Dishonest Corporate Culture, or Just Something Different For Brekky

I went to Coles and to get muffin ingredients and cereal for the week, as I was out of muesli, but I felt like something different to muesli just for a change. How many years have I eaten homemade muesli and finally I am sick of it? I just couldn’t face it. You know when you think of something and your stomach just says no to you. That is what happened, I was somewhat surprised. It has been my staple breakfast for longer than I can remember.

I stood in the cereal aisle and looked at the cereals intending to choose something nice and sweet and sugary. White chocolate blocks with cranberries. Mixed fruit sugar puffs with freeze dried strawberry essence. Pistachio praline fingers with woven wheat pillows and honey. You know the kind of thing? However, while I was standing there, at least, five people walked up, pretty girls, not that that counted for too much with me, and they all got a box of Weetabix. One, two, three, four, five. One after the other. Maybe the universe was trying to tell me something, I thought, and I got Weetabix too. 

I’ve been eating them all week with honey, and they are lovely. 

Real honey, well as far as you can tell what is real honey. I mean, you can’t trust any big corporations claims now a days, especially food companies. They all lie. The whole honey scandal is outrageous. We think we are buying pure honey and most of it turns out not to be. But, the label says it is pure honey.

We need legislated food labelling, that is now clear. Self regulation simply doesn't work.

Of course, then the labelling lobby groups will pay off the politicians and we probably won’t be any better off. But, you know, you have got to try, now don’t you.

Meeting Up With An Old School Mate

I stumbled across the email address of my best mate from school, Andrew, and in a moment of 'think it, do it' madness, [thank you David] I sent him an email. 

A number of years ago, my school boyfriend, from years 11 and 12, and a year after we left school, Alex, died and I have never known how he died. (I have written about him previously) 

I asked Andrew that question, the subtext for which he is unaware, at present. 

Andrew and Alex both remained involved in the school over the years since we left, on committees and what have you. Alex got married and had sons, Andrew has sons, they sent them to our school, of course, so I knew Andrew would know the details of Alex's death.

Andrew was blown away, said he had never wanted to lose touch with me. He said he knew the answer to the question but he would only answer the question once I was sitting in front of him drinking coffee with him. He gave me all his numbers to contact him. 

But now, I have had some time to think about it, I seem to have lost my nerve, stupidly.

I haven't seen Andrew since we left school.

Despite the fact that I live a completely ‘out’ life in everything that I do, meeting up with my old school buddy seems like coming out all over again. Not to mention telling him about Alex and me. Which I intended to do. 

But, Andrew, if I was so important, why didn’t you keep in contact?  I know why I didn’t keep in contact? Being gay. But why didn’t you. If you never meant to lose contact?

(Yeah, I know, life happens)

Yesterday, and today, were my days off and I was supposed to phone Andrew to meet up, but I wimped it. Stupid me. So stupid really, Andrew is a lovely guy and he will only react in a positive way, I would think. It is just an energy drain, I feel exhausted by it before I have even tried.

Not to worry, I'll get my mojo together about it shortly. I want to see the look on his face. Actually, I only really wanted the answer to the question, what happened to Alex? But, if I have to find out the difficult way, by exposing myself, so to speak, I guess I can do that too.

I started walking again and I found out why the traffic has been bananas in Fitzroy lately, Nicholson Street is shut down for tram track replacement.

I be lying if meeting up with an old school mate wasn't the inspiration for getting out there and exercising my fat arse.

The blue sky was gorgeous. Working again threw my exercise routine. I've been thinking about it for weeks, just getting back into it.

Orange Triumph motor bike, cool isn't it.

Sometimes When I Wee

Sometimes when I wee, at the very moment the wee is about to leave me, I can be transported back to the very moment I was woken as a child as I wet the bed in the night. It is like a momentary black out, a transportation, or a dream, it is really weird. I come to and it is me as an adult standing there having to justify to myself that it is okay to piss.

