Last night I had a dream that I fell in love with, and married, a sparrow.

It sounds terribly Tom Waits but in my dream I actually married a sparrow. He was my husband and I loved him even though he was small and without a decent job or lips.

In my dream my husband and I got on a tram to go some place not specified by my unconscious. As soon as we got on my spouse began freaking out, zooming about, twittering idiotically and crapping on peoples' heads. And you know what I thought?

'God, I have the worst taste in men.'

I can't even make that shit up, people.

My friend Leon and I had a theory about dreams. We think there are little people inside our heads employed by Jung or whoever controls such things to give us our dreams. Some people have totally crazy dream-creating head people. Having difficulties with your mother? You're shrunk to the size of a pea and find yourself exploring the topography of Oprah's thighs with only a map on a napkin to guide you. Frustrated at work? You have become a fish, with other, smaller fish for fins, and you speak Swedish. Others, like Leon and I, have very dull dream-creating head people. Leon was having a lot of trouble with his job, and he dreamed that he had to stack the back of a ute with crates of bottles. You could almost see his DCHP (that's dream-creating head person), in short sleeved polyester shirt, unpatterned tie, and bum-parted hair whispering 'frustration. You're FRUSTRATED. Stacking things is FRUSTRATING. Get it? Get it?'

My DCHP must have taken my present state of faintly lonely (but not really) wistfulness, combined it with my love of the sparrows settled in the tree outside my bedroom window, and said 'if you love sparrows so much why don't you just marry one?'

Come on, unconscious. You can do better than that. Bring on the flaming pie! The penguin assasinations! The donkey pope!

I want to do this so badly I can't even think of anything clever to say about how badly I want to do it.

However, it does raise the question of how exactly you could park a park. Do you reverse parallel it? Do you get someone to jump out and guide you?

I've been a bit quiet on the interweb lately, as my odd former housemate thoughtfully had our internet account cut off without telling anyone. Odd former housemate, I AM NOT AMUSED.

Not much to report.

Sparrows have begun settling in the tree outside my bedroom window.

It is warm and bright sometimes, and cold and dark others.

I am glad to have another cultural studies person in one of my history classes.

Apparently, one can sell CDs of a lady singer-songwriter singer-songwriting by pelvic thrusting and drunkenly telling punters her voice is 'transcendant.' Also, kebaffel (THAT IS AN IN JOKE.) (but a funny one if, you know, you're into it)

I was rather priding myself on feeling quite in control of the thesis thing and not freaking out all that much.

That is no longer true.

I have to hand in a 6,000 word draft next week, and while it's all outlined and whatnot, and I have at least 4,000 words done,* and I kinda know what it is I have to write, I would much rather give Alan Jones a high colonic than actually, y'know, write it.

In the meantime, here is some red hot, filthy library smut courtesy of Mr Thom.

I'm going to the gym with a copy of 'Famous' to get som exercise in.

Then I'm going to write.

Yes.

That's exactly what I'm going to do.


*Around 2,000 of those 4,000 words are what I'd consider 'good.' I have done an awful lot of reading but very little citing of what I have read. I've turned into One Of Those who asserts without citing where you got the idea from and I hate those people.

I am in a vile mood today. My poor sister called me for some advice about a Boy Situation (Cliff's notes: she likes one boy, who is giving mixed signals, but another boy who she likes but not in that way asked her out, what to do?) and I blasted the girl with pure misanthropic bile.

'I like boy A, Rach, but I don't know if he likes me.'

'If you don't know, Blockhead, then he doesn't. If they aren't 100% crystal clear about their intentions you've got to slap it on its arse and send it on its way. And let's face it, pretty much everyone is a bit of a douche.'

'Uhm, I don't...'

'Including you and me. ESPECIALLY you and me.'

'It's not that bad, I mean...'

'And don't EVER let someone know you like them. All that does is give them emotional leverage or scare them away.'

'Rach, I don't...'

'On second thoughts it's probably best if you just give up on the two of them. We're both going to die old and alone. Let's go buy some cats.'

'I have to go now, Rach.'

I'm sorry, Blockhead. You are a lovely, pragmatic, drily funny lady and not all potential romantic entanglements are sure paths to disappointment and heartache. I am bitter and old. And persnickety. Whatever that means.

You know what will make everything better? SNAKES ON A MOTHERFUCKING PLANE!!!

Can anyone recommend a good hairdresser round these parts who can respect the fact that a girl is growing her hair and not cut it all off, and doesn't exclaim about mythical 'weight' in one's depressingly fine hair and then proceed to thin it out to stringy nothingness? Preferably someone who is also nice and chatty, but not too chatty, and who makes a decent coffee and won't try to talk you into getting highlights? If such a beast exists I would be most obliged to the person who sends me to them.

Also - Macromantics on September 2nd. Who's coming with me??

I can smell onions.

And hummus.

Ohmigod does someone have a kebab?

A kebab in a place where there is a large laminated sign in each carrel saying 'PLEASE DO NOT CONSUME FOOD OR DRINK IN THE LIBRARY'?

