Tighten your muscles. Squeeze them hard. Make them strong. He might have need of them.
Of course, my friends laugh when I say I have spent three days in bed... so, what else is new for you, hey? Just a normal day at the office for Christian... neryuk, neryuk, neryuk. It makes me think what exactly do my friends think of me?
Sometimes, I'm not sure if it is envy, or if they really think that I am the laziest bastard on the planet, well, on their planet, hey? I'm just normal on my planet, ha, ha. Of course, me saying that sleep is the best thing I do, doesn't exactly help. (Even if it is true)
I guess I had better get a job to put their minds at rest.
Ah! Get a job. I say no, no, no. What have I learned thus far, is the corporate world is full of self-obsessed toxic cunts. Let's put it bluntly. And quite frankly, my dear, I have to come to the conclusion that they are just not my kind of people.
If only I could get over the guilt/stress of not looking for a job/not working, unemployment could be fun.
Yes, I know, go back to work, you are all saying. It's a bit like why so many heterosexuals have embraced the idea of gay marriage... if we all have to be miserable doing this, why shouldn't you?
I've got a badly blocked left ear, although I got myself out of bed today. My balance doesn't exactly feel normal, but, you know, I'm standing okay.
I'm blowing great huge lumps of yellow snot out of my nose. I guess you wanted to hear that. It's debilitating. (I guess, I should mention that to somebody in a wheel chair and see how they react)
I really don't feel like writing anything though. Poor me.
So, let's just do pictures.
I've been in bed for two days with a cold. Sad face. I couldn't sleep Sunday night, with the way my nose was blocked up I couldn't breathe. You know, when you can hear your breathing, or lack there of, loud in your ears? Oh, er, I feel like shit. Crap!
The floorboards next to my bed don't bare looking at, with all the used tissues lying there, when I'm sick I just don't care, I just toss them. I've picked them up twice, but the snot keeps coming. My nose appreciates the aloe vera tissues I got today, they are nice and soft on my poor, sore, red nose.
Five seasons of Weeds (petty I don't have some, you know, for the pain) has kept me entertained, however. I've got through 3 seasons and I have 2 to go, yay yay. It's amazing how 3 seasons makes the day (and night) disappear.
I mean, day time television? What can you do? Talk about crap! If ever you wanted to lose the will to live, tune in. Seinfeld was okay, of course. There are only so many episodes of Just Shoot Me you can watch. (you know, like one) But, The Dukes of Hazard? OMG! Talk about ugly. I can't even say Bo and Luke are fit boys. Nyr. (Unless Luke wants to show me him putting it up Bo's arse, then maybe I could be convinced) Hands in the air, rocking from side to side. And that was probably the best on offer, it's down hill from there.
Sam got me drugs. Yay! Oh, only cold pills, which I've been washing down with freshly squeezed orange juice.
I've been dosing up on apple cider vinegar, olive leaf extract and fish oil. I'm dosing up on oranges and mandarins.
Oh, my poor nose, sinus', throat, watery eyes and thick head.
Good artists borrow... Great artists steal!
Pablo Picasso may have uttered these words... maybe even T.S. Elliot? Igor Stravinsky?
Repeated by Steve Jobs
Sam came over after work. I haven't seen him for a week, not since last Friday when we spent the day together and he told me how he was coming down with something.
I vanished that night, saying I was heading home to my bed, as he had the painter coming early on Saturday morning. But, he was under no illusion, I was clearing out because of his dreaded lurgies.
He's been a bit miffed that I had opted to keep away from him while he had a sore throat and felt like he was coming down with something.
"I see," he said.
He wanted to catch up a few times during the week, but I opted for waiting for when he was fully recovered.
"I don't want to be off work and sick at the same time, you must understand that?"
"Oh yes, I understand alright."
So, as you can understand, he was a little feisty by the time I saw him on Friday night.
Very, on the "go" was he. And very relaxed was I.
So, I decided he had to be "calmed" down. It's a devious trick, but it had to be done. I was going at a much slower speed than he.
So, when Shane said he was heading to the supermarket to get supplies for dinner, after he'd gone, I reached for the button on Sam's jeans.
