Laneway

I Need a Day Off

I was up in time and left at the normal time, 9am. Lovely isn’t? I mean I didn’t sleep in, today, for whatever reason may have caused that. He, he. 2am shut eye? Surely not? What are you saying? My third alarm was set on 8.15, so I straightened that out. I’m always worried about sleeping in a again. No, I guess that is something I have got over.

I sneaked out for more cigarettes, feeling naughty. Funny how times change. Once it was perfectly acceptable to go out for a smoke, but now it is frond upon. I don’t think tolerated at all in temps. I think-those-who-winge (read conservative) are getting the upper hand.

(my boss) didn’t say anything, but I wondered on one occasion out on Collins Street, shootin’ the breeze, watching in awe of the building work going on across the street, if she was saying to (the HR Girl),

“Where does he keep going?”

I laughed because I didn’t care.

My boss is the busy-busy-busy, no-time, not-enough-time, where-did-the-time-go types. She’s super mum with a no hoper husband, hand over mouth, from the phone conversations I’ve over heard.

She instructs me once, badly. She’s not so amazingly articulate. I’ve made mistakes, continue to do so.

Yeah, I can pick them. Maybe Smoking Brenda wasn’t so bad. I just get the feeling that she doesn’t like me so much. My boss, not Smoking Brenda. It’s a bit unnerving, it causes forced errors, because I am always second guessing myself.

Just think, I could now go out and gaze at the wasteland with Smoking Brenda. Be still my beating heart.

I must stop smoking. How did that happen?

Sam and I met on the corner of Russell Street and La Trobe. I sat on the old jail steps, it was quite nice sitting there. We managed to both get to the same corner for once. Yay, for us! I went to Exhibition, he went to Spring. Except, I was mistaken and I was, actually, on Russell Street. Another time it was Exhibition and Lonsdale and Latrobe and Exhibition. We keep getting it wrong, and mostly it seems to be me who get’s it wrong.

Sam and I went to the supermarket to by dinner. We made quiche, third attempt. The last two have leaked egg on the way to the oven, in my old two piece tin, so we bought a new flan tin. White. Porcelain. We had a salad, with the usual argument about putting tomatoes in it. Sam likes a strictly Green Salad, where I like loading it up with extras. He especially hates that dry bean mix which I am so fond of.

When we first met I put raw mushrooms in the salad and he thought I was some kind of weirdo, he told me later.

We managed it today with tomato and avocado and he had to admit afterwards that the avocado was good in the salad. Funny, because he is always yipping on about “layers” and “body” in food.

Shane and Tuli barely came out of Shane’s room. Just a shadow in the kitchen, at a few moments. A breath, a breeze. A scuff on the floor.

And Then Life Can Just Get Easier

I made mistakes at work today. I think I caught them all. I’m sure.

It’s just a phase I am going through. What do they care, they get to take time off for sick kids. Oh yes, I’m not permanent. I keep forgetting that one.

I deleted a whole file. Idiot. But I didn’t do my usual own up to it, pathetic squawk, I simply recreated the whole complicated spread sheet, zip, done.

(bosses name) doesn’t give me any warmth. None. I’m beginning to feel uncomfortable with her, just a little, like my time in the house is up. Bye bye Collins Street.

Am I bonged-over and uncommunicative?

I figure I get to ask one question once. You know, there never was a dumb question, just the dummy who didn’t ask it. I can’t read my boss’ expressions. I don’t need to be told again, generally. And I don’t make mistakes – unless I have been smoking pot – generally, but lately I don’t know if she is looking at me like a I’m a dummy, or if she has Botox injections, paralysis of the face, simple she has a very blank expression.

I sneaked out for two cigarette breaks. Fuck it. I always think that no one notices what I do, so I do take a few liberties, you know like a permanent salt picker would be entitled to, but not a temp salt picker.

The full disaster, like a pariah, tossed onto the street. Oh god, back out with them, how did this happen. Oh yes, mari.

I bought cigarettes on the way home. It was chilly. I photographed the elephants in the park.

I made tea and headed to my room.

I had pot to smoke

Shane and Tuli went out.

I was smoking pot on the balcony.

Shane called out from the street. I was sitting on the balcony with my laptop smoking a reefer. I didn’t want my hideout to be discovered. Sitting on my balcony I am the most number of doors away from people as I can get. So waited a moment until I could hear Shane on the front path, I pushed my French Doors open and stood up. I knew he would be paying so close attention to pick it.

“I’m locked out.”

He didn’t pay attention, he was looking at his reflection in the car window… and it was only ever about Shane’s access to the house that was the issue.

“Yes, yes, coming, coming.”

I swung the door open with a smile.

“I thought it was better to get the key before I left, but for you are sleeping, or something neryuk neryuk, neryuk.”

“Oh… yes… ha, ha, ho, ho.”

