I am an aunt!
My brother and his lady fair have brought forth.  It was a long hard slog, but now he's here they are all glowing and flourishing like a planet coming alive with plants and unicellular organisms!  Oh, its amazing.  I am in awe, they are just made for it, carrying little Jacob Ioan David Gross about in a sling and negotiating the lovely dogs and crazy little cottage.  I can't wait to go visit again.  Here's a photoor 3..
   
That my brother there being a father!
Blimey.
Sorry so long since writing, I am still here, but I got lost down a rabbit hole blacker than dark matter at midnight.  still in it, but have a small scaffold so sometimes I can reach up and wave my hands about near the entrance.

Am off Seroxat, onto Citalopram, collecting fungi like no-one's business (for a project), looking for a house for next year, staying a fraction on the right side of sanity with a little help from my friends (tho some of the friends are tablets) and missing home, missing Bristol and missing the proximity of loved ones.  But, hey ho, tis all for the long-term greater good, even if its often scary and heartbreaking.  Keep focused on the work, that's all one can do eh?

I must go do a practice evolution exam now.  Then write up some stuff about Redshanks feeding on amphipods.  Then draw a bit more of the Calvin Cycle.  Then ID some fungi.  Etc.  It never ends.  
Bless, been so sunny today, everyone has been running around acting festival-style, wearing flimsy little nothings and being fools unto themselves.  The eyes of the lecherous have sprung open with the arrival of spring, and therefore much whistling and swaggering is underway on campus. 
 They are so young.  It their first spring away from home...  Oh God, when my infuriatingly girly screamy yelling loud flatmates start ...gulp....shagging, I will have to have my ears surgically filled in with bio-cement. 
Currently I employ a simple technique of revenge, after a 3am disturbance from the revellers returning, well, I just put on Combichrist very very loud at 10am.  Thats a fair time for anyone, but for the late partygoers it is still the night!  Ha.

Petty.  See you soon.  Back to re-reading Lost Girls (the Alan Moore erotic masterpiece, oh, its gooood.)
 

Grrrriiinnnnnddddd-flash-swoop-whizzzz.......whoosh......(intensely strobed macro-focused multiple close-up shots, overlayed disjointed music, splice, replicate, anneal, elongate, accelerate.....)   voices places voices places worries memories revelations no sleep no sleep no fucking sleep...

Seroxat is kicking in then?


I went a chopping-down of diseased rhodedendrons yesterday, up on a hill near st Ives.  It was great fun, sawing thick shrubs and trees with handsaws, pulling them out, bracing my bodyweight against the tree, and extracting a tree bigger than my room!  Running across the stumps and scrub to hurl it on a huge smoky fire.  I really went for it, cleared a big area, got a lot of anger out in that one!  Chopping trees with trunks the thickness of your average supermodel, making them burn and die.  You get the picture.  I still smell of smoke.  Augh, i wanna be a lumberjill.  Thats the life.  (pictures next time, though they are pretty smokey and drab)  BTCV is a good organisation, I must do more with em...

Got a stats test at 9m on Monday, and an online Genetics test too.  Before starting on the next round of essays and practical write-ups.  I miss home, and am losing my mind.  Just gotta stay on it and get this all done before 13th Dec, then can come home.  Ah, may try to get home sooner.  Not found the place to buy tickets in Falmouth yet, but its getting to be pretty vital now.

spent all my money, on pointless junk food
life is one long unsettling trip with lurching corners
I will pay anyone who can kill me quickly and painlessly, there, thats a good way to make some cash before Christmas. 

