FIRST OF THE MONTH! CHECK Y’ALL’S BOOBZ!

Check Y’all’s Boobz is a vintage fan art series from me in support of preventative breast and ovarian cancer charity, Pink Hope, and to remind women to check their breasts on the first day of every month. 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime so it’s important to check.

I’ll be bringing you a silver screen star and her décolletage every month as a coquettish reminder! 10% of the sale of each illustration will be donated to Pink Hope. 

And I said, “What about Breakfast At Tiffany’s? She said, “I think I remember the film and as I recall I think we both kinda liked it.” And I said, “Well, that’s the one thing we got.” ~ Deep Blue Something.

It’s Audrey Hepburn for November y’all.

1 November 2017

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I WILL PREVIVE [A Side Serve Of Stones] diary extract, 26 August 2017

N-N-NINETIES OUTRO series (2017)

“Gonna get up, gonna get up, gonna get up… Walk right in, walk, walk, walk right in… Cause you ride on time, ride on time, cause you ride on time. ~ Black Box.

Me got a final call from the tummy hospital this morning. I know, again! I was genuinely surprised. It was Dr. G. calling. He said, “Sista! Looks like the Melbourne coastguard has located a black box about 100km south of your house. It was lying at the bottom of a hot spring on the Mornington Peninsula. Peculiar, innit?! Well, they’ve opened it up and guess what? It’s got your mojo in it. You’d better go and get it, sista!” What news! And RIGHT ON TIME, too, because by strange coincidence I happen to be spending the weekend at aforementioned Peninsula Hot Springs with some of my Pink Hope mermie-sistas. What are the chances??? I didn’t plan the date of this jolly jaunt but guess what? The numbers say it’s the first anniversary of my preventative mastectomies. So what are the chances? I’d say slim but possible because there is nearly always a silver lining. Today I finally get to feel all those things I’ve been denied for so long: joy, relief, celebration and a new normal.

This is the last page in my story. It’s been hard but easy to tell, lonely but connected, dramatic but repetitive and boring, crazy but sane. I am not going to preach to anyone but I encourage you to remember to look after your physical health and, more importantly, your mental health. They are both so precious and you don’t know just how precious until the day they’re not quite right. But you can definitely come out stronger and more determined than you ever thought you could be when you were stuck deep, deep down in those dark moments without your mojo.

So I’m ending the story’s soundtrack with this 1989 song which, now I remember, is sampled from disco’s very own “Love Sensation”. Makes sense. It seems like a natural year to finish in… on the brink of those teenage years, still childlike but about to come of age. Self-love, self-observation, self-preservation all complete one year on! Job done, y’all. Jump around!”

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I WILL PREVIVE [A Side Serve Of Stones] diary extract, 22 August 2017

N-N-NINETIES OUTRO series (2017)

“I wanna give you a place to release your feelings, a starbeat rhythm with a standard meaning, a word and a message with a lot of emotion, with total dedication and a lot of devotion (I wanna give you devotion). ~ Nomad.

It’s my first day (as I see it) in my new ‘home occupation’ as a fully devoted fine artist and I choose to sing these wise dance-hip-house words by an early N-n-nineties nomad. ? I’m singing them at the top of my big mouthed voice on a podium in the dark with flashing strobe lights all around. And it all makes total sense to me!

I’ve got no more medical appointments to go to, no cold Reservoir to drive to, no people to chat to in the home office but I do have this and it’s my arty biz mantra, “Stories & Memories”. I think you know how it goes.

Last night there was a program on TV called ‘This Time Last Year’ which I actually had the chance to be on. I’m just imagining now how this past year would have translated into televised viewing if I’d taken part. Hahaha. I have to laugh otherwise I’d have a breakdown! Somehow I think the story is better told here. So, here we go… forwards, onwards, upwards into nostalgia! I wanna give you devotion!!!”

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I WILL PREVIVE [A Side Serve Of Stones] diary extract, 14 August 2017

N-N-NINETIES OUTRO series (2017)

“All the pictures on the wall serve only to remind you of it all. ~ Paul Weller.