Not a word, nothing. Have I’ve got some thing to tell you, ask you, whatever. Nothing.

Shane and Tuli went out.

I made baked beans and toast. And a cup of tea, of course.

I drink a lot of coffee at work, I must ask someone if that is okay and that if it is indeed “open slather” as I am treating it. Have coffee machine, will drink coffee.

I smoked pot.

I spoke to Anthony on the phone. He thinks he’s had another stroke, he lost the use of his hand for a week. I told him to go to the doctor. He said he had, and he has to go for tests on a Monday appointment.

That’s what he was trying to tell me, when I brushed him off because of the cold. I’m a top notch friend.

Then I catch myself home alone taking photos of Ray on Big Brother, locked away in my room, wasted, and I wonder if I am going completely mental. I like messing around with images, it gives me photoshop practice.

I lay in bed and watched The Big Bang Theory. I love Sheldon.

Shane and Tuli came home.

I went down stairs and got all of my mum’s bills out. And made tea. I called my sister about some mail that had been sent to me and not to her. We discussed my mortgage and she has discussed it with my brother and I’m going to get most of my mortgage paid off.

Yay!

I made more tea.

We sold an investment property, the money is available. My brother and sister don’t care.

I won’t have to have any more housemates, if I don’t want. Although I probably should, reduced work means reduced superannuation payments too, you know, for later. You have to think about that stuff. Apparently?

Two housemates would now pay my mortgage. Maybe one housemate. He he.

I wrote out the cheques and the dreaded envelopes, and wondered if I’d be better off with internet banking for my mum, with a whistle and a can do demeanour. It would make things easier.

Life was gong to be easier.

I blew a joint before I spoke to the computer lady, and had to push all those buttons on telephone banking, because it helps me to focus narrowly, and the chore becomes a float on a breeze. I do a little dance as I push each button.

I went in and asked Shane to witness my, apparently lost, privacy statement for work. Not a peep about the wedding. I‘ve been meaning to send it back by return post but I keep forgetting about the witness. Grrr!

All done, just like that. Funny how the things you put off, are sometimes the easiest to fix.

The First Buds of Spring

The Walking Dead?

I woke up at 9am, 8.50. I had woken up with my alarm at 7am, to lie in bed listening to the radio until 8am, with three alarms going off at various times, but I must have fallen back to sleep. Clearly!

I felt so stoned walking down X Street this morning. Thick headed, light sensitive eyes, creaking, maybe I had over done it last night.

The walk to work usually airs out the brain, marching into work clears it, even a head ache.

But this morning?

Good I was clunking.

9.15 as I am heading down the street. The end of the street was getting closer. Please, please tram do not just sail passed as I get to the end of the street, not this morning. I crossed over Victoria heading to my tram stop. As I got to the platform I looked down the hill and could see a tram just about to arrive. Yay!

Please don’t be there! I’d left my phone at home so I didn’t actually know what time it was. Please don’t be there. I turned the corner of the office and her seat was empty. Yay!

“(bosses name) won’t be in…” said rat-faced (HR girl’s name).

Tell me the brat had died… “Oh?” concerned face. Always sticking your nose into everything, always has to be the fixer. HR to her sensible panty liners. I gazed at (HR girl’s name)

“She has to take her sick child to the doctor, she will be in in an hour or so.”

The first email said no barista this morning. Will this day ever end! I’m going to get a coffee. I might just walk back to Collins Place and get one of those pineapple muffins of which I am so fond. I’ve got an hour, after all. Let's hope there is a queue at the doctor.

She had left me an assigned task. Great.

Got the muffin.

Got the coffee.

Did the work.

Read the internet.

Just when I predicted she would be in, I started some filing. A few minutes later she walked in.


I ate Indonesian with Sam.

“You have red marks under you nose as though you have a cold. You got a cold, baby?”

“The sniffles,” he said.

Really, I thought. I don’t remember you having a cold.

Or, let’s face it, they were the type of marks you’d get from sniffing amyl.

(bosses name) told me in the afternoon that she had phoned Jack when I was in Brighton and told him, pretty much, that she didn’t care who the temp was, as long as she had one for September. She was just calculatedly looking after her interests, she was just making sure that she got what she wanted. Fair enough. But, it made me think, I’m just a temp and I shouldn’t get above my station.

Just in case I got to feel too warmly about myself.
I made tea and headed to my room.

I had pot to smoke.

I watched Big Brother.

Shane and Tuli went out.

I smoked pot.

I made baked beans and toast.

I smoked pot.

Anthony called. I gave him short shift as it was cold in the kitchen.

I made more tea.

I turned the light out at 1am.

Men Kissing

The roller door went nuts, has thrown a cog, or something. BARP! BARP! Crunch, crunch, groan, rattle rattle. Then the motor spins but doesn’t engage.

