So, the weekend went fast, whoosh. Sunday went even faster than Saturday, so it seemed. It rained mostly, that is how I'd sum the weekend up, rain.
I had my first wood cutting accident, in all the time I have been cutting wood, how many years has that been? I was cutting kindling and the axe missed the thin piece of wood that I was trying to split, hitting my finger, which pushed it down onto the jagged edge that was sticking out and a piece the thickness of a chop stick went into my finger like a thick splinter. It was okay. It's just that moment that I had to pull the wood out of my finger again, which was the bitch. It bled, but nothing some Betadine and a bandaid didn't fix. It's sore, but it will heal, hey.
I only walked for exercise one out of the two days. 😞
I walked the dogs on both days. We got that black sky and bright sun at one stage, which is always kind of dazzling.
I saw a guy get thrown out of a tobacconist accused of stealing for the third time by the guy who ran the shop. The guy who was accused really lost his shit and was screaming at the shop guy as though he was going to attack the shop guy, all the time the shop guy was on the phone saying he was calling the police. In the middle of it all, Buddy headed over for a pat, just moments before the accused wannabe thief started to really lose his shit. So as he was starting to scream and projectile spit, I was bending at his thighs grabbing Buddy's harness. So, yay Bud. 👍
Sam went to the Asian grocer, and Buddy, Bruno and I sat on a window sill and watched the screaming match unfold from a safe distance.
Tomorrow I have my second covid vaccine, and I will be fully vaccinated. Yay me.
I go for a walk for an hour, earlier in the morning today, than yesterday. I head off in my shorts, changing to the sunny side of the street on my way to the park. It is hard to wear a mask when you are walking for exercise, but I persist, as it is protecting me as much as it is protecting anybody else.
I’m listening to The Rolling Stones, Beggars Banquet, and then Get Yer Ya Ya’s Out
10am, in the park, I can take my mask off as I cross the museum plaza as the coast is clear of any people, that is until some fat jogger jogs up from my left, and settles into a pace just ahead of me. I mean who is he kidding, judging by the shape of him he has never jogged a day in his life, before today. I put my mask back on.
A cute boy on the tennis courts bends over to pick up a ball showing me his lovely arse right on queue. Baby!
I raid the dog pooh bad dispenser on my way passed.
There is hardly anyone in the park as I walk up the path closest to Carlton Street, so I take my mask off. Then a jogger runs past me, again, settling into a rhythm just in front of me. Grrrr. I put my mask back on.
10.20am. Two strapping fathers in black track pants and in blue track pants come toward me, and cut in in front of me from another path, both pushing prams (is that what they call them?). The one in blue track pants has a particularly nice arse going to waste.
There are people with matching dogs, not that that is a bad thing. A couple of small wire-haired black dogs that look like clones of each other, and a couple of Westies.
There are women with matching prams (pushers?) come from the other direction, yacking away.
A woman on a crutch hobbles in from Rathdowne Street. She has a lot of park to cross in her condition. I have never been able to go further than 100 metres on a crutch, so props to her, I thought.
The old bloke who looks like he is on his last legs, who, I assume, is doing doctor ordered exercise, he looks so pained, comes walking towards me. He is often walking in the park when I am.
The woolly haired jogger, with the muscular arms, who always seems to be out jogging when I am walking, jogs up, staring at the ground as he always seems to be doing. Nice legs.
Over by Victoria Parade, there is a man sitting on a bench smoking, seemingly liking every drag on his cigarette. Those were the days.
A girl on a scooter comes zipping through.
There is a greyhound up ahead in army fatigues, with a woman in track pants with an arse the size of the rear of a small hatchback, walking with another girl ✌up the Victoria Parade side.
There is the handsome Indian guy with a huge cock flopping from side to side in his track pants, doing circuits opposite to me. I find my head bobbing from side to side, as he jogs up and goes past.
There is a second person in a crutch, have we had a clumsy lockdown, I wonder?
As I head back up Nicholson Street side, there is a woman with babies in a double decker pram talking in baby talk to them. I always find that somewhat unsettling.
