good old collingwood forever

crossing gertrude

She's got her hand on the horn behind me. She wants to turn left but i'm going straight, and there's a stream of traffic. she just has to wait.

I've pulled back my mitten top and formed a middle finger before i've even turned around. Just wait.

Hand still hard on the horn.

She looks like a Collingwood supporter. maybe i should put my middle finger down and concede defeat, but she's riding that horn and i'm more stubborn this morning than i've felt in a long time, and let's face it, i barrack for the pies too, at heart.

the passenger door opens. wow. they really are Collingwood supporters. missing tooth. sunken cheeks, dark eye sockets. tracksuit. i really shouldn't be fucking with them on the corner of the flats like this.

"I wouldn't fuck ya with my dog's dick, ya ugly cunt."

There's a break in the traffic, and i'm off.

epworth eastern

"Your hair looks good, Nance," says Nan, not quite sure. Nance's hair is cut short. a tube spools out from under her nightie, draining light-red liquid from her lung into a machine gurgling at her feet. She's lost so much weight she looks ten years old. like a tomboy.

"You think? Jim hates it. I went down the Mall before I came to hospital, and I said no more perms. i can't be bothered," says Nance. she's tugging at her admission bracelet. Jim shifts uncomfortably in his seat, hand on walking stick. He does hate it, you can tell, but finally Nance won't hear it. I wanna punch the air say yeah.

I can feel Nan, my mum's mum, getting self conscious, needing to justify a commitment to her own fragile inch-thick fro. my grandmothers have both gone to the hairdresser at the Mall in West Heide for half a century.

"I have to perm mine," says Nan finally. "I've got a big bald spot at the back." she giggles. shy. I've heard it before: it's one of those statements that lock the Arnold women into their routines. like when a waitress puts a big plate of food in front of my mum. i can't eat all that she always says, shifting her gaze from me to the waitress to the food like she's unsure who needs to hear it most.

it makes me eat all mine, and then some. just to test my genetics.

next time you get towed

do you mind if i park in your garage in
doncaster while you inconvenience me?

concrete blocks

sometimes after a downpour, it rains for hours inside the half-built Artist apartments.

there's a fancy new block of flats a bit further along, past the union club hotel. windows like lit fishbowls at night. a guy in one of the windows tonight: largely nude, from what i can see. holding a paint brush, staring at an easel with his head to one side. not hot, not not hot.

just a dude painting nude at 6.30pm on a cold friday night.

smelly shop

"Where's my poor woman," says the shopper, swinging around with a moisturiser in each hand, her eyes falling on a saleswoman up the back, misting organic hair sprays with another customer. The attendant at the counter shrugs and smiles softly, then goes back to wrapping a scented candle. "My poor woman, I abandoned her because I was undecided and now that I need her, she's abandoned me..." says the woman, her handbag sagging.

stripping in reverse

"It's the fixies people are stripping right now. No wonder - some of them are riding round on $1600 cranks. It takes about seven minutes to strip that."

"Hate fixies." [silent agreement]

"How long would it take to put gears on a fixie, if it's locked to a post?"

"We should do that."

saturday in the car park

saturday in the car park behind my block of flats. me and the camry come back from the market, string bag full of white fruit and veg, and stopped short of practicing parking by an interloping black commodore in my space.

the notes i write for windscreens are terser every weekend. at first, 'hi! i think you've parked in my spot! please call me when you go so i can move my car' has given way to: 'next time you get towed [gddm fkr].'

swearing like tourettes itself. where the fk am i going to park, fkn brunswick st etaggers gdm your brunching ... gated communities now i get it ... fk fk fk every fkn saturday a new fkn commodore. that type of thing.

i look up at the flats. a wall of windows catches the full winter sun. a girl on the first floor sits in the window, long brown hair gleaming toppling down. a bare leg drawn up. if she's painting her nails in the sun, i think, she's a gdm parody of herself. but she isn't. she's squeezing her ingrown hairs.

at least something is right with the world.

people having fun downstairs

or is it upstairs, i can't tell through the earplugs.

they fall over each other laughing as they come home, voices echoing up the crazy-paved stairwell - what i reckon, yeah i reckon ...

belting out the words to their favourite songs, one after the other until somehow sleep takes them. i can't remember the last time i did that.

train river, car river, river river

i nearly clip a pedestrian as i come out into Kerr Street tucking fingers into mitten-tops and thinking: did I take my asthma spray? Am I masking early-onset alzheimers if I find a trick to remind me of this twice a day?

Weaving around construction workers and a splattered takeaway coffee at the ICI roundabout, hard right onto napier past the soccer field in the shadow of the commission flats. The first stretch of green for the morning. Everything is singing after the rain.

Through the hospital sector, orderlies unloading cardboard boxes while the fitzroy gardens shine orderly on the right.

Leaving the injured behind. Overtaking the human racehorses training in full-body onesies at the G while baby grand pianos go out of tune in front windows, underneath chandeliers, behind hedges.

Up up on top of the train river, over the car river where once a fox followed me home in the dead of night. And then, the river river. A reporter with noosed scarf warms her hands while the camaraman sets up a shot of the city.

That’s definitely a peacock calling from the botanic gardens … scooby doo and his gang would be huddled on this hill in their mystery machine punching cones and summoning the guts to leap the fence if they could only find a goddamn park amid the champagne-coloured cars.

A wedge of fawkner park appears before the wedge heels, knee-high boots and soft ponytails of south yarra.

And then I’m at work. Flanked the whole time by green. Uphill to go home, but then it’s all downhill from there.

at tiamo, in our 30s

'are you seeing anyone at the moment?'

'yeah, my counsellor. she's awesome.'

'cool. i found a new naturopath in northcote, she's amazing.'

meals on wheels

sixty-nine years, we've been married. if he went, i'd be ok. i don't know what he'd do without me though. a couple of weeks ago i just thought ... i've cooked every single meal, every day, breakfast, lunch, dinner. for other people, for 69 years. well i'm sick of it. someone else can do it. meals on wheels or something.

beaming

magpie, i love your scrambled digital signal.

kelpie on kerr

i shook the snow dome but instead of glitter it was filled with rocks. in this new dome i'll keep an eye on the sparkly stuff and the nearby bluestones.