Originally published by The Clifton Courier, August 15, 2018

The other day Mum* said something to me that shook me to my very core.

* Her name is Debra. I hope this information makes the title of this post make more sense. 

I was on the phone, complaining about being tired. I told her that I never seemed to catch up on sleep over the weekend; that I started the working week almost as buggered as when I finished. “I’m just so tired,” I said.

Yes, I complained to a woman who produced four extremely noisy offspring about what being tired was like, as if I was the first person to ever experience fatigue. I’m quite sensitive like that. When I broke my wrist, I cried about the inconvenience of having a portion of a single limb in plaster while on the phone to Mum, a woman who lived through multiple spinal fusions*.

* One of those spinal fusions was after I was born too, as fate would have it. I mean, I did apologise to her for my role in that surgery via a hand-made Mother’s Day card a few years back, but I suppose you could say that the scars still remain…

Anyway, there I was banging on about how sleep was like laundry – I just never seem to be on top of it.

“You’re never going to catch up on sleep,” Mum said with the same offhanded cheeriness she had when she casually informed me that everyone was going to die.

Now, I’ll get back to being tired shortly, but I feel like I need to provide some context to Mum telling me every living creature on the planet was doomed.

It wasn’t as if she was telling me where babies came from and decided she may as well continue on, covering the human life cycle from infancy to greasy teen to stressed adult to grumpy grandparent to the grave. She didn’t drop the bomb while I was learning my ABCs.

No, it was because I’d prompted her.

I suppose I caught her off-guard. I mean, you can’t really prepare for the kind of questions kids come up with. And I doubt my behaviour indicated I was grappling with the profound mysteries of the universe.

I recall being about four years old at that time – it was a magical period when my older sisters were off at school/preschool and my younger sister wasn’t really a thing yet.  I had free reign on the house and, apparently, plenty of time to think deep, disturbing thoughts. On this particular day I was preparing myself for a busy morning of reading Disney stories aloud with a cassette tape while feeling like an absolute queen lounging on my parents’ double bed.

But before I could re-read Aladdin for the hundredth time, I asked Mum to clarify something about the end of the world. I can’t say for sure what made me aware of the concept of my own mortality, but I do hope to find out through expensive hypo-therapy sessions one day when I’ve made it big.

I remember standing at my parent’s bedroom door as Mum’s merry affirmation that “everybody dies” hit me like a medicine ball to the guts*.

* And not the clean medicine balls you see at the gym. I’m talking about the heavy, leathery suckers covered in dust and cobwebs in the primary school sports shed. 

I believe that was my very first existential crisis. But because I was so small, my body could only be filled with so much dread. Plus, I was living in a golden age of Sesame Street and primo educational television*, so I had plenty to distract me from my impending doom.

* More than Words was my fave, but there were so many crackers on the air. I really have to thank the executives at the ABC for helping to form my brain. I owe them so much. 

And the words of my mother were useful, really driving home the message about why I shouldn’t eat poison or play in traffic – because you don’t get spare lives like a Nintendo game. I mean, I’m still here today, so I guess that reality-crushing revelation did me some good.

So while Mum telling me that catching up on sleep was essentially impossible was another hit to the guts, I realise it was one I had to have.

I realise now that I can’t go living my life from weekend to weekend thinking I can claw back lost shut-eye. It’s not like catching up on The Real Housewives of New Jersey. I can’t just binge on sleep on Saturday and expect to start off the week all caught up on Monday morning. Life doesn’t work that way, I guess.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I’ve decided to live life in accordance with a new motto, derived from Mum’s recent truth bomb and the first, childhood-shattering revelation: life’s short, get some bloody sleep.

Goodnight.*

* When it appeared in The Clifton Courier, the story featured an editor’s note pointing out the irony that I’d sent in that particular column to the paper at 11.52pm, given the subject matter. Mum loved it. 

Originally published din The Clifton Courier, August 1, 2018 

I have become a wine drinker.

Now, this may sound like an old statement, since I’ve been a subscriber to the delights that come from a goon sack for about a decade. My experiences with the sweet nectar that is Passion Pop have been well documented – if not in this column, in the sordid transcript that is my private message history. And let’s not forget my affair with red wine and lemonade. Free room-temperature wine, a bottle of Kirks and me; a scandalous Ménage à trois if there ever was one.

Yes, I have been a drinker of wine for many years.

