Leap Year Wednesday Doesn't Come Around Every Year

It’s a leap year, it’s the 29th February. The fucken 29th of February, the rarest day in the calendar.

My buddy, Robert Gamble’s birthday is today. I remember dancing with him, I think, at Mardi Gras, on his 8th birthday, as he said. Funny.

Ah Robert. That was back in the days when we were sweet on each other. I guess, in gay speak, that really means we had sex.

I was sooo sleepy at 10am when I first looked at the clock, this morning, I sooo didn’t want to get out of bed. Then I remembered the rubbish and the fact that I hadn’t done it.

 “Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!” One of those wrenches when you know you don’t want to, at the same time knowing you have to.

I got up and stumbled out of bed like a robot on autopilot. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

I’m in the middle of cleaning up my house and I can’t afford, no, I don’t want to miss a rubbish day. It is amazing what you can throw out when you are dedicated. If you take advantage of your neighbour’s bins too. Ha ha.

I filled the neighbours bin full of old gay porn tapes. I wonder what the neighbour would have thought about that? I wonder what the rubbish guys thought? Who cares, I’ve got a clean cupboard. So much crap, so many chock a block cupboards. So little time. I just throw it out now. Thinking I’ll take it to the brotherhood is what makes five years pass by.

Jesus! My life! So fucken interesting!

Guadalupe walked in the gate before I’d finished with the rubbish. “Ah!” There she was, just like that, no announcement, no heads up, no warning.

Lip twitch. “Oh… Guadalupe.”

She grimaced and kept walking. 

I deposited myself out the back on the wicker chairs. Coffee. Muesli. Of course. At 11.30, Sam asked me to come and have lunch with him and to pick up the paintbrushes. So, I had a shower and left. Don’t think, just act, no other course of action gets you out the door and to the church – fuck me Jesus, fuck fuck me Jesus – on time. Sam had the paintbrushes for me from when we painted his place. I should be using a roller, but I didn’t have one and if Sam gave me those paintbrushes, I could do it today. We met cnr Bourke Street and Swanston Street, but he’d forgotten the brushes.

“What?”

“Oops.”

I love it when he forgets something it is an “oops” moment. When I do it, it is, basically, because I have this unstructured life with no plan to speak of. So, it is good to see Mr Plan is fallible sometimes.

We ate at The White Tomato, the spicy pork special. It was my suggestion. What can I say, I’m cheap. We decided it wasn’t so good today, kind of heavy on the onion and light on the meat.

“Not having that again.”

We lamented the fact that fat boy our favourite from our Korean restaurant had shut up shop/changed hands and that fat boy has vanished. Good food and a cuddly Korean who smiled when we turned up and who always made sure we had extra kim chi. It is to be missed, as we discovered in our less than favourite substitute restaurant. Boo hoo.

We walked back to Sam’s office to get the brushes. 

“You’ll have to walk me back to my building.” Cheeky smile, like it was the deal… all along. He’s good, much better than me. Maybe a plan, even if it doesn’t actually work in this instance, is still good training. Gives you a superior attitude? Just maybe?

What choice did I have? My last free day and I wanted to get the room finished. Promised myself I’d get it done. I wanted to get it done.

I walked up Bourke Street, did an extra quick pick for TattsLotto for Saturday night, I’m desperate, what can I say. Then to The Paperback, you know, just to see how much more time I could waste, just to see how the dilly dally could play out. 

I looked at the Neon Bible Christian Kennedy Toole’s second novel. I didn’t know he had one. I thought that was the tragedy, that he wrote one classic novel and then killed himself? But, apparently not.

I would have bought it, but according to my new book policy, I can’t buy any more, as I still have years in back log. None. Zilch. Zip. So, I sat and read some of it in the seat provided.

I got home and decided I had better get on and paint the wall. Go on! Go on! Get to it! Get to it! Now! Now! I’ve got to talk myself into these things, push myself to do it. I think it’s because of my lack of confidence in myself. I don’t know? But, before I do it, I can never envisage the job being finished.

The less than a quarter full tin of the paint that has been in the cupboard for many years matched perfectly. I got the paint brush. I started painting. I was quite amazed. The other thing, of course, is that it is now 120 something year old plasterwork, it doesn’t have to look perfect. It is amazing what the patina hides.

Sadly, the tin ran out before I got to finish the painting. So, I had to go to Manfax and get a new tin. He commented on the old tin. I told the story… many years later, blah, blah. I bought the new tin home and nervously applied the paint… and it matches as near to perfectly as the other tin. Lovely. It’s all finished.

Then I broke out my computer and started to write. I miss it when I am not on it. My addiction is great, it is still. I can’t stay away from it long, or at least, I don’t choose to. It stops me doing lots of things really.

I’m learning to do the other things first. Then give in and succumb to my mistress.

I emailed Beck, she’s emailed me to wish me good luck for tomorrow, for my change of life, for my return to the salt mines, for my journey to the dark side of cunts in-corporate. Yay for me!

