Is It A Scam?

Did Sam get potentially scammed? He found a replacement antique lamp stand (more old than antique) to replace our broken one in our lounge room held together with black tape. $50. It was out in the Eastern Suburbs. I was willing to go and get it, as it had the old fashion white cup holder that we need, but the woman said she would drop it off. She said she was heading into town on Thursday for some Anzac Day nonsense, but she could drop it off today. 

Nothing. She didn't show. And she's not responding to messages. And she hasn't taken the item down as sold.

So, she has Sam’s name and address. Is that data collection, rather than legitimate sale? You have to wonder.

Oh, I don't know, but you have to wonder?

I wanted the lamp, though.

Time For A Walk

Today, I am going to take the dogs for a walk early.

Then, I am going to contemplate life.

Do my TattsLotto? My friend LouLou is going to be homeless soon, caught up in the rent explosion, so much so she can't afford to rent any longer. I need to buy her a house. Come on TattsLotto, it's for a good cause.

LouLou lived in a very basic unit but consequently she only paid $150 per week. Four older single women on low incomes lived there  so I'm guessing they will all be having trouble securing new places to live. It was a weird (ugly) block of four Besser Block units, on either side there was a vacant block of land. As it turns out, the units and the two vacant blocks belong to the same people and now they are developing the whole lot. LouLou had 3 months notice until Jan 31st to move out. Then she had a couple of months of house sitting lined up, which would bring us approx to current time.

I should call her.

I have to consider what I am going to do about my car? The damage doesn't really need to be fixed, but then I am left with a damaged car. Do I want to spend a couple of thousand to get it fixed?

I have to consider what I am going to do about my leaking roof? It has to be fixed, but the quote that I got is way more than I expected it to be? What to do?

Anyway, first I'm going to have a shower and harness up the hounds and go for a meditative walk first up.

Except, Sam reminds me he's not working either, being that strange public holiday where we commemorate war and killing and so on and what have you. When people claim long dead relatives as heroes who they couldn't possibly have ever have known. So we head out for lunch together taking the woofs with us.

There is a new Indonesian Restaurant in Lygon Street we're going to go to. Apparently, we are going to get take away, as we need to get Charlie some lunch too.

Old Fillet-of-Fish Raises Her Ugly Trout Mouth

I have been having ongoing dealings with the incompetent bitch senior Sydney HR manager Fillet-of-Fish. She wanted some figures done, and as usual she has given vague instructions, and insufficient details, which is always her recipe for blaming you when things go wrong.

You know, the best outcome I can hope for when dealing with her is that I get to the end of dealing with her with my reputation relatively intact.

And she has been at it again. I supplied all the wrong figures to her, according to her. 

She called Boris and screamed down the phone at her, which had the opposite effect than she had anticipated, if she had any idea of what effect she was going to have.

"I picked up the phone and she just screamed down the phone at me, How could this happen? How could this happen? How could this happen?" said Boris. "I couldn't really believe it. All I could think was what is this all about. I was forced to ask her to calm down. Seriously," said Boris. She gave me a disbelieving look.

Apparently, Fillet-of-Fish gave the figures to some execs and they were wrong.

Lucky for me, I have leaned to never pick up a phone call from her. Any dealings I have with her have to be in writing.

I keep thinking it can't just be me who she does this to? Surely, she does it to other people? Surely, her incompetence will be found out. But it never seems to.

One of the other financial accountants, one who has a management position, said to me in the kitchen that I was lucky. 

I’d asked him how he was, you know as you do, and he said to me that he was exhausted and had too much work to do. 

We’ve implemented a new system and it’s been a long and drawn out process to get it right and finally now it’s up and running. I haven’t had much to do with it because I only work part time and I don’t have so much responsibility, but he has been in charge of the whole operation.

I said to him, oh why do you say that? Me being lucky and all.

He said, just working three days you’re lucky.

I said, it was a conscious decision from working hard at my previous law firm and just being shit on in the end, I decided that I would only work as I like to work, which translated to 3 days. 

He said I was smart.

I said, I’ve never regretted the decision.

He reiterated that I was lucky.

That's been my week, the spectre of Fillet-of-Fish potentially raising her ugly trout head at any moment.

And being, I guess you'd call it, complimented by one of the other guys.

And I am done for the week.

The Wardrobe

The collapsed wardrobe. Disaster

We fixed the wardrobe ourselves and felt pretty clever about it

In The Office

My day in the office, pretty depressing. What is there to say? Nothing. The office sucks compared to working from home. It sucks big time. We should all go on strike against returning to the office.

I got in early and had computer problems and I couldn't really get any work done until 9am. I nearly packed up and went home, except, I figured, that would just give me computer problems next time I was in the office.

We should all still be working from home.

A handsome temp turned up halfway through the morning, so that was something by which to get distracted.

Wardrobe Collapse

Last Thursday, there was a noise, upstairs, not a noise that I'd heard before, I thought. And Sam says to me a short time later that our wardrobe had collapsed.

So, I went and had a look and one side of our built in wardrobe had collapsed and the shelves, the clothes, the coat hangers with jackets and shirts had all hit the floor, well, those of it that weren't piled up on the wreckage below. It was a car crash.

Oh! Er! Fuck! 

What to do?

So, Friday, over breakfast, Sam bought up the Ikea website and what the company had to offer. 

Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, what experience have we got to do that? I think.

So, I got onto wardrobe companies. I made an appointment with one for Saturday, and another company said they were keen, but then didn't get back to me to make the appointment.

I had some idea what wardrobe companies charge and it is more likely to be in the thousands than the hundreds. Jill confirmed it later when I spoke to her. "Thousands," she said.

Who cares what it costs, I thought, wardrobes are important and used every day so they have to be done well.

I took the dogs for a walk to think about it all, or to forget about it, or something. I'd just got quotes to get my car fixed and the leaking kitchen roof fixed and neither were cheap.

I got home. I made coffee. I flicked on YouTube. But what to do about the wardrobe? Oh well, we'll find out tomorrow, I guess, might as well wait until tomorrow.

I switched off YouTube, I just can't get lost in that now. What to do?

My laptop was open in front of me. The Ikea page was still open.

People rebuild houses entirely, surely, we could rebuild some shelves.

I took my laptop and my tape measure upstairs and I went through Ikea's catalogue.

I found a combination that was almost exactly the right size for our wardrobe. The top shelf was kind of separate to the rest of the collapsed wardrobe and it was the only part of the old wardrobe that remained and the new structure fitted under it and supported that shelf.

Well? Maybe we could do this.

I showed Sam what I'd found. To replace both sides of the wardrobe was going to cost something like $660.

I cancelled the wardrobe company for the next day.

We spent the rest of the day cleaning up the mess that was our wardrobe. Jesus! What a disaster. A sea of black garbage bags stretched out in front of us, we threw out all sorts of things that I would not have thrown out otherwise. 

The bulldogs played in the middle of it all, not really a help you understand.

And just coincidently we had an un-burnable rubbish collection booked for Monday.

Saturday morning, Sam and I took the dogs for a walk. After which we went out for lunch. We had Bún bò Huế Vietnamese rice noodle dish with sliced beef, chả lụa, and pork knuckles.

We headed to Ikea. Sam knew exactly how to go straight to the stock we wanted, without doing that interminable maze-like tour of Ikea.

The wardrobe that stretches across the end of the wall of our bedroom is in two sections, but we decided to only replace the one side that had collapsed, to begin with. See how we go. We bought the three frames, but we didn't buy all the draws/baskets we needed as we weren't exactly sure how many that would turn out to be. So, $260 later we were out of there.

