Postscript

Eeek. Ran into the basil v's mint boy at the pub after the Stereophonics (Yes, Trish, Kelly = total tiger). Felt guilty. He invited us to share a table with his mates. Felt more guilty, so confessed that I'd overheard his basil/mint question at the supermarket but not realised that it was him until after. Left out the bit about blogging it. Got to the table. His friends were fun and friendly. Felt even more guilty. Told him about the blog. He laughed nervously and started singing a Laura Veirs song, so I think it was OK in the end. Avi asked what you have to do to get mentioned in the blog.

Obviously the evening ended at Istanbul on King

Awoke from a dream about a long tall glass of Fanta with a Ronan Keating song in my head. In the kitchen I found a freshly poured glass of apple juice and liked to imagine that some rehydration fairy - with more appreciation of the rules of nutrition than I - had been sent to look after me.

Last night: St Vincents Hospital Revue. On the stage: "nymphomaniacs" in straight jackets dancing to Crazy In Love. In the audience: nuns. Oh, and others as well...accountants, children etc.

In our group at the pub before the show was the guy who sold me my car. He said that it was good that we got to meet up again. I agreed - but wondered just quite why. Him: how's the car going? Me: Great. Yep. No problems at all. Him: Well...I've got to go and eat my schnitzel. Me: OK, then.

I remember going to his office at the hospital to get the paperwork for the car. A table in the room was piled high with Delta Goodrem's get well mail.

But back to the show. For all the intricate live production elements my favourite moment was in one of the pre-recorded video segments. A student competing in Phd Survivor fixed the camera with an intense look as he sailed past on an office chair. Gold.

There was also a slightly worrying scene about a labyrinthine automated phone system used to alert the cardiac arrest response team to patients in crisis. I'm sure it had nothing to do with actual practice in the hospital. Ah, satire.

Later in the pub down the road the guy who played Joseph - no room for him and Mary at St Vincents Private - and I chatted about the Foo Fighters. We wondered how someone like Dave Grohl could start out with Nirvana and then turn into such a relentlessly optimistic performer. Actually, I think that was just me who wondered that.

We played pool, and I sank balls. Ray, I sank balls, sometimes two in a row. Sadly, I can never remember, though, the exact intake of beer that produces that kind of peak (for me) pool form. My partner was much better than me. He said that not only was he trying to sink balls but also to set shots up for me to build my confidence, which was sweet, but on another level annoying. He had a nice scarf though and I quite liked his overall look, so I didn't say anything. We lost both games by one ball. Not quite sure of the correct pool terminology there. And then we lost the table, to sharks, at which point we turned full focus to the juke box.

Obviously the evening ended at Istanbul on King (Gina and Scott, they said to say hi). Lee and Shannah agreed that kebabs are better without tabouli, which led to me explaining about my memoir that will be called No tabouli, thanks. It was about then that we realised the night had run its course.

A final word on dressing appropriately. It's not appropriate to wear thongs - or any type of open-toed shoe, really - in Sydney in June, especially not when also wearing several layers including a parka as the top one. I doubt that this kind of thing happens in Melbourne.

Huey (Hughie?)

I remember a house opposite a playground. On the corner was a metal hulk that, I was told, contained a basketball court. It had windows of dark glass very high up. They looked like they were blinking. I never went inside but I knew it was a basketball court because at night I could hear an umpire's whistle and the thud of many running, jumping feet.

Inside the house was green scratchy carpet, and a wood stove. We opened the door beside the oven to cook toast on winter mornings. On each piece two white stripes where the prongs of the long-handled fork shielded the bread from the flame. They finished at the punctures. If you didn't keep your hand very still the bread around the holes would fall away, making bigger holes that meant it was harder to keep your toast from falling into the fire. And often mine did.

In the summer, though, my grandfather would walk to the back screen door during a storm. Send her down, Huey, he'd say, shouting it above the sound of the large drops on the tin roof. Me: Who's Huey? Him (lifting his chin): Oh, that fella up there.

I love Mark Dapin

...and his gout.

"It's not often one has the occasion to kiss boys like these."

Hear, hear, Jane Birkin.

She admitted herself that she was noticeably without rhythm but even then I couldn't help wondering whether she was gone in the hips. Still, she has that intriguing quality of being not quite beautiful - unitl she smiles, and then it's as if there's no more joyous creature alive. She came out wearing great wide-leg pants that sat on those (gone-in-the) hips without being hipsters in the true bum-crack sense of the word. And slippers, which perhaps contributed to the hip thing.

I think it probably takes quite a bit of concentration and planning to seem as spontaneous as she does - but there's no doubt that there's something in it. When she returned to the stage for the second half in a pared down French take on the scarlet diva dress - importantly without shoes - it seemed that everything was right with the world.

I chatted to a friend of a friend on the balcony before the show. He said that he'd checked out the Serge Gainsbourg website that day and that the final line in his life story is simply a date and "Serge Gainsbourg finis". Me: I don't know much at all about Gainsbourg's life or work. Friend of a friend: silence.

I didn't understand a word she sang but read later that one of the songs was called Chic Underwear. She said she was flattered but frightened to be invited to perform at the Avignon Festival because it is "a terribly chic event", and her producer told her that she must do something different and not just trade on the Gainsbourg thing in its pure form. She still thinks herself a gauche English person.

She's not, though. At the post show event the French champagne flowed and she, with her glass of red wine, stood apart from the crowd. As did one of the band momentarily when security, failing to recognise him, almost didn't let him in.

We drove home down Broadway and the massive half moon seemed to be dropping rapidly towards the horizon. It prompted a conversation about Chicken Little and the general appropriate-ness of childrens' stories that deal with disaster. In fact the horizon was rising in our view as we headed into a dip in the road.

