By the time we touched down at 9.30am in Heathrow I was without sleep and cranky as crap. Some German woman pushed me in the aisles because she was so worked up and desperate to get off and started shouting at me so I told her to fuck off. I feel bad about that, but in the grand scheme of things it doesn't mean much. Plus my manager Suzanne heard me swearing and thought it was funny.
I scampered off as quickly as I could, and went to my Addison Lee taxi. Luis, my driver, seemed to be Italian, but I decided not to engage in conversation, instead shutting my eyes at various points. We travelled endlessly round the M25. It was an extremely bright, extremely warm day and it was weird to be back in my 'macro life' when my thoughts have been expanding as far outwards as the edge of the universe and the billion billion years into the future.
As we went towards Woolwich, cutting through New Eltham, I started to talk to Luis. He had never been in the area and I told him that it was really nice and he should consider moving there. He decided he was going to take the ferry to city airport for fun. We also inevitably talked about Brexit and my recent trip to Kazakhstan, but I was relieved to finally arrive back at home at 11.30am after an impossibly long journey that had spanned a 26 hour day.
I dumped my luggage and went to bed straight away.
Waking at around 2pm, David rang me and I managed to persuade him to come to Woolwich later in the evening, and so I managed to have a quick shower and pull on some clothes. I then went to get coffee at the Coffee Lounge and came back home to watch RuPaul's Drag Race. It was the Halloween Ball episode and it severely lacked mind and imagination.
I also caught up with the newest episode of Crazy Ex Girlfriend and I felt slightly guilty for sitting watching TV, but I was way too tired to do anything productive.
David came round at about 6pm and we went for a drink in the Equitable. I stuck with red wine and launched into "I've been thinking about the universe and..."
"Woah woah woah," he said. "Woah."
It kind of made me realise that my thoughts tend to run away with themselves when I don't have anyone to speak with or talk to.
He is very happy about his new business and has got a great deal on the way he is paying tax for it, so that's good. I gifted David some Kazakh chocolate and a camel teddy we've called 'Humpy'.
David came back to mine and we ordered an Indian takeaway and danced around to Fleetwood Mac's Go Your Own Way and Girls Just Wanna Have Fun by Cyndi Lauper. He wanted to watch Drag Race so I showed him the edited highlights of the past few weeks. At about 9.30 he decided to go home, and I pulled my duvet into the living room and fell asleep on the sofa. I woke up again around 2am with American Dad on in the background on the TV. I put the timer on the TV, rolled over and fell asleep again, waking up at 6am.
This is probably a good thing, to get back on UK time. I spent the first hour of th morning scrolling through Tinder and Grinder, while at 7am, I watched the next episode of Crazy Ex Girlfriend. I then got up to go get a coffee and almond croissant at 8am and watched more crap while striking up a conversation with 'Matthew' on Tinder.
After chatting with him for a bit, we decided to meet up with each other. He lived in Beckenham, so I had a quick shower and left the house at 9.50am to catch the 54 bus. On the bus, I thought more profoundly about the temporality of things. Yes, I may be a finite being but it is perhaps quite freeing to know I will not live forever and will not have to worry forever. I turned my music up louder and enjoyed it all the more.
I met Matthew in Beckenham and we had coffee at a really nice cafe. I drank a skinny hazelnut latte and he had a skinny vanilla latte. He works for a travel tech company as an account director and he causally dropped in the conversation he had been single for only 6 months (!) and I panicked slightly. However, I still decided to hook up with him. Walking back to his flat, he talked about my intelligence and I said, "It's a curse! I think too much and have too many ideas... If I could just focus it would all be good!"
When we arrived I saw he was a total geek. He had a shelf of Disney things and he confessed to me he had been to Eurodisney, Disney World, Disney Land... Etc etc... He also was a huge Harry Potter fan. Griffyndor, as it happens.
After having sex, which mainly consisted of mutual masturbation, I gave him a back massage and then we cuddle for about 30 minutes. He came on very strong and was offering to take me on holiday or to a musical - anything I wanted. I gave casual and disguised answers. I hate it when I do this - try to be nice to someone. And I finally made my excuses to leave around 12.50pm.
I waited for the 54 bus back, even though I could have Ubered or similar, because I thought some open-air thinking time would do me good. As predicted, Matthew texted me straight away to say he wanted to keep in touch and isecurely asked me if I wanted to see him again. I texted 'yes, but I'm worried you're moving too fast already'. He relented, but I think he's 'that type' – clingy and serial monogamist. I listened to Meredith Brooks and Human League, thinking what a weird music taste I had until my phone switched off. I bought Hitman 2 for PS4 and started playing it. I scratched any evening plans and around 5pm I decided to head to Stratford to buy some Lush bath stuff. On the way, I started listening to Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now. I have read it before about 6 or 7 years ago, but listening to him again really soothed me. It, of course, makes so much sense. We really have nothing but right now.
It is a good way to take my foot off the gas once again and to try to be mindful. I'm listening to it right now as I write this. It has made me relax tremendously.
I bought 4 bath oils and three bath bombs from Lush. The shop assistant seemed to think my splurge - £26 - was way too much. I got home about 2 hours ago (6pm-ish) and I tried to add more to my Kazakhstan blog but thought I would get these thoughts down before returning to this.
I wonder what Eckhart would say about writing a journal - is it a way of holding onto the past?
Anyway, off to have beans on toast for dinner, a bath and some red wine before bed.
Saturday, March 30, 2019
Friday, March 22, 2019
The equinox changes everything
The bath and the glass of wine was the best plan ever. So in the bath, while sipping a Cab Sav, I was listening to Jen Sincero. She said that participating in other people's drama feeds it, and so the more attention we give to them, the more it feeds their feelings and perpetuates the situation. To give this more thought and aggro is to do myself an injustice. I can rise above this.
After a stilted night of sleep that was somewhat more consistent than the rest of the week, I awoke and checked emails, somewhat depressed about having to get up and deal with the malaise. I checked my email – the publisher had gotten back to me in Australia to address some points the peer reviewers made. I got up, slowly got dressed, meditated for 15 minutes before David rang and I left the house.
I had to get in for 9am for a meeting with marketing, then promptly found out marketing had to cancel when I was walking over the bridge to UEL, making my early jaunt pointless. Then my mind suddenly flashed back. Hang on... The publisher emailed me to say they wanted minor revisions to my proposal. HANG ON - that means my book might actually be published! This is a big deal. This... Is a big deal.
By the time I got to UEL I was in a good mood and the media 11 sent their proposal to the whole cluster at around 9.20... It was ominous, but I decided to take the wind out of their sails:
"Thank you so much for your ideas. It's a shame we didn't manage speak earlier in the process as there are some very clear themes here – we just need to figure out how it fits in the existing rationale and how we then might deliver the validation document to a timely schedule.
Thank you also for your feedback and the adjustments you have made to my proposed module specs."
Collaborative, collegial and took the bite right out of their fight. It also put me straight back in the driving seat and established my credibility. I was buzzing with pride at myself and how I had managed to rise above the dross. My approach also brings everyone in the cluster back together.
I gave a lecture on pitching to about 5 (!) students and felt good about what I had done. I finished way too early – after about 40 minutes – and so I made sure the students had settled into their workshop and then went back to my office to reply to emails. I also went through the process of applying for my company name again and filling in the documentation. At the end I checked back in on them but they really are at a place where they can be working independently.
After lunch I taught the magazine journalism students who seem on track with their projects also. There was some tension between the editors Paige and Debbie and the art editor George, so to diffuse the tension I took George to the Print Centre to look at paper samples and get him focused on printing the magazine. We arrived back half an hour later with some pages to show the girls and everyone seemed appeased. I then sat in the journalism newsroom while they all worked, and I replied to the publisher's comments before asking them what they wanted to do for the launch event and how they would continue.
I arranged to see David after work for drinks and I managed to pop home quickly before getting the train to Charing Cross. I met David at the station and we went to the Retro Bar. I bumped into Paul, who I hadn't seen in ages, and I told him about the potential new book. He seemed a little jealous, which wasn't my intention. After two beers, David suggested going to see David Hoyle at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, which I agreed to, and we said we would go to Dirty Burger beforehand. But when we got to the restaurant I started thinking about death and dying again. My heart sank. What a sad world we live in.
I told David what I was thinking and he said, "What if there's a winderful afterlife?"
"What if there's not?" I replied.
I decided to stop drinking when we got to the RVT. I had a Coke Zero and allowed myself to lose myself in the music and jigged around. I then decided to have a red wine, which actually relaxed me a bit, so I stuck to that for the rest of the evening. David was sensational as per usual. He was accompanied by Ebony Rose Dark and Tracy Barlow:
I bumped into a couple of people I know like Steven Warren and Matthew 'Joy' Jones. I ended up having about 3 or 4 glasses of wine, but I relaxed into it by the end of the night. I stopped Tracy Barlow and drunkenly slurred about how fabulous she was. I also spoke to another drag queen ho was a Marlene Dietrich impersonator and tried to get her to make me over.
I decided to get a cab home because I was too drunk and lazy to do otherwise. When I got home I switched on the TV to ITV2 to watch American Dad...
...and I must have fallen asleep because I remember waking up at 4am fully clothed. I then took my clothes off and wrapped myself up in my duvet, woke up again around 8am. I tried to get up, remembered I didn't really have to and went back to sleep for an hour.
Feeling muggy, I took a variety of pain pills and PrEP and went to get coffee, croissant and Skyr yoghurt. After settling in with all 3, I watched the newest episode of RuPaul's Drag Race (loving this season!) and then I decided to write a 3 month plan of threes, to be completed by June 22, 2019. The list reads:
Go on 3 dates
Make 3 new social media videos
Make 3 new photos
Go to 3 networking events
Find 3 performance workshops
See 3 performances
Go to 3 night clubs and dance wildly
Go to 3 club nights
Visit 3 countries (this is a cheat because I am visiting Spain, Belgium and Kazakhstan and I knew that)
Plan 3 more
Write 3000 words for my book
I spoke to Julia on the phone for an hour before leaving the house to go to UEL. She thinks the equinox and the super moon has refreshed the balance. The only purpose of going in today was to meet with two representatives from 'the media 11' to see if we could broker a compromise.
I got a piri piri chicken wrap, which I felt greedy and fat for eating (putting on weight again after losing loads when stressed and anxious). Then I saw Helena from QA and stomped around the campus. Luckily I bumped into Paul Gormley in the cafe queue and we had a brief chat, which kind of made the meeting at 2 less hard.
When Paul and Johannes came to my office, it was an amicable and positive conversation and I kept it upbeat and light. very positive about all of their ideas and comments and I decided to waive as much through as possible. There is a long game here and to temporarily appease the detractors will encourage harmony.
We agreed on a model and I sent it round to everyone, again sounding really positive about it. I have almost single handedly managed to restore the balance here and I went home at 4pm feeling really positive about myself and the work I had done, and now Kazakhstan was before me. I could do the document and let this play out, and finally get my head out of the woods.
I thought about dyeing my hair platinum blonde and redesigning myself. I needed to change and refresh and I want to have one cracking summer where I celebrate myself and my life. The effects of the wine from last night has me feeling heavy though, and so I just relaxed on the sofa when I got home, watched RuPaul's Untucked and went between napping and washing clothes. It's currently 8.30pm and I still haven't packed for Kazakhstan. I'm letting a wash dry before I stuff some things in a suitcase.
So yeah... I'm off to Kazakhstan tomorrow, which should be a strange and gnarly adventure. How many times in your life can you do that?
After a stilted night of sleep that was somewhat more consistent than the rest of the week, I awoke and checked emails, somewhat depressed about having to get up and deal with the malaise. I checked my email – the publisher had gotten back to me in Australia to address some points the peer reviewers made. I got up, slowly got dressed, meditated for 15 minutes before David rang and I left the house.
I had to get in for 9am for a meeting with marketing, then promptly found out marketing had to cancel when I was walking over the bridge to UEL, making my early jaunt pointless. Then my mind suddenly flashed back. Hang on... The publisher emailed me to say they wanted minor revisions to my proposal. HANG ON - that means my book might actually be published! This is a big deal. This... Is a big deal.
By the time I got to UEL I was in a good mood and the media 11 sent their proposal to the whole cluster at around 9.20... It was ominous, but I decided to take the wind out of their sails:
"Thank you so much for your ideas. It's a shame we didn't manage speak earlier in the process as there are some very clear themes here – we just need to figure out how it fits in the existing rationale and how we then might deliver the validation document to a timely schedule.
Thank you also for your feedback and the adjustments you have made to my proposed module specs."
