FletcherBeaver

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

I Need To Slap Myself, Quite Frankly

I was awake at 9.04. I had weird dreams again. I had weird dreams again, something about apple cakes and string and slippery surfaces, which we were always slipping over on. I think everything was covered in plastic. There were shadows and satin slippers and quinces, and wanting to paint the world quince yellow. The world was going to be a much better place if it were painted yellow and we all were fed apple cakes. When I woke at 4am and stumbled into the bathroom to have a piss, I remember thinking, Wow! Where the hell did that come from?

I lay awake for some time, at 9.04, trying to make myself get out of bed. I was trying to fight off the general boredom that I am feeling with life, at the moment. Bed was nice and safe and warm and where I contemplated staying for quite a while. There is a kind of restlessness that I am feeling lately, a dissatisfaction. I am even feeling bored with my days off. I don’t know where that came from, but it has been with me for a while. Nothing really seems to be pleasing me right at the moment, working, not working. Except Sam and being curled up on the couch with him at night. It is as though, I just have to give myself a good shake… shrug… yawn… Haven’t I done this all before? … Grrr! …I can’t think of one inspiring thing… life feels like it is forming smaller and smaller circles… just sit and be bored, that article said recently, to find inspiration… don’t try and fill the micro boredoms, just feel them… don’t want, feel… don’t get busy, be still… and, I know, it is true there are people in the world who have real problems… but…

I need to give myself a good slap. Actually, life is great.

So why the disconnect? Shrug.

It is a lovely sunny day. The sun is shining, the sky is blue. I love the sky at this time of year… the sun… the light. It is clear and crystal and bright and pure and lovely, at the same time mellow and gentle and easy.

I washed the dishes and cleaned the kitchen. My head spun at the mess; dishes in the sink, a nightly occurrence. The morning pulsed, the surfaces were cluttered, I felt like going straight back to bed. But, it is my job, as Sam cooks, I clean up the mess.

I cleaned everything up as my coffee brewed. It is funny how my initial reaction was, “oh no, I soooo don’t want to.” Body shake. Hands slapping the air in disgust. And then, five minutes later, on went the taps and then not long after that, I had a pristine kitchen. Lovely.

I took the rubbish out to the bins kind of in instalments in separate bags, as I contemplated not cleaning up and then after I started cleaning. You know when you don't want to do something, but you know you must and you start doing little bits as you talk yourself into it. Bit by bit, like little red toot, I think I can and all that. It was nice heading out into the sun at least. the day was gorgeous the air was just fine.

I headed out to the back yard and picked up Buddy’s pooh, you know as long as you keep on top of it. I only thought of that at the last minute. The rubbish collection is today. It is a good thing that the rubbish collection doesn’t happen until late morning, now a days, I thought, as I dropped the plastic bag of pooh into the bin. I said good morning to one of the nuns from the Sisters of Charity, as I stood in the sun enjoying its warmth, as she passed by in her whiter than white robe with it’s navy blue trim, as I was contemplating life. I seem to be doing a constant contemplation of life. But, eyes half closed facing the warm honey-like sun, what is there not to like. How can you not wonder “what am I doing with my life” when the honesty of the sun is falling upon you?

Why do people want to ban plastic supermarket bags, I wondered. I recycle all of mine. I always use them again, for many uses, I never just throw them out. Surely, there aren’t so many products that are recycled in quite the same way? If they are not biodegradable when they finally make it to landfill, then that is what needs to be done, not banning them, that is just stupid.

I text Jill about the dog park around 10.am, as I headed out the door. I said I’d be there 10’ish. What did it mater, Jill is late to everything, so 10’ish was near enough.

We were on a roll, two mornings out of two, we might as well try for the trifecta.

Just as I was getting to the park around 10.15, Jill called to say she was sorry but she couldn’t come to the dog park as she was going for her walk. Her walk? What did she think we were trying to do for the last two days even if we hadn’t been so successful? I hope she is going for more than one walk a week. At her size, she should be going for a walk every day. Twice a day.

As Buddy and I walked through the dog park gate, I noticed there were two women in the middle of the oval with a Malamute. I started to walk around the perimeter of the park, as Buddy pissed on the fence, expecting him to follow me to do his usual once around the perimeter of the park as he always does when he first gets there. But no, he spotted the malamute and headed straight to it. And what do you know, the malamute growled, bared its teeth and became aggressive and got really snarly, by the time I got to them.

