Lately I've been trying to look like less of a slob. My current style is best summarised as Slum Chic. It's high time I stopped being so lazy and tried to look more presentable. Some people say women let themselves go after they get married, but I can hardly let go when I wasn't holding on in the first place!

My first tentative step in this campaign was to get my eyelashes tinted. Beauty editors are always gushing about how all you need is mascara and lipgloss and you're ready to take on the world! But mascara seems like such a bloody palaver. It takes so long to apply, and I poke my eyeballs with the mascara wand every freaking time. I figured I could just get my Invisible Redhead Lashes tinted, that way it would look like I was putting in an effort without me actually having to put in an effort.

So I returned to the House of Wax. I thought the procedure would involve some very small paintbrushes, and some tiny fairy-like creatures sitting on my cheekbones, delicately tinting me one lash at a time. What actually happens is that they put Vaseline around your eyes, slap on some cotton wool blobs, tell you to close your eyes then uncermoniously swish on the dye. Then they repeat, DO NOT OPEN YOUR EYES under any circumstances.

Of course this was my cue to completely freak out and imagine the dye seeping into my retinas.

And then freak out some more when my Waxtress said, "Okay, I'll just do your eyebrows while we wait."

Do my eyebrows now!? My usual reaction to having small hairs ripped from my brow is to spring up in alarm and scream "Bastard!", with EYES WIDE OPEN. So now she tells me I'm supposed to lay very still so she can torture me with hot wax while there are potentially blinding chemicals tiptoeing round the edge of my eyeballs?

"Are you okay?" came the gentle voice after the first brow was done.

"Fine!" I increased my death grip on the table.

"I was just making sure, since your nostrils are kind of flaring rapidly..."

"Fine!"

Riiiiiiiiiip!

"You're all done!" she mopped my flaming brow with tea-tree gel. "I just need to get some cotton balls to wipe off the eyelash tint, I'll be right back."

"Fine!"

How long does it take to find a fucking COTTON BALL!? It must have been twenty million minutes, at least. I swear I could feel the dye crawling up my eyelashes and peering over the rim. I couldn't believe it, robbed of my vision right in the middle of the World Cup! I wondered if I would get the hang of Braille. Would I get a chocolate brown lab for a Guide dog or a traditional yellow one? Would it really matter?

It was so dark. So cold. And I really needed to blink. Should I cry for help? Should I strike out with my leg and kick over that bamboo screen to get attention? Or maybe the Waxtress was actually lurking there, behind the screen and laughing very quietly at my predicament.

I was just about to bellow, "I KNOW YOU'RE OUT THERE, BITCH!" when I finally heard her singsong tones. "Sorry about that! Here I am."

She swabbed away then finally I was free . My breathing returned to normal only when I could successfully count all my fingers and read BANK OF SCOTLAND on the ten pound note I handed over to her.

The finished effect was nice, but I'm not sure the thirty seconds saved each morning is worth the trauma. I tell you, if they employed the Hot Wax/Lash Tint Torture Combo at Guantanamo Bay, I would have squealed like a piggy.

It was 1996 and the university computer lab was full of constipated Apple Macintoshes. The girl beside me was hammering away at the keyboard, flipping back between her emails and a chatroom window. I knew I had an email address - a bunch of meaningless digits @myuniversity.edu.au - but unlike the girl my inbox was always empty. I envied her digital popularity, her overflowing inbox and easy understanding of what all the buttons did.

I was clueless when I arrived at university. In hindsight I should have just worn a t-shirt that said I'M FROM THE COUNTRY and saved a lot of painful conversations. All I knew about the internet was that the previous year a teacher had strolled into class and announced, "Guess what I did on the weekend? I surfed the Internet!". The inter-what? Apparently he had searched Yahoo for our town and found one (1) result!

"Sooo," I leaned over to the girl and selected a casual tone, "Tell me. How did you get all those email messages?"

She did not look up from the screen but arched an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"Your mailbox seems to be full of messages but I keep checking my email, day after day after day, and there's never anything there! How did you get so many?"

"Well..."

"I mean," A slightly hysterical edge crept into my voice, "What am I doing wrong?"

"I doubt you're doing anything wrong. It's just that I've given my email address to my friends, and they write to me and then I write back and so forth. Have you given your email address to your friends?" Do you have any friends?

"I did, but none of them have got The Internet."

"Well, there's your problem."

"Damn. Well how bout you send me one, just to get me started?"

I also was keen to try some of this web surfing business. I had an article carefully clipped from the Sydney Morning Herald about TV fan sites. The very first thing I ever typed into a Netscape browser was alt.tv.x-files. I clicked on GO! and was rewarded with an Page Not Found error.

"The Internet has broken down!" I told the girl, who pretended not to hear. "Broken down, I tell you!"

I typed in alt.tv.simpsons. Same error.

"This is the superhighway to hell!"

It took a wee while to figure out that websites were things that went http://somethingsomething, and things that started with alt were newsgroups. Actually I still don't know what newsgroups are.

Nine years later I am still living on the blunt edge of technology. I recently discovered Wikipedia, only to discover it was discovered some time ago. I use Wikipedia for a variation of a game I used to play while waiting by the Inbox. I'd fire up Internet Explorer, type a noun into the address bar then hit Ctrl + Enter, which wraps a www and dot com around the word. I'd throw in random words for hours, just to see what was at banana.com or coriander.com or volcano.com. If I ran out of imagination I'd just look around the computer lab.... chair.com, clock.com, door.com, ironictshirt.com, acne.com. Oh such fun. Now I perch on the couch with the laptop and bark at Gareth, "Gimme a word!" and we'll see what Wikipedia knows about it.

I tell you what, there is not much that Wikipedia doesn't ken. Once you've searched for obscure historical figures, vegetables and country towns you've lived in, you start typing really purile stuff like bum and fart. If you're half asleep after an hour of furious Wikipedia-ing and search for scrotum then click on the link on the right that says Scrotum.jpg, well that just wakes you up like a slap in the chops I tell you.

On the surface it looked as wholesome and innocent as any other community centre. The noticeboard stabbed with posters for seniors Tai-Chi. Old metal chairs that scraped and clanked. Young hoodlums in beanies clustered round a half-size pool table. An urn and a stack of polystyrene cups. But today, for me anyway, the community centre was the embodiment of evil. It was Blood Donor Day.

When Gareth first asked if I wanted to give a pint, I flatly refused. I don't have a problem with blood, it's just all the paraphenalia they use to extract it. The big bitey needles, the tourniquet thingy, those vile plastic bags and little tubes. Especially the big bitey needles. When I last got a tetanus shot the doctor had to hold my hand and promise me jelly beans, and I was twenty years old. I hate the needles. But at the last minute I decided to go out of pure pride and stubborness. I couldn't have him thinking I was too wimpy to donate blood, especially afterwards when he'd be all smug and righteous and full of free biscuits.

It seemed I was the only person in town who had a problem with the process. The queue stretched down the hall and halfway out the door. Were they all here out of a sense of caring and community, or had they heard about the free biscuits? As we shuffled to the front I could see the neat rows of metal trolley beds, the donors with narrow tubes spiralling from their outstretched arms. My stomach lurched.

A nurse smiled from behind a clipboard. "Is this your first time hen?"

I nodded meekly.

"You're going to be fine!"

There is nothing less reassuring than someone blatantly trying to reassure you. And as usual, my nerves transformed into a desperate need to pee. "Gareth! Where's the loo?"

"Down the back and to the left."

"Back and to the left. Just like JFK."

I perched on the loo, muttering to myself. You must do this, you big pussy! It's easy! It's painless! Millions of people do this every day and they're totally cool with it! And then I heard frenzied footsteps, a gagging sound and a cubicle door slamming shut. There was a groan. Then a moan. Then, "BLLLLLLLLLUUUURGH!"

