I’m sorry guys, I know this is another late-night, last-minute post and that’s not very professional, but I would also like to point out that writing about vomiting into a steering wheel also isn’t very professional. So bloody lower those expectations.

And I have very good reason for not having anything prepared for you, and that’s because there is a dog in my house.

She’s staying here for a week as a trial to see how she goes.

As you can imagine, this fortuitous set of circumstances has caused major distractions and so I’m not really able to put together a well-written, conclusive piece right now. I haven’t the capacity for anything other than a self-indulgent questionnaire.

Tonight’s questionnaire comes from the New Philosopher, which I bought at the airport a few months ago, read a few pages of and then abandoned for the sake of staring out the window listening to Take Me Home Country Roads (a song I used to think was only for those wanky people who pretended to be country to sing at parties to show everyone how country they were, which I found myself playing three times in a row on the train to work one day, fighting back tears).

This questionnaire was for physician, author and environmentalist, Dr Helen Caldicott. She has 21 honorary doctoral degrees, and was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

I filled it out as a person employed to write stories about hippos that dive like dolphins, an avid Instagrammer and someone who collects her plastic shopping bags to recycle at Coles. I have no honorary doctoral degrees, but once won a family fun pack of Malteasers for dressing up as a single mum for International Women’s Day.

What do you doubt most?

That those girls who post about loving chicken nuggets and drinking wine are as happy as they pretend they are.

If you could change one thing about the world, what would that be?

This feels like “if you had one wish” kind of thing, which is a big responsibility to lump on a person, particularly because there’s a lot of shit in the world that needs to be changed. So I’d say that I’d make it so that Roald Dahl’s Matilda was real. I would happily pass the buck over to her, because if there was such a kind-hearted, well-read lass with telekinetic abilities, she would have stepped in by now and we wouldn’t be in this mess.

It seems responsible to delegate this task of righting the wrongs in the world, because I honestly would only wield my world-changing power for something stupid, like being able to control my hair like it was an extra limb. I mean that would be cool, but also a gross misuse of power.

What does “nature” mean to you?

Well, the first thing that came to mind for me is Human Nature, so I guess nature means C-level Australian celebrities and John Farnham duets to me.

What is your demon?

Think people care as much about the cleanliness of their ears as I do. I am slowly poking my eardrums to perforation.

What was the post important part of your education?

When I was in kindy, I have this distinct memory of a girl bitching about me to another girl, loudly accusing me of not being able to sew. At the time, they were threading macaroni on to string, an activity which this girl obviously considered “sewing”. It was then I learnt that there were always going to be haters, but mostly that putting macaroni on string was a huge fucking waste of time and resources.

What would you never do, no matter what the price?

Lick my elbow.

If you could choose, what you have for our last meal?

Hot chip sandwiches.

Your favourite word?

At the moment, probably “slag”. A timeless term with maximum impact.

 What is your motto?

Don’t be one of those fucks who have mottos.

Which thinker has had the greatest influence on your life?

Whoever was behind the decision to put the words “free leg of ham” to Beethoven’s 5^th Symphony for a Toowoomba-made ad. That has stuck with my for years.

What is a good death?

One which prompts a spike in book sales, as well as putting my ill-advised Christmas album to the top of the online charts in the fallout.

What of people accuse you of?

Being fabulous. Guilty as charged.

What is the meaning of life?

I suspect it has something to do with clubbing seals, but I have very little evidence to back that up.

And I’m yet to determine if that means violently thrashing creatures with blunt objects or taking seals to da clubz.

I guess that’s why the philosophy industry is still going so strong after all these years. I mean, there’s so much we still don’t know.

Look, I’m aware that I have yet to upload a post to my usual eloquent and charming standards, but I have to point out that I was at a hen’s party all weekend. 

And it’s hard to be anything other than a stinking mess incapable of stringing words together after downing two bottles of sparkling wine on a boat so please cut me some slack. 

Although, I must say I do appreciate your support in having checked to see what I’ve been doing lately. You are most kind and I assure you that my snarky tone is a sign of endearment. I’m allowing myself to think that I have become something of an addiction to you, in that you keep crawling back for whatever filth I happen to be peddling of a Sunday or Wednesday. I don’t want you to be hooked in a narcotic way, but maybe like a nice gentle Diet Coke addiction that slowly rots your insides and puts you at risk of developing dementia. Don’t get me wrong, I want you to get the shakes and suffer withdrawals without me but I’m not a monster.

I flatter myself to think that you might even depend on me for your happiness (whether that be that warm realisation of knowing you’re not as much of a shit as you thought you were by comparing yourself to me, or because you like my conversational tone – I really don’t need to know). If by some miracle you have developed a habit, I can assure you that Sunday and Wednesday hits will be regular, if not deflating. 