A fat boy in blue harem pants and a green mummy knit jumper with a fez on his head, whizzes by on an electric scooter, as I cross the road out of the gardens.
10.56am. I’m home.
11.11am. I’m finished with my shower.
Jesus, fuck me up the arse, let's do a train with the disciples, Christ, it got to 1pm and I hadn’t taken my fat arse for a walk today. Go for a walk every day and you reduce the risk of heart disease by 30%. I hadn’t even thought about it. On only my second day of getting back to exercising. How quickly they forget, I forget, I thought to myself.
I was trying to get back into my novel. I have dropped it for 12 months. (Too much YouTube to watch) Grrrrr. I’d just planned everything I needed to do, how I was going to do it, and which bits I had to write, and I stopped. Stupid me. So, now it is all out of my head again, I have to do a lot of reading just to get back to where I was.
I watched YouTube. I hadn’t watched any of my car youtubers because I had been re-writing my journals. Bugger. (I went looking for a date when something happened and I kept reading over entries in my journals which were short and sparse on detail, all of which I could remember, so I went and filled in the blanks, if you like)
And suddenly it was passed midday. And I just don’t ever feel like exercising in the afternoon, it has to be the morning, it is a morning thing. Besides, I have to take the dogs for a walk in the afternoon.
The other night, I saw a TV report that said if you walk for 30 minutes a day you decrease you risk of heart disease by 30%. I was walking every day, but I haven’t been walking these last 6 months, so I had better get back to it, I thought. It is such an easy thing to do really.
I should, but do I go for a walk? It’s cold, I think, at which very moment the sun comes out. What was that telling me? (Coincidentally, David) I push myself, drag my fat arse off the couch and get changed.
10.45am. I go for a walk for an hour out into the somewhat grey, cold day. (I love working from home. I started early)
I’m listening to the Rolling Stones, but of course. Let It Bleed.
The sun comes out again as I get to the park. Twice around the Carlton Gardens that is all I have to do.
The first person I see is a jogger in white shorts and a black singlet running towards me. He has nice muscular arms, and thick thighs, and he does rounds in the opposite direction to me as I do my circuits.
There is a couple of hot Asian boys jogging in black active wear. They have nice legs in, what are after all, their tights, hugging their shape.
11am. I see a bulldog near the cnr of Carlton Street & Nicholson Street, she has on a pink harness so I assume she is a girl bulldog. I chuckle to myself unless they is… er… are gender fluid.
11.05am. Two gorgeous Border Collies get out of a 4WD on Rathdowne Street and are told to sit on the grass while their owner faffs about getting leads and whatever, which they do.
I speak to David. His old fat housemate, Fat Fred, has just announced his new boyfriend on Facebook. “How can someone that fat get a new boyfriend… when I can’t?”
“Keep eating, in that case,” is my sage like advice.
He tells me the boyfriend is deaf and American.
“Two handicaps,” I say. (I don’t really mean that in my heart of hearts, but I was trying to make sense of it for my friend) “What is wrong with you?”
“I have been looking for him since I was sixteen, where is he?” says David. “My hair hurts.”
He sends me a photo of the two of them, and it looks like fat Fred has married himself, albeit a thinner version.
The sky is grey, it looks threateningly like rain, but I keep walking, what else am I supposed to do? Around by Victoria Parade. Up Nicholson Street again. Steady is my pace. I’m wearing shorts, I always wear shorts, as once I get walking I no longer feel any cold. I like to think the fresh air is good for my skin, my circulation, all of it. Stupid really. But the one thing I know, is if I wear track pants while exercising, I always get to a point where I feel like I am, if I said overheating you’d know I was exaggerating, but something like that.
I see a man walking a wolf looking at the Border Collies with a hungry expression as they all head towards the tennis courts.
I’ve fallen into my rhythm, and it is all plain sailing then. (no cliché is beyond me) I chastise myself for being lazy and promise to myself I am going to walk every day.
I nearly get all the way around on my second lap when at 11.30am, it starts to rain, as I am walking back up the Victoria Parade side of the park for the second time.
