The anguish is over. I have two new housemates: La Chica and DJ Hardware. They've already brought new energy and life into the house. But with new energy comes a loss of the old. And the old has gone, man. Guan-Ji and Silence packed up their stuff and left behind a cloud of dust. They're outta here.

This is an occasion worth marking. After all, Guan-Ji and I have lived in the same house for fourteen months. So here is:

The dragon of Rae Street

A year ago. Guan-Ji is cooking. But he's not cooking particularly well, with the mindful awareness of The One True Cook. He stumbles out of the zone. He loses his focus.

He sets fire to his dinner. Smoke starts billowing out of the kitchen.

"Ah!" says Guan-Ji, "dragon fills house with unlucky smoke!"

Once the meal had been safely buried and the service was over, I asked about the dragon. Turns out that the dragon comes to visit once in a while. He flows through the house, moves through the backyard, and ends up using the loo, at the very far end of the house. I'd already become aware of him, and had noticed the other indications of his presence: the dragon motifs on several items of furniture, the overall feeling of safety in the house, and, perhaps most conspicuously, the scorch marks on the lounge room wall. The scorch marks didn't really do very much, unless it was a night with a full moon. Then they'd start glowing and spelling out random messages. They were like fortune cookies from a particularly deranged Chinese restaurant. One message was simply "Dragon lives here." Another was "Leave house now! Dragon has date!"

Some people might interpret this talk of dragonhood as a kind of Feng Shui thing, a kind of metaphor for the positive energy flow of the house. But ... come on now. I mean, really. Tsk tsk. It's just a dragon. It's not a malevolent spirit. It's not a Jehovah's Witness. It's not a sales representative of a telephone company. It's just a goddang dragon. Other houses have mulberry trees, or visiting willie wagtails, and this house has a dragon. It wasn't planned that way, but it's what we have. We live in a lucky house. And with great luck comes great responsibility.

At one point we had a runaway avocado tree growing in the backyard. It was growing out of a drain. It was growing very, very rapidly. It displaced the drain cover in record time, and seemed primed for world domination. But by displacing the drain cover, it'd exposed Something That Should Not Be Disturbed. It had exposed the pipe leading to the Elaborate Underworld Beneath the house.

I became concerned that this might hurt or confuse the dragon. He might come flowing through the house, get halfway across the backyard, and fall into an alternative reality.

This wasn't good. Action was therefore needed. Dragon far more important than runaway avocado tree. So runaway avocado tree cut down. Drain covered up with with bricks. Visitors from Elaborate Underworld Beneath turned back.

The result? Dragon happy. Dragon not bring sales representatives. Energy keeps flowing from front door to loo. Scorch marks don't light up when easily frightened visitors are in the house. Dragon takes date elsewhere.

Rule of the dragon

Guan-Ji and I were both born in the Year of the Dragon. It doesn't take much to realise that this is an especially good year to be born in. Look at the competition: the Year of the Pig, the Year of the Bump in the Head, the Year of the Fluffy Slippers. Dragons can eat their competition for dinner, and are accustomed to doing so in the finest restaurants.

Guan-Ji had a thing about dragons. His Special Shirt, the one he'd wear only on important occasions, featured an elaborate dragon motif down one side. He never overtly said this, but this shirt was a part of his "alpha housemate" routine. By some kind of unwritten code, he was the only person in the house allowed to wear a dragon motif.

So his departure means a change in my own status. I'm now the alpha housemate. From now on, I wear the dragon motif. From now on, my word is law. I make the rules. All the rules. Even the stupid rules. Especially the stupid rules. I make them all, man, and I make them whenever I damn well please.

Guan-Ji has left the building, and in his place is a cloud of delusion. It's where I live, man. Come visit some time. Let's see what the scorch marks do for you.