I often wonder what the tax department must think of me. Over the past two weeks, I have purchased the following tax deductable work-related items:

1 Book about literary women, which I've already read but some bastard borrowed it and never gave it back and it's a cracker. Ten bucks on the Readings bargain table, it's extremely well written by someone who used to write for The New Yorker and I can't remember what it's called but I recommend it if you want to know about Ayn Rand or Gertrude Stein in a way that makes you feel like you went to school with them.

1 CD of Maya Angelou reading I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings (cos she speaks good).

1 Dawson's Creek DVD (for listening to the infernal but sometimes funny dialogue and attempting not to shout through everything Katie Holmes says).

1 Degrassi Junior High DVD (for listening to the dialogue, checking how clunky the "themes" are, and revisiting my early crush on Joey Jeremiah).

1 Flight of the Navigator DVD (oh my childhood self wriggles with delight).

1 Full pass to the Melbourne International Film Festival, including tickets to a documentary about the American health system and a female revenge fantasy comedy horror.

1 uni-ball fine liner (green).

1 ticket to "Knocked Up" (shut up, I needed a break from the highbrow intellectualism not reflected anywhere in this list).

1 ticket to "Blades of Glory" (again, it was a weekend break - what are you, the thought police?).

And some costs brought about by an upcoming trip for the law talking job.

So, a Will Ferrell film and the Romanian goat herding documentaries of MIFF... together at last. My kind of universe.

In other news: I finished my book, Vernon God Little, which of course everyone else in the known universe has already read. Guess what, world? I liked it, too! Really well written, funny as hell, smart and thought-wrangling. I do like a thought wrangle.

He's won the booker prize and now he's been praised by me. DPC Pierre must be pinching himself.

Having checked out the wikipedia page on the book, I am even more proud of finishing it on account of the fact that 35% of all Britons polled who read it did not finish it. Slackers.

Oh, the other thing I claimed on tax: expensive internet. Better go and use it to do some actual work.

Recently, due to various factors beyond my control, I have missed two deadlines.

There is something about the feeling of having missed a deadline which is a little bit like the Gwyneth Paltrow movie, Sliding Doors. All you have to do is slightly tweak the wikipedia plot description and you've got a version of my life every time I miss an opportunity that could have been something great, and could have been a complete disappointment. Like so:

Lorin's life splits into two parallel universes which run in tandem. In one universe, Lorin manages to get her proposal/application/script in on time, and in the other she misses it. In the former, her application isn't successful anyway and she finds out that someone she went to university with is staging a three part opera using sock puppets and a glockenspiel instead; she promptly flees the scene, and meets (and falls in love with) an entirely new concept she hasn't thought of yet. In the latter universe, she carries on oblivious in a miserable and constant struggle to coexist with The Guilt that constantly plagues her on account of missing her deadline.

Towards the end of both scenarios, she discovers she is pregnant with her respective partner's baby.

Okay, well, apart from that last bit. I don't have respective partners. But all that other stuff, that's totally how it is, man.

Imagine the life I could be leading. Imagine the life you could be leading. What are you doing just sitting there? Come ON! Get on with it!

Last week for me was tax week.

Tax week for me means finding all my officeworks receipts, my movie tickets, my half-torn theatre stubs and my dvd receipts and promising myself that next year I'm going to be more organised.

Anyway, so next year I'm going to be heaps more organised.

In the meantime though, I'm going to pause and reflect on HOW MUCH STUFF I see, read, eat (sadly not tax deductable) and do not throw out like a sensible person would (including boxes from dvd players that i no longer own, notes from people I can't remember in classes I swear I never went to, wrapping paper - seas of the stuff - and of course theatre programmes).

I don't think I have ever EVER had a moment where, pausing in the middle of something very important, I have thought to myself, "Now. Where is that theatre programme from that play I saw in 1998 at the Malthouse. I simply must find that programme immediately, for there is no possible way I can continue on into the future without it".

