hybrid

it's been a while my friends, been very busy, worked every day this week except tues, working all weekend too :( meant to be going to Dorset next tue-thurs, but the girl who i can swap shifts with still wont give me an answer as to whether she will! VERY frustrating, i ask her every time i see her, it's getting really embarrassing now! she just goes 'i doooont knoooo' ARGH!

so anyway, the new job, it's as imagined, i didn't predict how much it would make my legs absolutely kill though, not sitting down all day, it's unbearable! also not being able to drink is awful too, i need coffee consistently between 9-11, and there's a costa in there tempting me all the time... the people are okay, the customers are actually generally really nice, which i wasn't expecting, probably because my only retail experience is bar work, where 90% of people are unbearable... the staff are okaaay, there are one or two people who are really nice, one who is annoying and the rest are just a bit dull, the main thing is, everyone thinks i look 20 so they all patronise me then the horrific fear that they are all LOADS younger than me, like, 19 and stuff, is too upsetting to me so i never ask how old and play up to being about 20...

most people are buying books for their grandchildren, so i like them, it's sweet. Overall, I just fucking HATE retail, it's horrible. Bring back libraries, bring back 2nd hand bookshops, down with 500 copies of clarkson.

I did start wondering as i stood and stared at it, who gets the royalties for Mein Kampf? i typed it into google, it's like the 2nd most common question, apparently in england it used to go to charity, in america i think the publisher keeps it now. anyway, sorry for that diversion, it's just on my induction day someone asked, 'what happens if you have to sell a book you disagree with like mein kampf' an the man said : 'just say- it's not somthing that i've read, but it is very well written and a definitive book on the subject' i was literally SO gobsmacked that i sat with my mouth open for about 10 minutes, it's become a bit of a family joke now...

anyway, had open studio on weds, where you open up your studio and people come and look round, was pretty good, also tiring, i'm glad i did it though, some people were very nice (mostly kids) and i even sold a few bits, some people were really pissed up on free booze and wouldn't leave, it's weird having people in your studio, it's like having strangers in your house! ithink i was a pretty good host though! schmoozing! telling everyone about the Grolar bear, it's a NEW SPECIES, apparently a Polar and Grizzly bear have mated, as they are going south/north to feed as their food runs low (global warming as always) and they have MATED and created a new species, a grolar, I hope it wasn't a prank, cause i have told everyone, wait, i'm going to look it up... i just checked, it IS real, it's not THAT new either, but more common now...

i just looked up 'Hybrid animals' on wikipedia, get these:

Liger:lion/tiger

WOLPHIN-whale/dolphin (???!!)

oh, the rest are rubbish, sorry to get your hopes up! LATERS

work slave

hello, started the jooob yesterday, was all very jolly, apart from the fact that i took my antibiotics in the morning without eating, so i was violently sick on the way there at the train station...got a wee bit worried but managed to force a coke down which cured me, i think it's psychosematic, but it was treated like a form of medicine in my house for upset stomach, so it always works on me... when i had pneumonia they did an x ray of my lungs and the x ray lady started freaking out about this black cloud on the x ray, it turned out to be some coke that my ma had forced down me thinking i was probably suffering from a bad belly or something, was pretty funny anyway, sorry about that diversion, i think i like it as a job, chatting about books and so on, it's mostly grannies buying books for their grand-kids which is my favourite kind of person, so i think i will get on well, seemed to pick it up pretty quickly i think, and i've always loved the feeling of a bookshop, very calming...my library experience helps a lot, i know which books go with which other ones, although there are 2 secret 'erotic' sections which i never knew existed on the high street...ooh errr...

already sold my first f-ing clarkson too, as predicted!

hmmm what else....got loads to do this week, just did the BBC big personality test by the way, has anyone else done it? it said i was 50% extrovert and 50% neurotic, thanks a lot, didn't need a test to tell me i was mental, with a totally incompatible personality defect, incompatible with my own self that is.

got open studios on wednesday, gonna try and sell some stuff so i'd better get cracking along to the studio and get busy, got work every day of the week apart from today!! I know!! i'm such a hard worker! :) best thing is, my last day is the 23rd so i can enjoy christmas and new year and not even bother worrying about getting back to work...it's like being at school!

sorry to rub it in and all... :)

lots of shiz

well well, the blog is becoming sparse, i can't believe that it's true but i am actually really pretty busy, i am at the studio until evening then dinner then bed... no afternoons of gazing as there were in the library :( but also :)

been feeling a bit weirdly ill this week...like how you feel when you have a cold rearing itself on the horizon, a bit spaced out, a bit hot-cold, kind of weak and lazy... passed on every opportunity for socialising which i feel bad about now, but just have a a massive feeling of 'can't be fucked' about me... may have something to do with Sunday's sesh, drinking makes me mad for ages these days, plus it lets in all the evil germs by lowering your immunity... also mum and gaby both have really really bad swiners, totally flu-ed up to the max bed-ridden style, and part of me feels like i have it creeping in after seeing them both last week... bloody swine flu jab, it's taking them SO long to do it everyone will have had it by the time they get it, I'm having mine on the 6th or something, but I'm lucky , the next one after that was in january. They get paid £5.50 for every patient they give the jab to, mum says they're harassing her to get it, although, she has swiners now so it would have been pointless anyway.

