Summer Slowly Seeps Away

It's cold. My feet are cold. The summer is slowly draining out of the year, I can feel it in my toes, sitting here sockless in my dressing gown. My coffee warms me, my muesli milk cools me. I have to get ready to go to work. Tick, tick, tick  the time is slipping away.

8.02, sadly I really have to hustle along. How I'd like to sit here for the rest of the day. It is always amazing how time seems so much more delicious when it is meant for another purpose. I've got almost fifteen minutes before I have to go. Eleven, to be exact, in an inexact measure  And I am still not dressed. I still haven't finished my coffee. Bugger.

Groan. Gotta go. Work, work, everybody has got to work. Otherwise, how do the billionaires make another billion, if the little people don't do their little jobs? I ask you? And as One Term Tony Abbott Captains the SS Australia deftly back to the 1950s we'll all be working longer, so it would seem, and for less pay if One Term Tony has his way, to make the rich richer, to make all of the Liberal Party's financial supporters a bucket load of extra cash.

Sleeping Buddy

Buddy has slept with me for the last two nights. Well, he was alone, I was alone. I can't sleep unless there is somebody snoring next to me. Ha, ha. The two of them sound alike when they snore in sleep. They do, just the same.

Although, a snoring partner doesn't keep me awake. I can fall asleep listening to Sam snoring, I really don't know what all the fuss is about.

Buddy was awake when I woke up. His big, brown eyes gazing over at me. They both have big, brown eyes. They look at me adoring, in almost the same way. It's lovely. (Sam doesn't quite drool the same, though)

They are both nicer than me, sweeter with sunnier dispositions, but I'm the funny one.

I guess Buddy should sleep in his kennel tonight, tomorrow is a work day. Still, it is nice to wake up with him. He is such a teddy bear. Smile.

Contented Buddy

As the Guitar Gently Strums in the Background...

I lit my first fire for the year. That first burn, it goes off like a rocket from all the debris that has been thrown into the hearth over summer.

The back French Doors are open and the cool breeze is blowing in swirling the hot air from the fire around the room, like the heat is being gently folded through the breeze. I’m smoking pot and writing my journals.

I’m having my very own Better Midler Festival, playing all her albums from start to finish, every one of them, first track to the last.

I'm good at being on my own. I've always been happy in my own company. I always have something to do, that I never feel like I get time otherwise to do.

Just as well, Buddy has deserted me for the comfort of the pillows of my bed. I’ve retrieved him twice, with the words, I need one of my guys around me, but he doesn’t stay. Lazy couch potato bulldog.

I ate hot cross buns and two ice creams, I bought a box.


I'm having a Bette Midler festival, playing her albums from the first to the last, right the way through

And I have just made a Patti La Belle mixed tape on iTunes, it took me all afternoon. All the songs I don’t have on any of her albums, and the remixes as well.

Could I get any gayer?

Two Weeks

Sam left for Indonesia for two weeks to visit his family. I drove him to the airport fairly late, for a midnight flight. It was a rush in the end, when he checked his ticket to find he was leaving at 12am and not 1am, as he first thought.

Malaysian Airlines, through KL. Don't think I have been a little worried about it.

We kissed each other and told one another that we loved each other, right in front of the security guard, at the 5 min drop off. I'm guessing we did nothing that the security guard hasn't seen before. It is a modern world, after all.

I played, Amy Winehouse, Valarie, as I headed back down the freeway towards home.

Two weeks. I'll miss him. Perhaps, it is good that I am working for the next two weeks? Maybe? Sometimes coming home to an empty house, is worse than being in an empty house all day.

Sorry

Sorry. So many people now a days say sorry. Automatically, for any infraction, or perceived infraction.  You know, when you walk through a door, when they step out onto the footpath next to you, when you walk past each other in the street, picking up caramels from the bench next to me in the Milk Bar, they just naturally say sorry. "Oh sorry."

Of course, there is nothing wrong with saying sorry, many a Prime Minister has been reluctant to say it.

But what is it a sign a sign of? I don't know. That we are living in fear. When do you say sorry? When you are avoiding a confrontation. Why would you do that, because you are afraid... or some essence of that. It seems to becoming the default position of human beings now a days. Oh sorry.

I so often have the response in my head to someone who says sorry to me. "What are you sorry for?" Just for their very existence, it would seem. Ha, ha, I exaggerate. 

But have you noticed?

Somethings it seems to be the most bizarre thing. We just walked past each other, that's all we did.

Not that it really means anything, I guess. I just remember a time when people would have said hello, or how are you going, instead. Or did I dream my childhood?

