Before I Sing You This Song

18 July 2026

Dear Diary, 

Remember back in 2016, when I was just dipping my toe into writing. 

I had a writing mentor.

A short story won a prize with Writers Victoria.

I was always shirking from the shame of not being able to spell, dreadful with grammar and no idea about tense.

Doesn't matter.

 My writing mentor said. 

That's what editors are for.

What matters is you can tell a cracking story..

I'd been doing comedy for about a decade. Wrote a few shows. Delivered a few workshops. 

And couldn't shake the comedy outta my system, no matter how many gigs and shows I did.

Out of nowhere this reunion of old school mates from Sunderland happened in Melbourne. We had dinner together and at the end of the meal one of my mates said..

Let's watch The Little Waster. Bobby Thompson, comedy hero in Sunderland. Bobby did the same two acts for thirty years. Everyone in Sunderland has a favourite Bobby joke.

I'd not thought about Bobby for years. That night I woke in the middle of the night and I wrote, till dawn. The first chapter of what, ten years later would become Before I Sing You This Song.

Possessed is an understatement. I wrote, I researched, I went back to Sunderland and met up with Bobby's son Keith and Pete Peverley who did a tribute show about Bobby.

And I kept wondering.. where were all the women back then in the 1970's in England.. surely there were some funny women.

And no doubt there were, but women couldn't be members of working men's clubs and women could only sing songs, not tell jokes..

And so I created Elsie Bishop, and the book Before I Sing You This Song, set in Sunderland in 1978, inspired by Bobby Thompson, is about a woman who wants to do comedy.

But comedy is a tough gig.

 Even tougher when you're a woman.

I went on to do a masters by research in creative writing on humour as a power construct in the wider gender based violence lens. 

Write two books. 

Move house four times. 

Leave a very very long marriage. 

&

Grimaced at the countless rejections for Before I Sing You This Song..  it's very Northern written in Pitmatic dialect.. too northern for this house..

Then a small but mighty publishing house in Sunderland said yes.. 

Let's bring Elsie Bishop to life.

Before I Sing You This Song is dedicated to all the housewives whose lives have been swept away under a rug..

Before I Sing You This Song

Launching 

Sunderland 

October 2026.

Dear Diary if I'd known it would have taken ten years to get this project over the line. I probably would have written a bit faster..

The Disappearing

 9 June

I went to a movie 

The Old Friend was there

With her friends 

Her husband

Her family

Old Friend

Not the Paul Simon kind 

Not the book end kind

An Old Friend

I see them

And other

Old Friends

And a little bit of me disappears

I cried that day

They said that to me

That I was not 

The kind of Jew they liked

I cried and cried

Wrote them a letter

The very next day

Sorry I said

sOrRy I said

in so many ways

Not good enough

Not Jewish enough

Not

I cried that day

& a little bit of me

disappeared

I see Old Friends

On trains

On streets

In cars

They look through me

And every time 

A little bit of me disappears

I smile less

I worry more

And a little bit of me disappears

Peseach comes

Rosh Hashanah goes

Chanukah the menorah and Bondi horror meld

Friends and families gather

No invitations sent

And a little bit of me disappears

Relationships

 20 November 2025

Dear Diary,

I wake up most mornings  wondering  if my relationship to money is making me ill?

I wake up anxious that I have no savings...

Today I went to a branch a bank to put some cash in -  the person at the counter asked me how I was and if I'd like to chat sometime about my finances.

I nearly cried.

I rarely go into branches..

I rarely chat with anyone about money..

Rarely chat to the person in a shop as I fumble over coins or notes

Just tap my card.. gather my items and leave

I try to to save, then another bill comes in or a creative endeavour arrives that I am compelled to pursue. The latest one is registering for comedy festival. $500 to register + venue + marketing + box office  + front of house costs + payment for a producer etc etc .. + the time to write the show and get bums on seats in a very busy market.

I have poured thousands of dollars  into creative endeavours over the years. The book coming out next year took ten years to write, I've spent thousands on editors, millions of hours on it when perhaps I shouldn't have.. but it is done and I wouldn't  trade the changes that happened to me on a deep cellular level for anything.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

SELF WORTH =

CREATIVE PROJECTS

CREATIVE WORTH =

FINANCIAL COMMITMENT =

LATE STAGE CAPITALISM STILL AIN'T PAYING  FOR CREATIVE ENDEAVOURS

Something like that...