However, I’ve only recently become “a wine drinker”.

And by that I mean, “someone who drinks wine because they actually enjoy the taste and are not just guzzling it down because it’s free/cheap/the only thing available”. Yes, dear readers, this phrasing indicates a concept somewhat foreign to me, a person who owns a shirt that says “Who farted?”. And that concept is sophistication.

Other words come into play in this context, such as maturity, class and propriety.

These characteristics are, in my mind, associated with one who enjoys a nice glass of red after dinner. To me, that’s the pinnacle of adulthood. When I picture someone sipping on a wine, I picture a person who has their life together. Perhaps they’re wearing tasteful pearls. Maybe they’re talking about art and the current political situation in a witty, intellectual conversational tapestry. They probably have a killer recipe for beef ragu.

And for some time now I have wanted to be able to achieve this feat of grownup-dom, but I just haven’t been able to get there. Wine has always tasted rather yucky to me. And yes, I’m well aware that using the word “yucky” to describe my displeasure at the taste of wine is especially juvenile and crass, thus perfectly illustrating my disposition.

But in the past few months, something has changed. I can’t put my finger on it. Perhaps it was my desire to be tipsy while riding around Paris overriding my dislike for chardonnay. Maybe it was the free wine on the table at a group dinner. Perhaps it was the heavily discounted drop at my sister’s bridal shower.

Or maybe it was a natural thing, like a second hormonal change. Something after puberty and before menopause, when your body ticks over into a new phase of life. Because, it would seem, that maybe I have left behind the reckless ways of my youth and am charging valiantly into maturity.

For example, I have read The Barefoot Investor. I went on a winery tour last weekend. And last night I had wine and cheese with a few former colleagues.

That certainly sounds quite grown up to me. And I am tempted to think that, perhaps, I have turned a corner onto a path leading away from the hot mess I used to be. I mean, I own a pair of loafers for heaven’s sake.

There very well could be a second coming of puberty after all. I have begun the process of becoming a serious, mature woman. Level-headed, dignified, and demure.

But then, when I pick apart the above statement, there are some cracks that begin to show.

For example, I do own a copy of The Barefoot Investor, but I’ve yet to enact a single principle from the pages. I thought about it, but when he said something about having a kitty of $2000 saved somewhere, I hit a roadblock. He told his readers to sell things they didn’t use to make up that money – but I have nothing of value. No one wants my Harry Potter figurines or collection of brash second-hand cardigans. So my financial future remains very much in the seedling phase.

And yes, I did go on a winery tour and ate tapas and discussed grapes. We all looked great in our understated and sensible winewear. But, afterwards, I changed into my sloppiest hoodie, pulled on a pair of track pants and forced Lee Kernaghan on my friends by way of blasting him through the speakers. It seems I also sent multiple videos of myself yelling the words – or at least, the words I was able to articulate – of High Country to various acquaintances from the floor of my friend’s living room.

And that whole thing about a nice cheeseboard with workmates was really a quick grab of whatever was on special at the supermarket. After several glasses, the night descended into emotive renditions of Celine Dion and me doing a Tim Tam slam with red wine. Yes, I sucked red wine through a Tim Tam.

I may be changing, yes, but it seems I have a bit of a way to go before I become the tasteful pearl-necklace-wearing grownup woman I have no doubt *coughs* I will one day become.

Originally published in The Clifton Courier, July 22, 2018

Well, I’m definitely going to get hit by a bus one day.

Partly because my small-town upbringing apparently makes me reckless about crossing the road, but mostly because I’ve just experienced more good bus luck than anyone could expect in one lifetime.

It started the other day. I could see my bus approaching, but I was a good three-minute powerwalk from the stop. Fortuitously, the driver took a wrong turn and had to go around the block to get back on the route. By the time it was back on the right track, I was waiting at the bus stop and smugly stepped aboard.

About two days later, I was running towards a bus stop as my bus rocked up. Again, I was too far from the stop for my stumpy little legs to get me there in time, but I continued to run dramatically. And just when I’d lost hope, the bus driver pulled right up beside me, which was a bit cheeky considering they’re not allowed to just pull up willy nilly like that. I was feeling pretty darn lucky.

But my most recent bus story just takes things to a new level.

