I pride myself on being a strong and hardy woman. I’m active and robust and happy and keen and sharp and brilliant and ready… for most things. A full diary, a full fridge, a full theatre going calender, a full life. i say yes to many offers – for coffee or dinner, or readings, or shows… because I am a freelancer. And I’m independent.

So independent, it seems, that I am unwittingly strapped to my work most of the time, collecting and sifting through ideas and projects. Conscious this is my self-imposed year off from large scale works I am still constantly churning through material… dreaming big dreams, meeting artists and putting plans and partnerships in place.

And then…

BAM!

Yep.

BAM!

The wicked ways of influenza can bring everything crashing down.

And it all started the night of The Libertine (which is why I haven’t written about it yet – it deserves more than the feverish opinions of a de-hydrated leper).

I have been barricaded in my apartment for 10 days. Living solo has it’s advantages – and when you’re sick the right to not clean the kitchen and to sleep on every different surface of the house – AND to eat ice-cream for lunch – AND to cry softly spontaneously and suddenly on your couch are all great freedoms.

Without a television – but with an office groaning with scripts and books I want to read and can’t, there has been little I could practically do – except shower and sleep and think about things.

Thoughts turn to the fragility of people, of the tenuousness of employment, of gender politics, of cultural cringe, problems with independence, lack of job security, lack of career trajectory, or artistic wheel invention, of expectation, of my own fragility – of how I should have been an actor or a doctor or a teacher or a lawyer or perhaps a baker or a florist.

Sometimes, you just have to stop.

Be sick.

Be utterly sick.

So I told myself ” Sleep. Drink water. Sleep. Cry. Do nothing. Don’t feel bad about doing nothing. Don’t look at email. Don’t check facebook. Unplug. Sleep. Think if you must but Rest. Be sick until you’re not sick anymore.”

And that’s what I’ve been doing – giving myself permission to just simply be not well – so that I can be well again.

Yes. When you’re sick, you’re automatically entitled to relabeling yourself “philosopher.”

And now with the help of the occasional Eddie Vedder You Tube clip, vegie soup from Neighbour Tim… a clean kitchen and a vase of flowers from best-friend Sally… full fridge and cheerleading from Michal… I’m finally well enough to explain my absence from BITE SIZED event at World Bar Last night… and to say… I’ve been sick. Sorry if I’ve been a bit tardy on replying to invites and project requests. I’ve been asleep.