We Ate Fried Rice

I left home on time today. It was overcast and wintery, kind of grey, but not cold. I had a smoke by the car, shh Sam still hasn’t guessed. (Don't know how?)

Lollipop Lady Shirl was on the crossing this morning, with her Stop Sign up to stop the traffic, as I approached. It is the first time I have, actually, seen her doing something, other than gasbagging on the footpath with mates. There were no cars to stop, so she was just out there with the sign and the kids, stomping about, little people in over-sized clothes, one and all. Ha, ha.


It was a checking day at work, so no worries about something to do. All smooth sailing. The morning disappeared… with a bag of Twisties.

I wondered if it is strange that I sit in the lunch room and write on my laptop at lunch times. Is it strange if an employee goes straight from his work computer to a laptop in the kitchen? I’ve been writing this at work instead of reading the newspaper, I figure I get enough of the world psycho drama. So, if my writing seems like a small, lemon square box, well that is the reason.

The day was all over and done with pretty easily, head down bum up. (Funny how work and play essentially have the same instructions) I am still going to have to address the problem of not enough to do. I can’t sit and twiddle my thumbs like I can at home, no, it is the exact opposite. That last excruciating tick of the clock up to 5pm is interminable, otherwise. I have to be busy at work, flat out is preferable.


I got home in 12 minutes, door to door, speaking of flatout. A Ford Focus followed me quickly from the new flats, around the brewery. Around the S bends. Over the speed humps. The sharp left. The sharp right. He was behind me all the way. It was fun. My eyes glanced in the rear view mirror. I looked out the front. I could see the green lights up ahead. I sped through the Hoddle Street intersection, I've never known the lights to stay green for so long, I thought, as I sped through with the light still on green. The Focus didn’t make the lights. It’s 50kph along there, grimace.

I came home and rolled a joint. Straight up. Don’t be mistaken.

Jill rang from the fat farm. She says she is meeting women like her who all want to tell her their stories. She said she’d run out of enthusiasm for it. She was down the cricket oval sneaking a mobile phone call behind the bleachers. If she smoked, she'd be sneaking one of them too. But she doesn't. I hope she didn't have any emergency cherry pie.

We ate Fried Rice. It smelt great as it cooked. It tasted better. There was a food mountain in the wok. We had plenty for tomorrow’s lunches. Yay. It is nice having lunch organised, I miss it when I don’t take my lunch box.

I Had To Have A Hair Cut

I was up at 8am. Oh, I had weird dreams. There was a giant slug invading the city streets. It was Hoovering up people in its pathway as it came. There was a lot of sucking noise. [and not the good kind]

“Ah!” Awake. What was that about? The only giant slug I remember seeing was on that Italian guy Angelo, but… I chuckled at the thought. 

I felt like crap, bonged over to be sure. Headache, stiff and sore body, which way is up?

Buddy was ewoking at the back door when I came down stairs. I let him in.

I made coffee and rolled a joint. Ah Sunday? I thought sitting out on the back veranda with a coffee and a spliff 

Breathe in. Feel the day.

I cleaned the kitchen, everything from top to bottom. I think, at least once a week, you should make your kitchen sparkle, completely clean and tidy, otherwise you live in a mess for most of the time.

I put washing on. One of my weekly chores, like putting the bins out, or lighting a fire.

I made muesli and peaches. I brewed more coffee.

Four joints by 11am. I smoke a lot of pot, when I have it. It is why I can’t have it most of the time.

(David) You are putrid. Re... vol... ting!!! Christian.

I downloaded an Elton John album. I recently realised that I am missing most of the Elton John albums that I once had. I thought I could slowly rectify that. 

I hung out the washing. I started a new load. I just have to keep going until I have my chores are done, all at once, over and done with, otherwise they don’t get done. Oh, they get done, but by stretching them out makes them seem like they twice as long.

Sam cut the mount to the big frame that we recently bought, so we could frame the delicate paper drawing I bought in Hoy An. I can’t watch him stoned slicing with a scrapper razorblade, which is really the wrong tool for it. He wouldn’t listen, and I just watched him destroy a perfectly good mount. He wouldn’t stop when I begged him to. I had to go out to the front yard, I couldn’t watch. I did some gardening while I was out there.

Sam got the picture framed and on the wall. It looked quite good.

I hung out the second load of washing. All done. Over.

The vacuuming seemed very difficult, new carpet and all. So, I opted for watering the garden, it was a lot more soul nourishing. Lovely. Watching the garden come back to life again. The lemon tree is doing well. It is covered all over with blossoms, well, I think that is a good sign. Surely.

Sam stopped gardening and finished the vacuuming, shaking his head, I presumed that had something to do with me not doing it. The garden was green and lush.

I should plant the mandarin tree in place of the dead tree fern, instead of just talking about it. If I had done it years ago, I’d now have mandarins.

Jill went to a health resort today, for 11 days. She is hoping to lose weight. Eleven days of controlled food, she figures she has to lose weight. And you know, a couple of leg lifts, then it is a doze in the garden on a chaise, I’d guess.

I just text her. How’s the fat farm?

Sam is keen to move onto the study room to clean. He likes to schedule housework. I fed him another joint and he is now asleep on the couch.

Elton John sings the blues. It seemed to take forever to download the music, then it seemed to play for hours. Elton John is very Sunday afternoon now. Tea and scones with Reg. The grand old Dame Sharon of the Melody.

I had a shower and went to the hairdresser and got a haircut. I had to keep telling myself that I had to do it. I’d put it off yesterday, with the promise of today. My Hair Boys were closed. So, I went to Barber Aladdin. The middle aged ethnic woman hairdresser said, 

“I’d be closed on Sundays too, but I would rather work than stay home and do nothing.”

That is sad, I thought.

I went to the supermarket, with my head spinning. Spinning from accomplishment, I had done one of the two things I had to do, and I was doing the second. I didn’t have to think about it any longer. We were going to make avocado ice cream, but the only avocados they had were rock hard.

We’re having tomato and sausage pasta. Yum.

