Something Nice, That Happened

We took the dogs to the dog park, first time in the park in the afternoon in weeks. There weren’t any other dogs there. We went to Woollies afterwards. I was standing out the back with Buddy and Bear, while Sam shopped. Both of them sitting in front of me, side by side. An older lady walked up (name of street) Street towards me, in grey woollen slacks, and a maroon twinset and pearls, under the huge Plane Trees. Just as she was about to turn the Woollies corner into the supermarket, she stopped, threw both her hands out in the air. “It’s… Great… Britain...” she announced.

I laughed, I guess it was, a British Bulldog and a Corgi. I immediately thought of the Queen and Winston Churchill and the Union Jack.

“Yes,” I said. “I guess it is.” I hadn’t thought that before, oddly, I thought. I usually think of those things.

She grinned. And then she did that thing that older women sometimes do, where they shoot a hand out in front of themselves, rotating it quickly, like a game show host, sometimes clicking their flingers. Big smile, occasionally even a wink. The physical embodiment of, ‘What Fun’.

I looked at the two dogs with their red tongues hanging out, oblivious, and smiled.

She spun on her heel, shopping to be done.

It's Been Hot

It's been too hot to write anything. I have been spending my time in front of the air conditioner with Buddy, Bear, Milo (even if he is all cat indifferent to it all) and Sam in our bedroom. Sad state of affairs as there is no Netflix on the bedroom teli.

I have never seen Buddy struggle like he did yesterday, before we. retired to the bedroom.

So clearly, we need one of those industrial fans, that I passed on buying in Bunnings the other day, or an internet teli in the bedroom. Ha ha, first world problems, indeed.

We did manage to clean out the fish pond on Saturday. I couldn't help wondering what it would be like to be a fish on a hot day. Oh yes, major philosophical thinking going on here.

It is still early now, but its meant to be close to 40 degrees again today, but there is a bit of a cool breeze now. I'm getting things done before the sun really heats up. I'm just about to make a new batch of muesli. The only thing left to think about is what is good muesli making music?

Australia Day

Australia Day. To be honest, it means nothing to me, other than a day off, and as I am not working at the moment, it doesn't even mean that. Still, it is nice to have Sam at home. 

Most people don't even know what the date represents.

Change the date? I haven't heard any good reasons why the date shouldn't be changed.

Crazy Blonde Email Lady

I trimmed the creeping fig, in the gorgeous afternoon sun. It has turned into a monster, to be sure, but I hack at it from time to time and I manage to keep it, somewhat, at bay. I tied back the climbing rose, as it was hanging over into the laneway yet again. My bits of string with bows tied like a big fag might tie them, voila, just so, don’t seem to have longevity, who’d have thought? I really must learn how to tie knots one of these days. I even fucked it up, on school camp up at Eppalock, with handsome overseas students here on a Gap years, teaching us the art of knot tying, out in the fresh air, under the lovely blue sky, as free as a 16 year old could ever be, the handsome overseas student’s hot breath on my neck. I have never been able to tie knots. Just never. It should be on my bucket list, tie a slip knot, or a figure of 8, or some such fucken thing, before I die.

I left my roller door open. I got my girlie white plastic step ladder, I positioned it precariously on the uneven blue stone paving, and climbed up to the second highest step with my secateurs in my hand.

Buddy and Bear came out and sniffed around in the laneway initially, but then they got bored and Buddy retired to his kennel and Bear retired to the lounge room floor, half under the coffee table.

I was halfway through the maintenance, when the Crazy Blonde Email Lady, from over the back, came walking up the lane. She looks a bit like JK Rollings, but without the flush of success. Her hair isn’t as nice, straighter, lanker. She has beadier eyes, that are somehow set just a little too close together, they have a touch of the insanes about them, I don’t think she blinks enough. Her chin is a little too pointed. Her nose is just a little too long. She drags a leg. No, she doesn’t drag a leg, I just added that for dramatic effect.

She had a problem with my spa being too loud and she wrote the council guy a multiple page email complaining about my noisy spa. (Problem being, I don't have a spa)

Then she had a problem with Buddy barking in the night. She came to my door in person for that one, requesting that Buddy sleep in side. She was dismayed when I completely lost interest when she told me Buddy would bark once in the night. She proceeded to write 10 page emails to the council guy over that. The council guy didn’t say it in so many words, but he knew, that I knew, that he knew she is fucken nuts. He was nice about it, but I guess he has to be.

Then, more recently, there was the huge pile of rubbish dumped in the laneway, which had nothing to do with me. A woman came from the council and demanded to know when I was going to clean it away.

