WTF kinda day

I have been walking passed this sheet all day having a giggle cos it looks to me like it's a giant pair of bloomer knickers the old nuns were so keen on always inspecting. Am I the only one who can see it?

The older I get the more sanguine I am becoming in the knowledge that I really just don't have a fucking clue about how the world goes round. It's funny to think that in your youth you are so completely cock sure about every fucking thing in your life, so you marry that man and buy those shoes and open your smart mouth at job interviews and try all those recipes for stinking liver, none of which make that shit even close to edible, and it's not until you hit your 50s that you begin to question stuff.

There's a homeless bloke living in the park next door. Well when I say living I really mean staying for a while, cos whilst it's a pretty park and the locals are mostly friendly I rather doubt anyone wants to get their mail delivered there even though very often the Postie stops to take a dump in the loo. I watched him (our visitor not the Postie cos that'd just be ikky,) this morning smile as I played with Dog and then carefully roll up his doona and stash it where I hope it has stayed safe all day, and then I chatted to him. He was a pleasant smart bloke, who I'll admit looked like he could do with a toothbrush cos his teeth were smoke stained from his rollies. I asked him if he needed anything and he said he just needed directions to Broadie. Well that was a surprise but very easy to accommodate and bless him if he declined the offer of a sanga to get him started.

And so I have spent the day wondering how someone becomes homeless. Surely it's not by choice.

When I was first divorced and trying to make the house payments including the 19% interest, and I had miscalculated holiday pay, I ran into stupid trouble one christmas. So I elected to wash people's houses and scrub their dunnies and do their fucking ironing to make the house payments, but only after I had rung a Call girl place that had advertised in the local paper, to be told that at the ripe old age of 30, yep that's THREE ZERO, I was too fucking old to be a prossie. Anyway I did whatever needed to be done to keep a roof over our heads, because back then I might have been ridiculously opinionated, and feisty, but at least I wasn't mental.

Cos I reckon mental illness is a major cause of people losing their homes. I have known a few folk who without lucky significant help, would be rolling up their doona next to our friend in the park.

I used to think that only poor folk become homeless but now I reckon probably only folk suffering mental illness, probably undiagnosed or at least untreated are forced onto the streets.

I hope out friend is safe out there tonight.

I was stopped for ages as a tram trundled by today. The advertising confused me and that always gives me the shits. How is it that I can now be too stupid to understand tram ads? When the fuck did that happen? Perhaps I have actually lost it and should pull up a corner of the park resident's doona? The tram yelled, ' Look behind you cos of the Rhino on a skate board' well actually it was a tad more poetic than that, it's just that I can't remember the exact wording, ho fucking hum. So I looked it up and the Tram page was banging on about the tram weighing 40 times a Rhino, but why were they on skate boards? and how much does a rhino weight? and surely the old idea of look right left and then right again would still be useful?Why are we looking behind ourselves like we are players in a very English Panto, where the audience yells, 'He's behind you!' ? And if you are in a car and you eye spy a tram in your rear view mirror then YOU MUST BE ON THE FUCKING TRACKS, so get outta there and get back on your meds.

But I am clearly missing something so perhaps I should just smile and gurgle into the mire or madness.

And then there is this new fangled idea at Kmart, where the pay station is sort of in the middle of the store or actually closer to the back of the store and so you pay for your shit and then tuck it all into bags and head on out, only to be stopped by someone who laughs when you get annoyed because they have to go through your shit and actually put a mark on your docket that you have to ferret around in your parcels and handie to find all because Kmart has moved their registers so now they assume that customers are gonna steal shit on their way from the register to the front door. Maybe the whole point is to up the anti for prosecutions for thefts, only that really the police have so much more important stuff to be doing - hopefully hassling our friend in the park, not being one of them.

I don't know how anyone applies for the 'check off the docket job'. I cannot even begin to imagine the interview process where perhaps the prospective ticker offerer is abused and berated mercilessly to make sure that they never take a swipe at the customer. I mean who would want that job? They'd have to be a little bit nuts wouldn't you say? And so maybe the job is the difference between bed and park bench?

Yep my poor old brain had been reeling today, and I am just feeling too thick to work any of it out, but I reckon it might be time to go out and see if my friend wants a bit of fish and chips for dinner.