By upgrading, we've downgraded. ie, the new g5 (actually the second one, the first one was faulty, Mac reliability notwithstanding) does not have Word and all that guff, just a basic text program. of course we could buy one. it has sans serif as a default and I am starting to think the anti-sans serif people are right. but who has time to worry about such things? not when one is enjoying the sights of Hong Kong holed up in a small hotel room creeping around the baby so he can sleep, occasionally making short dashes for more bottled water, fruit etc.

yes, we made it. just. various near-disasters on the flight included: Qantas checkin clerk failing to realise we had a seat for the baby and trying to sent his seat off to the hold; further failure to allocate a seat, which we only noticed an hour before boareding; "gate check" of the stroller meaning "carousel collect" at the other end (eventually they sent a person to help us with: the 8kg baby. my handbag. the nappy bag. the car seat. the trolley full of electronics. the toy bag. Andrew's backpack. which was lucky or else we'd still be at the exit gate.

the upside of - and I break off here to note that "ctrl+s" does not mean on an Apple what it does on a Mac, and don't give me any of that guff about not needing to save because Apples don't crash because the first G5 had a t,g,b and 5 key that didn't work - anyway the upside of the company's inexplicable decision that we'd spend the first week in a hotel was that the hotel had a "limo" (car) for us.

the downside is that we're in one room, with no kitchen, nowhere for the baby to nap unless I turn all the lights off and pretend not to be here (and I further note that small differences between this and the old keyboard make typing in the dark harder, shoulda got the illuminated keyboard after all), a tiny fridge so we have to go to the restaurant for breakfast (dependent on baby nap times), that all our stuff has arrived at the airport but we don't really have room for it here, and that all my arrangements for this week are for the apartments we're not in.

ah well. at least the hotel sits atop a mall that runs down half of Kowloon, so we can get quick food/papers - but not baby cots - without venturing into the 30 degree, 90 per cent humidity, real Hong Kong. the park is close by, but it's just green and hot instead of grey and hot like the rest of Hong Kong.

(ps - may never post this. have no idea how to cut and paste on a mac. why no right mouse button?)

pps: like a pencil, the g4 touchpad works better if you wet your finger...

yes, baby still cute. yes, still moving to Hong Kong. which would be why I haven't posted much. Saturday. that's the day after tomorrow.

my new cousin's blog. warning: cute baby pix

what to wear

Need a babysitter? Rent-a-Mum specialises in finding babysitters, nannies and short-term childcare. You can reach them in HK at Tel/Fax: 2523 4868

hong kong webgrrls

hong kong women's site

although having done all that, I notice there's a Marks and Sparks store. I think I may have underestimated the availability of the stuff I'll need in Hong Kong. it'll be OK. it's just this going headlong into the unknown that has me searching for information while I'm still here. though we will need to gear up pretty quickly once we get there. once we have an apartment. once we even have flights booked.

this post is all business. so much to organise: packing, housesitting, flights. etc.


organic food in HK

vegan restaurants

post from a bulletin board: There is also a new organic cafe opening up, along the escalators at Stanton Road close to SOHO area. I am not sure if it has opened yet, but I have seen a very BIG sign of the organic cafe opening soon.

shops:

Organic Gardens - Organic vegetables and wines
1/F, 38 Cochrane Street, Central, Hong Kong, , Tel +852 2850 7919, Fax +852 2850 4633

All Things Healthy
Unit 1503, The Centrium
No.60 Wyndham Street
Central
Tel: 852-2525-1778
Fax: 852-2525-1783
Opening Hours: Mon - Sat, 10:00am - 6:00pm
or Email us below:

Green Concepts - Total approach to healthy living
2/F, 54 Jardine's Bazaar, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong, , Tel +852 2882 4848, Fax +852 2890 8469

Health Gate - Full range of healthfood
8/F, 106-108 Des Voeux Road, Central, Hong Kong, , Tel +852 2545 2286, Fax +852 2854 0770



Organic Gardens sells mainly organic foodstuff. As to protect the environment, Organic Gardens pays great efforts in advocating organic agriculture and natural organic food consumption.


WE DO NOT USE any pesticides, herbicides, or chemical fertilizers to grow our vegetables. Developing the habit of natural organic food consumption can be beneficial to ones health. It is especially good for people who live in a busy world.

Organic Gardens is located in Sheung Shui, Hong Kong. The total area of the farm is approximately 500,000 sq. ft. Organic Gardens is the largest organic farm in Hong Kong.

Outlets of Organic Products / Vegetables

list of wellcome supermarkets

1) Greendotdot Shop

Shop No. MEF1, Mei Foo MTR Station, Kowloon

Shop No. KOB10, Kowloon Bay MTR Station, Kowloon

Shop No. OLY3, Olympic MTR Station, Kowloon

Shop No. FOH8, Fortress Hill MTR Station, Hong Kong

2) Euro Cafe

HOK 12C, M/F, Hong Kong Station, Airport Express, Central, H.K. (between Check-in Concourse & Train Platform)

Shop 1B, 1/F., Entertainment Building, 30 Queen's Road Central, Central

3) Coffee Chateau

KOW12A, Arrival Hall, Kowloon Station, Airport Express, Kowloon



general shopping guide site

baby equipment rental

sogo: like Myer, only in HK. have baby clothes etc

general listing of babygear at geoexpat - lookes really useful

big baby supplies shop

another long list of links to baby product shops.

this morning driving home from the market, I saw a man in the park with a dog. the dog was lying down. he was stroking its head. sensing something wrong, I hung a U-ey and called out "are you OK?" he said yes. I said "do you need help?". he said no. but when I had turned back again to continue on my way he was crossing the road with the large white dog tangled up in his arms, tongue lolling out. it looked like a dying dog to me.

was he accepting its death? was other help on the way? he appeared to care for it. extra pats for my dog this afternoon.

there's a particular ancestor my family talks about for some reason, maybe his grand name: Andrew Topping Thompson.

not so much is known of him except that he was a figure in early Ballarat. I went to see my grandmother's brother, ATT's grandson, in hospital last week and he told me two things: ATT is buried in the Ballarat cemetery under a headstone showing a fireman (he helped set up the fire brigade there. and when the man was in a family argument, he'd blow off steam by playing the bagpipes. in the house. as in "I think I'll just have a wee play on me bagpipes".

snort. I can almost feel a genealogy blog coming on.

I'm sure I'm not the first to think of this: why isn't there a Dyke Eye for the Straight Wife? in which you can learn to leave your armpits hairy, not iron the sheets and go drinking beer with your buds every afternoon instead of stuffing olives and similar wastes of perfectly good life?

want sleep. must organise move to Hong Kong (or more to the point, leaving Melbourne). have actual work to do (interviews, writing).

all else is a blur...

Funny, I thought Google would care that spammers are trying to get gmail addresses by trawling Blogger blogs and emailing requests for invitations to the owners of those blogs, whether or not they actually have gmail. but they don't. they simply advised me to hide all my addresses from view, like one piece of spam either way matters to me.

otoh, gmail is performing quite well so far. still not sure how useful "conversations" are but I'm enjoying not having to clean it out. which I could have achieved by simply changing my overstuffed six-year-old Hotmail address too...

used, um, wedding paraphernalia for sale

activity report: still working on the pub, , and on my collection of friends' and neighbours' babies born in the same year as Alexander. I'm up to 10, current and pending. it's going to be a good first birthday.

being at home is surprisingly time-consuming. people keep inviting themselves here for coffee, and it only takes a few to make a peaceful week a bit too much. I've taken on a tiny freelance job, and will have to say no to a few visits to get it done. that, and organising a move to Hong Kong...

but seeing he was last married to a British writer and the new wife's a rather gorgeous model, the plot of Fury starts to look tres autobiographical.

