Okay, So We All Agree

The cunts sacked me. I didn't really see that coming, even if my mate Jill suggested it and said it sounded so much like what happened to her, a number of years ago.

I've had several meetings with the Department Financial Accounting Manager about my performance, none of which have made sense to me. The anorexic Department Financial Accounting Manager has sat opposite me and made certain allegations, none of which seem to have had any bearing on reality, none of which had been brought up by my new manager.

I went back to my new Accounting Manager, (the pretty, dumb, vacuous one who only got the job because of the girls club operating in our department) after the first meeting and tried to put things right with her and she said that she didn't have those issues with me. 

WTF?

What exactly was I supposed to do at that point?

I guess, I should have heard alarm bells at that, but I just put it down to the obviously very ill Department Financial Accounting Manager losing it. After all, she had just done the same to my old boss Beck.

(I guess you think I should have gone to the dreaded HR by this stage, but did I mention the Director of HR, Alexis Carrington, was in the first meeting, and joined in on the lies, telling a few doozies of her own, which just left me more speechless than I was before she opened her great big ugly gob) 

This place is screwy, I thought. I should start looking for a new job, which I had just started doing.

After the second meeting, my new snake Accounting Manager admitted to a small number of the issues, but said everything would be fine. Since then, I'd been asking my new snake manager for feedback and she had given me positive feedback.

I figured all the problems were behind me.

In the third meeting, I thought the Department Financial Accounting Manager, accompanied by another HR manager, the only decent one in the whole HR department, was going to say, Good work, nice to see everything is going well, but no, instead she said things were diabolically bad and that I was sacked. This time, nothing she said bore any resemblance to what I had been discussing with my new bitch snake Accounting manager.

Conclusion, the new bitch Accounting manager wanted me gone.

I don't think they, actually, have any grounds to sack me, but, you know, sometimes it is better just to move on. The best revenge is living well, as they say. 

All the time the near-death anorexic Department Financial Accounting Manager, was blabbing on, all I could think was, Okay, so we all agree. You have made up my mind for me. 

Well, not all I could think, my other thoughts were, you have become really, really ugly, your face has shrunk to two thirds of its original size and your hair now looks too big for your head. And you'll soon be dead. 

I Like Cooking

I cooked vegetable soup for lunch and chicken and mushroom risotto for dinner. I quite like cooking when I'm not rushing home from work at dusk.

I quite like cooking when I can meander down to the supermarket and buy the ingredients when it's not rush hour at the check out.

You know, when I don't have to do it, but chose to do it. You know what I mean?

I also stewed some apple for my muesli, that made me feel like I was turning into my mother. Mum always had a bowl of stewed apple in the fridge.

So much promised, right there. Look at that, won't you. The promise of delight. The promise of loveliness. The promise of great things. Right there, in front of you. Just a certain amount of unwrapping to do.

Photo of an old boyfriend, Andy

He always did have a good arse

Meeting Andy

Let me tell you about Andy. The first time I met him, actually, saw him, he was doing tequila shots off a bar somewhere with his best girlfriend fag hag. They were loud and full of life and I was naturally repelled and attracted both at the same time.

He had on a white bonds t-shirt which was tight on him, which left none of his fine muscles to the imagination. And he had on a pair of jeans that were baggy on him, pulled tight at the waist and bunching up right at the front making it look like he filled them out well. Of course, he did fill them out well.

Andy smiled at me and kind of winked and I was a little taken aback looking around behind me to see who it was he was, actually, smiling and winking at.

He and his girlfriend were the life of the bar that night.

I was there with a friend, Tom, he and I were out for a quiet night’s drinking.

Sometime later, Andy came over in his big, goofy way and slurred in my ear, “Hey handsome.” And I just thought, I bet you say that to all the guys. We chatted for a time, but not for really long, just enough time to find out our names and where we lived and what we did and some of the things that we liked, but then his girlfriend, Rosa, came over and demanded him back, and while I got the sense that he didn’t want to go, that he’d rather stay there with me, he went with his girlfriend. And that was that. 

