wrote on my computer and read blogs until Two and a half men at 8.30. The Big Bang Theory, The great cities of the world, in Hong Kong with Griff Rhys Jones, followed by Stephen Fry’s America, the great Mississippi from Louisiana all the way up to it’s source in Minnesota, following music and food.

Brahmmm!!! Brahmmm!!!

Things I learnt today, there is a huge ship in the middle of Hong Kong…, which is a restaurant. Hong Kong is the richest city in the world with more millionaires per square metre.



Sam

OMG! You would be dead by now, if you were here. Gassed. You'd certainly have RSI of the finger from spraying the air freshener, certainly, as you clutched at your throat and scratched at the wall for relief.

I've been drinking metamucill everyday and exercising also, every day this week. Your metabolism slows down when you stop smoking, temporarily, the physical manifestation of this is a certain tightening of the stomach and a reduction in crapping, so much so that one can feel a little uncomfortable. The metamucil surely helps, the exercise speeds up you metabolism again and the fruit, well that is just healthy, hey. The unfortunate bi product is even more gas than usual. OMG! I'm choking.

(christian)



Brahmmm!!! Brahmmm!!!

I ate breakfast cereal all day and didn’t apply for any jobs. I want to do what Stephen Fry does, cruising up the Mississippi in a canoe, or Griff Rhys Jones does, shopping in Hong Kong, that would fascinating that would be interesting. How do you get those jobs?

Brahmmm!!! Brahmmm!!!

I feel sad sitting there in my room with the doors and windows open letting all the fresh air in the world, thinking that this time must finished.

Brahmmm!!! Brahmmm!!!

I got a message from Sam who said he feels bad that he wasn’t here to go to Carnival with me. “Poor baby,” he said.

“What have you been reading?” I ask.

“He he he,” he says. “You know I have my sources.”

I reiterated to him that he is the only person who knows about my blog, I’m not sure if he realised. I just have to try to forget that he reads it, when I’m writing it.

I did tell Mark and Luke once, but it didn’t sink in with the two of them. And my mate who writes her own blog, but other than that I kept it quiet, as it affords a certain freedom in the writing, I’ve always thought.


Note to self

Cut down on bran and fruit

Increase water and exercise