Cautious Grandma Driver

It's another freezing cold morning as I sit here at my computer at 3:26am. I've got my big black puffer jacket on over my clothes, and my feet are toasty and warm in thick bed socks. I'm surprised my mother said the cool air of the air conditioner doesn't bother her, but I think it may not flow into her room. As for me, I feel like I am back in Antarctica, but you can't put a price on the sound the cold generates. 

I am really looking forward to my safe time of 5:00am this morning because I have heard so many noises. I don't completely react like a child; I just tend to freeze for a moment. If I'm watching YouTube, I'll pause it to see if the noise continues, which most of the time it doesn't. But I have heard some noises which seem to be coming from inside the roof. They are so vivid that it sounds like someone running.

At first I thought it was rats, but then I saw an ad on television the other night for a news story about a woman living in a Housing Trust home who discovered that a man had been living in her roof. I wonder if someone is living in our roof?

I sold my car a little while ago because Mum and I needed a bit of extra money and also because Mum doesn't drive anymore, so I use her car to drive both of us around. But the absence of a car in the driveway has had more of an impact on me than I realised it would.

If you think about it, a random or targeted intruder assessing the viability of breaking into this house might see one car in a double driveway and view it as an opening for a successful home invasion. I don't know what sort of things people do to residents who are awake during a home invasion, but I've read enough stories to know it doesn't always end well.

I feel like having only one car makes it look as though either not everyone who lives in the house is at home, or that only one person lives here.

I got a skip bin around two months ago, not to hide the empty space, but genuinely to dispose of rubbish from the house. But having the skip there has made me feel a lot safer, so I must have extended it seven or eight times. I'm sure the skip people must wonder what is going on because it's just a normal-sized bin and there is only so much stuff you can fit into it.

I've got it being collected in the first week of July. That will then leave a very obvious empty space in our driveway, and I believe it leaves us open to vulnerabilities that would not be there if there were another car parked there.

On Monday 22 June, which is next Monday, my term deposit expires. I didn't have a life-changing amount in it, but it is a good little amount of money. I had a lot more money, but I gave most of it to Mum after my father was trading on the stock market while he had dementia and lost a huge amount of money. I also gave some money to my best friend, Maiki, to do his PhD.

On Monday, I intend to put the majority of what's left back into another term deposit, mostly so I can't touch it, and use some of the remaining money to pay a few expenses. One of those expenses is to buy a cheap car to put in the driveway so it looks like a household full of people is living here.

Initially, I found a silver Volkswagen Beetle 2003. It's done 233,640km and the seller is asking $2,200.

I have loved these Beetles ever since I wanted to open a florist called Strike A Posey and have Volkswagen Beetles painted like ladybirds as the flower delivery cars.

The idea initially was that the car parked in the driveway would be registered and insured, but it wouldn't be for everyday use. But then I fell down the Volkswagen Beetle rabbit hole on Carsales.com and, I fell madly, deeply and irrationally in love with a bright red 2007 Volkswagen Beetle Miami 9C Auto MY08.

It was, and still is, the most beautiful car I think I have ever seen. It's done 120,947km and the owner is asking $6,888. There is even a note in the description that says:

PERFECT FIRST CAR! This bug has been well looked after.by cautious grandma driver

You can see the car below.

The moment I saw it, I knew that I had to have it.

I am about to turn 45 years old, but I've never actually bought a car myself. My Dad bought all of my previous cars, and he died in 2024, so it is up to me to ensure I get a good deal.

The first thing I did was tell my dear friend ChatGPT, and I asked it what I should say to the owner when I contacted them. So, solely on the advice of ChatGPT, I sent the owner the following message:

Hello I am interested in your car. I just have a few questions. Is the vehicle currently registered? How long have you owned it? Do you have service records? Has the timing belt been replaced? Is so, when? Are there any known mechanical issues? Are you happy for a mechanic to inspect it? Thanks, Me

It must be a family member of the cautious grandma driver who is facilitating the sale because the name on the account is Peter.

Late on Wednesday night, I saw that he had read the message, but he didn't respond. So yesterday afternoon I tried to call him through the Carsales app. He didn't answer.

So, I sent him another message saying:

Hi I'm still very interested in your car - can you give me a call on 12345678910 if you get a chance. Kind regards, Me

I saw that he saw the message, and he still didn't respond. So, I sent him another message.

Hi again, sorry to bombard you with messages, it's just that I really want this car. Is there any chance I could come and see it tomorrow morning?

He still didn't answer. So I just thought, you know what, I want this car. I'm just going to lay all my cards on the table.

Hello again,

I really am so sorry to send so many messages. It's just that I can see that you have seen them, and I am wondering if there was a problem with some of the questions I asked you initially.

The truth is I don't really care. I just want the car.

The reason I asked is because my father used to buy my cars for me, and he has died, so my brother recommended I ask those questions.

If the car is still available on Monday, when I get some money, I'll give you $7,000 for it.

I'll leave it up to you.

Kind regards,

Me

It's very easy to see what has happened here. The car is obviously not in as good a nick as it sounds with the cautious grandma driver, or at least that's the conclusion I have come to. But in my heart of hearts, I don't care. I just want the car. He is not going to message me back though. How could he? If he does, he will be conceding that he was hiding something about its condition.

My heart broke a little and I had a go at ChatGPT for recommending I ask such stupid questions in the first place, but ChatGPT wasn't sorry. It thought they were reasonable questions, and I suppose they were. This is the story of my life. Mum always says I go over the top, and maybe I went over the top in my questioning about the car and its history. I scared the man away.

I think I used to do that when I was actually involved with men romantically. I would scare them away. I have been told I am a pretty intense person. The funny thing is, if I met a man now, I would be the total opposite. Not as a game tactic, just because I genuinely have no interest in engaging in any romantic activity.

And seeing as I am about to hit menopause within the next five years, I will more than likely have no interest in engaging in any sexual activity either. If I could just go back to Wednesday and send Peter a message saying, "I am hopelessly devoted to your car. I'm in love with it, and I want to make love in it. I want to write poetry about it, and I'll do anything for one test drive."

But I think the moment has passed.

Last night, in the middle of my failed attempts at purchasing my first car sans Dad, Mum and I went to the hairdresser. We went to Mum's hairdressing salon, which is just up the road and owned by this beautiful man, John, who I have a little bit of a crush on.

John usually does Mum's hair, and a hairdresser called Stella does my blow dry. Stella only works on Thursday nights and Saturday mornings, so I've been trying to book appointments well ahead of time just to get in with her. Stella is around my age, maybe a few years younger, and she's absolutely hilarious. I love her outlook on life, and she does a good blow dry, so those are the reasons that keep me coming back.

Lately she's been doing both Mum's and my hair one after the other on a Thursday night, and we sort of congregate in this little huddle and have a chat. Last night we were talking about the car and about how Peter wasn't responding to my messages when John came over and asked if I wanted him to call Peter for me. I thought that was lovely, but I said it was okay and that I would wait to hear back from him.

John is friends with my good friend Mariah's husband, Luigi. Luigi is at least six foot seven and he is a scary-looking guy. John joked, "Did you want me and Luigi to go and get the car for you? We can get it for free." Then we all laughed.

Then John said Peter would wake up with a horse's head in his bed. But after I had told him the story of my communications with Peter, he said I should have got to first base first and then asked about having a mechanic inspect it.