Been at the doctors loads lately, not for illness per se but because the Dr here is really insistent on checking you practically every time you need your prescription. I can't express how frustrating "asthma checks" are, you HAVE to go, or they withhold your medicine (although Simon tells me this is breach of practice) then they say 'ooh let me tell you how asthma works' and last time it was 'are you suuuureee you haven't had a pneumonia jab?' i was saying 'no, i have never heard of it' 'hmmmm are you suuuree,you must have, you have, have you had asthma long?' 'no, not too long, 22 years, and pneumonia too now F OFF' that's the story.

It's amazing actually living with someone who works for the NHS, and more than that, the PCT (Primary Care Trust) who deal with GPs and all the non-emergency stuff, it is all SO SO cynical, it's awful, it makes you look at everything differently, suspiciously, it's like eating the blue (or red?) pill in the Matrix and suddenly you can see the truth, the Dr gets paid for everything by the government- giving you a blood test, giving you an immunisation, any kind of check-asthma, anti-depressants, or anything, talking to you about stopping smoking, referring you to any kind of service-weight loss, smoking, anything, everything is done because they get paid per person, per service, it's so depressing!

preparations for the winter fairs are going okay, been lino printing a lot, have had to give up on pom-poms cause i can't make them, even though they are what children make the first time they ever make anything...

Wakey is looking great, best I've ever seen it, there's a German Christmas Market here, all little log cabins all through town, and little carousels and stuff it really looks great, the hot chestnut man has even put some gold tinsel round his doggy's neck! He's here all year, it must be make or break for him at christmas? get the money in quick!

Oh! and the big BAD news is that suddenly and without any warning my right eye has gone totally blurry, clutching my 'free eye test' voucher from mum's radio times I went and had an eye test and awaited the usual 'wow, your vision is PERFECT, you could be a fighter pilot' that I always get (;)) I was instead informed that I needed GLASSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MY EYES ARE THE ONLY BIT THAT WORK!!!!!!WWWWHHHHYYYYY??????!!!!!! they aren't for wearing all the time, just for watching telly, cinema, stuff like that, so basically, ALL THE TIME! I have since formed a theory that he was tricking me and I shouldn't have fallen for it, but he caught me when i was down... I sat in the little chair with the evil scientist glasses that they put on you to test your eyes just exhaling over and over again, "No WAAYy..no, are you sure? NOO WAY." absolutely determined that there was some sort of mistake. Simon has found it all very funny. So after stumbling downstairs to deal with the face wear I was confronted with the utter embarrassment of having to deal with the saleswoman and explain that I had to get the absolute cheapest model that there was...ignoring all her advice for coated lenses, or frames that may suit me, I made a beeline for the cheap pairs, of which there were about 6, tried on 2 or 3 constantly sating 'it looks so wrong, how can i choose?' how could i choose??? it's not like buying a top, don't know what glasses look good on me? they ALL look rubbish! Took the first pair i saw, they are like generic "glasses" like granny specs, they are cheap and they look cheap.

so, while i await their construction in an evil lab, I must cobble together £89(I KNOW! CHEAPEST POSSIBLE!) to pay for the bastards. I am doing this by trying to borrow scraps of money from each member of my family without telling the others, unfortunately dad and mum are poorer than me, and considering i have NO income, that's pretty poor...

had a dream last night that i was in a mafia film with gerard depardieu where people were getting their heads cut off and boiled up, i was in it, i got shot, but i was also saying to everyone ' don't watch it it's really scary' it was weird, i was in it and acting it out but it was definitely a film i was watching. it was horrifically violent and bloody though, i really questioned my own psyche this morning, for about a minute.

aaannnnywayy....hope i can see everyone at christmas, i am working at my temp job in a bookshop beginning with 'W' till the 23rd, this time of year always makes me think of my old friends.

