I have always felt nervous when people make notes about me. What was so heinous that they could write on a permanent file, but couldn’t say to my face? When I was a child, I wanted the doctor and the dentist to make their notes on sheets of butcher’s paper spread out on the floor, using coloured textas. Maybe we could draw a Venn diagram or do some brain storming together. Then we could stick it on the fridge and I wouldn’t have to spend every night during the third grade sitting up in bed, fretting over what all these people were writing about me.

I didn’t feel that way with Dr Riley though. He was so smart and highly regarded in psychiatry that he didn’t have to cut his hair for work. He kept ugly artworks in his office and wore light pink pants and nobody gave a damn. He took the tough cases too – people who punched walls during sessions and went home to slit their wrists, then came back to the surgery covered in blood and babbling apologies. I had to wait 4 months just to get an appointment.

When Dr Riley made notes about me, I felt special. It was like being interviewed by a famous journalist. I wore distressed jeans and big sunglasses to my sessions. I put my feet on the lounge and made jokes about his other patients.

“I don’t think you’re taking your time here very seriously,” he said at my second appointment.

“I guess I’m just not a very serious kind of girl,” I replied, winking.

Dr Riley rolled his eyes and made some notes. Presumably something along the lines of, Well dressed, biting wit, fascinating and charismatic. I tossed my hair and turned my head so that the better side of my profile was facing him, in case he wanted to make a quick sketch of my features.

By my third appointment, however, Dr Riley was making so many notes that I began to feel nervous again. When I tried to look at his notepad, he gave me a stern look and tilted it away. “These notes are just for me,” he said, and resumed writing. I scanned the room anxiously, looking for something personal. Dr Riley knew so much about me, and I knew practically nothing of him. I needed to restore the balance. I had to get some reciprocal dirt to even things out. I spotted a bicycle in the corner of the room, leaning against one wall, helmet sitting on the seat. Aha! I thought, He’s a cyclist. Interested in fitness. Probably worried about his weight. Finding it harder to keep the pounds off as he gets older. Definitely projecting that onto his patients. Was probably sexually abused as a child. Is no doubt a latent homosexual. May be inclined to violent episodes. I should leave now, this guy’s more nuts than I am.

“You know what I think the problem is?” Dr Riley said, interrupting my diagnosis.

I liked the way he said “the problem” and not “your problem.” It made me feel like I had no responsibility in the matter. It caused me to visualise an obnoxious self-sustaining problem floating in the room; something we would tackle together. I found this comforting because I am inherently lazy.

“What’s the problem?” I asked, looking closely at my cuticles.

“You only have two conscious emotions or states of being. You’re either shit, or you’re okay. That’s it. That is the full spectrum of your feelings as an adult. Shit or okay, shit or okay. Shit… Okay…”

“Hmmmm.” I considered this for a moment.

“Well?” Dr Riley asked, “How does that make you feel?”

“Okay,” I replied.

“I thought so,” he said, and went back to making notes.

This morning a girl who I was once very close to died. I’m not going to pretend to know the particulars of the situation, because I haven’t had contact with her for years, but something about Crohn’s disease and the latter stages of liver cancer, etc, etc, she didn’t make it, please pray for her family.

I’m sitting here trying to come up with some memories of this girl. Pick the pieces out of my brain, look at them with renewed perspective, type them out and embody one small part of her life: the impact she had on me. She and I spent a significant amount of time together during highschool, and in theory, I should be able to recount specific anecdotes, quote directly, dig up old notes and emails and photographs.

But sadly, my brain has wiped most of my memories from early adolescence, and I have thrown away all the physical evidence over the years.

And so, digging deep as possible, all I can put together is the vaguest of pastimes, but a stronger sense of her spirit:

The memory is blurred and non-specific, but I do recall the intense camaraderie I felt from the day I met her. And I remember that at every church-related event our fascist parents dragged us to, she and I snuck away, without fail. We stole biscuits and ran down the street. We hid in parks and bitched about every single person in that church. We condemned their hypocrisy and ridiculed their sensitivity. We were ruthless and nasty, delighting in which one of us could shock the other the most.

Believe it or not, she was a lot more cynical than I am. She was more negative. Less ethical. More bitter. And that’s exactly what I liked most about her.