I was heading to Newcastle and stuffed a little suitcase with the necessary supplies for a weekend with a friend who likes to drink wine and watch The Nanny: track pants, baggy hoodies and sturdy, practical underwear. But, because I like to be prepared for anything, I’d packed my sneakers and my makeup. I’d also packed my laptop, because I was facing a three-hour train ride and thought I’d get some work done en route.

I was leaving at 4pm, so brought my suitcase with me on the bus to work. I walked on, placed the bag in the storage hold up the front and took the empty seat right up the back. I told myself that I could sit and watch my bag from that high vantage point, to ensure no one was going to nick off with my gear.

But then I got distracted. By the silhouettes of the trees. By the crook of a man’s broken nose. By some graffiti that was calling someone a pompous… four-letter rude word.

And by the time I reached my stop, I was too preoccupied by trying to work out exactly who was being called a pompous you-know-what and why to remember to grab my suitcase. So I stepped off the bus like it was any other morning.

About two minutes later it dawned on me; I almost had a panic prolapse in the middle of the street.

The bus was gone. The suitcase was gone. The faded, thinning free t-shirt that I sleep in was gone.

I left a message with the bus company. I sent them an email. I even tweeted them. I did my best to be productive while worst-case scenarios ran through my head.  I envisaged an opportunistic suitcase thief riffling through my things. Judging me for my boring underwear choices. Letting their cat deliver a litter of kittens on my jumper. Using my graduation t-shirt to wipe a dipstick to check their car’s oil.

And I thought of all the expensive things I’d have to replace: every bit of makeup I owned; my joggers; my laptop.

I eventually went to the main depot and nearly had a breakdown in front of the lost property guy. The bag wasn’t there, and probably wouldn’t be until Monday because lost items from the smaller stations only made turned up there at the end of the day. I must have looked super pathetic, because the kind soul called the smaller station, using all his influence to get the staff to find my bag at lunchtime on a Friday. Then he drew me a map, told me to “ask for Brian” and sent me on my way.

From what I gathered, this station didn’t usually help people out like this, but I went with high hopes. And, after being buzzed through the locked gates, my bag was waiting for me. Everything was there: my laptop, my hoodie, my sensible knickers.

Overjoyed, I practically skipped to the nearest bus stop to get back to work. The timetable said I’d missed the bus but about 10 minutes, and I nearly ordered a taxi. But I hesitated for a second, then turned around and saw the bus barrelling towards me. The door opened and, you wouldn’t believe it, but the same bus driver from that morning was behind the wheel. He was like, “oh good, you found it”, I called him a hero and we had a good laugh.

Given all this – plus that time someone retuned my lost phone that slipped into bus seat – I think I’ve used up all my luck.

So this leads me to believe I’m owed a bit of bad bus luck. I deserve to just miss a bus, to be seated next to someone smelly or sit in a mysteriously-damp seat. It only seems fair.

That saying about wearing clean underwear in case you’re hit by a bus rings in the back of my head. Because if I do get hit by a bus, my lucky streak means I’ll probably be wearing clean, sensible underwear.

Originally published in The Clifton Courier, July 18, 2018

I know, I know, it’s another recipe.

But I didn’t do much over the weekend and I’ve already written about my love of WD40, so this is all I have.

And it’s not even a recipe for something exciting like ginger beer cake (that fact that I call a soft drink inspired cake “exciting” might give you some insight into who I am as a person… in case this constant tirade of over-sharing via this column hasn’t already made that pretty clear).

It’s just a pumpkin soup.

Sure, it’s not the worst thing you could put in your mouth* and its warm, soupiness means it’s as comforting as receiving a text that says “training is cancelled” on a cold winter’s night, but it’s nothing special.

* A cheeky dirty joke for anyone who was looking for it…

It’s what I would describe as “meh”, which is best animated with a shoulder shrug and a bored facial expression.

You can make this soup for yourself if you like, but after having a bowl full of it at my desk* on Monday afternoon, I’d suggest jazzing it up a bit. Because right now I’d equate it with a lukewarm mug of tea, and there are few things as demoralising as an underwhelming tea.

* Someone called that “al desko” the other day it both made me laugh and made me incredibly depressed.

And with that enthusiastic introduction: please, trudge along beside me on a dull culinary journey to souptown.

Step 1: Slice and dice a large onion. If you’re anything like me, you’ll somehow manage to cut it in a way that releases the highest concentration of onion gas into the air, making you cry like you do when Forrest Gump talks to Jenny’s grave at the end of the movie. Don’t fight these tears, let them come. Let the onion make you feel things another human being couldn’t.