I bought more avocados from the milk bar, we now had $16 worth of avocados. That could have bought an awful lot of ice cream. Still, I was interested in the flavour. The avocado ice cream recipe is very involved, it has to be stirred while it is freezing and the put through the food processor a second time and then put back in the freezer to continue freezing. Sam admitted that he didn’t read the recipe through beforehand… after we had whipped the avocados and the condensed milk and coconut milk.

David called, He was Wonderlicious and fabulous. “Oh yes got back last Thursday… dashing home… must catch up… kiss kiss.” He still talks on the phone as he drives and no doubt still texts. He won’t listen, he thinks he is fine doing it.

We ate curried chicken for dinner. It was nice too.

Anthony posted a hate’ish post for (stepson) Fen, on Mark’s Facebook wall. I don’t know what Anthony is hanging on to, but he is hanging onto something? I sent Anthony an email, asking him if he’d thought the post through? I expected Mark to call me with the latest “guess what Anthony has written” but he didn’t.

Have you really thought that Facebook post through? Christian

The posting has been deleted ,and yes with much mirth I went ahead and wrote it , that is exactly how I feel . I deleted it after dinner purely for Mark's sake as his new relationship with the bogan may be tested . I think it is the absolute truth , and I have only just logged on to find your message there. I guess I was expressing my feelings in a public medium instead of an email , I just won't be censored or judged . I hope Fen read it quite frankly . As I said I decided to just remove it ,there are some that just can't handle the truth , so be it and it was for Mark's sake. I cooked the most fab roast lamb dinner and watered the parched garden today , so yes a good day .A(nthony)

An interesting town house in Collingwood

They Were The High Points Of The Day

The bitch who sits in the sales room always looks up and gives me the greasies whenever I come through the door of the sales room. Some days I just want to flick my chin at her, threateningly.

What is your entire problem, you Larson caricature? I think.

Oh, she is plain and fat. Her hair pulled back sharply. Pointy chin.

I have to go to the kitchen, that is where the coffee machine is. I have no option. I honestly can’t drink instant any more. That’s very Melbourne, I know. It is not like I am only going into the kitchen for the Kingston biscuits. I mean, not to mislead anyone, the Kingston biscuits are in the Sales Kitchen, I’m not trying to say they are not. The point is, the coffee machine is the only one on our level. Of course, Revolta at the door, may well have eaten her share of the Kingston empire in her day, there is little doubt about that, but I'm just going for coffee. Don’t you hate the office kitchen that has a perpetually filled jar of biscuits, you can’t help but take one, while you are waiting. But those eyes, suddenly, hawk-like, a snake, sssss... ev...e…ry time. She must work 100 hours a week because she always seems to be there.

I had no lunch box today, because we ate the leftovers last night for dinner. That is where cooking at home is cheaper, “the second meal.” I hate it when I don’t have my lunch box now, ah, married life. So, I had to walk to Victoria Gardens for food. Subway. And two pork dim sims, sshh, don’t tell Sam. But, no muffin so that must count for something. Free WiFi, it's shit, but it does the job. There I am with my laptop. Me and everybody else. I have to seriously admit addiction. Still, it is better than the misery in the newspapers. Everybody is looking at their phone, anyway. All those people in the food court, everyone looking at a small device in their hands. It doesn’t matter if they are alone, or not. There are groups of two, three, four and they are still all looking at their phones, none the less. Harness the internet and you harness the people.

I walked into the lunch room to make a cup of coffee in the afternoon. There were two of the sales guys in there already. The Ray Romano looking one standing up and the Jason Statham type sitting down. Ray Romano was talking, his last words before the coffee machine whirred into action were, “It is just fun.”

Whir, clack, grind, clack, grind, whir, whoosh, squirt, gurgle, gurgle, slurp, slurp, slurp, clack.

I could hear that they were talking, while the coffee machine was working, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying.

“Lick your arse,” were the three words I heard after the coffee machine came to an abrupt stop and suddenly there was silence, their conversation dropping decibels with each word. Then there was nothing, that’s not a couple I would have put together, I thought, as I picked up my cup. I could hear the mumble of conversation start to vibrate again, after I had left the room.

I wondered who would be the top? The obvious choice would be Jason Statham, but I reckon when it came down to it, he’d tuck his head under his arm and stick his arse in the air, and enjoy the man flesh. And Ray is the Italian, come on. I tried to picture Ray Romano all sweaty and turned on... in his undies... the hem of his boxer shorts sticking to his sweaty thighs.

The greenery along the Yarra River, it just looks spectacular, doesn't it

There Is Nothing I Wouldn’t Do

Don’t you hate it when you walk into the toilet at work and someone has done a splatter no 2 all up and around the porcelain and over the rim in some instances. It is a trap, you have walked into. Sure, he got away with it, filthy bitch, but you may not be so lucky. 

Do you want to be known as the shitty guy who doesn’t clean up after himself, even if it is only by one person. You are forced into cleaning, just in case someone comes in straight after you. As your eyes meet, momentarily, you know what he is going to find in seconds, the twitch of the smell in his nose already giving away hints at the possible treat he has in store. 

Do you really want that? There you are cleaning another man’s shit from the toilet walls, that is what it leads to, talk about a slave to your company. There is nothing I wouldn’t do.

Pretty Holden

Man’s Little Helper

It crossed my mind to have a cigarette this morning, bad Christian! I am excited about getting home tonight though, I have to tell you. I wonder how long today will seem? I hope it is not interminable? I hope the scratching doesn’t start too early.

I know. I know. Pathetic. Hands in the air. Shrug.

That’s what it does. That is the down side. That is the dirty little addict lurking inside of me. I hope I don’t think about it, the monkey doesn't need somewhere to grip.


The sun shone down brightly this morning, it was a gorgeous morning. There was that hazy, milky kind of morning sun hanging from the sky in glistening threads.

