Journal
Articles
The bystander
The median strip led to the other side of the highway. We emerged boot-first into a flood of oncoming headlights. Screams howled from the back seat. ‘I’m dead,’ I thought. Then it hit. Another car, speed meeting speed, like two protons colliding. I didn't get the luxury of a concussion. I stayed awake the whole way through. There was a glimpse of black, a few seconds max, when my head reeled from the soft impact against the dashboard. White pinwheels spun on the inside of my eyelids. Blood flooded back into my feet and fingers. After that everything went berserk.
Who owns the future?
THE FUTURE IS always arriving, in one form or another. There is no no future. It’s an absurdly simple...
A modern epic
I MEET THE immortals on a Wednesday evening in January. We’re upstairs on Russell Street, in a workspace shared...
A gonzo music memoir
SO YOU GET an urge. Something bristling within you that can only get out through something else. Maybe it...
Caring for country
SMALL FIRES STREAK the savanna beneath me, as the land is worked and cleaned. The gentle smoke on the...
Unpaid opportunities
I HAVE THIS social dread when meeting new people. A nervousness that keeps me on edge during the early...
Economic illiterates
THE YEAR I was born, Paul Keating dropped Australia’s corporate tax rate by ten percentage points. As I started...
The sickness of social organisation
TAKE A LOOK in your medicine cabinet; these days, it’s where wellness lives. No longer satisfied with treating illness...
Young lady, that’s inappropriate
AFTER GRADUATING FROM law school, I spent a full and disturbing year working as a judge’s associate in the District Court of Queensland. The role required silence and discretion, and each week I sat, mute and powerless, watching things unfurl in front of me – both in and out of court – that made me want to get up and run. Forever the youngest in the room, often the only female, things that were normal to the seasoned lawyer unsettled me. I used to think all the time: Is anyone else seeing this?
Measuring imperfection
IN RETROSPECT, IT was always a stupid idea to buy a Fitbit; I’m still not entirely sure why I...
Under the skin
Everyone forgets that the real force behind the feminist movement was individual women’s disappointment with men. Even though equal...
To my future child
TO MY FUTURE child: Your grandmother’s mother, my wai-po, is a pack rat. I parked in her garage twice a...
