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 (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, 30 July 2017

N-N-NINETIES OUTRO series (2017)

Breathe the presssure. Inhale, inhale, you’re the victim. Exhale, exhale, exhale. ~ The Prodigy.

“Have you had an MRI before?” Mr. Radiology asked me. “Yes I have, for breast cancer screening,” I answered. “Oh, that’s a hard one. This one’s much easier… you’ll be on your back,” he said. And he was right, it was! No boobs dropped in a hole, no injection in the hand, nice warm blankie. Large brick was balanced on top of baps and tummy. Headphones were placed over mermie’s ears. Big push into a bright white cave. I was good to go.

“I’ll just put the radio on!” he shouted. Behind the jackhammer the music started. Gold FM. Of course it was. Breathe, I was with friends… Crowded House (Weather With You), Genesis (Invisible Touch), Gwen Stefani (What You Waiting For), Heart (Alone) and a wild and windy arvo weather warning for Melbourne. We were spanning the decades; it wasn’t all Nineties. “Listen for the breathing instructions!” he shouted again. “Yep, I will!” I shouted back.

The computer told me, “Breathe IN. Breathe OUT all the way. HOLD your breath.” I thought, “Sure thang, Lady Poota! NO DRAMAS! Coz I got superstitious synchronised breath holding down to a fine art and I’m actually trying to make a living out of it innit.” I’ve seen The Prodigy once or twice in my lifetime but funnily enough over the past year I’ve also seen Keith Flint ‘out and about’ in my home blurb… on a bike, at the doctor’s, on the street. Bit weird right? But now I get it. He’s been trying to tell me something. Keep breathing, girlfriend. Keep breathing until that report is in. Keep breathing until you know your final destination. I might look like a passive mermaid on the outside but inside I’m a twisted firestarter.”

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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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I WILL PREVIVE [A Side Serve Of Stones] diary extract, 21 June 2017

THE INBETWEENERS series (2017)

“Yesterday I tried very hard to be normal, for the morning at least. The shower bop was back! Hip hop hooray! I peeled the remaining steri-strips off my tummy to the dawn disco. What lay beneath? To my surprise, all was good. A short smile lay under my tummy button and when I looked at my torso in the mirror I thought about all the scars in star constellations. The plough? Is that the same as the saucepan? The southern cross? Orion? I’d better brush up on my astronomy for a bigger picture. Full face on, proper clothes on, watch on. Good to go out out.

I had my bloods taken at “Gastrocare.” Gastro Lady didn’t care that much. In fact she didn’t give a stuff about me! I wished Gastrocare was a Gastropub or La Gastronomie or ANYTHING food related so I went straight to Macca’s for a second brekkie. Food dreams can come true! Sausage-egg McMuffin later I got my specs tightened from all the hospital overuse, then hit the sales for some retail therapy and general joy. I shop therefore I am, right? I existed just by being a flat, grey dag out in that daggy shopping mall. But it was weird. I was so, so tired. And still so bloody teary. Who goes shopping when their eyes are all glassy? When they are on the edge? Fleetwood Mac sang over the sound system, “Something’s happenin’, happenin’ to me. My friends say I’m acting peculiarly.” S’true. I was dizzy, ditzy, dopey… and I am really too embarrassed to chit chat about some of my foggy blunders in the shops. I should not have been out on the streets. Straight back home for tea, soup and bed. Game over.

While I was reading the whole internet on the weekend I came across a story about the historical vicious attacks on the Lil Mermaid in Copenhagen. I saw her in the flesh as a backpacker but until now I never knew what lay beneath her: twice decapitated, blown up, arm sawn off and covered in paint, to name but a few trials. The word they teach my lil mermie rugrats in education today is ‘resilience’. I think it is a good word to teach them and as long as I feel as broken as I do now, this arty girl can at least look to the resilience of the Lil Mermaid to believe that things can only get better. D:Reams can come true.”

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I WILL PREVIVE [The Book Of Baps] diary extract, 29 May 2017

HOMEGIRL HOUSE PARTY series (2017)

“You were always on the run, never still.” Something else Mum wrote to me. I think that’s about right. I used to run everywhere as a kid, right up until running cross country in my early teens (early 1990s). There is cinefilm that exists somewhere of my childhood where I am mostly a speeding blur that cuts across the frame. Hard to believe now but s’true.

