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I would like to say that I will eventually act like an adult in front of my parents. But, like a well-behaved child, I don’t like to lie. I firmly believe that I could be the dictator of a country (seriously), treating my subjects like ants, but then my mother would walk into the room and I would immediately expect her to make my bed and put a band-aid on the graze I acquired while at war with France. Or similar.

When I moved back into my parents abode, they spent more time plotting my demise than I did their’s. Purely because they had more time at their disposal, as my hours were taken up by calling to tell them when I would be home. Having spent the better part of two years pretending to be an adult, I had fallen into a groove of eating Chinese food instead of cooking, buying new clothes instead of doing laundry and, basically, doing whatever the Hell I wanted whenever the Hell I wanted.

“I have managed to keep myself alive when out of your sight,” I told AM the first week I had taken over her house by cleaning my shoe collection on her white dining table. “You don’t need to mother me.”

But she insisted that if I was to live under her roof, I would have to live by her rules. Rules that included cleaning up after myself and frequent updates of my well-being. Difficult things.

“No problem,” I eventually conceded. “You want a child? A child then you shall get.”

I started making my bed. In the lounge room. Where I could watch cartoons. I stopped ordering in my own meals. And started calling M&Ms a food group. I generally gave my parents an alibi for when they stood in front of a jury to explain why they shot me out of a cannon.

“Why didn’t you do it sooner?” I imagined one of the jurors asking. “That way you would still have saucepans that had not be burned the entire way through.”

To add insult to injury, my very liberal parents met more Californian Surfers than the average customs official.

After six months of competing who could hate the other more, we fell into a nice groove of half-parent-half-child. It kind of resembles Wolf Boy – half of the day I act as a perfectly adjusted and evolving adult. The rest of the time I bang my head against a wall and cry for more ice-cream. For their part, my parents simply ignore me and refuse to validate my behaviour at any time of the entire day.

I wouldn’t dream of acting in such a way if I were living with, say, roommates. Someone’s obligation to pay rent is, apparently, all it takes to make me act cordial at all hours.

“I am not paying you to do what every other person in the world does out of instinct,” RG scoffed when I proposed a business proposition to him. “You can just grow the fuck up and act like an adult.” 

RG’s mother is staying at my (read: his) house. It is the first time in my entire life that I have witnessed my dad and his master – sorry, mother – in a room together for an extended period of time. What is a vacation for her is simultaneously justifying my own behaviour and awakening me to a whole new side of my patriarch: The child.

At fifty-years-old and double the value in kilograms, RG lost any resemblance to a child decades ago. While I can still legitimately buy my clothes in the children’s department, I doubt he ever did.

I firmly believe that people only procreate so that they can one day be grandparents and finally punish their children in a way that is so powerful, even the law overlooks it.

Nanna RG, currently the closest thing to an adult in my house, has spent the past forty-eight hours scolding her son in front of his children, reminding him to clean up. Pick up his towel. Make his bed. Stop talking with his mouth full. Put down the scotch bottle. Don’t talk back. Respect your elders. Say Please and Thank You. Call when he is going to be late. And not where stripes and poka-dots at the same time. All stuff he does in her absence. But, amazingly, since her arrival, has ceased to see the importance of. 

“He never listened to me,” she informed me while I was busy taking thorough notes that I planned to not only laminate, but frame for prosperity.

“If you want to live under my roof, you live by my rules,” RG attempted to put a grown-up sized foot down.

The New Rules seemed a Hell of a lot more fun and easy going than the dictatorship I had succumbed to.

“An abdication of responsibility it is!” I sung. 

I felt like those lucky North Koreans who get to go to Olympic’s for gymnastics, only to escape and enjoy a free life under Chinese communism.

I started following Nanna RG around, asking her questions of what RG was really like in his youth, because the reincarnated image of Socrates never sat well with me.

“Stop asking questions,” RG warned me.

“Where do you think she got that trait from?” Nanna RG defended me before detailing His behaviour as a seventeen year old. (Read: My mental age.)

“Who wants to order in Chinese for dinner?” I interrupted. 

With the concept of subjective authority well and truly established, I occupied myself by watching The Flintstones while lying on a pile of my unwashed laundry.

“I thought you would be gloating,” RG sat down next to me.

“Please,” I scoffed. “I would never be so immature.”

He changed the channel and we sat together watching CNN while eating Freddo Frogs. For dinner. 

I woke up to my first ever grey hair. In my eyebrow.

“Did this happen overnight?” I screamed as I ran around my house, displaying the tweezed evidence that proves it is almost illegal for me to chase after twenty-year-old boys. “Or have I been walking around in public with one lone grey hair in the MIDDLE OF MY FACE?”

My mother, who doesn’t look a day over forty-five courtesy of Chanel foundation and a truck load of delusion, shook her head and laughed.

“I thought you were working on a personality, so it didn’t matter if you aged?” she reminded me. Whoever said age brings wisdom is wrong, because even I know not to kick a soldier while she is about to put her head in an oven.

I have always had an ethical view-point against cosmetic surgery, as I believe that people should improve themselves from the inside-out. Yeah…That was before I started to resemble Santa Claus in the forehead region.

“If eyes are the windows to the soul,” I pondered, “and eyebrows are the curtains to those windows, I think it is time that I moved house. Or at least renovated.”

