Egg Tart & a Rice Ball

 

Two of my favourite things. I could live on these. Okay, so perhaps my waistline couldn't live on them, but I'd be prepared to risk it. Okay, maybe not, but the idea fills me full of pleasure. The thought makes my tastebuds water, a lot.

Christianity is so last century

In What Kind Of Fear Do People Live?

I rode my bike to Royal Park. It was a cool day despite the sun shining. It was a nice day for a ride.

On my way home, I was crossing slowly over from the bike track in Park Street to head up Canning Street to home, there was a woman crossing Canning Street, behind who I was going to go. She had on head phones, admittedly, and she saw me out of the corner of her eye kind of at the last minute before I would have passed behind her. When she did, she recoiled, ripped the head phones from her ears, gave out a cry, as though in pain, like a baby harp seal might as the club hit it in the head, and staggered backwards into my path and nearly lost her footing on the bluestone surround of the median strip in the middle of Canning Street, very nearly tumbling over backwards.

“Keep going,” I said. “I was going to go behind you.”

She ended up, what I would call, laughing semi hysterically, like Lisa Simson laughs hysterically, standing in front of my bike.

Of course, I nearly fell off my bike onto the median strip in the middle of Canning Street too trying to avoid her.

I have to say, I was kind of shocked by her reaction.

It all happened in a few seconds, of course, but as it was happening, it was like a slow motion car crash, nearly a car crash.

Racism is just a sad waste of energy

Chatting to Shane

 Christian – I went to the Spud Bar to see Gene

Spud Bar shop up for rent.

Shane – Ohhh lockdown victim. Which spud bar was that? Was it on smith?

Christian – Brunswick Street, with the cute boy. Gene

Shane – Ahhh? I’m trying to think if I knew it? Did he have hot hot potatoes?

Christian – He was your straight ULO. With hot potatoes

Shane – Oh yes! Now I remember. They did good potatoes too 😀

Christian – Yes, he had good potatoes. I think every queen in Fitzroy wanted to see them

Shane – Haha, yes, I too, that’s sad he gone. Are there many shops closed/gone due to lockdown? I think restaurants are going to be fucked here

Christian – there are a few of those boutiques of nonsense in Gertrude Street up for lease

Shane – Boutiques on nonsense! Haha. They might have done better if they called one of them that

Christian – You know, with shiny things, and leather straps and feathers. Chrome is big in them. Queen Victoria's couch and Elvis Presley's tooth pick and that sort of thing

Shane – Yes, I know the ones – and all terribly expensive

Christian – all frightfully expensive

Shane – For tatt

Christian – lots of tatt. Well, a few of those have gone tattars

Shane – Haha! Was it terrible or frightful, all sounds dreadful

Christian – You never quite know if your wear it, or sit on it

Shane – I’m closing my London and Manchester office. If the fuckers can work from home and prove that they can, why should I give them A desk walls and roof

Christian – You are closing your London office? Oh. So, you'll work from home?

Shane – Yes, end of lease, taking advantage of it

Christian – I soooooo want to work from home forever

Shane – Let’s see how the office property market looks in 6 months. Hahah. It took a bit to get used to, my husband loves to chat

Christian – We're all working from home until the end of July, at this stage

Shane – I’m going to get 6 desks somewhere with a meeting room. See how it goes

Christian – Sam works in the lounge room, and I work in the study, and I have a dedicated computer for work, that I only use for work, and the day flies by. And Sam’s work has meeting room and some chairs somewhere too.

Shane – Although last couple of days I have been thinking do I even need that. 2nd wave is looking likely

Christian – My mother's two dining room tables come in handy

Shane – If you look at what is happening around the world now where they have relaxed

Christian – And her 10 dining room chairs, it good to put them to some use

Shane – Do you have them at home?

Christian – yes

Shane – I never saw them there? In the dining room office?

Christian – Well, she died in Dec 2015, you haven’t been here since then?

