And I've been thinking about so many things.

Jonquils stolen from a median strip perfuming a downstairs Bathurst flat, and now this bright kitchen where we open the wine and conduct our lives. Nancy Sinatra and tradtional afternoon tea in a violet box. The soft white afternoon making a church of honey and aubergine.

This week, a Monday morning of submission and resistance. Submission that is, at its heart, resistance. It's the time of year when we begin ideas for the next, and we go to sit together and hear the writers. We cram to read them before they arrive, in a way that doesn't happen at any other time, the motivation to become familiar. Then we sit with the other smug readers, and wait to understand what it is to be a writer. I remember two years ago, a man in a red shirt. I remember wanting to shout to him to move away from the lectern, so powerful was my desire just to see his legs. But back to the tamer. What does he want? The act of taming requiring spirit in the first place. A Shakespeare not revealed to me before, with none of the frustrating misunderstanding, just wit and frisson and stimulating questions of identity. How did this woman take shape? How was she formed, especially then? I tell myself I'm responding to noble issues of female identity, but what of the exciting, attractive arrogance of Petruchio? Touche.

I've been thinking of my visceral rejection of the idea of the female club. Sydney Swans Ladies Lunch. No thank you, Sandra Sully.

I'm standing in a social group, drink in hand. In my mind's eye I am Calista Flockhart ramming the blond elfin next to me to the ground with my shoulder and closing the circle again with a smile.

Spider is a tattoo'ed gazelle. He pays attention to the fundamentals: running, jumping and kicking without using up too much energy. So he's a fundamentalist?

The men sitting behind us certainly are. They've got the fundamentals completely sussed. They talk slowly, so slowly, but definitely of footy and fishing and shooting and the business. They can put their parking ticket on the business, but someone should do something about the rules. They need to address flooding?? Noonie and I sit joined in silent relief that we're not mixed up in this kind of crowd.