Winter

I don't know why, but the winter does me in. Everything shrinks, I mean everything, the days, the light, my will to live, everything. I think it has something to do with the dark, actually, too many bad mushroom impersonations. Ha ha! It just makes me want to do like a bear and hibernate, slip away to somewhere warm and comfortable and quiet. (I should buy some salmon)

Shorter days, shorter life, or, at least, less will to live, less inclined to move.

Open fires. Blankets on the couch. Big woolly socks. Mugs of chocolate. Wrapped up for the night. Eating what you like. Fuck it, we won’t be in skimpy clothes for 6 months.

Of course, it makes Spring glorious, like a perpetual new day and something to look forward to.

The sun comes out again and we all cheer! Cheer up.

We pull on those little shorts and we begin to run, run off the stodginess of our winter respite? Fight? Plight? Uptight? Of course, it makes no sense as running in little shorts in Winter is just the way to run for life. 

Of course, we go shirtless as the days warm up. When the buds are on the trees. And the sky is blue for everyone to see.

Winter is melancholy. Winter is quiet. Slow. Down tools and go home. Inside, out of view. Home for the months it takes for light to seep back into our worlds.

Head lights on early. Street lights burning bright. All that dark outside in the street, foggy windows you have to wipe away. Breath out visibly in front of you early in the day. Cold hands and cold feet that never seem to go away.

“Don’t you hate winter?”

“No, not really, if you mean the cold?”

“Yes, the cold.”

“No, I like winter, except for the dark.”

“The cold makes me shiver to my bones.”

“Rug up, you will be okay.”

“It is Siberia, the cold feeling never goes away.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously.”

“I guess you crank up the heat your house too.”

“If you mean that I have the heater on in the winter, then yes.”

“Do you ever feel the change in temperatures?”

“No, why would I want to?’

“Because that is the natural world, that is how the seasons of the planet are.”

“Yeah, but I don’t have to feel them.”

“So, what, 21 degrees all the time.”

“If I can manage it.”

“Never a variation on that?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“You never get to feel the glorious difference in the seasons?”

“I think the glorious difference is overrated.”

“You don’t like difference?”

“No.”

“You don’t like change?”

“No.”

“You like things to be the same?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t like variation?”

“No.”

“So, you don’t like things you can’t control?”

“I guess.”

“You don’t like feeling out of control?”

“Who does?”

“But that doesn’t usually include the weather?”

“Why not, if I can control it?”

“How is your relationship with your wife?”

“I don’t know what you mean?”

“What do you think your wife would say, if I asked her?”

“I don’t know.”

Saturday Morning

I met Carlo at the bakery, he is running errands for his mum. I want sweet focaccias, my normal Saturday morning fare, they only have date scones. Well, that was the next thing I fancied.

What?

I exit the shop with the brown paper bag in my hand feeling just the lightest bit disappointed. Carlo is just coming in. He follows me home, saying something about not having seen me around. We smoke half a joint, which I have in the ashtray in the kitchen, ready for after my orange and walnut focaccia. I put brewed coffee on, as Carlo goes cross-eyed. He does a little dance, right there on the tiled floor. He's an eager puppy. He says it is his happy dance. The boy loves pot, it's good to see.

He's beautiful. He's got the sexiest legs, on him, in his tight shorts. He's a hairy Italian boy who just oozes sex appeal.

Ah! Ah! Ah! He gulps for breath. On his tip-toes. He kicks. Up against the granite. AAAhhhhhhhhhh! His stomach clenches. Ahhhhhhhhhhh! He crunches his arms in front of himself, as he pirouettes on one toe. Dark olive skin. Black hair. Ah! Muscles in a tank top. His lips glistens pink. Green eyes. Ahhhhhh! He kicks again with the same power of the first. Thick legs. Hairy stomach. He's stroking the air above him, almost Bollywood. He's gaining his breath. Ahhhh! He spins. He stops, arms out. An eighteen year old smile, unblemished skin, other than the beads of sweat on his stubbly top lip.

He sits back against the kitchen bench. He smiles.

