This weekend I was sweeping with a broom I had stuck together with sticky tape, a fistful of wooden skewers and determination.

Sometimes I feel like the things that happen in my life would make other people concerned for my welfare. I mean, if you chose to read it a certain way, particular incidences in my life in recent months would be viewed as red flags for an impending mental breakdown. Based on my Instagram feed over the past few weeks, I’m surprised no one has come up to me and asked, “Dannielle, is everything ok?”. Separately they’re amusing anecdotes. But when viewed as a whole, they paint a pretty bleak picture. Two out of the last five are dedicated to gravy. Another one is about my getting soup in my hair. There’s one there about how I was so cold I shoved cardboard in the cracks of my front door.

Sure, when you frame it a certain way, my life isn’t thrilling. I’m about to be unemployed, I’m quite poor and I live at least four hours away from my nearest friend. I spend my weekends watching DVDs I bought heavily discounted from one of the last remaining Civic Video’s closing down sale and counting the days until I move back to Queensland. Some people call this soul crushingly depressing, but I like to re-frame it as “character building”. So when another thing goes wrong, it’s not a kick in the teeth, but more a test of spirit, ingenuity and innovation. The more limited your resources, the more satisfying the victory.

You see, I like to think of myself as “resourceful” rather than “dirt poor”. I’m “inventive”, not “stingy”. I’m a great fan of Bush Mechanics, and I firmly believe there is a solution for every malfunction, even if it is a little rough around the edges. Only the other night I used the end of an ointment tube in the place of a flathead to screw the base of my heater back on. I have stapled my shoes together before. The two pairs of stockings I own have severe runs in them, but I haven’t needed to replace them because when you wear them both at the same time, they cover each other’s shortfalls. A fun bonus in this little scheme is that the double layers give you extra warmth and hold your paunch in like a pair of poor-man’s Spanx.

I have this broom right, which cost me all of seven bucks from a popular discount department store (we’ll call it Fay-Fart) known for its criminally cheap products knocked-off from people with actual ideas and mass produced by near slave labour. Because no one gives two shits if a malnourished seven-year-old Bangladeshi girl loses a hand in a sweatshop if it produces ceramic fucking pineapples at rock bottom prices, right? Anyway, because this broom was made with the lowest quality materials under assumedly horrific conditions, the handle split the other day while I was sweeping.

The handle kinked in the middle, with the bend making the cheap metal crack. As a result, the brush part and the top of the handle were only connected by about two centimetres of handle. It was like a straw with a cut in it. I could have gone out to buy a new one, but I prefer to spend my money on unnecessarily expensive hummus and magazines. I don’t think twice about paying $35 for a fucking candle (but it was four dollars off!), yet I can’t justify dropping $7 on a new broom. So I just carried on sweeping and returned it to its home ready for another use.

This morning, I realised I couldn’t live in my filth any longer and needed to get the swirling mass of hair, All Bran crumbs and flakes of my dead skin off the floor and into the bin. But unfortunately, I don’t have a vacuum cleaner.

So I had to break out the broom with a broken spine. The way it was cracked meant I could either sweep with no downward pressure at all or hold it just below the break and sweep like I was the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Instead, I decided to improvise.

I got the handle, some packing tape and a fist full of skewers to act as a splint. I placed the broom on my kitchen bench like a doctor prepping for surgery. I strapped a bundle of skewers over the crack and tightly wound the tape around the handle. Upon a quick test, I realised the handle needed greater structural support, and taped more skewers around the outside.

After a few tentative sweeps, I was thrilled. I caught myself saying, “look at that, no bloody worries mate” like I as Russel Coight hosting Better Homes and Gardens.

Everything was going great guns until I was sweeping up my final mound of floor scum. I realised I had stabbed one of my fingers on the points of the skewers and had covered the broom handle in splodges of blood. Ever the keen journalist, dedicated to reporting the up-to-the-minute news I decided to take a photo of my predicament for Instagram and harness my pitifulness for a few LOLs. I had to put the camera on my phone into selfie mode because the other lens was smashed and turn it around to face the broom (which meant I couldn’t see what I was taking a photo of because the screen had to face the subject) in order to take a clear shot of just how pathetic I was.

