It had been another exhausting weekend with the family, leaving me with a gaping deficit in personal time, time to write, to reflect and compose. As I washed the dishes I was lamenting my changed work roster; when I booked the ticket, my day off was Monday, but now I was in training for my new role, I had to return to work the next day, and that meant that I was planning to stay up all night if necessary; to write about my experience, and just to claim some of that time that was otherwise so hard to find over any given weekend as a Dad.

I wore the T shirt I had worn earlier in the day for gardening, with my jeans and my $11.95 imitation Crocs sandals from Rivers. I thought only about comfort, and from what I had seen of Pixies from their live DVDs, they didn’t dress fancy themselves. As I slid on my sandals, I imagined hanging with the band backstage after the show, and after I left, Joey Santiago asking someone if they knew who the guy in the Crocs was.

With the iPhone plugged into the car stereo, Hüsker Dü’s Crystal shuffled on, and I selected a Genius playlist to shuffle after it. It revealed a similarity and heritage I hadn’t noticed before, and my mood was tuned for the show:

Hüsker Dü: Crystal
The Replacements: Run It
Paul Westerberg: High Time
Mission Of Burma: Academy Fight Song
Sebadoh: Careful
Archers Of Loaf: Web In Front
Hüsker Dü: Eiffel Tower High
The Jesus & Mary Chain: You Trip Me Up

As I approached Festival Hall to this soundtrack, I passed the gathering crowd on the street – indie chicks in denim skirts and sneakers (unattainable as they will remain), and packs of dudes in black T shirts; their bottles and laughter leaving me nervous, chewing my thumb nail as I drove – right past the venue, and only narrowly avoided heading off on CityLink or Footscray Rd.

I don’t remember when I was last here – it could have been no later than 1996, but possibly even earlier. I guess I saw Archers Of Loaf or Pavement, maybe with Jason from Dream on Queensberry St.

I find a place to park a couple of blocks away, near the Embassy taxi diner and as I head for the venue I hope I can find the car afterward. I pass a grim-looking fella wearing a “Bring Back The Early 90’s” T shirt, and I smile on the inside. Them was the daze, bruvva.

I’m frisked on entry, and as I consider investing in a T shirt (am I not too old? asks the logical side; I am definitely a fan, and I have never yet had a Pixies shirt, the fanboy argues), I hear a girl comment that they still have just that one T shirt design (the Doolittle cover, not surprising given this is the anniversary tour).

Then I’m inside the hall, and it’s already packed. I make my way over to stage right, and although I wish I was six inches taller, my view is OK.

I’m pleased to note that overall the crowd is made up of “normal” looking people, people my age. But the yoof is here as well, in force. And the music means as much to them as it did to me and still does now.

I’m behind a dude with enviable quiff, ear plugs and horn rim glasses, arms crossed, taking it in, nodding like me.

Manta Ray gets the floor shaking, and near me there’s a girl skipping like she’s doing the Riverdance – and I see guys who look like the kind of thugs Kurt Cobain would have despised becoming his fans – but maybe it’s just my perception. Two of them are grooving, swaying romantically to the melody of Here Comes Your Man.

The Riverdancer is a female me: she is my abandoned self, uninhibited, long ginger hair flowing over her face, as she waves her arms in the air and falls back against her man.

The chorus to Tame has me shaking like a man in a straitjacket; and I’m not alone. With floor toms and bass drum pounding, David Lovering rides his kit like no other drummer I know, evoking the image of a stagecoach driver with a runaway cargo, even more riveting because he looks like some kind of geeky science teacher. There are more air drummers than air guitarists – and that’s testament to David Lovering’s presence, his importance in this band.

Dead is awesome too and the floor of the venue is really shaking. Crackity Jones is manic, with the Big Guy out front going crazy and the rhythm section almost too fast for itself.

There’s a tall chick in black doing arty dancing – “no don’t look at me / oh please look at me,” her look suggests. Meanwhile, The Riverdancer is all dramatising the lyrics of Hey – “whores in my head / whores in my bed”, she pleads, with arms in the air.

