Love and Food

Buddy was very sleepy this morning when we let him in, some mornings you can see that he just wants to stay in his kennel. He headed straight into the study and lay under the desk on the carpet, flat out, nose – such as a Bulldog's nose is – between his paws.

That was until I called him.

“Come and entertain us bulldog, come and perform tricks and be funny and earn your keep. Come and make us laugh.”

Then he came and sat between us at the coffee table, his eyes closing slowly, his chin drooping repeatedly, his head sinking towards the ground. We ended up both patting either side of his head, with our spoon, crumpet in our other respective hands. His eyes closed again. Does he think he is here just for his benefit? Man’s best friend. It’s funny that man has killed and made enemies of so many species on this planet and yet the dog and man are best friends. The dog prevailed where no other animal did. Two pack animals, I guess.

Sam was gone before I was. But then, I was out the door at 8.10am myself. Out the door at 8.10am, my how back into the swing of it all we suddenly are. I stopped momentarily with my hand on the driver’s door handle and gazed to the sky and many images ran through my mind… I shook my head and got into the car. 8.15am said the clock on the dashboard as I reached for the roller door remote. Tick, tick, tick, go the mornings.

It is still wintery. Grey. Overcast. I am waiting for the cold weather to click off suddenly, like it did last year. I'm hoping it will click over. I seem to remember, about this time last year, one day it was cold and the very next day it was much, much warmer. And the winter was gone. Is it global warming? Who cares really? I just don't want to buy another load of firewood this year.

The working days are passing quickly. I have a nice team to work with. We all chat and laugh all day, you can't ask for much more than that. The office, the hallways, the kitchen out the back, all seem so familiar to me now.


It was raining as I walked to the car, after work. There is a certain melancholy walking to a wet, half empty car park on a damp, grey afternoon. All the cars sitting silently as the gravel crunches under your feet.

Sam called me halfway home, “Where are you?”

“I’m nearly home.”

“Oh good, go to the supermarket and get salad and sausages.”

“What?” I asked. Oh really? I guess I could do that.

“Go to the supermarket and get sausages and salad,” he repeated. “Or, anything you like, it is up to you. Be imaginative.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m nearly home too, but it is cold and wet and I don’t want to go out again.”

“I see. Really?”

“Follow my instructions,” he said. “You have a car.” Sam thinks I need supervision to shop successfully. He thinks I am “vague” when it comes to such things.

What could I say? He so often goes into the supermarket as I wait outside with Buddy. He usually drives the whole “dinner experience,” I had no choice but to obey. He, he, ha, ha. (It's our little joke) Sam so often says, if you follow my instructions everything will be fine. It is that simple.

He’s funny, he makes me laugh. I let him think he runs the show… you know how relationships go…

At the supermarket I got more phone calls. He doesn’t really trust me to remember the finer details, which kind of suits me because then I don’t, actually, have to remember them. “Sms it to me, honey.” I got a long shopping list in instalments via text, as I tried to order black olives and feta cheese from Mr Blue-eyes behind the deli counter at Woolies.

"Would you like something else?" asked Blue eyes as I reread my text message.

"Oh, um, er..." I mustn’t forget cat food. “Ah… no.” Smile.

Apparently, I could decide. I could decide? The world was wide open to me, anything was possible. But, rather unimaginably, I decided to go with the sausages.

“Don’t buy the boring ones,” Sam said. “Be imaginative.”

Be imaginative? Be imaginative. What?

It was the end of the day. It was raining. It was cold. Who can think? What did he say first? Sausages and salad. There was chicken and pork. Chicken sausages? They were white. That is just a crime against nature. And Pork? It just seems like a waste of good pork, although I could be tempted.

I bought herb & garlic, and honey & sage. I couldn’t decide. I moved from one foot to the other as I stood in front of the sausage fridge and wondered. I felt the pressure, “don’t be boring.” I could have played it safe and bought chorizo or bratwurst or white rhino, but that almost seemed too obvious, so therefore, in itself, boring. I wanted simple and classic, so that is why I went for what I did.