Am I a chronic nerd for using the word 'carrel' so often in everyday conversation?

Someone is totally eating a big garlicky, oniony kebab.

Carrel, carrel, carrel.

I wonder if the garlic fumes will damage the large and valuable collection of 19thC French museum catalogues.

Is it sacriligious to eat a kebab near so many first edition biographies on George Eliot?

Heh, carrels by candlelight.

Why does this library need such a large quantity of biographies on George Eliot? Middlemarch was totally boring.

It's midday, too. Surely that's a bit early for a kebab.

Maybe they're hungover. On a Tuesday.

CARREL!

Perhaps that means they're an alcoholic. Should I stage an intervention?

Maybe I could get Mr Alcholic kebab eater and go CARRELLING! OMG LOLLERSKATES :P:P:P

I do not like Ms Julie McCrossin, co chair of the 2002 NSW child obesity summit, AT ALL.

I'd really like a kebab now.

LUNCH BREAK 2006!!!!!

What's the difference betweens doves and pigeons?

Why is it that some turtledoves have little triangley feathers on their heads and some don't? Do gentlemen turtledoves have triangely feathers and ladies don't? Does that mean all the turtledoves around here are ladies?

How would one establish a dovecote?

If in my dream house of settled adulthood I had both a dovecote and a chicken coop would there be some kind of Marxist uprising by the chickens (working class; scrappy, ref. EP Thompson) versus the doves (bourgeois; ornamental and cooing, ref. Bourdieu)?

I wonder if the turtledoves mind me singing 'Tower of Song' with my hungover scotch-and-cigarettes voice?*



In other news, Jobe sent me the Mp3 for this song, and I found the video on YouTube. The Mp3 is breathtakingly hot, and while the video doesn't quite capture the underpants-moistening seat squirminess of the actual performance, do watch it through to the end. That's what I'm going to be doing, all night long, IF YOU CATCH MY SUBTLE MEANING.


*courtesy of the delightful Miss KP, who took me out for bevvies and conversation last night, about everything from political theory to Lars Von Trier to Bring It On to why girls' schools are weird. It was splendid but it's the second time I've walked away hungover from hanging out with that part of the blogogogosphere. Coincidence?

Do you know how many blog entries I've attempted to write since Monday, Internet? Several! Several whiney blog entries! None of which came to full fruition as I kept collapsing into delicate... uhm... folds of... rivulets... SEE? SEE WHAT I HAVE TO DEAL WITH?! And it just HAD to be the week when my supervisor said to me 'Rachael, come back to me in three weeks with a complete chapter draft and a thorough understanding of Foucault.' 'The sexing parts?' I asked. 'No.' She replied. 'A think the sexing parts would be best left out of a paper on obese children.'

So I've been reading Foucault and taking cold and flu tablets and listening to DJ Shadow and discovering that all three, when combined, have something of a hallucinatory effect. I am dry and unfunny and WHY does the spiral staircase in the biomedical library just continue into the ceiling rather than, like, stop where a staircase should stop? Was it overlooked in a renovation? Is it art? Why is art always superfluous and confusing? WHY?

I'm going to go read something about hermeneutics or structuralism or some shit. Actually, no, I lie, I'm going to sit at the bottom of that mystery bit of staircase and stare at it until it makes sense.

Oh, Canberra.

Last time I couldn't wait to leave, and once back went straight to Miss Chloe's for sympathy, succour and cigarettes. This time, for various reasons, I didn't want to leave. Indeed, I was/am something of a sook about leaving, and now find myself tootling about, alone, doing necessary boring things with an achey heart. But! It's all good! What is a day of wistful mopiness good for if not rediscovering old, comforting vices?

After months and months of sobriety, I cracked this afternoon. I bought a twin pack of Listerine strips and one of the little boxes is already gone. I'm so minty fresh I suspect my freshness reaches the moon, or perhaps Russia.

Also, after Miss Steph once recommended waking yourself up with Allens Snakes and caffeine, I bought some vending machine lollies from work (packed by the unemployed, so you know they're good), and experienced the long-forgotton joy of grasping a jelly baby by its head and feet and pulling as hard as you can. The sugar makes me feel kind of wrong, but boy howdy am I awake.

I have to get on a plane this afternoon.

Here are some things i would rather do:
- Give a sponge bath to hated former Big Brother housemate Michael.
- Perform a two hour long interpretative dance chronicling the journey of a bran muffin through a vegan's large intestine.
- Work at Starbucks.

I hate flying. Hate it. I feel like such an anachronism. I mean, who freaks out about flying any more? I'm even from what you could call an aviation family, for crying out loud. My parents met in the air force, my mum worked in civil aviation for many, many years, her closest friend, a woman who was practically an aunt to me, was one of Australia's first female air traffic controllers, and my dad was a pilot. As a little tacker I spent a lot of time in airports, hangars, on big, grumbly, olive green Hercules. I used to think it was normal to get on an aircraft and see your dad in the cockpit. But now I can't stand flying. It makes me feel sick and nervous, and I feel awful for the poor bastard who has to endure my white knuckled heavy breathing for the short hop to Canberra.