Step 2: Dice five rindless bacon rashers, eating about half a rasher as you go because you’re hungry for more than just food, and bacon is all you have.

Step 3: Chuck into a large, deep pot that looks like it could be used by a modern-day witch for making potions. Add a good sloshing of oil and an extremely generous tablespoon of butter.

Step 4: Sauté over a low to medium heat until you’re hit, once again, in the face with by smell of onion.

Step 5: While you’re sautéing (yes, you’re sautéing like the fancy, E-with-the-line-thing-above-it-using person that you are), peel and chop a quarter of a jap pumpkin. Cut the pumpkin down into tiny cubes, partly because they cook faster, partly because there’s something frighteningly cathartic about manically cutting things into pieces.

Step 6: Throw pumpkin into the pot, cover with a lid and turn up the heat to roughly halfway on the stovetop dial.

Step 7: Make yourself a cup of tea, but make sure has enough time to steep before you go adding the milk. If you’re in a position where you’re actually following my recipe, I feel you probably need a stiff cuppa. Make that cuppa a hug in a mug, sweetheart.

Step 8: Give the pot a stir after about 10 minutes.

Step 9: Keep stirring every few minutes until the cubes are soft enough for a butter knife to easily stab through.

Step 10: Carefully tip this into a blender or food processor, making sure not to splash that old, stained sloppy Joe you’re probably wearing.

Step 11: Slop in a few spoonfuls of Greek yogurt and blend.

Step 12: Feel guilty that you’re probably not eating enough greens, deciding to hide said greens in your soup so you don’t notice you’re eating them, like a real grown up. I chucked in a thawed packet of frozen kale, but anything greenish and vaguely leafy will probably alleviate the guilt – even if it’s just a token amount.

Step 13: Blend again, until you have something that looks like someone vomited after eating a Chiko Roll… with a side salad.

Step 14: Apathetically pour the slurry into lunch containers. Groan as you realise you’re going to be eating this for at least four lunches in the coming days.* Realise how incredibly dull your lunch breaks will be. Remember that you’re making lunches to save money so you can continue living the life to which you become accustomed. Wonder if the life to which you’ve become accustomed is even worth it. Question your priorities in life. Recoil at your poor decisions. Grimace to your very core.

* The instructions following the asterisk were added for online publication and were not present in the print version. Some people in Clifton worry about me enough because of what I write in that paper, I don’t want to concern them further with an extra thick dollop of brutal honesty. 

Step 15: Despite this bleak weekday lunch sentence, cherish the feeling that you at least made lunch for yourself. You did it. Even if your soup isn’t a winner, you sure are.

Bonus step: Jazz it up. Tear in some thigh meat from a hot chook. Dip crispy shards of bacon into it. Drink it from a margarita glass with the rim dusted with shaved parmesan and Cheezel dust. Do what you must to get through the week.

Originally published in The Clifton Courier, July 11, 2018

Hardware stores are the ultimate pick-me-up.

Forget about the pub, or the super cheap department store where you have to burrow that niggling feeling that everything has been made by what may as well be slave labour; the hardware store is the place to go if you need to pep yourself up.

It’s a place of possibilities. Everyone there is doing something – they’re making something or fixing something or growing something. Those pieces of lumber will soon be a planter box or a tree house or a deck where people will one day gather around a cob loaf. There are barbecues and dreams and that smell of timber that really should have been made into a scented candle by now*. You walk out of there with purpose, warm contentedness and, probably, a bag of potting mix.

* I don’t understand why Glasshouse hasn’t jumped on this. That hilarious photoshopped picture of the plywood and sausage sizzle scented candle has been shared widely with only positive connotations. It has all the markings of commercial success. The world is more than ready for hardware store scented candle, someone just needs to be brave enough to stand up and make it happen. 

But the best thing about hardware stores is that you never regret your impulse buys.

When you make an impulse purchase at the supermarket, it often ends in disappointment and shame. It’s like, say, trying to recapture your carefree, hopeful youth by buying a nostalgic Curly Wurly that definitely wasn’t on your shopping list. You end up bitterly picking sugary gunk out of your teeth, with thoughts creeping in about potential cavities and how you can’t afford to see the dentist, reminding you that your childhood has long passed. And the one thing you don’t need when you’re faced with a painful realisation about the cruel passing of time is a caramel-induced sugar crash after a sweet but fleeting high.

