Here's Golden Boy™.

As of 2 o'clock this afternoon, I officially own his golden ass. Woohoo!

Due to unforseen circumstances, the thing I had been madly saving for this past six months isn't going to be happening for awhile. So rather than blow it all on something stupid, I decided to be Adult for once and pay off the rest of the golden chariot thereby saving me some interest. Now I'm poor but if all else fails I can sleep in the car! Vroom! Vroooom!

And thanks to all those who voted and made WNP the Best Kept Secret Blog winner. Shhh, don't tell anyone.

Well I am all funked out, kiddies. I went to see Jamiroquai last night and I danced like a loon.

Jamiroquai's debut album was the 2nd album I ever bought. The first was Lenny Kravitz Are You Gonna Go My Way. Hey, I was 15 and clearly going through my Artists Who Bastardise Old School Stuff phase.

Anyway, I never got into their other albums quite like I did that funky first one, it all got so samey. But I bought the concert tickets when drunk and thought why the hell not, how often do we get a decent show in Canberra, and I'll get to hear a couple of tunes from that first album.

They didn't play a single bloody song from it.

Nevertheless, it's impossible not to get into a show when you're three rows from the front. That Jay Kay with all his stupid hats and crazy moves is a cute little monkey close up. I would like to know what drugs he was taking, such was his endless energy throughout. He'd belt out a song pitch-perfect then just dance madly for a good ten minutes, scampering on top of the speakers, swishing across the stage.

It didn't really feel like a concert, it just felt like a big party. We were crammed in like sardines in the front rows, it was ridiculously sweaty and crazy. I continue to be amazed by the energy of Canberrans at concerts. When I make the trek to Sydney the crowds seem more subdued, a little cynical and harder to impress. But here in Canberra it seems everyone is so grateful that somebody actually bothered to show up here, that we go insane. It was the same with the Powderfinger show last year. Completely different from Jamiroquai but the same manic energy and roaring cheers.

One thing that bugged me though. Short people. Now don't bloody fire me angry emails if you're short, calling me a Short-ist, a smug tall bitch, whatever. This is purely in the context of a mosh-pit type situation. This snippy shortarse behind me last night who arrived late, very rudely poked me in the back and asked could my mate Jenny (5'10") and I let her through because we were tall and she was short and wanted to get closer to the front. We refused. Why? Because I got there early and bloody waited for the doors to open then I raced over to get a good spot, as did the people in front of me. I don't care if you're Michael Jordan or a goddamn midget, if you want to be up the front you bloody get there early and FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT for the front, orright?

Thank you.

The Mothership is closer now. Before we had a nice buffer zone of 2.5 hours, but now she's moved to Goulburn so she's a mere hour away. Close enough to swoop in unannounced for a routine inspection/nagging session. Quelle horror.

You may recall the last time I helped her move. Well, she went off to a patchwork class and I did the moving. After that ordeal I vowed next time she moved, she was on her own.

When I move house, I take it as an opportunity to purge unwanted items. But Mum doesn't do that. She brings everything. Last time she didn't even empty the fridge.

We discovered this gruesome fact over a year later, on Christmas Day 2001. Rhiannon went to make the pasta salad and found in the fridge door the salad dressing from Pasta Salad Christmas Day 2000.

I fear for my life when I open Mum's fridge. You never know what buried treasures you'll uncover. The problem arises because the woman buys shitloads of food, but never gets around to cooking it. So it sits in the fridge slowly morphing into a museum piece.

One cannot just pluck something from the Mothership Fridge and eat it. There's a lengthy examination process, in which you check for expired use-by dates, wacky odours, strange growths, etc. Then you have to interrogate The Mother. A typical scene:

RHIANNON: Mum, when did you buy this cheese?
MOTHERSHIP Last week!
R: Last week as in the week just been, or 1986?
M: Last week as in LAST WEEK, you little smart arse!
R: It smells funny.
M: It does not smell funny!
R: It doesn't look so good either. Have you go any other cheese?
M: You two are so obsessed with freshness!