“It’s not mine.” Oh, I wonder who told her it was?

“The rubbish is not yours?” repeated the council lady, clearly she was convinced it was mine.

“No,” I said. I thought of Seinfeld. (Newman!) Crazy Blonde Email Lady! Doh!

We stood there eye-balling each other. She was clearly waiting for me to say something more, and when I didn’t, she said, “You don’t know anything about it?”

“No,” I said.

“Well…” she paused as if she was waiting for me to finally confess, and when I didn’t. “I’ll have to get somebody to clean it up.” The air was thick with the inference that my act of defiance would cost all rate payers.

“You do that,” I said.

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Pregnant pause. She took a step away from me.

I closed the door.

I have won all the battles, Crazy Blond Email Lady has lost everyone, despite her capacity to write long emails. She tends to keep a low profile, and I hardly ever see her. I imagine her hold up in her squalid apartment, the evidenced of hoarding piles of old emails all around her, crying herself to sleep every night, G&T in hand. A thousand tears, as they say. She’d have a laptop with a cracked screen, with duct tape holding it together.

I looked around, Crazy Blond Email Lady’s eyes and mine met, she looked away, guilty, I thought, guilty of losing in life. I averted my gaze. She didn’t speak to me, I didn’t speak to her. She walked behind me, I felt a chill run up my spine when I couldn’t see her (I felt small leaves fall down the inside of my t-shirt, from the creeper overhead). She had a bag, I imagined her pulling a 30 centimetre bladed knife from her bag and plunging it into my spine. I resisted the urge to look around. I cleared my throat, though, as if I was going to speak, I couldn’t help myself, it amused me. I heard her footsteps quicken. Her roller door opened, and she disappeared behind it. I looked around when I could no longer hear footsteps. Her roller door closed again with nary a human being in sight.

I resisted the urge to imagine Bloody Face waiting inside the garage for her. It would be just too joyous to imagine his big, paw-like hands squeezing her neck hard, her eyes popping out, before her head exploded like an over ripe pimple in the dim light of the parking garage, her blood shot across the Bessa block brick work like a lightning strike. (Perhaps, I have been watching too much American Horror Story?)

My imagination went to work, as I stood on my girlie white plastic step ladder, reaching up for the bigger branches of creeper hanging over my head.

The council contact me about a multiple page complaint email she sent to them. She was triggered - so popular now a days - by my roller door being opened, it caused her all sorts of anxiety. Apparently, it stems from her childhood, when the neighbours had a vicious dog, which they would let lose by leaving their roller door open during the day.

And I have a dog, that often barks enthusiastically behind my closed roller door when she walks passed, particularly when she wheels her bins in and out. That is true, Buddy does, I hear him do that, there is something about the noise those plastic wheels make that triggers him. I tell him to be quiet if I hear him, sometimes, but not always. I want him to act as a guard dog if there are people in the laneway. I don’t encourage him, he does it naturally, but I don’t always discourage him either.

She felt anxious and vulnerable and if he’d come out, which on the day in question he would have clearly been able, she would have been terrified. It triggered all of this in her. She was asking that in future, if I was out in the laneway trimming the creeper on my wall, that I should act responsibly and I should work with my roller door closed, so as my dog is contained and not able to scare, or attack, anyone.

She wanted to know what rights she has, as I clearly wasn’t containing my dog as required under the local laws.

It really would be much more harmonious for neighbourly relations.

Yours sincerely Crazy Blonde Email Lady.


I reached up and cut the thickest of the creeper vines hanging down, pushed on by amusing thoughts, a whistle on my lips, a smile on my face. The council wrote back to her saying no, another battle lost. At last count Christian 4, Crazy Blonde Email Lady 0. The sun shone, a cool breeze blew. It really was a beautiful afternoon. It was peaceful up my ladder, even if the rose thorns spiked my hands few times. I sucked the blood from the end of my finger.

We’ve just started watching the 3rd season of American Horror Story. I laughed to myself. Three seasons in a row, is it too much?

I climbed my girlie white plastic ladder again eyeing off the next branch to cut.

Call Me By Your Name

We went to see Call Me By Your Name, Sam, David and I. The cinema was full of Millennials, groups of girls and straight Millennial couples, nary a gay boy was in sight, which we thought was kind of odd for a gay film, still, I guess that is the consequence of going mainstream. The cinema was full too, as it was cheap arse Monday, not that the cinema being filled to capacity made any difference to my cinema experience.

I was completely captivated by Timothée Chalamet. In some ways, he reminded me of myself at his age, except without the confidence, or quite the charisma. I think what I mean, is that I looked a little like him and I had hair like his.