Collaborative, collegial and took the bite right out of their fight. It also put me straight back in the driving seat and established my credibility. I was buzzing with pride at myself and how I had managed to rise above the dross. My approach also brings everyone in the cluster back together.
I gave a lecture on pitching to about 5 (!) students and felt good about what I had done. I finished way too early – after about 40 minutes – and so I made sure the students had settled into their workshop and then went back to my office to reply to emails. I also went through the process of applying for my company name again and filling in the documentation. At the end I checked back in on them but they really are at a place where they can be working independently.
After lunch I taught the magazine journalism students who seem on track with their projects also. There was some tension between the editors Paige and Debbie and the art editor George, so to diffuse the tension I took George to the Print Centre to look at paper samples and get him focused on printing the magazine. We arrived back half an hour later with some pages to show the girls and everyone seemed appeased. I then sat in the journalism newsroom while they all worked, and I replied to the publisher's comments before asking them what they wanted to do for the launch event and how they would continue.
I arranged to see David after work for drinks and I managed to pop home quickly before getting the train to Charing Cross. I met David at the station and we went to the Retro Bar. I bumped into Paul, who I hadn't seen in ages, and I told him about the potential new book. He seemed a little jealous, which wasn't my intention. After two beers, David suggested going to see David Hoyle at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, which I agreed to, and we said we would go to Dirty Burger beforehand. But when we got to the restaurant I started thinking about death and dying again. My heart sank. What a sad world we live in.
I told David what I was thinking and he said, "What if there's a winderful afterlife?"
"What if there's not?" I replied.
I decided to stop drinking when we got to the RVT. I had a Coke Zero and allowed myself to lose myself in the music and jigged around. I then decided to have a red wine, which actually relaxed me a bit, so I stuck to that for the rest of the evening. David was sensational as per usual. He was accompanied by Ebony Rose Dark and Tracy Barlow:
I bumped into a couple of people I know like Steven Warren and Matthew 'Joy' Jones. I ended up having about 3 or 4 glasses of wine, but I relaxed into it by the end of the night. I stopped Tracy Barlow and drunkenly slurred about how fabulous she was. I also spoke to another drag queen ho was a Marlene Dietrich impersonator and tried to get her to make me over.
I decided to get a cab home because I was too drunk and lazy to do otherwise. When I got home I switched on the TV to ITV2 to watch American Dad...
...and I must have fallen asleep because I remember waking up at 4am fully clothed. I then took my clothes off and wrapped myself up in my duvet, woke up again around 8am. I tried to get up, remembered I didn't really have to and went back to sleep for an hour.
Feeling muggy, I took a variety of pain pills and PrEP and went to get coffee, croissant and Skyr yoghurt. After settling in with all 3, I watched the newest episode of RuPaul's Drag Race (loving this season!) and then I decided to write a 3 month plan of threes, to be completed by June 22, 2019. The list reads:
Go on 3 dates
Make 3 new social media videos
Make 3 new photos
Go to 3 networking events
Find 3 performance workshops
See 3 performances
Go to 3 night clubs and dance wildly
Go to 3 club nights
Visit 3 countries (this is a cheat because I am visiting Spain, Belgium and Kazakhstan and I knew that)
Plan 3 more
Write 3000 words for my book
I spoke to Julia on the phone for an hour before leaving the house to go to UEL. She thinks the equinox and the super moon has refreshed the balance. The only purpose of going in today was to meet with two representatives from 'the media 11' to see if we could broker a compromise.
I got a piri piri chicken wrap, which I felt greedy and fat for eating (putting on weight again after losing loads when stressed and anxious). Then I saw Helena from QA and stomped around the campus. Luckily I bumped into Paul Gormley in the cafe queue and we had a brief chat, which kind of made the meeting at 2 less hard.
When Paul and Johannes came to my office, it was an amicable and positive conversation and I kept it upbeat and light. very positive about all of their ideas and comments and I decided to waive as much through as possible. There is a long game here and to temporarily appease the detractors will encourage harmony.
We agreed on a model and I sent it round to everyone, again sounding really positive about it. I have almost single handedly managed to restore the balance here and I went home at 4pm feeling really positive about myself and the work I had done, and now Kazakhstan was before me. I could do the document and let this play out, and finally get my head out of the woods.
I thought about dyeing my hair platinum blonde and redesigning myself. I needed to change and refresh and I want to have one cracking summer where I celebrate myself and my life. The effects of the wine from last night has me feeling heavy though, and so I just relaxed on the sofa when I got home, watched RuPaul's Untucked and went between napping and washing clothes. It's currently 8.30pm and I still haven't packed for Kazakhstan. I'm letting a wash dry before I stuff some things in a suitcase.
So yeah... I'm off to Kazakhstan tomorrow, which should be a strange and gnarly adventure. How many times in your life can you do that?
Wednesday, March 20, 2019
The Big Snooze
The past two days have been extremely stressful because of work. At some point on Tuesday morning – around 3am – it struck me that what my colleagues were doing was not okay. It was tantamount to passive-aggressive bullying. There they were squirrelling away at a proposal thinking they had gotten all the control back over the revalidation. And the dean and Head of School had sent completely the wrong message – that it was okay to do that because you'll get what you want and get away with it.
On Tuesday I gave a lecture to the first years about what we were expecting from their first year branding presentations before waiting around for the SQLTC, where I voiced my dissatisfaction with the process. My manager Suzanne also feel as though she has been undermined and wronged by the process, so we're a bit stuck in all honesty. Because the decision came from above, we're both a bit powerless to do anything.
I went home early to try and get a nap after waking early, but couldn't find piece. I just felt fuming the whole time. I found myself being absorbed in my phone, unable to find peace – it even stopped me doing exercise though I defied that by going out at 8pm for a half hour run.
My colleague Julia text me to say she had met with Paul Gormley from 'the 11' who went through the proposal with her. This wound me up even more. The fact they had thought about it and that module titles existed and not shared them with anybody sent me round the bend. I didn't reply to Julia, who then called me after a while to check I was okay. I nearly did not call, but it is spinning me out.
I tried to go to bed early, but couldn't really sleep, so set up camp on the sofa. I drifted off, then woke up again around 2.45am. My mind was whirring still and I was up until 5am before finally drifting off and waking up around 8am. I sent an email to Suzanne expressing how annoyed I was and how we should talk about the situation, but then on walking to the university and listening to Jen Sincero I decided to say to myself, "So they have won. Well done them. Best to let it go."
I resolved this to myself in my mind. Admit defeat and try to carry on. I saw Jonathan Hardy in the corridor and barked a 'hi' at him (dick) before going to the workshop for CC6704. I saw Andrew Branch (another dick) talking to Julia and I ignored him. It was immature and I regret it but I really didn't know what to say to him. All of those people that signed the letter think it's okay to be hostile and mean to colleagues.
The students probably sensed I was down and they filled in their module feedback form. I'm not looking forward to the results after so many cancellations and ups and downs. I was going to go straight home but I stayed for a little bit and Suzanne forwarded me the plans from 'the 11'. Underwhelming. A list of generic module titles. And I thought... is this what we have been waiting for?
I cheered up when Helena from QA told me similar models had been kicked back by QA and this made me feel like I had a bit of power again. I went to see Julia and David Gray who had taken the third years after me, and we tried to help the Burger King group come up with an idea.
Julia and I stayed for coffee and we chatted and chewed and dissected all of the issues. I told her Simon had tol me to make a formal complaint, which she was shocked about. I just feel tired and fried. But most of all, I feel like UEL is distracting me from what my real focus should be. I was supposed to come back, relax and be able to enjoy my life a bit better. Instead it has been full on chaos. I don't think I can even deliver what they are asking in the time frame they are asking it.
And quite frankly, it serves management right for doing this.
I went into town at 6.30pm to see Thiago and met him at Joe the Juice. He's really handsome, but he only talked about business. It was a business meeting, but he didn't really seem to have a sense of humour and so it felt hard to 'vibe' off of him and know what to do. He kept talking about various business ideas or video concepts or content strategies, but I didn't really feel excited by them.
One thing that did come out of the meeting though is that I should just start committing to small things. Like social media - I've proved to myself I can do it, so I should make videos and photos and not be afraid to showcase the real me.
But I am frazzled. And this drama at UEL is 'fake news' compared to the rest of my life. I should be focusing on joy and purpose. Instead I'm going off at the deep end.
I think I will have a chat tomorrow about relieving myself of the responsibility of validation tomorrow at work. But for now I'm going to run a bath and have a glass of wine.
On Tuesday I gave a lecture to the first years about what we were expecting from their first year branding presentations before waiting around for the SQLTC, where I voiced my dissatisfaction with the process. My manager Suzanne also feel as though she has been undermined and wronged by the process, so we're a bit stuck in all honesty. Because the decision came from above, we're both a bit powerless to do anything.
I went home early to try and get a nap after waking early, but couldn't find piece. I just felt fuming the whole time. I found myself being absorbed in my phone, unable to find peace – it even stopped me doing exercise though I defied that by going out at 8pm for a half hour run.
My colleague Julia text me to say she had met with Paul Gormley from 'the 11' who went through the proposal with her. This wound me up even more. The fact they had thought about it and that module titles existed and not shared them with anybody sent me round the bend. I didn't reply to Julia, who then called me after a while to check I was okay. I nearly did not call, but it is spinning me out.
I tried to go to bed early, but couldn't really sleep, so set up camp on the sofa. I drifted off, then woke up again around 2.45am. My mind was whirring still and I was up until 5am before finally drifting off and waking up around 8am. I sent an email to Suzanne expressing how annoyed I was and how we should talk about the situation, but then on walking to the university and listening to Jen Sincero I decided to say to myself, "So they have won. Well done them. Best to let it go."
I resolved this to myself in my mind. Admit defeat and try to carry on. I saw Jonathan Hardy in the corridor and barked a 'hi' at him (dick) before going to the workshop for CC6704. I saw Andrew Branch (another dick) talking to Julia and I ignored him. It was immature and I regret it but I really didn't know what to say to him. All of those people that signed the letter think it's okay to be hostile and mean to colleagues.
The students probably sensed I was down and they filled in their module feedback form. I'm not looking forward to the results after so many cancellations and ups and downs. I was going to go straight home but I stayed for a little bit and Suzanne forwarded me the plans from 'the 11'. Underwhelming. A list of generic module titles. And I thought... is this what we have been waiting for?
I cheered up when Helena from QA told me similar models had been kicked back by QA and this made me feel like I had a bit of power again. I went to see Julia and David Gray who had taken the third years after me, and we tried to help the Burger King group come up with an idea.
Julia and I stayed for coffee and we chatted and chewed and dissected all of the issues. I told her Simon had tol me to make a formal complaint, which she was shocked about. I just feel tired and fried. But most of all, I feel like UEL is distracting me from what my real focus should be. I was supposed to come back, relax and be able to enjoy my life a bit better. Instead it has been full on chaos. I don't think I can even deliver what they are asking in the time frame they are asking it.
And quite frankly, it serves management right for doing this.
I went into town at 6.30pm to see Thiago and met him at Joe the Juice. He's really handsome, but he only talked about business. It was a business meeting, but he didn't really seem to have a sense of humour and so it felt hard to 'vibe' off of him and know what to do. He kept talking about various business ideas or video concepts or content strategies, but I didn't really feel excited by them.
One thing that did come out of the meeting though is that I should just start committing to small things. Like social media - I've proved to myself I can do it, so I should make videos and photos and not be afraid to showcase the real me.
But I am frazzled. And this drama at UEL is 'fake news' compared to the rest of my life. I should be focusing on joy and purpose. Instead I'm going off at the deep end.
I think I will have a chat tomorrow about relieving myself of the responsibility of validation tomorrow at work. But for now I'm going to run a bath and have a glass of wine.
Monday, March 18, 2019
I have a company
I woke up on the sofa this morning feeling apprehensive about going back to work after a week off, but I forced myself to get up, brush my teeth and get dressed because the very kind counsellor (Carole) at the clinic agreed to see me again for 9am. I hauled myself out the hosue quickly, picked up a coffee at the Coffee Lounge and then headed for the Trafalgar Clinic.
Unsurprisingly, Carole noticed the huge difference between me being in floods of tears last week and me speaking much more calmly and lucid than this week. She had written a letter to my GP saying I was having mood swings and thoughts of death. Both true. She was very worried as I had surmised correctly, but we spent some time talking about work, stress, how things got that way before tapping into... Relationships. She said I can actually treat you for relationships and I can keep seeing you for that. And so I have managed to get some free therapy on the NHS. She recommended a book on mindfulness for me, which is just great – I hope it will help.