I am excited to be old. The actual process of getting to that stage doesn’t so much impress me, but the image of sitting in a rocking chair on my porch, holding a scotch and a shotgun, surrounded by cats while I shoot everything born past 20305 excites me to no end. I have a [somewhat] foreign hope that by, say, age eighty-years-old, life will make sense to me and the bullshit that has consumed my prior days will be as dead as my sex-drive. 

It is a shame that I won’t have the stamina, or dress code, to do anything with the acquired wisdom. But I anticipate that it won’t matter, as knowing the answer on the inside will be much more rewarding than parading around town in knee-high-boots, or whatever it is us kids do to distract ourselves from the real issues of life.

If I were to discover a Genie, and be granted three wishes, [I would dedicate the first two to Zac Efron] and then request that The Jetson’s was a true depiction of The Future. If only so my aforementioned cats could actually be robots and therefore not need food or require actual attention. I want to fly around in a bubble car. I want to play Space Ball. And I smoke because I have tremendous faith that the medical community will evolve faster than my personality is able to. The idea that all of this is ahead of me is far more exciting than being wrinkle free. Yeah…That was before I started to resemble Santa Claus in the forehead region.

The initial shock that, taa-daa, you won’t be young forever is similar to the day you realize that there are people who hate you.

“What? Me?” Is a typical response. “No. You must have the wrong person.”

Then you get a definite sign – such as a for instance or a grey hair in the MIDDLE OF YOUR FACE – and you have to concede that you are not invincible and, maybe, an asshole.

“Ok, so I kicked her cat. I would probably hate me to.”

When I realized that I won’t always have youth on my side, and it will, in fact, one day hate me, I started to hyperventilate over all of the things I Have To Do. And then Who I Have Left To Do dawned on me and I needed to take a nap to recover from the overwhelming sense of hard work ahead of me.

RG’s mother, dubbed Nanna Kiwi because of her location of birth, is staying in my house to celebrate her seventieth birthday. It means that there is someone in my vicinity who at least appears to be older than I, but also, there is wisdom at my disposal that can only come from having lived over twenty-five thousand days.

“I gave up having dreams and aspirations long ago,” she announced when RG questioned why she still resides in a country that has more sheep than humans or political philosophies.

Nanna Kiwi married a man twenty-five years old than her when she was still in her teens, which, essentially means that, other than grey hair, we have absolutely nothing in common.

I started wondering at what age one starts to loose the desire to dream? Is it when there you have nothing but grey hairs? Or is it way before that, around the time that You realize that Genies aren’t real and all goals will have to be achieved with absolutely nothing but tenacity?

“If this is what comes with the wisdom of age,” I pondered. “Maybe I don’t want to get old after all.”

The naivety of being young is significantly more awe-inspiring than tight skin or blonde hair. The ignorance to what life is actually like means that there is endless hope that anything can happen. If strong enough, the desire materializes into achieved dreams. If not, sitting on a rocking chair and pulling the trigger is probably as good as it is going to get.

A house filled with old people is quite depressing, as there are few people to get excited over the superficial like a group of young people will. Not wanting to be included in That group, I put on my oversized aviator sunglasses which conveniently cover the majority of my face, including my eyebrows, and walked to the place of employment of my new twenty-year-old crush.

After an [intense?] conversation about the merits of fleece tracksuit pants, which made me feel as young as twenty-three again, I decided that I can totally support cosmetic surgery on the inside: a desperate quest to remain mentally young while the body which houses your intellect and curiosity falls apart or turns grey.

My dogs are homosexual. They came out of the kennel a couple of years ago by felatting each other in the lounge room at breakfast time.

“Wow!” I exclaimed when I walked in and saw that the poodle was on top. “This is not what I expected.”

Will, the Jack Russell, had a look of mortification in his eyes that I know all too well. He has spent the following years trying to eat Toby, the fluffy power top, but his attempt to display masculinity only made me conclude that his is The Jealous Type.

Toby, who has an array of outfits and accessories to keep him stylishly warm in the winter, came to terms with his sexuality long before he decided to make amateur puppy porn in the same location I save for eating macaroni & cheese out of the saucepan while watching The Golden Girls. Little girl fluff balls would strut past him and he would show little interest. I always thought that maybe he was just career orientated. But I was wrong.

When Will was welcomed into the family, Toby started doing the down dog position more frequently than any Pilates devotee knows is safe to do. The Jack Russell, a male dog almost by definition, tried to ignore him and sporadically attempted to use him as an appetizer, while always aiming to convince onlookers that chicks are his kind of thing, and that anything to the contrary is a moment of weakness.

But, even I think that Every Day is more than a fling or a habit. It is a lifestyle.

While every boyfriend I have ever had has venomously disliked Toby [possibly for politically incorrect reasons], I have always applauded his acceptance for Who he really is. Will parades around like Nothing Ever Happened and I have never bought it or had a lot of respect for it.

Similarly, whenever I have seen human beings hide who they really are, I want to scream, “If my four kilogram poodle can accept himself, why can’t you?!”

My London girl friend was dating a boy who was quiet clearly Toby trapped in Will’s body. We always joked that she had masculine qualities and so when she started dating a boy who used more exfoliator in one day than I have used in my entire life, we found it to be a match made in fucked-up heaven.

“We haven’t had sex in three weeks,” she complained one day, four weeks after they set up house together. “What should I do?”