Shane – Probably not, you were away i think last time. So, you have space to spread out. That’s nice

Christian – One is in the study, and one is behind the couches in the lounge at the back door

Shane. Ahhh lovely!

Christian – Oh, we're really over furnished, but it is good for working from home

Shane – Only a little crammed dear

Christian – We threw 8 dining room chairs into the tip, Sybil would have shat herself

Shane – Are you writing much?

Oh my! That’s not fun

Christian – They were reproduction. She had 16 of the fuckers, all up.

Shane – Haha, oh the shame of it now that her secret is out. They were not the real deal. 16! Fuck me! That’s a dinner party. Did she ever have 16 to dinner ?

Christian – Oh yes, she inherited half of them, but with dad’s lodge do’s and her teaching stuff, yeah she did use them.

Since I have been in lockdown, I have resurrected my old gay sex novel, and I have it all planned out now

Shane – Brilliant! The world needs more gay sex now to cheer us up

Christian – I've added a story to the first half of it, and I have the last 3rd written, it is now just the difficult middle bit to get done

Shane – Planning is important

Christian – It actually might get finished

Shane – Great! Let me know if you would like me to read anything for you. Do! Finish it!

Christian – Oh, don't you worry about that, luv

Shane – Have you done the Margaret Atwood master class?

Christian – No, but she is fascinating to listen to

Shane – Ali bought access during lockdown. I watched it, she’s really good on it. I think we are going to watch the one on cooking Mexican next and give that a go

Christian – She is great to listen to, really smart and interesting, but I have to admit, I have never read any of her books

Shane – Lockdown makes us do strange things I know. I read the hand maidens tale when I lived at [name] street and was trying to read booker prize winners. I know it spooked me out then.

She gives good writing advice.

Christian – yes, she does. she is smart and generous

Shane – Photo red roses.

Shane – My roses are nearly dead. They have been so pretty, we need green and life when you are stuck in the house so much.

Well lovely chatting. I have to go to work now. Making 3 redundant at the moment, sad times

Christian – Nice flowers

Shane – Be good to get to the end of the financial year and finish this fucker. It’s been torcher trying to get funds

Christian – I've been made redundant twice, and both times I had to console the person doing it when they burst into tears

Shane – Haha!!!! Oh dear,

Christian – roll of the eyes

Shane – That’s not how it’s done. At least you know they genuinely did not want to get rid of you

Christian – Well, enjoy

Shane – Yes! Thanks. You too. Cxxx.

Christian – I'm going to light a fire and put my feet up

Shane. Haha. 32 degrees here Today, And yesterday

Christian – wet and cold here

Shane – I am fully British now

Christian – 32 degrees?

Shane – Yes!

Christian – That's hot for London

Shane – And I’m complaining about the heat. 

It is.

Haha, whinging Pom now

Stay warm

Night

Christian – Oh well, how's a singlet and shorts to do the redundancies?

I Love Vegemite, but I Hate The Vegemite Song

Patriotism, I don't buy it, it leaves me cold. It is mindless and unthinking. 

It is a cliched snoozefest. Aussie, Aussie, Aussie. Blah, blah, blah.

It is The Borg. And what makes us great is our difference.

It is join the dot living. You know, when life was meant to be expansive.

It is try hard. When everything that is great, is just a little humble.

I love Australia because it is naturally a part of me, I am Australian.  We are strong in our sunburnt country, our open spaces, and our vastness. We have that smugness when we are overseas that we can visit, and see, and drink everything in, but we always have the greatness of our island nation calling us home.

I love having an accent when I travel. I like people commenting on my voice. I like hearing another Australian voice in a crowd when I am in London, or Rome, or Amsterdam. It is like being gay, when you meet another gay guy there are just certain things you know. Unspoken things.

I like the idea of nationality, of course, we all do, it is where we are from, and I guess I am saying that that should be quiet, it should be reserved, never loud and obvious.

