Sometimes I worry that one day, I'm going to write something that leaves me feeling like something had been ripped out of me - not a feeling of pain, just one of quiet hollow, an absence, that creative element temporarily fled - that I'm going to get that feeling, and it's never going to go away.

This is what worries me.

I have nothing witty to say. Here's something I prepared earlier.

Mlle C: i'm assuming it's safe to bother you while you're twiddling your thumbs
titania fae: Oh, I don't know. Twiddling takes a lot of concentration. I might drop a thumb.
Mlle C: and that would be a crisis of massive proportions
titania fae: It would. They roll under the furniture and you can never find them again.
Mlle C: and opposable thumbs are so useful
titania fae: They are. People should sell spares.
Mlle C: yeah, but can you imagine the prices? supply couldn't possibly meet demand
titania fae: It'd be a status symbol. How many thumbs do you have?
Mlle C: oh yes. and rappers would have to have platinum plated ones
titania fae: On large chains around their necks.
Mlle C: yes
Mlle C: with diamonds on them

It's O-week at one of the major universities down here. What makes me say this? Oh, the little things, y'know.

Like, say, groups of half a dozen giggling young people, running through the Bourke Street Mall, wearing black plastic garbage bags, tied to each other with string, with "JAFFY" daubed on their foreheads in flourescent zinc.

So just a wild guess, really.

One of life's mysteries:

In my (lengthy, distinguished) university career, the word 'narrative' abounded. "When you engage with this material," Jimmy would say, waving his hands around, "you're becoming part of the neo-liberal narrative."

Now that I'm doing a creative writing course, the word hasn't been mentioned once.

Other words that have been conspicuous in their absense: paradigm, dialectic, modernity, discourses, neo-anything.

This is a Good Thing.

/me does the non-academic happydance.

Spam, spam, spam, sausage and spam. (No points, but respect.)

"Add two inches where it counts!" (As a friend once said, my life is complicated enough without a two-inch penis.)
"I'm looking for a nice man!" (Well, you can't have mine.)
"Cheap prescription drugs!" (Would any of them make checking my email bearable?)
"See cheap sluts get off!" (I moved out of college for a reason, y'know?)

That said, there are some things about the place I miss. Tutor crawl is definitely one of them. This is the first year in five years that I have not been present at the Burgmann College Tutor Crawl. This, I feel, is a vastly important milestone in that institution's chequered history and probably, as with most milestones of this universe-altering magnitude, will completely escape the notice of the vast majority of people.

Oh well. I care.

gilmae, your website hates me and won't let me comment. You made it do this because of the little commenting error here, didn't you.

I know you of old, vindictive bastard.

I just wanted to say, re: gleeful child spotting blue hair: Bwahaha!!

That is all.

Carmilla last night, being a goth night that occurs two blocks away from where I live. Convenient much? Delightful fun, but oh! the smoke. The smoke that still lingers rancid and hideous in my hair even though I washed it, scrubbing hard with too much shampoo. I'll never be free of it. It'll plague me forever.

Speaking of gross travesties against my person and the world in general: why the fuck was I the only person dancing to Siouxsie's "Kiss Them For Me"? Have you no respect? (Which was nearly typed in faux German, because "Haben Sie kein Respekt!" just sums up my mood so much better. German is such a good language to be annoyed in.)

Another one of those conversations that never happened, but should have:

"What are you doing with the frying pan?"

"If I said scraping cemented eggshell off the chopping board, would you believe me?"

Blogger is chucking a spack attack at me, making me log in all the time. This is cramping my style.

Plan:

1. Get job, thus enabling me to have spending money so I can eat and...
   
2. Get new web host. One that doesn't cost peanuts, and hence have no cgi-bin or anything else useful, which will enable me to...
   
3. Switch from Blogger to something that isn't obviously run by the random perambulations of ants. This leads to...
   
4. Obvious world domination.

Easy when you know how.

Speaking of "who the %&$# was that?", the phone rang at 2am last night. By the time I'd figured out it wasn't a dream, or some weird alarm, and actually picked it up, whoever it was had hung up.

That is not socially acceptable behaviour. Bad monkey.

Today, a bus apologised to me. There's a first time for everything, I guess. I told it not to worry about it; it was fine.

I laugh at trams, too. Especially ones that say: "Who the *10# was that?"

Some madnesses remain the same. Some less pleasant traits as well. For instance, moving cities does not appear to have quelled my sneering-at-wankers and being-an-utter-bitch-in-the-privacy-of-my-head tendencies. My Novel class contains precisely six people I could consider meaningful interaction with in the future. Class also contains the usual cliches.