I am one of those people for whom massage is useless. Despite going to great lengths to appear laidback and easygoing, underneath I am in a state of constant agitation. I am always stressed about work, money, the weather, my mother, the size of the gap between my thighs, being a shitty friend, and the state of my love life. On holidays, I worry about the absences: the emails I’m not receiving, the work-outs I’m not fulfilling, the people I’m not spending time with, the dollars I’m not saving. The last time I felt truly relaxed was on a weekend trip to Forster in September 2008, after I smoked so much pot that I couldn’t figure out how to climb a set of stairs.

So it was basically a waste for me to be spending 3 hours in a day spa at an island resort off Penang. But I went anyway, because I was on holidays and there was little else to do. As a young Malaysian girl rubbed exfoliating scrub into me, I thought, does she hate this? Maybe she had kids or ailing relatives, and instead of staying home taking care of them, she was stuck rubbing oil onto soft white people for $4 an hour. If she was anything like me, this would make her bitter and overly critical. She would sniff at my uneven tan and scoff at my undefined arms. She would snicker at the disposable day spa underpants cutting into my well-fed western flesh. She would shake her head at the scars on my leg (a sure symbol of poor-little-rich-white-girl syndrome.) She would hate me, and every minute she had to touch me would be torture.

I began to wish that the massage girl was older. I wished she was taller, more Asian, and spoke no English. I wished she was a large, elderly African gay man.  I wished she was anything that would make her less like me; less likely to judge everything before her down to each individual hair follicle.

I worried that the exfoliating procedure was chaffing her hands. Perhaps she had a paper cut that needed to be kept clean, and all this day spa gunk was preventing her wound from healing. Maybe she’d pulled a muscle in her back, and climbing onto the table to crawl over me was painful for her.

I was getting hot under my towel, despite being nearly naked beneath it. I could feel the beginning of a headache behind my eyes. I wanted a glass of water. I wanted a cigarette. I wanted to go back to my room and sit alone under the air-conditioning and watch the cooking channel, even though I had no intention of ever cooking anything in life. I wanted to check my phone to see whether my friend Kahlee had texted me. I’ve known Kahlee for 4 years, and I am used to emailing her ten times a day to update her, in immense detail, on everything that has occured within the last hour. If I do not document my life in mundane emails to Kahlee, it has not transpired.

By then, the massage had become mentally excruciating. I should have been enjoying this luxurious treatment; basking in the extravagance of it and wishing it would never end. Instead, I was considering pushing the girl away, explaining, “I’m sorry but I’m nuts and I can’t lie here for 3 hours listening to my brain,” and leaving the spa.

But then, just as I was trying to figure out how to communicate my sentiments in Engrish, the girl interrupted my thoughts by saying, “Miss, may I scrub your breasts?”

I had 2 seconds to think about this. I needed 3 more.

“I’m sorry – what?”

“Miss, may I scrub your breasts?”

“Ohh, of course,” I said graciously, as though she had asked to borrow a light.

And then, as the impoverished Malaysian woman exfoliated my nipples, my brain magically switched off. I had landed myself in a situation so awkward, so culturally imbalanced, so close to paying an Asian girl to perform sexual favours, that my mind was simply unable to worry about anything else. I relaxed.

I was reading my friend Helen’s Live Journal when I came across the following paragraphs:

We grabbed a beer and headed for the front bar. I accidentally caught the eye of someone sitting next to the door… As I walked past he ducked his head and gave this long, breathy snort, before bursting into laughter and going, ‘FAT chance.’

What I never understand about these situations is that your attacker doesn’t ever tell you anything you don’t already KNOW. Unattractive people are more than aware of their unattractiveness, always. We carry it with us daily, and the weight of it makes us grunt. Every time we look in the mirror – hello, horror. Every time we get caught unawares on camera – god forbid, put that red-herring-cross-Appaloosa face away. So yeah, we know about it. Why the need to verbally reinforce? Who is born with such cruelty in their genes?

I’ve never actually met Helen, but I can tell from my Facebook stalking that she is one of those beautifully quirky, colourful, witty, clever people you rarely come across. To imagine somebody pissing on her birthday cake over something so stupid as how she looks really hacks me off. And it breaks my heart a little too, because I know that no matter how brazen and confident you are, a dumb passing comment from some random douchebag can reduce the toughest of us to a self-loathing mess.