It was around about this moment when I realised just how sad this situation would have looked. I laughed deliriously and said “this is fine” to myself like that meme of the dog sitting in a burning house.

I move in less than seven days.

I’m currently sitting at home watching Nigella Bites.

I’ve never seen an actual Nigella show before today, now that I think about it. I only knew about her after seeing sketch shows making fun of her for being hot and knowing how to make food. I’m not sure why that’s worth making fun of someone for, but that’s prime time early 2000s Australian comedy for you. It’s like how I only knew about CNN was because of the pre-Chaser’s War on Everything satirical smash hit CNNNNN… etc.

Anyway, She’s talking about the recipe books passed on from Her (yes, Nigella gets a capital for all her personal pronouns, like Jesus) mother and grandmother. These aren’t just those shitty Four Ingredients paperbacks that every bastard seems to have in their recipe book drawer. I’m talking about the personally-collated recipe books. She is telling me – She talks directly to you when She talks – that these recipe books are essentially like photo albums, but with less slut strands (you know, those thick, greasy belts of hair you used to pull out of your slick-back pony tail to make you ultra glamorous – don’t pretend you never had the) and slogan tees. These are collections of “signature recipes” and basic shit ever bastard should know. Some of them are hand-written, others look like they were cut from a British Women’s Weekly equivalent.

It makes me think I should collate one of these myself. Because I don’t have too many recipes from my grandmother, who assures me she used to bake things like jam bloody turnovers even though I’ve only ever seen her serve up packets of Tim Tams or those weird lemon biscuits I assume she bought a wholesale-size crate of because I don’t think Arnott’s makes them anymore. I also don’t have many from my mother, come to think of it. But at the top of my head, I can think of a few. The titles would read:

Deputy PM Fruitcake – how to create a brick of fruit and spices good enough to feature on the front page of a regional masthead in the gob of Barnaby Joyce.

After-birth Bolognaise – a sloppy mince dish that freezes beautifully and makes the perfect gift for a friend who has just given birth/is sick/is going through a rough patch. Not to be confused with Placenta Bologaise.

Tiger Toast –cheese creatively-placed on bread.

There are, of course, a few of my mother’s gems which don’t need to be inked, because if you can’t say something nice about someone, you sure as shit shouldn’t write it down. And the same thing applies to recipes. There are some “dishes” that are best left in the past.

A good example of this is Mum’s Stir Fry. Now, when most people think of a stir fry they kind of a wok brimming with fresh, crunchy vegetables. They’re usually Asian delights, healthy and full of flavour. For the Maguire children, a stir fry meant something completely different. It meant beef mince, grated carrot, grated zucchini and sultanas cooked together to form poo-like clumps of sadness. Sometimes if Mum was feeling particularly exotic, she would team this with a packet of Maggi’s Two-Minute Noodles – chicken, of course.

This train of thought also makes me wonder about the kinds of food memories I would be passing down to my children – should I ever get knocked up. I’m trying to think of what I would call my “signature recipe”. The kind of foods my family would eat while choking back tears because I’ve died in a heroic, glamorous way and the delights in their mouth makes them think of my wholesome, fantastic soul. I don’t know if it’s possible to contain the essence of my fabulousness within a food without extracting my DNA or at least grinding my bones down to create some kind of Dannielle Salt (which I reckon would go well on a bit of avo toast).

But there are a few things I’ve cooked before which say a lot about me. There’s the famous Diarrhoea Arancini, which is of course an artery clogging risotto rolled into balls, coated in parmesan and ground corn flakes and deep-fried to the point of disintegration. The goo is then piled haphazardly on to a plate to create a mound of failure. There’s also my gingerbread, my pretentious slice and this pumpkin pie ooze I like to put inside things (pastry and my mouth, mostly).

But because Nigella was getting all nostalgic, I thought I would emulate her sentiment with the same articulation of elegance and culinary wisdom. I’m recreating the idea she presented of wholesome, family food prepared with love. And there’s one recipe that fits this description for me. I know I’ve been banging on about food and baking in some recent posts, but I’ve decided to share that with you.

