Situations

                 18 November 2009

Rain on the roof at the right time this morning,

all caught up on my jobs,

no reason to get up until the rain stopped.

Just one tiny job in my inbox when I do –

looks like it's gonna be a skint xmas.

              We Exotic Refugees

Refugees and migrants from all over the world

make life much more interesting and colourful

and – if they venture into food enterprises – flavourful

here in Hamilton.

It would be even better, for me at least,

to benefit as much as possible

from contact with their diverse cultural outlooks

if they’d venture out more from the safety

of the company of their own people

into situations in which I could meet and joke with them,

as I’ve been lucky to do with a few.

I know how they must feel, though,

about mixing with other people

who seem unsettling to them.

Shit, how I know how they must feel!

           Drawing A Distinction

When I’m composing and performing

these little observations, recollections,

musings, narratives, and rants

I’m completely without fear

of any audience, or of anything

in regard to trying to tell the truth.

At almost all other times, however,

I’m paralysed by constant terrors.

       Another Distinction

Solitude is when being all alone

seems to be the most preferable

of several attractive alternatives.

Loneliness is when being all alone

seems to be the least noxious

of several unattractive ones.

                    New Year’s Eve

My younger daughter was born on New Year’s Eve –

most considerate of her,

tax-wise,

there on Guam,

but it’s never been a celebratory time for me.

I’ve never been all that big on New Year’s Eve.

The last time I stayed up past midnight to welcome in a year,

drinking and carrying on and stuff,

was at the end of 1962 and the start of 1963.

The next year I was on an airplane

on the evening of December 31,

and by the following year

I was staying up drinking almost every evening anyhow,

and saw it as amateur night.

Then I got a dog whose birthday was December 30,

and for several years

entertained guests on the eve before new year’s.

Going to bed early on December 31

has become a point of honour for me.

It suits my critical viewpoint,

my social deficiencies,

and my misanthropic reclusiveness.

It’s a part of my identity,

something that my last wife

was incapable of understanding.

              My Status

My relationship status is divorced –

divorced from too many wives and lovers,

divorced from people in general,

divorced from family in any meaningful way,

divorced from nature,

divorced from life.

             I Do Have A Friend

I do have a friend –

a real friend,

more than just a pleasant acquaintance,

or a facebook cyber-friend

or somebody I get along with

the rare times we encounter each other –

I actually have one actual friend

who comes by about once every week or two

to visit for lunch and to show me her creations

and to see if I’m doing okay.

Sometimes when she doesn’t come by

she calls to check in with me –

or maybe it’s to see if I’m still alive.

My friend sometimes worries about me.

My friend confides in me and asks my advice.

My friend respects my integrity, my intellect,

and my specialist skills, and I respect hers.

My friend takes things of mine that need fixing,

and either she or her husband fixes them.

My friend hugs me when she’s excited,

or when I’ve helped her or her husband,

or when I just look as if I could use a hug.

My friend shares her triumphs and sorrows with me.

My friend listens to my weird-shit music without complaint.

My friend discusses complex ideas with me.

My friend expresses appreciation

when I help her with her English.

My friend knows when she’s upset me

and seems upset about it herself.

My friend seems to understand

and condone my unhappiness.

                            It Figures, Eh?

The only time for years that people just dropped in to visit me

was the only time that I requested that nobody do so.

                           The Last Job

Signing on in September 2005

as a contract editor with a Melbourne-based online editing agency

with the unfortunate name of WordsRU

almost literally saved my life.

I don’t know whether that was fortunate, unfortunate, or neither,

and I’m not going to explain it here.

For several years my work for WordsRU

provided me with a living,

mental stimulation,

a sense of accomplishment,

and a way to pass the time –

sometimes all too well.

I had to take a stress break in 2008 after a long stretch of working

eleven and twelve hour days seven days a week.

Then the bloke who owned WordsRU had a stroke,

his middle-aged son took over, and things started to go downhill.

The son’s management style, for example,

relied heavily on threats and bullshit,

and my talented chief editor consequently quit-got-fired.

Eventually he decided that we needed a new website,

and through arrogance and incompetence

he fucked it up,

and business nose-dived.

Fortunately, this happened just a couple of months

before I qualified for national super,

so I didn’t have to sell my house in order to survive.

I spent a year with plenty of time to compose verses,

then saw an ad for copywriters on facebook from a newish agency,

answered it, and signed on at the end of February 2012.

My last job for WordsRU was grossly undersold to an irritating client,

but I didn’t mind,

and shined on till I finished it,

and when I was done I felt a whole lot better

than I had for a long, long time.

Grog Stuff

               The Changing Whisky Landscape

For many years my drop of choice

was Wilson’s New Zealand whisky.

Not only was it Kiwi-made

and the cheapest available,

but its flavour truly appealed to my taste buds.