I wasn't so keen on Armie Hammer at the beginning, oh, I wasn't so keen on him much at all, but I guess he grew on me, or I got used to him, or something, but in the end, he was satisfactory. Still, I think the film would have been better with a different actor playing his part.

I loved the time in which it was set. I loved the old Fiats. One of the Fiats, I remember, had the BG prefix on the number plate, which is from Bergamo in the Lombardia region. Of course, that is no guarantee of anything, but I just like that kind of stuff.

The house was gorgeous, and it reminded me of the houses I have visited in Europe. It reminded me of travelling through Italy a little later than that time, at around the same age, when I discovered the beauty of Italy and Italians, even if I didn’t discover love like they did.

I liked the story, it was a nice, sweet love story. A friend today asked me if it was about love, or was it about lust? He thought it was about lust. I thought it was about both, love primarily, as the two aren’t mutually exclusive after all, quite the contrary.

The only bit I found less than convincing was, what I would call, the pivotal moment, but that may have been my fault. What I remember off the top of my head,

They’d gone for a bike ride, they’d come to a statue, Elio told Oliver that it represented some specific battle from world war one.

Oliver asks Elio if he knew everything.

Elio leans on the railing around the statue, or some such thing, and says something like he wanted to tell Oliver. He wanted Oliver to know. Elio repeats that he wanted Oliver to know. And then Oliver is telling Elio they should never speak of such things.

I turned to David and said, “Did I just blink and miss something?”

“It was very subtle,” David replied.

And I was left feeling less that satisfactory about that whole scene.

I have to be honest, right at that pivotal moment, there were two Fiats parked in the carpark by the statue, one of which, the most prominent brown one, I was sure was newer than 1983 when the movie was set, and I was distracted by it. It was a 1990s Fiat, I rather thought.

I was distracted, and it was my fault. Moral of the story, be careful not to get distracted by minor details at major plot points, although, how ones knows that, other than in retrospect, is tricky.

I googled the scene, and this is the conversation I missed. And it is kind of the key piece of conversation. (Should there be a spoiler alert here? No, I don’t think I am really giving anything away)
“I know nothing, Oliver.”

“You seem to know more than anyone else around here.”

“If you only knew the little I know about the things that matter.”

“What things that matter?”

“You know what things.”

“Why are you telling me this,” asks Oliver.

“Because thought you should know?”

“Because you thought I should know?”


I googled the Fiat, and while it was produced in the 1990s, that particular model was first released in 1983, so in that scene it was brand new.


I liked the movie. It was a sweet love story set in a beautiful house in a beautiful part of Italy, what was there not to like?

The lights came up as the credits rolled and the Millennials were saying like this and like that and rolling their eyes when I hadn’t immediately moved my feet out of the way so that could move their princess selves passed me and to the exit.

I turned to David. “I hated it.”

I turned to Sam. “It was so boring, I was wondering when it was ever going to finish.”

“You can’t be serious,” I said to Sam.

I turned to David. “You can’t be serious?”

“Two and a half hours I will never get back,” says David.

“It was a piece of shit,” says Sam.

“What?” I stuttered as I looked from one to the other. “I liked it. I don't think it was the best gay love story ever filmed, as one review I read claimed, but it was sweet...”

“Oh please,” says David.

“You can’t be serious,” says Sam.

A Week Since I Quit Smoking

Okay, I've quit smoking for a week. Holiday smoking, that is. I think LouLou came down just before Xmas with a bag of pot. and we mixed joints with tobacco, and that always leads onto some cigarette smoking for a short time afterwards, as I dry out and come off the marijuana.

But, this year we headed up to NSW to visit Mark for 10 days, just before Xmas, so I didn't quit before doing that, as I can become quite piggy for pot, craving the tobacco inside them, if I am not smoking ciggies at the same time. It is the tobacco, it is the addictive bit. I don't really think people become addicted to weed. And if it is not my pot to which I have unfettered access, it can become problematic, for me, and for the owner of the dope, with both of us feeling anxiety, for different reasons, of course, me feeling terrible about hogging someone else’s stash, always with the threat of being cut off, and the owner of the said pot as they watch it disappear before their very eyes. So, I kept the cigarettes going until then.

Then there was a cooling off period once I was home, which in this instance lasted for a week, before I stopped smoking altogether. I am cheating there just a bit, as I am deliberately, or not, leaving out the 4 days we spent at Jill’s, where no pot was consumed, but I did continue smoking the ciggies none the less.

And here it is a week later. Funny, but right at this point, it feels like months since I have smoked, which I take as a good sign. I'm not sure if it is, actually a good sign, because, if anything, that may encourage me to smoke, if it did anything at all.