COMEDY WORKSHOPS 

THE REST OF SLESS

BOOKS

 

Loneliness of The Blood

 25 October 2025

Dear Diary,

I always get a little teary on the way to the bloodbank

Kindness, great snacks and staff who look you right in the eye and listen will do that.

Red as a cardinal's cassock, blood leaves me.

One time I gave plasma.

    Felt woozy.

    Insisted I was fine.

    The nurse knew I wasn't.

    They are face whispers.

    Stay she'd said.

And so I did.

    Nurses cared about me.

I cried,

a quiet cry.

Then marvelled at the selection of snacks on offer. 

I make a morning of it now.

    Mitigating loneliness

            One 

            Drop 

            At a time.

On the way to the blood bank this morning 

At the intersection

A woman I once knew 

Passed me in her car

    We were friends.

Every day I wake up thinking

    How is this possible that we are no longer friends..

    Middle East, North, West & South

Ruby, Scarlett, Crimson, Vermillion

Blood flows red as a cardinal's cassock

    Into rivers and seas.

I pause at the traffic light

Wanting to ASK

I am on my way to the blood bank

If you needed blood

Would you ASK who donated this?

Because I know that we are a match.

AUTHOR COMEDIAN MC
JUSTINE SLESS
COMEDY STORE

Zymurgy The Last Word in the Dictionary

 

zymurgy /ˈzʌɪˌməːdʒi/ noun the study or practice of fermentation in brewing, winemaking, or distilling.

Boys 

Brew wars

Blood Ferments 

&

Loss is distilled

Through the narrow neck

Of the

Demijohn

AUTHOR COMEDIAN MC
JUSTINE SLESS
COMEDY STORE

Late to The Party

 

Dear Diary,

I am late to the party.

The woman sitting opposite me, furrowed brow, hair that could use a good cut and tissue box between us.. listens.

I tell her the story of 'that job.' The one where I felt nauseous every day, a head in a vice kind of feeling, paralysed by mental overload, unfathomable spread sheets, unable to undertake rudimentary office tasks with ease; unable to see errors in documents, incapable processing what is being said in the endless meetings and transposing those words into minutes and into columns. 

Unable to function.

Unable to pull on all my usual techniques of navigation, glide easily from the macro to the micro and distill information into salient points, unable to pull on my greatest asset - my charm, my ability to read a room within seconds and navigate incredible outcomes and events.

Swilling in disorientation, unable to apply the usual of approach of being able feel the end game on a cellular level and reach the goal effortlessly without having to say how I did it, knowing the navigation points without needing to name them.

I am late to the party.

Very late.

Failed exams again and again.

I can't spell many words.

I don't understand grammar.

I learned to write properly when I was 15.

Adapting to the right hand world in a left handed way.

I can not remember names.

I can not write down phone numbers without hearing it 3 or 4 times.

I can not contain more than one instruction when being given directions..

And I can not read large tracts of text on screens.

BUT

I have a super strength emotional intelligence and empathy that is off the charts.

I can see a suburb from a great height and know how to weave in opportunities for connection through government and organisations, without being able to say how I can do that.

I see and feel texts in shapes, particularly novels or essays.

I find creative approaches to everything, and that is everything to me.

I can cook with a finely tuned instinct, no recipes, just feeling the way the ingredients meld.

I get a strong feeling in my left hand that indicates there is flow and assurance that the desicion I am about to make is the right one.

I can distill large tracts of text into a few words.

I write creative works that are short and to the point.

The focus of all my work is on doing good work, creating connections, empowering others.

*

The woman sitting opposite me, in a small room on St Kilda Road, pushes the tissue box closer to me and asks..

Has it every occurred to you that you are probably dyslexic? 

The rush of relief comes strong and fast.

*

I'm sitting in the classroom knowing that I will fail at everything..

A sister taunts me for not being able to spell.

A workplace admonishes me for not being able to take minutes in columns and for not being able to see errors in all that I have written.

 *

I want to write I really do.

I sit opposite my writing mentor back in 2016..squirming.. I tell them, I want to write - but I can not spell and I don't understand grammar or tense. My head is bowed with shame.

You can tell a story, that's all that matters. The rest of it an editor will fix, the mentor reassures me.

*

The dictionary definition of dyslexic surely must be

To carry shame, about the things you can't spell.

*

I am late to the party.

I write some stories.

I complete a masters by research in creative writing.

I publish two books.

The anxiety that there may be errors in each book is nauseating.

*

I find a podcast, Lessons in Dyslexic Thinking

I listen to episode after episode as I walk for miles, stopping sometimes,  tears of relief springing when I hear famous people talk about their dyslexia.