Had lunch with Barb, Steph and Sue yesterday... Rachel Gore and Liz are both leaving today... Liz can't even leave by herself. There's another finance person started and Renee is moving to partner services. Bushpig is empire building – Beck

Have fun tomorrow, you'll find it really easy to use – Beck

Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god! I have to be up at what hour? To get there by what time? Really? – christian

Yeah, just like the rest of us Muppets!! Let me know if you get a lunch break and I'll come and have a coffee. Renee Muddles, that make 4 in Rachel's team for finance and partner services – Beck

Rachel Bushpig turned into a cyborg in the vein of that Susan b*tch. Good for them. Renee Muddles? Didn't all the b*tches at the top hate her? – christian

Yep, because she didn't have any qualifications.  Apparently the skinny, anorexic bitch Belinda has just come back from Hamilton Island... what a sight on the beach she would have made! – Beck

Oh dear God please don't tell me she wore a bathing suit in public? If small children saw that they may never recover – christian

You crack me up. Off home now, it's 5.15... on the dot, they don't get a minute more... thanks black law firm for my new attitude – Beck

I text Tim to see how everything was. I wanted to go and visit Nicholas, but I didn’t want to go in just on my own, I’d like others to be there too. What happens if I am on my own and I run out of things to say? You know, now that I write that it seems stupid. I used to live with Nicholas for god’s sake.

Tim was at Helen’s. Tim was going in at 7pm, but Nicholas is really tired, so Tim wasn’t staying long. I can go in then if I like.

I don’t mind a short visit, in fact, in some ways it is kind of preferable. You’ve been in, shown that you care and Nicholas hasn’t had to have been there on his own. Everybody is happy. Win win.

Nicholas looked better, healthier, he had colour back in his face. His lips were red again, not pale and white. The swelling in his leg had come down, a bit. But even a bit is heading in the right direction. He’s going in for more surgery at 6am tomorrow. Poor Nicholas.

I think it was really serious, you know. It was because he was such a boy about it and didn’t go to the doctor until it was too late. Infection in a fractured bone is not to be taken lightly.

Nicholas is funny. He’s always been coy about his nudity. About his, what is rumoured to be a, huge cock. He is so like a girl about it and not like a boy at all. Strapping Nicholas who is such a guy in every other sense of the word. He wanted Tim to bring him clean undies. He got really concerned, needy, turned into a child. 

“I really need my clean jocks for tomorrow. Pleeeaaseee.” He looked like he was going to cry, I was kind of surprised.

He was being operated on, of course. He is so hung up about it, really hung up, that… well, you know the family he grew up in… real hard, drunken, drugged out cases, um, I reckon, am really pretty sure that something must have happened to him. He’s always been incredibly good looking.

His mother is now a funny old damaged thing, but she was once a full on drug taking drunk, for most/all of Nicholas’s childhood. She famously punched out a teacher at a teacher parent night. It is kind of tell tale that Nicholas is so normal in nearly every other way. He learnt, I think, so definitely, what he didn’t want in his life.

I walked down through the Fitzroy Gardens. It’s lovely to be able to walk that way, through beauty, through grandeur, through loveliness. 

It was hot out, muggy, close. I sweat in the heat.

I don’t know why it is, but all the boofy boys were out jogging in east Melbourne in small shorts. 

There’s a nice piece of arse. There’s a nice piece of arse. There’s a nice piece of arse. There is a nice piece of fucking arse!

I had to go to bed early, no staying up until 3am. Boo fucken hoo! Oh really? What time is that, I forget? Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck! What time is that? My time isn’t my own any more. No more. Sad face.

Dentist, Money, Home Maintenance, And Fake Drugs And The World, As We Know It, Is Going To Hell

I was up at 9.30. I had the periodontist to go to and I had to call my sister Gill back from yesterday. She’s trying to organise some investments, but I soooooo wasn’t in the mood yesterday. I knew I should call her, ignoring the question about our future doesn’t get us anywhere. 

She didn’t answer her phone. I left a message.

I went back to bed. I snuggled back into my doona and turned my lap top on. Just until 11am, I told myself. Actually, 11.15, I knew, possibly 11.20. I’d be in bed as long as I could, I knew that. Squeeze it out as long as I could. Draw it out as far as it would stretch.

Then it was 11.20, fuck, fuck, fuck, it was time to leap out of bed and rush about. Ahhhh!!!!!! Poor me, poor me!!!! Sam would call me a drama queen at this point, I know that. Shower, get dressed, get ready, grab your stuff and leave… HANDS IN THE AIR, you know, like it had just occurred to me.

It was a lovely morning, there was a chill in the air, walking up Gertrude Street in my short-sleeved shirt. I wondered if I was going to be cold, which was so nice to feel. Really, it was.

Gill called as I walked down to Collins Street. The burning question is that we’d had an offer on Property Co. So soon? We didn’t think it would be so quick. We thought it would take six months. What should we do? We decided that we didn’t need to sell it just yet just yet. It pays good rent as it returns better than the other properties, in a sense, due to its relatively low value.

Apparently, we have an idea of rebuilding Property Cl now with two units. We can build two units for the price of buying a new property elsewhere with the proceeds of the sale of property Y.

“Developing property Cl?”

“Didn’t we discuss it?” Gill said.

“No.”

“Oh, that must have been with Will?” 

So, is that good, I’m not sure? 

The rent for the recently sold property Y and the rent for Property Cl come to less than for two newly developed units on Property Cl.

And we’d have one property with two units worth substantially more than it is now. 

A new property, let’s call it property X, would be worth half of that. And the rent for non developed Cl and Property X would be less.

But we still have money left over from the sale of Property Y. But that would be the same no matter which way we went. Buying X or developing Cl would be about the same.

“So, which do you think is the best investment strategy?” asked Gill.

Ah? Er? Um? I was worried about a few hundred dollars the periodontist was going to charge me.

Oh, I don’t know… I’ll need to do a spread sheet, or something.