I walk the rest of the way home in the rain. The rain drips down off my forehead down my face, which I kind of like. It’s fresh, it’s freeing, I lick it off my lips. My hair begins to drip down the back of my neck. I walk without stopping heading to the verandas which start just over Brunswick Street. I’m quite wet by the time I cross at the lights, but when you are exercising in old clothes and messed up hair and nowhere to be but home and in the shower, it doesn’t matter, in fact it is kind of an excuse to not care and to get wet and enjoy it for once.
11.45am. I am home again. Bruno is excited to see me, he is always excited to see me when I come home from a walk, but I am wet and you know how I hate wet clothes. I want to get into the shower straight away. No time to play with an excited bulldog.
1pm. I have laksa for lunch. Sam has clay pot chicken rice.
I don’t have much work to do in the afternoon.
I find it interesting that it is the antivaxxers who are always the ones who ask the rest of society to respect their choices to not get vaccinated. You know, all choices are valid and should be respected.
Of course, this is true.
7am. I was up. Early. I’m up early now a days. I wonder if it is something to do with working from home?
Bruno and I headed downstairs.
8am. I did the dishes from last night, which I didn’t do when I was too busy falling asleep in front of the Agatha Christie movie.
I spoke to David, not long after I got up. David has taken to calling me in the mornings, now that he no longer sleeps in too.
“Hello, it is your fat friend here,” said David.
“My fattest friend,” I said.
“Isn’t Jill your fattest friend.” He replied instantly.
Poor Jill, I thought. I wondered how she would feel being the reference point for the word's fat problem?
“How much do you weigh?” I said.
We both laughed.
“Well, I remember a few years ago when I porked up and I was complaining about hitting 90 kilos for the first time in my life,” I said. “And Jill quietly responded that she could only dream of being 90 kilos.”
“I’m 95 kilos again,” said David.
David had ballooned, but he had dieted back down to 85 kilos and was doing quite well. But since he’s been in lockdown recently, he has put it all back on.
“I’m beginning to get the sense I had last summer, when I locked myself away, not being able to face the beach at… er… um….”
“100 kilos?” I offered.
“After the horror I was witnessing in the mirror on a daily basis.”
“You’re game,” I said. “You are risking 7 years bad luck.”
“All I could do was peek through the venetian blinds at the outside world, last summer,” he said. “Fucken hell, I’d done so well, and I just put it all back on in record time.”
“Oh universe, I popped the odd extra sultana in my mouth and I just ballooned over night, I don’t understand how,” I said. “How is that fair?”
We both laughed.
“Anyway, I’m now going to walk the arse off the dog for a couple of hours and then I am going to the beach for a swim.”
“Don’t scare anyone.”
“I’ll try not to.”
Yesterday, I got mouth wash from Chemist Warehouse, I had to do something, and it seems to be working. Did you know there is only, something like, one mouth wash with an active ingredient, all the rest are just scented mouth water.
The sun is shining, it is another glorious day.
It was a bloody glorious day. Spring is nearly here. You know with global warming, you could almost say Spring is here.
4pm. In the afternoon, my mate Charlie messages me with photos of some tree recently cut down by his neighbour, now on his neighbour’s nature strip. “You want some fire wood?”
So, we drive over to Charlie’s to pick the cut wood up. We take the back way through Brunswick, so as not to be so obvious. It is still within 5 kilometres of home, but it certainly isn’t one of the reasons you can leave home, in lockdown. It is a $5000 fine after all, if you get caught. It would make it very expensive firewood. And, after last weekend’s flouting of the rules, apparently, there is a police blitz on.
Alexander Parade, usually heaving with cars day, and night, was empty, so that seemed like a good sign people were obeying the rules.
I say to Sam, “As long as we don’t end up on the 6pm news with Dan Andrews saying, “Even after all I have said, some clowns thought it was okay to go and collect firewood from the next suburb.”
Charlie and Lenny were in their front yard when we got there.
“Do you think it is okay to take the wood?” I ask.
“It’s out the front,” says Charlie. He shrugs.
“I’d better ask,” I say. “It seems only polite.”