I wanted to scream, “Unless you grow a penis, there really isn’t anything You can do!” But I refrained. I hate being held responsible for things that are physically out of my control and so I don’t like to point it out to other people.

Instead, “This is what you should do,” I told her. “Get out of the shower, walk around naked while trying to find something to wear and, trust me, he will throw you against a wall [in a good way] within forty-five seconds.”

“Really?” She was desperate. “That will work?”

“Honey,” I reassured her. “It has a one hundred perfect success rate. Trust me.”

Three days later, London girl friend called me while Toby and I were watching Oprah.

“I hate you,” she deadpanned.

“You, every man and his dog.”

“I walked around my lounge room for forty-five minutes last night. Naked.”

“Liberating!”

“And my boyfriend sat on the couch reading quotes from Hello! Magazine to me.”

I wanted to point out the big pink elephant in the room to her. But when talking about someone strutting around their house nude, bringing a one thousand kilogram animal into the conversation is never wise.

“He finds me unattractive, doesn’t he? Should I loose weight? Or get a spray tan?”

I had no advice that I knew would work. So, I took a wild guess and told her to wear something sparkly next time while free dancing to disco music.

It didn’t work. Which is unfortunate because His current boyfriend wears glitter while dancing all the time.

Coming to terms with ones own sexuality can take up the majority of youth.

“Do I like boys?”

“Do I like girls?”

“Do I like boys and girls”

“Do I not care but as long as it is every day, I will have a happy lifestyle?”

I feel fortunate to have known my sexual orientation while I was still in the womb. I think I sat there for nine months occupied by images of George Clooney. However, similar to a gay dog trapped in a straight dogs body, I have often struggled to be proud about my certain lifestyle choices and live up to the hype.

“Really, you have no moral objection to one-night stands?” I have been asked.

“How can you believe that sex can be meaningless?” Someone has screamed.

“You did Who?!”

But then, a coupe of years ago, I realized that people will always have a mortified look no matter what you tell them. Relaying the story of what I didn’t do has shocked listeners just as much as stories about what I did do. I learned quickly that importance lies in owning what you do and just as much as who you do it with. It is a liberating feeling that you don’t have to be naked to enjoy. And if my poodle can own it, why can’t I? 

I woke up to a dog snuggled on either side of me, making me a fucked-up sandwich filler of sorts.

Toby stretched and posed in the down dog position. Will rolled over. And I decided to start telling people that I sleep with two boys every night. Just to see the reaction.

I used to go shopping for clothes. But then I realized that boys have a ready-made metaphorical catwalk of garments, perfectly disposed of on their bedroom floor. Shirts, pants, boxer shorts and the occasional bow-tie, have often, again metaphorically, begged at me from that laundry pile.

“Please, Sall. Take me home. You can’t possibly wear that sparkly mini-dress out in public at eight o’clock in the morning.”

I rarely argue with the logic my imagination comes up with and so, because It said so, I wear the shirt home.

Everything in my wardrobe that doesn’t sparkle has been [donated] by ex-boyfriends, dates and DJs. My own laundry is a proverbial pile of St Vincent De Paul. If, you know, I had ever slept with a Vincent or a Paul.

The first time I decided to cut up my credit card and start handing out my phone number when I wanted a new outfit was during a particularly busy Sunday morning along the high way. I, through no (ahem) fault of my own, was minding my own business and walking (read: stumbling) along the sidewalk, daintily carrying my shoes like a lady, blinking rapidly to block the reflection of my sequinned skirt, when a passer-by (aptly?) inquired as to whether I was an off-duty prostitute.

He was half correct, I suppose, to be fair. But I didn’t have anything tangible to show for what I had spent the past seven hours doing. 

Sunglasses, probably, would have been the most beneficial accessory. 

My Nice Ex-Boyfriend lived exactly five hundred meters from my house. I know this because I did the walk of shame back to my own abode enough times to accurately count the steps. One mid-December morning, we decided to call it a night and stay in bed all day.

By five o’clock, considering it was my younger brothers birthday and I had a party I was supposed to arrive to at midday, I decided to leave and saunter (read: stumble) back to my house to get dressed.

Fate was sealed when I could not find my glittery party dress and, so, in his always-present kindness, Nice Ex-Boyfriend offered to lend me a T-shirt and boxer shorts for the journey.

“Thank you,” I was genuinely appreciative. “I will give them back to you tomorrow.” I genuinely thought I would.

The crawl (read: stumble) for the first two-hundred meters was pleasant. Many other similarly-minded people had also taken the opportunity to go for a dusk stroll. Lucky for them, they weren’t holding high heels and a half-full bottle of Jack Daniels while they did it, but I am sure they were having fun anyway. By meter three-hundred, my haute couture world was turned upside down when I had no choice but to walk through the thousand strange families who had huddled together for the annual Carols By Candlelight concert.

Kids skipped passed me while their parents pointed to the homeless girl (me) wearing Superman Y-fronts, bright orange V-neck and a smile.

I am pretty sure it was then that I decided to date boys who wore my size pant.

My brother, PG, asked if I could buy him shirts at the online American Apparel store. I was about to mock his eagerness to throw good money away on something he could just find and wear over his party dress and then, when the guy never calls, consider it part of the severance package. But then I remembered who I was talking to.

“Sure!”