Old images

I love restoring old photos, it is my very favourite thing to do. This photo was fucked. It was scanned from an old slide and the image was covered in dirt. Two days on photoshop and it has come up quite nicely.

It is a shame I can't make a profession of it, restoring old images.

It is a cute picture of the baby, who I think is my brother Will. I'm not sure as that isn't my mother. She was much more beautiful than that, with black hair and blue eyes. I think that is my mother's life long friend Joan, but I'm not sure.

It's funny, us three kids all have different coloured eye. My brother's are blue like my mother's, my sisters are brown and mine are green.

Work from Home

I’d love to work as a job as an image repairer. Work from home and all that. Of course, it would most likely result in RSI, it gets that way now, sometimes. After cleaning images all day, I end up with an aching hand and arm.

I was reading an article about not working as a wage slave. It said we should all start a business and a website is a good way to earn money 24/7 rather than 8 hours a day. 

I messaged Sam and said we should open a website design business, that he should teach me - being a computer programmer, web designer, himself - how to do it and with his guidance I could run it, until it makes money and then he could quit work and join me at home on our laptops side by side in our home office. 

Surely, it must be a growth industry. I would guess that more and more people will want web sites.

Sam's response was that I should study a programming and web design first, as there was so much information to learn. That I could do it on line there were a lot on offer. He could give me pointers on what courses I should do.

Oh? I thought. I guess that means he's not so keen? It sounded like a good idea, too. "I'm smart," I told him, to which he gave me one of "those" looks.

"I know you are smart, honey, but you know nothing about computer programming."

Something Horrific

I left at midday, to have lunch with my old boss, Beck, in the city. It felt unseasonably warm, overcast, humid; an oddly hot and cold sort of day, as though we were in for a change, of some sort. I took  off my jeans and put on my shorts before I left. I'm a bit of a sweater and I didn't want to be all sweaty when I got there, after walking from Fitzroy to King Street.

As I walked down Collins Street, a man came the other way with tattooed shins and calves, as though he had black knee length socks tattooed on his legs. It looked so odd, probably the weirdest tattoo I'd seen. I couldn't help but stare, but then I guess somebody with that kind of tattoo wants people to look.

Two sixty-something year old women walked out of Collins Place and were heading straight towards me, right in front of me. They were kind of leaning into each other as they walked and talked, as if they were complicit in something. The one on the right, with menopausal henna hair and a nylon bag with a cane handle, looking straight at me, said, “What happened in front of me last week was,” she looked at her friend. “Horrific.”

Then they passed me, gone passed my left ear. Swish. Out of sight.

No! I spun around. You can’t do that, I wanted to call out. What happened? What was horrific? What? Tell me!

But they were gone.


I considered following them, but wondered if they’d have me arrested. You know, if horrific things had already happened... in front of her.

I Cooked for Everyone

The guys came over, David, Anthony, Sebastian and Jane. Jane's a girl, of course, not James using his "girlie" name, or anything.

I made risotto and an orange cake. It's all apart of me being a good host. Originally, we were all going out for dinner, as you do. But then I "manned" up and offered to cook. Sam prepped the ingredients for the risotto. 

I can't do meat and veg, or things that all need to be cooked for different lengths of time but still, some how, mysteriously end up on the plate at the same time, hot, ready, that just spins my head. That's a secret that I've never been let in on. I'm more of a one dish kind of guy - risotto, lasagne, pasta, stir fry (although that is Sam's speciality) roasts, you know, that kind of thing.

Anthony arrived in the middle of the afternoon reeking of alcohol. I guessed he had fallen off the wagon. He said an auntie of his had died and it was that that made him reach for a drink. Stupidly, as we were buying the white wine for the risotto, I suggested we get a bottle of red to scoff while I was cooking. I know, stupid me, I just don't think sometimes. I guess I don't need to add that Anthony took to the idea with enthusiasm.

Anthony carried the wine home, letting me carry everything else with no offer of a hand. I could have asked, I know, but I didn't.

I was going to cook chicken and mushroom risotto until I remembered that David is allergic to mushrooms. This cooking thing is trickier than you think. I made chicken and asparagus risotto instead.

I had started with the orange cake first when David called to tell me he'd be half an hour late and to tell me that Sebastian was coming, who is gluten intolerant and not happy when we forget the fact.  Oh well, no cake for him. But, David said he had a packet of gluten free biscuits at home which he thought had one last vanilla biscuit in it. Laugh. You should have seen Sebastian's face when we presented it to him garnished with an orange segment. It's alright, Sebastian loves doing that sort of stuff to other people. He's not so good with it being done to him... though, usually. But he managed to smile... in the end.