I got raised eyebrows for buying too much, when I thought I’d get brownie points for choice. So many sausages, there was too much to eat in one meal. What was I thinking, so now the (unnecessary) pressure is on to eat all the sausages that were bought before they spoil.

Stupid me.

I tousled Sam’s hair and he rolled his eyes and laughed in equal measure.

The sausages were lovely, we chose the herb and garlic ones. The salad was lovely, the key to a good salad is avocado, I always think. And then the second key ingredient is feta cheese.

I'm hearing the Doctor Who theme music, as a couple run to the Vauxhall in which they make their escape. It speeds off, as something unrecognisable runs out of their house after them.

Out To Dinner

 This Nervous Thing… 

It is probably some need for approval by the great god Ra, or Ismail, or Beelzebub. Hands together, bow, Namaste. Ha ha, kill me now… I’ve got it all wrong and the lord in heaven is gazing down on me with contempt, marking off each transgression with a shot of adrenaline straight into my central nervous system... as he fingers the virgins in his knee. (That's what every other red blooded omnipotent all powerful dictator would be doing) 

Jill says I need to go on anti anxiety pills, she says they have done wonders for her. But, oh… I don’t know. She is on her own, she stress eats and she boredom buys. She doesn’t have much in her life other than food and online buying, other than the care of her 94 year old father. In the last few years her blood pressure has shot up sky high and she has developed type 2 diabetes, as well as obesity. I’m not sure I am the same. I think I am just… 

Apparently, Jill’s 94 year old father wants to die. Rachel said, “Just crush up all his pills and give them to him.” She shrugged. “Easy.” She turned to me. “Crush them all up. Give them to him. Nobody is going to do a postmortem at 94.”

We went to dinner in High Street Armadale with Jill and Rachel. 

Rachel wanted to go to Misty’s Diner, which served deep fried Japanese food, but Jill vetoed it because she wanted to eat something healthier than deep fried food.

"She was eating Hungry Jack's with me last week," I dobbed.

Jill, amazingly was first at the restaurant yes, early. There she was sitting at the circular table on her own as Sam and I scoured the names on the shops for Sushi Sozai. The restaurants in Armadale have very subtle signage, so subtle you can hardly make it out.

Rachel was last to arrive, but only by minutes. 

We ate sushi and sashimi. We ate Agedash tofu. Rachel ate steak but couldn't finish it, so we all helped her. They drank sake and I drank pear cider. We ate green tea ice cream and drank coffee. The deserts weren’t much, otherwise Jill would have ordered them all. I would have encouraged her.

Rachel had her wide-eyed, fixed happy face on when she updated us on her kids. The gorgeous Amy is being stalked by her ex boyfriend who quite possibly deranged. The beautiful Anton has bought himself a motorbike. He is too handsome to be marked coming off a motorbike. The lovely Freida has a bad knee and her youngest, Oliver, has continuing stomach problems. 

Our fat, mutual, pretentious queen friend of ours, David Monsoon, has been on sleeping tablets for 30 years, otherwise he can’t sleep. 

“Oh, he is on some many tablets for whatever,” Rachel said. “I am surprised he doesn’t rattle when he walks.” 

So many people I know have trouble sleeping. None of us had trouble sleeping. There seems to be more and more people who claim not to be able to sleep.

Jill is investigating buying bed-sits and renting them out. She said she is contemplating selling the mountain of shares she has. The two friends of Jill’s who were in dire financial trouble have gone with airb&b and are renting out the second bedroom in their south Melbourne flat and are doing okay. Apparently, the room is taken most nights. Jill made a point of telling us, me, as she suggested I do it with my house but I ignored her, much to her chagrin. She’s not a girl to be ignored.

Jill got a car park right across the road, which was usually the park that I scored. It was a cool night as we walked back to the car, waving good bye to Jill as she waddled to her car. High Street was practically deserted. Rachel was parked down the street a bit, just behind us.

