I’ve been feeling a bit blog-blocked in recent days. I suspect it’s because I’m not actively writing. My most energetic blogging happens when I am also writing up a storm – we all remember the twice a day Nano blogging, don’t we? – with my brain firing on all cylinders. This month is about prioritising other things, and I am a little concerned that my brain is going pulpy at the lack of horrific deadlines looming.

That would be bad, right?

I teeter between wondering what to do with myself (not the housework, obviously) and being overcommitted in new and exciting ways. Today I’m attempting Pilates for the first time, as the universe seems determined to tell me to do so (well, the universe and  godiyeva mostly, though C and Justine Larbalestier have also had a hand in it, important for writers to look after themselves *before* their body locks up and their typing fingers stop working). I’ve bought exercise clothes that don’t suck. I have my new horribly expensive shoes. It’s all a bit worrying.

I’ve avoided soccer with Raeli for a few days thanks to the incredible downpour of rain from Sunday onwards, but couldn’t think up any excuses yesterday, and it was brilliant. What a workout! She devises her own warm up and cool down exercises, and adores actual playing, though is still pretty firm that she prefers to win, thank you, no matter what I say about how winning means more if it’s a) a genuine win and b) you also know how it feels to lose. Luckily I’m not too much of a threat to her yet in the winning department, because of my high degree of suckage, and also she cheats like a fiend.

Today I’m heading over to the house of  godiyeva’s quilting goddess of a mother-in-law, as I have two quilts at the nearly-finished stage, and both of them being presents means I really should get on with them. One, the Felix Rupert quilt, was in fact his birthday present in January, but I only had the quilt top done in time. I’m also working on a sekrit hand-sewn gift for M, who deserves much love and attention for her birthday, but has alarmingly decided to celebrate the weekend before rather than after the day itself, which is… two days away. Eep. Must develop sewing skills faster!

We’ve had some lovely feedback about our Galactic Suburbia podcast, which is awfully gratifying. We’re getting together this weekend to record a promo (which Tony C Smith has offered to play on Starship Sofa, how awesome is that?) and then will be doing episode 2 next week if we can find a single evening when Alisa is free! Damn her active social life. It’s tricky because in order to record before it gets too late for Alex and I to have our eyes open, it has to be at about 6-7pm Alisa’s time, which is a rotten time to try to do anything other than sit down after work or eat dinner. Meanwhile, my honey (who is our producer) has done all kinds of clever things like putting the thing in iTunes so you can find it by searching/browsing there.

We have a date for the new series of Doctor Who in Australia – Sunday, April 18th! This is exciting beyond reason, because in past years we have had to wait until June-July. The ABC is also experimenting with making the first episode available on iView two days early, which is very cute and all, but if I wanted to watch it on a computer, I’d be doing it two weeks earlier, y’know?

Oh, and Arsenal beat Porto 5-0 in the Champions League yesterday, which was an utterly joyous game to watch. I don’t get to see many games properly – most Premier League games are at an unseasonable hour, plus our bandwidth only allows me to watch half an hour of said game even assuming I can find a Mac-compatible feed, before leaping out of my computer and strangling itself. Thanks to pay tv snaffling the rights to Premier League, that’s the only way I can watch them anyway. Champions League, on the other hand, being night games in Europe, and still being the province of SBS, I can actually watch on my tv. When SBS bothers to show them. Now we’re getting to the nitty gritty part of the season, they can’t help themselves, though, so I was up at 6:30 am yesterday, cuddled under a blankie and eating fruit toast while the team put on one of the best shows I’ve ever managed to watch live. Possibly the best ever, actually.

Did I mention 5-0? Bendtner got a hilarious hat trick and sauntered about looking exactly as cheerful as he does when he bombs out like he did at Burnley on the weekend. Nasri’s goal was a thing of beauty. Plucky, skilled beauty. Eboue’s was a lovely surprise. Almunia was not troubled too much. Cesc sat on the sidelines in a fetching fur-lined parka. The boys cleverly did a lot of their celebrating on the edge of the pitch so that those on the bench could join the cuddles. (man, Bendtner has to work on his cuddling skills, he’s not a patch on the rest of them) Oh and most importantly of all, Arshavin had done something about his hair. My theory is that Nasri and the others held him down and put product in it. It worked a treat, too – he had a brilliant game, creating many chances for everyone else. Amazing what a bit of a shark mohawk will do for the ball skills.

Damn, I want Pay TV. I think I have to sell a lot more books before I can justify the sports channel. Even then I don’t know if I’d do it – even if you can afford it, paying so much money for so many channels you don’t want is kind of offensive to me. We had Austar for a few years and mostly I felt pressured to get my money’s worth. We barely have time to catch grown up shows a week these days. I much prefer DVDs as an entertainment expense – but sadly they are inadequate when it comes to LIVE SPORT.

Tags: arsenal, being active, doctor who, galactic suburbia, quilting, raeli, soccer, watching