But we have good reason to be obssessed, especially after the Gravy Incident. Mum wanted to prove to us once and for all that she could actually cook, because we didn't know, having cooked almost every family meal since we were seven years old. She got out the pots and pans and roasted us a chicken and some vegies. But she was spent from all that effort and asked Rhiannon to make some gravy.

Her ill-equipped kitchen could only offer us a box of Gravox. Rhiannon was stirring away at the stove when she observed:

"Hey Mum, this gravy looks kind of lumpy."
"Nonsense!"
"It does, I tell you. It's got flaky bits in it."
"Oh! It must be that new onion gravy stuff. It's onion flakes."
"Are you sure it's not old?"
"Yes I am bloody sure! You two are obsessed with freshness!"

It wasn't until she'd poured gravy all over my food that she noticed the gravy was actually MOVING.

"Oh look! There's weevils swimming in the gravy! Ooops!"

Of course everyone else's meal had been spared from the bug bath but mine. Grrr.

And then the Orange Juice incident, again Christmas 2001. I live for Orange Juice. Mum's too stingy to buy fresh stuff but she does keep some of that long life Berri stuff for me.

"Mum, this orange juice is brown."
"What?!"
"Shouldn't orange juice be orange?"
"That's long life juice! I only bought it the other day!"
"Bloody hell! It expired in May! Are you trying to kill me?"
"There's nothing wrong with it. You two are obsessed with freshness!"

Then there's the organic vegies. She has a friend with an organic vegie farm. She calls us up all time, "Do you two want some organic vegies? They're organic, you know! Organic! So fresh and tasty! ORGANIC!"

But the time she gets down to Canberra to deliver the booty, they're not so fresh and tasty. The bag of Organic Mixed Salad Leaves have become a bag of Organic Green Sludge; the carrots have taken on a deformed twist; the Fresh Organic Lemons are mistaken for limes because they've turned powdery green from age.

A particularly disturbing moment was when I went to make some guacamole, and digged through the pantry for some Tabasco to give it some kick. The Tabasco use-by date was June 1982. The current year was 1999.

But just like the bargain shopping, it seems Mum inherited it all from her mother. When I was I kid, I once found a can of pineapple in Nanny's cupboard that had a faded green price sticker that read 5d. Decimal currency was introduced to Australia in 1966!

My sister and I chose to stop the insanity there, and take a minimalist approach to fridge stocking. Two or three items per shelf at the most. And the orange juice is always orange!

So the new year's resolution was to Get Out More, even though I don't like it much, does there always have to be the doof doof music and the drinking and the garbled shouting, because I would rather talk and get to know someone. Anyone, really. But I was running out of excuses and lies to tell my friends, mum can only be Coming To Visit Tomorrow so many times before people start looking at you sadly and shaking their head.

Two nights in a row, a parade of red stamps up my arm. At least with Being A Hermit you never had to have that brief period of vodka-induced confidence when you dance and dance and be happy and somewhat engaging and think Hey baby! Those dance classes are paying off! Because it only lasts for appoximately 30 minutes before the old self-consciousness and hyper-awareness fades back in, brain first and then oozing back into the body, all heavy and blah.

That's when I say, D'oh. I'm still the same big dork, just with added jelly limbs, smudgy make-up, skin stinking of other people's nicotine. Can't dance for shit and there's a blinding headache just around the corner.

That's when I say, Can we please go home now? I have drunken emails and blog entries to write.

Did you ever wonder what happened to Pocahontas after the movie? Did you care about the fate of The Little Mermaid after she moved out of the sea? Well, I didn't either. Not until I discovered that we had The Disney Channel, home of the Dodgy Sequel.

Yes, Ariel is a bored housewife and Pocahontas became the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Coming Soon: Pinocchio Returns. After finally becoming a real boy, Pinocchio is still not satisified with his appearance and becomes addicted to plastic surgery. Poverty-stricken and barely recognisable, he sells his story "I Had Improper Relations With Geppetto... And The Little Cat Too" to the tabloids.

