Well, I never. For the first time ever, I simply cannot think of seven reasons why I think this week will be wonderful. Which is not to say I DON’T think it will be wonderful, it’s just that I have a pleasantly quiet week ahead and won’t be running around like a chicken sans head the way I usually am. It’s a beautiful thing! So perhaps you could do me a favour and let me know what YOU’RE looking forward to this week?!

1. Time. Usually I look forward to the week ahead because I have all sorts of excursions and events planned, but glancing at my diary this week I see that it’s refreshingly empty. This means I have the luxury of a bit of time to myself – time to write and read and relax and just generally hang around. So I’m able to look forward to a slightly more sedate pace instead. What a treat!

2. Deadlines. While I’ve been sick for the last, oh, four thousand years or so, I’ve been forced to take on much less freelance work than usual. In fact, I’ve committed to nothing but my regular assignments since mid-March, which feels like a very long time ago indeed. And it’s not only my bank balance that has suffered as a result of this lack of work, but my brain. One of the things I love most about freelancing is the huge diversity of topics I get to write about and people I get to talk to. It keeps life interesting, y’know? Much as I love running the dog magazine, writing only about dogs gets a little stale after a while. So I’m pretty pleased to have a couple of different freelance deadlines this week. That ought to get the ol’ grey matter firing!

3. Research. Yesterday the husband and I took the fur children to the RSPCA’s annual Million Paws Walk. It was SO much fun and the dogs had a ball. The only downer was that we spent longer at the walk than we’d planned, so I wasn’t able to make it into the city in time to attend a Sydney Writers’ Festival event that I was really looking forward to. The event featured a panel of young adult (YA) urban fantasy authors, and I was bummed to miss it because I reckon I’m going to have a go at writing a novel in that genre myself and I figure I should acquaint myself with the workings of that world before I dip my literary toes in. But it’s cool, because I have another weapon at my disposal: the local library. I’m going to potter on down there later today and borrow as many YA UF novels as I can get my hands on. Let the research commence!

4. Sunshine. If you, like me, live in Sydney, you’ll remember that not so long ago it seemed like it would never stop raining. Ever. I think we only had something like eight rain-free days between January and April. It was pretty depressing. But now the tide has turned and the autumn weather in the Harbour City is just about perfect: mild days, cool nights, blue skies. Bliss! It actually hasn’t rained now since April 24, and of course people are now whining about how terribly dry it is – some folks are never happy – but to me it’s just divine. I intend to get out and about in it as much as possible!

5. This dog. I don’t think I need to explain why this pooch is awesome.

6 & 7. Over to you!

Posted at 11:13 am | No Comments | RSS

1. Productivity. I’m a little late with this week’s ’7 reasons…’ post, and I swear it’s not because I’ve been procrastinating! I woke up this morning to find that, inexplicably, my house was without power. All the lights worked, but none of the power points did! This happens quite a lot; it’s one of the joys of living in a 73-year-old Art Deco property. Usually I just stomp downstairs to the switchboard, flip the errant safety switch and we’re good to go. But today, said safety switch just would not be flipped. I switch it to the ‘on’ position, and it would immediately turn itself off again. So then I unplugged everything in the house and tried again. This has worked previously, but not today. Eventually, I had no choice but to call Simon, our friendly local electrician, who knows my house’s ancient wiring like I know the full names of all Brangelina’s kids. Simon was busy on a job and wasn’t able to stop by for a few hours, and in the meantime I had no broadband, a dead mobile phone and a laptop that lasts about three minutes if not plugged into a power source. Technologically speaking, I was high and dry. So I decided to tackle one of the (many) jobs I’ve been putting off for months: tidying my work desk. I have a lovely little office nook in the corner of my dining room, but it’s been covered in crap for so long that I’ve been working either at the dining room table or on the couch instead. But NO MORE! As you can see from the pic, my desk is tidy at last. Which means intensive productivity and unadulterated creative genius will surely follow! Because that’s how it works, right?