Started Seroxat today.  Yep, that is my choice.  I took it many years ago and it helped, and I got off it ok too, so no big deal there.  Had to persuade the doctor a bit, but the alternative would be...well...waiting and seeing if the eventual support services helped?  I couldn't wait, things are too scary.  Not been this low in years, and frankly there's no point me sabotaging my degree/life just cos of pride, so back on the drugs.
Am a veritable human-cocktail-making machine now!
Got my sea slug essay in early, but NOW I find out I overstepped the word count.  Arse.  I fucked it up a bit.  No allowed to be passionate or poetic, its science.  Grrrr.
Gotta revise Genetics and Stats for assessments on Monday.  when I get some work done I'll write more, enlighten you all with the machinations of my matchmaking plans and bodypainting fetishes.  Wax lyrical on something or other.  Rant most likely.  Until then, I must go do some revision, writing, researching, German practice, wash my pants in the sink, paint a clay seaslug, antagonise my cute flatmate with tales of sexy women, trip the light fantastic with the new stream of chemicals in my wrecked body.
Still wanna be a man.  Thanks for all the attempts to dissuade, they were amusing and sad, but I remain stoic, it is worse being female.  I won't elaborate, but 'never being at peace with your body, and if you are, recieving the jealousy and hatred of other women' is in there...
Sorry, this is a university campus.  Its rife, all the bullshit, the dodgy snide looks and whispering/giggling barely-disguised contempt...  The ultra-tight fashion bandwidth of permitted behaviour and appearance, outside of which all you get is static and a high-pitched whining noise.  i am incandescant with rage and sadness most of the time, broiling with industrial-strength feminism and working out with weighted determination.  One day I wanna have arms that bulge and ripple, like the surface of a dark and stormy sea, on the verge of erupting into a tropical storm.  Yea, and all shall drown, for I am the depth of a generations unspoken rage!
Stay shallow if you're too afraid of the open water, and keep the inflatable buoyancy-aids on, you little size-zero plastic people....
"Learn to swim...."
The Nudibranch God has spoken, and yes, he knows he has quoted Tool.
Fuck, I feel weird.
Things may be alittle odd for a while.
Gonna watch Inland Empire later, you know, to help with the feelings of unreality and frightening darkness.  Yay!
RNAi......
Polymerase...
Restriction enzymes.....
Initiation factors.....
                                                 You see, I can't fucking concentrate.  It all looks like stuff for  poetic metaphors to me....

Augh...  I am a tad hormaonal.  Stupid pseudo-suicudal 'friends' are making my life hell, as are the non-stop-party-people.
Off to an estuary for a field trip now, will bring back pretty pics if it stays relatively dry.

Head hurts man...had to take quadruple dose of codeine last night to get some work done and ignore the shrieking harpies in the kitchen area.  Avoiding chaotic kitchen environment means camping out in my room til late, before emerging to heat up my lentil and cabbage goo.  Living on vast amounts of chocolate and oats, feel  like a fuzzy-headed bacterial growth in an overflowing dustbin.......
Really, if there was a spare room off campus available now, I'd walk straight into it, even if it meant damp walls, rats, weevils, a ghost and a perverted landlord!

Got 3 deadlines in as many days.  my brother and his good lady will be coming down if weather permits, post-Mighty Boosh, so gotta get it all done before they turn up...  Eeep!

New phone number guys, new bloody Nokia.  It is all clumsy to use, sticky fingerpads, weird behaviour.  07917308228.  Non-Sexy talk from disinterested-in-sex panicking female.  Speciality; obsessive worrying, body dismorphism, lurid parasite descriptions and masochism.  This week: Sea slug sex LIVE!!!Calls may cost £1.60/minute from landlines.  (Ask Mr Bill Payer before using phone.)

Hey, I wanna change my name by deed poll to Bill Payer....think of the fun that could bring to my life!

Grrrrrr..........  i wanna be a man.
Byeeee...hope it doesn't rain...........got thermos of hot bouillon with tabasco, and plenty of drugs.  Wooly hat and long-johns.  Wellies and binoculars.  Escape parachute and kendal mint cake.  Bowie knife and bonsai yeti kit.  AK47 and cute little ear-muffs.  Doomsday book and key to Atlantis....  but really all I want is my beautiful man, a log fire, vanilla ice-cream and a lethal dose of herion.

               
God, this is insane.  I love the subject, but things move so fast there is no time to take it all in.  I do understand, especially the hard genetics and microbiology, which has freaked most folk out badly....  But the lectures are in hypertime, and things don't settle or take root in the brain for long...SLOW DOWN....

I am scared as hell that I am gonna fall apart very soon, and totally fail.  I read and take notes all the time, try to work as much as possible.  No time left to watch films, read novels, talk to folks at home or go out really.  No time for much extracurricular anything.  Bet that I don't fit 2 languages in on top of this.  How do people have massive drinking sessions every night?  And jobs?  And partners?  Am so far out of my comfort zone its like a bad surreal dream most of the day.  The work, the expectation to go get experience and work every 5 minutes, read extra journals, do online CD learning from all the text books, be an ambassador, go for uni award schemes, do community work, be an FXU rep, do sports, have friends, network....and...how?  Huh?  I wanna cry much of the time.  Sometimes I do, in lectures even, quietly and discreetly.  Turned to chocolate mountains again and am almost a stone heavier, in only 3 weeks!

