Heading over the Westgate to Roller Skating in Laverton. It was Matt's birthday

Off to Work

I started a new assignment today for 3 weeks, so it's back to work, back to the grind. Yay. But, still only 3 weeks, it should go fast.

Fortunately, it is just a short walk from home, which is the reason I took it. Well, I took it because it was offered to me, lets not be under any illusions, but it is the reason why I was pleased to accept it, the short walk from home. If you think I have any control over the assignments I get, then I have misled you. I shouldn't get too bored though, hopefully.

You know what I hate, the suit and shirt thing, the corporate noose and collar, fortunately nobody cares too much about ties any longer. Let's hope this new place doesn't care so much about the suit thing either. I mean really, what the hell does it matter what we wear to work. I hear people say it is easier, but please, people are stupid. It is easier to be told what to wear? It is only a short step to it is easier to be told what to think, it is easier to be told how to act. People, people, people, please.

I was reading about William S Burroughs, Jo Orton, and those guys and their escapades in Tangiers, last night. I didn't want to leave them. I was also reading about the inhabitants of Mulholland Drive.  Who lives where and next to who. Did you know that Marlon Brando and jack Nicholson were neighbours? How exciting it all sounded. How exciting their lives must have been. How did I end up doing an office job? How did I settle for that? I guess it is too late now to become someone interesting.

Hey ho, back to the office for me.

National Coming Out Day

It's national coming out day. Oh, goodness, I remember.

Good luck kids.

It is bizarre that we have to do this in this day and age. It's the 21st Century. Good thing things are moving fast. Hey. I wonder if we'll be able to sue one day?

Still, the same holds, It gets better. Hang on vilified gay kids, it will get better. I promise. 

Plotting you revenge afterwards, is optional. Ha ha. Of course, living well is always the best choice, in my opinion, however, you know, the options are vast.

Welcome to The Midnight Motel

His friend's friend from the country were coming to stay, after drinking too much at lunch, she didn't feel like catching the train back home to The Mount and it had been suggested to her that he had a spare room by their mutual friend. She said she was glad that he was home. She said she loved the motel he ran. It was a joke he and his friend had and she'd obviously been let in on it.

"Welcome to The Midnight Motel, mother will be pleased. Come this way, I'll show you to your room. My name is Norman, what's yours?"

"Marion," she squealed.

He gave her a recriminating look, she composed herself.

"What a lovely name."

His doberman was lying in the hallway outstretched.

"What a delightful dog," said Marion. "What's his name?"

"Fluff. Stay away from him, he bites."

"Oh." She gazed down as she navigated the dog, which didn't move. "Do you live at the hotel?"

"Oh... um... I live out the back, with my mother."

"How delightful," said Marion. "Will I get to meet her?"

"Um... er... no. No, I don't think that will be possible."

"Oh that is a shame."

"Would you like some tea?"

"Oh, yes. But, I might take a shower first. I was sitting in the sun all afternoon and I just feel like I need a wash."

"Oh, okay. A shower. Yes, take a shower. I assure you, you'll feel different after you take a shower."

Hymie

I'm in bed with my bulldog. He's snoring as he lays on the doona next to me. I'm juggling my laptop, my muesli and a coffee. It is 8.15am. The sun is slowly floating in through my glass balcony doors. I am very comfy, no reason to get up, you've got to love that.

I've been ignoring my boss for the last couple of days, meh, work, who even wants to think about that. He had some job for me, continuing directly on from my previous assignment, I didn't realise he'd put me up for the role. Oops. Who knew? I think he thinks that I have let him down. Oops, again. It was an innocent mistake, probably highlighting a flaw in our current job allocation system, to tell you the truth. I really wanted a week off, even if I didn't want to admit it. I've worked full time since June. It's tiring. Who can keep up that pressure?

Guess who won't be getting work until March 2015? Ha ha. (I laugh, even though that doesn't sound like too much of a threat)

More coffee?
Don't mind if I do. (Thank you, Hymie)
The thick metal hand takes the fine china cup from my hand (It is my pleasure)

Apparently, you shouldn't drink more that 400 grams, I guess, 400 something of caffeine per day? One cup is about 95, I guess it is mls, most likely, of caffine. I've settled on 3 coffees per day, down from about six cups. It's all health here sweetie.

