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.

Saturday

First up, we walked into town and got haircuts. The dogs came with us. Funny, I thought, as I got my $20 cut, once I used to pay $70 for a haircut. Well, when it got to $70 and I got the junior in the saloon and not my hairdresser of choice, that was when I stopped paying $70 for a haircut. $20 now. I have a haircut every 4 to 6 weeks. 

12.05pm. I’m in waiting in the salon. The owner says it’s just a short wait for the ugly guy hairdresser, while she seems to be cleaning, which I am happy with as I like the way the ugly guy hairdresser cuts my hair. But, then a young guy with spiky hair comes in and he is waiting to get his hair cut, so the owner chick directs me to her chair and she will cut my hair.

It is, if I said kind of uncomfortable looking at myself in the mirror, it would be overstating it, but it is true I never sit and look at myself as long as I do while I am sitting in the hairdresser’s chair.

Anyway, haircut done, we intend to head over to Sam's place as there is one window that still needs roller blind/Venetian blind/curtains one of those, apparently there are rules with rentals covering window coverings. We've tried Venetian blinds, the one we got didn't fit and we had to take it back, so, now we have to try again, it is the last job we have to get done.

Lunch time, we are sitting outside the Nepalese restaurant in Burke Street. We ate two types of dumplings, curry steamed, and kind of falafel fired dumplings.

1:20pm. We’re heading home up Bourke Street on our way home.

Funny, how there’s always a rat face little dog that wants to bark at the bulldogs sitting at one of the outside chairs at Florentino’s.

There was a ragtag group of save Palestine and anti-vaxers protesters. The anti-vaxers walked down Bourke Street with a megaphone that you are 400% more likely to develop myocarditis and I read the report that said 0.78% in one million may develop myocarditis.

We're home just before 2pm.

I get chatting to Jill, her neighbour had some freshly cut fire wood which I said I'd go and collect today and I called her to say I was lying on the couch and too lazy to come for the wood. Some how I told her about the blind acquisition and in typical Jill style, she has multiple curtains in the cupboard which she bought because, well, if the truth be known, she likes to spend money, it is kind of a hobby for her, so she could supply the curtains for the last window. So, we drove all the way to her place anyway, and she now lives way out in the suburbs now, as it turned out.

I've got a second car, my semi-classic car (hopefully, one day it might be valuable, but it isn't yet), that spends most of its life under a car cover in my back yard doing very little other than appreciating in value, fingers crossed, so while my main car is injured, by the last shit who backed into it and drove away, with an air bag warning light lit up on its dashboard, I have been driving my little white hot hatch for the last few days.

So, we zipped across the city to get the curtains.

We came home and didn't do much for the rest of the day, satisfied we had tomorrow sorted.

People Are Cunts

People are basically dishonest bastards. I was just filling up the windscreen washer bottle to my car and I saw that the fourth person has backed into my car and driven away without leaving their contact details to own up to the damage they have done.

And you know they would just say, “Oh I didn’t think there was any damage.” No, you just didn’t give a shit that’s the answer and you thought you’d get away with it.

What might I do, you ask, if I backed into someone’s car? I wouldn’t back into someone’s car in the first place, watch what you are doing, backing a car it is not rocket science, as they say.

And you know the vandalism done to my bonnet, I don’t actually have any proof, and of course I could be wrong, it's just a feeling I have from dealing with her, but I reckon it was Taylor B, who backed into the front of my car and drove away who I had to have tracked down by the police, she always thought there was no damage, and I reckon she’s come alone, (she lives in the area) looked at the car and thought I haven’t had it repaired, which I haven’t yet, and she has keyed the bonnet of my car over and over again, like the entitled one I learned she was from dealing with her.

You know, we all know the true secret to life, just care less.

My windscreen washer doesn't work even after I have filled it up. And you know, the water bottle for the windscreen is down low on the right hand side of the car right where the latest c[word] backed into it.

And driving today, there is an airbag warning sensor that I didn't have on my dashboard the last time I drove the car, before the latest c[word] backed into it.

Hot Thursday

It's a hot day, a good day for staying inside.

I take the dogs for a walk early, before the expected top of 38 degrees. It is a lovely morning, warm, with the anticipation of a hot day riding on the cool breeze.

The rest of the day I unashamedly lie on the couch and watch dash cam footage of stupid people on YouTube, with two fans pointed at me.

At 4pm, it is 38 degrees.

The bulldogs lie around like they have no energy. Everyone calls Otto Otti. I said I would never call him Otti. I hear myself call him Otti. I blame it on the heat.

