Art Retreat!

I’m currently writing this on a Saturday. Boyfriend and I are in Mallacoota, the easternmost part of Victoria. We got here after a seven/eight hour car trip, and it is fucking beautiful. The place is amazing, there’s a big, airy house for Boyfriend to make music and watch blu-rays, and a little bungalow for me to write, read and JO. (Note for next time: two vibrators is enough. Three pornographic comics isn’t).

Anyway, my little bungalow is perfect. Clean, mudbrick and gorgeous. Bathroom and kitchenette. I love it.

And my god, have I been churning it out. In one of her long, impassioned blogs, Amanda Palmer said that art comes out of boredom, and kids today don’t have time to get bored. She couldn’t be more right. I knew I was addicted to the internet, but I don’t think I realised how much it sucked up my time until now. That which nourishes me, detroys me. I have written an astounding amount. I’m vomiting words. And they’re all the starts, middles or ends of something good.

Boyfriend asked me to write him some lyrics overnight (he’s been having trouble with the words, the music is his thing) I came back fifteen minutes later with three verse-chorus-verse-bridge songs.

Anyway, this is one of the best things we’ve ever done.

Saturday is Blog Day. So I’ve gone through all the half-finished posts I just CBF completing, ideas I’ve scribbled down, and I’ve fucking DONE them, finally.

Tour Whore

* I’m excited about the Pavement concert, though I haven’t found anyone to go with. Just like the old days.

* I am ABSOLUTELY EFFING WEEING MYSELF about Animal Collective in December! At my old job a friend and I would gush about ‘how WONDEFUL they’d be, why can you even IMAGINE?!’

* Guttermouth are plying on my birthday. Fuck. King. Rock. That is going to be one messy night. Must ask for the next day off, and soon.

* Editors are coming. It’s a gamble, Boyfriend and I love some of their songs, don’t know many. Plus, it’s at the Worst Venue in Melbourne, aka The Palace, St Kilda.

* Didn’t Amanda Palmer say she’d be back in December??

* I’m still reeling from Liza Minelli. God she was great.

* Unrelated, but Daniel Kitson’s coming again in January. That man, my god, that man.

* Also, David Sedaris! He was lovely last time. Can’t wait.

Mixed Tapes

Gay lovers, I’m so proud of myself. I’ve created the definitive – DEFINITIVE – mix tape.

It’s a four-volume set:
Songs for Dancers: 95 Songs
Songs for Fighters: 50 Songs
Songs for Lovers: 90 Songs
NINformation (The two best NIN songs from every one of their CDs, plus all of ‘Still’.): 32 Songs

Note how every song ever can be divined into the first three categories.

It came about because I wanted to give some music to a voracious boy at work, and a girl who’s quite young, from the country and hasn’t been exposed to much musical diversity. And these albums have everything. They even have one or two of my friend’s bands on them, not that I’d tell the recipients that (so uncool. ‘Oh, look! And I KNOW this guy. To TALK to’).

If you’d like a copy, let me know. All I ask is that if you like a band on the set, do a nice thing and buy their CD. Support those who give you so much happiness, garn.

San Fransisco

This will be a lazy, lightning recap.



View from the first hotel room


Out the front of... the car rental place. (!)






The houses were like fairy princess castles. In a way, I suppose many of them were.




California would be my dad's heaven.


Kissing deer! On the way to Skywalker.


"Delish!"










The Hungry I Club. We spent money here.


Steamers. Wow.... yum.





At the Stinking Rose. The food was great, the cocktail tasted like medicine poison.


The chicken came with 40 garlic cloves. Yummm.


We had free wine, cheese and beer every night in the lounge of our hotel. Classy.


SF trams are RAMSHACKLE.


VHS Videos for sale.






I became OBSESSED with Kid Robot after I went to their store.








Chinatown looked like actual China.


Golden Gate bakery. Best egg custard tarts evah.






This shop was everything and nothing.


SO hot.



Our flight was delayed and overbooked. NINE HOURS from NY to SF. And we were both sitting in the middle seat, middle row, several rows down from each other. GAAAH!

We stayed at the Hotel Kabuki on the first night (pretty) and the Hotel Nikko for the rest of the time (very very fancy).

We walked around the city most days. We went to Nick's Crispy Tacos for dinner, which is EXACTLY like an American Bimbo's, except tacos not pizza. But yum.

Boyfriend scored us entrance into Skywalker Ranch, the facility where the special effects and post porduction for... pretty much every movie are done.

