It's an 'end of the rainbow' sort of deal

How old are you?
34. I feel much older than that recently.

Tattoos?
4. Keep saying I'll get number 5 but can't quite picture it on my body and the one occasion I had a tattoo when I felt like that I didn't like it long term and had a cover up (so technically I suppose I already have 5 tattoos, but one of them is on top of the other) so I need to wait and let it keep evolving in my head.

Ever hit a deer?
Nope. Quite a few around where I grew up but closest I've ever come was when I was a passenger, one came out of the hedge, ran alongside the car, and then went back into hedgerow - an uncharacteristically sensible response to it's surprise there was a car where it was about to run.

Taken a few pheasants out in my time. And saw a badger for the first and only time in my life a split second before it disappeared beneath the wheels of the car my friend was driving (we both screamed, completely unavoidable). I once narrowly missed a stoat. That was an exciting sighting. I don't think I've ever hit a bunny but they don't half like running at the wheels of the car when you get level with them.

Ridden in an ambulance?
Nope.

Sang karaoke?
Many, many times. I still prefer karaoke rooms to pub karaoke, not least of all because it's fun no matter who is singing because you know them - rather than slogging it through the ropey regulars.

Ice skated?
Yep. Growing up in Nottingham it was a pretty standard Saturday afternoon activity because of National Ice Centre/Torville and Dean cultural consciousness. I haven't done it in years but previously I've still had enough muscle memory to pull it together when I've had a long gap.

Ridden a motorcycle?
Pillion a couple of times. Never driven one.

Stayed in hospital?
Not overnight. Had a bed and so on for the day surgery on my shoulder back in 2015.

Skipped school?
Good god yes. I think I must have skipped more classes than I went to by the time I was in Sixth Form, but really from 15/16 onwards skipping school was a standar part of the week. How else were we to get stoned?

Last phone call?
Some call from health insurance company because I'd tried to find out if I was insurable to access therapy but it turns out its not like travel insurance and you can't just get a quote online, and as soon as you put your phone number in on screen one they get it. So I had this pointless chat whilst on the train where I didn't want to say "I probably can't afford it, and it's too embarrassing to find that out when speaking to a human". That was Monday, I think.

Last text from?
Ocado telling me my driver was in the raspberry van.

Watched someone die?
No, thank goodness.

Pepsi or Coke?
Coke. Full fat.

Favourite pie?
I'm not really into pie. At all.

I suppose [veggie] Shepherd's Pie? But it's not really a pie, save for in name.

Favourite pizza?
Margarita with white closed cup mushrooms on - none of this fancy mushroom noise, just your 69p shiz.

Favourite season?
I used to say autumn because I like the colours and those crisp days but more and more I find winter an emotionally trying slog and so spring is increasingly representing not just a welcome respite from the cold, but also a return of more even mood.

Broken bones?
I think I broke my toe a few years ago but nothing that's required actual medical attention.

Received a ticket?
I am glad other people have answered this so I can extrapolate what this means from their answers; no. I have never received a parking or speeding ticket or any other kind of automated ticket. I was convinced I'd gone through about 5 cameras on the M25 at 80mph a few years ago (one stretch of road, so only one incidence of being over the speed limit really) but mercifully they were either set to issue tickets at a higher speed, or my speedometer was far enough out that I wasn't over 74mph.

Favorite colour?
Currently I want everything green.

Sunset or sunrise?
Sunset. They are more consistently beautiful - and I see them more often. On the coast though both are a real treat

...I skip an NHS waiting list and compress 3 months of work into 3 weeks.

I've unexpectedly got a date for my shoulder surgery before the end of the year. In fact, it's due before the end of the month.  Surgery scheduled for Thursday 26th of November and then my bff B is going to pick me up and I will stay at hers overnight - although she's apparently come out in sympathy for me and has a frozen shoulder so she may not be able to drive and pick me up if that hasn't resolved and it might be a pick up by her husband instead.  Then it's home to rattle around my flat alone and home I'm able to function/rely on the kindness of friends if I can't cook. My parents will have to drive and pick me up in the car for Christmas as I won't be able to manage luggage on the train as usual which is sad, as I always enjoy the Christmas-train home, the atmosphere is always lovely. The one advantage is if I am struggling alone, they can come and collect me earlier than I planned to go back, although that would mean I miss Burning the Clocks/Brighton's Winter Solstice celebration which I had intended to make a lantern for this year.

