David Hicks

It is time that David Hicks was returned to Australia, immediately. America has had long enough to do whatever it is they wanted to do with him; five years is long enough without charge. Or do we all agree that indefinite interment (of an Australian citizen by another country) without charge is fair?

Not to mention, that the charges are about as dodgy as our reasons for invading Iraq

It's time this Australian citizen was was requested home by his government.

To use those beloved words of the conservative politicians, it is unAustralian to hold a man without charge for five years... in any other circumstances.

The Howard government has a deplorable record of looking after Australian citizens OS. The Howard Government has deported citizens of this country, that's how much it cares about the people of Australia.

Hello Mr

Boy, it was hot! The weather, that is; thick and hot, like mid summer. Manny came over. He was hot, too. It was good to sweat. It was good to kiss him. It was good to slide my hands down his pants. I've got the usual beard burn across my bottom lip, one of the facts of doing it with a wog boy, thick beard. I often wonder if anyone notices the red mark along my bottom lip. I wonder? ...if they have any idea.

Sunshiny Day

Yep, home again today. I was going, promise and I was feeling fine until I had a coughing fit in the kitchen, as the coffee perked and the air smelled sweet, everything just seemed to let go and I was swimming in mucous. For a second there, I though I was going to drown. Then I just felt nauseous and dizzy. I reached straight for the phone. Fuck me! What a woos! Once I get a taste for the day off, though, there is no stopping me. What do I care, I'm a senior member of staff who hardly ever takes sickies. That's what they say to me, anyway, but i reckon I give them a nudge. We're all wound too tight to think of wagging a day, generally. Now I'm up to three.

But it is just glorious standing in the kitchen, bathed in morning light, with nothing to do for the day, it's addictive. Woo-hoo! It seems like a wrench just thinking about going in tomorrow.

I feel okay now, though. Big smile. Ears still blocked, but. Still coughing up the dead.

Danger, Danger Will Robinson!

Lottie made one of her infrequent flying visits. I thought of it Sunday, when she said she was heading into the city, yesterday morning, to have her hair cut. She even suggested that she might.

The trouble was that after a few numbers, I'd forgotten all about it. When I heard the ding dong and the you-who, I was mid toke, chat lines, cock ring, track suit with no underwear. Actually, it wasn't that bad, but I'm sure the house smelt like a Bedouin brothel, all that was missing was a hooker.

Then I heard the second voice... but of course. Lottie collects people wherever she goes. She will always have found a guide, if ever she has to break out into unknown - some what unfamiliar - lands. Of course, her champion was always my father.

I had to bide for time. No need to panic, she had someone to play with for a good five, ten minutes at a stretch.

I always find that in those moments, it's better to go back to scratch. So I turned off the computer, hid the mull paraphernalia, in my grandfather's desk, what's more, flung the windows open, took my only give away sign, my hot cup of tea and got into bed. I lay getting my, somewhat, smokey breath, as I listened to Lottie give gardening tips down stairs, below in my front garden.

Count back wards from one hundred.

Breath one, two, three, four.

Saunter over, open the balcony doors and sound as just-woken-up as I could possibly muster. My stagger and near tumble over the balcony, seen by nobody but myself, did nothing for my confidence.

Hello, I said shakily.

They both looked up and I was met with such gratitude, from a rather nice looking, secretary or government worker, I'd guess at.

I opened the door, some minutes later, I was in no hurry. I emptied the ash trays.

Hello. You're home, beamed Lottie. This is (I forget her name now) I met her on the tram.

How nice, I said calmly.

I just showed her down Gertrude Street, beamed now nameless. But, I've got to go. Get back to work. Goodbye Lottie, nice to meet you.

You had better come in for a cup of tea.

I questioned Lottie about the house for sale in my street and how she could move there and not be so lonely, but by that time she looked very comfortable and small, holding an over-sized coffee cup didn't help, nestled safely in my big couch.

She kept getting the number of the tram mixed up... well, she was leaving on a different tram to which she arrived on. We sat and chatted for an hour. I tried to keep my eyes from crossing. I like my mum. The afternoon sun shone through the windows.

She smelt nothing. She was hopeless with that when I was a kid. She never smelt the smoke on her sixteen year old's breath. In fact, had she been better at it, I may not have smoked in my adult life. Ha, ha!

We drank tea, I walked her to the tram stop.

Do you know where you are? I asked her in Victoria Parade.