Sadly the councellors are booked up almost a month in advance now, and my timetable is full up, dunno when I'll get to see them again.
    We all have crabs!  (Biologists only get the big ones.  Here is, left to right, a shore crab, an edible crab, and a velvet swimming crab...)

Post fieldtrip on Wednesday, we had a day to write up this mad assignment thing, put pics and tables, adaptations and hypothesise about Intertidal life on Gylingvase beach... I was up til 5.30am that night writing and researching.  Got under 2 hours sleep.  That's half of the usual!  Felt sick mental and scared since.  How on earth will we manage?  There is so much work to do, and no time to do all the reading they recommend, no way at all, even if you eschew any social life (which I mostly do, as you may have guessed)

Anyway, here are some pics.  we found loads of cool beasties, starfish, rock gobies, sea scorpions, pipefish, blennies, huge anemones, frantic uber-crabs, great diversity.


And today I went beach-cleaning with Friends of the Earth, we picked up all sorts of crap.  I found one of Neptune's early 'practice' tridents (from his youth) all rusted and dangerous.  We got rewarded with tea and cake at the local hippy cafe.  my sleep-deprivation caused a massive spillage of coffee all over the till, cake display and literature.  Not best pleased were they, my motor coordination is a bit fucked.  Had headache all day too.  No matter.  Tomorrow I will work my socks off to make up for today's slackness.

All the others have gone out to the School Disco...(shudder) I hate these Freshers' parties, they are scary and not fun at all.  Noone really talks about anything interesting, the music is pants, the girls are all very stand-offish, thin and pretty, or at least one of those, they seem to know how to enjoy it too.  Think thats cos they drink enough to believe?  The guys just wanna get into the pants of the aforementioned girls.  
Sigh.  I feel like I am neither one thing nor the other anymore.  I don't wanna fuck anyone down here, I don't want anyone to come near me either.  If I could live in the library under a huge cowl and beard, I would.


  Blue-Rayed Limpets.  Yay!  They are irridescent!

on that note, I am off to bed, or rather, to read about whelks and RNA.  Etc.  The trick is, to hypnotise yourself to find chemical bonding, transciption enzymes and stop codons sexually arousing.  I pretend that we're being taught the secrets of how to become minor deities, by God's little helpers, and soon we will be able to perform amazing magical feats, up on hills, in robes, using this information, and weilding great power...
Love you Bristol, go have a good hearty shop in the new Cabot Circus and write me a long, surreal, scathing report on it.  Diagram of a basic mollusc to the best entry!

auuuggghhhhh...
                                       Its really hard being here.  There is so much work.  That i could cope with, but the pressure to be out socialising is massive, and thats not including all the other courses and activities on offer (many of which I signed up for.)
There is no time.  There are too many creepy men who stalk, skinny bitchy girls who titter and point, too many drunken horny young men who have no standards, too many balls to juggle and too many expectations for all the so-called extracurricular things we are supposed to do, in order to furnish Exeter Uni with its reputation for excellence and enterprise.
Fucking hell, if I survive it will be a miracle, and I am staying in mostly, working my socks off too.  If any of us pass anything it will be another miracle?  If I am less than 20 stone by Christmas it will be..... hmmm...like I said, I'm not having fun at present.  How the guys on the other courses get time to mess around and have lives, I do not know?
Is this normal?  Is anything normal?  Is it even real?  Things do not feel real, its like one long endless fucked-up dream in which the world is deadlines, hyperfast videolinked lectures, shreiking children in the bodies of adults, millions of requests and demands, no sleep, no space, no sanity, no lovers or true friends...  
Sorry, its just not fun yet.
When am I allowed to take the cyanide?

                
Hello again folks!

