I'm not entirely sure exactly what squirrels in viking helmets have to do with writing, but whatever bakes your noodle, I guess.

They're not 50,000 particularly good words, but I think the story structure holds up well, despite the oodles of padding it contains.

So, if you're feeling particularly brave (and forgiving), here's a link to Ladies' Man, my 2004 effort. Now remember, it's raw, it's unedited and it was written in a haze of, "Gotta write 50,000 words!" You can't afford to be too discerning. It's about a man, written from the perspective of eight women in his life. Enjoy.

For the record, my baby brother pointed out that my 2002 effort A Good Muse Is Hard To Find ended rather suddenly over coffee. Now, I knew the ending wasn't great, but it didn't end there. Turns out that I had uploaded an earlier version that was about 5,000 words short. Eeeep! So if you were wondering, now you can find out how it ended.

The apartment currently smells like a tropical paradise. Thanks to my boy, I have a magnificent bunch of stargazer lilies scenting the dining room and looking unutterably beautiful. He might not buy flowers often, but when he does, he's good.

On the weekend, I felt so miserable walking past all the gloriously scented mangoes that I was determined to buy something that smelled like summer to me.

I already owned coconut scented sunscreen (ahhh, memories of days spent sun baking on the high school oval, basting myself in Reef Oil... my skin is SO going to pay for that one day), so I needed something else that smelled of summer.

As a kid, my family would drive up to the Gold Coast, the Australian equivalent of Miami Beach, for Christmas holidays. I've only been back once as an adult, when my Aunt owned an apartment up there and I needed a couple of weeks of rest and relaxation. I had just worked three months straight, no weekends, no days off and I was done in.

I had literally just arrived and was walking down the street when I walked under a frangipani tree in full bloom. I remembered the scent of them from holidays as a kid and I swear, I nearly melted into a puddle on the footpath, I relaxed so much. My shoulders must have dropped by at least two inches as the tension drained out of me.

They smelled of holidays. They smelled of the sun and relaxation and summer.

So I took myself off to a nursery. I have a new addition on my balcony and she's lovely.

Thursday is Ghost's Sunday (bloody shift work), so we celebrated Thanksgiving together with a quiet lunch for two. I roasted a stuffed turkey breast and did roast potatoes, mac 'n' cheese, vegies, pumpkin pie and apple pie. I even had aerosol cream (see, it really is love!) for him. In the photo, I'm wrestling with a baby Piper Heidsieck. I had to bring SOME class to proceedings!

It was lovely, just the two of us and an absolute mountain of yummy food.

But it did give me pause for thought about the purpose of the holiday and there is a stack of stuff I need to give thanks for.

My Health
Now this might seem pretty remarkable, given my last couple of entries, but my night at the ER gave me a little perspective. Almost everything I've had is temporary. The stuff that isn't might kill me, but it's manageable. I am ridiculously healthy and well, despite some depression and a couple of food allergies I can handle just fine, thank you very much.

I'm enormously thankful for my health, things could be so much worse. These last couple of months have just reminded me how fucking good I really do have it.

My Family
Of course there are days I could kill them with my bare hands, but if I had to be in a pit with a rabid bear and a choice between a fully loaded Uzi or my mum and my brother, I'd take the family. We drive each other nuts but we love each other crazy much and would do anything for each other. I'm fucking lucky to have them in my life.

My Friends
I'm very egalitarian about this. It doesn't matter if I've met you in real life or not, if you're a part of my life in pixels or in person, you're a friend. And I cannae do it without ye. You pick me up when I'm down, give me a kick in the arse when I need it and you crack me up on a regular basis. Deities of choice bless you all.

My Boy
I don't think Ghost knew how seriously he was going to have to take those vows a little over two years ago, but this year we've ticked off "for richer, for poorer", "for better or for worse" and "in sickness and in health" and he's still here. Need I remind you that it's ME he's living with? The man is a living saint.

There may be days I don't like him very much, but my love for him never wavers. And I know he feels the same way.

