Today I want to tell you about a few things I love. There are so many things in the world to worry about or challenge — but on the flip side, there are also so many absolutely amazing things that I just can’t get enough of.
The first thing I love is bioluminescence. Fireflies, glow worms, mushrooms. There are so many creatures that light up — jellyfish, fish, squid and octopus, crustaceans, comb jellies, worms, millipedes, snails, even bacteria and those magical sea sparkles that dance in the waves. There are probably countless others I don’t even know about yet.
Bioluminescence feels like one of those things people rarely talk about, yet when you stop and think about it, it’s one of the great quiet mysteries of the universe. If I ever make a lot of money, I'm going to fund a permanent exhibit at the South Australian Museum filled with bioluminescent life — glowing softly in the dark so children and adults alike can marvel at it the way I do.
The second thing I love is tardigrades. Little indestructible bears you can’t even see — wandering around in droplets of moss water, padding through the universe like they’re late for a meeting only they understand. I love that they look like tiny, wrinkled space puppies and yet they can survive almost anything: boiling, freezing, radiation, even the vacuum of space. They’re like microscopic aliens laced with ferocity and resilience.
For a long time I’ve wanted to buy a microscope so I can finally see them with my own eyes. I also have an idea for a children’s novel about tardigrades — because if you think about it, it's mind blowing that such a force of nature lives all around us, quietly, stubbornly, impossibly alive, and yet we can’t even see them.
The third thing isn’t something I love in the traditional sense, but I’m endlessly fascinated by it — parasites and viruses. Not the fluffy, comforting kind of fascination, but the kind that makes your brain spark in all directions. Things like Toxoplasma gondii, rabies, and those eerie parasitic fungi that take over ants — one bursting through the head like something out of science fiction, another making the ant climb to the top of a blade of grass and wait patiently to be eaten so its life cycle can continue.
I don’t admire them morally, obviously, but there’s something almost awe-inducing about the way they manipulate behaviour, consciousness, movement, instinct. It’s not love, exactly — more like a strange reverence for the sheer wildness of biology and the hidden puppet-strings in nature.
Now I want to move to people. I’ve always had a small circle, and now with the death of my father and Nanny, it’s tiny. I call them the Big Four: my mother, my brother, Rebecca and Maiki. My dad’s first children are completely disconnected from us after they tried to prove my mother was dishonest in the creation of his will. Mum has her half sister, my auntie, and her family, but I rarely see them — maybe once a year, if that. So really, it’s just me and the Big Four.
I’d like to expand my circle, but I find it hard to trust people. It’s one thing to type away here in this anonymous blog, but many of the things I write about are things I’d never say out loud — not even to the Big Four.
I love my mother. She really is an incredible woman — independent, creative, stylish, funny, loyal, and successful in both her personal and professional life. She’ll tell me stories about her past boyfriends before Dad — footballers, politicians, rockstars, a whole line up of interesting men. Very different from my romantic résumé, but that tells you the sort of woman she is and the kind of people she attracts into her life.
My brother is a know it all. He’s arrogant, and I think he carries a bit of toxic masculinity. But I love him — I do. It broke my heart when he once told me that the two of us weren’t like two puma cubs who were close when we were young and then sadly drifted apart. But in a strange way, I think we’re making up for it now, even if he criticises my art and politics.
Rebecca and Maiki are my chosen family. I can be a little hot and cold with Rebecca, but at the end of the day, I’ve known her her whole life as she's four years younger than me. She is Nanny’s granddaughter, and I’ll be there for her until the end of my life, or hers.
And then there is Maiki. We call each other megusta. I really love him. There’s nothing romantic about our relationship — it has moved past that. We’ve friend zoned each other completely, and thank God we did, because he has been there for me when I literally had no one. On nights when there was no one to talk to and I felt completely alone, he was there. I will be forever grateful, and he will be a part of my life until the day one of us dies.
I love Antarctica. I really love it. It’s hard to believe it’s been 13 years since we went, because I remember it like it was yesterday. My brother always tells me that I never just want to visit a place — I want to live there. And he used to be right. Places like Alice Springs, Tanzania and Sydney once called to me so strongly I felt a genuine pull to pack up and relocate.
There’s a post office at Port Lockroy on Goudier Island, off the Antarctic Peninsula, run by the United Kingdom Antarctic Heritage Trust. Every year they advertise for a handful of people to go down and live there during the summer tourist season, running the tiny post office. I remember wanting to do that so badly. The idea of being somewhere remote with a small group of people really appeals to me — a little community, isolated from the world, where you could actually get to know people properly. I love that. I’d never leave Adelaide now, though.
Antarctica itself is unreal. The ice looks man made — as though someone carved it deliberately. It's hard to believe it’s all the random majesty of nature, sculpting glaciers, icebergs and mountains of snow that make the whole continent feel like a movie set. I love how the penguins just pop out of the water like little rockets — part cheeky, part ancient instinct, another cog turning in the machinery of life at the bottom of the world.