I feel tired, with less stimulant in my blood. Ha ha. The world is a tiring place. What happened to the brave new world of less work and more leisure time? By 2020 we'll all be working 4 days per week and our robots will take up the slack. What happened to that? Where's my Robot? You know I'd call him Hymie.

Viewing The Body With Jean

I went to visit my mum with my brother and sister. It is a good thing to do, I believe, with your brother and sister, to go and view the remains. My brother and sister were due early, 8am, or something. I was ready to go at 8am. Susanto was in bed. Junior had joined him. I think I stood out in the street from 8.15. We went in my brother’s hire car. I was expecting My sister’s Subaru. I didn’t recognise them to start with, instead remained gazing at my front fence, plucking daises out of the cracks, is how I imagined it to look.

Good start.

The roads were unusually quiet, the city seemed unusually sleepy. It was Sunday, after all

Mum was uncommunicative, just a little person in a chair, unlike Joan who was sitting to my left, in the next chair. One of the more 'with us' inmates. I'd never seen her before.

“You can’t sit there,” she exclaimed from behind me when I first sat down.

Recoiling, I said, “Why not?”

“Because the other people won’t be able to sit down,” she said defiantly.

“Well,” I said as quick as a flash. “As soon as they get here, I’ll get up.”

We bantered for the rest of the visit. Me and Joan. She took an instant shine – hate – on me.

She gruffly said, at one point, “What are you laughing at,” when we laughed at a joke. 

“Where very funny,” I said.

“You think,” said jean.

She was funny. Sigh. I think she complained about us still being there. I think she told me she didn’t like me. I can’t remember what else she said now, but she and I had a good chat. Culminating in me gazing left to look at her obvious gaze drilling into my back. There she was pursing her lips at me. So, I pursed my lips at her. And then without missing a beat, her timing was impeccable, she said, “Don’t you think I am going to kiss those lips.”

“Really,” I said, being someone who is used to being kissed, “Not a chance?”

“Not a chance,” exclaimed Joan.

“I’m disappointed,” I said. “I was just puckering up.”

“In your dreams,” said Jean. She laughed that can-you-believe-this-kind-of-talk laugh.

Two Fat Queens

We walked into the city and ate Ramon at the newest and latest place in town. Said by some, to be the best Ramon in Melbourne. We queued on Russell Street on the broken footpath, between two exits for car parks, still, the sun was shining. They open at midday, there was already a queue by 12.05. We queued up for about half an hour. Sam thought it was a huge joke that he got me to queue up for food in Melbourne, a thing that I always say I will never do.
When we got in, we were sitting facing a wall on a wall table with stools. They had clearly been cleaning carefully after people had eaten, there were still two places next to us. There wasn’t much room, however.

“I hope they aren’t going to put those two fat queens here,” I said pointing to the two spare stools. Completely forgetting that the two fat queens were in front of us in the queue. I said it as I gazed out over the café, you know as you do when you first get somewhere. You look around. I said it as I looked directly at the two fat queens sitting at the table behind us.   Well, kind of next to us. I was vague, I don’t know why? Hands in the air? But I didn’t see them.    

I looked back at Sam.

He was wincing.

The penny dropped. “It was the down syndrome guy and his girlfriend who was behind us in the queue,” wasn’t it?”

You’ve got amuse yourself some how when you are standing in a queue that wasn’t going anywhere for that amount of time. I made comment about everybody around me. I think I’d nicknamed the two fat queens Jean and Bunny.

Sam chastised me yet again for being handicaphobic. “He wasn’t down syndrome  he demanded. He may have punched, slapped the table for emphasis.

I knew he wasn’t down syndrome, but it is the only way I remember people. “You’ve got to admit that he looked like it.” I couldn’t help but smile, even though I tried not to.

It was pea and ham, that was this establishment's speciality.
He gave me that “enough” look. Alarmed. “They are sitting right there,” he whispered to me, opening his mouth very little, and tilting his head just like John Cleese would in a sketch, kind of tilted forward.
I grimaced, I could feel my cheeks crease up. “The two fat queens?

“A ha.”

“Was I loud?” The soup was good. Pig bone and a whole lot of other ingredients and some peas.
“Loud enough.” He winced and shook his head. “And you even seem proud about it.”