Charlie asks the neighbour over the back fence if it is okay if we took the wood. It is.
So, I back the car around and Sam, and I, start loading the wood.
The neighbour comes out a one stage, a quintessential hot, muscular wog boy in a white singlet, with tight, blue track pants that… well… did what tight track pants do. Well, hello there. He says it is good someone is going to use the wood.
Really, when it is all said and done, it is probably pretty stupid, as the wood will take something like 2 years to dry out enough to burn. And we have no idea what kind of wood it is. It was big tree rounds, what were we thinking, I think as we load it into the car. But wood has got so expensive now, so the idea of free fire wood is always tempting.
Granny makes an appearance right at the end, in classic floral on floral on floral, apron and headscarf and scuffs, she probably knows from her 105 years on this earth that the wood is no good as fire wood. Who are these malakas taking away this useless firewood? she is thinking as she shuffles up to the front gate. Let me get a good look at these idiots.
We ware our masks the whole time. We don’t go into Charlie and Lenny’s house, “I don’t know if we should ask you in?” says Charlie.
“We’re not supposed to,” I say. So, we speak to them over the front fence, socially distanced, of course.
We just drive straight home, I don’t bother with the back ways then, and we are home by 5pm.
We were home from walking Buddy and Bruno around 5.15pm.
No sooner had we got home, that I realised my gum under my bottom front teeth was flaring up with infection, again. Fuck this world to hell, I thought. It couldn’t have come at a worse time, late Friday just after any hope of contacting my dentist had disappeared. Damn you universe! Why did this have to happen now? (David would, no doubt, say in his stupid new age way, What lesson do you think you need to learn from this? We need 24 hour dentists?) Had I missed the tell-tale signs? No, I don’t think so. It hadn’t been noticeably sore, and suddenly it was. When it happened a month, or so, ago, I called my dentist and while she couldn't see me in lock down, she email the antibiotic script to the chemist straight away. All done so simply. Now, I was going to have to wait 3 days before I could talk to her, by that time I would quite possibly be toothless.
Dramatic?
No, I don’t think so. It is no fun having a sore gum for any length of time, without even thinking about the threat of losing teeth hanging over your head.
I've never had a filling, but I have been through 3 periodontists trying to keep my teeth in my gums.
Grumpy old hygienist Stella from East Melbourne always said it was too much smoking, (her annoyance with my smoking drove me away from her practice) but surely it is much more likely to be an allergy to something. 😬
When I go out these days, with glasses and a mask and headphones, there is an awful lot going on about my ears.
I had Bruno in one hand, well, his lead, and a phone, and the census envelope and my wallet, so there was a lot going on with my hands, too.
And track pants with no pockets.
And I was trying to pick what music to play. I needed another hand.
I was standing still just outside my gate, but there was a lot going on.
Why do I fill out a paper census? (It took 5 minutes with large strokes of my pen) Really why? I think the govt has too much surveillance of us now, thanks to the, essentially democracy corrupting, Liberal Party declaring everything of nation security importance to avoid tricky questions being asked, so if they want my details the govt can work hard to get them and not have them handed to them on a platter like a well trained minion of the ruling class.
It is a minor tyranny, I grant you.
And, it is going to be that way until the govt does what I consider to be important, free medical, free education, meaningful welfare, proper treatment of refugees, some attempt at equality in our society, climate change policies that work, because when it is all said and done, without proper climate change policies, even if we don’t get the rest of the policies I want, the census isn’t going to be of any good to anyone because we won’t be here to put the data to good use.
And if we don’t get the rest of the policies, and inequality rages like it has been ever since the conservative government has been in power, we won’t have a society worth living in any way.
Bruno pissed on everything between my front gate and the post box, more often than not with a jerk on the lead, which, if I wasn’t expecting him to do so, would send me sideways off course, he being close to 30 kilos now a days. And being quite a determined, adult bulldog. He’ll be 3 next birthday. Of course, he wanted to say hello to every other dog he saw, close by, or across the road and away a bit. He’d stop and do his best impersonation of a pointer, well, as much as a flat faced dog can impersonate a pointer.