The emotive speeches, and the parades, and the hands on the hearts are just window dressing, I always suspect, for people who are emotionally stunted. Conservative voters, and the like. You don't have to spruik all "that", when you were born into "it" just naturally.

Loud patriotism is the safe refuge of the art that matches the couch. Loud patriotism is a yawn. It is obvious.

Triggered

OMG! My pet hate. Now listen clearly, children, because a lot of you have great difficulty with this one. If I am in the right hand lane next to you and you are in the left hand lane and there is a parked car, or your lane stops for whatever reason, you must stop. You cannot come over into my lane because, very simply, I AM OCCUPYING THAT SPACE. Are you as dumb as a box of rocks, or what?

A woman in a black Lexus 4WD tried it as I was on my way back from the vet. She just put on her blinker and started coming over.

“Um, hello, I’m right here.”

She had to slam on her brakes at the last minute. She gave me the dirtiest look and raised her hands off the steering wheel in a WTF gesture, when I didn’t, oh I don’t know what, evaporate so she could continue, I guess. And when I said, “Fuck off and die you stupid bitch,” (Oh yes, I know, the things you say in the privacy of your own car) she could clearly lip read, because then she came after me tooting her horn like a mad woman, which, I must admit, I found hilarious.

At the lights, she came right up behind me, still tooting, and revving her engine. Duffy’s, Rain On Your Parade (Ironically) was playing in my car, to which I started doing double fingers up to her to the beat, (Yes, I know, how old am I?) at which point she put her hand on the horn and held it there, and revved her engine furiously. Suddenly, I was in Mad Max. Oh, I haven’t laughed so much since granny got her left tit caught in the mangle.

Seriously, get a grip woman!

Then the lights turned green, and I accelerated away from her, quick as a flash. I couldn’t have her fumbling it and crashing into the back of me. She clearly attempted to keep up behind me, I’m guessing, in an attempt at intimidation, but all she saw was me disappearing in the distance.

Oh, I hate posting anything with this dope, it is against my core principals, but I couldn't resist this

At The Vet

*Oh yes, exposing the dark underbelly of my black soul. If you are looking to be outraged, do not read any further, as dark humour ensues. The last episode of Seinfeld proved once and for all they were my kind of people.*


1pm. I went to the vet to get Buddy some more antibiotics, as he is still squirting gravy out his south end.

The cute vet, said Buddy had to go back on antibiotics for twice as long as previously.

“Yes, doctor.”

Buddy was better for about 3, or 4, days and then the diarrhoea started again.

I had to wait at the counter for a considerable length of time while the nurse got Buddy’s pills together.

Due to the Covid19 restrictions only two people were allowed in the waiting room at any time. People had to wait in their cars for a nurse, or vet to come out and attend to them.

So, I am standing at the counter, I’m sure looking as though I am taking up a valuable space doing nothing, another guy is waiting just outside the door, and in comes a hugely fat, dishevelled woman in, what looks like, unwashed, black track pants and an oversized black windcheater, explorer socks and crocs that were too small for her so that her considerable heal hung out the back on each shoe, resplendent with a hole in each sock at each of her heals, you know the dress code, shopping centre poor. How does that saying go, fucked backwards through a bush? Er? Nor, that’s not ryte? …something through a bush backwards…? Oh yes, and she stank of cigarettes.

Anyway…

She just came in and stood, I wondered if she was on drugs. Everyone one was busy and she just stood with resting bitch face, mouth slightly open, eyes vacant.

“Can I help you?” asked the other nurse when she finished her phone call.

“Is it going to be much longer?” the fat woman moaned.

The nurse checked her screen. “There are two people in front of you, still,” said the nurse.

“Well, Lola is getting really distressed, can someone come and get her out of the car and bring her inside?”

Lola, I thought. Her unemployed, up the duff, stripper daughter.

