Untold Stories

you need some counselling or some anti-depressants or something.

2011-06-12T22:18:00.003+01:00

I only ever had one counsellor that i liked.
I had one once that looked uncannily like my mum.
That was baaad.
We just sat there in silence for the whole hour. I couldn't speak to her. there was no way anything was going to come out of my mouth. I just sat and squirmed inside, ripping myself apart, for not only had it come to this, but when it did, i could say nothing.
She didn't say anything either.
It was counselling deadlock. I believe this kind of counselling has a name... but who gives a fuck what it's called.
But there was another woman who i really liked. She lived in a beautiful converted farmhouse and she saw people in a specially adapted part of the farm buildings. It was a lovely setting, there were kids things all over the courtyard at the entrance. She was a bit older than me but not too much. She asked me why i was crying on our final session.
She said, " Is it because you think we've done some good work here?"
I wouldn't have put it exactly like that, but i nodded.
The important bit was though, that she said to me, " Inside of everything you have told me, can you see, that actually, it's quite rich?"
And i could, i can. I know exactly what she meant, and although sometimes that is no comfort at all, in other times, that is exactly what i know, above anything else, that actually, this is quite rich.

So, whats been happening with you then?

2011-02-28T11:16:00.009Z

I refer you to my post of 19th October 2008.
Two years and four months ago! Now i'm in that position that i mentioned. Looking back at that time and thinking, " okay.... was that really an uncanny prediction of the future or did i just somehow, in a really ridiculously roundabout way, make that stuff happen?'
Maybe you should decide? If i tell you the story then you can judge.

I'm still in my suburban house, but it definitely isn't as quiet.
The house is filled with music (five guitars at last count; a vinyl collection much bigger than my own). Conversations are a bizarre mix of ideas that fly around crashing into one another on a regular basis.
A daily routine of light and movement has established itself throughout the house.
It has been difficult and totally new to me and i am still taking time to readjust.
But you know what? This is the family that i sensed was coming on the 19th October 2008.

Dear Blog

2011-02-11T13:08:00.003Z

I've been meaning to get in touch for some time.
I have to confess though, i'm finally getting round to it for purely selfish reasons.
Recently i have felt the dark cloud descending. I'm finding myself awake in the middle of the night turning things over relentlessly in my mind. I feel sluggish, negative and fearful of the future.
And then i realised what i needed to do was to talk to someone, and in a typical fashion i chose to talk to you. Because you won't talk back. We have history but we don't have issues. The Agenda is mine and mine only - you have no items to add.
Looking at you now makes me just want to relive our whole relationship, consume it whole , relish it for the ideals that it offers.
I'm going a bit over the top now i know, but you will never be scared by the force of my feelings.
I can rely on you.
You will always be there when i need you.
It's all about me.

P.S. Thank you to my three followers!
It means a lot, thanks for your comments.X

Gentleman

2009-10-21T09:41:00.002+01:00

I was picking up a prescription from the chemist this morning when a man that i recognised came in. A man in his seventies held the door for the other man who is possibly a similar age.
"You're a gentleman sir! There's not many of us left," said the man whom i recognised.
I know the man because he lived near our old house. The house was on a really steep hill. i would see him regularly pushing his wife, who was in a wheelchair. He pushed her valiantly, in all weathers, up or down the hill, on whatever errand they were running.
One day i was on the street battling to cut the huge hedge at the front of the house. I made way for them to come past, and he found time to empathise with my hedge battle, saying, "It's the growing season isn't it love?"
i still see him around the area where my doctors surgery is. He is no longer pushing his wife.
I wanted to speak to him in the chemist. I paused as i was going to the door, but i couldn't think of what to say. He doesn't know who i am, i couldn't ask after his wife because i knew what the answer would be. What if i cry?
This simple thing, i couldn't do it, just make a bit of polite conversation with a man who indeed was a true gentleman.
I waited to hear his name as he asked for his prescription, and then i left.

Presence/Absence

2009-05-11T20:35:00.003+01:00

If i'm not writing on my blog for a period of time, it might be because i've met someone. There's a break between May 13th and September 25th last year because this guy contacted me through Facebook.
We messaged for a while but he asked me if i wanted to go out fairly swiftly. His personal circumstances at the time are way too complicated to relate here. So i won't.
Anyway we went out. I cried after our first date because he was so much more fragile in real life than he had seemed through the old social networking. I still decided to see him again however, and what followed was pretty intense from that moment. We maybe saw each other once a week, but spoke on the phone almost every day, had phone sex, text sex and sent videos and messages for each other on FB.
I just can't tell you the whole story but about three months later (three- it's the magic number) we fell out.
Within a matter of hours after the disaster that precipitated the end, he had removed all pictures of me from his Facebook account. He had wiped me out. It was such a weird feeling. Really painful and really harsh.
On having the post-fall-out 'what are we going to do now then?' connversation he agreed that was a little extreme. Further talks ensued along the lines of the 'maybe we could sort this out at some time in the future' variety. He'd left me a couple of dunken nasty messages that i had forgiven him for. Then a similar message appeared on his status update, for all our mutual friends to read. So i took him off my friend list and vowed never to conduct a relationship through Facebook again.

Happy Valentine

2009-02-14T22:20:00.002Z

This is fucking hilarious.
I just Googled this guy, thinking that i really wanted to tell you his name, but i'd just better check that he's not a famous photographer first.
Okay, he's not famous, but his website came up straight away.

So, i'll tell you the story anyway.
A small group of us took a selection of our degree show photographs to Germany. We showed our work in a disused chocolate factory that was being used as studios by a group of young artists. We even slept there.
The review in the paper said "There are no people in the photographs of Nina Chadwick."
On the exhibition preview night this huge German guy came to talk to me. I mean, he seemed like a giant to me at the time (i was 23 and a very average 5'5"). He also had the deepest voice i had ever heard in my life. I mean, it was one of those voices that rumbled through you at a somewhat disturbing bass level. I can't remember what we talked about, but he asked me for my phone number and i gave him it, probably because i was too embarrassed to say no.

Once we were back home, i forgot all about it. Until he rang me.
I was living back at my mums. I was mortified when she hands the phone over to me and says, "It's Valentin for you."
This is actually a bit of a shit story because i can't really remember the conversation in enough detail. I'm pretty sure he asked me if he could come over to England. What? In my mums house? That's not sophisticated enough for a trans-Europe affair. I must have put him off somehow. I can't remember if he called again. I was going to live in Manchester in a few weeks anyway......

Doctor

2008-12-16T23:34:00.004Z

I met this guy at a party when i lived in London. There were lots of pills going around and really good music.
We got chatting and there was a really good vibe in the room we were in. The party was winding down and most people in the room were doing the same. A guy wearing a luminous yellow jacket with the word PEACE on the back brought a tray in with a glass of water for each one of us on it.
He was (and still is i think!) my only ever one night stand. I told him that, but i don't think he believed me.
He told me i had a huge ribcage! Only a doctor could make that sound hot. And the morning after when i asked him if i could use his toothbrush, he said, "We just exchanged bodily fluids. Of course you can use my toothbrush."
Then he walked me to the bus stop. So sweet! He said "Look at us, all we need are some kids and a couple of dogs" (I'm allergic to dogs but i didn't tell him that as i was enjoying the mental picture).
He took my number but i heard nothing.
Ages afterwards at another party with the same group of friends, i saw him again. He said he had called my house and someone had told him there was no Nina Chadwick living there.
I had my suspicions as to which of the males in our house in Brixton might have done such a thing. When i first moved to London, i would ring up my friends at home and say, "You know that programme This Life, well i'm living in it!"
I gave him my number again, in eyeliner on his arm, but the moment had obviously passed.

Wish you were here

2008-12-07T19:43:00.003Z

If you were here, i think we would have definitely gone out for a something to eat on Friday. Then we would have followed some good food, with even better sex. Probably just lain around reading the papers in bed on Saturday, with even more sex (as the sun shone into my bedroom). Tonight we would most definitely have been going to see the Vivian Girls at the Cockpit.

Note to self: must remember not to let the ones that get away become larger than the real-life loves.

On that subject however!!!.... As my current love-life is a bit dull, i thought i could tell you a few tales about some others that got away. These are a non-chronological mix of guys that i either did or didn't end up having a relationship/sex with. All they have in common is that for various reasons 'it didn't work out'.

There was this guy at a wedding that i was photographing. He was the guy who wasn't supposed to be there; a friend of a work colleague of the bride. Bizarrely, he had the same name as a prominent political figure in the middle east. Obviously i can't tell you who that was (just in case). I thought he was taking the piss when he told me.
He said he liked my hair (which was cropped pretty short at the time). He also said it had always been his dream to build his own house and to have a vegetable garden so his kids didn't have to eat chemicals. I felt like i'd been read like a book. Were my desires written all over me, or was that a complete coincidence that his idea of heaven was pretty damn close to mine? I gave him my number, but when he rang, i didn't answer the phone.
I have no explanation for this, but absolute fear. He was good looking, young and successful, easy to talk to and very interested in me. I was shitting myself, i couldn't even face the thought of talking on the phone, never mind going on a date. One of my friends called me a masochist when i told her that story.
I wonder what he's doing now.

Well obviously eating organic fucking carrots with a brood of well fed kids milling round him (none of whom have got holes in their socks)!

Keep tuned in for more of my spectcularly unsucessful love-life.X

Narcissist

2008-11-30T20:32:00.005Z

In today's Guardian Oliver James laments that the 'youth of today' "are getting much more self-centred arrogant and disrespectful". His evidence is an American study that measures narcissism through surveys from 1979 to 2007. Apparently there was an increase of 30% during that period!!!!
James ends his article with the time-worn cliche that we'd better watch out lest "the egos of our youth have not been falsely inflated to the same degree as our American cousins."
THAT IS THE TIREDEST JOURNALISTIC CLICHE THAT GETS WHEELED OUT IN THE BRITISH PRESS WHEN THEY WANT TO GIVE THE NATION A PAT ON IT'S AGING BACK. It is a simplistic polarising of British versus American moral states; always used as a scare tactic, in that smug British fashion that just makes me want to leave the country.
He suggests also the increase in narcissism is "much greater in women than in men".
Oh dear Mr. James, women getting above their station, eh?
As he describes it, "There is an inflated self-estimation, imagining yourself to be cleverer and more attractive or powerful and compelling than is truly the case."
A bit like the over-inflated opinions of those lucky enough to be on The Guardian payroll perhaps Mr. James?
I would just like to offer the esteemed gentleman an alternative explanation. As a hardened adult narcissist myself (blogging, and indeed compiling a book about "me, me, me". Indeed, obsessed with my own love-life and the weaving together of all those everyday details that make me who i am.) For the record i am neither an "unreliable romantic partner, aggressive, prone to commit assault and white-collar crime, anti-social or selfish". But then perhaps that's my "distorted perceptions of my own abilities" to paraphrase.
My explanation is that perhaps the youth of today have been lucky enough to grow up with nurturing parents (again, as i like to think of myself). Parents who have learnt that the most important thing to a child's development-unlike those who grew up in the 70's and 80's- is it's self-esteem, and who have spent the first years of their child's life telling them that they can damn well be anything that they want to be, and that to love yourself is an absolute pre-requisite for being loved in return.

Children in Need

2008-11-17T21:56:00.004Z

I'm a victim of my own over-indulgence in Radio 2.
Listening to Terry Wogan's 'Things that Money Can't buy' auction to raise money for the above on my way to work.
It could perhaps (more truthfully) have been called "Things that only money can buy.'
I'd like to know, just who is it that can afford to pay TEN THOUSAND POUNDS to take part in an episode of the BBC's Springwatch???
TEN THOUSAND POUNDS?? It takes me about eight months to earn that. I want to know, who are these people who've got that kind of money spare? Not even spending it on a round the world trip, or an extension on your house, or a small car....just spending it on a day out with Bill Oddie????
My social circle must be really limited, because no-one i know has that kind of money just lying around to give to charity. I want to know how they got it, where did it come from, and where did i go wrong? Is it something to do with where i live? Are the other half all huddled up in some secret location in the Cotswolds, keeping their money making secrets to themselves?
And that indulgence was modest. Someone paid about (was it 30 or 50 grand?) for a guitar lesson with Mark Knopfler.
For fucks sake. I must be really naive and i'd like to stay that way, otherwise the worlds imbalance between rich and poor would be just too much for me. I need to go live in a teepee because it's all wrong isn't it?
I heard someone say that giving to charity is a substitute for actually doing things in the world. So nurses, teachers and social workers, keep your wallets tightly shut. You've done your bit, let the other half do theirs.

Freak

2008-10-26T19:41:00.004Z

Once in a while I set myself weird little challenges in my love life.
About five or six years ago, i decided to go and see Derren Browns live show with some friends. I bought two tickets so that i had to ask someone on a date- otherwise the ticket would be wasted.
We bought the tickets months in advance, so i thought it would be a pretty safe bet (although i'm not great at asking people on dates- hence the challenge).
A week before the show i met a guy at a Faversham reunion. He knew some people i knew, he was funny and a familiar type of guy (like the guys i went to school with). I emailed him after the night, but he made some excuse, and clearly wasn't interested. There was only one day before the show and so i sat next to an empty seat. The show was excellent, and at least i asked someone.....

Today i remembered that i have put a note in my electronic 'To-do-list' in my phone.
A couple of months ago (probably when i got a new phone) i made myself a note to find love by the 26th October at 9.00am.
Only three days to go then! No pressure!
A girls got to find something to amuse herself. I don't know what that's all about.

Someone to love and look after us

2008-10-19T21:20:00.003+01:00

I can feel a similarity between how i feel now, and another period in my life. How i feel now, is eerily reminiscent of how i felt, living in London, a few months before my son was born.
I can remeber it so clearly. Sitting in the downstairs room of the flat i shared with my sister. We'd had a couple of great parties in that flat. The downstairs room was open plan, solid floored with a patio door onto our garden which was not overlooked.
I was on my own and sick of my own company. I had even started buying weed (as oppossed to smoking other peoples). Getting stoned on my own after work, wondering why my love-life was such a mess and realising that something had to change. And on New Years Eve, at the Dogstar on Coldharbour Lane, boy did it.
There are no material similarities. Now i'm sitting in the burbs, in my hometown, and it is also deathly quiet. I haven't smoked for years and over the last 12 months (following some symptoms too closely related to my panic attacks of two years ago) i have stopped drinking alcohol. I'm on my own, my son is upstairs sound asleep, and i realise that soon, i will be looking back on this period and things will be very different.
I'm not sure where i will be, but it won't be so quiet. There'll be more music and more conversation, there'll be more movement and more light. It will be difficult and totally new to me, i will take sometime to re-adjust, but it will be the family that i have been looking for since i was sixteen years old.

Letters of Love

2008-09-25T21:30:00.004+01:00

I think i had forgotten what my blog was for.
Tonight i remembered that it was originally about saying those things that, for whatever reason, i was not able to say in person.
So here goes; this story goes way back, before any of this blogging business, before finding myself working in an office. I'm pretty sure it was 2003.
A friend had asked me to photograph her wedding (this is always tricky- not quite a guest and not quite a professional).
This is what i want to say to you, to explain, to make clear after all the crazy things i may have said that i did not mean. This is how it happened. This is how i feel.

