Wednesday, November 30, 2022

Where's Buddy

People still ask me in the street where Buddy is when they see me and Bruno coming along. Sometimes it is people who I am sure I have never met before that. They always look as though I have left Bud at home for some reason, as though I am going to say he is at the poodle parlour, or he's catching up on some sleep. 

Even strangers have said the kindness words to me when I tell them Bud has died. People have been really generous with their comments. A couple of people I know quite well from around the suburb have teared-up at the news.

Dear Buddy, everybody loved him. He was such an outgoing dog. He loved people. And people loved him.


Tuesday, November 29, 2022

How Much An Hour

I went to see my surgeon for my 6 week review. I saw him for about 4 minutes and he charged me $215.

I am not complaining about how much he charged me, even if there is a part of me that thinks a follow up consultation should be all a part of the procedure performed, but it got me thinking, how much is that an hour?

That is approx. $2580 an hour.

And, really, that is everything that is wrong with the inequality in the world, right there. Oh yes sure, he did how many years of study at uni? But $2500 an hour's worth? Really?

Oh, yes, I can see why we'd be cutting taxes for high income earners. Poor luvs, hard done by from all accounts.

You know, in the period of time when worker's wages have remained flat, very senior lawyer's salaries have increased from 200 thousand to something like 300 thousand today, and it is their tax payments which we are cutting. The poor things, how the hell would they cope otherwise.

It reminds me of the time a law firm partner screamed down the phone at me, "I can't live on less than 600 thousand a year."

We must give these people tax cuts, it is only fair.


Monday, November 28, 2022

Screwed Over Workers

Monday in the office... oh, fuck the world. We discovered a better way of working and now our companies seem intent on taking it away from us.

I now have to work in the office every Monday, it just kind of sneaked up on me, all tied up with the last cranial explosion by HR.

Damn, the drama by Human Remains, distracted me. I was going to argue against it, but I had to sort out the nonsense. Grrr! (Trust that idiot department to be involved)

I got to the office at 6.45am, really, just because I wake early (and I live close to the CBD). It is kind of nice being up early, and travelling through the still sleepy city. It is gentle and comforting. I even like being the first person in the office.

Mostly, I get there early, so I can leave early, which I did at 3pm. 

And it is a bit of a fuck you in my mind, at least I get a number of hours done before I have to associated with any of the bastards who are making me go to the office. Makes sense? Ah fuck it, I don't care. I'm just lucky I wake up early. I like waking up early, they are precious waking hours I don't have to associate with other people.

I still have some ideas about curtailing the attending office requirements, which I have to admit, thus far, amounts to just not going in. I wonder how seriously the excs would take that?

I'm wondering how many Mondays I'd get away with a Monday text off, "I'm working from home today."


Sunday, November 27, 2022

Making Sense Of The World

Sometimes, I go and bury my face in Bruno’s fur and inhale… and everything is again right with the world.


Saturday, November 26, 2022

Well Done Dan Andrews

Congratulations to Dan Andrew’s, well done. You have single handedly (your govt has) steered the Good Ship Victoria through the rough seas and out into the open ocean of hope. You have saved us from the rabid religious rabble of the Victorian Liberal Party and their politics of division. Thanks mate.


Friday, November 25, 2022

Old Films

I love old films. I guess you know that. I generally love everything about them, but mostly I love the glimpse it allows me of times that no longer exist.

I think I was born a sentimental, melancholy soul, right from the beginning. I think I took my first breath and in the very next second regretted all that had been lost in the world.

As a teenager, I used to sit up with my VHS tapes and copy old films from the TV. The VHS tapes have long since gone – actually, that’s not strictly true, I still have a couple tucked away for films I have not got on a different medium. I’m not really sure why, I have some ridiculous idea that one day I will have them digitised when I can’t manage a digital copy, which is sheer nonsense. I still have a VHS player attached to the bedroom TV which, I can’t remember how many years it has been since it was used. It is probably so full of dust now it would never work.

I have replaced just about all of my film collection with digital copies.

My Rod Steiger film The Pawnbroker arrived. I’d bought it from eBay. I have been looking for a copy for some time, but they have all proved too expensive.

When I say they have proved to be too expensive, it is because I will only buy them from eBay if they are $10, or less. (I have to put some kind of limit on this habit)

I can get DVDs for $1 & $2 at opshops. I have practically built my entire movie collection on second hand $1 & $2 DVDs. It is astounding what you can get in an opshop. 