Anyway, suffice to say that I’m coming back on Wednesday and I might even have a yarn about a toe ring made from the hair to two strangers who became friends. I’m thinking of pitching the idea to filmmakers. 

There are a lot of things that aren’t my thing.

Public masturbation is one of them. Thankfully. I mean, if that was my thing, I’d be in some real strife. I never realised how lucky I am that I’m not a public wanker before now. That’s something to add to the gratitude list (if I had one).

But when I talk about “things” I mean it more in a cultural sense.

My housemate is a Seinfeld fan. And that’s just fine. But as she was watching it today, I wondered about how I somehow managed not to have seen more than 10 minutes of the show throughout my entire life. I mean, it was everywhere when I was a kid. It was on about as many times as The Simpsons, but it never entered my consciousness. It’s one of those things that everyone assumes everyone was into, and maybe “everyone” was. But, as it turns out, I’m not everyone.

Perhaps it was because of conflicting time schedules with Home and Away. Perhaps it’s because my younger self set off to sabotage my ability to connect with people in my adulthood via shared interests. Or maybe it was because my oldest sister controlled the remote, and therefore my thoughts.

But for better or worse, it just was never my thing.

So in honour of the lack of Seinfeld in my life, here’s a listical to cover up the fact that I’m too tired to write a cohesive essay this afternoon. Enjoy!

Things that, for whatever reason, I never got into:

Practical Magic: We completely missed this movie growing up. Perhaps it’s why I’m so indifferent to Sandra Bullock as an adult. I wonder if that’s something I need to address with a therapist?

Having an imaginary friend: I used to pretend that I had an imaginary friend because I saw kids on television with them. I thought I had to have one to be normal. But the truth was that I thought the whole thing was bullshit and couldn’t understand why children did such things. I didn’t need an imaginary friend growing up; I had myself. Like, why waste your time with some fictional loser when you had the full package all along? This definitely sounds like something I should bring up with a psychologist.

Bambi: This wasn’t a video we had at home. Of course I know the general gist of what happens – Mrs Bambi gets shot, a rabbit turns up, there’s a fire of some sort and the socially awkward fawn turns into a strapping adult that kiiiiind of crosses those interspecies hotness boundaries. Like how you prefer the prince in beast form on Beauty and the Beast and you’d totally submit if Sully came creeping through your wardrobe door one night. Don’t pretend you’ve never been sexually attracted to a cartoon animal (please, I need to  believe that I’m normal in some sense of the word)

Peter Pan: The Disney version, again, was never in our VHS collection. I’m not sure way, perhaps it was too masculine for a household full of girls to be interested in. On a related note, I am very familiar with the live action version featuring pre-teen dreamboat Jeremy Sumpter. Go figure.

Rolf Harris: We were a Don Spencer kind of family. So I know nothing about what that creepy as fuck extra leg business was all about, but I do know that you just need to give a whistle to call Bob the kelpie. This absolutely paid off in the end, because my childhood wasn’t ruined by the fucking sickening revelations about him. I honestly didn’t know who this clown was until he was being dragged through the courts. Apparently he was on some paint ad? Big whoop mate.

Star Wars: Growing up we were really close with this family who lived around the corner. We liked them, but heavens to Betsy they were a different bunch. Living in a tiny, 97 per cent white town, they were the closest thing to exotic we grew up with, starting with that whole mixed-gender family thing. Weeeeird. They had a pet cockatoo, liked their piklets with Vegemite smeared on them and were right into their Star Wars. They leant us their deluxe gold foiled VHS trilogy once and it sat in our entertainment cabinet (yes, my parents still have one and yes it does contain 100+ video tapes and a Nintendo 64) for literally years. This has really bit me in the arse with all the new reboots coming out and the Trump Star Wars crossovers through. I really need to watch them to keep up with the cultural references at work, because there’s only so many times you can drop “droids” and variations of “may the force be with you” before people can see through you.

Lord of the Rings: This family also frothed The Lord of the Rings. One time we went with them to the movies to watch it, and it seemed to never end. I mean, I liked it and it was great to finally understand the Gollum/Sméagol thing (wow, I had no idea it had an accent above the “E”, there’s further proof this has never stuck), but good grief it was drawn out. I remember not hating the movie, but the sheer length of it was too off-putting to go back for round two (I will not make a dick joke, I will not make a dick joke, I will not make a dick joke…).

Aperol spritzes: Every trendy person is dropping Aperol into conversations like they’re a middle-aged woman who slightly wealthier than the other townsfolk mentioning Moet. Aperol is fucking everywhere. It’s the cosmopolitan of the early 2000s. But you know what? It taste like the farts of old oranges and medicine. You’re not missing out on anything at all.

Belly button piercings: I was far too fat to pull that off when they were trendy. I’m glad I had the self-awareness to know this.