Situated about 30 minutes from the city, it's like Hurstbridge. A beautiful place though, with a library like the one out of Indiana Jones, sprawling grounds, and Lake Ewok. But we're not allowed to post photos.

After Skywalker we went to Sausalito, a seaside town that reminded me of Apollo Bay.

The best meal we had in America was at the Slanted Door. Though we also had a garlic-filled meal at the Stinking Rose which was also pretty good (too much garlic is never enough, but even we were thinking it was excessive. And we cook a meal for two with five cloves!)

I was looking for Cherry comics everywhere, since I have a few issues I need to complete my collection I established nearly a decade ago. Because I'm charming and had an accent, I managed to get a wholesale order for a Cherry I didn't have and some other porny comic delights, from the warehouse itself. Cheap goodness.

After dinner one night, Boyfriend and I went to a strip club. More about that in another post: the comparison warrants it.

On the last day we went to Haight Ashbury, where all the hipsters hang out. We also went to Walgreens and bought up some American snacks to take home.







I know I'm just rushing shit, but seriously, this was the most perfect, amazing holiday. I fucking love America and can't wait to go back.

We were bumped up to business class on this flight home.






Mum and Dad were jumping out of their skins about the engagement, to the point of mum hassling me about booking a venue when I called her from Sydney airport after our SF flight. This is days after we told them the date is in June, 2011.

We came home, and they'd decorated the house with balloons and streamers. Aww.

I 8 NY, Part Three (and last one)

Dude there's a GIANT FUCKING SNAKE BEHIND YOU.

I didn't have time for the Met and the Gugenheim. Next time. But MOMA KICKED MY ARSE.






Love.

Now, our PERFECT DAY (tm).

Boyfriend and I went to the diner. He had his usual smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel. Smoked salmon tastes like the worst kind of vagina, so I had Oatmeal.

Oatmeal is weird. It's not hardy and rough like porridge. It's smooth and bland and... just not as trustworthy as porridge.

We went to Boyfriend's church (the Mac store), then to FAO Schwartz again to get his muppet likeness. We went to central park for an hour while we were waiting for it to get made. Squirrels, real ducks (with green heads) and crazy poets abounded.




We went to a comic book shop, where Boyfriend got a non-embargoed copy of Transformers 2 on Blu-ray. I looked for Cherry comics, they didn't have any.

We also bought my brother a pair of $2000 binoculars he wanted (!) which he gleefully gave us the money for, since they're about $600 cheaper in the US.

After dropping off the muppet and expensive binculars back to the hotel, we had lunch at Katz's deli. Boyfriend's paper beer cup was the length of his arm. The pastrami was amazing. Knishes are knot tasty. Yuck.

Everyone had told us to do the 'Top of the Rock' observation deck in the day time, and the Empire State at night. So we went to 30 Rock.



Amazing views.

I showed Boyfriend the NBC store, and we stumbled on a Hallmark shop with all manner of awesome halloween things.



USA: So many ghost and spider things!

After a quick look at the Nintendo store, we grabbed a taxi for our reservation at Balthazar.

My Aunty told us this is her favourite restaurant in the world. And yes, it was pretty fancy. Though we didn't see any celebs like she said - actually, in America we saw NO ONE. Oh, we saw Estee Lauder and Elizabeth Hurley doing some breast cancer promo thing at Bloomingdale's, but besides that, nothing. And that doesn't really count. Also, Elizabeth Hurley looked like a skinny raisin, surprising considering how gorgeous she looks on TV.

Anyway. Balthazar. Cocktails were good. We had the seafood platter, which was lovely. Except we discovered that we hate raw clams. Like, gag hate. I hated them so much I had to try one more just to make sure they were as bad as I originally thought. Picture an obese old Greek man with Alopecia. He's worked at the friers all day. He has a skin tag on his perenuim, and it has just been removed, chilled, and served to you in brine.

That's clams.

Anyway. They bought our duck pie to the table. It was hot, we were working through the platter so we didn't try it for awhile. Ten minutes later they took it away, replacing it with another one. The manager told us the other one was slightly more burnt than they like to serve it. It looked pretty good to us. But we tried the new one and it was so. Very. Good. I love duck, but only ridiculously expensive fancy duck: mid-range duck is often too fatty.

The desserts, both of which I forget, were just as delish as the rest of the meal. Look, I'm not a food blogger, I'm sorry. Go to Claire if you want NY and SF food recommendations, her travel wraps from the middle of this year were fantastic.

