That means I’ve stopped eating meat, but I still eat fish because they don’t have eyelashes to make me feel bad about eating them. Since my decision three months ago I’ve slipped just a couple of times and eaten meatloaf, a quarter pounder and two sausages.

The best way I can explain my decision is: I just have too many feelings. Eating meat made me feel a little bit sad and guilty, especially because it was just so delicious. I’m a complicated woman, as J-man likes to say.

Here are some other things that make me feel the way I did when I ate a steak:

- Seeing old men alone and crossing the road.

- Spending the weekend doing nothing.

- Spending the weekend doing too much.

- Hearing a baby cry.

- Throwing away rotten food.

- Buying home brand products.

- Spending money on anything, including groceries or a doctor’s appointment.

- Seeing bus drivers working on weekend nights.

- Having long showers.

- Accidentally leaving the lights on.

- Napping in the daytime.

- Looking in pet shops.

- Walking away from pet shops.

- Watching reality TV.

- Leaving a really excellent concert.

- The kid in the robe in this Cuddly ad:

I can’t believe it’s been a year since we stood at the peak of Bernal Heights Park and watched 2011 roll in. We were in San Francisco. Over the oceans and far away. Isn’t that weird?

We waited and waited for our little cream flat to be open for inspection. And when it was, only we could get past the (then) fluro green walls and cupboard-sized bathroom to see the potential. With an eccentric but lovable landlord, friendly neighbours, a leafy courtyard and an excellent cafe downstairs, it is the best place in the world.

This was the last time I saw my grandmother. It might seem strange to include this on my “greatest hits” list, but it was one of the most perfect days – she was happy and in good spirits. When I went home a couple of weeks after her death, I found a plain gold ring that had fallen from one of her coat pockets. So now it’s on my wedding ring finger behind my love heart engagement ring, as a constant reminder of wonderful Maime (mostly spelt ‘Mamie’. I went wrong somewhere). It makes it a little bit easier when I realise I can’t write her a letter or call her anymore.

Bat For Lashes at the Opera House was one of my favourite shows of all time. I’ve been searching for the perfect red, full skirt ever since.

Our (squishy) trip to Splendour, via J-man’s best friend’s house. We slept in a cute caravan on his parents’ property and woke up to a foggy green Queensland valley.

Seeing Jon Ronson talk about psychopaths at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas. Then had my own dangerous idea to hang out on the couch, eat pizza and watch Ryan Gosling become my number one hot-intense-hot dude of the year.

The first swim of the season at Copacabana is always amazing. This time Adam Spencer popped up from underneath the water. Weird.

The more banal and/or amusing moments of 2011, as captured in my red Moleskine diary

“Came home. J-man had done the housework!” – April 7

“Read the papers. Had first dinner at new dining table.” – April 9

“J-man made vindaloo. I got a little sick.” – May 1

“Little sleep in.” – May 7

“Big sleep in!” – May 8

“Bought amazing new bedspread.” – June 6

“Watched Hot Tub Time Machine.” – July 2

“Spider in the shower! Made steak wraps.” – September 2

“Massive rash on my face!” – October 11

“Feeling really frickin’ nervous.” – October 23

“Saw Contagion. Dude behind me had a cough” – November 6

“Alicia’s party. Salt n Pepa dance off in the laundry. Massive fall” [on the road in Redfern, which led to a staph infection and a lot of complaining] – November 26

“Slept at Cessnock Hotel. Massive bogan punch up” – December 10

The cutest thing that happened this year, as recorded on my iPhone

My nephew, little V, trying to say my name. At least he didn’t say “Steve”.

The most mysterious day of 2011, as not recorded in my red Moleskine diary

How am I ever to know what happened on Thursday August 18, 2011. I have no alibi.

Now let me say this: J-man gave me a rash last week. An angry, mysterious rash.

This thing was brutal, it was all over my body and spreading faster than a Hustler centrefold.

I put it down to a weird reaction to suncream, because there was nothing else I had lathered all over my body. Then I started to suspect foul play from J-man, thinking maybe he was secretly using some sort of man lotion called “God of Flame and Fires” and was too ashamed to tell me. I took an antihistamine and figured that was the end of the story.

The next day it flared up again and and people around me were looking concerned, urging me to go to the doctor. Pfft I’m no wuss, I thought. Cut to about ten hours later when I snapped awake at midnight, itching all over and experiencing pain in my neck. That’s it. It’s meningitis and I am going to die. I woke J-man, tearfully told him of my fate and he took me to the bathroom where he bludgeoned me to death with the toilet brush ran a cool towel over my skin.

