And He Starts Smoking Again

I started smoking again. I couldn't say no. It was a weak moment.

Stress, I was stressed.

Did I tell you I was stressed? Did I? Stressed, I was stressed. Don’t you hate stress? So stressed that you shake. But, you don’t shake, not to the outside world, not normally. It is on the inside you shake. In the pit of your stomach and the marrow of your bones. That buzz, that zzzzz, that unholy whir. That wobble, that tension, that mean spirited purr. That is what I hate, that! That feeling deep down, like a quake a tremble, a shake to my nerves. I hate that. I really hate that. Have I told you today?

Until I take a cigarette and I light it up.

Beyond my control, I think, as I exhale.

I can feel it invading every cell down below, from the tips of my fingers to the tips of my toes.

Drowning the shake, drowning the nerves, until I can wipe my brow and send the woozles away.

Tum Di Da

I stayed up late watching YouTube. Tucked up in my bed, with my lap-top on my lap catching up on my English soap, Emerdale. I love the two gay boys.

You gotta luv it, tucked up in bed at night.

So, I took a sickie, you know, as you do, the next day. Actually, I don't take many sickies, it doesn't normally occur to me, stupid me, but sometimes you've just got to, it's called mental health. We should all be encouraged to take our sick leave, I'm sure we'd be a far less sick society if we did.

Oh, life is so meant to be enjoyed. My accounting firm could do without me for a day. The workers should not feel guilty taking their sick leave, otherwise you are just contributing towards the partners new Mercedes. Instead of doing journals, I did lunch instead.

Lovely.

So, the thought of taking a sick day starts with just a little kernel of a thought. And because we have had it drummed into us from a you age, to cut a long story short, not to take sickies, to man up and go to work, it is a process. Think it, getting over saying no to that, and then building up to it, and in my case eventually just picking up the phone and dialling and saying, I’m not coming in, with out thinking about it anymore. And Tum di da, I’ve taken the day off, and all that stress about taking the day off just seeps away.

And then I always feel, what can only be described as a kind of euphoria, having made a decision and having taken control of my life.

And then there is a feeling of blissful calm, having the day to myself to do whatever I want, just tinged with that slight feeling of naughtiness, that minuscule thought of having got away with something. That is bliss.

If anything, we have all been conditioned to side with the company, to side with the boss. Think of the economy? Think of a world if everybody took a sick day? Think how society would break down? Think where that would lead us all? Half way to lawlessness, half way to hell, half way to everything we hold dear sliding down the proverbial drain. 

Well, that is a lovely piece of propaganda, politicians, and bosses, and captains of industry. How you have most of us sucked right in. How you have most of the people fooled most of the time. Well played. Bravo to you.

Think of all the men who have risked everything they have to make society better for all of us? Oh, seriously? Fuck off, is all I can say.

I sit up in bed with my laptop and the remote, drinking coffee and eating toast with honey, and I can't help but thinking what a clever boy am I.

Take a sickie and feel good about yourself! I call out to the universe.

I Gave Up Smoking

I gave up smoking, it was a struggle this time. But when smoke starts seeping out of your arse, you really have to take stock. 

Was it some sort of leaking valve? I had to wonder? 

Everywhere I went I left a chem trail. So, was I now distributing chemical as well as biological agents behind me everywhere I went? I even suspected I could smell them, something like a cross between smoke and acid. And they wouldn’t dissipate like normal arse seepage, so I had to wonder, was left to speculate now, if my chemical release may be solar radiation management, weather modification, psychological manipulation, human population control, biological or chemical warfare, or was I inadvertently testing biological or chemical agents on a population, and that the trails were causing respiratory illnesses and other health problems in an unsuspecting population?

I dithered and dallied, but now it is done. He says confidently. I have quit the fags, and my bum seepage trailed off and finally stopped a few days in.