PART ONE

I hadn't really thought about whether you would be there or not. I was too busy with the technicalities of the event and the two positions i would be occupying at once during the weekend. But when you weren't there, i felt your absence in a way that was an absolute revelation to me. Ten years since we met, i did not believe myself to have any attachment to you aside from that history that you have with those people with whom you spend time with in the period before you have any responsibilities to houses or loved ones or children.
But when you weren't there, i felt it. It was the first time it had ever occurred to me, that although the people surrounding me at this wedding were now my friends also, i wouldn't know any of them if it weren't for you. I found myself wondering what i was doing here when you weren't.
I found myself talking about you to one of your friends. We talked about you in glowing terms. All the wonderful things about you suddenly seemed so clear and so present and so missed. I had always taken for granted the way that you took me into your circle of friends and asked for nothing in return. You could not have known at the time, but that was exactly what i needed at that time in my life- to be part of a family that was not my own, to not be in the place that i was when you met me, and to not be alone, to be safe in the crowd.
You did not do this knowingly i'm sure. It was just a by-product of the way you do things, of the way you move through your life.
I saw you shortly after the wedding and found myself (uncharacteristically) telling you that we had all missed you. This was the closest i could get at the time to the truth, which was that i had missed you, after ten years, for the very first time.

Century

2008-05-13T21:01:00.006+01:00

This is my one hundreth post!
To bring us up to date, here's what's been happening.
This girl got made redundant.
Another agency got me a decent amount of work in this PRU teaching art.
I can't tell you how it feels to walk into a classroom as a kid walks out saying, "I don't fucking want you to teach me. Fuck off. Where's our proper teacher?", and for that same kid, to have written a poem by the end of the hour.
I can't tell you how it feels to get the boy who stands with his head to one side, looking into the middle distance of the floor, to join in your lesson by answering a few questions on a worksheet if you write them down for him.
Neither can i tell you how it feels to be offered a job and to hear that you were (by far) the best candidate, and would you like to start working with kids 'who cannot access mainstream education' in two weeks time?
I just can't tell you.
There are some things that i just can't tell you.

I need a miracle

2008-03-23T09:29:00.005Z

So, it's five years since the start of the war in Iraq and the Turin shroud might NOT be a fake.
I remember twenty years ago watching the programme that used carbon dating to 'prove' the shroud was a medieval hoax (those medieval pranksters and their smart-ass production of the first photographic image!). I added this revelation to my burgeoning list of "Things which confirm my suspicions that Catholicism is vicious lie".
Now it seems, the carbon -dating test may have been contaminated by various environmental factors, and indeed this may place the shroud as early as the first century. A conspiracy theorist might say, that maybe someone is desperately trying to revive Christianity in an Easter-themed production starring Rageh Omaar, who actually looks more like Christ should have looked than the Robert Powell imprint on that cloth. After all, Jesus of Nazareth, born in Palestine, was just as likely to be dark-skinned with curly black hair etc. etc.
Whatever it's origin, the shroud is interesting in that no one can work out how it came to host that image. I like that. In the absence of religion, i obviously need some unknowables in my life. Imagine a world where we understood everything! No mysteries to solve, no reason to keep on learning-dull as ditch! But when we come to a point where we can't explain; whether we call it God, or alien intervention , or the forces of nature we are up against the same barriers to "the truth".
Now excuse me, while i go to hell in a hand-basket.

Proposal

2008-03-12T18:23:00.003Z

Well, February the 29th came and went and i couldn't think of anyone i would like to propose to.
Not anyone i have actually met, anyway.
If i had happened to bump into Toby Kebbell, i might have asked him. Such a talented actor and so HOT!
As the manager of Joy Division, he was the most convincingly 'Northern' character in Anton Corbijn's film Control. He was hilariously northern in fact, which was a welcome relief from the otherwise sobering material in the film.
He was also incredibly, heart-rendingly good in Jimmy McGovern's The Street. His was the episode where he played a young man who had been released from prison after a sentence for murder, and was faced with the daughter of the woman who had died. The dialogue between the two was so well done, and could so easily not have been. It was free of cliche which i admired - so well written and played by both characters.
So, yes, i would definitely ask Toby Kebbell to marry me.

Real/Fake

2008-02-19T08:31:00.005Z

So, i've got a couple of hours a week at my Big Break Job. To make this viable i am also doing supply in education.
Yesterday i got assigned another Pupil Referral Unit. One of the kids started off the day by systematically working his way along a row of windows and ripping the handle mechanism backwards until it cracked. By 10.30 he was going ballistic and was in the cooling off room. They asked me to take over door duty from a male member of staff: this involved holding the door handle to the room so that he could not move it up or down. In order to hold the handle securely i had to brace myself against the door. The kid was alternating between booting the door from the other side and yanking the handle up and down. The pane in the door was boarded to head height, so i could not see inside. Above that the remainder of the pane was reinforced plastic. At one point he put his hands up to the clear plastic and started peeling off a layer of glue from round the edges. His hands look like baby hands (he is after all only twelve years old). Then he went back to yanking the handle.
"Let go of the fucking door or i swear i'm going to fucking kill you when i get out."
I had already decided it was best to keep quiet. With both hands i could just about keep the handle horizontal.
"Your mum's a fucking prostitute. Your mum's a fucking prostitute on fucking prostitute street. Get off the fucking door you slag."
He stops pulling the handle and there's quiet for a minute. Then a glob of spit hits the plastic pane and slides slowly to the bottom. And then another.
"Will you get my taxi for me, I want to go home."

When i'm back home at the end of the day, i ring a second recruitment agency i have joined, to see if they have got any work for the rest of the week. The consultant is patronising in that fake-friendly way that recruitment consultants do best. She says that they are really quiet at the moment and tells me she's got a day teaching Urdu if i think i can do that. I can't work out if this is a joke or not.
"I'm not being funny but....", my most despised piece of contemporary bullshit, "your CV.'s a bit boring."
I wonder how much she gets paid - probably twice as much as i have ever earned per annum- and i think: but she's got the key. She's the woman who knows just how to condense a person's life and work into one or two sides of A4 in order to snare that all elusive prize of the average UK salary.
I reply in my best fake-friendly voice, that of course i will email it to her ASAP, and thanks for that, speak to you soon, yeah. I'm sure she can feel the insincerity and probably even the expression on my face.
And then i think: Fuck you. I wouldn't rewrite my CV for you if you were the keeper of the last job on earth.

A-Haunting

2008-02-11T19:57:00.000Z

Recently, i have strongly felt the presence of my future love.

I have seen the tiny hotel that we will stay in one weekend in my favourite area of Yorkshire.
Some weeks ago i truly experienced the absolute certainty of how it feels to be held and to know that this person will be with you always.
Yesterday as i turned around, i was convinced that he would be standing right behind me.
And today at the Turkish Baths, i knew he would want to come with me next time.
This evening i felt him groove around my kitchen to the The Flaming Lips.

He is so close, i have the taste of him on my lips, he is almost within touching distance, and i meet him in my dreams.

Diaries

2008-01-30T11:52:00.000Z

I' ve been going through some more boxes and i found one of my old diaries. This one starts in 1990 and ends in 1995 (not written every day of course). In fact i'm going to give myself the benefit of the doubt and say that it looks like i only wrote in it when i was feeling down. I flicked through a few entries, but mostly i couldn't bear to read it.
In fact, to be fair, it starts off as a travel diary: i'm writing about my first trip to the US. It was my second year of university and my sister and i went to visit our friend who was studying in Memphis. We smoked enormous ammounts of southern grown pot (they grow it between the crops we were told). We hogged the joint without realising because we were used to the slow burning of resin mixed with tobacco, and this fresh green stuff just zipped down to the roach before you could say "pass the doobie"(this joke is purely for our lass and the American lady in question).
We went to Graceland and New Orleans: "Well I love the Beatles, but Elvis is King...". We got snowed in- real, deep, fluffy snow that surrounded the tall pines of Tennessee and made the roads treacherous.
I fell in love with the US: with the apples the size of your head and three different types of the same brand of beer; with Jack Daniels and Preservation Hall, with pistachio ice-cream and thrift stores; with fried chicken at the Loveless Motel (but not grits); with Southern hospitality and with swamps and the Mississippi (M-I-SS-I-doubleS-I-doubleP-I).

31st December 1990 So: you go into the city centre; you change your dollars back into pounds and the girl asks you where you've been. You're not even aware of the date and you hand in your films and your pockets are empty again. It has already become a memory, a categorised section of events in your life that must be put away to continue with the next. You go to The Faversham and you find the old requirements and preparations second nature. You get there and see people and talk but you don't explain, and you feel like you've lost it- it hasn't touched you. You're desperately trying to remember things to make you feel something, but your body is celebrating New Year, and it finds no difficulty in spending the night with D. when you thought you had yourself under control.

The question i would like to ask this girl is: "Why do you 'not explain'?"

What have you done today to make you feel proud?

2008-01-18T21:35:00.000Z

A raft of mini-cabs pull up at the gates of the exclusion unit. I ask the Headmistress what i need to do. She shouts that i need to go down and lock the gate, and if any more taxi's arrive they'll have to wait. Then i need to go round making sure that the right kids get in the right cars. As she is talking she is also asking the cab drivers who they are booked for, and then she puts a name card on each windscreen. I need to collect the cards once the kids are inside the car. I ask the nearest driver who he is booked for, because he doesn't have a card on the windscreen. He tells me he is booked for Shauny.
The kids start coming out of the building and are shepherded into the cars one by one. Some cars start their engines up once their passenger is inside but the Head shouts to us to tell them to turn their engines off: they can't leave until everyone is inside their car. Turn your engines off and stay put. Shauny is coming out of the building and i motion to him that this car is his. He tries to get in the front and the driver locks the door and motions for him to get in the back. My voice breaks half way through, but i say it anyway, "If i don't see you again, look after yourself won't you Shauny?" He doesn't look at me, and keeps his head turned to the other window. All the kids are in the cars, the Head gives a signal, the gates are unlocked and the taxi's pull away in rank and file.

Shauny's been sent out of the classroom. He couldn't keep still. He kept getting out of his seat and leaving the room without permission. He'd also tricked me into letting him through a door; then his friend ran up behind me and somehow they managed to get into an area where they weren't supposed to be. Now were sitting in the assembly area. He's been told to sit down and finish the work that he nearly started in the classroom, but he can't keep still. He says he wants to talk, so i make conversation. I ask him about his old school, and what it was like, and his friends and his family, and what he likes to watch on TV. In between bits of conversation he gets up and rattles at the security doors and asks me to give him the key fob so he can get out. I just carry on talking and when he rattles the door too hard i say to him that the school will get him for criminal damage if he breaks anything. A couple of members of staff come through the room and shout at him to sit down and do as he's told.

I follow the group of five to the classroom and i am introduced to each of the five boys in the class. They immediately start making jokes about me, throw a couple of nicknames around between each other and ask me if i am a lesbian. Within the first five minutes, three of the boys have left the room. There are teachers in the corridor at the time, so i stay in the classroom, and while the two remaining boys throw insults back and forth i try and get Shauny to concentrate. I ask him questions about the task he has been set, and when he answers me, i say, "Okay write that down then", and he does. It's hard to pick out his answers because they run together with the stuff that is flying between him and the other boy, making them laugh and distracting them from what they're supposed to be doing. But he finishes a whole piece of work, even though he's only written a few lines, that's all he needed to do, and he gets his bonus points.

I'm late, so as i come into assembly the Head-teacher asks me to sit down, and i try and work out who's who. and who's doing what, to get my bearings. She makes some announcements and then goes through what will be happening in school today. The kids are given certificates for various achievments, but they don't get out of their seats, the Head reaches over instead and shakes hands with them and tells them well done. She hands over to the music teacher who asks everyone if they are ready to sing. When the group answers with a straggle of thirty or so yes's. He asks again, "Are you ready to sing?" and this time they answer with more conviction, "Yes" He presses a button on the laptop, making short movements upwards with his hands and arms for them to sing.

I look into the window of my mind
Reflections of the fears i know i've left behind

He sings the next line loudly before they do,
I step out of the ordinary
and then with them
I can feel my soul ascending
I am on my way
Can't stop me now and you can do the same
I think, oh fuck, i'm going to cry, and i join in -hoping this will stop me.
What have you done today to make you feel proud?
It's never too late to try
Too late a tear is escaping from the corner of my right eye.
You could be so many people
If you make that break for freedom
What have you done today to make you feel proud?

Bathroom portrait

2008-01-01T11:34:00.001Z

She sits, naked and shivering, hunched over on the toilet-seat in the pitch black bathroom of some complete stranger. She is drunkenly checking the phone-book of her mobile to see if there is anyone who will come and rescue her on New Years Eve.
There is no one.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. What had she done this for? He was too drunk even to open the front door. She had had to take the keys off him and open the door herself. Of course, then the alarm went off.
She looks at him.
He yells, "I forgot to ask him for the code..."
"WELL.... WHAT'S HIS DATE OF BIRTH?"
The guy punches in his friend's date of birth and the alarm stops.

Now she just wants to get out of there.
She looks to her left. A light comes on in the window of the house next door. The neighbouring bathroom is directly opposite this one, almost within reaching distance. Through the pattern of frosted glass she can see a woman in a strapless red dress with mid-length dark brown hair. She is moving around the room, brushing her hair; looking in the mirror and performing other small rituals that cannot be distinguished through the glass.
Her arms then make triangle shapes at either side of her body. A couple of movements and the woman's naked body is outlined clearly. She begins to wash.
It is mesmerizing. Silently but absolutely mesmerizing. She is convinced that a man will soon walk into the scene. Why would such an attractive woman be on her own on New Years Eve? However, the woman continues to wash alone. She leaves the frame for a moment, and then returns wearing another garment, a robe? One more sweeping movement around the room and she exits to the right.
The window opposite returns to darkness.
She uses the light on her mobile phone and goes to look for her clothes.

All over for another year

2007-12-27T11:05:00.000Z

It's that time of year that you see those members of your family whom you only see at Christmas, weddings or funerals.
I haven't seen Auntie J since last Christmas. She is a robust Scottish woman who is not actually a relative, but a friend of my mother's from her college days. She is tough: she survived a botched operation which means she will have dialysis for the rest of her life. As a secondary school teacher in inner city schools, now retired, she regales us with tales of boys masturbating in her lessons, of teachers and their affairs, of pupils attempting to burn the school down and of the manner in which she dealt with these occurrences; she told him if she caught him doing that again, she would cut it off and he wouldn't be able to play with it any more.
Although i tell her that i don't want to be a school teacher, she advises me that if i kiss ass (which she regrets she never could) i will get myself a nice job. I tell her i want to work in Higher Education and she tells me there's not enough of it to go round, and asks me what i do with myself of an evening.
I tell her that i write on my blog and she pauses and looks at me in which time i wonder if she knows what blogging is. Auntie J says that blogging is for lonely people and i do not disagree with her. She tells me i should teach myself music, and that i will never be alone if i can play. I insist that i have no ability for it, and she tells me that i am a talented and intelligent girl. She tells me that i look beautiful, like the madonna or the Mona Lisa. She repeats her many compliments and notes that people may say she has a big mouth, but she said nothing when i looked so terrible last year, and now i look the best she has ever seen me looking, and she just wanted to say it.

Break

2007-12-22T20:12:00.000Z

I got it.
I got the break.

The phone call was in true X-factor tradition.
"Hello, is that Nina?"
Yes this is Nina.
"Hello Nina, it's ***** from Human Resources at ****."
Oh, hi..... (nervous pause)
"Is this a good time to talk?"
Yes, it is, I just got back from another interview, so yes...
"Yes, well, i didn't want to let you go through the weekend without getting in touch. I'm ringing to tell you that (century pause) well, we would like to offer you the job."

