Jet Setting

Leaving in a day to head out to the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany. I will be setting up and manning my company's booth all by my lonesome for 5 days, during which time I have over 40 appointments with clients pre-booked.

I've never been to Germany. The first book fair I did was in NY earlier this year. That was tiny compared to Frankfurt, which has more than 80,000 booths currently registered, is spread out over 8 warehouses and has its own zip code. I'm thrilled to be in the "Australia Pavilion". At least my neighbors will speak English!

Peter has taught me how to say the most important thing I will need to know in German: "Can I have a coffee with milk, please?".

I've been preparing for this trip for months, and have all of my notes, strategies and thoughts basically mapped out now. The rest will be "off the cuff" and hopefully no one does anything too strange. I've been pre-warned by a colleague in the UK that Frankfurt is where, "Aging male publishers go to get to know their secretaries.".

OK. Gross. A few days after that chat, I did in fact get a few emails from clients which I felt were grossly inappropriate in the context of business correspondence. I went out and spent about $600 on clothes that button up to the neck after that. Nothing like being sexually harassed in 5 different languages on an unfamiliar continent.

After the fair, I'm flying over to London for a few days to see my old roommates from Kingston days. It's been 9 years since we've seen each other, but honestly it feels like just yesterday, and I can't wait! I'm also going on a walking tour of Arundel Castle and Hampton Court and hopefully the V&A one day. Mostly though, I am looking forward to stepping out alone one afternoon, taking the tube to Trafalgar Square and wandering around. I'll step into St. Martin's to listen to a rehearsal, and then duck over to the Crypt Cafe for a coffee and a look at the prints on the walls. I just like walking around London. It's my favorite city for that. I've missed it.

Can I be an American-Australian yet?




Ollie and Lauren at age 18. Love the hair....Amina A and Nia McGovern. Nia, where the hell are you?Ollie, Andy, Rob and Jo. I'll be staying with Jo mostly, but with Amina too. It's all very exciiiiiting!

I will have basically no Internet access, so... wish me luck and see you for Halloween!!!!

Juno Rising

Over the weekend we took off for the Barossa to have some time away in wine country and to catch up with Viktor and Elaine from Melbourne. Viktor is a visual artist who does everything from 10 foot high sculptures carved from marble, bronze and steel, to the small and delicate engagement ring he carved for me out of a slab of zirconium. I think it is safe to say that Viktor does not limit himself!

We met Viktor and Elaine at the arts market in Melbourne earlier this year, although, I had noticed his striking jewelry designs on a previous trip to the same market in 2008. He had a bronze brooch on display that just called out to me from across the isle...

The following year, after spending a week in Melbourne looking in many antique shops for something that I could feel comfortable wearing as a permanent engagement/wedding ring - something sort of strange and mysterious like me :-) but something that wasn't a representation of the destruction of many third-world countries and their peoples through gold and diamond mining- I stumbled upon Viktor's stand at the arts market for the second time, and after being once again mesmerized, decided to go ahead and ask, "hey...do you do commissions..?"

The rest is history as they say, and I continue to love not only the work he produces, but the quirky and introspective personality behind it. Viktor and Elaine are two people who strive to make life a continued process for creativity- for themselves, and for the people they touch. Viktor puts his whole self into everything that he creates, and Elaine's support of his process is equally inspiring.

On this last trip, we had the luck of seeing a showing of Viktor's latest work at the Barossa Living Gallery, collectively called, "from mother earth". The works included sculpture, works on paper and jewelry and continue to follow his theme of the female form and archetypes. The sculptures in particular - carved primarily in marble with steel and cast iron plinths- are evocative of the feminine mystery in a subtly powerful way. There is a duality in these sculptures of softness and hardness that asks the viewer to consider which side of femininity is dominant in their own experience? As a woman, I found myself initially intrigued, and later intimidated to a certain extent by the honesty of the shapes. For me, there was a certain forbidden quality about the sculptures, an intimacy that I felt existed in the shapes. Such honest declarations of the female form mirrored to me my own uncertainty about my experience in a female body.