Wheatbix: I had Wheaty Bix Bars as a kid because they had a sugary, fattening yoghurt coating, but I could never get into the actual bricks of shredded wheat. This may have had something to do with the fact that my mother used to eat her Vita Brits (yeah, the Sanitarium kind that was Aussie owned) with boiling water from the kettle and milk, melting them into a sickening brown sludge. I was more of a sultanas and sugar on my Rice Bubbles kind of girl.

Mary J Blige: Apparently she is an iconic singer, but all I know from her is that Family Affair song, and even then I can only mumble jibberish to the tune. How does this woman make her money? It’s a mystery to me.

Twilight: I literally just had to Google “that vampire series with Edward”. In a way this makes me concerned in that it pretty much confirms that I can expect to be hit by the Alzheimer’s train, but it makes me happy that I was never that much of a fuckwit. Thank goodness.

I have another hobby that doesn’t count as an actual hobby.

We all have those things we do with our time that don’t really count as recreation or self-development, but we justify our addictions by lying to ourselves that they vaguely fall into those categories. We can’t really explain why we do these things, but we seem to give them preference above all other necessary tasks in our lives. For some people it’s scrolling through the ‘gram. For me, it’s feeling how smooth my hair is and sniffing phonebooks (thankfully phonebooks are rapidly disappearing from society, so the risk that someone will see me doing this is lower than it used to be).

My latest non-hobby hobby is scrolling through Airtasker. It’s a bit of a problem, I was up until 11pm doing it the other night. And it shouldn’t be so alluring, but it is.

Airtasker is that app that puts you in touch with people who will pay you do things that aren’t sexual (hopefully). It wheals and deals in menial tasks, which is really helpful for someone whose only marketable traits are her glittering personality and her ability to hold things – although most people tend to have opposable thumbs these days so it doesn’t really give me as much of a competitive edge as I’d like. And sometimes my glittering personality is more like the kind of dull shine you get from used aluminium foil.

Anyway, scrolling through the app to see what kind of shit people will pay other people to do is fantastic. It’s kind of like a hobby, but to validate my time wasting, I’m going to say that it’s more like anthropology than mindlessly thumbing through job postings. And as much as that label sounds like my usual bullshit, it actually is a real insight into humanity.

For example, you could use the jobs posted by app users to build an academic case study on the way holidays influence the behaviour of otherwise rational human beings.

And taking into account the jobs listed for Monday night and all of yesterday and the significance of yesterday’s date you could form a hypothesis that human people get weird around when it comes to showing affection.

I mean, you’d only need to study at the way I use “nugget” as a term of endearment to see that, but I digress.

Yesterday, as some of you would be aware, was Valentine’s Day.

A day where you avoid Tinder at all costs and try not to allude to anything about your personal life to anyone so they don’t hit you with noisy sympathy or say things like “hubby” to you.

But out it’s also a day for panicky people to send stupid amounts of money on pointless gestures. As such, there were some ripper jobs up for grabs yesterday.

Of course you had the random flower deliveries, but you also had people looking for someone who could deliver a three-piece feed from KFC to their partner as a Valentine’s Day treat (this person “must be reliable”). Another person wanted to pay someone to have a lend of their sausage dog.

I was just astounded by how much money there was to be made off people’s desperation.

On the flipside, you could also see how people circle like sharks, smelling this anxiety like blood in the water. For every person wanting a job done, there were at least seven people lined up to exploit them. And it was almost aggressive. These people were ready to pounce, poised to take advantage of a weakness. They lay in waiting, knowing that the holiday that is so entwined with high expectations and crushing disappointments it comes in second only to New Year’s Eve in the ranking of shitty holidays.

These shrewd Airtaskers knew that people would crack, that they would be unorganised, and that they would feel the pressure. It seems desperation can be commoditised, and you’d be silly not to cash in on it.

I know I did.

Instead of dong nothing with my afternoon, I turned my lack of plans into cold, hard (virtual) cash. And it wasn’t even that difficult. I helped someone set up for a dinner party with tasks like moving plants and stringing fairy lights and buying asparagus. It was actually kind of fun and was apparently a bit of a work out as my arms are kind of sore now.

So look at that, I guess I managed to squeeze some kind of benefit out of my mindless non-hobby. This now validates my obsession, and I am free to scroll through Airtasker endlessly.

OOOOHHH!

I came across a task asking someone to “source me lime Bacardi Breezers”. A person called Sasha is offering $80 to someone who can scratch that itch. “I miss them like crazy,” they say. “I need someone to get me even just a four pack.”

We live in a beautiful world.

Today I couldn’t think of a single topic to write about.

I could sugar coat this and say that I’ve done this post after hours of self-reflection which led my to reading this article, but it’s too damn hot for bullshit. 

I couldn’t think good, and I have no ideas of my own so I did what I normally do when I’m stuck – I turn to the internet for self help articles to scoff at so I can boost my self esteem by reinforcing the delusion that I’m a snide, highly intellectual person who knows more about life than anyone else.

