When I got to my building this morning a grey-haired woman in a tracksuit was trying to get in. She walked up to the automatic doors, noted they didn’t open, backed up, then walked towards them again. I was carrying a box full of essays, a large and unattractive crumpler bag, and a coffee. I was also wearing impractical shoes. I approached the door and began digging my wallet out of my bag.
‘The doors are locked,’ the old woman said. ‘You’ll have to use the other ones.’
‘They’re all locked. It’s mid-semester break.’
‘What do you mean?’ The old woman watched me crouch and claw through my bag, balancing my coffee and my essays on my knee. I did not reply. I used my swipe card to open the doors. The old woman breezed in and went straight for the lift. I followed, after rearranging my many burdens, and as I approached the lift she looked me straight in the eye and began casually pressing the ‘close door’ button repeatedly. Somehow, I made it inside.
‘When does mid-semester break go to?’ The old woman asked me.
‘Monday. I think.’
‘So there are no lectures?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Oh.’
We got off at the same floor and she toddled away, old and unaware. I am young and spry, so I came to my computer and vented my impotent rage at a menopausal woman into an uncaring internet. I win.
Around once a month, for the past three months, I go see a nice man in an expensive suit in a shiny office in Richmond. He drains yellowish fluid from my rockmelon-sized right knee, then injects it with corticosteroids. The needle hurts but after a 15 minute rest it feels just heavenly. You can keep your yoga and massage and acupuncture, I’ll take my knee draining and steroids. So, after a stressful week, I was eagerly anticipating this morning’s drainage, only to find that my nice man had decided that we were going to do something different. From now on, I was to double the dose of the medicine he has me on, medicine which destroys your liver and makes your hair fall out, to see if that would stop my knee from swelling up. This made me sad.
Later today I’ll be going to a meeting to review my progress on my PhD. My supervisor says I’ll probably be okay. ‘Probably.’
The only thing keeping me psychically functional right now is watching this video of the Doctor Who theme performed on Tesla coils over and over and over.
I was woken by the garbage truck outside this morning, not my alarm, because I lost my phone in undignified circumstances and have to rely on sunlight and garbagemen and my pineal gland peering at the world through the thin bone of my cranium. My first thought was oh no, I’ve not taken the bins out, so I sprang from bed in a thin singlet and puppy-dog PJ pants and sprinted outside. The door fell shut with a definite click.
‘Oh no,’ I said.
‘Oh no,’ said the Samoan teenager hoisting the neighbour’s recycling into the truck.
‘I’m locked outside,’ I said.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘Is there anyone we can call?’
There wasn’t, so after dragging my bins to the cold I told the garbagemen I’d try to climb over the fence out back. I did, ripping my puppy-dog pants in the process, and I managed to push myself through a barely-open window back into the house.
After I’d showered and chastised myself and packed my bags I left to go to campus, and found my bins placed neatly next to the front door. Lesson: garbage men are nice people.
1. A friend has simultaneously finished his PhD thesis and found a kick arse job, so I went to Brunettis to get fancy Italian pastries and celebrate. I was walking to the pub with my computer held tight to my chest, a big Brunettis bag balanced on my other hand, big handbag over my shoulder, looking distracted. When I was waiting at the lights a guy, young, clean, neatly dressed, waved to get my attention.
‘How are you? How are you doing?’
‘Fine,’ I replied coldly. We crossed the street; he walked faster than me, towards Threshermans.
‘Want to get lunch with me?’
‘No.’
He was nearly at Threshermans, and I was hanging back in the parking lot.
‘I was just trying to be nice,’ he said loudly. ‘It’s not like you’re any good.’ He went to walk away, thought better of it, turned back to me, and shouted ‘fuck you, you ugly cunt.’
On my way to meet my friends I couldn’t stop wondering if I should have been more polite, or nice, or sweet, or understanding.
2. Tonight I waited until it was dark and, allegedly, cooler to do my supermarket shopping. I had my goods unloaded onto the conveyer belt, headphones on, listening to Jordan Jesse Go! and drifting about in whatever psychic ether I retreat to in the supermarket. A tall man, weathered man, his long hair a puff of dirty cotton wool beneath a baseball cap, smacked my shoulder with his first three fingers.
‘I wanna go in front of you, I’ve just got to get this dunny roll.’ His voice was thick with alcohol.
I took my headphones out. ‘Pardon?’
‘Let me go in front, I want to buy dunny roll.’
For some reason I suddenly grew a spine. It wouldn’t hurt to let a hectoring old drunk go ahead of me, but I hate it when people cut in line.
‘No.’
He leaned in towards me, got real close. ‘What d’you mean no?’
The slight young man behind me told the old drunk that he could go to the express lane, and I put my headphones back in and felt like a troublemaker. When I left to catch the tram the old drunk was sitting outside with another man. He pointed at me as I walked past.
‘That fucking cunt,’ he growled. ‘Dumb fucking cunt.‘