I have been out on the cliffs today with my new camera.  Not many lectures yet, nor work (beyond reading, which I love. ) Had microbiology, Ecology and Evolution, Zoology and some IT bits.  Got plenty of essays and trips coming up soon though, even by next week, so really I should do some.  Done a few hours reading, but keep getting distracted by online paraphenalia, veritabletons of cheap chocolate and random diary-related 'putting things in order but not actually doing anything' things.   I wish I had some self-control...  Not heading out to the Porn party tonight, I hear they like people mostly unclad (a panic and nausea-inducing exercise for me and anyone nearby) and so I bet there ends up being hundreds of boys, two lone ladies and a handful of girls (drunk, on drugs or actual real-life sluts...)  No, that's being a bit cruel really isn't it?
I am all over the place still...waver between hyper-excited nerdy uber-work ethic state and utter desparation, craving solitude, home, psychiatric hospital or an opium den.  Is this normal?  Everyone says it is, and that these are the best days of one's life, but then again, they might be sadists in disguise? 
When I am up on the cliffs and beaches, or in a lecture furiously trying to note it all down, well then its kinda cool and worth it.  When it is 4am and outside the gutteral, shrill and deranged yelling of drunken kids coming back from the club/bar/party prevents me sleeping, or when my housemates are busy reading Heat magazine and discussing the merits of Posh's diets (oh wow, sh'e gained a whole pound and is now a glowing, plump and feminine 7 stone/ oh no she's lost two pounds and is looking like a 6 stone media cash-cow) or Lindsay Lohan's self-harm (quick, miniscule scratches on the wrist, get thee to a priory....nnngggrrrhhhhhhhh....aauugghhhhh!) or the importance of gyms/fashion reality TV shows/£100 high heels...well, then I have to hold back from running outside in my tight PVC hand-woven hemp dungarees, flinging soya yoghurt and arterial blood about, screaming the Archers' theme tune and smothering people with books on evolution, crying "Evolve you bastards, evolve!"
Better news, the gothlet emo-boy is ignoring me in frustration as I am too boring for him now and will not have meaningless sex, nor listen to him talk about all the sex he could have if he could be bothered...
Must go, my flatmate wants to interview me for her journalism course. 
MISS YOU!
Send more paramilitaries...
XXX

 Bah...  My word, its been so long since the last one eh?  Just so busy packing and bubblewrapping my flat up.  I have hardly set foot online in a month, despite paying for broadband (now I discover that BT will screw me royally once I move to Falmouth, either thru the early termination of a contract, or the installation of a line in my room, either way, I may not get my laptop online straight away...)

My lovely housing association told me that I could leave useful items for the next tenant, Freecycle style, and leave the murals on the walls..  Then changed their minds with 2 days to go before I leave, and insinuated that I would have to return the flat to how I found it, or pay contractors to repaint it for me.
Right...  Well, to do the first thing they said I'd have to splash SHITE lurid colours on each wall, a different purple or green or puce on each one, rip up the lino and carpets that I paid to put in, tear off the murals and mirrors, unscrew the nice shelves and bathroom cabinet, hide drugs paraphenalia under the floorboards and smear greasy dust all over everything!
To do the second, I'd have to pimp myself out to raise a few hundred squid to get some poor blokes to destroy my years of artwork on the bathroom and kitchen.
Bastards.

Anyway, good news:  The hamster has a home and a new boyfriend (her first in fact) and is settling in well upstairs with Sophie.  Most of my furniture is happily re located in the flats of other folks in my building (we have a policy of leaving it in the lobby til someone pilfers it, and what they do with it next is their business..)  I shlepped the big heavy machines out for the council, and didn't flood the flat in the process, or make my spine go bent and wonky.  Pretty well decided what lives at my mum's, in the new attic room (which is LOVELY, I  moved in this last week, after a fortnight of Zed-bed in the lounge) and what will go to Cornwall with me.  The pile of stuff to be transported down is scarily large, much larger than when I went to study in London 10 years ago.  It includes more equipment, heavy Biology books, Stats and Analytical Practice tomes, lab coats, waterproofs, camera, boots, many plastic layers for windy cliffs...  I am only taking one box of art stuff.  Will it all fit into the hired car?  Dunno.  God, I hope so, its a bit late to pack again.

The last few weeks did include seriously cracking up, but the less said about that the better.  At least it has subsided a bit for the moment.  Been doing far too much and not resting at all, and yet I've still not seen enough people or done enough proper goodbyes.  Guilt guilt guilt.  Oh well, back soon for Christmas and all that crap.  Hopefully there'll be so much work to do I won't feel too sad.  Although some folk I will miss badly.  

Must go do more packing and stuff.  We make our first run down to the flat in a mo.  Augh.  

