Work Work Work

OMG! Apparently, I have to go back there tomorrow too. Again? Really? For fucks sake, what is this a life sentence? You just have to keep giving and giving with this work bullshit, now don't you? Work work work! How many days is that? It seems like half my life already. I feel like I have worked every day of this year this week. I feel like, I feel like.... oh, my god work work work.

Remember, I worked three days a week before I took last year off, got sack, my time in purgatory was commuted.

Although, on the bright side, I found out it is over in two weeks. Lovely. Two weeks to go. I'm counting down the days. Easter Monday... ah the chocolate festival breaks it up, lovely. My boss is looking for another assignment, he says he will have one booked in by the time I finish this one, so that'll be good. Cross your fingers for me that it will be in the CBD. Collins Street would be nice, but anywhere in the CBD would be just fine.

Of course, Sam works down the other end of Bourke Street, so the other end of the city would do just fine. But, the sun is nicer in the Paris end of Collins Street. I think it was my favourite place to work, in 101, it was just lovely, and preferable, if I could put in my request.

Please universe, send me to the top end of Collins Street, or Bourke Street, or Lonsdale, any of them are a fifteen minute walk from home.

Or first place in tattslotto.

An otherwise unknown billionaire aunt could die leaving me a fortune. Yes, that would be acceptable too.

The bank could put five million dollars in my account and not pick it up. I wouldn't tell.

Perhaps, I could do it with a 90 year old multi millionaire who is a minute off death?

What was it today?

"Let me show you my baby," said Smoking Brenda.

She pulled out her iPhone.

Oh Jesus, I am to be spared fucken nothing. I am soooooo not interested in your grand pigs lady.

But it was her poodle, which was a relief. Strangely. What was its name? Mitsy. Apparently, it is an apricot. It looks as old as Brenda. Maybe the poodle smokes too.

 

Den of Bitches

I left home at 7.55. Do you believe it? Me. The guy who used to get out of bed after that, some mornings. I was at work by 8.25. Ah the sunny deserted boondocks of Tullamarine. Ah the barren, semi deserted wastelands, on the fringe of the suburbs… not quite city, not quite country. It is that part of the city where it evolved with cars in mind, where the roads are wide and there are roundabouts rather than traffic lights. There are wide verges on either side of the road. It all looks purpose built. Read beige. If we only had cars at the genesis of the city, we would have roundabouts through out the city just like it. And no doubt one day, when the property developers get their way and have replaced all the old buildings with tilt-slab, we will.

I closed my car door in the non-descript car park, gazed across the non-descript cars to the non-descript building, sucked in a breath of fresh air, straightened my suit jacket, and headed to the front door.

I have to say, the air is kind of fresh and crispy... out there, way out where.

It’s like a library in the office, everybody in their corrals as though that is exactly how human beings should exist. It honestly makes me sad that this is what my working life is. Why wasn’t I an explorer, or an archeologist, or a rock star, or an emperor? Any occupation that doesn’t fit into an open plan office?

“Good morning.”

“Good morning.”

“How are you?”

“Oy’m tired today,” said Smoking Brenda. “I taped the funeral and after everything was done, I sat up and watched it and I didn’t gyet to byed until after 1am.”

Oh yes, the death of a footy star.

She doesn’t really know what she is doing and she is instructing from that point of view. So there is no overview, no run down of the company structure, just instructions on the hop, as she is nervously doing the processing, instructing me and earning her "higher duties" no doubt.

She asked me to deal with some paperwork for the monthly figures today. She is scared of Eve, who will be back on Tuesday week and will be gungho to get stuck into the monthly figures.

“Can you do those?” No explanation, no expansion of what needed to be done.

So, I sorted the paperwork. I thought she meant she wanted me to sort it for the month end journals.

She asked me when I was done.

I said that I was.

And it was only that she made some comment about a spreadsheet, which I followed up with her, that she gave me expanded instructions.

“The spreadsheet?”

“Haven’t you entered them on the spreadsheet?”

“Um?”

“This here, don’t you remember you’ve already done this?”

I didn’t really. I kind of did when she showed it to me. I think it was the first thing that I did when I got there on Monday. She opened the spreadsheet, or it was already open. I think she said do this, no explanation of what it was. Three days later she expects me to remember. Just like that, one half-arse explanation and I’m supposed to remember. Wow. That’s pretty tough.

“You are going to have to think on your feet, as when Eve is back she will just throw it at you and expect you to know it.”

Smoking Brenda makes Eve sound like a bitch from hell.

After that comment, I truly hoped that it is only a matter of weeks that I am there, not months. Please. Nothing they do makes sense, please let me head back to the city where the normal people are.

I wondered, if it was 2 months, if I could say to Jack I don’t want to go back.

"So why does she do all of this?"

Smoking Brenda just looked exasperated at me, as though she'f been over it all already.

"I told you. It's what she does. I'm changing things, but I can't do it all at once."

Smoking Brenda said to me today that she wanted to get as much done this week so she doesn’t turn into a bitch next week when she is completing end of month.

Yes, I thought, that is exactly what it is here. I get it now. You and Eve are both bitches. I have strayed into the viper’s den. You are a couple of cunts butting heads.

I think this is going to be tricky.