"Sure, I'll have a smoke, I haven't smoked for the longest time, after all."

I'm a keen smoker, it is something I am good at, which is why I have to stop doing it, if all medical opinion is to be believed, and I do believe it. I am pleased that I can stop now, like I just have. If someone told me I could become an occasional smoker, I'd never have believed them.

"Nah, not possible, if I have one, I'll be back on them." I wonder if this is propaganda spread by the Quit Campaign?

I should learn to smoke my joints without tobacco, you'd think that would be the easiest option, but they just don't seem to be as nice to smoke, sadly, sans tobacco, which is kind of stupid as most of the world smokes its joints without tobacco, we're in the minority mixing it with the brown stuff.

It is true, I feel so much better when I don't smoke. And here is the bit which Sam has trouble processing, I don't even like it, any more, not since I quit permanent smoking. It makes me feel definitely second rate to my non-smoking self. I feel much healthier when I don't smoke, my head feels clearer, my chest feels freer – I'm not sure that even makes sense, but there is a certain 'lightness' to my body when I don't pump smoke into it. I don't get headaches, I feel more relaxed. I do think it is a myth that smoking relaxes you, I don't think that is true at all. I wonder if that was propaganda spread by the big tobacco companies.

And as much as I am loathed to give the government any credence for a policy success, who can afford to smoke any longer. I don't want to give the government any credit, as I don't think it is a fair policy, nor do I really believe it is a genuine one. It is a tax grab wrapped up in some social benefit, which, I think does work, but I think that is just double talk by a government to screw more taxes out of us. And, yet again, out of the people who can least afford it. I think modern governments don’t give a toss about their people, caring much more for sneaky tax grabs and their own longevity.

My cactus flowered, I just love those two colours together

Vietnamese for lunch, Hoi An food. This dish is my favourite

The light in the dog park this morning was gorgeous

Gay Marriage and Alzheimer's, Early in The Morning

7.15am. Mark rang early. Of course, he didn't use the phone, who does now a days? He Messengered me, what do you call that? What is the term? Whatever you call it, it is nice to see his face.  Old boy friends, like old gloves, you just start talking, sipping coffee, drinking tea. We know what the other means, often before we say it. We were together longer than most gay marriages today will last, but we are not together now. I thought he was my forever guy at the time, as he thought I was his. We both knew it. Soul mates forever.

“At last I have found you,” was the collective thinking.

And we are soul mates forever. We will be forever. But not together, as we thought. But, you know, that is okay, because most relationships don’t last forever, certainly not without changing quite dramatically during their time. That is human nature, we all change over time.

And yet here we are, still thinking we'll meet "the one" who will fulfil all of our wants and desires for an entire life time.


Mark – Did you enjoy the wedding? Did you crah...? Crah, like a baby?

Christian – What wedding?

Mark – The Monsoon nuptials?

Christian – What?


Mark – David (Monsoon) and Harry (de Wit)

Christian – Did they get married?

Mark – Yes....oops, not invited?

Christian – How do you know?

Mark – FB.

Christian – I didn't see anything… sadly

Mark – Haha... I’m sure you’re mortified...

Christian – When was it on FB?

Mark – This morning

Christian – Who posted it?

Mark – [somebody] added 6 new photos.

“Just a few more from the Boys' fabulous wedding😘 💚 😍 💙 😚”

Christian – Oh, now I see it… Oh, weren't they clever, one wore a black jacket and black shirt with white pants, and one wore a white jacket and a white shirt with black pants. The style is breath taking.

Mark – Hahahahahha. At least David has lost some weight by the look of it....

Christian – no he hasn't, still fat as butter.

Mark – But poor Harry wasn’t able to add a few inches... didn’t realise he was such a hobbit. Must've been the black jacket...

Christian – a poisonous dwarf

Mark – Haha... Is he? It’s all a bit sad really...

Christian – It's all a bit clichéd… a page boy and a flower girl with white roses… cutting edge

Mark – I think Luke’s response to me was right, when I asked him to marry me...." WHAT......NOOOOOOO"

Christian – that made me chuckle

Mark – I pretended to be horrified, but inside I was chuckling... he had a look on his face, like he had just smelt a very nasty fart..

Christian – chuckle

Mark – Tacky Queens...

Christian – Oh, and their fluffy dogs on leads

Mark – Yes... eeeeeuuughhhhh. It's a wonder they weren’t wheeled in, in prams.

It is nice that we have equal rights, but... eeeuuugh

Christian – Yes, of course

Mark – Has it cooled down now....?