It all turned out well. It seems that I can cook a meal for six. Yay me, who'd have thought. Anthony headed back to the super market and got more wine and got really smashed and had to sleep it off. But, other than that, and the gluten free issue, it all turned out really well.

I’m Trying To Be A Good Host

I pissed around all morning, reading the Lost Gay Melbourne page on Facebook. It was amazing how addictive it was, I couldn't look away. So many photos, so many faces. I wondered if I should post some old photos of my own, as I have consistently taken photos over the years. But, I didn't post any photos.

Jane has come to stay for the week, which is always nice. She is doing some study, finishing some of the subjects of her qualification in Kinesiology. She has taken a week off work to get back into it.

I made lasagne for dinner. It was always one of my favourite things to cook, not that I have made it lately. meat sauce. Cheese sauce, bang it in the oven. My mum taught me all the intricacies of sauces and cooking as a teenager 14 to 16 years of age. I loved to cook on the weekends with her. Then, I discovered the mind numbing reality of nightly meals when I moved out of home, which proved to be one of the great disappointments in life... and I stopped cooking. 

I am trying to be a good host, you know, give them clean sheets and cook for them too. I give them clean sheets, don't you worry about that, but I don't usually cook for my guests. And since I can cook, I decided that I should change my ways and rustle up some dinner. So, I made lasagne... toe dipped back in the cooking water. That's what people do, isn't it? Normal people? Sam wanted to know where the salad was. Oops, I could have done that.

There has always been a part of me that felt sad about aspiring to be "normal," but in this instance, I felt no shame. And as my old queen neighbour Gordon would say, the lasagne was a triumph. Ha ha, normal, I joke. I'll be wanting to get married next.

Red MGA In The City

 

Climate Change Sceptic

Recently, I spent some time with my brother, which, I have to admit, I don't do very often. There is nothing wrong with my brother, although we probably couldn't be more different. He lives in Queensland with his wife and kids, which is the main reason I don't see him very often.

We don't really have a whole lot in common, he's more John Howard and I am more Julia Gillard, if you know what I mean? Still, he is fine and generally we get on okay.

We were driving home after being out, chatting away, when he told me he was a climate change sceptic. It is not often that I am lost for words, but on this occasion I was. He is a scientist or, at least, he studied science at university, not that he really works in that field now. He went on to give me his reasons for thinking the way he thinks and I remained stunned into silence.

"But surely, the huge amount of evidence from scientific research points towards man mad climate change as being real?" I said.

"No it doesn't," he replied. "The research is inconclusive. They haven't proved conclusively that anything man has done has caused climate change."

I suddenly felt like I was being driven home by Tony Abbott. I was quite amazed by him, and not in a good way.

He has a touch of the Tony Abbott's about him, actually. He's married with three daughters. There is no doubt in my mind that he votes Liberal.

He is very conservative in his thinking.

I have never specifically discussed me being gay with him. My mum told me once, though, that he said my sexuality was all in my head. Whatever that means? I responded to this, to my mum, by saying that all people's sexuality is "all in their heads."

I guess there is a reason why people live in Queensland.

No Sam, Don't Go

Sam is going overseas at easter on Malaysian Airlines flying through Kuala Lumpur. He booked it before... Do you think I am just a little concerned about this? I'd have to admit that I am. A-ha.

I even said to him that he should change airlines, but he told me not to be stupid. 

"Fly Qantas," I said.

"I already have a ticket... you are being ridiculous."

I guess I don't have to tell you that I am more than a bit interested in MH370. OMG! Could you imagine crashing into the sea? The wild, thrashing open ocean? It sends a shiver up my spine thinking about it.

Now, I am going to worry about him the whole time that he is away. I know it is stupid, but... it makes it hard when I read about the missing plane every day. How do I not think about it?

Wolf of Wall Street

We went to see Wolf of Wall Street, Sam, David and I. It was great, really very funny. We laughed out loud. Leonardo Dicaprio is such a good actor. The rest of the cast was good too.

Supposedly a true story, the excess' of their world were truly mind boggling. It was like living every day at Mardi Gras.

The only fault I would mention, and maybe I am wrong, but the scene where they travel from Italy to Monaco where the boat is swamped by huge seas, in what would have to have been the Mediterranean, I doubt would occur. I don't think the Mediterranean is subject to weather like that. But, maybe I am wrong and maybe that is just artistic license?

Oliver

I don't generally watch Rules of Engagement, but occasionally I see it. I quite like watching it from time to time, as I have a bit of a thing for Oliver Hudson. Goldie's son, Kate's brother. He's very nice.

