It's hot and the world smells like feet. This morning, on my way to work, I kept thinking about how my friend Steven and I used to go out to Arden Fair Mall in Sacramento to talk. I liked Steven. We both agreed that Fashion These Days, aka the sweatshop produced dreck found in most chain stores, was a sign of the degradation of mankind, and puzzled over how to maintain our integrity in a sea of Abercrombie & Fitched simulacra. Hypocritical of me, really, in my summer uniform of cut up pants, wifebeaters and Dunlop volleys. Truth is, I affect the Bookish Lesbian as thoroughly as the mall girls affect the Cosmo Girl.

It's hot and the world smells like feet. Here, in my wifebeater and black-and-white PJ pants, slouching over my well-fed belly, I am very, very horny. I am also, physically, very, very undesirable. In my experience, the two often coincide.

Outside, at what my friend Julia would have called 'stupid o'clock,' Leon, Jamie and I were discussing the highlights from the story.

"So.. let me get this straight. Your mate breaks this guy's bass -"

"Right."

"Then he pukes all over the living room -"

"Right."

"And then your friends decide to punish him -"

"Yep."

"By jerking off into his shoes."

"Oh, yeah."

"And in the morning, this guy asks you if they did anything to their shoes."

"Yeah."

"And you say, no, they just spit into his shoes to get him back. And then -"

"Right."

"He puts his shoes on."

"Something like that."

"Dude, that is the greatest story ever told."

'Ummmm.... Medieval medical illustrations? As in like,

"Hi, I'm frank the monk. Today on "exploring your sinful body" we'll learn where exactly those pesky evil demon spirits go when they give you indigestion. Also, we have a special guest today dealing with why gnomes want to eat your babies, and which parts! So grab a dull farming implement and soap (if you can afford it, serf sinner) cuz we're EXPLORERS FOR CHRIST today! YAY!"

that kinda thing? Cuz like.... that's cool.'

It is unlikely that many of you have Derek's voice in your head when you read this. This is indeed a very great loss for you, but a very amusing gain for me.

There's a big barramundi at work. He's a lovely fish, with very nice eyes and an appealing dog-like quality. I talk to him often. Today I fed him a mealworm and 6-8 guppies. He didn't quite know what to do with himself, he was so excited.

Meanwhile, I gave the boys (aka Hernandez & Eduardo, the fighters in the very bare but very clean tank on my desk) live bloodworm today. It took them a while to realize it was food, so now there is a tight, gross clump of wriggling bloodworm around the glass divider.

Moral of the story: Fish are so much better than people.

I drove a van for work today. It's true what they say - my penis did feel much larger. Mightier, even.

Watching one of the fish attempt to get at a piece of food on the other side of the glass divider is the funniest shit ever.

I did absolutely nothing today and I feel great. Went to that piercing place in the University of Canberra to see a man about a dog - if by 'dog' you mean '12 gauge surface bar.' The guy was an idiot. Insisted that a teeny 16 gauge curved (!!) barbell would be the best thing for my virginal belly. Pfft. Then I went into the Salvos on a lark, where I found a racecar doona cover, a hideous 80s red-and-white bedsheet and some blue thing to line the bag I later made out of the racecar doona cover. I have heaping scads of fabric left over, so if anyone would like a very immature messenger bag let me know.

The fat chick won Australian Idol. Go her.

I wrote a bunch today while watching other people read at The Lobby. Yeah, t'was okay. Lesbians intimidate me like you wouldn't believe. It's been a disheartening few days - fucking hell, you just can't please some people.

There's a rust mark on my chest from the St Jude medallion I never take off. Fuck this shit. St Jude, the rust mark and I are going to bed.

"It's cool, y'know, how they did everything by mail."

"Who?"

"The Postal Service. That's how they got their name. Didn't you know?"

No, I didn't know. We were in the cool amber light of my bedroom, my little garrett, the four stucco walls scattered with postcards, the fairy lights strung around the ceiling, the third hand bookcase with the books arranged by colour and Nigel the fish fluttering in his tank like a small bird. He was on my little bed, the one I always made because it made me feel in control. He was a musician, and his guitar was slung across his belly like a shield. I was on the office chair by the shaky melamine desk in the corner. I was fiddling with iTunes, finding the right music to fill the silence. A couple of nights ago we'd had listless but pleasant sex and a nice grade of conversation, but now we were back to music.

"I can't believe you have Xiu Xiu."

"Why?"

"Because your music isn't that great."