Christian – For a group of people supposedly on the cutting edge of style, I had to question it when Derek McVie (was marrying Perry Alphabet just recently) said he had something old and something blue, but he was calling out to his friends for something borrowed

Mark – Oh noooooo really?

Christian – yes, really

Mark vomit gif

Christian – chuckle. Is it all the "look at me" people?

Mark – Surprised there wasn’t a pumpkin coach

Christian – David Monsoon wouldn't fit in a pumpkin coach. Oh well, good on 'em

Mark – Nooo they give the rest of us a bad name... kill them all... or banish them all to Fountain Lakes.

Christian – All the gay relationships that gay men have negotiated over time, often under difficult circumstances, have all been relegated to nothing because queens can now get married like their straight counterparts and can now, thank the lord no doubt, feel "normal."

Mark – Yes, well that’s the crux of it, isn’t it. Who wants to be normal... eeuugh...

Christian – "At last I can have the full cliche," said the tacky queen breathlessly, "And finally I can feel normal." she clutched her pearls and let out a tiny squeal.

Mark – Hahahabaha

Christian – yes, “normal?” It is, essentially, why gay marriage is a homophobic act

Mark – That is very profound, and true...you should post that on their page...

Christian – nah, I get into trouble for those kinds of comments

Mark – Haha… yes I know you do… but go right ahead...

Christian – Get married, tongue kiss your Lhasa Apso, what the fuck do I care

07:50am. I bet you there were doves released. Watch doves become an endangered species because of too many tacky queens.

If I ever get invited to a gay wedding, which is doubtful, I’ll want a flame thrower handy so I can BBQ the doves as they make their way heavenwards.

Mark – Oh it’s all just toooooo much... having to mark your relationship with an outdated hetro ceremony, only indicates how shallow it must be… Although I must say, at least there is the legal protection from relatives taking over the body, if a partner were to die...

What would happen in your case for instance, if Sam was to cark it...?

Christian – If the family took his body, it would save me a lot of time and energy

Mark – Haha... true that... But what about all his possessions and property...

Christian – Our relationship would end at the very moment he died, and nothing, nor anyone, would be able to change that fact.

I don't need his possessions, or property, I have enough shit of my own

Mark – That’s true, but you're covered in that regard, but many couples aren’t, and it could be absolutely horrendous for some couples...

Christian – I'd be very sad, and whatever went on around me wouldn't change the fact that I would miss him incredibly. Death is profound, the rest is just mere details.

Yes, but I think proper wills and legal documentation can cover that now a days.

Mark – No they don’t, that’s the problem... they could contest it...

Christian. 08:15am – I'm not sure marriage stops people contesting wills

Mark – Hmmmm... not sure about that…

Christian – I guess, if people are in a situation where it looks likely that their estate will be contested, and marriage would stop that, then they should get married, but they don't have to wear matching suits, with something borrowed and something blue

Mark – Aunty Wil died last night...😢

Christian – Oh. I liked Aunty Wil, she was straight forward, right down the line.

Mark – Yes exactly...

Christian – She is Debbie's mum?

Mark – Yes, she was a lovely person, very affectionate toward me... And yes, Debbie’s mum

Christian – She was nice to me too. She always reminded me of I Love Lucy’s sidekick, Vivian Vance

Mark – Released from the brain cage now

Christian – What? I've just been watching American Horror Story, and what you just wrote, I’m sure, has a very different meaning to what I took it to mean.

Mark – Alzheimer’s reminds me of an animal locked in a cage...

Christian – oh yes, that. I'll be really fucken cross if I go that way

Mark – I’ve ordered the pillow…

Christian – the subfocation pwillow?

Mark – Yis..

Mark 08:25 – I’ve had the experience of that stage of Alzheimer’s, when you can’t think how to think, it’s just horrible... being stuck in that place would just be horrendous, until you move past it, like my mum has...into blissful oblivion. But it won’t be long now, they’ve made some major breakthroughs apparently, just waiting for the trials to end.

Christian – Well, goodo. I want to be compos and gwumpy to the very end. You know, look into David's eyes as I take my last breath and say, "Dust, darling. Dust!”

Mark – Haha

Christian – Sam is up, we're taking the dogs to the dog park

Mark – Noice... enjoy... I have to go and do some shopping, eeuuugh... people... I just don’t want to go out the gate anymore... that’s bad isn’t it...?

Christian – No. I have to be forced to leave the house too. It is quite natural, shows you are smart

Mark – Haha... oh I must be a genius then....

Christian – You are

Mark – I love my relationship with nature, don’t need anything else. Cicadas and birds my kois, and my little water dragon keep me company...