Then we were trying to find our car in the car park. We went to the second floor of the car park, pushed our trolley to the car, but no car. WTF? Minds boggle. We looked and we looked again. All of our purchases slid off the trolley as everything from Ikea is in plastic and the plastic was slippery on the metal trolley.

Anyway, we picked it all up again. We spun round a few times. Then we looked over the concrete wall to see the car sitting in exactly the spot where we thought it was, just one floor down.

We got home and tore down the rest of the collapsed wardrobe.

Putting the new wardrobe together was the easy part. It only took us a few hours.

Organising all our clothes took longer.

$260 later we have a new wardrobe. Done. Pretty good. The two sides didn't match, but who cares, we may replace the other side at some point in the future.

Bruno & Otto

I didn't write anything today, so how about a cute bulldog shot instead. I was too distracted with some house drama

 

My Mate David

My good mate David is having mental health issues. He has a great life, travelling the world with his job/clients, a life most people would envy, but he suffers from anxiety and depression when he is home. He should be very happy, but he isn't. He is lonely, he wants a partner. 

I try to make him feel better, but I am not sure how much I do to make him feel good. He says I am the only person who cheers him up. I tell him I love him, I'm not sure that is enough.

He has councillors and therapists, I tell him to speak to them. That seems so inadequate on my part.

I wish I could do more.

I should call him today.

Dreams

I woke up at 6 o’clock. Suddenly awake. I’d been dreaming we’re in a café Sam and I we seemed to be sitting on the floor. In comes our next door neighbour, who we were close to, whose kid we looked after from time to time. She was with her mother and they had the kid’s otter called George with them. George Tyson the otter comes in and pisses next to us, a big pool of wee, a great big clear puddle, and drops a plastic toy by my hand, that resembles a car's rotor button, if anyone knows what that looks like, with its back foot. So, I get up and give the toy back to the neighbour, and her mother didn’t like her daughter talking to a strange man, being me, and she walks off in disgusted, and the neighbour and I laugh about it.

Not sure what that is about. I think we were laughing at the mother's disapproval. The neighbour and I cackled. Sam sat on the floor looking up at us. I don't know what happened to the otter.

And My Week Is Over

I got the new system we have at work in hand. It has taken them something like 2 years to get it up and running. I learned my bit in a day. Good thing I'm smart. Ha ha. 

Two Webex meetings with the consultant looking after us was all it took, both today.

Sorted.

And my weekend starts, I couldn't be happier. The start of my four days off.

I've taken the dogs for a walk. It was a grey kind of day. Still wearing shorts though. I'm finding it hard to give up shorts having worn them all year. Jeans feel weird when I've worn shorts for so long.

I lie back on the couch and stretch out my legs. Perhaps, a bit of YouTube, perhaps a nap.

Kit O'Connor from Heartstopper has never looked cuter

Monday

 

Monday, I work away all day with my trusty companions lying at my feet. 

Oh yes, we're not going to mention the ergonomic deficiencies of a Victorian dining room table as a work desk. Don't tell HR.

Getting Things Fixed, Or Not

The fridge was fixed last Tuesday, and it had kind of struggled for a few days to hit its proper cool temperature, so much so that we thought we’d have to get the service guy back. They said it takes about 24 hours for the temperature to reset, so it had been longer than that. Then yesterday it was nice and cold. And today, everything in the fridge was frozen. So I rang the service people, they can come next Thursday.

“Next Thursday?” I questioned.

Next Thursday.

Grrrrr!

Then Sam, unhappy with next Thursday, called them back. Because it hasn’t stopped working altogether, they won't becoming any sooner, next Thursday stands.

Otto had a sore paw so he couldn’t come out today, and he was none to happy watching us walk out the door with Bruno at lunch time.

Everything seems to happen on a Sunday, which is good, and it's bad. If it wasn't Sunday we may have whizzed him off to the vet, just because we could. But now, because it happened on a Sunday, maybe it will be better tomorrow and we won't need to take him to the vet at all and we'll save ourselves a couple of hundred dollars.

We did some shopping in Abbotsford. Bruno and I went for a walk while Sam shopped. We're walking back down Lithgow Street, and a cute boy and an ugly girl - in their late twenties, I'd guess. She had far too much eye makeup on, a pointy face and rotten teeth - come the other way and the ugly girl says, “Oh my gosh what an ugly dog.” Straight to my face, like I and Bruno didn't matter. The cute boy corrected her and then they were out of earshot. I wondered what she'd have thought/said if I'd looked her in the eye and said, "Oh my gosh, all that makeup isn't hiding your ugly teeth." The thought made me chuckle.

Funny. I am stopped every day by people who tell me I have beautiful dogs. (I'm not even sure why I felt the need to add this)

We bought some pork rolls for lunch. Bruno and I were walking as Sam stood in line. There is always a line for pork rolls at the pork roll shop. You'd reckon that was an indication that another pork roll shop was needed, but the other pork roll shop closed up.

Charlie is working so we don’t have to get him lunch. Sam cooks his meals for him, or otherwise provides his meals, if we buy something, but Sam doesn't have to worry about him today. Sam pays Charlie's uni fees and cooks him all his meals, I wonder how many uni students get that from their uncle?

Then I lay on the couch and watched YouTube.

We drank tea and ate sesame balls for afternoon tea.

Otto's paw may even be a little better. Maybe? I hope that's not just wishful thinking. It hurts to watch my little guy hobbling around.

Saturday

I'm trying to think what I did all day?

We went out for lunch, eating Indonesian in Lygon Street. We took the dogs, of course. There was a miniature/puppy Dachshund at the next table which Otto was super keen to get to, which was slightly annoying. Bruno just sniffed it and lay down.

I came home and fell down the Facebook rabbit hole, one of the reasons I don't do Facebook any more. It just sucks you into wasting-your-life-scrolling. Grrr!

I re-wrote some of the pieces on my fiction blog.

I lay on the couch, I may have even dozed off.

We ate pasta for dinner.

We watched Miriam Margolyes, she's always good. She was in Broken Hill.

I tried to watch the new Ripley series on Netflix. It is one of my favourite novels, and I have seen all the movies, and I'm loathed to say it barely held my interest. Maybe, I know the story too well. I don't know. I'm really not a fan of the overly stylised B&W of the new series, it kind of detaches it and makes it more of an art piece than a movie/series.

So, there you go, I didn't do much with my Saturday.

Now I'm having an early night. Some times that is good. 

Otto has a sore paw, not really sure why.

Smoking

Okay, I just looked back over my journal and I smoked for about a month, it doesn’t seem that long, but, apparently, it is. And now this is the 3rd day of quitting smoking and I feel back to normal. In fact, I had nearly forgotten that I had given up.

I gave up smoking regularly about 10 years ago, and that was hard, back then it took me, I can’t tell you how, many attempts to stop.

Now, though, and I never thought I would get to this, I can smoke for a short time and then quit again relatively easily. I never thought I’d be able to do that but, apparently, I can.

I can even smoke for an evening and then not smoke afterwards.

Of course, it all stems from smoking pot. I have a bit of a binge on the old gunger, seemingly, once a year, and then I smoke cigarettes for a short time after that before I stop again all together.

So, I smoked pot for a week. I smoked cigarettes for the rest of the time.

I would have quit sooner, but I knew I was going away for the weekend to Sebastian’s place last weekend and I knew we’d smoke.

Adriana and I smoked joints with tobacco, and Sebastian and Johnno smoked joints just of pure pot. I don’t really like joints of pure pot, as they don’t taste as good, and/or don’t burn as well. But, Sebastian, to his credit, hasn’t touch tobacco since he gave it up cigarettes a number of years ago.

Loli got smashed on booze and said she wanted a cigarette, but we kind of talked her out of it and she didn’t end up having one. Good for her.

