one. . .two. . .skip a few 99. . . 20,596,936

Australia Was counted last night.

As a kid I remember my mum grumbling as she filled out a form. I asked what she was doing and she explained that this is how we counted all the people in Australia.

"What if Kathy slept over tonight?"

"Then we'd count her too"

"But wouldn't her parents count her as well?"

"No, we count the people staying at our house. . ."

"What about homeless people and people at the Airport?"

And the questions went on and on and on and on. In case you're wondering people at the airport get forms as do Hotel Guests and supposedly they do try and get forms out to homeless people if they can find them.

Which brings me to my next point. I had a visitor last night. An acquaintance I hadn't seen in a while. . who had been living out of his car. I offered the couch and he was grateful and unintentionally made it possible for one of those homeless people I worried about slipping through the abacus to be counted.

Part of me wanted to lie, to make up a fantastic life for myself that would go down in Australia’s statistics and become public in 99 years. Part of me wanted to be creative and play with the census. . .I didn't, I tried to answer the questions truthfully.

We completed the census on line this year. . .yay, so much faster, but while completing it I was stumped by a few questions.

These are some of the questions we got asked and my thoughts on a few of them.

2.)Name each person including visitors who spent the night of Tuesday, 8 August 2006 in this dwelling:

Lada Blue, Mr. Blue, Mr. Green (I will leave the rest of their answers out from now on. . .b.t.w he really is a Mr. Green )

19.)What is the persons religion?

• Answering this question is OPTIONAL
• Examples of 'Other-please specify' are: SALVATION ARMY (I didn't even know that was a religion. . .go figure), HINDUISM, JUDAISM (I was surprised that this fell in the other category, I think they take the top 9 from the last census for the tick the box variety, I thought we had a large Jewish population. . .maybe it's just my circles though), HUMANISM (I thought it was cute to add humanism. . .Kurt Vonnegut would be proud ).

Now. . .The reason I had trouble with this one is that I sort of sit myself in-between two religions and on the internet census form I couldn't tick two boxes (ha ha, both of mine were in the top nine). . .so I had to fill out the Other section:

Other - Please specify

Catholic/Buddhist

Now I'm not a practicing Catholic but I feel I belong there because of my history and the magnet the Church sometimes has for me. I personally don't consider Buddhism a religion and although I'm not really searching for Nirvana I do practice to a certain extent (I go to temple less than to a Catholic Church), I live by many of the Buddhist philosophies and feel it is an important addition to who I am.

38.) In the main job held last week, what was the person's occupation?

Artist

yes, I do work casually in a Hotel, I do not however consider that work to be my occupation/career.

39.) What are the main tasks that the person usually performs in the occupation reported at Question 38?

This is the one the stumped me. . .How do I explain in 54 characters or less exactly what it is I do. Part of what I do is conceptual a lot of it involves sitting and thinking. I paint , I knit, I cook, I create dammit. How do I say this without sounding wanky, so "they" understand how important my work is. How?

My pathetic answer:

Everything and Nothing

60.) Does each person in this household agree to his/her name and address and other information on this form being kept by the National Archives of Australia and then made publicly available after 99 years?

yes, agrees.

Little Lada Blue (one of many numbers )