After hearing that vomiting concerto I almost ran home, but I skulked back in for my interview with the nurse. I tried my best to flunk, emphasising that I was an Evil Foreigner and lord knows where I've been. But I hadn't travelled to any of the countries on the Dodgy list, I had no recent piercings or terrible diseases and my iron levels were healthy. It seemed my blood was ripe for harvesting.

"And finally, has your partner had sex with another man?"

"No he hasn't," I said, tempted to add that he does have these very tiny lycra shorts that he says are for mountain biking...

"Okay you're fine, just wait on the chairs over there."

"Dammit!"

I'd conjured this whole hellish image of how it would go. I'd be chained the bed and there'd be a giant empty bag hanging from a meat hook while a fanged nurse stood over me screaming, "Bleed more! Bleed more!". But instead the nurses were friendly and chatty and said "ken" a lot.

"Mary, d'ye ken my boyfriend?" said one nurse to another as she directed me to the bed. "He's always snowboarding, right, always getting bruised or breaking his legs and I was getting sick of it. So I made him a pair of shorts out of bubble wrap! Hold out your arm, love."

My veins were even wimpier than I was. As soon as she started squeezing and prodding they disappeared under the surface, refusing to surrender my precious blood. "They looked quite smart! I couldn't keep my hands off his arse, just popping that bubble wrap! Pop pop pop! Ooh, I cannae get a vein here. Mary, we'll need a left arm here! Have we got a left arm free?"

"One over there!"

"Okay, we'll have to move you Shauna, but did I tell you that I got a new phone delivered today? My boyfriend called me to say it had arrived and I asked him to look inside the box, and he says 'Ooh it's covered in bubble wrap, you can make me another pair of shorts!' Isn't that funny? She's not laughing, Mary. Do you think she thinks we're crazy? Off you go hen, over there, you'll be fine!"

My new bed was right near Gareth's. He was already half done, laying back looking calm and relaxed; the seasoned veteran. Bastard. The guy next to him was furiously texting with his non-donation arm.

I had a different nurse, but equally friendly and reassuring as she fired up the needle. My left arm was completely obliging, rolling over and offering her an assortment of plump veins. I scrunched up my eyes and before I knew it the needle was in and I was bleeding for Scotland!

It was a rather strange sensation. I willed myself to think of un-bloody things, rather than wonder what would happen if the nurse decided to go out back for a smoke and forgot to turn off the tap. Would I just drain and drain til I was just a bag of skin and bones and blubber and undigested lunch laying on the bed? I looked over at my husband instead. He was gazing up at the ceiling all sweet and serene. I felt a great rush of tenderness. He has this way of encouraging me to try new things even though I whinge and complain and worry things out of proportion, then he'll just smile and not laugh when I finally discover for myself that it wasn't so scary after all. What a guy. What a catch! And then he looked over, screwed up his face at me and made his lips curl and eyes bulge in what could only be called The Gollum Face. Charming!

Ten minutes later the nurse declared she had the required 568 millilitres and I could now proceed to the refreshment area. PEOPLE OF SCOTLAND, listen up. If you surrender just one pint of blood you can freely select from a range of quality biscuits. I thought they'd just plonk down a shitey packet of Tesco Value Assorted but there was Walkers shortbread, McVities digestives, Tunnocks Tea Cakes and something new to me - the Jacobs Club. Apparently they were an 80s lunchbox staple and not as good as they used to be, but to me it was the euphoric meeting of mint and chocolate AND biscuit. I ate two.

Now that I'm over the fear and feeling smug, I'm quite excited about this blood donor business. They only ask you to do it three times a year, and apparently just three tablespoons of your ruby fluids can save the life of a premature baby! Not only will you feel good for doing something helpful, the nurse will order you to go home and DO NOTHING all evening. Which is quite possibly the most convoluted excuse I've ever used for skipping the gym!

So even if you're a complete and utter wimp like me, why not give a pint? Just lay back and think of the biscuits!

ScotBlood
National Blood Service (UK)
Australian Red Cross Blood Service
Give Life (US)

I was doing so well with Gareth's parents. I think they're legends so I've tried hard to win them over with my Novelty Accent™ and a framed photo of the firstborn for their Xmas present. But then this morning Gareth and I were lazing in bed...

(and just lazing, mind - no funny business. Holidays were made for lounging in your scratcher, drinking endless cups of tea, listening to the radio and declaring, "I give you the gift of fragrance" before dropping farts with a strong note of festive Brussels sprouts.)

... when the doorbell rang.

"You get it, it's your flat."

"You get it! I don't know where my pants are."

"I don't know where mine are!"

"But you'll be able to find yours quicker."

"Fine!"

I stomped to door and picked up the intercom phone thingy. "Hello?"

"Hello, Shauna?"

My stomach dropped. It was the voice of Gareth's mother.

I flew into the usual unthinking panicky spinning-in-circles routine, pressed the door entry button and bellowed, "GARETH! It's your MOTHER!", with no regard for the intercom handset thingy nestled under my jaw in the perfect position to beam my voice outside into the crispy air where the potential mother-in-law stood.

"Shit! Shit!"

I couldn't hear approaching footsteps. Had I scared her off? I peered through the frosted glass of the front door but couldn't see a thing. I pressed the door entry button again just in case.

"GARETH! It's your MOTHER I tell you!" I fumbled with the lock, hauling the door open, "GARETH! GET YOUR PANTS ON!"

And there she was on the doorstep. She's barely five feet tall so she'd slipped in under my eye level. I couldn't figure out what kind of smile she was wearing. Bemused? Bewildered? Disturbed?

"I'm not staying, can you just pass this on to Gareth, it's a case for his new camera. How about I come back tomorrow and catch up with you both, say, 4.30?"

"Sounds great!" I bleated as she scurried off. "4.30 it is!"

Cannae wait.

Sometime last week was the One Year Anniversary. I spent so much time trying to figure out the actual date that the moment has now passed. These were the options:

1 NOVEMBER:  Out for birthday drinks, sitting beside each other in a bar, too nervous and crap to make any eye contact. Rory and Jane sat across from us no doubt wondering, Will these two bumbling morons ever get it together?

2 NOVEMBER:  After sulking all night that he Didn't Even Know I Was Alive, he called! I went to his house and we talked talked talked. By dawn I almost dared to think this could be something special. Just to be sure, I poked through his record collection. Didn't find anything too disturbing.

3 NOVEMBER:  Standing on the platform in the chilly night air, my breath shot out in anxious, near-hysterical puffs. I'd called in sick that day coz I couldn't bear for the conversation to end. And now five long months since we'd met at a pub quiz, the time was ripe to make my move!

With the train rattling towards us there was potential for a dramatic and memorable moment, like Anna Karenina or something. But an ill-timed lunge, my kiss landing somewhere up his left nostril, was hardly something to tell the grandkiddies. Neither was me blurting, "You rawk!" before fleeing onto the train. All executed without any eye contact whatsoever.

6 NOVEMBER:  After days of agonising over the You Rawk Incident, we sat in a beautifully dingy old man's pub. I was nervous and euphoric, fumbling with Walker's crisps and a gin and tonic. The MTV Awards were on the telly, live from Leith. I had no Zany Stories left to charm him with after discovering he'd stalked his way through the entire WNP archive, so I resorted to probing intellectual debate: "So, re Michael Hutchence -- would you rather people think you committed suicide or wanked yourself to death?"

We walked home in the drizzle, stopping outside a lighting shop. My heart was clattering against my ribcage as we made inane conversation about lampshades. I was considering attempting another Move when I felt his hand curl round my fingers, so warm and inviting. Simple, effective. Why hadn't I thought of that?

Twelve months on I've mastered the art of looking him in the eye, but the giddy excitement remains. I've know only made vague references to Gareth on here, and there's a few reasons for that. Part of me still feels so shy, lucky and nervous that I fear it will all disappear if I dare say it out loud. Yet at the same time I've never felt so calm and confident about anything in my whole little life, so sure that something was good and right. I'm wary of getting too personal on here and the dear readers becoming nauseous and thinking I'm an indulgent wanker, but for a whole bloody year I've been bursting to blurt it out in besotted detail.