The Black Car

It had been raining for the last few days, but it had just stopped for a short time. It was a momentary relief, for it seemed to have been raining continuously, forever. And, indeed, it nearly had. There had been just constant rain and it seemed to dull the senses, and tire the spirit making one feel dizzy with the damp and less keen on life, because of it.

The memo said, ‘If you happened to have been parked in the Flinder’s Lane car park last Friday, at around 7am and you saw a black sedan with the license plate quite possibly JM 0 something, or JN 0 something, or possibly YJM something... could you please call the number supplied. You may be able to assist with an enquiry regarding a woman who allegedly parked in the car park at around the same time.’

Amy was taken back a little, as she had seen the car in question. Jeremy Marshall, 30 years old. Her Jeremy, his BMW JM 030. She had parked behind it, as she had on other occasions. Amy's car had been parked in the underground car park from 6am on the morning in question. Amy had been one of the first people to arrive, but she hadn't seen anyone else in the car park as she exited through the back stairwell. The back stairwell was the closest to her office and it gave her a reason to walk the five flights of stairs, rather than being lazy and taking the lift. Of course, she could take the lift and just go back to the gym. Or suspend her membership, at the very least. But, using the stairs gave her a sense of, actually, doing something healthy, you know. Gym membership, or not. No further action required.

Had she seen anyone that morning? She didn't think so, she couldn't quite remember now, as she really hadn't take that much notice, as she struggled with her two bags and her leather coat – it’s all very well having a briefcase with wheels, but the stairs? Was she talking on her phone and therefore distracted, as she was so often as she arrived at the office? Yes, Jeremy had called her to discuss the two of them, she thought as she gazed at the number plate.

Would anyone else remember the two door car? She only remembered because the car meant something to her. Of course, the car isn’t a sedan at all, as it said in the email, it is a coupe. She felt relieved and then wondered straight after that thought why she should feel relieved at all.

In hindsight, that was the tactical phone call to sure up the proposal, later that night. She was a bit hung over from the night before, she remembered she was concentrating that morning, more than usual, her head ached, and she didn't want to forget anything. She must have looked a wreck. She laughed, at the thought, more of a defence mechanism than because she thought it was humorous. Lucky there isn’t any security footage attached to this email. She wasn't hung over on alcohol. She'd realised lately that she couldn't smoke anything, if she wanted a clear head. Although she hadn't stopped, it was Jeremy’s influence, so it was vagueness she was battling.

I don’t want to call anyone, she thought. I don’t want to get involved. What did she care, Jeremy had asked her to marry him, just out of the blue? Well, clearly not just out of the blue for Jeremy. Amy’s head spun with every bridle picture she’d ever seen, as she found herself saying yes. She deleted the memo and then emptied the trash.

She wondered if she should call Jeremy.

What enquiry could this be assisting with, she also thought?

If Jeremy was on the phone to her? What time was that? What could he have to do with another person? Woman?

She decided to call him.

“Jeremy, there is an email circulating around our office about anyone seeing a black car with the number plate something like your number plate last Friday morning in my parking lot?”

“Really,” said Jeremy. “Funny hey? But… but… I didn’t park in the parking lot, last Friday. I was at a clients all morning.”

Amy hadn’t really thought that the memo was referring to Jeremy’s car at all, she suspected that she was being a drama queen, open to salacious gossip as we all are now a days, that was until Jeremy had just obviously lied to her.

Still, he probably wouldn’t be stupid enough to park in the car park in the immediate future, whether he has, actually, done anything or not.

She felt relieved, of sorts. Her mother’s words came into her head.

“Stop mothering that boy, he’s more, um, worldly than you give him credit for. He’s more…” Her mother shook her head.

Tim, Amy’s PA, was dutifully at his desk.

“Morning,” he said, as he did every morning. “When do you want to go through your schedule?”

“Oh, give me a moment,” replied Amy. “I’ll let you know when I am ready.”

She closed the door to her office and sat at her desk and switched on her computer, hoping that work would replace the troubled feeling she had.

