adieu

well, the blog has disappeared as i have had an influx of visitors to entertain here in my little flat. mummy last week and chlo and lal this week. The general consensus seems to be that everyone loves my flat and wakey, and i have been thoroughly shamed in regards to my frequent complaints.

off to Edinburgh tomorrow and then when I'm back hopefully things can finally settle into a semblance of normality for the first time since June and i can concentrate on going to the studio and having a routine again, never thought i'd long for a routine! so the blog will resume on a daily basis, and i can hopefully fill you in about the wakey characters, of which there are M-A-N-Y!!

trying to be positively positive!

oooh i forgot my keys so i can't go to the studio... i just started getting dressed but then i realised i had no where to go! So now i am trapped in my flat for another reason and believe me, it felt better when i had no choice!

yesterday passed miserably, one of those days where you wait for evening then when evening comes you wait for bed time, a lost day. I need to shake out of this as soon as possible or i shall simply fritter my life away.

just watched jeremy kyle (see, there goes my life, whoosh) yet another one with women who have been beaten up and abused but end up being called the baddie because they told the dad it wasn't theirs, honestly, you would tell them that if you were terrified of them, but no, to JK it's the ultimate sin. disgusting women.

my poor african violet is suffering since the move, it's got loads of wilted leaves, the stems are fat and shiny like worms, drooping over the edges of the plant pot :( i hope it will be okay, that would be too much!!

listen to me, drama queen! there's nothing wrong, i'm fine, i'm just lonely, but that's probably good for the soul or something in the long-term so i will just have to abide it. I am thoroughly enjoying my book about Georgiana the Duchess of Devonshire, ladies in those days did have a shit time, and they're the rich ones, imagine the poor ones. She's just had to move her husband's illegitimate child into the house as it's mother died. It's much better company than her husband though, so it's probably lucky really. He's a complete minger, he has one of those horrible faces that some men have, long AND chubby and devoid of any definition or facial hair. Real creepy, little round eyes like fishes eyes, and when you look at these portraits you have to presume that they've been painted better looking than they really were, so it's amazing how many women are desperate to sleep with him (and that he was played by Ralph Fiennes in the film of their lives?!). I'm ploughing through these historical novels, they're bloody amazing. While i was away i read the story of the poisoning of Thomas Overbury in the tower of London while James I was King, bloody gross, the detailed descriptions of his illness and pustules and so on, it seems that pretty much anyone who saw a Dr in those days was very lucky to escape with their life. He had a vein opened and then held ajar with a bean of gold for months and months, i mean even in those days it's hard to understand the thinking behind that science!

well, i am going to sift through my bags of miscellaneous crapOLA and hope that someone on e bay is desperate for it!

Trapped in a box with a cockney nutjob...

back in wakey! I've managed to do quite an amazing thing and leave my keys in cambridge so i am in fact TRAPPED inside the flat now!! it's one of those doors where you need to lock and unlock the front door so simon locked me in this morning and i am trapped...it's quite fun really!! BUT i have missed my job centre training which started at 10 (uh oh...sweet) it's not like they're actually giving me any money yet (if at all) so i feel little obligation to do interview technique role play, which is pretty much my worst nightmare ever.

anyway, not much to report, did lots of walking in cambridge and realised that it's not actually that bad to walk into town and stuff which i've always hated doing. had a picnic with mum in the grounds of the Leper chapel which we thought was quite fitting! Saw lovely Marie, went to a 30th birthday in a marquee in a beautiful house in Shelford which was lovely, all the fields behind the garden and the sunset, made you realise the benefits of some money again! did the usual non-stop chatting that i do when i haven't spoken to normal people in a while and i have a few drinks so that was probably good for me, if not for other people. Helped mum re-arrange her bedroom, stayed up late every night watching telly... that's about it really.

