Good to Know I've Still Got It, I Guess

I was going to take another sickie today. I got up early and sat up until Sam got up, when he told me to get to work and stop being silly.

So, I signed into work.

Boris calls me late morning about another issue, when she asks me if I am alright.

I'm a good little actor, I tell you, I always have been. The key is preparation, be prepared, know your lines.

Boris was telling me that I was strong, and I'd get through it, and if there was anything she could do to help, please don't hesitate to ask.

Good to know I've still got it.

Contemplating Life

I took a sickie. I have 40 days of accrued unused sick leave, and you know what, I'm going to take it. Well, some of it anyway.

Reading back over my blogs, as my friend Rachel says, "Tell the world to go fuck itself, sometimes it is good for you."

I really want to quit my job, but I am too gutless.

Reading back over my blogs, as my friend Aby said, "Promise me you won't get stuck in some pointless financial job making money for people who don't care about you, you are way better than that."

Sam's worried about losing his job because of AI.

Reading back over my blogs, as my great mate Tom said, "You have to do what makes you happy, just look at me, I'm getting half a life,  don't waste any of yours."

Really, Sam having a job, or not having a job, is not dependant on me having a job. Not really.

Reading back over my blogs, as Mark says, "We are all responsible for our own lives, no one else is."

Would I be okay, if I gave up my job and wrote? Oh god (ironic use) I'm guessing you are sick of me asking that question?

Reading back over my blogs, as my gorgeous, funny, intelligent mother said, "I was happily married for 50 years, and all I could think when your father died was, all I want is another 50 years. Life goes so fast, Christian, it really is over before you even know it."

I guess there is a certain danger to go back and read everyone's truths, you know. Or enlightening? I'm still deciding which. Trying not to hate myself.

Walk Into Town Sunday

We walk into town, so I have a haircut in the city. Some how Sam and my haircuts have got out of sync, can't remember how that happened. So it was just me getting a haircut today. That's kind of the pressing problem for the day, how to sync up our haircuts again, so, I guess, life is pretty good.

The sun is shining. The sky is blue.

It’s a nice walk into town.

Midday. I get to the salon. Nobody is waiting, which is good, but no hairdresser available either.

Mindless dance music is playing.

10 minutes later. A woman walks in. "I don’t have an appointment but I was wondering if I could get a haircut." She sounded kind French. You've got to love hearing a French accent. 

My haircut never takes long.

Fifteen minutes later. We’re at David King of Sichuan Stock Pot in Russell Street having soup for lunch. I have tomato based soup. Sam has pork soup base.

It’s not exactly the warmest day sitting in the shade.

Otto eats leaves.

1.11pm. We’re walking home.

The sun is still shining in a wintry kind of way.

We tell the nice girl in Bailey Nelson about Brun dying. She’s lovely. She is very sympathetic.

1:32pm. We’re home.

We spent the rest of the day on our screens on our couches.

That was it. That was the day done. Another Sunday over.

Telling People

Rachel called, we chatted for over an hour. We haven't talked in some time.

She has rented a house in Adelaide and is going to look after her ailing mother now that her father has died.

I told her about Brun. She sympathised, of course. She and Jill looked after him as a puppy when Sam and I went to Japan.

Sam was showing relatives around Melbourne all day, so it was just me and Otto on the couch together.

Later on, when Sam came home, we took Otto for a walk and Jill called. Rachel had told her.

She got her youngest Corgi when Brun was a puppy, and they were puppies together when Jill looked after them. We chatted for an hour.

I cried talking to both of them.

Later, Rachel's daughter sent me a message saying how sorry she was to hear about Brun. She sent me a photo of when they looked after him.

Everyone was shocked to hear about Brun's death.

I worked on my old blogs all day, until Sam came home.

Otto is still kind of quiet, I think he is coming around, but not fully yet.

He's become a bit whiney, he now makes noises like a Wookie.

Pauline Hanson

She hates migrants

She hates Muslims

She hates young people

She doesn’t like woman’s rights, so she mustn’t like women very much.