I settled on Dark Side Of The Moon, just by chance as I was scrolling through, as I was trying to hang on to everything. That heart beat at the beginning, the beat just naturally fell in sync with my footsteps, as it turned out.
My life seems to be a series of Monday mornings now a days.
I was up early, 6am. (not early for me, but, you know, early for most) You’ve got to love working from home, I love working from home. Sign in, start working. (I don’t start with a coffee any more, to cut down on the coffees I drink per day)
I got everything done by 8am, when Sam got up. I chatted to him for a bit. He fed the dogs. I made coffee. Don’t you just love the smell of coffee in the house in the morning.
9am. I started thinking about breakfast.
9.05am. All the dummies start emailing me stuff, as the cut off is midday. Like clockwork it all started flooding into my inbox. “Grrrrr!”
They have all the time in the world to get stuff to me, before this, but humans being what humans are, they will try to get everything to me in an hour, or so. It is very annoying.
I’m done, you bastards… but the cut off is the cut off, what can you do?
I made up a little song, which I sand, as I made breakfast.
ALL THE DUMB CUNTS, ALL THE DUMB CUNTS, START SENDING ME STUFF, ALL THE DUMB CUNTS, ALL THE DUMB CUNTS. WILL SEND ME STUFF.
JUST SHUT UP ALL YOU DUMB CUNTS, ALL YOU DUMB CUNTS, ALL YOU DUMB CUNTS, JUST SHUT UP ALL YOU DUMB CUNTS, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP.
THE WORLD HAS TOO MANY DUMB CUNTS, TOO MANY DUMB CUNTS, TOO MANY DUMB CUNTS, THE WORLD HAS TOO MANY DUMB CUNTS. TOO MANY DUMB CUNTS THE WORLD HAS!
WE WOULD ALL GET ALONG JUST FINE WITHOUT YOU DUMB CUNTS, WITHOUT YOU DUMB CUNTS, WITHOUT YOU DUMB CUNTS. WE WOULD ALL GET ON JUST FINE WITHOUT YOU DUMB CUNTS, WITHOUT YOU DUMB CUNTS! WE’D GET ON FINE.
SHUT UP DUMB CUNTS, SHUT UP DUMB CUNTS, SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!
(Oh, it was Monday morning, I was delirious)
COME ON NOW, EVERYBODY SING A LONG!
Sam came into the kitchen, looked me in the eye, and told me to, “Shut up, shut up, shut up.”
As we are the only ones here, I wondered who he was shutting me up for? (bad grammar withstanding) “Wat?”
“Nobody wants to hear your stupid song.”
I was hurt. “I’m hurt.”
“Make me coffee.”
“SHUt… um… okay, honey.”
“You are only making my ears bleed.”
“I thought it was a good song.’
“You kid yourself.”
I’m not ashamed to admit to a pearl clutch. “Et tu Brute?”
Sunday, shopping in Victoria Street, Abbotsford.
One of the Victoria Street types stops. “You’ve got the most beautiful bulldogs,” he said.
“Thanks.”
Then he did a kind of Lancelot Link arm gesture. And a small jig.
“There are a lot of businesses that have gone under.”
Maybe, I think. It is a pandemic.
“What we’ve got to do is buy them all up before the Chinese do.”
“Oh, do we?”
“Yeah, before it’s too late.”
“I think most businesses are still owned by Australians.”
“No, haven’t you seen what is going on, the Chinese own all the businesses.”
“Maybe around here.”
“No, everywhere man,” he said. “We’re at war with China.”
“What?”
“We’re at war with China, man.”
“We’re not at war with China.”
“Yeah we are man, you don’t know we’re at war with China.”
“No, we’re not at war with China.”
“Yeah, we are man. At war with China.”
“Ah, no we are not.”
We are having a rush of senior female lawyers going off on parental leave, they just keep coming, a bit like they did in lockdown, clearly.
Couldn't they think of anything else to do during lockdown?
They would have professional husbands, over achievers, who wear suits and probably would be hitting the gym by 6am so they could get a full day in at the office. You know, little black shorts and singlets, with legs and arms and chests, sweating.
