I want to stick my minge in a Moomin

Wow, my commitment to this blog is shite. In the time it has existed I have moved house and fallen over in the street more times than I have written in it, plus each time I write in it I appear to be incapacitated for some reason; this time I am waiting for a fridge.To be fair I have trouble committing to watching an entire film (the length!) and I completely failed to get married last year despite being in love and engaged, but ANYWAY!

 

I might start writing in this thing quite often; I am doing an art/personal-development ‘let’s all wank off trees’ course (not defensive at all) and so I’ve started doing *things* again; things that don’t directly impact on my career or are on my things to do list; things that are *good for my soul*. (Since the last time I wrote here I think I might have come to half understand the SEMI COLON (said in a big booming voice), do tell me if I have the hang of it at all, I am quite slipshod in my regard for punctuation)

 

The bird who wrote the book (the course lives in a book, it’s called The Artists Way) doesn’t tell you what things might be good for your specific soul, she tells you to make a list of things you like doing. I did this first in a group and although I thought I was being brutally honest (dirty sex with boys with pretty eyes/ reading Viz on the toilet) I realised I was probably trying to make an impression, so I did another list at home that was genuinely honest. As such I have been doing a lot of lovely things like having a chucky egg* and watching the rain; reading a Moomins book in a sequined dress; doing the dishes with no top on and sunglasses while SHOUTING Starlight Express and doing pretend hip hop in my flatmate’s hat. Today I painted a picture. It is meant to be a sunset, it kinda looks like anxiety, and one bit looks like a duck’s face straight on, but my hands and jeans are pleasantly covered in paint and I think the people on the bus will be impressed. (I sort of expected this fridge to be here by now).

 
It started to feel a bit indulgent to be spending my time doing what feels like the-things-you-do-while-you’re-gently-recovering-from-a-nervous-breakdown, so I thought I’d try to separate the things I like that are indulgent from those that are actually enriching. List 1 was floppy, overweight, knackered, content and slightly narky, and all about immediate gratification that isn’t even that gratifying: watching repeats of family guy I’ve seen so many times they make my eyes feel threadbare; staying in bed all day fantasizing about running away to ‘London’ (not the real London, a kind of Oliver twist fantasy I have in my head); playing Mario kart till I’m sick on myself; walking round the Arndale till I’m sick on myself; eating kinder-egg-sticks till I’m sick on myself, drinking till I’m sick on myself ETC. The enriching list on the other hand got a bit dickhead-preachy; I am very unlikely to go jogging/ meditate / read war and peace / go a year without falling over in the street, and I am definitely not going to join a gym, – I am essentially a cross between a 7 yr old little sister who wants to stick her minge in a moomin and a men-behaving-badly flatmate who want to stick her minge in a minge, so we’re going for medium term gratification that has a little bit of immediate gratification in it (I know, I know, grow up Hagan, NO!) this means in the next few weeks I shall be going to gay-line-dancing; buying some roller-skates; going rock belly dancing; going to rainbow rhythms (for all you peep show fans); writing some of the backed up poems that are sick of hanging about as ideas and want to be real; starting that play (maybe) and looking into opportunities to stick my minge in a moomin (or a minge). And writing this blog.

 
During this week (week 4 of the course) we are not meant to do any reading. I don’t really read all that much, I only really read: a)(as we already know) Viz on my own toilet,  b) grown up books on other people’s toilets and  c) things about the plague when I’m ill,  plus stupid cat-obsessed, punctuation pedant facebook and twitter, so I decided to reinterpret the bird who wrote the book and, while I am depriving myself of books and the internet, I’ve swapped her depriving myself of reading-Viz-on-the-toilet for depriving myself of booze and porn, because I think that’s my version of what she means (you give up your main distractions and you end up doing different, better stuff),  plus if I give up reading Viz on the toilet I don’t think I’m suddenly going to start doing other amazingly fruitful things on the toilet, but maybe that’s just my resistance. Anyway what that means is that I am now going to break the rules by posting this. I’ll never be head girl. Hrumpf.

 
If anyone is hanging on the edge of the seat about the whole fridge issue – it isn’t here and it is now past the deadline of the fridge and so it must be coming tomorrow which is a big ball-ache, I am going to go leather the landlord with my fists now (i.e. text him a polite thing WITHOUT any kisses on it), also in case you want to know, curry mile (I live on curry mile now kids, it’s fucking loud) has just erupted, there must be some football on. I’m heading to my friend Conor’s now and having to go out in a mad headscarf because I have 4 tonnes of hair dye on my head and I SHALL GET BATTERED BY HOOLIGANS (i.e. have a nice chat with a boy about what football is happening at the bus stop).

 

By the way, my semi-colon whim doesn’t mean I’m now into grammar and punctuation in case any of you have been waiting to pounce and teach me stuff. Hold it in. Go and bully a dyslexic on facebook instead.