Okay, I know what you are going to say. What is the common denominator here? Buddy. Bulldogs have no fear, it is true. They will barrel in where angels fear to tread. Absolutely. They will bounce up to any dog with no fear at all, sure, it is a bulldog characteristic. They will just charge up to any dog, they won’t tread lightly. They are bulldozers.

But, they are also one of the most unaggressive dogs. They are enthusiastic and boisterous, but they are no aggressive or vicious. Buddy has never even snapped at another dog in his life. They are very confident in their own bulldoggyness. They don’t ever have to bare their teeth or snap at another dogs, they just don’t do that. He always looks a little surprised when a dog snaps at him.

(Ed note – display model may vary slightly from other models. I can’t speak for all bulldogs, I am speaking generally, of course)

“He's never done that before,” said the Malamute owner.

OMG! I wanted to scream at her. You cannot be serious! “I suggest you put your dog on a lead,” I said.

“We're trying to but your dog keeps coming back to him.”

So again, it seems to be Buddy's fault? Is that what she is saying? It is funny – well, it would be if it wasn’t so sad – that the common theme here is that it is never the aggressive dog's fault.

“Maybe so, but he is not the one baring his teeth and being aggressive.”

I took Buddy away on his lead.

I heard the Malamute owner saying behind me, “Where did that come from?” I looked back to see her holding the Malamute by the muzzle and she was wagging her finger at it. “What was that all about?”

I’m sure she was saying it for my benefit. Again, it is very simple, take your Malamute home lady and don't bring it back. Or, bring it back, but put a muzzle on it.

Buddy is my very sweet boy, he wouldn’t hurt a fly. I have to protect him and keep him safe and look after him and make sure nothing terrible happens to him. That is a part of my role as his owner, I know that.

But, I guess, that is true of all things in life. You have to watch out for the things that are precious to you.

Buddy with a buddy at the park

I led Buddy away and we proceeded to do our lap of the oval, as normal. I was not happy. About halfway around, I am not sure what happened now, I guess I wasn’t exactly concentrating, I was probably still stewing, and his lead came out of my hand. He gave me that sideways bulldog look and turned into the middle of the oval and headed back in the direction of the malamute. He headed straight into a circle of dog owners with various types of dogs.

“Could you grab him for me,” I asked as Buddy said hello to all of their dogs.

I was pissed off still and I couldn't help but tell them all what had just happened. One of the girls agreed and said she thought the malamute was "sus" when her dog went over near it and it acted funny.

The malamute and its owner left the oval.

I let Buddy off his lead.

We all had a collective bitch about the malamute and other dickhead dog owners, as our dogs played in front of us.

Then the lovely lady from South Yarra arrived with her Frenchie named Stella and she and I chatted away in the glorious sun, as Buddy and Stella played together.

Tuesday, July 09, 2013

Green grass and blue sky at the dog park in Richmond

What a beautiful day it was at the dog park today. There was a big sky, a huge expanse of blue, bigger than... holding my arms out as wide as I can. The sun was sparkling across this world of ours. It was warming too, lovely soul satisfying warmth. It wasn't a summers day, of course, but it really was just glorious out there.

I met Jill there at 10am. I am trying to encourage Jill to do more exercise, as she is getting fatter and fatter. It is good to incorporate such things, random acts of kindness, if you like, (Late that night - Fuck me, random acts of kindness, who do I think I am?) into your own routine, don't you think? If you can help people by doing what you'd normally do, then it doesn't get much better than that, in a sustaining, efficient kind of way.

Later that night - I must have been on drugs when I wrote this, really? Hanging out with a friend and I call it what? I'm making myself sound like Mother Fucken Teresa.

It is the kind of day that makes you feel glad to be alive. There is a purity in sunshine that is clarity embodied and nourishing. It is the basis of life, I reckon.

I'm sure it could be a cure for depression, or anxiety, and the like. We just need to bottle it. Could you imagine, what would appear when you removed the bottle cap? A glow so breath taking that everybody who saw it would be instantly cured. A collective inhale of breath... and a look of wonder. A bottle of sunshine. Laugh.