All this lying around is too much for puppy Otto and eventually he finds himself a ball with which he entertains himself. He's good at entertaining himself.

You've got to love Melbourne, there is always a cool change, and right on time, 6.30pm'ish through it came.

A Couple Of Brick Veneer’s In The Suburbs

 

The Orange Monster

The only explanation that really makes any sense as to why people support Donald Trump is that he makes them feel good about their racism and their bigotry.

In The Park

We are walking around the off lead part of the park in Brunswick on our way home. There is a gorgeous dark-haired, olive skinned 18 year old, 19 year old, 20 year old, something like that, guy shooting hoops on his own. He has on an olive green t-shirt and black shorts the colour palette of which suits his dark complexion perfectly. I stop and watch him while I wait for Bruno to catch up. He makes a shot and then his basketball runs off across the grass and he has to retrieve it, while I stand and watch him. As the gorgeous guy runs back, he smiles at me. 

I smile at him.

 “I can run fast,” he says. Broad smile across his face.

Oh, I see, I think.

He runs behind a nearby park bench and says, “I have got it from here once.”

“Good for you,” I say.

“That’s just once in my life,” he says. “Just once.” He laughs. He throws the ball at the hoop again, and it goes through. “Ohhhhh,” he says with the biggest smile.

“Wow!” I say.

I walk over and grab Bruno and handsome basketball guy’s basketball rolls to me. I kick it to him, as I pick up after Bruno.

“The ball likes you,” he says.

“Because it came right over to me?”

“Yes.” He smiles broadly. “Don’t know why,” he says. He laughs. If the situation was different, I may have thought he was flirting. But, he was just innocence personified. Handsome innocenence.

“I guess it’s better to be liked, than not liked,” I say. I cringe just a little at what I had just said. I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Yes,” he says. “It is.”

I walk up to Sam. “He sure is gorgeous, even if he is a bit special,” I say.

“Good bye,” he calls after me.

I turn around. “Good bye,” I say.

“Thank you,” he says. He grabs his ball and he runs up the big hill in the park at speed. And he's gone.

I presume he was thanking me for getting the ball through the hoop at a distance for the second time in his life, although I don’t really know what I had to do with it.

Alexie Navalny
you don't have to be Einstein to know he was killed by Vladimir Putin

 

What Time Is IT?

4.15pm on a Saturday. It should be 4.15pm on a Saturday forever. 4.15pm on a Saturday, what a good time.

Life should be a never ending Saturday afternoon. Always the promise of another day off to come.

That would be grand, uncomplicated. 

The sun would always be shining. Of course. Perhaps a breeze. Gentle as ease.

Life would be simple.

Nourishing.

With a Norah Jones soundtrack.

Life should be a dream, isn't that what they say?

Friday

My creeper hasn't been flowering these last few years, but this year it is, pretty aren't they. I'd almost forgotten what they looked like.

I take the dogs for a walk, it is overcast but warm.

Walking down Brunswick Street, one of my pet hates when walking the dogs is slow human walkers, you can never seem to get away from them, because even if you do pass them, dogs stop and sniff, so you can never really get past them. And just when they’ve got far enough ahead, where you can forget about them, like has happened today, they stop and gaze at some architectural feature, or take a phone call, or just gaze at the day and you catch up to them and then you’re walking with them again.

I know, hardly a problem in the greater scheme of things. It’s just, you know, slightly annoying, with them constantly in the way, and I can’t just relax and enjoy the day in my own bubble, as walking the dogs in my own bubble is a form of meditation, just me and my woofs.

To be fair, today it was just some old bloke seemingly out enjoying his day too, I just wished he’d go and do it on the other side of the road.

Anyway, I managed to shake him, eventually.

After we get back, I contemplate the day.

Late morning, the sun finally comes out, and the day sparkles.

I make, I don't remember what number, coffee.

We eat fried rice for lunch. Home made, of course.

I go and chop up the rest of the creeper I chopped down yesterday, listening to The Rolling Stones Hackney Diamonds and then Blues and Lonesome. I find that meditative too, after a fashion, standing in the gentle sun with music in my ears.

And my day off just kind of drifts away. 

Walking the Dogs, Doing The Garden

6.55am. I wake up. My day off. I hear some woman’s voice out in the street, it has quite a nasally accent.

I stand in front of the closed venetian blinds, I like the ambience they give with the morning sun behind them.

I head over to the bakery to get bread. There are police cars out the front in the street. I see the police up the lane with my neighbour Jackson Wag.

