Originally published in The Clifton Courier June 18, 2017

This here is a follow on to my previous blog about my tipping debacle. You’ll get to the end of this and chortle at the girlish notion that I would have enough in my word count to obsess over the insult of a tip I accidentally left. Such lofty ambitions from someone who can never cut a long story short! 

I finally found a café in my neighbourhood that I quite like, but I can never go back there again.

Despite how much I complain about Sydney (I often refer to is as Stinktown) some friends of mine decided they would pay actual money and take time out of their lives to come see it. For fun.

This makes me feel quite heartened about the quality of my company, considering these people decided it was worth willingly venturing into Sydney to indulge in it (I mean, there was also some light festival happening but I have enough deluded self worth to assume that I am at least on par with seeing the Opera House in multi-colour).

Before my visitors left for Queensland, I decided to take them to a newly refurbished café in my area for breakfast.

And while it was a little louder than a slightly seedy Sunday head would opt for, it was a nice joint*. But I don’t think I will ever be able to go back there unless I wear a wig.

* I can’t use the word “joint” in reference for “place” without thinking of the classy broad of a mother in Matilda. Something about finding a comb in the bathroom is one of the best throwaway lines ever and really deserves more recognition. Also, it’s very strange to think of that woman as one of the FPD Bandits in To Grandmother’s House We Go. I know they’re both terrible people, but different terrible, you know?

As always, I have a long, rambling story to explain this. I’ve tried, as my mum would say, “to cut a long story short”, but even when I am trying to cut a long story short it drags on. I was actually going to tell you about two reasons why I can’t go back, but I went on too long about the first one that I went over my extremely liberal word limit.*

* My poor editor has been putting up with my tendency to ramble on so much that he may go into early retirement. While I wouldn’t like the idea of him no longer being my editor, I would hope that he could go into early retirement if he wanted to. Lord knows he deserves it (I say this for many reasons, not just be because I once tried to include the word “sharted” in my column and subsequently explain what such a term meant)

One reason I can’t go back is partly due to the fact that my friends had their suitcases with them; ready to high tail it to the airport. The waitress, making friendly chat, asked where we were off to, and my friend explained that they were about to fly home to Brisbane after visiting for the weekend.

After breakfast, one friend went off to the ladies while the other went up to pay, leaving me alone and exposed to the small talk of the waitress clearing the table.

“Have a great flight, “ she said.

And without thinking, I simply said, “thank you”.

It wasn’t until she was walking away that I realised I had grossly mislead her.  The only hand luggage I had with me was a beaded clutch with a koala face emblazoned on it (it’s probably one of my favourite non-horse or non-swan possessions). The only place I was jetting off to that day was the supermarket. And while I wouldn’t call Sydney “home”, it is my place of residence.

But this lady now thought I was flying back to Brisneyland.

I know that in the grand scheme of things this doesn’t really count as a major deception, but I’m generally quite uncomfortable about lying of any sort.

I’ve just never been able to stomach it. I feel too guilty. Whether it’s the big stuff like committing cheeky tax fraud or something as small as telling Mum I’d eaten my veggies when I hadn’t, I just can’t do it.

Even when it would be easier for me and nicer for everyone else, I can’t lie. For example, if I encounter an ugly baby, I can’t lie and tell the parents it’s cute. I’ll say, “look how alert they are” or “gosh, those little fingers are so tiny”.

I like to think that I’d be able to lie in a life-threatening situation – like the nun who saves Glen Close’s character in Paradise Road by telling a little porky. But even then, I’m not sure how convincing I would be.

But unfortunately in the case of the waitress, I would have to live with the knowledge that I lied to her without making amends.

Because it would have been weird for me to call out to her just to explain to her that I wasn’t actually going anywhere and that I just live around the corner and that I needed her to know this so I didn’t lose myself in a guilt spiral for lying to her. In fact, I might have frightened her.

So now I have to live the lie. I have to pretend that I really did fly back to Brisbane. I can’t show my face at that café again, unless I have a backstory ready to go about why I have returned to Sydney. And I’m not that quick.

So it seems like the best option is to never return. Ever. Or actually move back to Brisbane.

At the beginning of the week, I decided to challenge myself to keep a gratitude diary.

