I had a funny experience at the doctor's today, and I really think the internet should hear about it. Because you care about my health and wellbeing, don't you, internet? You do, and I can see you're putting on your interested face as we speak.

I went in to my local GP to get rodded up for the third time. I hadn't seen this particular doctor, but you have to insert the Glory Rod at a particular time in your bleed-ovulate-bleed cycle and Family Planning couldn't fit me in. I asked if he'd done it before, and was assured everything would be fine.

I reckon I'll repeat that. The receptionist said the doctor had done it before and everything would be fine. FORESHADOWED!

I rocked up and discovered that the doctor was, well, old. Really old. He kind of chewed his gums when he wasn't speaking, and cocked his head like a quizzical dog whenever you said something. I don't think he could hear me too well, because he responded to every question with 'marvellous device, Implanon! Fantastic they can come up with these things!'

For most people a half-deaf eighty year old gum chewing GP might raise alarm bells, but it's really not the kind of situation one back out of without looking like a hypochondriac putz. So, with reservation, we settled down to business. I was taken aback when he shot my arm up with anaesthetic without wearing gloves, and even more taken aback when he went through two syringefuls of local, leaving the needle dangling from my bicep in between, but whatever. However, when he went to shove the actual cannula into my arm bare-handed I panicked. 'Shouldn't you be wearing gloves?' I squeaked.

'Yes, yes, I can if you'd like me to.' He chuckled, and rifled through some shelves. He couldn't find any gloves. He asked the receptionist where they were. 'This young lass,' he said, 'would like me to wear them. Apparently my usual wash isn't good enough.'

I shit you not, that's what he said. At this point I called on Nurse Pants, otherwise known Blockhead, who was waiting in the reception. Nurse Pants is, well, a student nurse, and I was keen for someone who knew their shit to raise an appropriate alarm if something went wrong. The second GP in the practice, a man with the pinched features, permanent half-sneer and bum parted hair of a Mormon or paedophile, managed to retrieve sterile gloves for Doc Doddery, so it was time to grit one's teeth and get on with it.

Nurse Pants held my hand as I closed my eyes and thought of happy things. My happy thought of choice is, for reasons I don't entirely understand, walking along the the beach in Newcastle looking at souped-up imported cars full of subwoofers and faux-hawked men. Odd, but it works for me, and it helped me forget the 80 year old with a cannula as thick as a bamboo skewer bent over my supine form. A little pressure, that's okay, Subaru WRX blasting Paul Mac. I can feel something trickle into my armpit, it's fine, the sky is blue and there's salt in the air. Nurse Pants is squeezing my hand rather tightly, all is well, a nut-brown man is peeling off his pink polo - SHARP SHARP SHARP HOT BURNY FUCKSHITPISSWHORE!

'Eeeow...' I whimpered.

'Went a bit far, did I?' He chuckled. Chuckled. I closed my eyes again. Nurse Pants held my hand in a kung-fu grip. 'Oh dear.' He muttered. 'It just doesn't seem to want to stay in.' I looked up. He had the bloody cannula poised over a hole in my arm. Blood spilled freely onto the Levitra-branded paper towel. A blue-black bruise was creeping up my arm.

I shut my eyes again. He finished, eventually, snapped off the glove and pressed his hand over my arm. 'Might need a bit of pressure,' he said. 'I'll put a band aid on later.'

'Do you want some gauze?' Nurse Pants asked.

'No, no, I'm fine.' He said, adjusting his gloveless hand over the open wound. 'You're lucky, I don't think it needs a stitch.'

'Are you going to put on a pressure bandage? It looks pretty bruised.'

'Well, if you'd like one I can throw one on.'

When we left I was in a surprising amount of pain and Nurse Pants was incensed. I didn't see most of what happened, but she said she took out and re-inserted the cannula at least three times. She insisted I make an appointment with another doctor later that day to see if the rod was inserted properly and ask about infection. I now have a prescription for antibiotics and a medical certificate saying I can't work for two days.

I'm a bit perplexed. Nurse Pants thinks we should lodge a complaint, but I can't quite bring myself to complain about such an old, old man. The waiting room was filled with similar old men who all asked for this guy by name.

In conclusion, a lesson is learned, and I have a wicked cool bruise.

(totally jacked from Merlin, who I have an internet crush on)

Questions for Kim Beazley

• Do you like your sausages burnt or soft?
  
• What do your armpits smell like?
  
• Why must you always sound so reactionary and illogical when you open your mouth to speak?
  
• When I wake up and look outside my heart feels sad and broken, like the world is in the hands of selfish, egobound madmen and no one has the balls, brains or guts to do anything about it. Why is that?
  
• What kind of lip balm do you use on that luscious pout?
  

What my friends said when they found a copy of Getting Things Done in my bag

• Oh my God.
  
• Who are you?
  
• I must distance myself from you socially now.
  
• Give me your phone so I can delete my number.
  
• Can I borrow that from you some time?
  

Yeah, I totally read 43 Folders every day, but mostly because I have a big 'ole crush on Merlin and want to have his nerd babies.