Of course, that is all tied up and I don’t get any of it any time soon. We are trying to maximise her income to continue paying for my mother’s private nursing home.

This is what I was trying to get my head around as I headed to the periodontist. As I illegally crossed Spring Street on the north side of the Collins Street intersection where, inexplicably, you are not supposed to cross, I couldn’t even begin to workout which investment strategy was going to be the best, all I could think of was the man with the pointy stabby thing who I may be paying a small fortune to for the pleasure of being hurt, maybe, I don’t know? Why didn’t I chase that receptionist up the last time I was there for the payment schedule?

Why can’t you cross the Collins Street Spring Street intersection on the north side?

I was concerned the periodontist would charge me another $800. In the beginning the receptionist said it would cost $220 a visit and then on the very first visit, bam! $800. 

“Oh, that was the initial consultation. Didn’t I give you a cost schedule?”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Oh, I should have.”

“Yes please.”

She still hasn’t. I still didn’t have anything in writing. The bitch could charge me anything she/they wanted. I was at her/their mercy.

I didn’t give the pain spike any thought, so there are benefits to cost dysphoria. OMG! That spike down under my gum. Fuck off!

Zzt! Jump. Zzt! Jump. Zzt! Jump. Zzt! Zzt! jump jump, jump.

Then I just kind of relax and let it go, let it loose. I feel my fingers relax, is it that stress. Do I let go? Or screw them tight? I don’t know, this guy is pushing a probe under my gums. Then it is over. Done. Over. My gum are still numb from the spray he sprayed on them.

Then he said that I could go back to my dentist now and he could do the root filling, or whatever. I didn’t quite hear it.

More treatment from my dentist? What filling? What?... fucking dentists. Really?

The periodontist will see me in 3 months, when I’d be in the “maintenance” phase.

Actually, it is fucking smoking! Stupid me. But, I have now quit completely for over two months. Never give up giving up, as “they” say.

I was shaking at the receptions afterwards. Well, not actually shaking, you understand, just on the inside, maybe, a little. 

Please! Please! Please!

“That’s $220 for today.”

Yes! Even if I was kind of distracted by then, due to the return-to-your-dentist-for-more-treatment comment. Really?

I took more samples of sensitive toothpaste, from the counter.

“Do you mind if I take…”

“No, no, go ahead.”

It has meant I haven’t needed to buy any. Am I cheap?

Immediately, I regretted not taking the ‘total’ toothpaste, as Sam is out of toothpaste in my bathroom. Rats! Too late. I didn’t want to appear like the mean prick that I really am.

I was finished at 12.30. I made use of the free wi fi on the ground floor of the periodontal building in the entrance to message Sam for lunch. He was having some kind of emergency evacuation situation at his building and had been evacuated and was already taking advantage of the situation and was already having lunch with his colleagues.

Sad Face.

He told me where to go and have lunch, like he likes to. Adorable, really. (do you think that will ever annoy me? You know, the things you find adorable in the beginning?)

I ignored him and I went to Pie Face for the first time and paid $5.50 for a luke warm, very ordinary pie. A four n twenty from 7 11 is better and cheaper, I think.

When I told him, he raised his hands in the air and just gave me that I-told-you-so look.

I was heading to the reject shop to get a new pair of glasses. They had two pairs for the price of one, so I snatched them up and headed to the cash register. One day I should go to the optometrist and get proper glasses, I guess, but, I break every pair of glasses I have, one way or another. Sit on them, kneel on them, drop them, they all end up in the elephant grave yard for glasses on my desk and when I’m paying little for them, I really don’t give a fuck. I just throw them away and say next! And I just need magnifiers for reading, so I never quite get the point of spending hundreds of dollars. 

Just as I got to the cash register, I saw someone with toothpaste in their hand and I remembered I wanted some for Sam.

I had to double back to get his minty fresh. The line that had been full of boguns, which encouraged me to look at the toilet paper specials – working them out to the cost per sheet in the end, so as to avoid the long fucking queue, .0016, .0022, .0023 per sheet, the 18 rolls for $4 kept working out to be the cheapest – had cleared. Yay!

I walked up Bourke Street wanting junk food. I was thinking donuts, but then I remembered Bread Top. Surely the renovations would be completed by now. yes, of course. Asian business owners aren’t going to be out of work for that long. I got a coconut and pineapple and a red bean bun.  

I felt like dawdling, as I knew I should head home and sand the walls of the front wall and then paint them. My lack of confidence in all things makes me hesitate and as Sam would quite rightly say, dilly dally, dilly dally.

I stopped at the Hill of Content and read a book about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and a book about gay lives.

I did TattsLotto, this is the very last weekend before the salt mines start… for good… forever… until death us do part. Boo fucken hoo!

I walked home. It was cool and there was a breeze and I wore short sleeves and enjoyed the cool and the fresh. Is it just Melbournian’s who wear shorts and t-shirts when it is cool? I know that I do.

I went to Manfax to get sand paper. $3.90 a metre. Lovely! It must have been a while since I bought sandpaper. I seem to remember it being under a dollar per metre? Maybe? Maybe I am imagining it?

Then, of course, I found a distraction. My usual modis de operandi to getting tasks done. Snatching the unpainted wall from the jaws of painted wall, as per usual.