Tom and I left not long after, Tom going to a sex club, and me heading home, a bit drunk. Staggering, a bit, maybe. Happy, sure. Feeling lighter than I normally would have after a handsome boy made eyes at me, and I liked it. Snatched away, sure he was, but he still did. Sigh. 

I lay in bed thinking about him. Stupid really. 

And that was that, life went on. 

Weeks, possibly months later, I was home in bed between jobs, lazing around, I wouldn’t exactly say rudderless, but I do like that expression. When we are motivated and achieving, we have a fin shove up are arses that steers and guides us in the direction we want to go, when we are not, it falls out with a plop sound and we just have bare, rosy cheeks to sit on. I was sitting on my bare, rosy cheeks. 

Late morning sometime, my house mate Shane said there was someone to see me.

“Who?” I called out.

“Andy,” said Shane.

Andy, I thought. Do I know an Andy? “Andy who?” I called out.

“Knock, knock,” said a voice at my door. My door pushed open and his smiling, nervous face appeared. “Hello.”

To say that I was stunned, was an understatement. “Hello,” I said.

“Can I come in?”

“Oh, er, um, yes, sure,” I said.

“I was in the neighbourhood,” he said.

“You were in the neighbourhood,” I repeated.

“Yes, I hope you don’t mind.”

“But how… no, I don’t mind, come in,” I said. “What you doing, er, um, how do you know? How?”

“I did a job for your neighbour…”

“Gardening?”

“Yes.”

“Gordon?”

“Yes.”

“And Gordon…”

“No.”

“No?”

“Rosa.”

“You’re demanding fag hag friend?”

“You’ll like her…”

“Will I?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.”

“Her lesbian house mate, owns a bulldog named Diego…

“A black bulldog?”

“Yes, he is black.”

“Oh yes. She goes to the dog park.”

“She knows you,” he said. “And I thought I come over and get to know you while I am working practically next door.”

“It’s a small world.”

“And getting smaller,” said Andy.

He slid onto the bed next to me.

He had these blue overalls on which he had left unbuttoned right down the front, giving a glimpse of his white T-shirt, and even the elastic of his jocks, I couldn’t stop myself taking peaks. 

His floppy blond hair, his square jaw, his three day growth. He looked great. The line of buttons unpopped one by one all the way down his front, as if to make a proposition, were distracting, as we chatted. It’s true. 

I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be seducing him, having sex with him there and then on his lunch break, on what I assumed was his lunch break. 

Unwrapping his thick thighs, grabbing handfuls of his big purple nuts, sucking his fat shaft, rock hard like metal. sliding my finger into his foreskin, slipping his precum around on my fingertips, making long spurts of cum shoot out of him right there on my bed. Watch him shake his feet when he blows.

No, I wasn’t sure about any of that that day in my bed. That was all to come. 

We chatted and pretty soon he said he had to go. We made a date to see each other again before he left. 

That boy Andy. Sexy, and cute, and funny, and smart, and trouble, and hard working, and irrational, and loud, and a gorgeous free spirited sex pig all rolled into the same sexy, muscular, contradictory mass of maleness would be in my life for the next two years successfully and unsuccessfully. Mostly unsuccessfully, as it would turn out.

He liked gardens. He liked to work on cars. He liked photography. He liked dogs. He liked Andy. Not necessarily in that order.

Too Negative

Sam sometimes looks at me, shakes his head and just says, "Too negative!"

He’s sweet, my guy, inherently sweet. he laughs at genuinely comical things.

I’m cynical, inherently cynical. I laugh at black humour.

I’m not always sure I am a good influence on him.

Do you think cynical is more likely to take sweet over to the dark side, than sweet is likely to take cynical over to the light?

What do you think?

