Grey Sunday Morning

7.42am. We’re up, both of us. Brun and Otto are lying right across Sam’s side of the bed, which is often the way.

I dreamed all night. The details of which all fly out of my head the moment Sam speaks to me.

“You always get up early,” says Sam. “Why didn’t you get up early this morning?” He motions to the few centimetres of bed he has due to boofhead one and boofhead two. I usually get up at 5am, and he switches to my side of the bed to get some stretched-out sleep before he gets up, but not this morning.

I don't know why Otto and Brun don't crowd me out in the night, maybe I smell bad.

Dam it! I like writing down my dreams. “I slept in.” My tone at the same time indicates mystery and no explanation, or is that the same thing. I shrug.

We both head downstairs, leaving the two of them the bed all to themselves.

I switch on my laptop.

8am. I make avocado toast.

I take the large plastic supermarket tray rubbish, wrapping stuff out to the bin on the corner of the street. Oh, it’s my protest at Yarra Council’s increase in the price of rubbish collection, taking it out from the umbrella of capped council charges to being a free for all charging regime. We should all protest by throwing rubbish in the street. Fuck Yarra Council!

I meet my lesbian neighbour with her dog walking towards me. Suddenly, I am embarrassed about taking the rubbish to the corner bin, 

so after I say "hello," 

and she says, "it's a quiet this morning," 

I step around the corner into the next street to make it look as though I was doing more than just taking the rubbish to the corner bin. I count to 10, so to speak, as I stand around the corner, then I step back into my street, only to see my neighbour standing at our gate looking back waiting for her dog. I panic and step back around the corner into the next street, so then, not am I only being socially awkward, let’s face it, I managed to look as though I was avoiding her, which I wasn’t, well, not for anything she’d done. I like her, she is nice. I was embarrassed.

What is wrong with me? I think. Don’t do that again. Next time just throw the rubbish in the bin and walk back to your gate with her, she probably would have even thought anything of it. And if she did, so what.

I finish making the toast with avocado.

Sam makes coffee.

8.40am. Otto comes running into the lounge room at speed, which is kind of unusual.

Brun follows in a much more restrained way.

I read The Guardian. It is short on interesting news. Blah, blah, blah, Sportsbet has done something, Gaza wha, wha, wha, another authoritarian has won in a European country, the minions of the bag of orange shit have done X, Y, Z. The All Yellows have, um, whomever… grimace.

Taylor Swift: The Life of a Showgirl review – dull razzle-dazzle from a star who seems frazzled. In fairness, Wood is one clanging misstep on an album that isn’t terrible: it’s just nowhere near as good as it should be given Swift’s talents, and it leaves you wondering why. Perhaps romantic contentment simply writes whiter than vengeful post-breakup bitterness, or perhaps it wobbles your judgment. Perhaps it was rushed. Or perhaps its author was just exhausted, which would be entirely understandable. Even the immortal, it seems, sometimes need to take a break from pop’s constant churn and unceasing clamour for content.

BirdLife WA calls consequences of Alcoa’s proposals to clear 11,000ha of jarrah forest ‘irreversible and catastrophic’ for endangered black cockatoo.

9.15am. I make more coffee. Stress head Sam stresses out when I spill a little water. He makes a groan as if the world is in danger of ending. I tell him to shut the fuck up. He seems to stress out more and more lately.

9.18am. Stress head Otto starts barking over something he hears. He intermittently barks for the longest time. That drives me nuts.

Sam starts cleaning, you know, because it is Sunday morning and Sunday morning is cleaning day. He takes several opportunities to remind me we are washing the dogs today.

“How do you think I would forget that when you remind me continually?” I say.

It is balmy, grey overcast day outside. What happened to the sparkling, 29 degrees I am sure we were promised?

What happened to that indeed.

“Not exactly the day to wash the dogs,” I say pointedly to Sam, who just ignores me. “We should have done it yesterday.”

He gives me serious side-eye before disappearing upstairs to clean the bathroom. 

He suggested we did it yesterday, but I said, “No, it is going to be warmer tomorrow.” Why do today, what you can put off to tomorrow, I have always said that.

A strong, cool breeze blows in the back door. It is not going to be bright and sunny today, I think. It is grey and overcast.

I listen to Sheryl Crow.

I read about how hopeless Gen Z’s are at dating. They have long faced accusations of being losers in the dating realm: young people are having less sex, meeting fewer new people, getting cringed out by even sending roses on Hinge. They are the most rejected generation and the loneliest generation.

Otto comes and sits next to me. I kiss face.

Brun has gone back upstairs to bed.

Sam comes back down from upstairs with the vacuum and starts vacuuming, which is my job. I tell him I will do it when I have finished writing this. He says it looks as though it is never going to get done. I tell him to put the vacuum down and that I will do it. He says he can't wait for me to do it. I ask him where he has to be urgently. He looks at me like he has no idea what I am talking about. I say, I will do it. He says he is doing it. I say suit your fucking self. I have finished writing this by this stage, I hit publish, and then I exit out the back door to water my plants.

I listen to Macy Gray, but she proves to be a bit hectic for the garden.

I listen to Bob Dylan, Nashville Skyline.

Plants and dogs are the best, people shit me. And even though Sam is my favourite human, he has his moments.