Queensland's turned on a proper summer for our week here - thoroughly sweltery, the sort of weather that springs sweat on you if you even think about doing anything more than languishing on the couch with a good book and a pitcher full of ice - which is just as well, frankly, because everybody's seen fit to remind me that it's going to be freezing beyond the call of duty in Europe. Aunt Jo, in Northamptonshire, inquired in her usual quiet way as to just what the blazes we thought we were doing, coming at this time of year. Mother has taken a vindictive child-like glee in reading out the European weather every morning. ("Ooh, it's a warm one in London today; only getting down to minus 1!")

Thanks.

Our searingly brilliant plans to take Nards and Pops ("I prefer Big Daddy," he says) out to dinner were scuttled by the incipient Guest of Honour (What do you mean I didn't tell you Nardia was pregnant? What do you mean you don't even know who Nardia is? Best friend from high school, 'k?) who was apparently a little impatient to meet us and wanted to get started, five weeks early. But we visited her in hospital, where they were employing stern measures to dissuade early arrivals, and did manage to have a quiet evening in last night, with lots of natter (about porn and comicbooks and other adult topics).

Best donuts in the world still to be had in the Kin Kora mall. Just keeping y'all up-to-date.

So now we're down in Brisbane for Christmas, an event that promises to involve a large influx of hard currency (European, so I guess we have to go now) but not much in the excitement of unwrapping category. I suppose one can't really grumble. Or one might get rotten fruit thrown at one.

Somehow, even while running late for my entire life today, I still managed to get it all done. Perplexing.

7:00 - get up, check email, have breakfast.
8:00 - shower, put on wash.
9:00 - go to work call STA and ask how the fuck "your voucher will be sent to you" is useful when we fly out tomorrow. Get told she'll call back in half an hour and fax it to us.
9:30 - go to work check email and arrange hurried fly-by meeting in London.
10:00 - go to work get pissed off and call STA again, talk to useful chick who says I can pick up the voucher in Carlton.
10:30 - finally go to work, picking up address-forwarding info on the way.
10:45 - get to work, go for desperately needed coffee while computer boots. People just before me order coffee for the entire office.
11:00 - finally start work.
13:00 - run off to Anfy's office for lunch.
14:45 - finish at work, go to Carlton finally get back to work, only to discover that I have to do the banking. On the way, lodge mail forwarding form and bank cheques.
15:15 - finish in Carlton, go to Northcote discover that the printer won't work. Reinstall printer. Re-reinstall printer. Have screaming hissyfit and settle down in a sulk to wait for the boss who still has to pay me.
15:45 - finish work, go to Carlton
16:00 - call boss, tell him I have to go, will pick up pay later. Realise I have to go home anyway because I haven't got my Met ticket.
16:30 - finally on tram to Carlton, pick up voucher no worries, decide STA travel are the best ever.
17:00 - catch train to Northcote, without any real hope that the coeliac bakery will still be open.
17:30 - discover God has smiled on me and the bakery is still open. Purchase Mother various yummies for Christmas. Call Anfy and gloat.
18:30 - back home, no sweat.

Of course, I didn't manage to get film, vegemite, put money on my phone or get a power adaptor, but all of those can actually be done in Queensland while I'm there. So really, it's all good.

Seventeen hours and counting.

I just caught myself doing a "Happy Little Vegemites" one-person conga line around the living room.

We fly out tomorrow. It's possible the stress and the last-minute panic have finally unhinged me.

We watched The Sin Eater last night. It was something of an exercise in MST3K.

Movie: Bodes! Creepy opening complete with freaky-arse kids!
Us: Hey, that guy's kinda cute.
Heath Ledger: is priestly!
Us: Could his accent be any more Australian?
Cardinal: is More Noir Than Thou!
Us: Work that fedora, Sam Spade.
Movie: info-dumps!
Us: Just stab him already.
Bad Guy: Hey baby, you fine baby, hop in my car baby, let me take you for a ride.
Us: Did he just say what we thought he said?
Heath Ledger: wakes up on the couch.
Us: They are totally doing it!
Movie: takes sharp detour into heterosexuality.
Us: Dammit.
Heath Ledger: casts aside life of service for sex.
Iconic Virgin Mary on the wall: watches.
Us: ...OK that's just weird.
Movie: presents troubling alternative to established Catholic order of universe!
Us: Those visual effects were way cool, but I think I saw those jellyfish in the Matrix.
Bad guy: has class and style (and evil schemes)!
Us: Dude, you are way cool.
Movie: has twist!
Us: We knew you were cool, Sam Spade!
Movie: blows up St Peters!
Us: There goes the neighbourhood.
Heath Ledger: lives in eternal sin-infested torment (and classic billowing black) because there is no place in Catholic dogma for one such as him!
Us: ...Or you could just become Protestant.