I caught a bus thay went the long way round to North Greenwich and got to my office. Good to put in an appearance so that people could see I wasn't off indefinitely. I dropped in to see Helena and we bitched about the validation process. I cancelled a meeting, bitched more with my colleague Sylvie about how naive 'the cabal' (as she calls them) were being about the programmes. Suzanne range me – she's furious with the whole situation. And me? I did start to feel ever so slightly bullied and singled out by the situation. They are a bunch of very nasty people and sadly I've been caught in the moddle of it. I started to feel sorry for myself, typed out an email to Simon Robertshaw and decided not to send it.
David rang me and told me that I should just let it wash over me – that if they do the work then I should let them. And after he said that, I kind of stopped caring. I had already broken my back and my mental health by typing out a 90 page document – perhaps they could have a go, if they wanted to.
I had a meeting with Barking Enterprise Centre to talk about my social enterprise. Karen West-Whylie was really nice and very helpful – she said she was willing to help in any way possible. They offered me some space at the Young Entrepreneur's centre. She also gave me some advice on charging charities in a means-tested way then paying the young people who work for the agency. This seems like a really sensible business model and it also is becoming something much bigger. She showed me a tender for £100k and asked if I had considered applying. £100K?!
She said it seems like a lot when you're first starting but it's not. She then urged me to register my company as soon as possible to get the ball rolling.
On my way home from barking, i tried to think of various names like 'Creationary' or 'Vision8', but they had all been taken. So, instead of reinventing the wheel, I decided to try for my first choice – The Atelier Project. A recently dissolved company had the same name, but I'm hoping now the don't exist that I can steal it. So I just went for it – I registered a company in my own name!
I'm hoping I can use variations like Atelier Project LDN and Atelier Project NYC. It's flexible enough to accommodate the training for young people while also allowing my personal projects to come underneath it. I'm actually quite excited. If the name gets confirmed, I will buy the web spaces and away we go!
Thiago has been in touch with me regarding meeting up, as has Tracy Stringfellow from Royal Greenwich Heritage Trust. I plan to tell them both about my exciting company venture.
Unsurprisingly, Carole noticed the huge difference between me being in floods of tears last week and me speaking much more calmly and lucid than this week. She had written a letter to my GP saying I was having mood swings and thoughts of death. Both true. She was very worried as I had surmised correctly, but we spent some time talking about work, stress, how things got that way before tapping into... Relationships. She said I can actually treat you for relationships and I can keep seeing you for that. And so I have managed to get some free therapy on the NHS. She recommended a book on mindfulness for me, which is just great – I hope it will help.
I caught a bus thay went the long way round to North Greenwich and got to my office. Good to put in an appearance so that people could see I wasn't off indefinitely. I dropped in to see Helena and we bitched about the validation process. I cancelled a meeting, bitched more with my colleague Sylvie about how naive 'the cabal' (as she calls them) were being about the programmes. Suzanne range me – she's furious with the whole situation. And me? I did start to feel ever so slightly bullied and singled out by the situation. They are a bunch of very nasty people and sadly I've been caught in the moddle of it. I started to feel sorry for myself, typed out an email to Simon Robertshaw and decided not to send it.
David rang me and told me that I should just let it wash over me – that if they do the work then I should let them. And after he said that, I kind of stopped caring. I had already broken my back and my mental health by typing out a 90 page document – perhaps they could have a go, if they wanted to.
I had a meeting with Barking Enterprise Centre to talk about my social enterprise. Karen West-Whylie was really nice and very helpful – she said she was willing to help in any way possible. They offered me some space at the Young Entrepreneur's centre. She also gave me some advice on charging charities in a means-tested way then paying the young people who work for the agency. This seems like a really sensible business model and it also is becoming something much bigger. She showed me a tender for £100k and asked if I had considered applying. £100K?!
She said it seems like a lot when you're first starting but it's not. She then urged me to register my company as soon as possible to get the ball rolling.
On my way home from barking, i tried to think of various names like 'Creationary' or 'Vision8', but they had all been taken. So, instead of reinventing the wheel, I decided to try for my first choice – The Atelier Project. A recently dissolved company had the same name, but I'm hoping now the don't exist that I can steal it. So I just went for it – I registered a company in my own name!
I'm hoping I can use variations like Atelier Project LDN and Atelier Project NYC. It's flexible enough to accommodate the training for young people while also allowing my personal projects to come underneath it. I'm actually quite excited. If the name gets confirmed, I will buy the web spaces and away we go!
Thiago has been in touch with me regarding meeting up, as has Tracy Stringfellow from Royal Greenwich Heritage Trust. I plan to tell them both about my exciting company venture.
Same old pressures
Saturday was difficult... I woke up around 8am, but because I was hungover I knew I needed more rest. I watched Frasier on Channel 4, then drifted back off to sleep, awaking again around 10.40am. I tried to motivate myself to do things but it felt too hard – I did go forage for coffee though. I watched crap until around 12.30pm when I finally motivated myself to clean the flat.
Part of me is really impressed that I managed to declutter and clean. I even hoovered with my new hoover and marvelled - in one vacuum - how much dust was picked up from the carpet. For once in a very long time the flat feels 'clean', possibly because I know there is nothing to hide anywhere.
With all of the existential crises and pointlessness and absurdity it always goes back full circle. What would make you happy in your life right now? Which is basically, all that matters. Then I go back to making videos and photos and creative outlet and being famous and SOMETHING. And then I think of limited time and how i can achieve it and... Mind melt. Not good, especially because overwhelm is more likely to make me feel crippled than anything else.
My hangover kept me pottering around the house. I tried to nap several times, watched another 3 hour documentary on Andy Warhol and then I copied and pasted and meshed a lot of my PhD chapters together from a chapter I have to submit on theatricality and photography. Feeling shitty about it, I went to Sainsbury's, bought some mince and tomatoes and made a delicious spag bol. I started watching a series on Netflix called 'Losers', which was about people in the sports world who could perceived to be losers and what they did in the face of failure.
I then took a bath with Blue Fluffy Clouds Lush bubble bar while I watched the Losers on Canadian curling and decided to have an early night. My over-riding thought? punishing myself for no creative work...
On Sunday I started to feel the crippling nag of anxiety as soon as I got up: the one where it feels like you have rocks in your stomach and you don't want to get out of bed. So I had to take it slowly again, bought an Americano and an almond croissant, ate it slowly, watched more of 'Losers'...
Thinking an age had passed, it was probably only 9.30 when I did some more work and I focused on finsihing the book chapter. It didn't take me as long as I thought and I 'botched' something together. It is bad in some ways, as it is loosely held together with examples but being that it is already late I thought it was better to send something than have nothing at all. I will await their comments and revise accordingly over the summer.
Finishing at 11.30am, I left the house to go meet my friend Rachel and he boyfriend Phil in Brighton. On the journey over I spoke to my work colleague Julia Dane on the phone, which made me nervous about returning to work, and so on the train down I started getting anxious. However, I put on some relaxing music and daydreamed the rest of the way to the seaside.
I met Rachel and Phil in Pizza Express and had a sloppy giuseppe with a large glass of Soave. Although Rachel had called me to tell me they had argued in the morning, she decided she was fine and we started to have fun. We walked around, bout Phil's sister a birthday present (pot plant) and I bought some bath things from Lush.
We went to a cocktail bar called the Plotting Parlour, and I had a green matcha margarita that was very rich and complex. I told Phil about my colleagues at work and he said he thought their behaviour was outrageous. It is... I'm in a catch 22 – do I stick it out and rise in the ranks or just decide it's not worth it and look elsewhere for a job?
We moved onto a fairly ordinary pub where I drank Guinness (it is St Paddy's Day after all) and chatted to Phil's ex-girlfriend from years ago. We also met up with phil's sisters to go to a comedy night at the Komedia.
The night itself reminded me of Butlin's or somewhere similar, where we had reserved seating and plates like 'Nachos' on offer. We were sat right at the front and I was scared we would get picked on. The highlight of the night was, however, when a young comedian described himself as being mature at 24 years old and I burst out laughing, then the audience laughed. This threw him off his stride and he actually skipped the punchline. I shied away embarrassingly when he asked me if I had something to say, saying 'No, no, no, no...'
On the whole, they were not bellyachingly funny, but it was good to get out of the house and permit myself to let go and enjoy. We bought some gins in a tin from Tesco to drink on the train home. Phil fell asleep and Rachel and I got drunk! The train home seemed to speed by, and we arrived back in London around 11.20pm.
I just managed to get a DLR to Canning Town when Rachel called me crying – another fight with phil. I am worried about her – she can't live like this. She made the decision to sleep overnight on the sofa despite me telling her to come over, then I had to call an Uber because there were no more trains to Woolwich. I dragged my duvet and pillows to the sofa to fall asleep, hoping that 7 hours would be enough to sustain me.
Part of me is really impressed that I managed to declutter and clean. I even hoovered with my new hoover and marvelled - in one vacuum - how much dust was picked up from the carpet. For once in a very long time the flat feels 'clean', possibly because I know there is nothing to hide anywhere.
With all of the existential crises and pointlessness and absurdity it always goes back full circle. What would make you happy in your life right now? Which is basically, all that matters. Then I go back to making videos and photos and creative outlet and being famous and SOMETHING. And then I think of limited time and how i can achieve it and... Mind melt. Not good, especially because overwhelm is more likely to make me feel crippled than anything else.
My hangover kept me pottering around the house. I tried to nap several times, watched another 3 hour documentary on Andy Warhol and then I copied and pasted and meshed a lot of my PhD chapters together from a chapter I have to submit on theatricality and photography. Feeling shitty about it, I went to Sainsbury's, bought some mince and tomatoes and made a delicious spag bol. I started watching a series on Netflix called 'Losers', which was about people in the sports world who could perceived to be losers and what they did in the face of failure.
I then took a bath with Blue Fluffy Clouds Lush bubble bar while I watched the Losers on Canadian curling and decided to have an early night. My over-riding thought? punishing myself for no creative work...
On Sunday I started to feel the crippling nag of anxiety as soon as I got up: the one where it feels like you have rocks in your stomach and you don't want to get out of bed. So I had to take it slowly again, bought an Americano and an almond croissant, ate it slowly, watched more of 'Losers'...
Thinking an age had passed, it was probably only 9.30 when I did some more work and I focused on finsihing the book chapter. It didn't take me as long as I thought and I 'botched' something together. It is bad in some ways, as it is loosely held together with examples but being that it is already late I thought it was better to send something than have nothing at all. I will await their comments and revise accordingly over the summer.
Finishing at 11.30am, I left the house to go meet my friend Rachel and he boyfriend Phil in Brighton. On the journey over I spoke to my work colleague Julia Dane on the phone, which made me nervous about returning to work, and so on the train down I started getting anxious. However, I put on some relaxing music and daydreamed the rest of the way to the seaside.
I met Rachel and Phil in Pizza Express and had a sloppy giuseppe with a large glass of Soave. Although Rachel had called me to tell me they had argued in the morning, she decided she was fine and we started to have fun. We walked around, bout Phil's sister a birthday present (pot plant) and I bought some bath things from Lush.
We went to a cocktail bar called the Plotting Parlour, and I had a green matcha margarita that was very rich and complex. I told Phil about my colleagues at work and he said he thought their behaviour was outrageous. It is... I'm in a catch 22 – do I stick it out and rise in the ranks or just decide it's not worth it and look elsewhere for a job?
We moved onto a fairly ordinary pub where I drank Guinness (it is St Paddy's Day after all) and chatted to Phil's ex-girlfriend from years ago. We also met up with phil's sisters to go to a comedy night at the Komedia.
The night itself reminded me of Butlin's or somewhere similar, where we had reserved seating and plates like 'Nachos' on offer. We were sat right at the front and I was scared we would get picked on. The highlight of the night was, however, when a young comedian described himself as being mature at 24 years old and I burst out laughing, then the audience laughed. This threw him off his stride and he actually skipped the punchline. I shied away embarrassingly when he asked me if I had something to say, saying 'No, no, no, no...'
On the whole, they were not bellyachingly funny, but it was good to get out of the house and permit myself to let go and enjoy. We bought some gins in a tin from Tesco to drink on the train home. Phil fell asleep and Rachel and I got drunk! The train home seemed to speed by, and we arrived back in London around 11.20pm.
I just managed to get a DLR to Canning Town when Rachel called me crying – another fight with phil. I am worried about her – she can't live like this. She made the decision to sleep overnight on the sofa despite me telling her to come over, then I had to call an Uber because there were no more trains to Woolwich. I dragged my duvet and pillows to the sofa to fall asleep, hoping that 7 hours would be enough to sustain me.