I'd like to have him over for dinner. dunno about marrying him.

besides, at only 19 years younger, I'm too old for him...

too many quizzes

aargh. Blogger just won't come up.so I'll write this offline.
more serindipitous music discoveries: it's been bugging us that our Sopranos DVDs don't have music credits. the tunes are often surprisingly cruisy and lyrical. tonight we watched an ep. from the third series with a lovely Nils Lofgren song and thanks to the magic of Google, not only tracked it down, but found that HBO have put the song credits up online.

0

right now I am:

counting down the 45 minutes until Alexander wakes up from his nap.
sterilising his dummies etc
preparing dinner
agonising over how to manage any return to work, from home or at the office
about to do some stretches for my sore neck.
blogging.
looking up a CD my Dad wants for his birthday (Google found it: I typed in "Gosh Growban" and it took me here)
writing an Easter to-do list
blogging
emptying the dishwasher.

hmm. if the South China Morning Post doesn't have it, I wonder if it's an April 1 type story?

that's it. I'm moving to Google for my free email. 1gig is good.

and do I really want to go to Hong Kong? bwg reckons the usual suspects had missiles at the airport, tho' I can't find the news anywhere else. why Hong Kong?

speaking of old blog acquaintances, big white guy is still worth a read. especially if one may be going to Honkers for six months as a kept woman, sorry, as the non-earning partner in an equal childrearing relationship.

it's a big move, and has interesting work implications, not to mention the upheaval. but I like Hong Kong, on paper. I like New York more, of course...

thought I'd check in on my buddies, and as I couldn't dredge batgrl's URL from memory I went to Jon's site. where I find the Bat has been very ill. blogging has brought me some friends and though I'm not around as much I really consider her and Jon amongst the best of them and I dunno, just want to say I want her to be up and batting about soon.

I've considered starting a special blog about our neighbour's building project. but I would really have had to have started way back when they first came up with the idea to get the full thing - the smarmy architect, the neighbour having a fit in the tribunal hearing, the long wait for them to find a builder, etc. but I must say I enjoyed today's instalment. the Wall is going up where the Tree used to be. I went into the yard and the bricklayers said "good morning". so I had a pleasant chat with them about finishes and we agreed they could come into my yard to clean off the mortar later.

when I went to leave, I opened the gates (of course the brickies' truck was blocking access, despite various calls to council and the smarmy architect, not to be confused with our annoying architect). someone who I suspect was the actual builder came racing over, probably in deep fear of my expected burst of temper. I went straight past him and had another pleasant chat with the brickies while their labourer cleaned the wall and they moved their truck, no problem. then of course I had a committee of stupid building types watching me back out - including the builder, who in that quintessentially male patronising way, felt he needed to "guide" me out. so I rolled down the window and said "I've done this about 200 times. but thanks". if he was the builder, I kind of enjoyed doing that in front of his workers. after all, he has declined my invitation (via smarmy architect) to make contact so we can sort out all these access/early start etc issues properly. it was nice to deal directly with some sensible workmen, and to demonstrate to myself as much as anyone that I'm not actually an insane homeowner hellbent on stopping their project.

in fact, after 2 1/2 years waiting, it's kind of a relief to have the wall finally there. it's red brick and solid and I can now get on with erecting giant trellises (trellii?) to grow creepers up. the sooner the whole thing is done the better. then I only have our unspeakably arrogant and unpleasant neighbours evil-eying me every time I come and go to worry about.

must type quickly, baby sleeping but threatening to wake up.

hve discovered advantage of being a "new mum". when your annoying architect responds to your queries about why he's sent a final bill when he hasn't finished the actual work with a very lame and vaguely threatening joke about "well, we could arrange a meeting in a carpark at midnight with headlights", you can plausibly respond "what? I'm a bit vague at the moment, I don't understand, what do you mean headlights?".

and when he further suggests it's your job to write up yet another list of what's not been finished (get a clue mate, it's the list you had last year minus what's been done, plus final documentation), you can further say "I'm a bit too busy to do that right now."

architects are very clever people. and frankly, I adore this new house except for the bit about noise travelling in it. but client handling skills? Zero.

it seems that every time I ride up the Merri Creek I see something new.

this morning (yes, it's still possible to go for rides with a 2 1/2 month old baby), it was a man with his little girl. he looked, well, foreign; possibly Iranian or thereabouts, with darkish skin, a high forehead and a silly moustache. she was four or five, chubby, dressed in a floral frock with thick long black hair tied back. she was riding a pink bike with training wheels, instructing her Dad when to hold onto her bike - for instance when crossing rough terrain or a scary (though safe) bridge. the last glimpse I had of them was them feeding the ducks in Coburg Lake. and whether it's close to the truth or not, I imagined him to be a refugee from some horrible conflict, with images no one should have in his memory, savouring the peace and beauty of Sunday morning walking by a quiet, semi-deserted lake with his lovely daughter.

so I'm trying to sell my sportscar, for obvious reasons.

today I got a msg from a potential buyer. I called back. it went like this:

"Yo."
"Hi, this is Jenny with the MX-5, I know you said call Saturday but I've got a little baby and I just had a moment to call you back and ... hello?"
silence
"Hello, are you there?"
"Yo"
"have I disturbed you?"
silence
"Is that Adam?"
silence
"Yo"
"Um, I think I'll call you back later, it doesn't seem like you're with me right now."

if he has the $$ to buy a late model sportscar, I suspect he got it either by being a rock musician or by dealing drugs. weeeeird.

this looks like a new language. I think the author might be Indonesian. it was the title that got me: "Lets Rock dicks and bebs!!!!!!!"
to me, it would be harder work to invent all those misspellings - 4get, tat, rite - than to write it correctly. but this has a voice

I've met one seriously misogynist gay guy in my time, but plenty of straight ones.
mostly tradies. you know them when you see them: no eye contact, short answers, lots of head-ducking, literally. this could also describe a lot of geeks, but they can avoid female contact, whereas your average tradey deals with women at home all day, so comes to resent and scorn us.
my strategy, which I've had to use twice today already, is to just speak slowly and clearly and stick to the practical details. but by the second one, a very young plumber who blundered around our yard instead of just asking me where the gully trap was, I was over it. so I proceeded to sit in the lounge room breastfeeding the baby while he walked in and out running taps (and running up a bill at $2/minute!). he hated it. I didn't care.

blogcrusing still has its moments, you know. randomly from Blogger's front page, a young man muses on love, faith and really cool toys.

on the CD player: Aaron Neville singing Summertime, one of my favourites whether it's sung by him, by Janis, by Big Mama Thornton or anyone else. It reminds me of a hot night in New York City, down in the subway: a man was sitting on the platform across the tracks singing that song and calling out for donations - even New Yorkers were amused and throwing cash.

but a second later a man holding a gun ran along our platform, and from nowhere came what seemed like 15 plainclothes cops (think agents swarming in the Burly Brawl). the busker was up the iron stairs in a flash and I hid behind a girder whle the cops literally covered the guy with the gun with their bodies. that was ten years ago, when New York was still dirty and dangerous.

a few nights later at a Nick Cave - I won't say concert, because all he did was read from his bad novel - I got chatting to some guy who walked me up Broadway to my hostel. halfway there, a street vendor suddenly lunged across in front of us at another man on the kerb, his knife flashing. and me, the naive little Australian girl, I was the one who grabbed my new friend and steered him around the scene as if nothing was happening.

but Aaron Neville: it's occurred to me that like many of my favourite things, I'm not sure how I came to know of him. I just love the guy's voice, and even though he's from Nawlins and I'm in Melbourne, I've seen (heard) him and his bros. five times. but why? how did I know to start listening to him? with Massive Attack, for instance, it was in Dan O'Brien's car on the way to a photo shoot when I said "who's this playing"? but the Nevilles? I have no idea.

maybe it was that same summer visit to New York when I went along to a free park concert and grooved to them in Central Park in the sun. but I think I must have had an idea I liked them to even turn up there. Syd Straw, on the other hand, was serendipity, the support and saving grace of the annoying Nick Cave performance.

do good things find us somehow?