Stella and I always talk about local crime because she's interested in it and, I guess, I am a masochist who likes to scare the shit out of myself. It was funny because while Stella was doing Mum's hair she said to me, "What's your younger brother like?"

Mum just looked at me and I said, "He's a white supremacist."

Mum looked like she wanted to get angry at me, but then we all burst out laughing.

When we got home from the hairdressers, I jumped back online to Carsales.com. I have taken into consideration the real reason I want a car in the first place. It's not to drive; it is to create the illusion of a house full of people. So, I have decided to take it one step further.

I am going to buy a ute.

This way, not only does it look like a house full of people live here, it looks like at least one of those people is likely a man, and he could fight back if someone elected to undertake a home invasion.

I've found a ute. It's a 2004 Holden Rodeo LX RA Auto 4x2. It's done 276,000km and the seller wants $4,500.

I thought I'd play it cool with this seller and not ask about its history or mechanics. I simply said:

Hi, I'd love to take a look at this ute. Do you have any time over the weekend, preferably first thing in the morning, around 9:30amish?

Kind regards,

Me

I sent the message quite late, so I'm not worried that I haven't heard back.

When I was younger, I used to make love in cars. Not all the time, but every now and then. Once, my boyfriend and I took his car to the car park of a political enemy and we did it there. I've done it out the front of my parents' house, at Botanic Park, and out the front of other people's houses. It's uncomfortable and it's so obvious. The car fogs up and anyone driving past can see what's going on.

I can honestly say that I have never really liked or cared about a man I've had sex with in a car. There were a few nice times when I had some first kisses. It's far more intimate in a way. I wouldn't do that now. Like so many things I did when I was younger, I'm too scared. I would be scared of getting caught by the police and I'm not sure what kind of criminal conviction you would get for that, but it could be a really bad one that could potentially ruin your life a million times more than my conviction for texting while driving.

The truth is I'm a bad driver. I'm safe and responsible, but I am not a confident driver, and you should be confident when driving on the roads. Everything depends on that. I don't drive in the country at all. I used to. I remember when I worked at Centrelink and was involved with a man who lived in Port Augusta. Sometimes I would just drive up there after work and drive home in the middle of the night.

I also remember driving back to Adelaide from Sydney in my beautiful red Mazda 2 about 15 years ago. I absolutely would never do something like that now. I hate driving in the country purely because of the speed limits. It's so fast, and when you are travelling in the opposite direction to a truck you really feel it when you pass each other. I could do without that feeling.

Just after I got back from Sydney, I was driving my Mazda down Grand Junction Road and I was in a line of traffic waiting to turn right. As the cars started turning, one driver slammed on their brakes and there was a three-car rear-end accident. I was on the end of it all and my car was a write-off.

We all managed to turn right and we called the police. A patrol car with two officers came out. One of the officers was around my age and we got talking. We actually talked for ages and I asked him if he could give me a ride home. He said he couldn't take me home because it would look bad if he drove an attractive woman like me home.

He then asked for my driver's licence and went back to the patrol car. I don't know if he took a copy of it, but he arranged with the tow truck driver that he would drop me home. I jumped in the truck and we dropped my car off at a yard before starting the journey back to my house, which was quite a distance away.

Then the police officer I had been talking to called me.

He said he had just looked at my driver's licence again and realised it said I was born in 1981 and not 1991. He said he thought I was 20 or 21. I actually could not believe he rang to tell me that. But he said he just wanted to make sure I was on my way home okay.

When I told him I was fine, we sort of said goodbye, but what he was actually saying, without saying it, was: I thought you were much younger, and if you were, I would probably be ringing you for another reason.

I actually took that to heart at 30. There would be no question now at 45, but 30 is still young, isn't it?

Well, I've made it through another night. It's 5:21am and it's raining outside. It's absolutely freezing now that the air conditioner has been on cool all night, but I have a big smile on my face because it feels like this part of the world is starting to wake up.

To celebrate making it through the night, I am going to watch "Trump Finally Puts Bibi In His Place and Neocons Cry Over Peace in Iran. Tucker and Piers Morgan React" on YouTube. I can't think of a better way to start the day.

Little Unlikely Friendships

I am currently sitting here at my computer at 3:20am on Thursday 18 June and I am absolutely freezing. I have the air conditioner on cold because the heater turned itself off after the room became too hot. I like the noise the air conditioner makes; it distracts me from all the sounds that naturally occur at night but, in my mind, somehow become signs that someone is about to break into the house.

I know it's cold outside. It's raining, and I like the sound of the rain for the same reason I like the sound of the air conditioner. But it is cold inside too. In fact, it is probably colder in here than it is outside. It doesn't bother Mum, and I would rather sit here with my hands typing away like icicles than cower in some part of the house, too scared to move.

I saw an article in The Advertiser online yesterday about a SAPOL Assistant Commissioner, John Venditto, who is currently in the process of retiring. He's been in SAPOL for 42 years, which is a lifetime. The article said Mr Venditto has been off duty since last May on full pay, and there is a degree of mystery surrounding the circumstances. It also noted that "Secrecy laws unique to South Australia prevent The Advertiser from reporting on circumstances surrounding Mr Venditto's absence."

He is also apparently set to receive a six-figure lifetime pension. The article reported that he "would likely be entitled to between 60 and almost 67 per cent of his annual more than $300,000-plus salary, meaning he would receive a lifetime pension of more than $180,000 and possibly upwards of $201,000 a year." That's all very well and good, but the pension means nothing if he's sick, which is what it sounds like.

The reason I mention the article, however, is that after reading it I immediately found myself hoping that the superintendent I am making the police oaths project for applies for the position and gets it. I genuinely think he would make an excellent commissioner one day.

After spending a great deal of time collating the names and addresses of police commissioners, chiefs of police and ministers responsible for policing in every country in the world, I now have a database full of contact details that has been turned into mailing labels. I am planning to send the letters requesting copies of the oaths police take in each country at the start of the new financial year, which just happens to be when the price of stamps goes up.

When I eventually send the superintendent this book of police oaths, I am going to write the same thing I wrote to the Chief Justice: that I do not need or want a response. Half of the artistic merit of the piece comes from sending it and allowing it to sit with a stranger, from a stranger, with no further interaction. I think that is the way I am going to operate throughout my artistic life.

I do like the superintendent, though. I sit here absolutely drowning in fear throughout the night. I watch a lot of YouTube, and on two occasions I have watched him hold extended press conferences where he explained how SAPOL was policing a particular issue. Something about him in those videos made me feel safer. I think it's his demeanour, and perhaps the type of police work he does, that makes me feel SAPOL may be more reliable than I first thought.

We've got this man, Tony, who comes and mows the lawns. I don't know how Mum found him, but every time he comes, she has a good old chat with him. I met him once and he seems like a lovely older man. He also seems like he has a bit of an attitude, which I like.

On Tuesday, Mum had a missed call from him and asked me to call him back and see what he wanted. I told him I was Mum's daughter and that she'd missed a call from him. His first response wasn't to launch into the reason for calling. Instead, he said, "Is she alright?" referring to Mum.

I told him she was fine, and we arranged for him to come yesterday, which was Wednesday. I have to say, I thought it was lovely that Tony was genuinely concerned for Mum. It was the smallest thing, but it meant everything. It's funny, the little unlikely friendships people develop in life.