Joey Santiago, for his musical prowess, draws no attention to himself – other than when he takes off his baseball cap to wipe his shaved head, and during his solo for Into The White (the band’s first encore), when he’s silhouetted against a strobe-lit wall of dry ice. His musical style is minimalist, he sketches impressions, but they are lasting ones.

On the balcony, a guy with close-cropped grey hair and a cowboy shirt who looks like he could be someone’s Dad calls to the stage like he’s a stockbroker giving orders to buy buy buy to Gouge Away.

The signature guitar intro to Planet Of Sound kicks off the band’s second encore. The house lights come on, and I’m rocking as hard as I have yet, smiling too. This is cerebral rock, the crowd’s just noddin’, diggin’ it on the inside, man. Rockin’ out.

Then the band is fiddling around, searching for a guitar tuning – and the intricacies are lost on me since I don’t play any musical instrument, but I wonder how this workmanlike band can be foiled at this stage, and a tiny part of me cynically wonders whether this is staged. Then Velouria comes on, and crowd is on its feet as one, with a kind of beatific glow. There’s a guy behind me, with a black beard, and he’s just smiling with this blissed-out transcendental look that I feel as well, and for a moment we share something unspoken. I had hoped they would play this song.

I fit here. I would have hung around to get my hands on a copy of the live CD of the show, but for the necessity to sleep before getting back to my very non-rock n’ roll job in the morning. You can read about why it was a good thing I didn’t buy that CD here.

My head is heavy, clouded. I need coffee and I am tired. This morning I woke at 4AM, thinking I had hypothermia. I was shivering uncontrollably. I got out of bed and closed the window. I had gone to bed warm from the show.

I drove to work, since I had arranged this medical appointment some weeks ago, when Monday would have been my day off. As it was now, being in training Monday to Friday meant I had to leave at lunch break, missing half a day of training. I parked up on the eleventh floor in the car park I had previously determined to offer the cheapest Early Bird prices, but of course, Early Bird parking has conditions attached – departure after 4:30PM being one of them.

So when I take the car out after just over three hours in the car park, I am slugged for $39.90. There’s nothing I can do. It’s my own stupid fault. As I sit behind a Jeep Cherokee at the boom gate exit, I hear a mighty metallic crack, like when you drive over those metal plates on entrances. Only I don’t think there’s one here. Across from me, I see two pedestrians looking at the Jeep, and it’s then I notice the driver has clipped their wing mirror on a wall, and the mirror is hanging down the passenger door of the car. So things could be worse.

Despite printing out directions to get to the hospital, I took a wrong turn, and ended up driving the streets of Ivanhoe and Heidelberg in frustration. Not my idea of fun at all – being here takes me back nearly ten years, to one of the darkest periods in my life, when Mrs H and I spent nearly six months living in one room with my sister-in-law and her family.

As I drove from level to level in the hospital car park with the slow leak in the car’s front tyre making it squeal like something from a 1970’s car chase movie, it was a reminder of another thing I don’t have the inclination to fix. Just another problem.

In my rush to get to my appointment, I realise I left the iPhone in the car, and as I sit in the waiting room I imagine hearing chimes of text messages or my ring tone even, although I know in reality, there would be neither.

Matt is not a fan of the Public Health Service

I ask for a sheet of paper to write on, as I have exhausted all free space on the ticket from the car park. The receptionist hands me a sheet from the printer, and now, writing at last, I’m at least a bit more constructive.

In the row behind me a young blonde wearing a hi vis top takes her seat. Her face is flushed; it looks like she had to rush to get here as well. “Where are you from?” a male voice asks. “Templestowe,” she answers. “Yeah, I know, but where?” he wants to know, and she lets the question hang unanswered.

On the muted TV in the far corner of the room, Beyonce thrusts her pelvis toward the camera and while one part of me dreads the image of my girls emulating this kind of hyper-sexualised posturing, at the same time I flash back to 1991/1992, when my life changed forever. I would spend Saturday mornings glued to the TV in my flat, watching Video Hits, waiting for Sheena Easton’s What Comes Naturally, Belinda Carlisle’s Summer Rain, or Guns N’ Roses You Could Be Mine to come on. (This was obviously before I discovered Pixies).