(I was born loving second hand things. Well, perhaps not born. We had a family friend who had sons older than me and when I was between 1 and 10ish, I used to get boxes of their second hand clothes, every now and again. And I am sure that I loved those clothes because they smelt of Mark & his older brother Christian. I can still remember the smell)

You can’t get DVDs that cheap on eBay, but you can get them cheaper if you wait. So, instead of buying a $30, or $40 copy I have hung out for a sub $10 and I find if I wait long enough, the cheaper copy always comes up.

It is also worth noting that eBay isn’t always the cheapest place to buy them. JB HiFi can be cheaper, just with their regular prices, and then they can be cheaper again when they have a sale.

So, The Pawnbroker is a 1964 movie that deals with the aftermath of holocaust. I must have watched it when I was a teenager and it left an impression on me. I think it was one of those occasions when I sat up on my own watching the late movie, although that may not have been the case as my parents, especially my mum, were pretty liberal with what they let me watch on TV. I remember B&W, I remember seediness, for want of a better expression, but I have always been a big fan of seediness, so I say it with a positive slant. I remember a woman exposing her large breasts, I remember very interesting characters.

Then I look it up on Wikipedia and The film was the first produced entirely in the United States to deal with the Holocaust from the viewpoint of a survivor.[3] It earned international acclaim for Steiger, launching his career as an A-list actor.[4] It was among the first American films to feature a homosexual character and nudity during the Production Code, and was the first film featuring bare breasts to receive Production Code approval. Although it was publicly announced to be a special exception, the controversy proved to be first of similar major challenges to the Code that ultimately led to its abrogation.

I have always liked sleaze, again for want of a better expression. Not your John Water’s stupid kind of sleaze, which is done primarily for humour, although that has its place too. The only John Waters film I have is A Dirty Shame. Oh yes, and Hairspray, of course I have both of them. No, I have always liked the real kind, the kind that so many of us enjoy in private, but would probably never admit to. I use sleaze in a positive sense, the real thing that effects so many of us.


One of my favourite novels is The Talented Mr Ripley, which has been made into a film something like 4 times. And just recently, I got a copy of Purple Noon, with Alain Delon in the opshop for $2. So, you see, it’s not just Mean Girls 7 and The Fast & the Furious 32. I have just about collected all the Ripley movies, I have one left to get and that is The American Friend (1977) with Denis Hopper. So, I wait for that to come up.

The films I specifically collect are Bette Davis, Hugh Grant, Meryl Streep, Jack Nicolson, who sadly now suffers from dementia, Jude Law, oh just because he is so goddam good looking, Zac Efron, Paul Newman, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Marlin Brando, Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Katherine Hepburn.

I collect Nicole Kidman movies. It is funny with Nicole Kidman, I have always said that I don’t like her as an actor, but then whenever I watch anything she has been in I always think she is great, so as a kind of antidote to that conflict I started collecting her films. Of course, there is a cross over with Australian films with her.

I collect any Australian film. It doesn’t matter what it is.

I collect gay films.

I collect short films. I adore short films.

I like collecting evolutions of films, like I have all 4 of the Star is Born films. The Italian Job. The Bourne films. I have both Little Shop of Horror films, as I have both Psycho films.

I collect Alfred Hitchcock movies.

I collect Agatha Christie movies.

Andy Warhol films.

Silent films, even if they are probably my least favourite. I like talking, I like dialogue.

Batman films and Star Wars films.


Thursday, November 24, 2022

Nick, Nick, Nick

It is a cool, grey kind of day, for my day off. I’m thinking that I really need a haircut, as I gaze into the mirror first thing, trying to push my face back into my 20 year old self with my fingertips. “Ug.”

My shower made no difference. You know how you expect the hot shower water to shrink wrap your flesh back onto your bones… er, no.

So, 11am. I’m in the barber’s chair waiting for my hairdresser to start on my hair. The cutter and the client next to me are far too chatty for my liking. I hope that haircut is wrapped very soon, I think.

“Hello, my name is Moira, I will be your hair professional for today,” says the pretty dark-haired girl. “What were you think you’d like today?”

“Oh, um…” my phone rings in my pocket, so I checked who it was. I don’t, exactly, know why, I am very good at not answering my phone.

It’s Boris. I answer, which is an even greater mystery. There has been a fuck up with another one of Nick Watson’s employees. Oh shit, I think. I try hard not to get that sinking feeling. I tell Boris I don’t know the answer off the top of my head, but I will be home in an hour, or so, and I will check it out. I try not to let it get me down, but, of course, it does somewhat.