She doesn’t like workers, she thinks they are lazy. She doesn’t want them to get a pay rise.

She doesn’t like indigenous people.

She doesn’t like indigenous people getting access to healthcare and educational services.

Clearly, she doesn’t like journalists. Too many questions.

She doesn’t like trans people, despite them being only 0.5 % of the population.

She doesn’t like childcare.

She doesn’t like paid parental leave.

She doesn’t like our wonderful environment.

She hates multiculturalism.

She seems to hate all the things that make Australia great.

We are a society built on the idea of fairness, and justice and looking after our mates and giving everyone a fair go.

She seems to hate all of it.

We are a multicultural society with the oldest living culture on earth.

And she hates it.

Brun

This morning, I was reading about Pauline Hanson and the shit and lies that fall out of her ugly mouth so easily,

and a photo of Brun came up on my wall paper on my laptop, 

with that gorgeous face making eye contact as he always did,

like he was saying, don't bother with trash like her, there are still good things in the world,

and I just couldn't believe the self-serving ugliness that is Pauline Hanson can continue in the world,

when something as pure and good and sweet as Brun has left it,

and I started to cry all over again for what I have lost.

I still can't quite believe my beautiful boy is dead.

The wind blew outside.

Hey Tom

I've been back reading my old blog posts from 2004. I've been reading emails from my beloved mate, Tom. I could hear his voice as clear as day, it was like he was still here and, you know, I think I forgot just for a moment that he isn't.

I guess, I am just feeling sad at the moment, and kind of vulnerable, fragile, death makes you fragile, but Tom it was nice to spend some time with you buddy. I wish with every fibre of my being that you were still here. My smart, funny, irreverent mate with the same black sense of humour.

Tears in my eyes now, I have to stop.

I'm pretty sure I have a lot more Tom emails, that I can pull together. We used to write emails to each other every day. I reckon I'm just going to do exactly that. We were going to write about the adventures that we got up to, but he died before we did, and without him...

Tom and Brun, I miss you both.

Never see them again, you know, that's the hard bit to accept.

And generating AI images of Tom, I know this sounds dumb, but it kind of brings him back, just a little.

Morons

someone from HR

I can't stand morons. I have so little patience for them. I just can't make allowances for them, I just can't. I'm eventually, not kind to them, well, I ignore them. I eventually treat them badly, as if they are not there, it is true. I know I should be a better person, but I'm just not. They should just be... well, chuckle, ah, smile, I don't know. Kept away from me, I guess, is the best I can say.

New Work Mantra

My new work mantra, (keep your mouth shut, keep it to yourself) fuck it, who cares.

 

When Otto Was A Puppy

 

Look at that beautiful face. I can't believe he is dead.

Whats The Point?

4am. I wake up and I can't get back to sleep.

I get up, because I can't just lie in bed.

Oh, what's the fucken point? I think, as I think about what to do.

You have things that you love, which is the point of life, and they die, that's the reality of life.

My beautiful boy.

Brun

 

Some 10 hours after my last post, where my two bulldogs were keeping me company as I worked like it was just going to be another normal day, my perfectly healthy bulldog, Brun,  became sick, unexpectedly. 

At 1am we took him to the dog hospital.

1.10am. The vet asked us to give permission to do CPR. Brun's heart had stopped.

1.20am. They stopped CPR.

1.30am. We were saying good bye to him.

Our lovely, smart, sweet, chilled, beautiful boy was 7 years old.

He knew how to communicate with us, he had no trouble telling us what he wanted, we used to say he understood English. He was the only one of the bulldogs who knew how to push doors open to get places.

Presently, we ache. It doesn't feel real.

Everything feels just a bit pointless right at the moment.

Last Day Of My Week

Sam went to Brisbane for a meeting, and a catch up meal with his colleagues.

I worked at home all day, nothing much to tell. You know, just a day.

I ate all the mandarins, Sam will be pleased. He calls me the mandarin fiend.

Above is how the guys kept me company. All day. That's right next to my home office desk. Good thing I like the snoring, it keeps me company.