2. Purging. So inspired did I feel after cleaning my desk that I decided to clear out some other clutter while I was at it. Because of the nature of my job, there are at least forty stacks of magazines leaning precariously in various locations in my house on any given day. Obviously I keep copies of magazines in which my work appears, but for some reason that I can’t quite define, I keep loads of other magazines, too. (I can definitely see myself on that Hoarders show someday. Just a heads up.) I can’t throw them out, because I might NEED them. That copy of InStyle from 2007 may contain the item of clothing that will SOLVE ALL OF MY SARTORIAL DILEMMAS. The June 2009 Real Living gathering dust on my bookshelf could REVEAL THE MEANING OF LIFE. Except that neither of those things will happen, and I’m well aware of that. Which is why today I chucked out (in the recycling bin, natch) close to a hundred mouldy old mags. And my god, it felt gooooood. I’m going to throw out even more shit as the week progresses. Wardrobe, I’m looking at YOU!

3. Delays. You know how last Monday I was all, ‘That’s it! I refuse to be sick any more! I’m going to go places and do stuff and RECLAIM MY LIFE!’? Yeah. That didn’t really work out. About twelve seconds after hitting ‘Publish’ on that post, I developed a stinking head cold/chest infection extravaganza. My fourth one this year, woot woot! So instead of doing all the cool stuff I had planned last week, I went to bed and cried a lot. It sucked quite substantially. The upside of all that is that this week I feel a helluva lot better, so all the things I had to cancel are back on the agenda, starting with a girlie outing to see The Five-Year Engagement tomorrow night. Who said delayed gratification was a bad thing?!

4. New friends. Have you rushed out and bought the June issue of Marie Claire magazine and read my story about searching for a new BFF yet? If not, WHY THE HELL NOT?! Just kidding. Read it, don’t read it; it’s entirely up to you. (READ IT! READ IT NOW!) Evidently quite a few people have read it, judging by some very lovely emails I’ve received in the past few days from women who are all, ‘OMG! That’s totes how I feel!’ I’ve even been asked out on a couple of friend dates myself, which is just about the best outcome I could have possibly imagined. So here’s to new friends: just because I’m not writing about it anymore, doesn’t mean I’m going to stop hunting for awesome ladies. But in a much less stalkerish way than that sounds.

5. These paws were made for walkin’. You know, one good thing about having been so less-than-healthy recently is that I’ve been spared having to make a very difficult choice. The Sydney Half Marathon and the annual RSPCA Million Paws Walk are both on this Sunday morning; I really wanted to do both of them and was in quite the quandary as to which one to choose. Luckily (which really does not seem like the right word), my old mate Dengue Fever made quite sure I could not conceivably run 21km, so it’s Million Paws all the way! We’ve done the event several years running now; Tex and Delilah absolutely LOVE it, and the great thing is that this year my magazine, Dogs Life, is the official media partner of the walk. You don’t even need to have a dog to do the walk, and you can raise much-needed funds for the RSPCA by taking part. Sign up here to walk in your state!

6. A fiesta of words. The Sydney Writers Festival kicks off today, which is pretty freaking exciting. I have a list as long as my arm of events I want to attend, starting with a panel discussion about writing urban fantasy (my new obsession!) for young adult readers. Check out the program here, pop on a beret and some hipster glasses* and join me in getting your lit on!

7. The Chaperone. Well, it’s finally happened. I have read all 12 Sookie Stackhouse novels, and there won’t be a new one until this time next year. For a little while after finished the last one (which, incidentally, has a BELTER of an ending), I didn’t quite know what to do with myself. I was bereft! I tried to go straight into another urban fantasy series, written by an author widely regarded as one of the most influential in the genre. But it just WASN’T THE SAME. There was NO SOOKIE. There was NO ERIC. There were NO LUSTY EPISODES INVOLVING SOOKIE AND ERIC. Stupid, pointless, non-Sookie-and-Eric-containing, total-lack-of-vampire-rumpy-pumpy FAILURE OF A BOOK! I decided it was probably wise to take a little break from vampires and werewolves and the like, so I’ve returned to my other great literary love: the 1920s. I’ve plunged headlong into The Chaperone, by Laura Moriarty. It tells the fictionalised story of the real-life Cora Carlisle, a married 36 year old who chaperoned notorious Flapper starlet Louise Brooks to New York City when ‘Brooksie’ was just 15. So far it’s really wonderful, and I highly recommend it. Who needs vampires, eh?!

* If you actually do put on a beret and hipster glasses, please do not attempt to speak to me.

Posted at 5:29 pm | No Comments | RSS

Help! I seem to have misplaced my give-a-shit. I’m sure I had it here a moment ago, but it’s nowhere to be found.

