So, what have I been up to? Sadly, mostly things relating to work, though some of these things were actually fun.

One
Socialised with some colleagues at a housewarming. It was a themed party - "Dial 'M' for Marrickville" - and the concept was simple enough: turn up dressed as something beginning with 'M'. I'm always a bit hesitant about costume parties, especially when I don't really know the other people who will be coming. Will they put in the effort, or will you be the only one who bothered, and stand alone feeling a little silly for the evening before making your early excuses at half past eight? I considered various possible 'M' words, and in particular:

* Monkey Magic
* the March Hare
* a Mintie (oh, use your imagination - an old white sheet, a bit of green and red paint ...).

However, I decided to go for something that would be a bit different, and would also allow me to look relatively normal by simply removing my hat, so that if nobody else had bothered I could still at least retain a sliver of dignity.

So I bought a beach hat, covered it with red felt that I happened to have lying around, and stuck white spots onto it.

The Marzipan Mushroom!

By the way, I don't know either of the other people in that photo. Well, now I know their names and that the one on the left is a Frenchie, but aside from that our common bond extended to the fact that we didn't know anyone else at the party except the host. That's always a great conversation-starter, and is of course a topic that can be sustained for hours.

Fortunately they were both very nice and we were all able to get along and invent conversation and do the pleasantries thing.

Anyway, some workmates did show up eventually and it ended up being a fun night. I even got to meet a couple of people's husbands-to-be, which made me realise once and for all that my immune system is resilient to every accent ... bar one. The more North Americans I talk to, the more Australian I become. European accents don't affect me in the slightest. Chinese accent? You can keep it. Kiwi? Ha. And my accent holds strong against your South African hotch-potch of vowels. But pitted against a good hearty British accent, my own Australian accent simply goes belly-up and before I know it I'm referring to chips as "crisps" and dropping "t"s from the ends of words like hot verbal potatoes (in proper Strine we tend to just mispronounce them as "d"s). It's the weirdest thing.

By the way, Most Creative Costume award would have to go to the lass who showed up as Monica Lewinsky. And yes, she did have "the stain".

Two
Socialised again with workmates, this time for a birthday/farewell at a Persian restaurant for a colleague who will be going down to work in our Melbourne office as of next week. Also fun, and pretty much the same work crowd, again with a couple of people I didn't know. They seemed nice, but I do find that making jokes about drinking excessively as though that is the unifying "cement" that holds cool kids together gets old pretty fast. Or things like, "hey, let's get a photo!" and then grabbing two wine bottles and trying to look jokingly drunk for the camera. Yes, I get it. Ha, ha, SO DRUNK.

HAT TRICK
And just to keep to the "things I did at/near work" theme: I was finally rewarded by Karma this afternoon for all the time I'd spent scouring online image libraries for photos to go in a textbook I'm working on at the moment. Among my subjects were James Bond, Harbhajan Singh and - best of all - the Bee Gees. It's really not often that you get a brief that pretty much says: "we need a shot of them showing as much chest hair as possible, preferably also with tight pants and big jewellery, and at least one turtleneck". Though I confess I wrote that brief myself.

Anyway, when I signed onto the AAP site this afternoon, right there on the front page I was greeted with this randomly-generated image:

Now if that isn't the Universe sending a treat my way in recognition of my hard work, I don't know what is.

I'm sorry, Jamie. I know you were trying to stand up for the chickens, and I'm fully aware that I am wilfully missing the point of this photo.

Jamie's message: Save the chickens!
My interpretation: Hot damn, that man looks good in a suit.

So where's my invitation to be an ambassador for the RSPCA?

Hat trick whereby I pull out a rabbit
(Really, what's the name for one more than a hat trick?)

"Marzipan, are you still coughing and spluttering?" called the Design Manager.
"I'll be at it for a while (*sputter*). You see, the problem is (*choke*) that I've inhaled my tea again."
Privacy and soundproofing both lacking entirely in existence, the senior editor overheard this and laughed out loud from her cubicle.
"Are you that badly addicted?" she called out. "Inhaling it now?"
"Yes, I'll be injecting it tomorrow."
"Ah, straight into the bloodstream."
"Yes. Or I might just start rubbing tea-leaves into my gums."

That was at 10am. However, I'm not one to let go of a half-joke easily, so come 3 o'clock when the senior editor got up and declared that it was time for a cup of tea, I called after her, "Careful! That stuff's addictive."

Wedding photos came in last week. I'd post some here but that would involve leaving the couch, digging out the CDs, reducing the size of the files and then uploading them all. If I'm too lazy to take a "How lazy are you?" quiz on Facebook, I'm definitely too lazy for that. Maybe next time.

I went through a phase a couple of weeks ago of telling a string of bad jokes I remember from school, such as:

What do you call a guy with no feet?
Neal!

What do you call a guy floating in your pool?
Bob!

What do you call a guy sitting up a tree?
Russell!

What do you call a guy lying on your doorstep?
Matt!

What do you call a guy lying under your car?
Jack!

What do you call a guy lying under a cow?
Pat!

... and so on. Well, I had one told to me that I hadn't heard before:

What do you call a guy with no arms and no legs, playing the piano?
Clever Dick.