The scene: my family is out for dinner at a cosy Italian restaurant for my brother’s 25th birthday. His new girlfriend is present. I have been forced to cancel my plans to watch Weeds under my doona in order to attend. I am bored. I have had 3 glasses of wine and I want to stir somebody’s pot. I actually like my brother’s new girlfriend, so I refrain from picking on her as I normally would. I know that I should also be nice to my brother, seeing as it is his birthday and I did not get him a present. And I leave my father alone, because he is my favourite person in the world. That leaves my mother.

Mum: So has anybody seen much of the Walkers lately?

Me: Yeah, I see Tim around the city every now and then, when he’s not hiding in his closet.

Mum: Oh, Annik...

Me: What? That kid’s more camp than a row of tents. Last week I saw two guys having sex in Hyde Park, and that was less gay than Tim Walker’s haircut.

Mum: The problem for Tim and other boys like him is that their faith is so important to them. They want to get married and have families like everyone else at church. But that conflicts with their involuntary desires to, you know…

Me: Fuck other men?

Mum: Yes.

Me: So if God intended for Man to be with Woman, and the Bible specifically states that homosexual practice is a sin, and the church frowns upon gays, then why did God create particular humans with these same-sex desires?

Mum: That’s one of the great mysteries of the Christian faith.

Me: No it’s not. It’s proof that the Bible is a load of horse shit, and every time you people can’t explain something properly, you just use some wanky cop-out excuse like “we can’t understand heavenly matters.” How can you add disclaimers to the entire human race’s ability to differentiate between possibility and impossibility like that? It’s a complete crock. You all disgust me.

Dad: Does anybody want dessert?

Friend #1: So, any goss?

Friend #2: Jennifer Chapman from school is engaged.

Me: Who the hell would marry that piece of shit?

Moment of silence.

Friend #1: You’re kind of a bitch when you’re stoned.

Me: So’s your face. Fuck you. I’m going home.

Thanks a pantload, Niki.

What is your current obsession?
There are a few: the new Karnivool album, mini-muffins, trying not to sleep on my stomach, and slowly but steadily ploughing through the white section of my mother’s wine rack.

Coffee or tea?
Soy flat whites, always.

What’s for dinner?
Beer, and possibly Matt Corby.

What was the last thing you bought?
A packet of cigarettes, a box of tampons, sugar-free strawberry Strepsils and a can of soup.

What are you listening to right now?
DJ Shadow.

What is your favorite ice-cream flavor?
I fucking hate these kinds of questions. Honestly. Are you ever going to go out and buy me an ice cream? No. I’m a girl, I don’t eat ice cream, I am constantly dieting and the guilt of eating ice cream is never worth the taste of the actual ice cream itself, no matter what fucking flavour it is, so go eat a dick.

What is your favorite colour?
Colours are entirely meaningless to me. I do not feel positively or negatively towards any of them. Analyse that.

What is your favorite piece of clothing in your wardrobe?
My Super Ted hoodie. Because people always say “Is that? Is it….IS THAT SUPER TED?”

What is your dream job?
To be paid to write, but only about myself.

How many times do you press the snooze button before you get up?
I never figured out how to do this on my iPhone, then by the time I have put the timer on for 15 minutes I’m usually awake enough to just haul arse out of bed anyway and get on with my miserable day.

My mother has this tendency to try and talk to me whenever I am walking out the door, blow-drying my hair, on the toilet, asleep in bed or otherwise engaged.

Last Monday night, she waited until I was brushing my teeth before asking me if I had a good physio appointment. I gave a thumbs up.

“And did Elizabeth get my message?”

I shrugged.

“Did you have some dinner?”

I shook my head.

“Are you going to work tomorrow?”

I nodded.

“Well you’re just full of information tonight, aren’t you?”

“Woman,” I spat in the sink, “I am brushing my teeth.”

“Okay, no need to be such a cow. Did you know I gave birth to you without any anesthetic? I pushed out your selfish head without so much as a goddamn epidural. And this is the thanks I get.”

The following is a text message conversation that occurred sometime during 2006.

Me: “If I had to give you awkward and unpleasant news, what would be your preferred mode of delivery?”

Boy: “Text is fine.”

Me: “I really don’t like you.”

Boy: “No worries.”

After a morning of intense shopping at KLCC Centre in Kuala Lumpur, my friend Niki and I retreated to a nearby park to rest our legs and eat some lunch. We had already attracted stares everywhere in KL – mostly from the Indian men – but now we really seemed to be the main focal point in the park. Every few minutes, we were approached by somebody wanting to take our picture. Others simply took sneaky shots of us when they thought we weren’t looking, or pretended to take photos of their friends while clearly pointing their camera lens at us.

“This is great!” I told Niki as I struck a pose and smiled winningly while a Chinese girl photographed me. “I’ve never been to a country where everyone thinks I’m so hot!”

“They don’t think you’re hot,” Niki explained, “They think you’re a whore. A white western whore who will spread her legs after three margaritas by a cheap motel pool.”

“Oh.” I said.

After that, I scowled whenever anyone asked to take my picture. And if I noticed somebody photographing me without my permission, I twisted my face into a snarl and raised both my middle fingers towards the camera. If I was going to be uploaded to some seedy Indian guy’s Facebook album and tagged as his girlfriend, framed and placed on somebody’s bedside table, or possibly even masturbated over, I sure as hell wasn’t going to do it smiling.

I have always hated flying. Not out of fear (the statistics of fatal plane crashes puts me completely at ease) but out of my general distaste for humans. The idea of being forcibly seated amongst people not of my choosing for 9 consecutive hours gives me heart palpitations.