And also: The Lion King III - Lion In The Big City. Bored with being King of the Jungle, Simba travels to America in search of fame, fortune and young hot lion lady ass. Voiced by Eddie Murphy.

Last night I had bad, bad dreams about the previous entry. I know you're all thinking I'm some sort of freak. I don't have the finger any more, okay? Not since I was two days old. I have perfectly normal hands! Please don't alienate me from your hallowed society!

Thanks Rory Baby for informing me via the comments that this here blog is a Bloggies finalist, in the categories of Best Aussie/NZ Blog and Best-Kept-Secret Blog.

So to whichever lovely kiddies nominated the Pussycat, thanks! What great timing on my part that I have all these extra visitors and the first thing they read is Shauna Was A Six-Fingered Freak. Just fantastic.

Would you vote for a mutant?

Aside from a bazillion dodgy 2GZ albums, the last thing I won was 2nd place in the 50 metres butterfly at the Small Schools Swimming Carnival in 1989.

Granted, there were only two people in the race. And I had to be fished out of the pool by the lifeguards about the 25 metre mark. Butterfly is a dirty bitch of a stroke, I tells ya.

Now let me just preface this by saying that Marilyn Monroe had an extra toe. She was a fox. She had that breathy voice and lovely body. So if someone as famous and fabulous as her had an extra tootsie, it means there's nothing wrong or weird about having an extra digit. Okay?

I'm not platinum blonde and you won't catch me posing over a grate with a strong breeze blasting up my dress, but I did have an extra finger.

I was extracted from the womb with a cranky red face, raging red hair, and my two fists angrily clenched. Such a cranky baby was I that I refused to unclench them until I was two days old, and then the errant appendage was revealed.

It's not a big deal, apparently, quite common. Mum didn't faint from horror and the nurse didn't offer to drown me in a bucket and to never mention the whole thing again.

But it was pretty useless, sticking out there next to my right pinkie. So off it came. Chop chop. You can barely tell there was ever anything there. I didn't really think about it much as I grew up, unless I bashed my hand against something then the tiny scar hurt like hell. Also when I get nervous or scared, it tingles unbearably. So there still must be a few nerves there.

It was never common knowledge until Year 9 when two things happened simultaneously: we started a Genetics unit in science class and began to read The Chrysalids in English class.

Everyone loved Genetics, because we learned all about the freaky things that occur When Chromosomes Attack! And the John Wyndham book tied in nicely, a high school classic that takes place in a post-nuclear holocaust world. There were some crazy Chernobyl-esque mutations happening. In this ultra-religious society, anyone considered different was seen as an abomination and banished to the Fringes. The book had some great themes but of course being stupid students we chose to focus on making jokes about the freaky people.

During one rowdy class discussion, my dear friend Jenny looked at me suddenly, a big grin spreading over her face. "Heyyyyy..."

"Don't even think about it!" I hissed.

"Hey, everyone. Shauna's got an extra finger."

"What!??!" one teacher and a couple dozen students chorused.

"I don't have it anymore!"

"Shauna's got an extra finger? Well! Get thee to The Fringes!" boomed my English teacher. "Accursed is the mutant!"

The whole class howled and pounded their tables in glee. I shrank down into my seat and hoped to die.

After that I became somewhat of a sideshow attraction. Later on in our Genetics class, Jenny piped up again.

"Shauna's got an extra finger."

"Shauna's got an extra finger?" cackled my Science teacher. "Well Shauna, how about you come out the front and tell everyone all about it?"

"But... but... I don't have it anymore. I haven't had it since I was two days old!"

"That doesn't matter! We shall revel in your freakiness anyway."

I slumped down in my chair and refused to move. So Jenny decided she would field all the questions on my behalf, as I sat there with my face burning red.

"So Shauna's Mum freaked out when she saw the finger," Jenny explained as the curious class gathered round my desk. "She couldn't stand it. So guess what she did? She bit it off!"

"Jenny!" I hit her with my pencil case, but she would not be stopped.

"And she kept it. She spat it out right into an old Vegemite jar. It's still at their house. On top of the telly. Floating in that preserving stuff. I've seen it."