When I shifted from the West Side to Claudelands in 2006,

it was $29.99 for a 750 millilitre bottle

and displayed on a shelf behind the register at about eye level

at Singh’s Kiwi Liquor in the Fairfield shops,

a short walk from my home.

After they stopped distilling Wilson’s

and Singh’s supply ran out

they gave me the ‘Wilson’s $29⁹⁹’ price label from their wall,

which is now on the wall of my home office.

After that the cheapest whisky was Glen Nevis for a while,

and then, aside from occasional sales, it was Ballantine’s,

which crept up from $31.99 to $34.99 a bottle over time,

occasionally going on sale at the latter price at two for $65,

and taking Wilson’s place on the display shelf.

I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Ballantine’s

because it was the first whisky for which I acquired a taste,

back when I was 14 years old

and my mother was away

with my stepfather in Cuba.

The last time I bought whisky

before keying this onto the hard drive and screen

the price of Ballantine’s had gone up,

and full-litre bottles of Dewar’s occupied the place of honour

at $32.99.

Ballantine’s was two shelves down.

Thinking in terms of price, I noted to the clerk

that the whisky landscape had certainly changed.

Thinking in terms of display,

he replied that Ballantine’s had gone down.

Puzzled at first, I replied that no, it’d gone up.

We left it at that.

I think old Mr Singh had sold the place, anyway.

              Drinkers Advising Drinkers

I read a series of quotes

by H.L. Mencken and Charles Bukowski,

both drinkers and both writers,

purporting to be the rules for drinking.

Bukowski’s, of course, were much looser.

As someone who both drinks and writes,

I have no rules or even advice

for others on the subject.

You know what works for you,

and if you don’t, nothing I can say will enlighten you about that.

One thing, though:

if you like sweet, sugary booze

or sugary sweets with your booze,

be prepared for nasty headaches.

                     Two Lives

Yes, grog helps me to endure my solitude,

to cope with it, live with it,

before sleep at last brings me dreams

of being involved with others.

         Executive Decision

It looked as if another nothing day

was on its way.

After considering

putting some of

the Drambuie

that Abbie got me at Duty Free

into my predawn coffee –

caffè corretto –

I came to the tentative decision

that although no operational barriers,

such as work,

were in place,

drinking all day

really wasn’t worth

the disruption of my

daily modus operandi,

not to mention budget,

so I decided

to wait

until lunch.

       The Price of Price Sensitivity

The week that I composed this

the affordable plonk at the Pak’n Save

was a Chilean cleanskin merlot.

Although it was considerably more fruity than I prefer,

I decided after the first half dozen or so gulps

that this really didn’t matter,

even though I’d had to shudder

after swallowing some of them.

        Dirty Little Secret

I wouldn’t be so bloody poor

if I didn’t have to drink

two bottles

of the cheapest plonk

that the Pak’n Save sells

in order to shorten and survive

the lonely hours

between when I get

too tired to work

and the onset

of blessed oblivion.

      Not At The Centre

My daily afternoon dates

with wine bottles

have become increasingly

unsatisfactory,

but they’re still better than

sobriety,

which has become increasingly

unbearable.

One rainy Wednesday afternoon

I wondered who was thinking of me

just then,

and concluded that

it wasn’t bloody likely

that anybody was –

certainly not the bottle

of cheap Aussie shiraz

that I was cuddling.

                Hard Glass Cuddles

According to the assertively cliché aphorism,

self-pity sucks,

but when I caught myself hugging and cuddling

my wine bottle again,

it struck me as an obvious truth

that I am indeed pathetic,

and no other observer was present.

Possessions

                  My Copper Lamp

My father’s parents were first cousins.

What’s your excuse?

One of the other aspects

of this close family relationship

is that, as far as I know,

my great-grandparents,

and probably some of their parents and grandparents,

were all coppersmiths.

What this means in practical terms

is that I have a lamp about a metre off my left elbow,

as I key this onto the screen,

the base of which is a large copper pitcher

that one of my ancestors

made some time in the 1840s.

Don’t make me an offer on it.

              Sartorial Elegance

The shirt that I was wearing

as I composed this was frayed

at the collar and cuffs in such a way

as to seem tipped with a darker-coloured fibre.

My trousers,

the most recent ones that I’d acquired,

had worn holes down near their cuffs.

My black cord waistcoat,

which must’ve been about twenty years old,

had just a few loose threads

and some slightly off-coloured splotches

where I’d repaired a bleach stain

with black vivid marker.

As far as anything I’d actually wear goes,

these were my A threads,

the reality of the situation being

that I really don’t need nice clothes.