Twitch of the nose.
They would have been in lockdown too? What else is there to do?
Shake of the head.
You've got to wonder about having kids now, with climate change being what it is. You'd think, any kid you'd be having now, well, you got to wonder how well it is going to end for them?
You've got to wonder?
And these are highly educated people? Do they not care? Not think? Or are most of us in some sort of collective denial?
You've got to wonder?
The planet is over populated.
Monday morning. I'm up early, Bruno and I.
I've been re-writing my journals – yes, so they can be as well written as they can be for no one to read them – and I have been rewriting the period 10 years ago when I worked for the awful law firm – I'll give you a hint, it has a black logo as black as its work culture – and it has been bringing back bad memories, but you know, someone has to do it.
The bad memories are affecting me today, this morning when I am supposed to be signing into my current job, and I am feeling like I just don't want to. I just want to stay on the couch with Bruno cuddled up to my left thigh. (His stomach is gurgling, but that is just by the by)
Oh, groan, back to the salt mines – even if it is just my dining room table - Monday mornings come around so quickly, now don't they.
Yeah, sure, I only work three days – I'd work 5 days if Sam had his way. Yeah, sure, I am luckier than most. (Luck is such a relative term, don't you think?) Yeah, sure working from home is a breeze.
And my job is really easy. Or is it that I am good at it? Or is it because I have I been doing it for a long time? I have been doing it for a long time... I don't want to do it anymore.
Oh, it is probably just the weather, or the time of year, or the season, or any number of things.
I have a zoom team meeting this afternoon where I no longer turn my camera on so they can't see me dying of boredom. I'd just be a cadaver with frown if I turned my camera on.
Oh, Jesus fuck me please, Monday mornings?
I'd rather spend the day writing and learning the piano, they seem like much more worthy pursuits.
What can I say, we're in lockdown number 6, because of covid 19. I'm not complaining, as I have learned that is what most people do during covid...
I can’t go to my gym.
I can’t open my business.
I have to give birth.
I can’t visit my sick relative.
I can’t go away on holidays.
Again, people, it is a pandemic.
...I am just stating it as fact.
We take the dogs for a walk, ending up at the supermarket where we do the shopping. Then we head home and are on our screens for the rest of the day.
What else is there to do in a lockdown?
Sam has really loosened up on the sweeties and I have really slackened off on the exercise, but other than that, it's all life, life as we know it, now.
We bought a piano, well, an electric keyboard. Bad us, as we went out in the lockdown and got it, it was only in the next suburb. And we are now teaching ourselves the piano.
Sam has been more diligent than me, but I have started my lessons too.
A to G, the cords, we're on our way.
There are all sorts of YouTube tutes we can follow.
I guess one day we might have to have some lessons, we'll see.
I guess I am at a slight advantage, as I can read music, as I leaned an instrument and have down all my grades years ago on that instrument. I have also played in orchestras, even if that seems like a life time ago now.
It doesn't feel like an advantage when I am stumbling across the keys trying to learn which is which though, I can tell you.
How do you explain the conspiracy theorists, the covid deniers and the antivaxxers?
To put it really bluntly, they are the stupid, the poorly educated, the badly done by, the abused, and those who have been left behind, who have never amounted to anything, who have never been heard, because they are basically the fools, normally through no fault of their own, which is the really tragic part of all of this, who are finding that they can be heard, and can feel important, as kings, and queens of the crazies. For want of a much better expression, they are the scum that have floated to the top of the cess pool, and they want their 15 minutes, finally.
The increasing inequality explains most of this, probably all of this. When people don't have the same opportunities and we end up with an unequal society with the haves and the have-nots, this is what you end up with.
Equality is the answer, everyone having the same opportunities would solve most of it. We need to keep every member of society at a certain level, we mustn't let anyone fall below the basic standard by which we all need to live. We're not very good at that.
Why are we constantly made to feel sorry for business in this pandemic, when in reality all business does for most of us is suppress our wages, or if you are unlucky enough to be a casual, cut your wages in real terms.