So, I should have quit last Monday, but I managed it on Tuesday. Not bad going. I’m feeling okay. I didn’t want to kill anyone, and that is always good.

Come on Australia legalise pot, it is the sensible thing to do.

To all those people who feel pot should be legalised, tick the box for Legalise Cannabis Party in the Senate in the next election.

Dealing with Chuggers

I took the dogs for a walk in the morning. It rained a little, the sky looked like it was going to rain even more as we walked along Johnson Street, so we headed to Smith Street so we could walk under the cover of the shop verandas for the last bit of our walk. 

But just before Smith Street, one of those annoying 'chuggers' collectors for the environmental street chicks stops me. I can see her catching my eye before I am even near her. 20 years old and still idealistic. Oh spare me.

“Do you think it is important to look after the environment?” she asks. Loaded question, of course.

Oh, here we go, I think. “Yeah, sure, but we’re not, are we.”

“But we can, we can make the environment important.”

“I think it's too late, I think we are doomed.”

“No, we’re not doomed…”

“But no one is doing anything meaningful about the environment, in fact, the most meaningful thing being done is fighting against doing anything.”

“But we can do something, let me tell you how?”

“Why? What are we saving?" I ask. "Half of us hate the other half. We're always at war with each other, somewhere. At any given point 50% of the population doesn’t have access to food and water while the other half is eating itself to death. I’m not sure why we want to save any of that.”

“I’m sorry I don’t agree with you, there is a lot we can do,” she says.

“I am very comfortable with the demise of the human race, to tell you the truth.”

“Oh, okay, you have a nice day,” she says. 

"As collectively, we seem too stupid to take the concept of climate change seriously, you have to acknowledge that." 

“What if we all think like that?” she attempts.

Most of us do, I think. Are you not paying attention? “And you know something, I’m older so I might just make it through, fingers cross, but you’re young, so you are fucked.”

She turns away.

There you go, she gave up easily, they usually won’t leave you alone.

And that’s how it’s done, dealing with those annoying 'chuggers', street fund raisers. Usually, you can’t shake them.

Otto pulled ahead with all his puppy enthusiasm. Bruno and I followed.

It is a shame that as a group we are not taking caring of the environment seriously. What hope does the planet have, and the human race, when we have amongst others, conservative forces, sometimes actively, working against measures to repair the damage we have done.

I don’t understand where those conservative forces who deny the problems with our climate think how they are going to go to survive? I mean Mars really isn’t an option

It is a shame as humans are some of my favourite people, capable of amazing things. But, you know, if they have never been able to solve inequality, and hate, and greed, what hope do we really have?

Wednesday All Day

9am

Ah, hump day. What can you say?

I'm at my work desk, at home, not in the office. I have on bulldog slippers, well, the living variety. One bulldog lies on one foot, the other bulldog lies on the other foot.

I don't really have anything much to do, it's all done, what can I say?

Sam's upstairs at his desk.

Charlie is still in bed. You can guess what a 20 year old boy is doing in bed. Oh, is that just me? What? Nobody else thinks such things? Really? 

I don't really think them about Charlie, to be honest, just when I am trying to think of something funny to fill up my blog post.

It is a very quiet morning?

Yesterday, the fridge man came and fixed the fridge. We couldn't remember when we bought it. He said we bought it in 2020. A $2 sensor failed and the system failed to defrost and it got iced up with ice.

The roof guy came yesterday also to give a quote on my leaking kitchen roof. He bought his two sons with him who do all the work. Both handsome boys, I won't mind them working around here. Let's hope it is hot when they are here working.

11.30am

I have been having connection issues all morning, which have been driving me nuts.

Then I decided I would just head out and pay my dog registrations before I forget. They are due today. Now, already I am pissed off with this, as Yarra City Council charges me $450 to register two dogs. That is a $450 dog tax imposed on me by The Yarra City Council, for absolutely no reason at all. They do nothing. I was really tempted to say the dogs had moved out of the district.

Anyway, be that as it may, I decide to ride my bike, that way I don't need to worry about parking, easy as.

Half way there my chain comes off the hub and jams between the hub of the wheel and the rear spoke end fork thingie.

Grrrrrrr!

So I have to push it to the Collingwood town hall. $450 fucken dollars later I am starting to push my bike towards the bike shop in Abbotsford, but before I turned left off Hoddle Street, I realise it is as far to the bike shop in Collingwood, and at least that was in the direction of home.

So, off I go, to Collingwood bike shop.

Half way to the bike shop there is a cafe and I think if I get a muffin I won't notice the time it takes to push my bike to the bike shop, I'll be distracted by filling my fat fucken face.

So they have blueberry and crumble muffins.

"That will be $4.50, thanks," says the chick behind the counter as she puts the muffin in a bag.

I pull out a $10 note to pay.

"Oh no, we don't take cash," she says.

Oh no, we don't take cash, Oh no, we don't take cash, repeats in my head.

This is one of my pet hates. If you run a business, give good service, not half arsed fucken service to your customers. I was so close to telling her to shove it up her arse, you miserable rat-faced slag. I wish I'd said it, but I stopped myself.

"No, I don't want it," I say. I stomp off. 

I really wanted the white chocolate and rhubarb muffin from Baketico, in Gertrude Street, which are better than sex, and they take cash, but my bike chain broke and I couldn't get there easily, so I was settling for this slappers blueberry muffin and then to be denied. Grrrrr! Fuck off!

I get to the bike shop. A very pretty blond guy served me, and my bike was fixed in minutes.

I get home again and, of course, I am having connection issues yet a fucken again. Why hasn't this been fixed already, I think to myself?

"Just get me someone who knows what they are doing," one of my old managers used to when asked who he wanted to speak to when making enquiries on the phone. I often think of him in times of stress. He always knew what to say.

My company is international, I have a help desk in America.

Anyway, I get the connection issues sorted out and my fucking mouse won't work. I scream out. Sam comes downstairs with that look on his face, you know, the one where he looks at me like I am a drama queen, which I seem to be getting more and more from him lately. I wonder what that means?

Anyway, I'm sweating from the bike ride, so I go and change. 

Sam comes upstairs and says, "Your mouse is working."

"What was wrong with it?"

"I don't know," he says. 

Another one of my pet hates. If something doesn't work, I always want to know why.

11.45am.

It suddenly dawns on me why I am soooooo grumpy today? I quit smoking, I'd forgotten. My system hasn't forgotten, though. Oh, no siree bob! (I just looked that saying up, apparently, it is 1848 US sl./US, colloquial) Anyway, good, I can relax, these feelings of wanting to kill someone are perfectly normal. They will persist for a few days. Any bastard who pisses me off, I will want to grab around the neck, I will want to keep squeezing until that make choking noises, I will want to squeeze until they are dead.

Don't get in my fucken way, is all I can advise.

(I will be counting to 100 before I email any of Human Remains today)

Donny and Vlad, A Couple of Pigs in a Floaty

My Fat Boyfriend
Can you picture the two of them fucking? Oh go on, I bet you can

 

In The Kitchen At Work

I was heating up my lunch in the kitchen in my office today. It's was my day in the office. There was a woman in the kitchen reading the newspaper.

I get my lunch out of the microwave and give it a stir.

"Oh, that smells nice," she says.

"Oh, thanks," I say. I mean, what else can you really say to that?

"Do you make your lunch every day?" she asks.

"My partner makes my lunch," I say.

"Oh. That's a bit sexist, isn't it?" she says.

"No," I say.

"Can't you make your own lunch?" she asks. She smiles.

"Oh, you think so, do you?"

"Yes," she says.

"Can you see any reason why that isn't sexist?" I ask. You know, kind of light heartedly.