Saturday, March 16, 2019
Relaxing into the unknown
I'm going to try and get this down while I still can, having come in at 1.40am after a few drinks.
I woke up quite early this morning - before 7am. The reason I know that is because I tried to watch RuPauL's Drag Race and had to wait until after then till it 'went live' on Netflix. I thought I might try to get another sleep before my doctor's appointment, but instead I restlessly lay about on the sofa until around 8.30am, when I started to get ready for my doctor's appointment. I left the house at 9.30am, when David rang me. He had taken the day off work and was very hungover, so we arranged to go for brunch at Milk in Balham after my appointment.
The tube ride seemed quite pleasant and I wondered if the citalopram had finally started doing its work. I got to Balham early, went to a few charity shops before signing in at the doctor's reception. When I was called, I nearly bumped into the doctor in the corridor as she tried to fetch me. Needless to say I was much calmer this week. I explained to her that I was really distraught and I'm sorry she saw me like that. The medication has helped with the anxiety attacks and now I'm thinking a bit more clearly. I have self-referred to the mental health centre in Greenwich and I have a phone appointment. We actually started to laugh and joke by the end of the appointment: I was telling her about my upcoming holiday to Madrid and she was telling me about her final medical exams. She handed me a feedback form to give on the way out and I marked her as 'outstanding' for everything - she really deserves it.
I met David for brunch and he was telling me about his new business – Keystone Capital. I'm very excited for him - it seems like the perfect time for David to be starting his own venture and I know this is going to be successful for him. He always has nerves about it, but he is thinking of the 'worst case scenario' - he will do great. I had a delicious eggs benedict with filter coffee and fresh orange juice. So satisfying.
Afterwards we went for curry on Brick Lane and had an all vegetarian menu including chana masala and tarka dall – two of my faves – washed down with two pints of Cobra beer. It was a perfectly civilised evening...
Until we decided to go for a cocktail afterwards in the speakeasy at the Breakfast Club. Rachel came to join us and there was a 30 minute wait, so we had an Aperol Spritz upstairs and then I had a lethal tequila cocktail downstairs. Paul asked me about Dil – am I speaking to her – and I said I still love her it's just she wants to live her path in life and I'm going in a different direction that she doesn't necessarily want to come on. So I am friends with her but we just can't be friends in the same way we were.
I guess it was always going to have to reach this stage.
After the cocktail we decided to go, except Rachel, David and I went to Batch Bar in Peckham via Uber for a final drink. I had another pint of beer (!) and Phil – the owner of the bar and Rachel's current beau – offered us an Irish whiskey tasting. So that was probably an equivalent to one shot of whiskey too.
It turns out the bartender that took the tasting is studying art at Goldsmiths and we discussed the problems between formalism and conceptualism, and how changing your mind as an artist is always bad, and where are the boundaries between technique (being 'good') and concept – how much should be taught and to what standard should artists expect to be. A couple called Kacey and Perry joined the table for a short time, but I only said hello to them before they left about 20 mins later. I decided to call a cab and a BMW picked me up. David was insanely jealous!
****
On a side note, since watching the Andy Warhol documentary, his advice to artists used to be 'Do Everything' – e.g. when you don't know what to do, just take the next step forward. To that end it is becoming clear to me that a live/work space is important, but rather than moving straight into 'the Atelier', I need to take the next step up. This is essentially a one bed flat with room to make photo and video work. That way I can start producing content and build a following as an artist while I develop the 'bigger plan' of the Atelier. I have seen some apartments in Peckham I would like to check out and this could be a good starting point through which to start experimenting and making work.
Watch this space...
Thursday, March 14, 2019
This house is clean
I woke up earlyish, around 8am, and pottered around the house. I decided not to exercise today, as I had been doing so well and I was fuzzy headed from several glasses of wine last night. I didn't have much time to think as the man from Clearabee came to take away my rubbish from the clutter at 9am. We luckily managed to get into the parking space in the back to haul all of the stuff downstairs. My old photography backdrops are gone, but they have been here for over two years and not been properly used.
I felt sorry for the weird man who had really yellow teeth and receding, monk-style head. I bid him a good day as he left and he said, "I'll have some kind of day at least." I felt quite sorry for him. At the very least I know that a positive attitude is part of being able to enjoy your life.
I went to the Coffee Lounge and bought a large Americano and almond croissant, and set about watching the remaining two episodes of Marie Kondo I hadn't watched yet to inspire me. However, it has been something of a lazy day. I lolled from room to room attempting to do things, but achieving little. I did buy a chest of plastic drawers and a new hoover, which means I've pretty much done everything on my declutter list now.
I packed up the remaining bags of rubbish and took them down to the bins, then I listened to lots of Alan Watts talking about Buddhism, consciousness and death. Eventually I fell asleep around 4pm, then woke up again around 5 since which time I have been pottering around the house again. I managed to finish my application to UnLtd for seed funding for my social enterprise and wrote some more of my 'theatricality' essay.
I ordered a chicken bhuna with mushroom rice and my bio-dad Peter called me to chat. I had messaged him on Monday to say I had been signed off with depression but I assured him I had been feeling okay. Listening to him talk, I realised it is in my nature to feel apathetic because it comes from his side of the family. I need to work hard to combat this.
I decided to watch part two of the Andy Warhol documentary and I listened to a piece of advice he used to give people who asked – just do anything. So, I thought, what is the next step on this journey? I started looking again at flats – any flats – in Peckham and east London and saw two in Peckham that could, at least, provide me with enough space to start doing more photography and video. I am going to book a viewing tomorrow.
Additionally, I think I might spend some time tomorrow thinking about what my 'focus' is. If I can focus on a massive declutter and achieve it by making it my primary aim, surely I can apply this to any other project. I can do this.
My follow up appointment is with the doctor tomorrow. I am hoping she will see positive progress.
I felt sorry for the weird man who had really yellow teeth and receding, monk-style head. I bid him a good day as he left and he said, "I'll have some kind of day at least." I felt quite sorry for him. At the very least I know that a positive attitude is part of being able to enjoy your life.
I went to the Coffee Lounge and bought a large Americano and almond croissant, and set about watching the remaining two episodes of Marie Kondo I hadn't watched yet to inspire me. However, it has been something of a lazy day. I lolled from room to room attempting to do things, but achieving little. I did buy a chest of plastic drawers and a new hoover, which means I've pretty much done everything on my declutter list now.
I packed up the remaining bags of rubbish and took them down to the bins, then I listened to lots of Alan Watts talking about Buddhism, consciousness and death. Eventually I fell asleep around 4pm, then woke up again around 5 since which time I have been pottering around the house again. I managed to finish my application to UnLtd for seed funding for my social enterprise and wrote some more of my 'theatricality' essay.
I ordered a chicken bhuna with mushroom rice and my bio-dad Peter called me to chat. I had messaged him on Monday to say I had been signed off with depression but I assured him I had been feeling okay. Listening to him talk, I realised it is in my nature to feel apathetic because it comes from his side of the family. I need to work hard to combat this.
I decided to watch part two of the Andy Warhol documentary and I listened to a piece of advice he used to give people who asked – just do anything. So, I thought, what is the next step on this journey? I started looking again at flats – any flats – in Peckham and east London and saw two in Peckham that could, at least, provide me with enough space to start doing more photography and video. I am going to book a viewing tomorrow.
Additionally, I think I might spend some time tomorrow thinking about what my 'focus' is. If I can focus on a massive declutter and achieve it by making it my primary aim, surely I can apply this to any other project. I can do this.
My follow up appointment is with the doctor tomorrow. I am hoping she will see positive progress.
Wednesday, March 13, 2019
The Wheel of Life
"The Wheel of Life turns and it stops for no one..."
To take a brief departure into the spiritual realm, I have been taking some solace in Buddhism. Believe it or not, there is a lot of sense in it, even if you don't believe in reincarnation. For a start, Buddhism explains evolution: a kind of guided creationism that evolves, cycles, regenerates, continues, improves... Buddhism also links into the universe. Even though humans don't understand it, it is continually making, dissolving, being, doing...
In some sense, Buddhism is the art of accepting that life is essentially a constant present. The Wheel of Life stops for no one, except for Buddha, who sits in the middle as the wheel turns. The Dalai Lama believes we are all of Buddha nature and I agree. If we learn to sit in the middle of the wheel, we accept our place in this everlasting cycle and yet put ourselves outside it as unable to understand or control it.
I mention this as some of the bigger thoughts I've been having are starting to be resolved. Again, maybe the meds are kicking in but I find myself spending a lot of time looking at the ultimate fate of the universe, the nature of time – why does it only go in one direction – and quantum mechanics. My ultimate conclusion has to be that humans are limited in our understanding of this and, even when we do understand, it will still have no bearing on our lives as we cannot stop the wheel of life. Even the universe is cycling in its own life span, and has done for billions of years and will do for billions of years after.
I have come to think of myself as 'awake' for a limited time. To engage with a certain slather of reality that is open to me at this juncture as a human being. It is an insane and nonsensical reality, but the only way to keep sane is to engage with the insanity. This, essentially, panders to an existentialist argument and returns to Camus's idea of the Myth of Sisyphus – to laugh in the face of the Gods, in the face of madness. To live in spite of its absurdity. To embrace the pandemonium.
*****
Today I packed away my nostalgia and memorabilia, going through old photos and half-remembered moments. It was, at times, interesting and sad. At others, it felt as though I was trauling through half-remembered thoughts and laying to rest a distant Allan who lived another lifetime ago. But also, how I thought, if he had the power I have now how he may have conquered the world, achieved his dreams...
Going through my notebooks, it was clear I have always lived in a non-existent future, hoping for better. This makes me sad. And it is so I must resolve that even if things may improve at a future point in time, it is wrong to want to live there now while now is happening. One must be as much in the now as possible.
I was quite tired today, but made excellent progress and booked a rubbish collector for tomorrow. I cleared out my storage cupboard and put my memorabilia and my photographic equipment in there. I bagged up all the remaining iffy clothes and have only maybes and 'yes's. I could be wrong but it really does feel as though things have been lifted in the apartment. While there are still things to do, the things I have been hiding for years have gone. I can finish the rest by myself.
I went for a 6k run, got showered and got ready to go out to see David at a Jake event – an event for professional gay men. I stopped off in the Paul Smith sale shop and I was so tempted to buy something to fit with my new life.
We got to Onima on Avery Row and we were the first ones there. We ordered Picpoul De Pinet and met some great people. There was a guy called Thiago from Brazil who ran his own marketing company, some men called Rory and Steve I met at the bar as well as a reporter from the Sun called Mark who I have met before (and David has slept with before). There was also someone called Alex Storer who worked with companies on diversity and pride.
Meeting all these wonderful 'high energy' people lifted my spirits. Thiago suggested collaborating on a project, I want to get in touch with Alex to talk about social enterprise... It felt like this was more 'my thing' with 'my people'.
I left around 9.30pm and instead of obsessing over losing all these memories I instead decided to let them go. I got back to Woolwich Arsenal and had a McDonald's. David rang me to effuse how much he loved this evening and why we should only do these events in future. I agree... What a night – it was so great to do something different.
The thing that capped off the evening is that I won £133 on the lottery for matching three numbers. Awesome. That just about equals the amount I paid for the rubbish collectors to come and clear my junk tomorrow.
And if this is another sign from the universe? Thank you.
To take a brief departure into the spiritual realm, I have been taking some solace in Buddhism. Believe it or not, there is a lot of sense in it, even if you don't believe in reincarnation. For a start, Buddhism explains evolution: a kind of guided creationism that evolves, cycles, regenerates, continues, improves... Buddhism also links into the universe. Even though humans don't understand it, it is continually making, dissolving, being, doing...
In some sense, Buddhism is the art of accepting that life is essentially a constant present. The Wheel of Life stops for no one, except for Buddha, who sits in the middle as the wheel turns. The Dalai Lama believes we are all of Buddha nature and I agree. If we learn to sit in the middle of the wheel, we accept our place in this everlasting cycle and yet put ourselves outside it as unable to understand or control it.
I mention this as some of the bigger thoughts I've been having are starting to be resolved. Again, maybe the meds are kicking in but I find myself spending a lot of time looking at the ultimate fate of the universe, the nature of time – why does it only go in one direction – and quantum mechanics. My ultimate conclusion has to be that humans are limited in our understanding of this and, even when we do understand, it will still have no bearing on our lives as we cannot stop the wheel of life. Even the universe is cycling in its own life span, and has done for billions of years and will do for billions of years after.