There were a couple of guys in the park after I had been there for a while who had a blue English staffy and an American Staffy. Of course, Buddy made a straight line to them. I ran over to get him, you know, just to keep him out of harms way. The owners of the two staffys said, Don't worry, our dogs aren't aggressive."
I started to pull Buddy away, as the blue staffy went all wolfy and started coming after Buddy.
"Can you get your dog, mate," I said.
He reached for his blue Staffy, I'd guess, 10 times and the Staffy avoided his clutches, as it started to bare it's teeth.
"Can you grab your fucken dog mate," I then insisted.
He did grab it then. He put it on a lead and he kept it on the lead until he left the park a while later.

I am a bit sick of people with these dogs. It is very simply, if your dog can’t play nice with other dogs, take it home and don’t bring it to the dog park where 99.9% of dogs play well together.

I spoke to Jack, I have to work Thu, Fri and Monday. Yay Jack. The Monday job I have to drive out to Dandenong and adjust their tax coefficients, which is a 5 minute job, but they have to pay me for half a day, the minimum payment required. Easy money, huh?

Now that is something to cure what ails ya.

... I guess. Easy money? It is boring, that's what it is. Fix your own tax coefficients, it is easy, any idiot can do it. Don't be such a dope.
Wow! I get a bit whiny once the big hand has passed midnight, hey?
It would be easy money if it wasn't quite so... um... er... dull.

Monday, July 08, 2013

The Worst Possible Could Have Happened... But Didn't

I read about the Asiana Air Crash in San Francisco while I drank my coffee and ate my muesli this morning.

The budget Chinese airline. Poor bastards, how awful.

It is all drama, of course. Now, don’t get me wrong, it is a big drama, no doubt about it. However, the language the witnesses and the survivors used struck me as pure news-break sensationalism, all the way.

Eyewitnesses and survivors have described the aftermath scene as chaos, naturally. Even so, nearly all of the 307 people aboard the plane made it out alive.

But everyone seemed to focus in on what could have happened, what the outcome could have been.

"It's miraculous we survived," said a passenger, who had a fractured collarbone and whose arm was in a sling.

“We are lucky we didn’t all die,” said another.

"I think we're very thankful that the numbers were not worse when it came to fatalities and injuries," said National Transportation Safety Board chief

"When you heard that explosion, that loud boom and you saw the black smoke ... you just thought, my god, everybody in there is gone," said a neighbour, who lives a few miles away from the airport and who watched the plane's approach from his balcony.

But, everyone "wasn’t gone", everybody didn’t die. Is this the “news headline” mentality that we all live under now? Journalists, television stations, and the like, sensationalise the news to the to the nth degree? It seems that individuals are doing it now. Have we all been brainwashed by the media? Seduced by the drama, our lives have become a 24 hour news cycle.

And while ten, or so, passengers are in a critical condition in hospital, and more are injured, only two have died and one of those may have been hit by a fire engine rushing to the scene of the accident after she escaped the plane wreck.

It is alleged that two teenagers were killed in the crash and one of those teenagers was hit by an emergency vehicle on the ground and was killed. Everybody else survived. Surely, that kind of makes it a good news story, only two people died. Yay, for everybody else surviving. Okay, that is a bit of a stretch, but I am sure you know what I mean. Aren’t we always encouraged to be glass half full people?

Shake of the head, that doesn’t sell the news. (That doesn't give Murdoch the money to pay his billion dollar divorce settlement)

There were 35 students and staff en route to a Christian church and school. I’m guessing, as is the usual Christian idiocy, no doubt God was looking after them, God saved their lives. Nothing about God making the plane crash in the first place.

What about the girl who got hit by the fire engine, I wonder what her take on God would be?

I guess she wouldn’t be laughing, thinking, wow God that really is a cunt act, you know. What a black sense of humour.

Saturday, July 06, 2013

Saturday

I woke up at 8.30am, my arms were cool as I pushed them out from under the bed clothes into the morning air. I had tossed and turned for the first few moments that I was awake, before I pushed my arms out from under the covers and I knew that I was awake. Releasing my arms and uncovering myself was submission to consciousness. I looked over at Sam, his head lay sideways on his pillow. His eyes cracked open and he spoke, soft and low.

"Doona stealer," he said.