Competing at cross country in a British winter was not the most fun thing ever for a sun loving lizard with poor blood circulation: cold, wet mud, bloody scratches on legs from the brambles, a red raw face and wobbly thighs from the freezing wind, hands blue and dysfunctional. Right up there with playing Goal Defence in netball in fact, brambles aside! P.E. people stick you in that position if you have tall girl syndrome. You soon come to realise: hate, hate, hate! So then I stopped.

After stopping I would say that I started running in my head. Yep it’s a jungle in there. Why do I think so much? Too much. Way too much. It can be exciting but it’s tiring, too. A mental workout every day and around the clock. The upshot is I’m driving myself crazy from overthinking in the house of pain. I’m sick of being sick. I’m sick of being stuck. I’m sick of being me!
But it is nearly over and there are just two more sleeps until tummy fix. Baps are doing great, really great. Still tight but great. On Saturday night I thought to myself, “What are you waiting for? You should be up and running! The bruising won’t change anything. Get on your tummy and sleep on those things before you really can’t again for a while.” So I did! First time in 10 months!!! Hip hop hooray! Oh my god. It was totes amazeboobs and my mind ran away straight to my wildest dreams. How’s that for Monday motivation? So here my all saintly, artfully dodging homegirl. It’s Melanie Blatt. She twenty four seven.”

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I WILL PREVIVE [The Book Of Baps] diary extract, 25 May 2017

HOMEGIRL HOUSE PARTY series (2017)

“It’s the end of the week and I’ve got so many questions that need answering. I’ve hounded all my go to gurus for enlightenment and I’m looking and feeling like a mean machine. Tomorrow is the day of reckoning, the big one: a rendezvous with Dr. Gallstones to get the lowdown on the course of action for the rolling stones. I need them gone but at what cost and in what timeframe? So… different surgeon, different hospital. Yay! Keeps it interesting dunnit? I’ve lined up all my questions like bullets and harnessed my inner fighting frog. I’m going in there with balls coz I is needing answers, man!!! And I’m not leaving ’til I get them. That’s it in short-n-sweet. So here my homegirl. It’s Neneh Cherry. She hang in a buffalo stance.”

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I WILL PREVIVE [The Book Of Baps] diary extract, 24 May 2017

HOMEGIRL HOUSE PARTY series (2017)

“One of my favourite things in life at the moment is walking the rugrats to school and childcare. I haven’t done much of it lately for reasons such as: too unwell, foul weather or medical appointments first up. I love walking somewhere over driving. I always have. Exeter hills, Eltham hills, same same. You see so much more on foot than from behind the wheel. You get that great big rush of energy and clarity. You get to be present. And that’s especially true this week where autumn is at its most magic – in the air, in the colour, in the light – and guess what? It all comes for free.

Everyone bangs on about being in the here and now. Whateva… It’s virtually impossible to do all of the time. We all know that. Even keeping a diary has its limitations. You reminisce about the past, you imagine the future, you can’t live exclusively in today. I mean a diary does help to ground you but you will always travel. The only thing you can do is just appreciate those precious things you love NOW, NOW, NOW, and not save them all for later.

After staying up to watch yesterday’s news of innocent children, many of them young girls not much older than mine, being so horribly injured and taken too soon from this world when they were out having fun, I know that I will hold my big girl’s hand a bit tighter this morning on our walk-skip to school together. I will listen closely as she shares her secrets with me. I will be in the now with her. So here my cosmic homegirl. It’s Kučka. She walk with me.”

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I WILL PREVIVE [The Book Of Baps] diary extract, 19 May 2017

HOMEGIRL HOUSE PARTY series (2017)

“Today marks 6 weeks since exchange surgery. Hip hop hooray! The 6 week mark always seems to be the medical start of normality. You are allowed to do anything and everything at this milestone. (I lay on my tummy for a good few minutes last night. Didn’t hurt. But I’m waiting for all the bruising to go before I try to sleep like that.) Most of the green lights refer to housework in my view (apart from swimming if you are lucky enough to have a house with a pool): VAC/MOP/LIFT.

Boring!!! It’s all down there. Down there on the floor. Which coincidentally is exactly where I’ll be later today – on the art gallery floor putting my words out into the air, hoping they’ll fly, not die. I’ve got a general idea of what I’ll be talking about. (CHANGE THE RECORD, LOVE!!!) But I wrote myself some notes just in case I get lost on a tangent as is so often the case. Be nice to me because I go red easily! So here my well practised homegirl. It’s Jennifer Lopez. She on the floor.”

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