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This morning Michael Jackson died, and I have been running the gamut of emotions remembering my childhood as an avid MJ fan. I think it was when I was about four that I became fixated on him, and I remember that my uncle Pete had brought up his Thriller album on a visit from Melbourne for me to listen to. Michael then became my imaginary friend – even though I had two baby sisters, I was a very solitary child and would play by myself for hours and Michael would keep me company. When my sister Amanda was born, it meant that all three girls took up the back seats in the car, and Mum tells me (with a giggle) that I used to panic and protest that they were sitting on Michael and hurting him.

I would watch for the “We Are The World” clip to come on Rage on the weekends, anxiously anticipating when Michael would come in for the first chorus. (That song had ALL of my heroes, basically!) Michael used to say and do a lot of things to encourage peace and love, and I honestly felt that all people should have the same aims (oh naivety!)

When the Dangerous album came out I was about 10 years old and Mum and Dad bought us the cassette album, which we’d play in my awesome pink cassette player. We’d blast it in the garage and sing and dance with our neighbours until the very end of the album. Cyndi Lauper’s She’s So Unusual would typically follow.

By 1993 the sexual abuse accusations came out; I was 12 and becoming more and more confused about my childhood hero and former imaginary friend. I was around the same age as Jordan Chandler, so it was only natural that I had some degree of empathy with him. The media went crazy, the magazines my mother frequently bought started calling him Wacko Jacko (to be fair his behaviour did become quite erratic) so my love affair with him ended quite abruptly. I felt embarrassed and betrayed.

This morning my Mum called and Nick answered the phone. Mum arranged a BBQ for Sunday night, and then told Nick that Michael Jackson was rumoured to be dead. I was in a state of disbelief. Rumours were flying on Twitter and Facebook, and as the hour swung around and Michael’s death was confirmed, I put on Thriller and relived my childhood memories. They were good memories. Happy memories. Michael Jackson taught me to dance and sing, two things I still adore as an adult. He was my role model and I think a lot of my creative aptitude was encouraged in those years, by him and my family.

Vale Michael Jackson. My hero.

I am quite the choir nerd – This is Perpetuum Jazzile covering Toto’s Africa completely a cappella, even creating the rain and thunder from clicks, knee slaps and jumping on the stands. Amazing.

Yes, I’m gay. It amazes me when people reduce a gay person down to every stereotype they’ve ever heard because it somehow protects them from actually getting to know that person. This is a beautiful video, and I love everything these guys said.

Hope: Diabetes Supplies Art by Manny Hernandez

I was diagnosed at 17 with Juvenile Diabetes (now commonly known as Type 1 Diabetes because onset isn’t strictly confined to childhood) and this year marks my 11th year living with the condition. Last week Nick and I decided to take part in the Bridge to Brisbane fun run as part of the #BTUB group, and we also decided to raise money for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) in the lead up to the event.

Despite many T1D people being promised a cure a decade ago, it’s still no where near materialised. Type 1 also seems to get lost in all the press releases and scare mongering about diabetes, when they’re actually referring to Type 2! As a result, a lot of misconceptions abound about these two groups of sufferers and I have a horrible feeling that funds are being channeled away from research for a T1 cure as well.

If you’d like to donate to my fundraising effort for JDRF, I really, really, really appreciate it. In very real ways. It’s not just that I have to stab myself x times a day: it’s feeling like I’m a freak, having to discretely inject when I’m out, explaining why I have sharps in my bag when I fly (with a medical certificate!), and always being prepared for the possibility that my blood sugar might go low at the most inopportune of times (I’ve lost jobs in the past because I’ve had a hypo during phone calls or interviews)!

You can donate here via my Everyday Hero page and help the JDRF find a cure. I’m aiming for AUD$1000 – eep! Thank you SO SO much for supporting a cause that I have such a personal investment in

A new piece (or, drainting! A drawing and a painting) for exhibiting, hopefully, if KILN still want me to participate in the Illustrators show coming up soon! I usually know I’m on the right track if a new piece scares the crap out of me, and this lady sure scared me on several occasions! Despite studying art at university, lots of fine art skills escape me and I usually feel quite incompetent beside other artists because I am mostly self taught. Her skin colour really worried me for a while, but I just ended up layering the colour a bit, and it came good. Horah!

I’ve been thinking a lot about how we hide ourselves in public, to become normal or to blend in. From my early teens I wore make up religiously because I had terrible acne, and it got to a point where I couldn’t answer the door without having a full face on. These days, while I love my cosmetics, I’m a bit more relaxed about “putting on my mask” but you’ll never catch me in a social situation without being fully made up and dressed ridiculously. Because, you know, people might find out… that I have… flaws!

Externals aside, I’ve also had a lot of practice at covering up my various idiosyncrasies. It’s easy for me to say I have experience with depression, suicide and anxiety but harder for me to go in to details because I am so used to people trivialising my fears. Mostly, I’m scared of phones and of falling over in public when I’m out by myself. And because of those fears I come off as quite aloof (I’m pretty hard to catch on the phone!) and I only ever go out when I’ve got someone with me, so in the case I fall over I’ve got someone to laugh about it with me! I mask a lot of my anxieties with a huge laugh and a big personality but lately I’ve been feeling quite guilty about it. This work is one of my ways of coming out as hiding.