Cringe. I hate that. I hate the very idea that I would leave him naked and exposed, shivering on the bed in the darkness of the night. Well, not so much naked as cold.

I was awake. I slid out of bed.

“Why do you always want to get up so early on the weekend?”

What? I couldn’t believe what I was hearing… from nana who always wants to go to bed at dusk, practically. “Perhaps, it has something to do with your cup of warm milk and a knitted knee rug attitude to bed time... nana?” Sheesh!

“It was 12.30am…”

“So,” trying not to sound too sarky, “I have had, um, 8 hours sleep.” I wasn’t so sure where the confusion came into it?

“Or was it 1am?”

“So, I have had 7 ½ hours sleep. Shrug. Hands in the air on either side of me. Good god Agnes Magillicutty what time do you expect me to get up?”

He just craned his head above the edge of the doona and his beautiful brown eyes gave me “the look.”

I tucked him in good and proper, like a papoose in oilskins. I fussed. Should that read faux fussed? He resembled a Cornish pasty by the time I was finished.

I headed downstairs.

I had a dream last night that I was working in a call centre set up in a supermarket. All of the workers were in the isles of the supermarket, the isles were crowded with people. I was trying to get my phone, or some sort of communication device, working by nailing nails into the edges of the selves. The nails were silver conical shaped, a little like silver pine cones. I nailed one of them in crookedly, but it was decided by a conference of the people gathered around that it would be okay. I put the communications device on the very top of the shelves, from which I had wires, which I wrapped around the nails I had hammered into the shelves.

I was doing some sort of training with two girls, one of which was clearly getting some training, or some benefit that I wasn’t getting and she was gossiping with the other girl, in whispers, in the isle about this while I was setting up my communications device.

I felt like I was being cheated out of something, even if I didn’t know what that thing was.

It was overcast and quiet a grey morning. It was quiet, as mornings are. I let Buddy in and he danced across the lounge from the back door towards me.

I brewed coffee and prepared muesli and turned on my laptop.

Sam appeared pretty soon after I got up, despite the earlier carry on. Boys? They like to wah wah wah, but then when you go and leave them, they soon come a running.

It seemed like I had only read the first article of the Age and I hadn’t even got to my blog when Sam finished reading his nerd news and wanted to do stuff around 9.30am.

“Come on, let’s wind proof the door. Come on, let’s clean the house. Come on let’s do something.”

“Your nerd news finished, I gather?”

Apparently, nerd news is limited today because there is a holiday in America. Independence Day? There must be a lot of bespectacled, curly-haired, cardigan wearing computer geeks who are tapping their fingers and wondering what to do with themselves. Oh, in reality, I guess not, they have the whole web to play with, but you know what I mean.

Speaking of boredom…

Sam pissed around for a while after that, until he announces that he has adjusted something on our home wireless network construct thingy and now we can watch TV on our laptops, iPads and even our phones.

“I can assure you that I will never want to watch TV on my smartphone, but thank you anyway.”

“You can now sit on the toilet and watch TV. You’ll miss nothing.”

Micro boredoms, indeed.

Rage is now playing on my phone.

He told me I was just boring when I switched it off. I was getting the ads blaring at me… when I think all advertisers, the actors who appear in their ads and the outlets that sell their products should all be firebombed, or killed. It is simple. I never understand why advertisers are given free rein to spoil my life.

We headed off to Lygon Street to Killiney. It was 11.30am. I ate muesli for breakfast, but Sam didn’t eat anything. As we walked around from Drummond Street, where we parked, I ask Sam if we were, in fact, having breakfast, brunch, or lunch?

“What difference does it make?”

“We are now on different eating cycles,” I said. “I am just checking which meal you think you are on?”

“Breakfast.”

“I’m on brunch.”

“No, I guess it is lunch.”

“I’m still on brunch.”

“We’ll have lunch later?”

“No, this is it.”

“We won’t stop again for lunch?”

“You have chicken in the fridge at home.”

“Oh yes I do.”

“We just need to get some more salad.”

“So, I can have kaya toast and coffee?”

You can never be too careful about these things. We have to be careful, as we both get cranky when we get hungry, both of us. Neither of us are nice when we are food deprived.