I can’t help noticing the nurses or medical staff who bustle back and forth in the corridors look uniformly fit, clean, and well-presented. Capable, in a word. The kind of women you could rely on. The kind of woman I married. She didn’t know she’d be my carer so soon.

A white haired doctory type enters the waiting room and sits opposite me. He’s wearing cargo pants with deep pockets on the side, big comfortable loafers and button down shirt and tie, with glasses worn on a cord around his neck, and he has brought a pastie and a Piazza Doro takeaway coffee with him. He winces as I watch him take his first taste of the coffee. Too hot. Too bitter. Over-extracted, I speculate. He drops flakes from the pastie on the floor, and then wipes his forehead, the corners of his mouth, and finally his hands with a paper serviette.

“I haven’t got enough credit,” an Islander girl opposite me on the phone whispers conspiratorially; hand over the headset, which she’s holding like a walkie-talkie. She’s speaking into the earpiece end of the phone.

It is 2:40PM. A dad and daughter are playing “I spy” behind me. It reminds me of this morning, when Little Miss H and I had played this game as she lay in bed, before she got up. On Sunday afternoon, Mrs H, she and I had played a word memory game while her sister slept, and my memory’s pathetic inadequacies had been exposed again. This is why I’m stressed about my ability to turn three and a half weeks of predominantly theory training in processes and procedures into practice when I start in my new role next week.

As 3PM passes, and I realise my other plans to get things done this afternoon are not going to happen, I am at least thankful for the inspiration a couple of hours observing the general public has granted me. In an ideal writer’s world, it would be a regular part of my day or week.

“Medical emergency, Ward 9C,” a voice announces over the PA system.

A cleaner sweeps up flakes of pastry from the doctory-looking man and I wait. Now it’s my turn; my name is called and I make my way to the consulting room.

I exhale deeply, drink my second coffee. Search for reasons. Woke earlier than I intended – nothing new about that, but I intended treating myself to a sleep-in – 5AM instead of 4:30. Don’t laugh. Oh, it’s OK, why not.

So; Corey Haim, dead at 38. Same age as me. Not that I was a fan of the guy as such – of course I enjoyed his performance in The Lost Boys (“my own brother, a goddamn blood-sucking vampire!”), and thinking of that time of my life in itself uncovers all manner of disturbing, ambivalent memories. More to the point, seeing him transform slowly to a seedy, dreadlocked, and overweight middle-aged washed-up former child star unable to kick his habits despite 15 attempts at rehab was a sad reminder that – as Cat Power sings it, hey, We All Die. That’s all there is in the end.

I saw Susanna Hoffs and Matthew Sweet performing their cover of Different Drum, and that image resuscitated my teenage/early adult devotion to Ms Hoffs, at the same time as the image of heavy, bearded and middle-aged Mr Sweet came as a shock.

Last night, on the tram home, I finished reading Mandy Sayer’s essay on Tweed Heads’ child gangs in The Monthly, and while the story was disturbing and arguably melodramatic, it inspired something deep within me; something about the isolation and point blank existence of these people in that coastal border town threw me back in time, back to the film River’s Edge. Part of me wished I could start developing a screenplay based on the piece, and the events which inspired it.

The moderate part of me, used to – if not necessarily well-trained in – the art of compromise decided I’d sit down and write about it when I got home. At the same time, it has become clear to me – and perhaps you feel it too – that this blog has become more about my concerns and thoughts than its name suggests. (I would include links to my former blog here, but I’m pecking this out on the tram on iPhone, so forgive me for leaving them out – I suspect most of my readers know which blog I’m referring to anyway…)

Of course, after over 90 minutes negotiating with my daughters to get them to bed, as usual, I had little energy remaining for writing. I did, however, secure the blog address I had in mind, and I took a photo for the home page – beginning with the end in mind – despite Mrs H asking me what I was doing when she found me standing on a chair with my camera in the kitchen. And here’s the writing, or something like it, anyway.

On the tram, I appreciate the relish with which a grown man in baseball cap turns each page of his air-freighted copy of Q magazine. Opposite him, a passenger sleeps, head resting on the window, her mouth open (no drool at this stage). Clasped between her second and third fingers is a large white envelope.