The next morning there was no evidence that I had died in my sleep, so I got on with living.

Then yesterday we decided to go to the beach, but hadn’t yet replaced the giant tub of suncream that had apparently offended my body so much. I threw caution and my good looks to the wind and rubbed it on. Nothing. Totally fine. No bumps, itches or calling of caterers to make bean nachos at my wake.

When I picked up my beach bag and looked inside, it suddenly dawned on me. The week before J-man had picked a little bottle out of the pantry to fill with suncream, so we didn’t have to lug the entire tub to the beach.

That little bottle in my bag had until recently contained hops – those pungent, stinky, highly-perfumed, gag-worthy, wheaty things you make beer with.

“Oh,” J-man said. “That’s it. It would’ve been like you were rolling around in grass for hours.”

Should I start the slow clap or will you?

Usually I just say: “Thanks Mum, it’s from an op shop”. But because I just can’t walk into my parents’ house every six to nine months without being bombarded with compliments about my clothes, I thought I really should address that question here. Address! Ha! My quick wit goes so well with my finery.

The long answer is: mostly eBay, sometimes markets, occasionally op-shops and, if I’m feeling vulnerable, vintage clothing stores. It’s quite boring compared to the “It’s from a little Parisian pop up shop my personal sherpa found while collecting my fresh Evian water on Mount Everest Base Camp III” answer you so often read in the Sunday magazines.

Here are some of my most recent finds*.

The red dress

When I see a dress I really like I have little daydreams about what I could achieve while wearing it. When I saw this little baby on eBay in all its crimson, fringed, body-hugging glory I immediately imagined walking into a party where everyone knows my name (for once). Out of a haze of cigarette smoke, lust and glace cherries, a talent scout approaches me and asks me to do a walk-on part in a community television role about a line dancing stripper with a heart of gold.

The lacy dress

J-man and I are going to a wedding in a few weeks and I’ve been saving this dress for the occasion. When I saw it hanging on a rack at Surry Hills markets, I imagined walking into the church late, my hair flowing in the breeze. The spotlight abruptly shifts from the beaming bride to me; mysterious, alone  and pouting in the back row. Out of a haze of cigarette smoke, confetti and cuckolded brides, a talent scout approaches me, inspects my armpits and asks me to be the new face of Impulse body spray.

The romper

I love onesies. You have excellent sun protection, can roll around on the ground and sit like a dude.  When I saw this in a vintage clothing store on King Street in Newtown I imagined skipping through a meadow, free and without fear of revealing my shame. Out of a haze of cigarette smoke, daises and fertiliser, a talent scout approaches me and asks me wear the hell I keep my keys in that thing.

* Apologies for the lack of human in the photos, but I have developed a horrible, reoccurring whole body rash. It appeared on Sunday and I was totally convinced it was caused by the transfer of some kind of perverted body lotion J-man had acquired in a last ditch attempt to seduce me. I think it’s actually weird reaction to new sun cream.

J-man and I went to visit my parents in Orange and dad took us all to Carcoar Dam for a day on the boat. We all had a go on the biscuit – which I believe in other circles is called a “tube” – and Dad was the only one to fall off. He says he jumped off when J-man tried to take him on an s-bend, we say he fell off as a result of J-man’s trickery at the helm.

I really wanted to have a go at water skiing, something I learnt to do in late primary school and early high school, but I wasn’t sure I could still do it. I slipped into my wetsuit (after checking it for spiders) and had trouble putting on the heavy skis in the water (after checking them for spiders). I wanted to give up until J-man said “You’re struggling even putting on the skis, do you think you’re fit enough to waterski?” That was it. It took a few goes getting up and out of the water, so each time dad would drive the boat around to pick me up I would say to myself “You can do this Steve. Show J-man who’s boss”. And then I did. And I skied up and over the wake and back again, even doing a few mini jumps and taking the time out to ski one-handed so I could flip J-man the bird.

Mum told me it was all about muscle memory, but as I sailed across the glassy water I was also reminded of when I first learnt to ski. The family of a primary school friend taught me by patiently dragging me behind their orange boat called Popeye. My friend would spoon me in the water and put her feet on the skis to hold them up. I still have scars on my wrists that mark the first time I made it out of the water, after first banging my arms on the sharp sides of old wooden skis.