I danced around the whole of the top floor of my house playing Chromeo's Fancy Footwork and singing loudly.
In and around and out of each of the rooms in turn. Rolling up and then rolling right back down to my knees, Punching the air above my head and then punching all the way back down to the horizontal. Doing Abba fingers, and imagining i was Agnetha and her famous ass wiggling dance.
When i had done, i looked down at the swirling patterns that the treads of my trainers had made in the horrible dark blue carpet left by the previous homeowner.

I got the break.

Sex in the Noughties

2007-12-11T23:04:00.000Z

Apparently (according to Channel 4), no one is ever going to 'do it' like Girl with a One Track Mind.
Wheel in Zoe Williams (she writes for The Guardian so she must be right) to say that a great number of blogs are just dross.
Then to cap the programme off- which had hitherto disguised itself as a celebration of blogging, the freedom of writing anonymously and a sexual revolution for women in the noughties- 'The Publisher'. 'The Publisher' comes on to tell the viewers that 'The Publishing Industry' has become very cynical about blogging. That bloggers who are hoping for a book deal are going to be sadly disappointed.
No Shit! Writing without profit? How dare they?
The proliferation- more than quadrupling the number of blogs written over the last three years- is presented as an inevitable decline in quality, originality or significance.

I beg to fucking differ.

I'd like to say that blogging is a democratisation of writing, and that every individuals story deserves a space, and that I look forward to the time when more than a privileged few (programme makers, publishers, intelligent press) get to describe the world and their view of it.
I don't want to hear what they have to say. They speak the language of the institution safeguarding itself.

I want to hear your voice.

Men and Buses

2007-12-05T13:36:00.000Z

Interviews are like men and buses. You get nothing for six months and then two come along at once.
So, i'm sitting here squirming. I have to pull a weird face every time i think of some of the answers i gave yesterday. Lets call this my Big Break Job. It's my Big Break Job because it's in exactly the right environment with exactly the right target group, and although it's only a tiny little bit of work, all the other things going on there are right up my street (if only i can get into the street, by whatever means, i must get parked!). I considered it my job as soon as i saw it. I prepared to the max, as none of the agencies had called me this week so i had no work.
They didn't ask me anything that i had prepared for. So i was left with my on the spot skills.
God only knows if i made any sense at all.
Number Two on Friday. Number Two is one of those jobs that are in the right environment and could lead to really interesting things (if not well paid things).
Then again it might not.
I really need them both.
I guess i'll just have to wait and see now, wont I?

Deliverance

2007-11-28T11:18:00.000Z

After just over 12 months in my 'new' home, i have finally got round to unpacking my books.
A lack of shelving has been my excuse.
I took them out of their boxes and dusted each one off carefully; then i carried them into the house and put them where the shelving will (sometime) be. After i had unpacked around eight boxes, i realised that the piles were not the size that they should have been. Somewhere beneath all that other stuff there was another box languishing, 'a-mouldrin' in the garage.
I pictured the book that i wanted, it was the one that i had used for my masters dissertation.

I rang the bookshop to see if they had anything by Sophie Calle. The lady said that there was little in print of her work at that time. There was one book that was actually a catalogue from a retrospective at the Museum of Tel-Aviv. Amazingly, a copy had been ordered to this store and had never been picked up by the customer. I convinced her to let me have the copy; it was the most i have ever spent on a book.

After much rearranging of heavy boxes i found the culprit, at the bottom of a large pile. I knew as soon as i opened it- that damp smell, the carcasses of woodlice. The box was sooty and soft and the worst affected volume was my precious museum catalogue. I have rescued it though. The damage is mainly to the cover, so it is still readable.

I can feel a change in the air. A vaguely detectable sense that things are soon going to be different. My eyes feel wider open, my senses sharper, and i feel like i am indeed the sum of all my experiences.

2007-11-03T21:10:00.000Z

There are 592 search results from Google when i try to make up for the fact that i did not know that Dimitri died on the 19th July 2007.

I cannot report the details of his heart attack on the Moscow underground, nor can i report the wake attended by 50 people including some of the Volna performers group.

I discover that Monday would have been his 67th birthday and i try to think of a story to tell that is not news: a detail from the time i knew him that will record something more than the facts.

I think about the cherry blossom- we both noticed it at the same time- walking down a London street in February. It was truly a joy to see the pink petals above a row of scruffy shops.

I thought it was incredible that i met a Russian artist and his family on a tiny north african island last year.

There are some times when you know that, although you cannot say how, something is going to be an important part of your future.

Food sex food sex food sex

2007-10-16T19:44:00.000+01:00

Is it just me, or does anyone else find Nigella Express absolutely fucking obscene?
Don't get me wrong. I really admire Nigella Lawson. She is obviously excellent at what she does, and i think she is incredibly attractive. I just think maybe she's gone all Madonna or Michael Jackson and she can no longer see/hear herself as other people do.
Obviously she is setting out to make food sexy, and to offer an alternative sexy to 'size zero skinny'. This is all very well. but what i have seen over the past couple of weeks on the show, i think, is obscene.
Last night she was making chocolate cookies in order to 'comfort' a friend. Self-referentially she commented that some people might think that the (obscene) amount of chocolate she had used for six cookies a little over the top. She followed this with the unbelievably outrageous comment, "But I don't think you can't put a price on human suffering"
WHAT? What the fuck? She's not talking about alleviating torture in oppressive political regimes. She's not talking about buying fairtrade chocolate because real human beings die on cocoa plantations in conditions which equate to slavery. No. She's talking about one of her fucking posh friends who's been dumped by some bloke!!!
Jesus Christ! It makes me feel naive, in that i forget that there are people out there who are so over- privileged that they can make a comment like that and not be burned by it's glaring misguided irony. This is what i find obscene.
I also object to the glamorisation of night-time bingeing in the programme. I know Nigella makes it look all sexy, and she 'needs' these fixes because she is a 'busy mum', but surely such advice is against some kind of National Health directive? You wake up, you're worrying about stuff, "you should go down to the fridge and pour sugar down your neck".
Last night she was drenching french toast in icing sugar and then covering it in pureed strawberries. Then she went back and ate left over bolognese sauce and bread. I feel sick just thinking about it.
Here is my objection to this. It's okay for upper-middle class (or whatever she is) rich people to eat whatever they want because A. they can afford really good quality food and B because food is their hobby or living. Fuck off! Food is a means of survival- it's the difference between being alive and being dead for some people. The programme justifies western gluttony for those wealthy enough to copy it.
If Nigella can't sleep, i suggest she has some sex -much better for de-stressing and promoting sleep- and failing the presence of her lovely husband: just have a wank love and leave the nations eating habits alone!

2007-10-06T18:47:00.001+01:00

i like my air unconditioned

2007-10-03T17:28:00.000+01:00

After three weeks, i have become used to the low hiss of the air conditioning.
I no longer have to tip my head slightly to one side in order to check that my brain/personality is not leaking away slowly through my ears.
The air con also makes me sneeze incessantly. I feel like the caged canary that they used to take down the mines. If i expire, then they will knock the building down: declare it unfit for human habitation.
The job i left in April only just covered my living costs. This job doesn't even do that. Another rejection letter hits the mat.
I try to remember who i am, but the thought is lost in the daily mechanics of the next hour. It gets hot in the office and i'm thinking of all the other things i want to do, and about having time to do them, and i have a flashback to those feelings of twelve months ago and the thought crosses my mind that the fear is still tagging the heels of my memory.

London Fashion Week (or I wish i'd paid more attention to what i was doing ten years ago)

2007-09-23T21:00:00.000+01:00

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a catwalk photographer?
I had never wondered such a thing, but i ended up doing it once.
It was one of those times when a friend says, " hey, i've got this gig, we get paid, we should do it."
So she and i find ourselves in this hangar-like construction in Pall Mall in 1997. We don't have a clue what we're doing, but there's this chalked 'map' on the floor and it has the names of some major publications kind of drawn into a weird shape. The words HOUSE PHOTOGRAPHERS appear in the centre of this glyph.
We're way too early, but slowly photographers begin to arrive and position themselves at the end of the runway. They all know each other and they're talking about the previous show by Hussein Chalayan where the models appeared in full length black veils getting progressively shorter down the line until the final model had only her face covered.
We look kind of awkward, as the bunch assemble themselves around us into this amazing pyramid, where they're all kind of balancing on top of each other and supporting each others huge lenses. An older Italian guy starts shouting at me, "No, no,no! Not a tripod! It's a monopod! Not tripod, no!" I smile and look apologetic, then ask a really tall guy in front of me with big hair if he would mind moving to the left a bit. He gives me a look i can't decipher.
When the show starts, we just make it up as we go along (although we did have a plan to make sure we backed each other up and didn't miss anything). Towards the end we are staring down our lenses at Helena Christensen- she's obviously the star of the show because she waits at the end of the runway for longer than the other models did. I get some really good pictures of her, and then it's all over. The tower dis-assembles and the words HOUSE PHOTOGRAPHERS have been scrubbed out.

A Girl walks into a bar...

2007-09-08T22:04:00.000+01:00

and she meets: a US squadie; a Spanish dentist; an Irish graphic designer; a Columbian student and a school-teacher.
And he tells her that she is the most beautiful woman in the room, and he begs her to come and talk to his friends. He asks her if she would like a glass of champagne and when there is only half a glass to pour he goes to the bar and buys another bottle. He tells her that he wants to fuck her and asks her to come to the toilets with him right now. And when she says, "You are a beautiful boy, but i will not go upstairs with you, no." He says, "I will see you again and I will fuck you . I will see you again and I will fuck you."
And she takes his card, but the next day she doesn't even consider what might have happened if she called him. She takes a crumpled piece of paper out of her bag and throws it away without looking at his number or reminding herself of his name.
And when she is alone she wonders why she does those things. But she knows deep down inside (which is where her reactions come from) that he is not there that evening. And so she waits for him, patiently, to come.

Words v Pictures

2007-09-04T20:47:00.000+01:00

I don't know how to say this, but i think we might need to have a break. I mean, i know i was all enthusiastic at our one year anniversary and all, but i'm having doubts about our long term prospects.
I mean we used to be doing it twice a week- and now i'm forcing myself to do once a week. On top of that, i've been spending a lot of time with u-tube recently. When we started out, i purposely restricted myself to words only. I wanted that challenge; to build up a picture without providing one for you. But after all, i 'm a visual person. Maybe i need pictures to keep me turned on.
I also feel our relationship is a little one-sided. What with you all blocking your IP addresses and everything. How can i read you if you won't let me? and if you are reading me you're just not prepared to talk about it. I've been trawling through Site-meter and not getting any joy. I can't see you and i'm losing the buzz that made me want to look.
It's all so cloak and dagger with blogger isn't it? that was the thing that attracted me in the beginning, but now it's the thing that drives me crazy.
I mean with u-tube, you just show each other what you've got, you can say if you dig it or not, and than you can go and find out who does and who doesn't. It's a bit more of a level playing field and the numbers are right there in front of you to keep you going.
After all people are more open to images than words aren't they, access to them is not limited by education, language or by the quantity you have consumed?
Well, that's how i feel, let me know what you think. We can talk later.

Brian-top marks for not trying

2007-08-30T21:29:00.000+01:00

Add 16. Brian to win and here's why:
1. His assertion that 'women don't do proper poos. They just do little rabbit poo's, don't they?' was the funniest thing i've seen on television in a long time.
2. For telling Amanda that 'there's nothing worse than women worrying about their weight when there was no need to', and managing to say this without coming across as patronising or pervy.
3. Because he genuinely is so unassuming that he can't even bear the thought of winning (when Kara-Louise suggested it he had to go and cry in the toilet).
4. For dancing at any opportunity especially to My Way (which was cringingly copied by Ziggy- who couldn't really join in because he needed to go to the bathroom to do his hair).
5. For asking the Universe and having his three wishes come true (thanks to Noel Edmunds).

And Carole's finally let her hair down! And she's wearing red! And she looks really nice!

Ahhhh. Another year goes by and my application languishes unfilled.....

Hide

2007-08-20T21:03:00.000+01:00

It was a funny sort of day. The weather was unpredictable, but she had decided to make the trip anyhow. She was wearing a dark blue wind-cheater and a pair of stout galoshes. At the age of eighty -four she noted that it took her roughly 11 minutes longer to get round the lake than it had last year. The steps of the hide were also quite treacherous, especially as they were currently damp. She held onto the handrail and made her way carefully towards the wooden door where she paused, listening for sounds.
There were none.
Inside the hut her eyes had to adjust to the dark. The slightly damp indoors/outdoors smell was familiar and comforting. She put out her hand to where she knew the wooden catch would be and lifted the plank which made the viewing slat. It clipped into pace and she took her time, sitting first the wrong way around on the bench and then carefully lifting one leg at a time over it. The bench was covered in some old carpet but she needed to be careful nonetheless.
Her favourite part was taking out the binoculars that had been a birthday present fifteen long years before. They fitted into her hands so well, although she had to keep a handkerchief to wipe her eyes, as the combination of the breeze and the closeness of the eyepiece made her eyes water somewhat.
She had been watching quietly for about fifteen minutes when she heard footsteps on the wooden steps outside, accompanied by whispers.
"There's someone in there."
"Shhh"
The latch lifted and a young woman entered behind a small boy who may have been about eight years old. They said hello, which was preferable to silence in such a small and intimate space. She noted that the woman's shoes were completely unsuitable: those very low but narrow heels which would sink straight into an inch of mud. She let them settle, noting that the woman watched for a while and then handed the binoculars to the boy, whispering, did he want to look? Every time she did so, he shook his head and pushed them back toward her in an odd reversal of the parent child roles.
"Can you see the Flycatcher up there in the willow to the left?"
The woman turned her binoculars in that direction, but it was obvious that she had not seen the bird, as her gaze remained unsettled.
"He's just between the branch that forks left and the next tree. Oh, I haven't seen a Flycatcher for many years. See how he swoops, there! Did you see him?"
But the woman seemed distracted.
The boy did not want to look and the woman got up to leave. The boy closed the slat and they left silently.

WANTED: Confidence at crucial moments.

2007-08-13T10:25:00.000+01:00

i bumped into my Indian prince again yesterday. This time it was in the shop at the end of Hysteria Lane. I can't work out what it is about these encounters that really freak me out. It could be that he is so astoundingly beautiful. I couldn't even think of anything to say this time apart from, 'Hi, how are you?'
When am i going to grow up and turn into the kind of woman who seizes every opportunity to make herself fabulous and desirable no matter what her intentions toward the male in question?
I'm really annoying myself. At crucial moments i seem to become frozen, my personality drains away through my toes and i am consumed by a ridiculous level of self consciousness. I mean i can sit here now and say i am an intelligent attractive female who's friends enjoy my company, but i'm damned if i don't turn into some goofy 11 year old when i really need to pull it out of the bag.
I'm also past the age where this could come across as cute or endearing. I think it probably just comes across as disinterest or even worse-disdain.
I suffer similar symptoms at job interviews, in fact in many situations where it's absolutely imperative that i perform on the spot.
I suppose, what i really think is (deep down) that if anything is a genuine opportunity, that really could be important in your life, you'll get another shot (or two or three or four).
Am i right?