On a holiday as a kid I I remember I recognised this guy as interesting

Morning PT Peak Hour

Get out! Get out! Come on move quick. Battle in, battle out, this is endurance, make no mistake, survival of the fittest, throw dark looks at the stragglers pushing in the final seconds to get out. Too late!

Push past, push past, push past the mannequins and the cadavers standing and staring blankly straight ahead. No brain activity, I swear.

Excuse me! Excuse me! Do I have to say it louder, Louder, LOUDER? Move, or I’ll move you.

Push past, push past, you make me not care. You don’t care. I don’t care. Nobody cares. Who cares!

The dopes lean on the ticket machine. What do they think I am going to do?

Wake up! Come back! Earth to moron! Get out of the fucking way!

They look at me blankly, seemingly no understanding, nothing registering. The big silver box, what do you think it is for? I need to get to it. No, it’s not there just to lean on. Come on, wake up Australia.

Excuse me.

They begrudgingly move a centimetre and I wonder if I have to fell them simply to get a ticket.

Oh well, not a care, they don’t care. I push them away with my mass, I slide my body into them and they move.

The ticket machine works, now there is a plus... or maybe not. There are dollar signs on the display, always a good sign.

The coins feel awkward in my fingers and I don’t want to be another of the dopes who rummage through their purse endlessly and then drops their money on the floor only to scramble through everyone's feet. But, of course, that only happens if I am waiting behind them.

I massage them with my finger tips into the slot. Clack, clack sounds the coins as they slide into the mechanics.

Clack, whir. Click, whoosh. The machine comes to life.

Clack, clack, clack, click, click, click. The white card appears in the slot somewhere by my knee.

It is the only (useful) organic thing, I think, as I take it with my hand.

Step away! Step away! Hypocritia doesn’t suite you.

I take my place on the conveyor belt taking hold of the grab handle overhead.

Stop thinking. Stare ahead. Packed in like dominos, or penguins, my city is black. Power down like all the other brain dead mother fuckers. It is just boredom, I tell myself. You'd have to have a mind like a steal trap not to be bored of this process. And it is a process. We are all processed.

The wheels grind metallically under foot. A woo-whir, woo-whir harmonic. Gr, gr, gr, gr on the steal track in the road.

Someone gets up and heads to the door. A vacant seat, amongst dominos, ready to fall, left just-like-that.

I want it! I’m having it! I’m getting it! It’s mine! As the punters look with hesitant polite faces. They are too slow to respond.

I duck under arms holding straps as if to salute, single minded, not a care. I weave through with intent.

I slide into that seat, putting my brief case on my lap as if as a finishing touch.

I exhale, deflate, sink into the wafer thick polyester cushion. I click into standby and stare blankly at the sentries standing all around me keeping fort.

They stare glumly, stare blindly off into space. This is business, a serious business. A moment's stillness before the tar pits. Silent. We snatch respite stacked in tight.

The wheels grind metallically underneath me. Gr, gr, gr, gr on the steal tracks in the road. The old girl rattles, despite being one of the new models. I momentarily think about the state of quality control in tram factories. For some reason, I picture big Eastern Europe mills. Manufacturing doesn't care about you, it is the dollar they pursue, people are the bi-product, the inconvenient truth, so who knows if the brakes will fail on the next application. Try not to think, "they" don't want you to think.

The punters are jiggling like cattle in a truck to market. And they are going to market, employment fodder.

Grey is all around. Grey is the colour of the day. Their faces, their attitude, all around. Glum is the attitude, silent, serious. We all rattle into the CBD. I always think CBD is some short of acronym for poison printed on a warning label on a big plastic drum. Health Warning, contains CBD. Contagion Distillate Barbital. Handle with care. Prolonged exposure could be bad for ones health.

 

Wave Good Bye

Carbon emissions increase exponentially, I do laugh, the stupidity of the world. I mean to say, even the dumbest animal knows it is time to act when the nest becomes rancid. As they say, it's not rocket science. Maybe to fix it it very well may be the equivalent of. Let’s face the human race is headed for extinction. All that promise, all that potential, up in a cloud of greed.

