In the sport of Sydney v Melbourne, which is very popular down in the bottom right hand corner of this country, I have usually abstained.

Well, that's not entirely true. I have usually said that Sydney people are interested in money and Melbourne people are interested in culture. I've said that Sydney is expensive and Melbourne is cheap. I've said the food is better, the art is better, the bands are better, the pubs are better, the boys are better, the girls are better, and the people, well, they're just better in Melbourne. Melbourne's better. That's basically been the idea behind my otherwise very neutral position of abstinence from the debate.

HOWEVER.

Not only did I recently have a very lovely time in Sydney with several engaging and hilarious Sydneysiders, where I enjoyed the benefits of a culturally diverse, intellectually challenging, absurdly cheap writers' festival, but today I picked up the newspaper in Melbourne and I read an article comparing the Melbourne Writers' Festival to the Sydney Writers' Festival.

When I finished reading the article, I put the newspaper down and I attempted to regulate my breathing. I attempted not to pass out from shock. I attempted to come to grips with this thought going through my head:

Wow. Maybe Sydney IS better than Melbourne.

The article is here.

Basically, the Melbourne Writers' Festival people say (and I HOPE you were misquoted):

1. We want the Melbourne festival to be as successful as the Sydney one
2. We want the funding to enable that
3. The reason the Sydney festival works is that most of the events are free
4. We wouldn't make the Melbourne festival free

.... which begs the question: huh?...

No, the Melbourne folk are saying they want the money to make the festival bigger, but they don't want the events to be free because that "devalues" the festival and it means the same small group of wankers who go every year because they can afford it might be overcrowded by the masses of other dudes who might go along because... well... because the EVENTS ARE FREE.

Anyway.

I'm moving to Sydney. Honestly. Who thinks like that.

Devalues?

I tell you what. I flew to Sydney this year AND last year to go to the Sydney Writers' Festival because the flights are cheap and the events are free. When it's not free, it's ten bucks, or fifteen. The most I paid was $35 to see Richard E Grant in the Opera House and he wasn't even close to the best thing I saw. The best thing I saw was ten bucks.

I know Sydney has more money for funding, but COME ON, Melbourne. Lift your game. I've been to Sydney two years in a row and the Melbourne Writers' Festival only once. It was too expensive and it was full of people who used to teach me English at university.

So, after reading that tiny article in the paper, Sydney v Melbourne is actually looking like a contest for the first time in living memory. If it weren't for the pokies in the pubs, I might just pack up and go.

Although, there's no Morrocan Soup Bar in Sydney. Is there?

I haven't written here for ages.

I haven't written because I've been living my actual life and because that life has not consisted of me being near a computer.

Since the festival, I have had:

a bit of a nap
only 7 cups of coffee
only 2 sessions in the gym during each of which I almost passed out/collapsed
1 trip to the beach (stayed inside by the fire and looked at photos of beach on Dad's camera)
a notice to vacate the premises served on our house
eggs on toast
a sudden and so far unrelenting fascination with satellites

... and The Guilt

One of the problems with working for yourself or being freelance or working part time or whatever is The Guilt. Your time is your own. You waste your time and there's nobody there to tell you off. You waste your time and the only person who suffers or who judges you for it is... you! No key performance indicators. No performance reviews. No pay rises or pay cuts. You are the enforcer of your own authority. The kids are in charge of the detention.

What this means is that any spare time could always be spent more productively. If I have a cup of tea, I usually make sure the radio is on so that the tea pouring time wasting time can be classified as research.

Only kidding.

Sort of.

When I broke my wrist and found myself almost totally out of commission, I must admit I was kind of relieved. There was absolutely nothing I could do about it. SWEET LIBERTY!

Anyway. It's back. The Guilt is back. At least I have some motivation for my next project. Sheer lack of ability to justify my doing anything else.

Inspirational!

Writers are supposed to be eavesdroppers, right?

Even so, it feels so wrong. So delicious when you hear some pearl worth keeping, but so wrong all the same. Almost pervy. It is pervy, I guess.

Here's the latest. Smith Street supermarket:

Short Size 16 Woman: (Bumps into someone) Oh, gosh.

Tall, Dangerously Skinny Woman: Sorry.

SS16W: You scared the hell out of me.

TDSW: I know, I know. Sorry.

SS16W: No, sorry, you're right.

TDSW: I'm used to it.

SS16W: Beg your pardon?

TDSW: I'm used to it.

SS16W: What, scaring the hell out of me?

TDSW: No. Scaring people. Freaking people out. I freak people out. I'm sorry.

Tall Dangerously Skinny Woman backs away during last sentence and leaves. Small Size 16 Woman stands next to the beetroots with her partner.