"No, not really," she says. She smiles, I think, to soften what she was saying.

"No?"

"No." She laughs.

"No?" I kind of say in a joking kind of way.

She just looks at me with that, what would you call it, certainty in what she was thinking.

"My partner is a guy."

"Oh." She looks embarrassed. Her face flushes red. "Oh," she says again.

She goes back to her newspaper.

I continue preparing my lunch.

 

 

In The Country

I woke up at 5am, my nose was blocked, I forgot my nose spray. Bruno came outside with me for a wee, but then went straight back to bed.

"Yeah, good on you buddy, nothing like staying up and keeping me company."

It had no effect he disappeared back to his dog bed without looking back.

It was dark, everyone else is still asleep. I sit outside and drink coffee and very slowly the night sky starts turning blue.

It's been a lovely weekend. Old friends. We've laughed. Told stories. Smoked pot.

Sebastian has cooked fantastic meals, even if he never manages to serve dinner before 10.30pm.

Bruno and Otto have been the perfect dogs, of course they follow me and Sam around, everyone has loved them. Otto has behaved, still being a puppy, he was the only one with whom I was concerned.

The country is lovely, it is nice to get back out into it. I miss my country place. The great open space, the depth to the view, the unbroken vistas, it does you good, that sense of the world.

6.47am. Some else is up, I can hear footsteps. The night has turned to day. I love my early morning on my own, no matter where I am.

For All Your Mumbo Jumbo

There was a box of books outside a house in my street. There was one I would have like by Iain Banks, one of my favourite authors, but really I had to be honest, I currently have so many books on my 'to read' pile that I left it for someone who might actually read it.

Then I saw 'Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist' essays about atheism, so I posted it to David and all his spiritual mumbo jumbo.

It made me laugh.

He'll laugh too.

We have many discussions on what he believes and what I don't believe.

And, you know, it's always nice to get something from someone, I thought.

Chuckle.

Thursday Thursday

I did very little all day.

I organised for the service guy to come to look at our, maybe 5year old, maybe less, we can't remember, fridge which is losing its coldness. The service guy can't come until Tuesday, of course. I hope Charlie doesn't get food poisoning by then

I took the dogs for a walk.

We ate hamburgers for lunch.

I lay on the couch for the afternoon. I watched those singing reaction videos on YouTube, mostly watching reaction to John Farnham, which bought a few tears to my eyes, I have to admit, loving our national treasure being admired.

I spoke to Sebastian, he wants gluten free bread and a plant as a house warming present. (That's the plant as a house warming present and not the bread)

Adriana called me excited that we were heading to the country too.

Rainy Wednesday

It's cold and it rained all day. The weather has changed. Suddenly it seems like we are approaching winter. Funny about that.

On the plus side, I finally called the roofing guy to come and look at my leaking kitchen roof. Finally. I thought to myself, as the rain came down and the roof dripped onto the floor just in front of the stove, this is not going to heal itself. Funny about that.

But, I did organised for us to go away for the weekend to visit my old mate Sebastian, finally, with some old friends. The woofs are coming too. It's a 2 hour drive. I told him when he was buying the place that I thought an hour drive from Melbourne was probably as far as he should choose to be. But, I guess he didn't listen to that.

I hope Otto behaves, still being a puppy.

And The Sun Came Out

The sun is shining. My old mate Adrianna dropped in unexpectedly for a cup of tea. I have been meaning to call her for the longest time, as has she. We sat outside and smoked and drank tea like no time had passed.

She and Loli are going to visit Sebastian at his new country property this weekend, I should have said Sam and I would go to, but I didn't. Oh, I don't know why, I almost felt like we'd be intruding, which is stupid, really. It would get visiting Sebastian and catching up with the girls over and done with. I should have said something.

Otto just ran off with my gardening gloves with that spring in his step like he'd got the prize. Puppies?

Easter Monday

We washed the dogs. Otto hates it. It is like he is being taken to his death. Quite the opposite to Buddy, who walked into the shower not a care in the world. And Bruno who almost walks into the shower not a care in the world, with just the slightest encouragement. Otto acts like his death is imminent. And I can tell you, hanging on to a 26 kilo bulldog that fights you the whole time is not fun.

It poured with rain for the rest of the day. The TV weather service spoke as if Armageddon was on its way, which of course it was not.

Easter Sunday

Ah, easter. I didn't eat any chocolate eggs. I did eat chocolate ice cream with strawberries, though, does that count?

Oh, I did eat a chocolate hot cross bun with lashings of butter and a cup of tea, that's more like it, huh?

That was today. I guess it doesn't matter what day you eat them as long as you get into the spirit, huh? That's what they say, isn't it?

I can't even remember when one is supposed to eat the chocolate eggs, is it Friday? No, I guess not. I guess it is today, isn't it, thinking about it logically, it would be today, I guess, keeping up with the easter myth tradition, of new life and all that. It would be today.

So, there you go, I bought into it all, ate the chocolate today. Well done me.

And we still have another day off, gotta luv that, good old easter.

The feast day of Easter was first a pagan holiday of renewal and rebirth. Honoured in the early spring, it praised the pagan goddess of fertility and spring known as 'Ostara', 'Eastre' or 'Eostre'. The word “Easter” finds its etymology from the goddess's name.

Easter Saturday

What did he do? How does the myth go? Did he die? Did he live? Did he die, er, for our sins? But wasn't that only for 3 days? How does that even make sense?

What is that, dead for 3 days to forgive us for our sins for eternity? That hardly seems like an imposition to the all powerful, creator of all things, that's how the story goes.

We were created in ‘the big guy's’ own image, that’s it, isn’t it? When things don’t make sense they are hard to understand? He was the father, but then wasn’t he the son too? Wasn't he? And somewhere in there there is some kind of spirit, what that’s about, who knows?

So presumably if we were created in ‘the big guy's’ image, we are him and he is us? So everything we do/did is what he’d do/did, being in the same image.

So, then, for all the times we have misbehaved, he killed his son.

Can anybody make sense of that?

He loved us so much - which is straying rapidly into narcism, in his own image, which is him loving himself - he killed his son.

He loved us so much, he killed his only son. Why?

Are you following? No?

That’s it. That’s Christianity.

Chocolate egg?

Good Morning

I went to bed late and intended to sleep in and I was on track with that until a big, wet, pink tongue decided to lick my face.

“Ah?”

I opened my eyes and Otto was standing over me, he seemed to lick more intently when he'd seen he had woken me up.

I tried to push him away, but, still being a puppy, he thought that was a great game.

So, we ended up wrestling in the bedclothes which only got him going and put an end to any more sleep I might have been thinking about.

I laughed. Pretty adorable.

My Poor Stomach

5 days off. Lovely. All the time in the world, I think.

I take the dogs for a walk, early. The weather has been lovely this last week.

I head down the street late morning, to have a sniff around the shops. Actually, I went to get cigarettes, (it's temporary, after the gunger) I'll stop any day. I should have stopped today. (actually, they make me feel sick too, go figure)

Anyway, I felt like I wanted something sweet, so I bought a 6 pack of macadamia and white chocolate biscuits, which I ate as I wandered the shops. I fully intended to take half of them home to Sam, but you know how things go, and I scoffed all six.

Then, I didn't tell Sam what I'd done. Oh that roll of the eyes.

He got hamburgers and chips for lunch, and I could barely eat them, but forced them down rather than confess to what else I'd eaten.

Then I felt bloated all afternoon, uncomfortable and bloated. And then, if it had been up to me, and honesty, I wouldn't have eaten anything else today.

But Sam presented me with a giant bowl of Laksa for dinner, with prawns and fish. I so didn't feel like it. I ate perhaps a quarter of it. Then when he was eying off my slow process of eating dinner, I told him I was full, and mercifully, he took it away.