I’ve always been a procrastinator. It is, in my opinion, my biggest flaw (the husband may argue otherwise). I have periods of procrastination so prolonged and intense they become a tangible thing. A virus – procrastinitis? – with bona fide physical symptoms: knotted-up guts, snarly thoughts, rollercoaster moods.

Here’s a prime example: I meant to write this post a week ago. Ha!

There is plenty of stuff I should be doing. There is even stuff I want to do. But I’m not doing it. I’M NOT DOING ANY OF IT. Instead I’m arseing about on the internet and walking the dogs three times a day and cooking unnecessarily elaborate meals. So strong is my desire to do anything but the stuff I need to do, I am wasting time by writing a blog post about the stuff I’m not doing.

Do you see my conundrum?

It’s a very frustrating thing, procrastination. This can’t-get-started state of paralysis and indecision. It makes me very mad at myself. Sure, I’ve been very sick for more than a month now. I’ve been largely confined to my house, too sick to work or write or do much of anything. I know that would be a plausible reason for my state of ennui.

But that’s not the reason. Not really. Because I was a procrastinator before I got sick and I’ll still be a procrastinator when I’m well again. I think the real reason is one of two things…

I’m either deeply afraid of failing, so it’s just easier not to attempt stuff, or the things on my to-do list are the wrong things. Maybe I can’t locate my give-a-shit because I actually do not give a shit about the tasks I’ve set myself. Which would be a problem, because those are the things by which I define myself.

It’s a pickle.

I’m a little afraid to publish this post, because I am fully aware that this is a massively First World problem. I know there are plenty of people in the world who don’t have the luxury of procrastination because they’re busy trying to feed, house and clothe themselves.

But I would genuinely like to know whether YOU wrestle with procrastination, and how you deal with it. Please do leave me a comment and let me know. Y’know, if you can be bothered.

Posted at 5:16 pm | 4 Comments | RSS

Remember when I wrote this post about how tricky it is making friends in adulthood? It seemed to strike a chord with a lot of people, including the Features Editor at Marie Claire magazine, who asked me to write a feature about my search for a new BFF.

After much hard work (and a super-fun photo shoot in which I got to wear a $2000 Marni frock) that feature is in the June issue of the magazine, which hits shelves today. Do check it out if you get a chance – I’d love to know what you think!

Posted at 12:14 pm | 3 Comments | RSS

1. The Five-Year Engagement. If I was forced to choose my all-time favourite genre of film, romantic comedy would have to be close to the top of the list. (The only genre that could give rom-com a genuine run for its money in my book is ’1980s John Hughes high school movies’, and I’m not entirely sure that’s classified as a genre in its own right. BUT IT SHOULD BE.) So I’m pretty excited to be seeing The Five-Year Engagement tomorrow night. It’s about a couple (Jason Segel and Emily Blunt) who are engaged for five years. The clue is in the title.

2. Film geeks’ lunch. When I signed up to go to film school, I expected a few things. Pretentious artsy wankers. A proliferation of ironic hipster specs. People talking about films and directors I’d never heard of. (No one genuinely enjoys Slovakian independent cinema. NO ONE.) I got all those things, but what I also got was the opportunity to become friends with some scarily talented and awesome women writers, who are neither pretentious nor hipster spec-wearing nor prone to watching four-hour documentaries about the Belarussian wool industry. And I’m kind of embarrassed to admit I didn’t expect that. We’re nearly six months out of film school now and are all busily working on our own projects. But every now and then we get together to gossip and drink wine and compare notes about this crazy business of telling stories for a living (or at least trying to). Today involves one of these reunions. And. I. Cannot. Wait.

3. Baby steps. This bloody Dengue Fever – lemme tell you, it’s a bitch on wheels. Though the virus appears to have gone at last, the fatigue it’s left in its wake is properly hardcore. I am exhausted all the time. Walking up stairs is a mammoth effort. I feel about a hundred and three years old. And I’ve had enough of it. This week, I have decided, shall be the week in which I return to normal service. That means working and having a social life and, most importantly, running. I haven’t run in nearly two months, and I genuinely miss it. I wanna fire up my treadmill again! I’m not going to attempt anything like my usual running routine, but I figure I might be able to handle an easy 15-minute jog and build up from there. Trainers, prepare to be dusted off!