I've talked a lot about my Nanny, who looked after my brother and me literally from the day we were born. In so many ways she was like a grandmother, but she was also like a mother, and she was my best friend. She passed away in 2024, which was devastating.

Nanny always put herself below my parents. She saw them as big, important people with money, prestige and influence, and I know she never viewed herself as being on equal footing with them. When we were younger, Mum would ask her to do things that any employer might ask of a nanny: pick us up from school, clean the house and,clean the toilets, which I still have nightmares about.

But I remember one particular occasion when I was very young. Mum was sick in bed, and I watched Nanny walk up to her, kiss her on the forehead and say, "You'll get better soon, dear." In that moment, she was very maternal towards Mum.

Nanny was strong and tough, though. She was racist, homophobic and had very strong views. That was difficult because those are exactly the sorts of attitudes, I am dead against, and I am deeply critical of other people who hold them. But with Nanny, I mostly let it slide. When I challenged her, which I did when I first began to realise how wrong those views were, she would cry, and it would become an emotional rollercoaster. Eventually, I made the decision to let it go.

Over the years, she talked to Dad about her youth in Lithuania and Latvia during the war, her journey to Australia, her work as a nursing assistant and the many other difficult jobs she had throughout her life. Like I said, she was strong and tough, and Dad respected that. Nanny would get Dad to help her make beds and fold sheets, and while they worked, they talked about their lives. Over time, they developed a genuine friendship.

When Dad was living day to day with dementia but was still at home with Mum and me, he could sometimes be unreasonable. Understandably so. Watching that cruel disease up close made me realise how frustrating it must be for the person living with it, as well as for those around them.

On one particular day, Dad just wouldn't settle down. He was restless, pacing, and not listening to Mum or me. We needed to calm him down, so Mum suggested we call Nanny and ask her to come over and speak to him.

Nanny came over and managed to settle him almost immediately. She had always been considered part of our family, but on that particular day she seemed to have more influence over Dad than either Mum or I did. I think it was because of the very special friendship they had developed over forty years.

I wish Nanny were here now, so I had some support with the situation with Mum. I literally don't have a single person to talk to about it. But I'm not so concerned about my own processing of the diagnosis; I'm more worried about Mum. I think the worst part of dementia is when you know you've got it, you have insight into it, and yet you're living through it at the same time.

Dementia Australia have been wonderful. I've spoken to a counsellor there a couple of times and he has given me advice and referrals. Interestingly, both of his parents had dementia too, so he understands where I'm coming from. I think he also understands that there is a very high chance that both himself and I are going to get it.

I understand that reality, and I'm trying not to think about myself too much during this process. But the truth is that my Dad had Alzheimer's disease, my half-brother developed frontotemporal dementia at a young age and died quite quickly, and now my mother has dementia. We don't yet know whether Alzheimer's is involved in Mum's case because they were going to do further testing in six months.

If I were a betting woman, I would say that one day I'm probably going to get it too. When I really sit down and think about that, it makes me want to do a million things.

The first thing I want to do is be there for my mother, and I am going to be. But I also want to write to every democracy in the world and ask whether they think Israel is a democracy when millions of people living under its control don't have a vote. I want to prove that just because a country is a democracy doesn't mean it is good. I want to learn about the history of democracies. I also want to travel to Israel. 

I definitely want to travel through Europe. I want to blow glass, make silicone lifeforms, learn everything I can about the British Empire and colonialism, and then be able to say to my brother that he, along with so many other people in the Western world, is a white supremacist.

I want to have a holiday house in Mauritius and meet up with my best friend Maiki there every year. I want to go on a world cruise. I want a big, safe apartment overlooking the city of Adelaide. I'd love to fall in love, although that is not a possibility for me for a number of reasons. So, in lieu of that, I want to love the people around me harder.

And most of all, I want to carve my own Christmas tree ornaments.

The idea of getting dementia makes me realise that I probably don't have as much time as I think I do. I need to put a rocket up my arse, and quickly.

What I dislike, though, is when someone reads a self-help book or an inspirational quote and suddenly becomes determined to do everything they've ever wanted to do. It always feels manufactured. I don't want that. I want these things to fall into place organically.

Since I've been writing this blog, I've always had different plans and things I was going to do, but if I'm honest, I haven't actually done all that much. I think the most consistent thing I've done over the past year and a few months is make my volunteer calls every weekend.

I am passionate about the service, and I want to continue doing it for as long as I live. It's not always easy to get up at 7:00am on a Saturday or Sunday morning. Most of the time I haven't even slept from the day before. But I continue to do it because I love the people I speak to and I love what the service stands for.

It stands for the idea that no one is forgotten and that someone will notice if you don't answer the phone. I just love that.

So I think about the things I have coming up in the months and years ahead. The first is my journalism degree, which at this moment in time I care about deeply. I want to learn how to write proper articles, opinion pieces and feature stories. Maybe one day I'll be published and paid for my work. I genuinely want to do the journalism degree.

The second thing I've got going for me is the Certificate II in Hospitality. I said yesterday that it is the most important qualification I will ever do, and I meant it. I have to do this. If I can't do this, I can forget about everything else. Everything depends on my ability to get up, go to TAFE and earn the qualification.

I'm not sure how much I want to pour drinks or make coffees. What really appeals to me is housekeeping or working on hotel reception. I don't think a Certificate II in Hospitality will automatically get me a job in either of those areas, but it might demonstrate that I have some understanding of the industry. Combined with my work history, perhaps it will open a door somewhere.

The truth is that I really want to work in housekeeping. I've done it before and, at the time, I didn't love it. But I know I would now. One of the major benefits of housekeeping is that you're always moving. It's a great way to stay fit. I'm going to lose weight this year because I want to be fitter and stronger for making beds, vacuuming floors and cleaning bathrooms.

I know this sounds strange, but I want to do housekeeping for Nanny. We had this beautiful woman cleaning our homes for more than forty years, and now it's my turn to do some cleaning.

I also like the idea of working in those majestic hotel rooms. Interestingly, the only place I really feel safe is when I'm sleeping in a hotel. My only requirement for a good hotel is that it has a 24-hour reception so there is always someone awake while I'm asleep.

So that's my goal. I want to complete the Certificate II in Hospitality and get casual work around my studies in housekeeping at a five-star hotel.

The final plan I have is the Advanced Diploma of Screen and Media, which starts in January next year. It runs three days a week, Monday to Wednesday, and I think that's the perfect amount of time to devote to learning all the incredible skills the course offers.

I can barely contain my excitement about doing it. I'm going to be the mature-age student who doesn't fit younger people's expectations of what a forty-five year old woman should be like.

Then I think about how I'm going to get dementia, and suddenly I don't care about those expectations as much as I once did. I want to do the Advanced Diploma. I want to do all of these things. And I can do them. I literally just have to do them.

The biggest threat to me successfully living out this dream run isn't other people. It's me getting distracted by new ideas.

Today, for example, I went through a phase where I decided I wanted to learn furniture restoration and upholstery. But I'm learning to contain those thoughts and ideas.

As I finish this post, it's now 4:45am. That's fifteen minutes before my safe time.

All night I feel anxious and scared, but at 5:00am it all seems to dissolve. The fear doesn't disappear entirely, but it loosens its grip on me. The world starts to wake up, the birds start singing, and suddenly everything feels a little more manageable.

