our tom cruise to tasmania (part two)

The Museum of Old and New Art in Tasmania is interesting and fun and weird and shocking and unexpected and irreverent and special and very much like the HBO show "Girls."  You don't think you want to see Lena Dunham in a see-thru yellow mesh top with no bra on but then you do and there's something appealing about it all.  Her.  The show.  Even that top.

MONA's just like that.

Located in Hobart, MONA is Australia's largest private museum owned by David Walsh.  His bio says that his mother named him Glen at birth but then found God and changed his name to David.  He has a dog named Bruce and a cat named Christ.  And he is, he says, a prick. Glen/David came up with some sort of mathematical gambling equation that he applied to poker and ponies and made millions.  With this money and that backstory and no allegiance to God, he built a museum.

It is free for locals and $20 for me.

But.  Beware, socially conservative toddlers.  It's not for everyone or children or my dad, as it does dabble in the disgusting and inappropriate, but it is so incredibly amazing and not many things are these days.

Lena Dunham should definitely put a bra on and go.

http://www.mona.net.au/

You can take a bus or ferry there.
Take the ferry.   

The three-level, cliff-face museum, carved out of the very sandstone it sits in, starts here.

An artist buying stories on the street for a dollar bought this one.

A dark room with one light.
And the blurry, hard-to-articulate/impossible-to-photograph, mesmerizing aura that surrounded it.

This is a scalp.  And that is a bullet hole. 

I loved this painting.

Of tiny little things that I couldn't or wouldn't stop looking at.

Choreographed rain.

Erect bubbles in rubbish bins that moved when you blew on them but just stood there when you didn't.

The human digestion system in machine form.
Food scraps go in, number twos come out.

A socioeconomic statement with backs.

The ones that I thought were the happy rich backs were actually the sad poor ones.

God's mistress drives a really nice car.

The entrance and tennis court and view.

One of the cottages on the grounds you can rent if your name is Brett.
It comes with a peacock, Brett.

Go.

our tom cruise to tasmania (part one)

Does Tom cruise?  Who knows.  But we do.  And just did. 

It was an eight-night cruise.  Sydney to Melbourne to Tasmania.  It was beautiful.  I saw a lot of fat people.  I became a fat people.  I had no choice.  Sydney then sea then Melbourne then more sea then two days in Hobart then a whole lot of sea back.  I ate the entire time.  Never because I was hungry; mostly because it was there and free; once because I had to see what kanga tasted like.

Gamey.

The point is, there were freestanding automated hand sanitizers everywhere.  Purell® is no dummy.  If you entered a dining room, one of the many bars, the casino, or stood in line at the buffet at Windjammer's, you had to sanitize.  If you stopped by the gym, the spa, or contemplated climbing the rock wall and then kept walking, you had to sanitize.  If you had to go to the bathroom, thought about going to the bathroom, or actually went to the bathroom, you had to sanitize.  This coupled with the army of railing and button wipers that Princess employed meant that if you were hoping a gastrointestinal illness might do you some swimsuit favors, you were on the wrong cruise.

Still.  It was super fun.  Even if I didn't climb that rock wall.  The boys gave us a preview of the teenage years and spent all of their non-eating hours at kids' club.  I got to have peace and quiet and read Joan Didion's lovely little sad perfect memoir about her year of magical thinking, and eat bacon.  American bacon.  My husband played basketball and didn't comment on me eating American bacon.  And my in-laws, who were in the cabin right next to ours, were just there. After a couple of years of no relatives anywhere, it was really nice to have the opposite.

And American bacon.

Nine days and an unmentionable amount of extra pounds later, I was back home.  With 99.9% germ-free hands, some nice mid-summer abominable squish, zero Tasmanian Devil sightings, and my new found museum crush:  MONA!

To be continued whether any of us likes it or not.

Passengers.

My boys, some ferries, and that Opera House I can't stop taking pictures of.

Friends who happened to be loitering nearby the day we left.
From tiny left to tiny right:  Sheila, Claire, Bob, Coops, Dave, Nikki, Sally, Tyler, Fin, Toby.
Possibly not in that order at all.

 The other angle:  Me, at the top, between the golf balls, arms up, pre-bacon.

Goodbye, you.

Unsolicited cop face.

Boys who love lanyards.

Port Melbourne.

Puffing Billy aka a really old steam train in Melbourne.

Our VW camper van/cabin #3558.

Our bed's POV.

This is not a time out even though it looks like one.

Tassie.

Royal Tasmanian Botanical Garden is a place.

Our ride back to Sydney.

The reason why I do anything ever.

on love, loss and being a million stupid miles away

I don’t know how to write about what I’m about to write about, but I also know I can’t write about anything else until I do.

So.

Let me tell you about Kellie. She was the best of the best. One of my dearest. The kindest soul, the most loving heart. She was nothing but my very favorite adjectives. Kind, thoughtful, generous, beautiful, smart, funny, amazing, Kellie. She was a world traveler, a doctor, she was a rock star and, as fate would have it, she was dating a rock star. Literally. But. She also had cancer. Four-and-half years ago she was diagnosed with breast cancer. These two words were heartbreaking. To us, to her, to everything she had worked so hard to get. She vowed to beat it and on those days when she didn’t feel like it, we reminded her she could. And she did. She beat the bananas out of it. 

And then I moved out of the country. 

Shortly thereafter it came back. The cancer. In all the wrong places -- as if there are any right places. It was devastating. To us, to her, to everything she had worked so hard to get back.  And to me. Because I was now so far away, I couldn’t participate in the day to day. I couldn’t rub her feet. I couldn’t bring her dinner.  I couldn’t physically be there for her as I had before. Many others thankfully were.

The second diagnosis was a terrible blow, but she found the courage and strength to face it. She was determined to beat this life interrupter one more time. And on those days when she didn’t feel like it, we reminded her -- me through email, texts and Skype -- that she did it before and she could do it again. She would do it again. And for a while, she was. She was beating the bananas out of it.The lung cancer disappeared. The brain cancer was getting smaller. The clinical trial was a miracle. She was a miracle. She saw God. 

And then. A month or so ago. I don’t know why. It all stopped working. The clinical trial. The miracle. I prayed to God. He felt very far away. I felt further.

Kellie died on December 14^th.  She was hardly forty. She was the best of the best. One of my dearest. I will mourn her forever and celebrate her always. She was nothing but my very favorite adjectives, and she always will be.  

And it is because of Kellie that I will be moving back to the country one day. There was a moment, the day of the Newtown shootings, that I thought I wouldn't. That I couldn't. Hours later, on the same horrible day, I learned about my sweet friend and I knew I definitely would.

I don't know what it's like to lose a close friend when you're right next to them. But I do know it's profoundly and unbearably painful to lose one when you're not. The inevitability of life is death, and I want to be there for it all.  

The last text Kellie sent me was a week before her death. “Hi, beautiful girl!!!!!!” Three words, six exclams, all love. That was Kellie.  

So.  

I miss you, beautiful girl!!!!!!

I so very much do.  

One of our many birthdays we were so lucky to celebrate together.
Kel is the beautiful smile in the upper right corner.