“Yes,” said the nurse. “If you can go back to your car, I will send someone out.”

So, the fat woman walked out into the carpark and stood gazing back in through the windows, with the same vacant expression, dumb-mouth-gape, clearly waiting for whoever it was who was coming out to her.

The nurse went and got an attendant. “She is getting distressed it is a euthanasia situation.”

“Oh, okay,” said the attendant and she headed off.

My nurse came back with my pills, and while I was paying, the attendant came in carrying Lola.

I headed out, and there was the fat woman in her car, her face screwed into distress, stained with her tears, still dripping from her considerable jowls, and my first thought was, just when you thought she couldn’t get any uglier.

Oh yes, my friends, I know I am going to hell.

Or conversely, I am the living embodiment of why hell simply doesn’t exist.

Who can say?

High Sugar Levels

I have blood tests every year, because it is a good thing to do to keep check of your health. I also have high cholesterol in my family and my father died from prostate cancer.

I normally do this every year, I try to do it with the end of the financial year, for no particular reason other than that date is easy to remember.

Last year, I got the pathology form from my doctor, but for no particular reason other than being a lazy cow I didn't, actually, get the blood tests done.

And, funnily enough, with the talk of people skipping doctor’s appointments during Covid19 lockdown being potentially dangerous, it finally prompted me to go have the blood tests done.

Well, they all came back fine except for my blood sugar levels, so I had to go and have another test done, which I thought I would just breeze through, naturally.


Well, my doctor just called to say my second blood tests came back still with elevated sugar levels, and I have to change my diet. Sad Face.

So, while I don't drink soft drink, or alcohol, I do eat lots of pasta, noodles and rice, which all turn into sugar in your body.

I have tried to stop eating those things. I have been eating more chicken and fish. I don't mind brown rice, so I have changed to that. And I bought low GI bread from the bakery.

I have started walking every morning, poor Brun doesn't know what has hit him, I can almost hear him say, What? More walking? I'm not a fucking greyhound, you know. Buddy gets a reprieve as he is an old man now.

In fact, it is getting light, I should get going. I might leave Brun on the couch this morning.

Black Lives Matter

Black Lives Matter is about stopping violence and racism against black people.
It is about treating everyone in society equally, but it isn’t really that.

I think protests are great, society’s voice, free speech at work. More people should protest.

Sadly, the arrogant Morrison Government doesn’t listen to the people, and it lies when the people say things it doesn’t like.

The protesters can protest, but are they really going to achieve anything? What are they going to achieve? Systemic racism has always been with us, it has never been eradicated. It probably won’t be eradicated now. Our government has no will to change things.

Of course, that doesn’t mean the protesters shouldn’t try.

They can change the procedures of the police force, of course, that should be achievable.

Pulling down statues, I think, is a cry for help by protesters when they feel they are powerless to change the world into a place where racism and violence against black people has been eradicated. Still, if a statue represents racism, can you tell me a good reason why we should keep it?

But racism in society? The only real answer is education, which is not going to fix the problem in the short term, or the foreseeable future. And with conservative governments continually being elected around the world, quality education is never going to be available to everyone. Conservative governments only provide quality education to the people who can afford to pay for it.

The Morrison Government can’t even bare the idea of our history books telling the truth about the invasion of Australia.

So, what is the answer to racism in our modern, civil society (civil for some of us, which is, actually, the point)? What are the answers? I don't know, which is shameful. We should know the answers by now? But, I don't even know why people give all that energy over to being racist in the first place.

It might make the privileged members of society feel better if they protest, but if history tells us anything, that is all it is probably going to do.

Sadly.

Politicians condemning people attending protests are attempting to destroy democracy, essentially.

