... and now for something completely different.

ah yes. an absence from blogging of more than a month can mean one of two things. either there is feverishly so much writing happening that there is little time for much else, or that there is none happening at all which makes there seem to be nothing but empty time, all wasted. unfortunately in my case, the situation is the latter. nothing happening apart from a lot of thinking about why, some self-loathing, much housework, and a little bit of baking. no need to worry though - i'm sure it's a temporary ailment. and to prove that point that is hasn't all been red wine, cigarettes and woebegone soliloquies, here is a short highlights package of the past month:
- my birthday, for which mark and i went to have dinner at the delightful tempura hajime - i had put us on the waitlist and fully expected to be going there around march next year, but we got a call early. i will not put pics up because a quick googling will show you other blogs that did it better.
- my birthday part 2, for which mark and i spent a relaxing weekend in a hotel in the city. we went to koko black and savoured their wares, and had dinner alfresco in hardware lane. lovely. yes. it's all about food.
- on that note, finding the easiest, most perfect meatloaf recipe. give it a go - you won't regret it (unless you're a vegetarian in which case, pretend i never said a thing)
- farewelled a dear friend, who is off to have many a new adventure in dubai, with a sharing of stories, wine and a sprinkling of tears.
- flicking on rove for the first time in ages the other night and watching k-rudd do his thing.
- also, am slowly increasing my win-to-loss ratio on scrabulous, which is a welcome change.

carrots, cheesecakes, martinis and shooting stars

on sunday morning i had a brain-wave and wrote a poem about something that had been floating around in my brain for a while. now i have had some feedback and tweaked it enough to feel it's finished but i have no idea what to do with it now.... anyway. i got a real high after i'd finished it, and it was a great feeling - for that brief window in time after you've finished something you've made and you're really please with how it turned out, you're just totally invincible... well, this feeling happened to coincide with a monday morning at work, and amazingly, it still lifted me up and sent me soaring... for about three hours. then i was dumped back into reality, rolled and rumbled in the harsh sands of reality, totally winded and dislocated and bruised, and i had to literally drag myself through the rest of the day. what kept me going was the promise of today, of the rest of the week, and a concerted, renewed effort to get back on track with the writing. if a poem can deliver such a potent high, imagine how i'll feel when i blast my way through the current scaffolding around my story? imagine.
that, and i have promised myself a martini on friday afternoon if i am a good girl this week.
hey, a girl needs a carrot occasionally, even if that carrot is a martini. get what i'm saying?

also speaking of things you make that result in a feeling of invincibility, i made this on the weekend and highly recommend it to all and sundry. trust me, you will not regret it.

last night while i was walking from the bus to my house, i saw a shooting star. initially i thought it was a very fast-moving plane, but i realised it was a shooting star when it disintegrated and left a brief but sparkly tail. i stopped and couldn't stop smiling, and actually said 'thank you' out loud. i have not seen one since i used to live in fiji, where the sky was huge and dark, and shooting stars were plenty. it so happened that mark was in our driveway at the same time, and saw it too - his first shooting star ever. special.

far away places, real and imagined

i got knocked sideways by a virus last week, and as a result lost my voice and my will to do anything - apart from housework. i was sniffling and feeling like crap and there i was sweeping the tiles downstairs and vacuuming upstairs, washing the dishes and wiping down the sink. then last weekend i decided that i needed to have soup for dinner, but not just any soup - oh no. i wanted matzo ball soup, just like we'd had in new york. so, with elvis crooning in the midday movie in the background, i improvised nigella's recipe and made matzo ball soup. it was alright, not as good as the matzo ball soup i had at the city diner in new york, but i'm not sure any matzo ball soup i ever have will be able to live up to that one - it was the first time i'd tried it, and i was finally in the city i had dreamed about for so long. i would love to run away to new york alone and stow away for a while... one day. anyway, i digress. i also think the soup i made didn't really impress me too much because i made it. i don't know. sometimes, a girl just wants to be pampered. needs to be. whatever.