Everyone whooped and cheered and demanded to see where the finger was. So I just held out my hand and let them look as I sulked away.

That night, a girl in my class went home and told her family about Shauna's Extra Finger as they sat around the dinner table. Her little sister was so fascinated/horrified that she couldn't finish her potatoes.

The next morning that little girl went off to kindergarten. It was time for Show And Tell. She volunteered to go first. She had nothing to show but plenty to tell. Thirty horrified baby faces and one shocked teacher listened in awe as she described in graphic detail how my mother bit off my wayward finger and kept it in a jar on top of our television.

That shocked kindergarten teacher happened to be my mother.

News travels fast in country towns. Needless to say I had some explaining to do when I got home that day.

I don't know about you, but I was getting weepy seeing the dreaded Harry Saga™ every time I looked at this page. So I decided to move the whole mess over here for awhile. That is where I'll post any further developments. The page features the most pathetic photo ever:

Tonight the little bastard barrelled across the yard, leaped into the air, nipped my earlobe and put a pawprint on my shoulder. Considering he is a shrimpy one foot high and I am 5'8", he is quite the show jumper.

So I found the lease and the lease says "No pets allowed unless written consent from the owner." We did not have written consent. But after the real estate agents supposedly checked with the owners and got a Harry reference from my old landlord, we made a verbal agreement on the owners behalf, since the owners are overseas.

Turns out despite this agreement, the owners never wanted for the tenants to have a pet and they are pissed off beyond belief. The neighbour tattled to the owners about Harry and now the owners want him gone.

The real estate agent calls this a "terrible misunderstanding" between agent and the owners. I call it "tenants get royally fucked in the rear."

Before we moved I was living in one of the oldest and loveliest suburbs in Canberra. Our backyard was approximately the size of half a football field, and full of trees and rocks and bushes and even a pond for Harry to play in. The landlord thought we were great tenants, so when Miss E needed a place to live, we only agreed we'd move out with her if we could find a place that was good for Harry. We thought our new place was perfect, but doesn't seem the case now.

I had my little cry but now I am just fucking ANGRY! I would never, ever have moved if I'd known Harry wasn't welcome to the new place. There's been nothing but shit since we moved, starting with me accidentally plowing my car into another neighbours vehicle on the very first day we moved in, to the general inconvenience of the new house, now to the Harry Situation.

And all the agent can do is apologise endlessly and says she'll try help me find somewhere new for Harry to live. She also said, "Hey I have a dog, I know it's devastating. But gee your hair is looking great! What have you done to it?"

What!?!

My sister's trying to call the Tenancy Advice Service as we speak. I don't know what rights we have here but it sure feels like we're being screwed over.

Harry is completely oblivious to the current situation. I was feeling quite sad and went outside to sit with him. When he saw I had no food for him, he stuck his nose in the air and ran off to chase some birds. So I hauled him back over and made him sit on my lap. I gave him a scratch behind the ears and he rewarded me by leaping off and kicking me in the head. As I sit here rubbing the tender spot on my noggin', I begin to wonder why I am bothering to save his unaffectionate arse.

Anyway, thank you all for your advice and encouragment. I shall explain the lease situation. Well, I am not 100% sure until I find the freaking thing, but from memory the agents said we were allowed to have the dog, as long we had a reference (the agent from our last place gave Harry a glowing report) and that he didn't go inside (claws are no good for polished wooden floors).

I fear the actual lease may say no pets, because we got permission for Harry afterwards, and that was more of a verbal agreement I think. This was only October but do you think I can remember? The last quarter of 2001 is a blur for me :-( Anyway, we passed our house inspection with flying colours, the agent said the house looked lovely. And Harry was there at the time, bouncing around, so there wasn't any problem with him.

So legally, I'm not sure if it needs to be in the lease or whether the verbal agreement is valid. All I know is we did have permission to have the hound.

Our first move is going to be to find the lease, and then I am going to ask the agent for a copy of the letter that was apparently sent on December 18. It should surely have some explanation of why I am being asked to get rid of my beloved hound. Also, I am going to call the Tenants Advice Service once I find the lease (ta Matt for the link) and ask what they think.