I'll probably never see Aaron Neville again. the last time was on a hot Vegas night at a poolside show under a full moon - only a few hundred people there, so I could go and stand front and centre. that was, I know, enough.

remember snail mail? (actually, at our house, there are real snails in the letterbox).

today I received: a note from an old friend who suffered a loss 11 mths ago but is now doing OK, with her new business card.

a calendar of views from a friend living in devon.

signed notes from his liitle girls thanking me for xmas presents, including the information that they were used to wake daddy up (they were toys that made Australian bird calls)

and a very late xmas card from my sponsored child in Zambia, with a tiny stick figure of a girl for signature.

all of which are now displayed around the place, taking up visible residence in my material world.

when we bought this house, there was rising damp in the walls.

we spent $7000 on damp treatment and plastering. there's still damp in the walls.

batgrl is too kind.

of course I haven't been blogging much; but these are the things parenthood is teaching me:

why women are better at multitasking, and picking up where they left off.

that you can achieve things with a tiny baby around, it just takes five times as long.

that perversely, what you really need in extremis is other people doing it just as hard.

that when people tell you that the moment you see your first child, the ground shifts beneath your feet, they're right.

that it's possible to read complex novels with a small child; as long as it's really small and latching on well...

that six hours' broken sleep is not a bad night, it's an unacheivable dream.

that naps (and I already knew this) are Good.

and that it certainly can be worth crying over spilt milk, if it teaches you not to let the baby chuck up the next time.

blog? who has time to blog when my fulltime job is walking around the house slightly jiggling my right shoulder, and nervously watching a baby monitor? he does sleep. sometimes.

anyway, as you can see from the "recent updates" list at weblogs.com , about six million words a day are being added to the blogography, so the blogsphere does not need my humble contribution any more.

btw, has Hotmail done something new? my spam has dropped to just a few a day...

(tired parents)

a massive oversight: Alexander does not yet have a football team. Fitzroy died years ago with the dreaded merger, so my footy heart is broken. and his dad couldn't care less. he can't be a real Melbourne baby, can he? maybe I'll auction his affections. any bids?

someone asked how I was going. I said: complete joy interspersed with desperation. (forgot to mention the bit about propping my eyes open with matchsticks to feed/change Alexander at 2 am).
she said yep, that's how it goes on from here on in.

he's 13 days old today and I think we have the basics - food, changing - under control. there's still no real pattern to his life, but I made it down to the North Fitzroy Village this morning, just to prove I could, and we survived the outside world. after the caesar I was very restricted - first five days in my room at hospital, then a week here without leaving the house and garden. not feeling much urge to do much else, and now that Alexander's dad is back at work - a whole two weeks off - we're into the serious stuff.

new car comes this week. poor MX-5 Must Go. still dreaming of keeping the motorbike, but I know it's a dumb idea.

With the raw materials in my blog, she could actually construct an accurate picture of who I am. This is fucking serious."

as a mother, I resent this. not.

yep, Alexander is here. too tired to say much about it. ended up bringing him out through the sunroof. oh well.

will post pix soon - there's an amazing one of the ob. holding him up seconds after the birth.

and of course he's beautiful.

Jon Sullivan has a spoiler-filled comments area on the new Matrix movie discussing what it all meant. only go there if you've already seen the movie.

well, our builder was wrong. he said that the neighbours wanted to build their horrid flats too cheaply and wouldn't get someone to do it. they either found more money or a dodgy builder, because they've spent the last week knocking down their garage and jackhammering a yard full of concrete up. not very peaceful for this overdue mother-to-be, I can tell you. and soon the lovely tree (in the pix down on the left overhanging the "garden thing" which is now thoroughly established) will be cut down, and there's nothing I can do about it. we hates them precious, yes we does.

speaking of which, the new Matrix movie (which I saw at a 10 am screening on the first day, 100s of seats, no waiting!); not bad. some of the scenes were very much recycled from earlier movies, and the climactic fight didn't do what it should have. plus watch out for the scene where Trinity says "oh yes I can". I can't decide whether it's in character or just plain cheesy dialogue. but I enjoyed it enough. and there were previews of LOTR 3, which no doubt I'll have to see on video, unless they do "crybaby" sessions.

just hangin' around here waiting, really, four days overdue. nothin' to see, move along...

this is outrageous. how can you sack someone for a fairly innocuous post on their own site? Bill, Bill, Bill, you still don't get it, do you? the words "information" and "free", I mean.

just when I'd given up on Wired ever doing anything interesting again, the current issue has some interesting think-related pieces that aren't just about "homeland security" or videogames featuring girls with big tits.

now checking out two blogs from their "human nodes" article: Joichi Ito in Japan and Clay Shirky in the US, on "Economics & Culture, Media & Community, Open Source"

used to be that Batgrl would write about battening down the hatches for tornadoes. now it's fires.

it's been ages since I linked to any new blogs - have been pretty much not doing the blogrounds since I stopped doing my blog column for the paper, and computer time has been limited to getting ahead on freelance work and chatting to buddies lately.
but this one is not only local, but well written, funky-looking (could be a standard template for all I know, but I like it) and in the old-school Interesting Observations On Life vein.

so most of the really important stuff is crossed off my to-do list now. which is lucky because I'm a bit of a zombie today and not feeling like doing much at all.
eventually, one day, I know that the pub and maybe even study and online identity issues will get me excited again. work, I dunno about.
but at the moment I'm just a big round ball of hormones waiting to have a baby. have decided to have it on my due date - Monday - just to annoy all those people who say "it might be early" or "first babies are always late".