So there, that’s my story about being a masked woman. What masks do you wear?

A line is all I need from Natalie Perkins on Vimeo.

I decided I’d better start submitting drawings to things because I really ought to be promoting myself, and one of the first zines I wanted to submit to was the Underground Art School. The theme for the next issue is Simplicity/ Back to Basics, and after thinking for about thirty seconds I realised that if I get back to basics, all I really need is a line. All any drawing is built on is lines; and actually, everything is built on lines isn’t it? A few months ago I was really keen on physics and learning about String Theory and I watched a few rad videos that explained dimensions in quite simple terms and how there are LOTS of dimensions and possibly even lots of universes. At the crux of it all, dots and lines build everything (in my overly-romanticised view of it all!) I have seen people look at my drawings and talk about how complicated and intricate they are, but to me, they’re just a mass of lines and everyone’s just over-complicating things.

You can see a bit of me drawing the piece in the above video.

Et Voila!

Body image has always been something I’ve been interested in and at uni it took the guise of identity and styling, or the ways in which individuals dress themselves in order to assume an identity. In my last 10 years as a fat woman who has never felt ashamed of being fat, I have thought a lot about how anyone who isn’t slim manages to style themselves. It isn’t easy, but it isn’t impossible, and I’ve found it a kind of delightful challenge to style myself as a woman who fits into anything between an Australian size 20-24. I’ve had a particularly privileged journey to body acceptance, because I’ve had loving family, friends and partners along the way as well as access to incredible resources online. For many people, it’s not only difficult but upsetting, and when I’m asked how I can love myself or how I can help them love themselves… I’m often at a loss.

I figure though, that I’m in some kind of special position to help guide people to a place of contentment and, gasp, love when it comes to their bodies. In the past few weeks I’ve even begun to think that I could be some kind of coach – so this post is my first draft: A guide to loving yourself in 8 challenging but rewarding steps!

1. Talk about your body.

I think one of the reasons why so many people are ashamed of their bodies is because they aren’t really sharing what actually goes on. It’s all about normalisation – share all the fun stuff, the scary stuff and the downright weird stuff with your friends, family and children so we don’t treat ourselves like alien entities.

2. When someone compliments you, just say thank you.

Don’t have a ready-prepared quip specifically designed to disarm the compliment giver. A compliment will not hurt!

3. Question the things you used to take for granted.

When you hear a report on tv or the radio about the obesity epidemic, question where they got their information from. The American study that is so oft quoted figured the number of deaths from obesity at 400,000 but unfortunately none of the media agencies pulled their flailing arms out of the air when that figure was brought down to 25,814. That’s a huge revision, and while the CDC released the revised number, the media and marketing people clung to the hype (interesting article from the Skeptical Inquirer). Turns out, reducing the “Obesity Epidemic” to a load of bunkum doesn’t make anyone money. Question every thing you see and hear about the Obesity Epidemic OOGA BOOGA – you usually find that the people funding these studies have fingers in a few interesting puddings (eg: those nutrient devoid Weight Watchers desserts!)

4. Don’t assign good or bad values to food and exercise.

When you eat something because it’s “good” or exercise because it’s “good” you’re just punishing yourself. Do things that you actually factually ENJOY and the reward will be twofold. Listen to your body and it’ll tell you the things it needs to eat, and the activities it needs to partake in. This is one of the key parts of Health At Every Size – by “honouring your body” you’ll consume things that you’re absolutely besotted with, and move because it moves you.

5. Wear clothes that fit you and make you feel good.

Shame is the worst way to motivate yourself, and it will work against you by letting you down AND making you feel bad. And feeling bad is not the objective here – feeling fabulous is! Clean out your wardrobe and dump every single item of clothing that makes you feel bad about yourself. Do not keep items aside because you think you’re going to fit into them one day – give them to someone who can actually wear them! Hold a swap party like I did, donate to your favourite organisation or give special things away to special friends.

6. Think about activities you’ve always wanted to do but have been too scared to try – and do them.

Take joy from moving your body in ways that you actually take pleasure in, and get out of the rut of thinking that you only need to go to a gym or use home equipment. This is not about “having to” it’s about “wanting to”. By doing what you want, you’ve got an inbuilt motivational mechanism right there. So many people wonder why they end up wasting their gym memberships – it’s probably because they don’t actually enjoy it. So find something you absolutely love! Join a roller derby team or a synchronised swimming group, learn how to ice skate, or go rock climbing. Move in ways that make sense to you!

7. Don’t weigh yourself.

In Screw Inner Beauty, the authors sum it up perfectly: if your clothes fit the way they did yesterday, you don’t need to freak out. Throw out your scales – they are just little electronic demons squatting in your bathroom, making you feel rotten.

8. No negative self talk.

This is a hard habit to break, but once you tell yourself that you’re going to be on the watch for negative self talk, you’ll notice that you can usually flag yourself as you’re thinking terrible things. Tell your friends and family that you are a “negative self talk free zone” – and you won’t put up with negative self talk from yourself or from them! I extend this to “no diet or weight loss talk” but it depends how far you want to go. I consider weight loss talk to be incredibly harmful, and forbid it from my conversations.