Just this morning I have discovered the Horrible Histories series on CBeebies, it's bloody brilliant! MUch better than most 'comedy' on BBC, it's like Maid Marion and her Merry Men or something, really funny so i may watch more of that today while i'm trapped in the flat! There's no bread or milk, but it's okay as we ate a massive dinner so i feel like i have an inflated ball in my body anyway. My plans for the week are to a) sell every thing in the flat on e-bay and live large on the profits b) sort out the kitchen and c) do some drawing in the studio.

c'est tout.

spleen

i can't sleep, i am too angry and wound up and sad and also desperate.

money is whirring round my mind. I still haven't got any, so obviously when my overdraft went £2 over the usual £60 fine has come falling into my lap again, only i can't pay that, so when they take it i guess i'll get another one and another and so on. sometimes i think for a second that having no money is liberating, but it isn't. it's shit. I need a carrot and some celery tomorrow, but i can't get them cause i haven't got any money. the thing that it does tend to do, i'm finding, is make you into a recluse. you can't meet anyone for coffee or anything, and it is a bit embarrassing, and also you don't go out cause you know you can't be exposed to nice things that you want but can't buy.

the £15 national express voucher is going on a train ticket tomorrow, so that has come in useful. Going back to cambridge on tuesday to see my mum.Up here in wakey it is possible to slightly remove myself from the horrible stuff happening at home, not to mention the fact that the whole house makes me sad now, and dad is living in my room so that feels really weird too, i think i'll sleep downstairs...he won't be there though, if mum's at home then he's a grandma's. That's another weird thing too.

If i had some money i'd do kickboxing. I'm alive with anger and frustration all the time. anyway, i better go to bed cause i don't want to keep simon up which i'm sure i am. just had to vent.

Bright side

i'm going to have a bath. they are good for everything.

frig fuck

hello, today i have spent a lot of time in the studio, lino cutting, which has given me a sore neck...

there was a 2 hour interlude where i went to the job centre and waited and waited and waited, to be honest i don't really understand the procedure, two things struck me, one is that you can pretty much turn down any job you want by putting conditions onto your form, like, 'i won't travel further than within 10 minutes of where i live' and 'i want to earn this much' and ' i won't work alongside anyone with smelly breath' but also it seems that i'm being assessed as follows: if i've made enough contribution from NI in the last so many years, i can have the dole, if i haven;t, i can't. i was a student until last year, so (bar jobs that i've done pre-2002) i have only paid 10 months NI in the last 7 years, i can't imagine that that will qualify me for anything. so i am not hopeful. meanwhile i continue to have no money whatsoever, so it's a good thing i didn't need to get the bus to the job centre or i couldn't have. arses. There was what was either a giant walking, talking baby or an 8 year old girl with a dummy in there and when i stood and walked over to the desk the man said 'are you going to leave your daughter over there?' presuming i had stood bolt upright and decided not even to acknowledge, let alone speak to, my daughter, so desperate was i for my money, money i confusedly spend on dummies for my 4' 10" daughter regardless of the fact that she holds it in her side teeth to speak to me, then returns to sucking on it like a baby...i just said, 'she's nearly as tall as me?!' in an outraged voice, hoping he may glean that this giant and ignored child didn't come from me. Oh well, i guess it's still marginally better than the massive 'pregnancy' hilarity that the cleaners at CATS loved to crowd round and taunt me with.

feeling funny today, dizzy mostly, and headachey, i know that this is cause i'm shallow breathing, but i can't do anything about it. The situation is making me quite physically sick but what can you do? normal life MUST resume. in some semblance, and if it didn't then you'd no doubt be worse. imagine if you had to sit and concentrate on these awful things, you'd kill yourself in no time. No, i just try and go about feeling normal, acting as normal as possible (although it is tricky to gauge what that is when you don't speak to anyone all day) but feeling like you have a helium balloon swelling up inside your head and your heart and your lungs the entire day. My hands shake all the time. it makes it hard to draw.

fuck

it's been a funny old day. woke up feeling a little more optimistic than usual, this was increased by a phone call form the benefits office making me an interview, even though i have subsequently realised that i have misplaced my P45 which is apparently essential, and two job alerts that actually look good, even though i have learnt better than to get genuinely excited by those. Then I rang mum who is not doing well. I can't believe i left home before this happened. I feel quite useless here but i know i am of little use there (people keep telling me that so it must be true). Went to the studio and just bollocked about drawing, using a bamboo pen, listening to the radio and to podcasts, i was there 3 1/2 hours, that's my introduction day. I really enjoyed it there, it was peaceful and good for me i believe, now i just need to start a project... i still don't feel like anyone will ever hire me, but i guess i just won't for a while (that's what i keep telling myself so it must be true). Dad was in my mind all day, things i want to tell him, threats i want to make, letters and e-mails and fucking texts i am desperate to write, but i was able to restrain myself, only for mum, cause i know it would make things worse. I am so angry with him, i just can't believe that someone who is meant to love you so much can be so so selfish, and just literally look no further than their own desires, can hurt everyone so much and then see how much he's hurt everyone and then just carry on doing it anyway. I feel like he hates us, it's the only logical conclusion isn't it? I truly know that I would never, ever hurt him this way. I don't even know whether to go and see my grandma, because i wouldn't even want him mentioned, and that won't happen, grandma will say something overtly defensive of him and how he's been so put upon by all of us, and we'd all stop talking and i couldn't bear that. see, he's even completely fucked my close relationship with my grandma, and my access to my grandpa.