I'm going to enjoy that feeling by watching Tucker Carlson present "The Shocking Reality of the Treatment of Christians in the Holy Land by US-Funded Israel" on YouTube. It's had more than two million views, so I thought I'd see what all the fuss is about.

I Leave It To Posterity

I've been tossing and turning over whether to write about this. In the end, because of the anonymous nature of the blog, I've decided that I can say that my mother has been diagnosed with mild dementia.

Not a huge amount has changed in terms of her personality or identity. She is still very much herself; it's just that she has some memory issues. Even so, she is able to live a full life, socialising, knitting, attending appointments, and making plans. There haven't been any major disruptions as a result of her diagnosis, but I am doing my best to make sure we access every service available to help maximise her quality of life for as long as possible.

One of the services I was encouraged to explore was an exercise physiologist. Apparently exercise can be very beneficial for people living with dementia, and because Mum also has a few mobility issues, an exercise physiologist was recommended to help get her moving again.

On Monday morning, we went to see an exercise physiologist named Jennifer at a place called Movement in Mind on Magill Road. She was a young woman who was clearly passionate about exercise and movement, and I was really impressed by the way she interacted with Mum.

Mum has some physical limitations due to a skiing accident she suffered decades ago, as well as a knee replacement. She walks with a slight limp and sometimes struggles with her balance. Jennifer took her through a series of exercises to assess her current abilities so that she could develop a plan to help Mum become stronger and more mobile.

She explained that half an hour of exercise each day would be the ideal goal. It's going to take some time to get Mum to the point where she can comfortably do that, but it's encouraging to have something concrete to work towards.

While we were in Jennifer's consulting room, I took a few photos. Below you can see a Pilates machine. I'm not entirely sure how it works, but it was certainly a prominent feature of the room.

If you look behind the machine, to the left, you'll notice a painting. I was drawn to both the colours and its abstract nature. There was something about it that seemed to suit the room perfectly, and I felt it added a sense of warmth and personality to the space.

I took a close-up photograph of it, which you can see below.

I just want to be clear that I asked Jennifer whether I could take photos of her consulting room, and she was more than happy for me to do so.

The last photo is the one that excited me the most. If you look in the bottom left-hand corner of the photo of the painting, you'll see an anatomical model. I absolutely love these things. I can see why an exercise physiologist would use one in their practice, but as someone with an interest in both anatomy and sculpture, it was thrilling to see it sitting there on the mantelpiece.

It also ties into some plans I have for the future, which I'll tell you a little more about later in this post.

I couldn't resist taking a close-up photo of the anatomical model, which you can see below.

Before we left, we booked another appointment with Jennifer for next Monday. She recommended that Mum undertake strength training twice a week and, to be honest, I don't care how much it costs. I've decided that we're going to follow that schedule if we can, because I want to do everything possible to maximise Mum's physical abilities and help her maintain her independence for as long as possible.

So, Mum's got mild dementia. I've overthought it a lot and, as I mentioned before, my priority is Mum's wellbeing, comfort and quality of life. I've spoken to a counsellor at Dementia Australia a few times, and he has given me advice and pointed me towards services and supports that I have since followed up.

While I've mentioned Mum's diagnosis here on my blog, which is my safe space, I'm not going to write about it too much because it isn't my lived experience. I am devastated, of course, and I continue to grieve what is to come. At the same time, I have had to sit down and think seriously about what I am going to do with myself later on down the track.

For most of my life, I really only had three people: Mum, Dad and Nanny. Dad and Nanny both passed away in 2024, and now it's just me and Mum. At some point, hopefully in the distant future, I am going to be completely alone.

I have my brother, who lives in London, and he has been good to us in the sense that he allows us to stay in his house, which I know comes at a financial loss to him. But we don't really talk. Mostly, we argue about Palestine and colonialism. He is very right wing, frankly, more right wing than I am comfortable with. The last time I spoke to him, he told me he didn't want any trace of Islam in the United Kingdom.

If you've been following this blog, you'll know that I have bounced around between all sorts of ideas about what I should do with my life. Most of those plans have been hindered by severe insomnia. As I write this, it is 3:25am on Wednesday 17 June.

But Mum's diagnosis has forced me to confront a reality that I have been able to avoid for a long time. I am 44 years old, and sooner or later I need to decide what I am going to do with the rest of my life.

The truth is that I don't have many formal qualifications. I completed a Certificate IV in Business Administration in 2002 and a Certificate IV in TESOL in 2016. I've also accumulated a collection of unfinished certificates and degrees, but they don't count.

One encouraging sign is that when I was looking for work earlier this year, I was offered quite a number of interviews, most of which I eventually withdrew from. The exception was a position with Red Cross Lifeblood, which I actually secured, but had to leave because of my insomnia.

If things ever became desperate and I simply needed to earn a living to keep a roof over my head, I think I could probably get a call centre job. But I haven't worked in eleven years. During that time, I've done a lot of caring and volunteer work, and I suspect that's what helped me secure those interviews.

The thing is that my vocation has never really been administration or customer service. My vocation is to create. To make things and to write things.

I've spoken many times about returning to Adelaide University to study a Bachelor of Fine Arts. On paper, it is a perfect fit. It would teach me how to draw, paint, sculpt and create. But Mum's diagnosis has made me realise that I want something more specific.

I have previously written about Patricia Piccinini's Big Mother sculpture, which depicts a genetically engineered primate wet-nursing a human child at the Art Gallery of South Australia. That is the sort of work I want to make.

I don't just want to engage with these ideas conceptually. I want to learn how to physically create them. I want to work with silicone, latex, mould-making, life-casting and prosthetics. I want to create humans, creatures, aliens, Neanderthals, animals and whatever else my imagination can dream up. I want to learn traditional sculpting techniques so that I can make something truly outrageous.

The reality is that I spend a lot of time talking about what I want to do. But this is something I genuinely want to pursue.

I want to develop a unique skill set that will allow me to bring my ideas to life. I'm not just oaths and letters. I want to create lifeforms.

I'm sure I would learn some of these skills through a Bachelor of Fine Arts, but I want a more direct pathway. That's why I have decided that I am going to enrol in the Advanced Diploma of Screen and Media at the Media Makeup Academy, which is based in Adelaide's Myer Centre.

The course focuses on prosthetics, prop-making, special effects makeup and many of the techniques used throughout the film and theatre industries. I've spoken about this course before, but this time I am serious.

Students begin by learning makeup artistry, which I am genuinely interested in, particularly from a historical perspective. From there, the course moves into mould-making, casting, silicone work, latex applications and prosthetics. By the end of it, I would have developed a practical skill set that could allow me to create the kinds of works that currently only exist in my imagination.

I've already made contact with the school and told them that I intend to enrol in 2027. The course runs for just over two years.

Alongside that, I plan to complete a Bachelor of Journalism online through Adelaide University. Hopefully it will allow me to earn some income through writing, while also giving me the skills to write more effectively about the subjects that interest me most.

Those subjects are the British Empire, colonialism, and the situation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. However, I have made a personal decision that I won't write extensively about Israel until I have actually been there and seen it for myself.

Partly, that's because Israel has sometimes denied entry to people who have been publicly critical of its government, and partly because I believe that there is value in seeing a place with your own eyes before attempting to write about it in depth. That's not always necessary, but I think it matters in this case.

At the moment, Smart Traveller has a Do Not Travel warning in place for Israel, which means I wouldn't be able to obtain travel insurance. So, I'm not going right now. But if that advice changes, and if I can afford it, I intend to go.

