Monthly Archives: May 2022

This one did not, This one made it to print

‘Yeah, nah, I’ve got you on the walkaround!”

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, November 3, 2021

I recently treated myself to a second-hand telephone table. 

It’s a piece of furniture that looks like someone stuck half a bench to an end table. Currently, it sits in the odd space at the top of the stairs between the railing and my bedroom door. It’s a great place to dump things I don’t feel like putting away and there’s a little draw that I encourage my guests to put their written secrets into (I’ve not secured any secrets yet, but I’ll keep trying).

But back in the day, the seat was sat in by someone as they talked on the telephone, which sat on the end table and had one of them oldfangled cords attached.

It conjures up glamorous images of some bombshell billowy-dressing-gown-wearing dame chatting to her beau on her old timey telephone, twirling the cord seductively with her fingers when she likes what she hears and slamming the phone down on the receiver in a fabulous fit of rage when she doesn’t.

But that’s glamourising the past.  

Because my experience with corded telephones was limited to those standard-issue white plastic Testra ones as a greasy, gravy-stained-shirt-wearing pre-teen. And I’d not be cooing down the line to some dreamboat gentleman caller, but giggling madly as my Curly-Haired Friend and I transmitted rude noises to each other by holding the speaker up to various body parts. I don’t think I’ve ever slammed the phone on anyone, so I’m going to have to make up for that by throwing a martini in someone’s face or tossing something expensive into the sea/over a balcony/into an open fireplace. 

And I know I’ve ragged on electric toothbrushes and suggested that reverse cameras are harbingers of humanity’s downfall, but that doesn’t mean I’m anti-invention. I’m glad we’ve improved telephone technology.

When cordless phones came onto the scene, it changed lives. They were chunky and cool and Scream just would not have happened without them. I remember being thrilled that I continue to have my deeply intellectual conversations with said Curly-Haired Friend without my parents overhearing. 

But they still required you to hold the phone to your ear. And even though my Drew-Barrymore-idolising-self still thinks holding a brick-sized phone to your ear while wearing a long-sleeved chunky knit and playing with a knife is the epitome of effortless glamour, I think her character in Scream would have had a much better – and longer – life if she’d been able to go hands free. 

This takes me to the headset, which still had a power career woman vibe I feel you could only pull off if you had a briefcase, a convertible and an assistant to yell at. 

I’m personally thrilled to be living in the age of mobile phones and earbuds, which mean you can talk on the phone without the hassle of actually holding on to said phone like a neanderthal. 

On one hand (that’s a figurative hand, not a literal one because it’s hands-free…) it allows you to be extremely lazy and lay completely flat on the couch as you chat. 

But it also allows you to be the opposite of lazy. Instead of lounging on a telephone table, you can be washing up or hanging clothes on the line or finally clipping your dangerously long toenails while you talk to someone. You can kill two birds with one stone… and then go pick up their lifeless bodies with one in each hand while talking to your mate because your phone is in your pocket.

And this might sound like you’d be distracted because you’re focusing on other things as you chat. But I argue it makes you feel more connected to people because it feels like you’re there actually doing those things with them. There are obviously times for distraction-free, deep conversations, but I feel like most of the real life intimacy comes from the mundane day-to-day stuff. Sometimes you just need to hear someone tinkering in the background to feel like you’re part of their life.

And if you hear your friend chopping something, it sparks a conversation about their dinner that might not have arisen. When you hear someone digging through drawers, you get talking about the thing they’re looking for. When you hear an abrupt squawk and two heavy thuds… you should remind them that all native Australian birds are protected species.  

Standard
This one made it to print

Aller-gee up

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, October 9, 2022

Sometimes I forget that I’m a middle child, but not for long. 

I’m from a squeal (that’s the collective noun I’m going with at the moment) of four sisters. I’m number three in the lineup, but my youngest sister didn’t come along until I was four so I spent a good hunk of my formative younger years as the youngest. Until I was four, I was used to being the baby and based on the adorable ringlets I had at the time, I have to assume I was absolutely doted on until my undeniably much cute little sister came along. So I suppose I’m a middle child with a youngest rising, which I feel like lends to certain attention-seeking personality traits. 

My second-oldest sister has a saying (which I always have to credit her for because otherwise that’s taking the spotlight off her brilliance and don’t want to be responsible for that) about being number two or three in a family of four or more: you have to share everything, even being the middle child. 

This might make it sound like we’re extremely competitive with each other, but we’re actually quite a cooperative sisterhood. And any past tension is now the source of dark but warm-natured jokes. But it has manifested in me personally in ways which, by now, would be quite obvious. 

I mean, I’m no psychologist but I reckon producing a 700-word column about my thoughts each week is at least partly fuelled by a desire for attention. The bright colours and bold waistlines that make up my wardrobe scream at people to look at me. And I have the loudest sneeze out of anyone I’ve ever known. 

But there are other things that pop up that make me think “oh yeah, I’m very a middle child”.

Like the other day when I was walking barefoot through a car park and felt the sting of some kind of insect bite. I made a comment about thinking I had been stung by a bee.

I was with my Curly-Haired Friend, who I have known for longer than my adorable and infinitely loveable little sister. This friend knows a heckload about me, so she knows that I am somewhat allergic to bees.  

Now, the phrase “allergic to bees” sounds pretty serious. We’ve all either been emotionally scarred by or at least heard of those gut-wrenching scenes in My Girl with Macaulay Culkin, the bees and, oh geez, that whole thing not being about to see without his glasses. Bee allergies can create life or death situations for some people.