Then came a big bowl of black grapes to share for dessert. (I nearly laughed)

And even now, I feel so uncomfortable. No, I mean really bloated uncomfortable.

Tuesday, um, er Wednesday

I'm up early. It's raining, I feel better. That damn headache has gone. It was debilitating. I almost felt like I could have a day off sick, but I had a sick day recently. I haven't had a sick day since 2019. I'm really all for employees taking all their sick leave, don't get me wrong, in fact, I'd encourage people to take a day off if they don't feel well. I just haven't been sick.

I've got cold feet, summer must be over.

Tuesday

I was going to sign into work 6am, but, I still have a head ache and still feel a little unwell.

I lay on the couch with Milo.

I signed into work at 7am.

My milk heater did a strange thing and nearly boiled over onto the bench, good thing I was watching it. I certainly wasn't in the mood to clean that up. Note to self, watch the milk heat in future.

7.45am. Sam is up. The bulldogs are still in bed.

Sam tells me there is a dial on the milk frother, who knew?

"Someone moved it," he says.

I'm pretty sure the implication is that it was me.

Felt Poorly

I have felt poorly for the last couple of days, it has been a struggle.

Sunday

I slept most of the day, shrug, what else are Sundays for?

Charlie's Bike

Someone stole the front tyre off Charlie's e-bike, which was tied to the front veranda post of the house. We have video of him doing it, the full operation, thanks to security cameras, but he wore a hoodie, so...

This is Charlie's second e-bike, the first one got stolen at uni.

I guess we should report it to the police? I wonder if Charlie did?

Friday

Sam's just starting to thaw, just around the edges. He's always had it in him, the silent treatment, and I have witnessed it for 24 hours in the past. But a week? Never.

The whole rental thing must have been stressing him out. But, he got it done, even without my help. He must have used a lot of PT.

It's been a weird week, not sure how I feel about it?

I took my car to be serviced yesterday, now it has to go to the crash repairer to get the damage of the fourth time it has been backed into in twelve months sorted out. An airbag warning light is on, and the window washers don't work. The whole bumper has to come off it to get to the broken stuff, so if I was going to have it repaired, anyway, it should be now.

Got to go early to pick it up and then it is done. Leave in an hour.

Beatles Vs Stones

Here’s one for the Beatles Vs the Stones argument, I think Beggars Banquet & Let It Bleed are superior albums to Abbey Road & Let it Be.

I've done a lot of lying on the couch.

What Happened?

I have two hot water bottle bulldogs lying on each foot, like big bulldog slippers, certainly all morning. 

That’s what I like about working from home, when my bulldog can stretch out his paw in the middle of the day pushing it up against my leg for minutes at a time.

I don't know how I got through today, chuckle, but I did, and here I am. It all worked out.

What I did?

I went out to the Guido estate, just after lunch, and got gunger.

Bull Dogs Playing

 

Maybe I'm Weird

Sam got home around 5.30pm yesterday and he clearly wasn't talking to me. And when he decides not to speak to me, it is total.

Sam is still not talking to me this morning and you know what, I don’t really mind it. I used to try and fight it and make him speak to me, on the very rare occasions that this happens, and that was stressful, but now, I find, relaxing into it, I kind of like it. 

I can do silence, it is oddly calming. No need to speak, no need to answer questions, no need to have anything to say. There is a part of me that kind of likes it. It makes me wonder if I'd like one of those silent retreats?

Anyway, you know, being the weird little loner that I, allegedly, am, I'm almost happiest in my own world, just writing everything is nice. And, you know, Sam spends a lot of his time telling me what to do, and this is sort of a relief. 

I could get to like this, I know, maybe I’m weird.

Friday

Oh, groan, back to the rental, to find out the model number of the cook top and to clean some more. Please let this be the last time. I'm so over it. Don't tell Sam. Oh, he knows, I find it hard to hide my displeasure. I just want it to be over, and it will be over next week when the new tenants move in.

I exhaled the wrong way, or too obviously, through my nose when I was putting on my shoes, and Sam cracked the shits.

"You don't have to go, don't worry. I'll go myself." 

You know, the people who don't drive, who have never bothered to put in the time and energy to get their licences can't really complain when their dedicated unpaid chauffeur doesn't particularly feel up to driving them about, there is always public transport, never the less...

"What?" I asked. Half heartedly, you know as if what he said was somehow ambiguous, yes that is true, it was very half hearted. And despite myself, maybe with just the slightest hint of hope at not going. You know, sometimes you can't help those things.

And Sam had packed a backpack in no time and had marched out the front door. And was gone.

Truthfully, I was beginning to feel a little unwell again after eating lunch, and was a bit annoyed with myself at feeling unwell again, if I was feeling anything, that was really what the tired exhale was all about as I put on my shoes.

I didn't argue, though, bad me. After asking, what? I said nothing else until Sam left. I didn't say, you are being ridiculous, I just kept quiet.

I'm feeling tired and lacking in energy, that's why I was exhaling loudly. Truthfully. I don't want to be sick.

Sam knew I didn't want to go, though, that is true.

He thought... oh, I guess you get the picture.

I Feel Better

I feel better today.

Actually, not so much this morning, I was still a bit seedy this morning, when I took the dogs for a walk. I saw the will-you-clean-up-the-skerrick-of-poo-off-the-footpath-after-I'd-picked-up-my-dog's-poo guy, from the other side of the road. He gave me a look. I held his gaze, oh, I had to, momentarily, then I turned away thinking, you have a good day, mate.

I don't know what made me sick? Dizziness and vomiting? Nah, I don't know? I want to say food poisoning, off-food, but they aren't really the symptoms of bad food.

I made a full recovery by this afternoon, though. I listened to music.

I feel better now.

I can't complain. No-one listens anyway, you know, as 'they' say.

Sam bought a new Apple Watch, he gave me the run down on it, I'm still not really sure what it has that his old one didn't have. I got his old watch, of course. This one's face is always illuminated, I guess that was a (first world) problem with my old one. I haven't really noticed yet. But there were times, I remember, when I had both my hands full and I wanted to know the time - oh, yes, I know, a watch telling the time is pretty quaint - and I have tried to get the screen to light up by touching it with my nose. That never worked.

I'm Sick

4am. I roll over in the middle of the night and the room spins so severely that I just have to hang on and hope it will stop.

WTF? It is sudden and shocking.

Then I start to sweat so badly, I am cold if I pull the doona off me, but am hot if I pull the doona over me.

I try rolling onto my side again, and the room spins again, although not as badly as the first time, maybe it is because I am ready for it.

I get up and have a piss and put my towelling dressing gown on for the sweating and get back into bed.

At some point, I take my dressing gown off again as I was too hot.

8:30am. Otto jumps on the bed with me in it alone and I roll over to hug him and the room starts to spin again. Then I stretch out across the bed and lie on my stomach and really feel sick and the room spins and I think I am gonna vomit and I go to the bathroom and while the sensation of going-to-vomit lasts for some time, I don’t actually vomit.

Sam comes up stairs and finds me squatting in front of the toilet, moaning.

Sam gets me a bucket so I can lie in bed without the fear of vomiting over everything. Sam gets me headache tablets. 

Then he jokes that he hopes it wasn’t tasty cheesy off which he knocked the mould, or the chicken he bought on special at Coles because of its immanent use by date.

I tried to laugh, but I can’t.

Otto comes bouncing back upstairs while Sam is gazing at me. Sam tells me Bruno is under the bed sleeping still.

8:35am. I call Boris but she is on the tram and she says she has to call me back.

It’s raining outside.