"Why do you say that?"

"You listen to, like, Kylie Minogue and shit."

"What's wrong with Kylie Minogue? Besides, you liked Augie March and Art of Fighting and those other bands."

"So?"

"And you liked B[If]tek. And Sodastream. I don't think my taste in music is that bad."

He sighed and turned to his guitar. "You think too much."

Breathe in. Breathe out. I couldn't hear the song from my computer, or what the boy was playing on his. I heard the blood in my brain and the squeezing and slackening of the chambers of my heart. I heard Nigel sucking air from the surface of the water, and electricity crackling into the fairy lights overhead. I heard the spaces in my body and the spaces somewhere beyond, the place we live in, the place where we wait. I could feel myself falling.

After he left that night I never heard from him again, and I didn't mind that much.

'Bitch Theme' by Bratmobile is a really good song.

Stuff to be written:
- Two articles for assorted uni publications. Not like they have to be good, but it'd be nice if they weren't, y'know, crap.
- Site for zine project.
- Poems for chapbook finished.

Stuff actually written:
- 12 pages of the shitty 'brain dump' notebook I keep for emergencies filled.
- Four or five poemish things in the black journal that is the security blanket to my Linus.
- Multiple emails. Finally, jee-sus.

I was thinking about nothing today. Not quite true - I was thinking about Fallujah, but the more I hear about this farce of a war the angrier and more impotent I feel. Needless to say, my sympathies remain firmly with those who call Iraq their home and nation, not the American soldiers dominating out screens. School is over, why am I still feeling overwhelmed? I almost wish myself back in primary school, where teachers give out gold stars and scratch'n'sniff stickers for work well done.

Tomorrow I'm buying a motherfucking dress, with a skirt and hem and everything. I'm looking forward to it.

Intervarsity fencing begins December 7. That gives me around 3 weeks to get ready. This wouldn't be so bad if I was just fencing foil, but I'm not. I foolishly entered epee as well.

Do you know how many epee bouts I've done in the past twelve months?

Three.

Do you know how many bouts I had with any weapon in three hours of training tonight?

One. One dry foil bout (dry = without electric scoring gear. This takes away some of the video gameishness of the modern fencing bout - it's really unnerving not to have something squeal when a hit is made). And I lost by three hits.

Fuckshitcrappitycrapcrap ARSE.

I'm feeling pretty underconfident about all this. I only fenced for a couple of months while I was in the 'States, and I'm kicking myself about that now. Plus I've lost a lot of mobility with That Whacky Lupus. I'm feeling a lot stronger now, but for a while I had issues getting out of bed, let alone leaping about the piste with reckless abandon.

Wanna hear a truly pathetic story?

[truly-pathetic-story]
About a month ago I was fencing one of the beginners. I'd presided a bout for this guy before hopping onto the strip, and I was feeling pretty cocky. Sure, I was stiff and all, and my foot and ankle kinda hurt, but I've got the mad skillz, right? A counter sixte here, a snappy coupe there, one of those sexy seeding parries I've learnt recently and the bout is mine. Wrong. So wrong. Firstly, this beginner guy was quite good - he had a nippy little feint disengage which I refused to see coming. Secondly my right foot and ankle were tight. I mean, completely unyielding. My ankle would not bend in any normal way. It really, really hurt to take a single step, let alone retreat from an impending attack. I was a sitting duck, and I went down.

After the bout I stripped off my gear and hobbled into the other, empty, hall. I sat down on a bench and attempted to get my foot and ankle to move in any way. As I sat there trying to mobilize my great, swollen, hopelessly inflamed ankle on the bench I started crying. I couldn't help it, it hurt so fucking much, and I couldn't fence, and I couldn't run, and I couldn't do any of the stuff I love doing, and walking was a hassle, and I lost the bout, and everyone saw, and... and... and... I was like a little kid when they fall over. They don't cry because it hurts, they cry because it was a shock and everyone saw. Fortunately, the hall was empty, so I could cry my little emo guts out... until the entire beginner's class from that night trooped through to return some gear.

Faaaaarkin' hell.
[/truly-pathetic-story]

Yeah, I better get my arse into gear.

