OK Computer

I woke up this morning in a stormy mood. Colour irked me, I just wanted to cloak myself in black. Getting dressed I chose black from the skin out. Black underwear, black fishnet stockings, black 3/4 knit shirt, black pencil skirt, black shoes. It still didn't feel enough and so I wore make up, which I wear so rarely anyway, but emphasising my mood with smudges of black kohl. Between the makeup and my miserable bright green eyes I'll wager I looked somewhat disturbing.

My mood kept up most of the day. The weather was revolting today, reaching 30 degrees before 10 o'clock and over 38 when I went to pick the Elfling up at school to go to ballet. The air was like a blast furnace and the Possum and the Monkey were both damp with sweat when we got to the gates.

The drive to ballet was frustrating. Idiots who can't drive and try my patience. People who insist on driving in the right lane 4km below the speed limit causing accidents and near misses in their wake as people try illegal manoeuvres to get past. The commentary on my driving from the back seat just adding to my stellar mood.

On coming home it was not much better aside from the fact that I had fortuitously put on the airconditioning, so it was like walking into a welcome fridge. The kids were tetchy and needling each other and the Possum, who'd fallen asleep in the car, was awake but unhappy and the afternoon turned to shambles as well. So I put on a DVD for the big kids and lay down with the Possum in front of the computer in just my stockings and shirt, looking for all the world like one of those cliched girl gamers in my emo make up and stockings. All miserable pent up emotion.

Until the Possum, decided enough was enough and he erupted like a mini krakatoa in a cheesy smelling fountain all over himself, my hair, my black clothes, in clumps in my stockings and down my cleavage. It obviously made him feel better, because once he was done he erupted into spontaneous (if smelly) giggles. And above us, the sky rumbled too with what sounded suspiciously like laughter.

His eruption was so complete and so spectacular that we both needed a shower and every trace of the blackness that I'd coated myself in today needed to be washed away. In the shower the Possum clasped at my cheeks and patted them while looking into my cleansed eyes and smiled. And outside, the rain and the hail began to fall.