Heckler

2007-08-08T13:25:00.000+01:00

Went to see some live comedy on Saturday night. Now i'm the kind of obtuse person who finds the fact that someone is in front of me actively trying to make me laugh inherently not funny.
However, my sister likes live comedy so off we went. We arrived at the venue just in time to see that every single seat was taken except a nice table for two right in front of the stage which had clearly not been chosen due to it's proximity to the currently empty mic stand. After a short discussion about the likelyhood of being picked on by the comics, we weighed it up, and decided that standing up all the way through would be far more uncomfortable.
The compere lighted on us immediately.
"So, are you two 'together' then?"
Not that old chestnut: two girls together - must be lesbians!
We motioned back and forth between ourselves, "Sisters...."
"Ah, sisters, I see. So where are your fellas then?"
We looked at each other silently understanding that the truth was not an option- Well, she's married and i'm.....well ....SINGLE.
I love it when these kind of complex messages go back and forth between people and yet nothing is said. My sister instinctively knew that i would have no desire to announce my status to this guy (or indeed to the whole audience). I haven't got a boyfriend! Okay, everyone?? Just in case there are any spare drunks hanging around who need someone to talk to ....
Anyway, she said, "They're not with us tonight."
Suitably neutral answer. Not quite lying, not giving too much information away. There was something about the use of the words "with us" that i just couldn't resist adding,
"You know, passed over- gone to the other side...."
We both started laughing hysterically at the comic timing, i mean it just came out- the way it would if we were at home or something. I wasn't meaning to be a heckler- it just came out! The compere just looked at us laughing and i could see him weighing up whether we could possibly be joking about such a thing: should we genuinely have experienced a tragic double bereavement.
He was kind of covering up the awkwardness and doing these quiet, under the breath, nervous filling noises.
After an indeterminable length of time where he admitted "I don't know what to say to that," still thinking that he'd better watch what he said just in case it was true and we were either demented with grief or just really weird, he cracked a gag about us getting mixed up and thinking it was a seance. By this point we were hysterical with laughter, tears rolling down our faces: as were the rest of the audience.
After that he moved onto the table next to us.

Another chance

2007-07-18T09:20:00.000+01:00

This Sunday (15th) was our one year anniversary.
Who knew our relationship would make it to this milestone? And the best thing about reaching this point? We can start reminiscing!
So, here we go:
One year ago i wrote my first post. I was stuck in a job which just about paid the bills but ultimately made me miserable. I had no time and no energy to do anything but work and go out (to try and forget about work).
One year on, i'm completely broke, almost maxed out on borrowing power- but happy. Not only have i found an outlet for my thoughts here, but i have brought one of my other projects to stage one of it's life.
At this point, i still have no definite idea about how i am going to earn from now on. But i needed this space.
I'm even talking to people about collaborations! Me! Me who has always worked away on her own and thought that working with other people meant losing that all important control. I'm going to do a project with a friend who is a dancer, choreographer and writer. I'm also talking to a friend who is a DJ about making a film. Watch this space for further details.
It's bizarre. Even though i'm in the least stable position I've been in a long time i feel strangely assured that everything is going to be fine.
I also realised something massive about my emotional/relationship life. I have realised that everything i have done in this area in the last thirteen years has been a form of self-punishment. This seems incredible (how could i have been doing this for so long?)
Thirteen years ago i terminated a pregnancy to a totally unsuitable partner. I absolutely knew i could not have a child with that person. Not a shadow of a doubt, that would have been a disastrous move at that point in my life - just finished university, substituting my first part time teaching job by working in retail. He treated my pregnancy like an occupational hazard. There was no need for debate.
I ditched him, he was angry, it was ugly, but worst of all, i felt as though i had killed someone. Depending which way you look at it, maybe i had. My friends that didn't go to university were getting married and having children. I consequently embarked on a single-minded quest to pursue relationships with men who either could not or would not be with me in any real way.
This revelation, the common factor in my messy history has only come to me in the last month or so.
I want to say, not for anybody else's sake but my my own, that i forgive myself. I forgive myself for the decision i made in those circumstances. That impossible decision that lurks somewhere in women's minds if not directly then through our friends, our mothers, our sisters lives.
I'm not a bad person. The reason i have not manged a relationship in the last thirteen years is because i have forgotten how to be nice to myself. i do remember what it feels like to be loved and i acknowledge that it scares me. I love passionately but most of all i deserve and look forward to being loved in return.

Untold Stories! New- with sound!

2007-07-11T12:45:00.000+01:00

Ewww! I've finally got round to putting music with my posts!
The joys of unlimited free time!
This has made my week. I've gone back through all my posts and put in soundtracks for some of them.
Not all the songs that i wanted were available. Nonetheless, i am a happy woman!
If you've got time to scroll back you can hear all kinds of Nina Tunes.
There's one addition in particular that has an important function.
If i haven't mentioned my love-life lately that's because there has been a hiatus. I need to say googdbye to someone and that track is my goodbye. I usually have to force myself to cut off from people when a relationship ends, "Now you really need to stop thinking about x, y, z. It's not going to do any good to think about it any longer." etc.
But this has been different- which is odd considering i just spent the last eighteen months (?) thinking about that situation far too much.
I've just stopped. I have no plan, no strategy in place, it's just gone. It's not even vaguely there in the back of my mind. It pops up now and again, but i don't have the desire to go into it any further.
So, this is it. I did not get a chance to say a lot of the things that i wanted to: so this is my goodbye.

To my future husband:
i know what you're thinking.....
You're thinking, " Is she going to write about me like that? Is our relationship going to be the subject of the love of my life's on-line ramblings?"
Although you will deny it, you are the coolest guy in the universe. Our life/relationship will not be documented here, because it will be swirling and whirling around us; wrapping us up and keeping us warm and happy. It will be too real to be pinned down, consigned to words and then history. It will be now, not then. And when we get together; i will just have to find something else to write about.

A Girl walks into a bar...

2007-07-09T20:25:00.000+01:00

and it reeks of toilet cleaner!!!!!!
So, we all had our first outing this weekend in 'Smoke Free Britain". And we've all heard what smokers think about it. But what about those of us who don't smoke (anymore). I mean, i've always known i've been inhaling carcinogens every time i enter a bar (whether first or second-hand) but i didn't realise i was also inhaling noxious industrial strength toilet cleaner. It's revolting! I much prefer the smell of smoke! A couple of bars were burning incense but good lord, as if that's going to mask whatever it is they use to do whatever they have to do to clean up after us. I found it most disturbing/off-putting- i certainly wouldn't eat in a place that smelled like that....
And then, you're standing there having the usual backward and forward mixture of gossip, stupidness and lahdy lah lah when suddenly your companions all look at each other and say, "Okay, we going outside then?"
Not only is this inevitably at some crucial point in the conversation, but then to cap it all, the non-smoker has to 'look after the drinks!!!!!' I need a strategy here otherwise i'm going to be doomed to be drinks-looker-afterer for ever more. i think i need to make a badge that says, As a non-smoker i abdicate all responsibility for any drinks or their contents, whether known to me or otherwise tampered with, left in my (drunken) charge.
Although this is clearly weather dependent, the conversations outside take far too long for my liking. Of course, they're all standing there talking to other smokers about how awful it is!
So the smokers are out there making 'new friends' while the non-smoker is guarding the bloody drinks.
I even went with them on the fifth or sixth trip out.
There's only one thing for it.
I'll have to start smoking again.

For Fifi

2007-06-27T11:39:00.000+01:00

I didn't go back to show that woman my portfolio for the photography job. I figure that the only reason she would be so unbelievably disdainful towards another woman whom she had never met, would be because she was in love with the previous post-holder.
I bet he was a man in his forties (or maybe a bit older) but who seemed fairly hot to a woman in her fifties (or maybe a bit older). I can see him in his leather jacket- probably brown- one of those weather-beaten ones that looks like it's been everywhere with you "and boy, have i been everywhere". I bet he was the kind of guy who made women attracted to him, not because he was especially attractive or even a good person to be with, but just because he believed himself to have that power.
A communal darkroom is a space that is bursting with awkward moments that lend themselves to interpretation. That red or amber light that you work under, the silence of people concentrating on their own calculations, the repeated and rhythmic movements from enlarger to chemicals. The swish swish of the liquids and the tapping of the prints at the ends of the tray.
His pupils will have admired him- such a contrast to their suburban experience. He hints of previous lives that involve travelling, dedicating himself to his work and make for interesting anecdotes during the class.
But she had a different relationship with him. As centre manager, it was she who gave him the work. She was impressed by his confidence, and with the stories that were attached to his photographs of places he had visited and of the things he had chosen to record. Of course she said he would be perfect for the job. He made jokes with her and made her feel as though she were not as angry as she usually was. She looked forward to Tuesday evenings more than she should. She found herself thinking about what she was wearing on those days, and undoubtedly making a little more effort. Just a touch more make-up, an extra piece of jewellery.
At closing-up time there was always something in the air. There was a hesitation when it came to leaving that she felt was mutual. It would be unprofessional of her to initiate anything, but if he were to ask her: that would be a completely different matter. She tried to communicate this with her voice, her manner and her actions but perhaps she was being too subtle. In the two years that he worked for her, she came to be attached to this ritual. It was comfortingly familiar and she never ceased to give up hope that one day he would ask her.
Then he announced the news that he had been offered a full time post in one of the colleges. It was as though the desk behind which she sat had lurched backward straight into her stomach. He was pacing around in obvious excitement and it took all she could muster to think of an appropriate response. She couldn't even remember what she had said afterwards, but it was of no consequence to him, such was his triumph that he had finally received his just desserts. She would have liked to have stood and shook his hand, but she could not.
When he finally left the room to begin the lesson, she was numb. She was at once numb and destroyed. She could not narrate her feelings, but knew that without this there was only a huge gaping hole. The only way that she could fill this hole, was to begin, angrily and immediately, to advertise the vacant post.

WANTED: Gig Buddy

2007-06-13T12:55:00.000+01:00

Being at home during the day has it's advantages.
I got to listen to the White Stripes do their live tracks on radio 1 this lunchtime.
Downside is, i can't afford to go and see them on Friday. Also, none of my friends want to go! I've got a bone to pick with Icky Thump though: it's 'Ecky Thump' (as in 'Eck' being short for 'Heck'); being a comedy Yorkshire exclamation. Unless they have some reason for changing it to an 'I'. If anyone has an explanation I'd be glad to hear it.
We went to see Massive Attack last year. There was a moment during Unfinished Sympathy where we all looked at each other and said, "Soundtrack of our lives".
Bit of a corporate affair that festival though. Lots of big fancy cars and couples in matching denim outfits wearing expensive jewellry. As soon as they went off stage, everyone piled out. No vibe there (man).

Communing with Yorkshire

2007-06-06T12:32:00.000+01:00

We went camping and i turned into a kind of nature-driven maniac. We camped at the base of Goredale Scar. The sides of the Scar rise up above the site and naturally you'd want to run up there, wouldn't you?
In fact, i was the only person who wanted to run up there. The sun went down behind the top and i realised that there would be a fantastic sunset up there. Having failed to convince my fellow campers, i strode off at a pace (in case the sun beat me to it). It was harder going than i thought. About a third of the way up my heart was pounding so much that i felt slightly sick. i turned round to sit down and the drop /view of the bottom made me glad i was not standing. I waited till my heart rate slowed a bit and breathed through it, tried to enjoy it rather than be scared. The rest of the way was pretty much a hands and knees kind of scramble. I reached the peak that was the highest point visible from the ground, and lo and behold, this was not the top!
I thought about going back down (because i would not be visible from this point on). The sun was creeping further down. I tried to imagine where explorers get that desire to keep going and then thought how disappointing it would be if i didn't see the sun set. What if there was another bit after this one?
There wasn't. I reached the top and a limestone shelf spread out before me. The sun was about ten minutes away from setting and i sat down and watched it drop gradually. I thought about masturbating but didn't.
Later on, after i got back down (which was equally scary) i had a really bad attack of the giggles. I was crying with laughter. Every time someone said something i thought of something else which was vaguely connected but ridiculously funny - to me anyway.
One of my friends said, "God help the next man that you have sex with."

This is one of the most difficult things i've had to write about to date.

2007-05-28T09:57:00.000+01:00

Those of you who read carefully will be aware of my thoughts on being copied. So, imagine my surprise when an anonymous commenter on my Limewire dating post told me that someone has been copying my posts and passing them off as their own.
It was more than weird, reading my own words through someone else's site. I mean, i know our online selves are not our true selves. These fragments can never tell the whole story, and they're not meant to. Not for me anyway. As my title suggests - for me it's as much about what you don't say. I'm really interested in the stuff between the lines - the stuff you decide really doesn't need to be broadcast on the Internet (and conversely how the hell we choose the stuff that does). But I realised that as soon as i publish something, it's subject to change by it's readers. But i don't want to control that, i want it to be out there and become a developing, changing document.
However, this has been a reality check for me, i'm looking into intellectual copyright. I'm going to make sure that despite my desire to make links with people and put stuff out there, if anyone is going to get credit for my ideas and indeed if anyone is going to make money from my writing or from SOUNDTRACK or any associated projects, it will be me.
So Bloggers beware: it happens. And if you want see it with your own eyes -look for the post dated 19th May 2007 (at the bottom of the front page).

Can't sleep

2007-05-21T00:21:00.000+01:00

My mum hugged me and said, "You're an immensely talented person. This is last minute nerves."

I installed SOUNDTRACK, my current story-telling project, in the bar seven days ago. The festival runs for another week but so far the project has exceeded my expectations (can't remember what my expectations were now). People have been coming out of the woodwork with all sorts of gems. I've been taking them away and editing them, and adding them in the next day. I can't leave the thing alone. I've been sitting there nearly every day to see how people are reacting to it, i've called everyone i know (who couldn't make it to the private view) and insisted that they come down for a listen. I couldn't go today or yesterday, and i've really missed it! Like a friend who might be having fun while i'm not there.
As boxes go, this one is good.

Truth is....

2007-05-09T13:16:00.000+01:00

I want to run around a huge empty field screaming. I don't want anyone to be around to ask me what's wrong, or to look at me like i'm a mad woman.
When i've finished screaming i want to lay down in the sun and go to sleep.
When i wake up, i want my life to be different. I want to be a person who makes a living from something that she is good at and she loves. I want to come home to someone who loves me and looks after me and i want to have more time for other people because my life is running pretty smoothly.
I don't want to be sitting here obsessing about my storytelling project and wishing i'd never started it. I don't want to be a person who doubts everything thing they do to the point where nothing ever gets finished. I shouldn't be doing this.
I should be looking for a job- since i left the one that was making me miserable and now only have two weeks savings left.
I don't want to work for that woman i met yesterday who, when i bounced in all friendly and enthusiastic about teaching photography again, gave me a limp handshake and talked to me in that way that only bitter post-menopausal women can talk to younger women ( i could tell she thought i was younger than i am). "You haven't got much experience, have you?"
But am i going to do any of this? Or am i just going to send her my cv and show her some prints (as if she'd know fine art printing from a picture in the local fucking newspaper) and will i try and make her like me so she'll give me the job, and then make myself miserable all over again.
Or maybe i shouldn't do any of the above and try and start up a garden design business. Forget about being a fucking artist, take that risk of self-employment -maybe it'll be easier second time around......
I kind of thought i could do all of the above, but maybe that's where i'm going wrong.

What are we going to do when there are no more record shops?

