Shamed Into It

They played poka and slot machines on their iPhones all afternoon, Tim, Mary and Nicholas. Mary and Tim more than Nicholas, but that was mostly because Nicholas had been locked out of his favourite game, than any sort or propriety. He can be a real hothead when he gets fired up, which belies his normal easy going personality. He got abusive and then he couldn’t log in any more. He had a hard time believing he had been banned, but it seemed obvious to the rest of us.

Sam’s face went bright red from the alcohol. I was maggotted when the joints I had been smoking, rather meanly I thought, in front of Nicholas – but he’s given up forever, so they say, – hit me. Tim noticed my out of it spin. "Oh whoosh." I won’t be able to speak, if I keep this up. The keyboard game playing seemed to accelerated, after that, as Sam and I took up our spastic pose on the couch together. Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee.

Mary is full of stories. I seem to remember Tim and Nicholas thinking she was a compulsive liar, at one time. I seem to remember that Tim never really liked her. So, it is a surprise to see her as their new best friend. Consequently, it is hard to listen to all the… um… stories she goes on with. They never seem to ring true, she seems like she is making them up as she goes, but that may well be because of the base level at which they are pitched.

They left early evening.

We went to bed at 11pm, I was knackered. Munted. Putrid. Fucked!

It was nice to lie in bed and not hear the exhaust fan from Establishment X.



I woke up at 7.30am. We'd gone to bed with the balcony doors open and the fan on, so I woke sometime in the early hours feeling cold. I pulled the doona over me, but I just tossed and turned after that until I had to give in, acknowledge I was awake, and get out of bed.

I turned off the fan and closed the balcony doors, as the bin truck would arrive before long, clanging and crashing the bottles into its great, gaping mouth, so Sam wouldn’t be woken by it.

Buddy was straight up at the back door as soon as I was moving things around in the kitchen. Let me in.

Sebastian is coming at midday to pick up Shane’s stuff and I want the kitchen tidy so I can tell Sebastian that Shane was the pig. Which he kind of was. I think my measure of being a pig is one’s ability to keep the backbench in the kitchen clear of rubbish. That achieved, it’s job done in my book. So you see, the bar isn’t set so high.

Sam gets up not all that long after me.

Sam is in “get things done” mode. It is distracting to smoking joints and writing my journal. Goodness me, sit down and write something, I think.

Sam gave me Buddy’s worm tablet. Buddy was sound asleep next to me. “I’ll give it to him when he wakes up.”

“Buddy?” said Sam. The hound didn’t budge. Sam walked to the dog draw in the atrium and squeaked Buddy’s favourite squeaky toy. He bounced into alert action.

“Give Buddy his worm tablet,” said Sam.

Sam was cleaning the study by 10.30am, restlessly wandering the house trying to find chores to do. I think that he thinks that my idea of cleaning the house is too much at a glacial pace for his liking.

I’m trying to type my blog and eat my muesli. Cleaning?

He is persistent. He bought out a pile of papers and asked, “What are you going to do with these?”

“Oh, don’t start doing that,” I implored. “They are for shredding.”

In the next five minutes, he bought out the shredder and pointed at the pile of papers.

I rolled a joint and turned towards the shredder, just as the vacuum in the study switched off, just in the nick of time I was at my station, whir sounded the shredder...

We end up cleaning the study, I'm shamed into it. It was spotless when we finished. We had moved "some" rubbish out of the old joint in these last few weeks. We rearranged the atrium and study cupboards, and low and behold, all those pesky things on the floor, for the past five years, have a home. It only ever needs a tidy.

It is hot again by midday. Who can work in that?