I think I might be my own psychologist now, or at least my very sketchy life coach.

I was about to have a bowl of yogurt just now when I stopped and asked myself, “Are you hungry or do you just feel empty?”

I know.

I’m kind of taken aback.

Like, woah Dannielle.

Deep.

I’ve since started cooking my meals for the week ahead and (obviously) started writing this. I plan to have a shower afterwards and change into some delightful pyjamas. No yoghurt as of yet.

Interestingly, this will make a fitting precursor – or hors d’oeuvres, if you will – for my real post for today, which is a for dairy I’ve been keeping all weekend.

Expect a full report later this evening, after I’ve had dinner.

Originally published in The Clifton Courier, February 1, 2018

My flat finally has a dining table and I can’t believe how much it has changed my life.

This account really isn’t going to do much in the way of convincing you that I’m living a put-together life, but then again nothing in this column ever really does that. If you could please imagine me wearing a pencil skirt* and carrying a nondescript takeaway coffee cup (that I plan on disposing responsibly) to counteract the scummy way this yarn portrays me, that might really help things.

* Preferably one that I bought from an actual store for women, and not something I paid two bucks for at a garage sale. Maybe pretend I shop at Cue or David Jones and that I go there so often that I have a loyalty card.

For as long as I’ve lived in this place, we have been table-less.

It was pointed out to me during the inspection-phase, with my flatmates explaining the previous tenant took the table. But there was a coffee table and it was big enough to support a spread of rustic bread and an assortment of cheese (as it turns out, I was the only prospective housemate to eat the free bread, which for some reason made me stand out as the successful applicant – so obviously the takeaway lesson there is to always eat bread when it is offered to you), so the table problem didn’t seem like much of an issue.

And it wasn’t, really.

As someone who has about 3.25 mates in Sydney, I wasn’t really in a position to be throwing dinner parties that needed amble dining space. And because I tend to chuck most of my meals in a bowl (my specialty is a “hearty chicken bowl” which roughly translates to “chunks of cooked chicken breast tossed into a family-sized serving of Gravox gravy, eaten out of a novelty-sized mug”*), I don’t really require a full dining set-up. I rarely find myself cooking anything that requires a steak knife to carve into it, so I have been able to get by simply by balancing my plate on my lap while sitting on the couch.

* It will be a key feature of my recipe book/biography, to be released at a later date… probably after being photocopied at the local library. 

Let’s not forget the joys of being table-less means a free pass to eat in front of the television, which allows you to continue distracting yourself with a screen instead of staring your sad reality squarely in the face. The television aspect of this transforms the situation from “pathetic 20something who can’t afford a table” to “young woman living like a queen because she can finally eat in the lounge room”.

And we did have an outdoor setting in case we really needed to sit at a table to eat. The problem with this arrangement, however, was that the plastic chairs collected water and there are always these pale splodges on the table that I’ve made an extremely uneducated guess to be bat wee residue. Sure, the table does the job of being a surface upon which to place food, but you run the risk of getting a wet bum and possibly contracting Hendra.

It was inconvenient at times, but it was liveable.

However, when one of my flatmates became swept up with the inevitable gust of optimistic productivity that comes with the New Year, she found a second-hand table for us. It could fit into her car and it was cheap enough to take from the money left in the joint account by the previous tenant. And sure, the table isn’t particularly large or glamorous, in fact, it had specs of glitter that don’t wipe off and a faint stickiness no amount of spray and wipe seems to remove, but it’s a table.

And holy moly as it changed everything.

Yesterday I ate eggs on toast without having to pick up the bread and eating it like a sad, eggy pizza*. I’m writing this at the table with a cup of tea next o my laptop instead of being in bed, with my tea dangerously perched on a book on my mattress. And yesterday I was as able to offer a visiting friend a seat while she sipped her water. We talked about work and her long-term relationship and savings – all grown-up topics of conversation that would have had a more pathetic tone to it should we have been sitting cross-legged on the aged carpet.

* Another idea for my recipe book. I plan on calling it In The Kitchen with Dannielle, and staging several awkward photoshoots to make it. 