Eduardo is sick. He was looking kind of off-colour when T-Wrecks the Lousy No-Good Snobfish carked it, and now he's looking really ill. He's very drab and disinterested, holding his fins close to his body and sulking in a corner of his tank. I came home today after getting my hair cut by Her Hotness and buying tapestry needles (both are neither here nor there - still, Her Hotness gets major props for knowing about Mia Farrow's hair in 'Rosemary's Baby,' and not being taken aback when I did my best old-lady "hail Satan" impression) and decided something must be done. I've been keeping an eagle eye on water quality, feeding and water changes, but I still stripped the tank down completely, scrubbed it inside and out, and refilled it. I've set pretty blue plumes of formalin malachite swirling in the water and am waiting for the water to warm up a little before I put him back. I hope he gets better. It really would break my heart to see another fish go.

Yes, this is turning into a blog about fish. It could be worse. I could be talking about That Whacky Lupus, or about interesting bedsheets I've bought from St Vinnies to craft into skirts, bags and other badly-stitched stuff, or about cute girls I have seen but not talked to because I couldn't, like, talk to a girl, man, they have cooties. Or, I could let loose my rant about Iraq and the media, and about how, while sympathy towards soldiers is all well and good, they had a choice about whether or not to be involved in the war, while the people of Iraq didn't, and they don't get to go home at the end, or get care packages from concerned Republican soccer moms, or whatever.

See? My obsession with aquarium fish is for the best.

In other news, I'm adding Jeremy to my Blogroll, not because he's funny, but because he's a total spunk. Meee-ow.

Stupid mothercunting .CSS! I hate you! I stab you! I stab your eye!

So.. bits and pieces of the redesign are cracking along nicely but I cannot get the .CSS to cooperate. This makes me cranky. Very, very cranky.

Exams are over. Thank Christ. Now I can focus my anger on destroying - erm, reworking - this redesign.

Number of dead fish found at work: 6
Number of dead fish found at home: 1
Number of cat-related fish deaths at work: 0
Number of cat-related fish deaths at home: 1
Hours spent bent over stats books: 4
Hours spent staring vacantly into space: 8
Metres rowed on machine before remembering uncomfortable lupus flare: 2483
Alternate definitions for the term 'lupus flare' dreamed up while stretching out inflamed, swollen joints: 4
Best one so far: Lupus flare - a tool used in emergencies. When fired into the air, thousands of annual flowers explode into the sky.
Number of stream-of-consciousness poems written after reading books Tom sent me: 3
Number of good stream-of-consciousness poems written: 0
Number of depressed Eduardo-fish on my desk: 1
Number of sad girls wondering what to do with a depressed Eduardo-fish: 1
Number of dreadful, fish-tormenting Tamson-cats in this house: 1
Days remaining until statistics exam: 2
Number of times 'Transformer' by Lou Reed has been listened to: 4
Number of times I've decided the song 'Make Up' from aforementioned album is, like, really deep, man, and totally about where I'm at right now, y'know, in my head? Y'know what I mean? : 4
Number of times I have used the word 'shitfuckcrap,' distinct from the words 'shit,' 'fuck,' and 'crap used seperately: 5
Number of times I have used the word 'shitfuckcrap' in front of a wide-eyed moppet child: 1
Minutes spent chasing the plump, silhouetted forms of ducks on the damp oval outside Chifley library after the library closed: 15
Number of text messages received: 4
Number of text messages replied to: 0

The problem with this blogger nonsense is, by the time the update window has loaded, I've completely forgotten whatever it is I wanted to say in the first place. This time I know it had something to do with my cat Tamson, and her newfound vendetta against the fish, and some off-colour joke about my fish smelling like pussy, but now I can't remember why it seemed funny. And then there was Katie Noonan and her band 'Elixir' tonight, and how they were great, and how she has an amazing voice, and how the guitarist had bare feet and quaffed wine on stage, but now I can't remember the point. And then there were all the incredibly obvious dreams I've been having about forgetting my stats exam, and not studying for my stats exam, and showing up for my stats exam incapable of speaking English, but now I can't remember why this is unusual.

So... T-Wrecks remains a little cunt, unwilling to interact with poor, lonely Eduardo. Today was a Lipstick Day, one of those days when the warpaint comes out and the gloves come off. I got lost in Red Hill, despite the fact that I spent two years at Narrabundah College (yeah, I want to 'Bundah. From that most Canberrans can find out what I looked like, who I was friends with, any embarrassing things I did and my favourite colour. Lousy zero degrees of separation). I spent exactly one hour studying for my stats exam this Saturday. I now know that the correlation ratio eta squared represents the proportion of Y variance explainable by X, but I can't tell you why I should care. I spoke to Shauny online briefly, and spent the rest of the day thinking about how much I miss her. I also got to wear a red scarf.