The host describes dyslexic thinking, and astonishingly declares in every episode, that being dyslexic is a super power and employers value dyslexic traits.

*

I am 58.

I am late to the party.

I crank up the music

And rise up from the mantle of shame...

JUSTINESLESS.COM
I TEACH WRITE PERFORM STAND-UP COMEDY & CREATIVE WRITING 

WORKSHOPS BOOKINGS HERE
BOOKS SOLD HERE 

The Talking Booths

 

When I was a kid I used to love taking a pile of pennies and going into a phone box to call cousins and ask if I could visit them.

The smell of a phone box, like damp cardboard.

Massive phone books, the A-Z of everyone who ever was. 

An encyclopaedia of names, we were all there.

A mess of brown bubbles, where someone tried to burn a hole in the window of the phone box. 

The phone books, crumpled and curled at the edges, like a thousand hands have searched for a mam they haven't seen for years, a cousin gone missing or maybe even a child they gave away.

The phone box was a whole world , away from the elements. 

Breath hot against the mouthpiece. 

I never thought about germs that could be harboured there.

Over time phone boxes were decommissioned.

*

In Australia there is an occasional hooded booth, where you can make free calls.

I was with a friend recently, waiting for a take away, they 'dared me' to make a prank call from a phone box. 

I rang my daughter, put on a silly accent and asked if they had ordered a vindaloo curry. For a moment it was just us caught up in the silliness of the prank, oddly exhilarating. 

*

Across the world pillar box red phone booth are reconditioned, made a little larger, a tiny table, two chairs. 

A simple instruction, JUST TALK. 

The only sign required.

The phone box becoming TARDIS like in its potential.

*

I read and re read Shrill Notes by a loud woman, passages about rape jokes told in bars fuelling the greater fire.. 

The man who trolled Lindy West ended up talking to Lindy. He changed. Lindy changed. 

*

Wars rage.

The world fragments again and again.

Before another missile is fired. 

Can leaders please make their way into a phone booth.

& 

JUST TALK

.

*

Job Interview Hack

 

A federal MP once described me as

'The James Bond of Community Workers.' 

I work with stealth.

I am fearless.

I trade in connection.

I hold a multiplicity of skills and bring each to the fore as required.

I can sit with a federal minister and advocate for change.

Or teach rooming house residents stand-up comedy, giving voice to the voiceless.

Years of writing and performing stand up comedy means that I am concise and decisive, in comedy every word matters.

I flow easily between the macro and micro.

Watching an audience respond to material, how it lands, where it can go and what needs work is a skill I apply easily to the workplace.

I bring wit and wisdom.

"You do a lot," I often get told..

It makes sense to me, all of it.

Social impact, an author, a humour academic - my area of research is humour as a power construct in the wider gender-based violence lens. 

I teach stand-up comedy enabling, fearlessness, resilience & connection through comedy. 

In job interviews I have learnt to apply the hack..

Fit in Before You Stand Out.

When I teach comedy 

I apply the hack..

Stand Out Before You Fit In.

justinesless.com

 

Diary of an NDIS Worker - countless days

 Dear Diary,

The last two weeks have been impossible - have had so many cancellations that my income has dropped to crazy low levels...

This is no longer sustainable.

I am also doing stand-up comedy workshops. https://justineslesscomedyworkshops.bigcartel.com/product/comedy-crash-course_ripponlea

Not feeling funny at the moment though.

Diary of an NDIS Worker Day 146

 7 April 2025

Dear Dairy,

The thing I love most about this work is that there are no meetings, I am never at the computer screen and that the accountability is way easier than a funding agreement.

I have enough work. The energy output can be tiring at times. Shifts can get cancelled and new shifts can be added.

C is still a constant - we are working on a creative project now - which gives great insight into her personality and process.

I shop for a lady - I am the only person she sees all week. We go through her list - it matters the type of bread I buy and the size of the potatoes I bring back too her.

I cook for a woman and her two kids. The work is good.

I see a woman who has a dog, we talk about food a lot -they have tried many diets. 

I am working with a woman who is writing a book. 

Another client we do gardening together, I am jealous of how great her compost is!

Nice to be working with care, connection, compassion and no tariffs.

Dairy of an NDIS Worker Day 102

 22 February 2025

Dear Diary,

C has been so much better lately, their mobility and headspace is good.

We talk across so much terrain.. we drive to appointments in my car.
Do 'car disco' songs that we love, singing together in imperfect harmony..