I thank the deities of choice daily for this guy. He is my sanctuary and my salvation. I have never felt so safe before, so protected and important and adored. Just to know this is riches beyond measure.

So I'm pretty fucking lucky, really. I have it pretty fucking sweet. I might bitch and moan and rant and rave, but deep down, even in the darkest moments, I know it can always get worse and I really do have a lot of good things in my life.

Yeah, it's sappy, but it's important to acknowledge this stuff, particularly when things look bleak. It's not about getting all Pollyanna or anything like that, it's just about not losing sight of the bits of gold in amongst the dross.

So pull 'em out and polish them up. What do you have to give thanks for?

It means I can carry a long, metal, pointed object onto planes and there ain't a damned thing security can do about it!

Booyah! Tree, the anaphylactic terrorist! Coming to an airport near you!

Muahahahahahahaha.

I am going to cause SO much trouble with this... [evil grin]

Oh, and for the record, sitting and eating an entire small pizza and some garlic foccacia and some heavenly chocolate mousse last night constitutes the stupidest. thing. I've. done. ever.

And I've done some really dumb things in my life.

A week of chronic diarrhoea causing me to lose over 3kg (6.6lb), leaving me gaunt, dehydrated, exhausted and getting comments like, "Have you lost more weight?" not in that 'jolly well done!' tone, but in that 'hey, are you OK?' tone.

And the best bit is?

After tests and faffing about with my doctor, my pharmacist tells me it's the...

Wait for it, it'll kill ya...

It's the anti-depressants!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Geddit? The anti-depressants!

It's funny. You know, the anti-depressants...

Sheesh, tough audience.

Seriously folks, I'm doing it a bit hard down here at the moment. I've put in my Christmas list to Santa. I've asked for several consecutive weeks where nothing even remotely medically interesting happens to me. And I've been ever such a good girl.

In better news, I've had my first appointment with a naturopath and she's all over my health issues like white on rice. She's got a list of supplements she wants me on and is also a massage therapist who can't wait to get her hands all over me. Bliss!

Not only that, but she's really impressed with my diet and the way I've lost weight (well, up until the last 3kg, anyway) and can't think of anything to change the way I'm eating (the supplements are for things you can't get in therapeutic quantities in food). So it's nice to have my existing habits validated as well as have someone be clearly interested in getting me well (unlike my doctor who, after testing a stool sample told me there was nothing wrong with me and to drink peppermint tea--the same doctor who prescribed the anti-depressants in the first place and should have been aware of this charming side effect).

I've also got an appointment with the immunology clinic on Tuesday to try and sort out the food allergies. Turns out my aunt found herself deathly allergic to bananas in her early thirties, so it sounds like there's a pre-disposition right there.

So things are looking up. I'm going to take myself off the Edronax. After all, if I've had chronic diarrhoea for this long, I've probably not been absorbing that stuff properly so it's not doing me any good anyway. I'm tempted to go back to the St John's Wort, just in larger doses this time, and see if that helps.

Finally, I've decided that one of the sweetest phrases you can ever hear if you ask one of your clients out for a business lunch is, "Sure, I've got the rest of the afternoon off anyway!"

I think we re-defined the long, liquid lunch. It was really lovely to hear one of my clients tell me that she and her superiors actually look forward to receiving my reports because not only are they informative and help them make good business decisions, they're an entertaining read as well. Imagine that, business reports that actually get read!

Best of all, with all the tummy problems, I got to eat creme caramel and LOSE WEIGHT! Hell, I could take double cream intravenously right now and lose!

When it just rains frogs for no reason (love that phrase, Yet Another Tree), I've gotta look on the bright side. And Scott, thanks for the offer. That's mighty powerful stuff you've got there.

Oi.

You. You with the robes and the omniescence and the ineffable plan.

Yeah, YOU!

I've got a bone to pick with you, mate.

What the FUCK do you think you're playing at?

Do you think this shit is FUNNY?