I have a terrible habit of looking at life as a series of Exciting Episodes waiting to be rolled up into blog entries, so I may as well acknowledge we have a new character on the set who is just as top shelf as The Mothership or my dear sister Rhi. It's like how Heather Locklear was always billed as Special Guest Star on Melrose Place when everyone knew she was just as much a main player as Andrew Shue or Josie Bisset or any of those other talentless hacks.

So, how about a character description? On paper he sounds a bit of a badass. I told The Mothership I was seeing a tattooed motorbike-riding shaven-headed rock-band-playing lout, so she had to come to Scotland to investigate. She discovered he was just a harmless lovely lad with an accent she couldn't understand a word of.

What else? He is kind. He is a complete dag and makes me laugh. He listens to people when they talk. He's a committed vegetarian who occasionally gives in to cravings for lamb. His family are nice, especially his dad who sends baffling text messages such as, "WHO ARE BLUE?". He works hard on his Crocodile Hunter impression. He has an infuriating inability to cut cheese in proper slices, instead hacks the block to shreds. He not only tolerates my compulsion to document everything but encourages it, "That'd be good for your blog, with a bit of exaggeration". He's up for all sorts of adventure, whether it's driving to the top of Scotland on a whim or lazing on the couch to snigger at personal ads on the Teletext.

It's also reassuring to have finally met my match in ineptness. While I busied myself with destroying photocopiers, he was accidentally locking himself inside my house, setting oven gloves on fire and riding around France with a crash helmet full of maggots because he hadn't noticed he'd spilled food on it.

It feels incredible to love someone this much, to worry about them, to feel inspired by them, to want their happiness more than you want chocolate or for The Darkness to break up. It takes me by surprise every day. When we first met I was so wrapped up in the excitement of moving to a strange country, it took me months to realise I had fallen for the guy. Okay, Rhiannon had to stage a sort of INTERVENTION in a restaurant to make me see it. I admit I am useless. But it was an incredible surprise, and I continue to be surprised every day, especially the days when I wake up and there is this precious person snoozing away on the half of the bed that I used to use for storage. I feel so stupidly lucky that I give him a tiny poke in the arm to make sure he's not just some sort of Very Realistic Mannequin That Says 'Aye' A Lot.

Even in my dark old days of yore, I was always an optimist deep down, excited by life and the scary/delicious uncertainty of the future. But these days I'm looking forward to it just that little bit more, knowing he's around.

I could almost hear The Mothership's disapproving tones as I crammed the open packet of spaghetti into the little cupboard above the kettle, instead of putting it in a Proper Container and walking the five metres to the pantry where it really belonged. That's just sheer bloody laziness, young lady!

I believe in her ability to Teach Me A Lesson even from the opposite end of the globe. Ten minutes later, while attempting to spread peanut butter on crispbread, the packet leaped off the shelf and a thousand wholemeal arrows hailed down on me. What didn't pierce my eyeballs ended up in the peanut butter jar.

Today, after getting off the bus at Fountainbridge, I slipped over. Taking a tumble is nothing new for me. But today, I quite literally slipped on a banana peel.

Tomorrow I will be on the lookout for flying cream pies.

I was clomping along, as is my unelegant fashion, late for an appointment at Recruitment Agency #457, when before me appeared a goddess. She did not clomp, she glided along George Street with her long golden limbs, impossibly wispy waist and groovy handbag. Her hair was a perfect sheet of black curls, cut in layers so it looked like a big arrow pointing to the small of her back, where a tattoo peeked out from the top of her jeans.

"Sluuuuut. I hate you," was my natural reaction.

But of course every male in the vincinity responded differently. Three lads in baggy pants were nudging and phwoaring and leaning forward to read the tattoo.

Then came along the navy suit with the melty icecream. Then the tourist with his shiny head burned bright red, being slapped by his wife for looking.

In just two and a half blocks this goddess managed to accumulate no less than eight men trailing behind her, all desperately trying to look like they weren't following her, all straining to read that bloody tattoo.

Finally, she sashayed into a dress shop, and the crowd dispersed.

Can you imagine having such power over people? None of them followed me. Bastards.

1.  Refrain from all contact with shower, bath or soap since the Thatcher era.

2.  Be part of a tribe of fifteen year old girls on AIM, reading each other snippets of your saucy conversations with dirty old men. Squeal often, and actually say LOL out loud

3.  Sniff loudly and frequently, as if you were trying to inhale Loch Ness up your nose

4.  Be Mr and Mrs Joe Suburbia on Expedia, squabbling over who gets to control the mouse as you plan which crappy Greek or Spanish isle you will take your fake tanned arses to for the Bank Holiday weekend

Twenty minutes left of my last day at the best job I've ever had. It feels strange not to be leaving a job and screaming WOOHOO! or spitting on the stairs as I run out the door.

We had a lovely farewell lunch with presents and speeches and margaritas and more kilt and haggis jokes than I ever thought possible. And this comes on top of half a dozen different farewell gatherings this week so I am just on the point of bawling and babbling, I love youse all!

So... how about you tell me all your travel tips. Where to go, what to do, what not to do. Tell me what floats your boat, what butters your muffin, what the weather's like in Edinburgh. Anything at all. Don't mention the war.

First I conversed with the anaesthetist.

"So I hear you're going overseas."
"Yeah but don't think I'm not noticing that huge needle."
"Why are you travelling? Just finished high school eh?"
"Nooo!"
"Just finished uni then?"
"Nooo! I've been out for years!"
"Oh! Well I hope you've got some sort of qualification, if you're intending to unleash yourself on the world?"
"Hey. I got a degree buddy. Did you really bloody think I just finished high school? Crikey..."

Next thing I remember I can hear my voice talking and it won't bloody stop. It is saying a whole lot of stupid things. My brain feels like lead and it is pleading with the mouth, WOULD YOU PLEASE SHUT UP?

But the mouth won't comply. They call this "IV Sedation", as opposed to general anaesthetic, so apparently you can't feel a thing but you can still get quite talkative.

I started becoming aware of things just as the surgeon was winding up. I felt something tugging at my tooth, but no pain. But I am babbling away in a wounded monotone, trying to make him feel bad for attacking me, "HEY. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. HEY. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow."

Then I chatted to a nurse.

"You guys are so lovely. You are doing a lovely job. Really you are. You have all been so nice."
"Thank you, dear."
"You know I was so worried you wouldn't be able to knock me out? Like I would be unknockoutable and I would feel it all? You know I've been on a mad health kick purely to avoid encounters with doctors?"
"Shut up!" (That was the Brain speaking)
"Is that so love?"

I proceeded to launch into what I thought was a very articulate and detailed outline of my diet and exercise regime and secrets of well-being, weight loss and eternal happiness, but I'm sure it was a saliva-drenched numb-tongued garbled blur. As they wheeled me out of theatre my brain cringed because the mouth was still talking and talking and there seemed no way of stopping it.

Half an hour later, sitting up in a chair with my mouth stuffed with cotton swabs, grinning and giggling. The nurse was telling my sister, "This one's a talker. She told us all her secrets."

"BWAHAHA! Oh shit," said I.

I started writing this entry yesterday, tis now Friday 5AM and I can't sleep because of my Gigantor Head. I was hoping for the chipmunk face, chipmunks are somewhat cute and perky. But instead my face has taken on a lumpy potatoesque quality. I am a slab with eyes. My lips are numb so when I spoon my gruel into my mouth it slithers down my deformed chin like a useless little baby. Somebody strap me into a highchair and make some aeroplane noises!

I am hideous. Look away. Look awaaaayyyy. No hang on, fetch me some more drugs, then look away.