Oh, its not as bad as I make out you know, just the usual ranting slant on life.  Really, I do love my friends and feel so grateful for everything (apart from...no, shut up Rose...thats not for now.)

Posting up picture of Falmouth soon!

I am in Wales staying with my little brother, the more mature than me beardy chap with a baby on the way.  I am so exhausted, all I do is sleep, eat like a pig, then pass out again.  After last week's madness and retuen to the daily packet o Nurofen Plus a day I am down to a mere 2 codine pills, and fucking hell, the withdrawals...  oh my God, why would anyone wanna come off it?  Or rather, why would anyone wanna start in the first place?
Anyway, nuff of that, I am finding loads of lovely music here, my brother has such a great ecclectic collection.  Peter Wyngarde!  All the Beck there is.  Some beautiful haunting folk stuff i have been too sheltered to come across.  No doubt I will plague you all with it soon enough.  Neon Neon.  ...and of course, the audio version of Flight Of The Conchords!  But I fell asleep during most of this, in fact staying awake has hampered most of the efforts to do anything.  We watched Adaptation last night, but i fell asleep.  Woke up for roast chicken, then fell asleep in the gravy.  Sigh
It is raining here.  There are lots of pretty sheep and very vicious dogs trying to kill walkers for rustling their sheep.  We did a few small wanderings yesterday, but the skies turned grey and it began to downpour again.  Found a few likely looking shrooms, but I think the chances of magic are low, at least for another month or so?  Prime territory though!
The old fluffy cat is adorable, the house is the sweetest little cottage.  We are 10 miles from any sort of shop.  I must go lie down now.  Been painting trees in ink for a tribute to my grandmother's 20 year anniversary since her death, but its hard to come up with an un-clicheed image. Hmmm...  More tea, more fags, more Brinjaal Pickle, and it will work itself out.
  Wish I was a sheep.
See you when I am better...
(Miss you miss you miss you sooooo badly A.  Scared you'll struggle alone.)
Meep.  Over and out.

Madness!
I gave notice on my flat today, and cleared another bookshelf.  Mental meltdown.  All the vanilla icecream and Nurofen Plus in the flat has been had, with cherries on top.  Councelled a sad post-driving-test brother.  Hours of typing nonsense at people later..the fog of despair lifts a little.  I am on track for a late creative night of poetry or paint, so much for early nights...
 
 Hellraiser trilogy day tomorrow afternoon/evening at mine tomorrow!  Yay!
They are classic aren't they?  Especially the second film in the mental hospital.
Ah, not done any art in ages, its feeble is it not?  Promised portraits to all and sundry, somehow I must do all the painting before September is over?  Hmmmm...
There will be new art up here soon, and hopefully photographed with my new camera (which has night vision...bwahahaaaaa!)

What happened to the comics?

Much love to everyone, thankyou for messages of support.  See you at Pandora's Box this Sat, its Clare's birthday you know, she needs a big night of gothy drunken splendour...

Well...  it comes to a point where its almost hilarious.
If I had a quid for all the friends this week who've said "I don't want anything from you..." or "I don't want to be a burden..."  then, within minutes,  contradicted that in the most major ways imaginable...well, I'd be able to go to the cinema and buy a good quantity of overpriced Pick 'N' Mix!
Even the most sober and sensible have cracked.  Men, women and beasts alike...What is going on?  Is it in the air?  Is it in the water?  Is someone humerously sticking Post-It notes to my back that say something to the effect of 'Fuck me, I'm a psychiatrist!'

That does not include everyone, some folk have been lifesavers quite literally, thankyou.  I owe you.  In fact, thankyou to lots of lovely people.  You are a patient lot!

Augh.
Well, ranting over, its been interesting. 
Did I mention Klimt?  I went to Liverpool with my mum last Wed-Thurs and saw Klimt.  What paintings were displayed were very good, and its so good to get up close, really see the brushwork.  I related most to the one of Judith, cool dark-haired wench with a dead head in a bucket! 
We also saw the Tate, and the huge Catholic Cathedral with the trippy giant stained glass crown atop its roof (including a Hellraiser-esque super-massive crown of thorns inside and 'scary as fuck skinned metal Jesus' stations of the cross inside, worthy of Gunther Von Hagen, not to mention truly psychedelic tapestries... aren't they a creative bunch!)  Lastly, we visited the International Slavery Museum, which was damn powerful stuff, and should be compulsory viewing.  Not that much about modern day slavery, but then again, that would take up another few floors...  It was a lot to pack into 24 hours.  We just about kept on good terms, though a bit spiky at the end. 
I returned most definitely 30, and thank God for that eh?  Finally...
Must to bed now, another grandad visit tomorrow. (Shouldn't have stayed up so late embroidering onto my trousers.)
Meep.