The gay perve in me admits that I'd like to see him in his undies. I admit it, I'd like to see that. I also admit to googling just that, not that it really got any results. What a very sexy man he is. Not necessarily sexy in the gay underwear model kind of way, although as I have just said, I'd like to see him give it a go, but sexy in the solid husband material type sexy way. He's got the cutest grin.

And I love the name Oliver too.

How We Spent Our Long Weekend

I was awake early. I still had the headache from last night. I tossed and turned. I looked at my watch, it was 7am. Damn. Exhale. I got up.

I made coffee and cleaned up the kitchen. I had got the back door key and was just about to slide the key into the lock of the back door, when Sam came through the lounge door.

We both stepped out onto the back veranda and bent down to peer into Buddy’s kennel. He’d built his mattress wall, it must have been cold last night. He came straight out of his house, of course he did, Sam was there.

“Oh Favourite, good morning.”

Sam made the music choices very difficult, as he was determined for us to listen to some streamed music. A good song, followed by four that become incrementally more annoying with each one.

We sat at our twin laptops, with a bulldog lying in between.

The morning was cold and full of shadows. It was cold, it was wintery cold rather than summery cold. I know summer just ended and that Autumn has just started, but it, actually, felt like it. Funny, huh? The shadows seemed to close in around us, the SS Bliss.

Are we just a couple of boring sods? Or are we contented? It is sometimes hard to tell the two apart.

Sam slept a lot, intermittently waking up to say we must do something. I’d reply to him, I am ready to do anything, honey. I’d roll a joint as we are pondering the problem, we’d smoke it. Then we both fall asleep again.

We lazed around, unashamedly, the whole hot, afternoon. It is something very nice about double brick houses, you can laze about in them when it is hot, they stay cool. We wanted to go outside and exercise, but it is in the thirties, and too hot to sweat. We talked about it. There was a lot of talking about it.

We ate bananas.

We lazed around some more. I slept on the floor, with the big, black cushion. Sam joined me. Buddy tried to join us but he didn’t quite seem to get it. He sat on the cushion, he would have sat on our heads, if we let him. Still, it made us laugh.

We ate left over rice noodles.

Tina Arena sang. Wasn’t it good.

Sam slept more. On the couch. Zzzzzz. Funny, I have only just noticed, he always said he felt nothing, that it was wasted on him, and here I was knocking him out. He isn’t sitting looking at me bored anymore, he lies his head down and sleeps.

It was a very relaxed evening in front of the TV. In our pod. We remain in our pod. The three of us.

We took Buddy for a walk, late, when it was dark, when the air temperature had turned from day to night. The cool kiss of the evening. It was too hot before that, it was a hot day. We met a man who owned a French Bulldog who said that Buddy was beautiful.

Eight feet padded along the footpath.

A Couple Of Joosies In A Futura

I woke to Sam lying next to me, with the TV off. 4am. The room was dark, silent, spookily still. Were my ears ringing? Was that noise in my head?

“You fell asleep.” Sam almost sounded disappointed. It was quiet.

The last thing I remember was that we had fired up again, but, apparently, I fell asleep. Out to it. Sometimes I just pass out.

Lying on the bed, my head on the pillow, I opened my eyes and looked at the ceiling. Silence. I turned my head to see Sam lying next to me. Asleep. It was still dark. The room looked like a bomb had gone off.

“I think you passed out.”

That is all I remember.

I opened my eyes again, seemingly just a moment later. I looked over at the clock, it said 10.30am. "You awake," said Sam. He was standing at the end of the bed. Buddy jumped up onto the bed and came over and licked my face. I could only get one eye open. Sam had come up to the room and was cleaning up a bit. He thought it was time for me to be get up.

"I was wondering when you were going to wake up."

All I felt was some kind of exhaustion. Out of it. Numbness. Not a hell of a lot. Buggered.

Oh why oh why didn’t I just buy the 2 points like Sam told me to? Why did I waste the money? I could have had three bags of pot.

"Are you hungry?"

"I don't know, but I guess I should eat."

Sam headed downstairs. I dragged myself to the edge of the bed and pulled on track pants and a t-shirt. I wondered if I'd feel too hot dressed in too much more.

We ate noodles. They were a little claggy, but then they were reheated noodles. They felt kind of slippery and they seemingly required a lot of chewing. So maybe, not all was lost. All was lost, and this hint of something else was just annoying.

I felt a little fucked up, for a bit. It was the balance thing. Reality wasn’t quite moving as fast as the movement of my head and eyes. I’m sure some people would call it motion sickness, good thing I have never suffered from it. Maybe those six months where I learned what amount of pot was good for me, those first months when I first smoked it. That involved a lot of motion sickness, and toilet hugging.

