The wonderful thing about being physically ill is that that it gives the mind a rest. The best days at school were always the ones after an illness, when body is not quite in line with the day, and mind is like a parent, holding its hand, going, come on, you can be in the world, and my do I feel clear, and like I'm in control! I am the mind and I calmly run this show!
When I had my annual chest infection last year, I couldn't breathe for more than a few spoken words, but once on the keyboard, I had a voice again. That amazed me. That total mechanical break down of something you see as 'talking', spliced into thinking-breathing-saying out loud, or in this case, thought to hand. The lungs cope, the hands realise they aren't really very ill at all, look at them dancing. Right now I'm doing it, though my mechanics are achy, but this is when lap tops do what they say, and the be covers are the greatest solace.
The mind is dealing with the most pressing problem, the survival of the body, but at the same time it surely gets a lesson on what's important. It surely realises that emotions are fun but sometimes they need severing.
Monday 20 July 2009
Thursday 16 July 2009
Trying, really
I feel tiredness is a state of mind. It's emotional tiredness a lot of the time. Remember getting up at 6am and traveling for hours to Alton Towers, hours and miles back, then going out to karaoke with a warm G glow (force that is), and feeling like you could stay up and on forever? Adrenaline takes over. But you have to let it. I think my stress arms are full of unexpired adrenaline. Pressure.
I was just thinking of booking a train ticket for Saturday night, coming back Monday morning. I don't know where, preferably somewhere cheap enough to go first class, so I can indulge in the Virgin lounge. Then I thought, no I'll be too tired. Then I thought, no, I'd be invigorating to take a trip out. ? .
Starting to get back to the work but super super critical of every word I write, every idea or thought I intone. What does it mean says my heavy existence. Do you mean it. And all it is is a sentence. i just don't want to have to look at anything I have tried to create as it just smacks of sadness, confusion and heaviness. The opposite of what good writing might be. But don't take my word for it, right now.
Another go...
I was just thinking of booking a train ticket for Saturday night, coming back Monday morning. I don't know where, preferably somewhere cheap enough to go first class, so I can indulge in the Virgin lounge. Then I thought, no I'll be too tired. Then I thought, no, I'd be invigorating to take a trip out. ? .
Starting to get back to the work but super super critical of every word I write, every idea or thought I intone. What does it mean says my heavy existence. Do you mean it. And all it is is a sentence. i just don't want to have to look at anything I have tried to create as it just smacks of sadness, confusion and heaviness. The opposite of what good writing might be. But don't take my word for it, right now.
Another go...
Wednesday 15 July 2009
I'm scrabbling around on the internet, looking for a welcome home, how was your day, hug, acknowledgment of my reality, someone to talk to about my stress arms. Email is faceless information swapping, facebook is faceless commentary, neither are what I'm looking for, yet I'm still looking.
A empty house. Mismatched schedules. Perpetual non reward. The house doesn't care if I've had a hard day, if I got told off for weeing too many times, that I had that 'I;m listening to myself talk and I sound stupid' moment a gazillion times, that I'm worried I have an infection. The house doesn't care about my reality, and it makes me feel homeless. Home is where the heart is, mine is shriveled, I'd say say sitting back into my stomach slightly. It's nowhere near my brain, and the work feels physically and mentally difficult.
If there was a Wikipedia entry for 'Stress arms', it would also say "see 'Vodka arms' and 'Caffeine arms'". It's the same feeling, a buzzing through the veins downwards from the biceps through the top elbows, the forearms, collecting in the wrists, unable to be released from the tops of hands, fizzy fingers, then surging back to the elbow joint. I feel it heavy on the wrists and top forearms, it buzzes and they aren't quite sure what the message means. I'm stressed? What do I do about it?
"The failure of a human or animal to respond appropriately to emotional or physical threats to the organism, whether actual or imagined."
This project has become a symbol of my inability. It has grown into an opposite meaning to that which it exists. It isn't provoking creativity, but stillness and fear. This post is very dull but I'm just trying to get writing out. Bluh.
A empty house. Mismatched schedules. Perpetual non reward. The house doesn't care if I've had a hard day, if I got told off for weeing too many times, that I had that 'I;m listening to myself talk and I sound stupid' moment a gazillion times, that I'm worried I have an infection. The house doesn't care about my reality, and it makes me feel homeless. Home is where the heart is, mine is shriveled, I'd say say sitting back into my stomach slightly. It's nowhere near my brain, and the work feels physically and mentally difficult.