If I bank a cheque, it ALWAYS takes three business days to clear. standard. no argument. etc.
so why, oh why was I able to walk into a Bank of Melbourne in High St, Northcote, Melbourne, Australia today and bank a personal cheque drawn by an American on a bank in San Antonio, Texas, and be told it had cleared that second?

it is nearly as galling as the fact that after the pathetic xchange rate and tax, I'll be clearing about $400 for about two-three weeks' work, done a year ago. hey ho. at least it makes my trip to the US (when the xchange rate was against me the other way, of course) a bit more tax-deductible.

sometimes it's best not to think about things too hard.
so there's this huge ball of glowing gas up there, slowly burning away:

and down here several million or whatever k's away, this other ball of rock has developed all these things, this life that grows and moves and feeds off just the light from that ball of gas.
and one kind of those things is humans, and that's why I can sit here at a computer and think about it all.
my brain hurts. a lot.

not blogging here very often. so much of my preoccupation seems to be unpacking boxes or shopping for baby stuff. or napping because I'm not sleeping well (could it be the several kilos of fluid and baby attached to my front? I wonder...). and none of that is really interesting, is it? nor, I guess, will the baby be. except to me, Andrew, my friends and my INSANELY clucky mother.

my copy of the book arrived today. for all my annoyance at the pittance I'm to be paid for the work involved (and the rise in the .au dollar in the meantime), it's kind of nice that it has actually happened.

the ABC is showing Dr Who from the very first episode. we're taping it and haven't missed one.

we have decided that Terry Nation is a fun writer - the other guy was a bit odd. current series, the Keys of Marinus, is a mix of Barbarella and existential, Matrix-like philosophy (are they better off being under the control of the Mesmertron or knowing The Truth?). plus it has brains in a bottle with big snail-like eyes. cool. Terry was the writer who brought the Daleks in. I particularly like the continuity breaks, the Dr stumbling over his lines, and the occasional glimpse of people moving sets behind the actors. truly.

actually, checking out that program guide, the ABC seems to have skipped a few series? bad ABC!

talk about people getting the government they deserve!

I have nothing to say about this. I love America. I even love some of my American friends. I love New Orleans and New York and Las Vegas, some parts of which are actually also part of America. But. BUT!!

And I wonder if Arnie really knows what he's letting himself in for?

why can't we get a clothesline to fit our wall?
this may seem trivial - ok, IS trivial - but they go straight from 1.2 to 2.2 metres. 1.2 is too small. 2.2 is too big and would require the use of very large amounts of concrete to install, and in the wrong place at that.
and I am going to NEED a clothesline soon, dammit. I'm 36 weeks pregnant and my future is nappies.

particularly liked this one:

whatever happens, I now have an excuse: it's the hormones.

having finished work in order to get a whole lot of things done, I now find that it's so easy to let things ride, things that formerly I would have got hot under the collar about. this is good, because I'm not quite as much of a stress bunny as usual. it's bad, because it's quite possible a large number of things won't get done.


it's grand final day. I used to be a rabid Fitzroy Lions supporter; I would ride my motorbike to the western suburbs in the rain to watch them lose. I knew every player's name and number. then they became the Brisbane Lions and broke my football heart, no small thing in this town. so today during the second half of the Brisbane Lions' third consecutive Grand Final win - an extraordinary feat, three in a row - I was taking advantage of the emptiness of the Brunswick baths, getting a lane all to myself.

between the box-unpacking and baby-stuff-shopping I've been indulging myself with that kind of thing. yesterday I went to see the 2002 Ranamok glass prize exhibition, and lusted after some of the most beautiful pieces of glass I've seen yet. then went to Acland St and wandered around, followed by a rare night out at the movies with a friend, complete with a visit to a cool bar for a (non-alcoholic) drink afterwards; it was almost like a date - she picked me up, we laughed at them movie together, talked for an hour, then she dropped me home. as usual, one wonders why one doesn't get more time with one's old friends.

I need - and there probably is somewhere - a link-surf recorder. it would tell me that I came to this article about why nerds are unpopular (I'm only 1/5 of the way through and I'm grokking it and getting secondary school flashbacks), from this site about girls' computer games to which I was referred by this blog about gaming , which was brought to my attention by workmate Nathan

then, when I have that software, I need to convert it to RL conversations.

finial - A small, decorative appendage that finishes an element of architecture, furniture, etc., especially at the peak of an arching structure. One common design is knoblike with a foliate texture.

A common site is the terminating ornament found at the top of many lampshades.

feeling a bit sad about this burning down. haven't eaten anything there for years, but it made a nice finial to the St Kilda pier. is that what finial means? sounds right.

this is my last whole day at work; after tomorrow morning I am on maternity leave. kind of weird. but there is so much to do outside work, and I am slowing down with all the hormomes/an enormous creature living under my skin compressing my stomach and lungs, so I guess it's time.

I've remembered why I like Jim.he links to good stuff, like this article on administering the replicant test to politicians. it should be compulsory. I can think of at least two Australian politicians, make that three, who would fail miserably.

oh, and the ABC is going to run Dr Who from the first ep. starting next week. I'm on baby-having leave from next week! ex-term-in-ate

homestarrunner; nice use of tecchy stuff

strangely amusing: an RSS feed into a serious-looking newspaper format. found-newspaper-headline-poetry.

opposite my office is a derelict power station. it's full of asbestos. it also has a huge concrete chimney, maybe 15 stories high.
this morning, I turned into the end of the street and saw the words "Save the Tarkine" painted right down the side. When I got there, there were cop calls all over the place. the people who painted the slogan, and another saying "No jobs on a dead planet" are still up there. they had to climb up a couple of hundred metres of ladder, then abseil down the side, to paint the chimney.
I can see the chimney from my office window. the fact that this is a newspaper office wil probably not hurt their attempts to get publicity.

the web site for the book in which I have a chapter is up.

"You see, wire telegraph is a kind of very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this?
And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.''

- Einstein, 1937

...there is no cat

well. so much for the British Royal Family. you'd think that Prince William would have had more sense and compassion than to kill a dik-dik. I've seen this little critters, when we went to Kenya 2 1/2 years ago. they are SO CUTE.

oh. it did post the first time! oh well, an interesting comparison of rewriting something from memory...

nah, can't let it go. this is what I'd like to write to him:

Dear A: it seems to me that your problem is not so much with me as with different representations and manifestations of faith. If Sara wants to promote the concept of "WTFWJD" on her blog, I'd see it as her way of raising that constant question of Christianity of how best to follow Jesus. She is an actual person who really is considering joining the clergy, so I think she'd be shocked at your reading that she has an ''addiction to making fun of Christianity."

I notice that you sponsor a Christian radio station. Perhaps this is why you took exception to my introduction. The fact is that overtly promotional music, writing etc of any kind is rarely listened to by outsiders; what makes Sara different is her sense of perspective and humour and this makes it more likely she'll "connect" with non-Christians, in my opinion. It also makes the blog a good read, which is the main reason I wrote about it.

As to the question of the value of the space: editorial space is not for sale. Threats to do with advertising have never been influential with decent newspaper editors, and I hope they never will be.

I notice that your business is engaged in a kind of tithing, for which I admire you. I also notice that we have both recently donated to the same cause; just something to think about.

I'm concerned that you chose Islam as your example of another religion you say I wouldn't target; I do hope you're not suggesting that Muslim people are somehow more deserving of attack. At any rate, if a similarly amusing and well-written and thoughtful blog from a Muslim person came to my attention, I certainly would cover it; in the past I have written columns on religious blogs covering Islam, Christianity, Buddhism etc.

Finally, on a personal level, I am upset to see that you have copied your email to several people unconnected with the editing of the article, including people at companies I deal with professionally, while not sending the email to me. I believe this is unwarranted, and given that you accuse me of cowardice and religious prejudice, also defamatory. I hope that after a careful rereading of my article and Sara's blog you can see your way clear to writing to those people, with whom your opinion may carry some weight, with a different view, rather than letting the unfounded attack on my character stand.

nah. can't let it go. this is what I'd like to say to him:

Dear A: it seems to me that your problem is not with me, but with different representations and manifestations of faith. if Sara wants to promote the question "wtfwjd", that's how she wants to get the message of Jesus' example across to a world that sometimes has trouble listening. You may not like it, but I found it different and original enough to be worthy of note. I also made a point of describing her obviously very real moments of enlightenment.