4. Hair metal. Last night I went to see The Darkness and they were awesome. So freaking awesome, in fact, that now I kinda want to become a rock ‘n’ roll star. But on account of the fact that I cannot sing or play any instruments, I’m going to settle for downloading as much hair metal as I can possibly find instead. I’m having a 1985 moment. For those about to rock, we salute you.

5. Tatts. For ages now, I’ve wanted a tattoo. Not just any tattoo, but a specific bit of ink that has genuine meaning for me. Because I’m an A1 procrastinator (and also a tiny bit scared of pain), I’ve yet to get around to making an appointment to get said tattoo. But looking at The Darkness frontman Justin Hawkins’ awesome tatts last night has made me decide: it’s happening. I am going to book myself in this very day. Oh yes I am!

6. Dancing. I haven’t been out dancing in the longest time. This is annoying on several levels. Firstly, I love dancing. Secondly, not going dancing reminds me that I’m all weak and feeble and post-viral. Which is, like, so last week. Dancing is very firmly on the agenda for this coming weekend. Shapes will be thrown. Suck it, Dengue!

7. Project Runway. Do you guys watch the US version of Project Runway? I’m not much for reality TV in general, but I am totally hooked on this Heidi Klum-hosted series on Arena in which aspiring fashion designers compete for a load of cash to launch their labels. Even the husband is into it, and he’s about as interested in fashion as I’m interested in football. In tonight’s episode, the final contenders are going to be revealed. Ooh, the tension!

Posted at 10:53 am | No Comments | RSS

I’m a little late with this week’s post because I’ve been in Adelaide for a few days catching up with family and performing my bridesmaidly duties for my BFF. But I’m back on deck now, and the week ain’t over yet!

1. The Darkness. If you’re not acquainted with the genius of UK metal band The Darkness, get thee to iTunes post haste! Think rock ‘n’ roll hair, spangly jumpsuits, crunchy guitars and insanely catchy tunes with names like Get Your Hands Off My Woman, Motherf***er. They split up a couple of years back, but have now reformed and are touring their new album around Oz. They’re in Sydney this weekend and I’ll be front and centre in the most 1980s metal-inspired outfit I can put together!

2. Camp. I am not a camper. I don’t enjoy tents or sleeping bags or peeing in a hole in the ground. And yet I find myself really looking forward to this weekend, which I’ll be spending camping with a load of kids. Yes, it’s the Big Brothers Big Sisters annual camp. My ‘Little’ and I – along with a load of other kids and their ‘Bigs’ – will be spending two days in the bush doing outdoorsy things like rock climbing and telling ghost stories around campfires. Fortunately, there won’t be any tents – this camp is permanent and we’ll be sleeping in cabins. Phew!

3. Plans. One of the many disadvantages of being very sick is that all your plans go right out the window. I did many things while battling Dengue Fever: shivering, sweating, aching, itching, groaning, etc. What I did NOT do – because I physically just couldn’t – was devote any time to the things that are important to me. I didn’t write, either for pleasure or profit. I didn’t pitch any ideas to magazines. I didn’t run. I didn’t sew. I didn’t see friends. I didn’t watch movies or read books. Now that I’m feeling almost like my old self again, I’m finally beginning to want to do that stuff. This week I’m very much looking forward to setting aside some time for all of those things, and filling up my diary with fun stuff to look forward to.

4. Genre geek. I’m still utterly enthralled by the Sookie Stackhouse books, but now I have just one left to read and the next one’s not due out until this time next year. Eeek! I’m going to feel bereft without her! To try and fill the Sookie-shaped hole in my literary life, I want to get some other kick-arse urban fantasy series lined up on my virtual bookshelf. I’ve downloaded books by Laurell K. Hamilton and Kim Harrison to my Kindle, but would love to hear from other fans of the genre which authors should be on my reading list. Leave me a comment and let me know who I simply MUST read.

5. Hot date. You know that old cliche, ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’? Turns out it’s true. I was flying solo on my trip to Adelaide and really missed the husband and the fur children. I haven’t exactly been the funnest wife in the world while I’ve been sick, which is why I really can’t wait to have a hot date with hubs on Friday night. It’s not going to be anything fancy – probably just dinner and a movie (kicking it old school) – but it’ll be so lovely to get out and about with him (and to have something to talk about besides illness!)