If there was a Wikipedia entry for 'Stress arms', it would also say "see 'Vodka arms' and 'Caffeine arms'
"The failure of a human or animal to respond appropriately to emotional or physical threats to the organism, whether actual or imagined."
This project has become a symbol of my inability. It has grown into an opposite meaning to that which it exists. It isn't provoking creativity, but stillness and fear. This post is very dull but I'm just trying to get writing out. Bluh.
Sunday 12 July 2009
Incongruity feels good, still don't think good
You feel like you're alright? Want to test it? Look at it? How are you now? Fucked still right? GA GA GA GA GA GAAAAAAAA oo (infinity). I want it to stop now. I want it to stop and I want to start again. I am preoccupying myself with activities, totaling a grand amount of two tangos, three ballets (one slash jazz, one slash floor-barre), one each pilates and yoga, topped off with a tea dance. Sixty seven pounds and twelve hours of forgetting myself, not counting copious free minutes spent thrashing around to Jonathan Richman in my room.
I went to Granta talk at the Southbank,
I just wanted to say this is REALLY difficult at the moment, I am really not thinking anything, because if I allow myself to think I am thinking of the bad stuff straight away. Even though it's blended in tone, like the sour cream top layer on a Pret creme caramel, I am having to consciously cut through it and ignore the sharp taste, trying to tap into the sweetness beneath. It's REALLY hard and to be honest I'd rather be dancing to this song I'm listening to.
Anyway as I was saying, or trying to think about saying, I went to the Granta talk and I got the book 4 weeks before it's due out, and got it signed by A.L. Kennedy. I want to tell you (well me, but you) that please have something better to say when you meet someone you admire than 'I'm going to read your book of short stories because I don't have the memory for a full novel'. Stuff like 'have you got any gigs coming up?' or 'I like what you said about computer screens making the eyes oscillate differently', something interesting for fucks sake. Please. Interesting or nothing. Which could also apply here, I've said this before, but I'm trying to work through it, and who are you anyway, you 219 anons and 1 comment that I guessed.
I had a great day. It was a day off. And even trying to have a day off cycling didn't work, and I probably went further than I usually do after getting lost in EC1. Loads of really cool urban-developed parks, defo going to go back to that ridiculous one-seat alien pod swing, if I can remember where it is. I thought at the time how fun it was to get a bit lost, to have somewhere to go, but be quite relaxed about arrival. It reminded me of that thing I used to relay to people as though wisdom, 'it's no fun having nothing to do, only having things to do and not doing them!'I mean that rambling around town with no destination would be difficult, but having markers of time and places to be, gives even a loose structure that is pleasing to stray from.
I didn't know what to expect from the tea dance. Not quite neo knitting yet, give it a year I'd say. Those old boys are in for a right treat! I had such a fun time, spun around by a man who couldn't quite hear what I was saying and didn't know the rules, only the dances. He seemed to take a shine to me, and I wondered if his wife had died. I wanted to know how old he was, couldn't have been much more than ten years older that my dad, maybe mid 70s. There was a touch of Thai bride I suspected, mute-ish little wimps who came to life in spins. Don't hold me to that assertion, but it was a feeling I got. There was an small guy with a dropped waist and white wispy hair, who danced with a near 6 foot porcelain sailor size 6, and they were the sexiest couple going. He was amazing and I had a bit of a crush on him and he was about 90.
I felt quite special today. I picked up three Scandinavian-looking knives from the car boot, went to yoga in my matching jersey short suit. Had a really good coffee (Passeio, 'Ferrero Rocher on the sofa') with some re-toasted Turkish bread with lashings of salty butter. Read the papers online, danced around to Mary J. Blige a bit. Went into town on a new route full of parks and police. Danced fox trot, quickstep, waltz, rhumba and cha cha. Drank a LOT of tea, in china, and ate lots of margerine-light cake. Took off my red heels and rode home on my single speed bike, to a bag of lemon-salted almonds and a Julia Bradbury episode. Made a quick Nigel special, using that lovely Taste the Difference square spaghetti, very good. Had a shower and hung out my washing, and then remembered myself. Melancholy. I am an incongruous mix-up, but then I always preferred a 10p mix-up to a quarter of something samey.
I went to Granta talk at the Southbank,
I just wanted to say this is REALLY difficult at the moment, I am really not thinking anything, because if I allow myself to think I am thinking of the bad stuff straight away. Even though it's blended in tone, like the sour cream top layer on a Pret creme caramel, I am having to consciously cut through it and ignore the sharp taste, trying to tap into the sweetness beneath. It's REALLY hard and to be honest I'd rather be dancing to this song I'm listening to.