Such a gorgeous blue sky covering the world

Monday

I’ve been feeling that nervous thing again. Anxious, like things are going to go wrong, may go wrong. Wah! I’m sure it is just my version of new job nerves, but it manifests itself as anxiety, or stress, rather than just nerves. Does that make sense? I don’t feel nervous about going to work, as such, I feel some general sense of anxiety about all things in life. Brrrrr! I feel vaguely nervous about all manner of things. I think there is some sort of transference. Nervous smile. I'm nervous about work, which makes me feel generally nervous, to mask the fears about work.

I don’t feel anxious about Sam, or sleep, they are the two things that are never affected. Sam is so lovely... as is sleep. My anchors in life. It is hard to explain. I like it best when I am cuddled up in the doona with Sam, then I feel relaxed. Maybe, it is Vertical disease?

This "nervous" thing seemed to start this year after I took the summer off, when I went back to work at Easter. That was the Tuesday after Easter, I think it was April 09th. I remember going to my first assignment in the city and feeling like I didn't have a clue. What was that, four months off? I guess I should look back and see what was going on around me then. How my aura was? What my vibrations were doing. Maybe there was a crack in my time line continuum?

I've been feeling nervous about my current assignment, I didn't want the weekend to finish. It seemed to pass by so fast and it seemed to be Sunday night in no time. This morning I woke up and it was 6.45am and I felt, kind of, relaxed that I had fifteen minutes to go. I looked over at Sam’s handsome, sleeping face on the pillow and everything seemed calm in the world. I lay there and enjoyed the peace and the quiet. Everything was still. I wondered why every minute of every day couldn’t feel like that? Still and serene, not a care, everything with a feeling of green and the smell of lavender. There is nothing like goose down to sooth the soul.

I know it will pass fairly soon. It is like I have to prove myself to myself all over again... all over again... and over again. It is just tedious. I guess, it is because I have been on holidays and I'm out of the work loop. I have slipped out of my comfort zone into a new reality, a holiday mentality and now I have to reprogram my brain for the 9 to 5 strain. It is just time... time to dumb it down again and join the working world.

Oh it is just annoying really. Stupid me.

The rain falls down on the day almost in a melancholy way. Rain on my window, rain on my face, rain on my tongue, rain all over me

Sunday Cleaning Day

I woke up first just before 8am. I can’t be awake that early, I thought. I don’t have to get up. I rolled over and fell back to sleep again. I am sure I dreamt again, all negative about failing or falling, no need to remember them. I woke up some time later and it felt like it was hours later and I was pleased. Oh I feel so much more rested, I thought.

I go up. Sam continued to sleep. I always try to be the slippery man, the stretchy one, is he out of Xmen? I always try to slither out of bed so smoothly and so quietly, so as to move the bed the least, therefore disturbing Sam as little as possible. He looks so handsome with his head on the pillow, slightly to one side, so angelic, really. My legs slip out from under the doona first horizontally, like an envelope coming out of a letter box slot, then once they are completely clear of the bedding, they bend down at 90 degrees and my feet touch the ground. Then I do one of those B-boy stand straight up from the ankles moves, except my whole body slides out from under the bed clothes in the same move... and stand up. All so I don’t disturb my beautiful boyfriend and so as he can sleep.

If he remains undisturbed, he stays still and quiet. If I wake him, he starts to bleat and grunt, like a baby animal stretching and calling for its mother in the same breath.

This morning, he was silent.

I looked at my watch it said 8.34. Oh, bugger. Really? Just half an hour? What happened to those days when I could sleep until the afternoon, not a problem?

I made coffee and cereal and sat at the coffee table in the lounge room. It was kind of a cool morning, still windy, as the air whined somewhere outside in the trees. But then Buddy was jumping up at the door, unusually as he is a good sleeper too, so I let him in and he came and sat next to me and pushed up against me and kept me warm.

