Wednesday 21 June 2006

It Originally Finished Here

This is where the original FletcherSatchel finished.

This is where, in June 21st 2006, that I lost track of this blog.

So the original material in this blog went from February 18th 2006 to June 21st 2006.

Anything after June 21st 2006 has been added in 2010.

It wasn't until March 07th 2010 that blog.com asked me if I wanted to change to the new format and revive the old Blog, which I did.

March 2010, I changed the name to Use the Remote.


I changed the name to My Other blogFletcherSatchel, 2015, maybe.

Then I changed it back to Use the Remote.

Monday 19 June 2006

Winter

I don't know why, but the winter does me in. Everything shrinks, I mean everything, the days, the light, my will to live, everything. I think it has something to do with the dark, actually, too many bad mushroom impersonations. It just makes me want to do like a bear and hibernate, slip away to somewhere warm and and comfortable and quiet.

Shorter days, shorter life, or, at least, less will to live, less inclined to move.

Of course, it makes Spring glorious, like a perpetual new day and something to look forward to.

The sun comes out again and we all cheer.


Saturday 17 June 2006

Saturday Morning

I met Carlo at the bakery, he is running errands for his mum. I want sweet focaccias, my normal Saturday morning fare, they only have date scones. Well, that was the next thing I fancied.

What?

I exit the shop with the brown paper bag in my hand feeling just the lightest bit disappointed. Carlo is just coming in. He follows me home, saying something about not having seen me around. We smoke half a joint, which I have in the ashtray in the kitchen, ready for after my orange and walnut focaccia. I put brewed coffee on, as Carlo goes cross-eyed. He does a little dance, right there on the tiled floor. He's an eager puppy. He says it is his happy dance. The boy loves pot, it's good to see.

He's beautiful. He's got the sexiest legs, on him, in his tight shorts. He's a hairy Italian boy who just oozes sex appeal.

Ah! Ah! Ah! He gulps for breath. On his tip-toes. He kicks. Up against the granite. AAAhhhhhhhhhh! His stomach clenches. Ahhhhhhhhhhh! He crunches his arms in front of himself, as he pirouettes on one toe. Dark olive skin. Black hair. Ah! Muscles in a tank top. His lips glistens pink. Green eyes. Ahhhhhh! He kicks again with the same power of the first. Thick legs. Hairy stomach. He's stroking the air above him, almost Bollywood. He's gaining his breath. Ahhhh! He spins. He stops, arms out. An eighteen year old smile, unblemished skin, other than the beads of sweat on his stubbly top lip.

He sits back against the kitchen bench. He smiles.

"Wanna go again?" he says. Big grin, white teeth. That wog boy voice, husky, cheeky. He holds his hand out. "Here, I'll show you."

Sometimes, I just want to eat him like a sweet focaccia.


I put coffee down in front of him.

“Do you want milk?”

“No.” He pulls a face.

“Do you want sugar?”

“Of course.”

“I forget that.” I get the sugar bowl and a spoon. “It always seems the wrong way around?”

“What does?” asks Carlo. He slides the teaspoon into the raw sugar and drags a heaped spoonful out and stirs it into his coffee.

“You guys…”

“You mean the wogs?”

“Yes. You like sugary black coffee. And I always imagine you’d put some milk into your coffee.”

“Nah.” He slides the spoon back into the sugar bowl extracting a second heaped spoonful of sugar. “Sugar.” He stirs the second spoon of sugar into his coffee. “Not milk.”

“But, milk just enhances the taste of coffee, where sugar changes the flavour.”

“Says you.” Carlo raises the coffee cup to his lips.

“Yes, I say.”


“How about that sweet focaccia?”

“Weren’t you doing errands for your mum?”

“They can wait?”

“When is she expecting them done?”

“Oh, she’s used to how her errands get done.”

“Slow, or not at all.”

“Getting done when they get done,” says Carlo. “She had three sons.”

“Are you all alike?”

“Sweet focaccia,” repeats Carlo. “She does expect her errands done this morning sometime?”

“Date scones,” I say.

“You can date a scone,” says Carlo. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“They’d sold out of orange and walnut focaccias, I got date scones.”

“Date scones?” questions Carlo.

“They taste good with lashings of butter,” I say. “Like everything does.”

“Like everything?”

“Everything tastes better with butter?”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“Okay, give me one of your date scones then.”

“Coming up, sir,” I say.

I get the brown paper bag and a plate and the butter.

“Do you think I would?”

I cut the scone in half and lay the two halves on the plate.” “What?”

“Taste better with butter?”

I run the knife through the butter and spread a generous amount of butter over the scone. “Yes, yes you would.”

Where would you butter me?”

I spread a generous amount of butter on the other half. “Where it would do you the most good.” I push the plate towards Carlo.

“My mother warned me about boys like you,” says Carlo.

I cut another date scone in half, lying the two halves down on the kitchen bench. “I wonder what you mother would say at the sight of your buttered arse.” 

“She’d say that’s my boy.

I spread a generous amount of butter on both halves of my scone. “That’s my boy? You think she’d say that’s my boy at the sight of your glistening butt hole?”

