Hump Day Arvo

10.15am. I have all the work I have to do finished. I started at 6am, so that’s that done.

10.30am. I manage to stir up Otto as I am getting ready to go to the gym, putting on my shoes becomes a fight for each shoe. He’s adorable, we wrestle on the study floor.

10.45am. I go to the gym. I must stop calling it the grim. Think positively, you are supposed to be keeping this up. You are supposed to be setting up habits for a life time. Is that what girl trainer says?

It is really nice and warm outside. 

There is some sweaty fat guy in the walk-in foyer area yapping on his phone loudly. Another one of the annoying people, I think.

I get on the exercise bike and just as I start to peddle, I realise I’d forgotten my stupid watch data collector thing. Grrr! I’m sure I groaned out loud. I have to wear it so it sends the data to girl trainer. She takes this stuff seriously.

So, I get off the bike and go home and get it.

The sweaty fat guy in the walk-in foyer area is still yapping on his phone loudly. Another one of the annoying people, I think for a second time.

11am. As I head back up the stairs who do I see but the fat sweaty guy, he has taken the bike I usually use, of course he has. I get on the bike next to him, reciting a positive affirmation silently in my head for his immanent death. Take my exercise bike, will you? He says something about the bikes being closer together than they have ever been. I don’t answer.

I’m not really one for chit chat in the gym. I’m there to get something done.

I get peddling.

He’s grunting and groaning and making the bike squeak with his heft. His stomach bulges over his waistband as he peddles, kind of doughy. He’s looking at pokies on his phone, sitting on the display panel of the bike, the phone screen showing the colourful four boxes spinning around continually stopping for a match.

All the guys in the gym were in black. The blonde-haired top heavy guy with the big chest and arms and skinny legs. There was another guy who looked like Sherlock Homes from Elementary, who strode about with big steps between exercises. There was the young curly haired guy who sat in the leg extension machine looking at his phone for hours in between reps the last time I was in the gym.

The guy’s kind of walk around each other in a silent gym dance. They are all there to get a job done. They don't talk, they barely acknowledge each other.

The fat sweaty guy who pinched my exercise bike didn’t do weights after he finished on the bike.

11:53am. I’m done. The sun is really warm outside when I step into it from under the shop verandas. Do I feel good? I try to decide, as I walk home again? Do I? I don’t know.

I ate leftover nachos for lunch.

I get back to work. Not that too much work comes my way, just a bit, it’s intermittent. I find some mistakes, kind of stumble across them, my mistakes, so I fix them.

I wander outside into the sunshine. I water my plants. I watch YouTube for a while.

The afternoon sails away.

3:14pm. We take the Bulldogs for a walk. It’s quite a warm day. It is t-shirt time today, perhaps the first time for the year. That is an ominous sign of summer, now isn’t it? It is sad summer has become ominous, and yet we’re still not taking climate change seriously, not all of us, not collectively.

It’s really warm, the sun is hot, as we turn into Nicholson Street. I’m not sure if I’m ready for hot weather yet. It’s too soon. Do you think that is odd? Maybe it is? I like mild weather. Climate change is real, after all, and summer becomes a threat.

At least there’s a breeze blowing up the street and we walk.

Nicholson Street, we cut across to Brunswick Street to the dog’s water dish for them to have a drink. We cut across to Smith Street to the Japanese Pantry. Bruno keeps lying in the middle of the footpath, as we wait out the front. He doesn’t care. The only thing he cares about is the cool footpath on his stomach. Otto keeps tying me his lead as I tried to move Bruno. I nearly fall over at one point. I wonder if anyone notices?

Soon enough Sam reappears

Then Bruno, Otto, and I are waiting outside Woolies while Sam  shops. It’s hotter today than any other day, you can feel summer in the air. I’m not ready for hot weather, I might have to take my Bulldogs and head somewhere cool. I’m sweating. Both bulldogs are lying out across the paving.

Some chick just walked into Woolies with a scarf around her neck and fur-lined, knee length boots. What the hell is wrong with her? Perhaps she’s a Queenslander? 

A bunch of people stop and pat the dogs.

Sam reappears and we walk home.

4pm. I’m back at my work desk. A number of problems have been emailed to me, from Brisbane, Sydney and Perth. I wonder if they have conspired to stop me signing out of work early? I chuckle to myself at the thought. I work nearly to 6pm sorting them out. I sign off in time to watch the misery hour.

We eat Japanese pancakes for dinner.

Later, I fall asleep on the couch.