I'm not confident I'm going about this the right way, I'm not used to being practical as my head is always in the clouds but I'm feeling feisty about the issue so we'll see how it goes.

In other news, Bitch Daniel has deserted the pack. After a year of cosy living, he's moved to his own domain, tinyplace.org. He's been a great mate and endlessly generous with his technical assistance so I am sad to lose this bitch. So have fun, chooky, and I hope you find some bitches of your own to kick around. It's fun.

Update: Can you believe this? Harry Aid™! Mwahaha. But please, don't send any money. A can of Pal is okay, if you insist.

Okay, I am crying like a big baby here. Got home today to find this letter in the mail:

Dear Tenants,

Further to my letter of 18th December, please confirm that action has been taken regarding the dog and that alternative arrangements have been made.

What?

So I rang the agent, looks like we did not receive the 18th December letter asking us to make Alternative Arrangements™ for Harry. Turns out a neighbour has complained to the owners of this house (who are currently in Vanuatu). What could they possibly have to complain about? He's only a little dog, he doesn't bark, he just jumps up and down like a dickhead. And he's never out of the yard.

I can't understand who complained either. Was it the Smug Bastards across the street? The only neighbours I know for sure that definitely know the owners are the ones who have Monty, Harry's former girlfriend. I asked them to please make sure Monty didn't come over anymore because she is a big dog and was wrecking the garden. Surely they wouldn't be pissed off enough about that to tell the owners of our house?

Whatever the reasons, the owners are not happy, and I have to find Harry a new home ASAP :-(

I don't know what the hell I am going to do, noone I know here in Canberra has the yard to have a dog. It's just not fucking fair. It's coming up to two years since I rescued him from the RSPCA, and I don't want to have to send him back there to certain death. He's not a smart dog, he can't do any tricks, he doesn't come when he's called but he's my Harry Pup and I love him to bits.

Really, this does not sound fair. Surely they have to give me an explanation.

Anyway. I better go tell Harry :-(

Oh yes, I tried to put on my intellectual pants and read some quality novels during my Christmas break. I was doing quite well for awhile, relishing the big words and the subtle themes. Then the heat kicked in and the air conditioning died, consquently my brain turned to mush. I found myself in front of the flatmate's bookshelf, determined to lower my standards. Top shelf was her fantasy novels, which are no good to me because I tune out as soon as there's misty forests and pointy ears. Middle shelf was bodice ripping historical romances which I skipped, as I don't fancy his turgid steel entering her hot lava cave of lurve. So on to the bottom shelf, where chick lit reigns supreme. These books are a standard two inches thick and souffle light to read. The entire plot is revealed on the back cover blurb and there's always a Wacky Best Friend and the search for the perfect lipstick shade. Just made for a mindless summer read.

The flatmate is a fan of Marian Keyes, the undisputed chick lit queen, huge years before Bridget Jones arrived on the scene. I started with her first book Watermelon, a wonderful romp in which five minutes after giving birth, the chick's husband leaves her. So she whinges and bitches about her plight for 400 pages before finding new love. Page 363 stood out for some reason:

"I'll just tell you very quickly that I think cunnilingus is the most boring thing God ever created. I'd rather spend a day filing than endure a minute of it."

Hmm, I said to myself. Hmm.

But I thought nothing further of it until I was skimming my way through the second novel, Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married. The premise here is that Lucy Sullivan visits a psychic who predicts she will be married by the end of the year. So she spends the next 300 pages throwing herself at anything with a penis thinking he must be The One. Suddenly an apparently raunchy scene caught my eye, in which she described receiving downstairs attention as "about exciting as watching paint dry".

Hmm! I said to myself. The Hmm had an exclamation now! That's two books in a row in which she makes a point of giving her characters a distinct disliking for this particular activity. It didn't take a Masters in literature to see there was a theme developing in these fine, fine works of art! Oh yes! Scholars of the world! Put away your Dostoevskys, analyse this!

