The Jogger

The jogger from up the road has been jogging a lot this year, he's got really into it. He's looking great. Those little shorts that cup his sexy arse like the proverbial glove, look great. Those muscular cheeks, flexing as he runs, look great. The blue cotton looks painted on some days, like they nearly fit him, still. His thighs are solid, curved at the front, hairy, which runs all the way up to his arse, I am sure. And when he jogs topless, just with that slash of blue material around his hips, in the summer, sweating, glistening, he looks sexy as.... 

Oh? Everyone watching him jog past wants to lick him, I’m sure. (Oh, that’s just me? Are you sure?)

He smiles and waves at me as he heads up the street, well, that is how I see him anyway. Fit, I think, as I watch him run to the far corner and disappear. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks that?

I want those undies when he has finished the run. What would he think? 

“You want what?”

“Your undies.”

“My undies?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

I cup my nose with my hand. “I think you are very sniffable.”

What would he think as he processes the request?  Would he just slip them off, without another word? 

He shrugs. I think he is secretly chuffed, that he is thought of as desirable, but he keeps a straight face.

Standing on my lawn, he drops his blue shorts to his feet. Holding my gaze, he slides his white briefs down over his thighs, and they too drop to his ankles.

Would he hand them over, just like that? 

Holding my gaze, he reaches down and grabs the undies. The girls across the road wolf whistle and whoop as they get a good view of his split beaver as he reaches down. (I told you it wasn’t just me)

Would he be bowled over? Be speechless,  voiceless, blank, as I raise them to my face? And sniff?

What would he be? What would he think? At that moment? Would he be flattered? (he should be) or would he be lost for words? Absurd? Amused? Want to run from the room front lawn?

He holds my gaze. As I take a big whiff of his damp, white, cotton undies, his mouth turns down ever so slightly in a grimace.

I take another big sniff. “I’m keeping these,” I say.

“But…” he says

“Put your shorts back on son? Before you head out into the sun. You might see your mum,” I say. “You might not know what you have begun? You can run, we've seen your form, now we can see your plums.” He turns away from me. “Bum.” The girls whoop again with the front view. He turns back. “How you are up for fun. You are the special one, we can see that now.”

“I’m leaving you with your shorts,” I say.

“I’m not sure they will hold everything in, you know, as I run.”

“You’ve got to make do with what you’ve got,” I say.

He pulls his shorts back on. The girls across the road groan. “No, no, no,” they say.

“Off you go,” I say. “Us standing here like this is pretty gay.”

He looks at me with big eyes, at the suggestion.

“Run!” I say.

He salutes me, which I thought was kind of odd. He pulls off his t-shirt and waves it around over his head in a helicopter victory gesture.

The girls over the road cheer. “Come back and see us when you are done,” honey,” one of them calls out.

“We’ll run a bath,” calls another.

I hold his undies to my face and sniff some more, as I watch him run off down the street.

Hot

It's hot and sticky, just hot and sticky. I can't sleep. I'm liking summer less and less and we haven't got into the full detrimental effects of global warming yet, they are to come. It's going to be putrid.

We're never going to sleep again. The whole world population will be climate change insomniacs, too hot in the summer, lying in pools of their own sweat, to wet to sleep, and iced over in the winter with their teeth chattering too much to slumber.

Melbourne is really humid now, where once it never was. Never! It used to be dry heat in olde Melbourne Town. Hot, but dry. It used to cool down at night, so you'd at least feel a hint of a night time chill in the air to aid your snooze, even if it was only a hint, at some time after night having turned to morning. But not anymore. No siree Bob!

I wish I had more pot. I guess that's not the answer. Oh, why isn’t it. Just dumb myself down enough so as not to notice the weather at all. It’s a plan.

We're all going to have to move to Tasmania and cohabitate with all the two heads, trying not to stare.