I was just pulling into the left hand lane at the Hoddle Street Intersection when some idiot came down on my left hand side. I was halfway over on morning go slow. He was clearly some crap driver who was primarily using the bike lane, and half of the lane that I was halfway into. I tooted him. He looked in his driver’s door rear vision mirror and ranted and raved. He looked like some (handsome, young) raving Middle Eastern loon. I quickly glanced for P plates, there were none. I sat there and laughed at him, as he yelled at my reflection in his rear vision mirror.

It was too nice a morning for dopes like him. Really, I thought. What is with the attitude? You are too young to be so angry, too handsome to screw up your pretty face with such rage. Nothing really happened, nothing so terrible. I tooted you to indicate you were doing the wrong thing, in my opinion. You didn’t even have to react, if you didn’t want to. You could have just lifted a finger, if that. He’s just a boy who thinks he knows more than he does, I suspect.


The other staff went into training for the morning. I was told about it last night, and it was suggested that I should go too. Really, I thought? What for? I am a temporary employee, you are wasting your dough? But this morning I was excluded, which I am so cut about. Ha, ha.

I was almost turned off my bag of Twisties, my brewed coffee and my internet news, I was so concerned about what I might be missing.

Shrug? They should give me more to do.

When Shayleen questioned it, Cathy said that she didn’t think I would really get any benefit from the training. Shayleen harrumphed, like all good Gen Ys, taking it kind of personally, as she is the training person.

Ha ha, suck shit! I thought with a completely blank face.

Shayleen and Cate are so into work, they are so HR through and through. They take it all so seriously. They get genuine joy at a work success. Good little Gen Ys that they are.

Cate is nice. She chatted to me in the kitchen while she prepared her lunch and I ate mine. I wanted 20c for a chocolate bar, as the machine was “correct change only.” Cate said I could go into the office and get 20 cents out of her bag. Funny, such an offer, it almost sounded dishonest. That is not the reason she is nice, because she gave me money, that is just an aside.

My bowel exploded after lunch, and with not so old memories about Vietnam, I wondered what that was all about? Shiver. Then I remembered, of course, last night’s smoking.

Actually, it has been good, I haven’t had the post quitting constipation, which I always hate. I have been taking Metamucil. But starting smoking again, that is a whole other story, you know, down there. I’m not sure, exactly, why you need to know this?


I was keen to get home. A man’s little helper. I was straight into it, right through the door, don’t you worry about that.

I left the back door open until Buddy finally managed to drag himself inside away from his bed. Dog? Be a dog!

A discovered if I say his name over and over and over again, he’ll come running. Perhaps, I am too laid back for him? I guess I have to put in some of the work too?

Sam came home and said, “You can’t even wait for me.” Standing at the lounge room door. As much as he protests, he never says no.

“I can wait for you to get home in future, honey.”

Sam soaked the warts on his feet in the blue plastic bucket, as we watched Big Brother.

We ate fried rice for dinner, homemade fried rice. It was yum too, Sam excelled himself.

Who are they? Where did they come from? What do they want? It's a portal, the invasion has begun. They now moved amongst us. The Doctor Who theme music starts to play. Run! Save yourselves!

I Heard The Magpies Call

I heard the magpies call in Richmond this morning. A gorgeous morning and bird song, who could ask for more? The fresh air coming in through my open driver’s side window was lovely, sweet and new. The air had a chill in it, but the sun was shining. It was a sparkling morning, and the magpies agreed.

During the morning, I met a member of the marketing team, with a new company there is always some new face the greet you. She asked which department I was working for, assuming it was HR.


Cathy said that I was working for both departments.


The marketing girl looked taken back a little. "Oh," she said. She raised her eyebrows and looked at me as a new breed.

I put my arms out to my side and pretended I was being pulled by each hand. And smiled. 

The marketing girl laughed.

Cathy said, “That is why he fits in.”

The marketing girl said, "Well, it is nice to meet me."

I thought I’d better agree, despite not really giving a shit. But, pay me and I smile.


Buddy was excited to see me after work, which isn’t always promised. He did his excited bulldog dance, kind of bouncing in the spot, before he bounced inside with me. Tonight wasn’t one of those nights where he looks up from his bed with one eye, his expression saying, Oh, you are home. I am very comfortable here. Another look. Whatever.


He came upstairs with me as I got changed. He ran in and was straight up onto the bed and straight into his reclining across the bed on his back relaxed pose. Of course, that did nothing for his restricted breathing. He has a big smile, courtesy to his mouth falling open, sounding like an emphysemic 80 year old.


Guido came over to get the possum trap. He messaged me in the afternoon. The possum trap, it could be slang for anything. Ha, ha. I couldn’t help myself and I messaged back asking him “if he had…”


“Jes chicko.”

Ashamedly now, I was quite excited for the rest of the afternoon. I got money and cigarettes on my way home, see I can be that organised.

Sam didn’t even seem to mind. It’s the one thing I have learnt in life, if you are about to do the thing your baby doesn’t like you doing, you can’t be more up front about it. Out in the open as soon as you get the chance, your honey will most likely fold with a direct hit. I got hardly a peep out of him. That’s what we like.


We walked Buddy to the supermarket, the lazy arse took a crap and then walked another block, and then he lay down and gave the distinct impression that he was done. Sam walked the rest of the way to the supermarket on his own, and Buddy and I waited where Buddy stopped. He wouldn’t go any further in classic bulldog fashion. When Sam came back, Buddy walked for home enthusiastically.


Apparently, A Current Affair is breaking a story about patrons in night clubs lining up to snort drugs in the toilets, like it is something new.

I’ve known people to do drugs in the toilet for the last twenty five years at the clubs I’ve been going to. Why is that a news story?

Is society really that ignorant? I think not. Ratings driven news shows like A Current Affair will, I guess, sensationalise anything.

Not that I go to too many nightclubs any more. So, nothing has changed, I hear, which, in a sense, makes it even more ridiculous.

It was Japanese curry for dinner. I think Japanese Curry means a mountain of rice and thick gravy. And beef and carrots, too. It was tasty. 

Crystal Clear Windows To Our Souls

I woke at 8.45, wondering again why I have to wake up so early on a Sunday.

