Example: Primary school. My best friend, Julia Smith. Long dark hair with a natural wave. Tall, slim, good at sport and she had much better handwriting than me. So I insisted on writing with the same type of pen she did. I even tried to copy her style of writing (balloony, rounded letters, exactly the kind of writing I hate to see now). Of course, it made little to no difference.

Example: Pre-primary school. Elaine Page. A year or so older than me. Tall, slim. Long, blonde wavy hair. Very pretty. Very popular. She had a gold ring that she wore on her little finger and pierced ears. I begged my mum to let me have my ears pierced and begged even harder for a little heart-shaped gold ring for my next birthday. I got both (I know, spoilt brat). It didn’t make me prettier, or more popular or even make my hair longer.

There’s a reason I suddenly remembered these couple of examples. I was just looking at this guy's astounding web page. He takes photographs and puts them up on the internet for sad-arses like me to gape at. I found myself wondering what camera he used. In the back of my mind I was thinking (truth be told, a small part of me is still thinking), “If I can find out what camera he uses to make these wonderful, wonderful images, all I have to do is get the same camera, and then I can make wonderful, wonderful images too.”

The atmosphere there is pretty incredible really. There were loads and loads of people - seemed busier than when I went two years ago. The weather was great - sunny mostly but not as swelteringly hot as Tuesday.

It was a good day. Ian got us ground passes, which was a huge help. It meant we didn't have to spend the majority of the day queuing outside with the great unwashed (and believe me, there are plenty of them. What is the problem with keeping clean, people? Soap is cheap. Deodorant isn't exactly going to break the bank. Do you just sit there and think "Hmm, I'm a little bit huffily today, but I'm sure no one else will notice it"? Cos believe me, we notice. End ranting intermission.)

Some days are weird. They stick out from the mundanity of the rut that everyone, especially me, seems to get caught in from time to time. Sometimes for good reasons. Sometimes for bad.

Today is one of those 'sticky-out' days - for good and bad reasons.

On the way into work today, I had a bit of a bash in my car. It was totally my fault - I felt some insecty thing flying around my legs and heading in a northerly direction up my skirt. Now, in the normal course of things, stuff heading in a northerly direction up my skirt isn't necessarily a bad thing. But when an unidentified insecty thing is making the said northerly voyage, that is a bad thing.

Being a normal person, with normal reactions, my reflex was to look down to see what was going on. When I looked back up at where I was headed, the car was no longer on the correct side of the road. Well, it was partially. I swerved back on course, but the back bumper grazed the side of the oncoming car. :o( Booo.

Oh well. It could have been worse, and other cliched platitudes.

You know, I’m usually quite a pleasant person, and (under most circumstances) I don’t have a short temper. But.

So, a friend has recently moved a little out of the ‘local’ area, but not by much (about 6 or 7 miles). I moved away from that area about 4 years ago, by about 20 miles. Until recently, most socialising with that crowd has gone on in what was (and still is for the majority of them) the ‘local’ area. And that’s been fine. It’s a 20 minute drive for me and the boy to get there, but you know, the majority live there so we’ll fit in.

Since this girl has moved though, suddenly we’re expected to socialise in her local area... and everyone else is going along with it, cos it isn’t really that much further for them. But for us, it’s a 45 minute journey instead of a 20 minute journey. I don’t think it’s acceptable for that to be the case all the time.

So I suggested, for my birthday bash on Saturday, somewhere more local to me... and get an email back from this girl, once again suggesting somewhere on her doorstep!! Bloody cheek. So now I’m severely pissed off and checking my email every two minutes to see what her response to my (hacked off) response is going to be. Not the most productive way to spend the morning.