I have come to think of myself as 'awake' for a limited time. To engage with a certain slather of reality that is open to me at this juncture as a human being. It is an insane and nonsensical reality, but the only way to keep sane is to engage with the insanity. This, essentially, panders to an existentialist argument and returns to Camus's idea of the Myth of Sisyphus – to laugh in the face of the Gods, in the face of madness. To live in spite of its absurdity. To embrace the pandemonium.
*****
Today I packed away my nostalgia and memorabilia, going through old photos and half-remembered moments. It was, at times, interesting and sad. At others, it felt as though I was trauling through half-remembered thoughts and laying to rest a distant Allan who lived another lifetime ago. But also, how I thought, if he had the power I have now how he may have conquered the world, achieved his dreams...
Going through my notebooks, it was clear I have always lived in a non-existent future, hoping for better. This makes me sad. And it is so I must resolve that even if things may improve at a future point in time, it is wrong to want to live there now while now is happening. One must be as much in the now as possible.
I was quite tired today, but made excellent progress and booked a rubbish collector for tomorrow. I cleared out my storage cupboard and put my memorabilia and my photographic equipment in there. I bagged up all the remaining iffy clothes and have only maybes and 'yes's. I could be wrong but it really does feel as though things have been lifted in the apartment. While there are still things to do, the things I have been hiding for years have gone. I can finish the rest by myself.
I went for a 6k run, got showered and got ready to go out to see David at a Jake event – an event for professional gay men. I stopped off in the Paul Smith sale shop and I was so tempted to buy something to fit with my new life.
We got to Onima on Avery Row and we were the first ones there. We ordered Picpoul De Pinet and met some great people. There was a guy called Thiago from Brazil who ran his own marketing company, some men called Rory and Steve I met at the bar as well as a reporter from the Sun called Mark who I have met before (and David has slept with before). There was also someone called Alex Storer who worked with companies on diversity and pride.
Meeting all these wonderful 'high energy' people lifted my spirits. Thiago suggested collaborating on a project, I want to get in touch with Alex to talk about social enterprise... It felt like this was more 'my thing' with 'my people'.
I left around 9.30pm and instead of obsessing over losing all these memories I instead decided to let them go. I got back to Woolwich Arsenal and had a McDonald's. David rang me to effuse how much he loved this evening and why we should only do these events in future. I agree... What a night – it was so great to do something different.
The thing that capped off the evening is that I won £133 on the lottery for matching three numbers. Awesome. That just about equals the amount I paid for the rubbish collectors to come and clear my junk tomorrow.
And if this is another sign from the universe? Thank you.
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
Minimising my life
Yesterday, I thought, was a legitimate day off. As I was watching a documentary on Andy Warhol (narrated by Laurie Anderson), I took some perverse pleasure and parallels into his transition from shy and insecure ingenue into the cold and aloof artist. It was a conscious choice for Warhol to change and so, as I looked around my apartment from the huddle of my duvet, I also had to think that I had the same opportunity to change.
My whole life I've been chronically disorganised and I guess it's because I didn't live in my own reality. I accepted that things would get better, or I hoped they would. I just was blind to my whole self care and clothes. I used to go months without doing laundry (seriously - I know it's gross, but really) and it would sometimes take me months to clean.
I have recently tried to keep on top of my flat, but I know that there are bits and bobs everywhere and the closests and cupboards are full to bursting.
Tonight I will have off, I thought to myself. Tomorrow, I will start to declutter my life. I don't feel manic or mania brought on by the meds, more focused and I suppose that is a good thing.
I woke up around 10.30am and I decided to take it slow, go for a coffee. So I wondered to the Coffee Lounge and bought an Americano and a banana. I then watched a video about 'focus' and how important it is in life, and in the video he described how focus is so important because if you just say yes to other people's demands your whole life, you will wake up one day and think, 'What have I done?"
Exactly.
And so, I managed to go for a 6k run, a kettlebell exercise and do 20 mins of meditation (to varying degrees of success) and surely, I started to declutter around 1.30pm. At first I went through all of my CDs and tech, which have been gathering dust in my closet and various other places in my flat and I scanned them all into the Music Magpie app so I can package them into a box and send them away. All the CDs I couldn't sell to Music Magpie I bagged up to be taken away. I kept a small box of Mansun CDs (my favourite band when I was 15) as memorabilia and the rest is going.
I went through all my kitchen cupboards and cleared them out: plastic bags, unwanted gifts, odd coathangers, pictures, whatever... All thrown away.
I went to Wilkos and bought two big document binders and I cleared my drawers, separating out important bills from personal documents or birthday cards I wanted to keep. The rest – bin.
I kept going until around 9pm, which finished with washing the dishes.
My mantra? I must raise my own standards.
I must bring joy to my own life.
I am responsible for my happiness.
My plan is now to slim down my wardrobe to just white shirts, blazers and jeans – remove the complications and choices from everyday life. Keep it simple and stylish.
I am also going to throw away all my pants and socks and buy brand new luxurious underwear.
I will also call a junk haulers to come and pick up all the stuff so I have no excuse as to why it is still in my cupboard.
I will then move my photography equipment and nostalgia into the closet.
This will pare everything right back and provide a clean slate, as well as making me more mobile and responsive to change.
Monday, March 11, 2019
Blue Monday
I'm not writing too much about yesterday because I would prefer to forget it. I spent the whole day anxious, with my other talking about if I had taken the wrong direction in life – maybe I should become a climate change scientist (?). I really said that. I think the meds are getting to me somewhat.
I ate a bad chicken dish my mum made and took the train back to London where I stood up for the whole journey. Inside I was freaking out and derealising, depersonalising... I just want to forget that experience. It was horrible. I kept telling myself I'll go home and wrap myself in a duvet and go to sleep and pretend this is a bad dream.
I put on the Bitch in Apt 23 and some pyjamas, then put the duvet on the sofa and went in and out of sleep. My manager called me yesterday and I said I would take the week off (she says she feels bad), so I felt no pressure to go in – just rest. I was falling in and out of sleep all night. When I would wake up, I would put on more Bitch, and go back to sleep again.
I woke up and it was very sunny, quite fresh. But then I felt it. I didn't want to get out of bed. I thought - that's it, I've hit the wall. Psychological meltdown. I put on the Carmen Sandiego cartoon series on Netflix and again, napped in and out of consciousness.
I had the appointment with the counsellor at the Trafalgar clinic at 12, so I took an Uber and got there on time. Carole was a frail looking South African woman in her 70s with blonde hair. She guided me to a counselling room and we sat down.
"Winnie referred you," she said
I began to cry.
I poured out about my panic attacks, the meds making my head spin... I don't know how I let it get so bad, I said. And how it may actually be a long suffering problem. The fact I have anxiety about catching HIV every time I have sex, or the anxiety I had as a child about going to school. There is a huge empty space in my life where my social and love life should be and I don't know what to do about it. I don't know how to live.
She looked shocked. Really shocked. And I was panicked.
Fuck. I've lost it. This is serious and the counsellor thinks it's serious so it's serious.
She suggested upping my medication, maybe seeing a psychiatrist for combination drug therapy and, of course, CBT and talking therapy.
This is an urgent case she said.
Omg.
OMG.
How did I let this get so bad? Have I been suffering for my whole adult life and I was just completely unaware?
I walked back home and thought that I need to take time to recover this.
I went to Lidl and bought an egg and cress sandwich and Skyr yoghurt to keep me going. My appetite is pretty much zero at the moment so I'm going to have to just nibble as and when appropriate. I've lost so much weight.
I've more or less been on the sofa since I came back from the appointment, watching Friends and YouTube videos on Shane Dawson and Jeffree Star.
In the past hour, I have looked around at the chronic disorganisation in my flat and I see reflected back at me the continual disorganisation of my life. Maybe I can tackle this.
I searched for the word 'enlightment' on YouTube and it is a video on... Meditation.
Before I had this break, I was meditating every day and trying to be enlightened. It has convinced me that tomorrow I will go for a run and meditate again. I am feeling capable of doing that, and it makes me think that perhaps I am not so broken.
If this is another sign from the universe... Then thank you.
I ate a bad chicken dish my mum made and took the train back to London where I stood up for the whole journey. Inside I was freaking out and derealising, depersonalising... I just want to forget that experience. It was horrible. I kept telling myself I'll go home and wrap myself in a duvet and go to sleep and pretend this is a bad dream.
I put on the Bitch in Apt 23 and some pyjamas, then put the duvet on the sofa and went in and out of sleep. My manager called me yesterday and I said I would take the week off (she says she feels bad), so I felt no pressure to go in – just rest. I was falling in and out of sleep all night. When I would wake up, I would put on more Bitch, and go back to sleep again.
I woke up and it was very sunny, quite fresh. But then I felt it. I didn't want to get out of bed. I thought - that's it, I've hit the wall. Psychological meltdown. I put on the Carmen Sandiego cartoon series on Netflix and again, napped in and out of consciousness.
I had the appointment with the counsellor at the Trafalgar clinic at 12, so I took an Uber and got there on time. Carole was a frail looking South African woman in her 70s with blonde hair. She guided me to a counselling room and we sat down.
"Winnie referred you," she said
I began to cry.
I poured out about my panic attacks, the meds making my head spin... I don't know how I let it get so bad, I said. And how it may actually be a long suffering problem. The fact I have anxiety about catching HIV every time I have sex, or the anxiety I had as a child about going to school. There is a huge empty space in my life where my social and love life should be and I don't know what to do about it. I don't know how to live.
She looked shocked. Really shocked. And I was panicked.
Fuck. I've lost it. This is serious and the counsellor thinks it's serious so it's serious.
She suggested upping my medication, maybe seeing a psychiatrist for combination drug therapy and, of course, CBT and talking therapy.
This is an urgent case she said.
Omg.
OMG.
How did I let this get so bad? Have I been suffering for my whole adult life and I was just completely unaware?
I walked back home and thought that I need to take time to recover this.
I went to Lidl and bought an egg and cress sandwich and Skyr yoghurt to keep me going. My appetite is pretty much zero at the moment so I'm going to have to just nibble as and when appropriate. I've lost so much weight.
I've more or less been on the sofa since I came back from the appointment, watching Friends and YouTube videos on Shane Dawson and Jeffree Star.
In the past hour, I have looked around at the chronic disorganisation in my flat and I see reflected back at me the continual disorganisation of my life. Maybe I can tackle this.
I searched for the word 'enlightment' on YouTube and it is a video on... Meditation.
Before I had this break, I was meditating every day and trying to be enlightened. It has convinced me that tomorrow I will go for a run and meditate again. I am feeling capable of doing that, and it makes me think that perhaps I am not so broken.
If this is another sign from the universe... Then thank you.
Sunday, March 10, 2019
Sane Saturday
After having finally rested for a good 8 hours, I woke up. That's the first time in a week that has happened and whether the medication is already having an effect or I was just tired, it was a welcome shift. I went downstairs to talk to mum and had some cups of tea. We watched some programmes about people emigrating to Australia and I tried to practice some radical acceptance about my situation.
Do I like the fact one day I will die? No.
Can I accept it? Yes.
Part of me started to embrace my own temporality. Think about it... When our time comes, I'm sure we all accept it peacefully and whatever sensations we go through in the last moments, they are meant to peacefully transition us into the next state of being. We can't ever know that till it happens, and I'm sure it will not be unpleasant.
However, staring into your own existential crisis, it seems all the hopes and dreams one has are only relevant in the context of a human society – one which is entirely constructed and mediated. So all the things we do right now only have a certain level of relevance and resonance. When we start thinking of our actual impact, one goes full circle right back to here and now. What do I do in this moment that's important to me?
Dad returned around 11am with a bacon roll and my sister Louise dropped off my niece Florence. She asked why I came home – again I decided to be completely honest. It is quite freeing not to have to pretend to be well or hide the fact that you're not okay. Florence helped a little, as she is such a sweet and sassy little character – a real madam at times!
Dad took me out to buy a tuxedo for the ladies night and it felt as though the meds were starting to do some work. I also bought a blue skinny-fit suit for £79 and charged it to my credit card... If I am 'derealising' from money and these archaic systems, I might as well use it to my advantage.
With the meds kicking in, Dad thought buying the suit had made me happier, when in fact I knew different. I sat and talked with mum and Louise before Louise suggested going to Starbucks. We drove in the car and laughed at the car's 'D-Mode', not knowing what it was. I had a skinny hazelnut latte and a chocolate and raspberry cake, which Florence ate all of the cream out of before I could get back to my seat.
"So what has triggered the attacks," my sister said.
