Party Over

Sam got home early in the evening. "The party is over," were the first words out of his mouth.

It’s a shame, really, as I am a nicer person when I am stoned.

Sam doesn’t agree, of course. “You are more boring than you know,” he said.

“Oh, come on, I’m delightful…”

“Only in your head.”

The big problem, is that Sam doesn’t like it, it is clearly a character flaw in him. I have plied him with ever increasing amounts of green, and it just hasn’t taken. It is very disappointing. 

And it's Two Days Later

And now it is the 27th...


I left the house. I went and got dog food, don’t worry, I went by tram. 10 kilos of diced beef. 10 kilos is a lot to carry, on the tram.

You can’t drive when you have been smoking, they say. It is not safe, they say. I’d guess that the people who say this have never smoked a spliff in their lives.

None the less, I caught the tram. It is nice, going by tram, actually, you can just stare out the window and be chauffeured, effectively.

It didn’t take long, probably less than an hour.

10 kilos in a new age supermarket bag slung over my shoulder.

So, the diced had to be ground, and I got stuck into it not long after I got home. Well, it isn’t going to grind itself, let’s face it.

Since I don’t work Thursday, or Friday, me doing it is just fine with Sam.

I ground it all up, now we can’t trust the pet food shop bought mince. “You never know what goes into that.”

But a hand mincer. Sam did his research and this was the best one to get. But you have to crank it by hand.

I put on Boz Scaggs, it is good to be able to stand still long enough to listen to an entire back catalogue, now I have Apple music.

It was kind of therapeutic. It stopped my mind from going a mile a minute, for an hour, or so.

The smell of freshly ground beef sure bought the carnivores out, Buddy and Brun were on either side of me in a nano second, looking up.

“None for you, you aren’t getting any of this now.”

They backed off when no action was coming their way.

Everybody Gotta Get Stoned

I unashamedly took a second sick day. I emailed early. I smoked with abandon. Home alone, nobody to answer to. Just me and the dogs. We went for walks, me staggering just a bit, delightfully so, the dogs leading the way. (I have no idea if that was true, but it was true in my head so that’s all that really matters)

I wrote a couple of short stories, pot is great for the creative process. It makes me focus and once I focus all else just fades away. It’s really cool like that.

And for chat, we all know about that.

And for a laugh. Oh boy, did we all laugh.

How delicious it is to get stoned in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week, when you are supposed to be at work. I wouldn’t call it decadent, no, I wouldn’t call it that, but I do think it is good for the soul. Let go. Take a break. Take you destiny into your own hands, if only for the day.

Oh, I am just waffling now, and yes, it is really good for that.

How many joints have these fingers rolled – truthfully, snapped the lid shut on the rolling machine, as, despite everything, I have never been able to hand roll joints – well, it’s a bit like my body count, have lost track of that years ago. And I don’t see why it much matters anyway, hey. All you need to know is, on both accounts, everyone ended up leaving satisfied.

A carton of happiness, big smile

Sam flew to Sydney for work. (He tried to keep it secret from me, as he knew I’d plan a couple days of smoking, but David was asking him to go look for a new computer with him and Sam had to come clean about going interstate to work.)

I had it organised with Guido in no time. Blah, blah, blah, going to the airport early, can you leave it in the usual place.

Sure, said Guido.

(Sam usually catches a 6am plane, the night before he let it slip he was catching a 9am flight. WTF? I’d organised a 5am pick, but I didn’t get there until 7am, which was handy, in a way, as Guido had forgotten to leave it out. At 5am, I couldn’t have rung him, I would have just had to return home disappointed, but at 7am I didn’t really hesitate to call.)

“Ullo,” his voice croaked, barely audible on the other end of the phone.

“Sorry,” I say.

“Oh, give me a minute,” he says

Guido came out his roller door with an egg carton in his hand, I’m pretty sure his eyes were still closed.

“I’m really sorry,” I say.

“Not at all,” says Guido. “My fault. I’m sorry.” He shoves the egg carton at me.

“I feel bad,” I say.

“Fuck off,” says Guido. He turns and slips under the roller door as it was going down again. Dismissive hand wave.

Sam wasn't even on the plane, when I had the first blunt rolled. I wonder if he's worked that out yet? (He knew what I was doing, even if he didn’t ask for the details

I've taken two sick days from work, right in a busy time, they'll be pleased. Who cares! Oh, I might work Friday. Isn't that a good work life balance, after all, swapping days with ease when one particular day doesn't suit you in any given week... is a good thing.

Take your sick leave, people. In these days of record corporate profits, you should treat it like annual leave, it is there to be taken.

Of course, I don’t, but who cares about that. I have when I was younger, and I could again, should again. Don’t let it go to waste.

Impunity

I love my dog, he just pisses on everything with impunity.

The one legged woman in the motorised scooter said after Buddy pissed on her front fence. "I hope you are going to wash that off." She was like a Dalek jammed in under her single fronted veranda. I think I jumped a bit.