Today was a good day, but I can't really remember why.

I finally set up my fighter tank yesterday. It may be the best fighter tank ever - a 10" tank with a diagonal glass divider and 25 watt heater to stop the little guys from getting cold. So far there are no plants or rocks or anything, but I doubt they mind. They have room to swim and good water and food and company - what more could a little fish need?

I had hoped Eduardo and T-Wrecks (named after a dimly-remembered Regurgitator album title [not that I condone Regurgitator in any way]) would spend their time flaring and each other and getting all worked up. So far, it's not happening. I brought Eduardo home a few days earlier than T-Wrecks, keeping him in a jar until I could get the big tank going. Poor Eduardo. I'm afraid he got very cold and sad in his jar. He was just sitting there with his fins folded against his body, moping, not eating. He really perked up when I put him in the big tank with T-Wrecks. I think he got lonely in his jar, because now he spends all his time trying to get T-Wrecks to fight with him. Eduardo keeps flaring at T-Wrecks, swimming up and down the divider, following him wherever he goes. T-Wrecks isn't having any of it. T-Wrecks is a very snobby fish. Eventually Eduardo gets fed up and sulks behind the heater. I hope T-Wrecks stops being such a killjoy and mucks around with Eduardo a little bit - I feel terrible about Eduardo's three days in a jar, and want to make it up to him.

In other news, why didn't anyone tell me about Andreas Vesalius? Wonderfully creepy renaissance medical illustrations. Skeletons at reading desks, men stripped to their circulatory systems lounging around in alleys and on streetcorners. His flayed, dissected bodies have the good sense to look upset about having no skin. Hmm. I think a creepy 'memento mori' type redesign might be in order..

I'm having a very borderline week (borderline as in borderline personality disorder - guess who spent this morning with the DSM-IV and a belated term paper? It's a good read, but I'm glad I'm not a psych student any more). So far I've missed two physio appointments, two 21st birthday parties, a meeting with a science faculty sub-dean and a hairdresser appointment due to schoolwork and nonspecific existential fugue. Needless to say, aside from a few manic emails and blog posts, I haven't looked much further than my own navel for a while.

However, I did feed the barramundi at work a goldfish the other day. A real, live, fat goldfish. The animal liberationist in me should be horrified, but it was satisfying. He looked so happy. When he first came in he was a rather sad, dull looking thing. He wouldn't eat and just sat on the bottom of the tank, moping. He's perked up a lot lately, lunging at the bewildered little goldfish, swallowing him, sitting there with the goldfish blinking away inside his mouth, spitting it out, then lunging at it again. Repeat a few times. It sounds cruel but he was smiling, if a fish could be described as 'smiling.'

Still. Fuck, I'm tired. Truth be told I feel like shit and I'm not entirely sure why. Exams and assignments are bothering me a lot more than they usually do. Perhaps it's 16 years straight of full time education. Perhaps it's being back in the chilly Hitchcockian menace of Canberra. Perhaps it's gluten intolerance or something, I don't know. All I know is I used the word 'catechresis' in an email the other day. Christ, someone tell me a fart joke or something.

But... But... Haven't you noticed the Iraq -? Global Gag Rule and AIDS and maternal deaths and -? Reproductive freedom, like, not having to be pregnant if you don't want to be and -? Pro-life but that whole Israel/Iraq/death penalty -? Gay marriage and writing it into your constit -?

What? How?

America - come on, you guys, what the fuck??

Mothercunting essays are DONE. Now I just have that, uhm, other essay..

Bizaare side effects of the exam/essay/assignment matrix I am trapped in:

- Totally blanking on various important things like birthday parties and doctor's appointments because I was actually studying. By 'studying' I mean 'sitting at my desk, pen in hand, doing school stuff' not 'staring at me feet and singing a little song' or 'attempting to wash the cat because she looks like she needs a bath.' I'm sorry, Julia. I hope you had a good party.

- Getting frustrated and cutting my hair in the kitchen with a pair of poultry shears. Bad, bad, bad idea. I look like a 19th century fever patient.

- The worst stress-related gingivitis ever. Does this count as too much information? I'm not sure. If gums make you squeamish then I'm sorry. I'm currently engaged in a blitzkrieg of oral hygiene in an attempt to make my mouth a better place. Is listerine and miles of dental floss too much information?

- Can't... get away... from... the computer... with the assignments... and notes... and drafts... and email access...