She couldn’t get Jeremy out of her head.

She decided to go and make coffee.

“I’m just going to make a coffee.”

“I could go down stairs and get you a real one,” said Tim.

“No, it’s okay, I’m in the mood for instant.

Tim looked perplexed.

In the kitchen they are discussing the email and the rumour of what it all might have been about.

“What’s it about?” asked Amy.

“Oh, some girl got her bag snatched by some whack job,” said Dave from IT. “Apparently, the whack job took off in a black Holden. That’s why they are asking for witnesses, to collaborate the story.”

“A Commodore,” you say?”

“I said Holden,” said Dave. “But yes, I believe it was a Commodore.”

“Oh, a Commodore.”

“Yes.”

That let Jeremy off the hook, thought Amy. But why did he lie? Why would a man lie to his girlfriend, she thought?

She couldn't stop thinking about it all afternoon. By 3pm, she told Tim she was leaving for the day. She headed to the local gadget shop and purchased a GPS. It was the magnetic type. The nice sales boy said she could just attach it under Jeremy's mudguard on his car. Once she had done that, it was simple to track where Jeremy had been.

She wasn't really sure why, but she wanted to know why he'd told her a lie.

Jeremy's BMW was in the car park when she got down to the basement carpark of his apartment building. Amy felt a chill run up her spine as she looked at the black car. She walked to the back of the coupe. She looked up and down the driveways, they were clear. She opened her bag and slid her hand in. She stopped. Hesitated. Looked up and down the driveway again. She slipped her hand out of her bag, clicked it shut and turned and walked back down the driveway to where her car was parked, far enough away from Jeremy’s car, just in case... She chuckled to herself, just in case of what? She thought.

She stopped. Looked at her car for a moment. Now is the time, don’t fumble it, she thought.

She walked directly to the back of the black coupe. She looked around for a final time and then reached in under the rear mudguard and attached the tracking device. Then she just casually walked away. Her stomach was in a knot, belying the whole scene.

Later that evening, she had just pilled the corn (actually, I love that image) er, pulled the cork from a bottle of chardonnay and had poured herself a glass. She sat on the bar stools at her kitchen bench. She sipped her wine and remembered her phone. She retrieved the phone from her bag on the kitchen island bench. She unlocked her phone and scrolled to the tracking device app.

Jeremy’s car hadn’t moved. She wasn’t sure what she expected. 

She put her phone down on the bench and drank her wine.

Why did she think Jeremy was lying? What possible reason could he have for saying his car wasn’t some place it was? Why would he say that?

She sipped her wine.

Because he wanted her to think he was somewhere else? What possible reason would he have for wanting her to think he was some place else?

If that was the case, it was a rather clumsy lie, as she had already proved, she’d seen his car in the car park.

It was therefore a rather half-arsed lie. And for Jeremy to be telling a half-arsed lie, it pointed to him being rather desperate about something. Really out of options as far as it was concerned.

Why would Jeremy be in such a position that he had to seemingly tell a rather desperate lie?

I Thought This Was a Family Site

I thought this was a family site, commented one of the punters.

WTF?

What on this earth made him think that?... other than wishful thinking.

It's funny how just because the government uses the "family" platform and just because marketers use the "family" platform to increase their respective market shares, with, or without, actually giving a damn about families, the general public, hoodwinked as usual, thinks that the world is family orientated. It almost borders on arrogance. No, really.

Let me give you the heads up, nearly the same number of people in society don't have kids as do and those who don't have different ideas to child friendly family values.

If you choose to have kids, great, that is your choice, but don't expect the rest of the world to be responsible for your choices.

The rest of us have different values.

So, enjoy your kids, I am sure they will be a great comfort to you when you are old.

But, here’s something that might surprise you about how the rest of us think about your kids today, nyr.

“I thought this was a family show?”

“It has never been a family show.”

