Then it became �Come back to Jesus� and I thought, fair enough; we all have something to say.

But then it turned into �Come back to Jesus Alana� and I thought that was just plain strange. I mean, really. �Come back to Jesus Alana�? I suppose logically Alana was probably part of some Christian youth group and had suddenly decided to renounce her faith and take up smoking, and her friends were concerned for her soul. There�s probably an explanation along those lines that makes sense. But all I could think of was that scene from The Wizard of Oz where the Wicked Witch of the West hops on her broomstick and writes �SURRENDER DOROTHY� in the sky.

I guess I am going to Hell.

Funny, isn�t it. I never thought of this before but all these years I have been trying to work out whether I really, truly believe that there is a God. I never really thought about whether I believed that there was a Satan, and it turns out that I don�t. I wonder if that will help me work out the rest.

It just seems to be so much about social conditioning. Maybe the Norsemen were right and there is a multitude of gods, living in Valhalla. I've just realised that because of my upbringing (technically Catholic) the question for me has always been "is there a God?" not "are there gods?" For me the Valhalla thing is just a story, a fairy tale - surely these forgotten gods can�t have anything to do with my afterlife?

Maybe they do. Food for thought.

I don�t know about after death, but I think that in life you can achieve a lot and all you need is a little information. You can pray all you want and ask God to hand everything to you on a silver platter, but if you really want something to happen, you need to find out how to make it happen, and use that information wisely. If you�re going to pray, I think the best things to pray for are patience and wisdom.

I spent most of last night agonising over paint swatches, trying to work out what shades of tan and brown would look best in our living area. I�ve decided on neutral colours, and I know brown sounds horrible but I think it�ll look pretty good with the furniture we have. I always wanted a deep red feature wall but sadly I just don�t think it�ll look right in our lounge room. So I spent hours wondering whether �Riviera Sand� or �Dodge City Tan� looked better, and whether �Franciscan Robe� was too dark for the main wall. (It is.)

I�m hoping to have at least one tin of paint in the house by tomorrow.

Anyway, amidst all of this, Daniel called out to me as he walked out of the bathroom, �just so you know, it�s the Weet-Bix.�

I stopped what I was doing and stared at him. �Huh?�

�It�s the Weet-Bix. You�ll see.�

He disappeared into another room.

Daniel does something that I find a little odd, though I don�t really know why I think it�s weird because it kind of makes sense. We have Weet-Bix with bran for breakfast every morning, and I normally finish mine off. He doesn�t always finish his (mainly because he puts more bran on his and it�s pretty filling stuff), so sometimes he scrapes it into the toilet and flushes it into oblivion, which must be great for the sewer rats, who no doubt don�t get anywhere near enough fibre in their diets. He says that the toilet pipe is wider than the kitchen sink pipe, so it�s less likely to get clogged by stuff like that.

Anyway, I forgot all about it until later on. Imagine the surprise I got when I saw these bloated brown pellets bobbing about, with a gross clump of something mal-coloured clinging to the porcelain in the bowl.

�Oh. The Weet-Bix.�

I hunted down Daniel, who was lifting weights in the spare room.

�Just so you know, I am NOT cleaning that up!�

He poured Jif on it and left it overnight to die slowly.

At work not long ago, my manager went off somewhere in his red sports car. One of the others said �hm, there�s white smoke coming out of his car�s exhaust pipe� and made a joking �tut-tut� noise (he�s normally pretty careful about having his cars serviced regularly). I laughed. Sadly it wasn�t until a quarter of a second after the moment had slipped away that I thought, maybe he�s chosen a new Pope.