9. Bonus (and compulsory) step: Tell yourself you are awesome.

Look in the mirror, do a little dance, and congratulate yourself for being fricking brilliant.

Never think that those who accept their bodies never have a moment of doubt, because it’s only human to have those low moments. What gets easier is bouncing out of those low times. I’m not even going to begin to kid you on this: changing the way you perceive your body is incredibly hard work. The alternative is the status quo, so you may as well start today because you’re just wasting time! I strongly believe that every person is capable of loving and honouring themselves and that we all have the right to at least give it a burl!

I held my first ever clothing swap on Sunday, and even though the numbers were down it was still a success. Everyone took home something new (to them!) and we all had a fabulous time trying on clothes and shoes and making silly outfits. I got the idea from Screw Inner Beauty, in which Kate Harding and Marianne Kirby talk about clothes swaps as a way of weeding out the clothes from your wardrobe that make you feel bad about yourself. You know, the “I fit into these for five minutes back when I was 17″ sort of garments that you only hold onto as a sick kind of motivation to lose weight.

If you’ve known me for five minutes, you’ll have probably seen me launch into a tirade within seconds of someone mentioning diets or weight loss, because I feel very passionately about every person accepting and loving their body in this present moment… NOT if they lose weight and NOT if they manage to fit into something. I think Health At Every Size has the potential to not only do wonderful things for body image but for health – mental and physical.

Because I’ve had quite a few years worth of exposure to the Fat/ Size Acceptance movement, I figured that I may as well host a body positive clothing swap despite my party hosting fears (what if no one comes? etc!) I’m pretty glad I did host the party, because it made me feel like I had primed a few more minds for loving their bodies. In my opinion, when people push aside their conditioning and start to fully accept themselves, it’s when the most amazing transformations happen. I’ve seen it in myself, and I’ve seen it in friends and people I’ve met online through various forums and communities. Through honouring our bodies, it’s like we flip a switch and instead of honouring what other people think and societal limitations and conditioning – we start to do things we’ve always wanted to do. For instance, I have longed to run but it’s only this year after meeting Sue, a personal trainer that I introduced to Health At Every Size, that I have discovered I can run. I am strong. I can do all these wonderful things with my body that society has told me I shoudn’t be able to do.

So, it might be just fashion, but it’s something a lot of people care about, and it’s a key part of styling “the self” and sculpting our identities. The fashion industry has the potential to exclude individuals, but if we work together we can pool resources and make each other feel good. Thank you to Sonya, Kat, Mem, Tash and Zoe for attending my little experiment, I hope you found some garments that make you feel great and a sense that you don’t have to abide by the limiting body, fashion and identity rules that we’ve all been subjected to.

I hope to be involved in hosting these swaps every once in a while, and to stage swaps on a much larger scale. Sydney has the Swap ‘Til You Drop event, but I want to organise a proper plus sized swap event in Brisbane! To be honest, I’m not even sure there’s a straight sized swap event in Brisbane, and while it’d be awesome to cover a whole gamut of sizes, I’m not sure how practical it would be to stage. Talk to me if you’ve got a venue or resources, I’m dead serious about making this happen! It’s my goal to make Brisbane the body positive capital of Australia (for now, and then I’ll move on to the other cities!)

I came across one of jibrionline’s dresses on tumblr and was amazed that
a) the model was plus plus sized (most plus size models are a US size 10 or 12!) and made me feel like the designer actually designed for fat bodies
b) the standard of model and photography are incredible, and miles above the standard on etsy!

So I had a look through the store, and now Nick is probably wishing I didn’t! I have a few of the garments favourited, but it’ll take me a while to save up the dosh… please jibrionline don’t run out of stock before I can spoil myself with beautiful garments that are properly intended for bodies like mine!

Design isn’t free; budget for it, love it, pet it and stroke it! This video points out that when you haggle or try to undercut a designer’s work (or any other service-based vendor), it’s like you’re asking for something for nothing. You wouldn’t ask a car salesman for a free car, and tell him it’d be good for his portfolio, or good exposure… right?

The other Natalie (one of many awesome Natalies!) sent me a link to this last week but I hadn’t had time to watch it until now! Thanks Natalie

It seems heaps of people are getting in to MasterChef Australia and I try to watch it every few nights just to see if they’re being taught any new recipes, but often I completely forget. Despite this the show has inspired me to cook more desserty style dishes. I’ve been perfecting the cupcake thing for a while, but it’s nice to try something different! Though first, we have cupcakes, because… they are delicious and I can’t quit them

Milo cupcakes with butterscotch frosting
If you want the recipe for the frosting, just click the image to go to the flickr page.

Dried fruit french toast with berry compote and yoghurt
I made Nick breakfast today, and it was delicious! The recipe is from here.

Om nom nom, you want to see another view.

Neiman Marcus cookies
You can find the recipe for these anywhere!

Do you have any delicious sweets/ dessert recipes to share?