This isn’t an apology like all my usual later Sunday evening posts.

Nope.

I will not apologise for being too hungover to come up with a coherent, witty piece for you. I shall not beg for forgiveness because I’m too tired to sit up and force out a mediocre 500-word ramble.

I’m not going to try to half arse my Sunday post.

Instead, I’m going to view this a preview. It’s not an afterthought, buy a tantalising taster for a piece that could come tomorrow or in two days’ time. Granted, I’ve no clue what my yarn will be about, but that’s not important.

What’s important is that after years of hoping listlessly, the planets finally aligned for me last night. Something magical happened. Souls united. Hearts exploded. The world finally made sense.

I got a photo of the three Colleens from Clifton together.

I have achieved that long-held goal and it was every bit as wonderful as I thought it was going to be. What’s my next goal?

To master needlework. This is important to me.  Years and years ago now I noticed the section in the Clifton Show pavilion competition called “adult needlework” and thought about how fantastic it would be to enter a pornographic cross-stitch in the show. And since then, I’ve fostered this little dream to finally grab life by the balls and create a raunchy scene with a needle and thread.

The thing is that now, after seeing that achieving my goals is possible, I have this fire inside me. It’s the fire of confidence. It’s the fire of determination. It’s the fire of purposeful misinterpretation.

I have about three months to make this happen.

Let’s see what I can do.

I realise that today is a Tuesday.

It’s the day for tacos and treating yourself and, maybe, an alliteration-based excuse for pharmacies to push tinea ointment.

It’s generally not a day when you are gifted with an update on my fabulous cluster fuck of a life.

But I can explain.

You see, I moved over the weekend and I’m still all over the proverbial shop.

I may have most of my worthless possessions in one place now (except of course for an entire house’s worth of stuff that’s still at my parents and my festival kit – an esky and gumboots – sitting under my sister’s house) but that doesn’t have the calming affect I would have liked.

Because I’m living in a room with no built in wardrobes.

Now, I’m aware that’s not a massive deal. A rational person might just have bought wardrobe when while they were in Ikea for FOUR HOURS on Saturday, but you and I both know I’m not that kind of girl.

I’m the kind of girl who still thinks she’s going to take off into the sunset one afternoon following some kind of dramatic but endearing emotional breakdown and follow the coastline home. “Home” in this scenario would not be a place, but a corner of my heart. It will be a journey that will lead to a book that will lead to a Jennifer Lawrence film* and an hour special with Oprah. And I can’t be so Angus and Julia Stone-esque carefree if I’m weighed down with furniture, you know?

Once you buy furniture you lose your Holly Golightly aroma of mystery and adorable waifishness. You’re no longer an eginmatic riddle of a woman, but just another lonely spinster with a stinky old cat.

Nope, you have to remain aloof and rootless.

And this is all well and good when all you wear are little black dresses, but when you’re an op shopper with hoarder tendencies things become a little tricky. There’s no order. There’s nowhere to hang your sequinned top or store your pony jumper. Everything you have is strewn across the floor.

I’m very well aware that my life is a mess but I don’t want this reflected in my décor. I prefer to keep my possessions in order to give me the illusion that my personal affairs are also neat and tidy. Perhaps this kind of diversionary logic is why my life is currently in the state it’s in. Who’s to know?

Having things haphazardly shoved in a corner isn’t just unslightly, but it eats away a my very soul. I think that’s why I haven’t slept very well over the last we nights. The disarray is haunting me. It is destroying me. In fact, if anyone ever tried to torture information out of me, this might be the quickest way to break my spirit and bring about a confession.

So this afternoon I did the best I could to put my blob of clothing into some order. My shirts are folded in a laundry basket under my bed. I have my skirts hanging on a clothes rack. My DVDs are lined up neatly along the wall.

Sure, it’s far from worthy of those homewares magazines they have in doctors’ waiting rooms, but at least it’s vaguely functional. Again, just like my life.

Now all I need is my path-alternating breakdown to inspire my book and then I might be able to afford a wardrobe.

Any day now.

* I say Jennifer Lawrence because I generally like what she’s about, plus I’m hoping that by the time I get around to making a movie about my pathetic life she might be going through a lull and will take on any role to revive her career. I’m also hoping that we become close friends as a result of our collaboration and go on to take awesome holidays together in our 40s.

I have been vindicated.

This rant is a long one so please, do make yourself comfy. There’s a lot of times I could have gone with the “to cut a long story short” option in the piece, but then my yarn would be condensed to a paragraph and much less humiliating for me. And no one wants that.

