A curious fact about hatstands: despite my jokes about them hunting in packs, the hatstand is actually a solitary creature. Makes sense, I guess, for something that spends its useful life standing alone in a corner.

This tendency towards seclusion is nowhere more evident than at the source: furniture stores. Each furniture store stocks only one sort of hatstand. And if that one isn't the sort you want, tough. Better keep walking.

I'm serious.

Going, Going, Gone - wrought iron, twisted, very good murder weapon, too expensive.
Ex-government furniture - cheap and nasty. Unbalanced, too. Not that I'm one to talk...
IKEA - big store with space for three hatstand breeding grounds: all norse and icky.
Freedom - closer, but chromed and overpriced.

And finally, when I was about ready to kick the world hard in the ankle, there it was, in Fantastic Furniture, all demure and warm wood, curly top and sturdy base. Our eyes met across the room (well, my eyes, its arms) and it was meant to be. I left the story in a warm glow of hatstand-match-well-made, rejoicing in the instincts that had led me to reject the advances of the Rigg model at IKEA.

Back home we partook in an orgy of construction, using my letter opener as a surprisingly good screwdriver. But that's another story for another time.

Yesterday was like Martha Stewart meets Sandra Bullock. Or something.

Dramatic occurrence #1: OK, so the lifts in our building aren't known for their reliability. In fact, it's guaranteed that if you've got an elderly grandmother in a wheelchair on the fifth floor wanting to leave, both lifts will be out of order. Yesterday, coming back from doing the shopping, I toddled into one of the lifts and hit my floor button. The doors slid closed smoothly.

And then nothing. We went nowhere. In my usual daze, it took me a few minutes to realise. I hit the open-doors button. The lift ignored me. I hit the Ground Floor button. The lift looked the other way and whistled. I hit the emergency stop (bells rang, but nothing), the open-doors button again, and again... but to no avail.

So I hit the alarm/phone button, and shouted at the operator down an absolutely awful line. Eventually I made her understand where I was (although she'll always think my name was Alana Evans) and then there was nothing to do but wait.

Well, wait and text-message anyone I could think of who might be around. Which meant John. But he provided amusement until they came along with their can-opener and got me out.

Dramatic occurrence #2: I baked a cake.

I did. Really. Chocolate, too. I discovered that creaming butter and sugar isn't easy when the temperature in the kitchen is roughly equivalent to the fridge anyway, but I prevailed. And then I got to lick the bowl.

This more than made up for being stuck in the lift.

You know that thing where Melbourne's weather is just grey and cold and drizzly and horrible and shite? Yeah, that thing. Well, I'm sick of it. It's getting boring, not to mention cold, wet and horrible (and shite).

I'm hereby moving Melbourne to Queensland.

For lunch, I had some (more) toast and vegemite, some sultanas, and a mug of hot chocolate. Yes Mum, of course I'm looking after myself.

I also had half a dozen phone calls to real estate agents, and I now understand why most people will go out of their way to run one over. Annoying persons.

"That's a serviced apartment." Well, why does it say, 'Live the high life' on the advertisement?

"Our Melbourne office handles that property." What are you, the Timbuktu office?

Me: Is this property open for inspection?
Her: Yes. But look, we have lots of properties open for inspection.
Me: Can you tell me when -
Her: Your best bet is to get the Age property guide tomorrow.
Me: Yes, but -
Her: Can you do that? Good good. Bye!

There's a subtle sort of urban warfare being played out at the front of our building. There's a bus shelter there, and a big billboard. Pictures to have graced this billboard include that stupid Are U Ready Girls? thing and, memorably, the X2 poster. But what's up there at the moment is an ad for lingerie, featuring the usual lounging model in lace. I've been speculatively eyeing off her French Knickers, actually.

But I digress. A few days ago, I came home to find that someone had plastered A4 sheets of paper with writing on over her. Not all over, just here and there. "Why do men's fantasties always wear cheap sweatshop lace?" they asked.

Well, I don't know.

The following day, all of them had been cleaned off. Not to be deterred, the party curious regarding the correlation of third-world labour and masculine sexuality reapplied them all by the time I came home.

And so it continues. What really amuses me is that the paper is really haphazardly applied, but there's always one right over the poor girl's face. So there she is, lounging in her lace, but with her individuality entirely removed by a piece of paper screaming: "Is the whole world a whorehouse?"

It's a tough life, being a lingerie model.

I was going to talk about the amazingly weird dreams I had last night, but then I realised that pretty much all I'm doing here these days is whinging about spam and dreams.

Booooring.

So: anyone know what I'm supposed to do with basil once it's flowered?

Email title: "Where are you sexy?"

Dee: "I'm sexy everywhere, baby!"

Email title: "Seize the moment!"

Dee (against better judgement, peers at contents of email): "Ahem. Ma'am, that is not 'the moment'."

To the girl in the hideous pale pink miniskirt walking up Elizabeth Street at 11:50:

You're right, there's a huge difference between leaving your empty Gloria Jeans plastic cup on the low wall and littering. I mean, it's only littering if you just hurl the thing to the ground, preferably with force, definitely with maliciousness.

What, you can't walk another ten metres that you're going to walk anyway to drop it in a bin?

Idiot.

Dreams: My short story teacher (Yoda's little sister) is telling us that we have to record our dreams over the break for use in the first class back. I could just trawl through the archives of this site searching for the word "dream" and have enough to last me a lifetime.

But as if that weren't enough, I had another weird one last night.

My family - which now comprised me, Richard Gere as my father and Kristin Scott Thomas as my mother - went on holiday, which involved stream-lined monorails in tropical locations, and then arriving at the holiday house which was situated, I swear, on the site of my nextdoor neighbours house back in Gladstone, but looked more like Southgate down here in Melbourne, with a spiral staircase at the front. Weirdness ensued. No, really.

In a raging fit of apathy, I caught the tram to the markets today. As I sat there, playing complicated word games with myself (and winning), a fellow got on, waited until all the doors had closed and the tram moved on, then said: "Ticket check, folks."

I almost jumped. Then I remembered that, for once, I was actually travelling legally, with my little stamped 10-tripper in my pocket.

"Thank you, ma'am," he said, and moved on, not seeing my dark secret past of illicit public transport use. Not that I really wanted him to; a comical chase up and down the tram might have made the morning more interesting, but just wouldn't have gone with the apathy vibe.

"Alright, once more into the motherfucking breach."
"Y'know, I don't think that's how Shakespeare wrote it."
"Intepretation, my dear. It's all in the interpretation."

Today I had about 20 email messages, and they were all spam.

All of them.

Of course, if I actually replied to my email, more people might send me stuff.

We're going to Canberra again. This is becoming something of a habit. But what with having a Godthingson and a long weekend and all, we figured we'd dash up and do the whole Fairy Godparents bestowing double-edged gifts that will come back to haunt you when you're a sixteen-year-old princess. Of course, Daniel's a boy, and hence unlikely to ever make princess status, and moreover the gifts of sheepskin rug and MCC membership aren't all that double-edged, but never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Point being: I'll be in Canberra this weekend.

Unrelated point: Toast is my friend.

Related point: One day I'll post interesting things here, swear it.

I feel I must preface this with a disclaimer. Here 'tis: This was not my idea. It's all the Male's fault. I'm just his evil minion with paintshop pro.



Yes. I'm going over there now.