Yay!
I’ve got rego due and car insurance due the last day of the month. I was gong to renegotiate my $1000 comprehensive insurance, to 3^rd party, I hope, for a few hundred dollars. The car is now insured at the vale of $8000, it doesn’t make any sense to be paying over a tenth of it’s value each year. I’ve never had an accident, although I did have my last one go p in flames. Oh, that would still be covered.

The last day in Brighton. I left home at 8.15, it took me an hour. The sun was shining, it was a lovely day. It’s nice to be out in that sort of day.

I don’t know if it is little jobs, with just as many little things as big jobs, but it always seems to take longer than I expect.

It is because I have only worked there twice, a fortnight apart. The pressure is on because their anticipation is that I get it done in 4 hours.

Today I went too far forward and completed the job, before the finance director approve it all. And there were changes and I had to pull it all back, I restored the system back, which it didn’t seem to like. And then some changes deleted and some didn’t and I was flying by the seat of my pants juggling it all in the air and I completed it all again without my usual rebalances. I’m pretty sure I got everything, but now I’m not really sure. I can’t really remember.

All I wanted to do was get home smoke a joint and go and get a haircut, I’ve been feeling like a gorilla. Euw!

I did. I got it all pulled together at work today. I work methodically, I don’t miss stuff. But it was sloppy at the end, I know that.

Let’s just hope that it wasn’t too sloppy.

Stop being paranoid. You were hungry. I was hungry. It is a part of the expectation of a 4 hour job. I should have had lunch and spent the day, it that’s what it takes, fuck their expectations.

I wonder if I am allowed any failures.

Of course, I know the answer to that, failures are not allowed.

I went and bought “Discreet” and had a hair cut. It was my usual barber, one removed. You see, there are two of them. So this is my second usual, rapidly becoming my usual usual. I’ve always though he was sexy, in a bear, fat boy kind of way. He’s always had an air about him, a way. Well, anyway, I managed to fit in two joints before I went. No one was home, it was nice. And I just closed my eyes and let him push my head around with his deft touch. It felt nice being moved and controlled and completely under the power of another man. You know, in a gentle, intimate, okay romantic if you like, kind of way. I enjoyed the rest after a stressful morning with a client. It was nice to wander off to dream land in safety.

Well, at the end of the hair cut, he got the blow dryer and the brush and he gently and tenderly blow waved my hair, every hair, starting with and paying particular attention to my part, that seemed to take time and require close concentration and intimacy. I closed my eyes and it felt good.

He has cut my hair many times and he has never done that.

At the end he said, kind of breathlessly, “Do you like?” Like it meant something to him. His eyes smiled the most when I told him that I did. My hair looked truly awful, but I smiled sweetly and he believed me.

Shane and Tuli were home when I got home.

I made a cup of tea and headed to my room. I guess I should have called out, yoohoo, maybe I should have, but as it was, they didn’t appear as I cleaned up the kitchen as the kettle boiled. As I read the mail, or looked at the bills.

I made several cups of tea after that, they didn’t make an appearance.

They left just as the light in the street had started to fade, although it was still light. Shane used to always slam the door, always, hail, rain, or shine. Now I don’t hear it.

I warmed up rice noodles from Sunday night.

Pretty much, I was smoking pot in my room, I don’t care this week. I’m more than comfortably with the world locked out, but that is nothing new.

Just Thinking It All Through

Oh yes, did I tell you, things are happening. The end of an era, quite possibly the end of a friendship. I’ve got to wonder?

Well, it all really started when Mark and Luke arrived, so on the first night they were here, Shane responded to Mark and Luke’s asking him how he was, by saying he was getting married in a few weeks and moving to London to live in six weeks.

I had just left the room when he said it… I think. Not really, that sure. I heard it in passing. All he had told me thus far was that he was going at the end of the year.

Getting married? Really? In all the discussions in the lounge room on gay marriage, which are always against it, I don’t think he ever said how he felt? All my friends think that marriage as an intuition is a failure and why would we want to do it, when the most likely outcome would be divorce. Look at the stats. That was weird, I thought. Sure, he went on all those Equal Love rallies, but that was just something to fill in his life, until his co-dependency turned up.

The other weird thing is that I haven’t heard it mentioned again. I tried to engage him on the topic, but he passed it off, left the room, I’m not sure.

So, Mark and Luke were here on the 17th August

Tuli has been here for a week. Shane has never told me when any of his boyfriends have been going to stay. At best, he tells me when he is leaving for the airport to pick them up. Mark W and Matt practically lived here.

So, this is two weeks later and Tuli is here and he hasn’t said a word.

I know I got over it the last argument we had about the fire place in his room. A beautiful, 100 year old fire place, which he boarded up with ply wood and pieces of pine, with his bed pushed up against it, head height at the cast iron and tile insert, which he seemed to think was perfectly protected by the ply. Then there were lengths of pine placed across from each pillar on either side, on top of which he had piled a heap of cushions.

