Daddy dearest – Idle hands

The bed is made, the house is spotless, there are flowers in a vase. I’ve spent time with the mini men, I even Skyped the boys on the other side of town after work to blow kisses to them. I’ve kept early nights, cooked dinners and gushed over Asher Keddie playing Ita.

Everything is in its place and immediately I’m annoyed. I can’t stand the perfection. I aim for it, but when I get there, I look to dismantle it — quickly.

It’s like one minute I’m Fraulein Maria skipping around the bed in my nightie singing about my favourite things, the next minute I’m Nazi Rolf throwing stones at his fuck buddy’s window.

I’m basically not good company for myself. Well, not all day, every day.

I’m adjusting from living on the precipice of neon lights, coffee and wine bars and busy streets, to wide boulevards, neighbourly pets and desolate restaurants.

I was lying down on my couch the other night. While that sounds harmless enough, I realised I was staring at the flowers through the small gap between my big and second toe. That was the point at which I had a cause for concern.

To further illustrate my idle dilemma, I found myself moving books from my bookshelf to the new cabinet, but only if they are in production or have been made into a movie. No less, in book size and colour order.

That was it, I had to do something. I was cantankerously colliding with myself. I was annoying myself by lapping the apartment and checking for stray grey hairs in my beard or flexing my stomach in the mirror with my singlet held up in my teeth while I sucked in and stretched backwards to see the faint grooves of muscle.

I finally picked up the phone and called.

Ah, food that knocks, you say? Or something more naughty, a regular visitor perhaps?

That my friend, I cannot tell you.

What I can tell you is, it was definitely and most devilishly worth it.