Originally published by The Clifton Courier, October 14, 2020

Look, this is going to sound very pessimistic, but sometimes the routines of daily life can be quite astoundingly pointless. 

I’m generally a bit of a pessimist even though the course of my life hasn’t given me much cause to be. But even though I can be a Negative Nancy, that doesn’t mean I’m not cheery. Or chirpy. In fact, sometimes I get the impression from the visible wincing of those within a shouting radius of me that sometimes I might be just a tiny bit too chirpy at times. What I’m trying to say is, don’t read too much into that opening line. I get a great deal of joy from sunsets and giggling babies and daises and kookaburras and all that jazz.

But sometimes, I notice a Sisyphus-like pattern in my life. 

Sisyphus was a king who, based on my very basic research on Google, I think was carrying on like a bit of douchebag. As punishment for his douchey ways, he was forced by Zeus to roll an “immense” boulder up a hill which, crushingly, would roll back down again when it neared the top. And then he’d have to push it up again. And on and on and on it would go forever and ever. Eternal toil and futility. And, according to one source, this hill was located in Hades. I know from Bring It On that Hades is not a place you want to end up (and you could end up there if you committed the mortal sin of dropping the Spirit Stick*, which you should never, ever do). So I imagine it wasn’t one of those places where you could take in the scenery or enjoy the fresh air while labouring without purpose. I imagine it would have been pretty unpleasant. 

* Look, I tried to find a video clip of the Spirit Stick scene to link out to, but it appears the movie is too old to have been on YouTube. Concerning, I know.

I feel like that fellow when I look in my fridge or pantry – however, I think it must be said that my housemates and I have created a living environment that is at the very least better than a joyless dungeon for souls.

Because I’m looking at my food storage areas and either thinking “geez, I need to clear some bloody space in here” or “gosh, I better get more stuff to put in here”. Like, I stock up on more food only to feel as though I need to get rid of it. And I only get rid of stuff so I can put more stuff in its place.

My immense boulder comes in the form of a jar of oil that goats cheese was soaking in. Or a lump of pumpkin. Or half a bag of Brussles sprouts. Or a jar of horseradish cream I bought to spice up a Rueben sandwich I had a real hankering for on day, only to realise that it was awful (I’d put far too much on the sanga and it felt as though horseradish cream gas was leaking out my nose and eyes… I would not recommend replicating this sensation).

I see those things in the fridge every day, taking up precious space. 

I want to clear that space so badly. I want to reclaim it. But then, I think to myself, what would I do if I saw my shelf in the fridge bare? Would it be comforting? Or would the sight of a wide-open shelf compel me to fill it?

The answer is obviously yes. 

So where does it end?

I mean, I’m reaching for a perfect level of refrigerator fullness, but the nature of man means that can never be a permanent state. It isn’t an attainable end goal. Because the circle of life forbids it. My human body will inevitably get hungry and consume some of the food inside, thus depleting the stock. And even if my mortal flesh doesn’t cry out of sustenance (or, in the much more likely event, I sustain myself with impulse takeaway buys which I reheat for days and days on end) the food will eventually rot and start leaching mystery juices that need to be cleared away. 

Refrigerator perfection is a fleeting moment in time you can experience but not hold on to, like a sunset or a baby’s giggle or a blooming daisy or the laugh of a kookaburra.

Just like sunsets settle into nighttime, babies grow up into sullen teenagers, daisies wilt and kookaburras bugger off into the open sky, the perfect level of refrigerator fullness doesn’t last forever.

And, yet, I keep striving for those brief moments of perfect balance. 

I suppose that’s what life is all about: savouring the good things while you can, wherever you can find them. Knowing those good things don’t last forever makes them even more precious, I suppose.  

And if you’d like to savour the delights of a barely-used jar of horseradish cream, you know exactly where to find one.

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, September 30, 2020

I had a very annoying day the other day. 

It started out fabulously. It was a Saturday, the sun was shining, and I’d had carrot cake for breakfast. 

After breakfast I was supposed to go watch a game of footy. Now, I’m not one who really knows the rules of AFL all that well, despite having had One Of Them in the family for more than a decade. But I do really enjoy watching live community sports. 

You get yourself a few stubbies, you spend a nice afternoon in the sunshine and you get to yell like a menace. It’s not so much about knowing the rules; it’s about the vibe of the thing. And the pair I was going along to the match with on this particular day are just dandy. Having a few drinks and shouting with them is a good time.

So I was looking forward to the game.

But some communication failures meant I left breakfast with just half an hour before kick off and only a vague idea of where the game was, which was apparently “at the [insert team name here]’s place”.

Now, I’ve lived in Brisbane a while, but I am far from a local. I still need map apps to get me from A to B, even if I’ve been to A 40 times and I live at B. I didn’t know the oval’s name. I had a general idea of where the suburb was. But without pressing for further details, I searched the team name and eventually came up with a map location. 

I was going to be late, but only by about 10 minutes. So I set off to said location toot sweet*. I even took a toll road**. 

* If you could please pronounce this in your head the same way they say it on Kath and Kim, that would be very noice.

** I don’t use toll roads often, because a lot of the time you only save like five minutes and it costs you like five bucks. But I will resort to them when I’m in a hurry OR if I feel like treating myself to not having to encounter traffic lights like the common folk. Like, sometimes I have a cheeky “you’re worth it” moment while driving an treat myself to a slightly short route. It’s like a luxurious act of self care… which is a little sad, when you think about it.

But when I got there, I noticed a distinct lack of cars. I saw what looked like maintenance works on the field. And it dawned on me that I was at the wrong place. 

Then I saw a message from the third amigo telling me that the game was actually being played at a location 30 minutes from where I was. About the same time, I get a notification about my phone running out of battery. I knew it didn’t have enough juice to get me to the next location. 