We lay on the couches, Sam with his herb gel eye patch on. We fell asleep. Buddy lay under the coffee table out of the way, as if he knew we couldn’t be trusted not to step on him. He lay in the super dog position. We slept for much of the day, most of the afternoon. We woke much later. Buddy was asleep next to me, on his back with his paws in the air. Sam was no where to be seen.

I headed outside to have a smoke, there was a wobble, I felt a wobble. I decided that if I was going to smoke cigarettes I could just as easily be smoking pot. We should have just got stoned for the weekend, we would have saved hundreds of dollars.

That’s it, I am done with crystal.

I text Guido. You will have to come to Thomastown, or wherever it was, he was at his farm, to get it.

I went to see where Sam was. I could hear him in the bathroom pissing in the toilet, so I waited at the bottom of the stairs for him. You know, romantic.

“My darling, there you are, why were you gone from me for so long?”

He seemed please with me waiting at the bottom of the stairs. He smiled over the bannister. Needless to say, Sam wasn’t so pleased about the pot trip. “I have to go to Thommy, wanna come?” He still agreed to accompany me, after he had stopped slapping me, telling me he didn’t want a pot-head boyfriend.

I looked at him quizzically?

There was heavy traffic on Sydney Road. Actually, there was heavy traffic practically the whole way there. We seemed to be swimming in a sea of cars. They were good. Their dogs were cute.

For the driver’s amongst you, this was sixteen hours later. It did cross my mind as we drove up Sydney Road, especially when there was an inexplicable traffic jam around the old jail. But I felt nothing, I never felt anything. I felt as sober as a judge.

“No officer, I haven’t taken anything.” Today.

The sun shone gold in the late afternoon sky.


“Mate, you can try whatever you want, we all have. But you always come back to her. She’s reliable. The old whore is a cert,” said Guido. He looked down at the zip lock bag in his hand, as we rested our elbows on the railing of his deck and looked out across the brown paddocks. He coughed a mucus cough. He spat something green out of his mouth over the deck rail.

We followed an immaculate early 60s bright red, 2 door Futura, with two “Joosies” sitting in the front seat on the way back. Litres of hair gel, huge sunglasses and sequinned leather jackets, chewing gum, music blaring, base thumping, heads nodding. They continued straight ahead on Bell Street when we turned right into Nicholson Street.

We stopped and bought baked potatoes in Brunswick Street. I parked illegally as Sam ran in.

The bright red, 2 door Futura came burbling up Brunswick Street, 5 minutes after we’d parked at the spud shop. Boom, boom, boom! The joosies heads were still rocking, a cloud of smoke was escaping from the open windows.

I like my potatoes made with all the fresh coleslaw and fresh veggies. It is like a big Hawaiian salad, complete with pineapple. Sam got Bolognese.

We watched Happy Feet Two. Then some incomprehensible Stephen Hawkins documentary. I think I was pretty tired by then and I had trouble following it. “Yup. Yup. Yup.”

I wanted to go to bed first, in a surprising twist of our bedtime etiquette. I was exhausted. It was Sam who was saying, “Wait.” That has never happened before.

Usually, it is. “Come to bed.”

“Oh… um… err…”

“Come to bed.”

“Oh… um…”

He’d be gone.

A Crying Child Rattling On The Gates Of The Closed Circus

I was awake at 7am. I struggled with sleep for a short while after that but, as usual, I couldn’t go back to nod. I’m beginning to like it now, early and fresh. Occasionally, I glimpse the sunrise, I love the really early light. The amniotic fluidity of the day.

I left Sam sleeping and headed downstairs. He is usually silent in the mornings, the snoring has stopped.

I opened the back door and Buddy came straight inside. He didn’t look at me, as if to say, Oh really that time already, I just need a few more hours, like he often does. I sat in the dark with Buddy, just by the light of the laptop screen.

I brewed coffee.

Sam came downstairs, asking for his coffee, which I had prepared and which was sitting right next to me.

“Here you are honey, I made it just for you.”

He headed upstairs to shower, he doesn’t eat breakfast so regularly. He’ll eat breakfast with me, but I hadn’t got to the point yet.

Buddy and I waved Sam good bye from the front gate.

I cleaned the kitchen, first up. All done. All clean, by 9am. My world is sparkling, that is out of the way. At least my life was clean, if nothing else. I needed cigarettes. I started heading to the milk bar, but I stopped myself and thought of my mum. Funny the things you think.

“Why wouldn’t you go to the cheaper shop?” I could hear my mother’s voice. “So it is a little bit further, then you’d get your exercise done at the same time.”

Dad thought I was lazy.

