All My Friends Are Settling Into Committed Relationships

Whither Skyhooks : )

I'm surrounded. The gang around the table are pitting 'aww' against awe in a good-natured squabble for Most Romantic Performance by a Boyfriend in a New Relationship and I find myself without a casting vote. It's going to come down to individual text messages, and there's a flurry of chairs as the competitors race off to retrieve their catalogues of sweet nothings.

I am naturally delighted that the universe has chosen to be so kind to so many of my friends at once. Two are piloting the scarily combustible airship of divine intercontinental fabulousness - one has her head in the helium and the other is still trying to work out which way up the map should go. Another one has curled up comfortably in the warm glow of duplicate toothbrushes. Two others have been together so long that separating them would involve working out who gets the lung. And so it goes.

If I can ask myself if I'm going mad I am still saveable. Strangely, it's not, as you might expect, the being in Denmark or the never even having been introduced to or, really, clapped eyes on, the Danish engineering student that's keeping me away, it's the having the same name as the one who came before. About time I got locked in a lead box somewhere. About time I kicked the habit, if you take my meaning.

Yes way.

Only in [Iron Chef] America:

Wow, a lot of vegetation going into the saute pot there...

He is literally a stained-glass window of culinary style.

Of course, this mushroom can't be farmed - it's grown exclusively in the wild in this country.

That dish is literally a baroque orchestra of flavour.

I'm off to beat my head against something solid.

Sharon Phillips

Can you imagine losing your virginity to the words, "Sorry to ruin your night"?

I really enjoy the drive west. There's a hulking great gap in radio reception on the way up the range and I like to think my way through, letting myself be hypnotised by the static until tiny patches of song begin to push out again, bleeding into each other until I have music. I stick my arm out the window and fight the buffets of the wind to fully extend the aerial so it bounces along like Noddy's hat. Some of my best thinking is done along that stretch of road while I'm performing the regulation speedo check with the signs (it's THERE, I can't NOT do it) and looking out for suicidal roos.

When I finally passed my driving test I was so grateful I swore I would never:
a) lock my keys in the car
b) run out of petrol, or
c) get a speeding ticket

a) and b) I achieved twice each the first two weeks after getting my licence. (To be fair to b) I didn't realise that the fuel gauge in the Mini wasn't working, but then we're still left with the embarrassment of a) which I have no excuse for.) I finally took care of c) on Saturday night on the way back through the valley.

I had finished congratulating myself on having come up with a sterling idea for a novel and was just starting my interview on Parkinson when my rear-view mirror lit up red and blue. Not often a good thing, and especially not when, as it turns out, you've accidentally been doing 20km/h over the speed limit. I went through what I imagine is the standard conversation (the one with no right answer - Did you know you were speeding? Yes. So why were you? No. Why not?) Being a curious person I found the whole process rather interesting, and I must have accepted the accompanying fine with uncharacteristic good grace, because the police officer was extraordinarily apologetic.

"I'm sorry to ruin your night, but if it makes any difference it's the smallest one of the lot."

The fine. The fine.

Incubi

For the third time this week I wake out of breath and tasting salt. I have to find the cat. In my dreams he was limp in my arms as I struggled to bandage the wound in his chest, the blood seeping straight through onto my hands. He couldn't even mew, his eyes wide and imploring. I can't save him. I find the real Ziggy sleeping peacefully on a pile of my unopened bank statements in the middle of the dining table, yet I don't feel reassured.

In the dream before that I watched the doctor plunge the long, thin needle into my sister's chest for a biopsy and listened to her scream. In the dream before that I stood at the altar with my dad waiting to marry someone I'd never met, knowing I was doing the wrong thing but powerless to back down.

Please, I just want darkness. I'll forsake Morpheus for Hypnos forever if you'll just leave my loved ones alone.

Club Med

I was determined not to walk all the way home.

You'd be hard-pressed to pick me from the line of medical students slumped against the bar. I'm in jeans, sneakers and an old T-shirt this morning, nursing a takeaway cappuccino with one hand and trying to settle the hair, looking like an apprenctice beaver dam, with the other. I imagine I must also seem quite disoriented, which is helping the illusion along.

The Goodyear I have taken Erik the Red to this morning would be no more than 4 k's from my house as the beaver flies. A mere skip, but it's hot and bright and the hills are steep and, anyway, I need to get home quickly so I can start putting off doing all the work I've put off until today. A savvy spender would, at this point, pit the cost of wasted time against that of private transport and call a cab, but I am Queen of False Economy and I like buses.

So. I walk 600m from the tyre place to the bus stop and discover I've just missed one. No matter - I'll walk up to the junction with the city road. It's only a little further. In fact, it'll be quicker anyway, because the buses that run along there will take me directly home without having to change to another service. Ah, but the footpath that leads up there has been torn up for roadworks. No matter. I'll walk around behind the football grounds. It's only a little further. I arrive, but the bus I need drives past me while I've got my back to the road deciphering the timetable. The next one isn't for 45 minutes.

Well, I don't want to wait that long. No matter - I'll walk along to the interchange station down the road. It's only a little further. In fact, it'll be quicker anyway, because now I think about it, if I change after two stops I can connect with a bus that drops me right outside my house rather than at the school.

While I'm doing this the mechanic rings. The "young lad" who booked the car in got it twisted - it's a slightly different part that needs replacing. That was me. I endure profuse apologies which turn out to be worse than the original confusion, hang up and double my efforts to get the hair under control. Please, it's 8:25 in the morning. I've only just got my heart started.

Finally get to the change stop and discover the next bus is 25 minutes away. No matter. There's the uni cafe just up the road. I'm dehydrated and starving and it's only a little further. In fact, it'll be quicker anyway, because then I won't have to have breakfast when I get home.

So, slumped against the bar with the med kids. Bacon, egg and cheese muffin and sucking at the cappuccino with infantile gusto. My bus is always, ALWAYS late, but just to be on the safe side I'll head up now, 10 minutes early. As I climb the stairs back to the road my head is suddenly level with the route number display of the bus that's passing. It's mine. The next one's in 35 minutes.

I walk the rest of the way home. It's only a little further.