Blind and empty
Trip and fall
Hollow from this
Slow withdrawal
Leave the stable
Run for miles
What I wear
Is in my files
Mark the days
On walls that breathe
You're in my blood
They make you leave
My head, can't stand
I'm forced to feel
Rebuild the brace
From stainless steel
Train the synapse
Cut the tie
In omission
Truth can lie
Close the door
And swallow time
Love's chemical
And you were mine.

.......................................................................I do not want to come off codeine.  I do not want to pack up my life and leave Bristol.  And if I must (which is not in question really) then I sure as hell won't get thrown out of Halls for a bit of harmless self-injury (bastards, read the small print of the tenancy contract if you doubt that, yeah, they can ask you to leave..!)
Anyway...  A quarter my flat is in an attic now, in Wales.  All my life-drawing is in the recycling bin.  Things are being pulled asunder.  Come take what you like folks, everything must go....

Here are a few pics, not great quality thanks to my little phone camera, but you get the idea... 
   Relatively small, about double the size of A4 papaer?  This one is reduced in price due to the back corner of the frame being gnawed a little by my hamster!

  This one is larger, about 50 by 80cm?  I knew this info, had it for the arts trail, but have lost the sheet of paper...And everything is in bubblewrap....
  There are some nice lurid pink spots in this one, slightly smaller than the previous.

  And this one is very large!  It is full of hidden semi-erotic bits and not a few rabbits....

  This one is not wholly abstract, as there is most definitely a monster ravishing a naked lady in there somewhere!

Righty, that is all I have to hand , but there are more pics.
Been cleaning out my storage areas and bookcases in the flat over the few days, packing it up for putting in my dad's, or mum's, attic.  Its weird seeing all the old A-Level and foundation art work, and the stuff from the first year and a bit of Illustration.  i'd not seen it all in about 10 years!  Threw plenty away too, as there is only so much old life drawing that you can store (most of it is a charcoaly smudged mess after all this time.)  Dust everywhere...  Some of the drapes and things have come down too...  The move is officially underway....
Eek!
Off to Wales noe with my dad to have a night out and away from the madness...  Back in time to bugger off to Liverpool on Wed.
So sad and stressed.  Not enough codine by half to absorb the hyper-kinetic frenzy of those pesky errant neurones.  Changes of address!  Official bollocks!  Rent and deposits! So many forms to fill out, auuuggghhhhhhhh.....

Bright sun, strong breeze, trounbled sky in Brighton last week. The chalky cliffs!
Me, wasted as fuck in Brighton, wandering by the ocean...

The last few weeks have taught me much about the human condition...

I have been a-visiting the feeble and ill.  Firstly my grandad in Bristol, who is a sweet and lovely, very intelligent old man, but who increasingly frequently hears and sees things that are not there.  I find this intriguing and sad at the same time.  He is one of the biggest inspirations in my life, as a scientist and lover of nature, and as a brave, honest, grounded man.  I would happily take many leaves from his book.  But he hears voices from his intercom and electric fan, that bully him mercilessly.  We connect without words, as my grandad has little hearing and very little speech left.  Its all trapped inside him, and we work to communicate via gestures, pictures, writing and guesswork.  I have only ever beaten him at chess the once, and never exceeded his crop of sweetpeas!
  I broke down and cried last time I saw him, as the demons in my head were particularly insistant, and I felt totally out of control and ungrounded in life (as usual.)  He just held my hand and then gave me his wooden anchor to hold, to remind me about being held safely in the storm.  He is a damn good man.