I went inside and changed into jeans and hid my laptop, the supermarket needed a proper outfit, where the milk bar could be done in socks and sandals. I headed in the opposite direction towards Woollies. I have no income. This time it is different, I don’t currently have any income? No rent, like in the old days. It is just Sam and I. A longer walk would allow me to ponder this question? Do I bite the bullet and rent out my two spare bedrooms and resign myself to living on a drastically reduced, but regular income? And I could do as I pleased. It is an attractive idea. We’d have to live with people, though? One thing for sure though, I have to learn not to throw money away.

I did the washing.

Sam messaged to ask if I had called South Yarra.

I called South Yarra. No go. Still waiting on someone or other. He couldn’t guarantee anything today.

I didn’t really care, much. Or, at least, I didn’t feel anything. There you go, I gave it a shot, but I couldn’t get it. It has been ruined, I know that, they have played around with the ingredients, as David told me, and now they put GHB, or something, in it. The upshot is that it doesn’t do what it used to do, the dirty, pervy, sexy, filthy mind thing is gone. I feel like it is a waste of time now a days. Gone is the filthy thought process, which is what I loved about it so much. I could think of anything and anyone and I’d have a filthy, Technicolor fantasy. I loved it. Nobody was off limits. No scenario was too taboo. Just delicious, unadulterated filth.

There was a flurry of messages backwards and forwards between Sam and I. What could we do? Who else could we call? Is there any way? My boyfriend is cute.

So, I text Dante. Who do you contact when all else falls through – when you don’t really care, but your boyfriend does – the bitch with the habit. I’ve heard all the rumours about everyone who are so concerned about him, so Dante it was. The rest, pretty much, have grown up and given recreational drugs away, for the most part. You know, just Easter and Xmas now. Rumour is that Dante has got a meth habit a mile wide, so chances were that he’d be getting something for the long weekend. It is not rocket science.

Was I wrong to facilitate his habit?

Yes, he could organise it, tonight. (Sam will still only do it on Friday night of a long weekend. Saturday is too late for him. He has to go to work) Dante called a bit later and said he’d be over at 4.15pm.

There was a flurry of commands from Sam after that for me to get everything organised.

I was slow getting my shit together, as though I was worn out by the high tension negotiating that had been going on. I did tattslotto, got money, bought the usual supplies. The compulsory Up & Go the meal substitute drink on which I had been know to live for how many days? No matter if it is the last thing I want, at meal time we’d always down a big glass, no matter what the visuals were doing, or how lost in the space time continuum we, actually, were. I got schnitzels and salad for the preceding meal.

Dante arrived at 4.15 sharp, actually, earlier. He looked quite thin, with brushed back, cap-like hair and large sunglasses that he didn’t take off.

I wanted three points, which was one point over what Sam had instructed me to get. It was a long weekend and two points seemed pretty miserable, I guess I was being hopeful that it would be good… and there’d be a night’s worth left over for me at Easter when Sam headed home to visit his family. Dante said, “If you give me four hundred, you’ll get five points.”

Done.

He’d be back in half an hour with the goods. Then the phone call came, as Dante is want to do when collecting drugs, they weren’t answering their phone, he was going home to chill, then he’d try again.

Sam got home and there were no supplies, bitch!

“Call him. Call him,” Sam repeated. “You can call him now,” Sam would say not long after his previous reminder. He kept bringing the conversation back to call Dante.

Dante called at 8pm to say he was still having no luck. “Do you want me to keep trying, or bring the money back?”

“Keep trying.”

Dante called at 9pm to say the eagle had landed. He arrived not long after. The sunglasses were gone, it was evening. He had that toughened, tight expression, of a regular drug user, like his body fat was at zero and he was dehydrated.

He sat in the lounge room and packed his pipe as soon as he could, he said he’d been hanging out for it all day. A cloud of smoke rose above him.

Sam and I look at each other.

Dante made himself comfortable at one end of the coffee table, seemingly looking at his phone most of the time. He puffed away, one, two, three, more times on his pipe.

The conversation died out, so our focus was drawn to Fifty Minutes to Disaster. (It seemed ominous) Dante seemed to be in another world. I wasn’t sure if he was texting on his phone, or pretending to.

It is not unprecedented with Dante, there was the peeling of the skin from his forehead incident, after which he had to wear bandanas for months. And the first boy friend and all that black leather strapping that lead to his HIV sero conversion years after everyone else had perfected not getting infected.

Then he said he had to go. He said getting up was difficult for him now, he appeared to struggle getting to his feet. He did though.

He had left by 9.25pm.

We were upstairs by 9.30pm.