Sam had Nasi Lemark, I had Kaya toast and we both had coffee. The sun was shining, but it wasn’t that warm.

We went to Sam’s place to check his online banking security tag, which hadn’t arrived, to take housemate Brian’s 200 mobile phone inside, he’s in New Zealand, and to check the place over generally. We picked up the Blu-ray player, the Bose speakers, which we can Bluetooth everything to which we can’t wirelessly connect to otherwise. And his PlayStation. I think Sam has great hope that he may be able to retrain me to appreciate games.

And I got a new mouse to use with mu laptop. This one is the panty pad shaped one, replacing my gorgeous sensuous egg shaped one, but, hey, at least the snatch rag one works much better.

We went to the pet shop in High Street. The cute wog boy was there, with his bubble butt pushing out the sexy arse in his shorts. He’s that beefy twenty something wog boy cute. Cute smile, sexy attitude, that husky wog boy voice.

I’d love to see him in his undies.

Friday, July 05, 2013

This Week

I liked the article that was in the newspaper the other day about boredom. Apparently, we are so unable to, what would you call it, tolerate even a few seconds of boredom that there is a new term for it, micro boredoms. We are getting to the stage where we can’t even tolerate a few minutes, a few moments, with nothing to do, without feeling the need to fill it with internet, Facebook, smart phones, etc. These are distractions from boredom not even fixes, so we actually remain bored, although we fool ourselves into thinking the opposite.

The article says don't try and fill those unproductive moments with social media and the like, just feel the feeling of feeling bored, as it may help with creativity. Boredom may allow space for thought, memory and introspection, and it is believed to be a necessary element in creativity as well as a spur for new ideas and fresh ways of seeing things. Some even believe boredom helps us put our lives into perspective.

So, no Facebook and no Youtube and no news online, no playing with your smart phone. Have you noticed lately, that when you walk into a waiting room, or some sort of public space where people gather, everybody will be glued to their smart phone, like we all need to be constantly tuned into something. I have noticed it.

When we should just sit and wait and feel the vibrations and see what creativity comes, what enlightenment dawns on us. It makes sense, we need the silences for the answers to come to us.  

It got me thinking, that on my days off I get up in the morning and I switch on the internet news and I read Facebook and a few blogs and then suddenly it is mid afternoon.

So, this morning, I read the news for ten minutes while I ate my muesli and drank my coffee and then I switched it off. Then I sat back and stared at my wall paper.

I wrote a story about my old boss being attacked in an alley by a man in a black hoodie.

It was pure revenge, nothing more.

I guess the creativity has to get passed recrimination before I can show it to anyone. Oh, what the hell, the bitch fucked up my life, well, financially. I wanted it to be shocking and it is. I think we sensor ourselves too much and we don’t write terrible things, so I did. Shrug. I just wrote it straight out. I’m going to try and write some more. I am just going to try and write basic short stories too get myself writing again.

But then my sister called me and wanted me to go to Albert Park to pick something up for her as a favour. Apparently, the two bitch daughters wouldn’t go and pick it up for her.

I told the people at work this week that I was gay. I said it, where normally I’d hesitate if it came up and, usually, the moment would pass. Gone.

Just relax? Don’t hesitate, just let it loose.

I guess that is, pretty much, true, but it sounds funny when I read it out loud. You know, what you do when you don’t even realise you are doing it.

It kind of comes out of the fight for gay marriage stuff, which I kind of think is just an extension of the new conservative paradigm. I guess that doesn’t really make sense. It came from thinking what we could all do, what I could do instead of going down the already failed route of marriage to bolster equality. It seemed kind of simple in the end. If we all just tell the next person that we are gay and are not afraid we’d get a lot further down the world enlightenment tunnel than just a piece of paper stating that it is legal.

Oh, I don’t care if people get married. I can understand what those wanting to get married think it will do for them. Equality. Acceptance. …divorce. But, it has been kind of going through my mind, what I do that doesn’t extend the cause?

But isn’t marriage only really going to benefit middle class, dare I say, western gays?

Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t been closeted for all of this time. No. I’ve always been out at work, at permanent jobs. I’ve always been out to my family, well, for a long time. I have always been out to my friends, of course.

I’m talking about those moments with strangers when we don’t say we’re gay, when we don’t say we have a boyfriend instead of a wife. You know those inconsequential moments when we let it pass, when we let it go uncorrected.