I asked Viktor about this later. What we see in mainstream society today as "woman" is so altered from a natural state... breast implants, plastic surgery, air brush photography...it all serves to create a higly false impression of the natural female form. Viktor's works in this exhibition are not blatant or crass statements about women's bodies, they are simple, honest and therefore real in a way that we don't see much of anymore, and subsequently, cannot be ignored.


Viktor responded that he had done extensive life drawing in preparation for these works, and had particularly studied the curves and angles of breasts on live models. He studied these lines, and then incorporated them into the works.

Viktor's works are probably one of the few opportunities I have had to see the female form in modern times depicted so honestly. How interesting it was as the viewer to feel more confronted by that honesty than the thousands of images of "sculpted" female bodies I see everyday on TV, the web and magazines.

This is reflective of a parellel in my own explorations of the ways in which I strive to communicate. Wisdom Cirlces, a method of respectfully exchanging information practiced by many indigenous cultures for centuries, and particularly amongst women's groups, ask that a speaker state the truth of their life or of an experience simply, plainly and without ornamentation. It is believed that true communication from the soul comes forward in a way that is humble and without the need for flashiness, i.e. withouth the intervention of the ego. This straight-forward communication focusing on the simple truths is regarded as the most powerful. It was exciting to see this concept that I hold so dear expressed in sculpture.

This exhibition also includes prints that are the basis for many of the sculptures. And while they depict the same shapes in many cases, it is interesting to note that the prints have a decidedly masculine quality. His jewelry includes new work that accentuates his master relationship with metals and combine a perfect balance between softer feminine shapes and harder masculine materials.

The exhibition runs through 20 November and is well worth the drive into scenic Barossa for a viewing. Or, see more of Viktor's work here.

Oh, and that bronze pin that started it all.... we have finally be united :-)

Rep. Joe Wilson Is Your Pre-existing Condition.

Just putting in my two cents as an internet voice that Rep. Joe Wilson is a total and complete douche bag.
He should resign.

Health "Care"

Today I read that Obama is 99.9% likely to dumb down his health care bill to be hardly "new" at all, that Pzifer will be forced to pay an unpredecented 3.2 billion dollars for doing things like promoting drugs the FDA did not appove, bribing doctors to push their drugs and a host of other nasty things we all know they've been doing for years (and yet, no one was sent to jail over it, which I still find disgusting. In fact, 6 whistle-blowers will get to share 100 million dollars for their "bravery" in doing the RIGHT thing) and that the "DeNegris" are very likely going to get an obscene amount of money from Pepsi when all is said and done to cormpensate them for their "mental anguish" over the gutless frog that was inside their Pepsi canh (and which as far as I can tell, didn't kill anyone but itself).

Now you tell me, what could possibly be wrong with the current healthcare system in America??? And who does that Obama guy think he is anyway? Chairman Mao? I bet if he had his way, every man, woman and child would have access to health care that didn't bankrupt them, Pfizer would become a lot more "wiser" and the DeNegris might just have to chalk that one up for the scap book rather than draining the system to make a point that finding a dead frog in your Pepsi can is kinda gross. What a horrible world that would be! Thank goddess I don't live in America anymore or I might really be scared!

One for the Photo Album

Well, I have nearly recovered from one of the worst cases of stomach flu I've ever experienced. I say one, because while this one was vile, there have been others, which to the dismay of possibly you, I will reminisce about now.