It happened today at work. It is really off-putting. A momentary lapse. A waking hallucination. A break in the time line continuum. I am back there in bed as a child unable to stop myself from wetting the bed, momentarily. Shake of the head.

I don't know what demons are at work there. Some, I presume.

Sense8

I'm liking Sense8. It's a bit slow but, thinking about that, it is a good thing. I felt hooked from the beginning.

They played the song What's Up by 4 Non Blondes. I love that song, I played it as I stepped out the front gate on Monday morning, it put a spring in my step. Try it.
I listened to the rest of the 4 Non Blondes music.

We've seen the cute German guy's cock, he with his blond hair and blue eyes and cute smile. And the cute Spanish guy in his undies, a bit to neat in his undies though. You need to be a bit dirt in your undies. We've just got to see the cute American guy and the cute African guy undressed.

I'm liking Netflix.

Trump's America

Getting Wood

I was up at 7.30am. 

I am totally and utterly addicted to my laptop. When I write stuff about people being obsessed with their phones, remember that. Every move I make, practically, involves my laptop. The first thing I do when I get up in the morning is switch it on, the first thing I do when I come home in the afternoon is switch it on, the last thing I do in the day is switch it off. I hardly have an hour at home unless it involves my laptop. I don’t remember a time when my laptop wasn’t the focus of my life. (Well, I do, that is why I am writing this, I guess) I don’t really remember that other life. What did I do with my time? My laptop is my sole focus.

Of course, I do switch it off from time to time. I do leave it occasionally.

We took Buddy to the dog park. I think there was a Keeshond there. We thought it was a cream coloured Chow, (from a distance) to add to the other, lovely, chows that come to the dog park, but no blue tongue, when we got closer. It was very excitable and playful.

We walked out the back of the dog park with Buddy cooperating somewhat, translation he only rolled onto his side and stuck his legs in the air and refused to go once, after that he was good. Once he gets used to a new way, he is fine, but to start with a new route is not to his liking. Oh no. We walked around Brunswick Street, Johnson Streets and back up our street, so we all get some exercise instead of standing in the middle of the reserve.

The sun shone. It was a nice morning.

So, I’d organised from where to get the some more wood, but we had to go and pick it up ourselves. In all the ringing around, I realised the big, wog guy is not over charging for his wood. Good to know. Well, you can never be too sure now a days.

We got to Keon Park just after midday. It looked like the place you’d go to buy your meth, or get your grandma's car re-birthed, after you’d removed it from the garage in her first year of her dementia without telling the rest of the family, to pay for your meth. GTI hatchbacks are meant to be doing 200ks on an autobahn, not used as mules to cart wood, but we loaded it up with wood none the less.  It is the only car we have. Jill suggested hiring a ute from Bunnings, but Jill would suggest that.

When we were done the guy running to place asked, “So how much do you think you got?”

I said, "Dunno."

He said, “Make it $80 then.”

I should have said, “$50 worth.” He may have just come at it, who knows? I never think fast enough to do such things. We are all too self-conscious. What is it they say, fortune favours the bold. But I didn’t think of that until we were half way to Preston.

We ate dumplings in High Street Preston. Sam went in to order and the food usually takes some time. There was a chemist Warehouse across the road, which I saw from the restaurant door, and I needed a script filled, which I had with me but had left in the car. We parked a fair way up a side street and I went back to the car to get my script. It started raining as soon as I got to the car and I had to run all the way back to High Street in the rain. It was that kind of rain that just got harder and harder the more I ran in it and there was not shelter to be had from it. It felt like I was never going to get out of it. (Still, the rest of the country is in drought so can't complain too much)

Chemist Warehouse was soooo slow. The customers just seemed to be pushing in all the while, despite having beepers. I wasn't sure if it was because of the slow service, or the state of mind of the customers? I’ve never waited so long for a script to be filled.

