Tuesday

My eyes hurt. My neck hurts. I feel tired.

The weather has turned wet and cold.

Is the weather making me feel bad? Ha ha.

And it's Tuesday. Only Tuesday. Just Tuesday. I have another day to go before my weekend starts. As I told you the other day, one of the guys at work told me I was the cleverest member of the team only working 3 days.  Cleverest? Luckiest? (Sam thinks I should work full time) But, you know, I worked hard for my previous law firm, the one I refer to as the black law firm and in the end I got shit on by them, driven, mentally unbalanced corporate types being what they are, and I decided never again, life is too short. Actually, I left there with the intensions of becoming a full time writer, so all things considered, I don’t think I am clever at all. Still failing at life, is what I often think about myself, still not pursuing my dreams.

Anyway, this week seems as slow as slow as slow. As slow a wet week, is that the expression, which it is turning into, I see, as I watch the rain fall form the sky. 

Apparently, that is an Australian expression, slow as a wet week.

Apparently, American has slow as molasses. It doesn't really have the same ring to it, now does it. The two 'ws' in wet week, gives it much more of a zing.

When I have sore eyes, which seems to be happening a lot lately – when I had my eyes tested last, the optometrist said my eyes were really dry. Yay, great, I thought. She told me to use eye drops. I do. They help a bit – I don't feel much like writing. It's annoying. That small amount of pain takes away any inspiration that I have. 

Oh shit! If I have sore eyes for the rest of my life? It won't be good.

I went and put eye drops in and Otto jumped up on me and I nearly took out an eye with the eye drops bottle. He looked so pleased with himself standing there on the couch next to me. It’s always play time with a puppy.

And my atrium filled with plants is in the middle of a fungus gnat outbreak so there are little black bugs flying all about the house. 

Big exhale.

If it's not one thing...

The two bulldogs snore at my feet.

I might just sign out of work and go and lie on the couch, you know, with the back of my hand lying across my forehead. I don't think anyone at work would notice. Not now, most likely. I have answered all their annoying questions for the day. They usually all come in the first part of the day.  That's not the attitude, Christian. Hah, hah, who cares.

I put on BB King and forget about everything else.

My Girlfriend

It is my ex-girlfriend’s birthday. She'd be, um? Oh, it doesn't matter, it was years ago.

We haven't seen each other going on 14 years, not since Jill's birthday in December of that year. That is a long time now, hey. I used to think we'd know each other forever. I thought we'd always be in each other's lives. We were perfect for each other. She felt like 'home' as they say from the moment I met her.

Her mother always said I was the one, even when my ex-girlfriend married her future husband, her mother said I was the one.

But, then, you know...

And she moved to Sydney and became a corporate Sydney type and she just got to be too much.

But, I always think of her on this day.

I wonder how she is? I could call her, of course. Nyr.

She never tried to fight for our friendship when I stopped talking to her. Oh, she made a vague attempt with a birthday card 13 years ago, but that was all. She never phoned me up and said, "What is wrong? Why aren't you talking to me?"

No, she never did that.

So, it just faded away, our friendship.

Truthfully, if I was only going to mention the negative, she has only really ever been into herself, and moving to Sydney just seemed to reinforce that.

And that was that. I tried to stay friends with her, and we did for quite a while, she always called her husband my name when I was around, but when she started to treat our meetups as job interviews, what are you doing with your life, where do you see yourself in 5 years, I was done. It was over. The narcissist Sydney attitude had taken her over. It’s a shame really, she was really truly wonderful, once.

Long Term Relationships

The difference between having just met and a long term relationship is, Sam used to change the blade in my razor every time he changed his, now he only changes his own.

I'm not saying it is good, or bad. That's just what happens. That is the progression. 

And, you know what, it might be a good thing, that is what we all want, isn't it, someone who's in it for the long term and all that comes with that. 

Domestic Violence

As regional Australia reels from several women’s deaths, advocates seek both policing and prevention. Half of the 26 women who have been killed so far this year have been in regional parts of the country, highlighting a need for more resourcing outside metropolitan areas.

The women keep demanding that more be done to stop domestic violence particularly, but not only, that results in women’s death. The women keep saying that the govt must do more. The keep saying it, and saying it. But what?

What should be done?

Education directed at boys to teach them how to act with women. Yeah, sure, but that’s not going to save anyone’s life in the short term. Better parenting around boys? How do you do that?

The greater policing of AVOs.

Stricter bail laws. I wonder how many men who kill women are on bail? The problem with this one is that bail laws work for the majority of offenders. It is only the minority that we hear about. So, any changes have to be balanced between the two.

What else do they have?

There is a National Action Plan.

I tried to read the National Action Plan. I got interminable links to it, blurb on First Nations People, pages of warnings about the plan and the detail it contained, lots of phone numbers to call if you are in need, but I never seemed to get to the plan itself.

So I gave up looking.

Then I thought, this is ridiculous, I should be able to find the plan.

So, I went over it all again. Then I found the plan. And I got all the phone numbers, again. I got the dedication to First Nations People, again. And the warnings, again.

Then it seemed to set out its objectives, then it summarised those objectives, then it repeated its objectives in the beginning of how the plan would work, all in non discriminatory, neutral language, and then…

Then it just repeated the same points over again, the dedication, the warnings, the objectives.

Then it summarised the objectives… again.

…and then I just kind of lost interest, got distracted and never really read it to the end.

So that's the plan.

Isn’t the problem with domestic violence that all of the acts are kind of random, with little tying them together other than the sex of the perpetrator. They are essentially random acts of violence, aren’t they? And there is no one key factor as the cause. Is there? There is no real pattern. Just angry guys, probably angry for a plethora of reasons, hurting the people they love, or once loved. 

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 and 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, of course. 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 want to try. 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.