6. This dress. I went to Adelaide to find a dress to wear when I’m bridesmaid for my bestie in June. We found a frock for the wedding, and while we were at it I also accidentally bought this gorgeous Alannah Hill dress for myself. Oops! Isn’t it divine? I bought the black version, and it is one of the prettiest frocks I’ve ever owned. I can’t wait to wear it somewhere fancy. Some women buy dresses for specific events; I buy the dress first and then fashion an occasion to suit. That’s just how I roll.

7. Wandering. It’s been 10 years since I lived in Adelaide. A whole decade. It seems crazy that I’ve been away so long. Now, when I go back there, I get an odd feeling – it’s a strange mix of familiarity and feeling like an outsider. While I was back this time, I took the time to wander around some of my old haunts. There was the Westfield Marion shopping centre, where I had my first job at the age of 14 and which today bears almost no resemblance to the mall I grew up with. There was Rundle Street, whose bars I frequented when I first ‘came of age’. And there was Jetty Road at Glenelg, which always makes me think fondly of my high school boyfriend. It was strange cruising around these places – weirdly melancholic, in a way. But it did make me really value the beauty of ‘pottering’ – just strolling, taking in the sights and sounds – and it’s something I plan to make more time for in Sydney, too.

Posted at 11:57 am | No Comments | RSS

1. It’s not last week. And it’s not the week before that either. Thanks to my Dengue Fever, the past two weeks have been forgettable at best and positively horrendous at worst. But slowly, slooooooowly, I’m starting to come out the other side. My main, most horrid symptoms have settled, and the gruesome post-viral fatigue is gradually ebbing away, too. So this week is already better than last week by simple virtue of the fact that I feel halfway human again. Winning!

2. Work. ‘Doing nothing’ seems like a wonderful thing in theory, doesn’t it? The problem with that is that most people’s picture of doing nothing actually involves doing something. It might be curling up with a book or watching a movie or pottering around the shops. But while I’ve been unwell, I’ve been forced to do literally nothing. My eyes hurt too much to read, the intense muscle and joint pain made it impossible to settle long enough to watch a whole film and I could barely walk from my bedroom to the kitchen without needing to sit down, much less walk around a mall. What I did instead was lie in bed and sleep, or stare at the wall. As I’ve started to feel a little better, I’ve watched hours and hours and hours of god-awful daytime TV. And it is so freaking boring, I cannot even tell you. Which is why I’m pretty psyched to have a little bit of work to do this week. Nothing too involved, but enough to get the ol’ grey matter firing again. And it feels goooood.

3. Sookie Stackhouse. Towards the end of last week, my ‘retro orbital pain’ (that’s blinding pain in the back of your eye sockets, for the uninitiated) subsided enough to allow me to read a little. I’m a big fan of the HBO series True Blood, so I decided to download to my Kindle the novel that inspired the series, Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris. It’s actually the first book in The Southern Vampire Mysteries series; there’s currently 11 novels, with the 12th due out next week. The books are about telepathic waitress Sookie Stackhouse, who has to solve a gaggle of mysteries involving vampires, werewolves, shapeshifters and other supernatural beings. I’m not much of a mystery fan, and I’m definitely not a fantasy fan, but I devoured the book in a single sitting, and have since read four more. They’re not especially well written – in fact, they’re actually kind of bad – but the world Harris has created is so rich and creepy that it’s sucked me right in. I’m totally hooked (and I have a serious literary crush on the vampirically sexy Eric Northman!). It reminds me of when I was a kid and my Mum would tell me off for reading at the dinner table – I simply can’t put my Kindle down! And the great news is I have six more still to read!

4. Wedding shenanigans. My best friend, Karlie, got engaged a month ago and is tying the knot on the June long weekend. I strongly suspect she believed that her short engagement would mean no hen party – but what kind of best friend and bridesmaid would I be if I allowed that to happen?! Despite my gentle encouragement (okay, desperate pleading), Karlie decided against (okay, threatened me with bodily harm) a traditional strippers ‘n’ booze hen party. So I’m going for the decidedly classier option: a champagne brunch on the banks of Adelaide’s River Torrens. It’s this coming weekend and I can’t wait. Even though it will be a more, er, sedate celebration than I might otherwise have planned, I still have a few tricks up my bridesmaid’s sleeve. Nudge nudge, wink wink!

