First Day Off

I ride over to get my script, which I couldn't get yesterday. As soon as I am out on the street talking to David on the phone, about aging, our normal topic of conversation, the sun disappears behind grey clouds and the heat disappears out of the morning. Grrr!

It is cold riding in the day that I now have.

I stop off in Brunswick Street to get a muffin, I'm not really sure why, but it was on my mind to get one. My usual muffin shop has no raspberry muffins this morning, in fact, they have no muffins at all. Grrr!

So, I head back across Brunswick Street to where I tied my bike up, fully intending to ride to the chemist to get my pills, but as I pass the cafe cnr Victoria Street, I spy muffins their display case. So, I head in and get one of those. Mixed berry with white icing.

Now this muffin is a meal in itself. It is not insubstantial to eat, so I decide to walk up to Vinnie's while I eat it, you know, to get through it. I get to Vinnies and I have to sit on the shelf-like window seat they have out the front, to finish it. But, it is hard work to scoff quickly as it is so big and, I have to say, gorgeous, I didn't want to rush it, so I put the still uneaten half into my bike helmet and head into Vinnie's.

Vinnies has nothing I want, so pretty quickly I find myself walking back down Brunswick Street gorging myself on this spectacular muffin, which I only just manage to get finished by the time I get back to my bike.

Now I need a ride, I think to myself.

I'd partly delayed my ride as the nice chemist lady told me to get there after 10.30am, and as it was 10.30am when I set off, so I decided I should take a bit longer just to ensure the pills had arrived, so that was now done.

11.15am. I got to the chemist. Unfortunately, my pills hadn't arrived.

"I'm very sorry about that," said the nice chemist lady. "Would you like me to post them, or drop them into you once they arrive?"

Days off, I thought. It makes me do some exercise riding here, I also thought. "That's okay," I say. "I'll drop over tomorrow to get them."

"Oh, okay," she says.

The sun is shining as I get back on my bike.

I ride around the back of the shops, down Holden Street to Bennett Street, it’s all housing commission around there > Park Street > Ivan Street which is the wrong street, one street too soon, but you know the one thing you can always bank on in Fitzroy if you take the wrong turn, there will be, if nothing else, a lane way to get you through, and there is. Ug gug gug gug gug gug gug over the bluestones to Apperley Street and the bike track. Across Scotchmer Street, where the cars give way to the crossing, across Alfred Crescent where the crossing gives way to the cars, can’t anyone else see how confusing that is? Through the Edinburgh Gardens. Down Napier Street, who knew that was Napier Street. I stand at the pedestrian crossing at Alexandria Parade with a school group, teenagers nearly adults. Standing! Standing! Will the traffic ever stop I wonder? Will the lights ever change? Then it is right onto Alexandria Parade, left into Young Street, right into Cecil Street and then to Brunswick Street.

I go to Sacred Heart Op shop in 433 Brunswick Street. Oh, why not? I'm on the first of two days off, I can do what I like.

I get a Karen Black movie. I contemplate a painting of a woman looking directly at the artist, but decide against it. You are on your bike, you idiot, how would you get it home?

Sam makes wraps for lunch. They are big and I am not hungry after the enormous muffin I'd already eaten unbeknownst to Sam. I should have just told him, but I didn't. It must be some childhood trauma stopping me saying so. He makes me two. I tell him I only want one, but he'd already made it, so he cuts it up and we have half each. 

After that I feel a little sick like I have eaten too much.

It's gym day today, and I didn't go this morning, due to the ride north to get my pills. I simultaneously feel bloated-sick and sleepy lazy-full, but early afternoon I make myself go to the gym. Don't put it off, I say to myself. Just go, it is exactly what you need you piggy pig pig. And I do.

There are a couple of serious gym heads there. They are lifting enormous weights, in-between each exercise they are both glued to their phones. They both seem to walk around in circles as they look at their phones. I wanted to use one of the machines, but one of the muscle Mary's doing circles glued to his screen said he was using the machine and then continued to walk in circles. We are doomed as a species, I think.

By late afternoon, I had everything done, and I lay on the couch waiting for dinner after which I passed out on the couch for the evening. Not exactly sure why that is happening? Perhaps it is the 5am wake up I have been doing lately?