And it worked. Because now I have a post I can put up and that makes me feel good about myself. I can tick this off my to-do list as well, which I have written up specifically for the purpose of ticking off this one task. I’d already done 70 per cent of the jobs on the list when I wrote it. Again, to boost the old self esteem.

So here’s me ripping on a piece someone put actual thought and heart into because I like to think of myself as a black-hearted witch with razor sharp wit when in reality I’m someone who cries over Little Women, loves my people in an almost suffocating manner and tried to spell once with a “w” the other day. It was a piece about the things you should stop doing in your 20s. Now it’s an ode to the person I project and my self-destructive ways.

Now I’m free to re-watch Sleepless in Seattle in peace. Happy Sunday!

Determining your worth on your social media likes: This is all well and good for someone who is a nurse or a barrister for a living. But when you’re in the media, your worth is literally dependant on your social media likes. I have bills to pay. Fuck off.

Comparing yourself to your friends: Nah, this is how the patriarchy keeps winning. Ask your friends how much they get paid, particularly if they’re lugging around a uterus. Ask them about their savings plans and investment portfolios. Ask them how to get a raise. I didn’t intend on getting up on my feminist horse today, but Julia Von Glitterfire needs a run and lord knows she’s always saddled up and ready to go.

Staying in a relationship because you’re scared to be alone: Not really applicable to me, a person who’s fear is not being alone. Seriously, the big thing that freaked me out while watching Married at First Sight is that these people suddenly have a share a bedroom with another person. They can’t escape this drongo who is all up in their personal space. That’s just wrong. It’s basically knocking these people out, grafting one of their heads on the other person’s neck. That’s how sick the whole thing is.

I want to book an overseas trip and am thinking about doing a tour but I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle the constant company.

I’m actually fantasising about a little solo depression holiday where I stare out the window and pretend to be deeply heartbroken and complicated. I think I’ll go to the English countryside or even up in the Scottish Highlands, stay in a quaint bed and breakfast and just watch the ran fall. There’ll be fuckloads of scones and toast and all kinds of drizzle. There might even be a fire I can dramatically throw my hand written poetry into. Perfect.

Feeling the need to justify your choices: Oh, but I like justifying my choices. It’s like complaining. It’s a hobby. And the reason I like justifying my choices is because I like ranting. I like not just trying to convince someone that my choice was the right choice, but that my choice should be their choice too. If I want to live in a world in which everyone thinks like me – and I do – then I’ve got some serious persuasive rhetoric to peddle.

Allowing anyone tell you that you’re not capable because you’re young: Mate, I’m not young anymore. I can’t enter in any of those competitions for young adults after falling into the 25 category. I can’t tick the 18-24 box. And I don’t know why people think this is an empowering thing. It isn’t. Because now on, whatever I achieve will be less significant because I’m not young. It won’t be as remarkable for me to have a good job or do something cool because it’s no longer possible for me a to considered a prodigy of any kind. I’m now forced to confront my mediocrity and it stinks.

Still hanging out with toxic people: You say this, but toxic people tend to have the best parties and all the sweet hook-ups. Maybe don’t cling to them, but string them along so you can keep reaping the benefits from them. Wow. Maybe I am the toxic person.

Talking about improving your life but never doing anything about it: But if I actually improve my life, I’ll have nothing to write about.

Never leaving your comfort zone: My comfort zone has a decorative ladder and scented candles. I don’t want to leave it.

Keeping your life cluttered: This one told me to let go of all those “just in case” things I’m hanging on to. But this is a bad idea. When I was going to an Oktoberfest a little while ago, I wanted to wear these high-waisted green shorts as part of my costume that aren’t really appropriate to wear in everyday life. I remember thinking that I was going to give them away because they were “just in case” shorts I would never wear. And I was crushed. But then I found my shorts. If I had have culled those “just in case” shorts out of my life, I would have had to fork out for a costume. So the moral of this story is to hang on to everything forever. You will need it. Especially if the world descends into madness and we have to live off grid to survive. You can’t just run out to Bunnings in times like that. Your shitty fish net stockings may need to become actual fishnets one day. Think about it.

Judging the shit out of everyone: This is my actual livelihood. If I stopped doing this I’d have to pick up a trade.

Deciding you’ll only do things when you have the money: It’s this kind of thinking that got us into the global financial crisis in the first place. This is the kind of thinking that sees me going into negatives on my debit card to buy beers. Life’s not a fucking Jeep ad people. Sometimes you do need to hold back, realise you’re being a wanker and live within your means.

Sure, the smashed avos addiction isn’t keeping us from buying houses, but it’s not helping the sitch if you’re putting overpriced toast on your credit card either.

Hanging out with people who aren’t going anywhere in life: Well I guess I better cut myself off from myself then.