So please, boil the kettle and find yourself a pillow.

The other day I came home from work, treated myself to a cup of tea and a read a bit of Nigella Express – Nigella Lawson’s book where she details her most half-arsed but lovingly-created recipes for people who don’t want to fuck around cooking for half the night but also don’t want to eat crap. It’s excellent and I’ve been reading it like a novel lately.

Reading Nigella is like curling up with a big bowl of macaroni and cheese with a scented candle burning – it’s just so soothing and comforting. After watching so many of her shows last year, I now hear her voice when I read the delightful blurbs that accompany her recipes. Her words are like my godmother telling me to take care of myself and not in the “eating your greens” and “keep the apartment door locked” kind of way. It’s the kind of “take care of yourself’ that’s about loving yourself and going easy on yourself and being kind to little old you after a hard day. I love reading her justifications for decadence. “I can’t defend my doughnut French toast from a nutritional point of view, certainly,” I imagine her saying in her warm, understanding way, “but know it has to exist”.

Brilliant.

Anyway, I was getting to the tail end of the book when I reached the Christmas drinks recipes. And amongst the gingery fizz and ode to eggnog was something called rouge limonade.

And you want to know what that is?

Red wine and lemonade.

This is huge for me personally.

You see, as a thirsty, tight-arsed uni student, I was one to mix a little lem and red together.

My friend and I would routinely sign up to attend the formal dinners held by our brother college. These dinners were surprisingly swanky (well, Queensland college swanky anyway…) and would see a whole bunch of wine bottles plonked on the tables of guests. Guests like my friend and I who had very little interest in the guest speakers brought in to inspire the leaders of tomorrow. We weren’t there to network or be motivated to become better people. We were there for the wine.

Only, I hated wine. Sure, I could double-fist glasses of champs until the bar tab ran out at balls but that’s only because of the soft-drink-like fizz. And I would smash a goon bag out of necessity, but even then I would attempt to mask the rank taste of bad choices and paint thinner.

White wine tasted like foot vinegar to me. Red wine was like prune-infused brine.

But I loved being drunk. It was one of the closest things I had to a hobby at the time. So I did what I could to mask the taste of the potent reds tempting us at the dinner table. And being a resourceful young woman, I worked with what I had: lemonade.

I mixed the two together and found it more than bearable. It was actually kind of good.

Now, people scoff at this. They think it’s the ultimate white trash. I’m classless. Scum. I have a palate with the sophistication of a five-year-old daycare kid who licks the other children.

I would reason that it tasted good. I tried to explain the merits of a sweeter, more carbonated red. I justified the combo as a way to make a heinous metho-grade red more palatable. I would argue that it was simply sangria without the menacing fruit pieces.

And yet, people continued to scoff.

But now I have been exonerated.

Not only has my drink been legitimised by a world-famous cook, but it even has a name. And fark me, apparently it’s even something they do in country France. Country France. That’s the epitome of quaint. “It’s not chic, but it’s thirst-quenching,” the goddess herself writes. She even agrees that it is a “major help at a party”, a claim which I have plenty of anecdotal evidence to back up.

Suddenly, I feel all my other “laughable” concoctions could be just as authoritative. My onion and bacon swelter, my tiger toast depression cure, heck, even my favourite childhood sandwiches (Maggi two-minute noodles on white bread with lots of butter). And all it seems that all takes to legitimise this is to put it in print.

That’s it, I’m writing my own cookbook.

Welcome to self-aware Sunday.

It’s the day when I am acutely aware of how much time I’ve frittered away and want to be productive while doing the least amount of work possible.

Today’s post come to you from a dark place; a place where I’m hungry, can’t decide what to have for dinner, am trying to save money and only have onion and bacon in the fridge.

I’m pretty sure I’m going to have onion and bacon for dinner but I decided to delay this final decision by being “productive” and answering a bunch of questions Marah Eakin from AV Club asked David Hasselhoff.

Because apparently the best way to boost my self esteem is to compare my answers to The Hoff. Yep, I’m going to try to be more interesting than the guy who sung at the breaking of the Berlin Wall and had a guest appearance in the Spongebob Squarepants movie. Righto mate.

Seriously. Google “David Hasslehoff 11 questions” and it will come up. Compare the answers. Then judge yourself.

But first please forget that I’m having onion and bacon for dinner and imagine me with ripped abs. Please. 

Which movie/TV world would you live in?

Gilmore Girls. I long for a world where the diner food is fabulous and doesn’t make you fat. Where my education involves blue plaid and facing off with Harvard. Where the grandparents are rich. Where journalism is revered. Where everyone listens to alternative indie music. Where coffee is tasty. I want it all.