Of course I do, she said. Then she plotted the entire local grid impeccably, out to me allowed, as a wind blew down Victoria Parade, as we waited for a new tram. Not dead yet, she said.

I can see the old lady in her now, though, it's no longer glimpses, just around the edges, she's morphing. Even if it's only the momentary lapse just now.

There was a gay boy, in his thirties, looking out of the tram window at us, as it pulled up. I kissed Lottie and then she had to find the door, too much glass. She smiled, as if to say silly me, when she found the door. The gay guy smiled, as if at some fond memory. Lottie stood just in front of him and waved. I waved her good bye and as the tram slid along, as my eyes did, I waved the gay boy good bye too. He smiled in return.

Nana # 2

Nana with a penchant for brandy. Her husband, my grandfather, died young and she remained heart broken for the rest of her life. She ended her days penniless with her two sons supporting her, where, once, she was promised this dazzling life, the wife of an international engineer. Any wonder she drank. Quite a lush, if my mother's words, dragged out of her by me, are to be believed. Lottie was quite uncomfortable telling me, like she was betraying an elder, or something. She wouldn't say the words, there were a lot of you know and if you understand my meaning, head nods and looks...

And offers of cups of tea, Lottie's standard distraction technique.

Some say that my non-drinking uncle is a non-drinker as a direct effect of his mother's... as Lottie would do, hand to the mouth, rock the hand backwards and forwards. Knowing look.

Apparently, my old nan favoured my father outrageously, often only able to stagger through the door at night with cream cakes particularly for his dinner, spending most days at the pub while her boys worked. In her defence, both her boys were in their twenties by this stage. It was an eye-opener for Lottie, however, who'd fallen for my father by this stage. What a lonely life Nana must have had in her later years.

Somebody Stop Me

Four joints and I'm still tonguing for more.

My name is Christian Fletcher and I'm a drug addict.

Ha, ha, ho, ho.

My grandma – the one with a penchant for brandy and not the one with a penchant for having another man's photo on her bedside table for her whole marriage – had a brandy every day for her entire life and nobody called her an alcoholic. Well? Not to her face. Certainly, nobody outside the family.

Once I get a taste for the "sickie" there's no stopping me. Lets just say that today is a mental health day to recover from all the dope I smoked over the weekend to ease the pain of my cold.

The light was kind of misty, this morning, no threat of the promised thirty something degrees, so I just rolled over and went back to sleep, after I'd made the call. The outside world looked kind of smudgy, like an impressionist view of itself. I nestled back down amongst the pastel colours and drift back to nod, not a single shred of guilt, to be detected.

I so wanted to get Manny over here, out of his pants and between me and the sheets, just to look down and kiss him in that light, but with his phobias, I knew as soon as I said the "C" word, I wouldn't see him for dust. And as I was sounding like Bette Davis - that would be from Whatever Happened to Baby Jane and not All About Eve {occasionally, I just have to be gayer than Xmax, it's in my genes} - I could see no way of hiding it.

So, I lay in bed, this morning and just pretended he was there... if you understand my meaning?

I wasn't going to smoke pot, today, but when I started to smoke cigarettes instead, as I wrote this morning, I decided that my strategies clearly weren't working. Both had failed.

Oh! Oh! Oh! I had given up, back not so long ago, altogether. Bugger! Bugger! Bugger! How did I slip back? So, which is worse, cigarettes or pot? I reckon cigarettes, as I can smoke them any where, once I really get going on them.

So, I've just been over to Guido's. He was watching Project Runway with his latest, young, root, Max, on his new fuck-off plasma TV. Drug dealer's certainly have all the latest gadgets and gizmo's. Guido and Max took some thing, or other, and watched the entire series of Project Runway on DVD, last night.

Max said something about Project Runway and smiled wildly, while his jaw shivered at me. I have no idea what he said.

Guido promised to burn me a copy.

Okay, cool, I thought. I've never watched the show, but... chee thanks.

Guido is such a skank. Something was said about the male models, Guido ran his hand down Max's bare chest and into his track pants, saying, "You've seen nothing, babe." Guido smiled lecherously. "Take a look at this." As his hand rolled over exposing Max's semi-inflated, lube-encrusted, cock.

Max tried to stop him, in vain.

"Don't, you've got nothing to be embarrassed about."

Max just kind of looked cross-eyed at me, after that, kind of embarrassed, as his jaw vibrated some more, as his hardening cock lay exposed. Nice it was too, thick all the way along from the tip to the base. Uncut. Tanned skin, nice abs, that v cutting through his lower abdomen and a bush of black pubic hair surrounding his, nearly purple, genitals.

