(Note: This is not as light-hearted as it may seem from the initial excerpt. And please sabotage my mom's computer if you see her reading this.)

It seems Summer, or hot weather at least, has returned to Australia despite our assurances to Summer that it was OK for Spring to hang around until Fall and that we all really thought Summer ought to go enjoy a well-deserved break on Fiji. But apparently it caught on to our ruse and is back to give us a lickin' we won't forget. There's nothing that lowers my will to live more than the promise from Summer that "you ain't seen hot yet, baby!" Well, almost nothing. Except, that is, lying awake on a hot night thinking of all the poorly thought out things I've done and the people I've hurt in the process. Yep. Summer is laughing at me right now. And it's probably lighting a little bonfire right in my vicinity with those unused Fiji tickets.

It's not that I'm bad, really. While I've committed my share of ill-advised acts, I've mostly kept under the Evildar, which... would be... some sort of radar that detects evil-doing but there's no such thing so I'm leading you on a useless chase to the next bit of punctuation. Ah. There you are. So I didn't follow in the footsteps of many of my high school peers who decided that getting married at 17 was a very mature course of action or those who suddenly had an intense need to go live with their "aunt" in Vermont for 9 months. I've done one or two things that will get you kicked out of the White House, as you'll see, but I never augured in too deep. And, all in all, my mom still describes me as a 'good kid' except when that incident about the tequila (Sorry, mom, yeah it was tequila. Margueritas to be exact. Doug assured me I was 'fiiiine'. Or he might have said 'Move, I have to puke', but I'm pretty sure I heard 'fiiiine'.) and the new car is brought up. I'm truly ashamed of that incident and have grovelled, on several occasions over the years, in both my parents' presence. But as time has a way of dulling those sorts of thing I'm sure I'll become a 'terrific kid' eventually. Not that I'm even technically a kid anymore. But it makes me feel good and reminds me of parachute pants. But I digress.

So what am I getting at? I'm glad I made you ask. What I'm getting 'at', you ask in your grammatically questionable way, is this; a list of things I'm sorry for. Alternate title, "Bad Stuff I Did That Still Haunts Me At 30-something". That one is in case David Lynch gets the movie rights. Hereafter follows the list of stuff I did that I really regret. And I mean that in a pure, non-Clintonian way. Yep. Right now. Right after this paragraph. I'm going to tell it all. All the bad stuff. No holds barred. You betcha. Look, seriously, before I get started, don't make fun of me. Okay? This is painful stuff. And, yes, I realise that I'm the one who came up with this hare-brained idea and it's my fault if you do laugh. As ill-advised acts go, this one may even deserve to be on the list. But, hopefully, in my summation you'll think otherwise. After the list. That I'm going to make. Right now. Right below here. And it won't be funny. I'm serious. Just watch.

1) The tequila incident wherein our heroine goes off to her first real 'office party', drinks lots of margueritas and plows her new car, that her parents graciously bestowed on her for graduation, into a barrier. This is the most ill of the ill-advised. This was a bang up job, pun intended, on my part. I'm rescued by my parents and, being the little bitch I was, let my dad go sort it out in the morning and didn't even offer to ride along. I was too busy nursing my excruciating new friend, the tequila hangover. I've apologised so many times that I think my parents are beginning to feel sorry for me. When they shouldn't. I deserved that tequila-fuelled nightmare. I am the worm. Kookookachoo.

2) The 1 day 'running away' incident wherein our heroine decides that her parents "don't let me do anything" and flees to live at her friend's house. A tearful phone call and a day of having to go to work cashiering at the grocery in someone else's clothes cleared that delusion up real fast. But my mom's heart was broken that day. I, being the little... I already used 'bitch', but I'm afraid to use the C word for fear my mother will read this and I'll have to add 'The C Word Incident' to the list... let's go with bitch again, bitch I was had, in essence, told my mom she sucked at being my mom and someone else would be better. I should go to Hell for this one. Luckily I don't believe in Hell outside the throes of my own internal agony. I love my parents a lot more than most of my friends love their folks, so the agony is real when I think of the things I did to them. Yep, I'm the worm.

3) Oh, man. Mom? Can you just skip to number four? No? Please? Oh, well. Hang on. Number 4: Doing cocaine in a hotel room with a bunch of weirdoes who just wanted to get in my and my friends' pants. Yeah, mom. Sorry again. You thought the tequila was bad. And, to make matters worse, it was the same town. But let's forge on. My psyche is itchin' for a thrashin'. Firstly, let's cover the minor stuff. Firstly I regret doing the cocaine. I was not only still a bitch a few years after the tequila incident, I was still a stupid bitch. Secondly I regret the incredibly poor judgement, like 'Jackass' poor judgement without the MTV dollars to make it seem better, of our being alone in the room with these people.` Fortunately we probably looked like we were about to OD and they freaked out and didn't rape us. Thirdly and most sincerely, I regret getting you, my friend who is still my friend despite this, involved. I was so scared you were going to die that night. And I wasn't so sure about myself. You seemed so small and fragile to me that night. If you hadn't got out of there intact (mortally, emotionally or... chasti... chastit... chastic... what the Hell is the word?), I don't think I could have lived with myself. For the record (and my mom, assuming she made it past the previous one) we are both very zealous in expressing our opinions about the sneaky evilness of cocaine. Just say no like Kelsey Grammer. Nothing has ever brutalised my self-image and self-worth like this drug. Better off dead, indeed. I felt like a worm.

4) The break-up with my ex-wife Jenifer incident wherein two girls find out just how unprepared for each other they are. Please note that I will not be going into specifics out of respect for her privacy. First I should explain to any of you casual readers that I am a lesbian. I've tried the straight route and dated a few guys, but the writing was on the wall all along. I'm a lesbian and that's that. Well, the writing wouldn't have included the "and that's that" part unless it was a really long wall, but I think you get my drift. No, my drift won't make you gay. Only God and touching a towel bathed in the sweat of Ellen DeGeneres can do that. Jenifer liked Ellen, and since this is about Jenifer I should get back to that. Jenifer was my wife in that we formalised our commitment to each other and exchanged rings. Call it what you will. Whatever makes it jake with your ethos or religion. Anyway, I'm not sorry that we broke up, Jen. I'm sorry it happened like it did. From what I can tell it was, in the end, for the best for both of us. But the scars are still there for me and I would wager they are for you as well. I hope you found what you needed and deserved and I'm so thankful for your family's support and understanding. I know it may not have seemed like it at times, but I was so scared and worried for you and I was thankful your folks were there to catch you when we fell. I have no 'worm' closing for this one. All my best to you, Jen.

Wow. Only four things on that list. and only three worm closings! Surely there's more, you say. Well, yes, but those are the big four. Those are the things I think about most. Well, I also think about an accident I was in once and I play that 'what if I had done x' game that leads to nowhere but Insomniaville. But these four things are the points in my life where I felt I could have been bigger. Better. Risen above. Sang it from the rooftops. Told it on the mountain. Each one of them helped form who I am and, for better or worse, here I am. And each one of them deserves to be rinsed, shaken and hung out to be dried in the light of day. Each of those story says something about where I am in life if I can scatter them across the digital brook that runs through our lives without care for who reads them. That last was a frilly metaphor for the Internet, by the way. The one before was a sad laundry allegory.

I've found love. I've married again. She's the greatest thing to happen in my life. And I don't commit words like that to paper, or the all-seeing eye of Google, lightly. She hit me like a ton of bricks and I've never felt anything like it. I feel like a great gauze has been lifted and, through her eyes, I see me more clearly than I ever have. And there's lots in me to fix and also lots in me I can be proud of. I'm so thankful to her for that. It's her gift, given unaware, to me. That and her love and her allowing me to love her. I hope I can give back at least a portion of that gift. I've travelled far, both geographically and emotionally, to be with her. I've given up whatever life I had to be here so I could be by her side and kiss her goodnight. I've learned to see how truly pushy I can be, that I'm quite a know-it-all sometimes, that I let myself get clouded in anger and lose sight of my surroundings and company. I've learned many things about myself that I've never faced up to and I've learned that I can work on them. That I can be better. Rise above. Tell it on the mountain.

So what's the summation I promised? What's the moral of this overly-long and unnecessarily winsome missive? Why do you let me put words in your mouth like that? Who knows where they've been. The summation is thus; So long as I treat them with respect, I can face and let go of the things I regret -- the things that fester in my self on hot nights. And eventually they'll keep me awake no more. So I'm starting here and now chipping away at the mouldering facade. Inspired by the woman I love and the suddenly hot night I'm hoping to make a better me.

My name is Maggie and sometimes I am a worm. And it's freakin' hot.