crazy frog in my crazy throat. it only comes out to play(!) in the mornings, when i wake up feeling as though i have spent the night stuffing wads of cotton wool down my gullet. then as the day goes on i feel progressively better, and at bedtime i think 'no more phlegm for me!' as i fall asleep... but no. come morning, the frog is back. bastard frog.
i bought a new pillow recently, seeing as my old one was pretty crap... how confusing can buying a pillow be, really? the answer to that question is, 'pretty bloody'. i was faced by a wall of pillows, each pleading wwith me to take them home ('i'm latex! lay-tex, i tells ya! pick me!'... 'no, me! i'm duck down! down with the ducks!'... 'no, no, me! i have foam at my core! a real heart of foam...'). so me being me, i picked the fiddly one. it has a zip on the side and you can remove the filling to customise the pillow to your head. sounds like a great idea, huh? all i'll say is that next to my bed there is an enviro-shopping bag filled to the brim with what looks like offcuts from an ageing clown's haircut, and the bloody pillow still feels like sleeping on a balloon. go figure.

totally aware that i have not been updating as often as i should. or as often as i think i should... statcounter tells me people check into this blog, so thanks for the visits. lately i've just been working (at the day job, that is - not actually writing again yet) and pottering around, doing nothing too exciting, so nothing worth reporting, i guess.
what did i do today? i spent the morning with my parents, then went to the video store and hired two dvds. 'the hours', which i hadn't had the chance to watch till now, and 'hating alison ashley', because i'm always curious (albeit with a time delay) about australian film. i watched them both, and am currently watching the end of 'lost in translation' (which in my all-time top five, most definitely). i watched 'three dollars' not long ago (also on dvd) mainly because i was curious to see if i made the cut - i was an extra on two scenes - and gladly, i didn't. i was in the background of two shots that didn't make the final cut, and both were shot at monash clayton, and hence both were set in the eighties. which is mainly the reason why i wasn't too disappointed that i didn't make it in, because i wasn't really looking forward to the possibility of seeing myself on screen in all my crimped-hair and frosted-blue-eyeshadowed glory. as much as i love david wenham and frances o'connor, i wasn't too in love with the movie. but all you can do is try, right?
one film i did watch recently (again, on the shalini time-delay) was 'garden state'. by weird coincidence, we'd hired the film at least twice before and returned it without actually watching it. the third time around, the guy at the video store went 'you've had this out before, haven't you?', and we both mumbled incoherently before handing over our money and leaving. anyway, 'garden state' blew me away. yes, i admit i love zach braff(sp?), but it was more than that. natalie portman was divine in that movie, and the way it was shot was a treat. i love that movie. i might have to add it to my collection. if you haven't seen it yet, do yourself a favour - even if you've borrowed and returned it twice due to some freak chance of time and nature conspiring against you. if you loved 'lost in translation', you'll love 'garden state'.
that is all. good night.

so, last week i turned 32. as is fitting for a person like me, the week was a little all-over-the-place emotionally, but what else would you expect? highlights from the week include:
- going to the races for the first time (oaks day, actual birthday). had a mini-crisis trying to decide what i'd wear (i'm not a very girly-girl); ended up wearing slacks instead of the more traditional race-day, skirty-type-attire. was a good decision as i didn't have to worry about holding my skirt down because it was so windy.
- finally getting a copy of MIA's cd (thanks, mark!)
- discovering that borders the bookstore now lives at highpoint shopping centre... and finding that they have my book blocked and face out on the fiction shelf! i decided i would risk another indifferent response from the staff, but no such thing happened! they were all happy to chat and even said they'd read the book. sweet!
- did a reading at the asia and pacific writers network organised 'beyond borders' conference (on sunday so it was technically this week and not last week, but i've left this post half-written for so long that i forgot what i was going to write)
- spoke after a very long time to my former publisher, which was excellent, because i've missed her lately (she's been really busy)
anyhoo, gotta get a move-on now. see ya later!

i will be doing a reading this sunday as part of BEYOND BORDERS: Creative Strategies for Global Harmony, organised by the asia and pacific writers network. so if you're around melbourne and you're looking for something to do, here are the details -

sunday 6 & monday november 2005, trades hall bar, 54 victoria st (cnr of lygon st), carlton south.
day ticket pre-sale: $35/$30. concession price available for victorian writers centre and PEN members.
door price: $40/$35.
session tickets: $12/$10.
session tickets can be purchased on the day at the door, subject to availability. a session is either a thematically linked reading and discussion, or the reading in the evening.

my session details:
Sunday 6 nov, 2pm: who goes there? strangers, borders and fear.
readings by tom cho, javant biarujia and shalini akhil that cross borders of genre, culture, identity and fear.
discussion: at a time when the world is closing down its national borders, boundaries of culture, identity, etc are more fluid, open... at the intersections of boundaries/borders, new forms, practices, theories...
chandani lokuge, mohit prasad (fiji) and goenawan mohamad (indonesia) in discussion with peter mares.