"We want you to be cool, and silent, like a real cocktail waiter."

I read my first Helen Garner book this month, This House of Grief. How embarrassing to have spent so many years thinking of myself as A Big Reader and never having read a word of Garner. I am, truly, a boob.

Now, as is often the way with these things, Garner seems to be everywhere because she has a new book of essays out. Financial constraints mean I won't be rushing out to buy it (I'm sorry, Helen) but I will be putting down my name at the library. In the not-too-distant future I hope and trust to have it in my hot little hands.

Meanwhile, I (and you) can enjoy Garner's so good essay on ageing over at The Monthly for nothing. Seriously, if this doesn't make you want to read more of her work she's probably not for you. Also you may be a lunk:

The insults of age had been piling up for so long that I was almost numb to them. The husband (when I still had one): “You’re not going out in that sleeveless top?” The grandchild: “Nanna, why are your teeth grey?” The pretty young publisher tottering along in her stilettos: “Are you right on these stairs, Helen?” The flight attendant at the boarding gate: “And when you do reach your seat, madam, remember to stow that little backpack riiiight under the seat in front of you!” The grinning red-faced bloke who mutters to the young man taking the seat beside me: “Bad luck, mate.” The armed child behind the police station counter unable to conceal her boredom as I describe the man in a balaclava, brandishing a baton, who leapt roaring out of the dark near the station underpass and chased me and my friend all the way home: “And what were you scared of? Did you think he might hit you with his umbrella?”

Things I would give up for the return of my absent kitty

1. Black heroin.

2. Hot baths.

3. Ben & Jerry's Phish Food.

4. The films of Woody Allen.

Preach, brother!

Via Rainbow Rowell.

Related: Is it weird that my crush was always on Mark Hamill, who spends half the first Star Wars movie cruising around in lame white pajamas, and not Harrison Ford who, I think we can all agree, shits charisma and was once a very good-looking dude?

"Smells like new money, dresses like fake royalty"

"Should we honour our treaty, King Louis' head?" 

"Uh do whatever you want, I'm super dead."

I realise I'm pretty late to the party when it comes to recognising that Hamilton is a thing and I am not the kind of person who has ever listened to a cast album of a musical without having seen the musical but... this is the exception because man it is a lot of fun.

"I am the best goddamn dancer in the American Ballet"

Not ashamed to admit (okay a little ashamed) that my first thought on seeing an episode of Flesh and Bone was "hey it's that guy from Centre Stage". In a related note, how many virgins has Sascha Radetsky been sacrificing on a daily basis because, you know, time has been kind.

Reason #35 why Rahul Kohli and I are destined to be together:

He no dummy.

Also, real talk, the other 34 reasons mostly relate to his amazing hair. Oh, would that I could tell you the things I would do to that hair.

"You insist on dropping hints to your guests about Bunny’s “frightfully interesting time during the war.” Bunny is glowering."

As a saddo Christie fan who has read and re-read most of her novels and seen more adaptations of those novels than I'm prepared to admit, I sort of love this Toast particle on signs Agatha Christie might be thinking about bumping you off.

He was Russell Crowe's Stooge

You might think you don't care about Russell Crowe or about journalist Jack Marx. Until last night I pretty much felt the same way. Then the charming Annabel Crabb/Leigh Sales podcast, Chat 10 Looks 3, alerted me to the existence of THIS 8-year-old article and I read it and now I want you to read it too. Seriously: bizarre, very amusingly-written ("like a little boy asked his age by the king, I told him") and just... I don't even know how to describe the circumstances of events it describes so read it now, thank me later.

"It was March 2005 when the Oscar-winning movie star called me. He had read an article I had written - something about how the celebrity magazines make up lies - and had tracked down my number. He wanted to meet over lunch. He asked me if I could be trusted. The last thing he wanted to see in the papers, he said, was some story about my lunch with Russell Crowe. I told him not to worry. I wouldn't want to read that story either."

Things I said to the mechanic who insisted on showing me photos of what the gunged up oil in my engine looked like before I threw a whole bunch of money I don't have at the problem:

* "Oh. Um, wow."

* "Uh-huh."

* Okay, okay."

* "Oh. Um, wow."

* "Uh-huh."

* "I'll put it on credit."

"You’re great. But if you were just a liiiiitttle bit more like everyone else, you’d be better."

I think number one of this list of worst lessons learned from 90s teen movies - that if you like someone enough, you’re totally deserving of and entitled to their affections - is my favourite because: WORD. But, real talk, they're all pretty good.

Summer Skin: this week's book recommendation.

Someone, somewhere is looking after me because lately I have been reading a string of great books, all by authors I've never read before. Surely I'm due for a stinker but please let my run continue a bit longer - it's bloody terrific.

The latest of these is Kirsty Eagar's Summer Skin, which I picked up for a whole $1 in a work book sale. I thought Summer Skin would be a bit of fun, and it is, but it's also the feminist love story I really didn't know I was looking for. Somehow Eager has written a romp that's hot, funny and just lots and lots of fun. I'm not getting carried away - this is not a book I'll be re-reading for years to come - but should you happen to find yourself in need of a little somethin' somethin' with which to curl up, you could do a lot worse.

Dreams

A disclaimer: obviously there's nothing more boring than someone else's dreams blah blah blah.

But seriously what does it say about me that I had a terrifying nightmare last night that was not about dinosaurs or serial killers but about getting too drunk at a work party and mildly disgracing myself? Nothing... good, I feel.