I have been missing from these pages over the past few days because I have been getting a lot of work done. The reasons for this are:

1. I have a scary deadline. An actual one. Written into a contract.

2. The year twelve exams have finished and hence there are not trillions of hysterically amused, breathlessly begossiped eighteen-year-olds answering obnoxiously ringing phones and looking daggers at me for asking them to keep it down. Also apparently not so many people in the over twenty age group wear clippy-noise-making heels or have ring tones that wolf whistle loudly, causing a ripple of untold hilarity through the studiously unstudious masses.

I'm sorry. I know it's a generalisation, but honestly, the difference between then and now (grey haired and bespectacled family history nerds and people using free internet and doing PhDs) is quite remarkable. I'm not saying I'd be interested in hanging with the family history nerds at a party, but (and this is where the year twelves have been tragically misled) the library is not a party and therefore I am on the side of the boring studious folk. You can tell this because I give lectures on this point repetitively in the manner of one of my parents discussing loud restaurants, the existence of mobile phones, or P plate drivers on freeways.

3. I am trying the early rising thing again. Today I was at gym at half seven. Next week, if history is anything to go by, I will contract hooping cough, gout, a peg leg or similar.

4. I am trying to get a lot of work done before the weekend. Why? Because after the weekend, Australia will either be run by a conservative white man or it will be run by a conservative white man. If it continues to be run by the racist lying rodent who currently holds the title of conservative white man running the country, I will be leaving to live on Mars. So I'm trying to get my affairs in order in case that becomes the sad reality. In the event of the other conservative white man becoming the leader, I will be looking to my friend Mister Senate, which as all the year twelves "studying" in the library know, is a check and/or balance and/or platform for loonies and people like Brian Harradine to flirt with the electorate and then do what they were going to do in the first place. If nothing changes and/or things get worse or somehow similarly depressing, I am hoping a foxy fast-talking superhero will arrive to save the day, possibly with the liberal distribution of bubble wrap.

Sadly this weekend I am only voting once, due to my friends having sorted out their own political opinions since the early days when I used to receive three or four calls asking who to vote for. Don't worry, I explained the choices as objectively as I could. It wasn't my fault they were "bored" and wanted to know "what to write in the box and hurry up I'm next in line". Gone are the days those guys call. I like to think it's because I educated them about politics but I know the real reason is that most of them are teachers or health professionals who know how to vote because their jobs are on the line. Either way, I leave my phone on each time I vote but nobody ever texts me any questions. Mostly just statements, none of which I will repeat here.

Anyway, I'm going to make the most of the pre-election silence in this library and also in my brain. Until then, vote well, vote often, see you on the other side.