My first assignment out and I’ve been place with the evil bitches who want to out do each other. I could get really hurt in the wash of this.

Yay

Still, what is it that they say, about the things that don’t kill you?

Hands up who think I am a whiney little bitch? Because that is pretty much what Sam said when I told him the bitch story.

“Shut up and get to work like everybody else,” said Sam. “And I don’t want to hear your winey little make-my-ears-bleed complaints.”

“But why am I sent to places where the idiots are?”

“Because that is life and life is like that.”

“Why can’t I be sent to the CBD to play with the nice people?”

“And that went so well for you with your last job?”

“Boo hoo,” I say. “Boo hoo.”

“No boo hoos”

“Ha!”

“Suck it up princess.”

Smoking Brenda

Smoking Brenda hasn’t said anything very nice about the absent manager Eve Channing. (She uses her full name whenever she refers to her, what does that say?) I’m sure she isn’t doing it on purpose and I’m sure she doesn’t realise she is doing it, but that doesn’t change the fact that she has run her down, pretty much, with every comment.

Just before I started there last week, Jack called to ask if I could stay there for two months rather than two weeks?

“Sure,” I said.

"I thought you'd be fine with it, but I thought I should check before I confirm the assignment."

Smoking Brenda has introduced me to everyone as the person who will be helping her for two weeks. "He's here for 2 weeks while Eve Channing is away."

It is kind of odd. I guess I should just ask.

Either, Jack has got it wrong about the two month extension, or Smoking Brenda doesn’t know?

Smoking Brenda has only been at the company since January and doesn’t have her head around it all herself. Yet. In fact, she is kind of inept in her instructions and I wonder if...

Oh, I'm sure there is a perfectly good explanation. Surely.

What do you think it could mean?

Lovely

Where my 35th floor CBD office had sweeping views of Port Phillip Bay... my new office has a view of an empty paddock next to the airport.

Yay. Clunk! That's me coming in contact with reality.

Welcome back to the working world... me. (trying to be positive. {desperately} New leaf and all that)

Firm handshake. Glad you're back, son.

It is only temporary, of course, a couple of weeks, a couple of months at the most, so you can put the tissues away now, no use in crying. That is this role, not work in general. Don't feel tooooooo sorry for me, I am, as Sam would say, a drama queen. Not that I think that I am, far from it actually, however...

Eve, who I was told I would be meeting, morphed into Brenda, who met me in the foyer.

She’s kind of nervy and not terribly confident, is how I first summed her up. I later found out that she has only been there since January and has been permanent for a shorter time, maybe a month.

This is the first time she has been left in charge. Eve is the one who is on holidays.

“So do you smoke Christian?”

“Um, no, no I don’t.”

“Oh well, I do and I need to go out and smoke every few hours.”

“I did smoke, but I have given up.”

“Oh, I could never do that,” said Smoking Brenda.

Your face certainly tells the story, I thought. She has facial skin that bares a striking resemblance to chicken’s feet… crepe-like skin on her neck resembled scrunched brown paper.

We were getting coffee at the kitchen bench thing? There is an espresso machine.

“Oh, I can’t work that," said Smoking Brenda.

I pushed the button with the cup decal and my cup was filled.

“Are you into the footy, Christian?” asked Smoking Brenda.

“Um, no.”

“Oh. I love me footy,” said Smoking Brenda. You've got to have an interest, I thought.

She barracks for Collingwood. Of course.

Everything is Trans, Baby

Ah, Sunday morning.

Sam made pancakes, I was going to but he took over as he likes to do. 

“You do it.”

“Okay.”

“You do it.”

“Okay.”

“Oh give it to me.

While I made coffee.

He put them in the fridge to settle for an hour, as you do with pancakes. Let them rest, gather their strength so they grow up to be as strong as they can be, so they fry up big and lovely. We’re going to have smoked salmon and cream cheese and chives. We were. 

We had a film to get to.

What time did you say it was? Really. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! They are going to have to wait, it is midday and we have to leave the house.

Sam’s good, he get’s me moving, he organises me out of the house. No mean feet, I can dither so easily. “Come on! Move! Faster, faster!”

Actually, I don't know why I say that. When I have to be somewhere, I have an uncanny knack of turning up right on time, at the precise hour. I'm never late. I'm only ever late when I want to be. You know. I’m never late by accident.

We headed to the dumpling shop in La Trobe Street. Yum, yum, dumplings. A quick bite and then it is only a short walk to ACMI to the Queer Film Festival.

I love that feeling of walking in twos with my boyfriend, side by side, through the quiet streets, where we can cross the road just as we like, together, forging ahead, together. Feet together. 

Do you know what I mean? I can sneak sideways looks at him, give him orders, tell him how to cross the street… and he only smiles. Do you know what I mean?

Being Chaz is at 2.15 we are meeting David there.

Sam wasn’t so keen. “Why do I want to see a documentary about a fat lesbian having a penis stuck on, I ask you?”

He didn’t want to go, at first.

“Okay. We don’t have to go,” I said.

Then he acquiesced. “Okay, get the tickets.”

Maybe it was me who said Chaz was having a penis stuck on and Sam took me literally. That’s just what I heard. I’m sure I read it some where, in the deluge of celebrity news gossip.