On the way back the police woman asks me if we have any more cameras?

“We have them out the back, but they face inwards.”

“Oh,” she says.

“Did something happen?” I ask.

“A burglary.”

“At Jackson Wag’s house?”

“Yes.”

I think to myself, the bulldogs should be sleeping outside to bark at burglars, but no, they are inside on their own Tempour mattresses.

7.10am. Sam is up.

7.15am. Otto is up.

I suggest to Sam that the bulldogs should sleep outside to deter burglars and he says, “No way. They might get kidnapped, or poisoned.”

I make coffee and read the news.

Lab-grown ‘beef rice’ could offer more sustainable protein source, say creators. Scientist behind hybrid carbohydrate praises its ‘pleasant and novel flavour experience’.

The biologist who first tagged a one-year-old platypus back in 2000 was astonished when it was recaptured last year, aged about 24, making it the oldest platypus found in the wild.

Lidia Thorpe calls for ‘sleazy’ MPs to be excluded from sitting weeks and fined for bad behaviour. I never know what to think about Lidia Thorpe?

Barnaby Joyce to consider taking personal leave, after being filmed lying on his back in the street wailing into his phone. No, that’s not normal behaviour, said Nat Leader Littleproud. He’s made it very clear that he not only embarrassed himself but he embarrassed his family. So it’s important that we work through this methodically around what are the underlying causes of this. And one of those is around a mixture of the medication he was provided with alcohol. He acknowledges that. But there are other driving force that I won’t divulge. If Barnaby wants to make that public, it’s up to him. Why do people keep re-electing this disaster?

8am. I make vegemite toast and a peanut butter end piece and more coffee.

9:36am. I take the dogs for a walk. It’s a sunny morning, quite lovely really.

The sun is shining beautifully as we walk down the west side of Brunswick Street.

10am. We do TattsLotto in the Brunswick Street TattsLotto shop. There was a gorgeous 20 year old blonde boy in the TattsLotto shop before us, black shorts and a black singlet, worth looking at as we wait. The handsome Asian guy behind the counter is always interested in the bulldogs.

We cross over Brunswick Street at Victoria Street when Brunswick Street is unusually empty of cars, just full of sunshine and blue sky.

We stop for water at the water bowl cnr Brunswick Street and Johnson Street.

Johnson Street is bathed in sunshine.

The white bull terrier is not in the window of the tattoo shop, cnr Young Street.

We stop for more water at the Faraday Café.

10:20am. A handsome 30 something blonde boy with his cream Labrador is depositing food scraps into the shoot at the house on the corner of Greaves Street and Gore Street. The dogs say hello past cnr Greeves Street. His dog’s name is Dolly. We walk up the street behind them. He’s got khaki shorts, pale blue polo top, he has nice legs and floppy hair, boy next door type. 

10:30am. We’re home.

We ate Mongolian lamb for lunch.

I lay on the couch until about 2.30pm when I decided that I just had to do something other than lie on the couch, so I went outside and chopped the side creeper. I’d noticed earlier in the day, or yesterday, or some other day recently, how over grown it was and how it really needed a good prune.

First up, I repotted a couple of plants, just to get myself in the mood. While I was looking for the right sized pot, which I keep up the side of the house, I noticed that the hole in the fence seemed to be missing. That can’t be, I think to myself. Then when I looked a little more earnestly, I could see it had been covered up. I pushed my finger into the hole to see how well it had been covered, and it was covered up quite well. It seemed permanent, and then I could only assume deliberately.

A few weeks ago, I was up the side of the house looking for pots, I bent down to inspect a couple of pots and as I came up my eye came level with the hole in the fence and I peeked through to see this rather plain girl in the sitting area, she reminded me of Ellie out The Last of Us, and I think she saw me looking at her, and I pulled my face away from the hole.

I guess she saw me looking, I thought. That is unfortunate. 

Anyway, whatever. I didn’t think any more about it. I wasn’t really one to be looking through holes in fences. Oops.

Not long after, I decided to get up on the back veranda and chop the creeper back. I got all of the stuff I needed, and then I realised as I get up on the roof at the side of the house, I’ll be able to look over and see how the hole in the fence has been covered over.

I got secateurs, gloves and a bucket and I climbed up onto the side fence and looked over. There were two of the old fashioned long wooden seedling type boxes standing on end side by side, then there were about 6 bricks piled on top of that all the way up to the hole in the fence. I laughed. That looks like something someone with no wood working skills would do. I supressed a laugh up there on the fence. She must have been serious about covering that hole. She must live her life at a level of paranoia that borders on the unbearable.