UPDATE -- STATE OF HEAD:  Downgraded from Mega Potato to Bullfrog. Cheeks have slightly subsided but chin still bulbous. Or as Miss Monkey observed, "A little like Gwenyth Paltrow's face in the Shallow Hal fat suit". Hehehehe.

SUNDAY:  My sister won't stop calling me Puff Shauny Shaun.

About an hour from now, I'll be clobbered over the head with a brick then some evil butchers are going to extract my freaky wisdom teeth with pliers. Well aparently it's a lot more gentle than that, but try telling that to the tumble-dryer nerves in my stomach.

I was explaining to Witold that I had four very aggressive toothies plotting to take over my mouth in bloody revolution, and he drew an Artist's Impression of the rogue choppers. Don't you love 'em?

So I am scared. Anyone in a white coat and authorative manner chills me to the bone. They had to hold my hand and bribe me with jellybeans to get a tetanus shot, and I was nineteen years old. So I've always done my darndest to avoid medical procedures, aside from The Finger incident.

Today's fears include:

• Being one of of those freaks on A Current Affair with an I Woke Up During My Surgery And Couldn't Cry For Help story
• Saying stupid things when I come out of the anaesthetic
• Terrifying small children with my swollen chipmunk face

Which is why I am writing this a mere hour before my mouth is ransacked, so I don't have to listen to your dental horror stories and/or you telling me to stop being such a pussy :)

I've been wheelin' and dealin'. All I need is a cheap tweed coat with leather patches at my elbows and I could be dodgy salesman of the year. If someone says hello to me, I say, "Hey do you need a microwave?" or "You look tired, want to buy a chair to park your arse on?"

There's only a month until we skip the country, so we're selling a lot of our worldy goods. We were supposed to have a garage sale tomorrow, but I've managed to offload so much of our stuff to friends and people at work that there's not enough left to have one. We've had people fighting over furniture, minor bidding wars and one packrat Mothership attempting to hijack the whole event.

MOTHERSHIP:  You're not selling that toaster are you?
RHIANNON:  Yes we are selling that toaster.
M:  Can I have it?
R:  You already have a toaster!
M:  But my toaster might die! There could be a toast situation. I need backup!

This whole thing is so surreal. It would appear things are winding up, doors are closing. Our furniture collection is slowly eroding, the gym membership has expired, we've given notice on our flat, there's moving boxes everywhere, they've found a replacement for me at work. I'm watching this flurry of activity with my usual absentminded blahness and can't comprehend that I am actually leaving.

And I don't want to stop and think about it, because then the panic kicks in and I start running around in small circles, muttering what if i can't find a job what if noone understands my accent what if all my friends forget me what if we can't find somewhere to live what shoes am i supposed to pack?

BOSS:  We just interviewed someone to replace you. She's really good.
SHAUNA:  Oh yeah? Is she better than me?
B:  She's not that good.
S:  Well, good.
COLLEAGUE:  Is she good looking?
B:  She's very good looking.
S:  Hmmph.
B:  And she's a snowboarder. Very athletic.
S:  Bah! I can't compete with that. I hate you all!

In summer, it can happen. Skirts are light and airy, fabrics soft and featherlight. Sometimes it really can feel like you're wearing nothing. I've been known to sit here, tapping away at the screen, when I am seized by a sudden panic that I cannot feel a damn thing on my legs. No swish of cloth, no tickle of a hemline. My heart turns to shit as I think, By crikey, I've finally done it! I am sitting here at work in my undies!

I've had nightmares about this, except there were nuns and police cars involved. I am almost too afraid to look down. So I keep typing for awhile, a frantic taptaptap, trying to remember to breathe.

Then I look down. Of course there's a skirt there. Somehow floating above the epidermis. Even I couldn't be so bloody stupid or sleepwalky to forget to get dressed properly. But it could happen. Lately I am losing the plot.

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.

Sometime during a three hour nap this arvo, I was being held hostage in a 24-type situation. There were dozens of other hostages, all us of in high school uniforms.

We were being herded to a new location. From the corner of my eye, I saw that Nina chick destroying our previous prison. Literally. She was carrying it plank by plank, window by window, to this giant woodchipping machine. It spewed out the other end as sawdust.

NINA: No one will ever know we were here.

SHAUNY: [To my sister] See I told you she was the bad egg. It was so obvious.

We were shoved into a barn, just like on the stupid show. People were moaning and panicking but the calm ones among us were plotting escape. We all had cellphones and were furiously text-messaging ideas. We'd meet each others eyes across the crowded barn and nod gravely.

S: Stay calm everyone. I'm going to get us out of here. I just have to narrow my eyes and think like Kiefer Sutherland.

Next thing some big tough guys barged in and hauled me and three others out into the blinding sunlight. He made us kneel in the dust with our hands behind our heads.

S: Oh. This is where they are gonna shoot us but someone foils their plans just in time.

BIG TOUGH GUYS: Be quiet, the trained killer will be here shortly.

The trained killer turned out to be none other than George W. Bush. But in the dream he had been somehow morphed with Yosemite Sam. He was wearing a check shirt and extremely tight jeans, but had Yosemite's huge hat and pair of pistols. We talked briefly, then I woke up:

DUBYA: Ahhh'm gonna kill yew.

S: Yeah yeah, that's your answer to everything, isn't it?

D: HEY. Watch it. I have weapons.

S: So you keep saying.

D: Don't talk to me like that little lady. [Twirls pistols]

S: Oh you look so cool doing that. You should have your picture taken for your next campaign.

D: [Twirls again] I do look pretty cool, don't I.

S: Not really.

D: Shut up and say your prayers, varmint. No one's gonna save you. Not even Kiefer Sutherland.

Today the wind is wild and sounds like pterodactyls. I've been sitting here for awhile trying to pinpoint what it reminded me of. It's an insane screeching sound that's flinging the trees around. Earlier I saw a flagpole bend and sway then just snap at the base. It fell across a pathway, stopping inches short of a pedestrian.

Anyway, back in high school I started this stupid noise for something to do. You know in high school how everyone has a Thing they can do. Like being double jointed or making that farty noise with your underarms. My thing was being able to mimic teachers (our Science teacher Mrs W was a goodun) and "doing Pterodactyls".

I wish I could remember how it all started and how the noise came to issue from my throat. If anyone from high school is reading (everyone else I know seems to have found their way here) and can verify how it started, please let me know.

Anyway, basically it goes like this. "WUH WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!".

The WUH is rather low and gravelly and then the WOO is drawn out for as long as possible. It's very loud and sounds quite bizarre. And naturally, the drunker you are, the better you think it sounds. I remember being in a park one Friday night back home and there was about eight of us just making that noise, over and over. It sounded like a flock of somethings.

Someone reckoned it sounded rather prehistoric. You could almost picture a pterodactyl flying along making that noise. The WUH on the downstroke then the WOOOOOOOOOO! as they pulled their creaky wings up into the sky. Noone could verify what they really sounded like, so it became known as a Pterodactyl, or Terry D for short.

Over the years when people whooped and cheered at concerts or sporting events, I'd get a nudge and that was my cue to let fly with the Terry D's. It always got a few stares, but people would give it a go, and before long it really started to catch on. Seven years since we finished school, someone still makes that bloody noise when we get together for weddings or Christmas drinks. From stupid things do fine traditions grow.

So anyway, yes. That's what the wind sounds like today. Terry D's.

Alfred Hitchcock was trying to kill me. He usually only makes those little cameos but in this film he had a starring role. It was a bizarre combination of Rear Window and Vertigo. Hitch had hired a woman to pretend to be me in order to make my death look like suicide. I looked nothing like Kim Novak, but I had a broken leg like Jimmy Stewart. I was hobbling up the bell tower and could see Hitchcock's gelatinous jowls silhouetted on the walls. And Harry was trotting beside me. Remember Harry?

I got to the top and looked out, realising I had nowhere to run. I saw my sister running over to the church and she yelled that she was going to save me. I told her Alfred Hitchcock was after me and he had quite a bit of speed on him despite his hefty frame: "Don't save me! You have to run for your life!"