Sam hates celebrities, he just glazes over at the mention of the latest marital musical chairs of Brad this or Jenifer that…

The dumpling shop was closed. Not open Sundays. Really? What kind of Asian business is this? It is certainly not run by Mama Chan that is for sure. It must be run by a younger generation of Asians.

“Oh fuck it!”

We ate noodles at Noodle Kingdom instead.

Being Chaz was good. It was all about him having his tits cut off. It was about him getting rid of that part of his body which he hated and which he didn’t want anyone to touch. He hated his breasts because they were not a part of his real self.

Some people think just being gay they have it bad? Imagine changing sex?

It was interesting that taking testosterone that Chaz felt a male sex drive for the first time and commented that women should feel it to know what it is like.

Testosterone made his clitoris bigger. It also changed the shape of his face, his features. I think that is amazing.

The cinema was pretty full, it was the busiest session I had been to. Are people than interested in transgenderism, or is it the celebrity factor?

“Everything is trans,” said David. “That is what the festival is all about this year. Trans.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” said David. “I want to be trans.”

“You want to be?”

“Yes.” David laughed. “I so want to be trans.”

"What?"

Saturday Morning

We were awake latish. Saturday morning, that's what they are fore, huh. Awake in our cave. Protected. Snug. Sam reads his RS IT feed, I roll over and roll over and roll over again, luxuriating, not restless. Lying up against him is nice, it is a cold morning and he is nice and warm. It is comfortable, it is nourishing, it is soul pampering. I’m am naturally hot so I can only cuddle in the winter.

"You sure can sleep," says Sam.

"I know, isn't it lovely."

It is cold when slide my arms out from under the bedclothes, so I am in no hurry to leave my cocoon.

We were finally up at 10.15. It was still cold. I shivered by the side of the bed as I look for my track pants. I don’t mind really, it is bracing, awakening, we don’t always have to be cosseted in perfect warmth. A blast of cool makes us feel alive.

I made porridge. Comfort food, warm us up. Bubble, bubble in the saucepan. Gloop, gloop, gloop. Is this what countries lived on during the hard times? In poverty? Women with aprons and their hair in scarves? Her name would be Suzi and she'd slide her used tissues up her sleeve. Sam stole sultanas from my muesli until I complained that I would only be eating rolled oats for my first week back at work. Oats and an ironed shirt heading out into peak hour traffic. Kill me now! So, I stole more sultanas from Shane's muesli. I added bananas and maple syrup. I brewed strong coffee.

We sat at the coffee table, on the floor, as the morning drifted. I read my blog. Sam watched China’s Got Talent, after he’d finished reading his RS feed of nerd news, on his iPad3 exclaiming all the time how lovely the screen is.

It is the usual slow Saturday, the usual relaxed weekend. I love it like that. I love that togetherness just naturally.

There is a chill in the air, my feet are cold.

Sometimes I wonder if I am too boring? I can be very homey. But that is life, now isn’t it, clinging together and finding love and happiness during the boring bits, as well as the other bits. Let’s face it, life is made up of boring bits, interspersed with excitement.

Suddenly, it was past midday. And our stomachs began to grumble. I was happy, though, going out to find food was the last thing I wanted to do. It was a slow Saturday and I was liking it that way. 

It's cold, suddenly the summer has finished. I wonder if it will make another return, like it seems to have a few times already this summer. But, I guess by March, it is only expected that it is going to get cold.

It must be time to order firewood. I turned on the central heating for the first time since last winter, that heating that has been running on a wing and a prayer for years. It didn’t come on. Shit!

We ate Korean in Lygon Street.

We went to the Queer Film Festival and watched Kinky Sex with David. A doco all about International Mr Leather. Sam said afterwards it was rubbish, in his very dismissive tone, no grey are, that he has. 

"What the hell was that all about?" he asked, as we crossed in the busy traffic in Flinders Street. Hands in the air. "Rubbish!"

In Bed All Day

I stayed in bed all day. I didn’t really mean to, it wasn’t my intension to do so, but that’s what happened.

Sam got up and went to work, leaving the house at 7.33am. I rolled over and luxuriated in the warmness of my sheets and it dawned on me that this was my last morning of freedom. I felt sad, no I felt sick at the thought. This was it! As of Monday, I would be up and showering and dressing and driving out into the burbs to please other people, to please some company for which I have no interest and no attachment to. So, I rolled over and pulled the doona over me, but I was awake by this stage, wide awake, oh no!

So, I decided to get up and make coffee and write for a bit on my computer. Today was the day that Shane was moving rooms, he’d stayed home to do so. I can stay in bed in the warmth and comfort and then I can get up when Shane does and give him a hand. He’d be up soon, no doubt.

I wrote for a few hours, perhaps to 11am. I was feeling sleepy again by this stage so I lay my head back down and dozed off again. Shane got up around midday, when I woke again. He showered and left the house to get breakfast, as he always does on his days off.

I got up and made more coffee and some toast with Vegemite and banana. I came back to bed and started to watch A Catered Affair. I've nearly watched all of the old videos that I recorded years ago, which I got back from Bolago in the clean up and haven't seen for years. I kept the Bette Davis collection and threw the rest of my old videos away.