It worked a treat, he was much nicer to lie next to on the couch after that. Besides, I hadn't seen him for a week and I was pretty keen myself.
Big smile.
I just can't feel work, at the moment. You know, that sense of what it feels like to go to work. I can't out-of-body myself and observe myself going to work. It just feels like a foreign concept, at the moment, which people are, increasingly, talking about, but there I am in the middle clueless to what they are talking about.
So, I'm taking that sign to mean that I don't need to be looking for a job, right now. I'm sure, I will feel what it is like to work, so to speak, then I will act accordingly and hey presto I'll be back at work not being able to feel what it feels like not to work.
It's a nebulous concept to explain to people, they can't usually get it.
I went to bed at 3am. I got up at midday. Now, for my first round of "Valarie." Go Amy! I hope, you at least, finished your next album. Today, I started at the top of the Youtube play list for her and played them down, as I did my washing and cleaned up the kitchen.
I'm having a sweet muffin instead of muesli because I have run out of food and I must go to the supermarket. What time do I have?
When I run out of coffee beans, I traditionally head to the supermarket. Then it is a critical situation. Speaking of which, I might have a cup.
I had a late night, I stayed up pissing around with photos and pretending to write. You know, as you do. And suddenly, my bedtime television is Sunrise instead of Lederman.
I was groggy when I got up, after midday. Doing the shift work, for sure. Vampire hours. It's so easy to get into the habit of it.
I made coffee, that was all my single issue, male brain could cope with.
The toe nails on my left foot, have been long for about a week, well, that's the time I've been meaning to cut them. My hand seemed to come down on the nail clippers, I I rested them on the bench and steadied myself waiting for the familiar rumble of the cooked coffee pot to sound in my ears.
I took a cigarette from my packet and headed outside with my coffee. (Yep, smoking again) The sun was shining, but it had no warmth in it. I sat in one of the wicker chairs on the back veranda. I put my coffee on the ground. I found I had the nail clippers in my other hand. I pulled my left leg over my right knee and focused, rather bleary-eyed, I have to say, on my toes.
I clipped my big toe first. It was like a claw, dirty and gnarled. How long had it been? I was sure I was a cleaner human being that the evidence my big toe was showing me. Euw! Click. The nail shot straight up in the air, completing the most perfect arch right there in front of my eyes and plop! Straight into my coffee, as perfect a dive as Matthew Mitcham.
Euw! I laughed, I couldn't help it. Welcome to the fucking day, I thought.
It was Sam's birthday, oh, my, I so messed it up. I didn't buy him anything. I didn't know what to get him and he wouldn't give me any ideas. A geek IT boy who has every gadget known to man? (He even has 3 robot dogs) What do you get him?
And, I'm not a good present buyer at the best of times. I always leave it to the last minute, hoping inspiration will come to me, or at least, better inspiration.
What do you want?
Nothing, don't worry.
But, I could tell he wasn't being completely honest with me. Give me some idea?
I don't want anything.
But, I could tell by the look in his eye... you know when you know. He did want something and he wanted me to surprise him, charm him, be clever.
And I forgot he was taking the day off, which I, kind of, gave away when he said he was coming over last night.
"Oh, that will be nice?"
"You don't remember, do you?"
"Um... remember what?
At 7pm, I realised I should have cooked him the Red Velvet cake that I had been planning to cook him. Make it, put candles on it and sing him happy birthday. That would have done it. Idiot! How could I forget?
If I'd had my very own Masterchef moment in the kitchen, involved him in the process, been together as I made it and then had gone viola at the end, he would have been charmed, he would have loved it.
But I didn't. (sad face)
I'm a crap boyfriend.
Gyod! They get stroppy, now don't they.
Okay, so I went to the country last Tuesday, saying I'd return Wednesday morning, in the process cancelling a date with Sam on Tuesday night.
It was lovely in the country, lush and genteel. Luke was working 12 hour shifts and Mark and I hung out chopping wood, watching teev... and smoking pot, sure.
Oh, once up there, I seemed a million miles away from all my problems (I mean, such as they are. People still live close to the crippled nuclear plant in Japan and they still die from malnutrition in Ethiopia, however) and the drama of seeing lawyers – or not seeing them, as the case really is – and getting a job. Oh, it was nice and peaceful and relaxing and a lovely diversion.