anyway, i phoned Gabriel who's wise in fact, and he deferred me from speaking to dad and shouting at him pointlessly. I just need to vent this anger now, does anyone have any tips?

I haven't seen one non-family member (bar Simon) since all this happened. Wow, that would be really really nice. I fear it is pushing back to the brink, like a water balloon about to pop.

messy life

Reading the last post it seems about ten years ago, I can't believe I was complaining about lack of excitement, now I would do anything for no excitement whatsoever.

I am currently sitting at my computer, the balance of my bank account is 1,502 od on a 1, 500 overdraft, this has foiled my plan to extend it to 2000 as now i am over my limit. I have no money coming in, at all, so I can't go and buy a coffee in order to get out of the flat, as I would normally be tempted to do. I can't invite someone over for coffee either, cause i don't know anyone here. I know i sound self-pitying, things have been very hard over this fortnight or so that seems to have lasted a year and it has left me feeling a bit fragile, like i don't want to go out and face anything, combined with mental period pains, this creates a desire to got into bed and sleep for a few weeks like a hedgehog.

I have been on holiday, to Gozo, a 7x4km island near Malta, it was very very hot and it was a very good holiday,with lots of snorkelling, so it hasn't all been bad, but it's amazing how, when something is book-ended by bad stuff it has no kind of lasting relaxing effect on you, the second we touched down in Gatwick is was like we had never gone away.

My parents are living separately, my dad had an affair, so my mum is in a really bad way, and everything is up in the air and completely shit. Even when i write it down, it doesn't in any way convey how shit it really is. So that came out on July the 18th, the day we were having a surprise party for chloe, lovely surprise eh? party cancelled and so began the sadness and the confusion and the fighting and the total breakdown of everything we had all finally started to take for granted.

Anyway, Simon and I finally got back to Wakefield on Monday night after sitting in stationary traffic for bloody ages. We spent yesterday going to Aldi, then Asda, then Sainsbury's as we couldn't find/ kept forgetting what we needed. Aldi is definitely the craziest place ever. It's practically deserted, the people there are all mad, totally mad, they are all staring and shuffling about, i saw TWO people with no shoes on?! However, the rumours are true, provided you don't need normal things like milk or washing liquid, it is well well cheap there, you must just select from the 30 products on display.

I was overcome with tiredness yesterday, I guess it must just be finally getting back and away from all the horrible stuff, i could hardly open my eyes. We watched the Joy Division docu (highly recommended if you're depressed-!) and then went to bed until 6:30, so tired that I fell asleep immediately.

Today I got up at 7:30 like an old person, the less you have to do, the earlier you get up. I have just completed an online application for jobseekers allowance and then spent the next hour seeking jobs with the usual results; debt collectors wanted; catalogue salespeople; parking attendants, there are no jobs. If i see one that looks okay and click on it it will say " MUST have minimum 3 years experience and professional qualification" no matter what the fuck it is, and the salary will still be £9,000 p/a. Yes, the job market is fucked. I only want a part-time job so I can go to my studio and buy some frigging pencils if i need them, maybe a jar of freeze dried coffee. I always thought poverty was meant to be good for creativity, but no, it turns out it isn't good for anything except depression and depression tends to render you paralysed.

Anyway, I have about 16 loads of holiday washing to get through today so i really should be off.

I shall tell you about the holiday tomorrow, that's a bit more jolly eh?

hope you're all okay.

soz bags

after all my promises i think i will have to write it tomorrow, i fell asleep at 4 and woke up at 630 and now i'm too tired, please don't be cross :(