I am shopping too for a new client - elderly, frail, but mentally agile. 

I see others scouring the supermarket shelves for items in a way that denotes that the food is not for them.

We talk through their list before I shop, the client - A, is meticulous in their writing and description of the items they want.

It's astonishing to me that she cooks roast dinners, heats up soups and steams vegetables. And asks me to unpack their beers.

A doesn't go out ever. 

Their vacuum cleaner is old and frail like them. I run it over the hallway and in their bedroom. 

Take them fresh tomatoes from my vine.

Each time I shop it feels like an act of service and I am oddly anxious that I may not have got the precise item they requested. 

I brought the wrong bread last week - they response was so despondent that I rushed back to the supermarket to change it. 

This shopping after all means more to them than most.

Another client D - we cook together. They aren't confident, they put them selves down. I stand next to them saying you can do this, it's ok and what they cook always looks amazing..

I'm working with another client on their memoir.
Having had amazing mentors myself I apply that skill of 'walking along side someone'.. as they traverse the massive task of getting a story down, pondering each word and polishing each sentence... in the long and treacherous road to publishing... where self belief is everything..

So I am over a hundred days into this.. and my oh my I love the work..

Trump makes more and more preposterous pronouncements ..

Let's just see what he actually does.

my website has had a makeover..I'd love you to have a peak
justinesless.com

Diary of an NDIS Worker Day 81

 2/2/2025

Dear Diary,

As the heat began to build in Melbourne I was down at the allotments with a client.

We worked hard. Weeding and preparing a new plot.

There were plenty of people there today, for a working bee. 

There was plenty of wisdom there too.

Advice was plentiful on how to clear the plot, constant reminders to rest regularly and drink lots of water.

Good gardeners are great at reusing everything.

Each plot was filled with luscious vegetables and bright pink and orange flowers.

By eleven we were done. Sweaty, but satisfied with the work over the last couple of hours.

We returned tools and wheelbarrows. Had so many conversations about vegetables, the heat and general complimentary comments to each other on the work we had all done.

I came home.

Showered.

Made a lunch using the huge haul of tomatoes and cucumbers.

I came home thinking about the great Ted Lasso quote..

Smells Like Potential.

One of the best things about the community garden was there was zero screen action, zero AI and I didn't hear anyone talk about Trump.

For more go to justinesless.com

Diary of an NDIS Worker Day 74

 26/1/2025

Dear Diary,

Last week C had another fall.

I feel her health is failing rapidly along with her memory.

I am not sure that I am the right carer for her anymore.

I took a new client out for a cup of tea.

They are in a residential mental health facility.

They can leave the facility under supervision for 1 hour blocks 3 times a week...

The hour we spent together was joyful.

They recited poetry.

Tried on their new lipstick.

And showed me photographs from when they were married.

I spent a day with another client chatting and taking them to a medical appointment. It was fun and easy going.

I was contacted by a lady who wants me to help them with their novel on a weekly basis.. Of course I nearly cried .. what a time to be alive..

I registered with another agency.

Said no to an agency that only had clients living far from me. Continued to up the word count on the next book
Spruiked for freelance work.

Slow but steady.

Diary of an NDIS Worker Day 69

 22/1/2025

Dear Diary,

I have another client.

C has been a constant.

There are days when I am utterly exhausted.

There are days when the habit of looking for the shiny object, the better thing, the thing that will make me feel more successful or bring in more cash shine bright and I want to turn my full attention to that..

I worry about money a lot some days.

And others I just think well I can pay the bills this month, so all is well.

Sometimes I think I should be applying for a 'proper job,'and then I trawl through position descriptions and feel repulsed at the thought of having to demonstrate my ability, complete endless Key Selection Criteria only to be told thanks but no thanks, or worse still enter an environment where the workplace bully is allowed to stomp through the minds and crush the souls of all who work there..

It all just has to be ok.

And then I worry again, am I self sabotaging by working in a role that is casual and sometimes pays less than I am used to being paid..

And then a friend told me this great line..

'Worrying is just praying for something you don't want.'

When I started this Diary Trump had just won the election.

Now he's in office with a 2 gender rule.. 
and the Nazi salute is trending on twitter...

Diary of an NDIS Support Worker Day 56

 9/2/2025

Dear Diary,

This week I saw C twice.

The first time we sorted through their bedroom in readiness for a new bed.

I have never considered myself to be a patient person.

Maybe this is a new attribute.

I worked with a new client.

