once more into the breach

Do people even read blogs anymore? I have no idea. I'm quite sure nobody visits this one these days. But after a year of radio silence, here I am again. Whether this will last, I have no idea. I'll do my best.

Just before I disappeared from the blogosphere, I took a massive leap into a new career path... and then kind of freaked out. Actually, scratch "kind of". I completely freaked out.

I am very pleased to say I've pulled myself together and am still toiling away in the script department of Australia's longest-running serial drama. For a few months I was clinging on by the skin of my fingernails' teeth. But now I am quite comfortable in the world of television storylining; I feel like I know what I'm doing, and the people in charge seem to agree. (For now, touch wood.)

When people ask me what I've been doing for the last year, I usually give a boring account of the day-to-day ins and outs of plotting episodic television. But basically, I get to sit/stand/dance around all day talking and writing about characters and their stories. I am part of a massive machine that makes TV. Copious amounts of TV. The equivalent of a feature film every week, more than forty weeks a year.

And I'm inspired by, learning from and working with an astonishingly talented and hard-working group of people, many of whom I now count among my very dear friends.

Regrets? I had a few... But they didn't last for long. Doing something creative with my life was a long time coming (and required the forceful prodding of my nearest and dearest, SnazzieD in particular). I have no intention of looking back.

There are many more musings tumbling about in my mind - about life in general, stuff going on in the world, and the reasons why I'm back here throwing words at my blog again at all. But if I intend to maintain this with any sort of regularity (and hopefully I do), I'd better save something for next time.

Adios!

me in pictures

As i nibble an Iced Vo-Vo and sip apple-juice, let's splash out on a quick meme before I get on with my work. This is pilfered from my lovely Lili.


And here's how it's done...

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker.

The Questions:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name

I had to cheat on the last one, as my flickr name gave me no results whatsoever. I was forced to spell "monkey" properly. What an outrage!

on the other side...

...the Queen kept crying 'Faster! Faster!' but Alice felt she could not go faster, though she had no breath to say so...

The most curious part of the thing was, that the trees and the other things around them never changed their places at all: however fast they went, they never seemed to pass anything...

'Now! Now!' cried the Queen. 'Faster! Faster!' And they went so fast that at last they seemed to skim through the air, hardly touching the ground with their feet...

Alice looked around her in great surprise. 'Why, I do believe we've been under this tree the whole time! Everything's just as it was!'

'Of course it is,' said the Queen. 'What would you have it?'

'Well, in our country,' said Alice, still panting a little, 'you'd generally get somewhere else - if you ran very fast for a long time as we've been doing.'

'A slow sort of country!' said the Queen. 'Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!'

I knew this would be hard. And it's so fucking hard. I just have to keep reminding myself that this is good for me. And repeating a re-discovered mantra: When one must, one can. And hoping it's true.

I spent two days this week writing something that didn't even remotely come up to scratch. I'm spending this evening with a bottle of cheap wine, trying to put all thoughts of Erinsborough from my mind. Tomorrow, I shall regroup, before I spend my weekend re-writing.

So, how are you?

update-a-rama

Apparently blogging once a month is about all I can manage at the moment. Kind of pathetic, I know. However, with events that are about to unfold in munkey-world, this situation may become even more dire. I honestly don't know whether it's going to be possible to continue this here blog at all, but I'll try.

Where were we...?

On Monday of this week, I officially gave two weeks' notice at my place of employment. Yes, I am leaving the admin role I've been working in for the last seven years, taking a great leap into the unknown. I have a (probably) six week traineeship at my new place of work, which will be intense, stressful, chaotic, creative and - hopefully - at least a little bit fun. And, bottom line, it should be a hundred times more fulfilling than what I have been doing. So what am I going to be doing with myself? What is this marvellous new place I'm heading into? I'm not really sure how much I should say. Basically, I will be working in the story-lining department of a very long-running nightly television serial drama (and, given that I live in Melbourne, if you can't figure out what show I'm talking about, then frankly I don't know what to do with you). But don't come looking for goss and scandal or inside info on this blog, because I really can't go there.

So yes, I have six weeks maximum to prove I can cut the mustard. And if I don't... who knows? Temp work? Call centre? I'll figure something out, I guess. This is the kind of uncertainty that sends my blood pressure through the ceiling even in theory. So now that it's actually happening, my head is kind of spinning, but I'm holding it all together.