So, after really sitting down and wrestling with myself about what I want to do with my life, that's the plan: an Advanced Diploma of Screen and Media and a Bachelor of Journalism. After I finish the journalism degree, I want to go on to postgraduate studies in Fine Arts and, eventually, complete a PhD.

The Advanced Diploma doesn't begin until January 2027, which means I've got about six months to work with. I'll be studying journalism online, but my days will largely be free. I've got my volunteer shifts on Saturday and Sunday mornings, and my Art Gallery volunteer shift for two and a half hours each week, but there is still a lot of time left over.

I am going to fix my insomnia. I am not going to stay up all night and sleep all day anymore.

With that in mind, I decided to apply for a Certificate II in Hospitality at TAFE. While most people my age have doctorates, are specialist doctors, or are maybe even judges, here I am taking on a Certificate II in Hospitality. But for me, it is the most important qualification I will ever complete.

The reason is simple: I'm going to finish it, if it kills me. I am going to get up in the morning, go to TAFE, do the work and come home. It might be an entry-level qualification, but I think I can make it look good on my résumé. More importantly, I don't think I need to make it look good. It is good. It's a respectable qualification, it takes four months to complete, and that's not nothing.

I considered enrolling in the Certificate III, but it costs around $7,000. I'd rather save that money for other goals, including a future trip to Israel, so the government-funded Certificate II made more sense.

Ultimately, I'd like to get a job at the Festival Theatre or the Entertainment Centre. They seem like ideal workplaces in terms of flexibility, and I imagine there would be plenty of shifts available for someone who wanted them.

I actually worked at the Entertainment Centre when I was 16 years old, and I loved it. One of the things I remember most is that there were people of all ages working there, so I don't think my age will be an issue. 

So that's the educational and occupational plan for the next ten years or so. Along the way, I'm also hoping to volunteer at the Festival Theatre so that I can gain some experience and learn how the industry works from the inside.

It seems a little optimistic to think that I can actually follow this plan. Mum will have care needs, there will be financial pressures, and ultimately I'm going to need somewhere to live. But if nothing else, I want the Advanced Diploma. I want a skill set that will allow me to bring some of these ideas to life.

I am going to do everything I can to finish the qualification. It's going to be a battle against myself, a battle against time with Mum, and a battle against finances. I have enough money to live comfortably for about a year, but somehow I have to find a way to sustain an income beyond that.

So this plan isn't delusional as such, but it is ambitious. Still, I genuinely believe the Advanced Diploma could put me in a position either to continue studying or to use those skills to build a life for myself.

Something I've been thinking about lately is the colonial settlers of Adelaide. People like William Light, who was probably the most important colonial figure in the city's history. He chose the site of Adelaide and designed the famous grid layout with the surrounding Park Lands. Then there was Robert Gouger, one of the founders of South Australia and the colony's first Colonial Secretary. Gouger Street is named after him. There was also John Hindmarsh, the first Governor of South Australia and the man who formally proclaimed the colony in 1836, and George Fife Angas, a financier and promoter who played a crucial role in getting the colony off the ground. Angas Street is named in his honour.

I don't claim to know a great deal about any of these men beyond the basics I've just outlined. Yet their names remain all around us. Streets, plaques, monuments and statues continue to commemorate them nearly two centuries later.

Lately, I've become particularly interested in the statues of these colonial figures.

There is a statue of Colonel William Light at Montefiore Hill.

What's interesting is that the statue wasn't originally located at Montefiore Hill. It stood in Victoria Square from 1906 until 1938, when it was moved and became known as "Light's Vision". The idea was that this was the place where Light looked out across the plains and imagined the future city.

If you look carefully, Light is pointing towards Adelaide. Beneath the statue is the inscription:

"I leave it to posterity..."

In a sense, Light was defending his choice of location and leaving it to future generations to decide whether he had been right.

What I find interesting about the symbolism is that Light isn't portrayed as a ruler or conqueror. Instead, he is presented as a planner and visionary looking towards the future.

Victoria Square (Tarntanyangga) is fascinating because it contains several colonial statues rather than just one. In many ways, it feels like an outdoor gallery dedicated to South Australia's colonial memory.

The statue of Queen Victoria was unveiled in 1894 and paid for by Adelaide businessman and politician Sir Edwin Smith. The bronze was cast using copper from South Australian mines, which was a source of pride at the time.

Unlike Light, who represents the founding of Adelaide, Queen Victoria represents the British Empire itself. She is the figure from whom colonial authority ultimately flowed.

There is also a statue of John McDouall Stuart. Stuart successfully crossed Australia from south to north and back again. His expeditions helped open inland Australia to settlement and paved the way for the Overland Telegraph. His statue celebrates exploration and expansion.

Nearby stands Charles Sturt, who explored the Murray-Darling river system and much of inland Australia. His statue depicts him peering into the distance, carrying surveying and navigation equipment.

Then there is Charles Kingston. Kingston was Premier of South Australia during the 1890s. He helped introduce progressive reforms, including women's suffrage, but he was also one of the architects of the White Australia Policy.

That makes Kingston one of the more complicated figures commemorated in Adelaide's public spaces. It raises a question that I find myself thinking about more and more as I get older: can people be both good and bad at the same time?

I actually find these statues incredibly offensive. It is because of people like this that Aboriginal people were dispossessed of their land. While you don't hear the same stories of violence and massacres around the settlement of Adelaide as you do in some other parts of Australia, the reality is that if it weren't for Colonel William Light and the other colonial figures who followed him, the Kaurna people would have remained in their rightful homeland.

I find it remarkable that these statues still stand without much question. Apart from anything else, it feels deeply insensitive. I talk about the possibility of being delusional when I make plans to study special effects makeup and sculpture, but that's not delusional. We are a small city at the bottom of mainland Australia, and I think there is something delusional about pretending that these monuments are not offensive to many First Nations people.

Recently, I decided that I want to eventually pursue a PhD centred on creating statues of Aboriginal people in the same poses as colonial figures commemorated around Australia.

For example, the statue of Colonel William Light at Montefiore Hill, pointing towards the city. I want to create a statue of an Aboriginal man in the same pose, made from the same materials, also pointing towards the city.

Then there is Queen Victoria in Victoria Square (Tarntanyangga). I want to create a statue of an Aboriginal woman in exactly the same pose. Most of the colonial statues around Australia depict men, so I think there would be something particularly powerful about placing an Aboriginal woman into a pose traditionally reserved for imperial authority.

From there, I want to expand the project nationally. There are statues of Captain James Cook and Governor Lachlan Macquarie in Sydney, Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills in Melbourne, Alexander Forrest in Perth, and many more besides. I still need to do a lot of research, but my intention is to create Aboriginal counterparts to these colonial monuments, using the same poses, materials and visual language.

The goal wouldn't be to erase the original statues. Rather, it would be to create a conversation with them. To ask who is remembered, who is commemorated, and whose stories remain absent from our public spaces.

For now, I'm going to explore the statues here in Adelaide and try to understand exactly what I'm up against.

I think I've been put in a position where I have to ask myself: what do I really want to do? What is possible? What's realistic?

The truth is that I know what I want to do. I want to make things and I want to write. It's one thing to say that—I've been saying it for more than two years—but actually doing it is something else entirely.

