An online quiz told me that Thom Yorke (illustrated below right) is my rockstar boyfriend, but everyone knows that Ed O'Brien (left) is my man. Note the long lean endless body, the entirely run-your-fingers-through-able hair, kissable lips, the jaunty angle of his hip, his general air of shaggability. All in good time he will realise his life is incomplete without me.

There was a Radiohead show on cable the other night, and I sat there about 4 inches from the screen, covering it in drool and snapping pictures of Mr Ed. Then they got downloaded to the computer, all 77 of them, and placed into a directory with an innocuous sounding name like documents or working files when we all know it's your Secret Porn Directory. Because that's what that Ed fellow is like for me, PORN, baby!

I have four great aunts. Great as in being the sisters of my grandfather kind of great, although they are great as in "good", also. So there's four of them and they're always referred to collectively as "The Aunts". They're all 6 feet tall and in their sixties or seventies and they're spirited and feisty. They all have big brown eyes that sparkle with mischief and they say Ooooooh! a lot when you see them after a long absence, as if seeing you has made them the happiest old ducks in the world. They grab your face in their hands and give you a peck on the cheek and their skin is soft and papery and they smell like roses and cream. None of them have gone grey at all, some of them have reddish hair like mine. And they're so damn Amazon tall and long and when I see them I can see shades of me and I love seeing where I've come from...

... except when I am sitting in a crowded department store on a Friday night being smothered by the air conditioning with screaming kiddies running round and trying to find a pair of summer shoes. Summer shoes are so sweet and dainty and lovely but every pair of summer shoes makes me look like a cross-dressing lumberjack. I am not six feet tall but I did inherit the size ten feet. So that is when I curse the Amazon genes and The Aunts.

I was in a book buying mood yesterday but short stories was all I could do, due to my limited concentration skills. I got "Speaking With Angels", a name-droppers wet dream, edited by Nick Hornby with stories by the likes of Irvine Welsh, Zadie "Tosh" Smith, Colin "Mr Darcy" Firth and Roddy Doyle.

I couldn't even start at the start and just bloody read, I had to dip into each one briefly, stick a toe in, see if any lines grabbed me. Finally I was dragged in with After I Was Thrown In The River And Before I Drowned, by Dave Eggers. I wasn't all hot and bothered about Staggering Genius as everyone else seemed to be so I was pleasantly surprised here.

It's written from a dog's point of view. And not in that cheesy way you write A Day In The Life Of The Toaster stories when you're seven ("Oh I wish they wouldn't stick multigrain in me. That chafes!"). This story so energetic and joyful and slobbery and sweet and I fell in love with it completely.

The dog dies. I was in tears, not because it was sad but just because of how it was written, it was so beautiful. He's dead in the bottom of a river:

"I slept in my broken sack of a body at the bottom of the river and wondered what would happen. It was dark inside, and musty, and the air was hard to draw. I sang to myself."

My sister got home from work and I'd cooked the most amazing pasta but I held it hostage until she read the story.

"Oh." she says when done.

"Don't you love it?"

"The dog died."

"Yeah! But but! Didn't you love how he wrote it?"

"What a depressing story."

"But he was dead and crumpled and he sang to himself. That killed me. So funny and sweet!"

"I spose."

"Well! Eat your pasta then!"

You know those days when you are just desperate for someone to see things they way you do, to feel the things you feel, to cry over a stupid story, you ache to feel a connection with someone, anyone. But they just want to eat their pasta.

I was sitting here contemplating the universe and the sad state of my wallet when I noticed the remarkable difference between our coins of yesteryear and today. Compare and contrast:

The 1966 model shows Queen Lizzie all smooth skinned and delicate, not a blemish in site. But the 2001 is most unflattering. Check out the frown lines, the double chin, the poodle-esque hairstyle, the general air of bitterness and fatigue. Getting old is a quite bitch as it is, let alone having your decline immortalised on the back of a coin. Poor old duck.

My sister sports the same withering look every time she arrives home from her new job. She takes off her coat and kicks off her shoes, throws her bag down dramatically, tosses her hair around like a Pantene commerical, tut-tutting like our mother at a misbehaving student, before announcing she has a new Silly Twit At Work story for me.

Sis is employed at a government department, and was previously unfamiliar with the utter stupidity found in some public servants. Not that there's not stupid people in the private sector, but she used to work in a hotel, and the pace was so hectic that there was no time for socialising, daftness in hospitality can go undetected for years. But in the government there's the long discussions over morning coffee, the endless lunches, the gossipy afternoon teas and the general fart-arsing around - much getting to know you goes on.

One of her colleagues is sweet and kind but a little light in the brain department. Mid-thirties but still at home (Not That There's Anything Wrong With That) with her Mum actually packing her lunchbox every day. On discussing the events of last week this woman was shocked to find out that George W Bush is the son of the other George Bush. "You're kidding? What an amazing coincidence!"