I cleaned out the cupboard under the stairs on the first floor. Of course, I went to the cupboard to find paint. I found my old print, I didn’t realise I still had it. The orange and red abstract painting of a horse and rider, that a lot of people didn’t seem to like, but then not everybody has the painting good taste that I have. Of course, then I had to I google the artist, Marion Marini, just to find out if he was anybody. Of course, I marvelled at the internet yet again for its instant information and again wondered what people did when we didn’t have it. I guess the artist who painted my masterpiece would remain forever a mystery to me.

I threw out the excess of cardboard boxes. I found a plastic container and collected all of the screws and bolts and nails and things that were in the said cardboard boxes. I found the old can of Summer Range. It just depends if it is flat acrylic or enamel?

I sanded the walls. There was filler dust everywhere, covering everything. All over all of it... carpet, draws, bed, mantle, you name it.

I clogged the new vacuum with filler dust. Oh shit. The new vacuum Shane bought. Bad me! If it wasn’t transparent, it wouldn’t have been so serious. But, as Blanche knows, it is, Blanche, it is. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! I took it outside and desperately took it apart and cleaned it manically.

It didn’t seem to take so long. Another truth about doing stuff, it doesn’t usually take as long as you worry, think, dread. I went to my balcony and wrote on my computer.

Mark called, he has two new headphones, so he can use Skype pretending to be Madonna. Each cost $30.

“Cool hey?” He smiled, modelling the said headphones. I couldn’t hear him so well, which was corrected when Mark discovered he had the mic turned around the wrong way.

Shane came home.

I retired to my bed.

Shane went to slut yoga, saying he’d bring home food afterwards.

I messaged Sam and asked him what we did over the weekend for my journal. He was reticent to begin with, as he always is when I ask him for details.

(notes split from Friday night)

we need to shop for better wok, before it burns my whole fingers

Shane came home with hot potatoes. We watched Two and half men and Top Gear. 

It was a gentle night.

are you watching Top Gear? asked Christian

of course not, replied Sam.

why not? said Christian

u know me, said Sam. car?

what are you doing?

get ready to sleep soon, replied Sam.

really? Christian already knew, but he was playing along.

my nanna time coming, said Sam.

nana, bless thought christian

have to go to work early tmmr

nana txxxx

a bonnet and a knee rug

i see

nana txxxx ah!

poor poor nana txxxx

have to wake up early tmmr

good night babe

sweet dreams

kisses and hugs

sweet dreams honey

kisses and hugs

pats and licks

licks to u too

don'tletthebedbugsbite

I watched Top Gear, Lamborghini vs McLaren vs Noble orange super cars. And Kitchen Nightmares, one crappy chef is all it takes. Then I went to bed and watched Entertainment Tonight, about the Oscars and who was the best dressed on the red carpet… inquiring minds need to know. And Hungry beast, which I love. Do you know “they” fake pharmaceuticals now.  Illegal drugs, such as cocaine, have such long prison sentences if caught, much short than faking pharmaceutical pills, especially in Asian countries, that illegal gangs are faking pharmaceutical pills now, with potentially devastating effects. 

This world of ours, fuck me.

I stayed up until 3am.

Ah those cuddly Italians

Paper Boats

It rained all night, with that appealing pitter pat on the tin roof, pitter pat, pitter pat. I was very happy about that, as the place had heated up and heated up, to steamy summer nights where it was hard to sleep, even if Sam and I slept like babes. But, we'd all begun to complain. It’s almost a national pass time now – whiney Aussies, no longer laid back and sun bronzed. It’s been very hot, suddenly, it seemed, for the last few days. Too hot, really.

Who still denies climate change? Surely that is just stupidity? Or self interest? No intelligent can really deny it, as our temperature has changed in Melbourne and generally the change is hotter. We are now more humid.

It was much cooler, this morning, but, I think, the humidity was way up in the high percentages. It felt kind of steamy, almost tropical, in that warm, embracing way that tropical is, where the air is wet and thick.

Sam rubbed his excess face moisturiser onto my face, as per usual, as I lay in bed still sleeping like something suddenly wet on my skin, as he got ready. And when I opened my eyes, he sang,

So, you are going back to the salt mines, you are going back to the salt mines, you are going back to the salt mines.

And then he smiled his gorgeous cheeky smile and waited for me to respond.

I screwed up my face, one eye open, one eye closed. I blew him kisses, which were more like sucking at the morning air. He waved me good bye. Then he was gone. I lay there and thought, this is the week. This is my last week. It is all coming to an end. Boo Hoo.

I walked to the shop first thing, to get coffee beans, as the coffee bean bag was bare. Rats! It was the first thing to do, before the day could really begin, get going in earnest. I'm sure I'm not one of those need-coffee in the morning people, some people may think my actions say otherwise, but it's a choice, I swear, not a need. I dressed in shorts and a t-shirt and got an umbrella, it was wet and warm and muggy. The rain was still falling... clearly.

I got to see my down pipe not leaking for the first time, in the first rain since the stocky, someone's mate, plumber climbed his 3 story ladder to discover the source of the leak. 

"It was completely blocked, mate. I don't know where the dirt all came from, way up there?" 

It was truly magnificent to see the pipe dry other than by the rain that was actually falling onto it, as a posed to pouring out of it.

I was pleased. It had been on my five year list and I was relieved to be able to cross it off.

The day was warm and sticky and bracing in its body level temperature, body level heat, my bare skin exposed to the day felt held and embraced and touched by warm air just like me.

The footpaths and the fences and the house facades all felt hot, all radiated heat. I could have taken off my shoes and socks and have walked just as comfortably. In fact, it seemed more appealing, that warm wet earthy way of going, feeling the wet on the souls of my feet, if I hadn’t had to carry my shoes and socks to do that.

