You only get one. — It was time for Corinna to send her letter. It would be the only one, the laws being what they were, but she had reached her hundredth year and it was her legal right. The girl turned up twenty minutes late, her bracelets jingling as she flipped back her hair…

Because here be many small dragons. — This past week has been stressful. I had a flare-up of back pain that became so bad I couldn’t walk properly, which led to neck stiffness and horrible headaches. I had a bout of stomach pain. …

In a land of pissed-off shoppers, is peace even possible? — 9.05am My regular supermarket has changed things around again. I hate that. It seems a somewhat tone deaf thing to do in the middle of a pandemic, and as I hurry along what used to be the condiment section, clutching my basket, I see my own emotions echoed in the…

After the world ends she wakes in a strange place. — Chapter One I was so sure I died. But I wake, my body curled into itself, strands of hair falling over my face. My cheek’s resting on my arm and my arm has an ache in it from lying on a hard surface. …

I’ve always learnt my lessons slowly . . . — That day in Bunnings I let my feet take me to the gardening section. Surreptitiously I watch real-life gardeners go about their business; knowledgeable creatures hefting bags of potting mix onto laden trolleys, discussing watering systems with each other and casting experienced eyes over compost bins. They use exotic terms…

It doesn’t matter why we watch bad reality shows. What does matter is those characters we’re watching are real people. — I don’t watch Australia’s The Bachelor anymore, but this season someone I followed on Twitter slut-shamed a contestant. I unfollowed them, and that should have been the end of it. But it bothered me. Really bothered me. Not only is slut-shaming infuriating, but this was a twitter friend I really…

A change in the air is a welcomed thing. — I never knew that waking up every morning with a different song in my head was a thing until a few years ago when I mentioned it to a friend, who flat-out didn’t believe me. I instantly had one of those moments many of us have — ‘Oh no, am…

Growing up on the spectrum before there was a spectrum. — Women on the spectrum who are my age or older tend to be a quirky breed. The term autism has been around since 1911, though it had some very murky beginnings. The understanding of this disorder gradually evolved until both autism and Asperger’s became Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in 2013. …