So, being exactly nine minutes from my place, I decided to dash home and grab a charger so I could make the journey without my rectangular navigation device dying on me. 

I got home and, knowing I would be quick, I left my phone in the car. After considering leaving the car unlocked, I decided I’d better lock it up for security reasons and ran into the house. After a quick trip to the ladies room, I grabbed my charger and slammed the door shut behind me.

About a millisecond later, I realised that I’d locked my keys in the house. I let out a throaty, frustrated groan that one can only produce when one has no one to blame but oneself for the dumb predicament one found oneself in.

So then I tried to break into the house. 

I tried prying open the easy-to-reach windows. But we keep the windows locked when we’re away in case a robber tries to get in. 

Then I noticed a higher, tighter window was open. Usually the ladder is locked up in case a robber tries to get in, but this time it wasn’t. I figured this was the universe throwing me a bone. 

But it turns out the windows were still too high and tight to crawl into. Which is handy, in case a robber tries to get in.

So I tried reaching into window with a mop handle to unlock another window. But, alas, the security windows are both robber and dingbat-who-locked-her-keys-inside proof.

In the end, all the ladder did was put me at the right height to stare desperately at my keys on the bench. If anything, it felt like the universe mocking me by freeing the ladder.

But then, I figured, at least I learned that someone about my height would find it extremely difficult to break into my house.

And maybe there was some kind of cosmic force stopping me from going to that game for some unknown reason and this might have been the universe’s way of protecting me from some unknown danger. 

So I gave up.

Then, with a desire not to waste the afternoon and a motivation to make it clear to the neighbours that I was not a robber, I decided to mow the lawn instead. 

Actually, perhaps this whole thing was really just the universe telling me the yard was a mess. 

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, September 23, 2020

The other day I bought a strobe light.

I have no idea what prompted me to do it. I vaguely remember the thought crossing my mind at some point. And I have a faint recollection of mentioning them in passing conversation before then. But I don’t remember making a concrete plan to purchase one.

I was sitting in front of my laptop to begin writing this week’s column, I become distracted. 

I’d recently woken up a little dazed from an afternoon nap after a touch of food poisoning that morning. I wasn’t in the right mind frame to be writing something witty about coming within millimetres of literally shitting* the bed. And, if I’m going to be honest, I didn’t really feel like being productive. 

* I obviously didn’t write “shitting” in the newspaper. Rather, I put dashes in the spaces for the second, third and fourth letters so as to not actually use a rude word, but to allude to a rude word. That’s much classier in print. But since we’re in the wild, Wild West of the internet, I thought I’d unleash a little. I mean, I COULD have just written “poring” but the phrase is “shit the bed” and I wanted to honour the saying.

I found myself Googling “strobe lights”, and eventually came across one that was $20 and had free shipping, so I just went ahead and bought the damn thing. 

This will be my second strobe light. 

I was the proud owner of one about 10 years ago, as a loose unit 18-year-old. This was a time when being a being pisswreck* was a personality trait and LMFAO was on every playlist. So you can understand why said strobe light was my most prized possession. It became a huge part of my identity. 

* This one wasn’t as rude a word as “shitting”, but I didn’t want to come off as as crass as I actually am so I dashed that one out for print too.

I’d rock up to house parties with it, along with a box of fruity lexia and punch ingredients to make a concoction in a vat of some description before proudly declaring its tagline: “You can’t even taste the goon” to whoever would listen. Then I’d find some dank shed or room under the house, plug in my strobe and test out the lighting. 

I can still hear that “tick, tick, tick” of cheap electronics blinking the light on and off. 

And far out it was good.

Strobe lights instantly turned what I told my parents was “just a gathering” into a ripsorter of a party. It didn’t matter if it was just a few friends or a backyard of strangers. It was a few 100 watts of magic. 

As someone who loves a dance floor but can’t actually really even dance – if dance is poetry written by the human body, my style is perhaps a little closer to slam poetry than your Henry Lawson variety – a strobe light really suited me. 

It facilitated that uninhibited dancing one can only achieve under the liberty of darkness but had enough flicks of light to make faces at your friends. No matter what you were doing, you felt cool and the visuals were so distorted, it was a case of anything goes. 

You weren’t dancing to look good – thank heavens, because based on the photos that emerged from back in those days, I think it’s fair to say that I spectacularly failed if that was my goal – you were dancing to feel good.

It was more than just a lighting effect, it was freedom.

Sadly, the hallowed strobe’s lifespan was a short one. Like that vivid “tick, tick, tick” sound, there is another sound I can still hear: the crunch of my finger breaking the tubing, forever extinguishing what had so brilliantly lit up all that darkness. 

I haven’t replaced it until now. 

I think it was probably due to laziness rather than any poignant realisation about the crunch sounding the end of an era in my life. My hoodrat days grew danker as the years went on, so an epiphany about maturity definitely didn’t take place.  

In any case, I have been strobe-less for nearly a decade.

And it wasn’t until today that I realised there had been a strobe-light-sized hole in my heart.

Of course, at this point in time, we’re not able to have the same kinds of house parties we threw back then. And, let’s be honest, trying to get that many people together on a Friday night would be well nigh impossible even without a pandemic.  

Also, my housemates are in no way enthused about my new addition to the household. For some reason, they’re against my turning the space under the house into a dance den. They seemed legitimately repulsed by my purchase. 

But there’s nothing stopping me from closing my blinds, blocking off the light under my bedroom door and having my own little dance party. 

Maybe I am having a quarter life crisis. Maybe I’m desperately trying to claw back my rapidly sagging youth. Maybe the $20 strobe light is the millennial version of the middle-aged man’s impulsive red sports car. 

But I don’t care. Strobes are undeniably cool. 

I can’t believe I haven’t done this sooner.