The gutters ran quickly with water.

I moved dams of leaves wedged between car tyres and the bluestone gutter. I found a tree branch, stripping its leaves to make the stick bare and straight. I dug the leaves away from the entrance to drains and the huge build up of water behind the blockage drained away quickly and furiously, gurgling in its going. I watched the huge back up drain away with a sense of achievement.

I wished I’d had paper to fold into boats to race on the fast moving currents. Tooth picks for masts, card board for sails.

At first, I watched out to avoid anyone else’s gaze, but with my success I cared less about who saw me. A few people did, but it was still raining gently and none of them were hanging about, particularly, taking notice of what I was doing. But by then, I was on my knees digging out the clog of leaves with my bare hands, tossing them on to the road away from the water flow. I loved it. Is it because it reminds me of childhood, reminds me of a simpler time? No doubt.

I settled in and did my old blogs, when I got back, with hot, steaming coffee in my hand. Lovely.

The fucking down light stopped working again in the kitchen for the third time in a month since it was fixed. I called the electrician again and he said he may be able to come on Wednesday, since I told him I’d only be home Monday to Wednesday.

Then I changed the globe for the 3rd time and it worked again just fine. Stupid thing.

I pissed away the afternoon. I’ve got plenty of things to do really, if all of this finishes on Thursday. I didn’t paint the walls in my spare bedroom. I didn’t pay the bills, which are now due for the month. I didn’t call my sister back, she called and is keen to do some financial things. Oh, who can get interested in that? I should have called her back, ignoring her doesn't achieve anything.

It rained all day, the humidity was high, sticky on my skin. The day light was on dim, with its cloudy skies overhead

Shane cooked sausages and rissoles and green salad with peaches, and pumpkin salad with chickpeas and feta cheese. Yum!

I watched a program on Walt Whitman. Amongst many interesting details about him, he used to like frequenting a famous Bohemian "chop house" at 647 Broadway that flourished between 1860 and 1875 called Pfaffs.

In one of his many accounts of the time he spent at Pfaff's Whitman said, 

"I used to go to Pfaff's nearly every night. . . after taking a bath and finishing the work of the day. When it began to grow dark, Pfaff would politely invite everybody who happened to be sitting in the cave he had under the sidewalk to some other part of the restaurant. There was a long table extending the length of this cave; and as soon as the Bohemians put in an appearance, Henry Clapp would take a seat at the head of the table. I think there was as good talk around that table as took place anywhere in the world. Clapp was a very witty man"

Whitman, like several other bohemians, experimented with the boundaries of human sexuality while at Pfaff's. As Ed Folsom and Ken Price write in their biography of Whitman, "It was at Pfaff's, too, that Whitman joined the 'Fred Gray Association,' a loose confederation of young men who seemed anxious to explore new possibilities of male-male affection" Whitman appears to have developed a particularly close relationship with Fred Vaughan (one of the members of the Fred Gray Association), a relationship that has been speculated to have sparked Whitman's homoerotic Calamus poems.

Whitman left New York and Pfaff's in 1862 to work in the hospitals of the Union Army in Washington, D.C., during the U.S. Civil War

So, was there a certain freedom of sorts for gay men in New York in 1860? Really? I thought that back during those times gay men were all repressed and wouldn’t ever dare to admit they were gay let alone frequent bars together.

I stayed up until 4am writing old blogs, then headed to bed.

I dumped everything on my bed and went and cleaned my teeth. I came back to my bed and knelt on my glasses and bent them completely out of shape. I was tired. I was cross. I held them in my hand and gritted my teeth and held my breath and tensed all the muscles along each arm and shivered with mini rage through my skeleton, not quite believing what I’d done. Stupid. I bent then back and bent them back and bent them back gently, slowly and then I put them on my face and they were high on the left and low on the right and kind of leant away like an undercut jaw. Down my nose.

I love staying up late, though. I love going to bed when I feel like it and not because I have to. I can go to bed in the wee small hours and still get up at 9.30, 10.30. It’s not like I have to sleep all day if I do. I’m going to miss that.

Nicholas' Sore Leg

It’s really hot. It had been really hot for the last few days, despite this I suggested that we should walk to the Epworth to visit Nicholas. It seemed easier than hunting for a car spot in the 37 degree temperature. It’s just a walk through The Fitzroy Gardens, after all. The sun blazed and burned and we were sweating by the time we got there, to see lots of vacant car parking places, as we walked to the door.

Tim was there, as was Helen. Nicholas looked really sick, no colour in his handsome face, his lips the same hue as the rest of his skin. He’s unshaven and he made an excuse for not shaving.


He fractured his femur at the end of January, in fact, the day Sam and I saw him on Smith Street driving home. And, from what I can gather, he didn’t do anything about it until fairly recently, last week, maybe Friday when he was operated on Tim said something about an ambulance, which I didn’t really catch. Nicholas ended up in hospital last Friday and was operated on.

After his operation his thigh had been left open, it hadn’t been closed, due to the severity of the infection.

He was in pain, as we sat around his hospital bed, you could see it in his face.

I think everybody was in pain, well, Tim seemed to be wide eyed and stunned in his expression. He’d been there for hours and hours and hours. I don’t think he had slept much.

I think it is pretty serious.

Nicholas’s thigh had swelled during the day and the nurse came in and said that the doctor had advised that he would be operating again that evening because of the swelling.