(reading back over this a day later, paranoia? Um? Just to be clear the hole in the fence looked into their kitchen/back yard. It was innocent, there was no intent to spy on anyone. I looked innocently. I guess she doesn't know this? How would I feel if someone looked through the fence at me? I don't know.)

I got up on my roof and chopped back the creeper. 

I wondered how Miss Paranoia er,  she did see me look through the hole in the fence... um? How would she react if she saw me climbing up onto the fence? (It is the only way I can climb onto my roof, which I have to do reasonably often to keep my gutters clean, otherwise they overflow and leak into my house) I wondered if she’d demand that I didn’t climb up that way as it made her feel uncomfortable, or unsafe, or exposed. 

I wondered? how she would react when I refused and asked her if there was some medication she’d stopped which she should be taking. (sometimes I can get caught up in the narrative in my head and, no, I wouldn’t say that to her) Anyway...

The creeper was all quite long, so I thought I mustn’t have pruned for some years. 

I decided to leave it long on the lane side, you know, just in case it deterred any robbers thinking it look impenetrable to climb over. I just chopped it back on our side. It wasn’t too hard to do this as it grows quite wildly up there.

I found a stash of macadamia husks under the roof over the back veranda, clearly a possum had taken advantage of the protection wild and woolly creeper provided. So, I cleaned all of that out.

5.10pm. I’d finished chopping up the creeper. My right hand got too sore to keep chopping.

I went and had a shower as I was sweaty.

5.25pm. I come back downstairs, Troy is in the kitchen.

I watched Grand Tour Car meet ups.

Sam had a body corporate meeting online for his place. I used to have to drive him to those (remember, Sam doesn't drive) boring meetings and sit through them wondering what I had done that was so bad in my life to have them inflicted upon me, or wishing everyone would just evaporate before the meeting ended, but Covid took those meetings online, so Covid was good for something.

I watched Top Gear car meet ups.

We ate luxo instant noodles with prawns and fish and tofu and asparagus for dinner.

Happy Valentine's Day, Sam. It made him laugh

 

The Big Wide World

Sam was late getting back last night, so I listened to music and tried to write a blog post, rather than watch the news. Me and the dogs curled up in the lounge room with a cool breeze blowing in from the garden as the cool change had arrived by then.

So, this morning as I ate my Vegemite toast and drank my coffee, I was somewhat surprised to read that there had been wild storms and that, amongst other things, the Wimmera is without power as their transmission towers blew over, Wantirna is without power, and the poor luvs at Phillip Island are without mobile phone connectivity, all due to wild storms across the state. And The Grampians were on fire.  

While I don’t wish any of those people ill will, the bottom line is that we got a sprinkle of rain and a cool change and that’s pretty much all I should probably care about.

I suspect the never ending psycho drama that is the news isn’t doing any of us much good.

The news is the drama, social media is the poison, what hope do we have regarding the harmony of society.

The only social media I do now is this blog, everything else is boring, I hate to say it but I don’t really care if you got new cushions for your couch, or its where the awful people hang out. You know, you make a comment on Facebook and hate spews back at you. It should be renamed Hatebook.

I just try to write stuff now. Interesting bits of life, with varying degrees of success, I’m sure. But that is what I do now. Try to be creative. My own creative, not someone else’s. Some days I have nothing much to say, but I try to write something anyway, get something down. I try to write every day. You know, make shit up. Good shit.

Another Hot day

How the bulldogs are spending their hot Tuesday

Sam's at his place while the new carpet gets installed. He's still mystified why I don't want air-conditioning; he doesn't understand why I don't want white plastic boxes on the walls of my rooms. He tells me it's nice and cool at his place, but his place has white plastic boxes attached to the walls of every room.

He's just waiting around for the carpet guy to finish installing the carpet and he must be a bit bored, and he must have rung me 10 times. 

For a while he was perving on the cute glass guy who came to fix the cracked shower screen, but he must have left now.

4pm. I lie back on the couch and put my headphones in and listen to Joan Armatrading sing the blues, with two fans pointed at me. Lovely. 

Sam won't be home for a while, I might even get some zzzzzz's in.

Otto lies on his side half under the coffee table, two of his legs in the air. Bruno lies down next to him and licks his dick, what might be said to be, enthusiastically for a considerable time. When Bruno is done, he licks Otto's paws.

Then when he is done, he stands up and starts licking my arm, and I pull my arm away from him.