NUGG-CHOS

The crux of this recipe is to mimic the world’s greatest creation besides the Quik Braid: nachos. But there’s a cheeky twist I’ve added to spice things up. Instead of the customary tortilla triangles or corn chips, I use chicken nuggets. Sometimes, I use dinosaur-shaped chick nuggets for authenticity. I like to think of it as a healthy spin on the snack, but this is debatable among people with actual knowledge about the nutritional values of foods.

Step 1: Follow cooking the instructions of the chicken nugget of your choice, otherwise known as: make chicken nuggets hot enough to cook out the salmonella. I recommend an oven.

Step 2: Cut up an onion, two large tomatoes and a medium red capsicum.

Step 3: Open a tin of black beans, making sure to open lift the tin lid off slightly. One day you’ll understand why.

Step 4: Drain the thick water off by skilfully leaving the tin in the sink for about five to 10 minutes.

Step 5: Grate some cheese. If you want to be really traditional, I’d recommend a kilo block of Bega.

Step 6: Open a jar of salsa. Medium works best, but if you can’t handle the authentic spice extremes of mass-produced, Westernised store-bought Mexican food you uncultured swine, go with the mild.

Step 7: Wait for nuggets to become gloriously browned and crisp.

Step 8: Put all ingredients that aren’t nuggets on to the nuggets. I recommend putting the cheese on last to create a nice blanket of fat.

Step 9: Put that tray back in the oven until the cheese starts to brown and bubble.

Step 10: Mash up some avocado and dollop it on with a few spoonfuls of sour cream/thick natural yoghurt.

Step 11: Put tray on to table give everyone a fork and hoe into that bastardisation of Mexican culture like the capitalist pigs you and your guests are.

Step 12: Eat until you have reached a satisfactory level of self-loathing.

I’ve completely lost faith in the human race and it’s all because of chicken tenders.

A little while ago I bought a box of chicken tenders from the supermarket. I was facing a few busy nights and thought it would be good to have some oven-ready poultry on hand. Because when you’re a gal on the go, you don’t have time to muck around. You need a dinner you can throw into the heated shelving in your kitchen and leave it while you organise your manila folders, live tweet and press buttons on your Blackberry. Behind every powerful, professional woman is a box of processed chicken that can be cooked in the time it takes to shower.

I’d had almost a lifetime of experience with these crumbed bits of dead bird so I was confident that I was putting a few delightful, easy meals into my trolley. I thought I knew what I was buying. I had no idea I was putting a box of frozen lies into my freezer when I got home.

A few nights later, I was tired, I was hungry and I needed a little treat. The tenders, which are produced by an Unidentified Chicken Company, fit these criteria. So when they carb-covered chicken carcasses came out of the oven, I was pretty excited.

Until I took the first bite and realised I had been taken for a fool. I have reasonably low expectations in life; it’s one of my coping policies to prevent my mediocre existence from driving me insane. I usually can shield myself from crushing disappointment by setting the bar low, that way if the outcome is shitty I at least get the satisfaction of knowing I was right. If it’s better than expected, it’s a nice surprise. But I hadn’t set the bar low when preparing for a bit of this chicken, because I had already experienced it’s chickeny goodness on countless occasions. This chicken being tasty was as much of a sure thing as someone in my family digging out the Shrek’s Christmas CD in December. It wasn’t fancy, but by golly was it glorious.

I had become accustomed to the tenders from the Unidentified Chicken Company containing a meat product that resembled real chicken. In fact, I think it actually was real chicken, or at least a very close alternative. But the goo coated in breadcrumbs the other night didn’t even look like it was once alive. It looked like the innards of an old, mouldy couch that had been left out in the rain. It looked like a massive collection of that residue that is left on your skin after leaving a non-brand name Band-Aid on your shin for too long. It looks like that gunk that gloved hands would squeeze from the artery of a dead smoker public health campaign ads. But aesthetics, when it comes to chicken, doesn’t matter too much. What was really offensive was the taste. It tasted like betrayal. It tasted like crushed ambitions. It tasted like the world had given up.

I sat on my couch seething, staring angrily into the air for its ultimate betrayal of being available to be breathed into the lungs of my enemies, the chicken tender manufactures. The people – if you can call them that – who did this to me did not deserve to breathe the same oxygen as me. This was the ultimate act of treason.

