Hi all,

It's fifty-three minutes into the internationally acknowledged day of love. So I'll just put this out there - I love ice-cream. As in, I love ice-cream. It's probably the most stable and most fulfilling relationship of longevity I've ever had... Let me share the love:

I'm sitting at home on a Saturday night (/early Sunday morning) typing up a blog post for the internets. This is the first weekend in the last month I have not had a twenty-first to attend. And as much as I love the hum of drunken glee and friendly faces, it's a little refreshing, actually, just sitting on my ass, enjoying my own brand of glorified stink and basking in my familiar-but-comfortable social detachment. (That said, I think I only have one weekend in the upcoming three-months that is not taken up by celebratory aging-festivities, not kidding...)

Writing-wise, I feel a little bit like a woman with menopause - barren and slightly flustered. I don't have much of relevance to spill. Sorry. So I guess this is an opportunity to just share recent snaps. So, without further ado, what rhymes with 'pimage hump'?

Image dump, of course!

the government has decided
to allot each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it to my ear
without saying hello. In the restaurant
I point at chicken noodle soup.
I am adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long distance lover,
proudly say I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn't respond,
I know she's used up all her words,
so I slowly whisper I love you
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.

[Jeffrey McDaniel]

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.

I recited my speech with as much flair as a goat in labour. I was meant to start out in a cheesy deadpan and a glazed look in my eyes with the slurred words, "Hi everybody. My name is Nikki. I've been a Hannah-holic for three years now..."

Good thing I realised in time how atrociously unfunny above line was, so I omitted it and saved myself the chagrin of looking more idiotic than necessary.

Speech went as follows:

So I met Hannah three years ago on that fateful first day of Journalism class at uni. Everyone was told to get into pairs and introduce their partner to the class. Instantly we found out who was into what sport, who was from out of town, and who didn't want to be there. When it got to our turn, Hannah decided to tell the class that I had lifelong ambitions of being a microwave.I consequently fell in love on the spot, and after that, I knew that my odd sense of humour was finally not alone in this world. For the next three years, we clicked.

Hannah is hilarious, ridiculously good-looking and naturally charming. Those were my first impressions of her. Up to now they still hold true, but with the addition of loyal, thoughtful and generous. 

Just a few weeks ago, we were supposed to go out for a friend's birthday, but Hannah was rostered on to work. Despite not being able to go, she offered to come pick me up from the city at 3am after her work to take me home. (I didn't take her up on that, by the way. I like to take advantage of my friends in other ways...Ba-dum-ching!) But Hannah's just the kind of person who offers to do selfless things just because she wants to. It doesn't go unnoticed, and it certainly doesn't go unappreciated.

But I think I can safely say that Hannah's generosity is equally matched by her ability to attract misadventures. By that I mean, she's a spastic. I get phonecalls that go something like, "Damnit, I ran after a bus that didn't stop, and my yoghurt spilled all over my bag," or "I just stacked it on George st in front of a camera crew." 

Or how about that time we made the trek down to the Hawkesbury to film stuff for our uni assignment, only to realise that Hannah forgot the tape at home...

But Hannah is Hannah because of all of these hilarious little quirks. And during these incidents where she may have... lapses of grace... she still retains retains a smile and takes it all in her stride. Hannah's a great sport; she can laugh at herself. Like I said, she's naturally charming.. it's no wonder everyone falls for her, including 40 year old bondi ink tattoo artists who will remain unnamed...

I know I haven't spoken about a lot of 'our' things, including our love of eating, our love of body pump class, our love of eating some more, making friends with various cave-dwellers, and the fact that you're the best partner to have in television journalism. Just know that I absolutely admire what you stand for, what you do, and the person you are. Mr and Mrs Meagher, you've done exceptionally well.

As my dad says, "You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friends' nose."

Well Dad, I think Hannah might be the exception to that rule. She's the kind of amazing person everyone wants to know and wants a piece of - down to even her boogers. 

So Hannah,
Thank you for being a wonderful friend and fantastic human being, and even transcending those things. Thank you for being a significant part of the last three years of my life, and making my uni experience so much more enjoyable as a result. I'm really glad and deeply honoured that you choose to associate with me, and that I can call myself your friend. I don't need to tell you to stay awesome because I know you always will. So Happy 21st to one of the best people I will ever meet in the course of this lifetime. Thank you...

And that, my dears, is why the sappy Hallmark channel is unnecessary when I'm around. Anyhow, I'm off to a jazz gig tonight. Should be fun! A retrospective entry about my recent time in Manila is in order - It was stellar, just in case you were wondering. But that's for next time.

And I know you don't expect me to sign off without - yep, you guessed it - the trademark picture dump. And in this case, 'dump' is completely apt. ('Cause you know... dump, as in dumpsters, as in bums, as in hobos in bins... ah, never mind.)