Sam got up sometime later. He arrived with his laptop and sat next to me. I made him coffee, he pointed at the kitchen when I suggested it. He ate ciabatta bread with butter and vegemite, which is quite possibly the nicest thing you can eat for breakfast.

This is day 2 of quitting smoking and I can feel the withdrawal, yes, I can. That unsettled feeling. The “ahhh.” The knots in the back of my neck, in my shoulders... I gather that is withdrawal anxiety? The butterflies in my stomach, I’m sure that is just “want.” That mad rush of desire when, like at the dog park last night, someone lights a cigarette and suddenly I feel like I am missing out, like I am being denied. 

I’ll just ask him for one… he’ll give me one… we are all on the same team, essentially... he wouldn’t deny a brother in need? Just relax, don’t ask any one for anything… back away from the smoker.

Oh, boo hoo, it will be good when this stops.

Sam wanted to clean. His nerd news must have been short today. Oh groan, we had to clean. Sunday afternoon cleaning… it is a sickness, shake of the head. He was very serious about it, my least favourite type of cleaning, with determination. We need a schedule, apparently, and a list. (kill me now)

“Since we are getting new carpet, we need a new shoe off policy…”

“No, I am not agreeing to that,” I replied. I have never been able to buy into that anal shoes off at the front door thing. I’ve always been suspicious of the people who insist on that? Are they germ phobic or mentally deranged, or both? It just isn’t normal. What do you think carpet is for? It is for walking on... you morons.

“Oh yes,” said Sam.

“NO!” I insisted.

I got so over the cleaning. It didn’t take long before I didn’t want to do any more. I turned into a child and moaned. I did vacuum the atrium, the kitchen, the lounge room and the front hallway, the whole down stairs. I did replace the vacuum bag. I did unblock the vacuum hose, which I may, or may not have blocked up in the first place. It was a drag. It was a chore. I hated it. I couldn’t get into it. I got pouty when I didn’t want to do it anymore and Sam insisted. I abandoned my post, in the end, I had no other choice. I lost (good boyfriend) points, I know. 

“I don’t care, you can’t make me!”

Sam was gung-ho, he kept at it like a madman.

Oh, clean, clean, clean. I don’t get it. I don’t get a charge out of it. It just seems like a waste of time, setting yourself up for disappointment. What you clean, just gets dirty again, it is a never ending cycle that you just shouldn’t buy into.

“It is pointless.”

Sam was very impressed with Jill’s cleaning products. She gave me a whole tub of cleaning products that were excess to her needs. Who buys so many cleaning products they have to give them away as the only means of getting rid of them? I tell you it is a sickness and we have become enablers by taking them from her. She can’t stop herself from spending, it gives her meaning in her life, it relieves her boredom. I’m sure it is sexual, like those rogue firemen who go out and light fires…

Sam got stuck into cleaning all the windows, after I had stopped. Oh yes. All the windows, with newspaper and windex, which we have in the traditional blue shade and which we now have in the more modern clear formula also.

I was coerced into window cleaning as, apparently, I had rested by that stage. I cleaned one door and one window above the said door. Then I was done. I have to say they did shine though, with relatively little effort.

I just don’t see cleaning as a fun thing, even with the pleasure of the end results in my head.

Sam spent an awful lot of time glaring at me, through the windows he was cleaning. Every time I looked up. I could hear his brain ticking over. “Does he sweep up? Never sweep up? Does he clean up? Never clean up…” But it isn’t true, I’m good at cleaning, I am house trained, I’m just not that convinced by it. It is just not a good idea to ask me to do such things on day 2 of quitting smoking. Day 2 of quitting smoking is draining, it is hard to get the energy for, well, anything really.

Cleaning? If I think it looks dirty, I’ll clean it up. Just don’t ask me to schedule it.

