When I was growing up, I was told that the reason we give presents at Christmas is because it is a celebration of Jesus’ birth, and because Jesus is no longer here in the flesh to give presents to – like we do on people’s birthdays – we give them to each other. Since I…
She walked into the house one day like she had always lived here. Which I suppose was true. “Um, hello?” I said to her as she busied herself making coffee. “Hey,” she said, flashing me a brilliant smile and then turning back to the manual grinder. “Uhh, who are you?” “You know who I am.”…
Past Tents: Camping We had not been camping in about two months. Not overnight camping. We had been on day trips a couple of times to a sweet place called Jacob’s Hole (by white people; I don’t know what the traditional owners call it). But The Pilot kept getting rostered to work on weekends. And…
https://chuffed.org/project/ourhopeforhealth Tomorrow is the last day left in the Hope For Health crowd-funding campaign, raising money for a traditional health retreat to be held on Elcho Island this September. At time of publishing, they have reached $61,597 of their goal of $80,000. If you donate any amount of money to any Indigenous cause this year,…
So we have woken up the day after election day with no clear result. Neither parties have enough seats to form a majority government, and the Coalition looks only set to be able to form a minority government. Back in 2010, before the election, I didn’t even know what a ‘minority government’ or a ‘hung…
If you are still waiting for part two of my previous blog post, “Fear of Marriage: Part One”, don’t worry! It is coming. (Just like Christmas.) Yesterday, I went to the library to edit my thesis*, but while I was walking to the library I started thinking about an idea, and as I was thinking, my…
Trigger warning: Domestic violence, rape. One day last year, I got involved in a furious Facebook debate on a friend’s page about marriage. The debate started off being about same-sex marriage, and quickly slipped to a discussion of how marriage is a patriarchal institution. My friend whose page it was on is a married man…
I was full of good intentions to blog throughout the course of the road trip from Canberra to Cairns with The Pilot. Road-tripping was far more draining and time-consuming than I anticipated, even when we were only doing 300-400km per day. We did the whole trip in 14 days, and drove 3819.8kms in total. I…
The Pilot and I spent New Years Eve with my grandparents, two great-aunts and a great-uncle. It was a lovely party. Lots of sparkling wine and merriment. As always happens on New Years, we got onto the topic of how fast the years seem to go these days. This is a perfectly reasonable conversation to…
Every year, January 26th rolls around, and the same things happen. The TV is full of pictures of gleaming barbeques and barbeque tongs. Shop windows advertise Australia flag bikinis and sequined Australia flag aprons. Some Australians have a massive identity crisis and debate each other passionately, while others hunker down and wait for the whole…
It is my understanding that most couples who get married go back to normal life after their honeymoon; either moving in together or going back to their previously shared abode. It has been nothing like that for the Pilot and I. Since we got engaged in late May, we have been in Canberra, remote NT,…
The first I heard of Suffragette was reading an anti-review condemning it for white washing. So I dismissed it (I’m quick to dismiss. It’s a fault). Then I read an article in the weekend paper discussing Suffragette. The issue of racial diversity in the film (or lack thereof) was implicitly referenced: “No single film can…