I was comfy and into the movie when Shane came back. By this stage I was happy tucked up I bed. I hadn’t planned to stay in bed, but, as it turned out, I had. And I was quite enjoying it by this stage.

When A Catered Affair finished, Shane seemed to have left the house again, so I picked another Bette Davis movie, Marked Woman, and watched that.

When he came back, I was into the second movie and he seemed to have a carpet cleaner with which he was cleaning the carpet.

I guess, I should have felt guilty. After all, Shane has only been moving rooms since 2010, and then he decides to do it on the last day of my time off before I head back to work on Monday, so of course, I should have geared my whole day around him. Of course, I should have. I was just queuing up Front Page Woman, when Sam got home. 

Lovely, he said when he saw me still tucked up in bed, just before he switched off the TV, video player and turned on the light.

As Sam said, I was mean and lazy to stay in bed all day when Shane was moving rooms. Oh yes, of course.

No one seems to care that I am feeling just the slightest bit traumatised about heading back to full time work on Monday.

Sam and I headed to the supermarket to get ingredients for fried noodles, with Shane as he returned the carpet cleaner.

It was cold, there had been a blast of winter and Smith Street was bumper to bumper with traffic.

Sam cooked fried noodles with prawns and Bok Choi. We watched Big Bang Theory.

All I Need Is A Little Self Confidence

I was up at 9.30am.

No milk.

I needed to go to the supermarket.

I feel guilty about not ringing the not for profit employment agent back. It is my appalling lack of self confidence, I know that. But, there are a number of things in that job description that I haven’t done and there are a number of things that I haven’t done for a while and I barely know (the new system) yet.

I applied because the salary was good and it was in the CBD. I’m not really sure why I applied now, as I have never worked in not for profit, I never thought I’d hear from them. And then the employment agent called yesterday.

So why did I apply?

I think I applied because I have just signed on to (name of company) to do temp work, which will not necessarily be full time and could be any where in Melbourne… and I have walked to work for the last ten years and it was easy and is easy and I want to walk to work again. I don’t want to drive with all the madmen in the chaos that are our roads it sounds frightening. And stupid. I can walk to the CBD in fifteen minutes.

There are plenty of people with more gumption than me who’d bluff their way into that position. There are plenty of people who have got a lot more with a lot less.

Let’s face it, I am driving to Tullamarine on Monday for ¾’s of the pay.

So I am feeling weak and useless and, in a certain sense, defeated.

So, this morning, it made me feel that I should, at least, get off my arse and close my bank account, you know, get something done that I have been putting off. I am going to be working full time from Monday, after all. It was still early. Take the money out of my savings account in one bank where I earn no interest, effectively, and put it into my mortgage at another bank where I pay interest on every cent of the out standing balance.

And there it was, my natural step back instead of stepping forward, there right then when I thought about closing my account. Maybe I should stop and think about this some more? Translation, maybe I should hesitate. Outcome, do nothing.

I’ve learnt over the years how to deal with this? It is more than laziness, it is a terrible lack of confidence? It is still difficult for me, but I have a mechanism. I’ve developed an override, a leap of faith feeling. I don’t know where it comes from, and I’m not really sure how it works, but it over rides my natural dilly dally, do nothing, lazy arse, procrastination.

I had to pay my mobile phone and my credit card. Get those bills, leave the house now. Go to the supermarket and get the milk. The two banks are opposite each other, just take you passport just in case you need more identification, as my account is actually held at the Richmond branch. Pay the bills and get milk, that’s all you have to think about. Just get going. Move.

I concentrate on the simple things that have to be done, phone bill and credit card have pay by dates and while I’m out there the banks are right there, I walk passed them, all I have to do it go in in between the other things.

I don’t know if that makes any sense? Just concentrate on the easy things and the other things take care of themselves, especially things I have put off and put off and put off, as they have been over thought and certainly don’t need any more thought wasted on them to get them done.


Oh, I don’t know what it is. I was told everyday of my grade six year that I was no good and I would never amount to anything, by my teacher Arthur Batson, who took a huge and irrational dislike to me. I have written about this before and I suspect the old closet case homo could see the poofter in me and it terrified him.

At the same time, I was sent away on school holidays to my auntie’s farm with my sister. My aunt also told me that I was no good at anything. But, at least she had insanity as an excuse.

“Oh Turtle (the miserable bitch used to call me turtle as she said I was slow) I do worry about you, I can’t imagine that there is anything in this world that you can possibly do.” Then she would give her shrill, mocking laugh, I can still hear it.

She had lost her precious 2nd son in an accident and I was smart and going to live on as my mothers’ son where hers wasn’t and I reminded her of him and she naturally wanted to destroy me… that would be my understanding of her behaviour if I had to say.

“Oh, but Christian you must remember that your aunt has had great tragedies in her life,” my mother would say.

My father, who was an all around good bloke, who was loved by everybody he met and who never had a bad word to say about anybody, quietly responded with, “She didn’t need tragedies in her life to make her a bitch.”

Many years later as an adult when I describe my treatment at the hands of my aunt, my mother was furious.