"But I'm the only one who knows how the movie ends! I can stop him from killing you!"

"It's too late! I'm a goner! But we can save Harry!"

A basket appeared out of nowhere and I put the squirming hound in it, like the lady does in Rear Window, and lowered him down to the ground with a rope.

"Quick! He hates dogs! He'll sushify Harry and bury him in the garden!"

After much screaming and arguing, Rhiannon finally ran off, Harry barking and bouncing behind her. Then I felt pudgy hands seize my ankles and suddenly I was dangling out over the edge of the tower.

This is it, I thought, he'll let go and I'll splatter all over those terracotta tiles.

Then I spotted the Mothership standing by a fence. She looked up at me and waved nervously, like a bit-part actor not wanting to screw up their 15 minutes. Suddenly three tiny sparrows bombed down on her out of nowhere.

"Arrgh!" she screamed. "It's the birds!"

"What the hell are you doing?" I yelled, dangling by one foot now.

"I'm screaming. The birds are attacking me. You know, The Birds?"

"This isn't The Birds! It's Vertigo with a bit of Rear Window except Alfred Hitchcock is trying to kill me!"

"Are you sure? I mean it's your dream and all, but it's possible you could be wrong."

Interpretations, anyone?

I thought I would be safe there, up the back and to the left, robbed of all coordination due to wine and too-high heels. Then I looked up, blinked slowly, and realised it was coming right at me, a blur of blue red orange gerbras and irises.

Holy fuck I am gonna catch the bouquet. I don't want to catch the bloody bouquet. Not for another five to ten years, and maybe not even then.

But I held out my arms limply and accepted my fate. Until she came out of nowhere, her squeal piercing through my champagne fuzziness. She lunged across the dance floor, sending half a dozen girls crashing to the floor in a tangle of bare arms and strappy shoes. She plucked the flowers from the air just as they grazed my fingertips, bellowing in triumph. She waved them around her head then galloped happily over to her boyfriend who gave a tortured smile.

Strange day. It was my first wedding that wasn't one of my parents getting remarried. The bride was nervous and grinning and the groom had wet eyes and cracking voice during the vows. They looked so happy to be there. Imagine that, someone tolerating your crap enough to want to be with you for the rest of their life. I can't imagine anyone feeling like that about me. It's too bizarre.

But if I did ever get married, I would exclude the following: prayers, flowergirls who won't sit still, prawn cocktail where the prawns look like severed fingers, vol-au-vents, steak diane, fruit cake, John Farnham songs, the local Golf Club.

We go down to the greasy little shop behind our building to catch some lunchtime sun, maybe catch a little drug deal going down. The shop attracts a strange mix of customers. Suits sitting at the tables with jam donuts and Important Documents; unsavory types pacing barefoot along the side of the road.

The phone booth is where it all happens. It's the busiest phone booth in town. You can hear them shouting down the line, "Yeah I'm at the phone booth! Five minutes? Okay! Hurry!"

I have a greasy chicken wrap that I regret before even the first bite, she has a salad roll.

"So have you heard any more news?"

"Bloody hell, I said no onions. Now my breath will be feral all afternoon."

"Bugger."

"Anyway, nothing concrete yet. But I think it's safe to say that our jobs are unsafe."

A car pulls up and a girl with long spaghetti limbs jumps out, runs over to the phone booth and starts tapping on the door.

"But you know that neither of us belong here, we don't want to be here. Maybe it'll be the kick in the butt we both need."

"True."

"Don't worry, honest. You don't have to look so bloody scared."

A car comes rattling down the street, thick smoke pouring out the back, every door a different colour of blistered paint. It lurches to a stop opposite the phone booth. Steam starts spewing out from under the bonnet.

A tiny barefoot woman gets out with a big bottle of water. There's sizzle and spit as she pours it in. Spaghetti girl runs across the street and pokes her head inside the car, chatting to someone inside. We try to be subtle about watching as the water starts dripping straight back out under the car all over the road.

Suddenly the back window winds down and yet another chick sticks her head out, fixing her big wild eyes on us.

"HEY! AM I FUCKIN' STARIN' AT YOUSE AS MUCH AS YOUSE ARE FUCKIN' STARIN' AT ME?!"

"We're not staring, honest, it's just the water is coming straight back out..."

"RIGHT!"

She gets out, starts walking slowly and deliberately across the street.

"Umm. Is it okay for me to look bloody scared now?"

We scoop up our purses and the remains of lunches and try to look casual about fleeing back to the office. Now, back to fuckin' starin' at nothin' til 5 o'clock.

Drugged up and a wee bit flu fuzzy. It's so tempting to just sit and watch the neighbours. I've never lived in a big apartment complex before. Everyone seems to be oblivious to all the windows. Maybe I need a big telephoto lens like Jimmy Stewart. There's some people laying on a bed drinking something. Into Temptation playing too loud on a stereo two doors down. If I just wait long enough for them to drink enough maybe they'll shag? WOO! Or maybe a screaming brawl with hurling of potted plants? Or maybe I need Grace Kelly swatting me with a Hermes handbag and that creamy voice of hers, come away from that window!

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.

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!

I thought I was the recepient of the Crappiest Christmas Gift 2001 with my "Just Roses" gift pack of soaps and accompanying bottle of Massage Oil...

... but then I got back to Canberra and saw my flatmate's boyfriend Andrew had scooped the pool with his elegantly framed Biker Teddy print.

Help me with excuses for why I shouldn't be forced to go out tonight. My ideas so far:

1. Don't wanna.

2. I have a sore leg [this was our excuse for all seasons in high school. Didn't do my homework coz I had sore leg. I can't kiss your grotty mouth o' braces because I've got a sore leg. I need five dollars because I have a sore leg.]

3. I can't miss Burke's Backyard

4. If Harry is left unsupervised every shanky ho-dog in town will take over our yard.

5. I'm writing the world's most shithouse novel, dammit.

6. Because I am sick of going places with you perfect flatmates who always look so goddamn glamourous and perfect and make me feel perfectly inadequate.

7. The neighbours across the street invited me over for cocktails, Bible Study and wild orgies.

Hmmm.

UPDATE: HA! Went out! Had good time. Silly me.

Trivia gets me hot and bothered. I love Sale of the Century and Jeopardy! I have a nice collection of beer glasses won at Pub Trivia at the Oxford Tavern from the uni days. And nothing drives me wilder than a guy whispering in my ear, "Let's go back to my place for some Trivial Pursuit". I'm no intellectual heavyweight, I can't discuss politics and I haven't read Important Books, but I do know a shitload of Useless Information. When my new boss asked if I wanted to go to a Trivia Night for her child's pre-school on Saturday, I jumped at the chance.

The venue was suitably dodgy, the Belconnen Soccer Club dazzled us with brown decor and mirrors and violently-patterned carpet. There were chicken wings and mini-spring rolls and ham/cheese/tomato sandwiches and a bar. It was going to be a fun night.

Our team consisted of my boss, my sister and I, a South African couple and mid-30s geeky type. The boss abandoned us after Round One, apparently her project management skills were required at the Scoreboard. There's little difference between managing a whiteboard of quiz scores and running the Virtual Tallyroom for the upcoming Federal Election, I tells ya.

We were performing pretty dismally in the early rounds. But there was alcohol so who cared? It was an interesting format, you could actually buy answers. $2 for 5 random answers plucked from a box. Inevitably you'd get 4 of the same answers or a really obvious one, but we noticed people around us starting to take the whole event very seriously, and they were buying up a storm. The team in front of us were winning, so they were particularly serious. They all sported the same Matter of Life and Death killer frowns, the kiddies, the mum and dad, the pregant teen, the uncle and aunt, and then the grandmother, Lord of the Team, resplendent in purple polyester and fake pearls. She perched on her chair, head darting back and forth like a magpie, double dipping into the Answer Box. She obviously was Up There with the pre-school staff, if she drew out an answer she already knew, she's put it back in and draw out another.

