Author: Leah
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Everyday strange
So you wake up one morning, and you’ve become a bug. You’re flailing on your back, the bedroom door is locked, and you’re really worried: you’ve missed not just one, but two early trains to work. You may well recognise this as the opening sequence of Franz Kafka’s novella Metamorphosis. I didn’t. I only picked…
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Failing, blathering … playing
Breath trembling and vision fuzzing around the edges, I picked my way through the crowd. Messed it up. Started over. Crept away. The kids in the front row were encouraging, and the applause was friendly, but I left that stage – my first piano recital – feeling that I’d failed. We tell our children that making mistakes…
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The Katniss strategy
I don’t like games. Don’t care about sport. Can’t see the point. I realise this makes me a freak. In Melbourne, having an AFL team is a tribal thing. I’ve had friends who grew up interstate tell me that you can’t live in Victoria and not follow footy. But I’m here to tell you – you can.…
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On Beauty
Let’s pretend. Let’s pretend that I spent my high school lunchtimes in the library because I was an undiscovered genius with an unquenchable love of books. And not because I was – ahem – between friendships. These days, I mostly visit the library to stock up on picture books and novels featuring mystery-solving mice. Occasionally,…
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In praise of Miss Bates
As every politician knows, the trick is to push – but not too much. You want to hit that sweet spot between keeping people comfortable, and stirring them up. Jane Austen understood this. But okay, first things first. Having mentioned Austen, I need to say that her writing is gorgeous, her characters finely drawn, her…
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You’ll be disappointed, I’m afraid
One of the trickiest things in life, is staying awake. I mean this literally – who, once they’ve reached the appropriate coffee-drinking age, isn’t in some way addicted to caffeine? Doesn’t wake, dough-eyed and creaky, unable to face the day without that sweet hit of stimulant? (Lots of people, I’m sure, but not too many…