monday monday

hello hello, sorry for the long absence, went back to the bridge for a hospital app about the old back, headed back up to wakey early on friday, realised that I had forgotten my keys when i arrived at the station, like a big berk, buzzed at the studios and borrowed a key, stayed there till simon had finished work and went to meet him in the rain and dark to do some shopping... barely had time to put the shopping away before the ceremonial arrival of Olivia, our guest of honour! Made a mass of veggie chilli and watched all the shitty telly possible, including Peter Andre the next chapter, which was literally mind bogglingly exploitative, including an agonizing scene where a very sick child was brought to him at his perfume launch in order for him to grace it with his personality and fame...aaahh...went to Hobbycraft on Saturday, experienced the horror of parking in a tiny car park that services loads of massive shops, it was pretty bloodthirsty! came home and got down to making decorations and brooches, at ten o clock we decided to go for a pint, simon had been working all day and we felt we deserved a treat... went to the black rock, then the hop, as we were leaving we ran into someone from the socialists who we followed to the Graziers, a pub i'd never been to, and described by my friend as 'rough as fuck', well, to cut a long story short, we made it home at 5AM!!! none of us can work out how this happened!!! there was a certain element of drunken rampaging, and me and liv even did KARAOKE?! Little Lies by Fleetwood Mac, bloody hell!! Aaannyway, needless to say, sunday was somewhat a wash out, although we improved it by watching The Day Today for about 3 hours, and thankfully simon cooked bangers and mash which fixed us up. Took liv to her train, very sad :( passed out at about 10.
gonna go out and see if i can get my eyes tested, my right eye has gone a bit blurry lately, at least the rain has let up, although my marathon boozing sesh has left me feeling like a tender lamb so i may need to wrap up and put on shades while i tiptoe out...start my new job next monday so i've gotta make the most of this week chillaxing, i think i shall begin now with a Private Eye read and perhaps a mid morning nap?

break

hi all, had a mental week, got a job until chritmas eve! anyway, i'm off to cambridge now for a hospital appt. so blog will resume Friday

friday

don't have much to say today. lot's of sad things going on, someone who i've known all my life is in hospital about to die, mum and lal are with her but it's all very sad. It's someone who I saw all the time for about the first 15 years of my life, and less frequently over the last 10, I don't think I can visit her cause it's too shocking, but that is cowardice. She's had a very hard life. anyway. that's enough, back monday.

gingers

not much to report, only left the house once, to buy milk and ginger biscuits. Watched 'keep the aspidistra flying' and murder she wrote AND diagnosis while sewing things for the xmas craft fairs i'm doing... interrupted only by a policeman who wanted to know if i could tell him the no. of a flat that overlooked a car that got smashed up last friday....it's all go round here... couldn't draw yesterday, i'd actually drawn my hand into a little claw with too much drawing, gonna go in a minute, i'm getting withdrawal symptoms for it!

watched andrew marr rabbiting on on his new programme, the making of modern britain or something, it's been done about a million times whatever it is, does anyone watch it? it's SO annoying, he does these little accents for EVERYONE, even though he has no basis for them, he has now idea how they spoke but he does them for the americans, the women, the cockneys, it's unbearable, i was cringing my face into a ball!! never mind the buzzcocks is shit since amstell left too,bbc, you are FOOs! in fact, CBBC is the best thing on BBC i can say that now i'm unemployed cause i get to see it, there's a programme about a little sheep who goes to school, done in the style of AArdman animation, it's great, they all speak different according to what they are, the owl goes 'hoootehoothootee' and the bird are like 'lalalaaalala' but it is real good.

oh well, i'm off to the studio to draw my head off, i can feel a definite cold here in my throat... arses, i'll take the ginger tea....and the ginger biscuits...

red rose

well, had a crazy day yesterday, went to the studio about 12 and ended up staying there till 7:30pm, my hand was actually killing loads from drawing, i had to keep flexing it and poking it.

I am pretty convinced that there's a ghost in my studio now, my kettle kept boiling itself.... then when i realised that that's what it was I went over and opened the top and it was making the most violent ceaseless noise of boiling, for ages, even though it was nearly empty and i had unplugged it, so yes, i have a steamy ghost... :( It's actually really scary at the studios when it gets dark, and no one is around, it's an old coaching inn, so there's gonna be loads of ghosts there, old leathery hats and straggly hair, that kind of ghost, maybe some horse ghosts too? who knows.

anyway, I am scared there in the dark.

went straight on to the Black Rock to see the socialists, not a penny in my pocket so convinced i'd be home by 830, unfortunately, for the first time ever, people were insistently and kindly buying my booze, so it turned into a stroll to the Red SHed and a long chat with more booze, listening to stories about work colleagues who wash their hair with DAz, and playing up my Southern-ness just for fun! Didn't get home till nearly midnight, hadn't eaten nearly all day so I crammed a medicinal piece of toast into my mouth and crept into bed next to Simon feeling slightly ashamed of myself, did all the washing up and hoovering and even MOPPING today as recompense for my mid-week sesh, i'm not really guilty, but any boozing makes me feel guilty now, i'm too old f'rit. Plus i think I said a few quite stupid things...? which is embarrassing... They really aren't used to women at ALL. there's all that 'lady present' stuff from some contingents when people swear, and yesterday when i expressed my dislike of cats, someone said, "I thought ALL girls liked cats?" which contains about 6 offensive things just in itself. I made them regret that comment I tell you...