I never felt anything from the crystal. It is official, “they” have ruined crystal meth, boo hoo. I knew they had. It happened about a year and half ago. Damn them! The dirty mind, it has gone. It was the only reason I enjoyed it, other than that, nothing much. Sam and I used to lock each other away and watch porn for days without a second thought. We’d disappear from this world to the next, we’d slide from fantasy to fantasy as if no time had passed, as if we’d slipped through the back of the wardrobe. We’d connect to each other making up one long dirty narrative, for twenty four hours and we’d telepathically share the same filthy dream for hours and hours. It lingered, it lasted, it kept playing in our subconscious until we’d head back to it for another twenty four hours, easily.

I loved the ache when we stopped. Walking around the house, as if wounded. Grunt. Shuffle. Grunt. Shuffle. “What?”

“What did you say?”

I loved the hyper elevated eyesight in between, where every detail in a room was seemingly picked out on it’s individual line-string dimension. The world practically became an architectural drawing.

I loved the dark, light, dark, light and possibly dark again, on a good long weekend.

Today, I felt nothing. Well, I did, of course, but not the WHOOSH! not the KERZAM! Not the FFFFFFFFF!

I wondered what Dante was taking? How much? It’s pointless. To keep taking that, must be like a crying child rattling on the gates of the closed circus, desperate, but never getting in.

We’re Napping Between 3 and 6

I was awake and standing at the end of the bed at 7.15am. There was no sign of baboom di boom, di di boom, di di boom, the electronic alarm clock.

“Sam, don’t you have to get up?”

Grumble groan. Grumble, groan.

“Shouldn’t the alarm clock have gone off by now?” The bedside clock was reading 7.16 and even with its possible 10 minute fast setting, it was still passed 7am and it should have rung by now.

It is interesting how 7am for a non-worker is an entirely different proposition to 7am on a work day.

I headed downstairs, it is dark.

I smoked a joint as Sam ate breakfast, it didn’t go unnoticed. “Really? Just in front of me now. You are so proud of yourself.”

I check with him again, a moment later, call it stoners regret, that he wasn’t cross and that I wasn’t mistaken on my feeling about the situation.

“Could we not simply share coffee?”

“You only sit for a minute, then you are off upstairs,” I protested. “We barely share anything?”

“I certainly share all that smoke you are exhaling.

Buddy and I waved Sam good bye from the front gate.

I searched for a certain document that I was looking for to continue with my romance novel. It was another piece I had saved somewhere with a minor detail recorded, a detail I had to have now, of course. I get on with the search, determined to write and not to waste the time. I get distracted, of course, and I start to rename files stored in my 2013 and 2012 folders.

David calls, he has clearly been thinking about yesterday’s phone call. He wants to do Pho for dinner at 7.45pm. He excitedly asked me about the drug deal. “Have you done it yet?” he suddenly whispers.

“Done what?”

“You know what you done.”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Oh! When then,” David explodes. “When will you know, darling?”

“Sometime.”

“When?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why wont you tell me?”

“There is nothing to tell.”

“Then we must have dinner tonight, when you can tell all.”



There’s always a correct time for any music artist. I think Dionne Warwick is good for around 9.30am.

I love those mornings around 8.15… the day stretches out in front of me, infinite possibilities are possible.

I took Buddy to the park around 10.50. I started getting ready at 10.43, so I must have left around that time.

Sam left a message at the same time. 10.50am. Have you feed little pumpkin? Sam

12:04 pm. I’m hungry, what’s for lunch? Christian

Omg! how stoned are you? Fried rice, said Sam.

Oh, yum yum, said Christian.

What happen to dog park? Sam.

The dog park was great, Pixie was there. Buddy ran around the perimeter and then he said hello to all the dogs.

Except some accident happened right by my car and when I looked up it was surrounded by policemen and police cars. I wanted to leave, but I was a bit stone di do doned. (oh, one joint? You drive after one glass of wine?) So I had to wait a while just to suss out the situation

My lane was pretty clear, it had happened on the other side of the road. What happened, I’m not sure. From a distance it looked like an Outback, but up closer I think it was a Dodge Nitro. Being American, it probably caught alight and gassed its owner.

There seemed to be only one car, which didn’t seem to be damaged. It hadn’t seemed to hit anything. Everybody was around it, looking inside of it. All the doors were open. There was an ambulance, in which someone was being taken away, I think. Two fire engines, one stayed, the other left. I couldn’t work it out. Maybe it was a pedestrian?

There were strapping cops, in those sexy strap up protective wear kind of design. The cop closest to me was all muscles and arse, the straps were flattering. There were blue and red lights flashing. They were all concentrating on the job at hand, the mystifying, for want of a better expression, wreck. I found my sunglasses in my glovebox and slid them onto my face. All the safety equipment you need is sunglasses. I backed my car out with confidence and drove off.