The only part of the conversation that bothered me was Boris saying, “This is getting out of hand.” It makes me wonder if, in fact, Boris is on my side? You’ve got to wonder? As you know, after all, she is just trying to safe guard her yearly bonus.  Of course. Isn’t everyone?

She doesn’t like the fact that she has to deal with problems on my days off. (sad face) And it is on my days off that these problems tend to get out of hand. If I am working, I just answer bluntly, I don’t mess around. “No, Nick, this is your fuck up,” or some such thing. If I am not there, Boris tends to try and keep the peace, etc. (And we all know how that usually pans out)

Just try not to think about it, I think. Get back to your haircut and the normal thing that a haircut involves, which for me is sleepiness. I don’t know why, but I always get sleepy in the barber’s chair. I don’t mind it, in fact I kind of like it, its like a sedative to me.

11.57am. I see a gaggle of people across the road on Johnston Street. I head across there as I am thinking of heading down to Sacred Heart OpSop in Brunswick Street. The gaggle of people turn out to be how to vote people and the building next to the pet shop is an early voting station, so I vote.

I tell Sam I am voting. He replies that he is cooking.

My heart isn’t really in opshoping, thanks to Boris and Nick and work. Don’t ruin my day off, I think.

Sam is cooking, I think? He must be cooking lunch. I message him. He is? I head home. The fuck up at work is foremost on my mind.

As it turns out, how I processed the alleged fuck up, the one we’d already had a problem previously with Nick’s inaccurate instructions, I might just add, according to the instructions I have. Nick had requested a change but he’d stated the change was to come into effect after 02.12.2022, so by that technicality, I win, and Nick loses. In fact, I laugh to myself, I may have just screwed the slack, fat turd over. Ha ha! I try to enjoy the moment. Of course, in reality, there is no such thing, he will still blame me, but I don’t care because, seemingly, in this instance I may have well just gotten away with it.

The “this is getting out of hand,” comment from Boris is still in my head.

We ate Szechuan stir fry for lunch.


Just a side not, one of the greatest singers who ever lived died today, 31 years ago. Freddie Mercury, the world is a lesser place for you not being in it.


Wednesday, November 23, 2022

Duh!

So, I get to the surgeon's office at 8.35am. (when I edit and add bits, the system seems to change the font to a bigger size. I don't mind it) I say to the nice girl behind the computer screen that I was Christian and I was there for an 8.30am appointment. She starts surveying her screen, looking and looking and looking again, and I think, Oh, Houston, (I, of course, don’t mean the NASA Mission Control Centre, I mean Whitney) it looks like we have a problem.

She looks at her screen and then relooks at her screen. She snatches a glimpse of me and then her eyes return to her screen.

Other patients are starting to gather behind me.

“What would your last name be,” she asks?

I tell her, and she continues with the investigation of her screen.

“Then she looks up again. “We have you down for next Tuesday @ 8.30am.”

“Oh,” I say. I was sure I'd put it in my phone. I look down at the calendar on my phone which says it is next Tuesday at 8.30am. Duh!

“[name of doctor] has some free time around 9.15am, if you’d like to wait I am sure we can fit you in.”

“Does it matter if I am a week early?”

“Well, we do usually go for 5 week reviews.”

“Oh,” I say again.

“Would you like the appointment at 9.15am?”

“Um, oh, no, stupid me.” I smile. “I’ll come back next week.”

I wander back up the street, the quiet, earlyish morning street, there is something really nice about deserted morning streets. There is a gentleness to it, especially when you are wandering back aimlessly kind of wondering how you just did what you did?

There is a group of oldies excitedly taking their seats at a table out on the footpath.

I buy a raspberry muffin and hop back on the tram, trying not to say "idiot" to myself, even under my breath.


Tuesday, November 22, 2022

Up Early Enjoying The Ambience

I am lying in bed, early, enjoying the warmth of the morning bed, because of this stupid weather we have been having. It has been unseasonably cold here for weeks. I have had the central heating on, and I don't think i have ever had the central heating on in November.

Our house guest is leaving today, he is heading off up north. He said his goodbyes last night, as he was leaving early.

I could hear him getting his stuff ready to leave, as I lay in bed. I heard the front door open and close.

Then Bruno jumped up on the side of the bed, as Bruno has a habit of doing if he wants to head outside for a wee, but often he just wants to go downstairs.