He hasn’t been able to sleep, but with us all chatting around him he drifted off to sleep several times. I think that’s what loved ones do for you, make you feel safe.

Sam and I walked through East Melbourne in our shorts and thongs admiring the East Melbourne houses, and headed straight to Woolies.

We made savoury crepes for dinner.

The sexy builder with the hot arse

The sexy builder with the hot arse. I was trying to get a good shot of it, but couldn't really, damn tree! You just want to bend him over his ute and lick his crack right out, his butt is so hot.

Sam Sends Me Car Photos He, Usually, Takes In His Lunch Hour

I Could Have Conquered the World by Now

I was up at 9.30. I'm going to have to enjoy it for the next week. I made coffee and muesli and was straight to my computer and updating my old blogs, putting in my old journals. I love it. It was a beautiful morning, the sun was shining down in such a gorgeous way. Lovely and warm, shining brightly. I've got journals going back years. It's my tribute to Tom, to our friendship. I can hear him talking when I read those words, he comes alive again. I’m lucky because I have that, which is more than most people have, who have lost someone.

I'm doing it for me, so I can go back and remember him whenever I want.

Anyway, I was only going to do it for an hour, or so, while I had my breakfast. Sit back against the couch at the coffee table; sip, taste, read. But, the time ticked away and here I am in the afternoon. Ridiculous!

Okay, I go back to work next Thursday. Yay! I'm sooooo lucky. I know I don't get any sympathy from anyone who has been trudging off to work. I so don't need to to keep myself entertained. I never get bored.

So, I'm getting up and I'm getting some work done, before my time is no longer mine. Sad face. I'm going to finish fixing the walls in the spare room. Here I go.

Oh, I should have done so much. I know how to do heaps of things, followed by knowing how to do even more things in theory, even if I have never, actually, done them. The only thing that stops me from getting stuff done is a lack of confidence. But when I start, suddenly it is done and it seemed so easy.

But... I am such a lazy cunt!

How do you get cured of being lazy? Really?

You know, if I didn't have that one personality trait, I'd have conquered the world by now. I'd have been the king of the wall. Pity! Hey?

Anyway, gotta go, I've got things to do.

Okay tattslotto, this is it. This is the weekend. Blow on the dice for luck. Pat the rabbits foot. Cross my fingers just so.

Hanoi Hannah

I went out to dinner with Jill and Rachel to Hanoi Hannah in High Street Prahran/Windsor, I trendy Vietnamese café where people are queuing all night to get in. It was small and crowded and busy and noisy. The food was all right, small tappas type serves, expensive’ish, Chicken wings, two $12. You had to order a lot of dishes for a meal. Their pineapple and lychee slushies were gorgeous.

Yeah, it was good. It had the “buzz.” Sure. It’s “in” clearly. We were propped up on rather uncomfortable bar stools and we had trouble hearing each other because of the hard finishes and the noise. I don’t know, maybe I have just got mean, but when you have to queue for a place that serves relatively small dishes which cost the same as a main size dish at another cafe where you can just walk in and sit down, what’s the point?

Melbourne isn’t short of good eating establishments, you know. And queuing is about something other than good food. It’s about style and not about eating.

A super cool purple 1965 VW Beetle convertible

Piffy Went Into Town

Piffy went into town.

Piffy got lost.

Piffy licked my hand

When he found his way home again

He took hold of my wrist gently

He leant down

opened his mouth

an licked his wet tongue slowly across my skin

It was warm

and wet

thick

and hot

Saliva

glistened on my skin

like bath water

poured out of satin

He looked up at me

With his big brown eyes

He licked his lips

I patted his head

Then he sat back

so did I

he took off his shoes

and began to cry.

Did I just waist the last 7 months?

I haven't felt free all the time I have been off work. Not really. Most of my time off, I've felt like I should be doing something, which hasn't always been clear. Something. I never seemed to have a moment just to stop and think, this is it, this is my time to put my feet up and relax. I always seemed to be worrying about what I was going to do, work wise, what I should be doing, writing wise, what was I to do, you know, the future generally?

I'm sure that means something? I'm an airhead perhaps? I'm sure that means I wasn't doing it right? I should have gone straight onto the dole and I should have sued my old company for being counts. Now, I think maybe I should have found some casual work.

I'm sure that means... I'm sure that means... I'm sure that means I've just waisted the last 7 months. Wasted?

I mean, at the very least, I should now feel relaxed, refreshed and rejuvenated. I don't, not particularly. Not really. I feel like I have let my life coast and that I always knew that I would have to take the reigns again.

Did I just piss that all away?
Eek ads! I think that is what it means?
Oh, bum. Big fat bum. Bum! Bum! Bum!
That, of course, is a very high brow regret, as, no doubt, you can tell. Of course, I wouldn't change anything, it was what I had to do at the time. How much money did I just blow? It is what has got me to this moment, to this day.

Yay!

And now it is coming to an end and strangely, now I feel like I am on holidays.

This week I have been waiting for the plumber, that's been my job this week. Of course, the bloody plumber has been coming since last Thursday. The second plumber. The first plumber was coming since the Monday week before that... and I still haven't heard from him. Plumber number 2 was coming Thursday, then Friday, then Monday afternoon. Then this afternoon and now, apparently tomorrow afternoon. The office girl is very sorry, she's embarrassed, she says each day, but "the boys" have been tied up in some emergency.

Yay!

And the last of my days slip away.

I just wanted to get my leaking down pipe fixed, so the damp in the wall can be bought under control and then I can repaint the two walls that are affected, then I can rent the room out. Why not, I think, it just sits there empty.