Carlo smiles as he sips his coffee.


Friday 16 June 2006

Week's End

I went face down in the mull bowl, to drown my sorrows. The higher you get the fewer - ha, ha. 

I fell asleep on the couch in front of the open fire, tired out. Warm. Safe. Not a care.

I slept the sleep of a dead man; the lost night of Friday. The week's end's night nurse. All Fridays are the same - fall down, or go insane, not much in between.

Crackle sounds the wood in the flames. Red and yellow and green.


Sunday 11 June 2006

Yesterday

After breakfast, Mat and I went home for a siesta.

We lay in each other's arms and rubbed our half-hard cocks against each other absentmindedly.

I love Mat's chest, like every muscle-boy's chest. Although, he is not strictly a muscle-boy, he's just naturally blessed.

Mat fell asleep first.

I sucked his nipples gently, they got hard, ripe and red. He groaned sleepily.

I kissed his sleeping face.  He hummed in his throat, happily.

Then I must have fallen asleep too.

And, you know, any troubles seemed so far away.


Saturday 10 June 2006

Al fresco

Saturday morning breakfast, very important. Very "behind" sunglasses. (No photos, thanks) We went out late, drank vodka and danced.

Oh yes, doesn't your shit not stink, says the waiter's eyes as he views what is in front of him.

"Menus," he says.

No mate, I just don't want any photos today. I'm not signing anything, was the look I gave him.

"Coffees?" he says.

"Yes," I say.

"Shall I just bring a selection?" he says sarcastically.

I like him already.

Mat gives the order.

We sit there staring until the coffees come.

"So, you ready to order?" says our waiter.

We both move our heads in unison to look at him. We both move our heads in unison to look at the menus. We both move our heads to look back at him. Without saying anything.

"Shall I give you some more time?" he says.

I look at Mat, Mat looks at me.

"Perhaps another week," says our waiter. He laughs.

I give my order, my voice even surprises me with how croaky it is.

Mat gives his order.

We drink our coffee and in no time the food arrives.

Mat and I giggle behind our foggy eyes, dark sunglasses, his has my big egg breakfasts reflected in them.

I laugh. Mat looks quizzical, as quizzical as anyone can look with sunglasses on. 

"You've got eggs for eyes."

"Huh?"

I shake my head. "Never mind."

"You have Fairy toast eyes," he says. He caught on quick.

Strong coffee. Somewhere in the sun with an ashtray. Maybe a cool breeze, if it could be managed. A newspaper and my boyfriend's foot resting gently on mine, was what I had wished for in my head.

And that's what I got. Oh, minus the newspaper.

The waiter came over. "Everything okay?"

"Would you have a newspaper?"

"Do you think you can?" he questioned.

"I'll give it a go," I say.

He smiled and went and got a newspaper.

He brings two. "Thanks," I say.

We both read the news as we eat our food.


Friday 9 June 2006

Food and Warmth

The usual Friday night deal. We ate. The fire crackled. We smoked pot. No sooner had I smelt Mat's warm, milky smell, with my face against his chest, than I was out like a light. On him. No, really on his chest. He had to move me carefully, come out from under my spell, so to speak. Crawl out. Arrange me delicately on the couch, taking up all the space, a dead weight.

I was held in my boyfriend's arms, my very favourite place to be.

Mat played games on his own, as I snored face down, rather indelicately across the furniture.

We stayed up until 3am. It was 4am by the time I got to bed.

Ah, Friday nights, the one night when every other night can just fade away, Friday nights stand on their own. There is no other night like them. There is nothing to do for the longest time at any other time in the week. Friday night is nobody's night. Nobody should be making demands; nobody should have any expectations. As the sun sets Friday evening, there is loveliness for everybody. Oh yes there is.

Just food and warmth, that is all that matters. Food and warmth.


Sunday 4 June 2006

Go, Go, Go

Lay around all weekend, wrapped in a doona on the couch watching the Sunday programs, having my head patted and fed grapes, being cooked for and adored.

I wondered what all the single people were doing? On their own?

Mat lay next to me and slept most of the way through it, the weekend, that is, when he wasn't patting my head, or feeding me grapes, or cooking me food. His breathing like a heartbeat, rhythmic, life reassuring. Calming, like patting a cat, or hugging your dog.

Go, go, go; drift, float.

Sometimes life is just this simple. We don’t have to make it any more complicated than this?

Ah. Stretch.


Thursday 1 June 2006

Chilled

I sat around and smoked dope all morning.

I went out to see an ex-girlfriend, who has a 2 year old and is six months pregnant who doesn't think she is going to cope when she has two.

What could I say? Nothing. I just listened.


"If the next one was a boy, I don't know what I'd have done."

"And is it."

"No. that was the first thing I wanted checked." my friend said, with an air of certainty about it.

We ate lunch and then we took the two year old to the park. 


"He never stops, he just never stops."

She seemed sad, not joyous at all, at the birth of the next one.

"It's just not how I imagined it to be."

I thought she was going to cry. Maybe that second dope cookie was kicking in. I took her hand and squeezed.

All she ever wanted to do was to have kids.