So, I got up and Bruno and I head downstairs early, 6.15am.

As I come down the stairs, I see Tim's suite case and backpack sitting by the front door, so he hadn't left yet.

Tim is really lovely, don't get me wrong, but he is a talker. Loves a chat, which I am pretty sure is a better way to be than being a non-talker, but at 6am I am very much in the latter camp. Okay, I'm not much of a talker at the best of times, it is true. Oh, that's not exactly true, but I am very much able to appreciate the silences, without the need to fill them with the sound of my own voice.

And one of the joys of getting up early is those few hours I have to myself.

I switched off all the lights Tim had left on as I head through to the kitchen. I make a coffee and Bruno and I sit on the couch and I write my journal, while Bruno cuddles up to my thigh and gets back to his 20 hours sleep a day.

Fifteen minutes later, I hear the front door open and close again. I hear the toilet flush and, if I said I braced myself for the impending chat, I would be overstating how I felt, but you get some sense of how I was feeling. Then, you may say as luck would have it, I heard the front door open and close again.

Oh, I know, that feeling like I dodged a bullet makes me sound like a terrible person, and in some sense, I guess, I felt like a terrible person, you know, at the very extremities, but the silence wasn't broken, so lovely.

Anyway, I'm off to see my surgeon early this morning, with an 8.30am appointment, so I must get this sorry arse of mine into some sort of order.


Monday, November 21, 2022

Monday Morning

And this morning it is freezing. What is with this weather? (famous last words) The sun is shining, and the sky is blue, but it is freezing cold. It is nearly the end of November, it is nearly summer, it should be much warmer than this.

Even Bruno is coming to sit in my lap for warmth.

We're all home.

We have a friend staying. Everyone is doing breakfast. Our mate is flirting a bit with Charlie, which is making Charlie smile, I notice. (Not that that really says anything people genuinely like attention, don't they?) Apparently, Charlie's mum, Sam's sister, has said about Charlie, something along the lines of, "Well, he is 19 and he has never had a girlfriend. He has never shown much interest in girls."

Do mother's know? They say they do.

I should ask him? Nah, too confrontational. 

I guess we'll see when he brings home a boyfriend/girlfriend. I hope it is a boyfriend. Not, that I'm bothered either way. Of course, whatever makes him happy.


I lied to Boris. I told her that I had to go and see my surgeon this morning, so I wouldn't becoming into the office. She said okay, without any questions. My appointment with the surgeon is, actually, early tomorrow and I am assuming it won't be all that long, and he isn't all that far away, so I should be back at my home desk before Boris even signs on in the morning. Boris never really signs on until after 9am, often 9.15am, so she will never know my deception.

What excuse am I going to make up next Monday not to go into the office?


Sam took my shitty MacBook Pro back to the shop to have its rubbish butterfly keyboard replaced, I think, for the 4th time. I'm not really sure why I paid a premium price for this less than premium quality laptop.


Sunday, November 20, 2022

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Really sick of the fucking rain.

OMG! It could really stop now!

And I don't live in a flood area.

Thanks to all the climate change denying conservative governments for this. Yeah, good onya.


Wednesday, November 16, 2022

Oh HR Really?

Monday morning meeting with HR.  Boris was keen to meet face to face to address the issues that HR has been banging on about.

"They have calmed down a lot now," claimed Boris, trying to get me enthused in the meeting.

Nick Watson’s head exploded a few weeks ago, when he blamed me for his fuck up. He has been bad mouthing us, um, me, since. I can only presume that he thinks if he throws enough mud some of it will stick.

Boris has been pushing for the meeting for the last few weeks

"We need to meet face to face to clear this up."

I told her what I thought beforehand about all the issues we wanted to cover. And what I thought the outcomes should be.

And I have to say, Boris was magnificent. She didn't try to keep the peace. She didn't try to compromise. She used many of my talking points, which she drove home with an uncompromising attitude.

The HR brains trust came with 8 talking points, and we, of course, demolished them, mostly because, HR, as is nearly always the case, didn't know what they were talking about.

At least 3 of their talking points involved long held HR procedures which we knew more about than they did.

Nick Watson, a senior HR manager, who gets paid more than most people, has very little understanding of what he's supposed to be doing.

For instance…

Nick questioned us about salary packaging (Oh yes, I know, does it get any more exciting) and why weren’t we across the responsibility of it all. He questioned our poor response to salary packaging in the company.