Then the next day I went to see my other grandad in London.  It was his last day in the care home (been there since he was run over and had his leg broken back in early Spring.)  He was far more compis mentis this time, but still tricky to talk to.  I was delighted to see him walk a few steps, to the lift and down to the dining room, with a walking frame.  Last time I saw him he was out of it and refused to even try the physio exercises.  He thought he'd never walk again.  You can't keep a Leo down!  His leg is healed all bent and odd-looking, but it works just fine.
 He is home now happily, unlike many of the other residents there, who are basically there til they die.  It is a really scary vision of our potential futures, if the system is not improved.  Even though the surroundings were plush and the place was quite expensive, the staff were often nowhere to be found and the activities offered were not suitable or plentiful enough to those who still had a good selection of marbles.  some of them talked to my mum and me over lunch, they were sad and shocked to know that their remaining days would be in this pureed-food, lift-music, overheated bland place.  I pray that when my time comes (if not dead from other things first) I stay independant, or can go quickly, or volunteer as a stunt-granny and go out in a blaze of glory and impossible bravery over a canyon or out in space somewhere!

The rest of that week was spent with my mum, up in her new attic room, sanding and coating the walls in diluted white emulsion, then Soft Rose (ahhhhh!)  We worked our socks off.  i relinquished my normal routines, gym and all, to get used to being more spontaneous and focus on the task in hand.  We did well, and only got under each others skin on the last day.  Then she went off for a week of cycling in Wales and I went off to Brighton...

Brighton.
I was there to visit my frie, whom I have known for about 10 years now.  She was my closest friend for most of that time, and at one stage my brother's partner, ending in a move down to Falmouth, and subsequent move back to Bristol, then London after they split up.  I have seen much less of her since she moved in with her girlfriend, obviously, London is not my favourite place!  Now they live in a sweet little nest up hight in Brighton, a minute from the beach.
She has been ill with ME on and off for much of her adult life, and recently it has gotten very bad.  she is housebound and can't really walk.  She rests every half hour and paces herself with admirable patience and consistancy.  I would have gone mad ages ago if it were me, but somehow she has the mental wherewithall, and spiritual practice to keep herself going.  I stayed in a guesthouse as being at hers too much would have really tired her out, and been a strain.  I knew that she had prepared for a week, saving up energy for my visit, and any time we got was quite high-octane for her, even if it felt low-key to me.  Very different perceptions of time and activity.
 It is a baffling and frightening illness.
My mum had it in the past, as did my dad's wife.  I have known lots of people my age who have had it, or still do now.  Each case is so individual.  Some people have it so that they cannot handle any stimulus at all, some have more freedom to read, do small gentle activities, watch a little TV, take care of themselves a bit more independantly.  There is no cure as such, nor set of rules for recovery.  What works for one may not do anything for anyone else.  With this in mind I find myself feeling stumped and flummoxed when trying to provide some support of suggestions to my friend.  Really, she knows what works and what its like, I can only guess. its strange, as we can only ever talk for 30 minutes at a time, so its tricky getting a conversation to a deeper place, or explore ideas much.  I feel lost with it, and lost trying to be with her.
The visit was strange.  I saw her for a few stints, but on the second day turned up at 10am, saw her once, then was asked gently (and probably quite rightly) to go away and come back at 7pm.  I felt so angry and rejected.  I felt like I'd come all that way, for not very long, to the tune of 100 quid (travel and B&B) to be told to go away.  There was nothing else I wanted to do down there, my head had been pounding for days and I just wanted to lie down and rest or sleep.
Obviously, this was an overblown and selfish response to her request, which was based on her strength, not her wish to see me.  My head was rational, but my gut was twisting in grief and disbelief.  Naturally, I couldn't tell her how I felt and it wasn't fair to do so.  (One of the downsides of our friendship is that I am terrified of her anger or disapproval, and often conceal my feelings or whats been going on in life to avoid her criticism.  Silly eh?)
I sat on the beach and cried.  Phoned a few folk.  Went back to the guesthouse to lie down.  Took a good 400mg of codine, (returning for a one-off to Nurofen Plus too), and calmed down with a blade.  Quite a lot.  Finally got outside, all wasted and calm, and had a good walk along the beautiful white chalky cliffs.
When I went back that evening I was more accepting and settled.  We talked a bit.  She told me some of her deep insecurities and desperation about living with ME.  she needs to move house, and get an electric  wheelchair.  She needs therapy and lots of support in recovering.   There is so little in the way of resources out there, and such long waiting lists.  I felt humbled.  My reaction to a percieved rejection was really quite childish compared to the kind of endurance one needs to stay hopeful over years of feeling exhausted.  I hope it helped her, and was pleasant, to see me. 
She is a strong woman stuck in an ill body, but I have faith that she will recover and get her dancing, striding, writing strength back...
Even if all I did was buy a few bits for her and play her harp as she drifted off, it was good to see her...  I wanted to do much more though.    But what else can I do?  Communicate more by letter I think.  She can't do web stuff as screens are too much for her.  I am blessed to have mobility and so many choices, and time.  Mental note to write more often...
By the time I went home I was shattered, and felt sick from the overdose.  We all struggle in different ways I guess?  Neither one is fun or easy. 