But honestly I’d just settle for having a Kirk figure in my life. That’s kind of what I’m lacking and it’s making me worry that if I don’t have a Kirk, I could be the Kirk in someone else’s story. That frightens me.

Fave curse word? 

I’ll just go ahead and put it out there that I drop a C-bomb from time to time. Sure, I’m not going to say it in front of my mother if I can help it, but I will employ such verbal weaponry from time. I don’t know why it should be a word that only the menfolk should use and women should shun.

I just hate when guys are like all “this girl just said the C word”. I don’t care if this impresses them or disgusts them. Yes. I’m a woman. Who swears. I also drink beer and bake cakes and farking just sit down mate.

Ever been given shitty advice?

I actually can’t think of any bad advice I’ve been given right now. But some good advice I once received was from my former editor: never use the word “got”. There are so many other more specific words available to use instead.

I mean, I often use it in copy now because it’s in line with my conversational writing style but it makes for a good personal challenge. I feel like it keeps you sharp. Honestly, try not to use the word “got” for a day. See how much more aware it makes you of your use of language.

Another challenging on to try is cutting out all “like”s. Lena Dunham’s English teacher gave her the challenge and look where she is now. She once had Donald bloody Glover play her love interest, for crying out loud. Obviously, I’m terrible at this challenge too, but give it a crack. Even for an hour.

If by some miracle you both got into med school and finished med school, what sort of doctor would you be?

An OBGYN. Partly because I’ve been watching a lot of The Mindy Project lately, partly because I think I’ve got the dark humour that I think the profession of gynaecology could really use and also because I’d like to be a bit of a women’s health advocate. There’s so much weird shame about vag stuff and sexual health that just shits me to tears.

Like, being responsible about my sexual health is my hobby. Sure, pap smears are uncomfortable and the LAST thing you want to be doing hung over, but you want to know what else is uncomfortable? Being dead because of cervical cancer.

What would the ultimate Sunday involve for you?

It ranges from two ends of the spectrum. On one end would be day drinking, warm sunny weather, a water slide and probably some kind of meat rotisserie over a fire. On the other end of the scale would be a rainy day (and I’d be under a tin roof), multiple episodes of Grand Designs and Midsomer Murders and a batch of pumpkin scones.

I also like knowing that I have lunches ready for the week ahead on a Sunday, so I guess my ideal Sunday would involve someone preparing my lunches for me. And, since this is an ideal world, those lunches would be both delicious and result in the kind of rapid weight loss you could only achieve by investing a poisonous substance. Like, these lunches would make me so skinny people would start to worry about my health. Which is the dream, really: being thin and free compassion.

And since we’re talking ideal, why stop at organised meals? Why not throw in a few cups of tea with David Attenborough and a really powerful interview with the Olsen twins?!

What do you hate? 

People who illegally download shows. Like, why do you expect to get all your content for free without either paying for it or being exposed to ads? Like, does the world owe you this entertainment? Who the shit do you think you are?!

What advice would you give to a young Dannielle? 

Invent Facebook. I really dropped the ball on that one.

The last two bonus questions resulted in the following thoughts:

One: My last three-way phone call was probably in Grade 7. I would have been with my best friend and another girl from school, organising the next sleepover. People don’t really do three-way chats anymore, hey?

Like, that’s actually an excellent call function and people just stopped doing it. I think it’s a really efficient means of communication, especially now that everyone genuinely only has two friends anyway.

Two: I think I’m serious mostly because it fits in with the characters I generally try to model my personality after. Sometimes it’s adult Sam in Now and Then, sometimes it’s Rory from Gilmore Girls and sometimes it’s Meg Ryan in any Nora Ephron movie.

Unfortunately this generally comes across as a bogan Daria Morgendorffer with a people-pleasing complex.

I sit down to write this piece during an interesting moment in history. There’s revolution in the air. A movement is gaining momentum. The tides are turning.

Earlier today I was alerted to a news report by a friend: cob loaves are back, the headline suggested.

Back in fashion. Back in demand. Back on people’s coffee tables.

And I can’t say this extra publicity for the world’s favourite bready dip isn’t welcome. It’s important to spread the word and reach as many people as possible.

But at the same time, the cobloaf has never been out of fashion. It has been a part of my life, and the lives of many of my comrades for decades now.

I don’t write this to say, “I liked them before they were popular”, because that would be untrue. They’ve always been popular.

