SHAUNA: Arrroooooooooooooooo!

RHIANNON: Arrroooooooooooooooo!

We were watching television, Renovation Rescue 3. Perhaps it was the heat, the lack of dinner in my belly, or some deep animal instinct, but I suddenly felt the urge to tip my head back and howl like a mournful dog.

So I did. It was long and plaintive and very loud.

And without lifting her eyes from Brendan Julian's arse, Rhiannon joined in.

Seconds later, we were crying from laughing so hard.

SHAUNA: If anyone else had have been sitting there, they would have thought I was a loony. But you! You didn't bat an eyelid!

RHIANNON: Well, you howled. It seemed appropriate that you should not howl alone.

I have this very childish streak in which if I can't be brilliant at something, I develop a severe attitude problem. Like learning Japanese. From Year 8 to Year 11, I was top of the class. The teacher adored me. I won prizes.

But then in Year 12, the Fluent Ones came in. These were the kids who used to be in the grade above us, except they spent a year in Japan on exchange and had returned to do Year 12. On day one of the school year, I sat there in a state of panic and they babbled on to the teacher with rapid accuracy. How could I compete with that? They didn't have to scramble for the dictionary for every word, all those spidery characters made perfect sense to them. They could even crack jokes in Japanese. Which they did often, and only they and the teacher could understand. Which of course meant I would sit and fume some more.

Instead of applying myself to study, I decided my best option was to give up. If I couldn't be the best, then I would do my best to be the worst. I threw all my energy into English and History and ignored Japanese. In my oral exams, my Nihongo was reduced to, "Umm. Cat. Dog. Let's go to the museum".

Then it was Parent Teacher Night. Mum came home and reported, "English, great. History, great. Japanese, Your daughter has developed an attitude problem. What are you going to do about this?"

"I'm not going to do ANYTHING! AH HA HA!" I screamed, and swooped off to my room in melodramatic fashion.

One day my friend Su and I sat in the library for twenty minutes after Japanese class had started, hiding in the shelves and muttering, "I hate Japanese" and "Me too." Then we decided we should probably show up. She went, then five minutes later I sauntered in, ignored the teachers hostile expression and said with my nose in the air, "Sorry I'm late!".

Ohhh yeah! Did I feel like a badass or what? Until of course, I stumbled over a Fluent One's backpack and went flying across the classroom and smashed face-first into a poster of Mount Fuji.

Now the same Attitude Problem is developing with my singing classes. We're in a group of three now, and we sound like gold when we're in tune. Which is about 10% of the time.

The rest of the time consists of our teacher going, "No no no. Stop stop stop. Let's do that again." Which means our progress on The Andrews Sisters hit, Mr Sandman, has been excruciating:

Lesson One: Mr Sandman, bring me a dream.

Lesson Two: Make him the cutest, that I've ever seen.

Lesson Three: Give him two lips, like roses and clover.

By Lesson Four I was starting to get cranky. None of us are interested in becoming professionals, we just wanted to make some noise. But the teacher is adamant that we learn correct technique. He's a nice guy, really. Funny and sweet with cute little dogs and an organic vegie patch out the back. But he demands perfection from people who are not interested in perfection.

Last week he showed us this technique where you have to make your jaw all loose and keep your mouth open wide so you don't strain so many muscles. It sounded easy. The first Andrews Sister tried it and got it straight away. Then the second tried and was pitch perfect. They squealed and marvelled at what a difference this little technique made.

So of course this was my cue to panic and think fuck fuck fuck fuck! I just know I am going to screw it up. Which I did.

"Relax your jaw!" my teacher was saying. "Open your mouth! Relax!"

"Muuhh-kay" I mumbled, face contorting.

"Put your tongue into the E position!"

"Wuh's E puhsishen?"

"Like this! Now, do your scale."

"Ah Ah Ah Ah -- Huh can't"

"You're closing your jaw! Try again!"

Over and over and over we went. I could not get it right. And so my temper began to boil.

Suddenly he decided the only way I was going to learn was to sing with a WHITEBOARD MARKER shoved between my teeth.

"You have got to be joking!"

"No! Put it in your mouth! It's clean! If this is the only way I can get you to keep your mouth open, so be it."

So off I went again on my scales.

"That's a little better, but you need to be louder."

I yanked out the marker and perched in my fingers like a cigar, tapping my foot and glaring.

"No no no! Put it back in! Do it again!"

"FINE!"

Six garbled attempts later, he finally sighed, "Can you practice this at home? Ten minutes a day? Please? Can you do this for me?"

"Can I do this for you? I've never heard that from anyone but my mother before. Can you do this for me? That's all I ask! It's the least you could do for your poor mother."

He snatched the marker from my mouth. "You're a dork."

I don't know how this will all end. Five years of Japanese ended with me writing "I HATE JAPANESE!" on my HSC Written Exam (in Nihongo). Perhaps my grand finale will involve me sneaking into the teachers garden at midnight to chop the tops off his organic carrots and or kicking his tiny dogs. More likely, I will just simmer and sulk and sing very, very horribly until it's all over.

It's very hot. In the courtyard, the guys from the ground floor are playing cricket. We admire their sporting prowess, how they manage to bowl and brandish a beer at the same time. They're in shorts and t-shirts or no t-shirts at all. There's a lot of swearing and sweating and Howzaaaaaaat! Their voices have the drunken croak and rumble of old crows.

