So I'm on a work trip in Northern Victoria, and my work day is over so I've got nothing to do.

Just like that. I've got nothing to do. Nothing. No expectations, either creative or social. This hasn't happened in years. The working day is done, the laptop is in my hotel room, there's takeaway pizza to be ordered and nobody in the whole town who knows my name, with the possible exception of the person on reception who asked me how I would like my eggs in the morning. (In a big pile).

So, in brief: I'm tired, I'm alone, I've had a big day at work.

I'm a NORMAL PERSON!!!!

Huzzah!

Being a normal person always makes me want to cheat.

I think, "Wow, this is how normal people live. I could just go back to the hotel and watch movies starring a young harrison ford... but I might make the most of it by TOTALLY GOING BACK TO MY HOTEL ROOM AND WRITING A NOVEL!"

Anyway needless to say, that trick almost never works. I found out one of The Most Cool Friends I Never See is in town. This town. The small town in which nobody knows my name except the eggs guy!

How good is life!

So, yeah, I "wasted" my normal night of potential creative genius. The novel will have to wait.

Plus, anyway, Harrison Ford is such a goofball.

Thanks to the more trashy amongst you for bringing this to our attention.

It appears that Paris Hilton, who (in a baffling career move) never wrote back to our letter requesting that she take part in our comedy festival show, has nevertheless decided to run with our Paris Hilton Warhol Theme as her wardrobe (calm down, you can buy them here).

I know I, personally, am looking forward to wearing my own Andy Warhol image on an oversized T shirt coming soon to a store near me.

Now, moving on in the agenda, I've been going to lots of events lately, as part of various festivals, and I've learned how important it is to get the right person to run a session, or to introduce an artist.

Here are some standard no-go areas, in terms of introductions (all lifted from real life disasters):

"Before we start, let me just tell a joke." (This line could form the central defence in a murder case, particularly in literary festivals and particularly when the joke is about men looking at women's knockers, or having insufficiently large wangs).

"If the speakers could keep their readings short, that would be great because we have a lot to get through. Now, if you will indulge me (coy look of false modesty), I will now read from my new book, available for sale in the foyer (coy look masking sickening desparation). It's called THE LONGEST, MOST TURGID STORY IN THE UNIVERSE. I will read the first nine chapters. (Noisily adjusts microphone). I will be accompanied by Tamara on the lute." (This almost always from a person whose name does not appear on the ticket).

"This next speaker, I don't actually know anything about him or his work, and in fact I only met him in the foyer about twenty minutes ago. Please make him welcome... It's (reads from programme) Wiliam Shakespeare", Charles Mason, Elvis or similar.

But my favourite introduction so far in all my years of watching people be introduced by festivals is this one (usually employed at comedy festivals):

"Please welcome him on stage tonight for the first time in Melbourne. It's the very talented [INSERT NAME HERE]". This delivered by INSERT NAME HERE himself, who is doing an American accent into a microphone behind a curtain backstage, Wizard of Oz style. In fact, this is such an old trick now that I'm never sure these days who's doing what.

So, I don't know if anyone's interested but I am thinking of holding my own festival next year in my laundry. The laundry is as big as a broom closet and it leaks from what we suspect is the upstairs toilet, but I figure if four or five of us turn up and read from the phone book, we could definitely get arts funding.

You in?

Yesterday, I was struck? Became stricken? Was struckerated? Let me try that again: I have been struck down with a cold/flu/hideous head cold type of arrangement. About three years ago, I used to get sick all the time. Back in those days, being sick was depressing. It was oppressive and personal - largely because it was ongoing and I was supposed to be getting work done.

Nowadays, (providing I'm not too sick) it's kind of an enforced break. I'm the only person I disappoint (tonight I am missing the wonderful Shane Koyczan at the Malthouse) and I'm costing MYSELF money, rather than other people, so I don't feel quite so guilty or resentful, and I don't feel obliged to do... well... anything.

As a result, check out my achievements over the past two days:

1. Finished reading a novel that has been driving me completely insane (We Need To Talk About Kevin). I'm one of those people who watches a thriller where everyone is cruel and vile and it gets to the end and I say to the person sitting next to me, "So WHAT? What the hell am I supposed to do with that?" This is a little bit how I feel when I read a book about people who can't communicate and who end up being vile to each other for no reason with violent consequences. It was interesting that it was a woman writing about not liking her son who turned out to be involved in a school massacre but it seemed contrived to me, and deliberately directionless. Anyway. That's what I thought. So I finished it. And then I went outside.