“But I want to bring my child?”

“It is strictly18 years and over.”

“But that is discrimination, you can’t do that?”

“The show is not suitable for children.”

“But that is very inconvenient.”

“We have never represented our show in any other way.”

“But I want to bring my baby.”

“You can’t bring your baby.”

“But, I want to.”

“Yes, we understand what you are saying, however we suggest you get a baby sitter.”

“I am reporting you to the authorities, for discrimination and I am going to the press, with my outrage. I am going to make a big fuss.”

“Oh really, that is a surprise.”

“I’m a mother, you don’t understand.”

“I think we are getting the picture.”

“I’m not going to be treated like this.”

“So, you are saying.”

“I want to speak to your manager.”

“I am the manager.”

“This is outrageous.”

“Think of the other patrons, madame.”

“Why? Nobody is thinking about me.”

“I think we are done here.”

“You haven’t heard the last of this.”

“I think I got that, madame.”

The Only Time

The only time we are truly relaxed is when we are sitting on the toilet. That is when you can just let it all go without fear. Let it go, let it go, can't hold it back anymore. Let it go, let it go…

Any other time there is always a part of you hanging onto something, be it only a small part, be it a big part, be it inconsequential, be it something unshakable, when else can you ever totally let go?

What a relief it could be for all those people with cat's bum mouths?

The chronically uptight?

The hand wringers?

The finger twisters?

The pacers?

The screamers?

The men with bright red faces?

The mouth breathers.

The women with gunts?

Surely, it is good advice for all of them.

“Something to take home?”

“Unpack.”

“Cogitate on?”

People like Madge Vickers-Waffle perhaps hang on tighter and longer than most people. People like her, the scared people, who can’t truly let go and live in the modern, here & now world, because they have, you know, the J-Man setting the rules.

So many religious types, give the impression that they are so wound up by everyday people ‘not following the word’, by which they live.

“Surely it would be good for them?

“You’d think.”

“I tell you, they'd all feel much better.”

“Let it go, let it flow, right out of you.”

“All those ideas of illiterate goat herders, is it just constipation?”

“Well…”

“Spiritual constipation.”

“Well, who can say?”

“I think for a lot of people it sets in when they are kids.”

“It is ironic that religious types say we can’t allow so many things because of the effect it will have on the children.”

“That is because they don’t want any distraction from their higher calling.

“The more and more I am thinking that is true.”

“The irony being, that a big risk to children in recent times can’t be denied was priests.”

“I think it might be.”

“You have all those men in dresses trying to dress it up as something else.”

“Don’t you think that is almost funny, that men who spend their lives dressing up in dresses, dress up the things that may affect society as something other than it is?

"That is a lot of dressing up."

“Funny, because it is true.”

“And now all those grownups are stuck with it, like an obstruction.”

“Stuck in them from an early age.”

“Not able to move past it no matter how hard they try.”

“Most of these uptight types just need a good colonoscopy.”

“Or a packet of prunes and a jug of water.”

“Or a long stick and mirror to aid inserting it.”

“Oh no, don’t go there, I don’t want the mental picture of the Big P Man doing downward facing dog, frock wrapped around his neck, as he harpoons his nether regions trying to get the obstruction out.”

“Except it would probably do him good.”

“Think of the relief.”

“Being able to let go of all that shit.”

“Just think.”

“Like finally being able to exhale.”

“It would do the whole those-with-chosen-dogmas community good.”

“Live and let live.”

“Believe what you believe and let others be free.”

“On the potty let it all go.”

“On the potty be free.” He gave what we call a Brunhilda Call, the Viking call to arms, well our version of it, you understand.

“You are funny.”

“You so make me laugh.”

“You know what?”

“What?”

“It would probably do the whole world good just to have a good shit.”

"Amen."

Abortion

I've been reading stuff about abortion lately, none of which really made sense to me. It was all about the trauma and the unhappiness, but I never saw that amongst my friends who'd had abortions.