Monday’s sky said blue, the sun said yellow and the dashboard said 21 degrees. On the drive to spend my penultimate day in the Reservoir, my Holy Man from ’94 jammed that a 5th season was all around. He sang of sunflowers, fresh cut grass and golden rain, of chasing dreams across oceans and wheat fields, of magic carpet and sailboat rides, of slipping away on the tide, of angels on your side and silver teardrops in your eyes, and of life’s sweet perfume, all in the shadow of the sun.

Well, he did something to me deep inside as I thought about time passing over broken stones out of the sinking at the whirlpool’s end. And I know I’m going to find my way out of the wild wild wood. I know just where I am blowing, I am getting to where I should be going. I’m a changingwoman!”

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I WILL PREVIVE (Side Serve of Stones) diary extract, 13 August 2017

N-N-NINETIES OUTRO series (2017)

“Vous ne me ferez pas l’injure de la jouer, de me la jouer jusqu’au bout. ~ Françoise Hardy.

And it looks like we might have made it. Yes, it looks like we made it to the end. ~ Damon Albarn.

Well, girls and boys, here we are nearly at the end of a century with a beautiful Franco-Anglo duet. Check it out if you missed it in ’95. I’m not actually sure I want to leave the N-n-nineties yet… it’s got kinda nice and cosy. But I should really get off the sofa in my country house, cut down on my porklife and get some exercise! I think I’m just a few weeks off finding my mojo and the good news for half a French person is that I can eat and drink everything. Oui, TOUT! Even poisson-frites. And I haven’t been holding back. C’est supercool. Damon’s looking a little blurry – I wonder if he had a badhead this morning after too much Disco 2000 last night. I guess he can sober up in time for tomorrow. Yes, we’re back round to Monday, girls and boys!”

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I WILL PREVIVE [A Side Serve Of Stones] diary extract, 12 August 2017

N-N-NINETIES OUTRO series (2017)

“Let’s all meet up in the year 2000. Won’t it be strange when we’re all fully grown? Be there 2 o’clock by the fountain down the road. ~ Pulp.

It’s a Saturday apéroclock disco on the sofa. I’ve been looking for the real disco for us common people for a very long time. I have asked everyone I know where it is but so far I’ve only drawn blank looks. I don’t think there is one in this big town because otherwise everyone would know about it and everyone would want to go there. I am pretty sure of this.

But if I had some capital and a lotta energy I would immediately close the glaring gap in the market with a large biz disco plan for a disco of a different class. So while I patiently wait, and in the sensible words of Mr. Jarvis Cocker, why live in the world when you can live in your head? Mine’s a rum and coca-cola please and I do hope you’re sorted for whatever’s yours. Cheers!”

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I WILL PREVIVE [A Side Serve Of Stones] diary extract, 11 August 2017

N-N-NINETIES OUTRO series (2017)

“Maybe I just want to fly. I want to live, I don’t want to die. Maybe I just want to breathe. Maybe I just don’t believe. Maybe you’re the same as me. We see things they’ll never see. You and I are gonna live forever. ~ Oasis.

S’true. That’s the story, Friday glory. No definitely maybe about it. Have a wonderwall, electric, supersonic, champagne supernova weekend y’all!”

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I WILL PREVIVE [A Side Serve Of Stones] diary extract, 10 August 2017

N-N-NINETIES OUTRO series (2017)

“No change, I can change, I can change, I can change. But I’m here in my mould, I am here in my mould. And I’m a million different people from one day to the next. I can’t change my mould. ~ The Verve.

10 August 2016 + 1 year = 10 August 2017. My Surgiversary. I was meant to be doing calculations in a small biz taxation class today but I had to skip them to get my numbers from the hospital instead. The sky said blue, the sun said yellow and the dashboard said 19 degrees. Was I in Narnia? The long, cold, lonely winter was showing clear signs of thawing.

The wait to see Dr. Gallstones was 1 hour and 30 minutes. I was number 31. Every other number popped up on the screen ahead of mine. I knew I was in Australia and not Narnia from the conversations I could hear around me. On a mobile phone next to me: “Darl! Do ya wanna come and clean me pool out? I’ll give ya a coupla packets o’ smokes. You know they cost me 30 bucks each. I’m not paying ya cash. I’ll give ya a good feed, too, mate!” And about the long wait next to me: “FINALLY mate! I was gonna walk!” C’était la comédie and a bloody good distraction.