 

 

Very Important Footnote.
*A chucky egg is (possibly a scouse device, or maybe just northern) a cup with a soft boiled egg and buttered bread all mashed up together in, with lots of salt. It cures all ills. Except for real ills that are biological. It goes cold quickly. It goes well with sequined dresses and is good for fleetingly distracting you from free floating shame.

A Room to Say Goodbye In

My friend is doing an installation that I think is a really great idea. It’s basically this: you, by yourself, go into a room for 45 minutes, no one does a performance at you, no one watches you, you are by yourself, there are nice good quality things in the room, what you do/write/think/make/etc while you are there is completely up to you and no one will ask you afterwards. It’s called ‘A room to say goodbye in’. You interpret it. You do it. It’s your thing.

I want to do it but I’m working on the day it’s on so I’m going to go to John Ryland’s and do it by myself there. I was going to do it at home but you know what it’s like doing anything at home, you always end up watching Come Dine With Me or doing a quiz on facebook to fid out what type of bagel you are and feeling that lazy procrastination guilt that isn’t quite painful enough to get you off your arse (clove oil helps, oh no that’s toothache). Plus I like John Ryland’s, it feels chunky and important and appropriate, even though I did get a right telling off in there once for leaving a treasure trail for my friend (it was a really good treasure trail, the security man said it made the place look scruffy and weird. Then he looked at me. “I don’t see the problem with scruffy and weird Sir”. Cue big flirty Hagan grin. Cue Jackie out on her ear.)

Obviously the stuff that came to me first when I thought about it ‘A room to say goodbye in’ was grief. Most of my friends are at least 30 now and by our age it seems most of us have at least one parent we can’t quite talk about without choking up/being overly scously defensive/gritting our teeth and coping realllly hard and mine’s my Dad, but to be honest if I give myself 45 minutes I can see myself adamantly ignoring the grief thing till the last 3 minutes then writing the word dad in tiny 7yr old girl letters on the corner of a page then running away. Not. Good. At. Grief. (yet). But clearly there’s lots of other stuff to say goodbye to; old silly coping mechanisms that are no longer useful, homes, friends, abilities and places, and all that stuff you do in your twenties to make sure you well and truly get in the way of your own life (I’ve just turned 30 and decided to get over myself, it’s liberating, liberating and embarrassing), some things I’d like to kick up the arse on their way out and some I’d hold tight for a minute before letting them go.

Possibly, having a 45min limit on it may tackle the whole issue of people’s high radar for being self indulgent and wanky (in the same way that scousers have to try not to wear shell suits and have perms, artists have a fear of being wanky). I’m definitely in that category of people who go on about not taking life to seriously and if I can add the words fuck and cunt to a sentence to roughen them up a bit I feel much more comfortable. It’s possibly a working class thing. It’s probably a British thing. But it’s definitely a thing. It can be hard to get the balance right on self indulgence and ignoring yourself. I tend try to head for gumption: a down to earth level of practicality that doesn’t ignore my own actual needs, like a mum who tells you to get on with it but gives you a knee squeeze when you need it. I’ve had my Susan Jeffers phase, I’ve had my Buddhist phase, I’ve had my romanticize the fraggles phase (oh hang on, no that’s the one I’m in now), sometimes you just have to get out of your own way and get on with life, and sometimes sitting in a room figuring yourself out for 45 minutes is a good idea, anyway, I’m going to do it, if anyone else is too then drop me an email if you fancy chatting about it, possibly making something together or a workshop or…something.

A Room to Say Goodbye In.
Saturday 11th June
Contact Theatre
ring 0161 274 0600 to book a 45 min slot

I buy groupon vouchers when i’m drunk

I buy groupon vouchers when I’m drunk. As such my best friend and boyfriend are now obliged to do some falconry on a farm, and I have 5 massages to have. And some meals at restaurants I’ve never heard of.  Oh yes, I don’t get the detox vegetable boxes, or the gym trips, the thai chi lessons or the paintballing, I get the nice lazy things; ideally I would spend my life laid down, being massaged by huge mars bars whilst angel delight plays tubular bells in the background and the smurfs do burlesque for my enjoyment.  So today I went and got a groupon facial and massage in a place called ‘Funky Nails’.

The mistress of Funky Nails looked like a friend of mine who in turn looks like one of my cats (the one who would suit stilettos and a wig), and we spoke at length in an enjoyable tangenting, spirally manner about wide necked t-shirts, hangovers, hairdye, boyfriends who can drive versus boyfriends who can’t, then she put some gunk on my face and covered it in cling film. I had constructed my face-care lie on the way there; if she asked what my skincare routine was I would say I used Boots own brand vitamin E range, which is sort of true because I’ve seen it and I know the bottles are beige.  She didn’t ask, she talked rubbish instead, I liked her a lot. I liked her also for the following reasons: as the soothing music played she dropped some stuff on the floor with a big clangy clang, she was a bit rubbish at working the CD player, and she forgot to massage my second arm and hand. I like people who are a bit rubbish. It could be because then I feel like I’m allowed to be a bit rubbish, but I think it’s mainly because being a bit rubbish is really ordinary and human. People falling up the stairs, I like that, or my mum saying her ‘h’s too much when she’s trying to be posh, or one of my friends who can’t spell her own middle name, I like people with one leg shorter than the other, who are puffed up with delirious pride the one minute then crumbled into dust the next. Wonky people.