9am. I stupidly, I rolled over and look under the bed to see Bruno, I have some idea about getting him up on the bed with me, as a big comfort bear, and everything spins and I start to vomit into my bucket and I vomit quite a few times but nothing really comes out. Bruno comes out from under the bed and stands next to me and watches me vomiting for a while and then he rushes out of the room and heads downstairs.

Sam comes upstairs saying something about Bruno coming downstairs to tell him something. “Are you all right?”

9.15am. Boris calls back. We chat about what has to be done. 

I fall asleep.

9:55am. I wake up to vomit again. It’s awful vomiting when the room is spinning. The heaving and retching go on for what seems like forever.

I can taste sesame seeds, or something like that. 

Ollie hops up on the bed and sleeps next to me. He climbs up onto my stomach and while I think that is not going to be good for me, it turns out it is. He is only light, after all.

Midday. Sam wakes me up to see if I’m okay.

I am wondering why he woke me up and he tells me he is dealing with all the things he has to do for the tenants to move into his rental. Some renters signed up at the first inspection.

I’m surprised it is midday.

12:10pm. I get up. I think I’m feeling better. I put on a T-shirt and as I’m pulling on my track pants the whole room starts to spin. I say out loud what the hell is wrong with me? I hold onto the bed end to steady myself.

I empty my sick bucket And I have a pee.

I sit on the side of the bed, but I don’t regain feeling as well as I did a few moments ago. Ollie is pestering me for pets.

12:15pm. I take my track pants off again and get back into bed.

12:20pm. Sam comes upstairs and says he’s got ginger so he can make congee. I say I want toast, but Sam insists it should be congee.

I feel a bit shaky again, it’s as if getting up and putting on my T-shirt and track pants took away all my energy, or caused a relapse of whatever the hell this is. I’m not really hungry, well it’s kind of odd it comes and goes.

I pull the doona up to my chin in a comforting way.

I think to myself, I’m not really frightened of dying, what the hell else is there left to do in life? I’m in Fitzroy where else would I want to be? I don’t feel bad about saying that, even though I am kind of joking, but half serious too. Of course, I don’t want to die, but you know I think about it, the only really bad thing would be leaving Sam, I don’t wanna leave him.

I think of David, who is always saying he is done with life, and I laugh.

Listen to me I’ve been sick for something like eight hours, imagine all those people who fight for life for the longest time, nyr, good for them.

And organ donation, what’s that about? Imagine if one of your organs had to live on in some thoroughly objectionable person? Could you imagine? If a conservative voter got my liver?

Funny the things you think when you are in the grip of illness.

12.45pm. I go downstairs and eat my conjee.

I still don’t feel great, but at least I feel better.

And a day off, the consolation prize to be sure.

Oh yes, I checked the other day, I don't know why, other than my eye surgery when I had a week off, I haven't had a sick day since 2019.

I googled the symptoms, really it could be anything from an inner ear infection to brain cancer and just about everything in between. Don't google your symptoms.

Walking The Dogs

As we cross over King William Street, as we approach the Blue Chilli Café there is a possum on the footpath, I don’t know, 20 metres in front of us. (I have no idea, really, but not right in front of us, some way ahead of us) 

There is a lesbian couple sitting at the tables outside the Blue Chili Café and one of them looks very concerned about the possum with two Bulldogs coming down Brunswick Street. She reminded me of James Garner. 

I’m not at all sure what she thought I was going to let the bulldogs do? Tear the possum apart in front of them? Presumably? Why else would we have switched over to panic stations, I ask you? 

Anyway, she gets up like the Bionic Man and starts to run up Brunswick Street towards us. I could almost hear the Steven Austin music start to play, I wanted to laugh. No, seriously? Get a grip you idiot. 

A moment later, the possum turns, it may, or may not have spotted the bulldogs, and runs up the nearest tree. I'm not at all sure the bulldogs even saw it.

Bruno, Otto and I stopped at the Blue Chili to drink some water from the dog bowl provided at the front door. The lesbians are sitting right outside the front door. The girlfriend reminded me of Harvey Keitel. 

I chat to some guy waiting in the doorway who says that Bulldogs were the original Looney Tunes hero. I say something like, “Hey he’s my hero, my hero.” The guy and I laugh. 

The guy says, “Anything you want, Spike, anything you want.” We both laugh again.

Bruno, having finished drinking, shakes his head and multiple Catherine Wheels of juicy bulldog saliva – oh, come on, it is most just excess fresh water from around his big gob – fly through the air covering the lesbians, whack, whack, whack, whack, whack, who, both sitting right next to the dog bowl, visibly recoil.

I say, “Oh yes, sorry, they do do that.” I tug on the dog leads and make a clear get away with the Bulldogs, for once in their non-working dog lives, setting off with me just as quick. 

Thank the universe for that legendary lesbian sense of humour? (Oh come on, it’s funny) is all I can think. 

And Then It Is Sunday

And suddenly it is Sunday, the days go by quicker and quicker, I swear.

I'm up early. I had a rather disturbing dream about a previous colleague/manager. Belinda H who, clearly in the grip of anorexia, ruled the finance department like a skeletal poster child for Donald Trump, making everyone in the department hate their job having to work under her until she'd fired each of us for some made up reason. I always guessed it was on the days her body dysmorphia was at its worst, that she’d stride out into the main office {think the scream of a T-Rex}  and pick a victim to destroy just to make herself feel better. In the dream I was transferred to her department to be her assistant. (in real life, I'd stopped talking to her long before she sacked me because she was just so unpleasant to deal with) Oh the horror! I was forced to sit with her,(I could smell the evil exuding from her pores like battery acid) together we solved all the departments long standing financial problems, me feeling I was in a hostage situation.

She needed an assistant as she spent most of her time in the company's sex room, down the staircase next to her office. She gazed at me in a self satisfied kind of way.

I sat up in bed with a start. "Ah! What the hell?" I was sitting up at 6am thinking, I must never go into that room. Wide Eyes. It is not an image to which I want to give any thought. Oh? Er? You could never unsee that.

Where does this shit come from?

And then I was awake. 

I switch off the air-con and I head downstairs. It was still dark outside.

I'm drinking coffee with Milo in front of the fan. The house is hot, as you may well imagine. I open the window and the back door but it is no cooler outside. Nobody else is up, just me and Milo, cuddled up to my left leg, in a rather 'too hot' kind of way, but he has to get his love where he can when the dogs aren't around, so I don't push him away.

We take the dogs for a walk at 8am. And it was hot already, there was a coolish breeze, but the sun was already hot.

The whole neighbourhood is walking its dogs before the heat.

Hot Saturday

39 degrees today. It's going to be 39 degrees for 3 days, the whole long weekend, yes, we have Monday off. 

We went for a walk early. 8am.

After that, we stayed inside by the portable air con.

And it got to the forecast temperature. And it was hot outside.

I was going to write, but somehow, I got sucked into downloading historical photos of Fitzroy, Melbourne's first suburb after all. I'm fascinated by the buildings we have lost. I'm always looking for pictures of how the suburb used to look. You know, how you can be distracted by a pimple on an arse if you are supposed to be writing.

The dogs were feisty into the night, not really sure why, but none of us got to sleep until 2am. Really annoying.

Walking The Dogs Day 2

So, I’m taking the dogs for a walk along Johnson Street again this morning. We’re careful to walk on the other side of the road to what happened yesterday. As we get along Johnson Street, Clean-Up-Your-Poo man is at the front of his shop, again, this morning. He sees us, well, I guess two Bulldogs aren’t all that hard to spot. 

Johnson Street is having a relatively quiet moment and he walks out into the lane heading out of the city and says, “If you ever do again what you did yesterday, I’m gonna report you to the council.”