I think I've explained before, but the surgery is to relieve ACJ impingement, as here, and may also involve repair a bicep tear, as here.

I was injured 6 years ago when a twat knocked me off my bike at traffic lights - I was in the cycle lane, he was in left lane turning left and didn't check his mirrors. Smashed into me, waited for me to jump up, drag my bike from under his car, and then he drove off.  After being told to rest it after a visit to A&E (and my first ever x-ray) it stopped hurting and I thought that was that. 2 years later I took up swimming again and it emerged my shoulder was basically in the wrong place with massive muscular weakness around that shoulder.  So I had another x-ray, then referred to shoulder clinic. Shoulder clinic offered me steroid injection or physio.  Concluding physio would treat cause and not symptoms, I chose physio. 3 years of physio, 3 steroid injections, 2 ultrasounds, 2 further x-rays, and an MRI and it's still fucked - and not for any particularly clear reasons.  All the x-rays, ultrasounds and MRI could say was "maybe" my bicep tendon has torn, maybe the joint has some growth impinging it, and maybe the joint it out of alignment. Maybe.  So surgery it is.

I'm quite anxious - after a consultation in October I was told the waiting list was in excess of 3 months so I settled in for a long wait.  I think the sudden date has contributed to my anxiety as I just wasn't ready for it. I'm also a little anxious about having a general anaesthetic - I've had that twice before at the dentist but the last time I was about 12 and came round from the anaesthetic crying my eyes out on my Dad's chest so I'm embarrassed by that, and also a little worried about semi-conscious me having nobody there to cry upon. 

Mostly I'm worried about the pain.  They won't know whether they need to reattach the bicep until they look inside the shoulder, if they do it's significantly longer recovery and more immobility which inevitably means more pain. 

And I'm anxious about putting my PhD on hold for at least a month, and possibly longer.  And I'm stressed right now because I'm working flat out to get all my teaching responsibilities fulfilled before I have to hand over (3 classes of marking, rescheduling two seminars) and lots of admin/PhD stuff (writing 2 abstracts now because there'll be no time later, presenting at a research in progress event in order to promote my work across the university/in a newly established research group, contacting wished-for external examiner to ask if they will examine me in the summer, scheduling completion with supervisors) and just generally compressing the next 3 months of stuff into 3 weeks.

It's all sort of petrifying.  Although it has just occurred to me that once this is done, it'll be a clear run from January to the end of my PhD.  Which is sort of exhilarating.

If I don't die under anaesthetic, which I've convinced myself I will. Drama queen.

I keep going over this extract in my mind. I think because it hits on something very key in how I think and how I look at the world.

As with a lot of characterisation in Pratchett, Mister Nutt's preoccupation with gaining worth is initially approached with humour and gradually becomes key to the understanding we have of him as a character and, as in this case, leaves you with a shadow of that character in your mind that cannot be shaken off. I think it is also important to note that Mister Nutt is an orc - a violent murderous uncivilised beast with claws and the ability to bend the rules of the world around him - except through concerted effort and a deep seated desire to accumulate worth he suppresses these 'innate' instincts; he tries, in short, to be better than is expected of him and to be the best he can be, however hard that might be to achieve. Dealt with by anyone but Pratchett in any context than the discworld such a characterisation and motivation would be sickeningly saccharine, but I think it manages to be much more astute than that.

But this wasn't meant to be a book review.

I am still jolly unhappy (I enjoy the English language which made that construction possible). And I am still taking things to heart that other people might say I shouldn't - but I am and I feel justified in beating myself up over them. With this in mind, it strikes me that in order to succeed in this rejuvenation of the self and my life I must focus, like Mister Nutt, on the most effective way to accumulate worth.