Still, it was a kinda cool movie. Even if it never explained what the fuck the freaky-arse kids were, or why they were there, or even why they only appeared at three random points of the movie.

"I'm taking five," our mad and fabulous Canadian spruiker said, and skateboarded off.

Twenty minutes later, he skates back into the doorway.

"You're amazingly late," I don't say.

"I just saw a woman get hit by a cab," he does say. "I had to give a statement to the police. Sorry. I'll work an extra fifteen."

Welcome to sunny Melbourne.

Today, while visiting a friend at her workplace bookshop, I had cause (don't ask, I just did, OK?) to pick up Paris Hilton's biography book thing.

Jen, I think I've found your Christmas present.

Setting aside the sterling job the design people did matching the book to the personality - the layout and colour choice is at once both bland and overbearingly tacky - the book is hysterically entertaining, and only slightly in the manner of car crashes. Paris delivers unbeatable advice on places to visit ("Las Vegas is fabulous but gets boring after three days. Don't stay longer than three days in Vegas, no one cool would.") and careers ("The great thing about being an heiress is you don't have to work!") not to mention working lifestyle ("Now, when I go to a party, I'm not just there, I'm there for a reason. I have an agenda, like everyone else!").

But the crowning glory was her advice on boys. Paris Hilton follows The Rules.

I kid you not.

"Never make the first move," she says. "If you have to do more than smile at a guy before he comes over to talk to you, then you're obviously not feeling like you're looking amazing. Go home and start again."

"Don't call him," she continues. "When he's your boyfriend, then you can call him. Otherwise, let him call you."

"Never be easy." (It's in writing!) "If he thinks he's got you, he's gone. Men like a challenge."

And my favourite: "Don't hook up until you're sure he really, really likes you."

I was speechless (with laughter). I had to leave the bookstore because it was in South Yarra and very refined and I was lowering the tone with my convulsive fits of giggles.

So, uh, Jen. Yes? I'm seeing her right between the Rules and Constitutional Law. Bridging the gap, as it were.

Tiny little plain Christmas tree that shouldn't have been that hard to find, what drugs are you on, Big W and Target? = $16.95
Cute little caged jangly bell decorations = $7.90
Two metres of red beads from a haberdashers because I'm clever like that = $2

Decorating the motherfucker while bouncing along to Rage Against the Machine = priceless.

It's the little details that make all the difference.

"The train of the conversation is powering along, toot toot, covering the ground, and then all of a sudden it's jerked to a shuddering halt because someone in carriage four's pulled the emergency brake. So everyone goes running back to carriage four and mill around in confusion, but it turns out it's just that Anthony brat again, and now he's standing there with his hands behind his back looking smugly innocent, and it takes forever to get the train moving again.

"In short, Anthony, the world would be a much more serene, idyllic, smooth, seamless place if you just didn't talk."


Summary of the week that was: I threw up. Only once; although Anfy has been telling people that I've been awash in a sea of... yes, well, anyway. Small stomach bug.


Saturday night, coming back from Jojo's place, we had to pause crossing the road for a standard souped-up wog-mobile (I am so politically correct, go me) to growl past. Girl in passenger seat was having a screaming, flailing fight with the driver. With the windows open (it was a nice night).

First thought: Should we try and help her?
Second thought: WTF?
Third thought: The car is stopped at the traffic lights. If she wanted to get out she could fucking get out.

Somewhat later, I came up with the fourth and fifth thoughts: What sort of idiot distracts the driver of the car she's in like that? And honestly, why the fuck do you even get in a car with a guy who makes you have arguments like that? (That "make" not being a "force you" or even a "cause you" but more of a "whose nature is in such a way aligned with your own that this will be the natural result".)


I suddenly realised there's two weeks to go. Well fuck. There's nothing for it. I'm going to have to Make A List.