I jumped online like I jump on my own version of stores.

Clicking through the thumbnail pictures of male models wearing various coloured cotton T-shirts was like Mr American Apparel had taken my Magic List out of my imagination and put it on the World Wide Web (…). Pretty boys smiled at me, metaphorically saying, “Buy me!” and I felt like I was at home.

“Um, excuse me,” I said to anyone who was listening. My dog. “How long have you been aware that it costs thirty-eight dollars to buy just one white T-shirt?”

Half of my mind was outraged at the joke on consumers. But the other half of me was deeply concerned that I had been selling myself short.

“I am probably going to have to start [borrowing] designer sunglasses to make all of this eligible for a tax write off,” I told the poodle.

Moonlighting as a stylist to compliment all of the other skills I have that don’t pay me money (See paragraph three), I took PG shopping with AM’s credit card. I threw jackets and shirts at him like they were going out of style and came up for air only when I noticed the Stunningly Beautiful Boy standing by the change rooms. He was wearing a faded black cotton cardigan that I knew immediately would go perfectly with my Sass & Bide jeans and orange flats.

“I think we should come here more often,” I told PG.

Upon arriving home, I stole all of his shirts. A date has been set to buy new ones next weekend. 

I recently bought a seven dollar ring and have been wearing it on my ring finger. At first I did it so that said digit would actually get some use and seven dollars is, coincidentally, about the value I deem acceptable for anything that is supposed to proclaim something on it.

Then I realized that my frivolous decision had a subconscious importance.

“Are you engaged!?” a girl I will never have a common interest with squealed.

I almost jumped in to yell “No!” before the panic attack set in. But, instead, I had a quick epiphany.

“Yes!” I beamed. “To myself.”

While most people just have casual sex with their hands, I decided to relieve mine from their exhausting job of holding cigarettes and employ them for love.

My longest relationship with a boy lasted two and a half years. I frequently tell Him that it will [probably] remain the longest I will ever have [and then I wonder how the Hell I made it that far]. My next boyfriend was around for one year. Then the next was six months. And then twelve weeks.

The severe decline in longevity is of no accident and, to me, no problem. Because throughout all the coming and going (and coming again) in my bed, the only thing that evolved, strengthened and became enlightened [other than my stamina] has been the relationship with myself.

Twenty-four years and counting. Sure, sometimes I want to break-up with me, citing Irreconcilable Differences and risking a spousal abuse charge, other times I wish I was just my own fuck buddy, but mostly, I love me. Flaws and all.

And, believe me, declaring that to myself was way harder than any sort of emotion I have had to hint to any twenty-year-old.

After I downgraded (upgraded?) to the three-month-long relationship mark, I decided to just stop completely, figuring I was wasting my time trying to get other people to love me. I had the initial epiphany that [maybe] I just needed to focus on trying to love myself first. I decided to allow guys to float in and out of my consciousness, and bed, rather than only momentarily remembering that I always exist as an individual human being in between entertaining those twenty-year-olds.

Forty-two hours is my relationship capacity at this moment in time. Sorry. I exaggerate. Forty-one. The last sixty minutes is actually spent wondering how the Hell I made it that far and Why He is still allowed to breathe, let alone exist. The decline is rapidly heading towards negative-digits-territory.

The problem is, I have spent so much time enjoying the company of eligible bachelors for anywhere in between nine minutes and nine hours, with very little need for conversation or emphasis on longevity, that even by hour ten I am completely ignorant of what to do with Him. Picking apart His very soul is the only way I can think to occupy myself [and justify my behaviour]. The only other distraction is out of the question because, usually, by that time, I no longer have the ability to walk let alone have anymore sex and even I am bored by the activity.

Many people deplore the ten AM check-out time in hotels. But I applaud them. The hospitality industry, somewhat coincidently, directly correlates with my own mental check-out of a relationship. In fact, hotels are actually nicer than I. I lack the “extend your stay” option and never bring breakfast to someone in bed. Don’t get me started on the maids uniform I don’t own.

Ten o’clock in the morning swung around at about hour thirty-nine of my latest relationship. At the time, I had no idea that forty-one was going to be the magic number (Ha! No. Not that magic number) but I certainly was curious to find out how long it would take me to spontaneously combust. I almost wanted to have a video camera in my hand, instead of a ring, because I could anticipate that the melt-down would be a perfect addition to the hilarious work on YouTube.

For thirty-nine hours, I hadn’t retreated, reflected or, you know, showered and I desperately needed a blank wall to stare at and a mountain of soap.

“What should we do today?” He asked.

I wanted to say, “Shoot kittens” or something of equal stature that would scare the Hell out of him and have him running to the hills so I could retreat into a world of silence and Me. But I always stop myself from saying those kind of things out of fear that I am sleeping with the one person in the world who gets off on that kind of stuff.  

Hour forty-one floated around in what felt like ninety-two million hours. I was about to start hyperventilating because I don’t live alone on this planet. Instead, I decided to just get out of bed. But before the panic attack set in, I had a quick epiphany.

Maybe he was just as sick of me.

The calmness I felt over the thought that someone may be over me as an individual human being, tired of my bullshit and sick of the sight of nakey me, gave me enough energy to get me to my car without committing any capital crimes or unnecessarily insulting anyone. I drove home, alone, thinking that maybe the solution to my [already ridiculous and laughable] love life is to find people who can only stand me for, at most, the time it takes me to smoke a cigarette.  