Carbon emissions at record levels. Hang on, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Let’s face it, it was never a very nice bunch anyway, content to watch half of its fellow human beings starve to death, as the other half ate themselves into oblivion.

The anti-global warming brigade are winning in Australia, against a government that is trying to bring in a carbon tax, but with aggressive lobbying the opposition party seem to be winning with its “unwarranted increase in the cost of living” message. And sadly, it’s only doing this for its own political advantage, its not doing it for the good of the country. Or am I naive to think politicians are there for some civic duty.

And despite the fact that I disagree with everything the anti global warming lobby stand for, I’m against the carbon tax. I don’t care if the human race survives, in fact, considering how awful human beings are to one another, and how destructive they are, I think the world would, in fact, be better off without them.

The political model that has been used for the last decade, or so, is the “mum, dad and the kids” model, being paid financial incentives to re-elect successive governments. I say, let them pay the carbon tax, they’ve had all the advantages in the most recent times and they have all of the vested interest. The little snot-bags around their ankles. I don’t have kids and I don’t care if “the mum, dad and the kids brigade's” children, in fact, choke on polluted air, or fry in the warmed atmosphere.

And the breeders war cry of (said in that rat-faced receptionist kind of way) “We’re providing the economy with the tax payers of the future who you are too lazy and self-focussed to have who will pay your taxes in your retirement.”

Um no, the problem with the world is over population, you dopes.

I say everyone without kids unite and say fuck you all! 

Aren't I cute

Scanning Photos

I scanned my family’s slides over the weekend, much to Sam’s chagrin, even if he did get me the slide scanner. 

"But, all weekend," he said.

Of course, the editing and the cataloguing takes almost as long as the scanning.

I have an amazing collection of photos from it though.

I might find myself a new banner in recognition.

My family were an amazing bunch of photographers and, fortunately, amazing hoarders. I have amazing pictures from many generations from all over the world going back to the 1940’s. I might just do a pictorial family history.

The big problem is to get them clean enough after all the years of dust and grime.

Smashed in the Face

Oh yes, I had a dream that Belinda, the miserable anorexic financial controller bitch boss of mine, she was being repeatedly punched in the face. Up close. Relentless. Gory. Graphic.

Someone had hold of the back of her neck and was just smashing her repeatedly, so that her teeth and lips and jaw were breaking up and splattering and falling away.

Who's ever seen the film Irreversible? The scene where the gay guy gets beaten to death with the fire extinguisher, quite possible one of the most gruesome scenes I have ever witnessed on film... and, I guess, that is because me and my friend Kym had had enough by the time the bloody ten minute rape scene started and we walked out. Them crazy French.

Interesting film, it runs backwards and is apparently beautiful in the end, which is really the beginning, but I couldn't get through it to find out.

Anyway, my dream was not dissimilar to the fire extinguisher scene. I woke with a start, alarmed at it all and myself. But, I have to admit, that lying there in the dark on my own, my lips curled, be it, momentarily into a smile.

Anyway, I took that as another sign that I should leave work and find another job. 

Yesterday Was The Day

I applied for a new job, today, I've just done it. I dragged my resume out and dusted it off and then updated it, adding in the hell-like salt mines. I then emailed it off. Easy.

I also finally called up my old boss at the consulting firm I used to work at two jobs ago, oh, er, three jobs ago. She no longer works Fridays, I laughed, but of course.

You see, yesterday was the day I'd given myself to leave the shit black law firm I now work for. Well, anyway, it had to get better by yesterday, or I resign. It didn't.

The thing is, I have done nothing about securing a new job. Interest zero, they are all a waste of time. Work, that is. Bunch of cunts, as I have trained Sam to say. Even updating my resume, I could barely muster the enthusiasm, and I didn't read back over it. It was done, I attached it to the email and pushed send. It's a good thing I'm trained as a writer. Oh, you know, semi trained. I've got a qualification.