I have $107.15 to last me 10 days.

That’s less than $11 a day. Which, sure, is a good $8 more than those people who did the Live Below the Line challenge and a metric shitload more than the actual people living in poverty in developing countries live on. But that’s not a lot of dosh. Especially when you like avocados as much as I do.

Is it doable?

Yes.

Do I have a credit card I could put emergency discounted meat on?

Yes.

But this isn’t the way I want to live.

I want to have clothes that aren’t seven-years-old or lint-covered Cotton On numbers, but I also want to have money in my account at the end of the month. It’s a tough balance to strike, but apparently life is all about balance and while the word that often comes after balancing is “act” – which implies balance is all a charade – I want to at least have something resembling balance when it comes to my financial portfolio (an registered car in my parents’ front yard and a minor but daunting credit card debt).

It has suddenly become apparent how much I need to budget and how little discipline I have.

Sure, Sydney rent is so expensive I’ve considering a starting up a used-underwear-selling scheme (unfortunately, I have approximately zero friends here to build up a bank of crusty undies and there’s only so much discharge one healthy vagina can produce). And being paid in monthly instalments is a legal form of torture. And sure, a fair hunk of my paycheque seems to be going towards flights home so I don’t admit myself to hospital purely for the few minutes of personal attention I’d get from a human being not trying to sell me hand lotion.

But those things aside, I need to start being a little more strategic with my money. I like that, “strategic with my money”. It sounds like I’m playing a game chess instead living off baked beans and wearing holey knickers.

So I did what I always do when I need professional services: attempt to obtain them for free via the Internet.

This was the first option that turned up in my Google search, a simple step-by-step guide to financial freedom and stability.

1: Make a list of your values. Write down what matters to you and then put your values in order.

Myself

Being a fabulous friend

What people think of me

Non-greasy hair

Getting a two-seater to myself on my morning train ride

Fuelling my rig with nutritious eats so I look less like I live on a diet of bread and rice bubbles

A well-brewed cup of tea

Not living in filth

2: Set your goals.

– to one day be a fabulous, self-sufficient writer who works from a luxurious light-filled shabby chic home office and wears a lot of kaftans

– to go overseas and collect trinkets and photos of happy memories that I can fill my fabulous house with a luxurious light-filled shabby chic home office with

– owning a fabulous house with a luxurious light-filled shabby chic home office

– owning my own kaftans (I went to Camilla recently, and those bastards are upwards of 400 bucks – which is like three Akubras or eight emotionally fuelled take-away dinner orders)

3: Determine your income.

Apparently insufficient for my “flamboyant” needs. For example, I cannot pay for feed or cover lodgings for my own personal giraffe. Which I am certain I also cannot afford to ship in from Africa.

4: Determine your expenses

Look, I could list each individual item I purchase until the cows come home. So in the interest of saving time, because time is money and I don’t seem to have much of either, I’m going to group them into categories. And the dollar value changes from time to time so I’m just going to list them without attaching a cost to avoid the confronting realities of my irresponsible spending.

– emotional eating

– acai bowl lyf

– avocado dependency

– tuckshop Fridays

– appearing like a put together grown up

– rent

– necessary commuting

– ability to see memes and text Drop Dead Gorgeous quotes

– entirely necessary plane rides to sanity

– secret savings that will inevitably be spent on medical bills

From this information, I’m supposed to now be able to create a budget. But now I’m thinking I should go create a GoFundMe page to beg strangers for kaftan money.

There are some things so great, you just can’t feel guilt about enjoying them.

Being the kind of ranty person I am, I tend to attract ranty people into my life. The other day a friend and I were ranting abut our favourite subject to rant about: the wankery of Sydney. There’s plenty of fodder and we tend to agree on most of it. The ignorance to rubbish. The unnecessary horn blasting. The un-ironic use of the word “chill”.

But when she brought up acai bowls, I had to stop her.

I had to admit that I was in the acai army, and I was a willing recruit. I was not conscripted, and signed up for service time and time again. She was surprised, horrified and continued to bash on about the icy purple goop.

But I stuck to my guns, I loved the stuff and would not be ashamed of it.

For those of you who are unaware, an acai bowl is basically a puree of frozen berries that come from the Amazon or something. They’re supposed to be a superfood and do all kinds of good for your body. The bowls contain this slush and are topped with fruit, muesli and sometimes bee pollen or some shit.

I know I should be embarrassed by my enthusiasm for it. I mean, the stuff is astronomically over-priced. The hype around it is cringe-worthy. And the the amount of people who dedicate at least half an hour to carefully arranging fruit and various forms of gluten-free granola on them just for a perfect Instagram post ii vomit-inducing. But I fucking love acai bowls.