People tell me that I'll get $200 per week for my spare room, To tell you the truth, that is the only reason I want to rent it out. That is enough money for me to want to give it ago.

$200 per week. Does anyone think that sounds about right? I don't know?

Shane pays a lot less than that, but he is a friend and he lives with me because he split up with his boyfriend and needed some where to live, as was the case for everyone who has lived with me. They've all been friends, they've all needed some where to live. My house has been called Reno affectionately for years, as it is where my friends come when they are getting a divorce.

But now, the $200 is purely to make money. This will be the first time that I will live with someone I don't know. It should be interesting? Here we go. Well, here we would have gone if the plumber would just turn up. Of course, I could be fixing the inside while I wait. But this week, while I have been waiting for the plumber, I've felt like having some time off. I've been pissing around with my old photos. I should have been a photographer.

March 01st is my first day of work. Back into the office, back to the concrete jungle, back to the small minds and big egos.

Yay!

Food And Fear And Silliness Is Queer And Maybe, You Know, We Should Have Just Had A Beer?

We walked to Carlton, to that Malaysian restaurant on Swanston Street where we haven’t eaten before. The one between all the student accommodation, the one we have been meaning to eat at, but have never seemed to get around to it. The one we pass on our walks and say, we must eat there.

As we walked up Gertrude Street, there was this girl walking towards us, clinging to the fence. You know, that ridiculous "me'ness." Not budging, oom pah pah! Our eyes locked. Try it! Smile. I think she realised that I had the position by the fence and that I wasn’t giving it up for her, my eyes met her eyes with that kind of gaze. On this realisation, she looked nervous and noticeably hesitated, scared, like we are all trained to be now a days.

“She looked nervous,” I said.

“She thinks you are going to tear her apart,” Sam said dramatically.

“Tear her apart, you think?”

“Yes, tear her apart.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Really? Grab her by the leg, you think, and pull so she splits at the vagina, like a button fly popping open? Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop!”

“Yes.”

"Or the staples in a fat reduced stomach giving way. Ble, ble, ble, ble, ble, ble, ble."

"Yes."

“So, she tears all the way around until she is nothing but a six metre vagina, effectively turned inside out. Flapping in the wind?”

“Yes.”

“Two legs with a giant vagina hanging off them? Like a giant torn purse attached to two drumstick bones?”

“Yes.”

“A marionette cunt?”

“Yes, I think that is what she thought.”

“Like a giant flesh balloon I could hold up to the breeze and float away on?”

“Yes.”

“Is that what you think?”

“That’s what she thought.”

“A GaGa bonnet?”

“a la the meat dress. Yes.”

"Really?"

"Yes."

Of course, Sam thinks I am anti woman, which I'm not, some of my best friends... He bases this mostly on, what I call, the screamy ads on TV. You know the ones, with the rat-face voice-over women who ratchet up the intensity thinking shouting at us is the way to get their message across, is the way they encourage us to buy their goods.

(Oh yes, I know it is the ad people and she is just the messenger, however, it is “the screamer” who I have contact with)

“She deserves to be raped by a football team,” I mumble, Sam would say scream, but I deny it, as I reach for the remote. “Ahhhhhh. Where is the remote? Where is the remote?”  I hate those ads. They make the best invention in the world obvious… the remote control.

Apparently, this is the reason I am anti woman. But no, this is a non-discriminatory rape policy. It is not the sex, but the screaming that really makes me, er, um, screamy!

“Oh no, no no, that bloke screaming at us from the Harvey Norman ad deserves to be raped by a football team too. Or the BAM man! Or The Doors Plus guy, or many of the male voice over ads that yell at us and make us smaller and weaker and make us want to scream! Raped by a sadistic bunch of, um, er, sadists in zipped up leather face masks, while they are having their faces, specifically their mouths, rammed into the floor, till there is blood.”

“You will not scream at us!” Bang! Bang! Bang! “Repeat after me, You will not scream at us!” Bang! Bang! Bang! Repeat…

I hate those screamy ads, the ones that are suddenly assaulting us in the very place where we live and where we should be safe from such attacks. You want to talk about tough on crime, do something about the “screamy” television adverts. “AH!”

Anyway… thank goodness for the remote control, to quell such horrible thoughts engendered… so I won’t turn into some mad man attacking people who talk above a normal speaking voice.

But, I ask you, despite me being a little dramatic, okay a lot dramatic, above, don’t you feel that the world today is just screaming at you some days? A cacophony of voices trying to get your attention for this product, or that product, or this thing, or that thing?

Too black? Grimace? Today, in our pull your coat around yourself, conservative times, senses of humour are beiger and narrower than that, Christian. You should know, as even you wonder about it as you read over it.

Ha, ha.

Perhaps I should have just let her have the fence to walk along? Perhaps, it was like some kind of security blanket, one side is caged off and safe and she only had to watch them coming from one side. I didn't care. I was having a leisurely walk in the sunshine with my guy, I wasn’t nervous about anything.

People are nervous today, though, you have to agree?

The food was good at the non-eaten-at-before Malaysian restaurant in Swanston Street. It was great for $6.50. The boys behind the counter were cute and attentive. After whiney old me complained about how hot it was inside the shop, one of the boys behind the counter rushed outside ahead of us and popped up an umbrella to guard us from the suns rays. Lovely.

The guy at the next table had an annoying laugh, like a machine gun.