I mean, I didn’t go out and pay actual money for an overpriced book to write down things I’m grateful for in my white middle-class quest for happiness (living without threat of homelessness, political persecution and the complete certainty that I can use public transport without having my ancestral origins called into question clearly isn’t enough for me). For one, I’m too tight. Secondly, I didn’t see a dedicated book purchased entirely for recording my wanky musings as a sound investment.

So I decided to text them to myself – my preferred means of recording my thoughts these days.

This project started last Saturday, when I was on my third day in a row of listening to Madonna’s Like a Prayer on repeat after coming across it while researching an article for work (I love that this counts as legitimate research. One time I said something along the lines of “while I was researching for the Home Alone story…” and I knew I was in a good place in my life). I was on the train, which is where I find myself doing most of my tweeting because I’d rather talk to faceless strangers via the internet than interact with real people who may or may not be concealing a shive made out of a Sunskist can on their persons.

My Tweet read:

I will be forever grateful to Never Been Kissed for familiarising me with Madonna’s Like A Prayer. Forever grateful.

The next day, I posted this Tweet:

Shout out to all the ladies out there who finish washing their face with cold water because of Sabrina’s Secrets.

And upon reflection, I realised I had unwittingly been tweeting my own gratitude journal. Obviously, I was indebted to both Never Been Kissed and Sabrina’s Secrets for the deep, profound impact they had on my life.

Never Been Kissed’s repeated use of the tune made me more than able to belt out the words of the song, which is both powerful and fabulous.

And Sabrina’s Secrets taught me a great deal about washing my face, which, as someone who thankfully managed to get through puberty without major acne scarring, I’m greatly appreciative of. I’m in fact quite indebted to tween magazines as a collective for teaching me all the things that otherwise would have gone unexplained to me. My mother didn’t have a normal teenage experience to draw on to teach me anything about the process of “becoming a woman”. She spent most of that time of her life laying flat on her back using a bedpan thanks to polio and scoliosis and the shockingly primitive medical treatment available at the time (you bet I’m anti anti-vaxxer after hearing about her ordeal). I probably knew the ins and outs (sorry, pun kind of intended) of sex before it even occurred to anyone to explain it to me. I was comfortable using tampons a day into my first period thanks to Dolly Doctor, not to an awkward conversation with my mother. And as a bit of a pregnancy-phobe, the knowledge about the fertility cycle I gleamed from those glossy pages was invaluable.

So, with all this in mind, I decided to continue the declarations of gratitude for the rest of the week in the hopes it might make me less of a misery guts and provide fodder for a blog post. I have achieved at least one of those objectives.

As it turns out, the things I consciously made the effort to feel gratitude for gave a cold, grey insight into the workings of my mind and the life I find myself leading.

Monday

Wednesday’s child is full of woe, but Monday’s tale of gratitude is even more so.

Grateful for: strong elastic in my undies so I can shove my phone in the side like a dollar bill on a stripper in the movies, hidden discretely under my jumper so my housemate doesn’t see it. This means I can smuggle my phone into the bathroom so I can scroll the Instagram while I toilet myself.

Tuesday

I started relying more on dry shampoo than normal shampoo in a bid to not have a wet head during the dark hours of a winter’s day. After using it a few times on the weekend when visiting friends and I were toing and froing without much time to scrub my mane, dry shampoo was the order of the day. And now I can say that it has revolutionised my life.

But that’s not to say the haircare product is a better friend to me than my actual living, breathing friends. That would be a new level of sad even I shake my head over.

Grateful for: dry shampoo, which has been there for me in the past few days like no one else could be.

Grateful for: Having not pooed myself last night even though in a half-dream-half-awake state I was adamant that I soiled myself and had caked up in my undies like an algae mask I had seen earlier that day. 

Wednesday

I wrote this on Thursday, when I’d realised I’d neglected this little challenge. So I had to think about what I was grateful for retrospectively. I decided that given Monday saw one gratitude confession, and Tuesday saw two, I would increase the number of things I had to be grateful for as the days of the week progressed. It seemed to be in line with the wankery of this challenge and seemed like an appropriate punishment for forgetting to be grateful. Bad Dannielle.

I think both the time when I complied this list and the mundane items it contained indicate how seriously I took this challenge, and how meaningful it was for me.

Geeez. Ummmm. Yesterday I was grateful for a Queensland win.

I was grateful for my housemate being out while I watched it because there was no one around to judge me for the way I was inappropriately perched on the lounge room furniture.