The best way to describe the work is psycho social support.

And whilst my income has dropped significantly I'm still happier and calmer than I have been in a long time.

Day by day.

That's all we got.

Diary of an NDIS Worker Day 49

 1.1.2025

Dear Diary,

Today I took a new client to an appointment.

We spoke a lot about incidental connection versus scheduled contact.

Sometimes it is the silence of a day, as debilitating as a shackle.

Sometimes it is the tinkling sound of a giggling child that can illuminate a day.

Sometimes a friend cancels, and the evening looms, a spectre of despair.

Diary of an NDIS Worker Day 37

 20/12/2024

Dear Diary,

A lot of people will be having end of year knock off drinks now, the last Friday before Xmas.

I'll go for a swim and have a beer at the bay afterwards.

I did the last shift for the year with C this week.

We went once more to the mall.

No natural light.

3 hours exchanging one item of clothing- taking everything off the rack so that C could see it properly. Then we bought some xmas decos. 

I gave C a gift and was a little sad not to receive one from them, for the times I put their earrings in, for the times I didn't say going to the mall isn't great for anyone's health - for the times I worked 8 hours straight, getting the room ready for their overseas guest.

When I was a kid I would chase through the streets because I could hear the ice cream van warbling.. sometimes I'd find it, stand on tip toes and get an ice cream with a flake pushed into the cone. Other times I'd turn back despondent as the sound of the ice cream van receded before I could find it.

 That's what it felt like driving home after the last shift with C.

I've wondered sometimes over the last few weeks if I should have taken out a bullying complaint - made it formal the way I felt when I had to leave the job.. sat there in that office, just me and my manager. Their face impassive as they advised me that some people didn't like me, that I was seen as a negative member of staff and the clincher that made me get my things and get the train straight home - that my sense of humour wasn't appreciated.

It cut deep - I felt like the chime of the ice cream van was so far away that I may never savour that feeling of standing on tip toe asking for a Mr. Whippy with a flake in it.. ever again.

When I drove home from C's I put on a classical music channel, I do that sometimes - because it makes me feel like it's a soundtrack and I'm in a movie..

We only know the person in front of us or behind us on the motorway when we collide. It is then that we get out of our cars, point angrily at each other, inspect the dints of damage, exchange details and let the insurance companies deal with the rest.

I like driving at 40kms per hour - not on the motorway of course, but along suburban streets. I like to watch crows tug on takeaway wrappers and craw at their greasy finds..

I like to imagine all the lovely things in op shops, all the people walking along who are lonely, not as lonely as those sitting in cafes in malls, but out the house, for something to do. I like strip shopping on high streets, where people know your name, nod and bring you your coffee, shops that let the weather in, damp feet from the rain, or grumbles of hot and bothered families seeking solace from the sun.

The working year is ended now.

My income over the last few weeks is half what it was in the 'awful job.' 

I've cleaned houses in the past, picked up glasses in bars, cooked in cafes, done some things just to tied me over, till the next thing comes along.

Because it will.. like the chime of the ice cream van.. it will come.

 

Diary of an NDIS Worker Day 35

 16/12/2024

Dear Diary,

I got two new clients.

A small amount of work.

A huge blessing!

Looking at what is trending on Twitter makes for an awful collection of words

Diary of an NDIS Worker Day 31

 12/12/2024

Dear Diary,

We spent three hours in the hospital, whilst C had their monthly session on a drip to boost their immunity..

On every floor of the hospital so many people patients, nurses, orderlies & doctors made eye contact.

The hospital is old in parts.

The medical waste gargantuan.

We sat C & I  whilst the liquid dripped into her bloodstream, and talked about marriages, children, families.. we played music loudly in the car on the way back to C's and jigged around in our seats - a semblance of a car disco.

The next day I went to the blood bank - the option of donating plasma seemed like a good idea.

But my blood flow was slow, maybe I was dehydrated.

So they couldn't do the whole extraction.

I wanted to leave immediately - mortified that my body had failed me. But I felt faint and had to sit, drink a lot of fluids, eat salty snacks and be cared for by a team of such kind people that I cried.

Diary of an NDIS Worker Day 29

 10/12/2024

Dear Diary,

Yesterday we finished prepping the room for the overseas guest.

It looked great.

As we went through the house C showed me a photo-book that friends had made her.

Her wedding.

Nights out.

Different hairstyles and colours.

Striking C was - back in the day.

But really it was only a year or two ago.

So different to who I see each shift.

And yet still there.