I have been discussing with a colleague the possibility of us going travelling somewhere exciting this year - at the moment we're looking at a trip through Hungary, Croatia, Bosnia - Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro.  There are lots of buts - right now I don't have a valid passport and the trip is costly.  We also don't know if we'd get along after 2 weeks travelling and not enough sleep.  But the prospect of travelling does throw up some questions, whilst I feel fulfilled after a trip, it is largely because I feel I have participated in the world and made strides toward educating myself in the diversity and variation of life on earth and met people - mostly other travellers - far outside the normal run of things.  But travel is categorically not about me making the world a better place or accumulating worth.

What to do then? I know I don't have it in me to make the big gestures, do the great deeds, save the world.  As an example, my friend who got kidnapped last year spent, after his release and subsequent repatriation, all his waking hours getting a new passport so he could fly straight back out to rejoin the convoy.  I could not do that - and that's ok, if we could all do that the world would be a very different place and the blockade of Gaza would have crumbled under sheer weight of numbers some time ago.  But how does one make a notable, measurable difference in the world when you can't make noticeable, measurable gestures?

I try always to treat everyone I come into contact with with respect and kindness, but I'm also a person and in a bad mood sometimes and paranoid sometimes and worn down by some people not subscribing to that philosophy, so that's never going to be a perfect score.  I try to be mindful of my actions and my choices in the world, to ensure the employment I undertake is not morally reprehensible by association or otherwise.  I eat ethically - choosing local produce whenever I can and abiding by a strict vegetarian diet.  These are all things people list and take comfort in - I've heard them do it - but in my attempt to overhaul my life and myself I keep coming back to the notion of worth and the sense of my own failure in that respect as the core of the thing I want to change.

I think there is something to be said for being in love and being romantically loved that allays ones fears of worthlessness; an absolute certainty that for one person at least your existence is of worth and value.  Which, I suppose, brings me neatly back round to my last post and the words of Vincent Van Gogh to his brother Theo, namely, that we cannot act without a sense of our own value and we cannot achieve a sense of our own value without acting.

I've literally just got in from an ArtFor meeting (although, obviously, I'm English, so I got in and made a cup of tea, and then I sat down and turned on my laptop) and man alive! I am so motivated to get some paintings done.

The last painting I did was this one which was like...a month ago? so I do really need to get back on the horse...or a back on a metaphorical device more appropriate to the creative process.

The meeting today was basically to say hi to the new artists who have joined us for ArtFor Pride. Becky put a call for artists in the local paper and sent a press release to Pride proper who, within 24 hours, made sure it was in all the LGBT publications in the South East. This resulted in us having more artists wanting to join ArtFor than we had space for in the forthcoming exhibition.  As it is we have 10 visual artists and 1 sculptor and everyone has paid £20 to cover the (significantly reduced because we're a charity) fee of hiring the gallery space and is guaranteed a 3 foot square exhibition space.

It was great to meet the new artists and talk about the exhibition as though we know what the hell we're doing.  For those of you picking up the story now, in February we had an ArtFor Haiti exhibition and got 200 people through the door paying £3 entrance fee but sold very little work. This time we have a bigger, more central venue, media partners, sponsorship and the phenomenal publicity machine that is Brighton Pride behind us; on paper it certainly looks like we know what we're doing!

Between Becky and me we know a lot of people; she has friends doing our website and graphics design for free. We know people who are in a band who are going to play an acoustic set at our press/preview evening on the Friday. And through various connections we have contacts at various publications in and around Brighton, charities who benefit from Pride money who can help us advertise and my most recent ex, a.k.a. The Girl who is working on getting us sponsorship from a brewery so our press preview can offer free booze! It is most certainly all coming together.  I just need to PAINT.

Prompted by a recent post by someone on my livejournal friendslist I have decided I want to write a post which could most accurately be categorised as autobiography. I intend this to be an overview of one aspect of my life this past year. I'm hoping it bookends things for me just by forcing it into a narrative form. I need it to be public, which is why I'm posting it, but I am also aware it has limited appeal, which is why it's below a cut.

