Deborah Kalin's Blog, page 34

got my fever down

Yesterday, I popped in to a pre-auction inspection. As if I have the money to buy property!1 As if I have the money to buy this particular property! As if I could ever have the know-how to make a bid at an auction or negotiate the tangled thicket that is the purchasing of property — or wrap my head around the very concept of owning land, for that matter.

Rank foolishness.

Said property is less than 5 minutes walk from work, however, and thus it continues to haunt my brain.

In writing news…I...

milo, milk and iron

To Amalie all those whom I may have misled on the topic of Milo as a dubious source of iron:

As promised, I have Googled. (Albeit cursorily.) And I have found no mention of milk preventing the body's absorption of iron. Clearly, it was a vicious urban rumour, perpetrated by the makers of, er, I'm not sure, really, but SOMEONE, designed to slander the good name of that chocolatey "food drink".

Granted, there was mention on one site that the naturally occurring caffeine in the cocoa beans in Milo ca

and so it goes

At least once a month, I quit work at 3.30pm and sprint for the 3.36pm tram home.

To qualify, I often quit work between 3 and 4pm (given that I start at 7am), but when I'm being virtuous and dedicated I walk straight from work to the library. Every now and then, however, the rain threatens or weariness gets the best of me or some other such excuse and I decide to skip the library and write at home, and thus I sprint for the 3.36 tram.

And when it turns up, literally packed solid with school child

next time i'm near a pet store…

Lookit: Know what's cooler than Wolverine? A newt!

The Spanish ribbed newt responds to threats by thrusting out its rib bones, which then get coated with toxic skin secretions. The newt is actually rotating its ribs forward until their spear-sharp points pierce through warts in the animal's skin.

Damnit, now I want me a newt. On the upside, a newt is possibly one of those pets you could legitimately have in a rental property. H'm…

i am getting shameless in the cadging of free rides

Okay, who noticed that I used the word "warning" no less than three times in my previous post? Worse, said usage occurred not just in the one post, but in the space of two sentences. The shame! This is why editors are worth more than they are paid — because when I get tired, or even just pressed for time, I will re-use words like a dog with a nervous twitch.

Sadly, this blog has no editor, and thus you all must suffer through my nervous twitches. Sorry 'bout that.

(But not sorry enough to be both

blown away yet?

Various text messages from my family this morning, asking if I'd been swept off the face of the earth by the Melbourne winds yet. (I'm guessing there was something on the national news last night?)

For all those who are curious: I'm fine. Although I do have to admit that on walking out the front door of work late last week, the wind was fierce enough to literally knock me off my feet. If a colleague had not been on the other side of me (and clearly rather steadier on his feet than I) I would have

a thousand words a day – or you'll never write again

Today I learned that my understanding of the applicability of the phrase "nature abhors a vacuum" was, in fact, completely and utterly misguided. At least according to wikipedia. And we all know what a veritable wealth of reputable information wikipedia is.1

After my sleep-deprived week, I enjoyed a stupefyingly, blissfully quiet weekend which, quite frankly, I wasn't ready to be done with. I demand a recount, damnit! Then I caught up with some writerly friends last night, during which I once aga

the atlantic is not a damn girl

Let it be known that live music is good for the soul.

Now, I'll grant you that seeing Eddy Current Suppression Ring and Tex Perkins in the space of two nights, one of said nights being a school night no less, may have been more than my bio-rhythms were prepared to cope with, and I would have far preferred to get more than 9 hours sleep in the last 57, but…eh. It was worth it. I REGRET NOTHING.

Of course, as a consequence, today has so far been spent playing catch-up on the chores. And, er, lollin

just your typical glamorous day, really

All week I was promised: 20°C on Saturday. And now Saturday is here, and I'm sitting on the couch wearing my fingerless gloves and wrapped in a throw rug, because it is very clearly NOT 20°C. No doubt when I leave the house this afternoon, the wind will sweep itself and all the clouds away to the south and Melbourne will start to bake and I, I will be overdressed and thus I will suffer. This is the natural way of things.

So far this morning, I have managed to wake up at 6:39 (and this is despite

pain doesn't need words

I never saw her face.

I had my head bent over my book, reading away the tram ride home. I'd caught a glimpse of her boyfriend, lounging in the stairwell while he waited for the tram to pull up to their stop, but of her I saw only her back before turning back to my book.

Then the tram pulled to a halt, and the doors opened with their customary squeak and swoosh of rubber over wet treads. And hard on the heels of that a new sound, an unfamiliar one: a scrape and crump and thump in quick succession,