Boris has since investigated the procedure for salary packaging, and guess what, it is essentially Nick Watson’s responsibility as he is the most senior HR manager in Melbourne, now that The PonyTail has gone off and had pups.

And that is how Nick’s remaining talking points are panning out with more investigation.

Seriously, HR never ceases to surprise me at how seriously rubbish they really are.

It is just a repository for people with Arts degrees and a god complex.


Tuesday, November 15, 2022

Yeah, I Went To A Posh School

The kids at my school were driven up to the front door in all manner of machines. Remember, I was fascinated with cars from birth, so it would seem, so this is pure admiration of cars, more so than anything else.

Boys and cars, isn’t that what life is all about.

Early on, in primary school, one kid's mum drove a silver Falcon GTHO. I loved it. I remember my school mate’s mum telling my dad, one afternoon when they were waiting for us, that she wanted to get rid of the car because it got something like 4 mpg, but it was her husband’s dream car. Problem was that she was the one stuck driving it, mostly, as her husband had a company car.

She was pretty, blonde, big smile, and my dad was a sucker for a pretty face. I remember she had cleavage, and a strappy brown leather dress/top. I saw that stupid look on my father's face, that I would see again, and again, being so closely positioned to a very nice set of tits. Barely contained idiot grin trying to sound serious. I turned up and while I was getting into the car, I heard that much. 

My brother was home sick, my sister had caught the tram home on a half day, and my dad had finished early, so he was waiting at the front door for me. 

"Anyway, got to be going. His brother is home already, so that’s us ready to go," said Dad. He glanced back smiling several times.

My father drove us to, or picked us up from, school. It was always my father, never my mother. Dad worked in the neighbourhood to our schools, my mother never did.

Rich's mum dropped him and his brother off early in the morning, in a red 911 in the early days, replaced by a gold 911 half way through school. She was always at the gate at the end of the day waiting for them, in the early days. Years later, my music teacher suggested it might have been a custody situation. His father was some big shot who was used to getting his way.

Not so many 2 door Mercedes, but still a couple of SLs, I guess they were the only children’s cars.

Mark D's mum would turn up in her big 2 door Bense, maggoted to pick up Mark and his brother. They'd often be standing there waiting for her to turn up when the cleaners turned up at the deserted school, even though they, really, lived walking distance from the school, but Shirley forbade them to walk in case something bad happened to them. Life is pregnant with irony.

The mother of 2 boys, the family of a well know real estate chain – amongst a handful S & E class motors driven predominantly by mothers – (I can’t name them as they are still a household name) drove a big gold 4 door S Class Mercedes, resplendent with a red wig, jungle red lippy and chunky gold jewellery. Her sons were not attractive, and both of them turned out to be gay and tortured.

One of the fathers drove the very first GTR Nissans, his wife drove a V8 Fairmont Station wagon to pick up her brood of sons. The four blond surfie type Grey boys would be dropped off by their dad in the morning, and picked up by their mum in the afternoon.

Three brothers, the Carter boys, with a white stripe in their hair, whose father had the same stripe, I saw at our finally year assembly, their father drove a maroon Jaguar. Another set of brothers got dropped off in a Range Rover. 

There were two other sets of 4 brothers that went to my school, the Millers and the Batten-Garys and I had sex with the youngest from two of them. One was in grade 4, Nathan Miller, when I first got to the school. The other was just after we’d left school with Anthony Batten-Gary. We picked each other up at the lights of Camberwell Junction, 6pm winters night. I did him over the bonnet of his Peugeot, his pants around his ankles, in the industrial section of Camberwell. He had condoms and lube. I never questioned that he’d have that in his car. And don’t think I wasn’t thinking of his older brothers as well as we screwed in the failing light.

There were plenty of Saabs an Landcruisers, like my mum and dad drove.

I don’t know if it was my burgeoning sexuality, but the sets of brothers, at my school were something to look at. The Miller boys, dark and athletic, the Shugg boys, had great legs and sexy arses and were dark blond (I do wonder if my arse ‘thing’ came from the Shugg boys. I can still picture them, thick thighs and beefy arses stretching their grey school pants), the Batten-Gary boys, also dark and athletic, the Carter boys, who were the most alike, like different sized versions of the same person, and the blonde Grey boys, were all impossibly good looking. I guess it was me being gay. Each one was a progression on the younger one, in handsomeness and sexiness. You could see the development as you looked from one to the other. I have a bit of a kink for brothers, I’m wondering if this is where it started?