I don't know what's realistic, but I do know that anything is possible if you really put your mind to it. So, I'm going to take things one step at a time.

I'm enrolled in journalism and that starts in a few weeks. But the real test will be the Certificate II in Hospitality. That's where I'll need to find the strength and determination to get up every morning, no matter what, and show up. I need to complete the qualification and then, hopefully, put it to good use, perhaps with a job at the Festival Theatre or the Entertainment Centre.

I'm also in the process of enrolling in the Advanced Diploma for next year, but I'm not going to think too much about it until I've completed the Certificate II in Hospitality.

Some people finish medical degrees. Some people finish law degrees. As for me, I'm going to damn well finish this Certificate II if it kills me.

Just A Little Crush

I think one of the reasons I have such a bad case of insomnia is because I am scared of the night. Not so much scared of the dark in a juvenile kind of way, but a deep-seated fear of the night, where I think, someone is going to break into our house and then God knows what will happen.

This fear has gotten worse over time, and now it's so bad that I don't sleep at all at night. I am alert to every noise I hear. Sometimes I become paralysed with fear, and sometimes I go around the house trying to find the source of a sound. I am terrified. I am absolutely terrified.

I've been feeling it so badly lately that my nights have become painful, and it's been so overwhelming that I haven't wanted to write about it because I feel like the act of writing it down makes it more real. It's a horrible, horrible feeling and, to put it simply, I am scared.

Something that is making me feel even more frightened is that the house opposite us has recently been knocked down. It's slowly becoming a construction site as more and more workers arrive each day. There is heavy machinery on site and it just seems like the kind of place that would attract trouble at night.

The other thing that has seriously contributed to my fear is that there is only one car in the driveway. We have a skip bin in front of where my car used to be, and I have been extending the hire by months now simply to fill the space. My term deposit matures on 22 June, and I am going to buy a cheap old car just to put in the driveway. I don't know whether potential intruders would see one car and decide to break in, but I think having an extra car there would make me feel better.

This intense, horrible, terrifying fear has gradually become unmanageable for me. It's physical. I feel physically sick when I think about the work site directly across the road. I feel dizzy and light-headed when I hear noises.

I have to fix my sleep. I simply cannot go on like this.

So, slowly, I've been doing things that, more than anything, distract me from that feeling. I keep nearly every light on in the house. I watch television and keep the volume turned up. Most importantly, I keep the heater running, which makes quite a bit of noise. When the heater reaches a certain temperature and switches off, I turn on the cool air instead, which makes just as much noise.

At the moment, it's simply a case of getting through the night. I've checked with Mum and the lights and air conditioner don't bother her. She said she's fine with me having them on if it makes me feel better.

So here I am, on the cusp of my 45th birthday, confessing my inability to feel a sense of security—a sense of safety—in my own home.

I am unwilling to see a psychologist about this issue, although I know I probably should. I have seen sleep specialists who haven't been able to help me, so at nearly 45 I have come to realise that no one is going to magically appear and fix this for me. I have to do it myself.

Something that has been providing me with a little comfort is thinking about the actual risk. I live in a relatively good area, and you never really hear of home invasions around here. I also lived at my parents' house, which was only one street away, for most of my childhood and on and off as an adult. They lived there for 30 years and never had a problem.

So, what I am trying to do is absorb the risk.

If you read my post about trying to manage my new job at the Red Cross Lifeblood call centre, you'll know that my sleep got in the way. I went to work severely sleep deprived and ultimately had to resign because it became too much.

If I could stay up all night and then all day, without the pressure of work, then I know I can make progress with my sleep. If I had a little time to experiment and work on it, with the determination I am feeling at the moment, I genuinely believe I can fix it.

But what I think about is 11:00pm at night: trusting the world enough to allow yourself to fall asleep with no one next to you, no one watching over you. No one would notice if something happened. But I know what I have to do.

The reality is that I have to absorb the risk and accept that, while something could happen, it is very unlikely.

I am behind in life. I am middle-aged and I don't have a husband, partner, children, a degree, a career, a house, or substantial savings.

I figure I've got two options. I can wallow in the fact that I just couldn't make it work, or I can somehow reconfigure my fucked up brain and allow some of these things to fall into place.

I can't have a husband, partner, or children. The days for those things have passed. But that doesn't mean I can't get a degree, build a career, buy a house, and accumulate some meaningful savings.

In August, I am enrolled full-time in a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Adelaide University. It's a three year degree, which means six semesters in total. My biggest barrier to success is my sleep. The only other barrier is that I feel like a complete idiot because, while I've been a mature age student before, I've never been a 45 year old mature-age student, nearly 30 years older than most of my peers. But I just have to get over that.

To be honest, I don't want to do this degree for the degree itself, although I am determined to have one before I turn 50. The main reason I want to do it is for the technical mastery. Ceramics, woodwork, glass, photography, sculpture, and all the other disciplines they offer at the art school.

I don't want to major in any one studio specialisation, although I have to choose one and will probably choose glass. My real goal is to become a jack of all trades.

Someone who has followed this blog for a while would probably think that I really need to get myself together. The truth is that I needed to get myself together 20 years ago. But now that I'm older and, hopefully, wiser, I understand that I need a job and a house simply to get by.

In many ways, I have been living in a fantasy world where I can make a living from conceptual art and perhaps writing a novel about dinosaurs in Cambodia. But there's something in that creativity. I have often said that I don't trust myself in many aspects of life, but I do trust my creative abilities. I don't think I'm excellent, but I do think that if I could harness those abilities properly, I might be able to build a life around them.

So here are my options.

I can keep going as I am, cowering in the living room at night while I watch Piers Morgan and Al Jazeera discuss the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied territories—an issue that is very close to my heart, although I'd much rather be watching those programs during the day.

I could take time in the night to write and become one of those writers who stays up all night and sleeps all day yet somehow manages to make a living. Or I could fix my sleep, go to art school, keep volunteering, and build a life for myself.

It's a humbling experience starting from scratch at my age. Deep down, I don't think I care what the younger students think of me. What I do think is that young people have certain expectations of what a middle-aged woman's life should look like. When they look at me, they might think I haven't lived up to those expectations. But I have to get real. I have to suck it up.

I just mentioned that the time has passed for me to find a husband, partner, or have children. I can't have children due to biology, and it's hard to believe that is no longer an option for me. But I am not particularly hung up on it. I would have loved to have children, but it just didn't happen for me and I am at peace with that now.

The husband or partner part of the equation is a little more complex. I've talked before about how I have a flaw, and that flaw affects a number of aspects of my life. It very much affects my ability to engage in a romantic partnership of any kind. I think there is someone out there for everyone, so I probably could find a man who wouldn't care about it. But I care, and I don't think I would ever feel completely comfortable with someone knowing about it. At the same time, I would want to be honest about who I am, so I would tell them. It turns into a bit of a catch-22.

That said, I still appreciate attractive men. I've actually got a little crush on my mother's hairdresser, John. He is such a genuinely beautiful soul. I've started going to this hairdresser as well. It's just up the road from us. John owns the place and is a friendly Italian man who would be in his fifties. He's good-looking, but more importantly, he is just so nice.

He is lovely with all of his elderly clients and, when my father died, the funeral was on a Monday. They don't normally open on Mondays, but he told Mum that he would come in to do her hair. He did her hair and didn't charge her.