Of course, after that I had to go on and read her next novel, Last Chance Saloon, to see if this trend continued! I stomped my way through another 400 pages and discovered that it did not. I even scanned back through the whole thing to see if I'd missed it! But I hadn't. I felt strangely cheated.

Then the flatmate came home with Sushi For Beginners, Ms Keyes' latest. It sat on the shelf for a few days untouched before I could finally blurted, "Are you going to read that?"

Ms Keye's writing has got better and better over the years, and she is brilliant at what she does, and deserves her success. I don't want to sound bitchy. Sushi was a good holiday read. I lounged on the lounge with my bowl of ice cream, reading away quite nicely when suddenly my spoon clattered to the floor.

"HMMM!" I said. Capital letters AND exclamation mark this time.

I burst into my flatmates room and announced to her and the boyfriend snoozing on the bed, "Well! I have the evidence!"

"What?"

"Page 262! She's at it again! For the third time!"

"Who?"

"Marian bloody Keyes!" I cleared my throat and read. "This was the point at which Dylan usually like to shimmy down her body and administer cunnil-"

"Oh, not again?"

"It was so boring and simply added several wasted minutes to the whole procedure." I snapped the book shut and planted hands on hips triumphantly. "HA! See?"

"Indeed."

"Well that's all I had to say. Carry on!"

Writing a novel is good opportunity to tell the world what you really think about things via your characters, but this is getting ridiculous. Perhaps I will churn out a bunch of blockbusters and at some point every character will say, Last night I dreamed of running over the members of Creed with a very large truck or Hairy backs - why god why?, and I'll owe it all to the Marian Keyes School of Subtlety.

14:00 -- Friday (Oz time) - Reality Show ho Shauna succumbs to tempatation and looks up winner of Survivor on the internet. Channel 9 seems to think a cricket test match is more important than a crappy American program thus the finale was not actually screened Down Under until Saturday night.

SHAUNA: Woo! Ethan wins! My loverboy!

14:05 -- Calls RHIANNON at her work.

S: Do you want to know who won?
R: I thought you weren't going to look?
S: I am weak.
R: I am weak also. Tell me who it was.
S: My loverboy. Ethan.
R: My loverboy! Woo!
S: So don't tell anyone will ya.
R: Of course not.
S: Woo! Ethan!
R: Woo! Ethan!

14:10 -- Rhiannon's BOSS walks by. Boss is also reality show ho.

R: Do you want to know who won?
B: How did you know?
R: I harnessed the amazing powers of the internet.
B: Who was it?
R: Ethan.
B: Woo! Ethan! My loverboy.

14.11 -- A COMPLETELY STUPID WANKER walks by.

CSW: What are you talking about?
B & R: Survivor
CSW: Oh. I don't watch that. Reality shows suck. Who won?
B & R: Ethan.
CSW: Oh.

14.12 -- CSW wanders off

14.15 -- Rhiannon receives all-staff email message. All 600 employees would have received it. The message has been sent by CSW. The body is blank, but the subject reads: GUESS WHO WON SURVIVOR? ETHAN!

14.20 -- Angry riots in the workplace.

Ironing is not my forte. Mum had us ironing our own clothes from the age of eleven, and I used to dread Sunday afternoons when she'd plonk the basket of clothes at my door and bark, "Time to do your ironing!"

"Yeah, in a minute."

"NOW!"

It was worse in the middle of summer. The clothes would inevitably have been baking in the sun on the clothesline until they were so hard you could knock yourself out with a sock. Plus the folks were too tight-arsed to turn on the airconditioning, so the steam from the iron made me wilt. So I devised a few shortcuts. First I tried not wearing as many clothes, so I wouldn't have as much stuff to iron. But I was such a messy child (still am) and couldn't get through a meal without spilling half of it over myself, so I was constantly changing clothes. Then in winter it occured to me that I didn't really need to iron my entire school shirt, because only the collar would be visible once I put on the school jumper. I got away with this for a month or two until one day Mum was snooping through my wardrobe and saw an un-ironed shirt sleeve hanging up there and promptly lectured me for an hour on the perils of laziness. So after that I made sure I ironed that one sleeve.