It may be a few pieces of cheap wood, but this feels like a game changer. Before now, things were bleak. Sloppy. Everything had to be strategically bite-sized and in bowl-form. But now the future seems brighter. More sophisticated. With the potential for home-cooked steak.

And look, this whole column wasn’t just a 600-word build up for a crappy pun but it seems like the only way that I can end this: I guess the tables have turned.

I went shopping today.

I walked into a bustling Westfield and decided to treat myself.

And you know what I came out with?

An iron and a financial self-help book.

I wanted to buy more shirts I can get away with wearing at work because I generally have like three that I cycle between at the moment.

You could say this is because I have a “work uniform” that I have pre-arranged minimise the number of choices I have to make to prevent decision-making fatigue. You might argue that this is being smart. That I’m a productive, synergising wizard who deserves a write up in an aspirational magazine that advertises $647 desk chairs and $70 watering cans (yeah, I saw an ad for one costing that much the other day and it infuriated me – just another blister on the fiery ulcer of rage building up in the pit of my stomach).

But in actual fact, it’s because my wardrobe is still a system of washing baskets and a suitcase underneath my bed. They’re kind of like those storage drawers built into fance beds (a savvy friend of mine has one and it’s fabulous) except there are extremely dysfunctional and in no way stylish. The thing with these baskets is that I can’t see what’s buried underneath, so I end up just gabbing what’s near the top of the pile. And whatever is worn is then washed and stuffed back in the basket right on top again. And so, the circle of life continues until the cheap shirt is so worn and thin that it becomes inappropriate to wear in public.

Another factor in the cycle of shirty monotony is the fact that I didn’t have an iron, but owned a few shirts that needed pressing. I’ve always been someone who preferred to buy clothes that didn’t really need ironing. One of the many perks of op shopping is that most of the items have been worn and ironed to death and snap back to their ironed form after a wash. So most of my clothes are able to get by without ironing provided to hang them the right way on the washing line.

But in my apartment life a trendy, high-density area, there is no room for a washing line. And I have no iron.

So the pool of shirt options is even more limited.

I was going to buy a new shirt.

But then I realised if I bought an iron, I’d be able to wear the three or four shirts sitting at the bottom of the clothes basket.

I was making a sustainable choice.

I also picked up a copy of this financial planning self help book my friend recommend to my broke arse.

I walked right by the decorative homewares section. I didn’t look twice at the Lindt bunnies. I didn’t even stop at the trashy magazine aisle.

And here’s the kicker: I paid for the two most grown up items you could possibly find in a department store which has a profit margin bolstered purely on impulse buys from women aged 25-50 looking to fill an empty hole in their lives with succulents and candles in loyalty card points.

That means that my clothes iron and self-help book were essentially free.

I think I’ve turned a corner.

Wellity, wellity, welltiy.

Welcome the gripping sequel to the equally enthralling post I wrote earlier today, pledging to be productive.

Now, everyone’s definition of “productive” is different, but when you have set the bar as low as I do, this feels like a triumph. This is by no means a Pulitzer-worthy piece, but it’s a mark on the board. And who needs a prestigious literary award when you know your reward is going to be an unholy amount of pasta served in wheel of cheese?

What follows is a comprehensive list of what I’ve done with my day since my last post – because that’s obviously something everyone needs to know.

After I posted my earlier blog, I did the following:

