There Is A Great Sunrise

Sam got up at 4am and got ready. (Sam text me at 8am, just arrived in Brisbane, just as I started to write this)

I lay under the covers with a blocked, desperately in need of blowing, nose. I was awake. I was just going to drive out to Guido’s as soon as Sam leaves. I was awake, just go and get it. Fucken cold, I think!

Sam let Buddy into bed. It was good, he’d be out of the way in bed when I backed the car out.

I could hear Andy coughing up stairs, I wondered if that would interfere with my plans? Out of my way, no sick people.

Sam gets into the taxi at 4.30, and leaves. It parks in front of next door and it is only its red taillights I can see in the dark.

I got up and got dressed. I waited until 4.45am, figuring that was long enough that Sam wouldn’t come back to get something he’d forgotten.

There was nothing I could do about my car, it is loud, I couldn’t hide it. That sports exhaust sounds great in the day light hours, but in the wee, small hours when one is trying to make a discreet get away, it is not helpful. Andy was bound to hear me leave.

I listened to my new Labelle and Patti Labelle mixed tape on my headphones all the way out and all the way back. The roads were deserted. I got most of the green lights, I hardly had to stop, which was the reason I just wanted to get up and got and get it when I was awake.

I get to Guido’s at 5.10am. It all goes smoothly.

I follow the Lebanese boy from the Lebanese grocery in Smith Street all the way back down Nicholson Street. He must start early. He must live in the north?

I stop at the convenience shop on the corner of Nicholson and Johnston and buy a 20 pack of Peter Jacksons at 5.35am. “You better make it a pack of 30s.”

I decide just to bare face lie to Andy if he asks me where I went at 4.45am.

“Sam flew to Brisbane for work for three days,” I’d say. “Oh he so didn’t want to go.” Its not a lie, it is evasive, but Andy wouldn’t know it was evasive, he was unlikely to know how many people got into the car and backed out of the back yard. Andy’s bedroom faces the back yard, my method of exit. Sam went in a taxi out the front, which Andy was unlikely to have heard.

(Andy never asked)

I’ll tell Sam when he comes home, there won’t be any lies. What is it they say, sometimes it is better to act first and ask for forgiveness, than to get permission in the first place. I’m sure that is how it goes? And it doesn’t matter if Andy questions me later, I’d just say, Sorry, but I just didn’t feel like explaining myself at the time. So no lie to him either.

And, it means that Sam gets a taxi home on Wednesday night, as the company is paying for that too, so I don’t have to drive any where for 3 days. Sam comes home to stoned me, I can’t hide that, when everything will be revealed.

5.45am. Home.

I’m hungry, I get muesli and coffee.

There is a great sunrise at 5.50am’ish. Beautiful.

Buddy, as I suspected, hadn’t moved a paw, he was snoring away peacefully on my bed.

I was confident enough to wish Sam a happy flight message.

I sign into Facebook. The first thing that comes up is Fued, the Bette Davis and Joan Crawford Feud. Joan Crawford played by Jessica Lange, Bette Davis played by Susan Sarrandon.

I watch some great Bette Davis and Joan Crawford docos on YouTube.

The sun shone at 8am.

Sam text to say he had just landed in Brisbane. He asked why I was up so early. Had Buddy disturbed me?

I dodged the up early part. “Nah. We sleep like babies.” Buddy lies stretched out against my leg.

I sit on the balcony and smoke a joint. If Sam says anything about pot from now on, I’ll just say I went and got it. I just had to buy a few hours. I’m not sure if that makes sense? But, in these situations, it is never guaranteed until it is in your hand, I don’t care it was 5am, just get it and then no more stress for 3 days.

9am. I feel really exposed smoking a j on the balcony with half the slats missing. I should call Perry and ask him if he knows a good carpenter who could fix it?

Two cute tradies are comparing tools out of the back of the cutest one's Land Rover. One holds up a tool and the other one seems to place something over the other one’s tool, it is a very intimate act. The one who owns the Land Rover is a gorgeous blond. I feel like asking them if they are good with balconies?

Now what? My journal is up to date. And I am very stoned.

Back to Bette and Joan.

“You should never say bad things about the dead, you should only say good," said Bette Davis. "Joan Crawford is dead. Good.”

And,

"Joan Crawford has slept with all the leading men at MGM," said Bettie Davis. "All except Lassie."

Chuckle.

Then I watched a Katherine Hepburn doco and cried when Spencer Tracy died.

10.25. I’m sitting up in bed with bleary eyes. Buddy is snoring next to me, pig noises on the inhale, whistling on he exhale.

I watched old Mick Jagger interviews. I think he is great. I don’t think I ever thought Jagger was cute, though, I just liked his music. Some old shots he looks hot, now I look back at them.

I watched Pink, Me & Bobby Magee, she’s great.

And Joss Stone, Son of a Preacher Man. You’re listening to greatness.

Robbie Williams and Jonathon Wilkes. And I can’t really put into words what I picture them doing to each other. That Old Black Magic.

I watched Steve Tyler. Kennedy Centre Awards for Paul McCartney. Go watch it on YouTube. Such an old, rock diva.

How will I know if he’s gone, if I don’t see him go? Write a short story. I mull that over for a while. The title lends it to an Alzheimer’s story. Have I got an Alzheimer’s story in me? My mum just died of it. Too soon, perhaps.

I speak to Sam several times by phone in the evening, he doesn’t pick that I am stoned. I do have a cold by now, yes, yes, all points in my defence, I know. My mother always told me, If you have a cold, get into bed.

I go to sleep with Patti Labelle on headphones. 2am. I’m very pleased with my second mixed tape, of Labelle and Patti Labelle tracks, with 4 tracks she has done since 2006. And 2 from the Bluebelles that I already had on cd. I think it is good.

I can’t wait to wake up and go into town and buy the Miami Vice album, for the Patti track you can only get if you buy the entire album on line. My iTunes account is down to $4.35. I could order it, but then there is delivery. Nothing for it but to go into town and buy the cd, old school and the quickest choice at this point.