I had been tricked. Clearly, this was an example of cost cutting at its most sinister. Quality had been traded for profit, and we were all poorer for it. This isn’t a new concept, but I felt the rug had been completely pulled from under me. Nowhere on the box was a warning that the much-revered recipe had changed.

I know you can hardly write “new, shitter recipe” on the box. I know nobody is going to make an ad telling customers they’d replaced the chicken in their products with the fluff taken from vacuum cleaner bags mixed with salt and water. The tagline isn’t going to be changed to “the taste of poverty”.

But I feel like some kind of warning should have been given to me, an outraged consumer. I should have been given some warning that this clump of mystery meat was in crumbed in lies and seasoned with disappointment. Never before have I had so little faith in bread-coated chicken, or the world.

I’ve always believed in the good in people, but now I’ve completely lost faith in the human race. I assumed that humanity was stronger than greed and that people would do the right thing. But now I’m not so sure. If man is good, man would have never let that mass of concentrated evil be produced.

Now is not the time for cowardice. History will condemn those who stood by and did nothing with the conspirers. We will look back decades from now and hang our heads in shame. We have to do something with the little power we have. And so, I plan on standing up to the lions of injustice. I will stare boldly into the eyes of corruption. I will brandish a sword at the pillars of greed.

I’m going to write a letter.

Health food bloggers need to say “bliss” less and “piss” more.

I like cooking tasty, healthy food. This is because I want people to say “she could be a bikini model, but she’s using her brain instead” behind my back, but I also hate celery. If I’m going to put something in my mouth, there has to be something in it for me (*winks). And that something should be some kind of vague nutrition. But swallowing is much more likely if what I’m putting into my mouth tastes good.

I’m not against protein balls or cauliflower rice or even kale chips. I love them all. I just wish the health food culture wasn’t so … wanky. I know there’s a market for inspiration, but I just want to get through an almond-based recipe without having to endure words like “nourish”, “bliss”, “wholesome” or “clean”. What I really want is a good Aussie accent explaining to me how to activate my almonds “without burning the arse out of it”. I don’t have a problem with photos of artfully-stacked slices packaged in rustic twine and baking paper, I just want people to stop trying to enlighten followers with their recipes. Because it’s food guys. It gets eaten, sprayed with bile and ends up in rough clumps in the toilet. Calm down. Stop trying to change my life.

And because Alf Stewart is yet to host a clean eating cooking show, I’m going to attempt to fill the gap. So I’m sharing a recipe with you to kick off the #cuntstryingtobehealthy movement. I don’t have a name for this stuff, but for the sake of labelling, I’ll call it Pretentious Slice.

I know this recipe wouldn’t qualify as “clean”. It has two kinds of sugar and butter. But it uses oats instead of flower, has fruit and is packed with fibre (I think). And because flour is satan and I care about your colon, I reckon it’s better for you than a doughnut. If it’s more nutritious than a doughnut, it’s healthy.

Alright. Here we go.

The first thing you’re going to want is a decent food processor. No healthy eater is complete without one. Because a blender just isn’t going to get your cashew aioli to the right consistency (another recipe for another time). Most of us closet health food eaters have some form of informercial equivalent; mine is a Ninja. It’s great for margaritas.

So step one is getting a cup of All Bran and one and a half cups of oats into whatever you usually make your bliss balls in.

Then you’re going to want this stuff called Fibre Booster. I don’t know exactly what’s in it, but it looks like some kind of fertiliser and that’s what you want if you’re trying to shit your way skinny. It has a purple label, if that helps. I put in one scoop with the quarter cup measurement and then like half of that … so like one sixth of a cup? I don’t know man, only you know your colon and what kind of scraping it needs. Listen to your heart.

Pulse that shit in a food processor until it’s as close to a flour as your imagination will let to believe. Because no matter how fabulous your nutribullet is, nothing is going to make fibre as fine as that delightfully bleached, pulverised white flour. You’re going to have to make sacrifices if you want to have a sculpted bod. Don’t kid yourself. It’s going to be grainy. It’s like when people say things like “cauliflower chicken nuggets” and pretend they taste the same as McNuggs. There’s no way white, bulbous broccoli is going to taste exactly the same as chicken offcuts dipped in batter and fried in week-old oil. And that’s ok. But stop lying to yourself.