Finally, I got up on the windows, he was cleaning from the outside, and cleaned the inside. I made cutesy faces at him as I cleaned. It didn’t really endear me to any great extent, but it got more of the windows cleaned. It made him laugh instead of scowl, so that has to be a good thing.

The light faded. The windows gleamed. The day outside fractured into late afternoon. A hint of night started to descend.

We took Buddy for a walk to the French Bakery and bought apple crumble, cheesecake and Portuguese egg tarts. We came home and I made tea and we had afternoon tea cakes on small plates. I think it was Sam’s way of appeasing me after all the nazi cleaning directives.

Over dinner, Sam kept commenting on what lovely windows we have. “Look at those, they look so fresh, so vibrant.” Then he’d slide his bare feet across the kitchen floor tiles and he’d remark how smooth they felt.

Apparently, the home brand floor cleaner I buy is incomparable to Jill’s luxury name brand.

I cooked risotto for dinner. Bacon, leek and mushroom. Yum! Even if I do say so myself. I must make the calamari and lemon one again, that could be my very favourite.

“Have you ever seen such clean windows?” asked Sam. “It is as though there is no glass in those frames at all.”

They left the car parked in the back streets for the afternoon as they shopped in the local boutiques, taking no notice of the parking restrictions put in place to protect the residents

Saturday

I felt tired for the last few days, like that is a surprise. It's only to be expected, really. I wondered about DVT and all that sitting I did on the plane. Should I have taken aspirin? I know, I should have taken more Valium, getting really out of it is really the only way to fly. No, really, it is. The more drugs the more enjoyable the flight it, that is a well known fact.

I wondered if anything would have helped?

This morning was sleep in day, the first since we went back to work, so we slept in until 10am. That’s pretty good, I thought. We had an appointment at The Genius Bar at 11.30am. I thought Sam was going to make it for later in the day. And he said he did, as originally it was 11am. Ha ha.

The immediate problem was coffee, we’d been out of beans since Thursday. Sam didn’t want to come with me, he wanted me to go on my own. I wanted him to come too and I wanted to walk Buddy also. So, without really making a big deal out of it, I simply put Buddy’s harness on him, so he was excited and Sam couldn’t say no to his cute little face. Then the two of us just stood there and looked at Sam.

It worked. The sun was shining.

I bought coffee and ciabatta bread and bananas and butter. I brewed the coffee. I toasted the bread smothered it in butter and then squashed the bananas onto it.   I bought a bag of oranges too, they are a great desert substitute. Good snack food.
So Chadstone? How to get there? My CityLink needed to be toped up, I’d had a “low balance alert” for ages, so I did that before we left. I asked the nice guy at CityLink why I hadn’t had a statement for 12 months. He told me that I got one in July, but they were now online.

“I could make it…something, or something, or something,” to tell you the truth I didn’t listen to what he said. “You just log on using you account number and the same password.”

It is time to embrace everything online. I spend most of my life sitting in front of my laptop. “Thanks. I can look them up online.” Easy I thought.

And I did look it up. Easy. It showed me that it cost nearly $6 to travel along the south eastern freeway. $12 return. I promptly decided not to use CityLink and to use Burnley Street instead.

Is that stingy? $12 is expensive to pay CityLink especially when the South Eastern was an existing road. I put $10 worth of petrol in my car instead.

Chadstone. What a sad place. All those people who can’t think of any better form of entertainment than shopping. All those people who can’t find a more interesting way to spend their time. Spending money, more often that they don’t have, is the only thing they can think of to fill their lives?

Sam’s iPhone developed spots on its digital images. Great. All the photos we took at the end would be spoilt, if I wasn’t a whizz with Photoshop. They replaced the phone.

I looked at a new Cannon SLR 700D in JB. My Cannon Powershot has developed focusing problems. It has been my first non SLR camera and it was always a mistake, I felt. SLR’s have halved in price too.

We ate Indonesian at the group of restaurants up Warrugal Road a bit. Bamboo. The food was great. Yum. I’d recommend it. It is quite different to other Asian food. I reckon is could almost be my favourite.