My hairdresser at the salon, Stella, is absolutely hilarious. She only works Thursday nights and Saturday mornings, so I've been going to see her on Thursday nights. Last week Mum gave John her player sponsor tickets for the Crows, so he wasn't working and Stella was in the salon on her own. John asked her whether she would like him to get his father to come and sit in the salon with her so she felt safe. He's lovely.

I don't want a man, but if I did, he would be just like John. Someone unbelievably kind, but also masculine, which he is. He's married and I don't actually have a realistic crush on him, but his son is an apprentice at the salon as well and he is also lovely. You can see the type of people they are.

I look at someone like John and then I look at some of the men I was involved with, mostly in my twenties. I had a few relationships and a lot of fling type situations. My last relationship was with a man named Hamish. He was very good looking, but there was an air of mystery about him and his family. I think there were five or seven brothers and they were all homeschooled, and you could tell. He lacked certain social abilities, but in general he was nice.

We met through the Young Liberals. We were associated with different factions and I was actually part of the conservative faction, which I can hardly believe now. Back then, though, I had no idea what any of it meant. It was quite scandalous when we first got together. I remember being at my friend Georgina's house in Black Forest. She had a two-storey unit and we invited Hamish over, which we thought was hilarious. Hamish and I got talking and eventually Georgina went to bed. We stayed up talking all night. I think we kissed and he left early the next morning. Nothing more happened, but Georgina was convinced we'd slept together and she was furious because she thought it had happened on her couch.

We started seeing each other and snuck around for a while, not wanting anyone to find out about us. At the time it felt thrilling, but looking back on it now, I cringe.

Hamish lived in a massive two-storey house on Lefevre Terrace in North Adelaide with two of his brothers and another Young Liberal. His brothers couldn't stand me, mostly because they didn't like my mother. Hamish's room was on the ground floor and he had an open fireplace in it. I remember cold winter nights with a crackling fire in that beautiful room with its high ceilings. We would fall asleep to the sound of it. That's probably the only genuinely positive thing I remember about the relationship.

We went to the Young Liberal Ball together one year and had a fight. Afterwards, we went our separate ways and on the Monday I found out he had cheated on me. I confronted him and he admitted it, although he insisted they hadn't slept together. I believed him, but I broke up with him anyway. Not long afterwards he turned up at my house with flowers, crying. I felt so bad for him that I got back together with him, but from that point on it was a relationship built largely on me not having the guts to end it. Looking back, I can't believe that. If that happened now, I would simply leave.

I smoked when I was with Hamish. He didn't care, which seems strange to me now. It's an absolutely disgusting habit. I also remember going through a phase where I desperately wanted his brothers to like me. One Sunday I went to the local chicken shop and bought a roast chicken and every salad they had. I brought it all over for lunch, but I don't think it made the slightest difference.

At the time, Hamish worked for a federal minister. I knew another man who worked in the same office and he told me that Hamish was always late and that it was becoming a problem. Hamish had a certain homeschooled arrogance about him and it was difficult to talk to him about things like that. Eventually I suggested that, on the days I wasn't staying at his house, I would come and pick him up and take him to work. When I stayed over, I made sure we were up and moving well before work started. When I was at home, I would get up early and drive over to collect him. But he always seemed to just saunter into work on his own time. We broke up before I ever found out what became of that job.

What bothered me most about Hamish, though, was that I suspect he was interested in my parents and their connections more than he was interested in me. My parents did try to help him with some of his ambitions, probably more than he helped himself. Looking back, that part makes me sad. I almost never introduced men to my parents, but with Hamish they made a real effort. In a strange way, I think that showed how much they loved me. They wanted to see me happy and in love.

I remember when I was much younger, someone told me that women often end up marrying men who are like their fathers. My response to that was, "I'll never find anyone that good."

And I never did.

A Fairly Solitary Life

It's currently 8:10pm on Saturday, 6 June, and I'm sitting in the living room with my mother as she sorts through her knitting needles while I think about what might be worth writing about from the past couple of weeks.

We've got the television on as the West Coast Eagles play Port Adelaide, but the volume is turned right down because neither of us is particularly interested in either team.

It's freezing cold outside, but surprisingly warm inside. Earlier, we had the heater going full blast and it became so hot that I had to turn it off for a while.

A little while ago I signed up to be a front of house volunteer at the Art Gallery of South Australia. The onboarding process has been a slow one, but on Tuesday 26 May a group of us attended an information session that gave us a better idea of what our roles will involve.

I arrived at the Gallery a little before 10:00am for our 10:30am start, and as I walked through Gallery 12, I don't think I have ever felt more at home. Standing before me was a sculpture depicting a genetically engineered primate wet-nursing a human child.

The piece is called Big Mother and was created in 2005 by Patricia Piccinini. Made from silicone, fibreglass, leather and human hair, I took one look at it and knew I had found my people. You can see it below.

The piece reminds me of The New Barbarians by my artist friends Tim Noble and Sue Webster, who I met in Antarctica. Created in 1999 and inspired by a museum diorama of early human ancestors, the work depicts the artists themselves as a prehistoric couple walking side by side. By combining ideas of human evolution with their own relationship, the piece explores love, companionship, mortality and the enduring human desire for connection.

After spending a while marvelling at this piece of creative genius, I stuck my head into a smaller room and was surprised to see Attorney-General Kyam Maher with his entourage.

I follow Mr Maher on Facebook and he seems to have a good sense of humour. He and the people with him looked as though they were engaged in official business, so I quietly turned around and made my way towards the stairs I needed to walk down to reach my destination.

On the way, I came across another piece that caught my eye: Twin-subjecter, created in 2011 by Thomas Hirschhorn. Made from fibreglass mannequins, metal nails, metal screws, a plastic base and timber, it immediately appealed to me. You can see it below.

At the bottom of the stairs was the Art Gallery cafe. I had a bit of time before the session started, so I got a coffee and a bruschetta.

At 10:30am, I made my way over to the function room where all the Front of House volunteers were participating in an information session. There were probably around thirty of us, and we were all women. Two staff members from the Art Gallery took us through the volunteer role and what our responsibilities would be.

It's something I am genuinely excited about, and seeing Patricia Piccinini's Big Mother only reinforced that feeling. I take great comfort in the fact that our Art Gallery exhibits that kind of conceptual artwork, because that is where my heart lies.

Despite my interest in art, I hadn't been to the Art Gallery in a long time. As part of the information session, we were asked to look around the Gallery and identify different types of artwork. I was surprised and impressed by the variety of works on display, and simply being there made me realise that, even though I am starting incredibly late in the art world, this is what I am supposed to do.

The next day, on Wednesday 27 May, I visited an exhibition at the Kerry Packer Civic Gallery, which is part of The Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre on the City West Campus of Adelaide University. This exhibition was also right up my alley: The Origami Art of Tomoko Fuse.

Tomoko Fuse is one of the world's most influential origami artists and is often referred to as the Queen of Modular Origami. Since discovering origami as a child, she has spent decades pushing the boundaries of paper folding, creating intricate works that blend art, mathematics and architectural design.

Below, you can see a broader view of the exhibition as a whole.

One thing I love making is origami boxes, and Tomoko had a whole collection of them on display. You can see some of them below.

There was also a large installation called Orochi and Mukumuku. Orochi refers to a giant snake from Japanese mythology, while Mukumuku refers to the triangular towers that appear to grow out of the ground.