I Love Autumn, such great colours

Shopping In Smith Street

I’m waiting out the front of Woollies with Buddy and Bruno while Sam shops. The doorway to Woollies is disgusting by that time of day, assorted rubbish, an empty wine box, two plastic carry bags filled with who knows what, bottles of half drunk soft drink, no doubt pinched from the supermarket, discarded take away coffee cups, what was left of a smash asthma inhaler, an old jacket, some clothing material of undetermined origin and what looked like multiple stains of historic bodily waste, from various sources.

An old woman, in a beanie, and an oversized jumper, comes out of Woollies, she pushes her trolley over to the wall on the other side of the entrance to where I am standing.

I am writing on my phone, so I don’t pay too much attention.

I vaguely hear her saying, “I can help it, I can’t help it, I can’t help it, I can’t help it.”

Finally, I look up from my phone, to see her bent over forwards with her knickers and track suit pants around her thighs pissing up against the wall in the entrance way to Woollies.

She has on a beanie, that is pointy like a dunce’s hat, which makes her look ridiculous in itself, a huge oversized moth-eaten jumper, pale grey track pants, which are far too big for her, and grimy ugg boots. I can see her old cream knickers are grey and lank, against the blue/white skin of her geriatric thighs.

She is a sight.

She had, seemingly, tried to piss into a take away cup, which I hadn’t noticed initially, and when she tries to sit it down on the concrete, she manages to drop it a number of times, finally kicking it in frustration, but it just ricochets back at her when it hits one of the bollards in front of the supermarket doorway.

When Sam comes out, I tell him and the look on his face is priceless as he takes the whole scene in. When we both look over at her we can see her standing there in a puddle of her own piss.

Is that what we all have to look forward to, I think? Some version of that?

Prosecute Killer Cops, nobody is above the law

Autumn Leaves - it is like a painting by a great master

The Waiting Room

I headed to the dentist at 1.45 yesterday to have my missing tooth replaced. I was on time, to the minute, actually.

The waiting room was cleared of all the magazines, the table tops were clean and spartan. Just clean, presumably, sanitised lines.

I sat on the seat and waited. And waited.

Pump pack bottles of clear, bubbly goo sat on the counter.

I looked around and saw the book shelf had been cleared off as well, except for the bottom shelf which seemed to have kids’ books and perhaps some games. I guess you have to keep the little people entertained.

The second bottom shelf had one book, with a much smaller book sitting on top of it, right in the middle of the shelf.

Is that a...? I wondered. It is a...? I got up to check. It was a Gideons, what's more. And one of those tiny prayer books, which I always think are far too small for anyone use. (kind of a metaphor for religion itself, ideas far too small for anyone to use.)

Well, I thought, if we are going to clear out all the rubbish, we shouldn't leave the job unfinished. I stood up and took the Gideons and the prayer book and put them in the waist paper basket provided next to the book shelf. Well, if you are getting rid of the crap, you need to get rid of all the crap. Seriously.

If they didn't keep me waiting for fifteen minutes, I might not have noticed. I wouldn't have been sitting there long enough to get to thinking.

Of course, they will probably see the two books in the waist paper basket when it comes time to empty it, and they will probably retrieve them, of course they will, they'd have to be blind not to. But it amused me for a moment, while I waited, for the time they kept me waiting in the waiting room.

My new tooth took 2 hours to fit. It is lovely too, I guess, although unexpectedly lumpy behind. My dentist had warned me that it would be thicker than my previous tooth, but I assumed she mean 2 millimetres rather than one. This is much thicker than that.

I think I nodded off a couple of times during the 2 hours.

The Weird and the Wonderful

Sam wanted to have a shower around 11am. 

“Should I wash Brun?” 

Brun has been itching and scratching lately. And there was the smell of cheesy popcorn, I smelt, from earlier in the morning. 

Sam always wants to wash the dogs more, and I always want to wash them less, and recently Sam showed me a YouTube video that said when they smell like cheesy popcorn it is time to wash them.

So, Sam washed Brun, which is normally always my job. I wash, Sam dries.