Just to make things even more calm and relaxing, my car decided to die on the weekend. It's all far too boring and ridiculous to go into, but basically it's overheating pretty much constantly, and all signs are pointing to something head-gaskety, which (in case you don't know) basically translates as "horrendously expensive". Quite possibly so expensive that, in my case, it's not even worth fixing. The car is getting looked at by my trusty local mechanics today, so I guess I'll know just how bad the situation is before too long.

Meanwhile the book I was telling you about, to which I contributed a story, is now real and tangible. The compilation is simply called "short". I don't think it's out on the shelves yet, but you can read about it here at the publisher's website. All the royalties are benefiting the Big Brothers Big Sisters charity, so it's a good cause. Check it out, y'all!

And yet again this blog proves itself the very model of well-structured, carefully-considered writing. What a farce. I'm about to try and become a professional writing-type person, and I can't even string a coherent blog-post together. Lord, help me!

err... blogging. yes. um...

Whoops! So, it's been a while. I wonder if anyone even bothers to look at this place anymore. Oh well, let's not dwell on it.

Many things have been happening!

I am, at long last, in the process of trying to obtain for myself a new means of employment. And it's looking positive. Obviously I'm not going to go into too much detail here but, yes, fingers are indeed crossed. It would mean a (possibly substantial) reduction in income, but it would also mean working in a creative industry for the first time in my supposedly creative life. I would no longer sense the acrid tang of stagnancy upon waking every work-day. I would no longer feel the dull ache of shame every time someone asked me what I do for a living...

ME: Oh, I'm still at the same place.
THEM: But haven't you been there for, like... ?
ME: Seven years. Yes.
THEM: But wasn't that meant to be, like... ?
ME: A temporary job between getting back from overseas and finding something I actually liked. Yes.
THEM: And now you've been there for...?
ME: Seven years. Yes.
THEM: That's longer than you were in high-school !
ME: Yes.
THEM: Doesn't that make you feel...?
ME: Like a pathetic failure whose life is leading nowhere. Why, yes. Yes it does. Thanks for mentioning it!

(Please note that the "them" in the above exchange merely represents the voices in my head. No-one I know in real life would be so rudely honest.)

In similar munkey-finally-getting-off-his-arse-and-doing-something-useful tidings, I am about to have a short story published in an anthology for young readers. I am but one contributor among many (deservedly) much better-known names, but still... my name in a book! A story I wrote being read by kids! Kids I've never even met! It makes me smile to think of it.

Some other, far more important news is that two of my loveliest, most wonderfullest friends have recently become parents for the first time. It's not my story to tell, of course, so I won't go into any of the gruesome details, but let's just say that my beloved friend had a particularly drawn-out and arduous journey through childbirth. If there really is an Intelligent Designer, I think she'd gladly give Him an enthusiastic kick in the head as thanks for His oh-so-clever ideas about how to get babies out of their mothers' bodies.

For my part, I am simply in awe. In awe that someone I've known literally all my adult life is now a mother. In awe of the fact that she and her husband have created this amazing, beautiful little girl (yes, it was a girl!) who, for a while, will be completely dependent on them. And I know that, as challenging as it will be, they are going to do brilliantly - are already doing brilliantly. I will get to watch as - under their care - this tiny, fragile life slowly grows and learns and reveals the wonderful new person who has come into the world. A new person, who never existed before! A new person who actually grew inside my friend and then came out !

It happens every day, all over the planet, but I don't think I'll ever really get my head around the idea of reproduction. I'm not about to write in to Oprah's Remembering Your Spirit segment, or cover my car with holographic purple stickers, but it really does seem to be almost a kind of miracle - a kind of magic.

On that note, I must drag my feet down to earth. By the way, isn't it lovely to be rugging up under umbrellas again!? I do love the change of the seasons. I find it most irksome when they all blend in together.

Sincere apologies to anyone who may have stumbled upon this here blog in search of structure or reason. How disappointed you must be. Fools!

ocean of noise

Murky, garish, slightly overexposed - television footage of a shrill televangelist is projected onto the painted backdrop of enormous, dark red organ pipes. It's hard to make out the woman's words, but her tone is overpowering: raucous, impassioned, bordering on comically histrionic. A sign of things to come. As their Neon Bible symbol is illuminated high above the Forum Theatre's stage (which contains - among other things - more than fifteen different guitars waiting in racks, keyboards and synths, a xylophone, a black double bass, a piano accordion, a hurdy-gurdy and two megaphones mounted on mic-stands) Arcade Fire stride into view, unleashing a skin-tight rendition of "Black Mirror", and launching this particular atheist into the closest thing to a sacred epiphany he is ever likely to experience.


