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I have news and it's not Monday. That's very odd, for I'm used to having news on Mondays. My news is that I'm teaching my history for writers daylong workshop in Brisbane in March: http://www.qwc.asn.au/courses-and-events/courses/weekend-workshops/masterclasses/making-fiction-history-using-the-past-to-build-your-world/

I'm totally looking forward to this. The Queensland Writers' Centre is doing dynamite work and the Brisbane writing community is delightful. Whenever any of them visit more southerly climes I think "I want to see them on their home turf" - and now I can.

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Chanukah's going to be different this year. I don't feel like preparing for a big party and I certainly don't feel like being balanced against everyone's Christmas parties. I'm encouraging my friends to ask to celebrate with me and then we'll find a mutually-useful time. Two friends have already done so and a whole group is having another party on 7th day, which I will be attending. If my friends aren't paying attention, they miss out on Chanukah, and I miss out on all the attached angst.

What happened was that I decided that there's no reason to feel angst over my minor festivals. They weren't big productions when I was a kid and they shouldn't be now. I speak to my friends about it when I see them, and I've mentioned it here and on Facebook and the rest is up to them. I have presents; I have candles; I will have ingredients; I have two evenings of fun already happening: it's going to be a lot gentler on me.

The reason for the change of approach is that Chanukah never was about me: it was always about my friends. This year is my year for putting myself first.

Not entirely first, though. I have presents for online friends. Watch this space...

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kitzen_kat picked me up late this morning and I finally met Pepe. Pepe is a gentle, funny and very lively British shorthair who has a foot and shoe fetish. He wanted to creep right into my crocs (swollen day requires big shoes) but didn't fit.

We had a cuppa, Mia made me a picture for my fridge and then we went shopping and to the library. I'm now equipped foodwise for the next week or so, and I also have batteries so that I can diminish my youth.

'Diminishing my youth' sounds more drastic than it is. When I left home, I had a small but marvellously good cassette player/radio (which I called the gecko-blaster). It got me through a winter in Toronto, a winter in London and a summer in Paris. It was my stalwart friend for four years in Sydney. It was a wonderful companion. One of my sisters borrowed it and tied it to a luggage rack on a fast car. It ended up spattered over the Hume Highway somewhere. I couldn't find a replacement (and had no money), so I bought a cheap cassette recorder from Target and almost forgot my cassette collection. I'd look through it when I taught courses that required the teaching player (which is what I'm using now), but other machines had superseded it.

I never threw any of my cassettes out, however. I had so many of them! The commercial recordings of things I knew I wouldn't miss have already gone to one of my students (who expressed a very strong interest in any classical music I could spare). I now have just a drawer and a half, and the labels are unreliable and they cover the music of the first twenty-one years of my life.

I bought batteries for the player today when shopping and am determined to listen my way through my tapes. Most of them will go out (or to my student) but illegal recordings of my high school orchestral attempts will hopefully be turned into electronic matter. Then I shall get rid of cassettes and player and have more space without a diminution in lifestyle.

The cheap replacement player isn't as good as my gecko-blaster, but it's got an oddly fine tone. The music sounds as if it's being played on a 1960s record player.

What's very cool about listening to this is that I get to hear the music of my youth. Right now it's a piano concerto by Grieg and in a moment it will be Peer Gynt, which has always been a favourite (since I was about ten, which is long enough to be always) and which is presumably why I have this tape.

Expect updates on my listening until this process is finished! If any tape appeals to you, shout out as you hear it, for all but the very personal will be gone, in just a few days.