Anyway, after a fancygood meal, we took a taxi to the Empire State Building. It was getting on, around 9 or 10 I think. So there were no queues.

We went to the top and had a look around.



Boyfriend was cuddling my back as we looked out at this view. 'I have a question to ask you' he said. 'Yeah, what's up babe?' I asked.

'Will you marry me?'

Thinking this was an ill-considered spur-of-the-moment thing, I asked, 'Is this the view talking?' He told me that he'd asked my parents 'permission' a few months ago, and had been waiting for this very moment.

'Yeah... of course, yes!' I said. We looked at the view some more, cuddling and being all ghey. We walked back down, Boyfriend got a slice of pizza and we caught a taxi back to the motel.

In the morning, we went to San Fransisco.

I 8 NY, Part Two

I forgot to say, when I was at LAX, I went to Maccas. They had the breakfast menu, and I got a hash brown and a bacon and egg 'biscuit'. It was just like a scone with maccas bacon, egg and cheese on it. And sweet fuck, it was amazing. Surprisingly so. Then I had an ice chai so sweet I had to throw it out after a few sips.



Sign from bus trip

I went to Inglot, since a) the stuff was cheaper there and b), the Times Square Inglot is less of a hassle to get to than the Chadstone one. No, really.

Anyway, I spent a few hours there, picking out two new palettes and two wax liners. It's ridiculous, they only have one Inglot in the whole of America.

For those who forget, Inglot is the only eyeshadow I wear (well, sometimes Lime Crime, but they're loose powders so require more time). Inglot are the best quality, best priced, and you get to choose the colours you want. Everything about them is amazing and you're an idiot if you bother with any other pressed powder shadow.





Inside Inglot, my church. Note: add for terrorism-proofing. Like we have for bushfires

Next door to Inglot was a whole store devoted to M&Ms. Like, three stories. Every single thing you can imagine, from beach towels to clothes to chairs to... fuck it. Think of a physical item. Any non-sex toy physical item. They had that, emblazoned with the M&M characters. It was huge and baffling.



Red Lobster: Nothing says delicious like a light-up fiberglass crustacean.



More Times Square


Macy's was... just like Myer, really. Nothing amazing. Though I had to buy mum all this perfume and Clinique had a free gift so I got a few of them, too. It was all so cheap. And I bought some black above-ankle sport socks, which is impossible here. So, yay. But Macy's = boring.


Babeland, however! I went to their How to Choose a Vibrator workshop. It was pretty cool. I got a Hitatchi for mum (she asked for it pre-trip. But then wrecked it straight away even though I told her to wait for us to get her a transformer).

For me, I got a blue and black deerskin flogger, some massage candles, and a mini hitatchi. I would've loved to get more, but by then it was our second last day in NY and I'd spent a LOT of cash.

Babeland was great. The closest thing we have is DVice, but even that's not a patch on it. Wish we had them here!

The store opened at 12, and I didn't know how many people would be attending the vibe workshop, or how long it would take to get there. So I was pretty early. The taxi driver said there's good shopping on the crossroad, so I had a walk. Now, imagine the leather jacket and the luggage stalls at Preston market. now imagine a shopping strip of them, with dodgy black shopkeeper guys hanging out out the front. Also, the street was empty but for them. It was pretty rapey. But I walked the length of it and back, all was fine. I also found a little material store and bought some good stuff.



Another day, I went to the Seinfeld Diner and had a piece of cherry pie.

Regrettably, the only time I went to Brooklyn was on the bus trip. (Remembering how short our time in NY was).





From left: Shoelaces you never tie, Kariza Dresses, Birthmark. All unfortunately closed, the mystery of WTF they are remains.



They do a proper China town in the USA.


Karma Sutra library?


Dramatic wedding shot overlooking Brooklyn bridge: Noice.


Massive corporation


Chinatown FD


(Away We) Go Postal

After the Brooklyn tour, I went to Junior's in Times Square. The tour guide told us they had the best cheesecake in NY. Being that it's one of my favourite bad foods ever, I headed over.

I ordered a pastami with cheese on rye, and, since it didn't come with anything, a side of onion rings. I got THIS:


Left: the pastrami I took out. Right: original state of sandwich

I felt like this:


I took out about 3/4 of the meat. It was a good sandwich.