This is the third performance by a live band I've seen in less than a month. Both previous shows were brilliant (Kings of Leon and Sufjan Stevens, for anyone wondering). But - to labour the religious awakening metaphor just a little longer - if those concerts were like witnessing key sermons from two of the best preachers in the land, Arcade Fire's gig was like being present at the Sermon on the Mount.

Arcade Fire are seven permanent members and three touring musicians, centred around Win Butler (droll and physically imposing, he is a pillar of barely-contained intensity; he seems constantly on the verge of hurling his instrument or himself off the stage, as if he wants to physically destroy the invisible wall between himself and the audience), his wife Régine Chassagne (a mischievous pixie from another world, intrigued and exhilarated to find herself in a human rock-band; she sings at the top of her lungs even when not at a mic, and breaks out some awesome interpretive dance moves), and his brother Will (a force of nature who is drenched with sweat by the second number; he bangs cymbals literally until the drumsticks shatter, and hurls himself around the stage with an explosive energy that recalls the Tasmanian devil character in old Warner Bros cartoons).

I have quite simply never seen a group of people give so much of themselves in a performance. But the band-mates' constant instrument-swapping, manic movement and unbridled, almost cathartic ardour, all belie the precision and discipline with which the songs from Funeral and Neon Bible (as well as a few obscurities) are rendered. Although the activity on stage has been accurately described as organised chaos, the music Arcade Fire create live is no cacophony. And while they are clearly having a ball, this is by no means a bunch of people making noise for their own amusement. Their passion is utterly contagious; the audience are part of the chaos, and they love it.

The main set comes to an end with "Rebellion (Lies)". As the crowd throws the chorus's "Lies! Lies!" refrain back at the band, Chassagne grins from ear to ear as if this is exactly her desired reaction to the song. During the coda, the entire audience takes up the wordless backing vocal part, and continues singing it as the band make their farewells and disappear backstage. The applause and cheering mount, and the communal melody only gets stronger. The frenzied converts are calling Arcade Fire back to the stage with their own mantra. Suddenly, something strange happens to me. My breathing fits and starts. There are tears on my face. I am weeping. Sobbing! Why? I have no idea. Realising I am surrounded by strangers, I pull myself together in time for the band to retake the stage and bring us home. The crowd are still singing the final strains of "Lies" as Arcade Fire begin their encore.

During "Wake Up", the grand finalé, Win Butler breaks free of the stage at last, and steps out onto the security fence that separates band from crowd. He teeters there, held up by the hands of his followers. He screams the final line: "You'd better look out below!" and lets himself fall into their adoring arms.


As the masses slowly filter out of the Forum, the most common word I hear is "amazing". Oft overused, it's genuinely applicable this evening. I also hear a lot of "That was...", "They were just...", people trailing off, unable to express what they have been made to feel. For my part, even after seven paragraphs, all I can really say is: Arcade Fire are without a doubt the best live band I've ever seen. I now wish I hadn't foolishly bought only one ticket and come by myself. I wish I had dragged along every friend I have, every person I love, so we could have all shared this together.

...but boys grown tall

Others will no doubt have more interesting and in-depth things to say about this non-story, but there are a couple of points I feel compelled to make.

1. If you treat a 16-year-old boy like a rock-star, he will behave like a rock-star.

2. You cannot aggressively reward a 16-year-old boy's behaviour with the exact response it was hoping to garner (i.e. bucketloads of attention), and simultaneously condemn that boy for continuing said behaviour. That is a contemptibly exploitative form of hypocrisy.

3. A 16-year-old boy is a minor. Surely any situation involving a minor - particularly when that minor's adult guardians are absent - needs to be handled by the media with utmost sensitivity? Apparently the media of this country abide by no such ethics. (Incidentally, this minor now appears to have, for all intents and purposes, run away from home; I hope his parents realise they have the media exclusively to thank for this development.)

4. The media seem to love drumming up furore along the tediously familiar "what's gone wrong with today's youth?" line. Perhaps we should consider that what's going "wrong" with today's youth has a lot to do with the fact that every time they turn on the television or open a newspaper, their minds are filled with repugnant mindless drivel.

5. Sometimes, the media make me feel physically sick.

just another day

After two weeks off, one looks forward to a nice relaxing first morning back at work - a morning where one can ease gently back into the daily routine...