They were full mental assaults on a twelve year old boy. I often wonder if it is that which has had a detrimental effect on me. I wonder if I should be seeking out therapy for my lack of self confidence in the terms of what happened to me at the hands of those two cruel people.

It’s not in social settings, or with friends, in that sense I am considered quite confident and out spoken and quite a leader, in a certain sense. I’m also good with practical things. I can change a washer, repoint a brick wall, strip and paint a room, but they are all practical skills I learnt from my clever father. My father could do anything and he taught me lots.

No, it is more difficult to pin point than that. It varies as to how it manifests itself. It is not always logical. It is…

You know, it is funny, I’ve never thought about it in relation to my father before. My father was a tradesman when he left school and an academic once he had my mother to encourage him. He started out in one field and then went back to university when we were small children and changed to the other. Consequently, he had a very wide skill set, he could do just about anything. He was also handsome, out going and funny. I used to spend my time hanging out with him watching him and learning from him. Now that I think about it, anything my father taught me, or anything I watched my father for an example, I have no lack of self confidence, those things I am strong with, but anything where I don’t have my father as an example to draw from, I struggle.

Wow. I wonder if that is true?

It could be? I felt a shiver run up my spine.


It was a gorgeous day, sunny with blue skies, it was nice to be out in it. I love that smell of sunny freedom when I get to wander around the shops with just myself to please and nothing pressing to do, or to get to.

I went to the supermarket and got the milk. Everything was done, bills paid, bank accounts closed, I decided to reward myself with Danishes. Yum yum what the hell. So, of course, Woolies had a special on, any 4 pastries/small cakes for $6. Really? Oh why oh why universe have you come to tempt me so mercilessly? Instead of $2.40 each. It would seem crazy not to go for the cheaper deal. But, you know, if I buy four Danishes, I’ll eat four Danishes. I know that. I surveyed what was on offer. Licked my lips and thought of the extra jam and pineapple donuts I could scoff. Then I put an apricot Danish and an Escargot in a bag and I walked away.

Do You Want Cake Every Day?

Raining, wet, cold. The sky is grey, overcast, dark. The wind blows and I can hear the rain drops being blown from the trees onto the tin roof. The rain falls, sprinkling all over the world, a constant thrum. There is a chill in the air.

Our weather can't quite decide if it is summer of winter. It is hot and humid on day and then cold and wet the next. I couldn't sleep last weekend because of the heat, I had trouble crawling out from under my doona this morning because of the cold.

I had a school teacher who had lived all over the world. He said that Melbourne had the most changeable weather of any city that he'd been to bar one. I can't remember what city that was, but its weather was more changeable.

I feel a bit cold. Jesus, just a few days ago it felt unbearable hot. Oh well, at least it is interesting, at least we don't get bored. You wouldn't want cake every day, as an old dowager friend of my mother's once said when I enthused about what the weather must be like living in Hawaii.

I made a list of all the things I should do, as I tried to prise myself from the warmth this morning. I'm going back to full time work on Monday, so time is short. But, now I think I'll just stay in doors with my computer and my cat. I'm contemplating ordering fire wood for the open fire.

I guess it is autumn, or for our American readers Fall. You know, I kind of like the name fall, it's whimsical. Fall gently to the ground, leaving the tree branches bare for the winter. Brown and gnarled, black when wet with rain silhouetted against the grey, grey sky. Fairies in the garden, and all that, peering out from under the fallen leaves of the Golden Elm.

The only time I've every had fairies in the garden is poofs coming down off whatever it was they took the night before. Ha ha.

I cleaned the kitchen. I poured the last of the red wine from the bottle from last night into a glass, it is not even midday. Is that wrong?

I stacked the dishwasher. I laughed as I slid the knives into the cutlery container blade up. It's perverse, I know. David used to always complain, said that it was like dealing with Edward Scissorhands whenever he went to the dishwasher, he was scared he was going to be slashed to pieces at any moment. He said knives should be stacked blade down, everybody knew that. He was the only person who stacked them that way. Oh, Shane does too, so I lost ground. I think it must be an HIV thing, as David and Shane are the only two I know who stack them that way.

Missy kept stepping under my feet. What is it with cats?

Walking home with my crappy phone camera

The Continuing Change of Marriage

There is this ludicrous notion that gay people wanting to get married are expecting marriage to be redefined, in some way, to suit them.

Really?

Gay people want to fall in love, make a commitment to the person they love and live happily ever after. That's it, it doesn't get more complicated than that.

And... that is the definition of marriage. That is what marriage is, essentially. There are a whole lot of other accepted variables, open, closed, children, childless, sexual, non sexual, but basically...

But, having said that, surely, marriage has a long history of being redefined, anyway.

It was once a property transaction between a father and a prospective husband. I'll give you two goats and a bag of seed for your daughter.

Once, interracial marriages were not allowed in some countries. Couples were banned from being married if they weren't from the same ethnic back ground.

Not so long ago, woman took their husbands names. Jenny Jones married Greg Smith and became Mrs Greg Smith.
I still remember when my mother had letters addressed to her as Mrs Robert Fletcher

There was a time when only the husband was able to hold property and woman were only allowed to do certain things with their husbands permission.