The onion rings came, deep fried behemoths, not the small crumbed things I was picturing. There was a middleaged couple on the table next to me, I asked if they'd like any, since there was way too much food for me. They thanked me, but were having trouble finishing their own huge meals.

The man went to the bathroom, and the lady asked me, in a southern accent, 'Are you from France?' Now, at this point I'd said quite a few things, vis: 'Would you like some of these onion rings? There's far too many for me' and, 'no worries; they're here if you'd like some!'

I told her no, I wasn't, and she said, 'it's just that you have such lovleh jewellruh' I was wearing a necklace with a plastic spiderweb and spider. Baffling.

Anyway, we briefly chatted about the hotels we were staying at, and she handed me a little book. 'You can look at that later' she said. I had a peek inside and the first page said, 'what does CHRISTIANITY MEAN TO YOU?' My natural instinct is to refuse anything religious people give me, so I handed it back and told her I was a quaker. Pro tip: this ALWAYS shuts them up.

Now I'm spewing I didn't keep it. An authentic piece of American Christian Propaganda! Damn.

Anyway, the cheesecake:

Yeah, it was fucking amazing.

We stayed at the Standard. It's a hipper-than-thou place in the Meatpacking district. The staff were all dressed in these cunty black pants and fierce as fuck gray shirts with epaulets and skinny black ties.

It was so trendy it didn't have a sign:



Or shower curtains/walls:


(they called this a 'peek-a-boo shower', and there was a note in the room cautioning people against leaving the blinds open, because NYC can see you).

The amazing view:


The AMAZING minibar:



Detail of the scrolling art they have in the lifts. It was this huge plasma screen, flush with the wall, that scrolled down to reveal all these amazing scenes from movies. It scrolled up when going up, down wen travelling down.

The diner we ate breakfast in most days, sometimes together, sometimes apart. Very tasty food be here:

I 8 NY, Part One

OK. so the Americas!

All pics are SFW. Yes, it's a boring travel post, mainly for posterity.

Every day was perfect. Though we ate like pigs and now need to do a mega-detox.

I arrived in New York at around 7pm. My first impressions were of friendly taxi drivers who knew their shit, getting carded (I forgot the legal age was the ridiculous 21) and very uneven footpaths. They're all old, some roads are cobblestones, and it's a miracle I only fell over once, in what happened to be the quietest street in NY. Yes.

We went to a few adult stores, in the hopes of finding a kit I heard about, to make a mold of Boyfriend's man junks and then a silicone dildo out of it. I don't know, I thought it would be nice.



Bizarrely, every place we went to was sold out of them. A few had chocolate versions, which, ew.

We ate out three meals a day, and didn't have a bad experience. Though we went to John's, which is apparently some of the best pizza in New York. I think I prefer the thin, minimalist pizza of America to ours. So good.

Anyway. The Pizza at John's was fantastic, and the service was good, but the signs kept it cunty:






None that... or any of those!

Also, there are 'frozen yogurt' places everywhere. But it's more just soft serve than anything. You get to put all sorts of junk on it and then they charge you for weight. Stoner's. Dream.

I went on those Grayline double decker bus tours. And they were actually... really fantastic. The majority of guides were pleasantly eccentric, they were all super knowledgeable. Highly, highly recommended.


Man embarrassed by trumpet

I went on the Downtown tour and the Brooklyn Tour. The Uptown one (which included Central Park and Harlem) I liked so much I went twice, once with Boyfriend.




Two guys hassling people to buy their CD

FAO Schwartz was amazing. It's this big toyshop, not as big as Toys R Us, but more interesting. No electronic games, every stuffed animal you could think of, and the big piano from that Tom Hanks movie, and later The Simpsons.

We had a play on the big piano, and I got a muppet version of myself. No really, you can get a real muppet, and choose what eyes, nose, hair, etc to get. It's called a What Not.

Boyfriend liked it so much we went back the next day and got him a Boyfriend What Not. They had to go in our hand luggage.

When two people are carrying around muppet likenesses of each other, people feel the need to comment. Especially in a big queue at the airport.




Lunchboxes at FAO Schwartz

Boyfriend worked every day but for the last one. So my time was spent walking, exploring, shopping and going to diners/restaurants.

Annoyingly, I slept in much of the time, and got ready to go out reealllly slowwwly (I blame the delightful Regis. No really, dude is FUNNY!) so I wouldn't leave the hotel until 12-12.30. Galling.