Jump to a few years later and I was at university, where everything you wear is Slob Gear™ and is pretty much wash and fold. Or wash and throw on the floor. Or not wash at all and just pick up from the floor, sniff the armpits and wear.

Anyway, I was poor and in need of a job. I hadn't managed to find one and Mum was getting impatient. Then she found out that a friend of a friend was opening a business in town and needed a junior staffer. I dutifully trotted down there with my resume and was grilled about my work experience and HSC results. Then they asked me, "Can you iron?"

"Iron?"

"Yes, it's an ironing business. Didn't your mother tell you?"

It was called It's Ironic! Ironing Service. You know, deeply ironic in that Alanis Morissette kind of way. And how deeply ironic that the world's worst ironing chick was employed there.

I had the 8.30 shift, which was the arse crack of dawn to a slovenly uni student. I worked solo, and had to open up the shop, fire up the nasty big industrial strength irons, take any new orders and do a bit of ironing.

I used to sort through the baskets and chose the easiest one. Ideally you wanted the basketful of oil-stained overalls from the garage across the street, because they were so crappy that you couldn't really do any harm to them. Also good was a basketful of cheapo chain store cottony stuff, washed so often that there was only a whisp of colour left. Baby clothes were also good. Very small. Or a basketful of hankerchiefs and teatowels. When an old lady would walk through the door I would whoop for joy inside, because there'd be a high proportion of easy iron hankies, doilies and tea towels, plus if she was old and blind enough she wouldn't notice the shoddy job I did of her frocks. Worst of all was a basketful of designer gear, delicate fabrics and complicated creases.

I tried to be a good ironer, really I did. I made sure I used the right setting so not to scorch the fabrics. I used starch when the client demanded it and made the creases sharp enough to amputate a limb. As a result I was a slow, slow ironer, and I got the feeling the boss was looking for a reason to let me go.

It all came undone one Wednesday morning, I was hungover and fragile. There was only one new basket to do and it was all designer stuff. And white. I tried to avoid it as long as possible, I cleaned the shop windows, vacuumed, and removed all the fluff from the bottom of the irons. Once I'd arranged all the notes in the til so the faces were all up the same way there was no avoiding the ironing.

I did okay until I got to the white jeans. That was when the iron decided to vomit murky brown water all down the right leg. My heart flipped. I poked at the stain with my finger. It wasn't going to budge. I thought of mum's Handy Stain Removal Tips and couldn't remember a single one. I considered trying to wash it under the sink, but remembered that laundry wasn't one of my strengths either. I looked at the label (size 8) and recognized it from one of the local fancy schmancy shops, and frantically calculated how much money I had in my paltry bank account, or how many hours ironing I'd have to do to pay for the new pair, and whether I could close up the shop, run up the street to the fancy boutique, buy the jeans and race back here, stealthily replace soiled jeans with new pair, all before the boss got in, but then I panicked, would they still have those jeans? Were the last seasons stock? Would someone break into the shop while I was away and steal my perfectly faced notes and a giant ironing board? And who the fuck wears white jeans anyway?

I was thumbing through the Yellow Pages and just about to burst into tears when the boss arrived.

"Why are you so pale? Are you ill?"

"The jeans! I've killed the jeans!"

"What?"

"They're ruined!"

"Let me see."

"See!?!"

"That will come out with a bit of water, the iron does it all the time."

"It does?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

After that the quality of my ironing degenerated with each shift, my heart wasn't in it. The customers started complaining and soon I was only trusted to hankies and tea towels. Finally I found a new job at a coffee shop and I told my boss sadly that I was going to leave. She gave me faint smile that was not at all ironic.

In the new job I discovered that making coffee was something to add to my Not My Forte list. "You're afraid of the milk," said Greasy Joe, my boss. "Don't fight the froth!" And don't ever let a non-coffee drinker make your coffee.

Yesterday I found in the mailbox a copy of Becoming A Writer by Dorothea Brande. Woo! Could the kind soul who sent it to me please speak up so I can thank you properly?