Charlie was home too, but who the hell knows what Charlie does all day. Other than eat instant noodles and play with his doodle, no doubt. He's twenty two.

2.30pm. I reckon I could just about sign out of work and no one would even notice. I'll see.

It's Gonna Be A Good Day

Fuck everything is annoying. Why is everything annoying? Just by the way this day has started, I can tell it is going to be one of those days. I've written a couple of emails telling people what I think, and then I have deleted them. That gets it out of my system.

And after watching 4Corners piece on AI, I’m not sure any of this is even worth it. I reckon the smart people will be chucking everything in and doing things that please them in the time we have left as a species.

Dr Richard Scolyer

 

Dr Richard Scolyer dies aged 59. I felt genuinely sad by the news.

Go read about him, he was a good guy.

AI

What do I think about AI?

The governments are passing on safety concerns, leaving it up to Big Tech to self regulate.

We're all going to die.

Lying On The Couch.

It rained. It was sunny. It rained again. It was wet. We spent the morning on couches with blankets. And when I was encouraged (by the outlook for the day) to build a fire mid morning, Sam reminded me it was a gym day, so I went to the gym instead. It rained on my walk there, it rained on my walk home. Sam was ordering charcoal chicken when I got back, to be delivered because we couldn't go walking in the rain to find lunch, now could we? Then not long after I was home the rain stopped, but the cold continued, so I took advantage of the clear skies and went out and cut up kindling, and the funny thing about cutting up kindling, is that by the time you are finished with all that physical work, you are warmed up and you are no longer cold. The sun was shining by the time the Panda delivered our lunch, and Sam said if we'd only waited, still, that wasn't the case. So, then when we'd finished eating, we walked to the supermarket to get groceries for dinner, and dog food, and we were something like half way there and the rain started to fall again, of course it did. We'd only just made it to the shop and were under shelter again when the rain really started to pour down, and Brun, Otto and I were standing there under the shop veranda watching it pour down. Yay, I thought, as Sam shopped. I don't hate the rain, I have to say. A woman with a black poodle, and a husband, told me how her neighbours had bulldogs which they bred, which they didn't look after particularly well. "A contrast to yours," she said. I wondered if I should tell her I beat them. Ha ha, that's just my sense of humour. See her face. There were lots of people out and about shopping, and eating in cafes, and drinking coffee under shelter on the footpath, and walking their dogs, and walking under umbrellas. Note to people walking with umbrellas, when you are back under shop verandas put your umbrella down. Pet hate. There was an attractive 30 something couple, seemingly, window shopping, competing with the rain, being out for a leisurely morning, and I hear him say to her, as they get to me, "Shall we just go back to my place?" and she says, "yes." A Saturday morning Tinder date, I wondered. I would have said yes to him too, she was cute also, I am sure all the straight boys would agree. But then the rain stopped just before Sam reappeared and we were able to head home again, no problem. And the rain started to fall again, when we got home, but it still can't be that cold as I still haven't built that fire. I'm on the big couch under the large pink blanket with one dog against my shoulder, head on my pillow, and one dog lying over my bent right leg using the fold of the back of my knee as the place he is resting his head, both snoring, with the leg lying dog twitching as well, must be dreaming, keeping me toasty and warm at the same time. I am typing this with my left hand, as I need my right hand to hold on to my laptop as I type one handed. Still, when I fart, neither of them care, not one bit. I still have the kindling, and I might just build that fire yet. We're going to have dips and flat bread for dinner.

Pauline Hanson Is Not The Answer

The current support for Pauline Hanson is baffling.

Here is someone who opposes multiculturalism in the most successful multicultural country in the world. (That in itself should disqualify her from power)

She is someone who denigrates people from other countries, particularly ones that don't look like her, specifically Asians and Muslims.

She is someone who claims immigration is a problem in a country that doesn't have an immigration problem.

She is someone who continually calls climate change a hoax.

She supports fossil fuels.

She is someone who thinks Donald Trump is the answer to the worlds problems, and not the cause.