It's Tony Time... with his deputy Prime Minister Julie Torrance. Boring bitch. “Here’s Tony!” Oh, I shivered at the thought. How could Australia be so stupid? A conservative, christian climate sceptic? The Liberal Party, without any policies, who were likely to sell Australian’s up the river to please their rich friends. Likely to sell the aspirational voters, who never have any chance of being on the Liberal’s target audience list, up the river. In the end, at the very last minute, the Liberal Party admitted they probably won't get the budget back into balance any sooner than Labor would have. Their budget line isn’t much different to Labor’s. Oh shudder!

Oh, it is best not to think about it. Shudder! Hopefully, that duffus Tony Abbott will open his mouth and slide his foot into it sometime soon. It is the only thing left, some cringe worthy entertainment from Captain Crud to make us laugh. It is sad, the only thing left is the entertainment value.

The morning after… shake the head. The sun was shining, belying the profound tragedy that had happened.


I put on washing, first thing. Easy. Stop thinking, it is far too early for that nonsense. It is something you can do before you have to think. And it pleases Sam, interpretation, it earns me brownie points. He calls me a lazy arse more often than not. I have to be more on my toes, lift my game, I can’t let the side down. I can’t disappoint him. Sam likes to go go go, it is true. I like to sit back more, also true.

Or I say no, stuff you! I am sitting on my arse and doing as I please.

I could be Mr Whiny pants, if I want, but they are the two choices. And all those people who are in a relationship will understand when I say I chose the former.

I put on coffee and cleaned the kitchen. I wanted it to sparkle by the time Sam came down.

I gazed out the back window into the garden with my coffee in my hand. I thought about the world. Sunday, you say.


Is it wrong that I don’t really know if I want the job I am doing, anymore? Six month’s work, possibly leading to a permanent role. Shouldn’t I just accept it, in these uncertain times, and be grateful? Shouldn’t I think of myself as lucky that there is a company that wants me? It only takes me 15 minutes door to door, it is pretty laid back, the work should be relatively easy. (Truthfully, thus far, there isn’t enough)

I have felt this way ever since we all talked about voting last week. Since Cathy and Christine agreed that they would vote for the party that fixes the boat people problem? They’d vote for the party who stops the immigrants from forming their own groups. The party that makes them learn English. The party that makes them assimilate. Oh, I know, that sounds ridiculous, but?

Is this the level we are at, OMG! That was my reaction.

Do I really want to work with dumb arses? Is what followed fairly quickly. With nice people who hold dumb arse views?

I guess, it is not so much working with dumb arses, as such, as… um… no, it is. Don’t they know anything about the history of immigration into Australia? Clearly, they don’t. Are they that stupid? Yes they are. Well, maybe not stupid as insular, living their tiny little lives in their tiny little suburbs, with their tiny little ideas, being scared of what they don’t know.

You know that is being really fucking kind.

Think people. Do some research. Don’t just believe the charlatans and the snake charmers… that would be the politicians. Put some thought into it. Oh god think!

The boat people involves so few people and is such a beat up by politicians. What happened to you compassion for your fellow man?

And maybe it isn’t so much as having to work with dumb arses, as that by its very nature it is excluding me from working with more thinking and enlightened people.

It could be much better than this?

People say these people aren’t racist, but no matter how I look at it, from whatever angle, I don’t know what else to call them.

And… it is not my normal role, which could be good, I thought… but may not. I've never worked in an HR role. The HR department, like all HR departments, has an inability to communicate its message. Oh no, it’s not irony, it is just fact. The HR director is as useless as they come. The others swear he has ADD which is pretty much par for the course for HR directors. Yay.


Sam appeared downstairs and pretty soon took the new cobweb broom, that we bought at Preston market yesterday and cleaned the entire house of cobwebs. Just like that. Done. He was determined to work. I was happy at my computer.

I paid the bills, mums bills mostly. I’d been slack and hadn’t really paid them since I got back from Vietnam. Sister Roz commented on my slackness, when we visited mum last week, she said that we were paying interest when I paid some of the bills late. I don’t think so, I said, but she insisted, with some of them anyway. Maybe it is true. I decided to get on to them, you know, just in case. I can’t have my sister telling me that I am not doing a good job, in that “convinced” tone that she gets.

Sam ironed shirts for work, for him and me. Isn’t he lovely.


It was a lovely day, the sun shining, the sky was blue, nothing indicating that the end of the world as we know it had started with those right wing idiots gaining political power.

The morning was kind of slow, Sam was kind of quiet, pottering about. I am getting the distinct idea that sitting around and doing very little on the weekends, as I like to do and as we have done thus far in our relationship, is no longer what he wants to do. He had chores for us to do. Especially pleased as he was from his recent bout of window cleaning, I should have realised what was coming next.

The glass roofed atrium had to be cleaned. I decided just to go with it, you know as Sam was very keen. Get up there, be generous, I told myself. Smile. Put in, be a do bee. The sun was shining, as I sat on the tin roof and he sat on top of the parapet wall and we cleaned the roof glass. Squeegee, sponges and razorblade scrapers. Of course, I waved a squeegee over the glass, while Sam scrubbed with a sponge. He went over some of the panes that I’d cleaned, giving me a look.

That roof hasn’t been cleaned for years. After however long the dirt doesn’t get any worse, as they say. I say. It just develops into a kind of streaky grey and everyone stops noticing after a while.


Sam cooked fish for lunch. He cooked cabbage and the leftover lamb from last night cut up. It was very nice.

I washed up after that meal. More washing up. Yay. But we had lovely fried fish, a plate full, that we bought at the Preston Market on Saturday. Ah the market, don’t you just love the market? The hustle, the bustle, the pushing and the shoving. The spruikers who have their own individual call, like a race caller, or a rare bird. I love the pungent smells, the boxes of specials, the people, the shopping jeeps, carting it all away.


Sam wanted to clean the inside of the glass of the atrium too. Of course. He was on a roll and not to be told otherwise.