Anyway as I was saying, or trying to think about saying, I went to the Granta talk and I got the book 4 weeks before it's due out, and got it signed by A.L. Kennedy. I want to tell you (well me, but you) that please have something better to say when you meet someone you admire than 'I'm going to read your book of short stories because I don't have the memory for a full novel'. Stuff like 'have you got any gigs coming up?' or 'I like what you said about computer screens making the eyes oscillate differently', something interesting for fucks sake. Please. Interesting or nothing. Which could also apply here, I've said this before, but I'm trying to work through it, and who are you anyway, you 219 anons and 1 comment that I guessed.
I had a great day. It was a day off. And even trying to have a day off cycling didn't work, and I probably went further than I usually do after getting lost in EC1. Loads of really cool urban-developed parks, defo going to go back to that ridiculous one-seat alien pod swing, if I can remember where it is. I thought at the time how fun it was to get a bit lost, to have somewhere to go, but be quite relaxed about arrival. It reminded me of that thing I used to relay to people as though wisdom, 'it's no fun having nothing to do, only having things to do and not doing them!'I mean that rambling around town with no destination would be difficult, but having markers of time and places to be, gives even a loose structure that is pleasing to stray from.
I didn't know what to expect from the tea dance. Not quite neo knitting yet, give it a year I'd say. Those old boys are in for a right treat! I had such a fun time, spun around by a man who couldn't quite hear what I was saying and didn't know the rules, only the dances. He seemed to take a shine to me, and I wondered if his wife had died. I wanted to know how old he was, couldn't have been much more than ten years older that my dad, maybe mid 70s. There was a touch of Thai bride I suspected, mute-ish little wimps who came to life in spins. Don't hold me to that assertion, but it was a feeling I got. There was an small guy with a dropped waist and white wispy hair, who danced with a near 6 foot porcelain sailor size 6, and they were the sexiest couple going. He was amazing and I had a bit of a crush on him and he was about 90.
I felt quite special today. I picked up three Scandinavian-looking knives from the car boot, went to yoga in my matching jersey short suit. Had a really good coffee (Passeio, 'Ferrero Rocher on the sofa') with some re-toasted Turkish bread with lashings of salty butter. Read the papers online, danced around to Mary J. Blige a bit. Went into town on a new route full of parks and police. Danced fox trot, quickstep, waltz, rhumba and cha cha. Drank a LOT of tea, in china, and ate lots of margerine-light cake. Took off my red heels and rode home on my single speed bike, to a bag of lemon-salted almonds and a Julia Bradbury episode. Made a quick Nigel special, using that lovely Taste the Difference square spaghetti, very good. Had a shower and hung out my washing, and then remembered myself. Melancholy. I am an incongruous mix-up, but then I always preferred a 10p mix-up to a quarter of something samey.
Wednesday 8 July 2009
I want people to love me like I love
He's amazing, picking me off the floor and throwing me into shapes like I care about life. Yes! I think I love dancing, I love Jonathan Richman, I love thinking don't get me wrong, but I love the opposite of thinking so much. The two splits of the mind and body, both should be worked at and nurtured and challenged. Extra curricular QUEEN me. Watch out Gwyneth. Bloody ridiculous paying 18 quid to 'pulse' my arms whilst springing back and forth on a machine, but so much fun and controlled and not thinking, I love it.
Tired now, gin in a tin and too many lemon salted almonds, not enough punctuation. Enjoying playing with language recently, using prose as poetry and changing its intentions and outcomes. You can only do it when you know the rules, and are clever enough to make new ones.
Right now I'm not and I'm listening to fun on Spotify having a bit of an upset and and melancholic time, but mostly just shimmying around and forget myself for a bit (and trying really REALLY hard to keep off TwiCkr, SFSG).
Tired now, gin in a tin and too many lemon salted almonds, not enough punctuation. Enjoying playing with language recently, using prose as poetry and changing its intentions and outcomes. You can only do it when you know the rules, and are clever enough to make new ones.
Right now I'm not and I'm listening to fun on Spotify having a bit of an upset and and melancholic time, but mostly just shimmying around and forget myself for a bit (and trying really REALLY hard to keep off TwiCkr, SFSG).