When I walk in, before I have even put down my bag and lunch, five people want me to do five random things for them: Show me how to photocopy this! Approve this leave form! I want a 2008 diary! Change my payment account details! Get me a new pair of boots! (Response: Figure it out yourself! Not my job! I plan to, once I've reached my desk! Sure thing, once I've reached my desk! NOT MY JOB!)

Simultaneously, five other random people are reaching out to shake my hand and wish me a Happy New Year, asking me how my New Year's Eve was, regaling me with tales of their New Year's / Family Court session / fishing trip / restraining order.

The shop on the corner (with whom we have an account) forgot to order any milk. A milk bar. With no milk. So there is none for the staff-room. Of course, everyone assumes it is my fault there is no milk. I give a workmate $20 from petty cash, asking him to return with enough milk for today, a paper, change and a receipt. He returns with milk. $20 worth of milk. And nothing else.

The entire network has crashed and none of the computers will talk to each other. No-one else in the office can do anything until I resolve this issue. It turns out to be the delightful combination of Telstra fucking up our internet account, and Norton deciding that all computers are evil menaces vying to corrupt each other (even ones that are part of the same network). This takes a good hour to fix, before I can even begin to confront the pile of mail, timesheets, leave forms, invoices and job files teetering on my desk.

But first, of course, I take a short break to vent my spleen on the internet.

So, business as usual then.

8 simple rules

1. Do not go clothes shopping if you are already inexplicably feeling depressed.

2. Do not go clothes shopping if you are hideously overweight.

3. Do not go clothes shopping in "The Basement" section of Myer, which is designed for hip young things, plays irritating music, and has lighting so low you can barely see the clothes you're perusing.

4. Do not trust size tags; most are deliberately undersized, presumably just to make you feel even fatter than you actually are.

5. Do not drag your boyfriend along on your expedition, lest you treat him like a bitch and end up hating yourself even more as a result.

6. When finalising your purchases, ensure the doped-out teenage staff-member removes all the security tags, lest you have to traipse all the way back to the counter five minutes later, after setting off the alarm.

7. Do not exit via the normal Menswear section, lest you see a whole bunch of other nice, well-priced items, and begin to doubt your own purchases.

8. Wait until you arrive home before you start crying, especially if you are a grown man, lest your fellow tram commuters assume you to be some kind of fat, pathetic weirdo.

~~~~~~~

Guess how many of these rules I broke today!

and so it begins

I kicked off last year - lazily, of course - with a New Years Meme, so why should 2008 be any different? Here are twelve miscellaneous sentences from this blog, one for each month of 2007:

January
For anyone wondering, this process involves a shitload of money, several wheelie-bins full of discarded packing material, and approximately 37 man hours dedicated to the construction of items from Ikea.

February
Every February, the Netherlands-based World Press Photo organisation honours its choices as the most significant press-photography of the last 12 months.

March
Now let it be known that unlike mosquitoes - which I would happily purge and exterminate even from the deepest uninhabited depths of the jungles, merely out of spite - I have no problem with ants as a rule.

April
In short, he was young, cute, small and completely non-threatening – the kind of stripling I found irresistibly attractive when, at the age of twenty-four, I finally plucked up the courage to post a profile on a dating website and Go Out With A Boy.

May
If you had asked me to make a list of one million topics I thought my Nanna might ever raise in conversation - especially with my little sister! - I can assure you that genital piercing would not have been on it.

June
As always with these self-reflexive narratives, many fascinating issues - free will, life versus art, the validity of creative process - are thrown into the mix.

July
A bunch of my beloveds and I are all gathering together tomorrow, to have the book read aloud by Ms Snazzles (whose reading-aloud skills are well documented), so we can ooh and ahh and grr together.

August
Howard's pledge to "clean up the internet" just seems like yet another flashy vote-grab: making it look like he's doing something, when in reality he's made no effort to even understand the issues, let alone tackle them.

September
My mother sometimes sat amongst the willow trees, waiting for hours to catch a glimpse of the platypus that lived in the river.

October
But just the other day, while driving around and listening to The Velvet Underground's song Heroin incredibly loudly, it occurred to me that - while to make a film you need a shitload of money, a crew, a cast etc, etc - all you need to write a book is something to write with.

November
This morning, for the first time since I was fifteen years old, John Howard is not my Prime Minister.

December
The rich apricot-coloured light of sunrise spills through the front window onto the Christmas tree, making the ornaments sparkle.

One thing that becomes painfully obvious while constructing this meme is just how lazy a blogger I was in 2007. Will 2008 bring about a new era of diligence and commitment? It looks doubtful!

munkey's-eye view: 2007 wrap-up

Sweet baby Jesus, how can it possibly be New Year's Eve already?! 2008 tomorrow? No. That can't be right. I will, however peek out from beneath my denial for just a moment, to wander through the garden of mindlessmunkey's popcultural highlights of the year.

