Today, I'm back in the library for the first time since before our residency at Bundanon. It's exam time in here so there are lots of people asleep on desks, wikipedia open in front of them to an entry on the history of Russia at the turn of the century, iPods blaring into their exhausted sub-conscious minds.

For the entire morning, due to my computer having been reset when my hard-drive broke at Bundanon, I had no access to the library internet. This was obviously annoying to those thousands of people who were undoubtedly attempting to contact me, but it also led to me doing four hours of uninterrupted writing. Not since Bundanon etc.

The one thing I wish, sometimes, when I come to the State Library, is that I could play chess. Upstairs, there is a mezzanine level full of people playing chess (in their study breaks? on their days off? by mutual prior agreement? having just met?). Currently, two out of eleven of them are women. One is a child. One - a man who appears to be consulting a book - is playing against himself.

Perhaps this is what people did before the internet. Perhaps I should up the lady-count. How, though, does anyone have the time, when there is so much wikipedia in the world?

By the way, my grandma's operation went as well as can be expected. Thanks for the messages.