Otto jumps up on the couch with me, and starts chewing my knee caps, which is really annoying, and I push him away.

Then the two of them are licking my legs, and I push them both away with a stern, "Enough!"

Grrrr!

What do you have to do to have a nap?

5.30pm. I gave up and took them for a walk. The cool change had come, it was nice. 

At one point in the walk, the sun shone and the rain fell in big intermittent drops, split, split. There is something incredibly lovely about a sun shower. The day sparkled at the point. I wanted to stick my tongue out and catch the rain drops on it. And just before it got too heavy in which to walk, the rain stopped, leaving just the sun to shine.

Hot Day

It was hot all day, our first taste of summer, really. Feb 12th. We had duelling fans going.

36 degrees, pretty hot. We've all gotten soft from the cool summer, we've had thus far, not that I am complaining, you understand.

I love a cool summer. as long as it is warm enough for t-shirts and shorts, I'm happy.

And when we've ignored the climate to such an extent that it can't be fixed, which from all accounts is going to be sooner than later, I won't mind searching out a cooler climate in which to live, if that is at all possible by then. Of course, the self interested politicians will probably have passed laws by then that you can't move anywhere, and that you just have to perish where you are, the situation will be so dire for all, after the politicians have moved themselves to the safest possible location they can find, of course, but, I guess, that is a conversation for another time.

Carnival Day

It's gay carnival day, you know, the day gays prove they can be just as obnoxious as the gerneral public.

Ha ha! I don't mean that, it's not true. But you know, people en mass? Shudder! Gays are, generally, not as obnoxious as the obnoxious general public. Oh, is that terrible? I guess it is? Some of the general public are my friends, although, I have to admit, my friendships have changed lately.

You know since the covid lock downs, Sam and I have become quite the home bodies, just hanging out with each other, and the woofs. Did the covid lock downs have that effect on other people? I guess they did.

Anyway, we'll get out there and parade up and down with the bulldogs. See what there is to see. Chat to who there is to chat to. Buy some street food. Listen to the music.

The sun is shining, in fact, it is one beautiful day. Should be lots of shorts and bare skin.

I've watered all of my plants, inside and out, listening to George Michael's Songs from the Last Century.

Sam has cleaned the house, even doing the vacuuming, he said it was just easier not having to listen to me continually complaining about our shit LG vacuum. Rude, I said. But, I couldn't really complain too much, as what he is saying is basically true. I'm a pain in the arse when I have to use that blood awful vacuum.

Anyway, I must drink some water, keep hydrated for a day in the sun. Now, where is my hat?

I'm now listening to Ray Charles.

We're heading out for lunch first. Then the carnival.

We Fixed The Gate

While the two fat air-conditioning guys, very nice guys, I might add, installed the new air-conditioning (at one point the two of them were on the roof singing together), we repaired a gate. 

The back gate of Sam's rental was falling apart, fallen apart so much that it was almost impossible to open and close it. And I think Sam way over estimates my handyman talent, but you know, someone having belief in you is powerful, so generally I just fake it, and get through whatever he thinks I can do. 

My dad could do anything, and when I was a kid I used to hang out with him watching him do things, and that training, although only watching, apparently gave me skills I often don't know I have, who'd have thought.

So, you know, I just fake it, that's what it feels like to me, that I have no right to be doing some of the things I do, is that imposter syndrome? I don't know. I guess, imposter syndrome is more serious than repairing a gate.

We took the gate off its frame. And I know that screws and glue are the way to fasten wood work properly, so that's what we did, glued it and screwed it. It wasn't pretty, but it was back together and solid. 

And then we reattached it to the gate frame and it opened and closed.

Then I found a tin of paint in the garage that was wood paint, so next I will give it a few coats of paint, and that will probably mask a lot of the ugly repairs.

There you have it. I have never repaired a gate before, but now the gate is repaired.

Thursday

I didn't know what to do today? I don't know why?

I've got to do all this stuff tomorrow with Sam's rental property, which will probably take the whole day, which made me nervous about today? Does that make sense? I don't know? I only have today off.

Anyway, I got up late, 7.30am.

I made porridge with peaches, but I was out of honey.

Mid morning, I take the Bulldogs for a walk. The Sun is shining.

I’m listening to Leo Sayer, all his old hits.

We meet a friend who has a shop near my place, she marvels at how big Otto has got. 

Both the bulldogs have a shit before we get out of Gertrude Street.

Have I said it was a lovely morning?

We cross over at King William Street to the other side of Brunswick Street.

We do TattsLotto in Brunswick Street with the handsome Asian guy.