The corporate world? It's full of trumped up wannabees who use work as a measure of their worth, who use work to obtain power over the only aspect of their lives that they can control and feel important. Sad bunch of bastards, really. Most of them, not all of them, there are a few nice ones left.

So, two forays into getting another job, which, hopefully, should manifest itself in something positive, so I can resign on Tuesday.

Now some may say that my bitterness level is so great that yesterday was the day for me to resign, so I could give four weeks notice and be out of the place just before the end of the financial year... not such a great thing for a finance guy to do. And while I'm not denying that I am enjoying this particular thought, it's not actually the main reason. June is my anniversary date, I've been there seven years and it is the first available date that I can leave and have my long service leave paid out to me. The other fact is just an added bonus.

Actually, all of the planets are aligning, as Mark has finally sold his house and can now afford to pay me back the money he owes me and I can now, actually, afford to resign and take my time to find a new job. I can, actually, now afford to resign Tuesday, job or no job.

So, what should I do?

His Back Twinged

His back twinged as he bent down to pick things up now a days and he was only in his early forties. He had exacerbated his "bad back" playing indoor volley ball too vigorously the night before with his team the Northern Lights, sure that was true. He had twisted the wrong way, going into hard against Wei Tran, which had been fairly foolish as Wei Tran was much younger than he. His back wasn't normally this bad, but he did suffer from some permanent tenderness now a days, there was obviously some degeneration, of sorts. He wondered if it would feel twice as sore in another forty years, twenty years, ten, probably worse than he imagined, pretty soon, as he assumed the degeneration was going to be much worse in future years. Or was that just his glass half sensibility? He knew now what his parents meant when they groaned with the ravages of time when he was a kid. He never thought he'd get to that just the same, but he had.

He picked up his brief case, straightened his jacket and prepared to head out into the cold.

He winced and took a step forward.

"Oh." Groan. Wince. It will get better again, soon. But what if it didn't get better, what if this is it? Glass half full, glass half full, he repeated in his mind.

Creak sounded the front door, not unlike how his back felt. The fresh air hit his face almost immediately. He breathed it in in big breaths pretending that it was the temperature of air that was making him gasp and not because of his recalcitrant back. He deadlocked the door with the key in his hand, the key ring of keys jangled as he did. He stepped out onto the veranda and turned and pulled the door shut behind him. It made a reassuring clunk sound. His back twinged, he gasped again.

He turned, steadied himself and then stepped foreword with one foot tentatively.

"Oh, ah," he said. Oh bugger, he thought.

He stepped forward with the other foot. "Oh."

He gripped the hand rail in his right hand and gingerly stepped down the single step to the front path. He turned and looked back at the front door. He scratched his chest and rubbed his back, his brief case in his back scratching hand swung backwards and forwards with each scratch and he pretty soon stopped scratching. He walked to the front gate, he thought, as if he'd shit his pants, he hoped no one was looking. He laughed at the thought, which seemed to twinge in his back as well. The heavy metal gate clanged as he swung it open, it clanged again when he closed it on its old latch bolted to the brick fence.

His trusty red MGB was sitting on the street, just along from his front gate. He slid the worn, silver key into the door latch and then pushed the button on the handle and he pulled the door open, it made a clack sound as it always did. He tossed his brief case across onto the passenger seat. He slid his suit jacket off and flung it after his brief case. The putting on and taking off of the suit jacket was a ritual, one he would repeat all day.

He slunk down into the low slung car with some difficulty this morning. The car sat low to the ground, with his legs almost out straight in front of him. He wondered if he'd have to get rid of the car, in how many years? Most of his family wouldn't be so sad about that happening, as quite a number of them thought that Ryan was living in the passed, trying to hang onto the last shreds of his youth by still driving the old sports car.

