I think I mentioned this at some point in the steaming mound of words I dropped here a few weeks ago.

In the interest of honest reporting, I need to mention at this point that said night ended up consisting of more than just �a few drinks�. I mention this as it may colour your opinion of what happened when I attempted to leave. I maintain that it was just my usual clumsiness, choosing the worst possible moment to manifest itself as a spectacular entrance to a public house.

The door that led back into the bar from the balcony had � for no justifiable reason � a threshold about four inches high. I forgot this. I tripped spectacularly, cried �OOP!� and fell with a resounding thud onto the floor right in the middle of the pub. There isn�t really a way of explaining to people in a bar at 1am � especially not the security guard who asks if one is going to be alright getting down the stairs � that really, it was just the threshold, I�m not drunk.

I gathered my bags and dignity and, walking with far too much poise and a far too deliberate gait, successfully made my way down the stairs.

Now you know.

You might also be interested to know that our work Christmas party, which I�m pretty sure was also mentioned in that steaming wordpile, was themed �Tales from the Sea�. My friend and I went as the Titanic.

I�m the arse. We actually put hanging moss on my propeller before we went in.

Unfortunately my jacket lifted when I raised my arm to salute for this photo -- but at least you can see that we had fun deciding where to split the word �Titanic�.

My thoughts, they jump. Not from one interesting idea to another, but from one sinking rock in the boggy marshland of my mind to the next. Here�s the next bog rock.

The other evening as I was making my way home from a birthday celebration near the harbour, I passed, among the many people making their way from one club to another, a girl wearing a ridiculously short skirt and ridiculously high shoes. Neither is necessarily a problem on its own, but only if you are able to carry it off. This lass could not. Her shoes were so ludicrous that she couldn�t bend her knees when she walked, and the resulting totter (somewhat reminiscent of what might happen if you put toilet roll tubes on a cat�s legs) immediately earnt my scorn. I�m sure she would have been devastated to know that, if she�d only removed her phone from her earhole for a moment to notice my withering stare.

All I could think was: Honey, if you have to walk as though you got halfway through taking a shit when the phone rang, you have no business wearing those shoes.

Oh and a miscellaneous word of advice for you, if you�re ever in Sydney: if there are trackworks on the railway lines, NEVER take a trackworks bus. Just don't. I think a unicorn dies every time someone says 'trackworks'.

The other afternoon I came home to find that a spider of unknown heredity had built a multilayered fortress of a web across the door to the garage. All right, the main part of the lair was well above head height, but the guylines came down all over the place and I was too scared to risk going under it all in case I disturbed one of the lines and had this beast land on me (she was swinging somewhat tenuously up there). OK, I�ve looked it up -- the spider was one of these:

If you're using a standard laptop right now, that image should be pretty close to life-size. I've never seen one of these spiders get so big. I'm pretty sure this thing was taking Shelob's lunch money at school. She has a row of dried-up victims on display like heads on spikes. (How do you tell a spider that once your food�s off, you�re supposed to throw it away? Lady, that�s just unhygienic.) Just like in this photo, there was a tiny male running around on the other side of the web, occasionally dashing in to share the feast and then dashing away again. Presumably after dark he gets about in a pair of leather arseless chaps and she whips him. Just the impression I got. Anyway, in the meanwhile I was standing there staring with fascination tinged with impatience, thinking: God dammit I just want to get the lawnmower out.

I�ve destroyed the web twice now. I�m afraid that if I do that a third time, she�ll be waiting for me behind the bike sheds at recess.

I have this hilariously awkward relationship with one of my colleagues. I don�t know if he finds it hilarious, but it�s definitely awkward and frankly, after nearly four years, bizarre. The thing is, I know that I�m socially inept at the best of times, and I do tend to wield my social skills like a four-year-old wields a fire hose, but I have managed to fall into step, so to speak, with pretty much everyone else I work with. This guy is now the last man standing -- after nearly four years, I still haven�t worked out what it is that I�m supposed to do make it Not Awkward. I�m like a monkey with a straw, prodding it and looking through it but not quite managing to get it working. Really, I�m not asking for BFF status here; just Not Awkward would do. Occasionally (with alcohol), we do manage to converse and it works rather well, but then it�s as though that rapport turns back into a pumpkin after midnight, and at work the next day one or both of us goes from �EVERYBODY DO THE MICHIGAN RAAAAG� to just � ribbit. I have to assume it�s me.

The other day he came over to pass on some tidbit of information and remarked on the stack of food-related paraphernalia on my desk, including a tub of margarine and a squeezy bottle of honey. As a bit of background: we produce a popular book at Books O�Reilly that features bees on the cover and, in an attempt at lightening the mood, Captain Impenetrable asked whether I was working on that book (because of the honey on my desk, see -- amusingly, we both knew I wasn�t working on that book at all, ha ha). I responded, �Oh, yes. I smear myself in honey whenever I think of that book.�

And now I�m going to add that one to my little black book of things that don�t make situations Not Awkward.

Things that made me happy this week:

* My amazing colleagues who supported me during a minor work-related meltdown I had a few days ago.

* The fact that Jesus was a ninja. OH YES HE WAS.

* My little nephew, Jai (who currently pronounces his own name as �Guy�), who desperately wants to go up in an aeroplane: he points up at the clouds, looks at you earnestly and says �Guy up sky?� OMG ADORABLE.

* The ceiling fan in my bedroom talking to me. Wait, hear me out here. It recently developed a slight creak that varies according to the speed we have it set to. The other night, on the slow setting, the squeaks and clacks were coming out as �lamington, lamington, lamington�. My favourite dessert! I may not be able to develop any kind of rapport with fellow humans, but me and my ceiling fan are friends forever!