"A bit of dog wee?" It was the end of a walk wee anyway, she'd have been lucky to get any wee in her front garden, it would have been a sprinkle.

"I don't want it in my garden."

"It'll rain in the next twenty four hours," I said. "It will wash away then."

"Yes,  but what do I do until then?' she called after me.

"Die," I said, but not loud enough so that she could hear. Seriously? is all I could really think.

Mandarin Juice

I bought Vegemite in Coles, we'd run out, it was an emergency situation. We can't be without Vegemite. A house without Vegemite is like a house without a dog.

I did my tattlotto at the tattslotto shop. I won one hundred and something dollars last week, no such luck this week.

I went to the op shop to look at the CDs. I don’t talk to the guy, not since he banned Bruno for pissing. I still don't think Bruno was guilty. If it was him, it is the only time he has ever pee'd in a shop.

On the way back I was thirsty, so I headed to Coles to buy a drink. I bought mandarin juice. I always love a mandarin juice, I can't walk passed a mandarin juice. I opened it as I headed back out into Smith Street. I took a big sip, and it tasted awful. So then I had a 1.5 litre bottle of awful, undrinkable, juice to drink. Disappointed is not the word for it. Then I thought with my very next thought, fuck it, I’m taking it back. So I marched right up to the counter and told them the juice is off.

“No problem, would you like to get anther juice?”

“Yes, I would.”

So, I get orange juice and head back out of the shop.

I took another big swig. “Euw! This juice is off too.” Then I remembered, I brushed my teeth before I left home. It was the toothpaste and not the juice. Oops, I thought. The mandarin juice was probably okay too. I head home.

Masturbating with Crucifixes

Wow! Hasn't it rained and rained. And it is still summer. It has deluged, there has been unseasonal flooding, and all. The religious types will be masturbating with crucifixes hoping it is the second coming.

Religious Discrimination Laws

You know what religious discrimination laws will do, they will make people hate Christians more. People already think Christians are lame with their lame ideas, and when the smart people see that the lame people have been given the power to legally be bigots, they are only going to hate the Christians for it. The laws are self defeating, they are going to make a situation where people have little regard for what Christians believe, other than pity and amusement, and turn it into a situation where people hate Christians for the special privileges they have unnecessarily had bestowed upon them.

What these laws really want achieve is to let Christians spout their nonsense unchecked, which is really what most Christians think they have a right to do, and to have no one disagree with them, or challenge them on their stupidity. Christians want the ability to continue to comment on anything and everything that has nothing to do with them, and have no one respond. And that, my friends, is not going to happen.

Sweating

Sweating like a bitch on my way to work. Why do bitches sweat so much? (I mean, have you ever wondered?) The back of my shirt is wet from sweat when I get to my office. It is so uncomfortable sitting in the aircon with wet cotton on your back. If only we had electric hand dryers in the bathroom, but we don't. (just paper towel, which I fully approve of, except when you get to your office all sweaty and need an electric hand drier to dry the sweat, having walked to the office in the morning)

What is with this crazy weather? Melbourne is not tropical, although you would believe otherwise with the weather this last week. 100 % humidity, or thereabouts, most day. I so get sick of being sticky. 

Oh yes, that little thing called climate change.

How can people not believe in climate change now, when you can step outside and experience it. (I know it is just an inconvenient truth for conservative commentators, but we’re not all trying to suck money out of the corporate machine?) I guess there will always be stupid people in the world. And people that a different agenda suits for various reasons, of course. But what about the sensible middle? What about those guys?

I don't really get the rich business men to which climate change is an impediment to business, they, and their children, are going to choke, fry and die with the rest of us, no amount of money is going to save them from that.

So, um, come on guys, lets save our only home before it is too late. I’m not sure why that previous sentence doesn’t ring true for more people. Our greatest threat to existence and we’re all collectively in denial, it is baffling.

 

Some mornings, half awake, you look up on the tram and you think good thing I didn't walk this morning, some times the tram has its advantages.

Don't You Hate The Pigs!

We took the dogs for a walk. We were on our way home, just crossing a street, when a car came roaring up [name of street]. I leant down and put my hand on Buddy’s harness just in case the car didn’t stop. When I could see the car was stopping, I pushed Buddy across the road in front of the car crossing next to him.

“Put your dog on a lead,” came a voice.

I spun on my heal and saw it was a copper in an unmarked car. “You should be giving away to pedestrians,” I said, the smallest part of me wondering as I said it whether I should be saying it.

“Put your dog on a lead.” He insisted, not interested in what I had to say.

Well, apparently, I wasn’t finished. “You should be going 40 kph.”

“Put your dog on a lead!” he said more forcefully. If I said he had the attitude of someone REALLY wanting to talk over me, I wouldn’t be exaggerating.

I turned away from him, thinking that I had probably said enough. His black Commodore screamed off at a million miles an hour… in a 40 kph zone.

I didn’t put Buddy on his lead, well, not for long.