The tofu was in sweet chilli, the lamb was curry, the chicken was in a sweet, maybe plum, sauce.

As he reached up and secured the umbrella in the up position, his t-shirt rode up his back exposing his white undies elastic and perhaps more of the soft white cotton than he meant to... and his big, chunky bum. He had a big arse, I could see the big round tops of his cheeks. I can’t imagine what you do with a boy with an arse as large as he had. It was way bigger than two handfuls, let me tell you. Way bigger! The guy at the next table had an annoying laugh, like a machine gun. Er!

The tofu was in sweet chilli, the lamb was curry, the chicken was in a sweet, maybe plum, sauce.

It was a beautiful day walking home in the glorious sunshine. The boys in the skate park made clack clack sounds with their skateboards. Shirtless boys with flat stomachs and long hair. The trees shimmered in the air. We chatted and laughed, me and Sam, as we do.

We cut through between the museum and the Exhibition Buildings, where the people milled about, where we walked under the big shade awning for respite from the sun.

Food and a walk. Be it a dawdle, it was a walk none the less.

Poor Old Brunswick Street

Sebastian came over last night and went out for dinner with Shane. When they came back, Sebastian wanted coffee.

"Please tell me you have coffee?" Sebastian said to me.

"Because I'm out," said Shane.

Oh really? You call that preground, freeze dried rubbish that you buy, coffee? "Sure I have," I said.

So Sebastian gets hold of my coffee pot and immediately turns his nose up. "Have you ever washed this thing?"

Shrug. "Do you want coffee, or not?" I said. So, my coffee pot is a little used and it just looks like what it is, a well used coffee pot. I rinse it out before I use it, but no I don't spend time scrubbing it, why? What is the point?

"Use mine," said Shane. "Use mine."

"And your seal is gone too," exclaims Sebastian with more than a hint of disgust.

"Oh, I've been meaning to get a seal all week. I went to the local coffee shop yesterday but they didn't sell them any more. It's okay though, it hisses a bit, but it still works."

"Oh, I'm not using that," said Sebastian. "You need a new one." He pulled it out of the coffee pot and flung it in the bin."

"Use mine, use mine," said Shane... like a demented cockatoo.

So, Sebastian left mine now unusable on the bench, as Shane ground my coffee beans and made coffee without offering me or Sam any coffee, not that Sam would have wanted any, but I might have.

Do you think that Sebastian thought he was being helpful? Do you think? Really? That is helpful, is it? Oh?

So, first thing this morning I had to go to Brunswick Street to get a new coffee pot seal, before I could do anything else. Yes, thank you for that Sebastian, lots of help. Really.

It was a lovely sunny morning, I am not denying that. I needed a new coffee pot seal, I'm not denying that either. I guess, in my most generous spirit around this, Sebastian did me a favour and maybe Sam is right and I just like to whine... but really, friends can be such a help some times, don't you think?

Poor old Brunswick Street, where it used to be alternative and edgy it is now just fat and middle aged and turning beige like all the other strip shops. Like the tired old actress she's succumbed to plastic surgery, complete with trout pout and all, and now she just resembles her sisters, Ms' Lygon, Chapel, Bridge and Clarendon. Where she used to be the younger more interesting sister, she's now fat and old and peroxide blonde with all the same fillers and procedures as the other old tarts, desperately trying to hold it together in face of the opposition.

Set up for the “suburban tourists”, now a nice place to visit on the weekend, homogenised and pasteurised with nothing too scary so the “other” suburbanites can come and enjoy the shopping experience, which is familiar and known to them. What they don't get, what they don't know and what they probably don't care about is that they are viewing a corpse, the corpse of what interesting and alternative used to look like.

We used to be allowed to be eccentric, now we are allowed to be normal. We used to relish, encouraged the circus, the sideshow, life as an event, now it is serious business, all pared down to family values that get the votes.

We're all too beige, even the younger Y Gens inhabitants. Actually, the Y Gens are probably as bad as any; their entire life they have had the "fear factor" government brain washing, big business conform work credentials, mass media marketed hysteria, industry fodder surf wannabes. Sadly the half strength version they now see they think is new and exciting.

Now, I guess, "they" think a tiled bench seat is avant garde.

Fitzroy used to be alternative and funky now it is rapidly morphing into passé, just another suburb just like the rest. I remember when I first moved here every shop was different and exciting, shops you wouldn't see anywhere else in Melbourne. Now they are alarmingly similar to any other place. We might as well hang a "nothing to see here" sign at the end of Brunswick Street now a days.

I don't know if it makes me feel old, or bored?

You know, I think it was the beginning of the end when they allowed the 7 11 on the corner and the video shop further along, how many years ago was that?

Now, we all cry "too busy too busy too busy" as if it is an excused not to be interesting. We're all too caught up in career and wealth... what happened to art?

Mum, he touched us!

Flesh is the Sweet

Flesh is the sweet, contours of meat, 

breath is the scent, touch is heaven sent. 

Your... skin, soft and smooth like satin, like chamois, 

buzzing my senses, delight, height, quite nice.

I kiss you, you kiss me

a joy, a treat, a hunger complete.

I lick you, touch, squeeze you, penetrate... dessert.

You, wiggle, squirm, reconfirm, your love for me.

Love is you in my arms, the smell of your hair in my nose, 

the way you curl your toes, the way your eyes glow.

The soft wetness of your lips, the way you move your hips,

the way you rest, on my chest, out of breath. 

I hold you, caress.

 

Oh my giddy aunt