It was the summer of 2005. I was working full time for a publisher in New York by day and living as socially as possible by night. I'd recently met a guy that I was into. He was a writer and an Iraq war veteran (why in my youthiest days did I always go for the ex-military types?). He was also very smart and drastically insecure - a combination I always found morbidly attractive in my early twenties. I remember tramping home from the bar with my best friend, as we did so many nights in those days, and crawling into her bed to pass out, mascara smudged down to our cheekbones. I'd just met this writer guy and in my inebriated state giggled, "He's written a book, and he's killed someone!" and then we both started hysterically laughing and said, "Perfect!!" (I never said my sense of humor was appropriate).
I think I ran into this ex GI Joe a few more times...usually we'd trade caustic remarks over some kind of liquor and then one of us would go too far and insult the other to the point that we'd be forced to fake-hate one another for the rest of the night.
I think you all know where this is going. Yes, there was eventually a hook up. No, it wasn't one of those "nights to remember". I discovered a sewing machine and some homemade patterns in his bedroom, half a plaid skirt already in progress. Writer Rambo had secret dreams of becoming a fashionista. I also found out his insecurities went, ahem, father than his polite conversation...
Anyway, closet fashion design and PE are nothing in the face of my bed of shame which I so catastrophically made for myself the next morning. It should have been easy. We would have discussed it silently over our coffee cups the next morning. He would have understood my indifferent body language when he offered to pass me the toast, and I would have left feeling relieved that I wouldn't be hearing from him again.
What actually happened was that I woke up feeling a bit queasy... and within several minutes, realized the situation went beyond queasy, faaaaar beyond. I raced to the nearest room that looked like a bathroom and proceeded to retch my guts out into a sink, then a tub, then a toilet...oh it was wherever I could find a drain. It didn't stop there: suddenly, my bottom half was making demands of me that I had no choice but to meet. I was stranded there for 2 hours, before I could crawl to my car and drive home where I continued to barf for another three days.
Now, it's one thing to be sick as a dog in your own home, but to be sick as a dog in the home of a hot writer GI turned wannabe Versaci, who, I had no intention of ever seeing again? My god.

Rewind, summer of 1999. His name was Spider. Really, it was. He liked skateboards and fencing. (yes, as in the combat sport). He was in love and I was...bored... He went to great pains, took me on a romantic picnic by the lake, gave me a ring (god no, it was silver plate in the shape of a lizard), and even made a plate of vanilla cupcakes. I drank a lot of cheap beer and admired the sunset. Somewhere between dessert and midnight, Spider decided it was time to make his move... He took his hand in mine, eyes glistening like the yolks of two of sunny-side-up eggs and said, "I love you."
I projectile vomited into his lap.

Flash forward to last Sunday evening. I'm in a stable and happy relationship. We've said our "I love yous" many times. He doesn't have a sewing machine hidden in the closet (not that I'd mind if he did) and he's got an absolute zero military background. He does however, have kids, something new for my "self-absorbed creative brilliance" world.
I was at my desk writing until about midnight. I'd started to feel gross around 11pm, but took a Mylanta and pushed through. It happens. I went to bed a little after 12, and by 1am, I knew all was not well. I prayed that it would pass, but in my stomach of stomachs, I knew it had no intention of doing so. By 2am I was in the downstairs bathroom alternating between slamming my head into the porcelain and spewing into a bucket whilst sitting on the toilet. Yes, apparently any available orifice would do.
My man came down to check on me, bring me a clean t-shirt (the indignity of puking on yourself at 27!), but he wasn't down for long before we heard the tell-tale signs of gagging and spewing from upstairs. This time, it was his daughter, projectile vomiting over herself, her bed the wall...
The scene of gastrointestinal carnage that followed over the next 12 hours would have inspired Bosch himself. This particular strain of whatever had implanted itself in our guts was not satisfied with a couple of upchucks. Oh no.... it was out for blood, and at about 12 hours and 26 spews, I was its helpless slave. I would have prayed to the toilet Deity at that point if I thought it would help me.
My man, meanwhile, ran up the stairs, down the stairs and back up again. I was paralyzed face down on the floor of the downstairs bathroom, while his daughter was spread-eagle in the tub upstairs. Pillows, sheets, blankets, towels- they all came down one by one, thrown dripping into the washing machine, no one caring anymore if they leaked their foul contents on the floor.