The tram stops, doors open, and another fella climbs on. In his clutches, a hardback copy of The Da Vinci Code. He’s a few years too late, but it was on special at K-Mart, and he thought he’d find out what all the fuss was about. And so far, it’s a real page turner – he’s actually surprised he’s enjoying it so much. He burrows into the thickening human forest and I lose sight of him.

The shimmering brittle noise of Bedhead’s Bedside Table crescendoes in my new headphones, and no heads turn today at least. A fella in a “Beavers Love Wood” T shirt yawns, and I pull the cord for my stop, then rub shoulders with my fellow passengers as I struggle to the door. Skid Row’s I Remember You is playing now (“remember yesterday, walking hand in hand / love letters in the sand / I remember you”), and if anyone can tell, they aren’t letting it show.

Today is Humpday. Let’s get on with it.

Too long riding the upswell, had to crash. Should have known / couldn’t have anticipated it. Coulda shoulda shoulda shoulda. Self-blame. Pity. Confusion. Head bursting.

You made it up to Coles minutes after they opened. Driving in the dark to a playlist like a best of upstairs on that creaky chessboard floor at 229 Queensberry St, late 1994/early 1995 (Rob Zombie, Filter, Nine Inch Nails, Nirvana). That was fifteen years ago, but it’s a time you will never tire of re-visiting. It was the time you defined yourself, alone in the dark, trudging home in the small hours to that one bedroom ground floor flat in Prahran East. The rage, the desire to express yourself, to be yourself remains unchanged.

You wish it could be as simple as being thankful for the good things you have: the wife whose commitment is unwavering, the healthy daughters you adore. But still it’s not enough, is it? There’s something inside, something still burning, even if it’s just embers. You don’t know whether it’s a poison or a prize. Sometimes it feels like both.

When you told your wife what had happened, she said she knew it. You were shivering at night, talking to yourself like a rabid man. “That’s why you need to have that appointment,” she stressed. And so it goes.

It has been a long day, not without its tensions, as my various frustrations manifested themselves trying to discipline my girls, after another late night with their cousins sleeping over at our house last night. Late in the day, I heard Morrissey’s voice in mind,

“God give me patience / just no more conversation.”

But it’s my time now. After I wrote last night, and returned to the lounge room to tell Mrs H how much better I felt at last, she explained to our niece that I couldn’t relax until I wrote. Her look was quizzically dismissive, the way only a thirteen year old can be.

I make another Lavazza caffe latte, check with Mrs H that it’s OK for me to spend the hour or so I need to write, and I cue up iTunes – Electric Light Orchestra’s Rain Is Falling leads into Echo and The Bunnymen’s Bring On The Dancing Horses, and I’m off. At last.

The 34 posts I previously wrote dealing with one of my favourite subjects, becoming a Dad, have developed into an emerging, ongoing questioning of What It Means To Be Man (for want of a better tag), and it is that business which was unfinished in my most recent post.

Saturday morning

Yesterday morning I made a visit to Bill The Barber. As I approached the High St end of Northcote Plaza, across the pedestrian crossing where Blockbuster Video used to be, something caught my eye: a four door Toyota Hilux Safari, circa 1985 vintage, with aluminium flat bed and diesel snorkel. I guessed it had been used to deliver fruit and vegetables to the small greengrocer’s inside the Plaza, opposite Aldi. This vehicle inspired me because it was clearly the kind of thing a Real Man would drive (in my book, at least). It also had a resonance because as a kid I had a thing for monster 4×4’s – and the wonder of four wheel drive in general, as the motoring magazines raved about its implementation in the pioneering Audi Quattro. Remember those days? I do.

I walked through that end of the Plaza, thinking how much things have changed in the years I have lived here – Aldi where Medicare used to be, Keep It Fresh grocery opposite, with bags of grapes on special to compete with Aldi; and as I walked on, I passed a forum of Greek men at a table outside a cafe, and a group of women with their hair in rollers at the hairdressers next to the shop with the incense, sheets of stickers, pirated Dora The Explorer shopping bags, and a gruesome wooden statue from Bali that makes me wonder who would want to have it in their possession.