"Death, dying... The universe, everything."
"Ah... and the balance is restored," she said, referring to a time a couple of weeks ago when our roles had switched and I said I was being the carefree one and her the worrier.
Louise said that everyone will die and my mind is creating problems it can't solve because there is nothing to worry about. She also said I need to be around people – possibly family. Perhaps she is right. She also said I need to go back to what is important to me – creativity, performance... Drag perhaps. We laughed and talked about how she might be able to help me with my make up, or how she might prepare me for Drag Idol and Pride's Got Talent next year.
On returning home, I decided that in some respects this process is quite freeing. I'm off the celestial hook. There is no 'right' or 'wrong' way to live one's life and therefore worries about living up to one's full potential or doing well for oneself are only read in relation to its relevance of society at the time. In 100 years, this idea of success will change and change again, and so it is okay to slack off, to play video games, to do whatever... Balanced with that is the thought that whether contributing to a productive society is equally useful or meaningful to the individual. My over-riding thought is one should only do things if they are useful to you at the time or if they are useful to the human society of the time. To think of your actions extending any further than that is a pointless task.
Dad started getting ready and I realised it was 4pm, and Louise also started doing mum's make up for the do. I wondered around restlessly as I knew it wouldn't take me long to get dressed, before putting on my tuxedo. Mum, of course, faffed around to the last minute, but we finally got a cab to the Masonic Hall at 5pm.
I thought I would be weird at the event but actually I was okay. I expressed myself a bit more confidently and told people I was a lecturer and had a doctorate, and for once I didn't really feel ashamed of what I did. We met Allan McColgan, an old friend of mum's, a man called Gideon and Dad's brother – Uncle Allen – was there too. It was good to catch up with him as he is the 'gossiper' of dad's side of the family and is always very talkative.
The whole event seemed very surreal, though. There is this whole entrance ceremony where everybody is announced (I was announced as Dr. Arthur Taylor – that didn't go away during the evening), and it felt so slow and unreal. Time has slowed down lately. Perhaps it is quite right that the brakes have suddenly been hit in my life so I can contemplate all these moments. In this time period, life seems so long and so these thoughts of death should be so far away.
I did drink - and perhaps more than I should on medication - but it's hard to explain to dad what the case is. The dinner, equally surreal with its speeches and songs, consisted of broccoli and stilton soup, hunter's chicken and chocolate profiteroles. The song 'Happy to meet, Sorry to Part, Happy to Meet Again' keeps ringing through my head as the key piece of the evening.
We emptied out into the bar briefly where Dad and I bought the photo we had taken on entering the hall and then we returned to the hall to dance.
Oh how I love to dance. Mum and I got up and danced to Baby Love by the Supremes, Boogey Wonderland, You Can't Hurry Love, Come on Eileen... It was wonderful – one of my favourite things to do.
I asked if we could go at 10.45pm. Dad did originally propose going at 9pm so I think he was happy we stayed a little bit longer. When they came in, they changed into their pyjamas and made me a cup of tea. I retired to bed, though, around 11.30pm and was sort of glad I went out after all...
Do I like the fact one day I will die? No.
Can I accept it? Yes.
Part of me started to embrace my own temporality. Think about it... When our time comes, I'm sure we all accept it peacefully and whatever sensations we go through in the last moments, they are meant to peacefully transition us into the next state of being. We can't ever know that till it happens, and I'm sure it will not be unpleasant.
However, staring into your own existential crisis, it seems all the hopes and dreams one has are only relevant in the context of a human society – one which is entirely constructed and mediated. So all the things we do right now only have a certain level of relevance and resonance. When we start thinking of our actual impact, one goes full circle right back to here and now. What do I do in this moment that's important to me?
Dad returned around 11am with a bacon roll and my sister Louise dropped off my niece Florence. She asked why I came home – again I decided to be completely honest. It is quite freeing not to have to pretend to be well or hide the fact that you're not okay. Florence helped a little, as she is such a sweet and sassy little character – a real madam at times!
Dad took me out to buy a tuxedo for the ladies night and it felt as though the meds were starting to do some work. I also bought a blue skinny-fit suit for £79 and charged it to my credit card... If I am 'derealising' from money and these archaic systems, I might as well use it to my advantage.
With the meds kicking in, Dad thought buying the suit had made me happier, when in fact I knew different. I sat and talked with mum and Louise before Louise suggested going to Starbucks. We drove in the car and laughed at the car's 'D-Mode', not knowing what it was. I had a skinny hazelnut latte and a chocolate and raspberry cake, which Florence ate all of the cream out of before I could get back to my seat.
"So what has triggered the attacks," my sister said.
"Death, dying... The universe, everything."
"Ah... and the balance is restored," she said, referring to a time a couple of weeks ago when our roles had switched and I said I was being the carefree one and her the worrier.
Louise said that everyone will die and my mind is creating problems it can't solve because there is nothing to worry about. She also said I need to be around people – possibly family. Perhaps she is right. She also said I need to go back to what is important to me – creativity, performance... Drag perhaps. We laughed and talked about how she might be able to help me with my make up, or how she might prepare me for Drag Idol and Pride's Got Talent next year.
Dad started getting ready and I realised it was 4pm, and Louise also started doing mum's make up for the do. I wondered around restlessly as I knew it wouldn't take me long to get dressed, before putting on my tuxedo. Mum, of course, faffed around to the last minute, but we finally got a cab to the Masonic Hall at 5pm.
I did drink - and perhaps more than I should on medication - but it's hard to explain to dad what the case is. The dinner, equally surreal with its speeches and songs, consisted of broccoli and stilton soup, hunter's chicken and chocolate profiteroles. The song 'Happy to meet, Sorry to Part, Happy to Meet Again' keeps ringing through my head as the key piece of the evening.
We emptied out into the bar briefly where Dad and I bought the photo we had taken on entering the hall and then we returned to the hall to dance.
I asked if we could go at 10.45pm. Dad did originally propose going at 9pm so I think he was happy we stayed a little bit longer. When they came in, they changed into their pyjamas and made me a cup of tea. I retired to bed, though, around 11.30pm and was sort of glad I went out after all...
Saturday, March 9, 2019
Freakout Friday
Things reached fever pitch on Friday in the early hours, when I was up from 1am to 3.30am panicking about the end of the universe. Everything started to seem unreal... All the buildings we had created, toilets, tables... These things we had made out of molecules of the universe that would be broken down and re-used after we were gone. Even my body would be broken down and be in the earth of the earth...
I resolved that I am having mental health problems at the moment, and that these can be cured, so I should feel optimistic that I am taking the right steps to deal with it.
I woke up at 8.30am and consequently had a panic attack about the enormity of the universe and pottered around before my doctor's appointment. To calm myself down, I had a cup of tea at Cafe Nero in Balham and a blueberry muffin, wondering if I could ever get over this.
I went to the doctor's surgery and sat there for about 40 minutes. I remember some old guy coming in and me helping him to his feet. I was so anxious before going in that when I was finally called, I walked into the room and burst into tears.
"I'm sorry - it's been a long week to this appointment," I said to her... "I've been suffering so badly with panic attacks and anxiety."
I could tell she was shocked and alarmed. I said how I'd been feeling, that I'd been thinking of death and dying and how stressful things had been at work. How it had magnified all the other areas of my life and that I felt lonely and had no social life.
She said that it sounded like I was having an existential crisis and she put me back on my old medication – 10mg of citalopram daily. She also wrote out a list of helplines and places I could contact.
She held my arm and said, "You are not alone. You can get better." She made an appointment to see me next week, right then and there. And so I was comforted that I had done the right thing by seeking help – and that I would be supported.
As soon as I left the surgery, I took 10mg of citalopram as I wanted to ride out the symptoms as soon as possible. As expected, it exacerbated my anxiety and I started to go through a sensation of derealisation... I started thinking that humans had complicated the nature of life and we had become so far removed from what life really is. We should just be hugging animals and crapping in the woods rather than having all these sophisticated technologies and systems and economies, nationalities and complications... And all I can remember thinking, as I stared at the toilet in my own flat in Woolwich, is that it was just made up of molecules from the universe that we had repackaged into these things.
I tried to retreat to bed and hide, but my nerves being what they were I got up and packed a case, decided I should go home to my parents. I texted my mum to tell her from the outset what was happening:
Mum, I don't want you to freak out but I've been having panic attacks and the doctor has put me back on citalopram. I'd like to come home and get some TLC, be with people I love if that's okay xx
Being honest about what is happening to me has helped so much because I don't need to pretend to be normal when I'm freaking out inside.
I did some more work on the UEL validation document before I had a second appointment for my PrEP check up. I was waiting for over 45 minutes trying to keep calm in the waiting room before I was finally picked up by the clinical nurse, contemplating the ultimate fate of the universe.
When she took my blood, I said to her "I'm sorry I'm really anxious..."
And she said, "Oh I'm sorry we kept you waiting so long"
Then I burst into tears and I went, "It's not you, I've been having panic attacks and I've started back on citalopram which is making me worse"
And she said, "So what's triggered you."
And I said... I keep thinking about death and dying
And she said... have you been near death? Did you see someone die?
No, I replied.
She mentioned the sexual health clinic had a counsellor and that she would make me an appointment straight away. I was gobsmacked. She made an appointment for 12pm on Monday, which must be the fastest appointment for therapy on the NHS ever.
Her name was Winnie – I will not forget her kindness.
After replenishing my PrEP treatment and giving me the HPV vaccine, I said feebly, "Do you think I'm a nutcase?"
And she said... No! No. There may be stigma and you may be dealing with issues from when you were a child. But just like any other infection you have mental health problems right now and we need to get you fixed. Complete wellbeing.
I took the bus home, slowly freaking out inside but kind of deciding that going home to see mum and dad would be the best thing to do. I took my suitcase from home and walked out. I was having a small window of clarity – just get home. You can't spend the weekend all het up or you could easily go the other way.
However, on the train I could feel I was 'derealising' again... All these trains, all these networks. How did we make life so uncomplicated and unnatural? These machines, this pollution... Why?
I kept thinking to myself I just needed to get through the next hour. I got off the train at Kettering station and got a cab back to Corby for £24. Anything ANYTHING to get home.
When i came home, I told mum everything that had been happening, and she held me on the sofa, held my hand. I asked if she was mad at me for taking medication. No, she replied – she was glad I had the sense to go to the doctor and to come home.
O, the curse of being a genius she said to me.... Sometimes better to think like a fool.
I knew what she meant.
Dad came home with pizza and champagne, and I told him exactly what was happening. He said he loved me and was concerned about me and that I should come home and be with family for a while.
I think this is not a bad shout and I may start spending weekends at home while I get better, and surround myself with people who love me while I recover.
Dad opened some champagne and I thought it would teeter me over the edge, but it did relax me somewhat (thankfully). And we watched the film Bohemian Rhapsody... I went to bed around 11.30 and thankfully I was tired enough to drift off to a relaxing Saturday.
I resolved that I am having mental health problems at the moment, and that these can be cured, so I should feel optimistic that I am taking the right steps to deal with it.
I woke up at 8.30am and consequently had a panic attack about the enormity of the universe and pottered around before my doctor's appointment. To calm myself down, I had a cup of tea at Cafe Nero in Balham and a blueberry muffin, wondering if I could ever get over this.
I went to the doctor's surgery and sat there for about 40 minutes. I remember some old guy coming in and me helping him to his feet. I was so anxious before going in that when I was finally called, I walked into the room and burst into tears.
"I'm sorry - it's been a long week to this appointment," I said to her... "I've been suffering so badly with panic attacks and anxiety."
I could tell she was shocked and alarmed. I said how I'd been feeling, that I'd been thinking of death and dying and how stressful things had been at work. How it had magnified all the other areas of my life and that I felt lonely and had no social life.
She said that it sounded like I was having an existential crisis and she put me back on my old medication – 10mg of citalopram daily. She also wrote out a list of helplines and places I could contact.
She held my arm and said, "You are not alone. You can get better." She made an appointment to see me next week, right then and there. And so I was comforted that I had done the right thing by seeking help – and that I would be supported.
As soon as I left the surgery, I took 10mg of citalopram as I wanted to ride out the symptoms as soon as possible. As expected, it exacerbated my anxiety and I started to go through a sensation of derealisation... I started thinking that humans had complicated the nature of life and we had become so far removed from what life really is. We should just be hugging animals and crapping in the woods rather than having all these sophisticated technologies and systems and economies, nationalities and complications... And all I can remember thinking, as I stared at the toilet in my own flat in Woolwich, is that it was just made up of molecules from the universe that we had repackaged into these things.