Luckily, I can stand myself for at least seven. 

The hardest item of clothing to take off is The Skinny Leg Jean. I am convinced that they were created from left over cloth by the dude who invented the chastity belt. I have defied many people – myself included – to exit the SLJ in an exotic and time efficient manner, but the act always ends up on the child birth end of the sexy meter.

The first time I slept with my ex-boyfrielnd was after a Halloween party. I was dressed as Tinkerbelle and he was moonlighting as a rock star, equipped with skin tight, ankle hugging pants. My home-made green dress dissolved in one clean rip (Aside: Remind me to look into buying more clothes of such nature) but he spent the better part of ten minutes falling around the apartment like a chained prisoner trying to get naked. Meanwhile, I sat nude on the kitchen counter unsure whether I should bake something or plot the death of Ksubi designers to kill time.

The worst sex injury I have acquired eventuated when I fell onto an oversized stuffed rabbit after spending eight minutes trying to gracefully remove my own SLJ. I pulled my groin muscle and the only reward for finally being released from fabric was a bag of frozen peas resting where his genitalia should have been partying.

Summer is the ultimate solution, and my love of tropical climates has little to do with weather and more to do with easy access. While winter may create the perfect naked-snuggling-in-bed opportunity, getting to that point is the SLJ struggle.

Whenever I am in a situation where I know I will want to get naked quickly (I usually call them “Weekdays”), I wear something that won’t hinder the process. A dress, of course, is the most obvious choice. But being the stubborn bitch that I am, I like to put obstacles in front of instances to see whether a boy will want to rip off the always-ready tracksuit pant.

(Aside: They don’t).

The Skinny Leg Jean looks brilliant paired with a knee-high boot. I mean, would the catwalks of Paris lie? [Rhetorical question]. It is an outfit that was once designed for riding horses but is now a perfect ensemble to ensure that You are going to end up riding something that is only hung like a horse.

Preparing for an impromptu date during an impromptu two days of hot sex in a different city, I found myself wondering whether I would be wiser to wear the SLJ and boots I had spent the better part of thirty hours in (and out) of, or resort to the only clean items of clothing in my possession: the tracksuit pant or mini-shorts.

“Do I want to smell good or look good?” I thought while shivering in the winter weather.

The day and a half prior had seen me fall into a cupboard, roll off a bed and form a make-shift chain gang with my date while he pulled and I tried to rip denim. I was one sexual experience away from simply staying naked full time but I don’t yet have the confidence to accept all of the “ Look at the eight-year-old boy!” taunts and so I knew I needed pants.

Acknowledging that I already had a Sure Thing, I reasoned that cleanliness was the best bet to get me to Oh My Godliness within the hour. I was tired and so trying to fit a square (my foot) into a circle (Sass & Bide) begged to use energy that I desperately needed to conserve.

(Aside: Who’s cruel trick is it to make dinner dates last four hours but sex only last twenty minutes?)

“Sexy trackpants,” my date acknowledged when I walked into the restaurant sporting fleece and high heels. I did what I frequently do in undesirable situations: I drank myself well dressed.

Hours and bottles later, I was ready to blow the restaurant and focus on something much more appealing. I stumbled into the hotel room, excited that there was going to be no challenge in getting me from frumpy to fucked.

“These needs to go,” my date once again acknowledged my attire.  

In one clean move, he ripped them off. Just how fashion intended them to be used [I think].

“Good work, sir.” I like to compliment a job well done.

I went to take a step towards the bed. And fell flat on my face.

“Yeah…watch out for those pants around your ankles…”

My favorite place in the world is The Bathroom. It comes second to Zac Efron’s bed. Some of my greatest thinking, ideas and hairstyles eventuate while sitting on the floor of a shower for forty-five minutes.

If I could buy waterproof books and water wasn’t the enemy of Marlboro Lights, I would never leave The Bathroom. When I was nineteen, I discovered the simple pleasure of taking scotch into the shower for my bi-daily cleanse and, evidently, I take full responsibility for subsequent droughts.

My most hated place in the world the Public Bathroom. There was a moment, about two years ago, when I thought that they would become my new home. See, a midget was getting changed after a work out and I found myself in the [enviable] position of seeing one naked without being in a compromising position myself. I started spending longer in the change room, chilling outside of the shower rather than in it, but like an Oasis, the Naked Midget never materialized again.

(Aside: No one else has wondered what an adult midget looks like naked? No one? Really? Shit.)

When Public Bathrooms returned to being places of communal poop, I started resenting them all over again. I almost decided to never venture into one, but that involved not eating or seeing a nudey dwarf by chance, so I bit into a wheel of cheese and hoped that maybe, the Public Bathroom would one day improve.

I am often asked the philosophical question, “What would you prefer: To be deaf or blind?”

While most people list music, children’s laughter or Zac Efron’s face as reasons why they would choose either or, I jump in and say, “Deaf!’ loud enough for even an audio challenged person to understand.

“Why?” is the common interest.

“Because then,” I take a deep breath. “I would never have to hear other people shit when I go to the bathroom while out and about.”

There are two things I keep private in my life: My true celebrity crush and pooping. Beyond not being a Naked Person (Aside: believe it), I fret over the thought of shared turd particles and prefer to keep That part of my life completely separate from social interaction.

