When I broke my wrist, my doctor told me that I would have to learn to write with my other hand.

He told me that when he was in year twelve, he had to do all his exams with his left hand instead of his right because he'd broken his right arm the week before.

And THEN he told me that BY THE TIME HE GOT HIS PLASTER OFF, he could write two different words AT THE SAME TIME with two different hands.

Try it. Two words, same time, different hand each.

Write "CAT" with one hand and "DOG" with another.

When he told me that, I thought he was joking. I thought he was being a smartarse. I thought there's NO WAY that is actually possible. That's like having TWO BRAINS nerdo!

Anyway so now I can do it.

Cat with the left hand, dog with the right hand.

I'll give it a week. Tops.

I just heard that hideous noise: the out-of-control screeching of tires and the final sickening thump, followed by car horns and frantic shouting.

I live on a main road, and sometimes I hear the screech and I cringe for the thump but get nothing. Today, it was the most godawful whack. I went outside and there were (why are humans like this?) instantly dozens of people on the scene, frozen in a mixture of confusion and genuine horror.

There was a motorbike on the road, hurled into the traffic, and - after a ghastly couple of seconds - a man scrambling up from it, limping, swearing, lurching around in circles while a terrified bloke in a pink shirt sprinted from his offending vehicle and copped a serve. Whatever else he's feeling now, relief that the bloke was yelling at him rather than dying on the road must be up there in the top three.

Anyway, the point of mentioning this is that I cannot for the life of me remember what I thought was so important about only having the use of one arm for the last six weeks. Given that I, as a driver of a car, could blind-spot a motorcycle and end up in thirty degree heat blowing into a breathalyser and explaining what went wrong to the cops, I'm pretty sure a broken arm and inability to write is a fairly unimportant non-historical event in the scheme of things.

So I hereby retract... actually no I don't, I just acknowledge. I acknowledge that life is fairly random but sometimes not very random. When I was out the front of my house, swearing I would never drive a car again and watching the firemen sweep up the glass, I reached into the letterbox and got the mail. In it, a letter for me congratulating me on my driving record over the last three years and awarding me with a discount on license renewal.

I'm fairly sure that if that entire episode was a short story, the editor's note would be: too obvious.

Anyway, I'm off to renew my license, with a bit of trepidation and a thirty-six dollar discount. The "Arrive Alive Scheme" letter could not have had better dramatic timing.

In other news, anyone wanting to read the gorgeous Anthony Lane on the genuinely bizarre Walt Disney (and I count myself among you) go here.

It's true!

Two hands ARE better than one!

Today I got my very attractive "brace" taken off my arm. Life is good, life is grand, life is so much faster and easier with two hands.

Excuse me while I tie up these shoelaces without calling for backup. Yay!

Possibly the best day of my life!

Last night a lovely young woman going by the name of Kneebone (no, seriously) took my plaster cast off my arm arm and liberated me entirely!

Well, almost.

I now have to wear a "brace" wrapped around my broken wrist, which I can... take off in order to have a shower!

Obviously this is the most brilliant news ever, as I'm sure everyone agrees.

I still can't type or write, but I can have proper showers and walk around without looking prehistoric.

In other news, it's winter in Melbourne during Spring and nobody is allowed in the city because there are half a dozen Christians in a tent outside the G20 meeting. Hilarious.

My handwriting with my left hand is getting better.

My GP told me that when he broke his arm one time, he was so ambidexterous by the time his plaster cast came off that he could write two different words with two hands at the same time.

I am now in training to be as clever as my doctor by the time my cast comes off. Surely that can't be too hard, right?

Saw Children of Men last night. Stew loved it and I hated it, which is a sure sign that the dialogue and script were dull and clunky, but it was very cleverly made and shot by an Eastern European cinematographer.

Also interesting to see in the papers today that John Howard is prioritising talks on climate change and Bush might ratify Kyoto. Also, Hugh Heffner has decided to become a feminist and Molly Meldrum has finished a complete sentence.

It's interesting to me how human beings (by which I mean me) rationalise what happens to them. It's also interesting that other people offer their own spin on things.

This is what random people have said to me over the last three weeks of having a broken wrist (answers in brackets):

"Well at least it wasn't your leg" (Okaaaay, but see, If it was my leg, I would be in pain and discomfort with my feet up and two good hands to type with. That suits me better than pain, discomfort, and inability to do anything at all that I enjoy or am usually paid for).

"What happened to the other guy? huhuhugahahaaasnort" (You want me to show you?)

"I guess someone must be telling you to have a break" (Really? Who? What a jerk!)

"Can I sign your arm?" (have we met?)

...etc...

Anyway, as you can see, I am fast running out of ways to see this arm-in-a-sling thing as an advantage and I now hope that somehow the plaster cast will come off and the bones will heal and I will have a very well-funded idea for an ongoing pay TV series, will win a trip to hang out on set with the cast and crew of Studio 60, or will marry into money. Immediately please.

I have long been of the opinion that nerd is the new black.

Watching somebody doing whatever it is they are good at is a very powerful thing. Whether they are drawing, swimming, fixing a car radio, or working through a maths problem... the nerdy obsession is somehow transformed into poetry.

The further the subject of the nerdy obsession is from my own experience, the more impressed I find I am. For instance, watching someone do a maths problem or riding a skateboard or doing yo-yo tricks or remembering poetry or doing any number of the vast oceans-worth of things I can't manage, is much more impressive to me than watching someone else throwing a frisbee or being, you know, good at grammar and spelling and that.

Anyway, for various reasons, I went to a gaming convention on the weekend. Computer gaming. A nerd convention. A geek festival. A scene out of The Simpsons featuring a thousand comic book guys.

I have enough material to write a novel.

I think from now on I am going to go to conventions. At least while my arm is broken, I can claim it on tax as research. Any recommendations, let me know. There is a sci fi convention and a wetlands convention, which I am hoping are sharing the same venue, but my search continues... The more obscure the better.