I made it up to Bill The Barber, and the fella in the seat next to me was having his hair styled by Bill’s colleague. Let’s call her The Predator, for the purpose of this story. I had enjoyed having her style my hair when I went there a couple of visits ago, and when she told me her husband had just left her, the rescue fantasy kicked quietly in as I listened with genuine sympathy. Only on a subsequent visit did I hear the other side of the story, from Bill himself, whereby the aforementioned hairstylist was revealed to have embarked on a relationship with a man some twenty years her junior – and this was just the latest in a succession of like men. “No wonder he left her,” Bill had said. “What’s he going to do with an old woman like her?”

So I listened with interest as her subject confessed to her about the woman he had recently met, and he told her how he goes out with his twelve mates (aged between 32 and 37) to Spice Market, then they want to go out for coffee afterward, and it’s two or three in the morning, and he’s over that, he’s ready for a change now, he wants something different, he’s ready to settle down. He hadn’t introduced his new love interest to the mates, because he knew if he did, they would cut his lunch.

I recalled an incident earlier in the week, when I’d made the mistake of catching the train home, and as I tried to keep my balance in the dehumanising sardine can conditions, I watched two young studs text each other across the carriage, appraising the female subject close by via facial expressions and text messages. The world has turned since I was a lonely single lad.

Sunday morning

I woke after about five hours sleep. Woke to the sound of rain falling. Lightly, but enough of a deterrent to keep me from W1D3 of C2K again. I wasn’t happy about that, but I wasn’t about to catch a head cold from working up a sweat slogging in the rain.

Instead I drove up to Maria’s bakery in Reservoir, next to where I used to rent a shop for my former business. Past the streets with the funny names – Beenak, Purinuan – and walking into Maria’s bakery, the familiar smell of her bread took the edge off the bad memories. I hadn’t been in for maybe six or eight weeks. She told me she thought I was sick, or on holiday. I laughed that off, and told her I was trying to eat less. She scoffed and told me she had been eating fig jam “this thick”, and she held her thumb and forefinger a centimetre apart. “I’m gonna die happy, on a full tummy,” she said, patting her belly.

I left, the car warm with the aroma of a dozen freshly baked ciabatta rolls, through streets wet and empty and lonely, and cars few and far between. It brought to mind nights returning from clubs back in my desolate bachelor days.

I spied a fella in the Olympic Hotel Tabaret on Albert St with one of those backpack vacuum cleaners. Hours before they open, surely. I wondered whether it was the end of his night or the start of his day. I don’t miss early starts in the dark on a Sunday setting off for the kitchen to cook for Monday’s deliveries.

This man dresses like a monk, or Orthodox priest perhaps, but I think he's crazy. I see him around a lot.

Back on High St in the drizzle, with Mercury Rev’s Goddess On A Hiway playing, the grey, atmospheric conditions were conducive to writing and creative thinking, and it brought to mind that story as yet unwritten, from all those years ago, where getting home at dawn seemed so glamorous.

I’m getting closer to that writing goal than I’ve ever been before. Thanks for being here today.

I’d had a good day. My training group had attended the roadshow at work, where our senior management team talked about the road ahead, the distance to cover, and I was inspired. I am always a believer in new beginnings, rebirth; but I have also been a cynic in many a workplace until now. I am pleased to have changed that around, and at the end of the presentation, I was one of two who spoke up – even as other colleagues ridiculed me afterward, the affirmation by others counted for a lot more.

When I left work there was beautiful sunshine, plenty of high UV and shadows, angles and geometrics for me to focus on, if only I had my SLR with me.

But I had something else on my mind: despite the concerns of friends of mine who dislike the company for its association with Hillsong, I am a fan of Gloria Jean’s – or at least, its vanilla syrup for my coffee. Last week, as a reward for getting my first-ever workplace promotion, I had thought to treat myself to a new bottle of the stuff on the way home. Only thing was, they were out of the regular one at the Liberty Towers store on Collins and Spencer, but they offered me sugar-free, and I accepted it.

On Saturday morning, when I went to make my first coffee of the day, I immediately regretted buying the artificially sweetened syrup. It was like Diet Coke compared to Coke. Not the real thing.