We cross back to the other side of Brunswick Street at Moor Street.

Bruno, why are you such an arse, why do you always go around poles the wrong way, good boy, good boy…my dictation catches me out again.

We drink at the usual dog dish outside the clothing shop in Brunswick Street getting close to Johnson Street.

A lady comes the other way, and she says, “very cute,” as she passes us by. I could pretend she is talking about me, nose twitch, but I know she isn’t

Brunswick Street, Johnson Street corner, neither of the bulldogs want a drink, so we cross over to the cooler north side of Johnson Street too late, against the red man, two straight guys coming across the road make ogle’ly eyes wanting to connect with me about the bulldogs, I can tell, but I was too busy getting over the road before the truck coming up Brunswick Street with its lefthand blinker turned, physically & emotionally.

We walk up Johnson Street on the shady side. Bruno lies in the shadows just as we get to My Pet Warehouse. A lady coming up behind us says, “It’s too hot.”

 “He’s a lazy arse,” I say. I reconsidered immediately. “No, he’s just a creature of comfort.”

She goes over to say hello to Bruno, she looks down at him and exclaims, “Oh my gosh, look at the size of your head.” She turns to me and says, “I have miniature poodles and their heads are this big.” She cups her hands.

We cross the street.

We’re at Faraday Café drinking out of the dog bowl. The sun is gorgeous today.

We walk up my street in the lovely morning. The bulldogs just seem to stop naturally outside the house waiting for the yappy Bunter who doesn’t appear today. He usually does.

The continuing, seemingly, never ending renovation of the house in my street and the cutest blond haired and blue eyed builder comes out from behind his truck and spots the bulldogs and says, with a big smile on his handsome face, “Look at these guys.”

I think, look at you. But, I keep walking, it just didn’t occur to me to stop, not sure why?

The giant German Shepard barks somewhere in the depths of the house just near mine. This dog is a monster. I’ve seen it a few times in the front yard, and it is huge and not friendly.

11:45am. We’re home. Bruno and Otto lie out paws spread on the tiles, panting. They take turns drinking, covering the floor in their dribble.

Sausages and mashed potato for lunch, another reason for loving working from home, not that I was working today, but Sam was.

I lay on the couch and did internet things, news, YouTube, after lunch, but that wasn't very satisfying. I was determined not to go and waste my day sniffing around secondhand shops for CDs and DVDs for my movie collection. Oh obsession is such an ugly word, don't you think?

So, I pruned the garden with Bruno and Otto who were being terrorists in amongst the plants. 

I chatted to my next door neighbour Jackson Wag for a while on the footpath, like a couple of Mrs Jessups.

That was okay for a while, but I just couldn't get stuck in, so it was back to the couch.

I couldn't think of anything else. It's a failure of imagination to be sure. Or, is it when you don't follow your obsessions?

The sun shone. Do you ever think that beautiful days string you out? The expected, eventual, loss of perfection and all that. I don't know?

And then suddenly it was 6pm and I wondered to myself where did the day go.

We ate prawn pasta for dinner. We watched teev.

Get Rid of The Statues

Council debate on ‘cancel culture’ erupts over future of St Kilda’s vandalised Captain Cook statue. The council narrowly voted against a community consultation on the ‘location and context’ of the explorer’s Port Phillip memorial.

Oh, who cares?

Let's get rid of the questionable statues and instead get some great street art to replace them.

Why is anyone invested in a statue of Captain Cook? It's not like anyone living knew him? What does it do to these people, play with their childhood? Is this just conservatives not wanting anything to change, again?

Get rid of the mouldy old statues, get some modern art to replace them.

Taylor Swift

I've had Taylor Swift music playing all day. The biggest pop star in the world. Some say she is pop music. She is a billionaire from her music.

I didn't know any of her songs, other than Shake It Off, so I thought I should give her a listen. Biggest tour in the world. Some people ar obsessed with her.

So, I have had Midnights (3am edition) playing.

And what do I think? It has just felt like one very long song playing that never seems to stop.

Sam came downstairs at one point and commented, "Are you listening to Tay Tay?"

"Yes," I said.

He laughed and said, "Why?"

"Oh, you know, bigger than sliced bread, I thought I should give her a listen."

I have to say, I don't mind her music. Who'd have thought?

Toxic Laura

We have this employee at work who is known amongst execs & HR to have mental health problems and everyone is really careful when they are dealing with Laura.

I don't have much to do with her, only really once previously when she kicked up a fuss about something, and it was taken over by HR immediately, and while it had very little to do with me, it didn't take much imagination to judge where that interaction could well have led.