I'm concerned that you picked Islam as your counter-example. AFAIK, the Muslims have had quite enough fun poked at them recently; but if a genuine and amusing Islamic blog written by one of that faith came my way, I'd cover it.

I notice that you sponsor a Christian radio station. maybe that's why you took offence at my opening line. I also know that such stations are generally "preaching to the converted", which is what most Christian blogs do, and what makes Sara's different; she writes well and in a way that is likely to draw in non-Christians to at least think about the path she's travelling. I also notice that in recent months you've done some charity work, that your business carriedsout a kind of tithing, for which I admire you, and that you've recently donated to at least one cause that I have also donated to. Just something to think about.

As to the question of advertising and the value of the space: a) our editorial space is not for sale, and b) threats and actions to do with withdrawing ads have never affected decent editors. So don't bother.

Finally, on a personal level, I am upset that you have chosen to CC: your email, in which you accuse me of cowardice and religious prejudice, to several people unconnected with the editing of the article, especially those at firms with which I work regularly in my professional capacity, while not sending it to me personally. I believe that this action was unwarranted and defamatory of me. I hope you can see your way clear, after a careful re-reading of my article and of Sara's blog, to writing again to these people with a retraction, rather than letting your attack on my reputation, which may carry some weight with those individuals, stand uncorrected.

and I wonder how Sara would feel about being described as addicted to making fun of Christianity?
oh never mind. let it go...

The original article: BLOGON
Byline: JENNY SINCLAIR

TOPBLOG

Blogging for Jesus

Christian blogs are often the textual equivalent of Christian rock, but Going Jesus is one of the notable exceptions.

After all, how many Christian rock songs feature the f-word, as this blog entry does:

"I am just tired. Really f---g tired and fried."

The blog is set in a renamed parish named St Ned's, after The Simpson's pious Ned Flanders. It is written by a blogger named Sara who is on the "ordination track'' - working towards formal admission to the clergy.

In the meantime, she is working as a church secretary getting a hands-on feel for the ministry and struggling with her Bible studies schedule.

Sara pokes fun at the attempts of other sites to update the Bible as a kind of funky advice magazine for confused teens and shops for her cross-shaped jewellery at a website called Kiss My Ring.

She notes that the requirements for acceptance to the ministry include "imagination and openness to new ideas, emotional maturity, stability and self-discipline, potential for leadership, ability to get along with others and (a good) attitude towards authority''.

She writes: "I knew I shouldn't have been running around with scissors in my teeth, screaming Get Away From Me!!!!! at everyone who came into the office last week. I knew that would come back to bite me in the butt. Oh, wait, that didn't actually happen, that was just a fantasy sequence while I was working on the newsletter."

Sara describes her moments of being called by God as "those 'Jesus throws a sandal at the back of my head' moments'' and comes out with poignant descriptions of how it feels to walk with her God: "I realised that, physically, I feel like there's a great deal more space inside my chest. Like my chest is on hinges and could fly open at any moment (this may explain why it's so hard for me to find a bra that really fits), releasing ... I don't know what. Something good, anyway.''

Another time, Sara writes: "I'm just so glad I'm not alone in this life (my inner nasty atheist sneers, 'yes, you have your little imaginary friend Jesus' and then I whack her on the head) and that God works in my life through other people."

If the mix of genuine belief and overworked irony looks familiar, you may have seen an earlier blog - Going Bridal - in which Sara was a candidate for another kind of lifelong commitment. The wedding fell through in the end.

But you can still support Sara's mission - whatever that is - at her online store, which has added T-shirts asking "WTFWJD?" to its range of Bridezilla merchandise. A clue: part of the question is "What ... Would Jesus Do?"

goingjesus.com

The blog in question: goingjesus

The letter, copied to two editors at my paper, plus a number of people who work at companies I deal with regularly, such as IBM, Telstra etc, which among other things accuses me of religious bias and calls me a coward:

"Subject: Jenny Sinclair's "Blogon" Article.

Dear Editors,

I was appalled to read Jenny Sinclair's article "Blogon" in the Livewire
section of the Green Guide. I fail to see why so much space was devoted to a
piece describing someone's addiction to making fun of Christianity. Lately
I contemplated advertising in the Greenguide and received costings. From a
rough estimate she used more than $1000 worth of space to write this junk.
As the editors, how could you let this happen? What was the motive?
Isn't it funny how she focuses on Christianity? Let's see her write about
people who make fun of Islam and point out where to buy t-shirts that make
fun of Allah. Coward.
Why don't you people use your talents to write articles to challenge and
inspire, rather than degrade?
Regards,


P.S. I will no longer advertise in the Green Guide."

waddaya think? should I sue? I have left the man's name off this, but it really worries me when the messenger is shot, and the original message is clearly tongue-in-cheek, if genuinely felt. or am I wrong? have I misrepresented the blog and undermined Christianity as a foundation of Western civilisation, thereby abusing my position in the Fourth Estate?

why am I not blogging? well, this morning at 6:45 am, the alarm went off. as I moved to turn it off, I triggered a KILLER cramp in my left leg (pregnancy side effect). it took five minutes to unfreeze my calf. at 7:00 the bobcat driver turned up to get his machine, and I had to ask him to remove one last giant chunk of concrete and engage in general concrete-removal chitchat. somewhere in there had a shower and breakfast, and get dressed for work, all the while keeping an eye on the front door for expected arrival of electrician. at 8:00 after two prior calls got through to vet re: dog's eye, which has been acting strangely. they said bring him in now and they'd have a quick look. left house at 8.08, got dog looked at and further vet advice, returned at 8.23. no electrician. locked up house, put dog in bedroom (low light is good for the eye), left our street at 8.31. arrived at market at 8.48. fed meter. Andrew rang at 8.52 while I was trying to take money out of the bank for the shopping. he told me the electrician had turned up at 8.15 and left within 5 minutes after failing to raise him on the phone, and not bothering to ring me. I got distracted during all this, used wrong card, machine ate my Visa card. got off phone. bought donut and decaf coffee, bread, cheese, couple of vegies. got back to car at 9.28. Drove 1k to workplace, but it took about 20 minutes because there was a tram broken down across the intersection, complete with idiot drivers behind me trying to force me to go through a red light after circumventing tram. got into work car park (the one work benefit of being pregnant, and compensation for no longer being able to ride my bike in), changed my shoes, arrived in office at 9:50. fired computer up, called bank's main number while checking email and deleting spam. bank can't help with the card. have to ring a branch. branch informs me that no, I can't have my Visa card back. I have to cancel it. ring to cancel it, am informed that a new account will be created and all my direct debits will die, necessitating that I a) work out who's taking $$ from the account and b) notify them of the change in writing. this is because the bank uses contractors, not staff ,to empty the machines; they will just throw my card away. hang up phone, complain to colleague. phone rings. it's someone I need to interview. I can't face it, beg off for five minutes to visit loo/buy fresh water, call back. spend 40 minutes on the phone (you can't hurry artists). start writing up interview. remember I need to email builder re: electrician and the need for him to call, and why did he turn up after 8 anyway, did he think we'd be there all morning? now trying to arrange photo of artist while worrying about how long it will take Andrew, who was rear-ended in my MX5 at the weekend (not his fault) to arrange to get it fixed.

oh, and the plumber putting the toilet in the pub has let me down. and tomorrow morning I have five tradies turning up, six urgent calls to make, and need to get paint samples. that's my "day off". hah! and you expect me to take time to BLOG?