When you’ve just gone for a run on a hot day and you’re sweating like you’ve been manning a deep fryer there’s nothing better than a bowl full of nutritious aspiration and icy slush. I know the health benefits of these berries probably requires you to eat a wheelbarrow full of the stuff before they are noticeable, but I don’t care.

They’re delicious, cold and delude me into thinking I’m being healthy.

And I refuse to be ashamed of that.

As the great Sheryl Crowe (whose like three songs I know, I unashamedly love) says: if it makes you happy, it can’t be that bad. Unless what makes you happy falls under the definition of deprivation of liberty or torture, in which case it can’t really be worse. Don’t do that.

So here’s a non-exhaustive list of the other things I refuse to be embarrassed about loving:

Jason Derulo songs: Sure, most of these bad boys start with him singing his name, but it seems he’s grown out of that now. These songs are basic, yes. But that’s what’s so good about them. If you want to listen to an emotional song with powerful lyrics, listen to Nick Cave (geeez even San Cisco if we’re going to be honest, Derulo’s songs have the complexity of a blank piece of a paper). That’s not what Derulo’s about. He’s about excessive licks, generic love and catchy, catchy beatz. And that makes for great treadmill signing.

Having an excessive number of pillows: Recently I was subjected to a remark from some douchelicker about women who have a lot of pillows on their beds. First of all Jerry Seinfeld, get yourself an original joke. Pretty sure the women-who-have-decorative-pillows jokes has been going around for a good 15 years. Nice observational humour. Second of all, fuck you. Why do you give a shit about how many pillows are on my bed and the functionality of said pillows? Just because you don’t use all them to sleep on, doesn’t mean they don’t look fabulous. Maybe someone uses them for propping themselves up while reading in bed. Maybe someone uses them to make a pillow nest for general lounging purposes. Maybe the extra euro pillows are for smothering fuckwits who think they’re better than other people because they only have two pillows on their bed.

Wearing cotton briefs almost exclusively: Sure, there are less boring knickers out there. There are even sexy knickers out there with lace and polyester mesh and bows. Plain cotton briefs are considered attractive. And sure, calling them knickers isn’t overly sexy. But you know what also isn’t overly sexy? Thrush. You can call your extra weight “curves”, you can refer to your dirty hair as “tousled beachy waves”, you can even say sweat is “glistening”. But dress it up all you want, there’s nothing alluring about Clag glue slowly oozing out of your Cave of Wonders.

Washing my hair daily: You know what? I know it’s probably not good for my hair. I love women’s magazines, so of course I know that. But I hate the smell of damp, musty oil your hair gets when you wake up and I get greasy easy. And yes, this might just be because I over-wash my mane. But I don’t like looking greasy. I don’t like smelling like old skin and sweat. Clean is fabulous. And I prefer to be fabulous constantly, thank you.

Hating negronis: They taste like someone smoked an orange and then served in metho. I’ll keep my $18 and put it towards a kebab thanks.

Spending sinkfuls of dollars on scented candles: I agree, forty bucks is a lot to spend on a fucking candle. But they smell great, they look great and they make me forget my miserable existence by giving the illusion of opulence. Everything you do while a scented candle is lit is just so much more decadent and glamorous. I mean anything. Brushing your hair. Clipping your toenails. Picking at a blackhead. Even paying your bills becomes bearable.

Buying the frozen cubes of mango when the real thing is in season and reasonably priced: I’m a mango lover, don’t get me wrong. The way these frozen cubes melt into the perfect mixture of frozen and gooey is just something a fresh mango can’t achieve.

Mixing red wine with lemonade: Nah fuck off, it’s good. At least that’s how I remember it.

When life gives you lemons, you’re supposed to make lemonade.

But when life pushes your scoop of sorbet off you cone an on to the ground, what is the correct philosophical response?

This is something I pondered over the weekend. I was enjoying an ice cream cone and as I enthusiastically went to lick my icy treat, it fell to the ground. In Circular bloody Quay, where every tourist and their trendy dog go, so that ground is filthy. Even the one-second rule doesn’t apply here. Once anything touches the ground, it belongs to the ibises. I mean, obviously you chuck it in the bin so you’r not littering and not making it easy for one of those trash turkeys to mung out on your food, because you love this planet as much as you hate ibises. but eventually those scummy bastards will have your treat in their long, disgusting beaks. Whether fished out of the rubbish or slurped up days later when it has been reduced to bin juice, you can bet one of those filthy creatures will gobble up your treat.

I had carefully selected that lemon sorbet for its refreshing properties   as it was a warm day and I was feeling a little dusty. I almost went with my normal cup option, but decided to go with a cone when my friend did so before me. At first I congratulated myself on selecting a cone over the cup, for this was a treat that deserved the slow, savouring lick of an attentive tongue (yes, I did mean to write that as pornographically as possible). I usually shirk the cone as its very nature means your last bite will taste mostly of cone, but this time I thought I had made the right choice.

I was wrong.

