Birthday Goodness

I think it's probably fair to say that I've been narky lately. Upset, angry, disenchanted and easily ticked off.
Not sure I've ever been this narky. Ever. The other day, the guy sitting across from me on the peak hour train alternatively sucked up snot and kicked my shin. I pushed back gently. I frowned at him, but then he kicked a little too hard and all hell broke loose. I yelled 'Move!' loud enough to get through his iPod and make half the carriage look up from their mobile phones/books/newspapers. He moved.
What I'm not telling you, is that as I yelled 'move', I also kicked him back. Not hard (I'm probably lying here, I had a lot of anger and i think it was pretty hard) but still, I physically assaulted a fellow public transport sufferer.
So not like me.
I am normally the soul of 'excuse me please'. I have manners my mother would be proud of.
Not this week.
I kinda hoped my birthday would yank me out of it, after all, I have an alter ago affectionately known by family and friends as 'the birthday monster'. I love birthdays - everyone coming over, the presents, the cake (perhaps a little too much) singing happy birthday etc etc.
It's not just my birthday, I get almost as excited at other people's. Notice the 'almost'.
So I tried. I really really tried to get into it, even going to the extreme lengths of singing happy birthday to myself along with everyone else.
And having all those people I loved there helped - for a little while.
But much too soon I reverted to cranky, annoyed, crying at the drop of a hat and generally being a pain in the ass. I miss my dog. I'm angry that she's gone and nothing makes it feel better.

I mean you know you're bad news when Zac (see below) comes to visit and spends the entire time watching the wall to escape you.







In good news, even my narky state of mind couldn't detract from the fact that i got some of the cutest presents a girl could wish for. Look at this (thanks Mel, she's beautiful!) :


and this (I haven't taken it off, Freya):




I have the best friends in the world. I hope they forgive me.

So if you see me on the street, seriously, walk the other way. I've got a bee in my bonnet and I'm not adverse to kicking total strangers.

In Dog Heaven

In dog heaven there are wide expanses of green green grass where you can run circles in joyous abandon.
There are trees covered in sniffs to paw over
There are plates of fresh cooked chicken and slices of corned beef from Dad.
There is no vet.
There are pillows to lie on, tissues to chew and patches of sun to sleep the afternoon away in.
In dog heaven, nobody asks you to come or sit or tells you you're a bad dog.
Instead, God is pulls you up onto his lap to give you a scratch behind the ear, or on your belly, or wherever you feel like it most.
There's all kinds of chocolate that's not bad for you.
There are no fleas.
In dog heaven, the roads aren't paved with gold, they're paved with those squeaky toys you love so much, like Henry, and Froggy and Monte.
There are lots of other dogs to play with, and you'll feel like a puppy again.
Sometimes it rains, so you can run through the mud but mostly it's like a fresh spring morning.
You'll love it. And one day when I get up there too, you 'll be wagging to see me and show me around.

There better be all these things and more, Mookie. There better be every little thing your heart desires or ...
or what?
or i think my heart will break.

It was the best of times and it was the best of times...

I've just spent five days in Sydney at the Romance Writers of Australia yearly conference and it was an absolute blast. I adore Sydney. Beautiful weather, a city surrounded by either water or park, and Jenny Crusie and Anne Stuart as your personal writing mentors for the weekend . How can you go wrong?

Well there's the $10 they charge you just to stand on the airport train station platform (not including ticket!), and perhaps the way everything seems to cost twice as much as it does here, but other than that, it's a beautiful beautiful town.

Statistics gathered from the conference include

Number of times that I...

Downed a bucked-sized cocktail in the bar: 2

Spilled something on my top: 6

Chewed on complimentary mentos while listening to speakers : 0 (hard to believe, isn't it?)

Bought a book: 7

Told my husband I'd won a book in a raffle: 7

Turned to the person next to me while Jenny Crusie was teaching and said 'that's pure gold' :5

Had writing epiphanies :4

Won a raffle/door prize : 0 (you'd think that would be humanly impossible considering the number of tickets I bought)

Spotted the Sydney Harbour Bridge: 4

Found a fabulous Cafe/Foodstore: 1 (thanks Gusto in Paddington!)

Whined about the fact that my pants don't fit: 25

Ate the donut anyway: 2


--000---

One of the highlights of the entire trip was watching amazing writer and fabulous friend, Melanie Scott, win the prestigious and much coveted Emerald Award. I think I was more nervous than she was on the night, but I guess when you've weathered being a double Golden Heart finalist, you can do anything. And what was really hilarious and kind of touching was that she was so surprised to win that she hadn't even prepared a speech, and sat in a total daze for fifteen minutes afterwards. Which was lucky for me, because she didn't notice that I'd totally scoffed her flourless chocolate cake.