Although my first response was to just throw the bottle out, chalk it up as yet another of my mistakes with money, I noticed the product had a satisfaction guarantee on the label. It took a lot for me to do so as a consumer, but I decided I would take it back to them.

On Monday morning I lugged the bottle of syrup into the outlet on the corner of Bourke and King St, only to be told, “Actually what needs to happen is, you need to take this back to the store where you bought it… because all the stores are franchises.” Ah, OK, that made sense.

So after work on Tuesday, pumped full of all this good energy from my day in training, I fronted up to Liberty Towers, took the bottle out of my backpack, and explained my story.

The guy looked at me like I was talking Greek. “OK, actually I don’t know what to do with this,” he said. His issue was not only with the process of my attempted return, but the fact that I had actually opened the bottle. I explained that was how I knew I was not satisfied with it. “Perhaps you can call this number,” he suggested, looking at the Customer Satisfaction phone number on the label. It was a canny idea, I had to credit him with that. But given the lack of alternatives, I thought what the hell, I’ll call the number, I’ll make a point, damn it.

“Our guest relations actually finishes at five; it’s twenty past five now,” I was told. Guest Relations? I gave my number and was told I’d be called back the next day.

I was fuming. I wanted to smack the guy at the counter over the head with the bottle, except it was plastic – it would probably only bounce off his nut. It reminded me of Anthony Michael Hall’s character’s failed attempt to build the elephant lamp in The Breakfast Club; it was that inane, and all the more frustrating because it was so damn petty.

I left the store, and in a movie scene-worthy moment, Paul Westerberg’s twelve string acoustic guitar introduction to Unsatisfied played with perfect synchronicity on the iPhone, and as I made my way home on the tram, I watched the girl opposite me tapping her boots – I mean really stomping in her seat, eyes defocused on the middle distance , thumbs fidgeting on her iPod, and gradually my anger was dissipated as I realised I was not the only person in the world who had issues.

W1D2 (Wednesday)

I set the alarm for 3AM, to rise for my second day of C25K. True to expectation, I had hit the bed before 8PM, so seven hours would be a good sleep for me. Sleep Cycle woke me at 2:39AM.

My playlist kicked off with the madness and heavy riffs of Ministry’s NWO, and segued into Adam And The Ants’ Stand and Deliver. Its “da diddly qua qua” chorus brought to mind my teenage years in Zimbabwe, dreaming of the adult life I imagined I’d one day live: the glamour of German supercars, and Page Three pin-ups, like those which adorned the walls and ceiling of my room, only for real.

I made it to our McDonald’s, in the process of redevelopment, for my halfway mark, and on to the former Preston tram depot on St Georges Rd, which will no doubt be redeveloped some time sooner or later, too.

I used to view exercise with the polarity typical of my black and white / either/or mentality, characteristic of either my personality or my personality disorder. Now, with sudden clarity, I see exercise is my time to think, to reflect; a healthy mind in a healthy body. Only the day before I had made a mental note when I saw a groover sporting a T shirt emblazoned with the Dewarism

“Minds are like parachutes; they work best when open.”

Bust A Move came on (“so come on, fatso, and just a bust a move”), and with my man boobs jiggling, I shuffled along to Sly Fox’s Let’s Go All The Way. It was more a slog than a jog by the last few minutes, but at least I got there. I completed the task. Starting things has always been my strong point – and the first fifty metres of my runs are always strong – thanks to those “rugby quads”. Endurance and stamina are another thing though. But I’m working on that. Slowly, slowly.

I wore a tie for work, for the first time in ages. In another life I parroted my manager, and boasted that the only people who wear ties are used car salesmen. I caught the tram and as I rocked along to Korn’s Got The Life, I made a mental note to add it to an upcoming C25K playlist, for the energizing effect it had on me. Suddenly, I heard a crack, and I turned to see my fellow passenger glaring at me. He must have been wearing a heavy ring, and he’d cracked it on the window, to get my attention. I looked at him for an explanation. “It’s very loud,” was all he said.

He didn’t factor in my two double espressos and the fact I’d already been awake more than five hours. I could have just snotted him. But I didn’t, of course.