It was kind of like a frozen moment. The three of us still in time, looking at Max's impressive manhood, like an Aubergine Salad, without speaking. The wet spoof in the foreskin was a particularly nice touch.

"Hey, you know, if you are going to burn me a copy of this," I said. "I should get going and watch it later, from the beginning."

"True," said Guido, pulling his hand out of Max's pants. "You don't want to spoil it, ay?"

"No," I said.

Homeless

Whoosh, Sound!

Melbourne rocked by protesters over night. I think it's good, somebody has to do it. Some body has to let those fat pig friend's of John Howard know that they aren't just being allowed to go along the path of snouts in troughs completely unchecked. And I know I don't want to be out on the streets, at night, hurling stubbies at the fat cats. Good for you guys. Freedom of speech, we're not a dictatorship just yet, despite little Johnnies best/worst inclinations.

My left ear just unblocked. Yah! That may not sound so much to you, but let me tell you, the world was just let in, in all it's whirring and buzzing, glory and I'm no longer sealed in my own little cocoon. Now for the right one.

Gertrude Street is bristling with street people at 8am, Sunday morning. What is it, all those drugs won't let them have regular sleep patterns? Or are they the usual homeless who haven't melted into the back ground because all the home-equipped people are still asleep?

One of them said, nursing his long neck on the steps of the A.N.Z. bank at 9am, as I left Safeway. "Wow, you've bought enough food there for a whole week!"

Um... yes... precisely, I thought. But it will have to stretch to two, I know that, I'm a lazy bastard where shopping is concerned...

... initially, I thought he was being sarcastic, a comment on my lax shopping management skills... I laughed at myself without turning back.

Random Morning

I want Hamish & Andy to secretly be lovers. They are healthy, strapping boys. I'd like to watch the two of them in a heated snog. I admit to a slight crush on Hamish, for some reason. And Andy isn't bad either - although, those ears? Batchelor of the year, but.

Matthew Lloyd is looking pretty buffed.

That inept bag of wind Kim Beasley can't even get Rove's name right, at, arguably, the most significant moment in Rove's life.

Here's one to have a laugh over. Naomi Campbell is still denying that she has ever assaulted anybody?

Apparently, God has answered Michael Jackson's prayers. You'd be changing churches, now wouldn't you?

I've been watching under water footage - pun intended - of water polo. It's pretty hot stuff. I've got one question to ask, Straight boys?

Manny and I had phone sex again last night. We're a couple of lazy bastards.

I have to dye my hair and now I've had a couple of joints. The last time I did that I managed to get it all up the bathroom wall.

Panorama of Melbourne

Morning Glory

The day faded away into the pain that was my temples. I woke up on the couch at 4am. Tight sinus', a nose that won't stop dripping and a cough that is dry and rough and just won't crack.

Now I just wish my nose would stop. My temples are tight, my sinus' are humming, my head is thick, my ears blocked.

The sun is shining, the sky is blue.

I cried reading about Belinda Emmett's funeral - feeling unwell always makes me a bit teary. I guess it's not the destination that is important, but the way the journey is lived in getting there, that is. But to watch the love of your life slip away, poor Rove.

So what if I feel lousy with a cold... it's a beautiful morning, after all.

My feet are cold.

The view from my office window, as I sit at home with a cold.

Got the bloody cold

I'm home with a cold. I'm not happy. My chest hurts from the never ending coughing through the night. I'm exhausted.

My nose, my throat, my chest.

Boo fucken hoo!

Oh the coughing! Oh my chest! Oh my throat! Oh my blocked ears! Oh my head!

I feel like a train wreck.

Cold

I've been out to dinner with my writing buddy Kym. Got to luv daylight savings, as we were home early. Not that I didn't want to hang with Kym, but I've got a fucking cold! Do you believe it? I feel like shit! Tired. Is this what's left over from the week of misbehaving over Melbourne Cup, no doubt. You always pay for your fun.

I need Daniel Craig to come and rub my back.

Suddenly, it is cold. Got to hate hydronic, slab heating when it suddenly turns nasty. If the heating hasn't been on for a week, it takes a while for the concrete to heat up. I'm freezing!

My nose is blocked and I've got a dry cough that just won't crack. Grr!

I'm going to bed.

James Bond

I was reading a jurno saying that she had changed her about the new, blond Bond when she saw Daniel Craig at the beach in those blue trunks. Whose mind wasn't changed?

and on the beach