My baby is aliiiive! It’s real: an idea that I conceived to distract me while I was stressed and working dumb hours to get Not Much To Tell You ready for Metro Arts/Queensland Poetry Festival. I was struggling because my health hit one of its low periods a couple of weeks before the theatre season began. Cue panic attacks, clutching chai teas and wailing “WHY THE FUCK DO I DO LIVE PERFORMANCES, I AM CHRONICALLY FATIGUED.” With much scheduled rest time and Gatorade, I made it through the season! And stumbled giddily into my next project: this podcast.

Just A Spoonful is a fortnightly conversation between me (ME/CFS sufferer, professional goofball) and a guest – another young person who is living with chronic illness and/or disability. (It was going to be weekly but I am too bloody tired for that.) We talk about our day-to-day lives – how we live, what we live for. I don’t know any spoonies (good term, I recommend Christine Miserandino’s post on The Spoon Theory) who don’t do anything. For me, having a fraction of the energy a healthy person would have means that I am much more precious with it. I try to work on things I really love. This podcast is an excuse for me to find interesting people who are somehow coping with permanent challenges and chat to them about their lives and their interests and giggle into their awesome faces.

Much thank-you to the amazing Erin Michelle for illustrating the podcast artwork. She is a super talented artist and does commissioned artworks so you should check out her Etsy right now. (I particularly like her ‘Selfie While Crying In Public’. I was like, here is a person who knows how to be productive with life challenges.)

I am thrilled to have music by Anna O (‘Sleepless’) and Marksman Lloyd (‘Silver Magic Ships’) featured on each podcast episode. Their respective EPs are two of my fave EPs to come out this year and it’s ridiculous that they both said yes to me using their tracks. They’re both from Perth, too, coincidentally (my hometown makes great music).

Episode 1 of Just A Spoonful is online and ready for listens! I’m still working out the whole iTunes thing but you can listen to the SoundCloud file via the Just A Spoonful site: justaspoonfulpodcast.tumblr.com

My guest for the first episode is filmmaker, TV producer and general sasspot Steph Dower. Steph is an intern at The Edge (State Library of Queensland), producer of Her Untold Story on 31 Digital, and works as a film editor. She lives with a permanent disability, and does not think Mark Wahlberg is funny. We talk movies, Michael Bay, and ‘living’ on the Disability Support Pension.

Here’s a photo of Steph at work (centre):

Her Untold Story: fb.com/heruntoldstory31

I’m pretty excited about this new project! I hope it will bring some entertainment to everyone, plus comfort to those living with chronic medical conditions and feeling like they’re “missing out” on youth. Take heart. We are young and fully sick.