• The Go-Getter, who's finished her novel already, working on the second, has lived and worked in numerous places overseas, has connections, has expectations of this course that we'd all fucking better live up to or she'll shake her perfectly permed curls at us and look displeased. (She annoys me by dint of having no love of words or creativity, none of the quirkiness I need in order to see someone's merit, and also because I know she's going to succeed. People like that do.)
  
• The Geek. He's completely focussed in his little world, on the concepts and structures that put it together. He's writing sci-fi because he reads it and he's earnest about communicating the genre specialities, though not interested in putting them in any sort of terms that non-sci-fi-readers might be able to easily associate with. The Devil's in the details, and why don't you care too? (Cliche geeks give the rest of us a bad name. I work hard as an ambassador for Geek, and people like this let me down.)
  
• The Precision Mistress. She cares about form and function. She doesn't use contractions. Precise enunciation makes you feel like she's looking over her glasses at you and leave you mentally unwilling to challenge anything she says. She doesn't seem to leave any room for the shades of grey. (I'm sure she's lovely, she just intimidates me. She didn't smile once, I swear. My instinctive social defense mechanism is to try to make people laugh. But apparently she writes poetry too.)

And in the midst of hordes of well-travelled, experienced folk, there was lil ole me. Hi, I'm Dee. I just finished university.

I'm not married. I don't have any kids. And I'd blow your head off if someone paid me enough. (2 points - this is classic Dee quotage here.)

As personally requested by the Male: You can make a computer joke about anything.

Aaaaaaaaaahfuckit.

Blogger just ate my post. Bitch! Slut! Whore!

I cannot replicate that feat of erudition and insouciant charm. It was unique, completely unparalleled in the world of blogging. It would have started a revolution.

Bollocksed it all up now.

So, I nattered on about the blogmeet, how there were lots of people (but no sex toys, and hence the single 'Berra blogmeet is still in front), how I really enjoyed myself, and how I now think that all Melbourne people are that witty/clever/charming/willing to put up with my random shit. Of course, from here, the town can only disappoint. Although probably not if I only continue to associate with perfectly witty, clever, charming people. Ah-hah! A plan.

I may also have mentioned how I'm starting classes today. Novel 1. Yee-fucking-hah, dudes.

The Male makes my day again: "Bitchin'," I said (he told me), and one of the summer clerks looked at me and said, "you totally can't carry that off." Fuck that. I carry off whatever I damn well please. I sling it over my shoulder and spank it once for good measure.

Dude! X2 sneak-peek screencaps. Watch me do my impression of a squealing fangirl.

EEeeeeeee!! Cyke! Storm! Wolvie going ape-shit!

Is it May yet?

4pm, I'm back from the shopping, it's time to make a cup of coffee and settle down for the Afternoon Internet. Headlines today include:

Why are black heavy metal band T-shirts considered White Trash? These things are expensive, y'know.

KLF. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.

There's a walkway between Collins St and Flinders Lane that runs through what is possibly the Male's favourite building in this entire city, 333 Collins St. (I must admit, it is an impressive and endearing edifice, reminiscent of such lovely atmospheres as Batman and Blade Runner.) I walked down this walkway today, and thought that maybe I could do this, say, three or four times a day and never be free of inspiration. Although it does really require echoing heels and billowing drapery, rather than jeans, a White Trash black heavy metal T-shirt and squeaking red sandshoes. But I did my best.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, I did not fall in love with a baked potato.

Afternoon Internet ends. Film at 11.

Last night was our first official Meal of Leftovers.

I'm not sure what was worse, the wash-up afterwards or the faint smug feeling I got this morning to see all that empty space in the fridge.

I'm becoming so domesticated! Aaaaargh!

On a happier note, saw Chicago on the weekend. Eep! It was fantastic. Brilliant. Flashy, sparkly, slick, raucous, clever and vivacious. It certainly reinvigorated my love for the 1920s. I once had the exact haircut that Ms Zeta Jones sports in that movie. Just wonderful. So well put together, delivered with so much enthusiasm and vigour. I think I need the soundtrack. I think I need many jazz CDs. I think I need to learn all the words to "All The Jazz" so I can sing it badly in the shower.

Loved it. Lots.

Let's just set the record straight. For some reason, everyone with whom I share a passing acquaintance thinks I was at that monster peace rally on Friday.

I wasn't.

Yes, I'm a politics student. Yes, I'm outspoken and opinionated. But most likely, everyone who knows me better knows I wasn't there, and could probably say why. Admittedly, they might say: "Because Dee couldn't be arsed."