I'm a few chapters into it now and it's a great read. It was originally written in 1934 but still reads fresh as a daisy. And she's a witty old broad. It's not condescending or wanky like some writing books can be.

Still hot. Still and hot. No sleep, t-shirt, undies. Toss on the bed, all melodramatic and cranky. Wait for the sky to split open. Thunder grumbles, lightning spits. Bursts of light and shadow on the walls, like the glow from a television set. Think about work. Think about an overdrawn bank account. Think about fresh raspberries. Think about the Grammy nominations. Same bloody formula every year. Crusty old rockers on comeback trail; latest songbird fresh from her teens; inoffensive radio friendly band with soaring ballad; token gangsta rapper type in attempt to show awards still relevant; and Bob Dylan. Finally, rain hammers on the roof, sleep, wake up, better mood.

Who invented the Hot Dog Maker? How fucking difficult is it to heat up a bloody hot dog?

Have you looked at the kitchen appliances on offer these days? There's the Muffin Maker, in which you can make a grand total of three muffins at a time. Ditto for the Pie Maker and the Omelette Maker. Then there's the Popcorn Maker, Sandwich Grill, Health Grill and Rice Cooker.

I always thought you could achieve all those bloody things and more with a normal old stove and a frying pan. But no, it seems you need a different applicance for every dish and your shiny new applicance is guaranteed to make the job Quicker and E-Z and 97% Fat Free!

Chances are, I'll come home from work tomorrow, fling my bag down in the hall, scratch my chin thoughtfully and remark to Harry, "You know Harry, I really feel like prime beef fillet served on a bed of dirty carrot tops and poached hummingbird eggs with a rosemary and deer antler jus."

And Harry will turn to me and say, "Well it's funny, today I just popped down to the shops and bought the brand new Breville Easy Prime Beef Fillet Served On A Bed Of Dirty Carrot Tops And Poached Hummingbird Eggs With A Rosemary And Deer Antler Jus Maker! It's so easy that even me, your flea ridden companion, can be a gourmet chef! I simply throw in the ingredients, press Start and walk away. Twenty minutes later you'll be dining in style."

It's hot today and I'm cranky. Mission Impossible 2 is one of the worst movies ever made.

Oh ho, it's one of that sad little entires in which I make crappy excuses for not writing. But to be honest, ever since Nanowrimo finished I have felt completely burned out (burnt out? help me, grammar nazis) and drained of all creativity. I haven't felt like writing. But I have felt like socialising, compulsive exercise, drinking too much, and laying on my bed moaning like a harpooned whale whilst panicking about the future.

Helloooo. I went to the James Bond party last night. It was a rather swanky affair with cigars, a Casino Royale and cocktails aplenty. Only problem is the cocktails ran out just after midnight so we were left with the choice of revolting lukewarm champagne or some very dodgy leftover mixes (mango puree, blue curacao, lemonade and sambucca, how about it?).

The best part was seeing a bunch of high school buddies, many of whom I'd not seen since we graduated six years ago. Everyone's scattered all over the globe now but it's good that you can fall back into friendships like you never left them, even reviving old unfortunate nicknames. Typical reunion scene: someone screaming "SHAUN DOGGIE!" as they drunkenly weaved across the room.

At midnight I kissed as many people as possible, with as much gusto as I could summon from my booze-soaked bod, my reasoning being this is probably the most action I'll see until the next new years eve, knowing my raging success with the opposite sex. One guy even came back for seconds, so that will do me til next year. Well, actually, it won't bloody do at all, but beggars can't be chosers. Mwahaha.

The party ended rather abruptly around 5.30am when the dance-off got out of control. Our old buddy Jeff, resplendent in fez and cravat, got a little too funky at the Disco Volante (a mirrorball and floors and ceiling covered in tinfoil) and went smashing out the living room window, arse first.

Now it's 6.30 pm and I'm feeling very seedy and bleary, and according to an email confirmation, I got online and bought four Jamiroquai concert tickets sometime this morning. Hmmm.

Well, have a great year kiddies!