Maybe we should blow up the moon
Six confessions from a rare brain: Nazis, nuns and Damon Albarn's cat.
It's my six-year Strokiversary! Inspired by the Pope whizzing past our bins, here are six confessions. Paired with newish things worth reading, watching and listening to.
The first time I interviewed Foo Fighters, Taylor Hawkins leaned in and whispered, “You’re a pretty camera lady.”
The crew were adamant I’d misheard.
“He said sweaty.”
I blamed my faulty thermostat, with no idea – then – how true that was.
For those new here: six years ago, a raspberry-shaped malformation was discovered in my brainstem. A leaky tangle of blood vessels has gone rogue in my pons. It’s called a cavernoma. I call it Clusterfuck. Even the world’s best neurosurgeons can’t remove it for fear of turning me into slop. This makes me incurable, inoperable and unsurprisingly, unhinged.
It also means I run hot.
If the secret to a good joke is timing, having a stroke at the height of a pandemic is comedy gold – arguably my finest moment.
Despite this mind-blowing diagnosis, I’m generally upbeat, masking legit fears of another bleed with tumour humour. However, this anniversary, I’m fired up.
Spain is an inferno. Fried baby birds are plopping onto our terrace like the frogs in the final scene of Magnolia or those blackbirds that nosedived to their deaths in Mexico. Yesterday, a dove flew into our window.
Portents? The last time a swift flew into our apartment, I swiftly had a stroke the following day.
Avian apocalypse aside, let's get into it, as the kids say. Six confessions to mark the sixth anniversary of my brain trying to kill me.
‘I’m breaking, I hide it well. Cause I can’t afford to replace the shell.’
– James Blake, ‘Trying Times’
Random revelations and recommendations
CONFESSION 1
THERE’S A NUN IN MY POCKET
Two weeks ago, I joined 130,000 pilgrims frying outside the Sagrada Família while we waited for the Pope.
Why? Because a blessing from him is iconic – and I'm chronic. (And agnostic, but I'll hedge my bets with all your gods.)
As I frotted against nine nuns, our habits colliding, I noticed they were glowing, but not with sweat. With serenity, belief. Hope, even?
After an hour in the crush, a cheeky nun winked and slipped me a prayer. I briefly mistook it for a business card. Then she gave me some intel: “Papa León is running another 42 minutes late, you should escape for a drink. This isn’t my first rodeo.”
Sista was bang on with 42. So I’ve tucked Madre Maria into my phone case for luck.
Actually, I don’t believe in luck. You make your own.
My grandfather was a spy. He killed Nazis with his bare hands – I can’t tell you more or I’ll have to kill you.
A child refugee who arrived in London from Germany on Kindertransport with “just enough money to buy a stamp”, he later became bodyguard to two prime ministers: Churchill and Attlee.
Papa was hardcore, paragliding into enemy territory and donning a Nazi uniform on covert missions. He liked the feel of Hugo Boss. “British wool is too scratchy.”
Maybe it was the uniform’s fabric that inspired his career in textiles? You can still buy John Langford of London shirts today. There are a lot of things I wish I’d asked him.
Papa tells his story to the Imperial War Museum → listen and read.
Mum says, in times of need, we should hold our hands up to the heavens and ask Papa for help. This is the man who used to give advice like, “If you don’t accelerate, you won’t need to brake.” He also told me to eat more roast potatoes.
But I’ll take all the help I can get. I think about mortality every. single. day.
Next year I turn 50. I’m buffering – and so are you. We scroll through illusions while the PayPal Mafia prepares for WWIII. Our brains are broken. So I’ll press Enter here.
And again.
Just to make you pay attention.
The only thing left is for aliens to fuck with us. Lord knows why they’d bother.
A FEW EXISTENTIAL NUGGETS
→ Film: Amores Perros – Because life’s a bitch. Back in cinemas, remastered.
→ Podcast: Time Sensitive – Leading minds on connection in our frenzied world.
→ Album: Inferno, Boards of Canada – Existential rising synths and brainwaves.
→ New single: Voyager, PJ Harvey – Contemplates our pale blue dot.
→ Book: Traversal, Maria Popova – What is life? What is death? Exactly.
→ Series: For the Record: An Incomplete History of Music – From the Big Bang to AI.
→ Podcast: Star Talk – Do aliens have a sense of humor? Is comedic timing a universal constant? Cosmic stuff from astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. Check out ‘Your brain on ChatGPT’ and the latest with Spielberg. “They’re here.”
CONFESSION 2
I STOLE DAMON ALBARN’S CAT
And called her Spoon. After two years, I discovered that she was a he, and he was called Christopher. And he was not mine.
Life was blurry, then. And it's surprisingly hard to see cat dick.
At the time, I lived next door to Damon Albarn’s parents in a converted Victorian school in Hackney Downs. One morning after the MTV party the night before, I woke up naked with a cat curled around my left tit. Hence the name, Spoon.