I get to have some further face-attention soon when I go to have a second cataract operation, and yes, ok, yes, yes, I hope the surgeon is not wonky, I like people who are a bit rubbish and I’m delighted that they put gunk on my face and have conversations with me, but I don’t want one in charge of my eyeballs, wielding a little eyeball knife. And no matter how rubbish I am when I go into the operation, that does not allow that the surgeon can be equally rubbish, even if I fall up the stairs on the way in. All hail wonky people, but don’t let them have knives.

Right, I’m off to persuade the cat to massage my other arm now, I feel asymmetrical. See you tomorrow.

Superman’s sleeping tablets

Remember nytol? The over the counter sleeping tablet? The cartoon advert with the fella who couldn’t sleep and looked like that graffittied fella who sticks his nose over walls and says things like ‘wot no Thatcher’?  This isn’t nostalgia, the adverts’ probably still on, only I don’t get to see adverts anymore, not because I’m a oh-so-cultured eco-warrior (although I am: I went for a wee in the Lowry theatre today and I own at least 10 bags for life) but because as soon as the break kicks in I flick through a million channels in a race to get back round to the channel I was watching before I hit some sort of concrete barrier; something that stops the flicking; like an episode of QI I may have seen only 3 times before or a episode of the simpsons when they were drawn scruffily and some of them had yellow hair and wrong voices) no I’m bringing up nytol because I have a crush on it and I want to shag it in it’s little capsule shaped face. I have been taking sleeping tablets forever, I’m just that type, and lately, due to some blood-related problem – the description of which I really should have listened to a little harder when the Dr explained it to me (why didn’t I listen? I can’t even remember the room I was in, maybe I fancied the Dr, or he had a distracting beard, or maybe I’d just stolen some plastic gloves they have for next time I dye my hair with cheap dye you don’t even get plastic gloves with) I don’t even know the name of (are you coping with all these brackets? I wrote parenthesis first and changed it, is that patronising dear anonymous reader? There, there) and as result I had to change some of the tablets I take and so I got these ones that are for superman. I was prescribed superman’s sleeping tablets. They are effing strong. At first I started cutting them in half so that I didn’t sleep in till the following Thursday, the following year, but I still did, so then I cut them into quarters and took a quarter, but still – living the life of sleeping beauty (albeit with dribble and in old adidas trackies), so eventually I was just taking the tiniest nibble, a mere full stop-sized bit of teeny tiny tablet, scraping it with my teeth, and seriously, I was still monged out all the next day. So on a whim whilst doing the Asda big shop (toothpaste, oven ready meals, milky ways and knickers because I’ve put on so much weight even my underwear doesn’t fit) I bought some nytol (nytol! (my previous self would say) that’s over the counter shite, that won’t work you’re immune to that by now surely little miss pill popper) but it’s perfect, perfect 8 hours, refreshed and ungrumpy. Thank you nytol. You are the man. The cartoon man, who cannot sleep.

bagladies knitting the future with their own hair

Right, it’s all gone wrong; I used to be a pro-active, stage-craving, disco-dancing, bag-lady bothering, overactive pixie. I used to make dioramas from belly button fluff and cast spells with oven gloves whilst encouraging antennae out of my head. I used to invent everything I used and speak in riddles. Not any more. No. No world. No more. Instead of creating chaos and beauty from wool and vomit I now watch 4 episodes of Come Dine With Me whilst empathising with the one who brings his own mayonnaise. Instead of writing reams of idealistic nonsense and calling it poetry, I tend an imaginary garden on facebook. Instead of romanticising my boyfriend into a goblin toting wizard, I sit on the couch, drink tea, and think about feeding the cats (who are now cats, and not self propelled teddy bears or enchanted jesters). Dear the world, I’ve lost my mojo, my spring has sprung and there’s nowt but sad old woodchip and broken beans underneath.

Perhaps I have grown up (oh dear God), or maybe the medication has started to work, maybe now I’ll fit nicely into the world and be – content, not heart-stoppingly happy or toe-twistingly depressed, but just… content. Well! I don’t like it! Not one bit. I’m bored to tears, I’m baulking on beige, I want my sparkling dreams of bagladies knitting the future with their own hair back.

So, lazy plan no. 1 is – find a new procrastination that ISN’T in the realms of come dine with me, hence, start a blog.

In other words: Hello.