I’m thinking about the many and varied people I am working with at the moment, specifically, as I am doing many more introductions, but the same could go for the lady in the TattsLotto agent, or the man behind the bakery counter.

I told Dandenong Alice that I ate a lot of Asian food with my partner. Later, when we were talking about her friends who’d had kids who now regretted it, saying that if they knew then what they know now they may not have them again, she asked how old my partner was. I said how old Sam is but then I added, but he is a he and not a she.

“What?” she said.

“He is a he.”

“Oh,” she said.

Later we talked about Sam and going to Vietnam.

Southbank Malcolm asked me where I got my Nike band from I told him my boyfriend bought it for me.

I think Southbank guy is gay too.

When I was discussing with Bourke Street Derwood that our passports had gone missing, at the post office, I told him that I told my boyfriend that we’d never see the two documents again.

He laughed. I reckon Bourke Street Derwood is gay too.

I guess that doesn’t sound like much, but usually I’d shy away from saying such things to strangers. I’d just let it go normally. And then Tom’s words came into my head. “You know that you travel through life and the people you meet probably don’t even know you are gay.” I become invisible as a gay man, almost unintentionally. Shrug. What does it matter? But, I guess it does matter.

Thursday, July 04, 2013

Perving at the lights

Early Afternoon

I finished work mid afternoon, just one day’s work, today, not even. I walked down to the Queen Street intersection, appropriate, even if I say so myself. I stood and waited for the lights to change, I wasn’t in a hurry. I wasn't thinking anything in particular, just thinking about the walk home in the afternoon. I was glad to be out and free and on my way. There were several people waiting at the lights with me.

I glanced sideways to see a big guy, looking at his mobile phone. He had on mirror sunglasses and he had a pieced nose. I'd say he was Brad from Mill Park, he plays on the local footy team, he goes out with Kylie, he drives a white Commodore, he has a best mate named Macca. He was looking at his phone in his right hand, as his other hand, I can only assume, was absentmindedly pulling at the pocket of his blue tracky pants, pulling the thin material tight across, what was clearly, a very large penis. Each time he tugged the material tight across his crotch anyone – stray, nosey, nearby, poofs – who cared to look could clearly see that he had a very thick, todger.

I had my phone in my hand, as I was writing a text to Sam, “I’m heading home.” I looked out of the corner of my eye. I looked, I looked, and I looked again. I had my phone in my hand and it was pointing at him. I surreptitiously pushed the back arrow with my thumb to close my messages. I pushed my camera icon to open my camera, all the time not moving my phone at all. I had to be careful to make sure my flash was off. There have been a couple of times, just lately, when I have tried to take a sneaky photo only to have the flash go off getting everyone's attention. Then the lights changed and the little man changed from red to green and Brad changed his stance in readiness to walk, phone to his side, hand out of his pocket.

The photo op was over, oh well.

A little further down Bourke Street, when I was on Elizabeth Street, Sam called me. He was responding to my going-home text. He'd been to the podiatrist, getting a second opinion on his wart on his heal; more liquid nitrogen, the smell of burning flesh, the complaining when it hurt.

"Where are you?"

"Outside the GPO. Why? Where are you?"

"Outside the GPO."

We both turned to be facing each other practically next to each other, still talking to each other on our phones. He smiled at me like he adores me, which he does. I adore him too.

I walked him back to his office. Sam told me how the podiatrist did exactly the same treatment as Doctor Jimmy.

“You see, Doctor Jimmy knows what he is doing and he doesn’t cost $100 a visit.”

“I didn’t say that Doctor Jimmy didn’t know what he was doing.”

Sam gave me “the look.”

“I just said it can’t hurt to get a second opinion, if your problem isn’t being resolved.”

I walked home up La Trobe Street.

I've been thinking about writing shorts stories again. Maybe, really short, just an idea, don't get too caught up in polishing them.

Perving at the lights

Wednesday, July 03, 2013

evening

Job done, two days work, EOFY finished. I left work a little early and walked home on my own

Midday

This kind of reminded me of a 1950s movie. I half expected Rock Hudson, dressed in swimming trunks, to walk across the terrace to offer Grace Kelly, dressed in a robe, a cigarette.