2007-05-07T22:57:00.000+01:00

Okay, iv'e just fallen in love with someone on Limewire.
I hardly ever use the 'browse host' button, but tonight i was downloading Mungo Jerry's 'In the Summertime' and i thought i'd see what kind of cat would have such a tune in his library.

I love this person! I mean this host has a virtually faultless music taste! He's got everything: all the obvious stuff like the Beatles, Beachboys, the few best Stones songs, Stevie Wonder etc. But then he's got Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, Mamas and the Papas, Isley Brothers
without being ashamed to have a bit of Abba, ACE OF BASE!, the themes from Grease and Saturday Night Fever in there too. Then he's got 70's folk: Cat Stevens, Credence Clearwater Revival, America, Rod Stewart AND 70's disco- Sister Sledge, Jacksons etc.
Bit of Weezer, Fugees 'Ready or Not'; the (Dirty) version of 'Don Cha' by the Pussycat Dolls.
The only track that grated was a Shania Twain song, but i'm not above being won over if the right person had an argument for that being good.
He's also got TV themes including the theme tune from Charlie Brown and Snoopy, and Bart and Michael Jackson sing Happy Birthday Lisa!!!!! GSOH, no need to overstate it.
I expect by this point that the astute among you may be saying to yourselves " But how'd you even know this host is male? Huh? Eh?"
Lean over so i can whisper in your ear.

There were some WWF theme tunes in there.

But i can overlook that!

Anyway, how cool would it be if Limewire started a dating service? (Someone's going to nick this idea now, aren't they?) So you could contact those file sharers that wanted to be identified and what a great basis for a possible relationship... My idea that one! You heard it here first.

Boxes

2007-05-03T20:30:00.000+01:00

I've scraped a MASSIVE dent in the side of my car.
I keep eating a whole packet of fig rolls in one go
and my storytelling project is due to be installed in eleven days time.
It's going to be an archive in progress, that is, it will be all the stories so far on a listening post (possibly with music). I'm expecting that more people will want to tell stories once they've heard the one's i've got so far. I want people to know that any story they want to tell is a good one. I'm interested in all of it, every seemingly trivial little bit, that for some reason lodges in your head. It's really frustrating sometimes when i ask people if they will contribute and they start telling me their story but they think it has to be something else or more, and i want to just whip out a mic and say, "thanks, that was it!"
It's a delicate process of negotiation you know: but it's a great feeling once you get it down on tape. It makes me feel high, like i've managed to slow down time or change it's pace. I'm an archivist. I need to put things in boxes. It's like blogging: it's the new photography.

32 days after ditching Prozac

2007-04-22T21:02:00.000+01:00

and i feel okay, in fact, i'm basking in the glow of surviving without them. I realise this could be a false independence as my serotonin levels will remain elevated for a while yet, but who knows i may be able to keep them up all by myself! I'm thinking of taking up running, and if my external circumstances improve that may be enough to keep me going (this has happened before). I just need a few breaks in my creative-life/career/ love-life, or any one of those would do actually.
I am no longer twitching. I am not waking up in the middle of the night. I'm still having some of that numerical dyslexia. That dark colouring around my eyes has gone-other people have commented on this. I think i may have put my half a stone back on. i am not plagued by disproportionate fears about my health or my future in general. I am showing an incredible ability to think about today and maybe tomorrow but not much further than that. I have realised that i am most happy when i am NOT 'multi-tasking'. Does anyone have a word for just focusing on one thing at a time? For doing it and doing it well, and for feeling unequivocally satisfied with that activity, both for it's own sake and for the end or on-going product?
I think it's time that we start inventing our own words to replace that corporate bullshit that is invading the minds of ordinary people and distracting them from free thought.
Any more words or phrases that the world would be better without? Lets have a bonfire....

Paper

2007-04-17T11:22:00.000+01:00

Have you missed me?
Or is that too much pressure on the relationship at this point?
Anyway.
Iv'e been decorating my beautiful house on Hysteria Lane. To describe my activities more correctly, i've been scraping, filling, sanding, stripping many layers of wallpaper, clearing up whole planets of plaster dust, putting on at least three coats of everything (danish oil, undercoat, emulsion, gloss) and generally grafting like a labourer. I no longer need sandpaper as the surface of my very own hands will now suffice for removing old varnish/paintwork. I've been so unsexy; when i sat down on the toilet, plaster fell out of my pants.
However, i said i wouldn't moan about 'getting work done' because it's middle class and boring to do so. I keep reminding myself that i am lucky, and a little surprised to be in this position. It is, after all, only eight years ago that i found myself unemployed, in a council house with neither dog nor man to protect me. But that's another story...
So yes, i have removed all the traces of the daily activity of the previous owner. All those scuff marks and kiddy scribbles have gone. Weird that isn't it? How we all make those tracks of our movements on our home. Like drawing the same thing over and over again.
There's lots of other stuff to catch up on (a backblog in fact). But i don't know if i've lost it for now so lets leave it at that.

Andy Goldsworthy

2007-04-05T19:46:00.000+01:00

Went to see his latest installations at YSP.
Wow.
I'm already a big fan, so predisposed, but check this out it's really good.
Four rooms, each with a different sculpture, not so much in the room, but making the room. The first space is dominated by this ceiling high cairn made of logs, left in their natural shape but differing in length and width to make that classic Goldsworthy egg shape- and you can touch this one! I touched it carefully, not because it looks unstable (it looks incredibly solid), but with respect for the system and care that holds this shape together. We all know the thing about an egg being 'uncrushable' from top to bottom, well this piece takes that apprehensive application of imaginary force to another level.
The second space has walls of dried, cracked clay in this beautiful pattern that looks contrived almost in it's repetition of the fissures (although at the same time you know it can't be contrived). This is echoed nicely in the final space where hangs another motif of his: a curtain of leaf stalks that are held together by blackthorns. The curtain is suspended horizontally across the room from the ceiling to the floor and features the hole motif that appears so often in his work. He has put a hole in something that is hardly there already; a delicate curtain of something and nothing like a spiders web.
But finally, my favourite piece. It was almost too amazing to be around. I wanted everyone else to go away, it felt like a private moment as soon as i went in there. Goldsworthy has constructed a dome inside the room from inter-laced chestnut branches. The result is this incredible 'home' that is so warm and living (i'm resisting the description 'womb-like' here because it wasn't like that). The heat generated was totally unexpected for me; you can feel and smell the combination of sap and heat in a way that is almost like sex - or maybe that's just me. We all said, "I could live here." It was an odd sensation, and i like the way you can't see when you first enter, there is no light so you have to wait till your eyes get used to the dark before you can appreciate the intricacies of the top of the dome for instance.
Hats of Mr. Goldsworthy, hats off.

you know those cliches about 30-something women? They're all true (in my case)

2007-03-29T15:36:00.000+01:00

Okay, I got really mad.
I stopped taking my anti-depressants on Friday (against my doctors advice). I figure if i start feeling like shite then i can always start taking them again. They work on a very slow-release basis, so nothing dramatic is going to happen. I've still got the twitching, the numerical dyslexia and the inability to concentrate/ believe that anything is of much consequence really. However i can feel my sex-drive creeping back. I didn't even notice it had gone to be honest (or didn't much care) until the last couple of days. It's really been making me laugh, i've been revelling in it. It's really funny.
Other shifts have taken place -mostly yesterday actually- both inside and outside my body. The mucus blockage in my head started to move on down (a little too much information perhaps?). I could hardly breath in the morning but then it all started to come out (gross!) and by the evening my voice had almost returned to normal. My eyeballs are no longer squeaking and if i take paracetamol i feel almost human. Fuck Prozac, paracetamol's where it's at. It's been relaxing me to a frightening degree. I have slept through the day for hours on end- i was too scared to do this before because i thought i was depressed.
Yoga helped too.
The other thing is that my old yoga teacher is coming back! It's ridiculous, but when she left i cried a river. I cried when someone told me she was leaving; i cried when she announced it in class; i cried all through her last class and when i read her goodbye letter. I'm crying now just thinking about it. At the time i thought that was perhaps an unhealthy attachment to someone who is not after all a friend. But her voice was encrypted in my mind, it gave instructions when she was not there and was one of the few constants in the previous seven years of my life.
Anyway.
Today i had a massive gorgeous sleep and when i woke up i did two things that have been eluding me - both technical and related to my story-telling project.
I feel like i'm unfolding and i know i am not depressed.

Mrs Angry

2007-03-23T10:03:00.000Z

I'm so angry.
I'm so angry i could go around screaming and shouting and hitting things if there were anyone here to listen.
I'm angry with every fucking arsehole who's ever trampled all over my feelings; i'm angry for every job i didn't get that i know i could have done; i'm angry that i always blame myself and that any lack of achievement in my life is only really down to me; i'm angry that i'm taking drugs to make me deal with things more in the way that other people do; i'm angry that my head is full of snot, i feel like shit and i've felt like this intermittently over the last two years; i'm angry that i can't breath like every body else does and i have to breath into a fucking tube to check how badly my lungs are performing; i'm angry that there's no one to look after me when things get like this.
I sat here and i thought i wasn't even going to be able to cry. I sat here thinking that my eyes are dry and nothing's going to come out. My feelings have been plastered over, smoothed out so that they look nice, so they can be painted on, and no one will have to look at those cracks and lines any more.
You're not supposed to look into the cracks are you: because you might fall in.

"...if that makes a difference"

2007-03-15T20:19:00.000Z

It was my friend's thirtieth birthday party and i had decided to get really dressed up.
I wore this fabulous dress that i got in Chinatown in Soho ages ago. It's a full length dark green satin Cheongsam with a thigh high split at each side and a peacock embroidered in red and white thread on the front. It's tail feathers are not on display but curve down the skirt of the dress behind the bird. I wore red heels and far more make-up than i normally do. I was looking hot.
First of all he asked one of my friends, "who's the fox in the green dress?
Now i've met this guy lots of times before over the years, so i wasn't impressed that he had only just noticed me after all that time. Then he came and sat next to me and said, "Can just say that you look absolutely gorgeous. You're so burlesque."
Never been called that before; but it was unmistakably a compliment.
But he didn't overdo it, which is always a point-scorer in my book, he just let me get on with my night.
At the end of the night the birthday girl thanked him for DJing. Within my earshot he said, "No problem, i'll DJ for you any time, as long as she's there," and pointed in my direction.
Now this particular friend has a way of convincing me to do things in my love-life that i would not normally do. (I don't know why she has that effect on me- i could give you other examples but perhaps another time.) A few days later she's telling me that i should phone him and go for a drink with him. She gives me the low-down on his personal history and it all seems fine. I argue and say that i don't ask other people, they ask me. She gives me his number and i convince myself i should do it because i never do things like this, and everybody else does it and thinks nothing of it, and that's possibly why i'm the only single person i know.
So, i text him and ask him if he wants to go out....
The next day i get a reply which says that, sure we can go for a drink, but he's been seeing someone since the start of the year (NB. it was February) if that makes a difference.

How utterly perfect a message is that? The ultimate in ambiguous textual intercourse.

So, could be read as "we can go for a drink if you want to be friends" or equally "we can go for a drink if you are happy to proceed knowing that i have a girlfriend".

Am i being too obvious by spelling this out?

OMG!

2007-03-08T21:28:00.000Z

This is the first time ever that i have had to force myself to write a post.
What's going on?
I don't know what to write about. Nothing seems exciting enough to put down. This is really weird, i don't like it.
I've really been enjoying your comments recently, maybe you could help me out. I could tell you a tale about my love-life; or i could tell you what i got up to in London a couple of weeks ago; my experience of the recent lunar eclipse or erm, struggling here.....it's all me, me, me isn't it?

I've labelled all my posts! This is not because i would like to tell you exactly what each post is about- then you might not even feel the need to read it!! No, i just like labels and boxes, they make me feel organazised. In fact i love it when you get a comment and you don't really understand what it means because the person who wrote it was thinking about something entirely different (or related in their mind). It's great when that happens. For the love of ambiguity, i invented the label 'miscellaneous'. These are the posts which resist being pinned down. These can be about anything you want them to be about. Indeed they will be better for it.
So, i didn't plan this post. It's the nearest to free-association that i'm going to get. "Can you tell what it is yet?"

Dig this

2007-02-27T20:35:00.000Z

There's a knock at the door.
"Flowers or something for you, love."
It's not flowers, not yet anyway.
It's a magnolia stellata that i ordered for myself on valentines day. It will be the second thing to flower in my new garden (after the crocus's).
I run some water into the sink (not too cold) and stand the pot there whilst i get my boots on. I'm going to plant it in the circular bed in front of the apple tree, but first i have to dig out all the clumps of grass that are in the bed, otherwise it just won't be right.
I love doing this. I love getting weeds out too. I love it when you have a patch of ground that needs clearing and you fork it over and pull out all those couch grass roots and green bits (with your fingers) so it's soil only. I love digging and breaking up great big lumps of clodding sods. I love the smell of soil and i love the way you can look back on your work and say, "I did that and it looks just how i wanted it to. Next year it will be beautiful, and for years after that if i look after it."

Scooters, vacation, fall

2007-02-23T09:14:00.000Z

So, these are my symptoms at present. (that's what you want to know, isn't it?)
My memory and concentration have continued to get worse over the past few weeks. In November i felt out of it, but i needed to feel that. I needed to feel the opposite of that disproportionate amount of anxiety -which was verging on hypochondria and was full blown paranoia- to get through that time. But now: it's just massively inconvenient.
I can't remember more than one thing at once. So, if i've got three things to do upstairs, i'll go up, do one of them, come down and then remember the other two. Similarly when talking on the phone, i have a list of things i need to tell the person in question. I will tell them one thing and then consider myself done. Then i have to ring them back.
I've also got this weird kind of dyslexia. It's especially bad with numbers. I look at the number (time,date, amount, whatever) and when i look away from it, it's not that i've forgotten it, it's more that it's been replaced by some other bogus, random figure.
The reason i hate this, is that it is the polar opposite of my actual personality. I am not vague, inaccurate or inefficient. So, as the Doc pointed out, these are the symptoms of depression as well as the side-effects of anti-depressants. So i figure, to find out if i am depressed, i need to stop taking them. If the symptoms improve then i know that stopping is the right thing to do. If the symptoms continue i'm depressed and i'm fucked.
But on a more positive note. Two things: i've started dreaming again and i'm starving. [My mum would say, 'You're not starving. You don't know the meaning of the word.']
Ok, so i'm hungry. Really, really hungry. I'm hungry in between meals, i'm hungry before bed, i'm waking up before dawn feeling really, really hungry. But this is good, and i'm enjoying the dreams.
And finally- i had that thing again last night where i wake myself up running. This time it was a bit different. It was more like stopping myself from slipping down. It was more like scrabbling upwards (horizontally- if you know what i mean). And i'm still twitching, but it hasn't got any worse. So, there it is.

Twitching the night Away

2007-02-08T21:14:00.000Z

I've had a slight twitch since January. I don't think anyone else can see it. It's just small muscular spasm, like the ones you get when you're just about to fall asleep. It only happens when i'm sitting or lying down. I asked the doctor if it's a side effect of the medication. She said it's more likely to be a side effect of the anxiety.
I haven't put my half a stone back on either.
Come on! Who's got my half a stone?? I need it back!
I also woke up running in the middle of the night last Sunday. I was peddling like mad. Like when you're at the bottom of a pool and you know you're running out of air.