This is a reason also. But mainly:

• I do not believe in rallies. I do not believe in massed gatherings in the street. The small measure of good they might do is entirely negated by the bad potentialities. In any crowd of people, the chaos potential increases and the average intelligence decreases geometrically, until you get mob mentality. This is how riots work. This is how groups of people are capable of things individuals would never even contemplate. And why there seems little chance of that in such a gathering as this was, still... Walking past it on the way to our restaurant, it seemed to me that the vast majority weren't so far from zombies submitted to the will of the mass. It's fucking scary. I want no part.
  
• I do not believe in peace. Well, not in this particular instance. After careful, advised, educated thought, the situation known as 'peace' in Iraq just can't be allowed to continue. Possibly it should have been done earlier. Possibly the motives of the aggressors aren't the most pure. But there's also the possibility - high, I think, but I have moments of blinding optimism - that this action might lead to regime change in Iraq. And that would benefit the lives of "innocent Iraqis" much more than holding off for another ten years for fear of accidentally blowing some of them up.

Basically, student politicians are morons, and I don't want to have anything to do with them.

Are we all clear now? Good.

Hmm. Drunk.

Ish. Drunk-ish. Not yet at the stage where I can remember the Lounge, and then remember Flagstaff Gardens, but not remember travelling between the two. But sufficiently tipsy to converse with delightful goth people at Club UK's all-Depeche Mode night. She had gorgeous, gorgeous make-up. The stuff I could never ever possible achieve. Even with fair warning and a run-up.

And now I'm just sitting up, paddling away at the internet in the hope that an hour extra of staying up might mean the difference between being Our Lady of Shit Personified and only being mildly grumpy tomorrow.

Why why why am I cursed with such horrendous hangovers? I was such a good girl for most of my youth.

I'm going to the Melbourne blogmeet. Sounds like a fun night out and an amusing way to meet new and similarly geeky interesting people. Have already received wonderful welcome from some. Am slightly afraid I will be my usual caustic, flippant, random self, and be ostracised. This is an ongoing concern of mine.

Ah well.

There is bad sleep feng shui going on in the main bedroom here. The Male's been complaining of getting no to little sleep for the past week or so. So, last night, we swapped sides of the bed - never mind that the last time we swapped sides, he headbutted me in the nose in the middle of the night - so I could keep reading with the light on, which would encourage him to keep his eyes closed. (Oh, the hardship, having to keep reading. I'm plodding my way through the 10th Jordan, hoping something significant is going to happen soon. Like, before the book ends, please?) Anyway, he slept quite well. I, on the other hand, was left staring at the ceiling, yawning furiously, but unable to sleep.

When I did sleep, I had weird worry-dreams about a fanfic project I'm running. The rough gist, as I remember, was that a bunch of (I think) nuns had signed up for it, but the website they gave didn't quite fit the criteria. Or rather, it might have, but it was all too confusing. I didn't want to question them about it, because I was worried they'd curse me and I'd go to hell.

Like that's not going to happen anyway.

Damn, I missed Shauny being in town?

I hate it when I get out of the loop. Oh, wait, I live outside the loop.

/me sulks.

Now I'm in a good mood. Beware that.

Things I love about Melbourne:

• The way the sun ricochets off the tall buildings and makes weird lighting effects. Like that fake nighttime light in old, old movies, where it's massively spotlit, but still supposed to be midnight. Strange and eerie like that. Just there, on the pavement, for everyone to appreciate.
  
• Boys in delightfully officious school uniforms...
  
• ...holding hands with girls in equally flamboyant uniforms.
  
• Other giggling schoolgirls out of uniform and in droves. Hell, I have to either love 'em or start slaughtering 'em en masse. And I only just got here; I don't want to be run out of town just yet.

Berra Bloggers: At Jen's party, you told me about some Melbourne blogger being barred from a cafe for drinking his chai wrong, or something. What was the cafe? I want to start patronising it. Because, y'know, I'm like that.

Excuse me while I scream and rant incoherently for a bit. I'm in a bad mood and am being completely needlessly and overly harsh. Please ignore. Or at least beware.

Fuck people who can't write good taut narrative to save themselves, but insist on swirling dramatically around the point for fifteen convoluted, purple-prosed sentences.

Fuck people who dither about stupid little points of people they probably wouldn't even like if they met in real life. And insist on spelling their names differently anyway.

Fuck people who don't live up to my expectations of them for no reason other than they like it better the easy way.

And fuck me for being such a complete and utter childish tantrum-throwing bitch about it all. Get over it!

End. You can come out now.

I need a life. Then I could stop being so annoyed about the internet.

Sometimes I wonder if I know too much about writing to actually be successful at it. Those are the times when I decide to be an editor instead. Easy way out? Maybe I just like telling people what they're doing wrong. In which case, I should become a hermit, live on the top of a mountain (a mountain with cable internet access, of course), and make people walk hundreds of miles uphill just for the privilege of having me tell them what they're doing wrong.