My sister and I were mortified. We launched into a bitchy routine of stage whispers:

"HEY! Why don't we put them back in the box and draw NEW ANSWERS until we get ALL OF THEM!"

"YES! Just like those CHEATING BASTARDS in front of us!"

"HOW DO THEY SLEEP AT NIGHT?"

When the quizmaster read out the answers, the old duck would twirl her pearls, nod smugly and wink at her teammates. "Yep, yep, that's right, I knew the answer was Rage Against The Machine. I am not a filthy cheat, I am just a particularly knowlegable old fart."

We started making a comeback around Round Six. If you scratch away at the brain long enough, the trivial crap spews forth. Caspian Sea largest inland body of water in the world. Patrick White won the 1973 Nobel Prize for Literature. And a four-point question, name all the members of The Corrs (Andrea, Sharon, Caroline and Jim. I wish I didn't know that).

Everyone knows there's proper procedure for answering questions at a Quiz Night. If you know who the won the Best Country Artist ARIA in 1998 or what the currency of Bolivia is called, you have to wriggle discreetly in your chair, or make fervent "Mmm mmm mmm!" noises, while waving your hands around. Then you silently write down the answer and shove it to the middle of the table, and raise an eyebrow for approval. If you're right, the rest of the table nods knowingly, gives the thumbs up, or goes, "Ahhhh!" or "Oh, I knew that, but you just said it first".

Then you sit around looking smug until the next question is asked. So you do NOT bellow at the top of your lungs in your thick South African accent, "OH I KNOW THE INSA NOW! ET'S THET CRICKET FELLOW! ET'S DON BREDMAN!". Rhiannon spent half the night hissing "Shut up! Shut up!" and pelting chicken bones at them.

By the last couple of rounds we were in with a chance. I was hot for the $60 Avon Basket and the Microsoft Encarta prize pack. It was time to get serious.

The question was, "Who was the Governor of New South Wales arrested in the Rum Rebellion". I was Pencil Nazi by then, and I scrawled down "William Bligh" without even consulting my teammates, most of whom were smashed by that time.

Geek Man seized the answer sheet from me. "Bligh? Bligh? Oh come on! It's not Bligh!"

"It's Bligh! Keep your voice down!"

"Bligh was the Mutiny on the Bounty guy!"

"Yeah but he was the Rum Rebellion guy too, I tell you!"

"Oh, so he was in two places at once?"

"One happened before the other, you fuckwit!"

"You're wrong!"

This is when I leapt from my chair and tackled Geek Man to the table. I pinned him down and repeatedly slapped him across the face. "Listen to me buddy, get a hold of yourself! I wasn't in the champion Western Region History Quiz Team for nothing. I know my crappy colonial history, and I am telling you it's BLIGH. Got it?".

Then I wedged a spring roll up his nose, sat down and wrote BLIGH in big bossy letters on the answer sheet.

Or

I meekly surrendered the sheet, muttering "Fine! Fine! You're the boss!" while he wrote down 'Macquarie'. Then lorded it over him for the remaining rounds when it turned out I was right.

Depsite our Bligh blunder, we romped home in 3rd place, tied with none other than the Cheating Bastards. Our booty included a dodgy bottle of white, a French cookbook, and a voucher for a men's haircut. My sister got a voucher for a massage (the sporting kind, not the Dodgy Adult Shop In Fyshwick kind of massage) and I got a $20 petrol voucher from Lyneham Mobil. Woohoo!

So we're up the back of the high school on the school farm, on our knees with assorted chickens and a black sheep giving us withering looks from across the fence. It was Year 9 history class and the topic was World War One. Our assignment was to recreate a trench in a patch of dirt. We had big sticks for diggin', a bucket of water, a Bic lighter, silver tinsel, a box of Kellogg's Mini-Wheats, and an army of Lego men.

We were in groups of four, and each group huddled round tight, whispering and digging furtively. Shooting dirty looks at the other groups, hissing things like, "They've got tomato sauce for blood! Why didn't we think of that?"

Soon two nice deep trenches formed with a nice empty stretch of No Man's Land between them. We rolled some tinsel in the dirt and plonked it down. That was our barbed wire. We threw a few Lego men on top, the poor buggers got caught in the crossfire.

On to the trenches. Paddlepop stick parapet. Mini-Wheat sandbags along the top. More Lego men. Then the finishing touch: dumping the bucket of water over the whole thing.

Our teacher swooped over and huffed and puffed disapprovingly."Why did you just flood your trench?"

"It's the Somme. It rained a lot."

"And why are there crushed up Mini-Wheats floating in it?"

"That's the lice."

"And why is that Lego man on fire?"

"That's our interpretation of mustard gas."

We had little regard for historical accuracy, rather crowed a lot about our ingenuity and cleverness. But every now and then we'd grow serious and remember that there really was this huge, horrible war that changed the world so greatly.

Now I can't help thinking about this war now, I keep thinking and worrying. And I wonder if there'll ever be a time some day it will be over, when my great-grand-kids will be studying it at school. Reduced over the years to a neat little chapter in a textbook that said it started in 2001 and ended in blah blah blah and this many people died and there'll be maps and diagrams and it will all look so simple and resolved. So long ago and foreign to them. Maybe they'll be doing recreations in the dirt.

"So what's all this sand?"

"That's Afghanistan."

"And who's that Lego man under the rock with the steel wool round his face?"

"That's Osama Bin Laden."

"Why's there Mini-Wheats tied up in string all over the place?"

"They just dropped some food parcels."

At about 4.45 this morning I discover a new definition of Purest Hell. More specifically, it's like four kinds of hell at once.

Hell #1 - DREAM HELL
When I wake, my brain is clinging to the dying embers of a bad dream. The dream is an unfortunate Entertainment Tonight Special: Who's The Boss - Where Are They Now? Alyssa Millano is sitting on Tony Danza's lap with her hands up his housekeeper's apron, pashing him madly, while the horrified blonde mother and the dorky son are screaming, "YOU CAN'T DO THAT! HE'S YOUR FATHER! IT DOESN'T MATTER THAT IT WAS JUST ON TELEVISION!"

Hell #2 - GYM HELL
When I wake, and realise I was dreaming about Who's The bloody Boss, for goodness sake, I sit bolt upright very suddenly. This is when my body screams in protest. The Morning After Gym pain had kicked in. That's the funny thing about the gym, while you there you can fling yourself around and get gloriously sweaty and say "I Am INVINCIBLE!". You are da bomb. It's not until the next day you realise what you really are is da big unfit lump of unfitness.

Tuesday night, I was in one of my all-conquering moods when this sleek, toned, ponytailed goddess comes in. Let's call her Ponytail Bitch (PB). She is wearing an Outfit™. Anyone who goes to the gym in an Outfit™ is a Bitch in my book, because this means they are of superior fitness and coordination to me. And one only invests money in a proper coordinating Outfit™ if one thinks one is spectacular-looking and a supreme temple of fitness. So unless you wear Target trackies and ratty t-shirt circa 1987, I most likely Hate You™.

So there she is, PB, fanging along on the crosstrainer machine with her Outfit™ and her pristine ponytail swishing back and forth so smugly. After forty minutes of precise sweating, she sashays over to the weights section where I am picking my undies out of my butt and contemplating the universe.

This girl is about half my height and about as wide as a pencil, but she could bench press Afghanistan. She hops on the machine that I was just contemplating hopping on, and sticks the pin on some impossibly high setting. She tosses her hair back and starts pumping away as if it's a box of feathers.

"You smug, athletic little bitch," I fume silently. She finishes and hops off the machine with a flick of the ponytail, and nods to me, as if to say, "Yes, dumpy mortal, you have my permission to use this equipment now."