Anyway, I'm finally going to London to see N and Dimitri. Back on Tuesday. Let you know if there's anything to report.

Clean

2007-01-26T13:22:00.000Z

I was going to write about Skins (last night on E4) but i think i'll give it another chance and watch it again next week.
I've just come back from the Turkish Baths. It's two years since i last went- which is far too long. This time i went in the plunge pool twice. Normally i'm a complete wuss when it comes to being cold, but this time i loved the shock and the exhilaration of going from really hot to really cold. As i laid on a recliner in the first dry heat room, i felt the buzz my body reacting to the extremes. I found myself thinking that this was better than any buzz from alcohol, nicotine or other drugs (how thirty-something am I?)
When the buzz subsided i need the heat of the second dry heat room.
However liberated i like to think i am, i cannot help being disturbed by the nakedness of strangers. I kept my bikini on (until my final shower) but of course many women (mainly older women) are naturally naked. I wonder what the age is when you cease to give a fuck about other people seeing your snatch?
The next dry chamber is the hottest of all. I need to lay down on the stone which is covered by a towel. I put my head on the amazingly comfortable block of wood and give in to the heat below me. I remember the thing about living in the moment and i think about the intense heat located at the base of my spine and the relaxing effect it is having on my lower body. There's a similar but less intense feeling in the shoulders.
I repeated the whole process and drank lots of water.
For my final shower i used a lime and lavender body wash which smells fantastic. Then in the rest room, i used a complementary moisturiser which is pretty intoxicating. I reveled in the thought that i was almost certainly the best smelling woman in the room. Feeling heady with my own gorgeousness and the level of relaxation i don't move for about fifteen minutes (except to drink a smoothie).
I finally get dressed really, really slowly, toweling my hair and putting back each item of clothing carefully. I'm so clean, cleaner than i have been for the past two and a half years. I think about the last time i visited: November 2004.
I just bumped into him in the bar, it was my birthday celebration and i was enthusing drunkenly about how wonderful the Turkish Bath had been. Of course i said,
'You have to go, it's amazing'. To which he replied,
'Well someone would have to invite me, wouldn't they?'

I have steamed the last two and a half years out of my body and i'm ready to start again. Im clean, the cleanest i've been (Depeche Mode).
I drive home, and although i am all soft on the inside, i am bouncy and i do not feel the January cold, in fact i welcome it, and i listen to "The Second Coming" all the way home.

Latest news from Hysteria Lane

2007-01-25T09:37:00.000Z

There is a bird stuck in my window frame.
I could hear some scrabbling and naturally thought it must be a mouse. I went over to the area where the sound was coming from to see if there was any 'evidence'. A hole in the floor boards.
As i put my head down towards the hole i realise that the scrabbling sound is not coming from down under the boards but is directly in my left ear.
Could a mouse be stuck in the window frame?
The scrabbling noise is quite frantic. I thought i heard something the other day, but it wasn't as insistent as this.
I try and work out how this could happen, but can't. Then i see some brick dust or something on the window sill. Aha! I go outside to look for a possible entry point and put my head towards the corner where the sound is coming from. I peer towards a small gap in between the frame and the sill and out pops a tiny frantic claw. I jump back thinking, 'What kind of creature is that??'
On second look i see a glimpse of blue and yellow stuff. It's a bird, and there's no way i can get it out of there. So i'm sitting here typing and listening to periodic attempts by the poor thing to get free. It keeps tapping (presumably with it's beak) as though there might be some way out through the PVC frame. I try and think of someone to call who might be able to do something but i can't think of anyone who might know what to do.
So i write this, and wonder if that will make me feel better.

Tumbleweed

2007-01-19T21:04:00.000Z

Before the vote is cast......
Anyone who knows me would know that i am a massive fan of Big Brother.
At the moment it's got everything, including the tumbleweed moments with Davina on stage. It's such excellent theatre!!!!
And this stuff is really important. The innate racism of Britain exposed to the world. It's got tragedy- Danielle and Jo and the hapless Jack and Jade (like the couple who tumble down the hill with the pail of water)- when they get out they won't even understand the concept of 'innate racism', and in a way it's not even fair that they should be paraded as examples of this tendency.
At the moment Jade is crying and saying she wants to walk out to no-one (as opposed to a crowd baying for her 'racist blood'). She is writing her own story here. She's crying because she has been exposed. But it's also not fair to compare her words with the composure and grace that has been shown by Shilpa Shetti. Who's fault is this? The housemates have commented that Jade can't be a racist because she is 'mixed race'. She told Shilpa that she would never judge anyone on the colour of their skin- after all, we are all 'mixed race', are we not? Totally missing the fact that racism is about the misunderstanding between one culture and another.

Frankensteins Monster

2007-01-10T20:45:00.000Z

I went to an all girls high school. When i was about thirteen, i created a fantasy boyfriend. I drew him in my exercise book and showed him off proudly to all my friends. He was made up of the different body parts of several different boys that i knew - so and so's hands; such and such's head etc.
It didn't occur to me that i had created a monster.
I have come to realise that i am still doing that now (twenty years or so on), cobbling together this weird creature that fits with all the different aspects of my life. I've got one who provides reliable sex; one who provides the kind of love and romance that i crave and one who kind of fits in with my domestic/social life.
I haven't done this consciously, and have hated it in the past when people have not been exclusive with me. They seem satisfied with the part that they've got, but i'm not. I do want exclusivity, so what am i doing?
I think i'm reflecting my own schizophrenia. My domestic, social, work and creative lives are four different countries.
What i really want is all that in one person. One person who can cope with all those things and bring something else to the party.
I even know now (just as i'm writing) what i need to do. It's high time all those parts joined back together-then my monster will become my soul mate.

20 Q

2007-01-02T20:45:00.000Z

Anyway, 20 Q.
You think of something and 20 Q guesses what you are thinking of within 20 questions (plus another five if it gets it wrong first time). It uses a set of deductive questions- which in themselves are genius.
So i'm thinking "this is genius, but what's it going to say if i think of something rude". I really wanted to see if it would get all confused and come up with some random unrelated object like TORTILLA CHIP.
So of course i'm thinking - 'cock' , and laughing away at my own childishness whilst getting comfy on the sofa. The first questions are always
IS IT ANIMAL/VEGETABLE/MINERAL/OTHER?
You can only press buttons that answer Yes, No, Sometimes, Rarely or Unknown. We had already worked out that if you say animal vegetable or mineral, it's definitions within these categories are pretty narrow. So, i go for 'other' and make my way through the now more familiar list of eliminators, IS IT BROWN? DOES IT FIT IN AN ENVELOPE? ETC.
I answer with the affirmative when it asks DOES IT BRING PEOPLE JOY? And DO MOST PEOPLE USE IT EVERY DAY? (Well they do don't they?)
We're getting close to question 20 and i'm convinced it's not going to get it, "I'm going to beat 20 Q by thinking of something that not in it's vocabulary, i'm so smart !"
Question 20 is answered.
I'M THINKING....
YOU WERE THINKING OF A MUSCLE
I feel a mixture of disappointment and vague embarrassment. I sit there thinking, "Is a penis a muscle?" My Biology is as bad as my geography.
I decide to answer No.
I'LL TRY AGAIN
I'M GOING TO WIN
Five more questions. DOES IT CONTAIN LIQUID?
Well kind of.
YOU WERE THINKING OF A GLAND
Again, faint embarrassment. Is it a fucking gland?
I'm pissed off. This isn't funny.
It knows what i was thinking, it was just too polite to say it.

Christmas 2006

2006-12-30T23:15:00.000Z

This Christmas has undoubtedly been the best Christmas i have had for about three years.
Nothing amazing happened: but nothing really bad happened either.

Some highlights for me were:
Best Moment
Out: Myself and eight girlfriends wearing -without consultation- eight slightly different versions of 'the little black dress' on a night out (wasted on The Hi-fi Club).

In: cutting holly with red berries on it from the garden.

Best Presents
Given: 50 trees for Ethiopia from Oxfam Unwrapped to my mum (she loved this).
Received: 20 Q! Oh my God it really can read your mind!!! You think of something and it asks you 20 questions and then guesses what you are thinking!!!
It's genius- but more about that next time. I'm too knackered to make it sound funny at the moment. Going to read some of my favourite bloggers instead....

Joy to the world

2006-12-24T16:41:00.000Z

For the last two nights in a row, i have woken up with this really wierd feeling. It's like an unspecific joy bursting out from my chest in the middle of the night. I was quite freaked out the first time: to feel like that that for no apparent reason (wasn't having any fantastic dreams or anything....) The second time, i tried to go with it rather than fight it. I tried to think "Okay, i don't know why i feel like this but it's a good feeling in fact it's pretty fantastic (if a little unfamiliar)"
My theory is that it's some kind of preparation for a feeling like that that is coming pretty soon. Any time now in fact..... and it's not about christmas presents.
Apologies to all the people i offended by my geographical error. I admire your nationalism although i was a little surprised by your anger - it wasn't intended as a slight.

Lost, 1886

2006-12-18T18:47:00.000Z

This weekend i went to the opening of Akselli Gallen-Kallela at the Groningen Museum in the Netherlands.
He paints women beautifully. If i was going to be painted that is how i would like to be portrayed- with the love, respect and tenderness that Gallen-Kallela obviously had for his subjects. I would go so far as to say that although he painted other subjects, his paintings are a celebration of womanhood.
The publicity image shows a beautiful pubescent girl, hair streaming into the moon behind her, looking heavenward with arms outstretched. Her eyes could be filled with tears but she doesn't look sad. She stands open and accepting, up to her thighs in a red sea.
The painting which affected me most was the one with the title above. It shows a female figure slumped at the base of a tree in a forest. When i looked at it, i couldn't decide wether i was looking at a woman or a young girl. I searched her figure for signs of maturity but still found myself stuck between a plump child and an androgynous young woman.
The figure is predominantly blue with the saddest most dejected look i have ever seen painted. She has sat down because she doesn't know what to do. It would be easy to assume that this is because she cannot find her way home.
Her hand lays palm upwards on the forest floor. She is holding a red checked piece of cloth which seems to bleed into her hand.
When i read the catologue i find that an earlier version of the painting contained a dead baby.
Incredible.

Text Sculpture

2006-12-11T21:12:00.000Z

On Sunday 3rd December i texted to ask him, "When are you coming to see me?"
He didn't reply.

So on Monday i asked him "When".
On Tuesday "are you".
On Wednesday "coming".
On Thursday "to see me?"

Roughly at the same time every night, but a little later or earlier each day, to take him by surprise or to make him wait.

I thought it was like a text sculpture.

Still waiting.

Christmas card from Suburbia

2006-12-03T20:28:00.000Z

I know i'm really here now that i have my first Christmas card signed
'from A**** at No.3'.
I have joked about this many times, but i didn't expect it to actually happen! I don't know what to do now! I mean, what's the etiquette here??? Do i now return a card to A**** at No.3?
But s/he is a complete stranger! I would feel too weird! Should i maybe go and introduce myself and say thank you for the card in person? I may pass this person many times and each time be committing an unwitting rebuff.
If i did go round i'd probably end up going into some spiel about how i wasn't going to send any Christmas cards this year because i feel they are an unnecessary drain on the earth's resources. I really like trees the way they are- not when they're pulped for banal seasonal greetings. Inevitably this would sound like a criticism if not a direct attack on the personal life-style choices of my new neighbours. That's not going to work.
I guess the only option is to go back on my principals and buy a fucking Christmas card and sign it
'from Nina at No.*' - otherwise they won't know who the fuck i am.
Then i have become the thing i am priding myself on believing i am not. My new principle about e-cards flying out of the window as i slowly collect and similar greetings from all 75 residents of the street.

Writing on the Wall

2006-11-27T21:53:00.000Z

Thank you for your birthday wishes.
One of the presents i got for my birthday was a book by David Shrigley called 'KILL YOUR PETS'. I really like David Shrigley. This book is full of slogans that kind of make sense but you have to read them a couple of times to get the joke. The book is in a small square format exactly the size of a CD case. This adds to the difficulty in reading the slogans as they are all written in large black capital scrawl. I find this funny also.
When i was a kid there was some graffiti on a wall opposite the shops near where we lived. It said:

IPSWICH FOR UNDERPANTRY AND BEWTY

i always thought that when i grew up, i would understand what that meant. [I also thought that girls grew up they had to wear tan tights]
More recently, i went to an exhibition where you could scribble on wallpapered walls (i copied the line above).
How cool would it be if someone somewhere reading this post knew what that meant???!!!***
Even better: what if you were the person who scrawled that on a wall near my old house.....or any wall, anywhere for that matter!
That would be great if that happened.

Prozac Nation

2006-11-19T04:10:00.000Z

Why am I awake at 4am?
I think it's the drugs (this effect rings a bell from last time).
However, i am not lying in bed riddled with irrational fears about everything from my life insurance to the apocolypse, so this is an improvement. The last couple of nights, i've found myself thinking creatively in my 'awake period', so tonight i thought i'd get up and make the most of it.
I watched a programme years ago (when Prozac was bigger news) where Bernard Sumner-who admitted to being slightly depressive- took a Prozac trial to see if it affected his creativity. The result was that it did! When he took Prozac and felt better he found that he wasn't so bothered about writing great songs....Personally i think depression can be crippling and destructive as well as a way to convert pain into art.
Yesterday i saw a tabloid newspaper headline with the catch-phrase above. I didn't bother going over to read it because it was inevitably going to be a load of bollocks.
I sound like some kind of advocate for pharmaceuticals, but i assure you i'm not. The next phase is to find an alternative to taking them - cue rebirth as nutritional/environmental/plant-based/religious transformation takes place. [Joking about the religious thing.]
I've just eaten a banana.
This may seem uninteresting, but i ate it because i was hungry. During my recent episode, i was convinced that i was waking up because of a blood sugar drop. My rationale for this was that i eat so much chocolate during the day. So when i was waking up with "the fear" i was caning bananas to try and get some mental and physical balance back. I also made myself a compilation CD with songs on it that i can only now describe as comfort songs. I played it over and over again to try and distract myself from the thoughts that were on constant replay.
I called it Bananas at Bedtime.
Anyway i'm going back to bed now. It's my birthday tomorrow and i've invited about thirty people over so i need some sleep. I don't need my CD, i feel better now. This is good.

Back (Like James Brown)

2006-11-07T21:57:00.000Z

I'm back. In my new house, broadband connected, bring it on.
I'm proud of myself really: i managed to move house whilst feeling like shite; i took the drugs like a good girl and they worked; i've got the house in some kind of order and i have returned to work today. I did not lay down and give up. i will not be beaten.
The doctor gave me a leaflet about stress and anxiety today. As she was looking through her stock she read out the extraneous titles, "Obsessive Compulsive Disorders', 'Voices'... Oh, here we are 'Coping with stress'!"
Perhaps she was trying to put it all into some perspective for me.
The only physical symptom remaining is that if i'm feeling nervous, my left arm and leg go a bit numb. They don't completely lose feeling, but they feel weird. I need to pinch myself and say 'I don't care' like the counsellor told me to. This really works. Power of positive speech. Let nothing in my life be negative (with or without drugs) i will strive not to let negativity overtake me- either my own or that of others.
This morning as i looked out of my window, people on my new street were putting out their bins for collection (all at the same time funnily). An old lady across the road came out in a full length maroon dressing gown. As she dropped off her bin, she looked across the street and smiled and lifted her hand to greet her neighbour. This is not familiar territory for me. I found myself thinking that living here is like being part of a David Lynch movie- but the birds in my garden are real and nothing bad is going to happen because i won't let it.