Then you had the communal change rooms for sport when I’d see one, or more, of the brothers in stages of undress and I’d have wank fodder for days.

One of my class mates got dropped off by his barrister father in his dark blue Triumph Stag, black leather seats. The grumble of the Stag V8, nothing sounds so sweet, on a cold winters day it is pure poetry.

One kid's mum drove a blue Maserati Ghibli. Apparently, his dad drove a Maserati too, but I'm sure I never saw it.

The Shugg boys were driven in a metallic blue, fuel inject 5 speed Citroen D series, by their mother. It just seemed to swoop in effortlessly, hover, pick up the boys and then float away again. I was endlessly captivated by it.

"A Goddess," my mum Lottie would say all breathlessly, if she ever saw a D series. She said she always wanted one, but, of course, never got one. 

“Really? A D series?”

“Oh yes please.” Then Lottie would do that thing with her tongue, like a snake. “Lovely. Those swooping lines. But your father would never be in it.”

The Shuggs father drove a Range Rover.

Lottie was no slouch, she could get into anyone of our cars and drive it. One Xmas day I’d arrived in my MGB with the top down and we needed some butter, or something crucial for the lunch, and Lottie in a mild panic picked up keys and said, “Whose are these?”

“Mine,” I said.

“I have to go to the shops.” And moments later the MGB fired up and took off up our street.

My best mate at school's mum drove a D series wagon. She picked up a priceless crockery set from the airport. She was nearly home, her Toorak Street was in sight, she had her blinker on, and a guy came through a stop sign T-boning the D series wagon, smashing the crockery set to pieces.

A famous criminal’s sons went to our school, they got driven to school in a Monaro.

Do you reckon I went to a posh school?

We knew we went to a posh school. But we never really thought we went to a posh school. I suspect, we didn’t even really know what that was? It was just school to us.


Monday, November 14, 2022

In The Office On Monday

I was in the office at 6.45am. Oh, I just get up early. (Of course, then I can leave early)

The problems that HR has been causing have inadvertently dragged me back into the office, as Boris says that is the only way we can deal with them effectively.

So, yay to HR for that.

Boris came in just after 9am, as she does.

"Isn't it okay to be in the office?"

"No."

"But isn't it good to get out and see new things?"

"No."

"Isn't it nice to get out of the house?"

"No."

I wasn't agreeing to any of that.

I ate 2 pies for lunch.

I left at 3.15pm for home.

Really, people want to be in the office? I cannot understand why.

I watched the banked up traffic recently, and again wondered why people want to be in the office.

I can't see any disadvantages to working from home. Recently, a friend of mine, who lives on his own, said he was too lonely at home and really wanted to go back to the office.

Really? I thought. What I really thought was traitor.


Sunday, November 13, 2022

Life Is In The Small Moments

Life is in the micro seconds, that is really where it lives, because the big picture isn't really so thrilling. It is in the small joys, along the way, and not in the destination. Life is life is living. It is in the intangible, the looks, the smiles, a touch, in promises made. The buzz in the stomach at the first feeling of love. The knowing we have come into each other's lives. Belonging somewhere. Fitting in. Thriving. Gathering friends around you. Life long friends. People who are just in your life for a short time. Laughter. Good times. Memories, like a photo album in your head. So many, and so much. 

Being happy. 

Easier when the great big agenda, the world psycho drama, isn't involved. Problem is that we all focus on the great big agenda. We let the world psycho drama into our lives. We forget to not be interested in people who will never affect our lives.


Monday, November 07, 2022

Home Today

Sam's back this morning, very exciting.

His plane lands at 8.45am.

Now, do I leave home at 8.45am? Yes, I think that should work. It takes me half an hour to forty minutes to get there. That should work.

Waiting at the pick up section, oh, those stupid rules about moving along after 5 minutes, or whatever it is. I reckon that is as much an attempt to get car park revenue, as much as it is about traffic management.

I'd better go and have a shower.


Sunday, November 06, 2022

Sunday

9am. 

Whoever invented hot toast and butter should be sainted. And, of course, being Australian, Vegemite.

Hot toast, lashings of butter, a scraping of Vegemite, perfection.

Bruno stands patiently, watching the toast go from the plate to my mouth and back to the plate. Repeat.


Saturday, November 05, 2022

Glasses, Eyes

I have to get my glasses repaired, I stood on them for a second time in a week. I have never stood on them before. You know what Sam blames it on...

I have to go and get an eye drop script filled. I am sure I was supposed to use the new eye drops and to throw the first bottle away.