writing, writing, writing. yes, must get back into that soon. maybe even today! what a thought. things to look forward to in the coming weeks - am going to the taping of the first tuesday book club at the abc in elsternwick, and if the weather is nice, i might spend the rest of the day at ripponlea, and imagine that i am in a far-away land full of strangers and mystery... until i have to go home and work out what's for dinner, that is. then early next month there are 2 book launches - verandah at the mwf, and a new friend's second novel in the city. nothing like a few glasses of wine and a bunch of reader-writer-types to put a smile on a girl's face, don't you say?

wanky cafe fantasy fulfilled!

i have been asked so many times whether or not i spend hours and hours in cafes, writing. i never have - i tend to write on my laptop, and i tend not to take it out of the house much (i know, kinda kills the point of having a laptop, right?). i feel as if, while i was out and about being 'a writer', that it would be just my luck to get the lappie stolen or something. and writing in such a visible way would probably make me so self concious and paranoid that i'd just sit there the whole time explaining or trying to justify myself that i'd never get any real work done - as much as i would love to, i could never be like carrie on sex and the city, comfortable at her local starbucks, contemplating her next sassy sentence bathed in the flickering glow coming from the many laptop screens around her. anyway, this sunday just gone, after having packed the husband away for the day (no, i didn't stuff him in the cupboard - he went on a bike ride with my brother and his kids), i fulfilled the writer-in-the-cafe fantasy.

by the time i read the papers, had a shower and got my shit together it was lunch time, and i was starving. i could see myself pottering around the house all day, cooking and faffing around, and then finding myself at 4pm with not a shred of work done. so i decided i needed to leave the house in order to get some constructive hours out of the day. before i could over-think it, i packed the pages in a bag and went down to my local cafe. it was the best decision ever. i got so much reading done, all the while enjoying scrummy food and a seemingly bottomless pot of english breakfast. then, three hours later, i packed up and headed home, rewarding myself with an afternoon viewing of closer on dvd. i'm nearly done with the second proofs, but the only thing slowing me down right now is this irritating cold i've caught from somewhere.
hmmm...
it better not have come from the cafe.

nothing says i love you like half a muffin and a strawberry freddo

indeed. valentine's day this year started off weird, but thankfully it got a lot better as the day progressed. i have already spoken about the daylight-hours weirdness in my other blog, but this one is all about the evening. for ages before, i'd been looking forward to a special valentine's day dinner. it was planned for donovan's, a popular melbourne restaurant renowned for its bayside location and its winning ways with seafood. i got there just in time for the 7pm booking, and spotted the rest of my 'party' at the bar. as i walked up to meet them, i felt a little nervous - this was not your usual dinner. you see, my husband was all alone at home (albeit lovingly caressing his x-box controller)... and here i was, attending my very first publishing 'do'. there were some uk people down, and i had been invited to join publishing people from here and there, together with a bunch of other authors, for a bit of a meet-and-greet. surreal to be sitting at the same table as (among others) kaz cooke and stephanie alexander. tried to answer all questions about my first (and even possible second) novel, my background, and my obsession with identity, desperate housewives and the 'o.c.' without coming across as an ignorant wanker. in-depth discussions about helen garner, sharing my ideas about the book launch, hearing people say they couldn't wait to read my manuscript. hearing other writers share stories of their own writing, and realising that i am now one of 'them' - and 'author-type'. uk people asking me, 'are you agented?', then on my shaking my head no, asking 'are you insane?' made me laugh; having a cig outside with kaz cooke and party, i had nothing much to say - i was just happy to be there, listening. i eventually relaxed and just enjoyed it - everyone was just so damn nice. and, needless to say, all the way home in the cab i chewed the crap out of my bottom lip, thinking 'did i say anything stupid??... i hope i didn't make an idiot out of myself...'