Y'all should be subscribing to the Harper's weekly news round up. Yes, it's a weekly email, but it's the only mailing list I subscribe to and actually read. Sorry, ACT Queer, I simply don't care about gay four wheel drive groups and lesbian speed dating. Anyhoozle, check this out.

At a convention center in Leeuwarden, Netherlands, a sparrow flew in through an open window and knocked over 23,000 dominoes. The sparrow cowered in a corner until it was shot and killed. Scientists found the gene that regulates fear in mice and created mice that are not afraid. In Chhattisgarh, India, a three-day-old baby died from an infection when her parents were unable to afford surgery. The baby had been born with her heart in her hand.

Is it a passage from one of them other-worldly Latin American writers like Borges or Gabriel Garcia Marquez? No, it's the world we live in, collected and paraphrased by the lovely people at Harper's.

As an aside, you know that little, unobtainable goal everyone has in their head, the benchmark you'll reach when you've Made It, like Homer and the Dallas Cowboys? For me it's getting something published in Harper's. I'm... a pretentious turd.

To the person who yesterday told me they didn't like my writng of 2004 because it was 'too self centred,'

Damn you to hades! In the space of a day I've (re)developed quite a complex. The Thunderbirds of Neurosis, who had previously been sitting around playing solitaire and reading Steven King novels, because for once in my miserable life I was giving them very little to do, are shunted aside by a huge, cigar chomping, visor-wearing editor, who glowers at me every time I set pen to paper or finger to keyboard.

'NO!' He screams in my ear. 'NO FIRST PERSON PRONOUN! You're writing about your cat there, your cat, you think people are interestd in that? GET OVER YOUR DAMNED SELF WOMAN!' Then he smacks me across the back of the head with The Elements of Style as I whimper pathetically in my own psychic corner.

Screw you, person! I belong to a generation of wisecracking, vaguely manic young women, who were once talkative young girls, and can be reduced to a twitching mass of self-loathing at the slightest suggestion that they are 'too much.' Too self centred, too neurotic, too wordy, too talkative.

If you'll excuse me, I'll be home in my jim jams watching 'Annie Hall' over and over again.

I need to dance to Le Tigre in a living room with my coterie of wisecracking, brilliant Californian gay men and equally sassy, wise, incredible Californian ladies.

I need new sheets.

I need to go outside and, channeling my inner two year old, run around and around and around in wide, frenetic circles, my hands flapping and limp, pausing occasionally to impersonate a pony or a giraffe.

I need a pack of cloves, a large shady tree, a cafe and a pile of books and appropriate magazines.

I need an eyebrow wax.

I need to make a bonfire of 'Catcher in the Rye,' 'On The Road,' anything written by Charles Bukowski, and the complete works of DH Lawrence and dance about it with my ladies, our eyes glittering with bloodthirsty glee.

I need to go to the shore of one of Canberra's big, antiseptic lakes and do cartwheel after cartwheel in the manicured grass.

I need to punch shit.

I need to get delicately wasted with Mr Berian at the Wig & Pen and flip coasters until they kick us out.

I need one of those Korean ice creams that looks like a fish.

I need a puppy.

JD is putting out a lesbian calendar for 2006 (note: the bit where it mentions JD in all his/her hottness is a pop up, so you may not see it if you've disabled them. Which is stupid; how else are you supposed to find out about 1500 FREE smileys for AIM or this great new spycam?)

Last time I saw Le Tigre I was close enough to the front to see the outline of JD's strap on. That was the time I discovered the spontaneous orgasm, followed by many spontaneous Kathleen-induced petit morts.

As an aside, there have been, as the hip kids say, happenings over in the wordy section of this here piece of the internet pie. You cats should check it out, if you are so inclined.

• I totally want to do Ariel Levy. I'd been hearing bits and pieces about Female Chauvinist Pigs for a while, but it wasn't until I heard media apologist and arch nemesis Catherine Lumby hated Ariel and all she stands for that I really wanted to read it. So I did, inhaling it in a few breathy gulps, and I wasn't disappointed. Admittedly the Cat Lumby (you tabloid, 'A Current Affair' trendoid advert loving femmo you!) connection meant that I was prepared to like this book, not to mention the sneering reviews it's received. Nonetheless, Ms Levy raises some very, very good points, although I fear that a great, meandering chapter on radical feminism and Uncle Tommism might alienate some readers.
  
  I find it hard to say where I stand on all this. I'm not anti-porn or anti-raunch or, heavens to Betsy, anti-sex, an accusation levelled at any person, man or woman, who ever dares to suggest that the seas of gyrating flesh in our popular culture might not be the most empowering thing in the world. I don't necessarily think porn or sex work is inherently degrading; to think so would imply that sex is degrading, and I certainly hope it's not. What I do think needs to be criticised is who has the right to ask what from whom, whose desires are articulated and who fulfils them and what kind of power is involved.
  