Who is more passive-aggressive – the fella who raps on the window with his ring knuckle, or the coward who retreats to the back of the tram to enjoy his music as much as he can, given the mood upset.

I waited until mid-afternoon for the callback from Gloria Jean’s Guest Relations, who listened to my story without trace of interest or empathy, then told me it would have to be referred back to the store. I duly gave the details of the store – and clarified that I was not in Brisbane – and I was told they would be in touch.

Thursday passed without incident – other than a run-in with Chatty Dad on the tram, and no sighting of the Greek goddess and her Lesbosnian friend I had observed with such fascination on Monday. That meant at least no chance of offending any fellow commuters with the tinny bleed from my iPhone bud headphones. Chatty Dad delivered a monologue that lasted a full twenty to twenty-five minutes, until the fortuity of a car accident on Brunswick St and Johnston St meant I had to disembark and catch the Nicholson St tram.

There was no phone call from Gloria Jean’s Liberty Towers.

Friday

I contemplated my approach. I considered mustering the confidence I’d once strived to summon in a previous life, cold-calling to businesses to sell advertising space in a magazine supplement, or background music (“in-store environments”). I imagined I would ask them to call Sydney for me, if they tried to get me to phone again. I imagined bad-mouthing them to whatever small number of customers they might have in store this late on a muggy, sticky Friday afternoon. I imagined pulling out the receipt which totalled the amount I’d paid, but didn’t list the syrup in the first place.

I saw a familiar face when I entered. I thought he was the manager. Then again, he could have been the one who fobbed me off last time I was there.

“Are you the manager here?” I asked, as coolly as I could.

“No, there’s no manager today,” he said, with a sideways glance to his colleague. The other guy came over.

“Are you the duty manager here?” I asked. I had taken the syrup bottle out of my backpack now, and placed it on the counter.

“That’s OK,” he said. “Just take another.” He pointed me toward the shelf. I almost missed a beat. He must have been told. He knew, but he hadn’t called to invite me in. He had hoped I’d go away.

I took the bottle, checking to make sure it was the regular one. “Thanks,” I said, as I left. I didn’t add that I wouldn’t be back.

On my way to the tram stop, I patted myself on the back for taking it to them. For persisting, even though I shouldn’t have needed to. They thought I would just go away. They were wrong.

Everybody needs good neighbours

Friday night we were invited to dinner at our recently arrived neighbours over the road. Nice Guy Dave and his wife (Not The Kind Of Girl You’d Marry – her nickname for herself, not mine) invited The Architect and his family over as well, and we had a good time, with plenty of food, and good conversation. Turns out Nice Guy Dave works for an affiliate of my employer – I’m his boss, in his words – and we share a similar interest in not just photography, but subject matter.

Our iPods would get on well together too, with a soundtrack of a-Ha, The Dandy Warhols, some Stones, and Bruce:

“I come from down in the valley, where mister, when you’re young, they bring you up to do like your daddy done”

Nice Guy Dave even told me how he quoted Poison’s Bret Michaels on his wedding day, and that scored him a permanent place in my good books. No, the song wasn’t Talk Dirty To Me, or Look What The Cat Dragged In, but I’m afraid the large amount of 2004 Melbourne University cabernet sauvignon I consumed has eliminated the details of our exchange.

Seems Nice Guy Dave is an Apple / iPhone fan as well, and when I got into enthusing about Sleep Cycle, The Architect claimed it had to be a scam – how could it work? I explained that I didn’t know how, and reiterated my life philosophy of “perception is reality,” but still he wasn’t satisfied. I had the good sense to know which fights I could win.

There was more I wanted to tell you, really there was. But if you’ve got this far, and enjoyed the experience, my work is done for now. Until next time, thanks for joining me.

It’s an amazing app – like having a personal trainer – and I’m very pleased to have firstly discovered it, and secondly chosen to use it. That in itself is worth celebrating. I ended up travelling 4.2km (according to Google maps), and I could feel it in my quads yesterday and this morning, and despite that, I’m looking forward to day two of the program tomorrow. I’m even thinking of developing my upper body and shoulders, to avoid that Lurch-like arch. Shh, don’t tell.