For me, it’s less about my face and more about the size of my arse. As an adult, I’ve weighed 70kg and I’ve weighed 45kg at different points in time (I’m 5’6″.) I wasn’t particularly well in either of those situations, but I’ve never gotten more (positive) attention in my life than when I resembled a broomstick. Hell, even at 60kg, I was rarely given a second glance. I was referred to as “the fat one.” Guys would approach my friends in bars and say, “Hey, gorgeous,” then turn to me and say, “Hey not-so-gorgeous.” And when I had the guts to wear a singlet that said “UGLY” one night, a girl pointed me out to her friends and shouted “Yeah, she is ugly!” All of these incidents were unprovoked, unless you count the shape of my body or the arrangement of my facial features as an invitation for rebuke. Apparently, I was so hideous on those occasions that complete strangers felt the need to comment. And not in private either – they commented right to my ugly face.

Despite all this, I think I’ve managed to come out the other side with a pretty healthy self esteem. I’m no supermodel, but I’m not bad looking either. As long as I stay below a size 10 (the upper limit of the “acceptable weight range” of most guys I date) I think I look reasonable. If I tell this to people though, there is guffawing and rolling of eyes. Girls are not supposed to think they’re pretty. We are supposed to be insecure to the point of obsession. Pout in front of the mirror and squeeze at the fat on our arms and bellies. Shove our fingers down our throats and lose sleep over the wrinkles around our eyes. When somebody compliments you on your appearance, deny it! Don’t say thank you or actually agree with them. Good god, the scandal.

Sometimes little pokes and prods have the desired effect. An overweight person might use their unflattering nicknames to fuel their fire at the gym. Another person wearing tights as pants might need to catch a few disapproving glances before they figure out what they’re doing wrong. But simply telling somebody they’re ugly isn’t exactly constructive. What reaction do these people expect? “Oh really? Shit, thanks for letting me know. I’ll get a new face asap.”

So are people randomly insulting girls in order to make sure we don’t get too sure of ourselves? Modesty is becoming in a woman, so make sure she damn well knows she’s not hot enough? Or is it the old “I make fun of the other kids to make myself feel better” syndrome? Cutting down everyone around you to make yourself taller?

Is consumerism to blame? Entire industries are built on our insecurities: weight loss products, cosmetics, plastic surgery, fake tanning, etc. Every day, the TV and magazines tell us that we’re ugly and overweight, so what’s wrong with telling each other the same thing? Have we been desensitised to our own cruelties?

Personally, I blame fairy tales. The good guys were always hot, and the bad guys were butt ugly. Snow White was a babe, while Rumpelstiltskin was a hideous dwarf. From the day we’re born, there’s a very strong reinforcement that people who look nice are usually nice, and people who look dodgy are usually dodgy. In some cases, this is true, but not always.

Maybe when we tell our kids not to discriminate against people who are black or homosexual or female, we should also tell them not to discriminate against those who have been dealt a dose of acne or a bad nose.

And maybe next time you see someone who you think could use some improvement, you should shut the fuck up.

I was returning to the office after purchasing my daily coke zero from the Asian grocer, and as I was waiting for the elevator,  I made eye contact with a group of six people entering the lobby from the street. The moment the lift doors opened, I got in and pressed “Level 2″. As I ascended to my floor, I pressed my ear to the doors and listened to the six people as they waited below in the lobby and bitched about me.

“What happened?”

“Didn’t she hold the lift?”

“Oh my god, what a bitch.”

The truth is, normally I would hold the lift. But sometimes, I feel like if I do one more good deed, the karmic balance of the earth will implode due to my profligate saintliness. I give blood. I donate to charities. I give my coffee change to homeless people. I pick up other people’s litter when I see it. I believe in freedom of speech and same sex marriage and doing unto others and random acts of kindness. But every so often, I just need to be a cunt.

A few years ago I was lonely, bored, depressed and rarely left my bedroom. After too many white wines one night, I created a profile for myself on RSVP and sat back to watch my inbox fill with eligible young bachelors. One guy in particular sparked my interest. Let’s call him Gavin, because that was his name, and still is his name, assuming he hasn’t died.

Gavin and I exchanged a few emails and chatted on MSN. He was smart and funny, and looked cute in his profile picture.

I asked Gavin if he wanted to meet up for coffee. (Like I said – I was extremely single at this point in my life.) He agreed, but said I’d have to meet him in Penrith because that’s where he lived and he didn’t drive.