She (her party) is someone who now supports the repeal of abortion laws.

As I say her support is baffling.

What is it that makes people want to vote for her?

She has nothing to offer modern Australia.

Winter Is Here, And Boy Did it Rain

Mid afternoon, we got caught in the rain. It had rained for most of the day, and we probably shouldn't have risked it, but what is the worst that can happen? 

And the rain poured down, the gutters in the streets were raging rivers to be crossed. What is the term, fording, in some places. The gutters full of autumn leaves made me want to grab sticks and poke at the drains.

We took shelter twice in doorways. People scuttled past with umbrellas. Everyone looked damp. During a couple of lulls we had to make a run for it, with varying degrees of success. We were kind of wet by the time we made it back, running between the rain drops, as if that is even possible.

It poured even more after we got home.

I made a fire.

Sam went back to work.

I imagine there was flooding in some parts of town, the rain was so hard. We'll hear all about it when the misery hour news comes on later.

Sometimes

Sometimes, I come away from talking to shop keepers who i see regularly, wondering did anything I just say make sense.

You know, your a bit socially awkward, and you talk in incomplete sentences, and usually it is all a bit rushed.

It happened today, when I went to the bakery and got blueberry pie. Did I make sense? Perhaps I should have thought about eating lunch, before I came over here to get something sweet, then I might not have need something sweet, yap, yap, yap. Is it just me, or does everyone feel that way, sometimes?

I dunno.

Shrug.

Oh, don't get me wrong, it is really just a fleeting thought, as I look both ways and cross back over the street, not some great confidence trick, but a thought none the less, as fleeting as it may be.

A revision, if you like, of what was said and my part in it. Does everyone feel that way?

I still don't know.

Social Media

I stopped using social media because of the a tsunami of idiocy that came for me when i did.

It is Angryville, and I decided that I just didn't need it.

And if I want to talk to my friends, dear god (used ironically) I will call them up.

You know, it's not that I find any of it offensive, I am almost impossible to offend, it's really because all of it is just not very interesting. Listening to dopes sprout rubbish thinking they are being clever, when probably a lot of it isn't even true. Yawn.

Who needs it.

I lost one friendship because she, a fitness nut, thought Daniel Andrews was Hitler because he stopped her going to the gym during the pandemic. She raved and raved and raved on about it until I couldn't hold my tongue any longer. She took offence.

I lost another friend because I question what the difference was between aboriginal dream time and Christian mythology. The context was climbing Uluru. I said I had climb it many years ago as a kid with my parents and because of that I'm happy to never to climb it again, but if I had never climbed it, I couldn't promise I wouldn't just view it as a large rock to climb. She didn't like that.

I lost another friend because he had a stroke at an early age and he thought I'd said something which I didn't say. He admitted that was true, that he sometimes got confused, but our friendship died anyway.

I lost another friend who started spewing conservative racist talking points and I told him he was a racist and he didn't like it.

This is the only social media that I do. Is this social media?

I dunno.

Sore Back

The Leg Press at the gym seemed to be hurting my back, so I tended to avoid it. I avoided it for some time. I did other exercises.

But recently I said to myself, oh, don't be a pussy, just do it. So I did. I started doing it again. 

So, that was a few weeks ago, and then I hurt my back. I don't generally suffer from a hurt back.

It got noticeably worse over the weekend. So, I made an appointment with my Osteopath. I have a great Osteopath.

I went to see him at lunch time. I rode my bike in between the rain today. It rained all day.

"What are you here for today."

"Lower back. I have a sore lower back."

"Okay," he said.

"I reckon it is the leg press at the gym."

"The inclined leg press?"

"It is the worst exercise for you back."

"You know I knew and I avoided it, but I went back to doing it just lately."

"Well, I don't have to guess what is wrong with your back," he said. "I'd say it is definitely the leg press."

What kind of dope am I.

I hadn't been to the osteopath for 5 years, as it turned out

Anyway, now my back feels great.

And, it's been a long time since a man has said, take your clothes off and get on the bed. Haha, not that I took my pants off.