2. Went for a walk to the park and lay about on the grass with the sun on my sick face.

3. Looked at everyone else in the park, lying on the grass, and wondered who they all were. Where did they come from? Are they all sick, too? Are they chucking sickies and they're not really sick? Are they internet people or shift workers or consultants? One of them, as I stumbled dumbly past, called the other one "a bit slack", so possibly the herald sun should get down there, pronto.

4. Started a book of short stories by Miranda July. Oh Miranda, you're so clever.

*Adds to list of literary crushes*

5. Dawdled on facebook. Check this out (thanks to Josh):

... makes me think I fall a little too heavily on the "got language and opposable thumbs" side and a little too scantily on the "got short term memory" side. What was I saying etc etc.

6. And half cleaned my bedroom. Some days when I'm WELL don't go as productively as these two. Yay for the flu. Now, bugger off please flu. I can't afford this.

Explaining to somebody at a party what it is exactly that you do is hard for anyone, I expect, apart from possibly:

The Queen ("Oh yes, and what does that involve?")

A dentist ("What particular area of dentistry, exactly?")

The Prime Minister ("Excuse me, I just remembered my car is double parked, could you hold my drink?")

A teacher ("Some of you people are volunteering to stay in after three thirty")

or

Possibly, Nelson Mandela ("Care to dance?").

If you're not doing one of these jobs, chances are you have to answer questions like, "What kind of doctor? Oh, really? Could you look at my hives?"

As a writer who also directs and has a small production company but works part time in a legal organisation and who has a law degree but is not a lawyer, it tends to get a bit tedious half way through about Act II of my explanation. I therefore dumb it down, which does me no favours and involves a fair bit of fudging and the waving of hands through sections I would rather not explain, making it seem as though I am a writer who operates a seedy drug ring on my days off.

I met one or two of my personal heroes on the weekend, including Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, who are everything I dreamed they would be, and also they are human beings made out of cells and so on, which came as somewhat of a surprise. In my head, they were an institution. They were a blockbuster fiction. They were a way of life.

I came across several other peeps on the weekend to whom I was required by social necessity to explain myself, and I found that my common problem (I'm a writer... er, and a director... well, theatre mostly but also...) is a problem shared by many people.

I actually heard someone describe their profession as "Part time motivational speaker. The rest of the time I just look for work", which made me feel a little less conflicted. Part time motivation, part time lack of motivation. Depressing or hilarious? Tis a fine line.

In other news, global warming apocolyptic meltdown notwithstanding, today is a gorgeous day in Melbourne for the riding of brand new bikes purchased at www.unibicycles.com.au - as I'm sure you'll all agree. If things get a little eerie at about 8pm on your ride home, though, don't worry. Apparently the sun and the earth and moon are in perfect alignment. Or something extraordinary and humbling that I am sure to forget about while we have a standing there productions meeting inside a brightly lit vegie bar.

Solipsistic? Exactly.

I tell you who might be embarrassed right now?

The cops who interviewed Dr Haneef. The transcript of their interview of him was released to the public yesterday, and it wasn't exactly damning of anyone - more of a boring night in the cop shop by the looks of things.

So the cops won't be embarrassed because of how they treated him (they followed all the rules and had breaks so he could pray and eat and rest - hell, they even joked around a little bit at one particularly hilarious point when Haneef's lawyer had a coughing fit) but they might be a bit embarrassed because they spent probably eighty percent of the interview trying to work out:

- What's this Islam thing then, eh?

- Can you spell that for me?

- Here's a piece of paper. Can you write that down?

- Am I saying that right? I'm not, am I?

- And that's in India, is it?

... and, my favourite series of questions:

- Yahoo groups. What's that? That's an internet thing is it, the Yahoo groups? And what do you need in order to use that? You send photos and messages? It's a message group, is that right? It's a chat room?

... You're just desperate for one of their kids to come in and go, "Dad, gawd, you're so embarrassing. It's not THE yahoo groups, and it's not something you SEND photos through, it's... Never mind. Shove over. Let me ask the questions."

And then, last night, Kevin Andrews gets on the telly and says that this Dr Haneef character was talking to people in a computer room, by which he means chat room, and that the things he said in the chat room are things we're not allowed to know about. Ever.

Do the authorities not have computers? Is there anyone under thirty anywhere who can help these people? They're not exactly going to crack the crime syndicates if they don't know what a Yahoo Group is, are they.

Otherwise, though, props to the cops for following protocol and being nice to the doctor. It's more than most people have managed.

So the thing about writing is that you have to believe you're good at it. You have to believe that your particular take on this particular topic is interesting to other people. You have to imagine your audience, which means you have to imagine you have an audience.

In the months since our last show with an actual audience (hurrah! they DO exist!) it has been back to the drawing board (or, to be more precise, the yellowing laptop) and the imagining of an audience there is no proof of.

Sometimes, I just want something concrete to do. Something I tick on a list. Something I can give myself an A for. Sometimes I wish I was good at maths. Correct, says the red pen. Ten out of ten. Or even four out of ten. Even a fail. A bit of an objective marker, against which words and ideas can be rated out of ten.

Sometimes... and I know there are some of you who will be narrowing their eyes at me sternly when I say this... sometimes I wish I worked in the corporate world and received performance reviews. At least that way I could resent the powers that be for misjudging my dedication or for accusing me of lackluster sales figures or something...

But I AM the powers that be. Which is a terrible indictment on the process, just quietly.

I wonder if writers are more often than not control freaks. I am. I'm a control freak in the rest of my life. I have to drive the car. I have to read the program in the foyer before I see a theatre show. I have to win the Nintendo Wii tennis game, or else I will force the person I am playing into rematch after rematch until we've all missed dinner and I'm sweating and panting and saying "Just this one more time".

Even in the activities that I love that have nothing to do with writing or with winning, I find lack of control the most frustrating impediment - as if the world is conspiring against my perfecting of the perfect frisbee throw, my telling of the entertaining story, or my cycling home into the perfect sunset without getting a red light and having to waddle on my bike over to the pedestrian button and press it lots of times in order to convince the red light that there are lots of people waiting to cross.

This is a sad psychological state of affairs. Even sadder when you think about the fact that, as a control freak, this is one system you cannot reform. Because if we DID rate writing out of ten, and if there WAS a way we could determine the value of writing on a sliding scale, then we would be doing what so many people (erhem) find objectionable about literary prizes and arts grants - we would be pretending that subjective judgement is objective, or that popularity is success, or that it isn't...

Anyway. Isn't the winter sun lovely?

Sitting in it and drinking a coffee the size of a bluetongue lizard. Now that's something I can give myself ten out of ten for.

PS Check out these news stories and tell me there isn't something richly bizarre about humankind: Slapstick Driver Hits The Gas and this, which is proof that comedians will do anything for a laugh. As if we needed more proof of that.

When asked to comment on the otherwise unremarkable story about Kevin Rudd having attended a strip club, Peter Beattie, the Premiere of Queensland, said that he thought it might even good for the Opposition Leader's ratings because it "proves he's got blood in his veins".

This reminded me of something.

It reminded me of the stereotyping we learned about when we studied rape cases in criminal law. The "red-blooded male" who was just doing what came naturally. It took hundreds of years (and we're still squinting if we think we're there) before the common law realised that "red blooded" blokes acting in a boys-will-be-boys kind of comraderie is not a biological fact that need not be deconstructed or examined. The relative self-control of each gender when it comes to any form of human behaviour has not so far been proven a biologically determined trait. Or at least, not so far as the courts now see it.

Of course, Kevin Rudd merely went to a sleazy bar. Apart from using tax payers' time to go on a bender and engage in some not-exactly-feminist entertainment, he didn't transgress anyone's individual freedom or commit any crime. Men and women go to sleazy bars all the time and nobody gives a crap, but the idea that he somehow gave in to his natural macho yearning because he has "blood in his veins" is a bit dangerous. Or, maybe the language itself is dangerous, because I've heard it before and it's assuming a few things I don't think can be substantiated.

By the way, it looks like Beattie was right. Brendan Nelson's gone "ME TOO! I went to a strip club too!" Doesn't make much of a case for the clientelle in these bars does it. Full of politicians. Gross.