But hardware store impulse buys don’t make you confront your own mortality, nor do they threaten to derail your diet.

Nope, they’re just useful, handy little items that will only make your life better. They’re positive, but not in a sickly-sweet kind of way. They’re positive in a practical way.

They don’t make empty promises to fix your life like, say, a facemask. And they don’t pledge to relax you like a fancy herbal tea, which uses words like “rejuvenate” and “soothe” when they really mean, “I taste like someone mixed dirt in with jelly crystals”.

No, these items are like “oi, mate, seal ya window with me and we’ll stop that draft together” or “take me home and next time you have to tighten the screw on your wobbly saucepan handle, you won’t bugger up another knife”.

In fact, everything I’ve bought from the hardware has improved my life demonstrably.

To prove my point, I’ve included a list of my 2018 hardware haul for you to enjoy (because, if you’ve read this far down, you clearly have nothing better to do):

Toilet seat: I’ve written about this before, but sweet baby cheeses did it change my life. There’s something about knowing you’re not at risk of contracting butt tinea from some grubby person’s mysterious rear end that fills you with sunshine. Highly recommend.

WD40: Before, in my dark days, the sliding door to the bathroom was extremely difficult to open – it felt like I was rolling a rock from the opening of a cave each time I went to take a shower.

But then I let WD40 into my life and everything changed. The first easy slide of that bathroom door was like the feeling you get when you have blocked ears and they both pop – I suddenly understood what life was supposed to be like. It was a miracle.

I skipped around the house and began lubricating anything metallic that moved as if I was a spiritual healer, anointing them with WD40. I had seen the light and there was no going back to the darkness.

I now follow a WD40 meme page on Facebook.

Radiator heater: This little guy has given me so much. I turn it on, shut my bedroom door and, after about 15 minutes, my room feels like a cup of tea. The best part is that I need to have my room shut off for it to be effective, giving me the perfect excuse to be anti-social and block myself off from the rest of the apartment.

Zip ties: These are the equivalent to having a spare hairband on your wrist – you just need to have them handy just in case.

An indoor plant: It doesn’t matter that it thrives on neglect, this little guy gives me a sense of pride for having kept it alive for so long. And even though it needs minimal care, knowing I was able to provide this absolute bare minimum of care feels like personal progress. The plant is growing, and so am I.

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, June 27, 2018

In my household growing up, “salad” was a few slices of tinned beetroot, tinned pineapple, shredded lettuce, grated Bega and grated carrot, all arranged on your plate by Mum. Sometimes she’d personalise it by subtracting beetroot, adding cucumber or with an artistic sprinkling of sultanas, but it was pretty standard in essence.

This is not one of those salads.

This is an extremely wanky salad, which I threw together while trying to make my health kick less depressing. Some people would argue that cabbage and kale salad is extremely depressing, but I’ve been right into my kale lately and I had a buttload of cabbage to get rid of.

Pickled ginger also happened to be on special at my supermarket last week, which caught my eye as I hovered in the Asian food aisle. It has a flavour so punchy that it could make you forget that you’re eating responsibly.

And since I was being so ostentatious as to make a salad with bright pink ginger, I decided to be even more extra and get some sesame seeds, toasting them like the culinary diva I am. I viewed the tiny seeds as glitter, sprinkling it through my food like I was throwing a parade for my intestines.

Please enjoy the following recipe, for a salad that tries its very best to convince you that you’d sill eat it even if you were faced with a bowl of hot chippies.

Step 1: Toast like two tablespoons of sesame seeds in a hot, dry frypan.

Step 2: Question why you going to all this effort for a damn salad.

Step 3: Remind yourself that you deserve to have nice things and that you’re worth the weight of a chubby four-year-old in toasted sesame seeds.

Step 4: Put the seeds/granules representing your self-worth aside.

Step 5: Slice two chicken breast fillets and set aside. Try to cut them on a diagonal and slice as thin as possible, because they’ll cook faster. Cut them into fat chunks if you like, but they will only represent fat chunks of your life you’ll never get back. You could use those fat chunks of time to scroll numbly through Instagram or stare at the wall, but if you want to fritter that time away by cooking juicy chunks of chicken, that’s your call.