So on I hop, completely forgetting to change the setting back to Weakling. With a Monica Seles-esque "oooomph!" I realise my mistake. But! I would not give PB the satisfaction of stopping and admitting my lack of strength. So I continue my set, and discover that I am perhaps not such a weakling after all! I am really doing this! Adrenaline is coursing through my veins! My braincells are humming, "You Are INVINCIBLE!"

I am a supastar. I fly through the other machines on her supastar settings. I can tell she is surprised. I saunter all the way home and tell my sister before I collapse into bed, "I am invi-fucking-INCIBLE!"

Yesterday morning there was a wee twinge here and there, nothing to hold me back. Then last night was Fitball class, a jolly hour of bouncing around on a giant rubber ball, rolling and lifting and squatting and contorting, it's a great laugh and not too crippling. INVINCIBLE!

But pain is a funny thing, it doesn't always grab you at first, it swims around in your body, gathering momentum, building armies and forming strategic alliances, until POUNCE! You wake up and every muscle is screaming.

I try to roll over but my legs are uncooperative. I try to sit up but my back says, "Nah, sorry." I can see PB and her nasty little ponytail mocking me, "INVINCIBLE? I don't think so!"

Hell #3 - WOMB HELL
When I wake, I discover that there is some sort of International Drummer's Convention taking place inside my womb. Or so it feels. My skin feels stretched taut like a big bass drum and I am being assaulted by dozens of those heavy hammers.... BOOM BOOM DA DA BOOM BOOM DA DA BOOM BOOM! Over and over and over.

"SHUT UP!" I yell at my stomach. "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, SHUT UP!"

It does not shut up.

Hell #4 - MARIAH HELL
When I wake, my fading dream has a soundtrack. My dreams always have soundtracks and they're always the crap $2.99 in the bargain bin kind of soundtracks. This one is a medley of Mariah Carey songs, worse still, it's limited to the excruciatingly high bits, the bits where she's not singing any words, just driving her voice higher and higher with that annoying EEEII EIII EIII EIII sound, until glass shatters, milk turns sour, passers-by spontaneously combust. I pound my head on the bed to try and drive her voice away. Soon enough the dream falls out of my brain but the Voice of Evil remains.

So there I lay, my stomach being gnawed by pirahanas, my muscles whining, Mariah screeching. I manage to extract myself from the bed, crawl out of my room and onto the landing, make my way down the stairs by sliding on my butt, one step at a time. Finally I sprawl out on the coolness of the kitchen floor, face smushed up against the lino, moaning like a harpooned sea lion.

And then, a few hours later, I come to my senses. I find some Nurofen, I eat my brekkie, I rush to work, and I am a new woman.

What did I tell you? INVINCIBLE.

Everyone climb aboard the stupid train of thought: You read this diary entry and you think ooh how fun it would be to get married. But then you think, do you want to get married because you want to fall in love and be with someone til divorce do you part, or do you just want to get married coz you know you look good in a white dress and your hair is all fancy and you get to pose for photos and you love pretending to be a supastar and you get shitloads of presents and slow dance in the middle of a ballroom with everyone watching and everyone telling you how beautiful you are and then they'll tell you again and you're guaranteed a shag at the end of the night? And then you think about love or the lack thereof in your life and you wonder do you really even want a special someone in your life? Or do you just want someone around who thinks you're the cat's meow, they'd tell you you're cute and funny and oh so smart and oh so okay and you're guaranteed a shag at the end of the night? Do you actually want the give and take and ups and downs of a relationship or do you just want a steady source of attention? And then you think why are you racing off to the gym after work? Do you really give a crap about your health or do you just want to fling yourself around and try to look as hot as humanly possible so people who normally look right through you will say hey baby have you been working out? And why do you keep that weblog? Is it because writing makes your limbs tingle with joy or is just because you madly pine for emails and guestbook signings and links and attention and adoration and the occassional stalker? What kind of kind of egomaniacal desperate freak are you?

Following Mememaster Graham et al, Ten Things Things I Wakarimasen.

1. Japanese. Despite five years of study, the only Nihongo I understand is wakarimasen, which means "I don't understand". So if you didn't understand what wakarimasen meant in the title of this post, you wouldn't have understood that this is actually a list of ten things I don't understand. Is that understood?
2. A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius. Like a neverending paperback weblog.
3. Star Wars. Luke, I am your overrated piece of crap.
4. How to dress nicely. None of my socks match. I always spill food on my clothes. And yesterday, I didn't realise til 10am that my top was on backwards.
5. Parallel parking. How the bloody hell do you swing back in and not end up being three bloody miles from the curb? I just can't do it and it shits me no end!
6. The smugness of university students.
7. My father's penchant for psychotic girlfriends.
8. Calculus. Arrrgh! Get it away from me!
9. Why every man on the planet seems immune to my endless charms.
10. Laurie Oakes. So rotund he looks like he has a baby seal stuffed down his shirt. There could be one hiding in his chin too. It's okay for a male journalist to be an eyesore but if a female presenter on Channel Nine weighed more than a lettuce, she'd be out on her arse.

Furthermore, I don't get Buffy either. It's seems Graham has sparked admissions from other non-followers. And Sarah-Michelle Gellar's face bears a haunting resemblance to a racoon.

One.Tel sent us poor customers an email assuring as that it's business as usual and don't panic, your phone is not going to be disconnected, blah blah blah. I know I should probably start shopping round for a new provider, but I really am quite lazy. Other companies already harassing me to switch to them. I had a nice encounter with an Optus guy last night:

"Hello, I'm Joe Bloggs from Optus, are you currently one our customers?"

"No."

"So you're with Telstra?"

"No."

"So who are you with then?"

"The infamous One.Tel"

"Oooh One.Tel. Let me tell you now, I've heard lots of rumours, they've been disconnecting their customers, left right and centre! Have you heard about our cheap long distance rates?"

"No. But I'd be delighted to know about them"

"Well we have X, Y, Z and blah blah blah and blah blah blah. Now I can switch you over to us tonight right now if I can just get some details from you"

"I don't want to switch right now thanks."

"Are you sure? Because this is the last night we're contacting One.Tel customers with this offer..."

"OH! I SEE! If you knew all along I was a One.Tel customer, WHY THE BLOODY HELL DID YOU ASK IF I WAS WITH TELSTRA!?!"

"Umm... umm... well... I dunno..."

"Not very honest, is it?"

"I know. I'm very sorry."

"It's okay. I know you're only doing your job"

"Yeah. I hope I didn't make you uncomfortable."

"Nah, I've been expecting your call."

"Oh... really?"

"Yes. You know, with One.Tel going down the gurgler and all. I knew you'd come after me"

"Oh yes. Of course. It's what we do. So... you gonna sign up?"

"Noooo! DAMMIIIIIIIIIIT!"

*click*

I fell down the stairs again last night. After two years of multi-level living, I still can't get coordinated. Was making the climb up to bed last night when I remembered I'd left something downstairs. Too lazy to put a light on, I picked my way back down in the dark.

Then there's a moment that lasts for an eternity, in which when you extend your leg too far, start falling falling falling, until you're finally deposited onto the foyer in a crumpled heap. In the midst of that moment it suddenly dawns on the brain that you've missed a few steps, a hand reaches vaguely for the bannister, but it's all too late, you're sprawled out with a mouthful of carpet, swearing and moaning about broken bones and sprained pride. Meanwhile, your sister appears at the top of the stairs, cackling at your misfortune.

At least last time I fell it was because I'd been walking down with a basket of towels to wash, and missed a stair because I couldn't see my feet - I landed arse-first into the basket and it was nice and soft. This time I'd misjudged the bottom of the stairs by a hefty five steps, and I have the bruises to prove it. Nothing hurty enough to justify a day off work, however. Next time Gadget, next time!

