In 2001 I moved back to Melbourne from Adelaide and found a room to rent in a California bungalow in Elsternwick. I went to the interview in a tight shirt with the top buttons popped open, and the three men who lived there looked me
I live by the sea. Not close enough to see the water cresting but enough to taste it on the wind and feel it rumble beneath the earth. I stand on my verandah and feel it all the way into my bones. I live here in
Fifteen years ago, I perched in Sydney for a while, in a renovated apartment block at the top of a hill. I had a job I didn't like. It had a panoramic view of Sydney Harbour, and in the evenings I walked to Circular Quay and
When we first lived in Melbourne, my parents rented a terrible townhouse in Brighton. That first summer was the hottest we'd ever experienced: a week of 40+ days with broken air conditioning and shoebox rooms. My "bedroom" was little more than a closet, and as my
When I was eleven I watched a brothel be raided. It was one of two brothels from my childhood. The first was a neighbour's duplex, a tiny carpeted place in which I babysat her children. She didn't fit my teenage view of sex work: she was
The only time I've been to Sunshine, I nearly bought a 1983 pea-green Commodore. I didn't even have my license, which is actually probably the best time to buy a pea-green Commodore, before you know what driving a car is supposed to feel like. My
My first boyfriend's name was Christian, and I met him on the internet. I was 14. I know this because my nick on Internet Relay Chat was Anna14. His was Chrish. I would later learn that this had something to do with the fact that
When I was but a twinkle in my father’s eye, my animal destiny was being established. I would be a hopeless devotee of the kitten mewling in the drain; I would be the freak stalking the RSPCA every weekend; I would be the girl shelling
Being a 90s hoodlum and general interactor with humanity, I've been to a few food courts. I like the way people sit in them, as though it's not fully disgusting to eat your one type of food with your disgusting mouth while someone sits practically
My nanna has always been a vegetarian. "I don't eat things with faces," she would say. "And anyway, it doesn't go through my digestive system properly." I became a vegetarian when I was fourteen. I don't have a particular loyalty to things with faces, but this reasoning
This image is the wonderful 'Erotica' by Federico Castellon The most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me in my whole life, still, to this very day, even more embarrassing than when my dad found my vibrator collection, and even more embarrassing than when I vomited