Now, I guess I should have known better, Sam being the "must have a plan" type of boy that he is, than to let the days drift and my return day with them.
Okay, I did say I'd be back on Friday night, to meet up with him after work. Yes I did. I'd hardly say it was a promise, however. But, you know, as stated before, it was lovely in the country.
I messaged him in the afternoon saying I wouldn't be home and his reply was "so I'll see you tomorrow."
"Yes, of course."
I stayed up late and went to bed way after midnight, problem being that I'd left my phone on my bed, rather than having it with me. So, at 3am I read this message.
"Clearly dope is more important than me and always will be, and I don't want a boyfriend like that, so I don't want to see you any more, have a nice life. I'm sure you will meet some nice pothead some day who you will be very happy with."
Oh? I thought. Damn! Actually, my first thought was, Maybe I don't want a boyfriend who is going to get shitty with me spending some time away from him.
I knew, eventually, he'd admit he was jealous (for want of a better word... disappointed, maybe) and just wanted to be with me doing the same stuff, I knew that.
Anyway, I came home Saturday. I messaged him on the way back and said I'd drop in, but he said he was meeting a friend.
Fine, I replied.
After he'd seen his friend, he messaged me and asked if I wanted to see him and I couldn't resist the response, maybe? Well, if I was going to be berated for hours, you know "maybe" is the truest response... me, lying on the couch in solitude in front of the open fire with Missy purring next to me, you do the maths.
He knew what my "maybes" mean and said he'd be at my place in 20 minutes.
And all is well again in Christianland.
PS. Shane says we should stop messaging each other and pick up the goddamn phone and talk to each other, which is probably true.
Even if I pointed out to him that I have a boyfriend and he doesn't, so I wasn't sure whose theories were working best. (Shane craves a boyfriend now)
Still in the country, kind of forgot to go home. It's been nice, you know, a break from all of it, warm open fires and being cooked for. Ah, the wide open spaces, depth perspective. Ha ha. Lots of teli and a walk around the lake. I was going to head back to the city yesterday... maybe tomorrow.
It's a bit, bloody cold though, isn't it? Brrrr! goes straight through clothing, chilled to the bone.
What did I learn watching Ben Ten with the kids, in the country? That Kevin is way hotter than Ben Ten.
Mark called as I walked back from the city having just had lunch with Sam. I was heading home to get on to things, stop pissing around, make some calls, update my resume. No excuses. I'd practically said the last word to myself when the phone rang.
"Loli's up here (Bolago), she said to call you and ask you to come up, she'd love to see you."
Oh well, why not? Guadalupe comes tomorrow, I have to get out of the house anyway. I see Loli. I come home first thing in the morning, what's the harm.
Sam had bought me the new part to fix my home wifi. "It's a present from me babe, you're broke, don't you worry about what you owe me." He was coming over tonight to install it. I stopped home long enough to pack a bag and send Sam a cancellation text.
Then I drove to the country.
Mark sent me a photo of a tattoo that our estranged friend, Julien, has had drawn on his arm, the name of a drug addled pop diva, which was kind of fitting as Julien's life pretty much followed the same trajectory, possibly with less glamour. Funny how life imitates art... um... er... His life spiralled out of control via drugs like all the old cliches about drug addicts, to the point where he lied and cheated us all to get "his fix" to get "his way" to cover up the true disaster.
After exhausting us all he disappeared to parts unknown a few years ago... and nobody was that sad about it, sad to say.
Mark's email was entitled
Ah Facebook .....how appropriate Julien....probably off down the same road....
My reply
Oh yes, I saw it the other day. You can look at his photos, he looks fat and old.
Mark's reply
Well, I don't suppose we can talk too loudly.
My reply
That may well be true, but I rather feel that you and I had so much more to offer our friends and the world than just our good looks, sadly Julien never did.
She’s back boys! Lock up your medicine cabinets… and your wallets.