Ok, now because you’re added a fuckoad of what I can only assume is powdered bark to the mix, you’re going to need sugar. Get one third of a cup of raw sugar (yes, raw because you didn’t’ think we could get through a recipe of pretentious slice without the word “raw”, did you?) probably about one heaped third of a cup of brown sugar.

Then chuck in about a teaspoon each of nutmeg, mixed spice and cinnamon, and about two teaspoons of ground ginger, or even more. This is a mix a throw in with almost any sweet thing I make, and it never fails to impress my family. They look at me like I’m a bloody genius and it’s all thanks to knowing where the Masterfoods stand is in the supermarket. I actually don’t measure it, I generally just shake the bottles until my internal rage is reduced from a boil to a simmer. Depending on the day or whether or not you’re being paid 17 per cent less than your male counter parts, this could vary significantly. Best to use the measurements for your first go…

Also, you’re going to want to add about two or free teaspoons of baking soda about now. Don’t worry about this stuff rising too much, because it’s kind of like cooking with sand – there’s only so much you can make it rise. Also, add about a teaspoon of salt here. The salt is the real star of this slice. It’s like a salted ginger slice, which makes me sound like one of those trendy foodie people. Don’t limit your tastebuds to the fads that trickle down to the McCafe display case from Masterchef. I’m breaking barriers here. Join me!

Now blend all this together. There’s no time limit here, just as long as it takes to irritate any person within a 15 metre radius of you and your food processor.

Now you add the wet stuff. I’m going with a bit of coconut oil – gees I don’t know like a third of a cup – a drizzle of olive oil and one or two heap tablepoons of butter. You could probably do it all with coconut oil, but you’d be a fuckwit. Butter is life. Butter is everything. Butter is divinity.

Then blend.

Have a look at the mess you’ve made in the processor. If it’s still powdery, add more of your favourite oily ingredient. You want it to get to the point of resembling a dough, if that dough was made with a wooden table put through a mulcher.

Once you’re pleased with this grainy goo, squish it into a lined baking tray. You can roll it out, but you’re going to need to put a layer of baking paper on top and beneath the dough, because that stuff is clingier than your Year Eight boyfriend. If I’m being precise, I’ll roll it out between the baking paper and peel the top layer off and throw the bottom layer into the baking tin, which saves mucking around with transferring it. Too easy campeasy.

But because this is Pretentious Slice we’re making, I recommend going for the rustic look, which will garner more likes on Insty. Sprinkle some rolled oats into the lined baking tin, throw in the mixture and knead it roughly. Then press it as evenly as you can into the tin. Put the tin in a moderate over for about 10 or 15 minutes, or until the mixture changes colour and starts to rise slightly.

Take it out and dump a whole bag of frozen berries on top. I prefer straight up strawberries but I’m not the boss of you so you can chuck on what you like. I’m not going to know about it. But I will say that the fruit works best if it was frozen first, because it breaks down better. Because the cells have already been frozen, they completely die in the arse once they’re heated, which makes for a nice gooey texture that you usually have to get slowly simmering the fresh fruit like a sucker. And you’re not a sucker.

Drizzle on some honey for sweetness and to keep the vegans away, then throw it back into the oven for another 10 or 15 minutes.

Remove from the oven then wait to cool before eating so you don’t burn your little tongue on the gooey innards of the fruit. But considering you’re going to be taking photos of the slice from various angles, on different wooden boards and with multiple combinations of fresh flowers, half-drunk cups of tea and linen towels, that shit will probably be ice cold before you even think of enjoying it/ruining it for photos forever by putting it in your mouth.

This slice is best enjoyed with a cup of tea while deliberating over which hashtags to use.

When all else fails, over share.

I’m cold. It’s late. I am still suffering from the allergic reactions my face pulled after being exposed to the decade old dust disturbed by my little sister cleaning her room. So I didn’t have a polish post prepped and read of dissemination by the masses (shout to “the masses”, otherwise known as Christina, Phoebe and my relatives!).