Oh, I think. You again. He’s like a dog with a bone, or a dog with a poo, as the case may be. And I think, well, I’m not entering into that argument with him today, so I say, as quick as a flash, and I’m not really sure where this came from, “Are there prescription drugs that you should be taking that you are neglecting to take by any chance?”

He says, “What the fuck are you talking about, mate?”

“Well, if there’s some sort of anxiety medication that you should be taking, that you are not taking, well, that could explain your behaviour.”

He starts to say that I’m a jerk, I think fucking jerk were the words, something about “people like you really shit…” 

Now, you understand the lights have changed at Brunswick Street, by this time, and cars are approaching him, still standing in the middle of Johnson Street, raving on, and they start to honk, effectively censoring his colourful language, and he had to do a tiptoe tiptoe Jeté, or is it Plié? Leaping, retreat back to his side of Johnson Street and the bulldogs and I walked away, with me, thinking that it was just a beautiful moment.

Walking The Dogs

I take the dogs for a walk in the morning. Otto has a shit in front of a homewares shop. I pick it up. There’s a couple of minuscule spots of shit left on the footpath, as there often is. Even if you got down and rubbed at it with a plastic poo bag, it probably wouldn’t change it. It might smear it a little, but nothing much else would happen.

There’s a guy out the front of the shop doing something with a ladder, not sure what. 

As I walk away, he says, looking frightfully concerned, “Can you clean that up better than that?” he asks. He points with his finger.

I look back. Seriously, how anal are you, I think. “No mate,” I say. “That’s it. It’s done.”

“Is that all you are going to do,” he asks.

“Yes mate,” I say. “What do you expect?”

“You’re a fuck wit,” he says kind of threateningly.

“Yeah, good onya,” I say as I walk away.

I must walk the dogs by there tomorrow morning, I think, and see if I can get Otto to do another shit. I chuckle to myself. I won’t pick it up at all and I can watch his head explode.

Nearly There

I've nearly pulled it all together before my 2 days off, and a public holiday Monday, Labour Day.

I've got really sore eyes which is not helping.

Sam swanned off to see a realestate agent about renting out his place. He left early to clean before the photographer turned up.

It's just me and the bulldogs lying at my feet.

I had everything done by the time I signed out, surprisingly. Public holiday Monday, so I don't have to work an extra day to get everything finished, which kind of negates the meaning of a public holiday. Lovely. 3 days off, bring them on.

You Want To Visit Today?

My head's spinning. I've got a million things in my head, going round and around, mentally juggling...

Jill messages me early to say she's be making one of her more and more infrequent visits, I could hardly say no.

I'm surprised I got through that today.

Jill didn't come until after 5pm, so that was good, just as well. Her and her gorgeous daughter played with Otto, first time meet.

It was hot. We took the woofs for a midnight walk. There is something lovely about a late night walk on a hot day.

A Mountain To Climb

It's just a shit show, this time of the year, 01st March everything changes. I've got a mountain of stuff to get through.

Later.

Sunday

Oh, look at that, it is nearly Monday again and I didn't win lotto.

And look at that, the weekend is nearly over and I still haven't written that best selling novel. What is wrong with me? How did I forget to do that? Brilliance is up for debate, or is that on the fritz?

Oh, look at that, Monday morning is just moments away, knocking on Sunday night's door, and work awaits. I can plug back into being a cog, like a rat running on a wheel. We're all little rats running on our wheels.

But you know what, despite everything I say, it's lucky that I don't really mind my job, especially working from home. Yeah, working from home. I know I've said that before.

In fact, when I finished work on Wednesday last, there were a couple of looming potential shit shows, so it will be interesting to see if Boris got blindsided by those in the ensuing days. Let's hope not. Hope not, I say? Well, do I really care? Nyr? She out ranks me, so go for it. I'll just mop it up, again, as I do.

Sam's rental is finally done, after a couple of days pulling it together finally, now its time to call in the lying bastard, er, realestate agents to get the tenant selection started and to see how many of their promises fall apart quickly, er, quickly they can fulfil the promises they made to get Sam to give them the job.

We discovered the local recycle centre and we took a car load of old paint tins and dropped them off. We'll take the rest of the rubbish there this week. And then we're done.

I thought the recycle centre would cost, but it doesn't, so, I guess I'll have to say something nice about the council, that was it, and I am going to load up the car with lots of shit and clean up this place too.

Time to put my feet up, or at least I would if Bruno wasn't taking up the other half of the couch. But I've got my half, really a quarter, so I'll take my something from nothing and just relax and enjoy what is left of Sunday.

Aging

There’s no advantage to aging, none, it just dying by degrees, on a glacial time table.

There is no wisdom gained, in fact, so many people become increasingly stupid with age, especially those of a conservative nature. More set in their ways, with even less logic. There is no contentment, as friends die before you at an alarming rate. There is just anxiety, at what's the next decrepitude to befall you.

Gone is the confidence in forever.

Gone is the illusion of time to spare.

That grease patch you hit at 25 years old that has propelled you towards your demise at an ever increasing rate of speed becomes even more apparent year by year.

And if you haven't lived your life to your utmost potential, there is the regret, that only death is going to put right.

Time is precious and with time you come to realise it is in short supply.

And all the while you are becoming more and more feeble with which to battle life's injustices.

And you become invisible.

Oh yes aging, when is someone going to cure it?

Day Off

Feb 29th, it is a mate's birthday. I remember dancing with him at Mardi Gras when he was 8 years old. Happy birthday, Rob.

I took the woofs for a walk early, in the cool of the early morning. It was nice after yesterday's hot day, although not catastrophic as suggested by clearly ratings seeking weather reports now a days, well, not where I live.

I got new Van Morrison tracks, old stuff, apparently his first album, plus a few more tracks packaged up as a best of collection, when I went to submit my tattslotto. Life could be a dream, hey? I like Van Morrison's old stuff, he's kind of an Irish Bob Dylan. Kind of. I saved it as his first album.

I got burgers from Huxtaburger on my way home. It pissed me off that they don't take cash any longer. Too lazy to provide a proper service for all their customers. When I got home, they'd got my order wrong too. I'm pretty sure they got my order wrong last time I bought from them. Hopeless. It'll be Grill'd Burgers all the way from now on.

I slept on the couch for the afternoon. Lovely, huh? I lay back listening to Van Morrison and woke up at 5pm when my bladder communicated with me.

I got a collection short stories by author Nam Li. I got them on my Kindle, Kindle's make sense to me now, despite having, or perhaps because of, bookcases full of books. I was giving the stories a read late this arvo, once I'd woken up from my nap, when Sam signed out of work and lay on the couch ordering dog beds which I didn't think we needed. He kept asking me my opinion on buying the dog beds. Seriously? When I'd already said he wasting his money.

Grrr!

Now, I'm lying back on the couch with my feet up on the arm of the couch as fresh air blows in over me from an open window.

Lovely.

Bruno is lying on the floor next to me using my left foot as a pillow.

Nice and warm and furry.

And that's my day off. And I have another day off again tomorrow. Good huh? Of course, I am supposed to be writing a novel on this two days, not sleeping on the couch.

I did recently re-write the words to Baby Got Back to make a gay version, oh, I don't know why, because I could. And it's all because of Friends, of course. Who wants to see that?

Now I am eating instant noodles with cabbage and chicken and Kim Chi.

"What's with the cabbage," I ask? We usually have prawns and fish cakes.

"Cost of living crisis," responded Sam without missing a beat.

Bruno's Bits

My dog Bruno has big balls and a big dick. I'd never personally thought about them, but others do, clearly.

The straight guy’s comment on his balls.

"That's a decent set of balls he has on him, mate."

“Oh, um?”

or...

"Wow! He's got a nice set of nuts on him."