"Wanna go again?" he says. Big grin, white teeth. That wog boy voice, husky, cheeky. He holds his hand out. "Here, I'll show you."

Sometimes, I just want to eat him like a sweet focaccia.

I put coffee down in front of him.

“Do you want milk?”

“No.” He pulls a face.

“Do you want sugar?”

“Of course.”

“I forget that.” I get the sugar bowl and a spoon. “It always seems the wrong way around?”

“What does?” asks Carlo. He slides the teaspoon into the raw sugar and drags a heaped spoonful out and stirs it into his coffee.

“You guys…”

“You mean the wogs?”

“Yes. You like sugary black coffee. And I always imagine you’d put some milk into your coffee.”

“Nah.” He slides the spoon back into the sugar bowl extracting a second heaped spoonful of sugar. “Sugar.” He stirs the second spoon of sugar into his coffee. “Not milk.”

“But, milk just enhances the taste of coffee, where sugar changes the flavour.”

“Says you.” Carlo raises the coffee cup to his lips.

“Yes, I say.”

“How about that sweet focaccia?”

“Weren’t you doing errands for your mum?”

“They can wait?”

“When is she expecting them done?”

“Oh, she’s used to how her errands get done.”

“Slow, or not at all.”

“Getting done when they get done,” says Carlo. “She had three sons.”

“Are you all alike?”

“Sweet focaccia,” repeats Carlo. “She does expect her errands done this morning sometime?”

“Date scones,” I say.

“You can date a scone,” says Carlo. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“They’d sold out of orange and walnut focaccias, I got date scones.”

“Date scones?” questions Carlo.

“They taste good with lashings of butter,” I say. “Like everything does.”

“Like everything?”

“Everything tastes better with butter?”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“Okay, give me one of your date scones then.”

“Coming up, sir,” I say.

I get the brown paper bag and a plate and the butter.

“Do you think I would?”

I cut the scone in half and lay the two halves on the plate.” “What?”

“Taste better with butter?”

I run the knife through the butter and spread a generous amount of butter over the scone. “Yes, yes you would.”

Where would you butter me?”

I spread a generous amount of butter on the other half. “Where it would do you the most good.” I push the plate towards Carlo.

“My mother warned me about boys like you,” says Carlo.

I cut another date scone in half, lying the two halves down on the kitchen bench. “I wonder what you mother would say at the sight of your buttered arse.” 

“She’d say that’s my boy.

I spread a generous amount of butter on both halves of my scone. “That’s my boy? You think she’d say that’s my boy at the sight of your glistening butt hole?”

Carlo smiles as he sips his coffee.

Week's End

I lay myself down on my back on the couch, getting several pillows on which to rest my head. Feet up. Ah! Stretch.

I fell asleep on the couch in front of the open fire, tired out. Warm. Safe. Not a care.

I slept the sleep of a dead man; the lost night of Friday. The week's end's night nurse. All Fridays are the same – fall down, or go insane, not much in between.

Crackle sounds the wood in the flames. Red and yellow and green.

Nothing on TV on a Friday night to keep my eyes open. Gardening Australia is okay, if you like that sort of things, at least it is colour and the occasional thing I might learn, like when to prune my geraniums, that is always good to know. You reckon I’d remember that? You’d reckon?

Red geraniums, of course. A few years back I purged the garden of every multicoloured geranium, replacing the lot with just red. Now the garden is much happier, and much brighter.

Friday nights are the lonely nights, it’s usually the night in with myself. My friends don’t tend to socialise on a Friday night, too exhausted from the week, to worn down by getting to, and returning from, work. Too fucked up from the piece of shit bosses who have been ordering everyone around, seemingly, for their own amusement. Don’t you find that? Bosses being bossy just because they can? Just because they can get away with it. Just because they think that is what is expected of them. I hate that. What is expected of you?

I’ve deliberately side stepped any sort of promotion, in the past, because I just don’t want to join the ranks of ‘them.’ No thank you. Everybody at you? Everybody wanting to have a piece of you? Everyone wanting a gulp of your blood when things go wrong. I don’t know if I have just always had bad luck? Maybe I have. My mum always said to me, “Oh Jimmy, it’s just bad luck that you are empiercing. That’s all it is. Bad luck.”