  I really do think those critics who accuse Levy of being simplistic, of looking down on the raunch-loving female chauvinist pigs she examines as missing the point. What she's looking at is a very specific thread in American consumer culture. She's looking at the way some women identify with men at the expense of other women. For instance,
  

  Instead of trying to reform other people's - or her own - perception of femininity, the Female Chauvinist Pig likes to position herself as something outside the normal bounds of womanhood. If defending her own little patch of turf requires denigrating other women - reducing them to "yuck" as [Camille] Paglia does or airheads who prioritize manicures, or, Judith Reagan's favourite, "pussies" - so be it.

  
  There are some holes, however. Levy makes a brief mention of how her FCPs aim to behave 'like men,' take 'acting like a man' as a compliment, but they never specify what kind of man. She talks about how those caught up in raunch culture - the girls in Girls Gone Wild, high school girls with G strings riding above their jeans - are seeking male attention and approval, but she doesn't really talk to the men whose approval is so single-mindedly sought. It's a glaring omission, and I really think her argument would have been more complete if she'd taken into account what it is men see, what they feel they have the right to see.
  
  So, yes. Read it, think about it, disagree with it. But I don't think we can ignore 'Female Chauvinist Pigs' any more than we can ignore the next Paris Hilton sex tape.
  
  
• Speaking of books, I've almost finished Kafka on the Shore. I'm enjoying it, but there are two many parts where the characters descend into a prolonged lecture about literature and philosophy for me to really get into it. However, there are enough odd encounters with registered trademarks, truck drivers, talking cats and raining fish and leeches to keep me interested. Good for a long bus trip when you want to look mildly intellectual.
  
  
• A note to news organisations everywhere, most particularly those run by Rupert Murdoch - the Paris Riots have nothing to do with Islamic extremism. These kids smoke hash and go to clubs and drive cars and are pissed and angry and very much not Islamic militants. Grow the fuck up and stop blaming everything on mythic Islamic extremists, 'kay?
  
  
• Does the brown note exist? I maintain, for subconscious reasons I still don't have acces to, that it does. My contemporaries say that it doesn't. Who is right? Who is wrong? It's the battle of the century!
  
• I just discovered Wikiquotes, like Wikipedia except marginally less intelligent. The proverbs section is particularly time-wasting. I especially like the Icelandic proverbs, as they speak the language of the fairies. Sweet is the smell from your own arse, indeed.

Laser surgery + fish = awesome

Please look at the slide show to see the koi getting a CT scan and the man giving his fish physical therapy. If that doesn't warm your scaly, moist heart then I don't want to know you.

I have a love/hate relationship with McSweeneys. Love because their writing is funny and shit. Hate because I really can't stand Dave Eggers. I find him smug, much to smug, far, far, too smug.

Nevertheless, when I read about Wholpin I very nearly lost bladder control.

I hate you, Dave Eggers, and all those meddling kids.

I want to find out when he'll be in Senate and rock up with a bevvy of politically-minded beauties wearing t-shirts proclaiming 'I'm Bearing Barnaby's Baby' and 'Will Show Boobs for Opposition to IR Legislation.'

I also secretly hope that he strides around with his thumbs hooked around his braces, and talks like a Southern lawyer out of 'To Kill a Mockingbird.'

L: Best headline ever: Tunnel Contractors Apologise to Residents for Hole

R: So many gaping hole jokes, so very many... AND I PLAN TO EXPLORE THEM ALL

Gaping Hole Swallows Building

Construction Workers Surround Gaping Hole

Gaping Hole Leaves North Shore Stunned

L: Due to Movement, Gaping Hole now a Slippery Slope.

Gaping Hole Still Waiting to be Filled.

R: Gaping hole Opens Up Lane's Cove.

L: Prime Minister says: filling Gaping Hole will take many men.

R: Exit Tunnel Becomes Gaping Hole

L: Frustrated Woman Demands Gaping Hole be filled.

Families Tremble in Fear as Gaping Hole Continues to Grow.

Council warns: Gaping Hole may be hazardous.

R: Budgie Lost in Gaping Hole.

*true story.

L: Sydney Clubs full of Gaping Holes.

R: Insistent Tunnelling Causes Gaping Hole.

L: Children Emerge from Gaping Hole.

R: Gaping Hole Pumped with Concrete.

Gaping Hole Demands Giant Plug

L: Machinery Taken into Gaping Hole to Fulfil Needs.

Public disbelief as man fits entire head into gaping hole.

R: *snorts coffee*

*whimpers in corner*

*is fired for crazy of the brain*

You realise we're going to be talking in a language no one else will understand?

L: Oh, they'll understand. And it'll dilate their gaping minds.

R: HOLE! GAPING HOLE! GAPING! GAPING HOLE! HOLE! GAPING GAPING HOLE!

Leon and I email each other when we're at work. We don't work in the same place, and I think the above was an ample illustration of why that's a good idea.

I wonder if there's anyone on the planet who doesn't ever use passive voice sometimes when they speak? For instance, they never say 'police were called,' they always say 'we called the police'?

I wonder if that person would be able to stand speaking to any other living, breathing human being...

Today, without meaning to, I wore a slightly transparent white wifebeater with the words 'for the ladies and the fags, yeah!' embroidered in incompetent cursive to work over a pink polka dotted bra, quite visible underneath.

I also forgot it was the Melbourne Cup.