Partner: What'd she say?

....

This is the point where the couple choose to leave the beetroots in search of breakfast cereal or eggs or chicken or cheese.

This is the point where one of three things happens:

1) The eavesdropper (that's me) stands among the crates of vegies, wondering what the Small Size 16 Woman says next.

2) The eavesdropper takes that pervy habit a little bit further, and follows the couple to the cereal section, where the eavesdropper repeatedly turns over a box of porridge while straining to hear the analysis of the previous conversation (already overheard near the beetroots) pretending that her interest in the nutritional facts on the porridge packet is nothing short of forensic.

3) The eavesdropper is interrupted with not even a moment's consideration by the person the eavesdropper has gone shopping with, who wants the eavesdropper's opinion about something particularly inane, such as the eavesdropper's choice between two different sorts of bread. No matter how many times the eavesdropper tells the people she loves that she is an eavesdropper who MUST NOT BE INTERRUPTED WHEN SHE IS OBVIOUSLY WORKING, people she loves insist on interrupting at juicy conversational climaxes with inane questions... or even interesting questions... hell, even if they interrupted with CAKE AND ALE, it is still no excuse. Having invested so much in the conversation about the skinny tall girl and her presumption that the shorter, not-so-skinny girl had been referring in an inapropriately personal way to her body, the eavesdropper wants closure!

... Anyway, in this case, the very well-trained person-who-I-love has come to realise that asking me questions in supermarkets requires a pause and a head-check before lift-off. So, in this case, option (1) was settled upon, because I was in a hurry.

Still, these conversations happen all around me. This means they must also happen all around everything else. This means that RIGHT NOW, I am missing out on overhearing a conversation. This is an appalling state for a writer to live in.

I must go out immediately and stand around in Safeway.

This will all be claimed on tax. I'm watching you, Peter Costello. And my ears are peeled.

This is me trying to write a script...

This is me trying to edit a script...

And this is the script now...

All of which makes me keeping a production diary kind of redundant, since these three photos tell the tale of the last six months better than I ever could. The only thing Stew didn't manage to photograph was the moment my hard drive crashed and I lost all my writing somewhere in between photograph two and photograph three. It's probably quite good there isn't a photograph of that. Just to finish off the series, here's a shot of me hanging around in the theatre we're going to be performing in this time tomorrow week...

I'm kind of subliminal and I look like I have one leg, but nevertheless it serves its purpose:

And the photo of me the morning after our closing night will not, I repeat not, be making it onto this (or any other website) ever. In the universe. In perpetuity.

One week, one day, one minute to go!

Guess what...?

I finished the script!

I am so happy I could celebrate by going to Rita's birthday party and seeing her before she later cuts her foot open and spends the morning getting three stitches and attempting to rehydrate.

Yes, really.

Poor Rits. She came to the cast read-through tonight and she managed to remain vertical throughout most of it.

As they say, tomorrow is another day. Another set of deadlines, another packet of painkillers. We'll get there. If we'd both stop breaking ourselves.

(By the way, I also saw Under Milk Wood in the city on Friday night. It is such a beautifully written piece of theatre. I heart Dylan Thomas. Go and see it if you can - special mention to Mr Pugh.)

Spent the entire day in the State Library.

Have now become the particular type of obsessive who does things like this:

- Refuses to break except for lunch including having phone turned off, rather than on silent

- Does not go to the bathroom unless completely necessary, on account of not wanting to lose a desk to some infuriating student/genealogist/crazy man with shopping bags, who clearly does not deserve the desk because he/she has not earned the desk by becoming known by all library staff and making friends with the regulars (of whom there are about half a dozen - we roll our eyes at each other during the busy times).

- Considers the use of one's fountain pen instead of one's computer screen a "treat".

- Enjoys the company of security guards. Polite, quiet, desperate for whispered niceties but expecting nothing more, these are princes among men.

I wonder what parties are like these days.

Dear people in the library who talk on mobile phones while other people are trying to write scripts,

Who do you think you're fooling when you rush from your desk and speak in a low murmur for as long as your heart desires in the book stacks?

The books stacks are not your refuge! The book stacks are privately furious. The book stacks are giving you stink eye , you low-murmuring, long-talking selfish bastards.

I am very good friends with the book stacks, and I respect them as independent persons within their own rights. I can tell from the way the book stacks are shaking with a hitherto unexpressed fury that the book stacks may at any moment dislodge themselves from their foundations and conspire one day to crush your very important phone conversation beneath their lofty, learned, perfectly quiet shelves.

Be very careful. The books and I do not like you very much at all.

PS there is a foyer and there is a bathroom and there is an entire world outside and also there is a button called OFF.

Yes, I am getting older. Shut up.