He botted off all of his friends, telling lies and conning us all. He cheated, connived and used us all. And then when we all caught on and said "no more!", he turned on us and told us that we’d all been mean and made his life miserable – which is probably true, but for exactly the opposite reasons to which he said we did. We made excuses and allowed him to carry on the way he did for far too long, therefore inadvertently facilitating his demise, we should have cut him off years before we did. I think Tim was the first to catch on, I think I was the second to realise.
Then, when none of us would give him the excuses we had previously, he pissed off interstate and then he departed for New Zealand.
Then there was that moment when it all came unstuck for him in New Zealand a year a go, or so, after that, and he hi-tailed it back to Melbourne and we all paid his bills and gave him shelter and looked after him, only to have him abuse our good natures all over again and probably in a more “junkie” kind of way.
But, that didn’t last long before we turfed him out saying, (with a very, big loud groan) “No, not again. ENOUGH! No more!” And he hightailed it back to New Zealand saying that he couldn’t trust any of us to look after him.
Well, I think, that towards the end of 2009.
Now, I can see, that he has just logged back into Facebook for the first time since then and he is tentatively making contact with us all again. Not me, or the rest of us who had the good sense to de-friend him from Facebook, but I can see that he has made contact with the others who are still connected. And he hasn’t set his privacy settings, since the new profiles wiped them out, so any one can go and look at his profile, he never was that, shall we say, thorough.
Oh the pain. I hope he’s not going to make contact with me. You know, I am very forgiving and it takes a huge amount of bad behaviour to reach my limit, but when you do…
We'll see, he's not back in Melbourne yet, apparently, but when he does I can almost guarantee you it will be the same old story. He's probably worn out his welcome in whatever part of the world he has been in.
Oh, I so love YouTube, you can watch anything you like, all day and life just drifts past you.
I have done nothing all week, except watch Bette Davis interviews and old episodes of What’s my Line, I so love that show. I keep thinking that I have to do something, that I have to get my act together, but when it comes to it, I just don’t want to. Ah! I so don’t want to go out there and work again. Motivation is at zero, interest is nothing. I try to make myself and I just seem unable.
My sister is fine, of course. Everyone lands on their feet, except me. Poor, poor me; the fact I have done nothing has nothing to do with anything. The lawyer said to her that since her old job gave her the company car she was driving, it would be unlikely she would get any more out of them than that. She is currently filling in in her first job from 25 years ago down in the country. She says I should go and see the lawyer, but even that seems like too much work. Oh, I must go and do that, I suppose, it is just hard to think and feel that he will actually be on my side. In a strange demented way, it feels like he will make me justify everything to him regarding (insert name of previous law firm) Does that sound weird?
I guess I should do something, but doing nothing still just seems so good.
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| It was such a lovely, the sun was shining and the birds were singing. |
Ug! The cleaner comes today. Very soon I'll here the front door go click click and I'll hear the scuff of her gold jiffies on the floorboards. She'll stop at my study door and I'll look at her and she'll look at me and we'll both shiver at the very same moment and I’ll say, “Newman!” Ha ha! “Guadalupe!”
And she'll say, "Ullo," in that way that she does, with that nasty mouth and those suspicious eyes.
Rats!
I've got to go and have a shower and be ready to vacate the house at a moment’s notice.
I've got my bag packed by the door - iPad, iPad keyboard, camera, latest novel I am reading – Martin Amis, The Pregnant Widow, just by the way – a health bar, wallet, keys.
(She doesn't have a nasty mouth, or suspicious eyes, she is perfectly nice, of course, I just can’t throw my sense of invasion when she is here)
There was an old Jewish chick following me up Chapel Street after lunch in her silver Mercedes, she was a gun. She looked like she was in her seventies, with her red permed hair and her thick glasses and her burberry scarf. As I weaved in and out of the traffic, passing all the idiots, getting next to trams and racing them off at the lights, whipping through the orange lights as all those around me dilly dallied and were left behind, there she was right behind me, hoiking that Mercedes through the traffic like a pro.
I was very impressed.
I had lunch with Rachel in Chapel Street. She took six months off last September when she sold her restaurant and she's still not working. We both agreed how much unemployment suits us.
This week was my week to get my act together and get out there and look for work.
I'm thinking I might brush off that old romance novel and get writing.