The dumplings were heading towards cold by the time I got back to Sam sitting at a table full of food. Lovely though none the less.

I looked in Cash Converters for CDS, speaking of addictions. They had none I wanted. Sam shopped for food in the Preston Market while I looked. Then we rendezvoused back at one of the Chinese shop in High Street where Sam bought roast pork for dinner.

We got cat food at the pet shop in High Street. The cute son was there. The father had to get us the large bag of cat food out the back. Several times the cute son asked, “Is he still getting it out for you.” I couldn’t help but think, I wish you’d get it out for me.

We parked in front of a white 205 GTI. I told Sam I wanted to buy one. He said it was awful. No accounting for taste.

The traffic on High Street was bad, what a surprise. Saturday is peak hour now a days, no fucker stays home any more. The traffic everywhere in Melbourne's inner suburbs is bad. (Thank you Matthew Guy for ruining the city) I can already hear the politicians in a few years, when the inner suburbs of Melbourne are in gridlock on the weekends and we don’t even crack it for the last place on the world’s most liveable city. “Oh yeah, we got the planning wrong in the early 2000s, didn’t we?” They’ll say sipping cocktails from their property developers resorts. “We could have done that better.”

So, we sneaked around the back way. Stott Street, Herbert Street, Westbourne Grove, Park Street, (I think you could also go Dalziel Lane. I’m looking at google maps now, normally I am just speeding along not at all concerned what the street is called, just as long as we keep moving forward) Charles Street, momentarily and then back onto Park Street, (Oh, it looks like South Park Street. Who wouldn’t want to live in South Park Street) Left onto Westgarth Street. (This is where you can encounter some traffic, but don’t worry you are not on Westgarth Street for long) Right onto Rucker Street, (left onto Cunningham, right onto McLachlan Street) if the traffic on Westgarth is bad, otherwise keep going to McLachlan Street, down to Walker Street (don’t go up Cunningham Street, it will take you no where you want to go) Walker Street will take you a round about way back to High Street, and then you turn right. (It looks like Phillips Court turning into Hales Court will also get you to High Street, but I haven’t gone that way) And then there is usually no traffic after from there. Traffic avoided. It is the intersection of Westgarth and High Street that causes all the traffic. What they have done to the street there at the shops is ludicrous. It is the problem that really needs to be fixed. 

So, that is the way you can speed through the back streets of Thornbury/Northcote to avoid the shitty traffic problems on High Street.

Sam asked me why he always felt exhausted driving with me.

“Because there are so many fools to straighten out on the road,” I reply. Every second driver seems to be an idiot. I blame the 50 kph, 40 kph, speed limits. Drivers are now so confused they default to 40 kph. It is really annoying.

It was raining on and off.

Home by 3pm. We lit a fire, naturally. What else do you do when you have new wood?

We started watching An Awfully Big Adventure, a Hugh Grant film I bought in St Marks op-shop on Thursday, but it was dreadful and I fell asleep and Sam turned it off.

We ate roast port and Bok Choi for dinner.

Sam watch something dreadful on the development of batteries for the new world energy requirements. (I should be interested in this, it is the future, after all)

We watched Sense8. There are cute boys in Sense8. Sam was glued to his iPad and he told me to choose. Buff American boy, German boy, Spanish boy, and African boy, what is there not to like.

Any Distraction Will Do

I was going to write all day. It was wet and cold, perfect day for it. However, somehow, I got to watching What's My Line on Youtube all afternoon. So easily distracted. And the worst part is that I have seen them all before. 

Any distraction will do.

Interestingly, they had on a lovely smiley woman whose occupation was Gorilla Hunter. And that seemed to be perfectly acceptable occupation. 1956, how times have changed. John Daly asked her when she was going on her next hunt and if she wanted to take the panel with her. It gave me chills, to tell you the truth.

