I'm doing a marvellous job of pushing people away this week.

I think I missed some important classes at some stage during my teen years, because I don't seem to be very good at being female. Empathy is supposed to be one of our defining traits, but however deep I dig, I can never seem to dredge up as much as everyone else seems to have. I'm sure I have a reasonable stash of empathy on my person somewhere. My understanding is that it's built in, or at least comes free with the territory � take some on your way out, there you go, see you later. Possibly there are several sachets of it melting in my pocket right now. What's that, oh crap, I am leaking empathy again, now I've stained my pants. Or perhaps that's the problem: like cheap butter left in the fridge for too long � or next to the shard of ice that is apparently my heart � my empathy has become a hardened, unuseable, unspreadable lump; a suspicious orange blob of questionable composition and palatability.

I hate those emails that are full of fluffy things, like teddy bears and puppy dogs and month-old bread, that tell you what a good friend you are � you know the ones; they end with "please send this on to four hundred friends and at least eleven camels, and don't forget to send it back to me so I know you care!!!" If I care, and get a sudden crazy urge to express the fact, I will ring you up and tell you so. I will not email you a cartoonised cyber turd in a flaming cyber paper bag and leave it on your cyber doorstep, asking you to send it back to me when you're done with it.

Besides, I am woman and therefore far more manipulative than that. When we need to be told that we're wonderful, we prefer to subtly lead you into you telling us so, without you suspecting a thing. It goes something like this:

"Where's the milk?"
"You are amazing."
"Oh. Thanks."
"What just happened?"

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Newspaper article of the day: Richard Holloway, the Anglican bishop who doesn't believe in God.

Now, I read this article with my best approximation of an open mind, but I couldn't see past the stupidity of this chap's arguments. I have nothing against being spiritual, but what that man is practising is not Christianity, so why insist on being a Christian leader? You can't just be a bishop for the free meals, or for the excuse to wear a dress in public.

God: I am Truth. Believe in me. Believe in the Bible, too, for it is My Truth.
Holloway: There's no God and the Bible is a metaphor for whatever I choose to see in it.
God: Huh. I have a feeling you and I aren't going to be seeing a lot of each other over the next few millennia.

Still, it would make for rather an informal church service. The book says there's this guy and he made you all and he watches you when you think you're alone and he KNOWS when you come to church and pretend to pray but are really just using the quiet time to work out what colour to dye your poodle for the upcoming dog fair. Um, there's wine and dry bread up here if you want it. I'm going to be out the back masturbating and thinking about my neighbour's wife and not honouring my mother and my father and maybe knocking over a few more of the big 10. I'll be back in about an hour. Have fun.

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Things that made me happy today:

- For the first time in five months, we have TV! Now I can see first-hand what rubbish I am pointedly not watching.

- Personal emails during work hours always make me happy.

Sent: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 11:51 AM
To: Pigeon, Marzipan
Subject: Diddums

Federal MPs might end up having their pay rates frozen for as long as fifteen months. How will the poor dears cope?

Yeah, I'm topical to the extreme.

From: Pigeon, Marzipan
Sent: Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:24 PM
Subject: RE: Diddums

They will have to eat scrambled eggs from a shoe, with a comb. They will have to befriend the largest street cat they can find, to keep them warm on those long, cold nights when they have no heating because they couldn't afford to pay the electricity bill. With no television to entertain them, they will instead have to listen to the downstairs neighbours brawling over the last bit of cheese in the fridge. There will be chaos and cage fights but the last MP standing will be stronger for the experience and will lead us gloriously into tomorrow's world.