He ignored me completely when I said he couldn’t use the fire place as a bead head. The second time I bought it up, he exploded in rage and told me how grumpy I was.

(David might agree… but it was a completely different thing)

After that, I did just think a few times, in the recesses of my brain, how would I ask him to move out? Not really, but it did cross my mind.

So, I have heard nothing about the marriage. Nothing. Zip. Don’t you think that is strange?

But, you know, shrug. He has never really included me in his life, not really. So often, no. He often used to talk about his friends, not our friends. Even when he was going out with friends, friends of both of ours, he’d just say he was going out for dinner.

David always blabs.

He’s always said on drugs that he loves living here, he never said he loved living with me.

There was the ten years where I never saw him when he had boyfriends, Campbell and Mark.

I really have to remember that Shane only ever thinks about Shane. (Do we all?)

He used to close my bedroom door whenever I was away up at Bolago. No heat would get into my room, it was always a refrigerator when I got home. He kept doing it even when I told him the problem. “But my bedroom is freezing when I get home.”

I seem to attract the type. But, you know we have been friends for twenty years, of all the people I have lived with, Shane is the longest.

How has it turned into this? How did it turn into this? Go on, off you go. I have lived with many people in this house, they come and they go. You know, that is the sad bit, I’m not even sure any longer if Shane even likes me?

I knew last year, when he and Sebastian turned up ripped of their heads at 9.40 to my 7pm sit down birthday dinner, when they were bringing the desert. And then they were objectionable to just about everybody there, thinking they were being awfully clever. Knives were thrown, literally. They made up a gluten free trifle, from ingredients they bought at 7 11 on the way, which was just inedible. They used a stale chocolate gluten free crap muffin, which looked like, well…

Antony famously quipped, in his drunken stupor, surprise, “There is pate in the trifle.” Head tilt. “This trifle is made from pate?” Turning to me. “Is that usual, he slurred. “Pate.” Grimace. “In a trifle? There’s been some sort of mistake.” He looked down at his bowl and then looked back at me. “Surely?”

It is Shane’s birthday tonight and he hasn’t said anything. (28th August) Nothing. Admittedly I came home this afternoon and headed to my bedroom straight away. But that just means I’m in my room. He always does something for his birthday, but not a word.

His previous boyfriends have lived here practically, moved in, took over monopolised the house, for so long that it got too much for poor Tim and Tim now hates Shane’s guts. 

“I’ve never met someone so self focussed and so rude as him,” said Tim

Shane’s ex boyfriend Matt said recently, “I don’t believe a word that comes out of his mouth.”

Actually, all of his exboyfriends seem to dislike him, you know, you got a wonder because of that, if going to live in London with a boy who you have never lived in the same house with, let alone the same city, is a clever move? As nice as Tulli seems?

Shane turned my spare room into an art studio without ever asking, as well as storing all of his junk there. And then later when I wanted to have friends stay he grumbled about cleaning it up.

He broke my dvd player

He broke the kitchen draw.

He broke the tiles in the kitchen and the bathroom.

He spilled shampoo into the carpet and never cleaned to up.

He never offered to fix any of these things. And I didn’t ask him to, I figure that it is wear and tear on the house.

(I’m giving myself a character reference, if the meaning seems at all unclear. Is that backwards?)

Now all of this sounds fairly petty, I know, but I do believe this is his home too and I have complained about very little over the years.

Oh, I’m just trying to work it out.

I admit I have spent a lot of time in my room lately, I’ve been trying to write. It is a bad habit I got into over winter. And, quite often, Shane wouldn’t be home from work until 8pm anyway.

He has been spending the majority of weekends in Sydney.

So, I don’t know, if it is me, but, Shane has no real reason not to invite me to his wedding. I so don’t want to go, but that’s not the point, I’d rather stick pins in my eyes, but weddings are what friends do. Smile.

Over the last six months, twelve months I have had stuff to worry about. Out of a job. Starting again. Sam. You know, sometimes it is just about me.

The truth is that I don’t think I even like... Whatever. I hope I don’t get the big heavy talk on the way out. OMG! Shane’s modis to operandi is to bottle it all up until he explodes (with the aid of alcohol). Oh… kill me now! I’m going to get the big dressing down, as a last measure. I’m not sure how I am going to get through that one with a straight face.

Oh, I know, I could never afford to be a Christian, it would be straight to hell for sure.

Of course, it does have to be mentioned here that the common denominator in the alarming drop in the number of my friends, more recently, does seem to be me, myself.

I should call David, he’d know all the details. She’s a stickler for details, that is for sure.

He’s probably fucken flower girl. Oh yes, anything that shines a little light on him, he’d be in. Mum’s the fucken word. “Oh, I love secrets. Isn’t this fresh. Can we talk about me again?”