It was the cone that denied me of my zesty treat. Because as I licked enthusiastically, my ball of sorbet fell to the ground. It was like something out of a horror movie. I was in shock. I mean, you hear of it happening to people all the time, but it always happens to other people. Not me. I just couldn’t believe it had happened to me.

You know who you see kids on cartoon burst into tears when the ice cream they’re licking falls to the ground? That’s not an overreaction. In fact, I think they’re slightly downplaying the whole thing. It is a traumatic experience. There are few things that sting as much as dropping food. I mean, rejection and needles come to mind, but they’re pretty much on par.

It wastes your money.

It robs you of a few minutes of sugary delight.

It confirms that the universe is conspiring against you.

While somehow managing to repress a crying fit akin to a two-year-old in any given shopping centre, I scooped the soiled sorbet back into the cone and, defeated, went to throw it into the bin.

But then something stopped me.

Yes, this was a terrible situation. But I was determined to make myself a cool, refreshing glass of lemonade.

So I went back to where I was sitting, and pushed the tarnished dessert back off the cone.

Why?

Because this was the perfect Instagram moment and I wasn’t just doing to throw that away. I was not going to let my emotions get in the way of ripper post.

And so I set up the shot, like a foodie taking a photo of their dinner, except in reverse (which doesn’t make it any better, in fact it’s worse because this was a completely staged shot). I recreated my own trauma like a mugging on Today Tonight.

I mean, I studied journalism and communication. I have two degrees. And my major was in public relations. I was equipped to take this crisis and turn it into a PR opportunity. I was like Kris Jenner, capitalising on an unpleasant situation and making the most of it. And just look what she was able to achieve. I mean, say what you want about them, but they are some well-known, wealthy women. This shitty situation could lead to a reality television series, a hugely successful business venture and even an auto-tuned song about jams (maybe mine could be about lemon curd).

I have learned to take a terrible situation and do something. I would not wallow in despair. I would not let it knock me down. I was determined to spin it on its axis and get something out of it.

So I did.

In a few hours it racked up 48 likes on the gram, and two likes on Twitter (which is great, because basically no one I know uses Twitter and no one who actually uses Twitter is pathetic enough to pay any attention to the shit I send into cyberspace).

So now we know what to do when life pushes your lemon sorbet to the ground, you don’t just cry. You whip out your camera and turn it into a semi-humorous photo opportunity.

Now I’m just waiting for the bidding war over the rights of Keeping up with the Maguires to start. Any day now.

The other night someone asked me what my “thing” is.

It sounds very vague, but in retrospect it’s actually quite a probing question.

It’s like asking someone what their deal is. Or “who do you think you are?”

It’s one of those questions that is difficult to answer without overthinking too much.

I know it was meant to mean, “What is your hobby?” But that’s not really a question you ask. I mean, people don’t really have hobbies anymore. No one paints model airplanes or collects stamps. Think about it, what are your hobbies? Like, what do you do when you’re not working, sleeping or trying to avoid eye contact on the bus?

After typing “define hobby” into Google, I learnt the widely-accepted definition of a hobby is an activity one does with their leisure time for the purposes of pleasure.

So technically you could call re-watching the Shark-ira video a hobby. You could also call compulsively smoothing my hair while loosing all sense of reality in the silky sensation a hobby. Even slowly walking past a construction site to sniff the scent of freshly-cut lumber could fall under the definition of a hobby.

Sure, they’re done in my leisure time and they bring my pleasure, but you can’t really list those things off when someone asks what your hobby is.

You see, a hobby is something that usually is done in pursuit of an interest. Now, there’s a difference between a hobby and in interest. A hobby is something you actively do, while an interest isn’t so tangible. It’s more of a feeling – like something you’re intrigued and excited by. It’s almost like a theme, in a way. Importantly, you can be interested in something without actually doing it. So even though you could say my hobby is eating chicken schnitzels and drinking beer, I can still be interested in having a ripped rig.

So what are my interests then? That’s a tough one. My interests would have to include myself and dessert items that won’t give me another chin. And my related hobby for pursing this interest currently is eating frozen mango cubes and scrolling back through my Instagram posts to remind myself just how bitchin I am.

I guess you could call this blog a hobby, but sometimes it derives me of pleasure as I can’t organise my time properly and find myself staying up into the early hours crafting it – poorly, might I add – when I desperately need to sleep.

The “what’s your thing” question continues to play on my mind, because there’s so many ways to read into it. And maybe I’ll unpack that later down the track when I’ve run out of ideas but for now I am focusing on the hobby angle.

When I answered, I told the asker that I drew trees. Which is true. When I get bored, I will doodle a tree on a scrap of paper. My old court reporting notebooks were full of trees. It doesn’t make me edgy or anything – it’s just the only thing I learned to draw in art at school.