For years, women had few to no legal rights once they married. Married women had no independent legal existence: they could not make contracts, maintain their own names, file lawsuits, have full ownership and control of property, and in some cases could not maintain custody of their children after their husband’s death. Some of these inequalities continued well into the 20th century. 

Then of course, it was neatly redefined, even in the eyes of the most devout christians, to allow for divorce.

In the early years divorce was exceedingly difficult to obtain, often only available to the wealth classes. Men were treated more favourably than woman. As women we legal non-entities they were often left destitute.

The marriage act of 1959 provided 14 grounds for the grant of a decree of dissolution of marriage ('divorce'), including adultery, desertion, cruelty, habitual drunkenness, imprisonment and insanity.⁽⁴⁾ To succeed on one of these grounds, a spouse had to prove marital fault.

No fault divorce was introduced in 1975.

In fact, marriage over the ages has never stopped being redefined.

I would argue that gay people don't want to redefine marriage at all. They want to get married happily to one spouse and live happily ever after, as straight people do. Well, that is the fantasy, anyway. They want exactly the same type of marriage as those who are now allowed to marry.

Most marriage acts did not define marriage as between a man and a woman and, in fact, had to be changed when the, ostensibly, religious bigots put pressure on governments to change the acts in an attempt stop gay people from marrying.

I would also argue, that marriage is being strengthened and upheld by gay people choosing to marry. Surely, on simple laws of supply and demand, if more people are wanting to get married, then marriage is then made stronger and is made more relevant.

Racial discrimination within marriage has ended, married women now have equal rights to married men, and we have access to no-fault divorce. Historians believe ending discrimination against same-sex couples in marriage is no more dramatic than any of these other recent changes. 

Carrying the Kill Home

Sam was awake before me, I was just too comfortable. He read his nerd news while I dozed. I was soooo relaxed, I just didn’t feel like getting up. It was Sunday after all. He always gives me “that” look when I say such things. Face tilted down gazing at me harshly through the tops of his eyes.

I even fell back to sleep and dreamed some more. One dream was that I was walking in some mountainous Australian bush land. I was in a car, which Perry was driving, and we were driving up and down bush paths looking for the party of people we were supposed to meet up with.

Then Sam nudged me. The world spins back to reality, as my eyes roll back around to the openings in my face like poker machines.

“I’m really awake now, come on get up,” said Sam.

I wasn’t ready, I was still too relaxed. “Just five more minutes, please.”

“I see.” Laughed. “You leave me no choice,” I hear Sam responded with.

I brace myself, this could mean anything.

He turned on some instructional film for the Samsung 7 inch tablet which he is threatening to buy. However, he had to get up and get his iPad – his iPad3 that he has just purchased, so why does he need a 7 inch Samsung tablet, I ask you? – in the process of which he tickled my feet. I’m sure absentmindedly. Now, as we know, having my feet tickled is a supreme joy, one of the great things in life, better than sex and fresh figs. And he had set the “feet tickling wheels in motion,” I didn’t care what he played. In fact, I was more than accommodating to position myself in whatever optimum position was required.

He lay up against the pillows on the wall, I spun around. He lay sideways in “the sleeping” position, I spun around again. He lay the other way, I spun around 180 degrees no worries.

Junkie, heroin… feet getting tickled.

Sunday or no Sunday, we were out of bed before midday. It’s been a long time since I slept until the afternoon.

Shane wasn’t seen until late afternoon, he drank a whole bottle of vodka and however many cocktails. He would tell us later that the surprise of the night was two hours singing karaoke in a stretched Hummer with 10 maggotted, screaming chicks. “I don’t feel well,” he said.

Sam and I cooked up a big breakfast, sausage, Nunki (A fat girlfriend of Sam's) eggs with shallots, hash browns and tomatoes. We are trying alternatives to my standard issue muesli, at Sam’s encouragement.

“This is fat food, all of this,” I said. “None of this is endorsed by the heart foundation.”

Sam shrugged.

Then it was “assume the weekend morning position”, on the floor back to the couch laptops/ipads on the coffee table. You know, once it would have been a copy of the Age and the Herald Sun

Despite, being told that I didn’t want to sit and be continually drawn into China’s got talent YouTube, and being told to put his head phones on, Sam couldn’t help himself, declaring every second minute that “I just had to watch this one in particular.” So I spent most of the morning still watching fat Chinese/Taiwanese/British/Filipino chicks sing Whitney Houston... often badly.

Or those groups in glow in the dark suits dancing around in the dark, making inexplicable moves across the ceiling.

Some how Sam ended up sitting right next to me on the floor at the coffee table, YouTube blaring, no head phones, pulling my head around by the chin if I dared to take my attention away from whatever it was he was showing.

At 14.15 we were still sitting on the lounge room floor talking about lunch, unshowered. As the sun shone and the sky radiated blue, Sam begun to suggest we need to eat. The idea of food is never far away for that boy, where I can just well, as he would say, piss the day away without thinking about it.

It was a lovely spring day outside, just gorgeous. I could hear the mosquito engines of the formula one cars clearly, more clearly than for any other year, I think. In previous years, you could just hear them occasionally, vaguely in the background noise. But this year, it was like they were just over in the next burb.

We went to buy pork rolls. We bought apple cake and apple Danish as well. We were like kids at the cake counter with our eyes open wide like boiled lollies on sticks. Well, if you are going to be fat boys.