Step 6: Thinly slice a big-toe-sized nub of ginger and half an onion.

Step 7: Add to the frypan with a fair whack of sesame oil on a medium heat.

Step 8: Once the onion starts going translucent, add the pieces of chicken, laying them out flat like tiles. This might seem like it would take longer because it’s more fiddly than just tipping the meat in like a load of used nappies from a dump truck, but if you sliced the chook up as thinly as I told you to, it will be quite fast.

Step 9: Flip the chicken like little meaty pancakes, sprinkling on about a quarter of the sesame seeds and a good squeeze of honey.

Step 10: Tip this goop into a bowl and wipe out the fry pan with as much vigour as you can muster up – this will depend on the night of the week.

Step 11: Thinly-slice a quarter of a cabbage. And look, I really do mean for you to slice your cabbage thinly. I’m done mucking around. Follow my instructions or starve. I mean it.

Step 12: Add sesame oil to the clean-ish frypan, bringing it up to a medium-high heat.

Step 13: Cook the cabbage in batches for a few minutes at a time, topping up the oil as needed. The idea is to coat the cabbage in the oil. You want the cabbage to retain its crunch and dignity as a vegetable. Letting it wilt will bring shame to your household.

Step 14: Tip the cabbage into one of those large salad bowls you like owning but rarely use, making sure there is no dust coating the inside. Tip in the sesame seeds gradually with each batch along with torn strips of pickled ginger.

Step 15: Rip the leaves from about five stalks of kale, then tear them into pieces like you’re ripping up apology letters from all the lovers who wronged you, laughing wickedly while imagining yourself wearing an old Hollywood style dressing gown with flowing sleeves.

Step 16: Cook the kale like the cabbage, tossing it into the salad bowl with the remaining sesame seeds and as much pinkled ginge as your heart desires.

Step 17: Add two thinly-sliced shallots.

Step 18: Mix the salad well, then chuck in the chicken.

Step 19: Eat as much as you can physically stomach, tipping the leftovers into containers for lunches.

Step 20: (this step is only for the people who thinly-sliced their chicken like I bloody well told them to) Savour staring at the wall with the five minutes you saved yourself.

Originally published by The Clifton Courier, June 20, 2018

Winter can be a dark, depressing time.

Yes, devouring more bread-related foods is lovely. Crackling fires are divine. And it’s easy to pretend you’re a Norwegian Disney princess when there’s a thick layer sparkling frost on the grass. But no matter how cute you look in a beanie and extra-thick flanny combo, the cold, blistery season presents some serious low points.

It means you spend more time inside, because going outside requires far too much effort. And this means you spend more time alone, with because you’ve decided venturing outside to see your friends is more effort than it’s worth or, most likely, your friends have decided that venturing outside is more effort than you’re worth. And because of this aloneness and insideness, you tend to spend a lot of your down time curled up inside a blanket like a grumpy sausage roll, alone with your own thoughts and stale musk.

All this time on your own can lead you to some dark places. You learn things about yourself that you didn’t know and are confronted with parts of you that you’ve been pretending don’t exist.

It can be very dangerous indeed because, if you’re like me, it might lead to you to ruminate on the things you don’t have; that all important thing that’s missing from your life. When you’re cold and alone, it’s much harder to ignore the painful throbs of a heart aching for more. The longing becomes unbearable.

Yes, it puts into sharp focus how much I really, really need a clothesline.

When I left for Sydney, I didn’t think about. I was younger then. I arrived with the spring, when the sun’s rays lingered and filled apartments with warmth. A clothesline would be nice, I thought, but not having one wasn’t the end of the world. I was strong. Independent. Resourceful. I didn’t need a rotating frame.

But now winter has set in and I’m realising just how foolish I was.

Leaving aside the fact that having a rotating Hills Hoist means you’ll be able to liven up any dull barbecue/dinner party/wake with a round of Goon Of Fortune, there are some other practical delights of a clothesline I yearn for. Yes, yearn, like a one-dimensional female character in a 1950s romance epic yearns for an emotionally-distant solider with questionable views about the role of women in society to return from The War.

Having to dry an entire load of laundry on a clotheshorse is more deflating than you’d think. When the sun rises late, sets early and only hits your apartment for a short period of time, your clothes can take days to try. Days. After one particularly miserable weekend, my jumpers were still so damp after 48 hours of “drying”, I could have sucked enough water out of them to last me a day in the desert.