We did get to spend the evenings together. We assumed that in NY or SF we'd take some time to go drinking and dancing. This didn't happen. We were always so exhausted by the day, that afterwards we'd have our dinner we'd maybe do a walk around then go back to the hotel.

After my flight, I got a taxi to the hotel. Boyfriend was waiting for me at the tables outside, and had been waiting for about an hour and a half. I showered, put on makeup and we headed out. We had some drinks with his boss, then the two of us went to Times Square.

There were people trying to get you to sign up for a season ticket to some stand up comedy gigs. We begged off. Some of them were persistent in that kind of charming, kind of annoying way. 'We're about to head back to the hotel,' we'd say. They'd tell us the ticket was good for a month. 'But what if we get raped and killed tonight?' I said. To their credit, most of them didn't skip a beat when they replied, 'Then you wouldn't need the $20 anymore!'

The spruikers were all cheerful and friendly in that 'sales' way. 'Wanna see some live stand up?' etc. Except for one champ. This big, black guy. 'COM-edy TICKets', he yelled, pissed off and over this whole fucking job. 'GIT you COMedy TICKets'.

Another day, I was walking along, and a stripper was giving out fliers outside a club. She was dressed in that Halloween-slutty way. I walked past and she stepped back, looking past me - used to women walking past, used to them not wanting what she's selling. She was out there to give straight dudes fliers. I made eye contact and said, in the most lascivious way I could (which is pretty lascivious, since I'm creepy) 'Hey, how you going?' Puzzled, she smiled and said hi back, but slowly, and I could see the cogs working 'what? should I give her a flier? Is she just being friendly? No-I've seen that look before. But in guys. Wait, what's hap-?' I walked on, smiling at myself for being retarded. About ten metres away I passed two black chicks. As we crossed paths, one said to the other, all annoyed, 'What's SHE been doin' to make herself so happy, all smilin'?'

NY felt safe. There were so many people around, and so few druggies.


The one day Boyfriend and I spent together was perfect. More about that soon.

BJ

This post is about my parents’ gorgeous pet Rottweiler, BJ.

On 28 December 1998 a Rottweiler was born. He was the size of a fist when we picked him out. He was the only one exploring, the rest were sleeping or huddled together.

We took him home in early 99. He was the size of a large subway sandwich. I was starting year 12 and he was my mother’s guard dog for her jewellery shop. The shop closed in 2005, she spent a year at home (with a big black dog and a low-scale depression) and then got a job in another store, five days a week from 11 to 5. It was the first time she and BJ didn’t spend all day, every day together.

The first time he went to the vet was when he was 2 months old, after eating a bee. His lip went all puffy and he did it another two times after that. We assume they tasted like honey.

He almost died in a car accident we had in my first year of uni. He didn’t. His hair went all dull from the morphine.

Because he was big (60-70 kilos over his life, I think he peaked at 72) and black, he hated the heat. We used to have to water him, like a little cactus.

Boyfriend and I look after him every public holiday, and some other times, whenever mum and dad go away. My brother doesn’t ever put his hand up (he wants to go away too) so we get stuck with him because we can never afford a long weekend trip. Secretly we don’t mind, though, because my parents’ house is clean and doesn’t have my grandmother in it, and we love spending time with him. We joke that we have a holiday house in Bundoora.

The Thursday before Cup Day, BJ stopped eating. By Saturday evening he still wasn’t eating, so mum (who was up at Apollo Bay) suggested we take him to the vet.

He stayed there until Monday night. The vet was explaining what it might be, but there were two pugs (in for heat exhaustion) snuffling and oinking in such a constant, comical way that it distracted us, the wrongness of the otherwise fairly devastating situation.

By Thursday morning he’d turned into an ‘old dog’. He’d been going grey in the muzzle over the last few years, and was stiff if he didn’t have his arthritis medication, but he was still spritely when he saw us. But now, he hobbled and was in noticeable pain.

The vet said the symptoms were consistent with stomach cancer. They could operate but the average living time post-op was around three months, since it was an aggressive type of cancer.

Mum and dad were with him on Thursday night when they euthanised him. He went peacefully, mum and dad patting him as he drifted off to sleep. I wish I’d been there, but we were on our way to Mallacoota (a trip we’d booked and paid for in May), still hoping the ultrasound would show some small, curable thing. But at least he was with two of the five people he cared about. He was aloof and snobby to the point of total rudeness with everyone except me, Boyfriend, mum, dad and my brother. With the five of us, he’d always make sure he was in the middle, constantly near whoever of us was home.

