Articles in “Life, the Universe, and Everything”

If Nick and I suddenly disappear from our social networks (virtual or actual) or stop coming to work one day, this is why:

Send someone to dig us out, would you? You know, when you have a minute.

Sleep had (insufficient).
Cups of coffee drunk (3).
Showers taken (1).
Strange men holding an enthusiastic conversation right outside my shower (2).
Outfits that accidentally look like tuxedos worn (1).
E-mails sent to students (1).
Thank-you e-mails sent to television production companies (2).
Exciting breakthroughs made in television research (2).
Exciting breakthroughs not made in television research due to a disappointing and illegal absence of authorial credits in Dutch DVDs of Australian children’s television programs (1).
E-mails sent to boss (4).
Lead-paint removal (ongoing).
Conversations held with my computer desktop image (several).
Spreadsheets updated (2).
Headaches endured (minimal).
E-mails received from my mother (1).
E-mails sent to my mother (1).
Misunderstandings had with my mother via e-mail (1).
Phone calls received from the builder telling me he is standing outside my front door and would like me to let him in (1).
Paint colour catalogues to look through (2).
Rooms in which the builder will allow me to have a colour feature wall (1).
Editing tasks completed for my father-in-law (1).
Lifetimes spent waiting for service in the post office (7).
Book I impulsively bought while waiting seven lifetimes in the post office (2).
Minutes it actually took to post the parcel (4).
Parcels posted (1).
Post-office employees who told me highly personal stories about their horrible mothers-in-law (1).
Tutorials held (2).
Number of tutorials in which I used The Never-ending Story as a metaphor for conscientious editing (1).
Number of students who told me that “Atreyu really loved his horse!” (4).
Number of us who admitted that we cried when the horse died (2).
Undergraduates who have done me unnecessary but thoughtful kindnesses today (2).
Bus trips taken (2).
Amount of wine I’m about to drink (all of it).

Our kindly landlord has decided to do a comprehensive renovation on the house. Of course, we’re still living here, which makes life a little surreal at times. And noisy. But mostly surreal.

It all began with us having to shower on our back verandah, but I’m not posting photographs of that. You’ll thank me. Trust me.

We’re showering on our back verandah because our bathroom is undergoing complex generic metamorphoses.

First, we had a Southern Gothic bathroom:

Now, we have a crime-scene bathroom:

The turquoise is quite fetching, though. Shame it’s going under the tiles, really.

But right now, I’m living in some kind of zombie/psychological-experiment horror flick, as they tent my house to remove the lead paint:

And you can’t even see the strange, white-suited astronauts moving across the windows …

(Of course, you realise this entire post is a lengthy excuse for not blogging more often, right? But with pictures!)