The topic du jour was once again The America Thing, and someone remarked that most foreigners believe that Sydney is the capital of Australia, not Canberra.

"Oh, we do that on purpose, you know." said Miss Sweet and Light sagely.

"Do what?"

"Let them think that Sydney's the capital, not Canberra."

"What?"

"I shall explain. It's because if someone bombs Sydney thinking it's the capital of Australia, the real capital of Australia, Canberra, will actually be safe. Parliament House and all that."

Ohhh.

A week off work begins with the traditional re-alphabetising (is that a word?) of CD collection. They're housed in an old set of pigeonholes from a school. It even used to have the labelmaker names of teachers stuck in front of each hole. Sweet! When I got it five years ago I only had two holes filled, methinks it'll be completely chockers by next year.

I feel kind of stupid blogging about this crap, but I just kind of need to start writing the usual tripe again, y'know?

Does anyone else suddenly feel terribly clingy and pathetic and afraid and hating to be alone? My sister is always asleep early and noone seems to be around. So I watch too much and read too much and worry and worry and worry. I am running up a ridiculous bill of international and long distance, just calling and asking if so and so is okay, just to hear voices, just to be reassured, just for the distraction. I know I am being annoying.

Here's Harry giving me the stink eye after his bath today.

6AM: It's so strange to wake up here in Australia and all this madness has taken place while you were asleep... unbelievable...

We've solved mystery as to why Ollie keeps "climbing aboard" poor Harry every time they meet in the street. Ollie's Mum has revealed that Harry bears a strong resemblance to Jess, Ollie's old flame from Sydney. Ollie's getting old and a bit blind so I guess it's plausible he could make that mistake. Or maybe deep down he just thinks Harry has a really hot ass.

Speaking of which, we encountered the ACT Health Minister and his dogs on a recent walk. One very old and very fat golden retreiver and two yappy types. The yappy ones took a shining to young Harry, sniffing his butt repeatedly before declaring him indeed "quite healthy".

In other news, our black and white hero had been off his food lately. I'd been serving up delicious treats but all he did was sniff half-heartedly and give me that withering, "Is that all you got?" look. He turned up his nose at the usual PAL and Chum and Lucky Dog, so I bought him some expensive My Dog (Guaranteed To Tempt Fussy Eaters, apparently) and very frou-frou Good-O's. Again he wouldn't touch them, but Gordon from across the street jumped over the fence and very obligingly finished it for him.

In a last ditch measure I took a trip to Supabarn and bought some Chappi. And would you bloody believe it, he scoffed it down in ten seconds. He's had it four more times since and goes wild at the sight of that tacky green can. He even went for the Rex. And last night, I gave him a wee can of Bounce for an evening snack and he wolfed that down too. All along I've been trying to give the hound quality meals when what he really wanted was the crappy Chappi. Then again he's a white trash mutt from the local pound, what do you expect?

During the watching of television last night I noticed there's a new album out by The Eagles and it's called The Very Best Of The Eagles. This is distinct from The Very Best Of The Eagles that was released a few years back, because this particular Very Best Of The Eagles has a cactus with a GREEN background on the cover whereas The Very Best from a few years back had a BROWN motif. While the one of a few years back was Digitally Remastered, the new one is NEW and Digitally Remastered. Which means they must have added another 27 harmonies to Desperado or some such flabbergasting technological advancement. Or perhaps there's some bonus dance remixes from Don Henley's solo career.

"So I'm going into the funeral business," my mother declared to me on the phone last night.

"What?"

"Well we had another Quilt Til You Wilt Night, and I was talking to so-and-so, and we're both panicking that we won't have enough money to retire on, so we need to come up with some ideas. And I was just quilting a log-cabin square when she said to me, how about we start a funeral parlor?"

"Were you drinking?"

"Well yes, and it was 2am, but you get the best ideas at that kind of hour!"

Apparently her friend works at a nursing home and "sees a lot of dead people" and there's only one funeral director in town and he's "not particularly sensitive". They've decided there's a market for a different kind of funeral service.

"And what would you do differently?"

"Oh! You know, talk to the families more, find out how they really want to remember their loved one, perhaps a less traditional funeral, maybe some stencilling on the coffin or something..."

"So you mean like White Lady Funerals?"

"No, no... we're thinking more mauve... or lilac..."

It alarms me how serious she sounded. She also said her years of make-up artist experience as a Nutri-Metics lady would come in handy.

Then again, it was only a short while ago she was cooking up a scheme with her friends to start a mobile sex toy shop. You know, like a bookmobile, except with vibrators and fluffy handcuffs, giving a whole new meaning to Mr Whippy.