Monday 6 July 2009
New Idea
A new list about what might be important in my quality of life index. If I was Monocle what would my criteria be? Maybe it’s time to think about what’s important. Look how big the world is. I remember thinking how London feels like a passport to the world, and it'll still be London (with a knowing italic because it already is a noun), if I left and came back to it next year. I have so enjoyed living here this year, almost a year now. It has whizzed by, and existed without me in a way. I haven't made a dint in it, it's been waiting, but I didn't force myself into it yet. It is ready, if I am.
But seeing as I'm not, and the inability is fed by my unbelievable present, perhaps a little stepping outside reality could be just what is needed. She told be about San Fransico and I was excited and not jealous, as it felt like I had an option. Even moving here last year felt so difficult, but now I feel I can do whatever. We were talking about possessions being heavy the other day, people and possessions shouldn't be enough to tie a spirit down.
Some Ideas:
I want to be a destination whore. I can use the world. I can go around and meet new people and prove my own worth away from these clouds that are oh so local and or so parochial. When will I ever be as free as I am now?I might go and buy a map or a globe tomorrow, perhaps even the £14.99 gold light up one from the 98p store.
But seeing as I'm not, and the inability is fed by my unbelievable present, perhaps a little stepping outside reality could be just what is needed. She told be about San Fransico and I was excited and not jealous, as it felt like I had an option. Even moving here last year felt so difficult, but now I feel I can do whatever. We were talking about possessions being heavy the other day, people and possessions shouldn't be enough to tie a spirit down.
Some Ideas:
- lots of 20s and 30s confused but interesting people
- a place where you can ride around and it is very acceptable
- a place with a good food scene, restaurants, writing and local shops
- a place with an excellent gallery or two that have the clues, film and music follow
- perhaps an English speaking place, then you don't have to sacrifice your identity in the move
- cheap rent, can't be too hard after here
- excellent coffee place to make me use this great transferable skill
- she was right when she said about sun
- a can-do attitude to folk
- people to visit in the same country, however far
- somewhere with an exiting studio scene
- a good magazine or paper that could be written for, and read
I want to be a destination whore. I can use the world. I can go around and meet new people and prove my own worth away from these clouds that are oh so local and or so parochial. When will I ever be as free as I am now?I might go and buy a map or a globe tomorrow, perhaps even the £14.99 gold light up one from the 98p store.
Sunday 5 July 2009
Up beat
So a pile on the bed one minute, then I'm deciding I'm ok and I need eat a quick salad and to put in contacts and speed to town for some dancing. Snap decision, out of hole, then a guy in a cunty car bips me and I'm just crying nudged up to the pavement. GA. I hate crying in public it's so degrading, apart from if it's bawling, like when those girls thought I was in real trouble and I was so glad to be rescued, that was very raw.
It was good to chat just then. Not like a problem shared is one halved, but like a problem doubled and divided by two is a bit smaller than the originals. Something is skimmed off the edges, like feet skin. I want my feet to be smaller. And I think at least a half size would be possible. I bet the royals have really small feet. Shaved feet. My shoes killed today. Only two hours. Part of me just wants to be a professional dancer, so bad! I love them all, I do! But the scene, yuk. Wrap tops and legwarmers and loads of manmade fabrics. Part of me is enrolling on a course at Laban. Another part is writing a cookbook. Another part is sectretly painting. Another part is in bed feeling like a lost ship.
I didn't revisit the problem, but felt comforted when she agreed it was ok to talk it out. The automatic response is not exactly bespoke, and I am almost unique (!). There are no rules here, or anywhere, I make them. I am free and I can say and do as I please, and I wouldn't want to regret not being angry enough, or not talking things out enough, not consolidating things for my own sense. Part of me abhors a cheat, part of me sees him as the difference between a day, or even an hour, if you were to be so callous. I make the rules. Others can help but our answers are our own. I need new rules.
It was good to chat just then. Not like a problem shared is one halved, but like a problem doubled and divided by two is a bit smaller than the originals. Something is skimmed off the edges, like feet skin. I want my feet to be smaller. And I think at least a half size would be possible. I bet the royals have really small feet. Shaved feet. My shoes killed today. Only two hours. Part of me just wants to be a professional dancer, so bad! I love them all, I do! But the scene, yuk. Wrap tops and legwarmers and loads of manmade fabrics. Part of me is enrolling on a course at Laban. Another part is writing a cookbook. Another part is sectretly painting. Another part is in bed feeling like a lost ship.