I've had a number of girlfriends who have had abortions, in fact, I think the majority, so I thought I'd ask them how they felt about it now.

Unanimously, they all said that it was the pregnancy that was the problem and not the abortion.

One said, she couldn't imagine being tied to the father of the child for the rest of her life because they'd had a baby together? She said that would have been the true nightmare. Now she is married to a partner she loves with who she has had children and life couldn't be better.

One said, she wasn't ready at the time, and a termination made so much sense. It would have been such a trial to complete uni and live her early twenties with a child. She so wasn't ready when she was found herself pregnant.

Now she has a beautiful son and she doesn't ever think about that first time. She has never had any regrets.

Another friend said, she never thought about it. She never wanted children. It was easier than having her appendix removed, she said. Quicker recovery time.

Another friend said, a problem? No. Why do you ask? It's not exactly like human beings are in short supply on this planet, now are they.

I've been reading about the pain an abortion creates, I told her.

No, it was the smartest thing for me to do, at that time. I never think about it now. It wasn't a problem. In and out in no time. She laughed. I think I was out dancing the next night.

Another girlfriend said, maybe if she'd already had children? Maybe? It may have played on her mind, picturing if they'd turn out like the others. But, she had her kids quite a few years after that and she never really connect the two. It was just something she didn't want at the time.

All of them said it wasn't a huge drama. They decided to go ahead with it and they did. All of them said the drama was the unplanned pregnancy, not the unplanned abortion.

They all said they were pleased that they had that option.

"You just fix it and move on," said J. "It is as simple as that."

"No regrets?"

"No."

“No need for forgiveness?”

“No, that is only for people who think life is outside of them.”

“What do you mean?”

“This is life, being lived.” 

“Not some promise of the future?”

“No, this is what life is, real decisions about your future.”

“Not some vague ideal to live up to because you may get a reward when you are dead?”

“Of all things?”

“I know.”

“I know, who still believes this shit?”

“It was okay when we were illiterate goat herders, but it just means you are, you know, I mean what else would you call it, mentally if you still believe it today.”

“So many people say they believe there is something, but they couldn’t say what?”

“Oooooooooo.”

“So many people say there is a force, a power, but they don’t know what.”

“Oooooooooo.’

“It’s pathetic.”

“It’s cowardice.”

“You can’t have a two way bet.”

“Make a decision. There is nothing after this. There is no higher power. That is just ludicrous.”

My Computer

My computer is a distraction from the real world. It’s true. What did I do before you? I hardly remember that world. Was it pen and paper at the ready? Strong and steady? Where did I go with that?

Stare at the screen. Ever thing else is a dream. Me and this screen, is the only thing that is real, the only thing I need. I’d say no, but that’s not really true, but it is almost true. This is my world, and I love it so. It’s what loves me too. Loves me back, with all that time we spend together. 

My best friend,

in the world.

Dependable.

My rock.

(It just needs a voice, with which to answer back,

and I’m sure that isn’t far away)

To be the perfect distraction,

there you go.

It’s a ho,

with eyes only for me.

It is love as I caress, 

it with my fingertips,

as it’s buttons I press,

continuously,

there is that soft click click click

into the night we go.

I finger it all day,

and it never says stop,

that’s enough,

do it to me for as long as you like.

I call him Mike.

Day and night I now spend in front of its screen. It is nothing for me to spend Saturday night in, just me and him, until the wee small hours. And when I look back at the end of the night, I don’t even know what I have been doing, but I have done it all of the night.

The hours have flown by, as I said, I’m not even sure I know where they went.

I wonder if this is ever going to be a problem, all of us stuck to our screens?

What do you reckon?

On-line life beckons.

We answer in seconds.

Nary we give it a second thought.

Such is our quest fought,

Totally captured by thee.

And then it's me and my machine for the rest of the morning,

for the rest of the afternoon and the rest of my life.