Stop 37

I returned to my tram stop an hour later than my usual time, since training is from 9AM to 5PM Monday to Friday. I was back in with the rats again, no longer was I on the fringe, taking the City Loop train with the early bird tradies in their fluoro vests.

A slender metrosexual fella with long blonde hair and a quietly anguished look took his place near me at the stop. I wondered if his pained expression was related to the blood trickle from a shaver cut on his jawline. I saw a packet of Drum tobacco in his shirt pocket.

A woman in a stylish black suit, wearing a black Chanel bag and black A|X backpack came up next. Her nails were manicured, but her look was let down by hideous though probably highly fashionable black wedge heels. She was joined by a female friend wearing jeans, a sleeveless jumper, and thongs. The glamour queen tossed her head and her mane back to LOL, and I saw good teeth, with no fillings to note.

The first tram came and I let ’em all take it. Tramtracker told me the next one was two minutes away, and it was a double. Space for me to compose, reflect, breathe. Where would I be without my iPhone apps?

Academy girls

I sat opposite two Mary Immaculate girls sharing iPod headphones the way girls do; one bud in one ear of each listener. Both of them wore braces, and one of them had the word “hello!” written on her knee in ball-point. Above the other knee, the word “genius”.

Mrs H has been beset by some illness, something more than a virus, which necessitated a visit for her to the local clinic over the weekend, and ensuing blood tests, which may or may not indicate something like chronic fatigue syndrome (not surprising), if not something worse. True to our tendency to first imagine the worst option, once I faced the irony of losing my life partner prematurely – just as I started to get my work life together - I recalled going to bed on Sunday night imagining an eligible successor for Mrs H, and not wanting the girls to have a wicked stepmother.

As my tram continued down Brunswick St, and the Mary Immaculate girls disembarked, I noticed the new occupant facing me wore black Havaianas and glittery red painted toenails.

Next to me, a geekboi with a goatee and acne (despite being too old for the latter), was bent over his phone playing what looked to be some kind of world domination game.

On the wall of Venus Envy, two sparrows fought over a scrap of territory, and the morning shadows were heavy on the Ever Fresh graffiti wall – making me again regret not carrying my SLR. Bon Jovi’s It’s My Life shuffled on, and as I watched Technoir passing by and enjoyed the fact that it was named after the nightclub in The Terminator the way I always do, Dr Jon sang, “like Frankie said, I did it my way”, and I remembered someone telling me they misheard the line as, “like Frankenstein, I did it my way”. I had much to smile about.

After three spins of It’s My Life I shuffled forward to Happy Mondays’ Loose Fit, and spied a fellow passenger wearing foundation too dark for her skin, leaving a line on her jaw much like a mask. Part of me always wants to tell these unfortunates, and I like to think it’s a type of public service, even though I know it’s more to do with a rescue fantasy.

Now I was compulsively checking my Swiss chronograph – after winding it forward three days to change the date. I had misplaced it in the morning, and panicked when it was not on my bedside table. I always put it closest within reach, so that when I wake up at whatever ungodly hour it may be, I can check the time and determine whether or not it may be appropriate to get out of bed. I was relieved when I found it had somehow ended up lost in the sheets. I didn’t want to be late, on my first day in training, with different hours.

I am Superman

The tram approached King St and I stepped up to pull the cord to the tune of R.E.M.’s I Am Superman. As the tram caught me off-balance, I narrowly avoided giving my fellow commuter an unsolicited lap dance.

I went past the old workplace, past the rubbish bins still waiting to be returned to the stinking fire escape where I had dragged them out for collection over so many nights, indelibly etched into my memory.

I went to drop off a pair of trousers for drycleaning, and as I exchanged pleasantries with a former colleague, a guest looking like the typical kind of thug rapist who stayed there on weekends approached the counter and asked, “If we didn’t sleep in our room, can we get our money back?” It was the kind of question I would have heard when I worked there too. Nothing had changed. It was the place where nothing ever would.

Back on King St a derelict woman with spiral Afro wearing a red tracksuit from an op shop carried a suitcase held together by a strap, with a fag dangling from her lip, and struggled across the street, passing two chromers with lips silver like surfers.

I had more to tell you, but I have to go now. Thanks for being here.