His back ached. It seemed to ache right down into his arse crack, which suddenly seemed itchy and he wanted to slide his finger into the top and scratch it. It was no use, he was in no condition to perform such a feet of dexterity, so he ignored the itch, hoping it would go away. It didn't. He wriggled his bottom backwards and forwards, as best he could, hoping that would do the trick. It didn't, the itch remained.

He fitted his harness across his chest, securing the two buckles. He slid the key into the ignition, he pulled on the choke, turning it to the left when it was fully pulled out to lock it into position. He turned the key and the car gently rocked from side to side as the engine began to turn over under the long curved bonnet that stretched out in front of him. He turned the key off and turned it on again.

The engine caught, and the car fired into life with its loud, throaty exhaust note. He pushed down on the clutch, his back twinged again and he inhaled breath sharply with the pain. "Oh fuck it," he said quietly to himself. He selected 1st gear, slipped off the handbrake, flicked on the indicator switch, checked his mirrors and pulled out onto the road. His back twinged again as he changed gears. His back twinged with every gear change. It twinged in 2nd, it twinged in 3rd, it twinged in 4th. He cursed the day, every time he changed gears.

Sam's Temporarily Repairs His Sky Light From The Wind And the Rain

I, actually, just like this photo, the colour and the form. There is something eerily pleasing about it.

Day off... Gotta Get Stuff Done

 Sam had left at 7.45, grabbing both my cheeks between his pointy fingers, eye-balling me with his face centimetres from mine, saying good bye with a mock-whinge that he had to go to work.

"Poor poor me," he said. "Off to work..."

"Bye babe." Snuggle, snuggle.

Fingers to my cheeks again. "Are you comfortable?"

He makes me smile. I lay there with a grin on my face, as I watched him exit the room, watched the bedroom door close with one eye open until, well, until that eye closed again and I nodded off.

I woke two hours later. Exhausted, I thought, as I stepped one foot from the bed. Amused, wondering what Sam would think. I stood giddy, wrapped in my dressing gown, thanking the universe it was Monday.

Two big slugs of coffee and then I had the day in front of me. Lovely.

I'd turned my computer on, natch and was going to do the Internet thing to ease into the day, you know, as you do. Ah, 9.45 and all is well.

I had to organise some more work, 3 days to 5, it's time. I'm not writing anything, I'm just pissing the time away. I laugh when Sam calls me lazy Christian. "I can't believe that you still haven't organised that yet!"

He can't believe that I'm not all enthusiastic about increasing my work days from 3 to 5. Can't understand it. "What is wrong with you?" he says.

That makes me laugh too.

I friend sent me the details of a job going at her law firm. She sent me the HR contact and all the details. I thought about it, I did. Really.

I had to pay some bills. And I had to get up and chop some creeper down from the side wall of the house, as it was growing into the guttering big time.

Easy.

The rain fell.

I did nothing, I guess you could see that coming. I just pissed the day away. Oh, I did the creeper thing, I cut it all down, so the day wasn't a complete loss.

It Crossed My Mind That I Could Live With Him

I stopped smoking again. You just got to keep doing it. It’s so much easier when you have a partner who disapproves, you know. Sam disapproves.

We sat around most of the morning, each one of us on our ipads. We watched Pug videos on YouTube. Sam wants a Pug, but he wants it to live at my place.

We had apple and rhubarb on our muesli, what was left over from Saturday night. It was much nicer the day after. To tell you the truth, I wasn't nearly as enamoured with my cooking last night, but it was lovely today. Clever me. You know, you've just got to say "clever me" occasionally, well, somebody has to and if you can't...

We ate Vietnamese in Victoria Street, for lunch. I finally got to taste pho, a traditional Vietnamese soup. It was, pretty much, the only busy restaurant in Victoria Street, which is always a good sign. The soup was good.

Otherwise, I was pretty much a lazy day.