5. Jay & Silent Bob. I actually had this weekend’s trip to Adelaide planned well before Karlie got engaged: the original purpose of my visit was so that she and I could go see American director Kevin Smith and his sidekick, actor Jason Mewes, in their stage show, Jay and Silent Bob Get Old. Mewes and Smith have appeared as the foul-mouthed Jay and mute Silent Bob in several of Smith’s films, including Mall Rats, Chasing Amy and Dogma. Karlie and I were OBSESSED with those movies in our teens – we must have watched each of them a hundred times, and could literally recite them all from start to finish. Plus, this year marks the 20th anniversary of our friendship. So what better way to celebrate than with a trip down memory lane alongside Jay and Silent Bob?!

6. Massage. Ssshh, don’t tell my friend and massage therapist, Cathy, but I cheated on her in Thailand and had two Thai massages. I know, I know! I’m terrible – but they were, like, $15 each. I couldn’t say no. I’m weak! The thing is, they were bloody AWFUL. The first one was so painful I nearly cried. The second one may have been better, but the masseuse breathed hideous garlic breath in my face the whole time and I was so busy trying not to vomit that I barely noticed the actual massage. In fact, every single time I’ve gone on holiday and had a massage from someone other than Cathy, it’s been horrible. It clearly serves me right – why go for a hamburger when you’ve got fillet steak at home, right?! So I am very, VERY pleased to have an appointment with Cathy this week. Hopefully she can undo some of the damage those sadistic Thai women did!

7. Writing. Did I ever tell you that I wrote a novel? Well, I did. A couple of publishers were even interested in it, but nothing ever came of it and now it’s languishing in a desk drawer (where, upon re-reading, I am confident it belongs). The thing about that novel was that the idea rolled around in my head for ages – years, in fact – before I ever put pen to paper. That seems to be how I roll in terms of writing fiction: I need to let the ideas germinate for a while until they bubble up and I can’t not write them down. Does that make any sense? For a while now I’ve had another idea for a novel doing the rolling around thing in my noggin, and I think it’s just about done. I’ve started to feel that ‘bubbling up’ sensation, which makes me think a whole rush of writing is about to occur. Yay!

PS: Don’t forget that this Wednesday is Anzac Day. What I mean is, don’t forget that it’s more than just a day off work in the middle of the week. While you’re enjoying your Two-up and Anzac bikkies, please take a second to remember what it’s really all about – the bravery and sacrifice of those young men who laid have down their lives for Australia in combat. Lest we forget.

Posted at 12:04 pm | 1 Comment | RSS

Hello again!

So I’m a little tardy. I said I’d be back on the blog on April 11, yet here we are on April 16. But I do have an excellent reason for my lateness, I promise you. Are you ready? Here it is…

I have a potentially life-threatening tropical disease.

Yup. That’s right. Thailand gave me fever, and not in a good way.

It all started this time last week. I woke up on my last day in Thailand in an idyllic resort on the island of Koh Samui. I noticed a pale pink smattering of a rash on my belly. I gave it an experimental scratch. Not painful, not itchy. I’ve always had sensitive skin, so I put it down to sun or chlorine or unfamiliar detergents, and went about my day.

We checked out of our hotel and made our way to Koh Samui airport for the short flight to Phuket, from where we would fly home to Sydney. I started to feel a little… weird. Not sick, exactly. Just a bit hot and off colour. Too much sunshine and too many cocktails, I figured. Nothing to worry about.

The flight from Samui to Phuket takes 40 minutes. By the time we landed, I knew something wasn’t right. I was insanely hot. My face felt tight and sort of, well, lumpy. While the husband waited at the baggage carousel, I nipped to the bathroom.

And almost keeled over when I caught sight of myself in the mirror.

I was red. Not ‘stayed outside too long without a hat on’ red but ‘that episode of Sex and the City where Samantha has a chemical peel’ red. I hitched up my frock: my faint ‘heat rash’ was now livid, purple and EVERYWHERE. My head pounded. My back hurt. And I was still hot. So very, very hot and, it seemed, getting hotter by the second.

Fear kicked in. I was due to get on an eight-hour flight to Sydney in just four hours’ time. Would they let me travel? Was I going to drop dead in mid-air? Was I going to infect hundreds of other people with whatever gruesome bug I had?