• Grabbed my jogging gear off the clotheshorse
• Realised my jogging shorts weren’t completely dry
• Put jogging shorts on the fan to speed up the drying process
• Snapchatted above stroke of brilliance/affirmation that I am somewhat active because I have jogging shorts to get a hit of that sweet, sweet social media validation
• Turned my mattress
• Felt extremely accomplished
• Changed my sheets
• Visualised how great my sleep would be tonight
• Put on my newly-dried running shorts
• Copped sass on Snapchat from my friends’ parents who questioned whether I actually jog
• Jogged – mostly fuelled by a desire to be skinny, but also tiny bit of spite.
• Complained to my housemate about the humidity
• Started a shopping list
• Stared vacantly into the fridge
• Sighed longingly at the pantry
• Finished writing shopping list
• Got groceries
• Attempted to parallel park on a hill
• Attempted to parallel park on a hill
• Attempted to parallel park on a hill
• Reasoned that persistence results in skill perfection, but avoiding having to pay for repairs to a Mercedes is a more desirable outcome
• Parked further from house on flat surface
• Complained to my other housemate about the humidity
• Put groceries away
• Showered
• Changed into pyjama top and horsey boxers
• Put on a cup of barley to cook*
• Prepared a cheeky snack of hummus and bread
• Sat down on bed to watch “one quick episode”** of Pretty Little Liars “before getting back to being productive”
• Sighed deeply when epsidoe conked out after five minutes because I have patchy internet in my room
• Begrudgingly took this as a sign that I should get back to being productive
• Started writing a list of all my actions as a way of “being productive”
• Checked on barley
• Ate some strawberries
• Checked on barley again
• Turned barley into portions that could be four lunches or two – depending on how empty I feel
• Came back to laptop
• Saw that I had been hit by a wave of internet connection
• Hastily tied up my blog post
• Negliected to proof reed
• Posted said blog
• Returned to my “quick” episode of Pretty Little Liars 

* barley is my new best friend. Expect the recipe for a garlic barley surprise for the overtired and underpaid in the near future.

** even though each episode is pretty much exactly the same length…

I had big plans for this long weekend.

This weekend has been the carrot dangling in front of me as is dragged my limp, exhausted ass through January. I needed it. So badly.

Partly because I was tired, but also because I felt like one extra day to myself would give me the time needed to reset and get back on The Right Path. So of course I had little goals in mind for how I would use this precious extra day.

I wanted to finish reading Moby Dick and then hopefully move on to a financial advice book a dear friend suggested I read (because, let’s face it, your girl could do with a bit of help). I was going to use that extra day to write next week’s column, today’s blog post and a spare, non-time-sensitive column for the paper to have on hand in case I’m late/serve them up total garbage. I’d have my meals prepped for the next few days. My groceries would be done. My sheets would be clean. Heck, maybe I’d even do a cheeky 10k-er around the park.

It was going to be cultured and productive and sensible.

Instead, it’s 10.15am on a Sunday morning and I’m feeling somewhat sloppier than I’d like. And that’s not just because I’m sitting in a puddle of upper-thigh sweat wearing an oversized button-up shirt with tomato stains and no pants.

It’s because instead of reading classic literature, I spent all of last night catching up on Pretty Little Liars*. Before that I decided to have a three-hour nap. The most productive thing I did yesterday was spending 40 minutes changing my ringtone to Mental As Anything’s Live It Up instead of the generic iPhone tune. My sheets are unwashed, my lunch containers are unfilled and the only thing I did that came close to “doing groceries” was buying a carton of beer and a bag of corn chips.

But here I am, sitting at my flat’s new second-hand dining table, doing my best to turn things around. Because I have got this extra day up my musty sleeve, and like Harry with his invisibility cloak, I’m determined to use it well. I am meeting a friend to eat a family-sized serving of pasta out of giant wheel of cheese at 6pm, so I have a few hours to make this day count. And, for some reason, I believe in myself.

Already, I’ve written a column about how life-affirming it is to have a dining table (and yes, I did use the “tables have turned” phrase, because if I’m going to keeping flogging the “I’m twentysomething and I’m a fucking mess LOL” horse, I may as well use keep the clichés coming).

I’ve eaten some eggs. And I’ve made a half-arsed attempt at completing the Clifton Courier crossword (but felt like a failure after being unable to think of the word for “colt’s mum” – it’s depressing that someone with so much horsey leisure wear knows so little about the animals. It’s kind of like when someone wears a Metallica shirt and doesn’t know any of their songs, I guess. Although, I doubt a horsey person would come up to me and say “if you love horses so much, then tell me what you call a female that hasn’t bared a foal yet” with the same misplaced authority as a “real” music fan).