I would spend weekends with her family at the dams around Orange quite a lot towards the end of primary school and in the early years of high school. Her family was so different from mine. I remember her dad singing “Every night, every day, every possible way, we will do it, yeah yeah” on a trip home once. When I repeated the tune to my dad, he was less than impressed and he had to explain its meaning to me. My friend and her sister were huge belly-laughers, who wildly jumped off pontoons and loved being thrown off the biscuit into the water. They seemed fearless. Their family also ate a lot of stuff we were never allowed to – her mum made a Barbie pool cake for one of her early birthdays and microwaved McDonald’s she had picked up from town.  The girls were allowed to read the sealed sections of Dolly and Girlfriend out in the open. Later in high school, my friend was allowed to have parties in a spare paddock of the family’s property. It was out there, in the dewy grass under a clear winter sky, where I learnt an important lesson: Always bundle up your clothes and take them with you on a nudie run.

None of this really has a point, except that I’m so grateful to have had a bare foot, bike riding, paddock bashing, water skiing childhood.

And that I love proving J-man wrong.

I spent Saturday looking after the little man and we had a blast. There was a beach trip, naps, story time and a little bit of crying for his mummy and daddy. So a lot like my honeymoon, really.

This was our Saturday schedule:

0930 – Vincent turns up clinging to the necks of Mary and Andrew and eyeing me suspiciously. They leave and he cries and cries. Our fridge is covered in hilarious things that he loves like dog magnets, photos from Taronga Zoo and polaroids of J-man and I when we were young and in love. When he sees a photo of a mountain goat he calms down and, in between sobs, points to it and says “dog”. I tell him that’s no way to speak about his Aunty Julia.

1015 – We turn on Rage to distract V-man from the heartbreak of being an orphan for a day. Joan Jett’s Bad Reputation comes on and the baby starts dancing. Cute!

1115 – We all get ready to go to Balmoral Beach. On the bus ride I start singing: “We’re going to the beach! We’re going to the beach!” Then, just like Biggie and 2Pac, we get a little call and response going. Aunty Steve: “We’re going to the beach! We’re going to the beach! Where are we going?” V-man (with arms raised): “The beeesch”.

1130 – Turns out the baby hates the beach. He likes being dunked in the water OK, but he hates the sand and starts grizzling and pointing to the bus stop about 30 seconds after we arrive. Man, kids do not know how to party. Soon he gets so sad I decide to take him to the grass area, where he starts to howl and howl. It’s really quite heartbreaking until two little kids with bags of popcorn come up and say: “Why is he sad? Does he want some popcorn?”. V-man takes the popcorn and stops crying. AND MY COLD, DEAD HEART COMES OUT OF MY EYES IN THE FORM OF FAIRY TEARS.

1145 – J-man buys us colas and V-man a fruit juice. V starts crying again and becomes very clingy to just me. I ask J-man whether he thinks he should put his shirt on to stop scaring the baby. J-man says I am crazy. I’m pretty sure it’s a legitimate concern.

1215 – We realise that V-man wants nothing more than to leave. So rather than take him back to the sand to collect our stuff, V and I sit on a bench while J-man packs us up. I hold him and point out a little kayak to him. I tell him it’s like a row boat and start singing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” and he grins from ear to ear. Every time I stop singing he says: “ro-ro?” to prompt me to start again. My hipster reputation lies in tatters.

1230 – We get on the bus and almost immediately V-man starts to snore in my arms. I have some trouble finding a button to push to signal our stop. This is when I realise that all those mothers who go on and on and on about people being jerks are right. All these people just stare at me while I struggle with a beach bag, a sleeping kid and a video game-playing husband. We miss our stop and I blame humanity. Humanity and those damn selfish childless women.

1315 – I hope V-man will keep sleeping for a while, so Aunty Steve can catch up on the important business of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. But he wakes up with a snap as soon as we get home and says “ro-ro?”

1400 – We play with the phone, the remote control, the PlayStation control, the fridge magnets, the button on the TV, the handle on the suitcase table and carefully examine the knob on the drawer of our phone table. It’s exhilarating. We play a really great (read: predictable) game of chasies. J-man has a couple of friends come over and V-man hides behind my legs. I put on my playsuit especially to go to the playground and I show V-man how slippery dips are done.

1500 – I carry V-man a couple of blocks to get a lemonade icy pole and we share it in our courtyard. I don’t know if he’s had an ice block before, but it seems like a huge novelty. His eyes get all wide, he goes “ooooh” when I unwrap it and it’s obvious the cold sensation is new and weird to him. My land lady is in the courtyard doing some washing and hangs a little stuffed dog up on the line by its ears. I get a bit worried V-man will be upset, but he says “dog” and my land lady falls for his charm and gives it to him to keep. Inside, he throws it on the ground over and over again. Baby hates fake dogs. I say that is no way to treat his Aunty Julia.