It's really only the little regional flights that do it to me. I can handle big international flights because they're kind of inevitable, and you really just sit in a giant tube for a painfully long time. The little tubes, however, make me want to hurl. The sound of a propellor winding up terrifies me, so whenever I have to fly somewhere I always anxiously check to make sure I don't get on a twin prop.

Honestly. Where is Erica Jong/an elephant sized dose of Xanax when you need her/it?

My abstract was accepted for the conference. I turn in the beast in November. After that, unleash hell.



I LOVE YOU, ALAN.

There is much to look forward to. I get to hang out with my peeps in the 'Bra on the occasion of Blockhead's 21st birthday this weekend, missing Mr Jo's mega birthday show of fun this Saturday at Gertrudes (you will all be going to see him, and the Ramps, and many, many other bands of joy and good times, yes you will be, ALAN COMMANDS IT).

I also discovered that, as I am taking a class in medical history, I totally get access to the Melbourne Uni Anatomy Museum, and I am way more excited about that than I should be. Reason 1: I would very much like to get a picture of myself, cigarette dangling from my lips, pointing at the pelvis of some poor unfortunate hobo skeleton a la Lynndie England. Reason 2: 'wet specimen' is my new favourite euphemism.

A shady corner. Three handsome young ladies, one TALL, one MEDIUM, and one shaped like a Faber Castell ERASER, are talking about things of grave importance, like where Suri Cruise might be (Uruguay/inside Anna Nicole Smith). A tall man with SQUINTY eyes approaches.

SQUINTY
Hello, ladies. Could I make you an offer?

MEDIUM
Let me guess, a beer for a cigarette?

SQUINTY
[chortles]
You read my mind, beautiful. What are you ladies doing here on your own?

TALL, MEDIUM, and ERASER exchange uncomfortable glances.

TALL
Uh, we're not -

SQUINTY
Hold up there, Medium and I were having a conversation. Here's your beer, Medium.

MEDIUM
This beer is half empty.

SQUINTY
Drink up, Medium!

MEDIUM
You've been drinking this beer.

SQUINTY
It's good for what ails you!

MEDIUM
I'm not drinking someone else's beer, Squinty.

SQUINTY
So, have you ladies ever thought about having babies?

ERASER is waiting on the front step for a friend to arrive. She is tired and waiting for a second wind. She leans against a wall and closes her eyes for a moment. A small but NARROW man approaches.

NARROW
How're you going?

ERASER
Oh, okay. Just a bit tired. Waiting for a friend.

NARROW
Don't be tired! The night is young! Here, I'll keep you company.

ERASER
Oh, that's sweet of you.

NARROW insinuates an arm behind ERASER's back, his hand precariously close to her pretty green dress clad arse.

NARROW
You know what cheers anyone up? Card tricks.

ERASER
[scootching slowly away]
No, no, I'm not the greatest fan of card tricks.

NARROW
No, really, everyone likes card tricks.

ERASER
I don't.

NARROW
Yes, you do.

ERASER
No, I really don't.

NARROW
Maybe you just haven't been shown the right card trick yet.

[pause]

By the right guy.

He produces a deck of cards. ERASER, exasperated, goes back inside.

Later ERASER is up stairs on the balcony with a band of fine companions and a bottle of Amaretto. Spirits are high, people are happy, everyone is a delight. She is introduced to a very ROUND man, who has a nice face.

INTRODUCER
This is Round. He's lovely. You'll like Round, Eraser.

ERASER
Hi, Round.

ROUND
Hello, Eraser.

He takes ERASER's hand to shake it.

ROUND
It's very nice to meet you, Eraser.

He puts his other hand over hers and begins stroking the inside of her wrist.

ERASER
[internally]
Oh for fuck's...

TALL and ERASER are talking outside with a convenient boy and a lovely gay. They are discussing Debbie Harry, and ERASER says she would one day like to be Debbie Harry. A man, who early mentioned that he was an ACTOR, interjects.

ACTOR
You mean you want to get married?

ERASER
I want to be Debbie Harry.

ACTOR
Who's Debbie Harry?

TALL
You know, Heart of Glass.

ERASER
Rapture.

TALL
Videodrome.

ERASER
That Spike Lee movie with the phone sex line.

ACTOR
Oh. Well, you've got a problem, Eraser, because Debbie Harry didn't wear glasses.

TALL
He's right.

ERASER removes her thick rimmed emo glasses

ACTOR
Wow, you look really hot now.

ERASER
I can't see anything.

ACTOR
I didn't know we had such a gorgeous girl in our midst.

ERASER
Uh...

ACTOR
Seriously, it's like one of those movies where the scientist girl takes off her glasses and then she's totally hot.

ERASER
[quite loudly]
OH FOR FUCK'S.