Since then I've been up at my mums place, painting and priming, then wrangling gloss paint.  Aaron stayed with me, as he was having a ral tough time at home and I was scared for his safety there.  We got his doctor's appointment brought forward and I helped him by being an advocate, telling the doc what he couldn't.  Hopefully he will get more support from them soon?  He was tired and yet insisted on helping with the work, which was a real gift.  We got nearly all of it done over 4 days.  Only cracked up on the last evening, and got fractious with each other.  There was no rest or recreation, no TV, films or reading time.  We simply painted and slept.  I felt so grateful to Aaron, he was a saint, and I was not good enough to him in return. 
My mum was pleased when she got home today and saw what we'd done.  I have been so engrossed in it all, its been weeks since I felt settled at home or done anything of my own like painting portraits, drawing or reading.  Its just been work and unwell friends for ages...

Home now, tidying up, planning the week ahead, which includes a trip to Wales to see my dad and store some stuff in his attic, then going to Liverpool with my mum to see the Klimt exhibition.  When I get free time I have more folk to see who need support and cheering up.  Its gonna be like this all summer I reckon, until its time to leave for good.  I got my Uni accomodation info today and the bill for my rent.  AUGH!  Got no cash to pay for that , when will it come?  Its all so soon.  What happened to the long empty summer in which I was gonna do a comic, read lots of science books and be useful in voluntary ways?  It has sped by.
I am sooo damn tired.  The hamster is missing again.  Must go wash the headlice treatment out of my hair (eeeeuuuggghhhhh!)
More happy stuff later.  Thank God I have all the good people and support that I do.  Byyeeeeeee.... X

Oh my God...  They were amazing!
The computer-costume provided protection from anyone dancing too close, as my butt was spikey, not to mention heavy with encoded memory...  I was on a beautiful leash, chained and partially restrained by the best pole-dancer I have had the pleasure to behold.  We danced like maniacs.  The exhaustion of months fell away for the duration of the music, and rhythmic, pulsing beats flowed through us.  As I said, Combichrist were, are, amazing.  (Damn my shyness, we could have had our pictures taken with the band...)
Hello to everyone I knew there, but was too spun-out to really talk to.

Then I was led home and bathed.  Splintered-light and flashing sapphire eyes.  Boards of Canada and rosewater.  Utter bliss.

Been in Wales since, shattered, but happy.

Its that harbour festival thingy isn't it?  I can hear it echoing up from the river to my flat, cross-streams of music and drunken laughter.  Too intense to actually take part in this time.  I hate crowds and hot sun. 
Hocio and Mind In A Box have arrived dutifully on CD, so I am painting away to that, lost in dark futuristic soundscapes.  Trying to perfect a good likeness of my muse.
Written two new poems, which I will try to get up here in some form soon.
The dissected PC will end up glued to my plastic mannequin head by the end of the night I fear, under the influence of trusty painkillers, vodka, and blood.  Go away world!  come back when you're more sensible...

Bwa hahaaaaaa!  I just dissected an old computer.  Ripped it apart with me bare hands and categorised the tiny shiny pieces.  Snipped wires like arteries, held them bleeding electricity into my palms, tore out the heart of the beast and disconnected the cooling system.  Laid out the motherboard, exposed and fragile on my floor, and poured superglue into its mouth.  Wrenched off the speakers, muting the insipid whine of standby.  Excised the silvery buttons that switch it on and off, leaving them gasping for air like tiny fish, impotent and dying slowly.  Crushed the softer parts beneath my bare feet, and picked out the teeth from reddened flesh.
 
 It is no more.  It has ceased to be.  It rests in pieces...It is an ex-PC.

Now I am going to slash up an organic marrow from the farmer's market and stuff its belly full of seeds.... 
Head spinning and lips peeling dead skin.  Ready for battle against the Roman armies, for whom I have made small felt bodybags.  Too much filter coffee has been consumed today, of yes indeedy.
Why are things so complicated?