I do love the 1950s though, oh, except for the rampant racism, the crushing misogyny and the life destroying homophobia, the unquestioned religion, and the reputation destroying prudishness. And then there were the terrible diets, the archaic medicines, the poor public health and inferior longevity, and the crushing poverty for the poor. Oh yes, and the beginnings of the destruction of the planet with it rampant, uncheck industrialisation.

I do love the 1950s… on the surface. The glitz and the glamour. The cars. The style. The full skirts.

Witches Tit Cold

I waved Sam goodbye before 8am. Day to myself. I love Thursdays.

It was a freezing day, though, but we were nearly out of fire wood, and I wasn’t sure when we’d be getting any more, so I put on an extra jumper instead of lighting a fire. I still had cold toes. It wasn’t the same thing.

Despite the theory of getting a load at the end of winter so it dries out completely over summer, I’d let the wood get low, it had been getting warmer. Okay, I’m slack.

And then big wog boy (some people may think that that expression is an insult, but it isn’t in the gay community. In fact, it is a compliment, desirable, if anything) who usually delivers my wood, couldn’t do anything until Tuesday. He was only delivering tomorrow and then he was away all weekend. I reckon he’d taken the weekend off due to the warmer weather – out snorting cocaine with mates, up the snow, or something. I have no idea what he was doing, of course, but I have found that is what big (he is big and muscular,) wog boys like to do on their days off – and then the cold snap caught him out. (Am I over thinking it?)

It has been warm, it really has. (You got to love some aspects of global warming) I really thought I could feel spring coming in, dare I say even a hint of summer to come, but suddenly it got cold these last few days. Bitterly, witches tit cold, surprisingly.

We ate leftover Japanese curry for lunch with fried egg.

It was cold all day and wet.

The first day of my weekend always feels great. Calm. Relaxed. Nothing to do. How life should be. I headed down to Smith Street to put my TattsLotto on. I need a Porsche, a beach house and 5 million dollars. I sniffed around the op shops. I bought a George Michael single.

I tried to organise firewood in the afternoon without much luck.

I made a banana cake with the bananas I had stolen from work. We get a fruit basket every day and I took bananas on Monday but forgot to eat them, so instead of leaving them on my desk at the end of the day I threw them in my bag and took them home. So, on Wednesday when the fruit bowl was replenished, I took more bananas, but this time with the intent of taking them home. Yes, okay, it is hardly in the spirit of the fruit bowl, but it is a once off, I won’t be taking bananas every week.

We ate fried rice for dinner.

I stayed up until midnight writing my Other Blog.

Sleeping Beauty

 

Where's Your Emergency?

I was crossing the road outside the old fire station. The road was clear, it was kind of quiet this morning. I was nearly across the road to the tram stop when some guy in a Toureg came around the corner drove up behind me and tooted me because I hadn’t quite completed crossing the road, , despite him having, perhaps, less than100 metres to a red light.

Really, I thought?

He stopped at Albert Street lights. I walked along the tram stop in the middle of the road. I caught up with him.

I couldn’t resist. “That got you a long way, didn’t it mate,” I said. 

He wound down his window, “I’m sorry.”

“That got you a long way, hey?” 

“So why don’t you get off the fucken road so we can drive you fucken, moron,” he said. Angry as you like. Not even 8am.

The light changed to green. 

“Buddy, where’s your emergency?” I asked.

He drove off.

"I hope you die of a stroke someday, today," I called after him, but he was well out of earshot.

There was no one else on the tram stop, don't worry. I wasn't sounding the same as him, oh, well, I was sounding the same as him, but there was no one there to hear it. You know, the tree falling in the forest...

Beware of the Irish Bearing Gifts

The doorbell sounds in the afternoon. Buddy gets there before me and snuffles and scratches at the bottom of the door. He is kind of loud to anyone listening from the outside.

I open the door and the guy in white overalls has retreated to the gate.

He says something about Buddy.

“He won’t hurt you,” I say.