Sometimes, I hear girls talking through cubicles.

“And, so, like, you know, I like, really, like, like him, you know?”

“Oh totally!” The girl in stall four will, like, totally get it. “You should, like, ask him out or make a move!”

Then, in true Swan Lake synchronization, they loudly poop, flush, reapply make-up and go about the conversation and their day together.

Meanwhile, I am sitting on the toilet clenching for dear life because I can’t fathom a world where I am comfortable with even my soul mate hearing That sound.

When I first moved out of my parents nest and flew into an abode that I could simultaneously afford and smoke in, I lived with three boys. The corner of the hallway had been allocated some pipe, mould and a curtain, and was therefore our only shower. Unless I wanted to be the Naked Housemate, I decided to investigate whether drinking would give me good ideas and even better hairstyles (aside: It does!) and ignored bathing for longer than the average prime-time drama.

The Bathroom being my favorite room – sorry, corner – became more of a distant memory when I realized that all night drinking with said housemates involved a next morning Run To The Toilet Ritual. Being first in, best dressed was great for my sense of smell. But then I realized – someone I knew would be going in There after me. The Public Bathroom had moved into my house and I had no idea how I was ever going to combat the anxiety.

Luckily, stress blocks you up.

I didn’t evolve as a human being while living in communal housing. Instead, I spent a lot of hungover mornings hunched over and clenching, waiting for everyone on the lease to leave and mutilate toilets in far away land. It was move that, like ballet, I have found is hard to orchestrate in public. Hours, ney years, have been dedicated in my life to making the Public Bathroom a less horrifying experience. With no funds to hire a midget on staff, I decided that I needed to find my own version of synchronization so that I could merrily go about my own day while standing up right.

When I was in Japan, I was met with an object obviously invented by my soul mate. A toilet with audio options.

“Why would you need to change the volume of the flush?” People have philosophised to me.

I know why.

Like Billy Elliot desperately needing to get in sync, someone realized that doing The Ultimate Business was perfectly disguised when someone in, say, cubical four, was flushing. Loudly. 

“It drowns out all sound!” I boasted, completely content that I could finally relax after eating a whole wheel of cheese in public. If the toilet came with a remote control, I would almost never leave. 

After an [unusually] strenuous gym work out, I retreated to my new [kind of] favorite place, accepted that the midget has moved on to bigger and better things, and sat down on The John. Someone els had a similar day plan to I and did the exact same thing beyond the small wall next separating us. 

“PFFT PLOOOOP BLAAAAA SPLAAAAAAAT MAAAAAAA PFFFFT POOOOOOOOP!”

Clenching every muscle in my body like I have never clenched before, I fell into the bowl due to sheer shock. The fully grown adult next to me was not nearly as concerned, if not completely unaffected, by the sound she had just made and so, decided to do it again. 

“PFFT PLOOOOP BLAAAAA SPLAAAAAAAT MAAAAAAA PFFFFT POOOOOOOOP!”

She went off and kept going and I wondered if there was anything left of her or if there was merely a whole in the floor where the toilet had once calmly sat, waiting.

I wanted to cry, frustrated that Japan’s greatest invention since rice had not yet arrived on my shores. Anxiety ran straight through me like the woman next door’s lunch and dinner. Not in a position to leave, I had a great idea.

I put on my iPod.  

I think for twenty-four hours per day. Ironically, it is a direct correlation to my age but of no reflection to my maturity. Some time off is spread thinly around eating, pooping or watching “The Hills”, but generally my mind can be physicalized by a mouse running through a maze in desperate search of an invisible piece of cheese.

I feel an almost biological urge to have an opinion on almost everything. A habit that results in people either welcoming me into the conversation or plotting my demise.

Recently, out of fear that my brain was going to pack a bag, arrive on the door step of The Betty Ford Clinic and cite “dehydration and exhaustion”, I decided to rediscover a hobby that allows me to stop thinking about everything (including myself) and just Be for a while. Bars were once my go-to place to turn off That organ (amongst others) but, it seems, my mind has developed an immunity to hard liquor.

“Just have sex,” boy friend suggested, like sex is some Fairy Godmother and saying the word will make it appear. (Aside: Hello scientific research industry. Get onto that).

“I think during sex,” I informed him.

“About what?”

“It depends. Sometimes I only have time to think about Why Heidi and Spencer exist. But other times, I can recite the entire first chapter of A Brief History Of Time in my head before I have even noticed anything is happening.”

Nothing, not even the most mind-blowing sex, has ever been able to stop me from thinking about all of the things that need to be thought about.

“Maybe you are having sex with the wrong people?” boy friend theorized.

I considered such things while sitting on my new skateboard eating Cheezels for breakfast.

I was immune once again.

I remember when I first got on the gravy train that is thinking. I wondered, “Has anyone else realized the brilliance of this ability!?” I had spent such a long time not using my most powerful organ [above the waist], that I naturally assumed that no one else had discovered it. Which makes the euphoria someone redundant. And like any child who has discovered a new toy (a skateboard, boys…), I became obsessed with thinking and never learned how to turn the damn thing off. I think I spent too much time thinking about how to turn other things off…

After seven hours of Trying To Turn The Damn Thing Off (read: drinking), I was sitting next to my newest boy friend, regaling him on the intricacies of skateboarding.