“Can’t we do it later, isn’t the outside enough?” I protested as the huge roll of carpet is still lying on the floor making it difficult to put a ladder up. I sounded like a whiny child, even I could hear that.

“No.”

“We need to do it when the carpet isn’t there.” Although, when that would be I had no idea. Sam instructed me to hold the ladder as he hung off the side of it. He stood with one foot on the ladder and the other on whatever the closest piece of furniture was.

It didn’t, actually, take that long. Afterwards, the glass shone and the light was clearer and the atrium seemed bigger. The roof looked lovely, even I had to agree. The day seemed brighter, nicer, more lovely than I ever remember it being.

We both admired the clean glass for the rest of the afternoon.


Sam cooked pork belly, fish, and cabbage and shrimp. It seemed like a huge amount of food.

“That’s because it is for our lunch tomorrow too,” he replied. “Don’t eat all the pork belly.”

“Oh…?”

“Eat the cabbage.”

“Oh.”

I washed up. I felt like I was washing up all day. I winged and Sam started doing some of them, as I stepped into the kitchen to watch Alicia Keys on Sixty Minutes. Good on him, but I told him to stop. The agreement is that he cooks and he does cook without the whinny pants complaining that he hears from me about the washing up. Besides, I was just being a grump, and I’m sure he gets sick of me doing that, even if he doesn’t say anything.

We watched Power Games. Murdoch vs Packer. It was interesting to remember that back dynasties go back a number of generations. It was set in the first half of the 1960’s so the cars were really cool. Volvo 122. Holden FC. Rover P5. Mercedes limousine.

A bit of gardening - this is the only photo I have taken recently

The Dance

It is my brother's birthday today. Usually, I send him a card and then he sends me a card. My birthday is next week. But, the thing is that he only sends me a card if I send him one first. It is a dance we do.  He gets the advantage, as my birthday is after his. If I don't send him a card, he doesn't send me one.

The thing is, I decided that I didn't really care, so I didn't send him a card this year. I meant to, but I forgot or, at least, his birthday on a Sunday threw me.

I guess that means I won't get a card. Let's see.

Boo hoo.

Shrug. Smirk.

But, I have been thinking about him all day. It is a personality flaw, in me. I guess, I should have called. 

It's Every Man For Himself

So we now have a deceitful, misogynist, bullyboy, conservative, christian, climate change skeptic, mouth breathing, gaffe prone, sexist, idiot in charge of the country.

I see he has been compared to George W. Bush, arguably, America's worst president. Yay.

His first job is to get rid of the carbon tax/emissions trading scheme... yes, we are going backwards. What can we conclude, that Australians care more about their new cars and McMansions than they do about their kids future, clearly.

Please, rest of the world, don't laugh at us too much.

The Mouth Breather is Now in Charge

Captain Crud, “Here I am with my two greatest assets, my not bad looking daughters. Aaaa aaaa aaaa. Don’t they have nice tits? Aaaa aaaa aaaa. I look forward to forming government… Aaaa aaaa aaaa…”

Cure for Insomnia

If you could bottle Julie Bishop and sell her in pill form, you could solve the worlds insomnia problem.

The Worst Has Happened

Sam and I have commandeered an old Williamstown Ferry and we’re heading off to Indonesia for three years. Who wants to come?

Gotta Getup

I changed my vote as I stood in the line to vote, is that a politician’s worst nightmare?

I didn’t want to hand the Liberal party a win by one seat, by voting for the Greens, giving the Greens the seat of Melbourne and denying the Labor Party the chance to form government. However, a man from Getup handed me a pamphlet, telling me how the parties stacked up on the major issues, as I walked into the polling booth.


I know that I say that I don’t care so much about the environment, as I don’t have kids and I figure the planet will last to, at least, the end of my lifetime. But, apparently, that may not be true, according the the environment guy handing out pamphlets in the line. Getup's pamphlet compared the polices of the major parties according to 10 main issues. When I saw how the issues stacked up, and most of them, but not all of them, were environmental issues, I had to rethink my idea. I do care about the Great Barrier Reef. I do care about renewable, preferably solar, energy. I do object to coal seam mining messing up our country, especially when it is to send the gas overseas. I do care about a fair and equitable tax system. I do care about people on welfare. I do care about pensioners.

If the Labor isn’t the party I want it to be any longer, the only way I can indicate to them that I don’t like their asylum seeker policies, I don’t like their environmental issues, I don’t like their tax issues, is not to vote for them. Short term fear of an Abbott gain, isn’t worth long term prevention of the Labor party swinging back to the left.

So I changed and voted for the Greens.

Sorry Cath (Botwell), so close again.

I numbered below the line in the Senate. I got to the end of the senate paper and I only had 96. Dam! So, I got another white paper and started again, thinking all the time, Why didn't I just put a 1 above the line like any normal person. I wanted to put the drug reform parties first in the senate and I hadn’t read up on how they were directing their preferences.

I found my mistake on the first white paper, which took some time. The cardboard polling booth isn’t, actually, wide enough to spread the metre wide senate paper out flat so it took an inordinate amount of time. I renumbered the second paper and came to 96. AH!!!! I scoured my numbers and found my mistake, two 49's and two 50's. My first correction was wrong, I corrected in the wrong direction. Bugger! So, I got a third white paper. I'm sure the rat-faced polling booth boy rolled his eyes and thought, this guy thinks his vote is special. I numbered out the third white paper and came to 97 finally. Thank the fucken universe! It took me an hour and a quarter to vote. I even had to get the fat chick attendant with the bad hairdo to sharpen my pencil.

We Are Heading For A Catastrophe? You Still Have Time To Change The Course Of History, To Stop The Country Going Down The Toilet By Stopping Tony Abbott Winning

Let's not forget, the last time Abbott was in power his government taxed everything, in the form of the GST. That is a tax on every single thing, on services that had never been taxed before. His govt gave massive tax cuts to the rich. He introduced work choices, that slashed the pay rates of the lowest paid employees in the country. So, in all good conscious can you vote for a political party that has a track record of discriminatory policies, of widening the gap between rich and poor? I thought Australians pride themselves on a fair go. A govt that governs for the rich and penalises the poor is not giving all Australians a fair go in life.