I like doing it, but I rarely do. Even though I get home at like 3.45pm most days and have apartment to myself for at least two hours, I never break out the pencils and paper. I’m somehow always too busy.

And this has got me thinking about the way I spend my time. Like, I can say what my hobbies are: writing, drawing, reading etc. but how many of them do I actually do?

And if I’m not filling my leisure time with those activities, what am I filling it with? And then it all comes back to that over-arching question: what the fuck am I doing with my time?

It’s at this point where I’m considering keeping an activity log, in which I’ll record what I did and why I did it. And because my idea of a wild Friday night was going to bed early after reading Little Women, I feel like I will at least attempt this task. I’ll probably log logging my time under the “hobby” category, because lately my idea of pleasure has become a little beige. I mean, my idea of the mile high club is purchasing an egg and lettuce sandwich off the flight attendant snack cart.

I expect the results of this experiment to be confronting but boring and very, very depressing.

Today I had my column appear in my local newspaper.

I’ve been an official columnist for a few years now, but my creative prose/pure smut had been appearing in a free magazine delivered to houses a few towns over.

There was a happy buffer zone that meant a bit of distance, but it was close enough to ensure some vague sense of relevance and allowed my fans (mum, dad and my little sister we call Kevin) to access it easily enough. It was comfortable because I still had this air of anonymity.

But now my words will be appearing in print in a paper every bastard reads every damn word of (I know this, because we used get multiple people telling us about a typo in the most obscure of classified ads).

Being the sloppy person (of rig and of character) I didn’t plan ahead of time, and found myself sitting to write this piece on next to no sleep after a delayed flight well after my bed time.

And I have to say that I panicked.

I tried to watch some of The Mindy Project to take the edge off, but all it really did was make me feel inferior in everyway and realise that I’m more like Danny Castellano than I care to admit.

Because I don’t really have a persona. I don’t have a general topic. I don’t have a direction.

When people ask me about what my column, I’m not sure what to tell them. In resumes, I would try to impress recruitment officers by telling them it was an “extra creative outlet, with topics varying from social commentary to political observations to over sharing about my humorous experiences”.

Social commentary was a broad yet professional term I used to cover pieces I’ve done where I complained about the snotty bottleo’s in my neighbourhood being too fancy to stock the cheap nasty wine I like or the rise of inspirational quotes on athletic clothing.

Political observations included my name-dropping Barnaby Joyce.

Over sharing about my humorous experiences was a pretty spot on description, which meant I didn’t have to explicitly explain how many times I’d written about my own vomit.

I don’t really know if that’s a cohesive theme. The generally vibe of my thing is basically assuming everyone’s as obsessed with me as I am. I’m just writing things under the impression the entire world wants to know what I think about chicken nuggets.

But going into a new publication I felt like I had the chance to reinvent myself. To do some real branding and have an actual purpose instead of sprouting dribble. I thought that living in the big city could have been an angle.

If I spun it a certain way, I could have quite the glamorous life in the minds of my readers. I work in the city, I’m a writer, Richard Wilkins was at my office Christmas party and I use a lift to get to my apartment – an apartment! The epitome of urban glam! I am an Australian Carrie Bradshaw having crazy adventures in the big apple!

But the truth is I’m the bogan Carrie Bradshaw. I’m kind of similar, but also not at all.

I mean, I’m currently living in Inner East Sydney, so you could say I live on the Inner East Side (I also like to call it the Middlish East, although I only thought that up this afternoon).

Carrie bloody loves her shoes, while my obsession with footwear is limited to seeing if can get an extra week out of the sandals with no grip and decaying leather.

Carrie writes about steamy escapades and sharp observations about relationships, while I write about viral cat videos.

Carrie spends her evenings out at swanky clubs, while I like to go to the dirty bar which didn’t kick my friend and I out when we dipped our fingers in a puddle of spilled tequila for a cheap buzz.

It’s practically the same thing, right?

And I got to thinking that this could be a great vibe for my new column.

Maybe instead of glamorising an over-populated swampland, I could reveal the steaming mound of rubbish it actually is. Instead of appearing sophisticated and charmingly neurotic, I could portray myself as bogan and mentally unsound. Instead of being relevant to women everywhere, I could be relevant to just myself.

Which, come to think it, is exactly the tone of my column already. I guess I don’t have to reinvent myself after all. I’m already substandard but fabulous! Just like Dorothy with her slippers, I had my mediocre powers all along, I just needed to know how to wield it. And just like that, I had my opener: I’m the girl who makes people feel better about their lives by sharing the shame and disappointment that is my existence through weekly columns.

You can find my columns in The Clifton Courier from now until someone sensible steps in and puts a stop to all this nonsense.

I’ll be uploading my published columns a fortnight after going to print, but I recommend picking up a subscription so you can scrunch it up into a little ball or light it on fire after reading for ultimate satisfaction.