“My best skate shoes are my knee-high boots,” I informed. “I am going to be the girl in board shorts and knee high boots, skating while holding a glass of scotch.”

“Well, if you go pro, your name can be The Contradiction.”

“Brilliant idea!” I giggled at his genius. “Or I could be called…ummm…What is the word?”

I stood desperately thinking of the word that had escaped me and He used the first moment of silence all night to kiss me.

I perfect time to stop thinking. For any normal person.

“Hypocrite?” I thought, words racing through my mind, thinking that the lost vocab started with the letter H. “Hypochondriac? [W]hore?”

He continued kissing me and I continued thinking.

“HERMAPHRODITE!”

“Excuse me?” He pulled away and stared at me, his brain working over time. “Did you just yell out ‘Hermaphrodite’ while we were making out?”

Thinking that I had done my best effort [ever] to turn Him off, I sat back down to drink (read: really, really try to find the Off switch). He put on the heater, spent some time converting Fahrenheit into Celsius and then joined me with the beer.

We started kissing again.

“This is hot,” he whispered.

“Oh. Should we have chosen a different temperature?”

It has always bothered me that boys seem to be happy spending time with girls who don’t think. At all.

“What do you talk about?”

“What do you do?”

“How do you occupy yourself during bad sex?”

But there is a point of thinking too much. And it is direct correlation to how much it improves a situation. The brain is the most powerful asset anyone has (Big boobs sag) and panic has forced me to exercise it to its greatest ability. But the greatest thing anyone can realize is that following instinct is sometimes the smartest thing one does.

I went for a skateboard and ran directly into a wall.

OnceuponaIwasusefull, I went grocery shopping, probably bought too many boxes of Lifestyles and couldn’t get the overflowing shopping cart onto the conveyer belt to take me to my car. The weight of the trolley meant that the wheels became stuck, the trolley tipped over, which then tripped me over and I was suddenly saved by a security guard with the ability to press the Off switch.

“Are you OK?” a middle-aged women holding an errant box of condoms asked me.

 I immediately wondered what lengths it would take to embarrass me in the future[?].

My mother’s only life objective for me is that I clean my bedroom. I could cure cancer, but it probably wouldn’t resonate with my matriarch unless my laundry was folded. The problems in our relationship arise because I don’t clean my den of sin. I just have better things to do with my time (see: aforementioned condoms).

Onceuponamonthago, I bought a My First Vibrator because my laziness is starting to evolve past my ability to vacuum and directly correlates in intensity to my magic number.

For one month, it was the best relationship I have ever had.

“It doesn’t speak and it is always just There,” I told boy friend. “If I could find a guy who wanted to live in a cage in the corner of my room, maybe he could compete…”

“But isn’t your room messy?”

“How is My First Vibe going?” My girl friend asked me days later, sharing my excitement over the greatest battery operated devise since Nintendo GameBoy’s.

“Well…” I began, sighing.

“Oh no,” girl friend immediately knew what was coming. “Have you fucked this up like every other relationship you have ever had?”

I have passed out during sex maybe two times in my life. The first time, I had been working on a film and hadn’t slept for three days, so Johnny Depp with a shopping trolley full of Trojan’s couldn’t have gotten a rise out of me. But I at least tried to be a trooper. The next time, I was simply too drunk but fortunately had an understanding boyfriend.

“I broke my vibrator,” I told girl friend.

“Just now?”

“No. Last week. I was too drunk and I passed out on My First Vibe.”

*Customary break to laugh and realize just how retarded Sall is *

“So…” Girl friend finished the rest of the bottle in one gulp. “Just how big is your sexual appetite?”

“No, no, no!” I corrected her. “I had hardly used it. But I passed out drunk…during…and it was on all night and the next morning when I came out of my coma, it was on the floor shaking like a junkie in desperate need of a hit.”

My First Vibe lives very comfortably between a care bare and a photo album in my cupboard [which isn’t a euphemism. It is simply where it is stored]. I needed to find a place to put it where AM wouldn’t discover it on one of her cleaning missions. However, the morning after My First Vibe officially started to fail and therefore resemble every other relationship I have ever had, I ignored it (like a boy) and kicked it under my bed (ditto).

I came home to find my bed made, my laundry folded and My First Vibe resting on my pillow. AM was vacuuming.

“I think you need to find a boyfriend,” She announced at dinner.

I immediately had flashbacks to laying flat on my back outside Coles with condom boxes falling over me and realized that, BAM, I had found something to trump the embarrassment.

“Why do you say that?” I asked. I finished the rest of the bottle in one gulp.

“Unless we want to invest in Duracell Battery shares, it is probably a good idea.” 

My stubbornness knows no bounds. I still maintain that Zac Efron is straight and, until I am floating around in space, the earth is flat. Late one night, I went in search of a Vibrator Doctor. Known to most people as Double A batteries.

“This has to be a power struggle,” I thought, just like I convince myself when fighting with a real life boy. “I just have to give [It] more power and I will be able to be sexually satisfied.”

Dressed in I Heart New York pyjama pants, wearing an I’m With Stupid T-shirt and holding My First Vibe, I went on a two A.M search around the house for anything that housed batteries.

Damn the digital age.

“What the Hell are you doing?” AM asked, sleepy, disorientated but not oblivious to the mess I had made.