It’s four degrees at the moment. Thinking is hard. So I did what anyone would do: I goggled the answer to my problem, which was questions. I searched for ten questions through Google, or more correctly, I searched for “dten questions”. And this list came up. And because I like asking the questions no one cares about, I’m going to give you the answers only I care about.

What are you grateful for? Right now? Polar fleece. Definitely polar fleece. And insulation.

What are you proudest of? I’m really proud of my pelvic floor.

The other night I had a dream in which I was weeing. We’ve all had those dreams. Those are the dreams where one minute you’re in a pool of tepid water or sitting on a toilet and the next instant you’ve been transported back to your bedroom, damp, confused and soaked in shame. They’re the equivalent of your brain pulling the chair from underneath you or pricking holes in your condoms – a huge fuck you from your sub conscious to your consciousness, and your mattress. Those dreams are dangerous.

I now know what being a grown up means. Being a grown up means having a dream you are weeing on a carpet and waking up bone dry. That’s success. Bladder control is the true mark of accomplishment.

Because once you master the balloon of literal piss inside you, you can master the balloons of figurative piss inside you. You can control that urge to roll your eyes at wankers. You can control your desire to throw a gym ball at unsuspecting person. You can control the voice in your head screaming at the fastfood worker who blatantly disregards the golden rule of traying up: drinks first, burgers second and fries third (it keeps your fries piing hot and it’s not that hard).

What’s been the happiest moment of your life so far? For some reason, that time I won a family pass to see The Power Puff Girls Movie premiered in the big smoke – otherwise known as Brisbane – from Girlfriend magazine came to mind. I know I’m tired, but if this is the cherry on top, my life must be a shit sundae.

What’s been the hardest moment of your life, and how did you get through it? Being confronted with the fact that forcing my family to drive to fucking Chermside to see a cartoon may just be my happiest moment. I’m getting through it by telling myself that I’m really knackered and therefore can’t be thinking straight. Surely I’ve had happier moments, I’m just to dog tired to think of them.

What are the most important lessons you’ve learned in life? If it’s flooded, forget it.

How would you describe yourself as a child? Were you happy? I used to come home from school, not talk to anyone, make myself some Heinz spaghetti on toast and go sit outside with magazines and milk. So I would describe myself as concerning, I guess. I think my happiness levels depended on where I was up to in finishing my purposeless carb loading – I was a spaghetti tin half empty kind of gal.

Who has been kindest to you? I’m going to have to go with a blanket “family” answer on this one. But before you think I’m one of those wankers with my last name tattooed across my back, let me explain a few points:

Mum saved a hunk of roast lamb and GRAVY MADE FROM PAN JUICES for more than two days for me so I could have a sandwich over the weekend.

Dad let me take the rest of their packet of sultanas home. And he loves putting those wrinkly little bastards on his morning porridge.

When my oldest sister and I go out for dinner, she pays for our main meals and lets my pay for the ice cream afterwards.

My second oldest sister bought me a chai latte today and used to assure me in high school that she would drive me to get an abortion should I ever need one.

My little sister lets me steal an odd chippie off her plate at dinner when I ask Mum not to give me any, so my svelte body can look ultra glamorous.

Yes, most kindness is revolved around food. But it’s painful having to share a burrito so someone offering me that privilege is very highly esteemed in my books.

How do you want to be remembered? There’s a picture of me in college dressed in a poncho, fringe dripping with sweat and beer, trying to squeeze a goon sack into a tiny over the should bag. I think that sums me up pretty accurately.

If your great great grandchildren could listen to this years from now: is there any wisdom you’d want to pass on to them? What would you want them to know? There’ll always be money in onions. I can’t say this with any certainty or authority, but I like the way it sounds.

If you could honor one person in your life — living or dead — by listening to their story, who would that be, what would you ask them and why? The woman who played Grandma Yetta. God bless her soul.

I’m getting tired of words not meaning what I think they mean.

I don’t know if this is me saying I don’t like lingo or me saying I don’t like myself for not knowing the lingo. I think it’s a little bit of both to be honest.

I’ve always been a fan of slang and how the meaning of certain words evolves over time with frequency and tone of use. But usually I’m on the front foot of those evolutions. I was there when “bulk” stopped being used exclusively as a prefix to “billing”. I was there when “keen” was the equivalent of “I just grew several penises and each one of them is erect at the prospect of joining your proposed Maccas run”. I was contributing to the cutting down of long words to one syllable or “syllb”. I was there for it all!