~~~~~~~

MUSIC

Due to my friends most generously subscribing me to music porn, and due to my discovery of several great music blogs, I have been exposed to more new music this year than ever before. This makes it far too difficult to name a single Album Of The Year. Rather, here is my top five, in a pleasantly democratic order I like to call "alphabetical":

Arcade Fire - "Neon Bible"
How do you follow up one of the greatest indie debuts of all time? How do you maintain your soul in a plastic world? Put the two questions together, and you get this modern masterpiece.

Beirut - "The Flying Club Cup"
Imagine if Morrissey and Edith Piaf had a child, and that child joined with a troupe of wandering minstrels from the Balkans, and together they serenaded passersby on the banks of the Seine. Welcome to Beirut.

Iron & Wine - "The Shepherd's Dog"
As predicted by moi, Sam Beam's first effort since his Calexico collaboration sees him evolving his sound in more and more directions, while never losing sight of his gorgeous pastoral spirit.

Okkervil River - "The Stage Names"
Epic and intimate, ironic and heartfelt, these Texans' fifth full-length is complex, intense and moving.

Radiohead - "In Rainbows"
The great warriors of outside-the-square rock music deliver a record that is their most accomplished, and most accessible, in years.

Honourable Mentions:
Björk - "Volta"
Bowerbirds - "Hymns For A Dark Horse"
Liam Finn - "I'll Be Lightning"
Kings of Leon - "Because Of The Times"
Ingrid Michaelson - "Girls & Boys"
The Shins - "Wincing The Night Away"
Sigur Rós - "Hvarf / Heim"
Spoon - "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga"
Patrick Watson - "Close To Paradise"
Amy Winehouse - "Back To Black"

Now, for my annual compilation mix-tape/CD. I explained the rules governing this last year, although they have changed a little, in that tracks don't now need to be from a 2007 album to qualify (i.e. singles and online-only releases are allowed too). So here it is, mindlessmunkey's Best Of 2007:

01 - DON'T MAKE ME A TARGET - Spoon
02 - REHAB - Amy Winehouse
03 - BOY WITH A COIN - Iron & Wine
04 - THE PENALTY - Beirut
05 - 1234 - Feist
06 - KEEP THE CAR RUNNING - Arcade Fire
07 - THE GREAT ESCAPE - Patrick Watson
08 - EARTH INTRUDERS - Björk
09 - DADDY'S GONE - Glasvegas
10 - PLUS ONES - Okkervil River
11 - HOMETOWN GLORY - Adele
12 - DELIVERY - Babyshambles
13 - FAUST ARP - Radiohead
14 - THE TRUMPET CHILD - Over The Rhine
15 - GATHER TO THE CHAPEL - Liam Finn
16 - THE WAY I AM - Ingrid Michaelson
17 - PHANTOM LIMB - The Shins
18 - RAGOO - Kings Of Leon
19 - BIG WHEEL - Tori Amos
20 - Í GÆR - Sigur Rós
21 - DARK HORSE - Bowerbirds

~~~~~~~

BOOKS

I am absolutely useless at reading books when they're released, so it's impossible for me to say what the best book of 2007 was. However, I read many wonderful things this year. I started on my journey through Proust's "In Search Of Lost Time", beginning (naturally) with Volume 1: The Way By Swann's. It's a tough slog but I got a lot out of it, and though it may take me years, I am determined to read all seven volumes. The conclusion of J.K.Rowling's Harry Potter saga, meanwhile, was sadly less rewarding. That is to say, it was incredibly enjoyable at the time, especially the festival of mirth my wonderful friends created around it, and I couldn't put the book down even after the festivities ended. But, in retrospect, I'm afraid the more I think about it, the more I'm irritated by thoughts of what might have been (with the whole series, not just "...Deathly Hallows"). So I've just stopped thinking about it. Disappointing.

I think I would have to say that my favourite book of this year (i.e. that I read this year) comes down to a three-way-tie between: DBC Pierre's "Vernon God Little", Tolkien's "The Children Of Húrin" and Jeffrey Eugenides' "The Virgin Suicides".

EDIT
Unfortunately I was creating this list with the help of my Facebook-based Bookshelf application thingy. Unfortunately this Bookshelf thingy does not allow me to add books unless they are listed on Amazon, and this in turn means I forgot to include a very important title in my list of books...



"Scatterheart" is the the first published novel (strictly speaking) by my dear friend Lili Wilkinson, and is absolutely one of the best books I read this year.