Then we went to the supermarket for the tea that we had forgotten the last time we went to the supermarket, which is less than twenty four hours, hell, twelve hours, as going to the supermarket is one of Sam and my favourite things to do. We even joked as we headed in with our small bakery bags to buy the tea that we’d have to come back within a few hours to get the ingredients for dinner. We looked at each other and laughed and had a duh moment, jibing each other that these two fat boys could, if they tried really hard, actually, get it together to get the ingredients now and skip the next trip to Woolies. What would you call it? Master chef devotees? Piggies with baskets? Idiots! I’ve never been to the supermarket so much. I’ve never cooked so much.

Still, there is a certain joy strolling back in the sun with provisions purchased with nothing much else to do for the day but to cook it. It must have felt like that heading home from the hunt with the carcass of the wild deer slung over your shoulder, don’t you think?

We cooked risotto, chicken, mushroom and asparagus. Lovely. It only seems to be chicken and mushroom risotto now a days. I’m good at making it, though. I never understand why people think it is difficult, or there is some great mystery to it? I tell you I don’t, it’s as easy as anything. If you have enough skill to use a spoon, you can make risotto.

Barry Humphries is 78? Wow? How did he get that old? The interview with him, Edna and Lez was clever.

(I thought Barry Humphries would be amused being sandwiched between asparagus risotto and stinky piss)

Not long after there is no mistaking that you have eaten asparagus. David always says he loves it, but he likes all the stinky juices spilling from the lower orifices.

Lots of gay guys do, they like the secretions.

No we’re not all good manners and well groomed hair, after all.

“Feltch my arse, baby.”

We watched Science and Stephen Hawkins. Oh, it was so medical. Brrrr! OMG! I spent sometime with my hand over my eyes, especially the breast implants section. Why is it that “they” think we want to see those jelly bags being popped out all bloody from incisions under the tits on women’s chests?

Still, it is my antidote to the worldwide news service, the tale of misery news. Scientific work is the happy news, the small ray of hope, the small glint of the positive in the beat me with a huge fucken stick current headlines.

The evening slipped away.

“Do you have to go to the salt mines tomorrow, babe?”

“Get fucked.”

It makes me laugh. Of course, this time next week, he’ll be able to lean over and say the same thing to me.

“Boo Hoo.”

No, it will be good. It will be fun going back to work.

We went to bed and watched Stephen Fry’s languages. Oh Stephen, the lost languages. Iris, Basque, and some French language. I mean it is all very lovely to keep traditions going and old ways in practice, but I couldn’t help but think did I really care?

Apparently, in the next one hundred years English will merge with Chinese and we will all be speaking Chinglish.

I can’t help but wonder, when I listen to people speaking in foreign tongues, what English would sound like if I couldn’t understand it.

No Exercise, Just Eating And Shopping

I head to the supermarket primarily for coffee, but also for a “big breakfast” ingredients. It is that fresh windy humid overcast morning, as I head down the road to Woolies.

I am hungry when I get there, and I question my choice to head to the food shop before eating in the morning. It’s like sending a paedophile to a kindergarten, or a fat chick to a donut shop, what do you think is going to happen? I circle the fruit department coming back to the one point to eat the grapes. A couple of grapes straight up, one from each of the varieties on offer, as though I am attempting to make an informed choice. Then it was off the get tomatoes. Then back around, looking vaguely at other items as though I am contemplating at least a few of them. Ha ha. More grapes. A quick eye over to the checkouts to see that the check out chick isn’t just standing there and gazing in my direction, I laugh, as if. And a quick check on the location of the fruit and veg boy. Then it is paper bag and mushrooms, then back around in an arc and more grapes. Then loose spinach, and back again on this last circle and another grab at a handful of grapes, I wonder if there are cameras? I gaze to the ceiling and see that there are. I momentarily wonder if they may stop me as I try to leave. I decide to cease my grapefest and head out of the fruit and vegi dept.

Garlic and herb sausages from the meat department, four hashbrowns from the deli and then off home.

Sam cooks up the big breakfast. I make coffee.

I begin to write up my journal for the previous two days. Sam sits next to me with his new iPad3 and admires how clear and crisp the screen is.

“Isn’t it lovely,” he says.

“Oh yes.”

“Look, look, see how lovely it is?”

“Oh yes.”

“I don’t believe you are really appreciating how lovely the new screen is.”

“Oh yes.”

Sam watches YouTube China has Talent, or the like, tapping me for my attention any time I look away.

I’m trying to think?

Tap tap tap, look look look, look at this?

What happened Friday?

Look look look. Tap, tap, tap.

You understand that China has Talent, has plenty of talent with 2 billion people to select from. Some of it was just amazing. Little kids dancing to Michael Jackson. Divas singing Whitney Houston. Magic acts where women change clothes as a hoop is passed over them, or where gold fish are choreographed by hand movements.

Of course, there is a logical explanation, I’m buggered if I know what it is, but I know there is one.