But my bee allergy – at least, based the last time I was stung – is nothing like that. 

I just experience mildly more swelling around the site of sting than most people do. My tongue doesn’t swell, I don’t get dizzy and I don’t even get hives. I just have a little localised puffing. 

But because my reactions were slightly more intense than those of my sisters, I clung to it like a toy I didn’t want to share. 

A young Dannielle made it clear to everyone she knew that she was allergic to bees. She made sure to wear a thong on her mildly swollen foot because it couldn’t possibly fit in her regular school shoe. She always put down “bees” in the allergy section of medical forms. 

Once stung, young Dannielle gorged herself on the sympathy and bathed in the special attention.

And, look, I don’t think I’ve been stung by a bee for a while so I don’t know the extent of my “allergy” as an adult, but I have a feeling that it might not be as serious as a young Dannielle made it out to be. It’s got to the point that I don’t even think of it anymore, because I’m one of them well-adjusted, emotionally stable grown ups now (hahahhahaha so stable, so adjusted).

I was only reminded of my allergy by my curly-haired friend who dryly quipped words to the effect of “oh no, but your ‘bee allergy’!” in a way that expressed no concern whatsoever. 

The grown up me laughed, but the young middle child who still lives inside me was not at all impressed. Hopefully writing a column about it will make her feel sufficiently seen. 

Standard
This one made it to print

E-brush

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, October 6, 2021

I’ve recently welcomed an electric toothbrush into my life.

As someone who has a mouthful of fillings, I’ve been wanting an electric toothbrush for a really, really long time. 

In Grade 1, my teeth were so bad I had to go to the dental van outside of school hours instead of being able to skip in and out that government-subsidised mobile dentist like all the other squares in my class who used actual toothpaste when brushing their teeth. I think, at one point, I even had to go back for more fillings on a weekend. And, look, it wasn’t ideal, but those hours in the dentist chair enduring the pain and discomfort of filling after filling gave me the disassociation powers I now utilise to survive the horrific news cycle with some level of functionality (dealing with the awfulness of all that is Future Dannielle’s problem*! Besides, my inevitable breakdown will give me great fodder for the memoirs I’ll need to write** in order to support myself as an ethically-sourced-cotton-wearing “creative” with a vast collection of dessert wines).

But despite having earned my own income since Grade 9, I’ve never actually gone out and bought myself an electric toothbrush. 

Don’t ask me why. It’s not like I had any moral issues with electric toothbrushes. And they’ve progressively become cheaper and cheaper as the years have gone on.

Given the percentage of my teeth filled with amalgams and tooth-coloured composites***, paired with the stupid amount of cash I’ve dropped on novelty horse and swan items throughout my life, there is no logical reason I haven’t bought an electric toothbrush before now. And it’s particularly shocking to think that it was only when I was confronted with a half-price model in a flurry of impulse purchasing that I actually took the plunge. It shouldn’t require a state of emotional vulnerability and something costing less than a carton of beers to make me invest in my dental hygiene, but that’s what it took. 

So let’s not dwell on the past, because we are now in the electric era of my dental history. 

And now that I’m here, I’m not too sure about it. 

I mean, the general wisdom is that electric toothbrushes are much more powerful and effective than their acoustic counterparts. They spin and vibrate and sing out when you’ve been going for two minutes. Those are all great things, but I can’t help but feel the acoustic toothbrushes are more authentic, you know? Like, there’s very little work that has to be done on my part.

All I have to do is turn the toothbrush on and slowly run it over each tooth in a calm and steady action. There’s no scrubbing. There’s no up-and-down or side-to-side, just a limp surrender to the superiority of machinery.

And, again, I’m sure this is great for my teeth. They do seem to feel cleaner these days. I’m glad about that, especially because the last time I went to the dentist, she asked if I was a smoker. I had to explain to her that the staining was so bad on account of my tea drinking habit. I really want to impress her next time I get in the dentist chair and I feel like my electric toothbrush will help me win over this stranger.

But I also feel like it’s making me lazy.

It’s kind of like the way I feel about reversing cameras and dishwashers – they’re both great inventions that save a lot of time, effort and money spent at the panel beaters. 

But I’m wary of our reliance on them, like it’ll make us soft and useless and, I suppose, render our human abilities somewhat obsolete. 

I mean, the now-extremely-outdated-because-everybody’s-streaming-music-these-days CD player in my car doesn’t even work so suffice to say my car doesn’t have a reverse camera. And I think I’m a long way off having a house with an actual dishwasher in it****, so I’m safe on that front too. 

But now I’m an eclectic toothbrush person, I feel like it’s a slippery slope into oblivion. At least my teeth will nice, though. 

*Look, Present Dannielle is actually the Future Dannielle that Past Dannielle wrote about when she sat down to write this piece, and let me tell you that Present Dannielle is most unhappy about Past Dannielle’s decisions. She and the Medicare system are now paying for those decisions.

** Present Dannielle is hoping to all things holy that Past Dannielle’s optimism that our shared Future Dannielle be some kind of literary success was not just Past Dannielle’s delusions and was, in fact, some kind of premonition.

*** Yes, I had to do a lot of Googling to get the terminology right for this one.

**** But in case any dishwasher companies out there want to sponsor this post, I’m very, very open to whatever business proposals you have…

Standard