I took a couple of paracetamol and the husband and I started feverishly (literally) Googling every disease we could think of that has a rash as a major symptom. It didn’t sound like measles or rubella. Chicken pox didn’t quite fit the bill, nor did meningitis. Shingles seemed a possibility, but we couldn’t be sure. I text messaged my cousin in Adelaide, a doctor. Without seeing the rash she couldn’t be sure, but she said it sounded infectious to her. Awesome.

The paracetamol seemed to have brought my temperature down slightly, but I was still flushed in the face and people were staring. My rash was now insanely itchy, too. I was desperate to get on that flight. The last thing I wanted was to be fighting whatever this was in a Thai hospital (no offence to Thai hospitals, but when you’re sick you want what’s familiar). But I also wasn’t about to get on a plane full of people if I had a serious illness.

I went to see the airport nurse. She took my temperature; it was nearly 40 degrees. She homed in on a couple of spots on my arms that I hadn’t even noticed. She thought these looked like chicken pox, which I’ve never had. She couldn’t explain why these spots looked nothing like the rash now covering my torso, but she gave me an antihistamine to calm the itching and said I’d be okay to fly.

Chicken pox. That seemed manageable. I could sit on a plane with chicken pox. And it’s not contagious once the spots come out, right? (Wrong, I later discovered.) So I took more paracetamol, guzzled water like a camel and got on the plane.

What followed was the longest eight and a half hours of my life. My fever raged, yet I felt freezing cold. I spent 80 per cent of the journey swathed in blankets, shivering so hard my teeth were chattering, and the other 20 per cent sweating buckets and peeling off as much clothing as was decent on an aircraft. All the lymphnodes in my head and neck became painfully swollen. And the aching. Oh my God, the aching. It felt like my joints and muscles were being cleaved apart with a machete.

Eventually, mercifully, we landed in Sydney. I went straight to my GP, who took one look at my rash and told me categorically that I did not have chicken pox. She rang an infectious diseases expert at the pathology lab – and let me tell you, that’s not a phone call you ever want to be the subject of – and then informed me that I likely had either Malaria or Dengue Fever.

I had a battery of blood tests, then went home to shiver, sweat and suffer.

Through my own research, I discovered that there hadn’t been a case of Malaria on Phuket or Samui in decades, which was some relief. I also discovered that the symptoms of Dengue Fever matched my symptoms to the letter. Two days later, the blood tests confirmed it.

I went to Thailand, and all I got was this lousy Dengue Fever.

And that pretty much brings us up to speed. Today is day eight of ‘the Dengue Diaries’ and it has not been pretty. Dengue is a mosquito-borne disease for which there is no vaccination, no treatment and no cure. As well as the god-awful fever, symptoms include those super-fun joint and muscle aches (Dengue is also known as Breakbone Fever, and take it from me, that is a VERY appropriate description), unbearable pain behind the eyes, headaches and that attractive rash. Yesterday my hands and feet became unbearably painful, just for the fun of it. I have no appetite and have lost three kilos since last Monday. This is not a good thing.

It will eventually go away on its own, and in the meantime all I can do is rest and try not to get dehydrated. According to the literature on the disease, I am currently in the ‘critical phase’, whereby I will either get better or start bleeding internally. Exciting times!

I am also exhausted. Like, I can’t even take a few steps without needing to lie down and rest. I’ve left my house twice in the last eight days. I can’t walk my dogs or even hang out the washing. This fatigue is normal and may last for weeks or even months after the disease itself has gone. It’s the illness that just keeps on giving!

It’s times like these I am so grateful to be self-employed. I’ve been able to arrange my workload so that, for the next couple of weeks, I have nothing to worry about except getting better. The husband has been amazing. How ironic that we had this big expensive holiday to celebrate five years of marriage, but the fact that he wakes up in the night to check that I’m not haemorrhaging is, to me, the most romantic thing ever.

There you have it, ladies. You want to know your man loves you? Just go get yourself a tropical disease!

So anyway, that’s the (rather long-winded) story of why I’m returning to the blogsphere later than I’d planned. I hope to be blogging regularly from now on, but it will all depend on how I feel. For once I’m not going to do that thing I do and pretend I’m not sick. I can’t ignore this one away, unfortunately, so I’m going to do the next best thing and be really, really nice to myself instead.