I don't think that has ever happened. Now that I have discarded several of these programmes during my tax time tidy up, however, I have no doubt that over the next few weeks I will in fact undergo the above experience and find my programme collection wanting.

Nevetheless. All this purchasing got me to thinking. I thought:

1. I have a lot of stuff.
2. A lot of people don't have any stuff.
3. I should give a whole lot of my stuff to people who need it (for instance, the two giant stuffed toys that someone-whose-name-most-people-will-guess won in a country fair and decided to bestow upon me by way of the beginnings of a collection).
4. I should drive my car less. I pay too much money in petrol and I am not helping the environment, despite the carbon offset thing where there are trees planted for me every time I drive anywhere (also purchased for me by person-whose-name-most-people-will-guess).
5. THEREFORE perhaps on the way to the brotherhood of st lawrence in order to give away stuff, I should purchase more stuff, in the shape of a bike.
6. Perhaps I should purchase a very excellent bike from my truly most favourite shop in the world (here), from one of my favourite people, who makes me laugh and updates me on campus news.
7. Perhaps I should then ride it around like a child with a new toy.
8. Perhaps this renders my "I should own less" mentality somewhat redundant.
9. Perhaps it is even more so if I am too lazy to ride home from my parents' place and I put the bike in the back of the carbon-offset car and drive it home to mine.
10. Perhaps these things can be over analysed and I should be simply grateful that I now have an excellent excuse to wear all my glow in the dark clothing again (it's been too long).

So yay for riding your bike!

In terms of consumption by way of books and cinema THIS financial year, I am currently reading DBC Pierre's book Vernon God Little, about twelve centuries after it was cool to do so. It is, as most people have already said, a very good read. I am, however, NOT seeing the Transformers movie, despite the legion of nerds who surround me, trembling with excitement at the prospect.

So far, that's one mark in the "CONSUMER ADDICTION" column (consumption of book) and one mark in the ABSTAINING FROM PURCHASING UNNECESSARY THINGS" column. Of course, as with all record-keeping, this is not a true reflection of the way things work. The truth is, abstaining from the Transformers movie is hardly a sacrifice, since I am bored to death at the very thought of it, and the book, although living in my bookshelf, technically belongs to someone else.

This is why tax time is confusing. Reality plays a very small and self-conscious role, and I end up with an empty wallet, a slightly more organised office, and a brand spanking new bike. How on earth did that happen?

I went to the bank today to deposit a cheque I received for some work I did re-writing some Greek mythological stories into contemporary language for a school.

Me: I'd like to deposit this cheque please.

Guy at Desk: You keep this bit.

Me: Which bit?

Guy: The bit that describes what you're being paid for. Geek mythology.

Me: Greek. That's Greek mythology.

Guy: Oh. Sorry.

Geek Mythology - the study of mythical stories involving nerds. Awe-inspiring stuff.

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.

So my routine at the State Library is so set in stone now that I take a packed lunch and time everything in half hour blocks.

Sadly, this did not prevent me today from discovering my first REASON WHY THE STATE LIBRARY IS NOT ACTUALLY AS HEAVENLY AS I ORIGINALLY THOUGHT.

To the old man who shouted at me, I am sorry that I "back-talked" you when I dared to say "pardon? after you shouted at me to stop typing on my laptop. Also, I am sorry to have to break some news to you. You claim that "women don't back-talk men. It's not allowed".

I am afraid it is allowed, and in fact in some of the more civilised parts of society, it is an official sport.

Also, "jerk" isn't a swear word, so I in fact didn't swear at you. Arsehole is a swear word, and so are a great many other things that I did not shout back at you in the middle of the library while you held onto your plastic bags and shook your fist and failed to notice your crazy hair.

Life for some people must be very sad. The guy I met in the library was obviously sad, but I'm not sure sad is an excuse, so let's just go with crazy old bastard.

Reasons why the state library isn't heaven. What a bummer.

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!