I walk out to the gate.

“I’ve been working in the street this week and I have been noticing your roof...”

What was it that I heard, be careful of Irish roof plumbers coming to the door and offering to do work uninvited? They've been ripping off the old and the unaware. Good thing I read newspapers, I guess.

“Oh yes.”

“See how the iron on your roof…”

“Where are you working?” I ask. Good question to flush out the cheats, I think.

“The white house.” He points in the distance.

There are a number of white houses. “Which White House?” I ask.

“Mr Caulfield, I’m working For Mr Caulfield, down the road.”

“So, you said, what house was that again?”

“The one with the scaffolding, you may have seen it there this week.”

No, I didn’t.

I was hopeful when he came to the door, concerned about my roof which needs some work, I thought maybe someone cared. Really? I didn't think this was the guy, though.

“See the bump?”

No.

“See the lump?”

No.

“See how your roof bows?”

No.

“Well it shouldn’t do that?”

“Do what?”

“It should be straight.”

How stupid does he think I am. I was kind of exciting, though, having the enemy standing right in front of me.

“I could get my boys to have a look.”

“How much did you say?”

“We would film it.”

“Film it?” Goodness my, why on earth would you film it, you charlton?

“To show you what’s given way.”

“How much did you say?”

“As it turns out my boys are free. Free today.”

“What about Mr Caulfield?” How long was I going to toy with him?

“We’ve almost finished doing him…” over... “his job.”

And that Irish accent. “How much?”

“Usually, it would be 15.50, but the special price for you today is 900.”

15.50, I think. How much is that? Oh, that’s thousands. He means $1550 dollars to have my roof inspected.

“It is up to you,” he says. “Just say the word.”

Nice move, make me think I am getting a good deal. But $900 just to get my roof inspected? That still seems an awful lot for an inspection. “I’ll call you,” I say. “If I want you to do it.”

You big fat pig. You are a liar and a cheat, I think, as I head back inside.

“I’m just here to help,” he says.

Oh please. I give a withering smile. What tradie ever says he is just here to help? Really? Too funny. I try not to laugh at him.

Sunday

Sunday. House cleaning day and grocery shopping day. What a good way to fuck up a Sunday.

The sun shone, it was a lovely day, so there is that. We took Buddy to the dog park. The Crazy Spud Lady was there with Spud the dog, so we avoided her. The grass was verdant green in the gorgeous morning sun. The  Crazy Spud Lady standing in the middle of the park. What was she wearing on her head? Was it a turban? It was a cross between a rag and that crazy gingham head towel that the Arabs wear. It gave her the look of someone whose head was being held together with a bandage. She had on a shapeless coat, so the whole style was Crazy Spud Lady meets scarecrow, all that was missing was the cross strapped to her back. And the limbs akimbo pose. Sam was all for avoiding her altogether, but I said, "Don't be afraid," and we said hello as we passed her by and that was that. She can make your ears bleed with the nonsense that comes out of her mouth that is for sure, but the trick is just don't stop walking and you'll be fine, say hello and everyone is relatively happy.

I listened to John Farnham on my headphones as I vacuumed the house.

We walked to Richmond and ate Hoi An food. We ordered too much and felt revoltingly full by the time we left.

We shopped for groceries and lugged four green bags home full of produce like mules, a bag slung over each shoulder.

We watched Loving Vincent, the painted movie, painted in Vincent van Gogh style. It was good, lovely really. Armand Roulin, the main character was gorgeous. It is the second time, after Archer, that I have found an animated character hot.

Ghosts

 

Work Shorts

 

Shark

 

The Genius Of The Rightwing, The Suppository of Wisdom

You can't put pig on a lipstick - George Christensen

Whose The Prime Minister

“Oh, darling, we gave it a good shot,” said Lucy. She straightened his collar and adjusted his tie and brushed the tear from his eye. “Now be a good boy and call an election.”