You drape your cheap, pretend-not-to-be-aware-of-how-unethically-they-were-produced clothes on the bars, knowing full well that the dank smell of confinement and your personal… aroma will never completely dry out of their fibres.

With a clothesline, you can hang clothes outside and get at least some progress from the icy breeze and winter sun. But not here.

Instead of a backyard, I have a balcony a little bigger than a ute tray with an extremely windy outlook. You can’t leave an unsecured clotheshorse out there unattended because there’s a high likelihood your washing will blow away.

As such, it’s a rarity to be able to position the clotheshorse outside to let the sun scorch the one’s clothes/linen/sinful past. I long for that smell sheets get after being hung to dry in the sun all day – it’s a smell that assures you all the germs have been fried. And knowing those germs have died horrible, horrible deaths helps me sleep at night.

I had my sheets on the balcony when I started writing this, so I could hop up and grab them if they blow away. I was literally watching laundry dry/living the glamorous big city life.

And because you can’t leave it outside, your laundry has to be hung in the lounge room. Suddenly, your collection of novelty pyjama pants and I-can-get-just-one-more-wear-out-of-these undies becomes an art installation for all to see.

Look, maybe it’s just the cold talking. Maybe once the sun comes out I’ll realise that I’m fine on my own.

But right now, as I sit in my damp apartment surrounded by knickers and musty gym gear, I want a clothesline and I don’t care how desperate that sounds.

Originally published in The Clifton Courier, April 6, 2018

The other night, I got up on my high I’m-from-the-country horse.

Now, this is interesting considering I’m someone who needs a block of wood as a boost to hop up into the saddle and I’m only just competent at riding (and that competence is arguable, however, considering that time I fell off a horse, broke my wrist and my life crumbled to pieces because I could no longer write, drive manual cars or shower without the company of a plastic bag).

I’ve written about my tendency to ham up my rural roots in the big smoke (see, I’m even doing it now) before. It’s just something that happens when you are surrounded by people who don’t know all the lyrics to Boys From The Bush. I automatically pretend I’m a member of the Outback Club. I’ll use strange words like “sorghum” and “charolais”. I’ll find a way to bring swags into the conversation so I can let it slip that I’ve slept outdoors. I may even start talking about the “rain out our way”.

And then I get into my rants. It all depends on what’s topical at the time – milk prices, live export or that extremely private, little-known gentleman Barnaby Joyce. Whatever’s been in the news.

But because I’ve been a little out of the cycle (I don’t know if you know this, but I was, like, in Europe. I’ve been to France, sweetie). So I’m not fully up to speed with the current events that I can chime in about “them bastards in Sydney just not bloody getting it”.

However, that’s not going to put a dampener over my bonfire (that you can light because you’re like five kilometres away from your nearest neighbour, I tell them) of country pride. I have this tendency to stew on things that annoy me about Sydney that wouldn’t be an issue back home. As such, I always have a backlog of “things that really shit me” that I can draw on at the moment’s notice.

And, recently, the targets of my rants have been dog owners.

You see, it’s now trendy to have border collies as pets. And I don’t disagree with that; they are lovely dogs that enrich many human lives. But the thing about border collies is that they were bred as working dogs and have a metric heckload of energy underneath that glossy, fashionable coat. They need to run. They stimulation. And they need big, open spaces.

Now, I doubt there are many backyards big enough for a collie in the eastern suburbs of Sydney. You can take them to the park every day, but they’re still being cooped up in a tiny yard – or worse, an apartment – for most of the day.

I’ve even started seeing kelpies being walked in Sydney parks. Kelpies in the city, for heaven’s sake. It’s bloody silly and makes me quite angry.

So, back to the other night. I was standing next to a guy at a reputable late-night kebab shop and we got talking about animals. I can’t remember how the conversation started, but the lovely thing about late-night kebab joints is that most people up for a chat. A whole new set of social rules apply. People are friendly. People actually talk.

Anyway, it came out that old mate had a kelpie.

And because I’d polished off a whole bottle of the finest, cheapest rosé the bottleo near me had to offer, I was in a ranting mood.

I started going on about how much space kelpies need and that they’re working dogs and that’s pretty bloody rough to keep the poor fella cooped up in the city. I don’t know how coherent I was at that time of the evening, however I did my best to berate him for having a working dog as an ironic appropriation of working class culture as an inner city status symbol. I may have even used the word “wanker”.