                        Cycling

I am, of course, favourably disposed

toward bicycles and cycling, in the abstract,

for all the usual reasons,

but because my cycling skills were so limited

and the traffic in Hamilton was so unforgiving,

I sold my bicycle at a Green Party garage sale

after a terrifying experience on the Cobham Bridge in 2002.

It’s not that I was afraid of dying –

fear of death is for fools of a different sort than I am –

but I had no desire to spend the final decades of my life

dependent on a wheelchair, a drool cup,

and the care of people who only care

because they’re paid to do so.

          Return to Weights

I used to be a gym junkie

until not all that many years ago.

Then, when I began to make

a sustained effort

to shift my being

into neutral,

I ceased all exercise

except long daily walks.

I don’t know why,

but one day

toward the end of the summer

I started doing exercises

with my five kg hand weights

whilst waiting for my

ten-year-old slow-mo computer

to respond to simple commands

when, all too often,

it’d become confused.

The benefits

were noticeable and immediate.

I slept better.

My digestion improved.

My neurodermatitis quieted.

My muscles felt good.

Within a day or two

I was, whilst nearing sixty-seven,

an endorphin addict

again.

    At Least Some Compensation

On a Wednesday morning

I took my first shower

with the new showerhead I’d just bought

and it was a noticeable improvement

on the crucial five minutes or so

I spend daily under flowing hot water.

At other times that morning, though,

I came up against several triggers

– of emotional flashbacks flowing all over me

more than visual memories –

forcing me to relive moments

when others joyously tormented me,

or when I consequently failed to experience

pleasures that seemed within my grasp.

I don’t think these experiences ended up

balancing each other out,

though.

  Real Deal Auction

An auction

of antique

or otherwise collectable

ceramic pieces:

watch

the faces of the people

there to bid.

All so different,

and yet …

faces of people

of a kind I don’t understand

or even want to know,

as they prepare

to spend middling

(I suppose – it’s relative)

yet absurd

amounts of money

in order to possess

– not use –

objects.

                     Fan Dreams

It was late October.

I awakened before midnight

covered with sweat,

my metabolic thermoregulation shot to hell,

a hideously demonic horror dominating my mind.

I thought, “Oh, hell – just something else I’ll have to endure,”

but an hour or so later I decided

to provide myself with some relief,

so I got up, switched on the light, plugged in the fan,

and turned it on for the first time that season.

For the next four or five hours

I enjoyed steady, therapeutic REM sleep –

interrupted only by a couple of trips to the loo –

characterised by constantly segueing absurdist dreams

that I knew were just dreams as I dreamt them,

enabling me to enjoy the show without stress,

knowing that their events

would have no consequences

and that they imparted no meaning at all.

In addition to cooling me down

and stabilising my body temperature,

it seems to me that the fan’s white noise

had helped me regain my dream worlds

each time I returned to bed,

and then to keep them going.

                               Shabby

I have a word collection

that I’ve obtained from memory,

reading books,

the documents I’ve edited,

and playing hangman at the free dictionary website that I use.

I usually post one of them on facebook daily,

and have been doing so for years.

I have that many of them.

Some time back I noticed the condition

of the garments I was wearing and posted:

“shabby, adj. 1. Threadbare or dilapidated in appearance.

2. Wearing threadbare or dirty clothing; seedy.

3. Despicable; mean [a shabby trick].

4. Ungenerous; unjust; unfair [shabby treatment].

5. Of mediocre or substandard quality [a shabby performance]”

… along with a selfie I took

and a comment that numbers one and two applied to me –

and maybe sometimes number five –

but I flattered myself that numbers three and four did not

at all.

Somebody else commented that I shouldn’t put myself down.

I wondered what that had to do with it.

                         My Brown Hat

I bought it in August 1972,

just before I left LA.

I don’t remember how much I paid for it.

It’s a brown felt fedora.

I got it because it looked

like something a detective or a reporter would’ve worn

in a black-and-white movie.

I was wearing it when I checked in with the Norm Crosby show

at the Sheraton Biloxi,

and the woman at the desk

said, “Mmm-mmm-mmm,”

or so she later told me,

and within months she was my first wife.

When the tour company I worked for,

called Star Attractions,

went belly-up

with me in a hotel room

in suburban Atlanta

that they couldn’t pay for –

making it advisable for me to

cash my worthless paycheck at the desk

and split quickly –

in my haste I left my brown fedora behind.

Two and a half years later,

my fellow roadie on that tour

returned my hat to me in San Antonio.

I didn’t wear it a whole hell of a lot,

more sort of on-and-off and sometimes,

except during times when I had long hair,

for about three decades there,

but I wear it often now,

even though it has a hole at the point of the crown

and another that seems to be growing

on the front part of the brim.

It’s not just sentimentality.

The brim wears a white splotch as well –

a reminder of how fortunate we all are

that cows can’t fly.