bummer.
have won FIVE tickets to the Blues Train at the Queenscliff Music festival.

well great. normally I'd love to. but it has to be taken when I'm either 36 or 37 weeks pregnant. and it's on a train that runs till 11.30 at night. and no doubt there will be drinking and carrying on.

what to do? wonder if I can find someone who has a place at Queenscliff who'd let me use a room in exchange for tickets?

well hel-lo? so finally we have a court saying that indefinite detention of asylum seekers is illegal.

how about immoral? especially when some of them are children.

oh, and btw? I hereby declare this blog "fair and balanced"

stupid westpac. just spent 1/2 an hour working out bsbs etc to make regular payments to my comm. a/cs and at the end I realise they're going to slug me $2.50 for EACH ONE EACH TIME!!
so instead I'll go on and hand-process them every fortnight or month. which will be just as much if not more strain on their computer systems. $2.50 for a computer to flick a switch? I don't think so.

erk. blogger seems to spit out the new interface at random.

today's thought: the only thing worse than a sealed airconditioned office when you have a cold is a sealed office where they've turned the a/c off. I don't think I'm going to last the day. one needs air, you know.

due to the complete incompetence of NameZero, whom I won't dignify with a link, the url of .com is now a poster shop. I won't link to that either, in the hope that one day they might give up using it, but they will probably get enough hits to make it worthwhile. I don't care that much, really, but it's annoying: I tried three times to pay the bastards to renew it, and they just ignored me, and I guess I wasn't organised enough - yes I have been busy - to get it transferred.
I have a couple of other URLS that I was using for vaguely uni-related projects, one of which expires soon. luckily I managed to move them to dotster, who seem to be able to read emails sent to them. I was meaning to transfer the one, but it ain't happening now. maybe I'll just get the .net version. at least it's not a porn site. yet.

today has been a sick day. on top of the pelvis, I picked up the husband's cold. normally I'd struggle into work the first day or two, then collapse; this time I just took today off, did a little Web-based work, etc and hopefully I'll be OK tomorrow.

things I learned today: K-Mart is an inherently depressing place. Just because pink donuts look good, doesn't mean they taste good. Don't try to get sense out of a bank teller who has demonstrated a complete lack of interest in your views. It's true that people start to treat you like a fool when you're a pregnant woman.

But most importantly: never get old, slow and disabled. like me with my dodgy pelvis, you will be reduced to stopping dead in your tracks when yet another Young Person barrels towards you, clearly expecting you to get out of their way. and when you're old, they may not actually see you standing in their path. At least I have that much.

the physio says I should not walk or stand if I can help it. this is completely counter to all my instincts, needs and wishes. and what am I supposed to do when we have various blind/curtain people trotting around our house suggesting swag curtains and other monstrosities? just sit in the kitchen and ignore them? hell no.

spotted today: one of those young people who would probably not bowl over an old, infirm person. She was maybe 20, with dirty blond hair streaked with brighter streaks, two twirls of it pulled back and tied behind her head,, forming a halo. She wore a purple jumper of no particular cut, wide black sailor pants, flat shoes and a large shapeless black shoulder bag full of her business. She crossed Wellington St on her way to her life, noticing nothing, reminding me most of those dogs you see from time to time; clearly knowing what they are doing, and not caring what's going on elsewhere.

too busy. buying the pub, finishing moving house, fighting the &^$&^@# bank, which I eventually made settle without a proper repayment schedule b/c they couldn't get their act together - it would have fallen through if I hadn't panicked.
have a week off work now to "rest" - meaning get stuff done with one less thing, ie work, to do.
my hip has given up - another pregnancy thing - and all I want, and am going to get, is a long, hot BATH!

At last; the giant (3600 word) post in its entirety.
this ran in Sunday's paper. it's been a while since I was so scared to publish something, and so pleased I had.
feel free to wander off and busy yourself with other things; it does go on a bit...

EVERY morning between 7am and 9am, while the world is waking, drinking coffee and getting ready for business, a series of cars pulls into a leafy side street in East Melbourne.

One by one their drivers - young, female, childless - swing their legs out of the driver's seat. They feed the parking meter, then hurry across a carpark, entering under the sign "Maternity Unit", in search of a dream. Once inside they subject themselves to a battery of procedures - injections, blood samples and ultrasounds. Then it's back in the car and on to work, or back to the rest of their lives, leaving workmates and friends oblivious to their secret morning ritual.

I know, because I was one of them.

The hospital is the Freemason's and the clinic is Melbourne IVF, which helps around 700 couples to have babies every year. Inside, the scene is one of polite early-morning anxiety (the clinic opens at 7am to allow women to receive treatment without affecting the rest of the day). Women, and sometimes their partners, sit quietly in waiting areas or outside doctors' rooms or operating theatres, talking in low voices and flicking through old magazines. Waiting, waiting, waiting.

My IVF journey began in late 2001 when I realised it was taking me longer than it should have to fall pregnant.

At the age of 35, I was well aware of the dire warnings from fertility experts about the dangers of "waiting too long". So I visited my GP, along with my husband of 18 months, armed with temperature charts pinpointing my ovulation each month for a year, in case the GP told me to go away and keep trying. But she didn't: she referred me straight to an infertility specialist.

Before we saw the specialist, I had the first of endless blood tests; this one to confirm that I was ovulating. I was, which meant that we had two options; keep trying, or "investigate'' my reproductive system.

The latter involves getting in there and having a good look around. This can be done without surgery, but the most conclusive method is a laparoscopy under general anaesthetic. This keyhole surgery is relatively minor, and uses advanced methods and miniature cameras to limit any incisions to tiny cuts. Even so, the thought of it terrified me.

If it showed up a serious problem, we might never have children. If it showed that my fallopian tubes were blocked, we'd be referred on to an IVF clinic. The best outcome might be that I had endometriosis, a kind of misplacement of tissues that could possibly be cleared on the spot. We were given time to go away and think about it. We intended to wait a while, but just before my 36th birthday in May 2002, I bowed to the inevitable, and booked in for surgery in July.

Over the coming months I often thought about wimping out on the operation, but that would be tantamount to deciding to remain childless. Through everything that followed, that choice remained; do this, or don't have kids. It gave me a grim kind of strength.

The surgery, as surgery does, knocked me around. Over the several days of struggling to get from the bed to the couch that followed, I questioned how far I'd go.

The "investigation" had given us good and bad news. My fallopian tubes appeared to be completely blocked. That might seem to be a terrible blow, but by then I was beginning my own investigations, and I realised that things could be far worse. If the blocked tubes were my only problem (my husband had been given the all-clear), I was an excellent candidate for IVF. Blocked tubes are what IVF was invented for.

When Louise Brown, the world's first IVF baby, was born on July 25, 1998, the world treated her as something between a freak and a miracle. Now, almost one in 50 Australian babies is conceived with some kind of assisted reproductive technology - and Melbourne has always been at the forefront of research. Australia's first (and the world's third) IVF baby, Candice Reed, was born here on June 23, 1980, less than two years after Louise Brown. The world's fourth IVF baby was also born at the Royal Women's Hospital.

The basics of IVF haven't changed since the 1970s. By taking eggs directly from the ovaries, fertilising them outside the body and replacing them in the uterus, the tubes are bypassed and pregnancy is often achieved. Often, but not always.