She was my champion, my mum. Then she died and I had no champion. Not one. It’s hard when you are the favourite and your champion dies on you. Let me tell you.

But, then again, it is a blessing at the same time. Not that you think it at the time, at the time it is just devastation, really, the worst thing. Worse than your dog dying. Worse than your best friend leaving you. But then, you know, eventually you have to look up and dry your eyes and you realise you can do things on your own, maybe for the first time ever and it is kind of liberating in a way that you never thought was liberating. And you find other people like you, other people think you are alright. And you join back into life with a new sense of purpose, a new sense of ability. Ableness? I don’t know what the right word is? My mum would have known. She knew such things, of course

And I found I had this new kick arse attitude. It was a surprise, it really was. And I got things done. One after one. And I changed my life. It was all very exciting. 

I chucked in my old job. I said good bye to my old boss Daryl who continually told me I couldn’t do much. And then I showed him what I could do, and I resigned. You should have seen the look on his face as he read my resignation letter.

“But, but, but, Johnny what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know Daryl, but I just know it isn’t going to include you.”

The look on his face was priceless.

Of course, I did know, I did know what I was going to do, but I wasn’t going to tell him that, the guy that always said no, no, no.

I went to the opposition and my new boss Roscoe tells me he thinks we can all do anything we set our minds to. Roscoe isn’t one of those bosses I talked about earlier, he is the exception. Later, I heard that Daryl had some sort of breakdown and I know this makes me kind of a bad person, but it pleased me no end.

The difference is, that in my old job I worked for the people selling houses, now I work for the people buying houses. The people selling house always had such high expectations of what they were going to get for their tarted up dog boxes, they always expected the most they could get for the least amount of work they would put into get it.

Now, I present what I have found to my clients and we go to work on those people who have polished up their turds and presented them to the world. The expectations aren’t quite as killer in this role. Yeah, sure there are expectations, but the people are nicer about it all as they just have a lot less to lose. More to gain, in a sense. I prefer it so much more.

I’ve also managed to buy a few properties myself, right out from under prospective client’s noses, on occasion, oh yeah, sure that would not please them if they knew, but they don’t know. People aren’t that savvy. One thing I have learnt since I have been ‘championless’, is how to turn up my ‘savvy.” If you know what I mean.

“Looks like you have missed out on that one,” I say.

“Okay, what else have you got to show me,” they will say.

And the merry go round goes on again. The rats in the wheel start to run again and another property comes along, of course it does, like death and taxes, another property coming along is a sure thing. And the dance resumes. And where I found I had two left feet once, now I can tap dance with the best of them. And it is a constant schedule of appointments and clients and luckily for me, successes. Yes, successes. And the one thing I can tell you is that success is better than the alternative.

I’ve changed my life from those bad old days when I was always scared. Then the worst happened and there I was, and the worst had happened, and even though it took some time, I was okay. And that was when I got to thinking that the scared bit is the worst bit. Being scared was the bit that was debilitating, and not the actual scary event, because the thing that you were scared of happening, it happened – whatever it is for you, you understand – and you didn’t curl up and die, in fact, in all reality, nothing happened. That’s right, nothing happened. I was the same person, yes I was, but here is the miraculous thing, I was the same person, but I was no longer scared. Because there wasn’t anything to be scared of any longer. That was a revelation. That was the miracle. And it made me stop, and look up and say to myself, well fuck me, I didn’t see that coming. And I didn’t, no.

That was shocking in itself.

That revelation that I didn’t see coming.

I threw more wood on the fire, it caught quickly and the fire burst into flames once more.

I checked the time. The one good thing I can say about Friday night is that time becomes so much less relevant. Friday night, so far away from anything I have to do, now that I no longer have to work weekends. Oh yes, that was another benefit of my new life, the weekends are now mine to do with as I please. 

And you know what, that is another blessing all in itself. Oh yes, it is. It might be a small joy, but I have learnt to appreciate the small joys in life.