Apart from the romance and optimism that was Jane B, this was a week in which my mobile phone got cut off because I believed in the reliability of the giant corporation to send me a text message as an indication that they meant business. They didn't send the message but clearly they did mean business. Must try harder to deal with the reality of paying bills on time.

Mistaken

Was just mistaken for a waitress at the Wharf Restaurant. I guess I was moving a table at the time. Got them their bill anyway. Easier than explaining.

Synchronicity

Worked late and ate a packet of chips for dinner. Then spent time on couch (it's a theme) flicking between The OC, 25 Years of State of Origin and a bizarre doco on SBS that seemed to be about an art project in Austria. A shipping container was placed in a public square with people inside and a banner on the outside saying something like: Foreigners out of Austria. Art as public response . A man who may have been the artist said something like: surrealism is about firing bullets into a crowd. In this case there are no bullets but there are a lot of people from the crowd staggering around. I realise that this is strangely also true of State of Origin as I flick back through on way to The OC.

Parsnips and Turnips

Actually, I just remembered that twice now I've confused turnips and parsnips, or parsnips and swedes, or something. One time I had to call Noonie from Harris Farm and confer re. shape, colour, leaf type, or indeed lack of leaf etc. But the other time I couldn't be bothered and just went home and mashed whatever the hell it was.

The Difference Between Basil and Mint

I'm at the checkout gathering the things I've bought for Sunday night dinner when I hear the boy next to me ask the woman behind the counter: "Is this...mint?". "No, that's basil," she says and leads him off to find mint.

How do boys think they're going to get through life without knowing what's basil and what's mint? I guess there are probably girls who can't tell them apart either - but I don't know any of them.

As I started up the escalator I wanted to see what kind of boy this was. By this time he was disappearing back towards the herbs so I only caught his profile. It was Ray's friend Tim, from uni.

Fanta in the Morning

I wake on L and T's couch, put on my skirt and shirt, stuff my stockings in my small elegant handbag, grab my races hat and head to Jesters for a sausage roll and Fanta. Even in Newtown it feels a bit shameful to be appearing on the street in this condition. Young mums and dads sitting with their children in the park in the sunshine make me feel guilty. I speed progress to the next couch of the day - my own.

The thing that eventually gets me off the couch is a hazy recollection that there are things about last night's blog that didn't quite work. Vanity propels me to Not Only Internet. Is it wrong to change it retrospectively?

Text from Lisa: she says be sure to include falling asleep on the sheepskin rug and snoring elegantly.The power to remove memories is seeming increasingly valuable. Off to chemist for blue hair dye.

It's been a long Saturday

Racing. Tip from Hon for the Queensland Derby just didn't quite cut it. Spuruson - don't trust names that are run on together, especially not "IGOTTHELASTONE" - an also-ran at Randwick this weekend. Couldn't work out whether it was I Got the LA Stone or I Got the Last One. Lise and Trev, whose house/computer I'm borrowing in order to blog, can't believe that that's all I've written given the time it's taken. Something to do with the red wine.

In our group at the races was a boy from Cobram. He's in his 30s. He joined the navy when he was 17 because there were no other options. He has three kids. The youngest was born when he was 21. He said that he'd be happy for them to go into the navy as well. Surely when he joined it was a different world with not so much at stake? He says yes, in a guarded way. Are people in the navy pissed off like the rest of us that our leaders are taking a direction that we don't believe in? Yes, but we've made a commitment. What can we do? He's out of the navy now, a financial planner, at the pub after the races, explaining the way the bookies run their shop.

So now I'm at Lisa and Trevor's for chorizo stew and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (If only we could erase the girl who turns up on the balcony, Tom). They have a piano playing monkey at their house - just like Jay and the Dr. Everyone loves the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs? Totally? They don't love you like I love you. Ma-a-a-ps-Ma-a-a-a-ps-Ma-a-a-a-a-ps. Whatever.

Boys in Skirts (and culottes)

Opening night of the Royal New Zealand Ballet and the boys have the best of the costumes: spangled pants, beautiful long white skirts with tiny pleats around the waist and then mustard culottes. My favourite bit was in Milagros when they all came in to the centre of the stage in an ever decreasing spiral until they were bumping up against each other and there was nowhere left to go. I liked the off-kilterness of the whole thing. Kiwis are good at off-kilter. It gives them an edge. Like Russell Crowe.

After the show there was a crush at the bar and the dancers did the haka. We said: imagine an Australian company spontaneously performing something a bit patriotic and of cultural significance. What would it be? I Still Call Australia Home? In fact, we couldn't imagine it.

When everyone else had gone home we (Ben and his team) sat on the balcony and drank. Across the street someone watched tv in their upstairs apartment. We laughed and yelled and told stories about how we met, how we'll keep Charles awake when he moves in next door, and the tv chat show that we'll have...soon.

Lunch at The Palisade

Steak sandwich at The Palisade with M and A.

M is having a baby, well, not him but Fi. So that's quite a grown up thing to do, then.

Reofixers playing the pokies - when did pokies arrive at The Palisade? - and drinking lunchtime beers. I don't know what Reofixing is but I hope for their sake that it's not dangerous. They start undoing their fly as they walk down the stairs to the Mens. Eeek.

Senso Relaxo

Yesterday was about Kiwi accents in honour of the ballet but today we're clearly back to faux Italian. Senso Relaxo all the way. Thanks, Robin.

Ben made me do it

What's a blog? Well, it's where you put shit up on the internet for everyone to read, or not. Perhaps if you have some kind of (even informal and self-enforced) contract to chronicle your life then it's a motivation to make it more interesting, or not.

Made it to yoga. The adjacent cheese meeting turned out to be some kind of disco breakfast, and consequently we down-dogged to Jamiroquai. Luke pushed WIP back by 30.