Add to that, the Liberal Party is, allegedly, giving Australia a second rate broadband network, because Rupert Murdoch doesn't want a fast broadband network to compete with his Foxtell network. If this is true, and quite frankly there is no better explanation for the Model T Ford broadband network that the Liberal party is proposing, that is the kind of contempt that the Liberal party, actually, has for the Australian public. Abbott is prepared to penalise every single Australian to pay back a very rich benefactor.

I see the choice as pretty clear this Saturday.

I'm not sure that there is any point voting for the minor parties this election, particularly in marginal seats such as Melbourne. Get off the fence and vote Labor, now is not the time to be sending protests in the ballot box.

Just as an aside, does anybody else think "sex offenders register" when Tony Abbott laughs, or is that just something I do?

And if the worst happens, I like the idea of drinking a shit load of vodka and throwing the empty bottles at the TV tomorrow night.

Depressed I Eat Twisties

The kitchen bench was littered with dirty dishes, I didn’t do my job last night. Bad me. Sam tut tuts.

Sam made porridge, or oats, as he calls them. With banana, the bananas I bought at Woolies on Sunday night when I made the banana cake. I make the coffee.

Sam leaves before me, as he always does. It takes me fifteen minutes to get to work, door to door. Driving. I still want to walk.

I’m not waiting for the cars coming along my street any more as I back out, it is my new resolution, unless it is absolutely necessary, you know to avoid an accident. Otherwise, I just sit and wait for the “rat racers” to rat race through my suburb, good for them, and then I have to sit behind them while they turn right into Gertrude Street anyway. I’m taking a stand. They’d be the first to complain if we raced through their suburbs. Shitervoir or Crap Park. It takes me ten minutes, sometimes more, to drive a few metres and to get out of my street, while the tourists take a short cut. That hardly seems fair? Or am I just grumpy?

The rubbish trucks seemed to be gathering around Smith Street, at the end of my street and at the end of Little Oxford, like a fleet having just been sent out, blocking traffic. I don't know why, rubbish day is Wednesday. What would the collective noun be for rubbish trucks? A compact?

I watched the ugly girl, with her beehive hair, in a bottle green velvet smock, drink her coffee in Mollison Street, with a life time of weight anguish etched across her fat cheeks. She looked like Kelly Osbourne before her make over, as our eyes met momentarily.

I heard the magpies sing in Murray Street, it reminded me of mornings up the farm as a child with my horrible auntie. I gave her her allocation of thought for the decade wondering if she was dead, it brought a smile to my face, at least. If she was dead, I hoped it was painful. It is the only time I think of those days, when the magpies sing.

I watched the sexy boy walk in Victoria Street eating a roll, strolling down the footpath away from me in his black trousers. His cake hole bit at the bread the same way as his arse hole chewed of the black wool mix.

I drove passed the old Vauxhall Hydromatic in McKay Street. Lovely she is too, despite her new number plate, with her faded black paint. I wondered who drove her? I wondered where she’d been in the last fifty years?

I waved to Shirl, if only figuratively, in Buckingham Street, at her post, in her too-big be-seen-be-safe jacket and her lollipop stop sign in her hand. There she was at the edge of the road as she was every morning.

I turned right instead of left in Burnley Street, it is my new strategy, still in development, still being tested. Turning right cuts out four back streets with their respective turns. I’m thinking it must be faster, it has to be, surely. (don’t call me Shirley)

I watched the olive skinned boy ride his bike with his bike helmet hanging over the handlebars. I wanted to yell out, “put your helmet on you idiot,” but then I decided I didn’t care if his head squashed on the road like a ripe melon. It is the survival of the fittest, after all. It is the problem with the world, the further we get away from the survival of the fittest, the less likely we are to survive as a species. We should let the dumb perish, it is evolution, after all.


I park with a view of the river on the east side of the building, every morning. The sun melts over me like a warm honey blanket, as I head to the door with my satchel in my hand. I go through the sales room, I’m still not sure if I am allowed. Some mornings one, or other, of the sales people can give me an inquisitive look as though they are surveying a stranger new to them, which doesn’t put me at ease about permission. I should ask, but quite frankly, really don’t care that much. Someone will eventually tell me off, someone with an authority complex whose penis is too small, or who’s vagina is too shallow. The fat girl with the dark hair, who always seems to be there, who always seems to look up, I expect one day it will be her, but thus far she has remained mute, nothing more than the evil eye. 

I cast a quick eye around to see if cute Will, or cute Dashal are in? Will is earnest and intense, Dashal is handsome and funny. I’d like to marry Dashal. I’d like to lick Will’s arse.


Then there I am, fully fitted back into my pod, in the office with the others in their pods. Dutifully. At 8.30am. Like the good boy am I. And the good girl’s are they.

I opened up the sultana container and ate one at a time, all morning. One by one. What else is there to do? The constant flow of sweetness is a comfort.

How did I settle for this? I think as I gazed out over the grey laminex and the blue carpet, the grey office machinery and the potted plants and the strip of windows across the wall. It is good, at least, that we have nice big windows.

It is balancing day, so there is a lot of checking to be done. Then when it is finished it is suggested that I put my HR hat back on. I have no idea what I am supposed to be doing next.

I had my lunch box that Sam prepared for me, chicken curry and braised cabbage and vegetables. How did I end up in this work? I think. The lemon lunchroom walls close in around me. Then it is after lunch and time to go back. Depressed I eat Twisties.

I decided just in the last day, or so, after ignoring the election pretending it had nothing to do with me, that I should say my piece, do my bit. Abbott is an embarrassment and a fool. So, I wrote on Facebook… as well as here,

Apparently, the seat of Melbourne, now being a marginal seat, is crucial to Labour winning office. We have a chance to send the major parties a message by voting Green again. We should give them another hung parliament to tell them we don't like any of them.

Having said that, I am going to vote for The Australian Labor Party for the following reasons.