I tried to retreat to bed and hide, but my nerves being what they were I got up and packed a case, decided I should go home to my parents. I texted my mum to tell her from the outset what was happening:
Mum, I don't want you to freak out but I've been having panic attacks and the doctor has put me back on citalopram. I'd like to come home and get some TLC, be with people I love if that's okay xx
Being honest about what is happening to me has helped so much because I don't need to pretend to be normal when I'm freaking out inside.
I did some more work on the UEL validation document before I had a second appointment for my PrEP check up. I was waiting for over 45 minutes trying to keep calm in the waiting room before I was finally picked up by the clinical nurse, contemplating the ultimate fate of the universe.
When she took my blood, I said to her "I'm sorry I'm really anxious..."
And she said, "Oh I'm sorry we kept you waiting so long"
Then I burst into tears and I went, "It's not you, I've been having panic attacks and I've started back on citalopram which is making me worse"
And she said, "So what's triggered you."
And I said... I keep thinking about death and dying
And she said... have you been near death? Did you see someone die?
No, I replied.
She mentioned the sexual health clinic had a counsellor and that she would make me an appointment straight away. I was gobsmacked. She made an appointment for 12pm on Monday, which must be the fastest appointment for therapy on the NHS ever.
Her name was Winnie – I will not forget her kindness.
After replenishing my PrEP treatment and giving me the HPV vaccine, I said feebly, "Do you think I'm a nutcase?"
And she said... No! No. There may be stigma and you may be dealing with issues from when you were a child. But just like any other infection you have mental health problems right now and we need to get you fixed. Complete wellbeing.
I took the bus home, slowly freaking out inside but kind of deciding that going home to see mum and dad would be the best thing to do. I took my suitcase from home and walked out. I was having a small window of clarity – just get home. You can't spend the weekend all het up or you could easily go the other way.
However, on the train I could feel I was 'derealising' again... All these trains, all these networks. How did we make life so uncomplicated and unnatural? These machines, this pollution... Why?
I kept thinking to myself I just needed to get through the next hour. I got off the train at Kettering station and got a cab back to Corby for £24. Anything ANYTHING to get home.
When i came home, I told mum everything that had been happening, and she held me on the sofa, held my hand. I asked if she was mad at me for taking medication. No, she replied – she was glad I had the sense to go to the doctor and to come home.
O, the curse of being a genius she said to me.... Sometimes better to think like a fool.
I knew what she meant.
Dad came home with pizza and champagne, and I told him exactly what was happening. He said he loved me and was concerned about me and that I should come home and be with family for a while.
I think this is not a bad shout and I may start spending weekends at home while I get better, and surround myself with people who love me while I recover.
Dad opened some champagne and I thought it would teeter me over the edge, but it did relax me somewhat (thankfully). And we watched the film Bohemian Rhapsody... I went to bed around 11.30 and thankfully I was tired enough to drift off to a relaxing Saturday.
Thursday, March 7, 2019
Rolling up a rough week
I did have an initial wakening at 5am, but I felt good for sleeping through. I watched E4 for a little bit and then drifted back to sleep, waking again at 7.30.
It was bright and I felt fairly refreshed. I also decided not to go straight to the gym and exercise, and to try to nap a little and enjoy the refreshment of sleep. I took the morning slowly and woke up, dressed in my blue/red/great short/blazer/brogue combo and went to the Coffee Lounge to get an Americano and a banana. Even though I had no lesson prepared for my first lecture, I cobbled together a couple of presentations from previous years and went through them with the students, asking them to grade them and give them feedback. They were:
The Sun Online/WW1 pitch
Drink/Driving campaign
Barclays Academy
As I went through them I sensed a low level anxiety inside of me and every time there was something that pertained to death (e.g. war veterans, graphic imagery around drink driving), I could feel little palpitations. The only way I could get through it was by fully throwing myself into the presentations and feeling the emoitons, otherwise I would have had a full blown anxiety attack in front of the students.
After the break and in the workshop, one of the students Michaela talked to me about an issue she has with me. Before Christmas, I unfortunately shouted at her in front of the class and she felt embarrassed and humiliated. I do feel bad about that, but she has been licking her wounds ever since. She kept on trying to rely on the story that she is a black girl who has had it rough 'I don't know her'. And then I said 'You don't know me - I'm the queer kid from a smalltown who got beat up every day. Rise above it.'
I gave her some tough love telling her she needed to hold herself accountable but I could tell she just felt sorry for herself. It will be a lot of hard work with her.
The other groups are on track: Imogen's group are being productive with a campaign called 'Unmute yourself' and getting young people to speak out about issues that matter to them. One group want people to take an ASBO Pill, which I suggested they leak as a PR or publicity campaign. Michaela's group are doing something on rebellion. I really want them to pull it out the bag because it will be less of a headache for me and a real victory for them to push their campaign over the line.
In between lessons, I rang Anxiety UK, who basically told me to go to the GP - I have a GP's appointment tomorrow. I am wondering if I should go back on the meds and the woman on the phone said maybe I could give myself a timeline of 6 months and come back off them, to help me through an especially difficult period. This seems like the most sensible course of action, but I am not looking forward to symptoms and bouts of hypomania.
I then went to the Insight journalism lecture, where Debbie and Paige presented photos from their genderqueer shoot. Zak, Marta and Fay went to take more pics for Instagram while George stayed to do page layouts. Debbie and Paige are editing something verbally in the background as I write this and Suzanne Dixon, my manager has just texted me.
This is possibly in relation to the 'media 11'sending another request to meet as the validation deadline is approaching soon.
I went to see Suzanne and she asked me if I was worried about the letter. I said no, but it had placed a focus on other areas of my life where I wanted to put more energy into (e.g i’m Freaking out about everything). Then we met with Rebecca from enterprise to talk about how we might incorporate them into next year’s programme. It should be simple enough.
I didn’t get to spend much time with the journalism students in the end, and departed the lesson to meet with David Dorrington from games. I told him I was suffering really badly from anxiety at the moment and I know he was looking at me really weird. He is having problems too though. But we went through his programme and tried to align it with the proposed changes. I briefly spoke to Helena the QA woman before going home - when will we do something nice she asked me? Good question.
I went home and ordered a chicken Bhuna and mushroom rice. I watched a documentary about bear death experiences and also listened to the recording from a psychic I went to see in the summer. It made me feel better for a little while to have some belief, some faith in life after death. Is that so bad? I resolved that dying in itself is probably not an unpleasant experience but the terror I am feeling around it is untenable.
I spent the rest of the night in anxiety until I rang David. He had been out drinking four pints and he is celebrating his new business. I feel selfish thinking about my own mental state... I asked if I could go round as the doctor’s is closer to his than it is mine. I was in a real funk until I had a brainwave - that I should ask my friend Andy if he wants to move into the Atelier. I thought it would be exciting and allow me to live my dreams if he says yes. He is married to new cross though and so i’m Not sure he’ll say yes.
David was trying to cheer me up but I was nearly because i’ve Spent the whole day on edge. We watched family guy and discussed me going back on meds. I feel this is probably the best option for the tome being, as I am losing the ability to think straight. I’m currently laying here freaking out about the world millions of years after my existence and it is terrifying.
It was bright and I felt fairly refreshed. I also decided not to go straight to the gym and exercise, and to try to nap a little and enjoy the refreshment of sleep. I took the morning slowly and woke up, dressed in my blue/red/great short/blazer/brogue combo and went to the Coffee Lounge to get an Americano and a banana. Even though I had no lesson prepared for my first lecture, I cobbled together a couple of presentations from previous years and went through them with the students, asking them to grade them and give them feedback. They were:
The Sun Online/WW1 pitch
Drink/Driving campaign
Barclays Academy
As I went through them I sensed a low level anxiety inside of me and every time there was something that pertained to death (e.g. war veterans, graphic imagery around drink driving), I could feel little palpitations. The only way I could get through it was by fully throwing myself into the presentations and feeling the emoitons, otherwise I would have had a full blown anxiety attack in front of the students.
After the break and in the workshop, one of the students Michaela talked to me about an issue she has with me. Before Christmas, I unfortunately shouted at her in front of the class and she felt embarrassed and humiliated. I do feel bad about that, but she has been licking her wounds ever since. She kept on trying to rely on the story that she is a black girl who has had it rough 'I don't know her'. And then I said 'You don't know me - I'm the queer kid from a smalltown who got beat up every day. Rise above it.'
I gave her some tough love telling her she needed to hold herself accountable but I could tell she just felt sorry for herself. It will be a lot of hard work with her.
The other groups are on track: Imogen's group are being productive with a campaign called 'Unmute yourself' and getting young people to speak out about issues that matter to them. One group want people to take an ASBO Pill, which I suggested they leak as a PR or publicity campaign. Michaela's group are doing something on rebellion. I really want them to pull it out the bag because it will be less of a headache for me and a real victory for them to push their campaign over the line.
In between lessons, I rang Anxiety UK, who basically told me to go to the GP - I have a GP's appointment tomorrow. I am wondering if I should go back on the meds and the woman on the phone said maybe I could give myself a timeline of 6 months and come back off them, to help me through an especially difficult period. This seems like the most sensible course of action, but I am not looking forward to symptoms and bouts of hypomania.
I then went to the Insight journalism lecture, where Debbie and Paige presented photos from their genderqueer shoot. Zak, Marta and Fay went to take more pics for Instagram while George stayed to do page layouts. Debbie and Paige are editing something verbally in the background as I write this and Suzanne Dixon, my manager has just texted me.
This is possibly in relation to the 'media 11'sending another request to meet as the validation deadline is approaching soon.
I went to see Suzanne and she asked me if I was worried about the letter. I said no, but it had placed a focus on other areas of my life where I wanted to put more energy into (e.g i’m Freaking out about everything). Then we met with Rebecca from enterprise to talk about how we might incorporate them into next year’s programme. It should be simple enough.
I didn’t get to spend much time with the journalism students in the end, and departed the lesson to meet with David Dorrington from games. I told him I was suffering really badly from anxiety at the moment and I know he was looking at me really weird. He is having problems too though. But we went through his programme and tried to align it with the proposed changes. I briefly spoke to Helena the QA woman before going home - when will we do something nice she asked me? Good question.
I went home and ordered a chicken Bhuna and mushroom rice. I watched a documentary about bear death experiences and also listened to the recording from a psychic I went to see in the summer. It made me feel better for a little while to have some belief, some faith in life after death. Is that so bad? I resolved that dying in itself is probably not an unpleasant experience but the terror I am feeling around it is untenable.
I spent the rest of the night in anxiety until I rang David. He had been out drinking four pints and he is celebrating his new business. I feel selfish thinking about my own mental state... I asked if I could go round as the doctor’s is closer to his than it is mine. I was in a real funk until I had a brainwave - that I should ask my friend Andy if he wants to move into the Atelier. I thought it would be exciting and allow me to live my dreams if he says yes. He is married to new cross though and so i’m Not sure he’ll say yes.
David was trying to cheer me up but I was nearly because i’ve Spent the whole day on edge. We watched family guy and discussed me going back on meds. I feel this is probably the best option for the tome being, as I am losing the ability to think straight. I’m currently laying here freaking out about the world millions of years after my existence and it is terrifying.
Wednesday, March 6, 2019
Back to square one...
Today has been a rather challenging day. I woke up at 1am and found it hard to drift back off again.. Awake till 2am I then finally went to sleep and woke up around 7.30. But this time I stayed in bed. And I thought... it's that familiar feeling. Anxiety tying you to the bed and not letting you get up. At 8.15 I decided to get up and still do a run, still do a kettlebell workout and still go to work for 10.30. I'm still trying to go slowly at my pace and at what is important for me.
Except I forgot I had a call with my colleague Martin Heaney at 10 and I missed it. I rang him on my mobile on the way over the bridge to work and told him that I took extra time for self care. Yeah, I'm cracking up and I don't care who knows it at the moment. I discussed how difficult recruitment had been in light of the strategic portfolio development, as we'd both been charged with upping student recruitment recently and he told me to take care.
My focus was supposedly the cluster validation document but I had so much admin to do in just communicating things to students such as being in Kazakhstan for a week at the end of March and also students who aren't attending (!) and therefore can't present (!) at the assessment.
I tried to focus on doing the validation stuff but I was going into meltdown. The residual anxiety was just taking over me and it felt like the greyness of the day was just overtaking me. I sat and wrote and précis of what 'projects' means as defined in the corrections, but I kept on reading and reading the corrections and thinking... OMG. It's too much. I can't do it.