What is it they say about cousins? Well, at least it is now legal to diddle your cousin down in Van Diemen's Land, that has to count for…

Oh, yes, boy & girl cousins marrying, oh yes, that’s it isn’t it? Not boy cousins, where is my head? They marry their cousins and have two-headed babies because of the shallowness of the gene pool. Yes.

“I’d like to introduce me wife Ellie-May.”

“Thank you, Bobby-Joe, thank you for the luvly introductiony.”

Ha ha, ho ho, nothing wrong with it as long as they don’t come and live next door to me with their 12 fingered son, and their 3 breasted daughter.

But, I digress. Unless we start taking climate change seriously, we are all going to… we are already feeling the effects of it now in our weather, with humid Melbourne, come on people lets do something about it before we are no longer able to do something about it.

Lovely Simon Comes Over

A little pot, it'll help me sleep. Oh, cheeky smile, whatever it does. I don’t need anything to help me sleep, it’s the thing I do best. Big smile. 

It feels good that’s why we smoke it, let’s face it. And that’s the primary reason they won’t legalise it, because it makes people feel good. It is a part of the Fun Police’s agenda.

It's hot, isn’t it. I seem to have the sweats. I've been moving fan to fan. It’s not just me, it’s the heat. Fffyr.

I've got to work tomorrow. I had today off. At least, I was productive and just didn't look at internet porn all day. I wrote a bit.

My housemate's boyfriend Simon was over. He's nice, but he's an evil pot smoker. I'd stopped, but just these last couple of days. Good on big, handsome, blond, strapping Simon.

He is much more suited to me than Jack, if only he saw it.

Simon always asks me about my writing.

I’m nicely stoned.

Oh, lovely, handsome Simon. He is just about near perfect. No, really, what a gorgeous man. He is interesting, he is funny, he is good natured, he is always positive and in an up mood. And he brings pot with him when he comes over. He couldn’t be more perfect.

He really is just lovely. And Jack says he isn’t all that interested in him. I just can’t understand that.

I wish he was coming over to see me.

I’d take him off Jack in a heartbeat.

When the doorbell sounds, I can’t believe I begin to feel excited when I know he is coming. It’s like being a twenty years old again.

What Do I Reckon?

What do I reckon? I reckon the world is doomed and life sucks! (for a lot of people, anyway) That's what I reckon!

And I also reckon that I’m pretty lucky. Loving parents. Happy childhood. Good education. Good inheritance. Don’t know what the minimum wage people are doing? Crying, I suspect.

I'm getting older day by day and it's all slipping away, faster than ever. I guess mid forties isn't that old, but some days, you know what, it feels like it. It's frightening how fast it is all heading away, gone. 20s. 30s. 40s. Sometimes, I just want it to stop for a minute, so I can catch my breath, but no that's just not how life is.

Keep up, stay awake, keep on track, keep at it, keep striving, keep scratching at the walls of the salt mines. Keep stashing it away, as old age is now user pays. Retire later, now it is nearly 70 because the politicians keep fucking it up, too many political donors to repay to make plans for the everyday man to retire comfortably.

You only get one shot at it.

Just the one.

Fuck me!

Coming through!

Find a recording of Patsy Cline, Stop The World And Let Me Off, and give it a play. Play it again. And after that, play it again.

And I have enough bread, to make the rate of shit I eat less for myself personally in the shit sandwich some people say is life.

But big business wants to pay everyone less, irrelevant of profits. No one is getting a pay rise. We have to pay the CEO’s too much.

Conservative govts want to ignore climate change, as they want us all to ignore climate change.

So, unless you are really lucky, good brain, wealthy parents, you are most likely to die poor choking on the planet’s atmosphere, certainly your children will.

That’s what I think.

Free education. Free medical. A robust welfare system. These are the things to make life better for many. And the lucky country had them once, what happened to them? Conservative politicians took them away.

What do the people who live pay check to pay check do? Not a lot, I reckon. And life goes so quickly and you have no money with which to grab on to it, and you have blown your one shot. 