I was also grateful to Past Dannielle for taking advantage of the three for five dollar protein ball deal at Boost Juice and being kind enough not to demolish all those probs-not-that-healthy treats so I could eat one when I got home.

Thursday

I really don’t have much to say for myself other than the fact that I was tired. Hence my dinner choice.

Today I was grateful for:

Tea.

Avocados.

Toasters.

The fact that we don’t have to say aubigines or corrgettes in Australia when “zucc” and “eggplant” does the job.

Carpet.

Obviously, I wrote this list quite quickly while watching a cooking show while I ate avo toast and tea for dinner.

Friday

My last day of the challenge. As you can plainly tell.

Today I was grateful for in-app ordering for my Mexican Friday treat. I like to go all out for Tuckshop Fridays, so it’s nice that I don’t have to stipulate all my extras and vaguely healthy additions verbally to another person. I like the privacy in-app ordering allows. It’s like a secret between me and the conveyor belt of people who chucked various items in my box. No one can see what’s inside once that lid is closed.

I’m grateful for water.

I’m grateful for washing machines.

I’m grateful that many UK residents want to escape to the country and are happy to share their house hunt with the rest of the world.

I’m grateful for skin, which keeps everything in. Honestly, think about how difficult life would be without it. You’d be forever getting your tendons caught on branches.

I’m grateful for kettles. They’re pretty good, aren’t they?

Look, I don’t really feel that my insides have changed that much with a week of forcing myself to nominate things I’m appreciative of. I’m still the sullen, cynical person I was at the start of the week. But at least I didn’t have to think too much about a blog post for today.

And I’m bloody grateful for that.

Originally published in The Clifton Courier, June 14, 2017

I think I’m being watched.

I’m not implying that I am important enough to warrant a full Secret Service style surveillance situation, but maybe I am. Because the past few days have brought some creepy incidents that really feed my delusion that everybody is paying attention to me.

The first one came through the week, when I received a notification from online the platform I run my blog* through that a hens party business had started following me. Apparently I write so much about women partying together that this event-planning-meets-male-stripper-booking-agency deemed me a prime candidate to target.

* In print, this led to a cheeky link to this blog. Considering you are already on this website, reading said blog, including that link seemed a little redundant. 

Thanks to highly-sophisticated algorithms, my online activity and the content of my social media posts can be interpreted, analysed and packaged up for internet platforms to target with specific marketing material and public relations strategies. Clearly “hens party”, “sparkling wine” and “mooning people off a yacht” were keywords that attracted the attention of this party-planning business.

It’s not something I actually mind that much, because it means the ad spots in my social media feeds and the websites I visit are filled with relevant advertisements for me instead of marketing things like investment opportunities and real estate, which would be a waste of the client’s money and a sad reminder for me of how far off I am from owning property.

But in the case of this bachelorette party firm, I feel the data has failed them, considering I’ve written a few times about how much me and my posse would prefer a legit Harry Potter impersonator to a cringe-worthy striptease.

This is just an example of online marketing, and given how much I overshare online, I’m surprised I don’t get more targeted ads for things like novelty-shaped chicken nuggets you can buy in bulk or witty tote bags.

But then something happened the other night that suggested I was being bugged.

I got home on a Friday feeling particularly exhausted after the working week and did what any 25-year-old would do on a Friday night: turn on Antiques Roadshow and pour myself a stiff cup of tea.

As I was settling in to weigh up whether a woman’s collection of tiny, handcrafted wooden shoes would be worth anything (spoiler alert: they weren’t, but the sentimental value was in the seven-figure mark) I received a notification on my phone. Apparently an antique collectible account had just followed me on Twitter.

Coincidence? Yeah, probably. And considering I post a lot of updates about my deep love of trashy television from the UK, it wouldn’t have been that much of a stretch for anyone to assume I would enjoy that particular account.

But I must admit, I did consider closing the blinds and thanked all things holy that I was wearing pants.

Then this morning I was sitting in the park after a particularly stroppy jog. My form was terrible, and my huffing and puffing left few guessing at my level of fitness. And despite the cool weather I was exceedingly sweaty thanks to the overzealously warm jumper I had chosen to be active in that morning.

While I didn’t see my reflection in a mirror, I’m assuming I would have looked like death after that minuscule exertion.