Although, having said that, I am voting for the Labor Party, because they are going to give me the NBN. The economy is doing well, I believe in the carbon tax, or ETS. We are least likely to have racist policies when it comes to refugees, probably only just I grant you, with the Labor Party. I don't believe giving wealthy women money for nannies is in the best interest of all Australians. I think the likes of Gina Reinhart and her mining buddies should be taxed with a wealth tax for the benefit of all Australians - I think the banks should be next. I don't want the ABC to be destroyed. I don't want medicare dismantled. I believe that high earners should be taxed more before the GST is increased. I believe welfare should be increased. I believe that the party that is most likely to decrease the gap between the rich and the poor should be in power.



We had spaghetti carbonara for dinner. Sam suggested that I help him with the cooking. I reminded him of the conversation we had last night, after he refused to wash any dishes.

“You made it very clear last night that you cook and I clean,” I said. “So, I am not helping with the cooking.”

“Really!” he protested.

“I always help you with the cooking,” I return protested. “And you never help with the cleaning…”

“Really! Is that what you think?”

“Yes, that is what I think…”

“I think about it, I plan it, more often than not I buy it and I cook it,” he said. “And you think I should help clean up as well.”

I’m not sure if that is strictly true but, you know, it is true enough that I know when to shut my mouth. I’m not stupid.

I mix the sour cream, the eggs and the rest of that party of the recipe. I pour it over the spaghetti that Sam has added to the bacon in the frying pan.

He smiles at me.

I smile at him.

Australian's Are Racist

Do The Hustle, da da da da dada da da da...

We started talking about politics in the office, me and the girls. Silly, I know. I should have leant by now.

Alice asked me to explain the voting paperwork to her, which I did. How the Senate voting paper works. How the House of Reps works too.

“Oh, it is so confusing,” she said.

Not so much, I thought.

Alice, I think, is actually the smart one amongst them all. But, she is quite fragile, brittle even, like she has been beaten down in her life. She is the least liked person in the office, and I reckon I might get to like her the most, if I got to know her better. She seems to be the odd one out. I think she is the odd one out in a good sense.  She is different good, but she keeps to herself.

“How can I vote for Kevin Rudd when his own party didn’t even want him?” asked Cathy.

Oh really, people are really hanging onto that, and here we have one.

“I’m voting for the party that gives me the best broadband network,” I replied. “Easy.”

Cathy said she was worried about the boats. I was taken aback.  She said she’d vote for the party that solved the boat people problem. I tried to say that the boat people were really a small number of people and not really a problem. But, to tell you the truth, the whole idea that people were really falling for the boat people rhetoric, started by the Liberal Party, was quite astounding. I think my explanation was faltering because my mind was spinning at the thought. I was trying to remember Julian Burnside’s name, to tell Cathy to read up on what he has said on the topic.

She believes the asylum seekers bullshit… appealing to her latent racist fears. Who am I working with?

Cathy said she’d voted for The Greens for a few years… when Pauline Hanson was around…

“She spoke her mind, she wasn’t intimidated by anyone, she was good.”

Gulp! What??? ... Oh, er, um, I thought. (I guess I can auto correct the mistake of the name of Pauline Hanson’s party. Or did she just run two voting strategies together? She voted for one and then she voted for the other? Um?) Really? But what Pauline Hanson spoke was hatred and bigotry. Is that really who I am amongst?

I am considering taking this job on a permanent basis? Really? Maybe I do want to walk into the CBD after all?

Cathy talked about the chronically unemployed, quoting information from lectures she had been to. The implication was that she would vote for the party who got rid of welfare. My mind shuddered about what lectures she may have been to. I didn’t ask, I wish I had, but the moment passed by.

Christine said if you come to this country you should learn the language and you should assimilate.

Oh, that old chestnut? People really believe this stuff? They seem to have little understanding of the history of immigration in Australia over the last 50 years, or so.

Christine was worried about immigrants forming ghettos and not assimilating.

I said to Christine, “Has that happened in Melbourne, no go zones with immigrants, has it?”

“Where my sister lives, the Somalians in Hoppers Crossing form groups and are rude to people and abuse people…”

“Somalians don’t come here by boat,” I said. “They come by aeroplane.”

She laughed and agreed. (Shows how much she knows)

I googled it when I got home and apparently Somalians do come here by boat from Indonesia. But I am not sure if that is the majority of the Somalians, or the stragglers. I need to do more research on it.

Do I really want to work with these people? Or should I just learn not to discuss politics.

New carpet

The Carbon Tax

How can the abolition of the carbon tax be a winning policy for Tony Abbott? I just don't get it. It must mean that most Australians don't believe in Global Warming. The only conclusion you can draw from that is that the majority of Australians are complete morons.

The Carbon Tax is working and we will be the laughing stock of the world when we regress. Oh yes, there is Australia going backwards, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

In the next fifty years, this will be considered an ill-conceived action by an illogical government and future generations will raise their hands in disbelief... Actually, what is left of the population, what is left of the current generation and their children and their children's children, who haven't choked to death on poisonous air, or died of increased atmospheric temperatures and shortage of fresh drinking water, will raise their hands in disbelief.

The National Broadband Network

I think deciding who to vote for is really easy, and I can decide on one issue and one issue alone. The party that gives me the best broadband network is the party that will get my vote. It is the thing (maybe sadly) that I use most in life. How can Tony Abbott's policy of offering Australians a second rate, out of date, broadband system be a winning policy for them? How can people vote for a party that offers them that?

Driving home into the sunshine

The Labor Party is Doing a Good Job of Running the Country

I think that most people believe both major parties are, pretty much, the same, that all politicians are the same, but it is not true.

I think that people have decided to vote for the Coalition because of Labor's leadership battles and the perceived deficits ... "they seem to be making a mess of it, we might as well give the other team a go!"

But... our economy is doing fine under Labor ... but we're led to believe it is not. Our economy is the envy of other Western Nations. Our cost of living has risen less under Labor than it  did under the Howard Liberal govt.

AND... the Abbott led party would be the most conservative, right wing government in a lifetime.