“What? Er?”

And the women comment on his dick.

"He'd make all those female bulldogs very happy, I'm sure." Laugh.

“Huh? Oh?

or...

"Do you breed with him?"

"Oh, no, he's a pet."

"Because he looks like he'd certainly get the job done." Big smile.

“What? I’m sorry… oh?”

I never know what to say to these comments. Well, I am used to it now, and I just laugh, now, but originally, I am pretty sure, I was kind of stunned into silence.

"What? Er? Um? Oh?" Kind of shocked, although maybe shocked is overstating it. Perplexed might say it better. I just thought it was too weird the first time it happened, but then it kept happening.

It still catches me off guard. And they invariably look so pleased with themselves.

It's just weird. Not really sure of the motivation. 

Osmosis Smith My IT Guy

Osmosis Smith, let's call him Tim for short, my dedicated IT guy, because that's what you get when you work for a wealth law firm that is on track to earn $1 billion this year - yep, that's what greedy corporate lawyers who are adding to the destruction of the fabric of society earn - has a big arse.

Tim usually wears tight suit trousers which keep his big bum in some sort of order, but yesterday he was wearing jeans, I'm not really sure why. His jeans were quite baggy and as such made his rear end seem bigger than it usually does.

I asked him to do a twirl, which he did obediently, with that cute pout on his handsome face. He has lovely eyes.

"Jeans," I said. I twirled my finger in mid air above my head.

"Yes," he said.

"Well... nice," I said when he was back facing me. I was talking about his big, beefy butt, but I couldn't let him think that. "Nice jeans."

"Thanks," he said.

I'm not sure if he gets it, or not. I don't know.

I watched him walk away. Big arse sashaying all the way to the door.

Monday In The Office

Monday in the office.

It is so utterly pointless coming into the office, everything is better working from home.

We’ve been shown a better way to live, and now they want us to give it up. Willingly. No!

I’m in a finance meeting in the afternoon, beam me up Scotty, so boring. 

OMG! That just yap on and yap on. No one cares about your budget. No one cares about the figures. No one care about your reports. 

Oh kill me now!

Yap yap yap yap yap!

Sunday

I dreamed, oh, how do I explain this dream, we were having an end of training dinner, and we seemed to have been paired up somehow and I’ve been paired up with cute Stewart Cook [a straight friend I haven't seen in years] and they’ve been jokes about us being an item and so he was jokingly, saying sweet, nothings in my ear, and I was liking it, of course. We were going to the dining room, and there was a table piled high with a mountain of food, and just because we are walking together we ended up sitting together and then I wasn’t sure whether Stewart wanted to sit with me and then he had a friend join him, and they’re only two seats and I was taking one of them and the two of them were standing looking at me as though it wasn't an issue, and I wasn’t sure whether Stewart wanted his friend to have the seat with him instead of me.

7:10am my wake up. Otto is lying on my side of the bed, on top of the doona leaving me with very little of it, so my legs are sticking out, cold.

We are lucky to be alive when we are’: a devastating gay love story returns to the stage. Thirty years after Holding the Man author Timothy Conigrave died, Belvoir St theatre’s artistic director is bringing back the play adapted from the book – with his partner in the lead role.

Alexei Navalny’s body given to mother by Russian authorities. Remains handed to Lyudmila Navalnaya nine days after Putin critic’s death in Arctic prison, say supporters.

Antarctica sea ice reaches alarming low for third year in a row. The extent of ice floating around the continent has contracted to below 2m sq km for three years in a row, indicating an ‘abrupt critical transition’.

8am. Sam and Otto get up. Sam tells me about Otto’s reaction to the flea liquid and Bruno’s diarrhea during the night at 5am which he had to deal with. I thank the universe, yet again, that I sleep like the dead. If I ever lose that, I may just do myself in.

8.05am. I make coffee.

8.10am. Bruno was up.

8.15am. I make vegemite toast.

Am I surprised Pete Doherty is still alive? No, he’s too smart to die’: the Libertines on feuds, friendship – and their unlikely sober reunion.

9am. I start watching YouTube car show, Coldwarmotors.

Sam cleans. I let him. He does the vacuuming that I usually do. I don’t get up and offer, oh, I don’t know why? I wasn’t in the mood. Is that terrible, I guess it is.

I have a shower. 

We leave for [rental property] to work on the window covering for the second bedroom, yet again. 

Mid morning. We arrive at the parking in Brunswick, I think it’s Jones Park. The cricketers are playing all in red, all the car spots are taken. Grrrr.

And then I see, the park is full of parents and their kids, lots of them, another reason to be thankful to be gay. (Of course, gay people have kids, but you know what I mean) What is this, a collective birthday? Go home you people, I think, and take your little sprogs with you. I want my quiet time in the park back. 

Oh yes, I know, they are just as entitled to use the park too, so my therapist tells me. Ha ha, I don’t have therapist, but I might need one after this lot. There are so many of them it is like a fucking circus.

Their young kids are playing in the dog water dish with no sign of moving away to let the dogs drink, so I just let Bruno and Otto go for a drink and it is astonishing how quickly the parents materialise to move their kids.

11.20am. Bruno, Otto and I are parked in Coburg Woolies car park while Sam gets sandwiches and drink.

I message Mark in Northern Rivers and say to him that I bet he is jealous of me being in Woollies car park on a sunny day.

Green with envy, he replies.

I chat to Mark constantly, he is my favourite person in the world, after all.

Not long after, we’re at the rental eating sushi. And drinking orange juice with passionfruit.

The white curtains we got from Jill yesterday are too long and no good, so Sam calls Spotlight to enquire about getting a new venetian blind made to measure? Apparently, they can cut the larger blinds down to size for a price, of course, but Sam has to order them online.

"I want oak Venetian blinds..."

"Yes, order them online." No phone orders, apparently. Sam would later find it difficult to find the oak Venetians to be cut down to size online.

I dust the existing venetian blinds. I start the cleaning process. Everything is now done.

The house over the road has put out stuff on the nature strip which looks clearly like a hard rubbish collection so, as bold as you like, in broad day light, Sam takes the remaining hard rubbish we have, some old lights, an old wall heater, a broken chair, and a bag of rubbish that his body corporate decided that [ex-tenant] and [ex-tenant] had left behind in the garden, which they hadn’t, so Sam was now responsible for its disposal.

We load some blankets and sheets and towels, and some material we could possibly use as a couch cover, up in the car.

1.30pm. We leave [name] Street. I laugh to myself that that is the day done. We’re not the type of home renovators who believe in over work.

1.35pm. A big, young wog boy in baggy black basketball shorts and a red jersey almost minces down Bell Street (that's the reason I noticed him) and across the lights at Pentridge Boulevard at which we were waiting. He gave me a look, a scowl, if you like, as he saw me looking at him walking towards us. He has great legs.

We go to St Vincent’s Abbotsford and drop off a bag of, er, donations the blankets and sheets and towels.

2:09pm we are home.

We lay on the couch and watched screens for the afternoon.

Otto vomited twice, not really sure why? He climbed up on the ottoman just for the occasion. Was he too hot? I don’t know. Sam cleaned up after the vomit, I swept the back yard while I looked after Otto while Sam cleaned up.

We ate cream pasta for dinner.

We watch the news and The Project, after which Sam goes off to have a shower and I turn the TV off and try to write my journal and some blog posts.

We watched 60 Minute – MH370, Alex Batty, Andre Agassi

9.30pm. Bruno and Sam went to bed.

I cleaned the dishes and watched another car YouTuber, Mortske, and his 1965 Buick Riviera.

10.15pm. Otto and I went to bed.

I have to get up early, after all. Monday morning in the office.

And that's the weekend done.