I'm still using the first bottle. Oh yes, I know, eye drops, some people get very pedantic about them. You know what Sam blames it on...

It is like my distance vision, which was never the reason I got glasses, it was always close up, is now better without my glasses. So walking in the street is better without them, watching TV is better without them. So, I am taking them off a lot. And when I am home on my own, I rarely put lights on, just the glow of the TV for me. So, I must have knocked them off the coffee table when I reached for the remote, or my phone. In my bed room first last week and now in the lounge room. Twice I've taken them to my local glasses shop and I have got them repaired free of charge.


So I asked David if it was possible. Maybe they had tightened up some muscle, or something.

I could hear David glaze over, even over the phone. You see David used to be an optometrist, but he hated it.

"So could that happen?"

"Oh, I don't know."

"Yes, you do."

"Well... and David mumbled away wearily, as if he was channeling some other language, piecing the possibility together... and the only thing I ever understand when he does that, begrudgingly, is either, "So, that's possible," or, "So that's not possible."

But this time he mumbled the response.

"What?"

"Go back to your surgeon if you have any worries."


Friday, November 04, 2022

I Tell David I Don't Believe Him

I message David. "Don’t assume I believe anything that you have told me."

He responds with a Ha Ha emoji. He follows this up with, “Well, best you write a story about it.”

It is a clear admission of guilt. 

I wonder how many days it will be before the tacky cheap-hotel-for-one admission comes forth?

I reckon he's made a deal with the universe, never on his own sheets.

He can't soil his new house. It's probably sacred, declared, in a coven smoking ritual... on a rock... in the moon light. I know how his mind works, and all his guru (he hates that) hocus pocus. I've heard it enough times.


I Don’t Know Why I Am Thinking About My Mum

Never too old for your mother to look out for you. It is a funny and an endearing concept. Did your mother ever attempt to wipe something off your face with a wet hankie she had just spat into, as an adult?

I remember even as a grown man, if I was driving with my mum and she had to pull up suddenly, her left arm would come over to protect me.

I liked driving with my mum, she was a good driver. She would drive me around in her Saab. She knew how to hoof it along in traffic. Her favourite expression if she came up behind a slow driver, "Oh come on, get on, or get off." 

She had 3 Saabs in our family’s life time. (she had a a green Holden first, which was the one I stood on the back seat as a toddler and said what became Fletcher lexicon, "Same model different colour" pointing at cars) A flesh coloured 99. She had a metalic green turbo 3 door 900, a result of her being somewhere, where, I can't remember, indisposed. (It must have been a big deal?) And dad and the (nearly grown) kids were in charge of the purchase. And there was a sale, or we got a good price, something about being loyal customers, I can't really remember now what dad told us to tell mum. But that is what we bought home. Us kids were thrilled. 

Well, leadfoot Lottie was right at home behind the wheel of that little green beast, let me tell you. Hard working mum just having to make the commute from home to work and back, coming through. 

"Just a hard working mum trying to make it home for dinner," Lottie would mumble as she slalomed the traffic, and took the orange traffic light with a squeal from the tyres, despite her protests about us not getting the predetermined car, initially.

Then she got herself a sensible maroon 4 door 900, which was heavily option on the creature comforts, a GLE, I think, rather than turbo. We wondered if that one was cursed. Mum had had it a number of weeks, when someone's foot slipped on an accelerator rather than a brake in some car park, and took out the whole drivers side off mum's new car. Lottie had literally put her purse down on the kitchen table, having just picked up the car from the repairer and there was a loud bang and the Hungarian grandmother from across the road, who we all knew liked a sherry, or two, misjudged backing her blue Pontiac out of the drive way of the house across the street, her foot hit the accelerator instead of the brake when she got into difficulty, the big Pontiac shot out into the street taking the driver's side of Lottie's car with it. In the first 6 months of ownership, Lottie had the car for 2 weeks.

We all missed the little green beast, even Lottie. She was heard to say out loud that she should have kept it.

We all learned to drive in Mum's Saab. I learnt with my dad in the green Cooper S.

My dad had several Toyota LandCruisers, grey and then beige and then white. And a Mini Cooper S. British racing Green, as well.

My dad drove me to school in either a Saab, a Landcruiser, or a Mini Cooper S. It was most fun in the Cooper S, as dad was always running late, so he was often screaming up to the front door with a minute to spare. And if you rush anywhere in the Cooper S, it is loud.

