Here is a very small list of things I thought should be placed in a list called "things I have recently found therapeutic":

1) De-clutterising my room

2) Flexing the photographic limb and taking photos of this newly de-clutterised state

3) De-veining prawns

Points 1) and 2) may have come about through some pretty intense trawling of The Selby website. WHAT A FANTASTIC SITE. Creatives and their homes! So ridiculously inspired to...um...have my own home and paint the walls puke yellow and use toilet paper as cushions. No, not really. But at the very least, it inspired me to clean up the junkyard that is my room.

So without further ado,

And here is a photobomb from beautiful Kimberley's 21st last night. I AM DWARFED by her six-inch heels :(

And just to conclude, thank you for all of your words on my last entry. I appreciate them. I will never get over how so many of you are generous about opening up to strangers too. Thank you again. May you also stand strong against your plights. Love love love.

Goodnight,

Nikki

So I realise that my greeting is nineteen days overdue, making it far from timely and thus effectively worthless, but as my Dad likes to say, "Better late than pregnant!"

Haw haw haw.

Blogger informs me that there are currently in excess of 150 of you subscribed to this verbal wasteland. When did this happen?! (And why are you all so silent...? "LET THERE BE NOISE!" she proclaimed...)

I haven't written for longer than a month now. I'd like to say my absence was because of full time dedication to an abundance of mirth in the real world and just generally swaying along to the ebb and flow of a fruitfully busy time. And yeah, to an extent, it's true - the last month or so has included-but-was-not-limited-to: fondue and strawberry wine parties, watching wonderful jazz gigs, band hero nights, bringing my exercise regime up to almost half-duathlon standards, frantically job hunting, and working closely on musical repertoire for a duo act. But despite all this, there's always been room to blog. If there's been room for facebook tetris (of which I keep consistently annihilating my old scores, by the way) then there's certainly been room to blog.

The truth is, circumstance has been less than favourable. 

I generally like to keep my posts light and irrelevant (much like Owl City's musical merit, sorry). But like Hayley mentions in her comeback post, I didn't want to just fill this space with picturedumps and cheerful things, and in effect, diminish the things actually worth mentioning. And I never found myself in the right headspace or with the right words to verbalise the recent occurrences.  Until now I guess.

So here...

My grandparents were supposed to spend Christmas here with us in Sydney. Prior to getting their travel visas, they needed to have some physicals done to ensure they were well and fit enough to travel. They detected an unusual mass in my grandpa's chest, and as a result, visas were not granted and their Christmas was not spent here. Minor disappointment, we agreed, as long as he was okay. 

But the previous month has seen a flurry of x-rays, scans, doc consultations, unplanned overnighters at the hospital with him attached to a catheter, and a series of increasingly worrying diagnoses. He has 'descending thoracic aneurism' and  'infrerenal aortic aneurysm' which could rupture anytime. He's essentially a ticking time bomb. Add to that 2 very clogged arteries and 1 more quickly reaching that point. Different doctors are recommending different things - 'open surgery,' says one, 'stent surgery,' says another. What remains is that something must be done. Surgery is risky to begin with. We're considering his age, we're considering the complications, and we're considering if the rest of his body (like the emphysema in his lungs) can even cope with invasive surgery. And so now, my family are grappling with the decision of choosing not to do anything, or choosing to do something which could, if complications arise, severely deteriorate his quality of life, and even hurry death.

I've been lucky. With twenty years of life under my belt, I've not had to face death - mine and anyone close to me. To me, it's a folk tale, an experience someone else somewhere else is having, and affecting me only in so far as a whisper passed into my ear. So at present, I'm emotionally and mentally unprepared about letting go. Especially letting go of my grandfather, my Lolo. We're exceptionally close, he's my biggest fan, and I have to say that a lot of my childhood was as fruitful and wonderful as it was because of him. My mother always tells me how Lolo lights up when I'm around, and the reverse is true. I'm in a good place when I'm around him. And then I get sad thinking about all of this. And the heart sighs and the chest heaves. So if you have a moment to spare, I would be very grateful for good vibes, thoughts and prayers (from those of you who pray) for my grandfather and for my family. I love him dearly.

In other news, my beloved Hannah left for Amsterdam today. I probably wont see her for the next year or so. This does not at all help my current mood. 

Recent happier times:

On that note, I also miss you very much Dadderpillar. I had your China Crisis CD on in the background while typing this up.

So there you have it. An explanation for my (unnoticed) absence and why I'm probably more introspective these days. Recent events certainly have given me some perspective. Suddenly, it doesn't matter so much anymore how much of a 'has-been' I've become on youtube. Not that, in saying this, I acknowledge that I ever was a notable, gosh no. Or that unrequited affection seems to be my destiny. Or that I'm so much farther from achieving my ideal body now than I was six months ago. It's all trivial.

So as not to completely end on a sombre note, I mentioned in the beginning of the post how I've been working on a jazz duo act with a Greek slice of pie called Ross.

Meet young Rossco.

If you're interested, here is an audio sampler (snippits of God Bless the Child, Girl from Ipanema, Summertime and Nature Boy) that features my crooning and Ross's divine guitarwork. 

We're very professional.

So to all of you toilet-roll-holders, if you read through all of this, thank you. I do hope to write in good spirits soon. Thanks for sticking around.