OK, let's take a step back for a moment, just so we get this clear.

So I get this body. For a long time, I don't appreciate it. I don't feed it properly, I don't exercise it and I certainly don't love it the way it should be loved. To paraphrase the immortal words of a bad 80s hit, I couldn't have the one I loved so I didn't love the one I was with. A lot of us down here do that. It's one of our failings.

Earlier this year, I had an epiphany. Yeah, thanks for that. Appreciated it. I realised that if I took care of this vessel better, then I'd probably come to love it and appreciate it better. By doing that, I'd make a lot of other things better for myself and the people around me.

So I did. I ate well and I exercised and I learned to love it for its beautiful imperfections. I took that step and achieved a certain wisdom and grace from it. You know, like we're supposed to do. Achieve nirvana or enlightenment or whatever you want to call it by learning lessons and overcoming our failings along the way.

Now, don't get me wrong, there were some good things that came out of this. Things like my fitness and strength and flexibility (and the fact that I'm getting buns so tight I could crack walnuts with them).

All that is of the good.

But what's with this other shit? What's up with that? What the fuck sort of lesson am I supposed to be learning here, because since September of this year, all I've learnt is that if I try to get fit and healthy, I'm going to bounce from one medical issue to another!

Am I supposed to be better off fat and lazy? Because I sure as shit didn't have this sort of stuff going on when I was.

Let's just look at the list, shall we? Since September, I've been inflicted with:

• this raw pain and indignity


• a high enough cholesterol level for the doctor to want to medicate me for it, despite my good eating habits


• a charming bout of major depressive order where the prescribed medications either leave me in the mood and anorgasmic or reduce me to a quivering ball of anxiety, something I've NEVER had to deal with before


• charming stomach pain and the sort of gas that requires me to register my arse as a biological weapon


• a cold which I can't treat with anything in case it interferes with other medication I'm currently on


• and, just in case I wasn't paying sufficient attention late last night, another delightful dose of anaphylaxis apparently caused by eating a mango!

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU PLAYING AT?

To quote a great film, "I'm not even supposed to be here today!" If there was any justice in the world (and my clients weren't raging arseholes who can't pay me on time), I would have been at Fiddler's Green dancing at the masquerade ball, instead of lying on a hospital bed with an oxygen mask, hydro-cortisone dripping into my arm and lips that looked like the bastard mutant offspring of Angelina Jolie and a gelfling from The Dark Crystal.

I'm going from the sublimely ridiculous to the potentially fatal!

I'm sure you're thinking, "But, my child, that which doesn't kill you only makes you stronger." Yeah, right, as long as I have a good supply of steroids and immediate medical intervention.

And, as if I don't need to suffer further indignities, you make me allergic to fucking MANGOES? Sweet skateboarding Christ! What crack are you smoking? You take the most divine fruit in all of creation, one that I have been eating all my life, one that I wait all year for, for their delicate perfume and delicious flavour and the almost erotic experience of eating, and you make me fucking ALLERGIC to them?

You couldn't make me allergic to something like Brussels sprouts or liver or olives or any of the dozens of things I DON'T like. No, it has to be something else I adore, because, you know, denying me pistachios wasn't heartless enough.

You utter, utter, UTTER fucking bastard!

What the fuck sort of lesson am I supposed to be learning here? How is this shit supposed to make me a better person? Because, you know, call me stupid, but I'm just not getting this. How about clarifying this for me, because it's utterly mystifying me right now.

I'm tired. I'm run down. I'm doing my best to take care of myself. Yet all I get is one medical issue after another. The frustration and anger about this is boiling like dark lava inside of me.

I'm fucking PISSED about this!

It's all so random and they're all things that any healthy person can suffer from, but there's no rhyme or reason to any of it. Some of it isn't even treatable. I mean, this is my second brush with anaphylaxis and if you'd be kind enough to explain to me how my apparent allergy to pistachios extends to this new apparent allergy to mangoes works, I'd really appreciate it. You know, so I can manage to not SUDDENLY DIE from eating another one of my other favourite foods.