1545 –  I have the ingenious idea to share a mint slice biscuit with him on the couch. Yeah, great idea idiot. Babies get stuff everywhere. Within five minutes there is chocolate on the couch, on his clothes, through his hair, on his hat and all over my soul. I clean him up and take him downstairs to put his hat in the washing machine. And I scar the kid for life. It turns out his hat is kind of his security blanket, so seeing it locked into a big noisy watery box is the end of the world. We go back inside and he throws himself on the floor in sadness. Just like I did when J-man washed a blue sock with my new white singlet top in Holland. No, really – there may have been public yelling and throwing of things. Aw, the little man takes after me.

1600 – Everything is OK once we read Where The Wild Things Are and he roars his terrible roar.

1601 – The exact moment when my lady mechanics ache for a baby. Get it together J-man! Just keep your damn shirt on.

This whole thing has caused the biggest relationship rift since Kris Humphries pushed Kim Kardashian into the ocean while they holidayed in Bora Bora and she lost one of her $75,000 diamond earrings on the bottom of the ocean and then cried and we all thought it was the end and all the kittens in the world died.

Just two nights ago a discussion about cooking ended with J-man calling my salads “just a bunch of stuff cubed in a bowl” and my vegetarian cooking “boring”. I’m pretty sure he called my face “dead ugly” and then kicked a puppy too. Then all the kittens in the world died. Needless to say, I stormed off to the bedroom and sulked like any 25-year-old woman would do. I mean, c’mon cooking is my thing.

Now that I have recovered, I have to admit J-man has gotten pretty great at cooking. His Indian dishes are amazing, his Thai stuff is even better and he makes a mean schnitzel. He’s so great that I won’t even mention the time he left chicken breasts defrosting on the hot water heater for days. Twice.

But one thing I definitely excel at is cooking treats. So J-man, as Matt Damon once said “How’d you like [these cookies]”

[Note PJ Harvey playing in the background to offset all previous references to women-hating. I love women! They're so sexy!]

For 30 days (maybe) I’m going to shoot very short videos of what my days are like. I know, right? WORLD CHANGING SHIT IS GOING DOWN RIGHT HERE.

First up. This is me dancing to rap in our kitchen on a Sunday morning. J-man tells me if I really listened to the women-hating lyrics of this song, I’d be upset. But hey, girls just wanna have fun!

The only place where the first impression was the right one was San Francisco. The day we flew in, a couple of weeks before Christmas, it was cold and drizzling lightly. We drove into the city, pointing out the views of the bay, the tall terraces, the colourful rows of houses and the crazy-scary hills. The airline had lost our bags, but our sweet taxi driver was playing Buddhist chants and I felt calm, inspired and happy.

I will conveniently skip over the following four days where I totally, irrationally flipped out over loss of said bags, walked through the Tenderloin district alone and in tears and spent an inordinate amount of time crying and watching 16 and Pregnant. I’m pretty sure J-man spent an inordinate amount of time researching the best route to Reno for a quickie divorce.

The reason why I’m writing about San Francisco now, after all these months, is because I’ve actually been unsure whether I can do it justice. Here, I’ll try:

We were lucky enough to be housesitting for a lovely family and caring for their sweet black cat. We made a temporary home and spent our days cooking, exploring the neighbourhood, eating, drinking and taking excursions to different areas. One day we spent an afternoon in Golden Gate Park, before becoming immersed in Haight Street and all its amazing shops and characters. Another day we went to Chinatown, wandered down some side streets and ended up in a bustling restaurant where we were the only tourists. We went to countless movies, and dissected them over food at Mel’s Drive-in while putting old Christmas carols on the juke box. I had my first, real American pecan pie. We celebrated our first, and probably only, solo Christmas; combining our family traditions and sharing them only with each other. We hired a car for a day with the intention to end our drive by going over the Golden Gate Bridge. We got caught in terrible traffic and by the time we drove over it, I couldn’t have cared less because I was BUSTING to wee. Later we managed to convince a guy at a garage to let me use the toilet by telling him I was pregnant. We got coffees and walked along the shore at Crissy Field. We saw in the new year by having a decadent dinner and then watching the fireworks on top of a hill. I had grown a little pudgy on our trip, so every morning I climbed the hill and walked while taking in a 360-degree view of the city.

Up on that hill, I thought about just how crazy it was that we made it right through Europe and drove across America to San Francisco. Steve, just a small town gal, was here in San Fran-freakin’-cisco. I don’t mean to be all “ah-ha moment” lame, but I started to think about our future and what might be possible. When we came home, some of those hopes came true.

San Francisco is definitely my favourite place in the world.