~~~~~~~

FILMS

I saw lots of great things this year, both new releases at the cinema, and catching up with missed gems on DVD.



The best movies encountered in the cinema included "Little Children" (wry and disturbing), "The Lives Of Others" (intriguing and beautiful), "Hairspray" (brilliant fun), "Snow Cake" (flawed but great) and "Control" (sad and haunting).



Meanwhile at home on my very own couch, I bamboozled my mind with "Mulholland Drive", tickled my fancy with "Stranger Than Fiction", was touched inappropriately by "Me & You & Everyone We Know", felt dirty with "The Magdalene Sisters" and gave my heartstrings a pluck with "Kramer vs. Kramer".

~~~~~~~

TELEVISION

In this modern age of bittorrents and shows "streamed live from the US" (LOL), it's far too hard to keep track of what's actually been made / released when and where in a given year. That said there has been some truly great TV around this year.



Suffice to say, I spent brief, intense periods with "Rome", "Life On Mars" and "Shameless", while there are a few crowd favourites which have been watched pretty much constantly by munkey's eyes over the last twelve months, including "Grey's Anatomy", "Brothers & Sisters", "30 Rock", "Ugly Betty" and "The West Wing". Whatever shall we do once the effects of the writers' strike filter through, and we find ourselves all adrift, without our beloved televisual escapes? Join the real world? Talk to each other? Heaven help us!

~~~~~~~

Well, that was exhausting, wasn't it. Thank goodness I only feel compelled to do it once a year.

I hope everyone had a wonderful 2007. I have to say, on the whole, mine was pretty bloody good, actually. Here's to a spectaculastic 2008.

Happy New Year!

not available in pharmacies

and the bells were ringing out...

I arrive at the Shopping Metropolis immediately after work, having already done about half my Christmas shopping, but still with several people to buy for. The first three times I walk into a shop with the intention of purchasing a gift, said gift is not available at said shop. I nearly burst into tears and go home. I persevere. Two-and-a-half hours later, after only once threatening the homicide of miscellaneous fellow-shoppers, my Christmas shopping is complete.

I shuffle into the kitchen, bleary-eyed and fresh-from-bed on what will be my last day of work for the year. The rich apricot-coloured light of sunrise spills through the front window onto the Christmas tree, making the ornaments sparkle. Outside the bathroom window, a small fragment of rainbow hangs in the sky beside the Eureka Tower.

Clutching booze cans and barbecue food in the large tin work-shed, my workmates and I fall silent in awe as the afternoon sky is split by lightning, and a torrential downpour of rain is unleashed. It is the kind of rain we haven't seen in years, if ever. It falls in waves like a descending ocean, and cascades down the sides of the glass office-building next door.

Christmas passes in a cavalcade of wonderful food and drink, the giving and receiving of gifts, and the company of much loved people. Perhaps my memory is just tainted by the terrible mood I was in last year, but I believe it's fair to say it was my most enjoyable Christmas in a long time.

I return home on Boxing Day to an empty house, Byron having set off to spend a week in Sydney. It is weird living alone again, especially after several days in almost constant, varied company. There is no motivation to cook proper meals, tidy the house, get up or go to bed at reasonable hours. I find myself spread on the couch reading books, or disinterestedly wandering the internet at ungodly hours of the morning.

Although, to my shame, I know very little of Pakistani politics, I involuntarily gasp and cover my mouth with my hand when I read of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. I do not move at all for several seconds. What kind of world do we live in?

I awake with a vaguely awry feeling in my belly. Soon after, I am sitting on the toilet, clutching a bucket on my lap. This state of affairs continues for much of the morning. My body's mood for expulsion is so violent, it seems a wonder none of my internal organs become dislodged and ejected in the frenzy. I know I have been eating and drinking too much lately, but surely this punishment is a little harsh?

Today, with my guts still not entirely behaving themselves, I close all the windows and blinds against the scorching heat. I do a little work on my book, but it becomes too hot to think constructively. Instead, I have decided to lay on the couch in my dressing gown, and do something I could never do while Byron is here: watch the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy in a single day. (My mother would be so proud!)

Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas.