Originally published in The Clifton Courier May 26, 2017

I just realised how boring I am.

The other weekend my sister and her husband visited me in Sydney, and I was tasked with showing them the sights and showing them all the fun stuff I do now that I live The Big City Life.

I pointed out the Harbour Bridge, which led to a discussion about how much better we liked a bridge in Brisbane (in case anyone around us couldn’t tell we were Queenslanders). I directed their gaze to the Opera House. I showed them the building a work in. I showed them the library I once pretended to study in so I could charge my phone. I even took my sister on a personal tour of the dump shoot where I dispose of the rubbish I passive aggressively empty from the kitchen tidy every time it is overfilled with recyclable items (not that I’m bitter or anything).

I’d like to think there were some fun sights I’d forgotten to include on the tour, but the only place I forgot to point out was the bar that didn’t kick my friend and I out for licking up overflowed tequila off the bar using our fingers. And while that would hint at me actually doing something fun, it speaks more to just how stingy I am.

I was hoping to give my guests an idea of the super glam big smoke life I lead here. I wanted them to get the Sydney experience, Dannielle style.

And looking back at the weekend, I don’t know if I could say I gave them an all too thrilling idea of just how I spend my days in this overcrowded cesspit of douchebaggery.

The first thing we did was eat burgers at a place in my neighbourhood. An over-ordering of side dishes later, we went back to my flat for drinks. We got through less than a third of a bottle of wine before we decided to calm down and go to sleep. We’d played two rounds of a Scrabble knockoff game, after all.

The next day we took a long walk around the coastline and paid far too much for acai bowls (it’s like a thick smoothie with artfully-placed fruits, super foods and other wankery sprinkled on top). Then, deciding we had nothing else to do, we walked a further five kilometres back to my place so we could eat cake and sit down.

Unfortunately, this was an all-too accurate representation of my usual Saturday. Except instead of cake, I would be hoeing into an entire batch of a clean-eating spin on brownies. And instead of sitting down, I would be napping on my bare mattress as my sheets dried.

That eventing, despite all the restaurants and bars in Sydney, we ended up eating takeaway in a hotel room, drinking mineral water and treating ourselves to scratchies as a bit of a thrill. On the ride home, I carefully hid from my driver the fact that I had just spent three hours watching sitcoms instead of gallivanting about, deceptively telling him I’d “had a big day” to save face.

Usually my Saturday nights aren’t too different, except I don’t have to pretend to be cool in front of Uber drivers because I haven’t left the house.

Thankfully the next day was taken up with my sister’s premeditated plans, but when the afternoon rolled around we were left trying to fill time before their flight and it was up to me to come up with the goods.

We ended up watching dogs play in the park and getting right into House Hunters: Renovation.

And you know what? That was actually one of the highlights of the trip. And I don’t even mean that in a negative sarcastic way.

Perhaps it’s because the company you keep is more important than doing fancy, exciting things. Perhaps it’s because family is a bond stronger than any other. Or perhaps it’s because nothing brings people together like dogs or making fun of other people’s interior design choices.

Note to self: If you’re going to be a total creep, you need to start wearing more muted colours.

Maybe try to blend in more. Maybe do your best to be as forgettable as possible. Because you don’t want to stick out in someone’s mind enough for them to remember you and turn your awkward encounter into a hilarious tale. If you’re rocking the neutral look – and I’m not talking about beige explicitly, but more a beige vibe – then you might be easily forgotten in the avalanche of other people they met that day.

This is a strategy I wish I had thought up before I went to get books signed at a writers festival.

Because I was foolish enough to think that, because I’m a seasoned journo who has met important people before, I wouldn’t turn into a giant creep when meeting an author.

So it didn’t occur to me that I would be a creep, and therefore didn’t compensate for that by wearing smart casual jeans, rocking a white top and sporting a normal haircut.

It’s only now, sitting in the safety of my lounge room, that I remembered my seasoned journalism career has only spanned five salty years. I also recall now that most of my encounters with important people were peppered with more cringe moments than my avo toast is peppered with literal pepper (and that’s a shitload of pepper, mind you).

So of course this things got weird this morning.

And I wore an over-sized statement yellow jacket with a bold pattern that features the confusing repetition of the number 83. Which is not exactly blending in. If the somewhat repulsive mustardy yellow shade didn’t stick out in anyone’s mind, the riddle as to why I deemed 83 such a significant number that I needed to pay homage to it through fashion surely would.

I don’t want to go into too much detail, but I kind of pounced on an author whose book I impulse bought after her signing session finished. I saw her walking around afterwards and ran at her with what I can only imagine was the intensity of that guy in the ad for Get Out (I don’t know his name or back story because I’m too much of a chicken to watch horror movies). I can’t recall the exact details of the now blurred conversation, but I reckon I could clock the physically cringing I did afterwards as an ab workout, so it’s fair to say it was so bad my subconscious did me a solid and immediately repressed it so I would never have to think of it again.

In fact, the whole signing line up thing is very uncomfortable. I thought I would need to have seven redheaded children before I would identify with Mrs Weasley, but it turns out all it took was for me to be confronted with the author of Looking for Albrandi (not that I’m saying Melina Marchetta is like Gildory Lockheart in anyway).

Yeah good.

Despite having an actual fucking communications degree, it turns out that I’m pretty rubbish at it. I mean, I read the literal textbook for interpersonal communication. From memory, I even received fairly decent grades for that course. I should not be this bad at it.

Sometimes I think my desire to be “quirky” or need to create uncomfortable moments to turn into humorous anecdotes for column material subconsciously forces me to stumble through social interactions. Then other times I’m certain I’m just a blabbering idiot who doesn’t know how to do the talking properly. Either option asserts the assumption that I am simply just not normal.

But what even is normal anyway?

Normal isn’t really a finite thing. It’s a concept. A mathematical one. It would be more apt to use the words “average” or “mode” instead of normal, I reckon. Because when we’re saying normal, we’re more describing something that is most common.

It’s simple statistics.

Say you’ve got a group of six people. Four of them have blue eyes, one has green and another has brown. Three of these people have brown hair, one is blonde and two are redheads. Five of these people have dogs, one has a cat. Three are really good at maths, two are average at maths and one failed maths. Four love milk, while two hate milk. Five of them are Linkin Park fans, one is not. Four are girls, two are boys. There are endless other factors I could write out, but I don’t have the brain power on this Sunday afternoon (hence why “loves milk” and Linkin Park were included as traits in this example).

If you were to describe the “normal” (AKA average) person from this group, they would be a blue-eyed, brown-haired, dog owning, maths class nailing, milk-loving, Linkin Park fangirl.

That would be a true representation of this group, based on the data. If you’re a member of this group, it would be “normal” for you to love Linkin Park. According to the statistics, it would be unusual for you not to like this pop fusion of rap and hardcore music.

But while this is statistically correct, in actual fact, not one person in this group falls into the majority for every single category. They may have brown hair and blue eyes, but they also hate milk and are shit at maths. They may love milk and be a whiz with numbers, but they’re a green-eyed ranga. They may tick all the boxes except the box about having a box (because they are a boy).

So while the representation of the group may be statistically true, there is no actual blue-eyed, brown-haired, dog owning, maths class nailing, milk-loving, Linkin Park fangirl.

The “normal” person for this group doesn’t actually exist.

And when you upscale this example and apply it to the world’s population and factor in the millions of other traits about people that can exist (whether they’re a Seventh Heaven fan, whether they’re nail polish wearers, whether they knew their grandfather, whether they like capers, whether they have irritable bowel syndrome, whether they have vomited on a bus… the list is pretty much endless), you’d probably again find a “normal” person doesn’t exist.

You could look at each of these specific these traits and definitively state which were the most common, but there are so many millions of different combinations of these traits that it would be bloody hard to find one person who ticked every last box of the statistical average human. You know?

Like even if you found five people who all happened to have each individual factors line up with the representational average, there are how ever many billions of other people on earth who aren’t like these people.

Therefore, it’s unusual to be the average. It’s not normal to be normal.

This is all a very pretentious, long-winded way of assaying “normal” isn’t actually a thing.

It’s a myth.

So I feel that I don’t need to worry about being normal.

But maybe I should tone down the retina-burning colours and ironic op shop buys, just in case.

Originally published in The Clifton Courier, May 10, 2017

I am conflicted about the merits of a bath.

Yes they’re good for you and are supposedly relaxing, but the concept is also yucky. And I’m not very good at relaxing.

To a normal person a bath is a luxury. To a chronic overthinker like myself, a shower seems to be a more efficient way of cleaning oneself.

When baths are concerned, the human body is like a giant teabag. Except instead of infusing the water with the soothing essence of green tea and jasmine, you’re leaching out dead skin cells and the pollution your pores soaked up during the day. And once all this grime seeps into the water, you spend a good 20 minutes soaking in it.

Not cute.

But I have the eczema, which wages war on my left hand and turns it into an itchy, flaky, oozing mess. I try my best not to scratch it, but I find myself scratching in my sleep. This is a problem, because when you scratch the affected area it seeps out this sweaty gunk, which is really unappealing. And sometimes things get stuck to this gluey excretion. Which is even more unappealing.*

* I told this to a colleague once, and he actually dry retched. Thankfully I had already won him over as a lifelong friend, but I can’t say if he respects me in any way. But I don’t think a relationship built on office sassery and the tendency to drink leftover wine from strangers’ tables at work awards nights needs that much respect to begin with. We get each other, you know? Even if I do disgust him from time to time.

I’m not telling you this to gross you out (although I think I would have well and truly achieved that goal). I promise it is relevant to the bath concept.

Because I have recently discovered the amazing healing powers of a bicarbonate soda soak. It stops the itching. It even minimised my wart (wow, I’m really not selling myself here). I can’t speak highly enough of bicarbonate soda. And if any bi-carb soda reps are reading, yes, I would be open to promoting your product.*

* Seriously, I can’t ever seeing myself being the target of a sponsored post. I mean, I’d love to be influential enough to be sent a free box of Doughnut Time selections but I’m just not good enough with my lipliner to pull that off. Plus, the only flatlays I’ve done on my Instagram account have been heavily Queenslander themed, which apparently doesn’t make me a high-value influencer to brands. 

Therefore, I have a choice. It’s either soak in my own filth or cop the shame of getting tissues stuck to the pus on my hand and live with the constant itching (and unfortunately having a relentlessly itchy palm has nothing to do with receiving money, despite the promising superstitions).

So I chose the bath option. Even though I have ranted against it before. Even though sitting in a tub for 20 minutes means I’m alone with my own thoughts for 20 minutes – which is as antagonising as you would imagine.

So I endeavoured to find a way to make it bearable, even enjoyable. And the trick was drinking tea while soaking.

For some reason it felt decadent; like I was doing something forbidden.

I don’t know if this is because I couldn’t do this back home without being ridiculed or because tea is my ultimate indulgence.

I treat tea the way most people treat wine. While my housemate in Armidale would come home from work and have a glass of sauv blanc to take the edge off, I would make a very strong cup of tea after a particularly stressful day. Except while she would sip her wine quietly, I would let out a sexually suggestive groan and repeatedly say “geeeeeez I love tea” in a voice that had much more grunt than my usual speaking voice.

Now in Sydney, I make my new housemate think I’m really cool by giggling devilishly as I flick the kettle on for the second time that night, saying, “oh I might just have one more”.

So I made myself a cuppa to dull down the overthinking while in the tub.

And being completely starkers, floating around in warm water with a comforting tea in hand almost felt like being back in the womb again (not that I remember too much about the experience).* I emerged from the tub relaxed, rejuvenated and itch-free.

* Just to clarify, I didn’t sip the tea through an umbilical chord drinking straw nor was it filter through a placenta – just in case you sickos were taking my foetal simile too literally. 

With one cup of tea, a bath turned into a treat.

And meditating on the tea bag in the tub gave me an excellent metaphor for the giant human dead skin infuser to use in my column.

My feelings about baths may be lukewarm, but a cup of tea will always be my… cup of tea. *

* That’s right Dannielle, finish strong with a play on words. Go out with a bang. You’re just like Carrie fucking Bradshaw you clever, clever shrew. 

I’ve just burned all the way to the bottom of a scented candle.

At the risk of sounding trite, it’s bitter sweet. It’s bitter because it means my waxy pumpkin pie dream is over. But it’s an achievement in a way, because I have a tendency to be too frugal with candles. I have a candle from four years ago smaller than your average lunchbox popper that is only halfway through. There’s some innate aversion inside me screaming at me not to waste them, which makes me worry I might be turning into my father.

However, I’m trying to suppress my desire to save. And what with this looming nuclear conflict, the fact that there’s an enquiry into the current “crisis” of journalism and that whole climate change drama, I’m thinking my future is too unstable not burn expensive scented candles. I may not actually like coffee enough to buy it and I make much better avo toast at home than those snooty cafes, but scented candles may just be the reason I can’t afford a home right now (LOL since moving to Sydney I can’t afford candles either).

Also, I want to use the candle container for other things. I like the idea of being able to store unnecessary items in unnecessary glass containers which project that I’m a classy woman who values herself but wouldn’t hate a bit of financial backing on account of what some may call “unsound economic decision-making” (which I think sends the right message to the right acutely-analytical potential suitor/silent partner who finds himself using my bathroom for some reason).

Anyway, the fact that I’ve burned a candle all the way down means I’ve dedicated a fair hunk of time to relax from the stresses of my job, where I spend most of my day being sarcastic and watching cute animal videos (I know, tough gig, right?). It means I’ve really dedicated time to taking a journey to me.

To cut a long story short (something I absolutely did not do here), after my candle was burnt up, I turned it upside down and discovered there were a bunch of rules written on the base that I had no idea about. And because I’m scrounging around for blog post idea, I figured you’d like to read my reactions to them (because I don’t know, maybe you’re waiting in a long queue and your Instagram isn’t refreshing or something).

Never use water to extinguish a candle: that seems obvious. This is a candle, not a fire on a medieval thatched roof house.

Ensure wicks are trimmed to 7mm: I’m guessing this warning is purely for legal purposes to negate any responsibility of the manufacturer in the case of a fire and everything, but come on. Do they really expect people to whip out a ruler, measure their wicks and trim them like bonsai trees?! And how did they come up with the weirdly specific length of 7mm?

Never burn the candle for less than an hour or more than four hours: I understand the one hour rule, because you deserve more time for yourself. Don’t just settle for a lousy 15 minutes, go the whole hog – both figuratively and literally, because burning a nice scented candle while cutting thick, salty slices off your own personal leg of ham sounds like a damn good way to take the edge off a rough day.

The four-hour rule is a problem though. You shouldn’t put a time limit on treating yourself. This is especially true if your version of treating yourself involves finishing off the leg of ham. That takes time (but please seek medical advice beforehand).

Never move a burning candle. Extinguish and ensure wax is solid before handling: True that. Especially if you have carpets and don’t enjoy intense burning sensations on your skin.

Burn candle on an appropriate flat heat-resistant surface: Again, good advice. Resting a candle on a bean bag is a silly idea.

Avoid using in drafty areas, near and open window, air duct or fan: That would defeat the entire purpose of having lit a scented candle. The whole idea is to Dutch oven yourself; closing off all nooks, crannies or entry ways where other people can come in and spoil your solitude. You want to trap this fine-smelling candle fart in wherever you are to mask the scent of reality and make yourself believe, if only for a short while, that you don’t live in a total shithole. So yeah, keep that bloody window closed.

Burn within sight: Or make sure you keep a nose out for the smell of smoke. Because without my sense of smell, I would have lost the rustic vintage ladder I use instead of a bedside table because I am both frugal and a design queen. Now said ladder has a singe mark, but that only adds to the charm. So I guess only leave your candle unattended on salvaged novelty furniture.

Keep away from things that catch fire: But you can leave it by your hopes and dreams, because they went up in flames years ago.

Keep away from children: Excellent safety advice.

I have a gripe.

I know, that’s nothing new, right? But humour me. Also, the saying “that really gives me the gripes” is rooted in slang for sharp intestinal pain usually associated with irritable bowel syndrome. I know this because we looked it up at my first real newspaper job. My boss said it often and it soon rubbed off on the rest of us. Once we whipped out the dictionary though, there was a noticeable decline in the frequency of its use. So up there when I said that I had a gripe, I meant the figurative gripe. Because apparently revealing information about your bowel movements to strangers is off putting. Go figure.

Anyway, I was lost in my own thoughts today when I realised that I had been quietly engaged about something for a good few weeks now. I figured I should probably turn it into a professional showcase of my skills (ahahahahaha haha hah… professional) before I incoherently ramble it to a stranger at the pub or, failing that, it emulsifies itself into a burning ulcer of repressed anger in the pit of my stomach.

In my head, big ideas were brewing. I was thinking I could do some kind of regular themed posts about me complaining and call it something along the lines of “yeah but why?” or “things that shit me to tears”. I mean, I could launch a segment based purely on ranting, but that would require me to then create content that isn’t based on my dissatisfaction with something and that’s basically all I’ve got.

Maybe I should just revive my “yeah nah; nah yeah” segments, because then that at least forces me to find something vaguely positive out of a rancid onion of a situation.

But before I make any big decisions, I might just launch into “what shits me to tears” for the moment. And that thing, currently, is this idea that women want to have soft feet.

There are all these ads in women’s magazines and infomercials about pumice stone innovations that marry traditional methods with technological advances to give people foot skin like a baby’s bottom. They try to convince you to scrub off years of built-up, tough skin just so you can caress your heels without starting a friction fire. Sure it feels nice, but it’s bloody bullshit.

Because unless you’re living the kind of hippie luxe existence those moisturiser ads would have us believe Jennifer Anniston is living, you can’t really get by without wearing shoes. Because you are not Jennifer Anniston; there will be times when you have to use a dank public toilet with unexplained puddles. There will be times when you need to leg it across hot bitumen to get to the bottle-o. And you’re never going to escape traipsing over a batch of bindis. You’re going to need to wear shoes at some point of your life.

And if you’ve got baby arse skin on your feet, those shoes are going to give you hectic bloody blisters. “Bloody” is not me proving to you how Aussie I am with stereotypical slang (well not in this instance, but please note how Australian I am every other time I’ve inserted local lingo into my pieces because boganism is trending still and I need to build up a fan base). Your blisters would bleed.

Maybe this is just me waving the feminist flag again (it is a pale pink and has Zena the Warrior Princess complete with breast plates emblazoned on it) but there’s this weird idea that women should have perfectly smooth feet, when there’s no similar call to men. I find this odd, because women are also supposed to be way more obsessed with shoes than men (I do enjoy snazzy footwear but that’s not the point here). And the kind of shoes women are supposed to go bonkers over often give you fuck off blisters.

That tough, crackling skin we’re supposed to get rid of is exactly the kind of skin that should protect your feet from blisters. And it’s a beautiful thing. Because the foot has built up a harsh outer shell as a result of exposure to the outside world as a protective mechanism so you don’t get slowed down by bullshit – that’s something we should aim to emulate for our entire beings, not flake off with bits of coral.

My big point? Why isn’t there a buffer than can rough up your feet? That’s what I would go out and buy. Because I don’t really need soft ankles, but I would like to be able to wear a pair of shoes without stashing a pair of socks, emergency thongs and several bandaids in my bag. Innovate a way to apply spot callouses on my feet so I can’t feel the shoes rubbing up against my skin, allowing me to spend more time focusing on burning the patriarchy or perfecting my pumpkin scones. I’d happily part with 20 bucks for that kind of freedom.

And yeah, maybe this rant came from a place of deep frustration over how a simple pair of flats could render me basically immobile and the disgust that came from developing blisters inside my blisters after stepping up my jogging, but I think there’s something in this. I’m not saying I don’t love the feeling of a nice soft foot, but having nice soft feet only work if you’re living some magical existence where you only ever wear thongs, slippers or spend your days barefoot in your spacious home office surrounded by lush gardens.

Otherwise, you end up limping to work in your corporate shoes or resort to wearing your old comfy jazz shoes every day despite the fact their soles are millimetres from having holes ground into them. Of course I’m going with the latter option, but there’s only so long I can pull of the “corporate novelty” look before I start looking like an overly-involved art teacher.

Things need to change.

Originally published in The Clifton Courier, May 3, 2017

I’m mildly concerned about my table manners.

As someone who currently lives in a situation that sees them mostly shovelling food into their face in front of their desk at of or on their couch in front of Come Dine With Me*, I’m rarely tested on my dinning etiquette.

* As you might have guessed by the admission that I often eat alone while watching four losers cook underwhelming meals and humiliate themselves all for the chance of winning 1000 pounds, I don’t have too many friends within an easily visit-able radius. And one of the actual friends I have here also loves that show to the point of expressing interest in hosting our own Come Dine With Me week. Make no mistake, it is an excellent program. I am willing to publicly and loudly put my support behind it. I hope it never ends. 

The other night I was digging into some hummus and, without the standard carrot sticks, crackers or crusty bread to dip into it, I just used my finger. I reasoned that this was the cleanest way to enjoy my favourite form of blended chickpeas, because fingers are a totally carb-free, fat-free, dairy-free and sugar-free means of shovelling hummus into my mouth.

It was abhorrent, but there was no one around to call me on it so I happily continued.

My parents used to be sticklers for table manners in those all important primary school years, but somewhere along the line they stopped rousing on me and my sisters for not using our knives and forks properly.

Perhaps it had something to do with them trying to avoid upset at a table with three girls going through puberty seated around it, or perhaps it had something to do with the ABC news hour syncing up with our dinnertime. Either way, we became a little slack.

It’s not that I don’t know how to wield cutlery appropriately, it’s more that I find myself being a little too casual when it comes to food.

I’m still mocked for that one time in high school when I picked up my slice of carrot by stabbing my longish fingernail into it and raising it to my mouth like my finger was a fleshy fork. That was one time, guys.

However, the other night, I realised that not only am I too casual, but I’m also a little vindictive.

A friend and I split a homemade*, Nutella and strawberry-stuffed doughnut for dessert and things quickly got out of hand.

* It wasn’t “homemade” but “restaurant-made”. I hate how restaurants insist on using this term. Unless the items have been brought over from someone’s house or that kitchen is also a residential dwelling, then anything with the tag “homemade” is a lie. And I know replacing the tag with “this wasn’t mass produced by a commercial supplier who plugs it with nasty preservatives” would be cumbersome, but maybe “made on site” would suffice? 

I knew my friend was lactose intolerant (although that doesn’t stop her eating chocolate, because she’s not a moron) so I naturally claimed the glob of ice cream as mine. And like Mufasa told Simba that everything the light touches belonged to him on The Lion King, I applied that same principle to the melted ice cream. Everything with the sweet, milky liquid coating it was mine for the taking, I reasoned. It didn’t want her falling ill from eating dairy, after all. I was just being a good friend.

So I savagely claimed what I told myself was mine, hacking at that deep fried delight like it was the faceless serial killer I sometimes imagine myself beating the crap out of when I need to apply more vigour to my jogs*. It was an absolute frenzy. Luckily, Nutella is too thick to fly at my face like blood, because otherwise I would have been covered in it.

* This is not a clinically tested truth, but imagining you’re stoping an attack with your sheer ire at the patriarchy does wonders for one’s physical output. Sometimes I’m wearing out-of-character combat-style gear, sometimes I’m kneeing a bastard in the face, other times I’m being straight out savage. My weapon of choice is usually a torn Sunkist can that I use as bad-arse flaying device to teach big jerks a lesson without killing them. I like to imagine emergency staff praising me while I shake it off. I’m kind of like a female Bruce Willis type person in these visions – I’m not out to be a hero, I’m just at the right place and the right time with just the right amount of fury and moral inclination to do the right thing. Long winded, yes, but I promise you this makes you run faster. Or at least feel as if you’re running faster. Perhaps I may conduct an experiment on myself.  

Not a particularly dignified way to conduct oneself.

But even though I may have been conquering that doughnut like a modern-day Alexander the Great, so too was my friend. Neither of us had the sense to cut the doughnut in half before tucking in. As such, there were no clear boundaries, so technically we were not invading each other’s territories.

She was staking her claim on the Nutella-soaked parts of the dessert, as I found the choclatey goo a little too much.

And while this meant she seized the last morsel of doughnut, I directed my assault on capturing the last of the melted ice cream and scraping up the decorative chocolate drizzle.

We both won, but I was in no way honourable in battle.

So what can I learn about from these horrific accounts of poor table manners in a bid to improve my conduct? In the case of the doughnut, the only solution I can think of is not sharing a dessert. In the case of the hummus, I recommend having amble dipping accompaniments on hand at all times.

Buying more bread and eating a whole dessert to myself? I can do that.

Sometimes when I’m in public bathrooms, I worry about the sounds I make.

And I’m not talking about those sounds; although that is a concern of mine, it is entirely another issue altogether.

I’m talking about the sounds I make when I think I’m alone.

Because when you go from the public realm to a more private space, your thought process changes. Once you step into the toilets, something happens. Suddenly you’re not thinking about spreadsheets, coffee filters or manila folders (this is what I imagine working adults think about. Considering I write about viral cat videos for a living, I have no idea what a normal working adult does or thinks about). Instead, your mind interprets the privacy allowed by cubical walls as a cue to go deep down into your subconscious.

Standing up from your desk or stepping away from an overcrowded bar can prompt your brain to think it’s break time and therefore it’s ok to bring up some of its favourite memories. And its favourite memories, it would seem, aren’t the ones about your friends or family or that time you drew a really satisfying G.

No, the memories your brain seems to enjoy putting on repeat again and again like a videotape with a recording of an Olsen twins movie on it at a house of four girls are the cringe-worthy, painful, confronting ones.

You know the memories I’m talking about. They’re the ones that make you really uncomfortable that you are successfully able to repress most of the time by distracting yourself with work or friends or the Instagram feeds of Texan couples who flip houses for a living.

But when you’re in the toilet without your phone, you’re stripped of all those handy diversions. All you have are those blank cubical walls and your infernal memories.

And most of the time I’m off to the water closet (fancy term I know, but I can only use the word “toilet” so many times and even I’m not bogan enough to call it a “bog trough”) my brain decides there’s no need to put a time delay on my thoughts going to air. When I’m in a public situation, my brain is often forward thinking enough to review my reactionary thoughts, decide whether they are appropriate to voice and either allow said thoughts to be verbalised or swallowed down to join the fiery ball of the others burning an ulcer of repressed emotions into my stomach lining. This also applies to sound effects. But when I’m by myself, the crew that handles this job must go out for smoko because unfiltered reactions to the thoughts being projected on the imaginary white sheet in my mind come pouring out.

So with the combined conditions of the recalled cringe material and the shutting down of the sound filter, I find myself audibly gasping, groaning and sassily exhaling. I also have been known to verbalise the comeback I wish I had have said at the time or voice commentary on the past scenario, depending on what past indiscretion is being broadcast in that particular moment.

This is generally fine when I’m at home, because the only person who is around to hear it is usually me and I’ve already won myself over, so hearing that kind of crap doesn’t faze me.

But I when I’m in a place where others might hear me, I worry. Because chances are when I say something weird, someone is going to be taking a dump next to me.

And the trouble is that sometimes I’m so absent minded that I forget to keep track of whether I’ve said anything aloud in the first place.

So maybe I’m thinking about that time I was chatting to a fellow at a bowls day, a couple of schooners in, and was surprised by how young he was. In my mind, he looked to be in his 30s but he was actually younger than me. Instead of swallowing my initial shock and saying something like, “you have a more mature look about you,” I blurted out a horrendous, “geeez you’ve had a rough couple of years”.

That graceful social interaction was almost two years ago, and yet it still prompts a verbal reaction from me when I think about it. Sometimes the noise is akin to the sound you would make when you’ve paid $14.70 for a piece of pie and the waiter places a tiny sliver of a Sara Lee classic apple in front of you; sometimes it sounds like I am gargling my own shame in the back of my throat; and sometimes I let out an involuntary “who says that?!”.

But when I find myself in the cubicle, I worry if I have just thought those sounds/reactions or if I’ve actually whispered them to myself.

And whispering to yourself in the toilet isn’t normal. At best it’s neurotic, and at worse it sounds like you’re muttering incantations in your cubicle during a Moan Myrtle style breakdown.

So to cover up the potential dunny don’t, I employ the same technique for the accidental fart noise. I try to make the same noise again in a bid to make it clear to whoever may or may not be listening that the first noise came from the same source as the second noise and was not a faux pas.

This of course means that I spend most of my time in the ladies’ room breathily humming to myself.

And it’s dawning on me that perhaps this isn’t that great either.

I think I need to invest in some adult-sized nappies or avoid consuming anything within two hours of leaving the house.

Or maybe I should just never leave the house?

Originally published in The Clifton Courier, April 26, 2017

My friends and I are planning on holding our second Fake Hen’s Weekend.

For those of you lucky enough to be past the age where every second friend of yours is having getting married, hens parties aren’t what they used to be.

They used to be trashy nights out during which the bride to be wears flammable accessories and a group of normally-respectable women sip drinks so strong they’re just a notch below metho out of phallic straws. This gaggle of 15 or so sloshy women would drag themselves from bar to bar and ruin every other patron’s night by screaming “sheeeeez gettin’ marrieeeeeeed” into the faces of strangers after demanding they buy the group a round of errotically-named shots.

And while those events are not yet totally extinct, the hens party has evolved over the past decade.

Now, hens parties go for entire weekends. They are destination getaways in small coastal towns or somewhere in hilly wine country. They are three-day events. They tend to involve more antipasto platters. And they tend to steer clear from the trashier aspects of women partying together.

They’re fancy as fuck (even if most of the guests usually aren’t so fancy). Participants expect more, and we’re often so bored in our own mundane existences that they’re also more than willing to shell out more. Standards are high.

It’s true. Someone I know went to a hens party recently where a lass, most unimpressed at the quality of her salami exclaimed, “I know fine meats, and this is NOT fine meat”.

Yep, the cubes of Bega and sliced kabana of our youth is no longer going to cut it.

Perhaps this has something to do with the rise of Instagram and the tendency for everyday nobodies to cultivate carefully-constructed personal brands on social media who don’t want to be shamed by being photographed wearing a cheap polyester pink sash with a fruit tingle in their hand.* Perhaps it’s because females tend to have more disposable income and less family obligations in their late 20s then generations before. Or perhaps it’s because we’ve finally realised how fabulous a big wheel of brie really is.

* Yeah, I’m aware of how long that sentence is. I don’t bloody care. You don’t come to this blog expecting something short, sharp and succinct. It’s not my jam. Even when I “cut a long story short” my stories still end up as long rambling messes. 

Don’t get me wrong, the plastic odes to the male anatomy still make an appearance, but that’s no longer the main event. And at my last hens party, the entire group was sorely disappointed when the stripper was actually trying to be sexy instead of being the Harry Potter impersonator like we actually ordered.  

I can’t speak for every hens party in south east Queensland, but the ones me, my sisters and my friends go to are more like the slumber party marathons we used to have as schoolgirls, only with waaaaay more vodka.

And while we probably do spend far too much on dips than we reasonably should be in this current financial climate (I live in Sydney, so I’m all too aware of the high cost of living), the time we’re forced to spend together is the real drawcard of the hens weekend.

Because when you rent a holiday house with less than a dozen close mates far away from your homes, you don’t have the option of heading after one night. You don’t have the proximity to partners, or other obligations, to distract you. All you can do is spend time with the people around you. And this takes us all back to when we were kids and we could just get ourselves around each other.

This results in way more burps than would be usually projected publicly, mooning strangers off yachts, frank admissions of our most appalling secrets and the overall feeling of being connected to other human beings. And because we are a bunch of gross, over-sharing sickos, me and my little posse bloody love the hens party.

So we’ve started having hens parties when there is no hen. Because we don’t think we should have to wait until someone proposes to one of us to have a three-day slumber party. As lovely as it is when it actually happens, we don’t need a fellow to decide one of us is good enough to marry to get together.

Which is probably a good thing, because if you saw the way we acted on a hens weekend – fake or not – you would see it would take a very special man to marry one of us.