"Don't climb mountains! What are you trying to do, kill yourself?"

Or even better: "Don't. Just don't, OK? I don't want to say any more about it, just don't."

My newsgroups are upgefucked. I'm putting them out of my misery.

Kinda sad. alt.fan.eddings was, admittedly, almost dead and I can talk to anyone I actually like in the Kitchen on IRC, but still. Y'know. Nostalgia and shit. And I'm going to miss watching the erudite/crude insult and innuendo matches on aus.culture.gothic.

I was going to post something about how almost everyone my age seems to be a brainless muppet product of the spoon-fed media society, which is why I prefer to talk to an older, more erudite set, if I possibly can.

I was going to post something about how doing nothing is starting to make me feel stagnant and I need my life to start flowing again.

I was going to post something about how strange it is that only now, after I've well and truly left home, am I really starting to get to know my father.

But skill with words seems to have left me this morning.

Instead, I'll say something about how great it was having Jen and Bec here, sharing my new city with them. As Jen said, slightly melancholy, but still thoroughly enjoyable.

And I'll apologise to all those at the Boobs II. I heard the housewarming went off. Well done. Sorry we couldn't be there. We would have loved it.

My week, according to the Friday Five:

1. What did you have for breakfast this morning? If you didn't have breakfast, why not?
Well, I sort of did. I had a bowl of cereal. And then I went with Jen and Bec to the station and put them on a train bus (industrial action can bite me). Then I tidied up a little, did some of the mountains of washing that's been piling up, finished reading my current Pratchett so I can start reading the Jordan (yes, I bought it) and washed my hair, which was so disgustingly filthy it took three of us to do anything with it to make it decent last night so we could go to the casino.

After that, I realised I hadn't had most of my breakfast, and had some toast and Vegemite. But since that was at lunch time, I don't think it counts.

2. What's your favorite cereal?
Corn Flakes? Weet Bix? Sultana Bran? Whatever I'm feeling like this morning and comes easiest to hand. Something simple. When I'm hung over, like I was on Wednesday morning after the girls and I got filthily drunk on Tuesday night, the simpler the better, I think. Frequently sultanas are good. Bananas too. Sugar never is.

3. How often do you eat out? Do you want that to change?
Currently, about once, maybe occasionally twice a week. Once I get a job, we might even be able to afford it. Mainly, though, I'd be an idiot to be living in Melbourne and not availing myself of the restaurant opportunities, right? If Jen and Bec had stayed longer, we might have tried out more cute little restaurants than just the one. Mainly, though, I'm more interested in the bar-type places. We saw a few more of them.

4. What do you plan on having for dinner tonight? Got a recipe for that?
The Male's in charge. He spits on your recipes. Well, he doesn't, because that's a very unsanitary thing to do in the kitchen, but you get the idea. Mostly, he makes it up as he goes along. He's very good at it, too.

5. What's your favorite restaurant? Why?
All my favourite restaurants are a long way away. I haven't found new ones yet. But the search could be fun. More fun than actually having a favourite, actually. I mean, this way I get to eat at lots of different places. If I have a favourite, it's just the same one all the time.


Anyway, Jen and Bec are gone, which is sad. But we had a great time while they were here. I think. I did, anyway. There was shopping, there was riotous consumption of alcohol, there was coffee, and that's not bad for three days, I think.

Today your host has magically transformed into a four-year-old.

Things I want now:

• The tenth Jordan book. What's it called? I don't think I even noticed in my attack of covetousnessness in the bookshop yesterday. But I wants it, precious. Now. (And I would have had it, too, but for that pesky Male restraining me forcibly by the wallet.)
  
• To start my course. I'm all enrolled and I'm doing Novel and Short Story and Editing and I wanna start it. Now.

On the upside, went to the movies last night. We saw 8 Mile, which was pretty good for a sports movie. And don't tell me it ain't a sports movie because if Eminem was, say, playing golf instead of rapping, then that movie would be Tin Cup. But it was good. Fun. Great production design, nice cinematography, not bad performances and scripts and things. And the rapping was fun, too. Eminem has a purty mouth, too. How does anyone take him seriously as a badboy rapper with that cherubic little pout?

Anyway, the point is that this is another year of Geek. Posters in the foyer for Matrices 2 and 3, and for X2 (quiver). Preview for Daredevil. And me sitting there grinning happily and remembering that we're probably going to have another Spiderman sometime soon, and then there's Return of the King this Christmas (yawp!) and...

Yeah. It's a good time to be a geekharlot.

(I hate being out of touch. Another thing I'd like right now is for gilmae to be better. But I guess I'm just going to have to wait for that. Oh well, I can be all random at him in the meantime, I suppose.)