There are pet people, and non-pet people. Some people might have a cat or a dog, and be sad when they die, but for others, the pet is a member of the family. We used to roll our eyes when we heard that some people would spend $1200 on an operation for their pet. Now, we’d think nothing of it, if it improved the quality of BJ’s life. He was family and it’s so, so weird not to have him around. Non-pet people won’t understand, that’s fine. And we did have him for 11 years, which is huge for a Rottweiler (most accounts we’ve heard, they’ve lived until 6 or 7).

I hope next time I see a big dog I don’t get teary, but fear I might. At least he lived a long, charmed life, he was loved and he went peacefully after not too much pain. But it still hurts not to have him there, and when discussing plans for Christmas and public holidays beyond I keep having to stop myself from saying, ‘well, we’ll be coming from Bundoora, so…’

Shut Up Woman, Get on My Horse.

Have you all heard this rare Depeche Mode B-side yet? I cannae get enough.

More holiday posts to come, I have to sort the photos first. BUT, did anyone see Our Heavenly Mother Angel, Liza Minelli, on Sunday? Dear god, she was amazing.

I thought it might be like when I saw Rodriguez, you know, great but a little heartbreaking to see this frail old guy shuffle around the stage a little lost after every song. But no! The energy! The banter! I could have sat watching her for 7 years.

The one thing that surprised me was the weighting of the demographics. I thought it would be mostly theatre queens, then oldies, then me. But the oldies outnumbered the theatre queens by about 20-1, at least.

Anyway. I will try and organise the photos soon; I have stuff on every night this week but truly there is so much to tell you.

I’m Back!

That was the perfect fucking holiday. Seriously, every day was fucking magical.

Packing the night before (while watching Hey Hey, and being baffled by it all) and a last-minute change in flights meant I was running on three hours' sleep as I took a taxi to the airport, but I did get an upgrade to premium economy for my troubles, so that was nice.

Premium Economy was for Sydney to LA. Verdict: exactly the same as regular economy, but the seats are much roomier and the TV screens better. Would totally shell out for it on an 8hr-plus flight if the prices weren’t too different. Had a Stilnox and managed to get 6 or so hours’ sleep.

Stopped off in LA, and after filling out three different visa waiver forms (I kept fucking up. I was tired and excitable) I had about 40 minutes to kill before check in to New York. Having not eaten the last two meals on the plane, my first meal was a iced chai from an airport cafe (so sugary and with such a tiny straw I had to throw most of it out) a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit and a hash brown from the breakfast menu at the airport Maccas. And it was fucking amazing. Biscuits are pretty much scones. It was unexpectedly delicious.

Oh! Flight was uneventful, but for burning myself on a super-cold Splice icy pole. Seriously. It stuck to the inside of my upper and lower lip, I panicked and had nothing to pry it off but ice I hastily melted in my hand. I gradually got it off, but it ripped up my lips and they took a few days to heal. When it first came of, sobless tears just fucking flew down my face, such was the pain. The clownshow took about 5 minutes all up, and it was all done with my face to the window, my back to the fellow passenger beside me, lest someone else know I’m a big pair of fucking clown’s shoes. God it was painful. Who the fuck hurts themselves on a fucking iced snack?

I should mention, I totally gutsed myself when I was in America, and am going on a massive detox now.

More, so much more, to come. The short of it is that I'm so happy, but I wish I was still there.

Ok, I'm off to New York. More regular posting soon, I promise! This trip, and big things in my professional live(s) have kept me without a moment's peace. But It's all about late October, November. xo

Office Space

University Admin work fucking rocks.

My boss is a gay man of a certain age. Though he looks a good fifteen years younger than said age. I think he’s lived a life of fairly conservative virtue, evidenced by how young he looks and that he can get plastered in under two glasses of red.

He came in to work last week, and told us that because of renovations to the luxury apartments next to his inner city flat, his shower water was all muddy. Something about the waterworks being tampered with. ‘So I had a brown shower!’ he exclaimed.

My ex-dominatrix colleague and I quickly urged him to never, ever, ever, EVER say that, and PLEASE DON’T LOOK IT UP ON THE INTERNET. He was initially puzzled.

Some timeless wisdom for 8.48 in the morning.

A quick update about the job: the work is good, and the team is fantastic. My boss is the best one I’ve ever had, and most likely will ever have. My other co-workers are very cool, too. I work hard and enjoy it. I am a happy, happy camper.