But now I’m out of the loop, and words are different to me. Words that used to mean one thing now confuse me. “Dank” is a pretty good example. Right now it’s being thrown around a lot, and it seems to have varying uses. Back in my day, which was only like five years ago, dank was absolutely a bad thing. For something to be described as “dank” meant for it to be grotty, shabby, unpleasant and just all around shit. I viewed it as a mix between “rank” and “damp”. So by that logic, one would use it in a sentence to describe an old, soiled mattress. Maybe a flanno left on the floor of a recovery party, soaked in food dye and beer, drenched in poor decision making. Hell, you could even use “dank” to describe a cave full of wet but warm dogs.

But now it’s being used to describe remixes and memes. Now, for the love of all things holy please do not ask me to define the word “meme” for you. Memes are like the meat in sausage rolls – everyone loves them and eats them right up, but no one can say with exact certainty what they are. They’re like funny pictures, mostly with accompanying text that are shared around the many corners of the vast World Wide Web we love so much. In the final throws (A.K.A. about a month out) of the federal election, everyone is banging on about “dank memes” that are going about as political propaganda, albeit shitty propaganda.

And despite all the hard work dedicated media minders do, sometimes politicians think they can own this whole social media game. They think it’s in their best interests if they handle their Twitter handles and put the “I” in their insty posts. It’s a real win for us, The Voters, because we get an understanding of the person behind the politician. The posts they make up themselves can be absolute gold. This is because most politicians running in this election are daggy old dads (I can say this because out of 10 candidates running in my electorate, not one of them is a woman). Case and point? Behold our Deputy Prime Minister:

Now, fest your eyes on some of the weird, completely dad-like posts he obviously made without the assistance of a trusted adult, like he was Ralph Wiggans and Lisa Simpson in a state costume contest:

You see, the thing about daggy old dads is that they don’t fully grasp this whole young people thing. If you make it to their ages, you can probably expect to develop some weird quirks, bank up a horrible repertoire of odd, and sometimes slightly racist, sayings and a general disconnect from the generations below you. My dad is a classic example. One time I caught him intensely reading The Many Uses of Vinegar recipe book like it was a novel while wearing his Akubra and belt with a pocket knife on it. Another time he asked my sign writer uncle to make him a stick for the back of his ute to tell other drivers to “stop sniffing my arse”. He thought it was both smart and hilarious. We [his offspring, general humanity] were mortified. Thankfully, this sticker was never fixed to his vehicle, but I feel like it is representative of the kind of political claptrap flying around the internet. I Googled “dank memes political Australia” and this is what came up:

So by looking at this garbage, one would assume that “dank” still meant bad. But the other day I was listening to the radio and heard a producer talking about how he spend his time making “dank tunes”. From memory, the sample of his work I heard on my commute was reasonably not shit. In fact I would have to say that this fellow had a track record of dropping bangers (not the sausage kind, the “this song is very enjoyable and encourages me to dance” kind; I at least understand that one). So in this sense, I would have to assume that “dank” not only meant “not shit” but also “quite fantastic” and “inspired gregarious dance moves”.

So where does this all leave me, a person unsure of whether it is an insult or a compliment? How do I prove myself to be “with it” when the definition of “it” keeps changing? I can only assume it is like the word “sick”. That word is usually used to explain a general state of being unwell, and sometimes is a euphamisim for vomit (e.g. “he was sick all over the back seat” or “the pile of sick in the corner of the room did little to dull the passions of the two 19-year-old drunkards”). As such, the word is often used in place of “gross” or “disgusting”, as in “this pantsuit is sick, I can’t be seen in it or I won’t get a date to the formz”. It is sometimes used to describe a deranged person; “sick puppy” is my favourite example of that. But when used as “sik”, the word sounds the same but takes on a whole new meaning. “Sik beatz”, “sik singlet” and straight up (language warning!) “sik cunt” are all massive compliments. In fact, that last one is probably the highest honour that can be bestowed on any Australian. “Sik” is the kind of “good” that is usually paired with a surfie hand gesture and even an outstretched tongue. It’s exclusively a young people term.