As I sat sipping tea, a message came through on my phone: it was a text promoting a home-visit doctor service.

Yep, someone is definitely following me.

Sorry for being so boring, whoever you are.

* Also, for once there isn’t an actual swan reference in this story so I can understand any confusion over the title. I just really felt the need for a Billy Madison quote. Ever feel that way?

That “be careful what you wish for” saying is so darn true.

This morning I was out to breakfast with some friends who were kind enough to visit me here in the old Steak and Kid, and we were talking about our plans for the rest of the day once we parted ways.

I was telling them that I had to write my column for the week, and how I didn’t have a topic yet. I had planned on having another one of smutty rants that I subject the good people of Clifton to ready to go earlier in the week, but that clearly didn’t happen. Don’t ask me what I did with my spare time all week – partly because I can’t remember and partly because I don’t like being made aware of exactly how many hours of home reno shows I watch in a week.

I was explaining to them that I had nothing to write about, secretly wishing that I had done something significantly awkward or embarrassing that week because those columns basically write themselves. All I needed was a nice uncomfortable moment to over-analyse and I would be home free.

Then I went up to pay for my breakfast.

I used my debit card and I mindlessly started punching in my pin number when I realised that there was an option to tip electronically via the eftpos machine, which I accidentally hadn’t skipped.

And instead of entering my pin, I was entering the amount that I was opting to tip.

I know this makes me sound like a tightarse but tipping isn’t something I really do. We have a minimum hourly rate for hospitality workers in Australia so they don’t have to rely on tips to pay their bills like their peers in the US. Culturally, it’s just not Australia’s thing, nor is it mine.

I prefer to simply ignore the tip jar that is glaring at me in cafes, pretending the option to tip doesn’t exist.

But with this eftpos tipping option, you can’t ignore the problem. You have to actively decline tipping, rather than playing dumb. You have to say “no I don’t want to give you extra money even though you have to be polite to people you don’t like and stand up and smile all the time”.

So once you select the tipping option – knowingly or not – you can’t really back out of it. Asking the bloke behind the counter “hey mate, can you please fix this so I don’t have to reward you for your service?” would be a bit uncomfortable.

I was thinking this as I was at the pay station. I didn’t want to tip, but I couldn’t back out now.

I’d already entered the first two digits of my pin, which made up the cent value of this tip I’d supposedly elected to give. A third digit would have pushed my “optional tip” into the dollar range. A fourth digit would have put it into the tens of dollars. And yes, I’m aware of how poor the phrase “tens of dollars” makes me sound, but if the worn-out, dirty shoe fits, wear it… because you can’t afford new ones.

Unhappily, my pin starts with a number greater than five and didn’t really want to part with a pink (a non-existent slang term for a five dollar note I stole from Grease when they say they’re “racing for pinks”). I prefer to spend that kind of money on hummus. Or extra guac. Or extra strong teabags. Basically anything unnecessary that doesn’t involve helping out another person. I especially didn’t want to part with a precious pink considering the tip would have gone into the café’s bank account instead of a jar of cash that is divvied up fairly among staff at the end of the day.

But then tipping for less than a dollar isn’t a great option either. That’s not a tip, that’s an insult. That’s like making someone a toasted cheese sandwich and using it to wipe the sink before you give it to them.

It’s really worse than not tipping at all.

I really should have parted with my few bucks in order to keep face, look like a nice person and not cheese off someone who would be handling my food. Because no matter how important and untouchable you think you are, you have to trust the people dealing with the stuff you put into your body. I’m not saying that a good, honest hospitality worker would do a bush hanky into your breakfast, but you want to keep them on side. Those guys hold a lot of power.

So if I wanted to go back to that cafe, and I did, I didn’t want to return to a bunch of of people I’ve slighted. But in a moment of panic, I hit the enter button and my minuscule slap in the face tip went through.

So I had to leave. Immediately.

Now I can’t go back to this breakfast spot, because I would probably deserve someone shaking their dandruff into my porridge.

But at least I got something to write about.*

So that’s a win, right?

*In fact, I got two things. There was another thing about that breakfast that I was able to obsess over enough to fill out my column word limit. So an hour breakfast turned into two write ups. The first one will be in The Clifton Courier on Wednesday, if you’re keen. 

Originally published in The Clifton Courier, June 7, 2017

I had a very emotional day last week.