Something like a decade later, when I’d sold my MGB to make up the money to buy my first house, and was just starting to look around for a cheap car for the meantime, Lottie told me that dad had something to tell me.

“What?”

“Oh, just be patient and he will call.”

“When?”

“Soon,” said Lottie. “The next few days I’m sure, be patient, just wait.

And dad did call. He offered me his Cooper S cheap, really cheap. Good old mums.

As it turned out, Lottie had pointed out to him that he never drove it any way, any more. He’d had his fun with it, a thirty year love affair, and now it just took up a garage space, and if he gave it to me both of their cars could be put away in their garage.

I kept it for years. I had it all done up. Best car ever. And then I bought my first Peugeot – you know, aircon, cruise control, a music head unit, ABS brakes – and I put the Cooper S away under a tarp in storage. I’d drive it occasionally on weekends. It always put a smile on my face.

I stupidly sold it when my long term garage situation ceased to exist and I had nowhere to store it. Stupidest thing I ever did. I should have just rented a garage somewhere.


David Calls

I’m in the garden enjoying the day. A bit vague, but that is how we like it. Thinking about myself, lost in the day.

David calls responding to a text I’d sent him earlier.  He says he is feeling better from the flu. “Oh, it’s been terrible.” And then he drops the bombshell, he is still in Melbourne.

“WHAT?”

“Didn’t I tell you that?”

“No.”

“Really?”


He has been secretly hidden away in a hotel in Melbourne, claiming he was too unwell to get on his plane last Monday. (Do the maths)

Seriously, I have known you for 30 years, mate.


“Oh, you know, when they ask if you have any of the following symptoms? A temperature of 104 would ring Covid alarm bells. Who can deal with that. So, I booked into a hotel.”

“All week?”

“Yes.”

“Barely any contact?”

“What?” (He seemed kind of up, a contained volcano)

“No mention of you being still being in Melbourne.”

“I’m sure I told you.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I kept meaning to call you, but I know how germ phobic you are.”

What? “I am not.”

“When I was leaving your house and I told you I was coming down with the flu, your response was, “Get out!”

Chuckle. I didn't want it. And he was leaving anyway, literally walking out the door. In fact, now that I remember that moment, my initial reaction was, I didn't realise you were sick.


Really? I smell a rat Cherie. The only thing that made me do, was doubt the whole flu story/lie.

 

Thursday, November 03, 2022

Just A Mum At The Sink

I wonder if serial killers like the feel of blood on their skin?

I was cutting up lambs hearts for Bruno and I got blood all over my fingers, and it felt like something. Very definitely something. With a stretch of imagination, a glove, because it is thicker than water? I imagined people who like that, would like it, because it is something.

Funny the thoughts you have while you are mixing up your pups gourmet dinner. Beef mince, lambs hearts, tuna, or sardines, sweet potato, and broccoli. Vitamins, probiotics, calcium powder made from dehydrated egg shells, a sprinkle of seaweed powder for his gums and teeth. a dash of olive oil, and a dash of coconut oil.

Hearts are full of blood and I had them to chop first. The sink looked like a crime scene by the time I was done.

The sun is shining. It is a glorious day. Poor lamb, I think.


Wednesday, November 02, 2022

Home Alone

I was home alone. I just worked all day and caught everything up. Neither of us ate until midday.

Of course, I did smoke pot liberally during the entire day, but I think that just helps me focus, as long as I focus from the beginning, if you know what I mean. If you put you head down and your bum up, pot facilitates the focus, if left undisturbed. 

It is a completely different story if you are continually disturbed all day and you continually lose your place. I doesn't work the same then. I was undisturbed. 

When I looked up it was dark, the house was black.

I had a shower and took Bruno for a walk.


Tuesday, November 01, 2022

Cup Day

Actually, a day off right at this juncture doesn't suit me all that much. I still have a shit load of work to catch up on.

Don't think about that, roll a j, pour a coffee and go sit in the garden... despite the weather.

The queens a few doors up have new puppies, I met them formally in the street with the fat boyfriend, with Bruno running down the footpath to greet them off his lead. 

Perhaps today is the first time they have gone out and left them. Maybe, they are at The Cup.

And the pups don't like it, they are very vocal about that. Yay! Let's hope they don't keep that up. 

Half an hour later they were quiet.

Sadly the quiet didn't last.

Bruno stood on the back veranda with big eyes gazing in the direction of the whining.

I dosed myself up all day.

My eye feels no pain. My face is still swollen but going down by the day.