As a dip that brings people together, a cob is an essential addition to any gathering of people. It’s a vital ingredient to any family get together. Everyone dips from the same bready basket of cheesy wisdom. Its very nature promotes harmony and inclusivity. So, if we’re going to be honest, it’s fair to say that the cob is a crucial element to our very democracy.

Cobloaves have always been there.

And so, to honour this noble dip, I’m going to use this Sunday/Monday post to share my recipe.

What you need:

• A cob loaf – or any large singular bread roll from the bakery
• One large brown onion
• Five of six bacon rashers
• A knob of butter
• Olive oil
• A box of chopped, frozen spinach
• A tub of sour cream
• A tub of cream cheese
• Several reckless handfuls of grated cheese – a mix of mozzarella and tasty Bega will do
• A kind, noble heart

Step 1

Slice the top off the bread loaf – about one third of the way down from the top. You want to be able to fit as much cheesy love gunk as you can in this honeypot, so don’t cut too far down. If you do this, you will bring dishonour to your household.

You also want to keep the top part – think of it like a lid – in one piece. So don’t fuck that up either.

Step 2

Tear out the innards of the bread, as if ripping the gizzards from the gullets of your enemies. Try to tear the pieces into structurally sound, load bearing chunks. They should be thick enough to support the weight of the dip, but not so large that there’s only a handful of pieces.

Make sure you don’t rip too close to the edges –the last thing you want is a breach. Think like a water tank – have heavy duty, thick walls as the base, because that’s where the pressure is.

Step 3

Arrange the pieces of bread on a baking tray and toast them in a medium-heat oven. You can put the hollow loaf and top on a tray too, but I like to spend more time eating cob than I do washing up, so I just chuck the loaf and lid in on the grate.

There’s no hard and fast baking time for this part, because the level of toastiness one prefers for their bread is a deeply personal thing. I would never try to force my own beliefs about bread darkness on anyone. Just keep an eye on your bread and bring it out when it has reached your desired level of golden brown.

Step 4

Dice your whole onion, and cut the bacon into similar-sized chunks.

Step 5

In a medium-sized saucepan, tip a good, Jamie Oliver sized glug of olive oil and throw in the butter. Then pile in the onion and bacon. Sweat this down until the bacon starts to brown and the onion gets slightly crisp.

Step 6

Chuck in that spinach and sire it around until it melts.

Step 7

Dump in the sour cream and cream cheese. Enjoy the satisfaction that comes with being able to get it out of the tub all in one piece – if you can mange it. This feat of perfection and soulful serenity must be savoured. So drink it in. Maybe even light a post-coital cigarette.

Gently stir all the creamy goop together until it becomes one creamy universal force of love.

Step 8

Finish off this saucepan of delight by dumping in your grated cheese. I find that three big handfuls and then a few liberal sprinkles will do the trick.

I will say this, however: go easy on the mozzarella. Probs aim for a ratio of 1:3 with your grated block. If you have too much, the dip will be too stringy and make it difficult to get a clean break from the cob. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but chose your company carefully if you go extra on the mozzarella because some people view wrapping mozzarella around their fingers to break away from the dip as uncouth. Actually, maybe try to avoid these people to being with. They aren’t worthy.

Step 9

Place the hollow, toasty loaf on a serving platter and arrange the bread pieces around it. Tip in the hot, cheesy mess from the saucepan.

Step 10

Eat until you no longer care about the worries of the world and transcend into a cosmic state of peace.

Bonus cob stories:

Cob yarn one: I made a cobloaf last night for a barbecue my housemate was having. There were dips. There were pretzels. There were plain flavoured (my favourite flavour) chips. Fark me, there was even halloumi.

But my addition to the table was by far the most anticipated.

I was queen of the barbecue.

Cob yarn two: On my 23^rd birthday, I was in Armidale and didn’t have too many mates around to celebrate the monumental moment in history when I was born. I also had to work. So I decided to bring the party to my desk in the only way that seemed appropriate: by making a birthday cob, with candles and everything.

I Instagrammed this, because my life is nothing if its not seeking the approval of my peers to justify my misery and reinforce my delusions of wit and relevance. I got 42 likes, which was pretty good for back then. By comparison, my graduation post (featuring my two degrees and a Hungry Jacks crew member of the month certificate) only fetched 40. But please feel free to scroll through my account and give me an extra like. Even though it was nearly three years ago, I could still use the self-esteem boost to lessen the deep emotional scarring from that dark, dank period of my life.

Weirdly, barely anyone wanted to break off the bits of bread and thrust them into my cheesy, oniony, bacony dip. So I ended up with my own personal cobloaf and one heck of a dinner that night.

It was excellent.