One of Melbourne's IVF pioneers, Professor Carl Wood, began his infertility work by trying to fix the problem of blocked tubes. By 1969 though, he was working on in-vitro fertilisation, in parallel with the UK clinic that eventually helped Louise Brown's mother, Lesley, to give birth. Professor Alan Trounson, scientific director of Monash IVF and chief executive of the National Stem Cell Centre, says Wood's nature was to try whatever would work.

"He had all these patients who had infertility problems and he actually wanted to do something about it.''

Twenty-five years of refinement has brought what used to be a hit and miss procedure down to a fine art, though still a difficult one. Between 1978 and 1980, when Candice Reed (the first Australian IVF baby) was born, he worked with about 100 couples. With barely a sliver of hope, these women agreed to be admitted to hospital for regular blood and urine tests and frightening new forms of surgery.

"It was incredibly invasive and it was incredibly demanding," Trounson says. "You basically gave your whole life to doing this. Surgeons would carry out a laparotomy and if they were lucky, get one solitary egg cell to work with."

Trounson's background in veterinary science had taught him there was a better way. Although the UK researchers had had little success getting artificially stimulated egg cells to fertilise, he pioneered the use of a gentler drug, Clomiphene, to bring on "superovulation" of several eggs at once. Later, he developed the use of a large dose of a hormone called HCG as a trigger to ripen the eggs virtually on command.

In October last year, our own day to start the IVF program came. At this point, all I knew about IVF was that it involved needles. Lots of needles. At best IVF is a drawn-out, invasive and uncomfortable set of medical procedures that can deliver a healthy baby, sometimes two. But at worst, as I discovered partly for myself, but more through talking to veteran IVFers on the internet, it can be a nightmare game of snakes and ladders, heartbreaking but almost impossible to abandon.

New patients are put through an induction process lasting several hours: we saw our specialist, talked with a counsellor before signing consent forms and then we were walked through the complicated course of treatment by a nurse.

Surprisingly, the first drug I was put on was the contraceptive pill. This helps the clinic to time treatments so there are not too many women going through the crucial egg pickup and embryo transfers at the same time. Artificial though it all seems, these precise controls have helped success rates zoom upwards.

In November 2001, I began self-administering a powerful drug called nafarel acetate via a nasal spray twice a day. This had an even more incongruous purpose; to create a state of artificial menopause by shutting down my ovaries. I'd decided that my best chance lay with doing exactly what I was told, so I used the spray at precise 12-hour intervals, once in a car barrelling down Lonsdale Street in the middle of a night out.

Once my ovaries were officially "down regulated" I was ready to start waking them up again with a vengeance. This was the bit I had been dreading - injecting myself with an ovary-stimulating drug. It wasn't as bad as I'd imagined and in the end turned out to be no more than an inconvenience to be borne with gritted teeth. I couldn't quite face injecting myself so a sympathetic nurse friend gave me the weekday shots and the clinic did it at weekends.

We'd been warned that the hormones could cause mood swings like those of PMT or menopause, pregnancy or teenage hormonal rushes - sometimes all three at once.

I was hit by a wave of emotion about half-an-hour after each shot. I once wept irrationally at the sight of a shop window full of baby clothes, but on the whole I got off fairly lightly and soon learned to be ready for that hormonal rush and roll with it.

This was a crucial time - the more eggs I could hatch, the better our chances. I gave up coffee and alcohol (I missed the coffee more) and started force-feeding myself eggs, meat and nuts, acting on a random snippet I'd read somewhere about protein possibly helping eggs to form.

When the ultrasounds confirmed that I was responding well, the level of ovary-stimulating drug was increased and I was booked in for undoubtedly the worst part of the process: egg retrieval.

WHEN Louise Brown's mother underwent IVF in 1978, egg retrieval was done via an operation called a laparoscopy, conducted under a general anaesthetic. A needle was inserted through the navel and bladder to reach the ovaries, guided by an ultrasound scan. Back then, patients were lucky if one in 10 of their eggs fertilised (now it's more like seven in 10). Egg retrieval can now be performed less invasively via the vagina, and can often be done under sedation rather than anaesthetic.

Hating general anaesthetics, I opted for sedation. At 11pm on a Monday night, I went to a hospital outpatients service to be given the HCG trigger, and the retrieval was booked for exactly 36 hours later.

I hoped that like most women, I wouldn't even remember the egg retrieval. It's a finicky business, involving a fine needle attached to a suction tube, guided by the ultrasound scanner. The time window is short - a few hours too early and the eggs aren't ready, too late and they may escape the ovaries and be lost. Each egg, the size of the head of a pin, is extracted and sent to the laboratory where it's mixed with sperm, and hopefully fertilises. Staying perfectly still during retrieval is crucial, not only because of the delicacy of the work, but also because there's a major artery very close to the ovaries.

While I went through pre-surgery check-ups, my husband went to a private room to "provide a sample" for the lab to mix with my eggs; apart from one blood test, this was pretty much the extent of his duties. He came back in time to hold my hand through the retrieval.

I don't sedate easily and instead of floating off in a pleasantly drugged haze, I was acutely aware of each painful movement of the needle. I spent the next two days hobbling around the house in a doubled-over position, with heat packs clasped gingerly to my abdomen.

Meanwhile, I hoped, the eggs were fertilising in the laboratory.

On the third day, we returned to the clinic for the transfer - placing an embryo into my uterus via a catheter. Still tender from the retrieval, my first reaction on seeing my doctor was "I'm not letting you near me." She replied, "You will when I tell you the results." Ten eggs had become 10 embryos, all of good enough quality to transfer; not bad for a 36-year-old.

Hearing her say "I'm putting the embryo in now" was one of the most surreal moments of my life; along with a moment earlier when, on a TV monitor hooked up to a microscope, we saw the four-celled blob that might become our baby, looking like a watery black-and-white four-leaf clover. Afterwards, despite knowing there was no way it could "fall out", I was afraid to stand up, let alone walk. But I did, and we went home to wait, and wait, and wait.

IVF has a reputation for producing multiple births, but they're not inevitable. In Australia, it's rare to transfer more than two embryos. This is civilised compared to what happens in clinics in the United States, most of which are private. There, transfers of several embryos routinely result in what's called "selective reduction"; which really means aborting some embryos to save the others in multiple pregnancies of five or six.

Trounson puts this down almost completely to the cost of IVF in the US. Because the cost to patients is $US15,000 per IVF cycle (compared to out-of-pocket expenses starting at about $1000 here), there are massive pressures to succeed in any given cycle. In contrast, the Australian approach is to use the best embryos first, then freeze the rest for later use. Freezing has reduced the need for repeated IVF cycles and contributed to increased success rates.

Unsure of how I'd respond, and wary of the medical problems associated with twins, we'd decided to transfer just one embryo at first, even if it meant it took longer to conceive. For two weeks we did time, waiting for the blood test that would tell us whether the transfer had "worked". I couldn't stay off the internet, surfing sites about early pregnancy, examining my body for tiny signs, and chatting to my "cycle buddies" at a British clinic about their symptoms.

Two weeks finally passed and I was told I was something I'd thought impossible; I was "a little bit pregnant". There was a detectable level of pregnancy hormone but it was low and I'd need another test three days later. I thought I'd burst with anticipation. By the Monday, though, I knew we hadn't been successful. I'd been perhaps slightly pregnant for a few days, known as a biochemical pregnancy. This is common in non-assisted pregnancies (Trounson says up to half of all embryos are genetically unviable) and most women don't even know it's happened.