I was smiling, I have got to be honest. “And it was the down syndrome guy behind us all along?” I exclaimed. Both hands in the air.

Guess who they sat down on the two stools next to us, just as I said that. If he hadn’t heard before, and I could almost guarantee he hadn’t, he certainly had by the time he was shown to his seat. Sam nudged me, looking alarmed.

I scooped the last few spoonful’s of soup. It was yum.

I looked at Sam. He had big eyes, hurriedly looking away. He tried to ignore me, but I knew he that he knew that I knew that really he knew what I had just done. I cleared my throat. Sam looked around the room as if he was looking for a waiter. I nudged him. He momentarily, just for a milli second, looked at down syndrome guy. There, you know.

Ironically, down syndrome guy was, actually, quite good looking, quite handsome. It is just that you don’t expect a Chinese face to be that shape, but some how he was. His looks changed like shot material from monster to pretty movie star and back again in one glance. Technically, two, I guess. Ugly/beautiful. Ugly/beautiful. It was dazzling, in one sense, and repellent in another.

Then Sam looked at me. “Let’s go.” He punched me in the arm.

“Me and my big mouth. I must learn to speak quieter.”

“Shh,” said Sam.

Chicks

Cathy was back. She’s kind of a benevolent Fuhrer, she’s nice most of the time, just when she gets strung out. I’m over thirty, I understand how the world gets you down, but the young girls don’t get it. She’s more like the incredible Hulk, she’s all nicey pie when she is Cathy Banner, but when she gets too strung out, she becomes Cathy the Hulk. Nobody was looking forward to her coming home. They all wanted me to stay. There were even people from outside the team who had noticed enough to comment what a changed place HR/Legal was.

Cathy was in a swing style skirt and a bold orange and red see through floral top and bleach blond hair. She’s skinny, she’d lost 14 kilos before she left. She said she’d put on two.

It was interesting watching all the girls sucking up to her. They’d all expressed their trepidation at Cathy returning, they all shuddered at the thought not a few days previously. Here they all were cooing around her telling her how great she looked.

Chicks?

At lunchtime, when we thought all the HR girls were out, Christine said, “Melina is driving me nuts with all that talking.

I said, “She seems to be arguing with Isaac (the director) a lot.” Good on her for hutzpah, but really how long do you seriously think you can talk to a director like that, as even tempered as Isaac is.

We said all of that before Cathy shut us up indicating Melina was at her desk. She was kind of closer to the wall than she normally sits and we just didn’t see her. We just came out and said it with her in the room.

She has that far north Queensland kind of opinionated nasally voice. She is very loud, that is all Christine meant. Sometimes Melina just doesn’t know when to shut up, that was as bad as Christine was being. But Melinda was fragile. Oops. It was a genuine mistake. A big one.

I went to warm up my lunch to get out of there. On my way back, Melina was coming through the door to the toilet corridor and we had to do that awkward thing at the door as we passed, all the time she wouldn’t look at me.

“Oops,” I said to Christine , went I returned to the office.

“I think she was crying,” said Christine.

“Ah, what the hell,” said Cathy.

Melina came back, after a while, without saying a word. Conversations were changed deftly mid sentence upon her return. You could cut the air with a knife.

She left the office twice more with her head bowed, looking at no one.

She left the office twice more with her head bowed, looking at no one.

We told Shayleen and Cat when they returned and, if anything they seemed a little bemused by what we’d done, smiling at each other like cats.

Chicks.

Oh Melina is opinionated and argumentative in that Christian twinset brigade argumentative, she just knows she is right. If ever she stops trying to talk you down from your opinion, she fixes you with her withering gaze that never stops saying I’m right and you are wrong.

Melina was dark for the rest of the day. She didn’t talk again. When I said good bye to her, she practically dismissed me.

My last day at (name of the company), it was probably best that I missed the recriminations from that little mistake. Oh the team will be in turmoil, one team member wounded. But not to worry, Cathy will be there in amongst it all trying to sort it out, cyborg style. And Britney, it was a good thing, her arrival in the office is immanent, I think we are now counting down in months. I’d only have to spent a morning with her locked in a confined office and I think I’d snap and kill the bitch. Exit stage left.