( Read more... )

When you have a shit day, when someone craps on your endeavour, when you are too tired to think straight, when your very last nerve has been agitated into oblivion, where do you go?

There's that point, growing up, where you realise you don't need to go to your parents for that reassurance any more.  You begin crafting a way, or multiple ways, to deal with what life is throwing at you.  You learn to do it alone.  You learn to manage that rage/fear/confusion/exhaustion/frustration.

I always believed that shift would be something which remained in flux, it would continue to develop and by my mid twenties I would have an entirely new place to crawl on days like this.

Weirdly, as I sat on the bus, impatient to be home, I could only think of one thing - a cup of tea and sitting with my laptop listening to dark indie music.  I might even, I mused, have a crafty cigarette out of my bedroom window and save myself the chilling experience which is going outside and dragging down a cig whilst standing on the front steps.

Then it struck me - I have been combatting bad days in exactly the same way since I was 15 or 16.  Have I simply found the world's greatest way to unwind or am I hopelessly trapped in teenage introspection?

Is run even the right word in this context? Should I be fleeing the world in order to cleanse myself of the day or should I be confronting it?

It never ceases to surprise me how much of who I am now is directly influenced by who I became as a teenager.  The distinction between adult and teen is perhaps much less well defined than it is generally believed to be.  The question which rears its head at the end of these reflections is this; should I go the whole hog and start drinking cider in the park again?.....!

Not everything means something.

I went along to White Night tonight, the first one I have attended despite living in Brighton for the last two.

My friend and I wondered the streets soaking up the atmosphere, we stopped to watch musicians taking on various genres; dropped into the library to dip briefly into an author reading from her book; paused to watch a broadcast from the future, tried and failed (on account of it being massively popular and there being a two and half hour wait) to go to a life drawing event, stopped off at a bar on the seafront which was running a casino for the night and eventually found a gallery with a fascinating installation.

It featured several screens suspended from the ceiling with short films of one person (per screen) simply staring at you, these short films were on a loop with the joining shot being the person with their eyes clothes. Some of the faces were relatively stationary, others went through a myriad of emotions in a few seconds. On the floor were pieces of paper of various sizes and scattered about the room were pieces of dowling about a metre long with pieces of charcoal attached to the end. Those people viewing the faces were implicitly invited to sketch the faces staring at them. Being forced to produce these sketches with the handicap of what was essentially a metre long pencil produced some interesting results.

The finished sketches were displayed on the walls around the gallery and scattered where they were made, across the floor.

There were some truly phenomenal pieces of art produced in response to the installation.

The thing which I enjoyed the most was the way in which people were invited to respond to the art they had come to view - the only way it was practically possible to keep the paper in place whilst sketching with the most inelegant of tools was to place one's foot upon the paper - effectively defiling one's own creation.  Furthermore, everyone is invited to contribute to the installation by discarding what they produce - the gallery is more waste paper bin than it is sacred display of creativity.  Most strikingly, in one corner papers which had been drawn on on both sides were piled up - every single piece of paper had been drawn on on both sides and reflected a vast range of talents and styles.

One of the things I most enjoy about both galleries and installations is watching how people move through the space - in this case there was an even wider range of ways than usual - some people drew and some did not.  Of those who drew a picture in response some took it very seriously and looked reverently at what they were trying to commit to paper whilst others joked and laughed and drew with their friends on the piece of paper.  Some rejected the mode of drawing presented to them and sat on the floor with a piece of charcoal liberated from the end of a piece of dowling and drew in the typical way.  Some interpreted the images before them literally, others abstracted them.

Of those who simply moved through the gallery observing and not drawing some interacted exclusively with the video screens; squaring up to them and scrutinising the full loop of the film, some peered over the shoulders of those drawing and compared them to the image their sketch was taken from, some gravitiated immediately to the sketches stuck to the walls walking over and ignoring completely those sketches which remained on the floor - not yet rescued by the custodians of the installation, some sorted through the confettied sketches on the floor as though they and they alone had discovered these works.

It was both a confrontational and simultaneously nurturing installation and I was absolutely taken by the whole experience.

Well done Brighton.