We visited mum, she is just up the road from Chadstone and the Indonesian restaurant. Sam came with me. He was going to wait in the car, but it seemed a little stupid. He said he’d come in and he met mum for the first time. We took her to her room and sat on her bed and chatted. We didn’t stay for very long, maybe half an hour. Sam told me I was mean not staying for longer. Mum seemed fine. Kind of fine. Fine for someone who has had Alzheimer’s for four years.

We came home and drank coffee, as the afternoon light began to fade. But, I wanted to go out and breath in fresh air, so we too Buddy to the dog park. It was 5pm, there was just enough time, besides it is nice to see the day out, to watch the light fade, to witness another day end, in the middle of an open field surrounded by grass. It is the luxury of winter, seemingly transitioning halfway through the afternoon to night. Pull your collar up, feel the night air blush against your cheek.

We went to woollies or, at least, Sam went to Woolies at the Hive. Buddy and I hung out on the street, rather than waiting in the car, waiting for Sam to come out. Everyone seems to smile at Buddy. We loitered at the doorway for our honey. He came out with bananas, a huge bag for $1.50. Bananas for everyone. I must make a banana cake. What about coconut banana cream pie, I have always wanted to make one ones of those.

We watched TV, Ocean’s 11 and Journey to the Centre of the Earth. Hollywood makes some shit films.

My favourite milk bar on a glorious morning

Trams are Melbourne

Back Into Life

I took photos driving to work, as I did yesterday. I like the contrast between what I have been doing over the last three weeks and what I am doing now. Urban shots of every day life in Vietnam, compared to urban shots of where I live and my life as I live it. It is funny how everything seems so clean in Melbourne when viewed with relatively new eyes. Clean and new. That won’t, of course, last for very long as we very quickly become blind to what is around us and we don't see those things right in front of us. But, while it seems new again, my journey to work can be documented with the images that I see. I like capturing the everyday. I like capturing those small things. I like capturing the everyday happening.

I have to be careful taking shots from the driver’s seat, however, as cars have come up behind me so silently a couple of times, I guess, I have been concentrating. Oops, suddenly there is a set of lights and a grill bearing down on me, like a benign Christine. I am sure, the drivers were thinking, what is this idiot doing? Move! you fucker. Blush. Like I'd be thinking.

I'm documenting life, my friend. Stop and smell the roses… life IS too short.

Get out of the fucking way.

Friday and I am already slipping back into work mode, already settling into those rhythms, the daily grind, sadly. Why wasn’t I that fabulous travel writer as Mark suggests I could be? Morning, day, night, the vibrations are settling where they are, 9 to 5, this is what life is, head down, hold on the first step was a doozie, but it should be all plain sailing from now on. Fingers crossed. 

I felt tried for the first few days. 

I still haven’t managed to quit smoking. I didn’t smoke all day yesterday until I got home, but today I caved and headed out to the shop at morning tea for a gasper. Idiot! Still, there is the weekend to do it. I think it is always easier on the weekend, not so many stresses.

Peak hour traffic

on my way to work

on a gloriously sunny morning

Ready for the Upheaval

Day two and the roads are relatively clear and the driving conditions are good. My car already knows the way to go. As my mum used to like to say, Boom chick, a boom chick.

I got the carpet, $20 a metre for wool carpet. That’s pretty good, I reckon. Everybody I have told, well, the three people I have told, have inhaled at the price and rabbited something about it being suuuuch a good deal.

“Oh you must be sooooo please.” Ernest look. Big smile. Wide eyes.

“Neyh.” I guess, I think to myself. All I can, really, see now is me having to take a day off work and having to spend a night spent removing most of the furniture, hopefully it will only take one night. Oh, all that furniture. Two side boards, including contents of many books in one and much crockery in the other, the oversized coffee table (it is a dining room table that has had its legs chopped down to dwaf size), the otterman, the smaller cabinet and whatever the hell is in that, the potted plants… and then hoping, fingers crossed, the carpet layers can work around my 3 oversized couches. They can’t be removed, not easily, not really. The furniture problem is what has stopped me replacing the carpet up until this point, you know, defeated before I start. So, there is lots of work to be done before I am sooooo pleased. Wide eyes.