Tuesday 24th October

2006-10-25T08:56:00.000+01:00

Still can't face up to any of the things that are queueing up for my attention. Stayed at mums last night. Woke up at 1.30am and inevitably started thinking, "it's going to happen again." In a cold sweat, despite two duvets, but manage to talk myself into calming down. Picturing the chemicals draining back the other way: going out from my head, down my body and leaving through my toes. Manage to force myself to read a book. Semi-awake till about six when i get up.
Decide to take mum up on her offer and go for a walk. Can't bear thought of going home to sort eveything out. Get my boots on and pound eight miles, some of it up moderate hills. Find it really hard work. Can't make conversation, constantly replaying the events of the last few days in my head. Driving myself nuts.
I need to get it down. Get down and stay down. Get out of my head because i've got things to do, and i don't want to feel like this anymore.

Sunday 22nd October

2006-10-25T08:40:00.000+01:00

Feeling relatively okay today, although persistent negative thoughts abound. Not been sleeping well, so probably exhaustion has taken the edge off it a bit.
Take some stuff to the tip and try and think about some of the millions things that i need to do but don't really feel up to.
Day goes by, i ring friends in the evening to try and gain further perspective.
Thankfully start feeling sleepy and go to bed.

BANG! No idea what time it is but i'm wide awake again. That feeling starts creeping over me again but this time i've got pins and needles in my left arm as well. I sit up and try and get some feeling back in my arm. I'ts not working. I'm rubbing it and moving it round but it's still buzzing. I'm really panicking now, i'm connecting the lack of feeling in my arm with my spine problem. The curve of my spine is somehow blocking the circulation in my arm. I'm sweating and stink of fear. I call my mum and tell her my mad thoughts. She says she will come over and i sit there shaking and crying till she gets here. She tells me she's had a similar thing, it's probably stress related and i eventually start to calm down.
She stays the night but i lay there listening to music trying to distract myself. Reading doesn't work. I can't wait for daylight.

Friday 20th October

2006-10-25T08:10:00.000+01:00

I go to my sister's and tell her everything: every ridiculous irrational thought that i have been having in the hours that i have laid awake after the panic attack. I have thought of a million different reasons for this to be happening now, and i need to tell someone so that i don't feel like i'm losing my mind. I am alternatively incredibly anxious and then feel really spaced out. I've already been to the doctors and he's given me fluoxetine. It won't start working for a couple of weeks. My body is screaming, "But what about now?" but of course those words don't come out of my mouth. I don't want to take drugs for depression, i'm certainly not going to prompt him to give me tranquilizers.
My sister manages to make me feel normal. I go home exhausted.

Later on my ex rings me for a lift to the train station. I pick him up and feel like the painfully slow pace of the traffic is going to make me start screaming and crying. We get to the station drop off point and there is Alan Bennett! He's standing there looking like a photograph of himself, with his taupe raincoat and his scarf tucked in to the top, following the V of the buttons of the coat. I can't believe it!
I drop J off and drive away, thinking, "I should have stopped. He was just standing waiting to be picked up. I should have just said hello, and said, 'Hey, Alan, how funny is this? Three years ago, i started collecting stories for a book that i called Untold Stories. Then you republished your collection last year with the same name! I was gutted. You nicked my title! But it's okay because i'm using it for my blog title now and i'm going to call my book something else. Even funnier: i took my book to a published writer for some advice a couple of years ago and he said it reminded him of your Talking Heads!'"
He would have hated me wouldn't he? Lunatic thoughts.

Thursday 19th October

2006-10-25T07:44:00.000+01:00

Went to bed with some low level anxieties, but put legs into bhada khonasana (this usually works for things like indigestion etc.). Promptly fell asleep.

3.30am: i'm suddenly wide awake for no apparent reason. A hideous creeping feeling comes over me. It's that kind of feeling that i associate with childhood night terrors. It starts in my toes and creeps upwards in a wave of all consuming anxiety. The scariest part is that i don't know what it is i'm scared of.
It makes it's way to my backside and my stomach and i feel like i'm going to have diahorrea and vomit at the same time. This feeling is almost immediately eclipsed when the wave reaches my chest and my heart goes into overdive. I realise i'm holding my breath in panic and my head starts go into that pre-faint stage just before you get the black and white dots before your eyes.
I'm convinced that if i get up to go to the bathroom, i'm going to pass out, hit my head and die on the bathroom floor. I'm immobilised by this thought and this renews the wave of fear with another flood of adrenaline.
I somehow manage a rational thought. I've had this experience before after the virus incident last year. It will go away if i think myself out of it. Think about nice things, stop thinking negative thoughts, try and breath normally, it will go away.
As the fear slowly lessens, i start crying massive sobs of relief mixed with the anxiety of wondering 'What the fuck was that?' I look at the time and wonder who it would be acceptable to wake up at this time in the morning. I ring my sister and get the answer-phone. I ring my mum and thank god, she answers.

Dilemma

2006-10-18T21:38:00.000+01:00

It's like a test of your commitment at this stage, isn't it?
We're three months in; we did it almost every night in the beginning and in every room in the house: now we need to decide if the honeymoon period is over.
Is this going anywhere? Am i putting more into this than i'm getting out?
Am i the one doing all the talking? Does it matter if i'm enjoying myself?
What is the meaning of life?

Perhaps, i've given away too much too soon, on the other hand, there are things i haven't been so open about. If i'd been more open, maybe i would have got a better response.

Maybe i should start afresh, or should i stick with it and see what happens?

Phew. I really don't know.

Home

2006-10-15T20:19:00.000+01:00

If anyone is following the different threads in my blog, you may (or may not) be interested to know that i am finally moving house.
I am moving within sight of the house that i grew up in. This is the house of my dreams: not in a future sense, like i want to live there again, but in an ongoing present where that house is often the theatre to my dreams. It is preserved exactly in every 1970's detail in my mind. I can take a tour at any time, awake or asleep, and remember every mark on the wallpaper, or the way fabrics felt, even sometimes the smell of the garden, rain or shine. I have also dreamt about the greenhouse, the garage and the passage behind it, the loft, the stairway and the cupboard underneath the stairs. Psycho-analyse that.
I noticed a couple of years ago, that i have decorated my present home in the colours of the dream house.
Why is it that some people always want to go back home and others will do anything to stay away? I wonder if, after i have moved there, i will finally grow up. My grandmother says she feels like a twenty year old trapped in an eighty year-old body; i doubt it

Napoleonic Goth

2006-10-10T22:17:00.000+01:00

There was a Goth hanging around outside my window at w*** today.
He was standing half way down the path for at least forty-five minutes not moving a muscle.
That's an exaggeration, every so often he did move. His hand travelled up to move his hair away from his face; at one point he lifted his foot subtly and circled it round (pins and needles). Apart from that, he stood stock still in the same position, his left hand tucked neatly across his chest to the inside of his leather trenchcoat. Every time i looked out of the window he was still there.
I heard that Goth is back. As far as i'm concerned it never went away. They're a good seasonal barometer: you know it's summer when they get down to the purple layer.
We speculated that maybe there was another Goth somewhere else, standing in exactly the same position, waiting.
He was there one minute, and the next time i looked he had disappeared (in a puff of smoke?)

Is this a gift that you possess?

2006-10-09T21:18:00.000+01:00

The weekend already seems like a lifetime ago.
On Friday night i went to see some crap plays that were like radio plays, but with two 'actors' reading from scripts in front of us. This was being filmed (god knows why as there was nothing to look at). It was so fucking provincial it made me embarrassed.
Then went to see some 'experimental' short films. There was a really cool one where someone had filmed a xylophone. The film and soundtrack were both speeded up and it created this crazy but catchy soundtrack that also managed to be quite funny at the same time. It got spontaneous applause at the end- as opposed to the kind of applause people feel obliged to provide in some contexts: there's no need to clap for a film, so this seems to me the ultimate accolade.
Then we went to see a performance of Long Term Happiness. This guy read out from a list of things that make him happy. It was kind of like stand-up comedy except it really just brought a smile to your face:partly because it was humorous, but partly because it made you think of similar things that you felt yourself. Hmm very interesting.
He was doing it for twenty-four hours with a ten minute break every hour. I almost resented him, i was jealous of his ability to think so positively about absolutely everything, but this is the point that he was making, that happiness can be self-generating and that godammit you can pass it on to other people!
His next performance is a dating agency. He's so happy that he's going to set other people up so they can be happy too...and in love!
I am emailing him my details as soon as i have finished this post. Watch this space.

'S' is for spine

2006-10-04T22:12:00.000+01:00

Almost a year ago (on the eve of my birthday) i was taken into hospital with a mystery virus. This was the kind of virus where you can't keep water down and keep losing consciousness. I kept blacking out and hitting my head on things. It wasn't nice.
Whilst i was in A&E, they x-rayed my chest to see if there was a problem with my lungs. I asked to look at the photo of the inside of my body, and discovered that i have an S shaped spine. I was extremely disappointed that none of my yoga teachers, lovers, or anyone i had ever been on holiday with, had ever noticed this about me.
A year later, i have decided maybe i have been a little unfair to those closest to me. Perhaps it hasn't been there that long, in which case, i should get it checked out.
I have never had back pain, but since the doctor told me i might need physiotherapy, i have suddenly become ridiculously aware of my back and of the exact location of each vertebrae and muscle. I feel ok standing up - almost automatically applying the principles of tadasana- but sitting down has become a minefield of self-criticism. I don't know how to hold myself: i feel uncomfortable in every position that i find myself in. I have exhausted myself by not allowing myself to sit naturally, and by making mental lists of things that i may or may not be able to do if this gets worse.
I have been veering from nausea - through imagining the worst, to the kind of compulsion one feels when put in danger; to run out immediately and do everything i ever wanted to do, as soon as is humanly possible.
I'm having another x-ray tomorrow. Lots of people have this thing and it's not a problem. I will be fine.
I have been trying to imagine someone massaging my back, patiently, consistently, over along period of time, until every one of those pieces goes back into line.

Enchanted Evening

2006-10-01T18:53:00.000+01:00

On Saturday night, we visited a festival of fire.
There is something primal and bewitching about looking at fire, and it was a fitting end to the time of year when one can do things outside in England without being uncomfortably cold. There were no barriers or public safety enforcers telling you to stand back. It was possible for one to judge one's own safety in relation to the fires.
The fire sculptures were impressive in themselves. The guardians of those which required human intervention looked like Edwardian show-people; they wore hats and waist-coats and a look that was suitably removed from the surroundings.
When it started to rain, the hundreds of pots of fire made the most amazing sizzling and spitting symphony. Carabosse played intruments that were hanging from a tree in the centre of the gardens. The guitars and the keyboard were suspended in mid air. At one point, one of the guitarists was making sounds by dropping his bottleneck onto the strings of the suspended electric guitar. There was a skiffle-like vocal and the same kind of other-worldliness to the music as to the installation itself.

Namaste

2006-09-27T21:49:00.000+01:00

I wasn't going to blog about yoga, because i take it very seriously.
But tonight was an exception.
The whole purpose of yoga is that you think about your body and not the outside world. This allows you that little inner window that could be expanded and be called Peace. No matter what is going on around you, you should (with practice) be able to filter out any extraneous sound/activity and concerntrate on the minutiae of the asanas.
There used to be a group of people who sat outside the building drinking and shouting at each other. That was when i practised this technique.
Recently though, there has been a choir singing African songs/the hits of Paul Simon in the room down the hall. There was also a meeting of the Kippax Flat Earth Society in the adjoining room. (This joke is purely for the benefit of my sister and no-one else - i don't know who they were really.)

We were all trying our best with Akarna Dhanurasana.

Homeless Homeless
Moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake

"Now bring your foot closer to your ear"

Somebody say ih hih ih hih ih
Somebody sing Hello Hello Hello

"..and closer if you can"

Somebody say ih hih ih hih ih Somebody cry Why Why Why

They actually came out into the hallway at one point. Their voices wrapping round us.

I didn't fare so well in Sirsasana. I was just getting to three minutes when i actually stopped thinking about the pose. I started thinking about something else entirely, and fell on my ass.

F.E.A.R

2006-09-26T20:53:00.000+01:00

This morning, Comedy Dave played Ian Brown's F.E.A.R on 'Tedious Link'. I have to admit i had tears rolling down my face. I absolutely love that song. It's one of those songs, which i wouldn't put on my i-pod (if i had one, which regrettably i don't). I wouldn't put it on my i-pod because i like to choose my moments for my favourite albums. Obviously i have played it many times since 2001, but i would hate to ruin it by hearing it too much. Also, it would be very inconvenient to be crying in that way, unexpectedly in inappropriate places.
I saw Mr. Brown perform that song on TV - i think it was that Eden Project gig last year. I really hope i get to see that for myself at some point. I cried then as well. My friend and i texted each other some of the lyrics like a couple of teenagers. There is nothing to say about Ian Brown that isn't a cliche, that hasn't been said before, so i'll stop now.

It seemed clear to the Pythagoreans that the distances between the planets would have the same ratios as produced harmonious sounds in a plucked string. To them, the solar system consisted of ten spheres revolving in circles about a central fire, each sphere giving off a sound the way a projectile makes a sound as it swished through the air: the closer spheres gave lower tones while the farther moved faster and gave higher pitched sounds. All combined into beautiful harmony, the music of the spheres.

Indian Prince

2006-09-24T20:17:00.000+01:00

Yesterday i went for a walk in one of my favourite parks, and i saw a guy who keeps cropping up.
I first met him at the disaster-piece festival last summer. We were the only two people eating this terrible food from one of the few stalls that were there, at about 2am in the morning. He talked about what it was like being the only Indian guy where he had been to school in New Zealand.
Then he stopped me at Across the Tracks and said, "Hi, I knew i'd see you here! My girlfriend said, 'Well how are you going to remember what she looks like?' and i told her, 'I'll remember'."
So, yesterday he appears in the park with his girlfriend and three other girls. He kissed me on the cheek (platonically of course). But it all seemed too weird. I tried to make conversation with the girlfriends, but it was too much effort, so i said "Nice to see you" and went on my way.

I was actually going to the heather garden because my grandad's ashes were sprinkled there -I was going to ask him for some help with my love life. Over the last couple of years, it seems like i have had a sign above my head (that everyone but i can see) saying Men in Relationships, Please Apply Here.
I'm hoping that this is a phase of my life that will soon be replaced by some other, more satisfying phase that is not about what i cannot have.

36 m.p.h

2006-09-22T20:03:00.000+01:00

I can't believe this.
I just received a NOTICE OF INTENDED PROSECUTION
.............for speeding!!!!**
This is great. I can't describe the relish with which i filled in the back part, thereby providing my personal details for intended prosecution. I was only momentarily distracted by the fact that i can't afford to be fined for anything, never mind something as ridiculous as this.
The funniest bit is that i was only doing 36 in a 30 zone: there is leeway that allows you to go 5 over the speed limit, so in fact , technically, i was only 1 m.p.h.over!
"Your honour, there were extenuating circumstances. I had just been subjected to the lunacy of the woman i am about to buy a house from for over an hour! In addition to this, i was made late for an extremely important hair appointment. My hairdresser himself commented that I had never been late: in the whole 15 years that he has been cutting my hair, i have never once been late for an appointment."
This is so not rock and roll. Next time i'm on that stretch, i'm going to make sure i really put my foot on the pedal.
More haste.....