It was a beautiful day, lovely and sunny and blue skies. Maybe not so much, for the Outback/Nitro driver, I guess though. There were road works all the way home.



Jill called. She had done a lot on her house, plastering walls, changing décor, finding a builder for the two new bathrooms and the new kitchen and the walk in dressing room. She asked how mum was? She talked slow, like she does sometimes when she is tired on the phone late at night.

She was clearly having a bored moment, it seems to be the only time I hear from her. No doubt she is manically renovating the arse off that house.

She asked me if I am going up there at Easter.

“Sam is visiting his family,” I said. “And I don’t have anyone to look after Buddy.”

She didn’t sound really convinced. She may have felt a little disappointed.

She had eaten a creamy drink and eaten chocolate biscuits, she told me. That always makes her sleepy. She was sleepy, or in the midst of a diabetic turn, it was so hard to say which.

She kind of faded away. I wondered if I should be concerned about her?

I got bored with writing, although I had written quite a bit. I had been working on my current novel. Good boy. It is a romance. I keep writing and writing until I am mentally exhausted.

I curl into a ball on the couch. As with Anthony, I think 3pm is always a very civilised time to have a nap.

The hum of sleep had reached all the way to my ears.

But, as I lay on the couch listening to the music, I remembered I hadn’t paid mum’s nursing home bill and it was 6th of the month. It was only 6 days late. It is amazing that I joked with Roz when mum had her last turn, that she had 7 days left that was paid up and now it is 6 days passed that.

What would they do? Kick her out? I couldn’t see that happening. I guess they would sue me for the money? Of course, they would.

I wrote out the cheque and walked to the corner post box to post it. It is a lovely afternoon and I tell myself I should come outside more often to enjoy it. What was it Doctor Johnny said, that I was low in vitamin D.

I bought a cream bun on the way back as a reward. By God, I didn’t walk any further that 100 metres.

I listened to Renee Geyer sing live at The Basement. You can put on any Renee Geyer album from any decade and it will still sound as new and fresh and undated.

I wonder about life. What does it mean? What do all of the events leading up to this point have in common? What is the common factor? Working my way up to having a good job only to lose it because of a bully at work. Working temp. After 3 years of it, I get a job that is beyond my experience, but which I could have done easily with a bit of effort. Oh, I hate that word. Just when I was stressing about the job, my mum takes a turn and gives me the perfect excuse to get out. I take it. Here I am back unemployed sitting at my computer doing what I love, but still not believing that I can do it.

I am scared of success. I sabotage, rather than just getting on with it so therefore, I guess, I never failed.

Sam said to me, “You can self publish now a days. You can get work onto Kindle libraries and the like. Publishing has never been easier. You just have to write it.”

I roll another joint. I am shit faced. It’s 3.30pm.

The bulldog snores loudly in the corner.

The music played. I laid my head back against the cushion on the couch and drifted off, better late than never.

Sam was most displeased that I have finished all the pot when he’d got home and that I hadn’t left any for him. That was a surprise. I thought he’d just be pleased that it was finished. I wondered if I should take this as a bad sign, that my corruption had proceeded further than I had anticipated. My pure baby grumbling about the lack of gunger for him, no that wasn’t supposed to happen.

We walked to Victoria Street and ate Pho with David. Sam grumbled about westerners being so boring in their food choices. “When did we last have Pho?”

“Last Saturday night with David.”

“That is Pho twice in less than a week,” Sam said. “Wouldn’t you like to have Thai, or any one of the many food cuisines that are available to us?”

“Oh.” I thought about it for a minute. David would need to be redirected. He’d have one hundred questions. Where is it? What is the name of the street? What is that closest to? Where can I park? Yabber yabber yabber. Intense questions, as David always takes his own wellbeing very seriously. “No. Stop complaining.”

David turned up all dressed up. He had come from the gym and he had his casual clothes on, as opposed to his yogi get up.

Two mixed beef. One mixed chicken and beef. All Medium.

“So, how’s it going?”

“Oh good, lazy day…”

“No, you know what I mean?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Oh the waiting in interminable.”



Walking home seemed like we had to walk many kilometres into the distance into the setting sun. It seemed like we had to walk passed the horizon. David offered us a lift.

Sam looked at me. “I know, I turned him down.” Talk about the hills getting longer and steeper. “We have to move to somewhere flat, we can’t be expected to climb mountains simply to get dinner.”

Sam told me to stop complaining.

“Only my ears are bleeding,” he said.

I was in full whinge-mode, mid whine, when we climb the precipice of Smith Street.

“Civilisation ahoy.”

Sam looked at me. The intersection was filled with golden light.

"I think I am very funny."

"I know you do."