Even though I knew that success the first time was unlikely, I allowed myself to collapse just a bit at the news. I got a little too drunk one night, became a little neglectful of the household chores. When I had to go back yet again for a third and final blood test a week later, on New Years' Eve, I had to hide in the toilets for a little while until I could make myself walk down that corridor.

I also discovered I wasn't as ready as I thought for more medical treatment. At a routine visit to the dentist I felt like jumping from the chair when the moment came for yet another needle, yet more meekly holding still.

It seemed a small comfort when my doctor told us that my overall chances were now considered to have improved. IVF specialists love to talk in terms of the odds of pregnancy, but when it comes to your own particular case, even good odds aren't what you want to hear; you want an iron-clad promise that it will work, preferably this month.

Trounson can't give that, but he does believe the success rate of any clinic - defined as a pregnancy lasting beyond six weeks - shouldn't be less than 35 per cent of all women in more than two successive months. Of those pregnancies, up to a fifth don't result in live babies. In practice, this means that if there are no insurmountable problems, such as a complete lack of eggs or sperm, the longer you try, the better your chances.

At least our nine frozen embryos ("frosties" or even "snowbabies" to the women on the internet bulletin boards) meant I wouldn't have to tackle another full IVF cycle straight away. Despite being assured that it was likely one of our embryos would take - but there was no knowing which one - I felt that I was condemned to months of transfers, waiting, more transfers and quite possibly another IVF cycle. This, more than the treatment itself, is where IVF requires strength; as long as you're in the program, your life is in limbo.

For people trying to conceive, uncertainty seeps into every aspect of life. Decisions about taking jobs, buying houses, planning trips and anything else which requires looking beyond the next menstrual cycle are clouded, and the only way to resolve that is to get lucky or give up.

Throughout the whole treatment there was one thing which really annoyed me - the way the words "desperate" and "IVF" are so often paired. It made me cringe. We were never desperate. In fact I sometimes wondered, what if? What if we embraced the selfish life of DINKS, chose yearly overseas holidays, running two cars and complete freedom, over nappies, tantrums and damaged finances and careers?

Trounson's patients range across all ages and social demographics. What he doesn't see much of is the stereotyped high-powered 39-year-old career woman suddenly realising she's left it too late. "Absolutely not. It's a huge mixture of women . . . yes, there are business-suited women, (but) they may also be from the western suburbs, or new immigrant couples."

Some join the programme for a while, then leave. Maybe they realise they don't have the right partner, he says. Others are willing to try a couple of IVF cycles and, if they don't succeed, move on, saying "that's enough interference in my life". Others still, Trouson says, will persist for an astonishing 20 treatment cycles.

WE chose to go on. The convention is to wait one cycle after IVF, then transfer the next embryo(s) after the woman's natural ovulation. I started obsessively researching what might help an embryo to implant successfully.

Acupuncture is being seriously researched at several clinics, so I found a GP who could give me acupuncture. Coffee and alcohol were off the menu again. I took up yoga to help me relax. I asked for, and got, a course of the hormone progesterone (which can support pregnancy) for the period after transfer, more as a placebo than as a treatment for any real problem I have, I suspect.

Some studies suggest that very low doses of aspirin may help implantation for some women, and for once I went against medical advice and took a quarter of an aspirin nightly.

Then we embarked again on the two-week-wait, again with one single embryo which had not only thawed successfully (not all do), but come out of the blocks dividing at an encouragingly high speed. This one was not a four-leaf clover, but a whole golf ball of cells. Time seemed to slow down as the test date approached and the six hours between the blood test and getting the result seemed an eternity. I wondered how many of these waits I could take, and planned to move to two-embryo transfers soon.

But we got lucky that time: very lucky. I escaped the office on a Thursday afternoon and called the clinic from my mobile phone. The nurse told me it was "a good result"; when I should have been thanking her, I was demanding the magic HCG number - the level of pregnancy hormone in my blood. It was sky-high, almost high enough for twins, and I had to go for a walk in the park to calm myself before I could return to work. I sat down in a quiet grassy corner, looked out over the city traffic obliviously rushing past me in King Street and said aloud: "I am pregnant."

I'm now six months pregnant and looking back I can see just how lucky we were. To get away with under six months of treatment feels like a gift.

Sometimes I'm amazed I managed to go through it all; then I think of the women who are still trying, or who have given up after up to 10 cycles, or have had repeated miscarriages, or multiple medical problems, or all three, and I know it was nothing.

Twenty six years ago I would have been classed as "barren". Now I can already feel my child moving in my belly and, like Louise Brown's mother moments after her daughter's birth, all I can say is "thank you".

trying to post a huge piece; obviously I'll have to chop it into smaller bits. bear with me.

latest thing for people to say to me: "how are you?"

meaning "how are you, PREGNANT WOMAN???" and probably "ARE YOU BEING RESPONSIBLE AND NOT DRINKING AND SMOKING?" and a few other things besides.

I know people say that anyway. but people who have never inquired before are doing it. there's a certain tone to it. and the door-opening is getting ridiculous. this is not a whinge; it's kind of cute really.

house still disaster. whatever. hate electrician, without whom it seems nothing can really happen around the place.
on the upside, the baby is wriggling happily away and I am STILL able to ride my bike to work, ever more slowly.
think floor fumes are giving me headaches. that or general stress.

what a whinger. no, as my nephew says sometimes "it's all good."

believe me, the only reason I have time to be here is that Outlook is taking FOREVER to download my mail.
blogging is for people who tread the middle way; interesting lives with plenty of time to reflect.
but right now I'm no Samuel Pepys

for ages my life was boring; work, talk to builders work.
this weekend we moved house, were burgled, crashed the moving van, and within hours of being in the house the &%^$&^%$ electrician smashed FOUR of my favourite plates, plus a few other nice things.
then he thinks we're letting him use the backyard to work in! with our DOG there!

hah!

spent all day yesterday cleaning flat out. I'll miss the park and the lack of tradesmen turning up unannounced at 7 am.

and so, to work...

OK, I'm playing with wikis. all I can think of right now is to do collaborative lists, open to anyone who wants to help. simple but interesting.

so we have one on song titles about New York and New Orleans.

and one on what to name the baby.

go for it. please don't mess them up. this is kind of work for me; one minute I hear about it, the next I'm an expert writing about it! shallow, shallow.

erm, what?
sold flat. have lots of money. in theory.
currently bullying nephew to make him keep his promise to help us move.
will be lucky to have house back anyway. but it's happening either way.
FABULOUS bike riding morning. body is going to give up on it soon, though, I think. my 35-minute ride is now 45, and the bumps kill. oh well. only 3-4 years until I can start again.
sob

hey, batgrl is moving!
why wasn't I informed? so much for my ideas of a free holiday in Louisiana. yes, San Diego is nice. ho hum.

oh dear. have noticed wikis. a multiuser playspace with a serious side. possibly as cool as blogs.

but there is no time to work out how I can use this thing.

remember that song "Angel is a Centrefold"? about a man who opens a magazine to find his unattainable teen dream girl from high school showing it all?

well, how am I supposed to feel about the news that Bob Crane, who played that charming GI in Hogan's Heroes that I had a slight preteen crush on, made home porn movies? and was murdered when I was 11? and that I can buy said porno tapes WITH BOB IN THEM?

shattered. that's how. and tempted? maybe. but no. I liked him with his cap on. hmmm, wonder if he wears his caps in any of the tapes?
no. not going there.
NO!