And here I am, writing my Sunday blog post before midday optimistic for the future.

Heck, I even plan on writing a second post before the day’s out to update you on my progress. I’m dreaming big. I believe in myself.

It’s not so much of a “yes, I can” as it is a “yes, I could”, but that’s just going to have to do right now.

So stay tuned to see how I go.

* not that I’m ashamed of my program of choice. It’s not a “guilty pleasure”. I’m not hiding the fact that I need to know who the shit A is. I feel like there is a powerful, unnecessarily-emotive essay in me about how a mystery series aimed at teenage girls is just as valid of a form of entertainment as classic literature. But that’s an argument for another day.

One of these Sundays I’m going to be well prepared, well rested and calmly preparing for the week ahead.

This Sunday is not one of those Sundays.

No, this Sunday is the same as all the others – I’m scrambling to pull a blog post out of my arse, I’m so tired that I’m dizzy and the thought of having to be productive tomorrow makes me feel as though I’m going to throw up.

Yet another day of sunshine and promise that I’ve gone and squandered. Sure, I did my washing and cleaned my bathroom. I did my grocery shopping. I put my car up for sale (if you know anyone looking to pay too much for a piece of junk on wheels, please, DM me). I even made my lunches for the next two days.

And yet, I still feel as though I wasted my day. Maybe that’s because I told someone at work I was aiming to finish Moby Dick this weekend and all I did was watch Pretty Little Liars, or maybe it’s because feeling like a failure on a Sunday is a symptom of our modern society.

But while I may not have been able to tick off everything from the overly ambitious to do list I wrote for myself today, I’m determined to tick off “update blog”, even if the item would have been more appropriately labelled as “shart out a bare minimum blog post that communicates just how much of a steaming pile of garbage your life is right now”.

So here is my attempt to meet that bare minimum criteria.

I’m going to recount my evening to you in objects – objects which, in retrospect, symbolise where I’m at in my life at the moment. So here are three things that represented my Sunday. Prepare to feel much better about yourself!

A dying scented candle: It smells fabulous, but it is at its wick’s end. There’s about half a centimetre of wax left in it and the flame really struggles to stay alight. I lit it to give me a sense of calm and decadence. And while it may be a futile attempt to make me feel like a put-together woman who knows how to take care of herself, at least it’s an attempt.

It’s not just a candle, but a scent assertion that I’m trying my best.

A used pore strip: I know I’m not alone in getting a kick out of seeing the stacks of gunk these things rip out of your nose skin. Seeing those juicy pillars of grime is almost orgasmic in a way that is difficult to describe. It scratches a sick, twisted itch you didn’t know you had and are now scared to explore any further in case it takes you to a dark place from which you can never return.

Unfortunately, my pore strip bore disappointing results. The tiny gunk towers were few and far between, and were very bland in colour. It was barely gross at all.

And I know this must mean that my skin is relatively clear and I should be happy with that, and I am. Yay for me. But at the same time, I feel let down.

I wanted grime. I wanted filth. I want to marvel at just how disgusting I was. Instead I have clear skin and the sticky residue of disappointment stuck to the bridge of my glasses.

A sad bowl of Cornflakes: I mean, the individual Cornflakes aren’t sad themselves. Considering they are comprised of processed corn, sugar, salt and barley malt extract, I highly doubt they have the capacity to feel anything all – let alone being able to articulate the complexities of dread and longing.

No, the bowl of Cornflakes is sad because of what it represents.

Because a bowl of Cornflakes at 8.30pm on a Sunday is more than just a bowl of cereal. It’s that a bowl of Cornflakes is considered a pick-me-up – what level of pathetic is it when a bland cereal is the shining light in your evening? How bleak do things have to be for a bowl of Cornflakes to be considered an extravagance?

It goes deeper than cereal, man. I put my hope in corn-based carbs to fill me up both literally and figuratively.

But then I remembered that the Queen of England – and, I suppose, me if you think about it – eats Cornflakes every single day. And she apparently doesn’t even them out of a bowl. She uses a “yellow Tupperware container”, or so the rumour goes. And say what you will about monarchy and the concept of colonialism, but being able to say that the meal I had was quite literally fit for a queen gives it a bit more of a sheen to it.