“Looking for something,” I declared, throwing boxes out of a cupboard (again, not a euphemism) while desperately trying to locate an errant power source.

“If you’re looking for Double A’s, I put some next to your wardrobe, next to your care bare.”

“Oh.” Trolley Falling.

“I decided that buying shares were a more successful option than you finding a boyfriend.”

Armed with everything necessary, other than a heartbeat and pulse, to Get Me Off, I persisted with my stubbornness and changed batteries in My First Vibe like one changes partners. But My First Vibe was no more.

It moved like starfish.

I gave up and wandered into the kitchen and sat down with a box of Tim Tams I had bought earlier at the grocery store.

The Last Hurrah!

My girl friends and I choose bottles of wine based on their name. Which is basically like judging a book by its cover for the alcohol inclined. Because anything named “Arrogant Frog”, “Mad Dog” or “Four Sisters” and sold for five dollars begs to be drunk in copious amounts above anything sporting a boring moniker priced at $928342837498234. Or similar.

It is basically the alcoholic equivalent of choosing the quirky boy in the corner to flirt with rather than the obvious and safe choice of Zac Efron.

I have spent a large portion of my dating life enjoying The Obvious Choice: The classically beautiful surfer drinking beer straight out of a bong while flexing His abs. Which is basically, like, fun.

But then recently (read: eight days ago) I started to become curious about the quirky boy in the corner for reasons other than interesting conversations. To mix things up, I decided it sleep with him.

Hurrah!

There is a classically beautiful surfer who works in a store next to my house. I hate to assume (Aside: I don’t), but lets say he drinks beer straight out of a bong and has abs. If he doesn’t, I am worried, because I have no map to navigate my way unless we are travelling from A directly to B.

“I thought you had sworn of The Useless And The Pretty?” my boy friend reminded me . But essentially, he only successfully reminded me to stop making loud declarations while enjoying Four Sisters.

“Can’t I have just one more?” I begged. For permission? I am not sure. Why start now?

“Don’t you want to explore this new person who likes to have intelligent conversation after sex?”

“Meh,” I shrugged. “But I would totally like someone else to explore her…”

I have never been afraid to talk to the quirky boy in the corner. I am not afraid of someone responding with something interesting to say. What has caused anxiety, however, is interacting with people who I have assumed won’t understand me. And I don’t mean, like, sitting at a table full of monolingual Asians. I insinuate the apprehension one feels about how to act around someone who will never appreciate You completely.

Classically beautiful surfers have always ridden the wave of ignorance to Who I really am. And everyone has their own equivalent. I learned very early on that Our lifestyles resulted in very different personalities and philosophies, and so I have embraced the elements that simply do compliment each other [Hurrah!]. It isn’t being ignorantly judgemental. I have just known enough of Them to know what works (read: sex) and what doesn’t (read: everything else). I am not going to kid myself.

To do so would be like saying I am not scared of the consequences of post-coital intellectual conversation. 

Pretty Boy Who Sells Surf Boards For A Living met me while I was wearing tracksuit pants, sporting a hangover and buying more tracksuit pants. Which is perfect, really, because I don’t like to lead Them to believe that they are getting anything but That.

He stared at me while I browsed wool verses fleece, black verses grey and debated whether I could secretly curl up into a ball and nap on a pile of boardshorts. At first I thought I must have unknowingly sat in poop and that is why He was gazing at my butt.

 “Did you Do him?” Boy friend asked once I had sobered up enough to drive to other pretty-boy-locations. Occasionally, I hate disappointing with the reality that I am not even remotely as aggressive as I am perceived to be.

“I smelt like scotch and thought I had sat on a turd…”

“That hasn’t stoped you before, right?”

Boy friend was correct. My own physical misgivings have never stopped me from pursuing what I want. In reality, the social awkwardness of a relationship built purely on sexual attraction [and never anything more] has ironically stopped me from dragging Him into a change room and doing number twenty-seven on my list of Things To Do Before I Die. 

“I am going to try and get to know him,” I announced to AM, my incredibly patient, accepting and understanding mother, knowing full-well that this was a totally redundant process. 

“And how are you going to do that?” She questioned while compiling a garbage bin full of wine and scotch bottles.

“I am going to lay-buy a new body board.”

“Good for you, but please focus.”

“No, listen, I am going to pay off ten dollars per week. And by the time I own my board, I will have had actual conversations with Him. Commerce will be the buffer to my anxiety.”

Mandatory reasons to interact with a classically beautiful surfer have always worked wonders for me (See: Every relationship I have ever had). While I hate to mix money and sex (thus making something official), I do take every opportunity presented to me to learn a lesson and evolve personally.

If I can overcome the anxiety of Being Myself to people who don’t understand Me, I will have mastered number twenty-eight on my list of Things To Do Before I Die. Oh. And I will also get laid. Hurrah!

Wearing jeans, sporting a hangover and searching for a body board, I stared at Pretty Boy Who Sells Surf Boards For A Living while I tried to not fall over flat ground.

“You were here the other day, weren’t you?” He asked. Having a memory of who I am instantly impressed me (See: ever other relationship I have ever had).

I smiled while tripping over a ping-pong table.

I asked his name, knowing that for [maybe] one last time, I was judging a book by His cover. He asked for my phone number and, call me arrogant, but I knew what I was doing…

Hurrah!