I’m so grateful I remember Antarctica as vividly as I do, and that I went at all, because I don’t think I’ll be able to go back. I think my flaw will disqualify me. But it's not something I dwell on. There’s still the north — and one day I think I’d like to see the ice in the Arctic too.
I have this memory from when I was a child — I think it was at my half-sister’s wedding. I fell asleep on the cushion of a bay window. What I understand a bay window to be is that soft seat built into the base of the window, almost like a little mattress or day bed attached to the wall. It was cosy, like a tiny cocoon, and I remember feeling safe there — safer than I’ve ever felt in my life. Even now.
So I love bay windows, and I would love a house with one. I’ve only really seen them in movies since, but that memory sits somewhere deep. I don’t think about it often, but when I do, it brings the best feeling.
Another thing I love is the 90s TV show Northern Exposure. It's one of those shows that feels like stepping into a slightly magical pocket of the world, even though nothing supernatural really happens. Just a tiny Alaskan town full of odd, brilliant, eccentric people who somehow make more sense than the real world ever has. I love how gentle it is — the slow pace, the strange conversations, the small town quirks, the feeling that everyone knows everyone and somehow that’s comforting, not suffocating.
There’s something about those snowy streets and quiet evenings and the way the characters find meaning in ordinary life that makes me feel calm and seen. It’s the kind of show that doesn’t just entertain you — it keeps you company.
Northern Exposure is my favourite show, and I’ve binge watched all 110 episodes across its six seasons a number of times. I haven’t watched it in a long time, and I’ve decided that before uni goes back next year, I’m going to sit down and give it my full attention again.
I love neon lights. I have this memory from when I was a child, at Scotch College. Mum and Dad had a friend who was a politician, and we visited her family home overlooking the city. While they were talking in the lounge room, my brother and I went off with her two sons, and in one of the rooms there were neon lights. I remember being absolutely mesmerised — it felt magical, like I was witnessing something rare and special.
One of her sons is a lawyer now, and sometimes I want to write to him and ask if I imagined it, or if those neon lights were really there. I’m sure they were real, but the mind is capable of anything, and memories can blur around the edges. I doubt the son would remember me, but I remember those lights — and I swear they existed.
Apart from that memory, I love neon lights because they are so beautiful, but also a little bit seedy. They’re tied to strip clubs, casinos, cheap motels — places that exist on the edge of something. Neon dances between the underworld and this electric field of dreams and make-believe. It's glamour and grit at the same time, like hope flickering in the dark.
I want to learn how to bend neon myself. I actually had a weekend class booked in Sydney last month, but I told the girl I needed to reschedule. I didn’t say it was because my sleep has been so bad lately — I just quietly pushed it back. She was lovely about it though, so I’ll go, probably in February before uni starts.
I love the 80s. I love Coca-Cola yo-yos, Care Bears, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, slap bands, Cabbage Patch dolls, Etch A Sketch, My Little Pony — little plastic windows into a childhood that still glows in my mind. The 80s meant movies like The Land Before Time. I watched it again last year and it really is a beautiful piece of art. Seeing it as an adult, I could also recognise how much of its spirit — the circle of life, the grief, the loyalty — quietly lives inside The Lion King.
At school we used to collect stickers and swap them, play marbles, show off our treasures like they were diamonds. I remember cassette tapes — I had a Kylie Minogue tape that Dad originally banned, but eventually surrendered to. I remember watching Neighbours with Nanny and whoever else was looking after us, and how Ruffles chip packets used to have Neighbours cards inside to collect. Sometimes Nanny would tape shows for us on VHS, and it felt like magic — the idea that you could hold time and play it again later.
The 80s were the absolute best, and I loved them. I was a kid with consciousness in the late 80s and I remember the 90s vividly too, but the 80s were a good time to be small, curious, and alive in the world.
Something I love with my whole heart is the house Mum used to own in Canberra. Dad had to spend a significant part of every year there for work, so Mum bought a house for him to live in. Some of his colleagues would stay there too. It was a big house, and my brother Eric and I shared a bedroom when we were there. We had two single beds, pushed up against opposite walls, and the curtains had cows and farmyard animals on them — lots of green. We used to go there during school holidays, and sometimes we’d play hopscotch and eat pistachio nuts with the Indian girl next door.
There was a corridor in the house that seemed to connect two separate worlds — like a secret passageway — and we would wander through it like explorers. I remember how cold Canberra was. There was an oval behind the house where we’d go and play, but sometimes it was so freezing we couldn’t stay out long. I remember silver spoons where the spoon part was plastic and the handle was silver, and beautiful warm custard — small comforts in a cold city.
I also remember waking up one night and wandering into the lounge room to find Mum, Dad, and some of Dad’s colleagues watching a scary movie — something like The Exorcist. It terrified me. I have always been scared of my own shadow, and that memory still sits uneasily in my chest.