So my friend Niki and I were stoked when we boarded our flight to Kuala Lumpur and saw that there weren’t any other passengers seated within five rows of us. The morning had already been stressful enough – we’d gotten up at 4:30am after going to bed at midnight, and had been forced to stop several times on the drive from Brisbane to Coolangatta so that I could be violently sick in filthy service station bathrooms. The attendants all gave me dirty looks as I exited the bathrooms, pale and sweaty and looking every part the junkie.

Therefore it was a relief to get to the airport on time and know that we’d be able to spend our flight stretched out across three seats – a whole row each – and catch up on sleep. But then, 20 minutes before we were due to depart, 300 Malaysians suddenly boarded the plane and filled all the available seats around us. Worse, these people all had kids. Obnoxious, bratty, whiney kids, who took turns losing their shit and hollering like psych patients throughout the entire 9 hour flight. The worst of these children, a little Malaysian Dennis the Menace in denim overalls who looked about 2 years old, sat directly behind me. He immediately proceeded to wail, thrashing under his seatbelt and kicking the back of my seat. I allowed 10 minues of this – ample time for parental administration of corporal punishment – then I stood up and faced his grandmother, who stared back at me impassively. I looked pointedly at her horrid rat-baby and then back at her. Control your spawn, I told her with my eyes, Make it quiet, or kill it. Then I sat back down and took 3 valium.

An hour later, I awoke to the same screeching and seat-kicking. Full of buzz and lacking my usual sober inhibitions, I stood up and went to the child. “Please stop kicking my seat, sweetheart,” I said, “Or I will kick you.” And he stopped after that.

I spent the remainder of the flight drifting in and our of a valium-induced slumber and calling the flight attendants every time I woke up. It was impossible to attract their attention as they walked throughout the cabin, but if I pushed a small orange button above my seat, I was attended to within seconds. Perhaps this magical orange button was intended for medical emergencies or similar. Whatever. I would press it without hesitation whenever I needed some water, another blanket, or a hot Milo. The flight attendant would drop whatever she was doing and come running over. “What is the matter?” she would ask breathlessly, and I would hold out my Air Asia neck pillow. “I can’t blow this up,” I would explain, and she would stare for a moment before realising I was serious and demonstrating how to blow-up the pillow. “Maybe instead of showing me,”  I suggested, “You could just do it for me?”

“Oh. Ha ha. No.” Their English was limited.

I was sitting at my desk last Tuesday when I heard a crash and screaming. I jumped up and ran to the window, assuming one of the junkies that hang around Town Hall had lost their shit. Downstairs, outside McDonald’s on Park Street in Sydney’s CBD, a cab was half-sitting on the curb and a woman lay writhing on the ground, shouting incoherently.

“Fuck!” I said articulately and my co-worker ran to the window.

“There’s a cab up on the curb and a woman is screaming!” I explained.

“Hmm” my co-worker said and returned to his desk.

I stayed at the window and watched as the taxi driver got out of his car and walked awkwardly towards the woman he had just run over. I should go to her, I thought, I should help her. She needs me. But I was afraid of missing some of the action from my window seat. Besides, a group of people instantly flocked to the woman’s aid and whipped out their mobile phones. They cast hostile glances towards the taxi driver. Look what you’ve done, you arsehole, their eyes said. I was annoyed when enough people surrounded the lady as to partially obscure her from my vision, but I was glad that she had help. She had stopped screaming and was sitting on the ground, talking to those around her. The taxi driver moved his cab off the curb and leaned against a telegraph pole with his arms folded. There were at least ten people sitting with the lady, taking care of her. There was nothing for me to do. Except watch.

I ran to the fridge and grabbed my lunch, then dragged my chair over to the window and continued watching while I ate. An ambulance arrived a few minutes later and one of the paramedics attended to the lady. She used wild hand gestures to explain how the taxi had run over her. The taxi driver still stood with his arms folded. I began to feel jealous. This woman had just been through a traumatic and potentially life-threatening experience, but she seemed to be physically fine. Maybe a broken leg or something, but nothing too serious. And yet she was about to become a millionaire. A taxi driver who runs up the curb is going to get his pants sued off. Better, his company would have way more money than he would. And his company’s insurance company would have even MORE money. Money that would soon belong to the lady.

I had to take a phone call, then when I went back to the window, the ambulance and the run-over lady were gone, but the police had arrived and were taking statements from four of the witnesses. That should be me, I thought, I would have given a better statement than any of those jokers.

“Linda was really special,” I would have told the police, “I saw her give $5 to a homeless man right before it happened. Did you know she was a ballet dancer? Yeah, well, there goes that.”

Then I would go to the hospital to see Linda. I would explain how I had given such a great statement. A statement that would probably be used in court while determining the amount of compensation awarded to her. Linda would owe me.

I was out to dinner with my lady friends, when the conversation turned to gay guys.

“I always wanted to be a fag hag,” one of my friends lamented, “But they’re too bitchy.”

“Not all of them,” I said, “I think that’s more of a gay cultural thing. Like certain strains of gay culture are more bitchy than others.”

“Well my fag is lovely,” another girl offered, “And he’s always there for me when I get gastro.”

“Have you met Skelton’s sister?”

“Yeah, she’s like Skelton, but with long hair.”

“She has the biting wit of Skelton, and the looks he missed out on, but she’s not as tall and she doesn’t have his eyes.”

“Oh my god, have you ever looked into Skelton’s eyes?”

“Yes, they sparkle like diamonds.”

“It was like the first time I heard The Beatles.”