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.