It took a few days for everyone to return to the world of the coherent, and I think my partner's daughter summed it up perfectly when she said to us, "oh man, that is so totally the most disgusting thing I've ever done." I had a lump on my forehead from slamming into the toilet bowl so many times, and my partner said he might as well have had the virus too, considering the amount of carrot chunks he came into contact with.
But do you know what is a fact, albeit an unexpected one on my part? It's that when all is said and done, we feel a little bit closer to one another for having endured the gastro-apocalypse together. This was a family memory, our -weird little misfit 21st century blended family of three consisting of some of the most unlikely people you'd see in a crowd and lump together as a domestic unit- memory. And it's one that none of us is ever going to forget. Ten years from now, we'll still be able to compare notes about who threw up more times and how "dad" raced around in his underwear frantically trying to hose us both down and keep the washing machine going. The story will get funnier and more elaborate every time we tell it, because it's "ours", our family's story of bonding through body malfunction adversity. And because of that, I really sort of adore it.

Lefty Oppression, Penmanship Bias and Sexism.

Over the weekend I decided to take a trip to my favorite paper shop in Adelaide. I like to go there and just look at pretty things and touch as many papers and books of stationary as possible. My boyfriend doesn’t even go inside with me anymore. He’s watched me salivate over hand-made Italian envelopes while whispering, “I’ll just be one more minute…” one too many times…

Well, this trip I found myself staring at bottles of Noodler’s Ink and wondering why I gave up writing with fountain pens 10 years ago. (it was cool when I was in college, and holy cow, yes that was 10 years ago…). I think Noodler’s sucked me in largely with their fabulous labeling, pretty bottles and nice colors. I picked up a bottle of “Tiananmen” red, looked at the hand-drawn label of tanks rolling into the square and was sold. Come on? Politically incorrect ink? How could I NOT??? To be fair, written in red across the label is “one day China will be free.” So I suppose they could argue that they are trying to raise awareness of the massacre through their ink sales. Right…

Then I found ”Zhivago” a green ink so dark that it’s nearly black. Yuu-um! Totally buying that! In all, I walked out with 4 bottles of Noodler’s, a box of nibs and 2 cheap pen bases. Oh, and some stationary and labels and…well…

I was so excited to go home and letter write with my new toys. So I sat down, selected a nib, opened “Kiowa Pecan” brown and commenced to dip. I scribbled out a few paragraphs of a letter to my friend and then stepped back to admire my classy work.

Being a lefty, I’ve always had questionable penmanship. I will never forget the Kindergarten teacher who kept slapping my hand with a ruler whenever I tried to write lefty saying something along the lines of, “Devil worshipers write lefty,” into my frightened 4-yr-old ear. Or the poor grades I received in 3^rd grade when we learned cursive. Mine was always blurred due to the fact that my hand dragged straight through whatever I’d just painstakingly wrote. Truly. I would come home from school completely metallic from pinkie to elbow on my left-hand side… But through all of that, I had come to be twenty-seven years old thinking that my penmanship was “decent”. It was never going to win awards, and Calligrapher to the Queen was probably not in my future, but it's legible, and some people even ask me to write names on cards now and then…because I can do it “neatly”.

But looking at my Kiowa Pecan fountain-penned letter, the sad fact was that my new primitive tools had transformed my style from lefty-weird to truly horrendous.

I mean, I’d only just written the words two minutes ago and I couldn’t even read what it said. Blotches of ink leakages, places where the nib had slipped and made a sloppy mess of the word, or alternately, run out of ink and not actually completed the formation of the letter.

I shrugged and kept going. Practice makes perfect, or something, right? In all, I wrote about 6 illegible letters, which were all posted in the mail today. So, if you get one, have fun! They’re written with really nice ink...

I also finished up watching season 1 of Mad Men on DVD this weekend. That show…really upset me…but I found it addicting to watch. The costumes, sets, casting, writing—all fantastic. It was just the SEXISM of 1959-60 that freaked me out. I had a hard time dealing with the increased sexism in moving from NYC to Australia. Then I had a hard time watching “Life on Mars” because of the sexism depicted in that show. Well sweatheart, neither of those held a CANDLE to1959 America…

While watching the show, I would repeatedly cluck, tsk, throw things, shout abuse at the screen and turn to my boyfriend huffing, “Can you believe that shit? What the HELL?!”. I think my most favorite offensive line is when the innocent dough-faced new secretary starts her job at the ad agency, and the head secretary comes to give her some “sage advice” after her first day. She says something along the lines of, “Go home, put a bag over your head with eye holes cut in it. Take off all your clothes and look at yourself in the mirror. Really study what your assets are, and be honest.”