He’s always good for after the event, the post mortem. Busts his arse to drop by and spread his evil fairy dust into the wash up.

I Must Learn Tai Chi

Mark 10:17 AM

Today is lovely as well... I was watering the pots in the nude this morning... me was in the nude... not the pots...

First up, the concierge was asking me about my extension number. I grimaced and said I didn’t know. He wanted to put a call through to me and wasn’t so please with my answer, I don’t think. We finally got the number and he tried to put it through and it didn’t work. It didn’t work a second time, to some annoyance of the concierge. He didn’t say anything, he smiled the whole time, but I could pretty much tell from the way he thrust his mobile phone into my hand.

All the time I hadn’t cottoned on, I remind fairly oblivious throughout proceedings, I was just aware that there was some sort of angst happening around me. Do you think it had anything to do with the pot I had smoked over the weekend?

All I got was, You’re Christian Fletcher. I had only just got there, I hadn’t spoken to anyone as yet, you know, not in coherent sentences.

Anyway, suddenly I had a mobile in my hand, just as all the, as they say, pennies fell into place, “Oh… thank you.”

“Hi Christian, it’s Jill, I’ve got the day off and want to have lunch with you.”

“Oh… um…” Good grief! “No… I can’t.” I’d have to call Sam and cancel, to and fro, to and fro. “I don’t get a lot of time for lunch.”

“Oh… okay then.”

Hang up.

Now, it wasn’t quite that abrupt, but something like it. I got a coffee and changed the surroundings. When I got back to my desk I thought, I’ve got to stop doing that, saying no when, for whatever reason, it feels too hard.

I picked up the phone and called Jill. “Hey… um… sorry. I get half an hour for lunch, I meet Sam on the corner of Bourke and Swanston streets, at 12.30. Can you be there by 12.30?”

“Yes,” said Jill. “Sure I can.”

“You wont be late?”

“No.”

“See you at 12.30.”


I felt like a cigarette. I was trying to scheme how to have it before lunch, before I saw Sam and Jill. As I walked over to the 7 11 pondering, and I sized up the power pole for some shelter, I thought fuck it! I’m an adult. And I promptly bought a packet of Styvos. Lit it in broad day light and Marched down Bourke Street. I smoked it as I walked up to Jill.

“You are smoking?” She sounded incredulous. Big mouth.

“Mark and Luke have been and I’ve been smoking pot and… voila!”

“I bought you these,” said Jill. “Take no notice of the prices as marked, I got them cheap.”

She has been walking her credit card across the internet again. I’d say it was an addiction, but I heard an immanent group of doctors say there was no such thing as addiction, just excuses for bad behaviour. The vast majority of people get over what they once called an addiction.

Sam walked up next.

“Both here, Christian smoking,” said Jill.

Sam looked at the cigarette in my hand and then he looked at me without changing the expression on his face. “Very impressive,” he said deadpan.


It was the first time since I have been back at work that I sneaked out and had an afternoon smoke. Wow! Is that even legal anymore?

Somehow I felt guilty about it all afternoon, in case (colleague’s name) smelt the smoke on me. But, she said her partner smoked, so she may not differentiate. Hopefully.

Guilty. Paranoia. Energy. Flowing.

Christian 5:48 PM

Nude pot, you say

Mark 5:49 PM

no silly...

5:49 PM

i was nude...

5:50 PM

nuddy... without clothes'es

Christian 5:50 PM

he he he

5:51 PM

not in Hanoi, now, hey

Mark 5:55 PM

no... whaaah… i miss them all sooooo much

Christian 5:56 PM

You're luck, you have the best of both worlds

Mark 5:56 PM

yes I do… aren't I spoilt…

Shane and Tuli were on the couch in the lounge room when I got home. There was no tell tale smell of smoke in the air, they were eating oranges, for God’s sake. They were looking deep into one another’s eyes. I made a cup of tea and headed to my room, keen for a splif.

You know when you have smoked a shit load of dope, the wanking starts.

I made spaghetti Bolognese, with the left over of Luke’s Bolognese sauce. I know Mark says it all the time, but I think it was the nicest Bolognese sauce I have ever tasted.

I emailed him and asked him for the recipe, I’m sure he will answer, a bit of this a bit of that, surely I don’t need to give you a recipe for Bolognese, Christian?

I must start learning Tai Chi again. Apparently, it is good for you when you are old... and I'm feeling old. I used to do it when I was a teenager and I loved it. It shouldn't be hard to pick it up again. Surely. And need to do some exercise, I'm getting really fat.

I Made Muesli in the Afternoon

We are awash with dope. All the inmates are partaking. Is that a celestial line up, the planets forming some sort of ordered pattern (of stones) there by exerting its power over our basic instincts… read weakness?