They use racism to appeal to the lowest denominator in the voting public by using refugees as political pawns. Human rights will be diminished and the appeal process disallowed.

Abbott doesn't believe in Climate Change as it really is an inconvenient truth for him... when the carbon tax is, actually, working. We will be the laughing stock of the rest of the world if it is scrapped.


Abbott is giving wealthy women money for nannies. He is scrapping the school kid's bonus for all the others.

There will be no protection of Marine Parks as the Coalition believes in the mining business above environmental issues. Say good bye to The Great Barrier Reef.

They'll give us a second rate broadband to appease those business interests who have competing business' to the NBN.

The Murdoch press has been disgraceful with their coverage of this election.

The much beloved ABC? Who knows what that will look like once  private enterprise Tony and Joe finish with it.

The Liberals continue to peddle the budget crisis lie, so they can cut the likes of education, health, jobs, penalty rates...

Do you want second rate education? Do you want a broken medical system? Do you want the lowest paid workers paid even less?


Again... our economy is doing fine ... but we're led to believe it is not. Our cost of living has risen less under Labor than it did under the Howard Liberal Govt. Our economy is the envy of nearly every other western country.

If you are unhappy with Labor, voting for the Liberals is not the answer.

Governing for the rich and implementing policies that widen the gap between rich and poor only makes for a more divided and unhappy society.

Vote Green. Vote Independent. Vote for any, vote for all of the minor parties first.

There was a bright flash of light, and a loud sucking noise, after which the world fell quiet, deadly quiet. Who was left to witness the change, the devastation, the new reality? Who? Anyone? At all? Who was left? As the world fell silent.

The only noise to be heard, if in fact, there was anyone left alive to hear it, was the sound of cockroaches scuttling about.

Sore Calves

I woke up at 8am. My calves ached as I walked across the bedroom to get my dressing gown. How old am I, I thought? as my calves moo’d with every step I took. I guessed it must have been from moving all of the furniture. Of course, my mind always goes to thrombosis, immanent death, you know the fear. I’d be a hypochondriac if I didn’t keep it in check. Laugh. If I wasn’t so goddam lazy. Who has the energy to spare to be worried about every minor creak and groan and the imagined sickness that accompanies it? Oh no, not me. I’m not that energetic.

So, the lounge room and the third bedroom had to be complete dismantled for the carpet layers, everything had to be removed from each, except for the couches in the lounge and the bed in the bedroom. It meant that every other room had stuff moved into it. We’d put the two sideboards back into the lounge room and the coffee table and the ottoman and rearranged the three couches, so all the hard bits, the big bits, were finished. We just had to move the minor stuff back, you know, all the fiddly, time consuming stuff. My two big metal and ceramic dishes on to one sideboard, my floral ceramic bear without eyes that disturbs some of the people so. All my little dishes. All the ornaments... the oil burners, the child’s antique clacker, my coral ball, my ivory box, (I know, I know) my inlaid music box, my carved round wooden box, which I always imagine may have contained someone’s ashes once, I’m not sure why, my square wooden boxes, the couple that were moved, the rest stayed in place on the mantel piece. And whatever else.


I had to replace all of the books into the book case above the other side board, which is really an antique desk, but it is one of those upright kind of desks, so everybody just thinks it is a sideboard. And as we… Sam had thrown away my video collection completely, that had taken up considerable space in the old desk, I could now move all of my excess books, which had been hanging about in various places in the house, into the desk. Lovely.


I looked at the new carpet from the lounge room door. The light was gentle, as the lounge room faces west, and it was quiet and still and a complete picture. Nice. The Persian rug is still bunching around the legs of the coffee table, which is annoying. How do you stop that? Someone suggested silicon spray on the underside of the rug.

It is nice that the room is now complete again. It just seems like it has always looked like that as I really didn’t notice the holes in the old carpet… as amazing as that sounds.

Didn’t? Didn’t want to? Familiarity and all that? Anyway… it is nice none the less.


I left my car out the front, all night, I forgot to bring it in. Oops. I brought it in this morning. Oops. Oh, I don’t know exactly why I say oops, it is not as if I live in a ghetto, other than a gay one. We are convinced by marketers, most likely paid by security teams, or the writers of newspapers, that we can’t trust the world around us. It was fine, these things we are scared of, may, actually, never happen.


Sister Roz arrived at 9.30am to pick me up to go see mum. It was a sunny day. Mum seemed to be able to answer some basic questions, like how she was, which seemed to be an improvement on most visits. Whatever that means?

Lottie was pretty in pink, even if her hair was bothering her. It was lovely sitting in the sun. The wind blew a little, I got her a cardigan, also pink. She seemed happy. She laughed. Her hair still seems strange white.

Roz and I went to Bunnings on the way home. Roz wondered where one was, after (daughter) Louise called and asked her to buy Brother inlaw Grant a Father’s Day present on her way home.

I got home around midday.

I saw my first new format number plate in Abbottsford on the way home. I tried to get Sam to come back with me to take a photo, but he wouldn’t be in it. So, I drove back to Abbotsford and took a photo on my own. Being a car nut from childhood, I know when I saw every new number plate there has been.


Sam, Buddy and I walked around to Killiney to eat lunch. I ate Mee Goring. Sam ate lontong. We walked home in the sun.

Buddy sat under the table with his bowl of water. People marvel at him. Children want to pat him. Girlfriend’s made cutsey faces and looked like they wanted him. Boyfriends smiled and looked like they wanted him. He loves saying hello to everyone. He’s very social, is our Buddy.


I went to the supermarket. I fed another $20 of 50 cent pieces into the Woolies self service machine, of Shane’s. Thank you Shane. I didn’t care, I wasn’t self conscious, I stood there and rolled them in as if that is what one always did. Holding people up, you say? People should relax and learn to enjoy life more.

I made a banana cake. It wasn’t so nice. I used an American recipe that I converted to metric, that used no butter, just oil instead. I don’t know if I over cooked it, but it wasn’t very nice, to tell you the truth.

Banana Cake