I was particularly drawn to this piece. It demonstrated that Tomoko is a true master of her craft, using the simple medium of folded paper to create something both beautiful and imposing.

The last piece that really caught my attention was called Spiral. It was an intricate, delicate work which, to me, captured one of the contradictions of origami: it is as gentle as it is harsh.

As I made my way out of the exhibition towards the lift, I was struck by what was, for me, the ultimate piece of artwork: the braille beside the level number.

I love braille. I think it is beautiful. One day, I would love to visit an exhibition like this with a blind person and describe everything I can see. I don't think braille is artistic in a novelty sense, nor do I mean that in a patronising way. I think it is art because it opens up a world and facilitates communication that might not otherwise be possible.

Below, you can see the braille from both Levels 2 and 3.

My last couple of posts have been all about criminal convictions, quitting jobs and insomnia, and when I look back on them they seem like a whirlpool of madness. Even though it felt as though so much was happening to me at the time, I suspect it wouldn't have seemed like much to an outside observer. Life has simply carried on, with or without me.

I am now fully enrolled and ready to start art school in August. I haven't heard anything further from the Census, I'm waiting for my induction with the offender support organisation, and last week I was unexpectedly offered two job interviews.

The first was with a healthcare staffing organisation in an after-hours rostering role. It appealed to me because the hours could potentially have worked around uni. The job involved taking calls from healthcare providers such as hospitals and nursing homes, receiving requests for staff, and then contacting nurses and carers to try to fill those shifts. Essentially, it was an agency role.

I was genuinely surprised when they called me. On the Seek application, the very first question was whether I had ever been convicted of a crime. There was no opportunity to explain the circumstances, so after ticking "yes" and hearing nothing further, I assumed my conviction had ruled me out.

During our conversation, the woman who called me made a comment along the lines of, "We're here to make money." I can't remember the exact context, but it was while she was describing the responsibilities of the role. I understand that businesses need to make money in order to survive, but I still like the idea that an organisation might take pride in caring for its clients and employees rather than leading with the fact that it exists to make a profit.

After explaining the position, she asked whether I would be available for an interview the following week if they decided to proceed. She put a great deal of emphasis on the word "if", and I came away from the conversation with a distinctly cold feeling.

They did eventually offer me an interview, but I withdrew my application. Partly, I had a bad feeling about the role. It also regularly finished at 11:30pm in the city, which would have meant travelling home alone late at night. More importantly, I realised that right now I simply want to study, spend time with my mother, and focus on my writing and artwork.

At around the same time, I was also offered an interview with an answering service call centre. They provide telephone support for around 250 local organisations, and it sounded exactly like the sort of work I enjoy. Unfortunately, the hours included daytime shifts that would have conflicted with uni, and once again I found myself thinking that perhaps I don't want to work just yet.

For the moment, I don't have to. I have enough money to get by, and there is a certain comfort in knowing that I can still secure interviews after being away from the workforce for so long. It's also reassuring to know that when I genuinely need a job, I may still be able to find one.

Having spent time at both the Art Gallery of South Australia and the Kerry Packer Civic Gallery, as well as having my near brush with employment, I've been thinking a lot about art: what it means to me, the work I have completed, and how I might one day make a living from it.

When I think about what art means to me, I don't think of beautiful paintings or sculptures that sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. I think of a sculpture depicting a genetically engineered primate wet-nursing a human child. That piece will steal my heart every time because it invites the viewer to think, to see the world through the artist's eyes, and to find a little bit of magic in a world governed by a cruel and merciless God.

I have lived a lifetime of ideas, but I haven't actually made very much. Apart from a couple of thousand paper cranes, there are only two major pieces of conceptual epistolary artwork that I have seen all the way through to completion.

The first was a bound book of oaths collected from chief justices and presidents of supreme courts around the world, which I created for the then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of South Australia, Chris Kourakis. The second was a book of oaths from speakers and presidents of parliaments around the world, which I created for the Speaker of the South Australian Parliament, Leon Bignell.

Both books held significant personal meaning for me. The book I made for the Chief Justice was especially important because it was the project that gave birth to my fascination with oaths, letters and conceptual artwork. The book for the Speaker was also deeply meaningful because parliament and politics have been part of my life for as long as I can remember.

Neither project was quick. When you take into account researching the recipients, sending the letters, waiting for responses and then having the books professionally bound, each one took a considerable amount of time. But when they were finally finished, I was incredibly happy with the result.

It felt good to send them to the Chief Justice and the Speaker, and I hoped they liked them, but strangely enough I didn't really want any feedback. The satisfaction came from making the work and giving it away.

Leon Bignell's office called me after he received the book and told me that he had described it as beautiful and wanted to take it into his second office to show the staff there. They asked for my postal address because he wanted to send me a thank you letter. I gave it to them, but the letter never arrived. To be honest, I didn't mind. I was happy simply knowing he had the book. Somehow, that was enough.

I felt the same way about the Chief Justice. In fact, I included a note asking him not to contact me because I neither needed nor wanted a response.

I realise that probably sounds unusual, but I think it reflects what I enjoy most about this kind of artwork. There is something special about creating something for another person, sending it out into the world, and never quite knowing what happened afterwards. It feels a little like sharing a secret with a stranger.

I want to create more work like this. I've already identified three people I would like to make epistolary artworks for: one state politician, one federal politician, and a senior member of the South Australian Police who I think does an exceptional job of keeping the public informed.

The feeling I got from creating those books for the Chief Justice and the Speaker was worth more to me than any amount of money. I can't wait to begin these next three projects and eventually send them to their recipients, a process that I imagine will take the better part of a year.

I don't think anyone becomes an artist to make money. I know that isn't why I want to do it. I want to say something, make a statement, send a message, or encourage someone to see the world differently. If I could earn a decent income working in a call centre or on reception somewhere and create meaningful artwork on the side, I would happily do that.

So why don't I?

The answer is that I believe art school, even at my age, has the potential to add something important to both my technical skills and the way I approach the creative process.

My interest in creating pieces for people who hold public positions comes from the fact that I live a fairly solitary life. I spend a lot of time at home, and I am an unapologetic news junkie. I watch the news every day and keep up with local, national and international events because I genuinely like knowing what is going on in the world.

Over time, the judges, politicians and police officers I see on television have become almost like recurring characters in a very serious and consequential story. I watch them making decisions, responding to crises, debating ideas and helping shape the communities we live in. Even though they don't know who I am, I feel as though I know a little about them.

I have always had a soft spot for politicians because I think they often receive a bad rap. They are criticised for their salaries, yet many could probably earn far more money in the private sector. While I am sure there are exceptions, I suspect that many enter politics with the best of intentions. It must be incredibly difficult to navigate factional politics, public criticism and party expectations without occasionally losing sight of the reasons you stood for office in the first place.

The last of my next three projects will focus on a senior South Australian police officer. I have chosen him very deliberately because he is someone I regularly see in the media and, I'm sure, like many people in Adelaide, I find him to be a familiar and reassuring presence. He does an excellent job of keeping the public informed and, in a strange way, helping people feel safe.

I also hope that this particular officer becomes the next Police Commissioner. In my view, he would be an excellent fit for the role when the current commissioner, Grant Stevens, eventually retires.

So with uni, volunteering, my three epistolary projects and my cosy home life, I have more than enough to keep me occupied, and I wouldn't have it any other way.