Anyway.

Today she emailed me out of the blue about an issue that again doesn't really have much to do with me and I didn't know why she was having the problem she was having, so I just reiterated, I guess, what could have been stating the obvious by some, but it was true none the less.

The return email from Laura told me in no uncertain terms what she felt about my help and demanded that I find the person who could help her. 

It gave me shivers. What a rude cow.

Where does mental health end and plain old toxicity begin?

I mean, I don't know. I'm glad I'm not known as the mental health person.

I switched my internal dialogue to Hallmark Greeting Card and sent her an apologetic reply email that was so gooey I had trouble pulling my mouse off the send button once I'd pushed it, and it gave me a gentle thrill that I could be so insincere and, actually, get away with it.

And she sent me a return email thanking me.

It Was Hot Today

It was hot today, 38 degrees. So, we washed the dogs and took them for a walk early, 10am'ish, harnesses on, air drying as they walked, beats towels and hair dryers. Lots of people seemed to be walking their dogs early, which I guess is hardly surprising.Golden retrievers with their blonde hair shimmying in the sun, and sausage dogs, all yappy like they are. Maybe, they washed their dogs too.

We did grocery shopping. I could kind of taste the coming heat in the air as I waited in the street for Sam to finish the shopping. There is something about the air when it's going to be a scorcher, as they say. You can feel it, you can taste the heat coming on the breeze.

Then we spent the rest of the day in front of the fan.

Sam wants to get air-conditioning, but I don't want the equivalent of a white plastic box on the most prominent wall of my period lounge room. I just don't.

Sam doesn't care about machinery hanging off the wall where only my collection of art now hangs.

Eventually, climate change might take that decision out of my hands.

Bruno and I went to Bunnings and got new pots and I re-potted some pot plants. I did the re-potting, you understand, Bruno just watched. Well, I can't lie on the couch and watch YouTube all day. It would be nice, but, you've got to have the content for that time span.

Bruno knows the moment I think I am going to drive somewhere to do an errand, like a savant. Some times its like he knows before I even do. 

He is at the door waiting for me to head out with that where-are-we-going look on his face. Then Otto picked up on Bruno picking up on something and he wanted to go too, but only Bruno and I went.

The car was really hot having sat in the sun all day. It was so hot the air-conditioning felt like it wasn't working initially. It was a relief to park it in the Bunnings Underground carpark out if the sun. 

I guess, we're all going to need underground carparks in future, just to survive.

Straight away we bumped into one of those staffy/American Bulldogs that was caramel coloured all over, everything the same colour, lips, nose, eye lids, fur, and with distinct pig eyes. It seemed to be a toothless loser on the other end of the lead, which seemed odd to me as toothless losers seldom do house maintenance, that’s terrible isn’t it? I just naturally pulled Bruno away from his dog, you know, as you do. I think he mumbled something like, "Woa there killer." Maybe he had adjustments to make to the methlab, and I chuckled, and then I chastised myself for such thoughts.

I got a house key cut for my car key/plastic box keyless thingie, as I took the key off that some time ago and gave it to a friend who was staying who, didn't, of course give it back. And then the other day I just grabbed my keyless car key thing to drop Sam off somewhere without taking my wallet, which has a key in it, for the first time and when I got back I was locked out of the house, so I did do that, got a key. Fuck being locked out, it is the worst feeling. Well, I guess, having your leg bitten off by a shark would be a worse feeling, but, you know, I couldn't be certain, if you know what I mean.

I had to go back and exchange the pot I bought for a bigger pot a bit later, and get the potting mix I forgot the first time, but Bruno didn't want to come the second time, too hot I guess.

And then that was Sunday done, and Monday loomed.

IF Only It Was That Easy

I get up early. Otto wakes up with me. We both head downstairs.

I make coffee. Otto chews his shark on the couch.

I sit on the couch with him.

There is nothing much in the news, Gaza is in crisis, Dutton is being appauling, Squeaky Beach judged Australia's best, so I open YouTube. Sunday morning church.

One of the first clips I see is entitled,

Blow Up your BUTT and get a SIX PACK at the same time!

WTF? (Do you think the wording was deliberate for idiots like me? Of course it was.)

I thought, all the gay boys would be very impressed, if only it were that easy, I thought, so of course, I watch it while I drink my coffee.

Let's face it, if it meant abs, there would be straight boys bending over too. (Gyms would be very different, they’d be doing meth, not steroids. Chuckle)

The fact that the YouTuber is a cute blond-haired, blue-eyed guy in his undies really doesn't hurt.