Later on, it's impossible to sleep. There's an air conditioner in the living room, but it doesn't reach the sweltering bedrooms. I stare down my alarm clock, calculating how many hours of slumber I'm wasting before it's time for work.

In winter, curtains are drawn and the building shows no signs of life. But as soon as it warms up, the windows are wide open and you can hear every little thing. You get to know all the night patterns. You know what time the courtyard sprinker system will kick in. You know in about ten minutes your sister will get up and make a banana sandwich. You know which apartment has someone pacing restlessly inside, icecubes rattling in a glass, the hum of a television. And then there will be that girl downstairs.

Ohhh!

Here we go again.

Oh! Oh! Yeah! Oh!

She sounds like an old electric kettle on the boil. Gurgling and whistling, on the verge of eruption.

Uhhh. Uhhh!

Aiiieeeeeeeeeee!

The sprinklers pop up in the courtyard, choking and spluttering.

The voice of an old crow cricketer rises from the ground floor.

"AHHH COME ON MATE! SHE'S FAKIN' IT!"

Where does confidence come from? How come some people can just believe in themselves and in what they do and just go for it? How do you get to the point where you can create something without wanting to tear it to pieces five seconds later? How do you stop feeling so overwhelmed by doubt and crapness to actually finish anything? Does anyone else want to shag Ken from Survivor?

99% of New South Wales has been declared drought affected. I would like to know where the unaffected 1% is. Is there a snobby little cloud that chooses to rain exclusively upon this 1%? And beneath that cloud, is there a bunch of people in a big swimming pool, surrounded by lush green gardens and fountains, laughing it up while the rest of the state dries up?

Out in the sticks last weekend, the sheep looked like shrivelled prunes on legs. Just bones and rumpled wool wandering around the bare paddocks. The heat was unbearably dry, the kind that fires up your skin like a hotplate; you keep waiting for it to just crack and fall off.

Meanwhile, I see Mr and Mrs Joe Fuckwit wasting water out in the suburbs. Drowning the geraniums in the middle of the afternoon, plonking soaker hoses down on the turf. I drive past and wind down my window to boo and hiss. I want to string them up in the trees and smack them with a spiky sprinkler head until they see sense.

We had a huge dust storm here in Canberra a couple of weeks ago. All the precious public servant 4WD's were speckled red, the queues at the car wash stretched out onto the street. A friend of mine saw his neighbour standing on her roof in the middle of the day, hosing the dust off the Colourbond! Why the hell do you think we had a dust storm in the first place?

In the drought of 1983, our water tank ran dry. I discovered it was possible to bathe, water a flock of sheep and do three loads of laundry on just one thimble full of water. Ever since then, I go bezerk at the sight of a dripping tap or a midday sprinkler.

I know it's easy to forget in urban areas that cows are roasting alive and the earth is cracking up out in the country. But come on people, as the Mothership would say, "Use your brain!"

I barely recognised the little bastard, sitting up straight there on the footpath. It looked like Harry, but the Harry I knew never sat still like that.

But it was Harry, and apparently these days if you ask him to sit, he will sit. And he shakes paws. And he swims in the lake. For about five minutes til he has some sort of canine panic attack and thrashes his paws wildly.

He didn't recognise me at first, maybe it was the stupid blonde in the hair (hey, Jen didn't recognise me at first last night, ha ha) but then he came bounding over in his idiotic way.

His New Mum told me proudly about all the training she's done with him, how far he's come, how he doesn't jump in the car unless he's told to anymore. Hmmph. She may as well have said, "I am making up for the years of indulgence and gross neglect when he lived with YOU!".

But being in my presence, he instantly reverted back to his old brattish behaviour, the wacky hound that used gnaw on my friends or threaten to pee on the couch if you tried kick him off. New Mum asked him to sit, asked him to shake, but he barrelled around, nosed through puddles then sat on my feet, leaning his head on my knee like he used to.

It was all I could do not to start blubbering, That's my disobedient boy! But I was off to Electric Shadows to watch some insane anime (chicks that turn into cars... cool!). I said goodbye and walked off. New Mum commanded Harry to sit but Harry came bounding after me, just like in the movies! Except it was a grotty petrol station instead of an open meadow. I must admit I got a lot of satisfaction from the fact that he disobeyed New Mum. Sure she adores him and is wonderful for taking him when he needed a new home, but he still loves ME dammit.

Finally he got into her car and she put on his little doggie seatbelt and he stared out the window with his trademark goofy expression and slobbery tounge. Blink blink. Like a goldfish, you could tell he'd already forgotten he'd seen me.

That's all anyone ever wants, isn't it? Not to be forgotten? If you can't be with someone, whether it be man, woman or a dumbass little dog, you just want them to miss you, to wish sometimes you could still be around.

This is the third time I've had a birthday since starting this freaking blog. That is just a ridiculous amount of time to be waffling on. You should take me down the back paddock and put me out of my misery like an old dog, before I start to go blind and bark halfheartedly at parked cars.

Now I'm 25. What's that in dog years? 175? So relatively speaking, about a century ago you should have all kneeled down in front of your children and said in grave tones, "Darling, Shauny's gone to doggie heaven. No, don't cry, she'll be happy up there! Now she is free to run through meadows and hump any leg she chooses!"