So maybe that’s the case with “dank”. Maybe “dank” is the new “sik”. Maybe the word can have multiple meanings; many other words do after all. Maybe I’ll be able to be with “it”, even if they change what “it” is. Even if what I’m with isn’t “it”. But I have to say that right now, what’s “it” seems weird and scary to me.

I made a cake with stevia and I feel like I betrayed my entire being.

It was a rainy weekend and I was doing some soul searching. It was a busy week beforehand and I needed to take time to reconnect with my spirit. I needed to reset my mindset and tune into me. I needed to peel back the layers of the great croissant that is my soul. I needed to take a step back and remember what was important to me and what I wanted out of life.

It took hours of laying down, but eventually the skies in my clouded mind dispersed and I could see clearly. I knew what I needed to do. I had plenty of oranges and a plastic bag for full of dreams. I had goals. I had ambitions. I aspired eat the entirety of something with a mini fork.

But there were competing forces at play. The eternal tussle between wanting to eat so much crap you practically sweat gravy and wanting to have the kind of rig that gives other people self-esteem issues is ever present in my mind. It’s a hell of a fight. Sometimes the ravenous wreck comes out on top, and sometimes I’m able to stay on the path of smug nutrition, because nothing motivates you to keep fit quite like the possibility of completely unhinging the mental stability of people you don’t know with your pert arse.

Of course, there are also times when you try to compromise. You can see the value in treating yourself to something tasty but also have the foresight to know you don’t ever want a weedy intern nurse to struggle under the weight of your fat apron should your crippling obesity hospitalise you.

This citrusy circle of shame was one of those compromises. I decided to make an orange and almond cake, and bought the necessary almond meal (which may as well be the ground bones of Jesus Christ himself it was that expensive, by the way) while on a long walk. Sure, the walk was just something for me to do to justify bathing for the second time that day but I still didn’t want to undo my activity. So as I trudged home with the dust of the rich in the plastic shopping bag I made a promise to myself.

I promised myself I could eat an entire family-sized dessert as long as I could pretend it was healthy. I’ve made this promise before. Mostly it’s pie or crumble related. I use ground oats instead of flour in my bases and olive oil spread instead of butter and I tell myself it’s an acceptable move to gorge myself on an entire industrial-sized pie in the space of 48 hours. So I was feeling pretty confident about my plan to replace the sugar content in the cake with stevia.

I’d heard nothing but praise for this plant-based sweetener. Everything from “just as sweet as a sugar” and “probably not as poisonous as most sweeteners” filled me with an unshakeable confidence. Not only was this cake going to taste fantastic, but because this powder of dreams was plant-based and the other ingredients were two whole oranges (yep, you used the whole fruity sphere), almonds, eggs and good intentions, it was going to be a health extravaganza.

Oh, how wrong I was. Once the hours-long process of preparing and cooking the cake was completed, I raised the confection to my mouth and had to swallow my pride. The stevia was far from the powdery dream I had expected.

Instead it tasted like I had replaced the sugar with the salt gathered from evaporated urine left out in the sun. It tasted like someone was angry with me. It tasted like citrusy hate. And it had done this all to myself.

All I wanted to do was to simply consume more the recommended daily intake of sugar and happiness. Instead, I had spent two hours crafting physical misery, and it wasn’t even moist! I just wanted a treat that wouldn’t make my hate myself completely but in doing so I had created tea anti-cake.

The only thing left to do was to hide my sins in a layer of unplanned icing. I combined the three superfoods of butter, icing sugar and cream cheese to create a delicious sludge of sinnery. I was sure it would cover the aftertaste of the stevia, which I read is a problem the world over. Apparently it is a great sweetener, but it leaves a dreadful taste WHICH IS COMPLETELY SENSELESS. What is the point of using a sweetener to replace sugar if it has an awful taste?! WHO ARE YOU MONSTERS?!

Unfortunately the great icing distraction didn’t work, and I was now with a horrible tasting cake that was drowning in calories. It was a disaster. No person should be subjected to that kind of shit. No one deserves it. So I did the only decent thing I could do.

I took it to work the next day.