It was a Monday. It was cold. I hadn’t found $400 on the ground on my way to work. So it was already not the best day.

But then it came to lunchtime, and things took a turn for the worst. I looked in the fridge for the container I’d placed there earlier that morning. It wasn’t there. I looked again. I looked in the other fridge. And then I saw the washing up pile, and noticed my container sitting there, empty.

I knew it was my container because there were traces of my lunch remaining. A scraping of hummus. A spec of spinach. The oil from my roasted sweet potato.

Then it hit me: my lunch was gone.

Look, logic tells me was probably an accident. I highly doubt my container was maliciously emptied because I like to think humanity isn’t capable of that level of evil.

But that didn’t change the fact that my lunch was no more.

I went downstairs to the food court under my building and walked around in a daze.

I was lost. I was broken. I was empty – literally, I’m not sure how long it takes the human stomach to send food on its way down the digestive tract, but as I’d had breakfast at 6am and it was now 2pm, I’d be willing to wager there wasn’t much left in the tank.

My building is circular, so I was actually walking in circles at that point. I almost started to cry. I considered calling Mum.

Knowing nothing the takeaway food outlets surrounding me could replace what was lost, I ended up buying some protein balls and slumped back to my desk in defeat.

“You hear of these things happening to other people,” I actually heard myself saying afterwards, “but you never it expect it to happen to you.”

Dramatic? Sure.

Trite? That’s generally who I am.

Insulting to people who have actual real problems? Probably.

But I was hungry. Show me one person who doesn’t get melodramatic, devoid of original thought or slightly offensive when they’re hungry, and you’ll show me a liar. I didn’t have the fuel to power brain to be aware of how much of a stain I was.

So, what’s the moral of this story? Maybe there isn’t one. Sometimes things don’t have a rhyme or reason.

But I’m determined to take something away from this, because I can’t accept that fact that I lost my lunch AND missed out on a life lesson.

So here is what I’ve learned. I held it together. I didn’t call Mum sobbing… unlike I did that time I was hit by a magpie. I didn’t even let one single tear drop from my eyes. I didn’t snap. And I carried on.

I also got a column out of it, so in a way I really should thank whoever was behind this.

Whoever you are, know that you’re forgiven.

I took myself out for breakfast the other day, and spent the whole time texting.

And no, I wasn’t texting a bunch of flakey friends who weren’t turning up or a steamy love interest. I was texting myself.

Since I am a woman and have an ABN, I am technically a businesswoman. And I decided to do what businesswomen do: have a working breakfast. They get things done while breaking the fast. They order coffees and set up their laptops and wear power suits with badarse nonchalance.

So I decided to be one of those women.

Unfortunately I was without a laptop. I had no manila folders. I was wearing my workout gear instead of a tailored blazer. And I also can’t handle coffee (last time I had it, it gave me the actual jitters – it was just before I was about to hop on a plane too, and looking skittish at an airport tends to make security staff think you’re smuggling things in your butt).

But I was determined to make this a “work thing”. Not only because it took away the awkwardness that for some reason seems to be attached around a person eating alone, but because I’ve become a fiend for wanting to get tax write offs. I’m a very by the book person, so I’m going to go to an actual media accountant this year and see what I can claw back from the government. I have a fairly limited understanding of the federal tax system, but in my head, things I write about can also be write-offs. By that logic, if I were to write about my breakfast, I could write it off.

So I preceded to text myself – something that I find actually quite useful for stringing together blog posts and columns when I have jack shit to write about. So here are the messages I sent myself:

I have just finished a jog and promptly celebrated by taking myself out to a nice breakfast at the fancier of the cafes at the park.

And I feel like everyone knows my hoodie was bought as part of a costume for a hen’s party sports day (that, admittedly never happened because we were all too hungover to move and ended up getting tie dyed shirts at the markets instead)

I wonder if I would have felt different if I had have worn my UQ hoodie – because despite how scummy I may be, at least people would know that I at least went to a university long enough to purchase branded goods.

Also, I would like to point out that I am currently wearing Lorna Jane running shorts. If that doesn’t qualify me to turn up to fancy cafes to spend far too much money on granola and green drinks, I really don’t know what will.

And yes, I know have been a bit anti-active-wear-with-inspirational-slogans in the past, but my college merch ruggers had been worn down so much that there were holes big enough to shove a newborn piglet through on the inner thighs. I wanted to keep running to achieve what a dear friend of mine of would call a “fergilicious” bod, so I had to invest in other shorts.