I didn't revisit the problem, but felt comforted when she agreed it was ok to talk it out. The automatic response is not exactly bespoke, and I am almost unique (!). There are no rules here, or anywhere, I make them. I am free and I can say and do as I please, and I wouldn't want to regret not being angry enough, or not talking things out enough, not consolidating things for my own sense. Part of me abhors a cheat, part of me sees him as the difference between a day, or even an hour, if you were to be so callous. I make the rules. Others can help but our answers are our own. I need new rules.
Feels like clutch plates. Things spinning at the same time to make sense, driving things along, one parts and the other spins until it screeches stop. Not only did I get cheated on, but I got dumped. I got chucked without mutual consent. I was acted on and decided upon and thrown away and left on the side of the road.
My best friend has been frozen. The past is preserved and no longer makes sense, like that chilli jam I dropped heavy into the bin last week. Cracks of mould marbled through, generally useless, disregarding the time that was spent roasting those frigging chilli peppers and peeling off skins, smarting.
I am regretting it all over again. My objects are empty pieces that don't make sense, material wastage lying around pretending to be important, taken away, what do you have left now? How goes the judgement?
Quite some unique situation. My understanding is boundlessly annoying. Yes let's stay friends, with a new drafted in before I had chance to abdicate. Yes I was a fool, but I'll let you forget because my democracy is just right here, calming us down, and making still. She was right when she said the milk knows, the milk knows the serenity was just a big fucking act which about to blow.
My best friend has been frozen. The past is preserved and no longer makes sense, like that chilli jam I dropped heavy into the bin last week. Cracks of mould marbled through, generally useless, disregarding the time that was spent roasting those frigging chilli peppers and peeling off skins, smarting.
I am regretting it all over again. My objects are empty pieces that don't make sense, material wastage lying around pretending to be important, taken away, what do you have left now? How goes the judgement?
Quite some unique situation. My understanding is boundlessly annoying. Yes let's stay friends, with a new drafted in before I had chance to abdicate. Yes I was a fool, but I'll let you forget because my democracy is just right here, calming us down, and making still. She was right when she said the milk knows, the milk knows the serenity was just a big fucking act which about to blow.
Saturday 4 July 2009
Ugh
Ugh trying to break the extended apathy. Ugh. I have not written anything for almost a week, and I'm just not feeling sparky word-wise. Maybe that's a good thing, not consciously thinking about failing and amazing, two opposite ends. Just doing, just making real, product, rather then tapping into something other. Have I got the ingredients? If I have, it should be easy to make. If I haven't I need to nip out to get them, record some people saying some shit and just get this thing god damn finished.
Ugh I may have just decided to give up. Stalking goes two ways but I guess she's too busy for me. Who the fuck am I, what am I doing, why has this happened, how did the last hour disappear in a blur of soap opera, this can't be real? It is real, it's on the fucking internet. What are you going to do about it? What about decide what really matters and use this fizz in your veins? Try and be amazing no? Up down, round again, down and up, why? Do it in the real world though hey, if it even exists anymore. Go out and find it? These frigging frigging signs. I don't like who I am. There are sparks of an amazing being but I'm so uncommitted and nonbelievable I don't know who I am anymore.
I can't be glamorous. I'm from the West Midlands. There's no transatlantic/transpacific nothing there. I'm just HERE. I really think this comfort is keeping me so. It's comfort and not feral and not exciting, not working to eat or sleep, it's a cossetted world of form-filling and A grades and objects and class changes and misfires. I thought my axis changed and I made sense, now all I pine for is my originality, a soul, my heart, who am I now? And what makes me amazing?
Ugh I may have just decided to give up. Stalking goes two ways but I guess she's too busy for me. Who the fuck am I, what am I doing, why has this happened, how did the last hour disappear in a blur of soap opera, this can't be real? It is real, it's on the fucking internet. What are you going to do about it? What about decide what really matters and use this fizz in your veins? Try and be amazing no? Up down, round again, down and up, why? Do it in the real world though hey, if it even exists anymore. Go out and find it? These frigging frigging signs. I don't like who I am. There are sparks of an amazing being but I'm so uncommitted and nonbelievable I don't know who I am anymore.
I can't be glamorous. I'm from the West Midlands. There's no transatlantic/transpacific nothing there. I'm just HERE. I really think this comfort is keeping me so. It's comfort and not feral and not exciting, not working to eat or sleep, it's a cossetted world of form-filling and A grades and objects and class changes and misfires. I thought my axis changed and I made sense, now all I pine for is my originality, a soul, my heart, who am I now? And what makes me amazing?
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