And then there's Keri - who hit the extended NYT Bestseller list AGAIN with the wonderful Embraced by Darkness.

There's nothing better than a friend's success. It makes me smile just thinking about it.

Two Banana Coladas Later...

... and I was sitting by the pool with my alphasmart (I **so** wish I could say that all the time), letting my latest manuscript suck.

'Letting it suck' is the only rule I have to have when writing first draft because otherwise the nasty little perfectionist goblin will eat up every idea I have. And he really is a nasty goblin. He says things like 'oh come on, i've read a scene like that three billion times before, can we please do something original?' whereas if i smack him down, i write the scene i've read three billion times before, but halfway through something unexpected and original happens and suddenly I'm having fun. This book is looking like it's going to be written using the patchwork quilt method of writing. Bits of scenes coming through strong, but nothing even slightly linear - so it will be a case of putting it all together at the end and seeing what i've got. You can't fight the process. But i still try. Why oh why do i still try?

I only have three days of fluffy cocktail enduced writing to go before I have to come home, though, so I have to make the most of it. Yesterday I fed an elephant bananas (wow, what a smooth topic change) one at a time. She lifted her beautiful long truck and gently curled it over the banana in my hand. Okay, so I ended up with a sizable glob of elephant snot on my hand, but it was worth it. I kept running back and buying more bananas (they say it's a donation for the elephants they are rehabilitating, but I say it's a donation to the restaurant and bar they appear to be building. Hmph.) until there were no bananas left and the elephant was looking at me with disappointment in those big honey coloured eyes. By God can they eat!!

Travel Tips for your Romantic Thai Holiday

Tip 1: That red thing is not a capsicum. So when you say to your chef husband 'hey, is that a capsicum?' and he says 'yes', only to add 'I hope' when he sees the steam coming out of your ears, try not to blame him for the gallon of iced water and gastrointestinal distress.

Tip 2: That elephant you are riding does not have a ladder. So when you attempt to dismount, take care not to trip over your own feet and land sprawled on the gravel with your skirt around your ears.

Tip 3: If you bought travel sickness pills, please remember to take them before journeying in the back of a ramshackle red van over hills are around countless hair pin bends. Really. Nobody wants to see you turn a not so delicate shade of green and stumble around like a drunkard.

Tip 4: Try not to take a wrong turn looking for Baskin Robbins and end up in the red light district.

Tip 5: Do not try and ascertain what the 'Chopstick Treatment' listed on the menu handed to you in said red light district, entails.

Tip 6: THAT RED THING IS NOT A CAPSICUM!!!

Satay luck

What are the odds of rocking up to Singapore in the middle of two fabulous festivals? Not only is it 'Singapore's on Sale' (I'm calling that a festival, afterall, shopping is a national past time here) - but it's the also the Singapore **Food** Festival.
Did they know I was coming or something?
And O-M-G can these people cook.
Last night we totally lucked upon some sort of Satay cookoff where they'd turned a street into impromptu satay stalls. The street was lined with charcoal fired BBQs, red lanterns and a haze of satay fuelled smoke hanging in the 97% humidity.
Not to mention every type of satay you can imagine. Well, that's not quite true , there was prawn, lamb, chicken, beef and that's about it. But what more do you need? Put together with the homemade rice cake, cucumber, onion, pineapple - TJ and I were in satay heaven. We left there smelling of charcoal smoke with very full bellies.
I love this city!

We haven't tried the fried carrot cake yet - but it's only day 2.

Bunny of the Day

What's a baby rabbit called? I wasn't sure, so if anyone knows, the bunny is all ears to find out.
She fits in your hand and her name is Sooty -not that she's particularly sooty, so not sure how that came about.
But she's the new addition to my sister's household. That is, until Aunty Robyn comes over and steals her away for being too cute for words.
It's her own fault, really. She's got it coming.

So I've finished work at my last place of lucre. It was fun, but oh- my-God the commute was a killer. On the upside, traveling by train everyday is perfect for plotting - if you can zone out the guy in the seat next to you sniffing something up from his knees .
Not always possible.
And on another upside, I think I've done more reading in the past three months than I did in the whole year before it. Some excellent, excellent stuff that I'll post to the left sometime soon.

The book is coming along nicely. On the home stretch of the revision of the revision of the revision. No scene left untouched, no phrase safe from my wickedly sharp delete button.
Ha! I am the revision QUEEN!