And maybe I’ve been in NSW too long but ever since I read Lorna was all “fuck everyone, I’m keepin’ my office in Brisbane and you can all go to buggery” (NOTE: that’s how I imagined it going down, so it could have possibly been a slightly less bogan statement), I’ve warmed to her a little bit.

I have a newfound respect for someone who chooses industrial Brisbane over the wankery of Sydney. I mean, I’ll still continue wearing the free shirts I got from bars while I exercise, but she’s alright hey.

Back to breakfast. I just finished my granola which for some reason came with a panacotta – in case you didn’t already know this place was fancy as fuck.

This is where my texts to myself stopped, because I became too distracted by Instagram.

I had taken a photo of my meal after I used the leftover milk from my pot of tea to pour on my granola. I am trying to take more photos to use as visual aids to explain my life to my parents, plus I also thought I could make a good Insty post about it. My caption would have read something along the lines of: “another positive of enjoying my tea as dark as my soul is being able to use your leftover milk for oat soaking purposes”.

However, I didn’t want to give this place the satisfaction of knowing that I’d grammed their food, so instead I posted something about a bunch of geese I nearly ran into.

After I’d posted the geese photos (it was actually a very moving series of images that told an emotive story using carefully-planned compositions), I became acutely aware of how much of this meal I had spent on my phone. I then became aware how it would have looked like I was extremely uncomfortable dining out by myself and was compensating by texting – or, even worse, pretending to text people. I didn’t want these people to think I cared about what they thought. I wanted them to think I was an independent, self-assured woman who could confidently eat alone if she damned well wanted to.

And yes, I see the irony in wanting people to think that you don’t care what they think and actively modifying your behaviour to give someone the impression that you’re not doing anything to impress them, but that’s just the way it is. And maybe me admitting to it so openly means I really don’t care what people think..?

But I digress, I realised I was texting too much, looked too nervous and then put my phone down to “be mindful” and “take it all in”. At least, that’s what I hoped it looked like I was doing.

Anyway.

Long story short is that I asked for the receipt upon paying and plan on taking it to my accountant, arguing that it was a work expense and subtracting the cost of my douchey muesli from my financial contribution to building this country.

Originally published in The Clifton Courier, May 31, 2017

I’m facing another State of Origin in New South Wales, and I’m not sure how I feel about it.

I don’t have my father’s selection of Maroons supporter jerseys from various decades to steal from this year, so I’m going to have to make do with the lint-covered XXXX Gold promotional t-shirt I snagged from the uni bar a couple of a years ago. I wear it while jogging in Sydney because I like to think it will attract other Queenslanders for me to be friends with, like a sweat-soaked flame for all the tastefully bogan moths out there who have found themselves far from the motherland. So far I’ve yet to have anyone stop to invite me around to sink a few tinnies with them; but maintain hope.*

* We don’t have to smash the beers – I’d settle for a post-jog smashed avo or even a nice cob loaf which, by the way, is apparently something people in Sydney have never experienced. I’m basing this huge generalisation on the fact that a handful of people at work didn’t know what a cob loaf was when I brought it up in conversation. As someone who once brought themselves a personal full-sized cob loaf to work for her birthday lunch, this was hard to stomach. I pity you, Sydney. I really do.

I usually relish the idea of being the unruly obnoxious Queenslander in a bunch of sore loser southerners, but my experience over the weekend has given me qualms.

I went to watch the Queensland Firebirds play the NSW Swifts, which was it’s own State of Origin clash with less obscenities hurled from the crowd.

Being in New South Wales, I found myself surrounded by far more Swifts fans than Firebirds fanatics. And by this I mean, there were about five other people who weren’t part of the Firebirds support team in the stadium backing the birdies.

I was outnumbered.

The last netball match I went to was in Brisbane, where people were a step below painting their entire bodies in team colours. There’s a lot of Queensland spirit at those games, and it’s intoxicating. You cheered as one, making you feel that you aren’t totally alone in this cold, cruel world.

But in enemy territory, I didn’t get the same vibe.

Wearing the conveniently correct shade of maroonish purple in a sea of blue and red, it was clear I was not going to use the hashtag #letsgoswifts in any of my social media posts that night.