It’s not how it should be?

We need more equality and less tax cuts for the rich.

That’s what I think.

A Night At Home

Friday night, the end of the week. Nobody could be bothered cooking so fish and chips, broke our healthy diets. 

We watched Crocodile Dundee 2, so our taste deserted us too. 

We curled in each other's arms on the couch. Eventually we'd fall asleep. Lovely!

Arms and legs entwined, like my knitted octopus that my grandma made me as a kid. Those thick legs wrapped so easily together. And its arms did the same. Green pearl stitch, with wire in the very middle to give it some strength. Fancy. Thick stuffing that made them feel real, like Pooh Bear realness. I loved it, as I love you, happily curled up together.

“That’s not a knife,” you say. “This is a knife.”

You make me laugh. You are too funny. “You know I like your knife,” I whisper.

That makes you smile.

I cook popcorn, you know ‘cause it’s, I want to say corny, cliched. That’s what you do, isn’t it? When you stay in to watch a movie. I roll a big doobie. And I make tea for when the pot hits and we need something to wash down the popcorn. You know those bits that get stuck between your teeth and your gums, we’ll need tea to flush them out. We munch on popcorn from the bowl cleverly balanced on both our outstretched legs.

Buster my bulldog lies stretched out asleep at our feet. He snores gently, I don’t think a house is complete without the gentle snore from a Brachycephalic K9, squashed nose dog.

The room is as warm as your heart makes mine. As warm as Buster's fur coat.

The room lit with the blue light from the TV.

“Do you think we will be together forever?”

“Sure.”

“That isn’t the romantic answer I was, er, fishing for?”

“We’ve got as good a chance as anyone.”

“Do you think that is better?”

“Better?”

“Better than your first answer?”

“Sure.”

“You really don’t know how to play this game, do you?”

“I’ve never really been good at playing games.”

“But this is romantic answers 101.”

“Is it?”

“Sure.”

You laugh. “I saw what you did there.”

“So, not dead from the waste up.”

“Wow!”

“Should we try this again?”

“Sure.” Your face breaks into the cheekiest smile I have ever been.

“Do, you, think, we will be together forever?”

“Yes, darling, I do.”

“Erh?” I rotate my hand from side to side in mid air. “Now with some feeling.”

“You have pretty much sucked any feeling this may have had out like bone morrow from a cutlet.”

“Oooo!”

“I forget you’re vegan sometimes.” You laugh nervously.

“Do you think we will be together forever?”

“I can think of no one else on this planet with whom I’d want to spend forever?”

“Ooh!”

“There isn’t, you are the one.”

“I hate you.”

“That’s my girl.”

Alice in Wonderland

Eddie offered a cigarette from his packet to Cam, which Cam took. Eddie then patted his pockets for a lighter but couldn’t find one. Cam produced a lighter from his packet and lit both of their cigarettes.

“I went to see Alice in Wonderland,” said Eddie.

“Isn’t that a chick’s film,” said Cam.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Eddie. “It is more of a classic.” 

“Did you go alone?”

“What furtively up the back in a trench coat?”

“Good look at a kid’s film.”

They both laugh.

“No, I went with Max to Imax.” 

“Max’s cinema.”

“That’s what Max said.”

“And?”

“I wanted to hate it, but didn’t. I wanted to hate Johnny Depp, but I didn't, except for those eyes. What was with those eyes?”

“What’s with the eyes?”

“They digitally enhanced them and made them bigger on his face.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” said Eddie. “Because they could, I guess.”

“Tim Burton.”

“Tim Burton.”

“I thought they made him look a bit, ah…” Eddie felt his face crease into a wince.

“Creepy?”

“Special.”

“Frighten children?”

“He even seemed to have a lisp.”

“So, it was good.”

“It was quite good.”

“Not exactly a ringing endorsement.”

“Well, it's not the original Alice in Wonderland story, it's an interpretation of what could have come next…”

“An interpretation?”