Who's that lady?

2006-09-21T20:31:00.000+01:00

I have finally found an image for my profile!

Girls: some of you may recognise this woman.
Guys: you may have to ask your girlfriend or girl friend.

She's the woman who hides those things which should not be seen to come out.
Inevitably though, all things which are held inside for a time, must come out. Even those things which are most often thought of as unpleasant, even nasty; that are not that socially acceptable or desired to be seen in public, should have a place to go.
She's the woman who gives those things a place to hide.

Crinoline skirts- perfect for concealing all manner of secrets!

God, i love my own jokes.

Chile Day

2006-09-17T20:24:00.000+01:00

My friend invited me to her house for Chile Day. We ate fantastic food with her family and friends, and we danced till 2 am. The older couples danced La cuenta to traditional Chilean music with white handkerchiefs for dramatic emphasis. Their children put on Brasilian and reggae variations of the same. The next generation down fought in a heap over the contents of the pinyata.
I had to dance barefoot in the end because my boots were restricting my feet.
There was a boy from the Dominican Republic who had me completely entranced. He was beautiful and he managed to lead the whole room when he was dancing. He danced with all the older women in a way that was sexy enough to be flattering but respectful at the same time. I looked at his hand on a woman's back. It made kind of an 'S' shape as he held her. He was guiding her in a really subtle but amazing way. He was setting a limit for her body without restricting the ebb and flow of the dance.
The father of one of the gorgeous Latino girls told me about growing up in a shanty town in Chile. His parents had no money and sent him out to look for food. He did not find food as often as he found books, and he taught himself to read English and French.
In order to stop Pinochet's special police force from literally washing out their homes with water cannons, the people of la favela erected a Chilean Flag in it's centre. This made the site untouchable and they named the shanty La Victoria. A. is writing the stories of his childhood, and has said he will show me the photos he took recently when he returned to visit the place in which he grew up.
This week is an different anniversary for the Chilean people. A. said that Allende was a socialist and told me that when he saw the twin towers go down he thought he was watching a re-run of a bad disaster movie. He was not happy to see those people die, he said, but that date should also remind the US of what they did to Chile.

Mary

2006-09-15T19:11:00.000+01:00

Things are looking up.
Today Radio One had their Scissor Sisters day.
Now i have mixed feelings about the Scissor Sisters. When i first heard them i thought, 'Why would you need these guys when you could just listen to Elton John?'
However, driving home from work tonight listening to Scott Mills, i thought it would be really good if they performed 'Mary'. It's the only song of theirs that i really like. It could actually be considered to be a fitting tribute to Elton circa 1973 rather than just completely replicating his sound. It has that combination of swirly electronic break and heartfelt piano that Elton did so well.
When they played it, i felt like a small wish had come true.
We could all do with more of that now couldn't we?

Losing the plot

2006-09-14T21:54:00.000+01:00

I'm extremely unsettled at the moment. I think I'm on the brink of massive changes, but it's not happening soon enough as far as i'm concerned. My copying paranoia has been activated.

Therapist: Let's reframe this particular destructive tendency. After all it stops you from sharing things with people.
Nina: Okay... (desperate to get rid of it).
Therapist: You could look at it as influencing people in a positive way.
Nina: Go on. (thinks- please don't say 'Imitation is the best form of flattery.')
Therapist: After all, you've probably been influenced by many people in many ways yourself. Think of it as generosity, you could just let it go.

Maybe i just need to get laid.
Not laid by just anyone though. Laid by someone who i really, really want. Someone who really, really wants me.
There's only so long a girl can last on just masturbation and chocolate.

Where were you?

2006-09-11T19:32:00.000+01:00

This day five years ago, i was coming back from a job interview and was calling my friend to update her. It had sounded like a teaching job with some technicians duties, but it turned out to be a technicians job, with some teaching duties. She said, "Just switch on the television a minute. There's a plane flying into a building."
We watched the plane gliding towards the towers and felt the resulting mayhem and confusion. Like everyone else, i then couldn't turn the TV off. I had been thinking of quitting my masters degree, and the programme director rang me (a minute after i put the phone down) to tell me not to leave, to take as long as i needed to finish. It was good advice, ten months later i wrote a brilliant dissertation on Sophie Calle.

I'm aware that there are tragedies and massive loss of life all over the world - and far too often; but there is something about this image that has retained it's shock value. Despite it's endless replaying, it never suffers from compassion fatigue. As well as this, this event was one which revealed one of the primary functions of blogging.

If you'd like to put the whole thing back together again, you should look at this film clip by artist Runa Islam.

Dark, Dark, Dark

2006-09-09T20:58:00.000+01:00

I didn't do what i was supposed to do this weekend. I've let myself be consumed by that thing that makes me look at everything as though under a microscope.
I was supposed to go and stay with N and Dimitri. I want to write about Dimitri, or make a film about their life or something. But i didn't go. The self-destruct button had been leaned on. I convinced myself that i could not do it, that the circumstances were not right: so here i am. Things are not as they should be in my life. I feel like i need somone to help, i can't do it all on my own anymore. I'm in fucking pain and i need it to go away. I can rationalize and see that i am healthy and intelligent and in many ways blessed but it does not make the slightest bit of difference when i feel like this.
I know that this will go away, and that it doesn't even last as long as it used to, but i cannot help but mourn for all that wasted time.

Sting in the.....

2006-09-05T21:15:00.000+01:00

It's the story on the lips of school children world-wide.
Steve Irwin is dead.
A real life super-hero has been defeated. The man wrestled crocodiles; it was highly theatrical but undeniably real. His death is also spectacular in it's nature. A wierd reversal of the Dracula myth, we see him pulling the barb from his heart. We don't need to see the TV show footage. We can see it all. I've already seen the tape of the last moments, I've already seen the film of his life with it's dramatic and upsetting finale.
I wonder did he write his own plot? Did he think he was invincible or did he always have a sneaking suspicion that he would die in bizarre circumstances, doing what he was famous for?

I've just realised the idiocy of what i've just said. People who take more than the average quota of risk probably don't go round speculating on their own death any more than anyone else does. I don't know what i'm trying to say here. There are just some images that are collectively compelling, and oddly, this is one.

The story so far

2006-09-02T21:32:00.000+01:00

One of my objectives for last weekend was to put up some posters advertising my new storytelling project. I'm looking for people to tell me stories about a particular bar, with which i have had a long and meaningful relationship.
So, off i go, posters at the ready, camera in hand; to the big city.
I completely bottled it. I went home, not having visited any of the carefully picked destinations on my itinerary. When it came down to it, i was really scared that once i start this, i'm going to have to do it. And although i think this is a great idea, i was immobilised with fear. The gremlin of self -doubt was muttering in my ear.
I tried not to berate myself further and went to see SOAP, going for a drink afterwards. Looking down the pub to my left, i saw two guys who had been practically permanent fixtures in the bar in question. It was like something from a film. A perfect segue in the plot. I didn't even know their names, but i remembered their faces. One of them was bursting to tell me his story, but i managed to persuade him to save it.
I love it when an idea has a life of it's own, then you know you're on to something.

For Kay (Mellor or Richardson)

2006-08-31T20:29:00.000+01:00

I was coming home from town, using public transport. I was just sitting there reflecting (in a pretty patronising way) how anyone who wants to write should travel on public transport 'keeping it real'- y' know. I was thinking that writers (once they have become successful) probably never do this, except if they live in London because everyone rides the tube in London.
So, i was thinking, 'Step aside Kay Mellor etc., it's time to let someone else (er, that'd be me then) have their say!'

I was sitting close to the back, upstairs -Mistake Number One.
Five young men in baseball caps and casual sports wear got on. After shouting out of the window and calling their friends (who had not managed to catch the bus) cunts, they sat down behind me and regaled the top deck with the story of how they had just bumped into the girl that one of them lost his virginity to. It descended into a dialogue about shaved pussy. One of them had one of those balloons that zips around making a loud noise: note the weird juxtaposition of childish activity and sexually explicit conversation- freaky.
The balloon thing kept whizzing round the back of my head, and the nearest one to me said to balloon boy, 'Hey, i'd laugh if that woman came over and smacked you one for doing that.'
Mistake Number Two: I laughed.
But it was funny! The very idea of me going over and cracking some kid round the head on a bus! Fucking hilarious!
Anyway, he saw me laughing and then leaned over and said, 'D'you want me to hit him for you love?'
It was at this point that i realised that this wasn't a threat, he was flirting with me!!*** He followed this by asking me where i lived!!!***???
This was both frightening and hilarious at the same time. Hilarious because i am old enough to be this guys mother; and frightening because i realised we were propelling ever forward towards my home. I sat there thinking maybe i should get off at the stop after my own. Then i got all street and thought, 'No, i'm not doing that. I'm a big woman, they're sixteen year old boys.'
As i stood up to get off they all started jumping around and shouting, 'Fucking hell, she gets off at our stop. Where d'you live love? Where d'you live?' and then listing all the names of the streets nearby. I have not often felt that particular combination of wetting myself with laughter and crapping myself with fear.
I was saved by the fact that they weren't going straight home, and i watched the bus pull away with five kids in baseball caps banging and shouting towards me from the upstairs window of the 49 bus.
Suburbia here i come.

Blogstipation

2006-08-29T15:24:00.000+01:00

Okay, who wants to hear about what i did over the holiday weekend?
Phone lines are open; you can vote for the story of your choice by leaving me a message in the comments!
Do you want to hear how

I got chatted up by some sixteen year old chavs on the bus?
I got soaked at carnival?
I got my new storytelling project underway?

Up to you people. Is there anybody out there?

Courting

2006-08-24T22:24:00.000+01:00

My first memory of this guy is thinking, 'I must have him. Girlfriend or no girlfriend.'
In the beginning i used to joke about it, but i stopped when i realised i meant it. Right from the start, i've always had this overwhelming desire to have some kind of physical contact with him-when he has held my hand, it feels like i'm holding my own hand.
I also really like it when he's in the building. I like to hear his voice if i'm upstairs and he's down.
When he told me how he felt about me, he pretty much described word for word what i had been thinking and not saying for nine months.
I have often wondered if i'm addicted to unrequited love-too much Thomas Hardy at an impressionable age.
I don't know what to do with it, this stuff, it doesn't go in a box.
He said he didn't want to end up on my blog. I can only apologise, in advance, but this is where i get to say what i need to say.

When i was a little girl, my grandad used to tease me by asking me if i was courting. This is the guy that my grandad would have wanted me to be with.

This part of the blog is getting ridiculously soppy, and for that, i can only apologise again.

Photos of me

2006-08-18T23:23:00.000+01:00

A friend of mine recently sent me a really nice photo of me.
I don't have many photo's of me, as I'm usually on the other side of the camera. I (half jokingly) asked him to send me every photo he had ever taken of me.
It was really weird. The other half of me (that wasn't joking) was absolutely loving the fact that i could have access to the, previously unattainable, 'how other people see you'.
It's the Big Brother effect. It's the lure of that other perspective- that is not unlocked in everyday life. This is why i admit that i think Big Brother is genius. If i had come up with that idea; i would consider myself the keeper of the zeitgeist.
Anyone who looks down on that aspect of reality television is suffering from reverse snobbery. I don't see what's wrong with admitting that you want to be loved. That's what you hear time and time over in BB, "i just want to be accepted for who i am."
We all do that: at work; when blogging; in our social lives. I'm not above that.
Perhaps it's a particularly British thing - not showing emotion in public, not admitting that you have desire (whether that be for money,love or sex). They're just doing it more openly. You could look at it as sharing.
I've been getting a guilty sort of pleasure from looking at those photo's. It allows me to love myself a little bit more. I don't think there's anything wrong about that.

Blogging

2006-08-17T21:17:00.000+01:00

I wasn't going to write about blogging because i thought it would be like one of those pictures that i really liked when i was a kid- you know the ones: it's a picture of a room, and on the wall there's a picture of a room with a picture of a room on the wall, and in that room ....and on and on forever.
Well i changed my mind.
Blogging is the thing that's been missing from my life since i was thirteen! It's a place to put all that miscellaneous STUFF that there isn't really anywhere to put. I've always kept diaries but 'What's the point in that??!!' They're under your bed in a box and no one ever reads them (except the person that you absolutely don't want to read them) and then it causes loads of trouble and it's all really dramatic.
This way you get to say whatever you want-and you're not hiding it, in fact, the opposite- you are inviting people to read it, "Come on, have a look inside my soul!"
All of this would be true if i weren't doing this anonymously. It would be true if i were inviting my colleagues and friends and family to read this, but i'm not. I'm not writing for people i know, i'm writing for people i don't know.
What's that all about then?

Petite Anglaise

2006-08-09T13:22:00.000+01:00

...is a blogger who got sacked when her employer discovered her site, and is now getting a book deal.
I was reading her entry of 14.07.06 which describes her 'feeling good about being alone' after splitting with her partner. The comments that follow are congratulatory, especially that she has reached this point so quickly.
Why does everyone else's life read like fiction to me?
There's lots of romantic symbolism about her new apartment and the freedom to choose her own paint colours. I'm about to embark on my third house move alone and i can tell you that aesthetic decisions like that are not a measure of your inner freedom. I mean, i'm the first one to admit that your environment affects your psyche (and therefore concievably your external life) but fucking hell. I think it would be more realistic to say that enjoying your new found 'freedom' as a single parent is just that- it's new found, it's novelty/romantic value is a phase of breaking up with someone- it's not something you earned yourself, it's a side effect!
It's obviously helping her get through it (and i shouldn't be such a bitch). The word 'bitter' comes to mind. I'm not bitter, i have admitted for at least the past two years that i don't want to be single any more. This is a separate issue from enjoying your singularity as i see it. I have lots of really good friends, i love my social life and after many years of repair work on this, i have a close family also.
She says that there isn't enough of her to go round: because she's a single parent!!??
This is why i am the antithesis of Bridget Jones: there's too fucking much of me for any one person. Now i sound like one of those wierd polygamists. What i mean is, that when i meet someone i sincerely hope to retain all the qualities of singularity listed above. I want to share everything with somebody, my soul mate, but i have no intention of giving up all the other things that ten years of being single has provided me with- and want to meet my equal in that respect.
Have i got ridiculously high expectations?
Perhaps that's why I'm still on my own.

Veneer

2006-08-04T23:31:00.000+01:00

I was listening to Jose Gonzales 'Veneer' and thinking something that i've thought a million times. I was thinking that i really like those bits in recordings of guitar music when you hear the fingers sliding, squeaking, up and down the guitar strings in between the finger positions. I love the fact that you can hear that, and i love the fact that as technology advances those in between bits are posssibly going to get more and more audible. It's a democracy of sound- that those bits are as valid as the actual music itself.
It also reminds me of another bit i love. i love the bit where Paul McCartney laughs in 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer'. I's not my favourite song (although it is my favoutite Beatles album)-not by any means- but i love the bit where you can hear him unable to supress an outburst in the line, "Writing fi-hi-(laughs)fty times, 'I must not be so-o-o-o'."
I wonder if he he was laughing at the ridiculousness of the song; the fact that he has to sing it like it's a music hall farce. Obviously George Martin was way ahead of his time (and now sadly techonlogy is disturbing him as it catches up with his art) and i love the fact that they left that in for people to discover.
It's those in between bits that i live for. The bits in between what's supposed to be happening. I love those.