Sam had a gift card for Myer and Myer were having their one day sale. “Let’s spend some money,” he said. He rubbed the tips of his fingers together on both hands and smiled the grin of the expectant. He likes to shop, he's a true 21st Century boy. I've always found shopping boring, and thought it was something to keep the stupid entertained, a true win for the captains of business, keep the idiots spending... and so often on things they don't even want. But, I don't so much mind it with him. What does that say?

We walked into town. It was a sunny day, even if the threat of rain had not completely disappeared. The Grand Prix was on, the mosquitos were loud in the distance, evading everything we were doing, on it’s course to make a lot of money for so few while inconveniencing many and entertaining a handful. Bernie’s bogun billionaire bitch will be happy.

Went to the Shanghai dumpling café. We had siu long bao steamed Shanghai dumplings and fried dumplings. Yum yum yum. Fifteen of each. I could eat dumplings all day. “Give me another fifteen, please.” No, not really, but I could have.

We went to Myer, to buy Biotherm, apparently you got double points. Really? Double points? Quizzical look? Double points? Aren't you just buying cream for your face? What were the double points? To what? Hands in the air, confused look.

I sat on the impossibly dainty white leather, er vinyl, chair, low back, chrome stand and foot rest in amongst the white décor of the impossibly white ground floor of Myer as Sam negotiated his beauty product purchase with the bedecked in perfect white shop assistant… er, beauty consultant. There were white tiles as far as I could see and shiny, expectant, painted faces peering into potions, lotions, sprays, paints and lacquers... all with the look of anticipation of something better?

There were two other boys joking with one of the other consultants. Laughing, joking, rubbing creams on various body parts, being animated and fabulous.

Then we went up in the lift to level 7. On one floor, some fat chick ran towards the open lift doors.

“Is that gong down?”

“No.” I shook my head.

Deflated fat face expression. “Is it going up?”

“No luv,” the doors slid to a close. “It’s going round and round.” The people in the lift laughed.

I love Myer the top level. The natural light is gorgeous from the large windows and the semi glass ceiling. The Lonsdale Street shop is now demolished back completely. It gave me a great vantage point to take some photos of the facade that was left standing.

I parked myself in the book section, with all the gorgeous light flooding into me from the huge windows, as Sam went off and looked at "gadgets," as I like to call them. He's such a gadget head. Remembering, that the top floors of Myer are where all the electrical stuff is sold.

I started reading Adrian Zumbos amazing desert book, some of the stuff he does is incredible, even if you feel like you might need a degree in cooking before you can attempt half of it.

Then I was taken with Merle Parrish’s, Merle’s kitchen, which seemed so much easier. Easier isn’t quite the right expression. Adriano Zumbo’s book is a rocket ship to the moon. Merle’s is home sweet home.

I was half way through Merle’s story when Sam returned.

“Come on, let’s go.”

“Oh, um, but I want to find out what happened to Merle?”

“Do you want me to buy the book for you?”

“No.” I put the book back on the shelf. “Let’s go.”

We went to the Taiwanese and Hong Kong desert shop. OMG! A desert shop? Do you believe it? Yum, yum, yum.  We had mango sago and green tea ice cream, mixed pudding which consisted of chocolate, mango, herb and bean curd pudding and pearls, which I liked, but Sam says he can take them or leave them. Yum, yum, yum, big bowls pudding with two spoons, pig fucken heaven.

We came home, watched Top Gear. I’ve seen it before, a few times. It was the one with the Focus RS vs Renault Megane Sport. I remember it as the Megane Sport is the car I want next and, in fact, would be the car I had now if I hadn’t pissed all the money away um, er, pissing life away over the last eight months. It was also the Top Gear where the confiscated white Evo is fired on as it is driven through the army practise field by Jeremy Clarkson. A nonsensical law where cars of hoons, or criminals, or drug dealers are confiscated and destroyed as a part of the eradication of the proceeds of crime, like destroying an object would, actually, change anyone’s behaviour. At the very least, the assets could be sold and the money could go to the government… or me for, Xists sake. Ha ha.

Shane went out to some work girl’s dinner. It was just him and the girls, it was Serena’s 40^th birthday, I think. I’m not exactly sure what, as I think she has had multiple events – you know as the dumb and the nouveau riche drug dealing types do – to mark the immanent/post nuptials. The more bells and whistles the more “special” it all is and the greater the sign that you have “made” it, baby (All financed through illegal drug dealing, which could, and probably will, collapse at any moment) Whatever any of that, actually, means.

The scene was complete with stretch Hummer and Karaoke and twelve drunk chicks crying out for attention.

We left the repeat of Top Gear and went to the supermarket to get the ingredients for our house pasta. Spaghetti, onion, garlic, crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, Kransky double smoked sausage, parmesan cheese.

We cooked the Kransky sausage pasta and watched Two and half men. Sam was primarily in charge of cooking the sauce, while I supervised and cooked the pasta.

We watched Graham Norton. It was all boys. The legendary Gerard Depardieu, the smooth actor Damien Lewis, the cute and toothy, X Factor runner up Olly Murs and the handsome actor Dominic West.

Gerard Depardieu was particularly funny in his broken English, very French straightforward honesty and earthy way. There is not enough earthiness in our world today, there is too much conservatism.

We went to bed and watched An Idiot Abroad. Sam says he is just like me, a whiney pants. “This one is for you, complainer,” as Sam says.