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Step into power, step into pyjamas
Comics, Dating, LifeI don’t know exactly when or how I stopped being insecure about how I look. It’s not that I learned to love my body and see all its flaws as beautiful. They’re not beautiful,...
Blame the women, why don’t you
Dating, Life, ParentingI’m angry and sad about Grace Millane, and I’ve been thinking a lot about the rhetoric that inevitably emerges every time a woman is hurt: that she somehow brought it on herself. And I...
We all hurt each other accidentally sometimes
Comics, Life, ParentingI was sitting outside a cafe and I watched as a pram fell over backwards, pulled down by a bag slung over the handle. I heard the sound of the toddler’s head hitting the...
Eavesdropping at the library
Humour, Life Central Library, evening. There’s an older bearded dude sitting next to me charging his phone, and a younger dude tutoring maths to an even younger dude at the next table, and this is...
Chewing on used serviettes
Dating, Humour, LifeThis is how much I like butter. If you said, “would you rather give up butter for the rest of your life, or lose a toe?” I would say “you’re no friend of mine,”...
On celibacy, fantasy, Jane the Virgin, feminism, and not dating
Dating, LifeObsessively binge watching Jane the Virgin coincided with – and perhaps influenced – my decision to stop dating and stop having sex. Not dating when you are romantically-lonely is uncomfortable and dissonant. It means...
Sometimes labels help; what ADHD means to me
LifeToday is the 4-week-aversary of getting diagnosed with ADHD, and I’m in a mood to celebrate. Unfortunately my son is home sick from school, so I’m stuck under him on the couch while he...
New Degree, New Hair, Who Dis?
Humour, Life, ParentingWhen you’re a student and a solo mother, your budget for personal grooming is comparable to driving to the other side of town for a holiday instead of going to Thailand. Which is why...
A poem for men on dating apps, men on the street, men in bars
Dating, PoetryI am not your hun. I am not your babe precious sexy what you up to now wet dream. You can’t fool me into thinking we are intimate. I don’t know who you are...
How respectful parenting can shrink foxes
Parenting“Mama I had a dream about foxes and it was so scary and that’s why I don’t want to go to sleep!” Kids make up a bunch of excuses for not going to bed....
How to answer questions when you’re not “good”
LifeSince I had a breakdown a few months ago, conversations have become harder. It’s like there’s an invisible time limit to sympathy that no one has expressed to me, but I’m conscious of not...
Black and white thoughts
LifeI often imagine things in black and white, like my brain gets stuck in monotone flashbacks to pre-technicolour days. I suppose they are the days that seem simple because I do not live them....
The Worst Online Dating Opener I’ve Ever Received
Dating, HumourI received the following message last night. – Never have I wanted juice less. – I don’t know why killing rats is a redeeming feature. – Does this strategy ever work for getting dates?...
How Mr. Men and Little Miss Teach Kids To Hate Themselves
Humour, Life, ParentingThere are a lot of books that I enjoyed as a child that dismay me as an adult. But I try not to be a loud too often so I usually just burn them...
What To Wear When Meeting Your Ex
Dating, HumourMeeting your ex in person after a breakup can be a confusing time, regardless of how it ended or at what point in the recovery process you’re at. Sometimes you might bump into them...
Honesty in a world more comfortable with deceit
Life, PoliticsThere’s a tale told by Kumashiro of a game played by a group of children, girls against boys. The girls choose the game and they win the first time. So the boys demand a...
Yes I love you, no I don’t want to be touched right now
Life, ParentingBeing a feminist mother of a (white) son sometimes involves a different approach to that of parenting daughters that goes beyond the strange things that happen in their nappies (how naive I was before...
The things I think I should do when I feel unworthy
Comics, Dating, LifeNot too long ago I got dumped, and after I’d cried, and told all my friends; after the shock started to fade (although I couldn’t breathe properly for days); after all that I thought...
I spend a lot of time sitting in my car
LifeWhen I was about 15 years old my best friend became a Christian and because I did not also become Christian, she declared me to be “evil” and broke up with me. I was...
When you don’t want to go to the shop
ComicsSorry flatmates, I know I’m the only one with a car, but I’ve already taken my bra off for the...
The undeserving poor
Life, Parenting, PoliticsThe first thing that’s relevant for you to know about me is that I’m a beneficiary. It’s such a dirty word, isn’t it? Beneficiary. Conjures up images of the great unwashed, the worn-out mothers...
Octopuses, poetry, whiskey, and algorithms
Dating, HumourLook, even if I got nothing else out of my dating experiences, this story would almost make it all worth it. It starts like most of my dating stories, with matching on Tinder. We’ll...
Home is a place that is still
Life, ParentingThe thing about the urge to run, the crazy cannot-possibly-stay-where-I-am urge to run, is that it immobilises me. Fleeing something hard in my life is no longer an option and so I stay. I...
Here’s what happens when you find out I’m a mother
Dating, ParentingApparently this is what happens when you become a mother: This is hard for most mothers, I think, when our complex identities become overshadowed by this one role. But it’s particularly challenging when you’re...