I thought I was doing pretty well at making it clear that I wasn’t from Sydney and that I knew stuff about the world because of where I happened to have grown up, portraying my background as proof of my superiority as a human even though it was something I had no control over.

But then old mate told me he was a farmer visiting Sydney from Victoria.

Oh. Dear.

According to my somewhat hazy memory, I backpedalled a bit then tried to rope him into my rant about wanker dog owners in Sydney. But for the purpose of ending this column on a comical note, I’m going to pretend I said this:

“So uh… get much rain out your way?”

Originally published in The Clifton Courier, May 30, 2018

Just an update on where I am as a person now.

I live in a share house situation, which tends to breed passive aggressive behaviour and, if you’re silly enough to move into a house with a clearly-non-council-approved spiral staircase that leads to a maze of dungeon-like rooms like my friends were, scabies*.

* This is not a joke. This is what happens when five boys decide to live together and only the landlords of houses in need of demolition will approve them to rent. They caught actual scabies. Scabies!

Thankfully, passive aggressiveness appears to be the only infestation plaguing my flat and the flare-ups are minor and only seem to occur when the bins fills up.

Ever notice how whenever you take out the rubbish – no matter how infrequently you do so – you always feel like the only one who ever does it?

Any time you banish the waste to the confines of a wheelie bin, it makes you feel like a truly noble being. It’s like you’re the only one willing to take a stand. In you mind you are a heroic waste crusader; the last frontier keeping the household from being violently swallowed up by a mountain of empty yoghurt containers and banana peels.

I was taking out the recycling bin the other day, in a wee bit of a huff. I mean, I had to go all the way down the hall, down the stairs and open a door with a bucket in my hands. And I had to put on shoes to do this. The injustice of it all was difficult to ignore.

But, because I’m the backbone of the household and the defender of filth*, I humbly carried the bin downstairs to the bay of wheelie bins underneath my apartment building.

* I may even deserve a statue, or at least an oil painting of some description, to commemorate my great sacrifice for the greater good. It’s only reasonable. 

And as I was tipping countless wine bottles I’d not drunk a sip from (not that I’m bitter or anything…) into the bin, I noticed something: three containers looking suspiciously like Tupperware sitting in another recycling wheelie bin.

I had to investigate.

And sure enough, my eagle eyes had not deceived me. There were three clean, perfectly sound containers just sitting there, abandoned among the empty hummus tubs and water bottles.

As someone who learned much about the workings of society through the prism of Mum’s Tupperware Parties, I knew this was gold.

This wasn’t just some crappy plastic container from the two dollar shop; this was the good stuff. It’s the stuff you write your last name on with a nikko pen so someone doesn’t snag it from a primary school barbecue. I mean, those were airtight, stackable containers that could keep your jam drops fresh for week. And, being my mother’s daughter, I knew these babies had a lifetime guarantee*. Sure, they were missing their lids, but you don’t just throw something like that away**.

* I promise this hasn’t been sponsored by Tupperware in any way, not that I’d say no to a few spare lids. I just am very well-versed in the benefits of Tupperware, having spent a life time with no first-hand experience with weevils.

** But something tells me these people had more dollars than sense. I mean, one of the containers was quite large and had a label on it that read “dried apricots”. Those wrinkly bastards aren’t cheap. If you eat them so much that they need their own designated container – let alone a big arse container – then you’re obviously making bank. One day I’d like to be wealthy enough to not care about a Tupperware lifetime guarantee, but I can’t see it happening. 

So of course I fished them out.

And then I started digging to find the lids. Some would call this “dumpster diving” but I would be more inclined to label it “not being the kind of dingbat who would turn their back on free Tupperware”. I’d also like to point out that it was a recycling bin, so it wasn’t like I was rummaging through used nappies.

Perhaps this will turn out to be a pivotal moment in my life, clearly marking the end of my youth and the beginning of my adult life.

I mean, there are few things that scream “grown up” quite like a dedication to extending the shelf life of baked goods through proper pantry storage. There was no turning back now.

And in case there was any doubt about what I’ve become; I wasn’t even disappointed I only found one lid. Because now I have an excuse to “have a few of the girls around” and put on a batch of scones*.

* Pumpkin, of course.