So, a little while later, I was walking Brun up Gertrude Street, you know, kind of cheating after he had a wash, walking him in the sun rather than spending forever bent over him with a towel, which is tedious. Drying dogs after a wash is my least favourite thing.

However, I decided Gertrude Street wasn’t the sunniest street on the block, so I was heading for an alternative route, when, of course, Brun determinedly started to sniff around the base of some of the trees, just before we got to Young Street.

“Oh, come on,” I said and I gave a tug on the lead. Brun resisted. “Oh, come on,” I said and I gave a tug on the lead. Brun resisted. “Oh, come on,” I said and I gave a tug on the lead. Brun resisted. 

You get the picture. 

I tried to pull him away from the object of his sniffing, so we could head out from the shade into the sun in Brunswick Street, so he wouldn’t get a chill. (I’m not really sure if dog’s get chills, I mean, of course they can, but not as easily as we worry about)

A guy standing in a shop doorway looking at his phone, looked up momentarily and smiled so gorgeously at Brun. Ah, how lovely. I’m sure I twitched my nose at him.

A woman standing in the next shop doorway with a mug in her hand, not exactly sure where she fitted in, turned to me and said, deadpan,

“Your fault for having a dog that looks like you.”

I looked at her, and initially thought, wow! What am I to make of that? She held my gaze, but didn’t say anything else. She just stood there with her mouth partly open. I was puzzled as to what she meant. In the next millisecond, I decided that this was one of those occasions where I didn’t have to, actually, say a word, and I didn’t. I just turned and walked away, a lost art. I told myself.

I think she was making an attempt at humour, but I don’t really know.

Brun and I walked down the west side of Brunswick Street in the glorious sunshine. Some of the old ladies where hanging out outside the charity shop sitting in those old fashioned rockers, that my grandmother used to have, (that’s the grandmother who drank brandy like a fish and chain smoked Kool cigarettes, and not the grandmother who was a property developer, you understand) that are covered in material and they press down in the seat to rock. They patted Brun as he passed by. 

One of them said, “A face only a mother could love.”

I thought, I have been hearing a version of that repeatedly today, ‘a dog that looks like you’, ‘a face only a mother could love.’ We seemed to have somewhat of a theme going on here.

I mumbled something about Brun having just had a shower, and I reached down and rubbed Brun’s fur and I was quite happy with how dry he was by that stage, but the old women in the chairs had lost interest by then and had looked away, and I was talking to myself.

We walked up King William Street and then up the pathway to the dog park and I was going to let Brun off his lead if no one was playing ball, he still being obsessed with balls. As it turned out, three black guys were kicking a soccer ball, so I didn’t let Brun off his lead.

We walked up a street to my street.

A woman crossed over my street from the other side and walked up th street in front of us. She was dressed in black with a pink cotton back pack slung over her back, she walked the walk of someone who was frail and hesitant. She had spider’s legs for fingers and she seemed to be repelled by the sun.

There was a helicopter flying overhead, at which she looked around as if it made her nervous. As she kind of cringed, I could see she looked a little like Bette Davis post stroke, but younger.

Then an unregistered white Mitsubishi ute with both its back lights smashed off pulled up next to her and the guy driving leant out holding something in his hand, which I couldn’t make out, and said to the woman, 

“I’ll give you $40 for one cigarette.”

She looked over at him and kind of recoiled.

“I’ll give you $40 for one cigarette.”

She shook her head in the negative. Or she intimated she didn’t know what he was talking about.

“The helicopter will pick you up and take you away,” he said. Then he sped off.

The sun shone. Brun and I passed her. As I got the rubbish in, she smiled at me with her disfigured face and then kept walking.

On the 6pm news I saw the guy in the unregistered Mitsubishi ute get dramatically arrested in Carlton accused of multiple robberies across Melbourne. He’d probably been arrested just after the cigarette incident in my street.

"I can’t breathe," by Claire Nobles 2020