I actually miss Cambridge a bit, well not really, just miss my mum probably. It's f-ing windy as f here which is rubbish, plus all the god leaf-turning phases have passed now. Tonight is mischief night so i'm going to batton down the hatches (?what?is that right?) Oh is is It has a nautical origin and 'battening down' was done on ships when bad weather was expected.

there you go, sorry, lost my font there for a minute!

AANnnyway, i am sure you can't sit around reading this and having fun all day!

contemplating applying for a learn-on-the-job teaching course, it's the last resort,they're advertising for an Art one. should i? I dunno. I wandered round the town centre contemplating which of the christmas temp jobs to apply for, could i wok in GAme? i was wondering, even though I know nothing and don't care? The jobs that I am contemplating and applying for are literally shocking. there is NOTHING. I am so desperate. ho hum.

laters.

broke

today on jk, a man thinks his girlfriend is cheating because she told him she'd weed herself on the minitramp at a house party and he found her with her pants off. It's time for me to stop watching it. it's the natural time.
fucking hell, i just flicked onto channel 4 and saw a man put a dead rabbit from the road into a wheelbarrow, then cut to him putting it into a shredder!it's 9:57 am!! bloody rank!
had a pretty sweet weekend, can't remember it already...spent most of it in bed watching dvds and reading, Simon excitedly read the new Adrian Mole book within 24 hours, carved a pumpkin on sat, unfortunately my pound shop knife-through-head leaked it's fake blood down my ear, still, it was all very jolly fun!!!
Saw Fantastic Mr Fox yesterday, the animation was really nice, it was pretty weird but good, they'd changed it so much that you didn't compare it to the book, so that made it bearable, cause it's a sweet book, and I couldn't imagine how they could do it with American's, it's so english, I used to have it on tape when I was little, yep...Boggis and Bunce and Bean, one short, one fat, one lean.

things are going pretty good at the studio, spent a lot of time there last week, getting into the groove of things, they are in lots of financial trouble, I went to a meeting on Thurs for studio holders and trustees, they have a rescue plan, I really hope it works, it'd be bloody typical if it all shut down in January, that'd be the final straw! Meeting was pretty ball aching, it got quite aggressive at points, I was sitting next to the person who really couldn't control their anger, it was making me feel quite sick actually!

now on jk there's a man who is so paranoid about his wife cheating that he puts a dictaphone in the bedroom to check she doesn't cheat on him when she goes to check on their baby.

lots of bonfire excitement in wakey coming up, they have a thing in Yorkshire on 4th Nov called 'Mischief night', sounds cheeky and lovely doesn't it, basically it involves every young person putting fireworks in phoneboxes so all the glass shatters out, setting them off in the road, lobbing eggs at people and every bloody other thing, so i shall be hiding in the flat. There's also Wakey beer festival this weekend, they're holding it in Lightwaves, the leisure centre... yeah, exactly! They also hold the firework celebrations on saturday, which is wrong I think, it should be ON firework night.
I LOVE Bonfire night, it's one of the only brilliant British traditions (is it british or english?) along with Boxing day, can't think of any more, pancake day, hmmm...we also celebrate 12th night in my house, but I don't know if other people do? it's where on the 12th night after christmas, when you have to take down the decorations, Jan 6th innit, you bake a little man, or a coin or whatever, into a pie, whoever gets it is queen/king for the night, although in my house it was rigged every year so Chloe was queen... Anyway, I do just love the idea that we celebrate the occasion of the foiling of the most dramatic terrorist plot ever by following it through to a successful exploding celebration, Guy Fawkes was from York in face, Guido, that was his real name, they still have records of his signature before, and after, torture, it's chilling. I am pretty sure the other plotters managed to blow themselves up by mistake when they were sieged trying to run away? I'll have to verify that... You can go to Guido's house in York, it's a really amazing pub/inn, it's totally dark, lit by candles, all original wooden furniture, really uncomfy, brill! We had some hot buttered rum there last christmas time! great!

In Lewes in Sussex, they have the biggest firework display in Europe, they have an exploding Pope, it's meant to be really scary, I really wanna go...
anyway, lots to do, can't decide what to do, just did mammoth washing up, had a really bad back this weekend, semi-paralysed bad, gave me a mad nightmare last night that I couldn't walk, so I'd better go out and check...

shit. my bank account is empty, the e bay money has dried up finally. well, it was a good week while it lasted...buying the guardian...having a bOUGHT coffee...even a couple of BEERS! I have been going wild, back to the cage of poverty for me!