As I tussled with whether I should rest or work on a new magnum opus on Friday night after my re-rediagnosis (geez, that’s catchy), my dear friend Rosa reminded me that since only two nights before, I was onstage in Soho pouring hot wax on a lovely girl named Gemma, I could probably rest.

Two nights before, I was onstage in Soho pouring hot wax on a lovely girl named Gemma.

My wonderful friend Emily performs in a Cabaret club – I know her because she’s my pole dance instructor (yep, you read that right, Jen, the person with half her shoulder cut out does pole dancing. And it’s my favourite thing), but we’ve become friends outside of that. I love her. She’s another Aussie, though we are both just so in love with london.

So last week I finally got to go see her perform with another absolutely fantastic Australian friend of hers. Seriously, these two are so damn hot, it’s ridiculous. I enjoyed it SO much.

Anyway, Emily came and sat with me for a bit before the show, while they were waiting to start and another performer came over and Emily introduced us. Her name was Gemma, and she asked if I wouldn’t mind going onstage during her act and pouring some hot wax over her.

‘No, no…. No.’
Panic answer.

I made excuses for why I couldn’t do it. I’m not great in low light, you see. I’ve recently lost my eye. Well, I haven’t lost it, that would be irresponsible. It was removed along with the cancer growing in the bones in my face.

This is true.

But mostly it was a cover for avoiding the awkwardness of the situation. I hate audience participation. I’m a performer myself, I love being in front of an audience. But on my own terms. I’m not good when put on the spot.

So I said no, and she was fine about it. But her face dropped. She said she’d find someone else to ask, and we both looked around at the audience to see her options. Then I thought: come on Jen, you can do this. You’ve survived worse. So I told her I would. I could see the relief all over her face, knowing she didn’t have to ask any of the drunk creepy men to do it. She talked me through it, she even asked the lighting person to make sure the stage wasn’t too dark.

And you know what? I had an absolute ball. She was sexy as hell and although the mixture of my numb hands and lack of depth perception made it interesting trying to grab candles off her in the low light without spilling them before I was ready to pour them across her chest and bum, we got there.

I also got fed red wine by a sexy man dressed as a priest while he straddled me. I mean what more could you want for a Wednesday night?

WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE!!!!

I don’t have any great message to share with this other than like… Do some fun things because you never know when a cancer re-rediagnosis will force you to rest, and you’ll wonder if you’ve done enough in your life and hopefully you won’t have to look back much further than the Wednesday just past to remind yourself that yeah, you have really been living.