The sun is shining. It is a beautiful blue sky day.

Shane and Tuli are high on crack… and quiet hidden in the shadows, lurking at the periphery, shadows never seen. Just a gust of air to tell of them being.

That may also have been a feature of their relationship?

They have a week off.

Mark and Luke are home. They leave me rolling joints for breakfast. They’d deny it, almost certainly claiming that I am a first class pothead and it takes so little to influence me, any of us.

I stand before you, your honour, and present the evidence, eight months with no smoking, the moment Mark and Luke gets here everybody falls off the wagon.

Splat!

I had to go buy tobacco for joints, we were out of fags, it was my first priority. I looked in the bathroom mirror and what I saw wasn’t salvageable with just a plash of water, and I was straight in that shower, without a second thought.

It is amazing what motivates you?

I’d already smoked the joint that I rolled at the end of the night. Sam remembered it.

It was lovely being scrubbed and dressed and put together out in the day light walking some where with purpose in the lovely honey-warm Sunday morning sun… a bit stoned.

Whoosh!

I have been walking around to that shop for twenty years, as long as some kids have been alive, I thought, in the unusually quiet morning on Gertrude Street. Twenty years, as long as twenty year olds have been alive. Their entire lives, I have been constantly walking the same path. I wondered if I should feel sad?

Then, when I got to the shop, as if to highlight this very point, they had moved the counter back to its original position that it was in when I first moved into the area.

Mark 12:30 PM

mornin fletchy

Christian 12:48 PM

morning m

We walked down to Victoria Street and ate Thai soup. Yum. Sunshine and soup.

We went to Woollies in Victoria Street. Don’t you hate going to a supermarket you are unfamiliar with? You never know where anything is, despite Woollies claiming that all of their supermarkets are laid in the same way. (or was that Safeway?)

I made muesli in the afternoon. I like making muesli, it’s like getting your hands into the dirt. It feels raw. Going back to scratch. When I tip the rolled oats into the bowl, it looks like virgin soil, looks like a barren field. Apricots are first, diced into cubes. Small amounts of apricot adds to the hue, weaves into the fabric, rather than taking over all together. Then it is pepitas. Then processed bran. Add the sultanas. Plenty of sultanas. Heavy on the sultanas, they are cheap and good for you. Finally, pistachio nuts, cut in half.

Mark 5:10 PM

oh what a lubby lubbly dayee

Christian 5:50 PM

It was a lovely day here today too

Mark 5:51 PM

well that's always nice... sunny skies

Christian 5:52 PM

sunny skies

Sam cooked Pork Belly.

Big Brother. I think, I think, that Ray is the cute one in the house. Now, that either means the standard of men aren’t to my liking, or that Ray is just really cute, because he is not my type usually. He looks good in his undies. He’s got boyish enthusiasm and a handsome face.

It was just me and Sam. And a fire. And the lights turned down. And the cat.

Morning sun, walking to town

He had great hair

Good architecture

They looked like brothers

New & old, stone & gold

The Fire is Burning

I'm too stoned to care. I know, hang my head in shame.

Okay, so I was wrong about the weather. And I got depressed and needed some comfort? Ha ha, ho ho.

Mark and Luke have been back from OS all week. There's my influence, so I simply thought that if I can't beat them, join them.

It's been a week off prohibition, it's been good, I always feel happier. He he, ha ha, he he.

Mark and Luke head home today. They've been away for eight months, it's a long time. Mark is coming back for three weeks to renovate my house. My initial reaction was, You'll throw away all my stuff and spend all my money. But then I thought, if someone is going to do it and its not going to be me, why am I resisting? Idiot! Yes please. 

Now I can hardly wait.
It may translate into a complete clean up, washed walls, the works. The universe knows that someone has to do it. Mark is really good at fixing all those things, I look at and wonder how I am going to fix, seemingly in moments. He has already fixed a couple of things that have been on the five year plan.

The hand is quicker than the eye, hey presto!

How did you do that?

I'm Allergic To Them, I Tell You

I've already made an enemy of the HR girl, who sits right outside my office door, who never stops talking, and who tends to laugh at everything she, herself, has said. The busy, busy, run off her feet, "haven't got any time, sorry," types... who jumps to her feet and curtseys and bows and is up for a chat if ever there is someone to brown nose. She's had the job of emailing my time sheet, actually, she has taken in on. I've offered to do it myself, if she'd show me where, but she kind of insists. Then she leaves it on her desk and doesn't do it. I like to leave on a Friday afternoon knowing that my time sheet is safely on it's way to head office. Then I don't have to think about it anymore.

So two weeks running I've asked her for a second time if she has emailed it.
My boss left early yesterday, at 3pm, she has a sick child so, of course, she is allowed to do anything she likes. But she left without signing the time sheet, so I was back to Miss HR.

I thought I had better give her plenty of time, so I did at 4pm.