 “Something like that.”

“Only Tim Burton.”

“Well, I haven't seen the original in years, I haven't read the book in more years than that, so it was all a bit vague to me.”

“But not the original story?”

“Well, what I could remember of it.”

“Ah, all those stories,” said Cam. “They get us through our childhood and then they just kind of float off into the ether of our distant lives.”

“They did something with the Red Queens head too, making it bigger than it should be.”

“Why?” Cam made large questioning eyes.

“Tim Burton,” Eddie said deadpan.

“Tim Burton.” Cam nodded in agreement.

“She was the best thing in it.”

“Helena Bonham Carter.” Cam tilted his head in agreement.

“Helena Bonham Carter.”

“Did Max like it?”

“Oh, you know Max, he doesn’t say much.”

“True, he doesn’t say much at all.”

“He did make one parting comment, though, as we walked across the terrace to the Nicholson Street tram.”

“What was that?”

“I quote, I was hoping that Freddie Krueger would turn up at the end of it, it would have made it a better film.”

“Ah Max. Loves a good massacre.”

“He really should go and teach in an American school.”

“His natural habitat.”

“He could pervert the minds of children, and if he really lucked in, he could watch them all die when he was done.”

Eddie and Cam laughed.

Tumdy Dah

Tumdy dah, what a lovely car, under the tree, covered in bees, flapping wings, knocking knees.

Stingers ready, curled tenderly.

Watch them swarm into the sky, like a flying mat, or a hair net flung.

Flick of the wrist and they are all gone.

A black mist in the air, not a care,

as they fly away to over there.

Build a new hive for the queen,

forgetting all about where they have been.

Okay, back again... reboot, me shoot

Where have I been? How long is it, how many years? Wow! Life zips along at a great pace now doesn't it. So, where have I been? Round and about, living, breathing, tasting, eating. Giving up smoking, getting fat. Riding my arse off to try and loose it again.

Being a good poofter. Being a bad poofter.

Being reclusive, ah, what can I say? Been there, done that. Is anything new? I don't think so.

So much to tell you, where do I begin?

Let’s just say, I want to be a writer. Or, at least, I am a writer, I have been doing it since my early teen years, I want to be a better, a good writer, a writer of fiction, let's see what happens.

This is Where 2010 Started, Rebooted, as They Say

This is where this blog restated in real time, this is where it cranked back into life. I'd forgotten all about it, really. I had my real blog to write, my main blog.

What is this blog meant to be? Firstly, it was fictional, then it was fictionalised reality, then it was a mixture of the two. After that, nobody really knew.

But, "they" (the old blog system operators) asked me if I still wanted it, and truthfully 2 blogs is too many blogs to write, so I said I still wanted it, when I really didn't and here we are, it will stumble on in some form, or other.

Who knows what I am going to write in it? The scraps. It is a blog without any true personality.

Mostly it is just nonsense, with a little pointed reality hidden amongst its posts, but don't read too much into it, as it is mostly, as that lovely Dutch boy once said to me, "Shit in the Cupboard."

He was trying to say ‘shit for brains’, but it came out as ‘shit in the cupboard.’ We all said, “What?” And it took some time to work it out. And hilarity ensued.

It has always stuck with me.

It’s ‘shit in the cupboard.’ That’s what it is.

Religious Truth

Taoism: Shit happens

Buddhism: If shit happens, it really isn’t shit

Hinduism: This shit has happened before

Islam: If shit happens, it is the will of Allah

Catholicism: Shit happens because you deserve it

Protestantism: Work harder, or shit will happen

Materialist: Whoever dies with the most shit, wins!

Atheist: I can’t believe this shit

Militant Agnostic: I don’t know shit & neither do you!

Judaism: Why does shit always happen to us?

Eco-Spiritual: Compost Happens. It’s all good shit.

Rastafarianism: Let’s smoke this shit!