REVIEWY GOODNESS

Go here, and read a review of ASIM 17, in which the reviewer talks Luscious up like it's going out of business. And it's all deserved, too :)

AND PRESENTS TO BOOT!

A fabulous Mother's Day yesterday. Lyn made out like a bandit: two herbal candles from Blake, a round red ornament from Aiden that was immediately dubbed "The Eye of Sauron" (and is my personal favourite), a gorgeous bath set from Cassie she made up herself out of things she knew Lyn would like, and all the kids combined to get her a 6-cup coffee plunger ( necessary!) and a 3-pack DVD set of the documentary series Empires, covering the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians.

We topped it off with lunch at Chatters, an Asian restaurant adored by Lyn and the kids, before we had to drop the children back at their father's house.

Sometimes, the very perfection of an occasion can be what makes it terrible. Having to drop the kids off after such a wonderful day was twice as painful as normal. I can't wait to get them back on Friday: we need a big weekend of fun, and they're co-opted :) After all, PRK's 30th birthday party is on Friday night, and the kids and he love each other's company, so there's a good start!

PAUL KIDD NEEDS TREATMENT

See? Told you so. I'd ring for the therapist myself, but I was too busy laughing my ass off.

THE MARCH TO GLORY CONTINUES

Three-two, threeeeeee-twwoooooooo.......

Take that, Kingsley. Who wants a piece of Bassendean Juniors, huh? Come on, who wants a piece of us? Huh? HUH?

Just give us the cup now and be done with it...

As an aside, one of the loveliest things about going to Aiden's matches each week is his assertion to anyone that will listen that Connor is his lucky talisman, and that the team wins because Connor is on the sidelines. His showing off his little brother to his teammates is so damn cute!

KUNG FU HUSTLE AND BIG BROTHER

Thank God PRK bought over an insane Hong Kong film called Kung Fu Hustle to the Sunday Movie night last night, otherwise all I'd have had to entertain me was the opening episode of that piece of low vileness, Big Brother. Lyn loves it, which is the only reason I'm not stalking Dreamworld with a high-powered rifle right now. There is no lower example of the depth of human increptitude than this show. All involved should be burned at the stake so even the alien archaeologists can't clone them.

There's a much greater difficulty in good movie nights than bad. Everyone has a roughly similar view on what makes a movie bad, and how that can be entertaining. But what makes for a good movie, well, that's a little more... personal. Which is why we've seen movies like Volcano High and Return To Oz in recent weeks, movies that leave me cold or indifferent, but which their owners love; and why movies I'd watch for pleasure, like Titus or Pi, have remained firmly shelved. One man's meat is another's two-hours-of-rhyming-couplets-kill-me-now...

Kung Fu Hustle, on the other hand, is so deliciously bad I was in tears from beginning to end with uncontrolled laughter, as were the rest of the crew. I needed it Perky, I really did...

ONE MAN, AND VEGETABLES

We did the shopping for the vegetable co-op yesterday. Seven shares, meaning everything had to be bought in multiples of seven. Off we toddled to the Malaga Markets. Lyn had control of the pram, so I had the task of taking boxes to the checkout to pay for them.

So I'm standing there, a bloke on his own, a large box of vegetables in front of him.

Halfway through emptying said box for the checkout girl, I become aware of just how many eyes are watching.... seven broccoli... fourteen bok choi... twenty eight mushrooms... seven bunches of spring onions.... I don't see anybody with him....

I love confusing the normals :)

INTERVIEW ARCHIVE

Ben Peek's interviews have been archived by Tabula Rasa, for the amusement of alien archaeologists of the future.

Mine is here.

Luscious' is here.

Then you can read everyone else's :)

WHEN WRITERS COLLIDE

A fabulous dinner was had on Saturday night, when Martin Livings, Dr Iz, Shane Jiraiya Cummings and Angela Challis joined us for wine, apricot chicken, and double entendres. Apart from much shop talk (all but poor Iz being writers and/or editors of one stripe or another), and a bowl of chocolate mousse large enough to bathe in, the highlight for me was watching Lyn and Angela form an instant bond of friendship that had Shane and I wondering whether we were going to have to fight for who slept on the couch!

Another dinner is on the cards, and soon. I haven't enjoyed an evening so much in a long time.

REAL LIFE (TM)

It's been a tough couple of weeks, kids. It started when the court case hit another setback- the pre-trial conference which should have been held on the 5th of this month (meaning the whole thing would likely be over now) was pushed back to the 26th because (wait for it, you'll love this one) the opposing lawyer forgot it was on and so didn't tell her client. Now I could talk all day about the levels of shitbaggery involved in a stunt like that (oh, how I could talk), but after three years, all it leaves me is depressed.

Connor is teething, and hasn't slept properly in weeks.

A relative presented me with a letter so vicious, so filled with hate and bile that the only recourse it gave me was to contact them and suggest we no longer associate. I am insecure about family as it is. Having one turn on me in such a fashion did nothing for my state of mind.

A major market rejected me, and in the next couple of days I found two friends had been accepted by that same market. Those friends are brilliant writers. But I've been blocked for so long, and struggling with motivation and need for writing, that the whole thing set me on my haunches. I've barely written a new word since January, and for someone who needs to write as much as I do, it's like suffocating.

Some fucker snuck up to our house in the middle of the night and stole the large jade plant and pot that we keep by the front door.

Erin has been unsettled, wetting her bed on a couple of occasions, and waking up multiple times each night crying and needing attention. Coupled with Connor's nights, neither Luscious or I have slept two consecutive hours for well over a month.

I dared not like a movie some friends liked (The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, fyi) and some of the reactions of people who did like it have had me wondering why I bother with fandom at all: I started out to be a writer, and somehow fell into fannish things along the way. Sometimes I can't remember why.

I live in pretty much constant pain, the result of a car accident two months before Erin was born. I see a chiropractor on a regular basis, which generally does the trick. This last month, it hasn't. Because I can only afford to visit him every three weeks, at best, it's meant that I've been in a hell of a lot of pain for most of the last 4 weeks. To give you an indication: I cannot change my son's nappy without it hurting. I cannot sit on a couch unless I am supported by the arm and back, and when I get up, it takes three separate movement to do so. I cannot sit in any other kind of chair for more than 10 minutes without pain. I saw the chiro on Friday, and experienced the first pain-free period in over a month. It lasted two days.

I've got an infection in my mouth and the bastard just won't die!

So apologies to anybody who's missed the dancing, juggling monkey-boy performances in the last little while. Lyn's got me on a course of St John's Wort and Ginkgo-Biloba, a natural depression remedy that doesn't leave you feeling like a warmed-up zombie, and which has brilliant results for her when she has to deal with her own black dogs.

With any luck, normal dancing and juggling services will be resumed soon.