Sam got in the shower, it seemed to take an inordinate amount of time for the water to start falling in the shower itself. I lay there listening to his morning noises.
I needed a piss.
I ran downstairs for a wee. I decided to get Buddy on my way back. It was freezing outside and even the few moments that it took him to rouse made my toes hurt with the cold. He then ran upstairs enthusiastically with me and jumped onto the bed.
As Sam got dressed, he chatted to me and Buddy watching on from the bed. And then he was gone. Buddy and I lay in bed for a while.
I made coffee and sat out the back and contemplated buying some pot. Now there is a good idea, I thought. I always get anxious at the process, wanting it to be over as soon as I think about it. I’m not really sure why.
The sun tried to shine. It weakly hit the ground. It had been raining, the ground was wet.
Then it started, two men with Chainsaws started cutting down Gordon’s garden starting with the palms out the back.
Grrrr! I went inside.
I played with my mixed dance tape, trying to get it to play sequentially, it didn’t seem to want to. I’d uploaded all the versions of each song off the single CDs that I had. Now I just had to go through them and only keep the versions that I liked. I didn’t expect the non sequential problem, so I’d need to go through it again for that as well as the version selection. This wasn’t supposed to take this long. It was just supposed to make my collection of singles easily listenable.
Tick tick tick, the morning was sprinting away.
I had a shower at 10am and took Buddy to the dog park. The ground was saturated with water. Of course, Buddy didn’t care about wet ground, just us human mortals. Buddy ran off and did his sprint around the perimeter. He is funny how he does that before going to meet up with any of the dogs that may already be in the park.
There weren’t any other dogs in the dog park, just Buddy and me. It was a wet day, after all. Not raining any more, of course, but still designated wet in most people’s minds presumably.
It was still nice though, Buddy and me and the huge expanse of grass and sky and fresh air.
On the way home, there was the usual problem of whether to go Church Street and around the back streets, or turn left out of Church Street into Victoria Street.
I turned left into Victoria. The traffic was heavy, so I turned up Lithgow, the only side street that goes through, the rest are blocked off. As soon as I had turned, there was a crane on a new apartment building. There were people standing in the street regulating traffic. The woman at my end of the street told me to stop. So, I stopped. She held her hand out in front of me in a big splayed hand and demanded.
“I told you to stop!”Anger issues, much? I thought.
I was stopped, it got my back up instantly. “I am stopped,” I said. “How fucken stopped do you want me to be?”
She turned to me. “I’m sorry?” She had an incredulous tone.
If that is the attitude you want to take and the game you want to play, I’m up for it, sister.
“How fucken stopped do you want me to be,” I repeated deliberately and slowly.
She gave me a dirty look and went back to what she was doing.
Luv? If you are hating life, get some therapy, a puppy, or a new girlfriend? I don’t know, something, anything has to be better than this, surely? The thought made me smile.
What she turned out to be doing, was letting a parked car out of a parking spot. Jesus! Give a bitch a uniform and she thinks she can do anything. I was going to suggest that directing parked cars, nothing to do with the building site she was employed by, was somewhat beyond her responsibilities. I can’t tell you how much I wanted to say that, but, I figured I’d said enough already. I wondered if she fancied the pretty blonde chick in the parked car.
“Now you can go,” she said as the parked car drove off in the opposite direction.
“Thank you,” I said. Shaking my head, with a rye smile on my face, I can assure you.
As I drove up Langridge Street, a VW Golf in front of me stopped to let a car coming towards us turn right in front of us. I tooted. The driver of the Golf made hand gestures, as if to say, What? What is wrong with you?
She stopped inexplicably on a straight stretch of road with no traffic in front of her, breaking all the road laws, then wondered when I tooted when I couldn’t work out what the fuck she was doing. I called out my window, I just hope she had her window open, “Learn your road rules.”
Then I noticed she had rainbow flag on the back of her car. She was big old dyke. 1BB 3UF, so the car was new.
Who’d buy a metallic brown Golf station wagon?
“A lesbian,” I said out loud. I laughed to myself.
Just obey the road laws. If we all follow the road laws then we all know what the other drivers on the road are doing at any given point in time. Don’t stop in the middle of the road and do something unexpected as the drivers sharing the road with you won’t know what the fuck you are doing. It is a very simple concept, surely. The rules of the road are laid down for a reason, follow them, it is a basic requirement.
We were home by 11.30am.
Sam calls at midday to give me my day’s instructions.
I played with my Back To Love Mixed Tape. I removed the remixes that I didn’t want, so I was left with only one version of each song. The sequential thing was just technical issue, they all needed the same sort description, the same dates, etc. Easy. And then I had a pretty smooth sounding collection of tracks. Brand New heavies, Frankie Knuckes and Adeva, Jeany Tracey, Euphoria, Degrees in Motion, Grace Jones, Gwen Guthrie, Haddaway, Clubhouse, Ultra Nate. All the old club songs. Yeah, sure, living in the past, but now at least I can listen to them easily.
The men with chain saws cut down Gordon’s garden all day, I am presuming for the new fence to be constructed. ZZZZZZZ!!!!!!!
I hunted for my old school magazines. I wanted to scan the various photos of Alex Roberts for my journal/picture album, but I couldn’t find them. They were in the bottom of grandfather’s desk for years, but we did a big clean up when the carpet was replaced and I suspect the Mitres got thrown out with the collection of magazines that were in the bottom of the desk. Bugger! To have kept them for all these years only not to have them any longer when I have the technology to preserve the photos forever, is a letdown.
It got me thinking about Alex. How serious he was when he was propositioning me in year 11. How he gave nothing away the day after when I said yes to him.
“Good,” he said.
How we tore each other’s school uniforms off in the toilets of the Kew Municipal offices – or was that the Kew Library? – that first day we had sex.
Oh, how hot was I for him for the next year and a half? I couldn’t have enough sex with him, and he me. We did it all over the school. How we never got caught, I don’t know. We never even nearly got caught.
I sat for the longest time and bought up images of him in my head.
I found old postcards that I added to my old journals. I typed them up one by one, diligently and carefully. You know I wish I’d written more of my journal back in the day, and now I’m trying to make up for that. Then, later, I scanned the picture side of those postcards and saved those.
The afternoon disappeared just like that. I snap my fingers.
Sam got home at 5.30pm. We went to the supermarket. We took Buddy, which was his second walk for the day, which he was enthusiastic about. Some days if you try to take him for a second walk, he’ll head to his kennel with the distinct attitude of, I’m done for the day, thanks. But not today.
We ate Asian style wok fried meat with chilli and carrots and zucchini with prawns.
Sam went to bed at 11pm, he was none too pleased that I stayed up later. That is my bossy boyfriend.
I scanned the old photos I found when I was looking for my old Mitres this afternoon.
Buddy sneaked up twice and woke Sam up.
I went to bed at 1am.