Ms HR signed it and put it aside.

"Can you email it for me?"

"Yes Christian." Roll of the eyes. "When I get a moment, don't worry I'll do it."

I was only asking, I thought.

So at 5pm I said, "Hey X how did you go with the time sheet?"

"You are a real pain in the arse about that time sheet, aren't you. Don't worry, I will do it and I will cc you and (my boss) in. Sheesh!"

"Okay thanks."

As I walked up Little Collins Street, I thought, her boss is the HR Director. I can just hear her telling him how she doesn't like me.

She's busy doing everything for everybody, in that normal nauseating HR way that they all have. "Can I help you?" Giggle, girlish shrug, big eyes, open mouth. And I dared to step in the way of her performance and she didn't like it. Anything that encroached on her juggling act of incompetence was to be loathed and derided.

My only question is, why? Why does it always have to be me? I decided on my walk up very stylish Little Collins Street that it must be me? You know, I've just got to wonder.

Turning to Spring

I think last night was the night that our weather changed from winter to spring. Overnight, it seems. It is gorgeous, it gives you hope. Suddenly everything is expansive and is no longer contracting with the winter cold. Today it is warm. This morning I walked through the park in just my t-shirt. It feels like winter has been put away and that summer is on its way.

Bitch Fight!

While I was following the cute guy yesterday, and not very well, as you can see, there was a girl on a bike who stopped at the pedestrian crossing when the light turned orange. Another girl on a bike coming down the road behind didn't see that the first girl on her bike had stopped at the lights until the last minute, at which point she jammed on her brakes and went straight over her handle bars and landed on the ground, like a bag of shit. Splat!

That would have made a much better photo, was all I could think.

As it turned out, the second girl got up off the ground really pissed at the first girl.

"The light was orange, you go through, you don't stop." Her voice was rising up through the volume levels. "Everybody knows that."

"I'm sorry," said the first girl. "Are you okay?"

"Oh fuck off, I have to get to work."

"Are you hurt?"

The second girl threw her hind of beef over her mount and pushed off, riding away. "Fuck you!"

So, the first girl, who was perfectly in the right, was gracious enough to apologise and enquire about the health of the second girl, who obviously wasn't concentrating on what she was doing, or watching where she was going. And what was the second girl's response to the generosity of the first girl? She abused her. She was pissed! She just got back on her bike and rode off, when the first girl was mid sentence.

We're funny, aren't we? Just lovely, us human beings? All she would have needed to do was to punch the first girl, pow! Or would that be thwack! That would have been perfect, right there in the middle of peak hour traffic. smack! Lovely!

The newspapers could have reported it as a Bikie Turf War.

"Anger erupts in peak hour. Ugly scenes as rival bike gang members  turn to violence!"

Except the protagonist here was a fat slapper in thick tights, rather than a tattooed behemoth named Killer. And quite possibly they'd be bitch slapping each other rather than using baseball bats.

But, I would have captured those images, don't you worry about that... as I watched all the straight boys slip their hands into the pockets of their trousers.

I did a little photography this morning. I need practice, as they are always able to walk faster than I can with a camera in front of my face

52 Pick Up

It did my head in today. It. The easy little job out in the burbs, it shouldn’t have been hard. And it wasn’t. But it was my first day, which is always slow. And it is nerve racking what I do, going in and picking up the work blind… what is that awful piece of corporate speak that falls from the over-made-up lips of HR girls and employment agents? Oh yes, hit the ground running. And I’m expected not to make any mistakes, in fact, I’m expected to do a faultless job. I’m also expected to enhance my own reputation with my own company in the process.
Dreamer Christian. The boy who filled his head with make believe, who chased rainbows rather than reality. The boy who could play with a balloon on a stick quite happily all afternoon, or prod leaf clogged drains in rain-flooded gutters making the water flow without a care, now goes into offices and “does the books.” Serious look. Very important.

It makes me laugh, when I think about it. How did that happen?

It took too long today and that always makes me feel useless and inept. But, you know, I sat with the permanent person for three hours a fortnight ago and I’ve been working at another company in between, is it any wonder I am a little slow when I come back to it. But, that thought doesn’t help to make me feel any more competent, you know.

And – to contradict it all – I was so relaxed I didn’t swan in until after 10.30.

I’ve just got to remember that it is always going to feel like playing 52 pick up. It is never going to feel relaxed and easy. That is just the way it is. But, you know, I’m good at scrambling around and pulling it all together. Today, fleetingly, I felt like I was not going to get it done, shiver, I’m not going to get it finished, it’s all going to morph into pooh. But then, eventually, the two white ears appear out of the rim of the top hat and pretty soon I’m handing over the bunny and reaching for my satchel and car keys.

I can always pick it when Anthony has had a day on the sauce, you know, because I am a genius.

