Daniel may be built like a bean pole and have the skin tone of a Scotsman but he's my Daniel and he's the only person I really find sexy. I haven't yet figured out quite what it is that is disrupting my brain signals in this fashion; perhaps he's been slipping something into my cereal.

Anyway, I think the Hen's Night would have been a lot more enjoyable for me if I had known just one other person there, other than the Hen. I've known her for 12 years - that's half my life, and I point that out because that percentage is only going to get higher as the years pass - but all her work friends were there, with each other, in a group, talking and laughing and knowing each other and stuff, so I got the exciting opportunity to talk to her aunt instead, who was fairly young but hard of hearing, and then to pretty much be by myself for most of the night. Some nights I might have had more energy and been in the mood to squeeze my way into this group of people I didn't know, and ask questions and make small talk and let it be known that I was there... but last night I was tired and I really didn't have the energy to make new friends.

I know. It's a bit pathetic.

Here's a photo I took from the deck when it was dark. It's blurred because the boat was always wobbling this way and that, and the slow shutter speed didn't help at all. But it's Sydney by night. You can see the Harbour Bridge and, if you really look hard, the blob to the left of the bridge might just start to form itself into the Sydney Opera House.

I decided that if I ever get to have a Hen's Night of my own (and if anybody would like to start sending Daniel anonymous emails hinting at this, I would not stop you), I am only going to invite people who already know each other. I don't want to put people in a position where they don't know anybody, and then sit them directly across from my aunt. Not that I really have any aunts that I talk to, let alone invite to Hen's Nights, so that won't be difficult to achieve.

But there was a point in there somewhere, and I expect you noticed it on your way through.

I received an overdue notice the other day. From the Australian Pap Test Register.

Apparently I was due for a pap smear last September, and I hadn't realised that it had already been two years since anybody last smeared my pap.

I know it isn't a big deal, because like they say, it's not like the doctor hasn't seen it before... but there's always that small chance that mine's going to be freakish in some way, and I've gone all my life thinking it's normal to have three flaps or whatever (I don't, by the way) and it's going to be some virtual stranger in a lab coat who has to tell me that it's malformed.

I've only had a pap test done once before. I got told that I'm quite "narrow".

I've just realised that I am openly discussing my Girl Bits and their anatomy on a public diary on the Internet. God, I might as well photocopy my butt and post the pictures.

Just as I finished typing those asterisks, a rapidly-moving streak of something black caught the corner of my eye.

Another Chernobyl cockroach come to annex our home. Now, I don't like killing things. Spiders, especially big ones like, say, your average huntsman, freak me out.

There are more pictures of huntsmen here and here and here and here.

I will never forget having one of those awful creatures just below the neckline of my shirt, right on my chest.

I'm actually getting jumpy just typing this, especially after seeing all those pictures. A tiny fruit-fly sized insect, barely perceptible to the human eye, just floated past my head and I jumped and flailed my arms and made a weird noise because in my head I am seeing spiders everywhere right now. If you've never seen a huntsman, believe me when I tell you that they are not small spiders. They can grow to almost a foot in legspan (THANK GOD I have never seen one that big - biggest I've seen was probably only four or five inches), and they are skittish. They don't like humans (the feeling is mutual), and will start running as soon as they sense a sudden movement. Big, ugly, scary spider dancing across your wall, trying to find something of yours to hide in. Go on. Picture it.

But despite the fact that I am terrified of them, I am also fascinated by them, and wouldn't dream of killing one. I will go out of my way not to harm one. I will spend time and energy devising ingenious ways of trapping the spider without having to get near it, so that I can release it into the garden.

Cockroaches are different. They aren't creepy or scary. They're just cheeky - and abundant. They sit on your benchtops and wear your pants and belch and fart and ask where the beer is even though you never invited them round in the first place. They don't even have the decency to pretend to look guilty or sorry for going through your stuff. At least spiders generally try to keep out of your way, and they don't raid your fridge or stroll across the carpet munching a piece of toast and dropping crumbs everywhere and scratching themselves through their filthy underpants. They're there to catch their own food, and I respect that. Cockroaches are just the bums of the insect world, scavengers of other people's food. Cockroaches don't take hints, and there are so many of them that removing one just means that you have made room for its minions.

Hence they must all die.

Finally, a summary of my afternoon: