Here it is, folks. My first official backdown. My first genuine complaint about the State Library, previously listed as one of my Favourite Places On Earth.

WHO THINKS IT IS A GOOD IDEA TO TUNE A PIANO IN A LIBRARY WITHIN EARSHOT OF THE PEOPLE STUDYING IN THE DESIGNATED QUIET ROOM (many of whom have left) FOR A PERIOD OF (so far) AN HOUR AND A HALF BY PLAYING ONE NOTE OVER AND OVER AND HITTING THAT EXACT SPOT IN YOUR BRAIN THAT IS TRYING TO CONCENTRATE.

I think I have officially lost the last quiet, untouchable, peaceful writing haven left on this earth. So long as there is the possibility I will EVER have to endure this TORTURE again, it is, officially, dead to me now.

WHY IS THERE A PIANO IN A LIBRARY ANYWAY?

Oh, please, make it stop.

PS. Any friends who are cheeky enough or members of my family reading this can feel free not to use the word "melodramatic" in relation to any or all of the above, for fear of me imposing stringent sanctions in the future.

PPS. The piano tuner has moved from a middle C to a high C. This is both a relief and a sign that we may be putting up with this for another hour. The dude at the desk across from me has officially discarded his laptop in favour of a skateboarding magazine.

Yesterday, I worked until five in the State Library. At five, I got a train to the production meeting we were having at a pub in Richmond. We talked about lighting, staging, sets, sound cues, production management, and the fine art of creating and amending pdf documents. Then I drove straight to rehearsal.

We rehearsed until after nine, at which point I went home and finished some documents, and I got up this morning at six in order to get to work by seven. That's dark o'clock, my friends. That's not my usual caper.

Victoria Law Foundation, where I work, was hosting Major Michael Mori and over a hundred legal VIPs in the State Library for breakfast. This might not mean a lot to some people, but Major Michael Mori is David Hicks' lawyer, and David Hicks was officially charged last night, after five years in Guantanamo Bay prison.

In other words, whatever other long-lasting international repercussions there might be, my central concern this morning was that I had to fight my way to work through a scrum of reporters.

The David Hicks case, when it's explained to you, really looks like a mistake. The most conservative people in Melbourne were gathered in that theatre this morning and it was a pretty stunned silence.

Better go. I have rehearsals til nine. They say sleep deprivation is a form of torture, although I'm sure it's less offensive when it's you who's torturing yourself.

Have a relaxing weekend. Bastards.

Spent the entire day in the State Library.

Have now become the particular type of obsessive who does things like this:

- Refuses to break except for lunch including having phone turned off, rather than on silent

- Does not go to the bathroom unless completely necessary, on account of not wanting to lose a desk to some infuriating student/genealogist/crazy man with shopping bags, who clearly does not deserve the desk because he/she has not earned the desk by becoming known by all library staff and making friends with the regulars (of whom there are about half a dozen - we roll our eyes at each other during the busy times).

- Considers the use of one's fountain pen instead of one's computer screen a "treat".

- Enjoys the company of security guards. Polite, quiet, desperate for whispered niceties but expecting nothing more, these are princes among men.

I wonder what parties are like these days.

I just met the world's first loud librarian.

No kidding.

She's a real squawker. Laughs like a stuck pig.

She just told a group of people on the fifteen minute computers that their time was up and two of them nearly passed out from laughing.

A loud librarian. Fantastic.

Dear people in the library who talk on mobile phones while other people are trying to write scripts,

Who do you think you're fooling when you rush from your desk and speak in a low murmur for as long as your heart desires in the book stacks?

The books stacks are not your refuge! The book stacks are privately furious. The book stacks are giving you stink eye , you low-murmuring, long-talking selfish bastards.

I am very good friends with the book stacks, and I respect them as independent persons within their own rights. I can tell from the way the book stacks are shaking with a hitherto unexpressed fury that the book stacks may at any moment dislodge themselves from their foundations and conspire one day to crush your very important phone conversation beneath their lofty, learned, perfectly quiet shelves.

Be very careful. The books and I do not like you very much at all.

PS there is a foyer and there is a bathroom and there is an entire world outside and also there is a button called OFF.

Yes, I am getting older. Shut up.

So the guy in the State Library cafe pointed out that I hadn't put an "e" on the end of "carnivore" when I was doing the nine letter word in the newspaper this week.

The fact that I had come anywhere near getting the nine letter word was very exciting to me, and I had in fact been hoping that somebody would notice.

Which of course made me about ten times more embarrassed when he pointed out that there was a letter missing and it was, in fact, an eight letter word.

There is something metaphorical about this. At the moment I have a few huge tasks, no idea whether I'll finish them, and a propensity to forget the final detail that everyone notices I've forgotten.

Or something. I don't know. All I do know is that I keep wanting to tell the guy in the State Library cafe that I'm actually very good with words. Honestly. Or, should I say, honestl.

Every person who writes or studies or thinks or reads has a favourite place where they are most productive. I have recently rediscovered mine: here. Quiet, light, friendly, inspiring, divided in subsections that don't distract you away from what you're doing. There's even a cafe next door with newspapers and sunlight and staff squinting at you through hangovers. It's so perfect. I completely adore it and I always have. I used to study there when I was in year twelve and then again during university, but I moped away when it was closed for renovations and I've only just made it back.

I'm sorry State Library. I have loved you all along.

You know, now, they give you free internet, a beanbag room with computer games and a gallery!

But the part I love the most is that I feel so overwhelmed by everybody else's studious determination that I suddenly feel as though I'm running out of time (which of course I am) and perhaps I should get on with things, like these other people are getting on with things, and like I have been known to get on with things in the past (cut to flashback of me in year twelve)... All of which means that I have done more work on my script in three days in the State Library than I probably had pre-harddrive-crash (or pre-crash for short).

Also, after the Library, because I worked so hard, I rewarded myself and saw two films: a documentary about the making of a Cuban film called I Am Cuba, and an actual Will Farrel film called Stranger Than Fiction.

See what you can achieve when you nerd up? GO LIBRARIES!