My solitary applause when the Queenslanders sunk goals (a cheeky 19 more than the home team, might I smugly add) practically echoed.

And while I wasn’t likely to be punched as a result of obnoxious banter, I kept a lid on it to avoid piercing glare from a netball mum – something tells me I don’t want to get on the wrong side of a netball mum.*

* They take no shit. They have strong limbs. And they often have whistles. 

It was kind of intimidating.

My questionably loud choices of bold, high-waisted pants from op shops would suggest I have an unquenchable thirst for attention – partly true – but there’s a difference between being an insufferable show pony and sticking out like a sore thumb. Because no one likes a sore thumb; they make grabbing things painful and arduous.

And in this case, I wasn’t just a sore thumb, but a thumb with crusty scabs where the nail used to be. I really stuck out. Because, for a while there, either side of me was an empty seat.

It would have looked as if the people to my left and right could smell the Queensland on me, and moved away to get away from the dank, meaty scent* emitting from my pores.

* That’s the smell of success, sunshine and wet sorghum.

Again, usually I would love this – especially because I really value my personal space. Yet I found it uncomfortable. I felt exposed. I was in the wrong state, but I was also in the wrong headspace.

But tonight I’m not going to be intimidated.

I’m going to yell about how “togs” is a much better term for swimwear than “cozzies”. I’m going to scream about the stupidity of Daylight Savings. And you better believe I’m going to rant about how much better it is to live in a state where you don’t have to pay for an ambulance in an emergency.*

Because I would gladly cop the half-rate chimes from a bunch of drongos in sky blue jerseys and cobalt wigs over the icy glare of a netball mum any day.

* Yeah, I ended up having a head banger (which is a slang term for “headache” I made up today which I think it really going to catch on) and was asleep in bed with a wheat pack by 8pm. There’s always next game, right?

I have several apologies to make.

My first is for not posting yesterday. I broke my strictly self-imposed Sunday posting schedule thanks to a very slightly delayed flight from Darwin (where, yes, I did eat crocodile schnitzel). I used this minute change to justify my decision to indulge in bran and milk rather than fulfil my personal obligations.

My second is for the late hour of this post. I am well aware that it is well past 9pm.

My third apology is for my actual apology, which is implied in he rambling rubbish below.

But I’ve got a thumper of a headache at the moment, so I can’t really be expected to make much sense.

It feels like someone has somehow managed to get their foot inside my skull and is jamming their great, dirty big toe out of my left eye socket.

I realise that this must read quite graphic, but I want to be precise here. I want my readers to have an acute understanding as to why I haven’t prepared a long, rambling piece for them like the luscious duck lasagna Jamie Oliver had done on one particularly indulgent episode of Comfort Food.

Instead, you bloody kids are getting microwaved fish fingers and you’ll be jolly lucky to have it, too.

Yep, this is a literary fish finger, sodden and limp from the lazy manner in which it was prepared, which only accentuates its lack of substance.

But while that must make me the woman who wears visors with a perm as she ducks out for bingo, I have to accept that. Unfortunately I chose neither books, looks or am married to Danny DeVito.

Do you see what’s happening here? Did anyone else predict the reference to Matilda coming at the start of this post? Because I sure as shit did not.

I’m merely pressing buttons because I like the way they sound when my rhythm is fast and because it makes me feel productive enough to warrant the second cup of tea I’m already planning to have as I upload this to the internet with tepid triumph. My victory party will, I can already tell, climax with my jotting down in my diary a note about having made this little written contribution to a world that doesn’t much care for it. I will highlight it in orange and feel the unfounded sense of superiority I have come to crave shoot around my major and minor arteries until it makes complete a full loop around my circulatory system and returns to my heart as the cold reminder of the dull, damp dishcloth that is my life. Then I will be free to shut off the lights and wait until sleep comes for me like a merciful angel.

Sometimes people think I am dramatic and pitifully angsty, but I don’t see that.

Update on the headache sitch? Staring at a computer screen, surprisingly, did nothing to help. In fact, it now feels as if the metaphorical little toes need a serious pedicure as they imaginarily scratch at the hollow of my forehead. And while I shouldn’t be able to tell, in my mind (which is were they are anyway), they are yellowed and flaky.

Now my ear hurts.

Clearly, I need to hit the proverbial hay.

Sorry guys. So much sorry.