Yesterday

After breakfast, Matt and I went home for a siesta. It was Sunday, and Sundays are made for a nap after breakfast.

We slid under the covers and lay in each other's arms and cuddled warm body against warm body, stroking skin absentmindedly.

Those soft bed clothes are the best shields of steel that I know. Soft and protective.

I love Matt's size, his volume, if you can put it that way. I like the feeling of him next to me, taking up that space, his space. Warm and safe, him and I against the world, just naturally.

Matt fell asleep first.

I rubbed my head gently against his. He groaned sleepily.

I kissed his sleeping face, softly, and thanked him for being there, silently in my head. He hummed in his throat, happily.

I gazed out the window to the day, feeling, you know, kind of blessed, not having to go through this life alone. Oh yes, I know it is probably good for us to stand up and live our own lives, yeah, sure, I can see that, even if I don’t want to be that.

Then I must have fallen asleep too.

And, you know, any troubles – not that I had any I could think of – seemed so far away.

Love seems like such an easy game to play.

I believe in today. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I dreamed of a flower meadow. The sun shining through, what we used to call, fairies, which I thought was kind of appropriate. My gentle breath through those white fuzzy balls, watching them come apart and float off on the breeze and the sun's shafts of light. They take flight and wherever they land is all a dream, so it would seem. 

It took me back to being a kid, when that is what we did, picking the fairies and seeing who could blow them the farthest. 

Don’t you just long for simpler times, when you had no idea what were crimes, and what bad people did in the world.

Hold up your fairies and blow, that was as exciting as the day got, and that was a great day.

Al fresco

Saturday morning breakfast, very important. Very "behind" sunglasses. (No photos, thanks) We went out late, drank vodka and danced.

Oh yes, doesn't your shit not stink, says the waiter's eyes as he views what is in front of him.

"Menus," he says.

No mate, I just don't want any photos today. I'm not signing anything, was the look I gave him.

"Coffees?" he says.

"Yes," I say.

"Shall I just bring a selection?" he says sarcastically.

I like him already.

Matt gives the order.

We sit there staring until the coffees come.

"So, you ready to order?" says our waiter.

We both move our heads in unison to look at him. We both move our heads in unison to look at the menus. We both move our heads to look back at him. Without saying anything.

"Shall I give you some more time?" he says.

I look at Matt, Matt looks at me.

"Perhaps another week," says our waiter. He laughs.

I give my order, my voice even surprises me with how croaky it is.

Matt gives his order.

We drink our coffee and in no time the food arrives.

Matt and I giggle behind our foggy eyes, dark sunglasses, his has my big egg breakfasts reflected in them.

I laugh. Matt looks quizzical, as quizzical as anyone can look with sunglasses on. 

"You've got eggs for eyes."

"Huh?"

I shake my head. "Never mind."

"You have Fairy toast eyes," he says. He caught on quick.

Strong coffee. Somewhere in the sun with an ashtray. Maybe a cool breeze, if it could be managed. A newspaper and my boyfriend's foot resting gently on mine, was what I had wished for in my head.

And that's what I got. Oh, minus the newspaper.

The waiter came over. "Everything okay?"

"Would you have a newspaper?"

"Do you think you can?" he questioned.

"I'll give it a go," I say.

He smiled and went and got a newspaper.

He brings two. "Thanks," I say.

We both read the news as we eat our food. Silently.

Food and Warmth

The usual Friday night deal. We ate. The fire crackled. We smoked pot. No sooner had I smelt Matt's warm, milky smell, with my face against his chest, than I was out like a light. On him. No, really on his chest. He had to move me carefully, come out from under my spell, so to speak. Crawl out. Arrange me delicately on the couch, taking up all the space, a dead weight.

I was held in my boyfriend's arms, my very favourite place to be.

Matt played games on his own, as I snored face down, rather indelicately across the furniture.

We stayed up until 3am. It was 4am by the time I got to bed.

Ah, Friday nights, the one night when every other night can just fade away, Friday nights stand on their own. There is no other night like them. There is nothing to do for the longest time at any other time in the week. Friday night is nobody's night. Nobody should be making demands; nobody should have any expectations. As the sun sets Friday evening, there is loveliness for everybody. Oh yes there is.