Apparently, having a big beefy butt is en trend for guys now.

Saturday

We take the woofs for a walk in the morning.

By early afternoon, we’re eating dumplings in Clayton. We ate noodles followed by fried dumplings at a dumpling house. Clayton Road shopping strip was jumping with people.

There is a big group that is very noisy at the next table, I’m wishing them dead as I type this. Funny if someone blew the place up.

Just as we are finishing, A a young chubby blonde queen with daisy hairpins in his lank blonde hair skips after his girlfriends, it's funny to see young gay guys out in the wild. 10 years, he'll have a buzzcut, a gym routine and an apartment in the CBD.

We walk a little further up Clayton Road for deserts. We ate those frozen, fruity, snowy, desert pearl Asian deserts. We had one each. The deserts cost more than our main meals, but I'm not complaining.

Sam was very excited about a robot delivering the food to our table. The look on his face was the highlight of the day.

2.30pm. When we’re done with desert, we head off to do the thing we were really in the area to do. I tell you, a couple of hours in the afternoon is all the work we can manage on getting stuff done.

3.05pm. I’m sitting in the Fowles Auctions toilet taking a dump. The toilet stinks, I have to be true. I’d really needed to have a second shit all day and I was rapidly wondering if I was going to get to an emergency situation before we made it home. Ha ha, but you know what I mean. Is that too much information? I guess it is. But it was very satisfying.

Sam is looking for carpet for his rental. The existing carpet is a really light colour and while it is okay in some rooms, its really fucked in some of the bedrooms.

3.30pm. Tra La La. Sam is talking to yet another carpet person. I lay down on the rolls of carpet, not sure that is the thing to do. But, I love the smell of new carpet, don't you love the smell of a good carpet roll?

3.36pm. Sam is doing the paperwork for the carpet and the underlay.

I’m so bored. You have to understand that Sam doesn't drive so my main function a lot of the time is chauffeur. Oh, not that I mind, I pretty much only really like hanging out with Sam now a days, but I'm not even good at shopping when I am doing it for myself.

3.43pm. We’re leaving.

It was an easy run home. The sun shone, the sky was blue.

4.20pm. We’re home.

Now the temperature has dropped and it's a lovely evening. It's going to be hot tomorrow, 38, the bulldogs will have to get their walk in early. I don't know about you, but I have been enjoying the not so hot summer. It's still been warm enough for shorts and t-shirts every day, so I've liked it.

Strawberries For The Dogs

Sam had forgotten to get the tinned peaches, or the bananas, for my porridge. There are a few over ripe bananas in the fruit bow, but really, no, looks like I'll be making a banana cake tomorrow. Last week I made apple cake, but I think the Granny Smiths may have been past their peak.

My bakery has been closed all of January and is still closed – they must do alright during the year, I think every time I walk past the closed shop front – so there has been no bread for my breakfast this year.

Sam had remembered the oats themselves and the cinnamon, but not the tin of peaches. (Sam does the shopping he is very clear about that, be under no misunderstanding that I am... I'm not really sure what you call it with two guys. It can't be sexist, now can it?)

Sam is not a breakfast person so he doesn't quite grasp the magnitude of the disappointment. So, yes admittedly, I was starting to have a whine about the lack of fruit for my oats, yes ashamedly, when he said there are strawberries. He never forgets to get strawberries for the dogs, but my peaches, or bananas, are too difficult to remember.

Strawberries for the dogs, yes, apparently, I was allowed to take a few for my breakfast, the dogs gave their approval, nodding sage like at the suggestion.

Passwords

I read about how people have simplistic passwords and that it is a problem with hackers. In this time, some people even still use password as a password. Or their DOB. Or people use the same password for every application, apparently that is a bad one.

I don’t get it? 

I love my passwords. When I have to make up a password, I make up sentences easily, it’s fun.

Here's just a few straight off the top of my head.

Jacks on crack so he gets a smack.

Auntie Lucy loves Lotus flowers.

Helena had hair cream on her hat.

Leroy lost his language in transit.

Bip Bop Diddly Dop

Passwords. Let you imagination run free.

If you have to add a number, just decide on a methodology. I usually add 39, that’s just my arbitrary number.

I employ certain mechanisms for remembering passwords, it’s not that hard.

It all just needs a little thought given to it, which I think we can ascertain from the recent reports people aren’t giving it.

And it's kind of important. People are funny, in the odd sense, not the humorous way.