Edit: A quick googling has revealed that mangoes and pistachios ARE related, along with cashews, poison ivy and poison oak. They all belong to the Anachardiaceae family. Great, I don't even LIKE cashews...

I know, shit happens. But I've had enough. No more. You're supposed to be in charge, well here's how it's going to work from now on. No more medical problems for me. None. This is it. You've done your dash. No correspondence entered into.

I'll treat this lot, I'll see a naturopath and an immunologist and get acupuncture and therapy and take my meds and I'll get better.

And then we're done.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to have a lie down. I've had a bit of a rough 24 hours.

After our first session, she reassured me that what I was going through was a perfectly natural reaction for someone who had just been through an incredibly intense three year period.

As someone who has depression, suicidal ideation (and unsuccessful attempts) and other assorted mental instabilities in her immediate family history, this was enormously relieving.

In fact, when she described her impression of me as someone who was physically, emotionally and mentally depleted, it was as if someone had just revealed a great truth to me. (Good diagnosis, Dr Reg!)

Sure, there is some past weirdness that we need to work through so that I can approach the next lot of challenges life throws at me without exhausting myself quite so much, but we have clear goals to work towards and she feels like they are absolutely achievable.

She has faith, I have faith (Am I going to get better? Of course I am, because I FUCKING SAID SO!) and with a combination of chemistry, therapy and alternative healing techniques like massage and naturopathy, I'll be back to my regular crazed self in no time.

In the meantime, ensure your safety harness is buckled and please keep all body parts inside the carriage. It's going to be an interesting ride.

Note to self: after all the disclosure agreements Helen made you sign, wear an 'I'm blogging this' t-shirt to your next session. That'll startle her.

I've flung myself into the murky depths of NaNoWriMo again.

I tried it in 2002, I was travelling in 2003 so I couldn't enter and I'm curious to know how the meds impact me in 2004. I just want to know if I can still be creative and normal at the same time. So here I am again. 50,000 in 30 days. So far so good. I'll keep you posted on how I go and I might even put up my story when I'm done.

I should have known how pear-shaped things were when I went into the declutter and reorganising frenzy from hell recently.

You see, when I'm stressed, I tidy. At my old job, everyone knew to steer well clear of me if I was tidying my desk. It was a way of maintaining control and a way to clear my head. I couldn't clear the clutter from my head until I'd cleared the clutter around me.

A few months back, I had this ferocious urge to clear out the entire house. Boxes, bags, suitcases of stuff were dug out, sorted and either tossed or donated to charity. The local mission is about to erect a statue in my honour, I believe, from the sheer quantity of stuff I donated.

I also dropped some cash on new storage and reorganised several rooms in the house.

Don't worry, this isn't a mania thing and I didn't toss out everything we owned, I just had cupboards full of clutter (and anyone who has stayed here can testify to the ridiculous number of cupboards in this place) and it HAD to go.

I feel clearer now that it's gone. My house is always the best indicator of the inside of my head, the messier it is, the messier I am.

I've been receiving wonderful emails of support from a bunch of you. It's been incredible and you're all the bestest in the world. Several have suggested that the weight loss is involved in this and I agree.

I've explained my theory to a couple of people and it seems to make sense. For me, the weight loss has been a bit like a badly planned house renovation. For example, say you have cracks in your walls. So you replaster and repaint and rearrange the furniture and it looks great. Everyone tells you it looks great. But two weeks later, the walls have cracked again, because it's not the walls that are the problem, but the foundation.

There's a reason I stacked on the weight and the reasons were hidden by the weight. Peeling it off is exposing the reasons to the light and they don't like it all that much.

I suspect I have some interesting head work ahead of me. But I like a challenge. I've done a pretty good renovation job on the outside so far, let's see if we can't makeover the interior and convert it from a renovator's delight into a cosy home.

But if anyone tries to install a water feature, I'm taking hostages!