I've been such an evil moody bitch lately, so I apologise. The Doubt™ that Rory and Bill speak of seems to hit me every 2 or 3 days, not months as Rory mentioned. Lately I am on this mad rollercoaster when one minute I think yay, you're not so bad, you're doing great in life... then a moment later I am insane with doubt and angry at myself and thinking everything I do is utterly stupid and believing that everyone in the world thinks so too. I've always been an up and down kind of person but it's become really, truly pathetic lately and I keep insisting on ranting in here when it happens. So. Very sorry.

The Lounge Saga has finally ended: my sister tracked down someone who was willing to cart the rotten bastards away for $50, along with the remains of the butchered table, vinyl chairs, and an old mop. Our front yard no longer looks like a ghetto. But there's a nice big bare patch in the middle where the lounges were and autumn began around them. Shaped like a heart, too. Purty.

Thursday night I was curled up in bed when I remembered something that needed to be done the next day. I could have just got up and found a Post-It and scrawled it down but that would mean wriggling out of my blanket cocoon to find the pen and pad and you know once you've found the Right Spot to lay in, one false move and you disturb the precious comfy position that took you so long to find.

So instead I decided to employ my old technique of fixing on a vaguely related object that would trigger my memory about what I was supposed to remember. For example, I'll look at a photo of my family and say to myself, "When I glance at that photo tomorrow, I will remember I have to call The Mothership". Other times, I'll focus on Harry and think to myself, "Okay, when I look at Harry in the morning, I will remember that I have to buy dog food". Sometimes when I'm really sleepy, the connection will be pretty dodgy, "When I look at that glass of water tomorrow I will remember to go to the gym because water is a refreshing beverage that I like to gulp down after my galumphing on the treadmill".

Anyway, I was really wiped out on Thursday and incapable of any real thought, so I squinted around in the darkness to find something to zoom in on. I decided on my fan (pictured above): When I look at the FAN in the morning I will remember to call the MAN who has the VAN who can come over and take away those goddamn lounges from our front yard as soon as he CAN. Because of the logic and sheer beauty of that rhyme I would be sure to remember. And furthermore I will put the fan away because it's not summer anymore, Toto.

Friday morning I wake up and trip over the fan, stubbed three toes and neglected to remember the phone call or to put the fan away. I did remember today but I'm just too lazy to do anything about it, man.

Things of note:

1. I don't like coffee
2. I don't like tea
3. I don't like beer
4. I don't like any cola-related products

This renders me a Beverage Outcast™. It's very isolating sometimes. Just stock up on orange juice if I'm ever in your neighbourhood.

Hmmm, yes. Fascinating information. Once upon a time there was a more balanced links to personal drivel ratio in this so-called weblog. But now the navel gazing has stooped so low my tongue is firmly lodged in belly button. Mmm, linty. I supposed I could rename this thing What's Grossly Self-Indulgent, Pussycat? but I wouldn't get as much Google traffic.

To the kind people who emailled my pathetic arse today, I love you. Everyone else sucks for not pandering to my pitiful episodes of self-doubt. For shame.

I'm alternately thrilled and bored off my tits with this writing class I'm taking. I signed up because I just wanted to be around real people that were besotted with writing as I am and to force myself to actually get some work done instead of dreaming about it.

(Or perhaps I signed up because it was on Tuesday's and that meant I'd miss six weeks of French. Surely I wasn't that stupid?)

Anyway. It's an odd class. Only five of us. An old dame who works at the Senate writing speeches, a girl from Trinidad who works at Grace Bros, a lady who just moved here from South Africa (she writes beautifully and gets all glassy-eyed when she's really into it), and a wee girl who's just finished high school, (she was born in 1983!! Who the hell is born in 1983? I'm getting old) and of course, me.

This weeks class was a bit of a snooze. Too much talk, not enough write. The way the teacher scrawls on the blackboard really bugs me. She's left handed and just pummels her hand at the board like a machine gun with a horrid screeching sound. But the first week was fantastic, we did a bazillion writing exercises and ended up with some really great stuff. We had to write a little short story at the end and I just churned it out and I felt like "woohooing" as I wrote because it just felt so damn good.

Finally we had to read our stories out loud. At first I was so nervous I thought I'd throw up (an old habit from my uni days) but once I got up there and started reading I got the most incredible rush. I sucked them right in with my words and when I finished they were dead silent before someone said "wow". I felt like I was doing something right, something that made me feel good and satisfied and so alive... I felt like me again, and work was a million miles away.

One of the disadvantages of living right next to Anzac Parade is that you can't sleep in on a Saturday morning for all the tanks and marching bands and army blokes.

Remember the lounges that noone would buy at our garage sale? Well today we left them out for St Vincent de Paul to collect and felt quite charitable for doing so. But when I got home just now, they were still here! We got REJECTED by Vinnies!

They claim it is stained! And torn! Gasp! Those words are knives through my good catholic heart. So there is one teeny tear on a cushion and barely there chocolate icecream stain the size of your thumbnail. My sister and I can't help feeling rejected. It was bad enough when noone would buy it at the garage sale. But they're very comfy lounges! Many a sleepy friend have crashed on them and waxed lyrical about their cosiness.

They say that "in this state these items are not suitable to give to the needy". Since when does Vinnies have such lofty standards? And I ask you, just how bloody needy are the needy? Choosy bastards! And don't you love their smug tone, they hope "that you may be in a position to help it with acceptable donations in the future".

Hmmmmph!

Highlights from the garage sale: sexy lady with deaf/blind poodle who asked me did I have any ALF dolls for sale, and our pathetic attempts to sell our lounge suite. Noone bought it. Bah.

So, I'm a bit sad right now. The garage sale went well, pictorial to come. After it was over we piled all the leftovers and our rubbish into the car (we've been doing major cleanup around here) and headed off to the local rubbish tip. What a putrid place. When we got back home I felt like listening to a spot of PJ Harvey for some reason and went to get the CD out of this bag I'd brought home from work yesterday. We'd sat the bag in a safe spot since people would be coming into our living room to check out the lounges for sale (which noone bloody bought, incidentally). But guess what? No bag!

We spent the next half hour going through every bloody room in the entire house, looking for this bag. I even emptied the contents of our chockers garbage bin, which reeked from half a can of coconut milk that I dumped in there after a failed attempt at green curry. No bag. So we drove half an hour out to that goddamn stinky tip again, and went looking for the bag amongst the car load of rubbish we'd dumped there two hours before. But of course, about 100 people had also dumped their rubbish, and those nasty bulldozer looking things had pushed the rubbish back further leaving us no hope of locating this bag whatsoever, despite a gallant garbage guy offering to wade a few metres deep and have a closer look for me.

So we don't know if someone accidentally added this bag to the pile of rubbish, or if some sneaky person stole it while we were showing people the couches. Either way, I am fucking upset. It basically contained all the things I cleared out of my desk at work yesterday. Some novels to read for my holidays, some work papers to look over, my brand new swanky 2001 diary with scores of notes taken for various projects, 4 CDs - my precious Gomez Liquid Skin, the PJ Harvey, Coldplay and John Coltrane A Love Supreme... AND the killer... MY PALM!

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah my little baby palm! You may remember months and months ago I was obsessed with having one, and finally scraped up the money, became very broke for a long while, and subsequently transferred every fucking vital piece of information imaginable into it. Addresses, numbers, passwords, notes, funny pictures, story ideas, and not to mention my Space Invaders!

So I am sad. I am grumpy. I know it's just stuff but it's MY stuff! And stuff that I could not even begin to afford to replace right now. And there is SO much in that little Palm. Creepy to think of someone looking at that. Pah. My only relief is that I am so obsessed with taking pictures that I had my camera in my pocket and not in that bag. But still, I feel kinda sick inside though. If someone stole it, how could I be so stupid? And if it's rotting away at the tip with dirty nappies and grass clippings, how could I be so stupid?

It's in there somewhere! :(

We had a deeeeeeelicious dinner tonight. Stir fried vegies with barbequed prawns. That's shrimp to you foreigners. It was darn tasty!