HOLY MOTHER.

Am I just really spoiled because I’ve worked in a large publishing house in NYC post 20^th century where the VP was a woman and we had sexual harassment education seminars like twice a year? At my current place of employ, a male employee sent around a “joke email” (y’know, one of those forwards) that negatively depicted women with large breasts. He ONLY emailed it to the women in my office with large breasts. Internally, I hit the roof. What the hell? You Neanderthal! But I just sat there thinking, hmmm, maybe this is culturally acceptable in Australia? I don’t know, because no one in management actually DID anything about it, even though a couple of the women complained.

Well, as bad as I thought that was, thank Christ I don’t live in 1959. I’d have no choice but to commit mass murder…

Illness is in the Mind of the Beholder

It's Monday in Australia. I had a 4 day weekend and had all these plans for social gatherings, none of which came to pass because I came down with a bad cold on Friday... I had nearly gotten this cold about three times in the past month, but had managed to keep it at bay. So kudos to you cold, you finally got the better of me.

I have a holistic way of viewing this current state of being (ill) which pertains to looking at the body as having 7 chakra points which it keeps in various states of "clear" and "blocked". Each Chakra represents both physical and spiritual aspects of a person's health. So for example, the 5th chakra, or throat chakra, can pertain to creative expression, as well as laryngitis. The 5th chakra has a lot of other areas it covers as well, but, you get the idea...

On Friday, I decided to sit down and write my personal history, from birth to present. I'd never done that before, and many of the things I wrote down I've never even spoken before. When I started in the morning, I developed a bit of a tickle in my throat. By the evening, when I'd been writing for over 7 hours, my throat was so swollen and sore I could barely talk! To me, this was a huge purge of toxins from the throat chakra, that was triggered by my decision to honestly write my personal history (the good and the bad). Those toxins took the form of bacteria that had been in my body and...infected my throat, and subsequently my sinus and lungs. But I'm nurturing my body through that illness gently, and am happily sending that bacteria on to do its magic somewhere else.

I've also been working on my wisdom circle project. It was/is my intention to get a group of women together to hold a sacred wisdom circle, once a month. I also wanted to make this a true democratic process, where there is no one leader, but rather that responsibility is shared by all in the group, by taking turns leading the circle each time and having consensus on all issues. I was trying to have a very hands off approach to how the circle would be run, because I wanted to challenge my own tendency to "take over" and manage everything in my life.

However, I find it is a real challenge to strike the right balance... there is a need for some leadership in these situations, because 100% consensus 100% of the time just isn't possible, and someone is going to feel slighted. There is a need for someone to step forward as the leader and make things happen. What an incredible learning curve this has been! And all with close friends too. It's not like the women involved are strangers. We've all done quite a lot of personal work and growth together, through other venues, and know each other quite well. And in some ways, that makes it even harder... more to loose I think.

Someone once told me that Pyramid Schemes are tested in Adelaide, because if they can work here, they can work anywhere. How amazing! Well, all the more reason to find a way to make the women's circle work. Let's do it for the world! (erm, NOT that it's a pryramid scheme...I think y'all know what I meant...).

Writing my personal history has been a further extension of the wisdom circle concept, which is basically that sharing your truth without eliciting feedback from others, offering advice or presuming to know how others feel is deeply healing for both the teller and the listeners. I am writing a lot about experiences of violence in my life, and how I have, and still am, working very hard to overcome them.

If anyone reading this has some experiences of violence that they've overcome or are still struggling with and would like to share them with me in the context of a "digital sharing circle", please do. It's confidential, and by sharing with me, and me reading, we enter into a symbiotic relationship of healing for one another. Getting many stories of shared experience together is something I'm very interested in. Changing the world one truthful story at a time... and in a 100% non-violent way.