I knew I’d be seeing Dr. Gallstones for it was written in the stars. He did the most superb job of pretending he didn’t know my MRI results. I mentally gave him a 10/10 for his acting. He opened a few pretend docs on his computer and turned to me with a big grin and a double thumbs up. “Never darken the doors of this hospital again!” he commanded. The rolling stones had rolled on through my body, most probably with that terrible band of pain I had a few weeks ago, and suddenly there it was in front of me: freedom! The tears came as soon as I closed the door to his room. Massive exhaustion, flooding relief and 100 years aged all in that moment.

I started writing this bittersweet symphony about a year for so many reasons. At the beginning of “A Year Not In Provence” I never could have imagined what I would be writing about, how very hard it would be and how much I would learn about myself. With the benefit of hindsight, now that the road looks straight and I have my poetic conclusion, I can say that it’s been the most difficult year of my life. But my lucky man of the N-n-nineties, my imaginary god lookalike, Richard Ashcroft, did not know that coping mechanisms can take you places that look after you. The “drugs” do work y’all and here’s the proof: it’s me finally ON THE OTHER SIDE with a tired but smiley N-n-nineties acid face. If anyone wants to go raving, let me know innit.”

“

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I WILL PREVIVE [A Side Serve Of Stones] diary extract, 9 August 2017

N-N-NINETIES OUTRO series (2017)

“If you make sure you’re connected, the writing’s on the wall but if your mind’s neglected, stumble you might fall. ~ Stereo MC’s

Tomorrow is my “Surgiversary”. Yes! 10 August 2016 kicked off a year of 5 times surgery-recovery, beginning with a procedure called nipple delay. Is it so hard to believe? No, not really. The feelings say that I’ve been writing on the wall for a very long time. The numbers say that it’s been 365 days.

Lately, I’ve being trying to make friends with those numbers rather than believing they are conspiring against me. But I still can’t help but wonder how it is that my MRI results are due tomorrow on my Surgiversary, rather than on any other date. As Samantha Jones said in a SATC re-run I watched recently, “If you listen to all the little voices in your head you’ll go crazy”. Well, she was right; I definitely have become so cray-cray.

Something I used to say a lot when I lived in England was, “WHAT ARE THE CHANCES???!!!” I used to hear people say it all the time. And I also heard people say that *you make your own luck* when it comes to probabilities and statistics. So to what extent do we have a say in our final destination? Is it simple risk management or is there a bigger force at play in the Universe?…”

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I WILL PREVIVE [A Side Serve Of Stones] diary extract, 28 July 2017

N-N-NINETIES OUTRO series (2017)

“We’re going round in circles. Tell me, will this déjà vu never end? ~ Spice Girls

So here’s a story from A to Z. You wanna get with me? You gotta listen carefully. I got M in the place who likes it in ya face. I got R like MRI. Say why why why? And as for me, ah you’ll see… Yep, we’re still trapped in the N-n-nineties here and it’s 24 hours until slam your body down and zigazig-ah!

Last time I checked there are 3 possible outcomes to this Saturday MRI situashun.

1. Stones are moving up and down in bile duct = surgery required, cry.

2. Stones are stuck in bottom of bile duct = surgery required, cry.

3. Stones have passed through cut made in the bile duct during botched op and are nowhere to be seen = breathe deeply and laugh head off/cry.

Yo, I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want: I want a conclusion. A poetic one. I don’t want every girl’s worst nightmare. I’ve had enough spice in my life and I just don’t need anymore original content. I only need an ending. When I think about the possibility of more surgery I’ve actually only got two words and they are ‘I’ and ‘can’t’. Bad, isn’t it, to feel like this, especially on a Friday? But to my 7 week smashed relief/credit I have been able to distract myself every single day. In fact I don’t know any other way of existing these days. So, once again I say to y’all, c’est du déjà vu: say a prayer for me, hasta mañana, viva forever.”

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