More than anything, I loved that house. I still love it. I want it — even if I never own a house in Adelaide, I want that one. I asked Mum’s accountant if he could find the address, and he said he’d look, but I don’t think he has. One day, somewhere, somehow, I’ll find it again. And when I do, I swear it will make me the happiest woman in the world.
Something I have deep love for is Meat Loaf's album Bat Out of Hell. People always used to identify me as a massive Meat Loaf fan, but it wasn’t really Meat Loaf the performer that captured me — it was Jim Steinman, the man who wrote the music and the words. He was theatrical, emotional, operatic, ridiculous and genius all at once — and that combination lives in my bones.
I love the song Bat Out of Hell. It’s about a young guy desperate to escape his boring, trapped life, so he tears off on his motorcycle at full speed, feeling unstoppable and alive. He’s chasing freedom, passion, and intensity — but it all ends in a crash. The song blends love, danger, teenage drama and that feeling of running from everything only to burn out in the most dramatic way possible, like a bat out of hell. It is my favourite song of all time. It satisfies everything I need in a story — intensity, tragedy, longing, and meaning.
My second favourite song on Bat Out of Hell is “All Revved Up with No Place to Go.” It's about a young guy bursting with energy, desire, and excitement — convinced he’s ready for the world — but he’s stuck with nowhere to put all that feeling. He thinks a girl will be the answer, that she’ll be his ticket to something bigger, but she grows and moves forward while he stays exactly where he is. In the end, he’s still overflowing with dreams and fire, but he hasn’t gone anywhere at all — all revved up, with nowhere to go.
I like some of Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman’s other work, like Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell, but the truth is I’m really just a Bat Out of Hell girl. The lyrics, the drama, the ache — it’s the soundtrack of my early twenties. I would drink cheap champagne and orange juice, smoke cigarettes, and listen to Meat Loaf in my little unit in Frewville, feeling every note like it was written for me.
I love every track on the album. "You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth" is a favourite, but the final song — "For Crying Out Loud" — is the one that always surprises me. It’s a little dirty, unapologetically intense, and somehow still heartbreakingly beautiful.
I love handwritten letters. I love writing them and receiving them. In an age of WhatsApp, Messenger, and emails, there is nothing like someone taking the time to sit down and put pen to paper just for you. A handwritten letter feels like an extension of the sender’s soul — something personal, private, and deliberately given.
Most of my letter writing these days is for Amnesty International, and I’m also about to write a whole stack to the UN and the International Whaling Commission — I don't handwrite those types of letters. But every now and then, I’ll whip out some beautiful letterhead and craft a few lines by hand. I don’t think I’ve received a handwritten letter in nearly thirty years. I once had a pen pal who wrote to me on simple lined paper, and to this day it feels like one of the purest gifts — a message given from the heart, not a keyboard.
This mash up of things I love turned out to be more memories than anything, but I’m glad I wrote it. I think I’m going to put on a little Meat Loaf now before I try and get some sleep.
One final thing I love — maybe the thing I love most — is love itself. Romantic love. Two people choosing each other, building a partnership, being each other’s person. I’ve been hesitant to talk about true love because I’ve never experienced it. How can I comment on something I’ve never had? But after 44 years of watching the world and the people around me, I know it exists. It happens. It is possible to meet someone who, despite everything, simply loves you.
I once thought I loved that judge in Sydney. And I do think it’s possible to love someone even if they don’t love you back — but I know now that wasn’t it. There was power in that situation: he was a judge, I was a young woman, and there is power in both of those things. Someone once asked if I’d ever want to see him again and I said no, because I wouldn’t want him to see me getting old. I wouldn’t want him to see me now, because I’m fat. But if I take him out of the equation, what I really want is to meet someone who wouldn’t care about any of that. Someone who simply loves me — as I am.
I joke about wanting a man from the Liberal Party, and that would be ideal in my mind — but honestly, I could love any kind of man. I don’t care what he does for work or how old he is, as long as he’s over fifty. I don’t care how much money he has either. As long as he’s a good, decent person, we can build the rest together. I believe in love. Truly. I don’t think I’ve romanticised it; if anything, I’ve spent most of my life assuming it would never happen for me. But if I can fall in love with Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, otherwise known as the Prime Minister of Qatar, then surely I can fall in love with a local man here in Adelaide.
I’m open to it. I’d like it. It will just take me a very long time to trust someone enough to let it happen. I believe I have something to offer someone — but I’m also aware of time. Menopause is coming in the next five or so years, and my “flaw” would turn most men away before we ever even got that far. Sometimes I wonder if there’s a man alive who could love me — truly see me and stay.
So for now, I think I’m going to cocoon myself. Not to disappear, but to become. To lose weight, to refine how I present myself to the world, to feel strong in my body again and confident in how I move through life. To learn how to engage with the world more naturally, more gently. And then — maybe — I’ll be ready to put my best foot forward into the world and see what happens!