It’s nearly sundown and it’s become clear to me that I may not have had the most productive day.

I mean, I don’t think I need to present this statement with much evidentiary support (thanks for that lingo, Legally Blonde). I feel it’s almost indisputable that I’ve been a sloppy human being today. I can say this because I’m currently sitting on the couch watching live footage of a train making its way from Adelaide to Darwin.

But in an effort to be thorough and justified in my judgemental ways, I’m going to do more than say “I could have been less of a pile of shit today”. I’m going to back up this conclusion with facts. With figures. With the cold, hard truth.

Conveniently, this allows me to present a full-length Sunday blog post to you in the form of easy-to-write dot points.

So please, enjoy this brief summary of the meaningless, uneventful passing of hours that I call my Sunday:

Number of teas consumed: three. But it’s only 5.30pm and there is rain forecast for this evening, so I expect this number to increase.

Percentage of a whole cake eaten: based on my educated guess, using skills I’ve not properly exercised since my last Year 12 maths exams eight years ago, I’m going to stay 17%. Although, I must point out, my maths skills haven’t done so much as a single half-arsed, limp-limbed star jump in all those years and is probably more than a little on the flabby side.

Days past the best before date that cake was: Only one. Which essentially means it’s still good as new. And if there’s one thing that ages well, it’s got to be fresh cream.

Number of steps taken: according to my phone, 199. I’m going to try to keep it under 500. Because I’m a woman with goals.

Number of pyjama sets I’ve worn: two. This first was a nightie with the face of a Saint Bernard on it, the second is a mismatched combo of a pair of Christmas bottoms and a shirt I bought from the Humpty Doo pub last year. I always get compliments on this shirt when I wear it in public – mind you, these compliments come from baby boomer blokes with sock tans who “could tell you a story or two” about the infamous establishment. I’m not going to lie, I do love it. It helps to make up for the number of social connections I’ve burned by using the C word too often.

Sometimes I wonder what kind of position I’d be if I weren’t so uncouth, and what costs I’d unknowingly incurred simply by being my crass self. My unconscious, it seems, reckons it cost me a shot at the crown. I had a dream the other night where I had been in a deep, passionate relationship with Prince Harry, but ultimately made the choice to leave him because I knew I was too free-spirited to be tamed by the royal family. Even though it hurt me to do so, I walked away because I didn’t want him to have to choose between me or his family. So I ran off into the horizon, silhouetted by the setting sun – heartbroken, but free. When I woke up, I was convinced for a good 14 minutes that I was some kind of wild, bogan brumby of a woman who couldn’t be broken by the whips and harnesses of the English monarchy. It was weirdly empowering.

My other dreams are mostly about me trying to drive a car from the back seat, trying to pull of a manoeuvre like that episode of Mr Bean where he buys an armchair and tries to drive it home from the roof of his comical mini.

Number of times I’ve listened to Smoko by The Chats: five. I would buy a t-shirt from these guys, but the bastards haven’t got any available at the moment. Fark, I’d bloody love a “Smoko” branded lunchbox to take to work, but they don’t exist either. Someone needs to get these boys on the blower and sort this out.

Percentage of the day spent in bed: I reckon a good 73%.

Bras worn: Zero.

Shoes worn: Zero.

* Bonus round of rapid-fire questions to beef out this blog post *

Reading: Moby Dick. A wise fellow recommended that I read this.

Watching: Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse. I recommended that I watch this.

It’s on Netflix, in case you are wondering.

Listening to: the songs I have saved in my iTunes account, funnily enough. I keep going over my data, so I’m cutting back on Spotify.

Dinner plans: considering I didn’t go grocery shopping today and all the leftover food I’d been surviving on all week is now gone, I’m guessing the menu will feature toast with a thin spread of vegemite and a thick layer of bitter self-resentment.

Goal for next week: to send out last year’s Christmas cards… which I have still yet to write.