Just food and warmth, that is all that matters. Food and warmth.

Go, Go, Go

Lay around all weekend, wrapped in a doona on the couch watching the Sunday programs, having my head patted and fed grapes, being cooked for and adored.

I wondered what all the single people were doing? On their own?

Matt lay next to me and slept most of the way through it, the weekend, that is, when he wasn't patting my head, or feeding me grapes, or cooking me food. His breathing like a heartbeat, rhythmic, life reassuring. Calming, like patting a cat, or hugging your dog.

Go, go, go; drift, float.

Sometimes life is just this simple. We don’t have to make it any more complicated than this? It is all it needs to be.

Ah. Stretch.

Cowboy Chaps

Cowboy says: hi Blake

Cowboy says: Whatcha up to?

Cowboy says: Hello?

I wandered back from the kitchen coffee and a joint.

Cowboy says: oi

Blake says: I'm here?

Cowboy says: How are you?

Blake says: I was in the kitchen making coffee.

Cowboy says: haha make one for me too.

Blake says: I know you can be impatient, you know when you want...

Cowboy says: What?

Blake says: You know.

Cowboy says: what? Oh. Blush

Cowboy says: when I'm are ready, I am ready, what can I say?

Cowboy says: 😊

Blake says: how r u?

Cowboy says: alrite..... a bit tired u?

Blake says: yeah, I'm good, just hanging about at home?

Cowboy says: yer went 2 the pub with some mates

Cowboy says: tiring, all that drinking and talking

Blake says: I haven't been doing much. Writing.

Cowboy says: is that what u did 2day

Blake says: yeah, wrote a short story, pissed about on line.

Cowboy says: I saw you guys out

Blake says: you saw who?

Cowboy says: you and Matt

Blake says: where?

Cowboy says: the pub

Cowboy says: no today.

Blake says: nah, Friday. Matt sure is handsome.

Blake says: Yeah, he is?

Blake says: why didn't you say hello?

Cowboy says: I was wit friends. And you guys seemed to be into each other at the bar?

Blake says: yep

Cowboy says: lol ohk

Blake says: you should have said hello?

Cowboy says: lol Matt's very nice

Cowboy says: but then again, you're too handsome too

Blake says: haha, so are you, buddy

Cowboy says: you guys looked good together

Blake says: We haven't been out much lately.

Cowboy says: You know, I think you are my longest relationship.

Blake says: Oh, you know, when we met at that dance party, you looking sexy in your chaps and that cowboy hat.

Cowboy says: And sexy Blake shirtless in black jeans all by himself.

Blake says: Ha ha, I wasn’t trying for my own pity party, but I remember dancing under the lights on my own.

Cowboy says: Looked to me like u were

Blake says: No, I'd just split and  I’m just good on my own. I’m just not as needy as a lot of other people

Cowboy says: Big strong Blake.

Blake says: It sounds like you are talking about someone else when you say that.

Cowboy says: I'm glad I got your attention.

Blake says: Sometimes it’s nice just to dance on your own.

Cowboy says: wise words.

Blake says: but then your handsome face was smiling at me. And you had your arse out in this chaps. What was I supposed to do?

Cowboy says: exactly what you did do 😀

Blake says: Ha ha

Chilled

I sat around all morning feeling that my life is my own, and it is. It is a lovely feeling to have.

I went out to see an ex-girlfriend, who has a 2 year old and is six months pregnant who doesn't think she is going to cope when she has two.

What could I say? Nothing. I just listened.

"If the next one was a boy, I don't know what I'd have done."

"And is it."

"No. that was the first thing I wanted checked." my friend said, with an air of certainty about it.

We ate lunch and then we took the two year old to the park. 

"He never stops, he just never stops."

She seemed sad, not joyous at all, at the birth of the next one.

"It's just not how I imagined it to be."

I thought she was going to cry. Maybe I was just feeling disappointed for her. As I said, her dream was always to be a mother. I took her hand and squeezed.

All she ever wanted to do was to have kids.