It crossed my mind that I could live with Sam, at some time in the afternoon. I was a little surprised, I didn’t really think I would want to do that again, would think that again. I mean, it was just a thought, no invitation was issued, but I did think it. I didn't tell him, I just enjoyed the moment myself. It made me smile, kind of unexpectedly.

Lunch and Cigarettes

I had to lunch with Dean, Stella and Kate at the Brighton Sea Baths. I'm not even going to mention the fact that I didn't read the message correctly and headed to St Kilda sea baths. Esplanade, sea baths, it’s not so hard to understand. No, I'm not going to tell you that.

"Meet us outside the cafe." My there seems to be a number of cafes here. Check the massage. AH!

And I had caught a tram. For a moment my head spun at my stupidity. I called Mark to tell him what an idiot I’d been, in the spirit of there-must-be-somebody-to-tell. Confess. Why do I always have this need to confess? Is it a human characteristic?

After I got over my surprise, shock, I hopped in a taxi and was there in ten minutes.

They weren't even there. They called and said they were running late.

We had a seafood platter for four, a selection of deserts, coffee and a walk on the pier.

Dean looked fantastic. He looked slim and hot.

Stella looked fat. With the alcohol she drank during the afternoon, there were no surprises how she'd porked up.

Kate had badly stained teeth. Why wouldn't you get those cleaned?

I smoked Dean’s cigarettes.

We had a nice time, it was great to catch up.

I'll text you when I'm leaving, so you can leave too, was Sam and my agreement, afterward lunch. I hadn’t driven and as the traffic was a nightmare on my way back, I was pleased I hadn’t. There were cars banked up Spencer and Flinders and all I could see was a sea of tail lights as my tram slipped by them all. I thanked the universe for trams.

I got to Southern Cross Station first. 

The problem was that I'd been smoking all afternoon. I was practising him as I waited.

Have you been smoking?

Have you been smoking?

Have you been smoking?

Have you been smoking?

I was trying to get his particular intonation right, as I waited. That cross, being surprised and exasperated all at the same time that he gets, no matter how many times he has to utter those words.

And then he was coming down the stairs, looking just as handsome as ever and my heart did a little jump and my face creased into a smile.

I fessed up, of course. Sam wasn’t so pleased. He pinched my arm and said, Who said you could smoke again?

We caught the City Circle from the corner of Spencer and La Trobe. It was too packed, with stinky tourists and we decided since we were locals we shouldn’t be on it anyway, so we got on the 96 behind. Sam was still scolding me about smoking. He was pinching my arm.

We were standing by the doors, as Sam crouched over the perspex wall to look out the back of the tram to try to ascertain if the tram behind was an 86, when I poked him in retaliation for the pinch. We were being silly, what can I say. I think it is a form of foreplay. He retorted with, “I’m going to slap you hard in a minute,” as it looked as though he was staring straight at the woman in the first seat facing him. She was a little taken aback, her eyes widened, the look on her face was priceless. Sam realised and apologised. He was a little embarrassed. I laughed. 

He told me it was my fault. More foreplay.

Me, Sam, Sebastian, Shane, D, Mark W were all having dinner at my place. Sebastian served soup, Mark W fish, D potatoes and bean salad, and I made apple and rhubarb crumble.

Lovely.

You Can't Start The Morning With The Last Cigarette Of The Day

Shane said I couldn't start the day off with the last cigarette, it just doesn't work that way. I knew that, but I was in denial, kidding myself.

I picked up my car from the mechanic and my mechanic offered me a cigarette, just like that, he held out his hand with an open packet.

I took one without a moment’s hesitation. “Yeah, cheers, Tony.” He made me a coffee and I had a second fag. 

Then I picked my mum and headed to Seymour to meet my sister, as we were driving up the country to do a house inspection.

We stopped in Shepparton for lunch. As mum and my sister went to the toilet, I ordered and sat down at the table. The previous customers had left their cigarettes behind.

"What is this?" I thought. "The world is against me today?"

I slipped the cigarettes into my pocket before my mum and sister came back, just like that.