It is maintenance, people, that’s what it is. It is not really something new, as such, it is money being extracted as the cost of living. COGS. 

It is simply repairs.

But, I have to say, I am looking forward to that first pad across the new fibres with my bare toes, that should be lovely. I wonder if it will shed endlessly like new wool carpet can sometimes? I am pleased, of course. Recently, a friend of Mark’s came to the house for the first time and I have to say that I felt a twinge of embarrassment, for the first time.

I have to say, it has been pretty simply thus far. I just have to send a cheque and the deal is done. And, “Post us a cheque and the deal is done.” Old school. Lovely.

Oh, it doesn’t seem real yet, something crossed off my five year list. The five year list is the slowest of all the lists, not so many things get put on it and not so many come off. However, I’m finally giving up my rags in my Pygmalion moment. 2013, the rain in Spain… We'll be all new again, like Joan Rivers, shiny and lovely again, except, of course, carpet doesn't shine, so, we will be all matte and lovely again. If you will excuse the pun.

Historic building in Abbotsford, now apartments, of course

The back streets of Abbotsford

My father was the king of the backstreets, something he taught me

Back At The Salt Mines

Work, work, work. I'm back at a company I worked for earlier in the year. Nothing much had changed, well, it has only been a few months, really and nothing changes that fast, no matter how much we may like to blame our stress on such things. In fact, the work that I did for them hadn't progressed since the last time I worked for them. I am, actually, taking up where I left off... kind of.

I’m not complaining, at least I know what I am doing straight up. It is just an observation. We all blab on about the wonderful technology and the amazing advancements, but in all reality, those things are as flawed as the humans that set them up and use them.

I managed to get through the morning without a cigarette, but at lunchtime I caved in. Oh well, after smoking on holidays it is two steps forward and one step back with the return quitting. I kind of hit the home ground with the best of intensions, stumble a few times, bounce, fall over and then I quit, if not before, by the weekend. It is like Little Toot and all that “I think I can,” stuff, not really knowing if I really can, and then I have.

Sam is not happy about my smoking, he punches me every time I light one up. So, a couple of days, as they say.

I ran into the HR director in the car park when I got there this morning and he said, "You know you are Mr Popularity around here, it wasn't so much the job as we all just wanted you back." So, you know, that was kind of nice... and I like them too, so it is, kind, of mutual.

I was told, later in the morning, that they will probably want me till the end of January. Yay. The end of January, I thought? Goodness me, all that work. Yay. Just be positive, Christian, that was my next thought. Oh yes it was. Yay. How many months is that? Fingers. One, two , three… I've got to be that glass half full man, you know. Wonderful! How many months is that until I can loll around the lounge room with Buddy pissing the time away? Six months. Six months shouldn’t kill me?

Last year, when I worked in Collins Street with Chuckles for five months it began to feel interminable in the end. But, I am sure, that was mostly because of Chuckles sparkling personality. Dour bitch.

Up at 7am, iron a shirt, prepare my lunch box (actually, my lovely boyfriend does that for me) get in the car, negotiate the morning traffic, arrive at 8.30, be smiley, be fun, work till 5pm, drive home, cook dinner (my lovely boyfriend does that for me too) clean up the kitchen, go to bed at a time that the schedule dictates. Repeat. For six months. Every day. Big smile. Be happy. Woo Hoo, fists punching the air.

And, you know, after all of my carry on, I know, work is, actually, beneficial. Oh yes, big sigh, it is true. It socialises you, it engages your mind, it takes you out of the house, and out of yourself and it is, actually, easier to work than to stress about having no money. I think it is far less damaging to one’s psyche. Work.