Keith and Hazel didn't spend all their time in their London pad. They also lived in a house, a very big house, in the country. (sorry.)
When Damon launched Africa Express, I’d play Tinariwen with the windows open in the hope they’d invite me over for Christmas and Damon and I would fall in love. We did not.
We’ve just found out we have to move out of our Barcelona apartment after nearly a decade here. I’m trying not to panic by reminding myself I’ve always been good at finding epic places to live.
In my twenties: a ‘caravan of love’ in Tākaka, New Zealand on an acre of Golden Bay land with a butcher and a baker. No joke, I was a candlestick maker.
In my thirties: a double penthouse in Buenos Aires with a tree growing through it. Paid for by voicing soft porn on Playboy TV. I’d ‘cum’ down a mic on a Monday morning, while Argentine producers would yell, “¡Más caliente, más sexy, más hot! We do not believe you are touching yourself!” I was not.
In my forties: an apartment in Barcelona with the world’s best terrace, which only bloody faces the world’s tallest church, recently blessed by Papa León and his MIBs.
As I stare down another move, with no idea what direction to go, I hope I land on my feet. Like Spoon.
GET LOST
→ Online: Exploring Journeys – A cool collection considers art that journeys inspired.
→ Book: London Falling, Paul Challenor – Part love letter to a changing London.
→ Game: CatchCat – A coder just created Pokémon for cats you meet IRL. Meow.
CONFESSION 3
HANTAVIRUS EXCITED ME
Just for a moment, ok? I enjoyed lockdown and love going full goblin.
Has anyone else fallen down a Tristan da Cunha rabbit hole? A cruise-loving islander developed severe symptoms and had to be airdropped supplies. Which sent me down a rabbit hole. The South Atlantic island is the world's most remote inhabited archipelago. I've read everything on its government website.
The civilian population (around 220 inhabitants) descends from a few shipwrecked sailors and military men who settled there in the early 1800s. Almost everyone shares seven last names: Glass, Green, Hagan, Lavarello, Repetto, Rogers and Swain.
Idyllic or a folk horror film?
On New Year’s Eve, the men dress as Okalolies, masking up for a tradition they call ‘mumming’. They roam the village chasing, frightening and soaking the women and children with water.
Horror it is.
Their community noticeboard reminds me of when I used to present the Golden Bay police report on community access radio in New Zealand. These are just some of the things I had to read out with a straight face, in exchange for having an old hippie teach me how to edit audio:
‘A sheet metal fish was stolen from outside a caravan. Could said item be returned, no questions asked.’
‘Milk money thefts have been reported.’
‘Damage in the high school! A hand on a clock was bent. Also a red car was seen doing burnouts on the tennis courts.’
Right now, I want to run away from ‘civilisation’. Can this city girl cope with going full pueblo or moving to an island again?
ISLAND OBSESSIONS
→ Watch: Widow’s Bay – Quirky new comedy-mystery series about a cursed island with Matthew Rhys.
→ Article: ’Tristan da Cunha: The busiest place you’ve never seen’ and ’The Okalolies of Old Year’s Night’ – NPR on mumming traditions and more.
→ Radio: Desert Island Discs – A reminder this iconic classic still exists.
CONFESSION 4
I HAVE ONE BALD EYE
It feels absurdly vain to give a shit about this, in light of the Very Bad Thing living in my brain. A few years ago, I lost all my eyelashes on one eye, thanks to alopecia areata triggered by diagnosis-induced PTSD. Just call me Lisa Left Eye.
My mate has a theory:
“Nobody notices your bald eye because they’re too distracted by the shit coming out of your mouth.”
Every morning, I squint into a 20x magnifying mirror, half-blind, painstakingly applying eyeliner to mask what’s missing. It forces macro-reality: giant pores, rogue hairs, asymmetry, exhaustion. A daily reminder that things are not alright.
It does something to you, that level of scrutiny. Forced hypervigilance bleeds into how you see others too. I acutely see through people – and we are not cute.
Turn the mirror on yourself for long enough and it turns into paralysis. That’s exactly why I’ll never write what is now referred to as “the fucking book”. I’m scared that people would only read it if I die.
I’ve spent decades writing scripts, magazines, books and now ads, for my sins. That’s more than 25 years helping other people promote themselves and tell their stories – pop stars, conservationists, activists, astrophysicists, even one president – why the hell can’t I finish something of my own?
When I do, a few of you are so gonna get it. Sleep with one eye open.
‘You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.’ – Anne Lamott
A FEW MEMOIRS
→ I Shoot Rock Stars, Tim Pope – Looking forward to this dirty little memoir from the video director whose work is synonymous with MTV’s glory years. Out Aug.
→ The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Oliver Sacks – The brain, visual agnosia and perception.
→ Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott – Unpretentious look at writing without losing your mind.
→ How to Synthesize the Future – I edited this. Hence synth puns.
CONFESSION 5
IT’S THE BRAIN OR THE VAGINA
Have you ever wondered what your therapist scribbles while you talk? I photographed my shrink’s notes last week while she popped into another room.
