June 21

Yesterday I woke up feeling content (maybe even smug?) and counted my blessings as I lay in bed: three handbags, a Prospective Spouse, and a grammar paper that was proceeding as it should. It was a beautiful winter day and I went sleeveless to the university , where my sense of the bounty of the universe quickly evaporated in the face of the tortured generic structure of Amanda Vanstone's press release. By sunset baby Jesus had taken me well and truly off his Christmas card list and I had a disastrous cyber date with Marcinski, who first couldn't see me, then couldn't hear me, then had his utterances subjected to a half- minute delay. I aborted the mission out of sheer frustration and went home to watch murder shows until I was too scared to piss in case the homicidal dwarf had miraculously escaped the television and was lurking in the dunny.

I have successfully rationalised (but not exorcised) my eruptions of lust for Nick in a number of ways- here are some possible explanations which have occurred over the last few days:
1) 1 1/2 year itch. Have I ever had a relationship that lasted any longer than this? No. Why? Because after a year and a half I get bored and edgy and and start prowling restlessly in search of uncharted Y chromosomes.
2) Pre marital panic brought on by the thought that I may not have the chance to sex with anyone besides Marcinski
a) ever again
b) while I am still young and lovely
c) in the carpark of the climbing wall
3) ovulatory turmoil

If this story were made in Hollywood I could include the uncontrollable -meant- to- be option but as it actually revolves around a warehouse in St Peters I think it's safe enough to leave it out.

On Saturday I went to see a South African film with Liz at the State Theatre. It opened with a very long pan over barren country, accompanied by music that sounded like somebody sobbing and twanging on a fencing wire and it didn't get any more cheerful after that as the protagonists developed AIDS, were ostracised and eventually died. I ended up asking myself why the world(against all the evidence) seems so beautiful on film, and concluded that it has something to do with the intensity of focus, with the reduction of the whole chaotic mess to a distillation of light and colour of manageable proportions. There's something precise and lovely about it.

Then there's the thrill of the State Theatre itself :there's a perverse pleasure in finding yourself, when everybody's dead and the curtain comes down, in the dress circle under a monstrous chandelier with kitsch as far as they eye can see. I always forget how much fun it is.