And what have YOU been up to while I’ve been gone? Drop me a line and say hello – it would cheer me up no end!

Posted at 5:04 pm | 2 Comments | RSS

1. Thailand.

2. Thailand.

3. Thailand.

4. Thailand.

5. Thailand.

6. Thailand.

7. Thailand.

You may have noticed a pattern emerging here… that’s right, I’m jetting off to Thailand this week to celebrate five years of being wed to this guy:

And also our lovely friend Tracey’s 50th birthday. It’s going to be AWESOME!

Because I seriously need some technology-free time, I’ll be taking a little break from the blog while I’m away. I’ll be back here on Wednesday, April 11, and I do hope you’ll swing by for a natter!

xLaura

Posted at 12:12 pm | No Comments | RSS

On Sunday night my friend and fellow screenwriter Shelley was part of a team that won the MTV/Optus One80 Project. The team created a three-minute trailer for a TV series called Deadbeat Dads, and was rewarded with a $180,000 production budget to make the pilot episode for MTV. Amazeballs, no?

I was so incredibly thrilled for Shelley that I actually screamed. Then I did a mad little happy jig all around my house, much to the husband’s consternation. This was swiftly followed by a wave of jealousy so intense that I felt the need for a stiff drink and a lie down.

It wasn’t that I was not genuinely happy for Shelley et al. I was – and still am. She’s not only an incredibly talented writer, she’s also absolutely lovely. She worked really bloody hard on this project and she totally deserved to win it.

No, it wasn’t that I didn’t want Shelley to have this success. It was that I wanted it, too. Not this thing specifically, but some achievement or accolade on a par with it.

Jealousy is up there with haemorrhoids and gas on the list of things we’re not supposed to talk about. We’re supposed to be happy for our friends and family when wonderful things happen for them. We’re supposed to express that happiness. We’re not supposed to say that we wish it was us. It’s our dirty little secret.

Well, I’m saying it. I was jealous of my friend’s success. I’m not proud of it, but there it is.

It reminds me of that episode of Friends where Rachel and Phoebe are discussing Monica’s recent engagement to Chandler. ‘I’m so happy for them,’ says Phoebe. ‘Me too,’ says Rachel. ‘Happy… and not at all jealous.’ The ladies eventually concede that they are 80 per cent happy for Monica and Chandler, and 20 per cent jealous.

It’s funny because it’s true.

Everybody experiences jealousy. Oh, plenty of people say they don’t, but they do. It’s human nature. We want the people we like and admire to do well… just not quite as well as us, yeah? We might say we’re totally unfazed by news that our ex-boyfriend has found a new ladyfriend… but we’re not truly content until we’ve Facestalked her and determined that she’s not as pretty as us. Amirite, ladies?

Jealousy, I think, is borne of two things. The first is insecurity: we worry that we don’t measure up and so we wonder if we’ll ever get to experience those same successes. For example, Rachel and Phoebe, both single, want true love and marriage proposals, too.

The second thing is comparison, which I wrote about a couple of weeks back. We’re so busy coveting stuff our friends have that we forget we’ve already got some pretty awesome stuff going on ourselves. Which is pretty sad when you think about it. I’ve just finished reading Rolling Stone Keith Richards’ autobiography, Life, in which he talks about watching his one-time best friend Mick Jagger become obsessed with trying to emulate other rockers such as Elton John and David Bowie. This is baffling to Richards: ‘Why would you want to be anyone else when you’re Mick Jagger?’ he writes. Why indeed.

Jealousy can be a good thing if it makes us work harder in our own lives. Shelley’s win has made me redouble my efforts to finish a script I’ve been working on, for example. But it’s toxic if all it does is make us sit in a corner all bitter and seething, while not actually doing anything productive. The world owes us absolutely nothing, y’know?

Unlike Rachel and Phoebe, I truly am 100 per cent happy for Shelley. But I’m not too proud to admit I’m 10 per cent jealous, too. Because if you’re not giving life 110 per cent, if you’re not giving it some Mick Jagger-style rock star swagger, then what’s the point?

Do you ever feel jealous? How do you cope with it? Leave a comment and lemme know!

Posted at 10:39 am | 4 Comments | RSS