Sí, I do therapy in Spanish. Which means she doesn’t know the half of it.
Right now, I’m in a precarious window. Brainstem cavernoma has a charming habit of rebleeding five to ten years after the first haemorrhage. And it hates hormone fluctuation.
Right now, I don’t know what’s peri, panic or pons.
Hormones or haemorrhage? Spin the wheel! Which will atrophy first: the brain or the vagina?
In one of my fave eps of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David accuses Michael J. Fox of shaking a soda on him, asking, “Is Fox an arsehole or is this Parkinson’s?”
You could ask the same of me: “Is she a cunt or is it the cav?”
A cunt. Hell hath no fury like a perimenopausal woman with a broken brain, without an air-conditioned Rick Owens tracksuit.
SICK NOTES
→ Memoir: Famesick, Lena Dunham – Astute account of chronic illness and addiction.
→ Memoir: Glittering a Turd, Kris Hallenga – September sees the re-release of the inspiring legacy of the CoppaFeel founder.
→ Series: The Mother of All Cons and Scamanda – The Beeb is going hard with true-crime fake brain tumour medical cons.
→ Memoir: You With the Sad Eyes, Christina Applegate – Written from bed with an incurable neurological condition. As she puts it: ‘You. Will Never. Understand.’
CONFESSION 6
I DRINK TOO MUCH
And lie to my neurosurgeon about it.
I’m no Bartlett, but I have a complicated relationship with booze. It’s my longest-running toxic trait. I gave up smoking and the rest after the stroke. But still love wine and occasionally plopping my face into a bowl of bourbon.
I would blame living in Barcelona, except my mum-mates in Leytonstone are still off their tits, so it’s just the way we are. Other than the sober ones, and good on you.
The first sign I’m having another brain bleed? I’ll seem drunk, with slurred speech, confused, disinhibited and disoriented.
Good luck spotting that.
SOBER CURIOUS?
Need to cut down? I asked Nika Shevela from Lagom Somm, an event and discovery platform for alcohol alternatives, for a couple of cool resources. Here’s what the Barcelona-based pét-nat socialist suggested.
→ Subscribe: Dry Atlas – Directory for discovering the latest non-alcohol trends.
→ Join: Club Soda – UK-based community with refreshing stance on rethinking drinking.
My Strokiversary itself was awesome. Friends came together for an impromptu party in an art gallery in Poblenou. One turned up with a brain sculpture by Berlin artist Tim van den Oudenhoven (above), who’s exhibiting at Disseny Hub.
You’re solid gold, you lot.
Dear Clusterfuck, thank you for still allowing me to be fabulous (occasionally), to gallivant around Europe (profusely) and to have absurd adventures (always). Kudos for keeping me jolly in a dark world, while letting me see what others can't.
And for letting me love and be loved by the world’s best person. Saint Antony (as my family call him), always by my side, keeping my madness from tipping into sadness. Never losing his cool when the remote control turns up in my knicker drawer and I shamelessly play the brain damage card.
We don't know what next year brings, where we'll be living, whether my nervous system behaves itself, where the remote control ends up – hell, who the PM will be. But I do know it’s time to have more parties.
Enough about me, what do you want to confess? Surely one of you has stolen a celebrity's cat.
Goldapple x
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BRAINSTEM CAVERNOMA FOR DUMMIES
Resembling a raspberry, a cavernoma is a cluster of abnormal blood vessels. It’s more common than you’d think – an estimated one in 600 of us hosts this extraordinary beast. For most, it’s a harmless, silent guest. Problems only arise if its thin walls burst, rendering it volatile.
Brainstem cavernomas are especially rare and dangerous. The brainstem is the thumb-sized hub where all nerve endings converge. Within, the pons controls critical functions like speech, walking, breathing and swallowing.
It is also the most treacherous terrain for surgery. Even the most accomplished brain surgeons risk frying vital wiring and frazzling nerves. As the likelihood of disability after surgery is 60+%, they don’t rush in, even though a second brain bleed will be far more catastrophic and unpredictable.
Bottom line: It’s chronic, incurable and inoperable.
At my annual MRI, my neurosurgeon looks at me sadly and tells me to “try and lead a nice life”.
Read my story: Mind Blown →
Read these next. One went viral on LinkedIn, of all places:
The white lie that landed me a job at MTV →
I went on a date with David Schwimmer →
I wrote a book about the future →
The Girl with Kaleidoscope Eyes →
Disclaimer: If there are typos, I blame brain damage. It’s one of the genuine perks.
While living on a little island in Indonesia, we started caring for a sleepy stray ginger puss who would hang around the dive shop I worked at. We called "her" Lulu as there were no apparent bits, only to learn later on that we knew very little about gendering a cat. We tried switching to Leo, but it was too late: Lulu he/she remained. I doubt that he/she gave a fig.
Top tales, as ever, Lisa. Do persist.