Hi , the safest place for me to be right now is in bed , however i am cooking chichecin kiev and vevgies by requist , am i going to makr it thrtr 40 mins to go thamk god for ciggs . love you lots A(nthony)xxxx

Too Cute

I’m lying in bed this morning with 5 minutes to go, lovely and comfortable, when Sam comes running back into the room. He had got up earlier as he has to be at work, he likes to be at work early, where I don’t have to be at work at my current place of employment until 9.30.

“Quick, quick, the closing ceremony is on!”

I’m not sure that I looked convinced. Really? I’d watched the opening ceremony, I guess I might as well watch the closing ceremony but, grimace, do I have to watch it now?

“The Spice Girls are on.”

I nearly laughed. I think I did laugh. He seemed so earnest, my lovely boyfriend standing at the end of my bed enthusing about the Spice Girls at 8am on Monday morning. Too cute.

David Bowie, Kate Bush And Others Turn Down The Closing Ceremony To The Olympics

Those of you who watched this Sunday’s Olympics closing ceremony probably could have guessed this, but David Bowie, it seems, did turn down the chance to appear.

A cheaper production than July’s opening ceremony, it’s not hard to see why Bowie would have turned down the Olympics’ offer: his ‘Heroes’ may have served as the Great Britain team’s unofficial song, but with no Danny Boyle and a musical focus on pop of the Simon Fuller and Cowell eras, it was far from a classy showcase.

The Guardian report that as well as Bowie, The Sex Pistols, The Rolling Stones and the famously publicity-shy Kate Bush – whose single ‘Running Up That Hill’ was remixed and re-released as part of the closing ceremony’s official album – all turned down offers to perform, as, initially, did The Who. Interestingly, the games’ close also saw more viewers than the opening ceremony, though a Sunday night slot and the prior success of the games would have surely contributed to this.

End of The Week

It was cold again. The mornings have been cold all week. I’ve been wearing my trusty (cheap) black leather jacket. I wonder if it, actually, passes muster, or if people are secretly laughing behind their hands at me? No, it does. I'm being stupid, just because I got it cheap.

As I walk down, what would be called The Paris end of Fitzroy by a real estate agent tomorrow, I contemplate a casual wardrobe for a casual job that I might have. Ha, ha, anything, straws, clutching, for inspiration to go back into the lions den and get a permanent job.

The garden beds in The Fitzroy Gardens had just been top dressed with soil, or mulch, and they all looked so perfect as I walk passed. So much so that, not only do they catch my eye, they make me stop and look, as I head down the gentle incline from Albert Street. I took some photos, cursing yet again that my camera phone isn’t better.

I bought a pineapple muffin at Collins Place as I walked down Collins Street to work. I couldn’t help it, I knew I shouldn’t. The second morning in a row, too, bad Christian. Suddenly, I wanted it and I was navigating, as if despite myself in the direction of the muffin shop.

I was on time today. I thought I’d better. Smile. Blush. It is the least I could do. Jesus, I’ve got to worry about those things, I can’t be slack. Falling back into 9 to 5 is as easy as falling off a proverbial log. But, I’ve just got to remember that the bean counters are big on their 5 minutes. It is important, like something depends on it. Apparently, it means you are committed, or something? I dunno? I was never that good at those details. But, apparently, the world runs on them, that detail, tick, tick, tick.

You know, it is kind of nice to be back working. Casual clothes, walking distance, laid back company, what’s not to like. But it is more than that, it is gainful employment. It is something to do. It is people. It is new things. It is colour. It is movement. It is relief from the thought that I am wasting my life. Maybe, it s a cop out, a cave in, raising of the creative white flag… but, I’ll get back there, I promise, I promise no one more than I promise myself.

It is the end of the week. See. Easy. Friday. There you go.

I was meeting Sam after work, we were going to the Asian Grocer in Russell Street, to buy dinner. Shopping together on a Friday night. Cutesy, hh?

But (the girl I work with) had given my time sheet to the typically dopey HR chick to scan and email into (my company). She was dragging her feet and I had to wait for her to do it.

Tap, tap, tap.

How many times can I hurry her up, I think, after hurrying her up the first time? She sounded quite harassed when I pushed her. I stood in my office trying to look calm and relaxed?

Tap, tap, tap.

Your typical HR chick, all style and no substance, all talk and no action, all vacuous giggles and inclusiveness, but nothing underneath to back it up. All HR girls should be drowned at birth.

Finally she did it.

I had to push myself to say thank you. I dashed out the door.

I think it was raining as I headed down Russell Street to meet Sam. He had finished the shopping by the time I got there. He harrumphed. He had raised eyebrows and pursed lips.

“But, but, but…”

We walked home together.

It’s nice being back in the city though, meeting up with him after work again, like a real couple. Like a real couple. Smile. I’ll be suggesting we live together next.