Alarm bells began to ring softly in my head, but I ignored them. Unlike today when a single spelling mistake can disqualify somebody, back then I was a lot more tolerant. I liked to think that I would never judge a person based on where they lived.

And so I made the long drive out west, found the shopping centre Gavin had nominated, and located the coffee shop he wished to meet at. It was closed, so I sat outside on a bench and watched the local ageing men walk past. Suddenly one of them stopped in front of me and asked, “Annik?”

I considered denying my identity, but I’d already hesitated too long and confirmed it. Gavin bore an uncanny resemblance to Mr Burns from The Simpsons. He was completely bald, hunched over, and had rotting teeth. He smelled like cheap cologne and was wearing a block-colour charcoal track suit. He embodied every physical Penrith cliche.

“The coffee shop’s closed,” I stammered.

“That’s okay, we can just go for a walk,” he replied.

We strolled slowly to the side of the carpark as he babbled awkwardly about a holiday he once took, I can’t even remember where, because my brain was busy going “JESUS FUCK I HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE.”

As we approached the road, I turned to Gavin and said, “You know what? I have to go.”

Then I walked over to my car and drove home.

When I got there, I had a text on my phone from Gavin saying, “Sorry if that was disappointing.”

I didn’t write back. I blocked him on MSN and changed my email address. I removed my profile from RSVP and showered thoroughly. Then I burst into tears.

Never before had I felt so incredibly shallow. I’d enjoyed conversing with somebody and exchanging stories, then as soon as I knew what they really looked like, I wanted nothing to do with them. I was a bitch and I was going to hell.

Later that night, I related my online-dating experience to a friend’s mother.

“Am I totally horrible?” I asked her when I had finished.

“God, no,” she replied, “You can’t fuck an ugly person.”

My grandmother was a pretty cool lady. She made an excellent batch of honey jumbles and was the first person to nip outside whenever one of my aunts lit up a joint. Even though we shared the same name, I never spent enough time with her, but she wrote her memoirs before she died and reading them helped explain a lot about my own life.

Last year, Nanna got sick with various forms of cancer and shifted permanently into my aunt’s lounge room while she waited for the inevitable. I flew up to Brisbane to visit her and found my namesake sunken in an armchair, even thinner than usual and looking overly pale.

“How are you feeling about everything?” I asked, as I painted her nails a deep red.

“Okay, I guess,” she shrugged, “I’ve said goodbye to all my children, divvied up my stuff and had a good run. All I can do now is wait.”

“It’s a bit horrible though,” I pointed out, “Just waiting to die.”

“Nah, it happens to everyone,” Nanna replied, “Besides, I’m sick of hearing about the bloody American election.”

As an adult, I seem to have a knack for getting in trouble with the law. Not that I do anything particularly bad, but anytime I do disobey the rules, I get busted at an extreme level. The second my car creeps over the speed limit, I become blinded by the flash of a camera or see a police car in my rear view mirror. (This is likely to happen on a long weekend so that I’ll lose half my license.) And whenever I park in the wrong spot, I cop a ticket (always the $180 ones.) We all break the little rules whenever we can and usually it goes unnoticed. But when I do it, I get fined.

I attribute this to a brief, yet intense, stint of shoplifting as a young teenager. My friend Brooke and I would waltz into Kmart in our school uniforms, fill empty McDonald’s cups with make-up and earrings and layer on underpants in the change room, then saunter out casually. But while Brooke relished the adrenaline rush of walking through the store’s security gates with her hidden booty, the whole thing made me ill with anxiety. I imagined the police breaking down my bedroom door and hauling me out from under the doona. (“That’s her, there’s the Lip Gloss Thief of Castle Hill!”) I lay awake at night, dreading the day we would eventually be caught. Fortunately, once we’d accumulated enough Max-Factor to last us until menopause, Brooke and I decided to quit while we were ahead and resumed our life as generally-law-abiding citizens. I’ve totally used up all my ‘get out of gaol free’ cards though.

• Glandular fever
• Pneumonia
• Cancer of the brain
• Arthritis
• Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
• Epilepsy
• Appendicitis
• Broken ankle
• Leukemia
• HIV
• Anaemia
• Receding hairline
• SARS
• Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
• Emphysema
• Alcoholism
• Insomnia
• Heart murmur