Andrew Branch, one of the 'anti-media cluster' who signed the letter came into my office to smooth out things. Out of everyone who signed the letter I thought he would have signed it the most out of peer pressure, and so I didn't have any qualms but he tried to push things – he asked me how I thought teaching would be distributed, how I saw economies of scale panned out. Instead I ended up popping off at him and saying did he think sending such a letter was a good thing? Did he think the conversation with management was going to be a 'friendly discussion'? By the look on his face he had not considered this. I also said Kathy Walker and Jonathan Hardy were playing a dangerous game by wilfully refusing a reasonable request, which I thought was dangerous territory.
Part of me wanted him tos hit his pants a little bit and realise what a duff move he had made. And part of me wanted him to tell his little gang that was the case. So while I should have been restrained, he caught me on the wrong day and maybe it's good for him to see me a little bit angry.
Today I really, really would have advocated for meds if I had them. In fact I wrote an online message to my GP saying I had had an anxiety relapse and wanted to hear the options from my GP. It felt like my body was pumping a constant source of low-level adrenaline that was just enough to keep me on edge. I felt terrible because I knew soon after is a low mood or depression. I thought to myself will there ever be a time in my life I'm not dealing with emotional crisis – where things are just 'okay' and I can ride out the wave, or focus on enriching my life in other ways.
The day felt really oppressive. I was supposed to go for dinner with my colleague Julia and I went to find her in her classroom in WB2.06 but it all felt oppressive and claustrophobic with the lighting. I sat in Costa and waited for her, then I burst out crying and told her I was cracking up. Told her about all the death anxiety. I don't think Julia is the most consoling person but she did at least care. She seemed to think my death anxiety was tied to a very specific thing around achievement and doing well.
We went to a bar called the Moxy and while she drank a red wine, she went through the requests from Suzanne Simon and Andy (management) and got angry. She made me realise they are , essentially, 'busy work' requests and they are putting all of this on me.She said to stop trying to be perfect and pay those requests lip service, submit it and let QA deal with the document. Essentially it means management's stupid requests would be bypassed to the people that really matter.
She bought me some wine and actually I relaxed. I spoke enthusiastically about Derrida and Auslander, and it really calmed me down. We talked about vibrations and frequencies and the universe and – while it is more mystical – it comforted me. And because of the comfort I allowed myself to just be there.
I told Julia about my entrepreneurial plans for Creative Wave and the Atelier and i tried to remember my own purpose. She seemed pleased.
She told me she hadn't been this excited about being back at UEL for ages – that I was powerful, that I had saved UEL and no one had risen to the occasion – and I could yet rise even further.
I escorted Julia, drunk, back to the station and I left feeling slightly more relaxed, wondering if I would be able to have a full night's sleep. And, if so, that I wasn't going to totally crack up tomorrow.
Except I forgot I had a call with my colleague Martin Heaney at 10 and I missed it. I rang him on my mobile on the way over the bridge to work and told him that I took extra time for self care. Yeah, I'm cracking up and I don't care who knows it at the moment. I discussed how difficult recruitment had been in light of the strategic portfolio development, as we'd both been charged with upping student recruitment recently and he told me to take care.
My focus was supposedly the cluster validation document but I had so much admin to do in just communicating things to students such as being in Kazakhstan for a week at the end of March and also students who aren't attending (!) and therefore can't present (!) at the assessment.
I tried to focus on doing the validation stuff but I was going into meltdown. The residual anxiety was just taking over me and it felt like the greyness of the day was just overtaking me. I sat and wrote and précis of what 'projects' means as defined in the corrections, but I kept on reading and reading the corrections and thinking... OMG. It's too much. I can't do it.
Andrew Branch, one of the 'anti-media cluster' who signed the letter came into my office to smooth out things. Out of everyone who signed the letter I thought he would have signed it the most out of peer pressure, and so I didn't have any qualms but he tried to push things – he asked me how I thought teaching would be distributed, how I saw economies of scale panned out. Instead I ended up popping off at him and saying did he think sending such a letter was a good thing? Did he think the conversation with management was going to be a 'friendly discussion'? By the look on his face he had not considered this. I also said Kathy Walker and Jonathan Hardy were playing a dangerous game by wilfully refusing a reasonable request, which I thought was dangerous territory.
Part of me wanted him tos hit his pants a little bit and realise what a duff move he had made. And part of me wanted him to tell his little gang that was the case. So while I should have been restrained, he caught me on the wrong day and maybe it's good for him to see me a little bit angry.
Today I really, really would have advocated for meds if I had them. In fact I wrote an online message to my GP saying I had had an anxiety relapse and wanted to hear the options from my GP. It felt like my body was pumping a constant source of low-level adrenaline that was just enough to keep me on edge. I felt terrible because I knew soon after is a low mood or depression. I thought to myself will there ever be a time in my life I'm not dealing with emotional crisis – where things are just 'okay' and I can ride out the wave, or focus on enriching my life in other ways.
The day felt really oppressive. I was supposed to go for dinner with my colleague Julia and I went to find her in her classroom in WB2.06 but it all felt oppressive and claustrophobic with the lighting. I sat in Costa and waited for her, then I burst out crying and told her I was cracking up. Told her about all the death anxiety. I don't think Julia is the most consoling person but she did at least care. She seemed to think my death anxiety was tied to a very specific thing around achievement and doing well.
We went to a bar called the Moxy and while she drank a red wine, she went through the requests from Suzanne Simon and Andy (management) and got angry. She made me realise they are , essentially, 'busy work' requests and they are putting all of this on me.She said to stop trying to be perfect and pay those requests lip service, submit it and let QA deal with the document. Essentially it means management's stupid requests would be bypassed to the people that really matter.
She bought me some wine and actually I relaxed. I spoke enthusiastically about Derrida and Auslander, and it really calmed me down. We talked about vibrations and frequencies and the universe and – while it is more mystical – it comforted me. And because of the comfort I allowed myself to just be there.
I told Julia about my entrepreneurial plans for Creative Wave and the Atelier and i tried to remember my own purpose. She seemed pleased.
She told me she hadn't been this excited about being back at UEL for ages – that I was powerful, that I had saved UEL and no one had risen to the occasion – and I could yet rise even further.
I escorted Julia, drunk, back to the station and I left feeling slightly more relaxed, wondering if I would be able to have a full night's sleep. And, if so, that I wasn't going to totally crack up tomorrow.
Tuesday, March 5, 2019
Living through joy – the scary way
So last night I resolved to myself to approach life with joy instead of fear. Why wasn't I doing all the things I found exciting? Had I found my joyfulness? Why had I been drinking and distracting myself? When I had not been drinking I had done it through punishment. Exercise was done through punishment.
I woke up around 3.30am feeling quite excited by this new notion – to bounce back at life with fearlessness. Unfortunately it kept me awake until 5.30 and so I decided to get up later. I meditated, I had a coffee and relaxed. Luckily, I had woken up to a gorgeous sunny day and I was so pleased because it made it easier to cope with last night's meltdown.
Because my first engagement was a meeting at 10.30, I decided to still go for a run, still do some kettlebell exercises but to do it in my own time. Self-care has to be the most important thing right now after such a core-shaking experience. It made me feel better, and I paused to enjoy every single moment. I don't want days to pass me by anymore, or to be frantic, or to just let time slip away from me.
I've got to stop being so hard on myself. For the next few weeks, I have to take it easy and realise that what I have already done and achieved in my life is enough. I need to take deep breaths, spoil myself, do things I love to do, feel the sun on my face, enjoy simple pleasures and try to calm the voice inside me. To give life a chance!
I knew I was running ten minutes late to my meeting, so I texted in advance to say so because taking my damn sweet time was more important for my head than anything else. I had to go to University Square Stratford to talk to our head of civic engagement, Gail May. We were discussing a summer project to get young people from Newham involved in the university, and she relayed a story of a young boy who walked into one of their youth centres and was stabbed. It nearly made me cry, to be honest. I was so saddened that this stuff was happening and my colleagues were eschewing 'the death of cultural theory' in the academy. If you want to do something to change the world, change the horrific things happening on your doorstep.
Also present at the meeting was Anthony Nwachukwu, who works on music production and was very passionate about community engagement. I was very excited by his ideas and we decided that this summer we would work together on a four-day workshop in which young people would form their own band, write their band bio and 'band identity', produce a 1 minute track and film a short social media promo for it. Then they would pitch their band on the last day and present what they have made. Gail agreed that we would apply for funding from the Office for Students, and I'm very excited about how this could be realised - this is set to happen in June.
Afterwards I took it very slowly back to my office in Docklands where I Julia swung by my office, and I confided in her I had a rough weekend and that I was in tears on Saturday. She told me she wished I had called her, but I don't know how much 'crazy' I want to disclose! I told her I wanted to go and hug animals in Africa and remember what is important in life. She said that she just wanted to go for walks in ruins in Essex and it was telling that I said 'Africa' as to how far I wanted to move away from all of this.
We had a quick one hour lunch before the BA Advertising Programme Committee Review where Ben, Shanel, Nicole, John Sugrue and Luca were present along with IT Richard and Library Simone. Sabiha took notes. The students generally reported positive things and I mentioned the strategic portfolio development, which was well received.
Afterwards I taught Campaign Design and Execution, and KD2.18 was filled with journalism students. They played music and annoyed me, so it was hard to spend time with the groups. Jess's group and the Durex campaign is on track. Katie, Stefan and AJ have an okay campaign with Bacardi – a competition where people can win a mentorship. I don't want to interfere too much as it will become my idea not theirs. Lucia the Spanish girl opened up some rank-smelling pasta dish that smelled of garlic, then got annoyed with me when I told her to eat it outside of the room. At 3.30pm, I started to dip again, feeling anxious, and so I set the students up to delegate their tasks for next week then retreated to my office.
I focused again - 30 minutes answering emails. Then my colleague Anna Robinson came in to discuss how foundation level will feed into the main undergraduate media programmes. I allowed myself to become absorbed in the conversation and feel good about what we were planning for the students. I think we managed to create a very cohesive structure and that we had met the requirements from management. The creative strategy I am great at and enjoy so much! Delivery will be the next phase, but it's a bridge you have to cross...
I came home feeling good about myself and thinking I am making a difference and I am creating positive impact. I had booked to go to a Creative Entrepreneur's networking evening with The Tomorrow Network. At the event, Liverpool Arts Society and a woman named Kaya who had set up her own agency did a live podcast from 31 Below in Marylebone. I met a French journalist called Alys who was studying and MA in Journalism at City University. I also introduced myself to Kaya to tell her about my social enterprise Creative Wave and the person organising the network who was also called Allan (!) but was French. I briefly met a guy called George who was developing an app called Honeypot. In my opinion, it was a bit too Sloane-y for me, but I sipped a Diet Coke (no drinking at the moment) and basked a little in being in the company of people who were motivated to do their own creative things.
On the way home, I detected 'the death anxiety' again, causing me discomfort. The tube gets me... Seeing all the people everywhere and thinking about the fact they will all die. Someone posted a story on Facebook about how we wouldn't be able to blow a meteor out the sky if it came towards the earth, which set my senses ringing...
It started to rain, which feels very comforting at the moment – these 'big sky' things we can't control and make us feel alive. Munching on some nuts and having a cup of green tea, my predominant thought about today is how long and full the day can be if you really enjoy it. I want to enjoy the fullness of every day from now on and not let it speed by. Simultaneously, I have to 'trust' in the day because I'm still finding drifting off to sleep hard. i need to have faith in the passing of days, enjoy the flow each day brings and try to be in the moments.
Most of all, I have to stop thinking I can control or predict the future, that I will feel better about the future if I know exactly what will happen and that a fundamental truth of life is none of us knows what will happen in the next five minutes, let alone months or years. I need to get comfortable with living in this space of uncertainty – of not knowing what happens. That is just the way of life and no matter how much I think about it or confront it, it is not going to change the very fabric of life, time and nature.
And when that gets hard, focus on getting through the next 20 minutes.
Because my first engagement was a meeting at 10.30, I decided to still go for a run, still do some kettlebell exercises but to do it in my own time. Self-care has to be the most important thing right now after such a core-shaking experience. It made me feel better, and I paused to enjoy every single moment. I don't want days to pass me by anymore, or to be frantic, or to just let time slip away from me.
I've got to stop being so hard on myself. For the next few weeks, I have to take it easy and realise that what I have already done and achieved in my life is enough. I need to take deep breaths, spoil myself, do things I love to do, feel the sun on my face, enjoy simple pleasures and try to calm the voice inside me. To give life a chance!
I knew I was running ten minutes late to my meeting, so I texted in advance to say so because taking my damn sweet time was more important for my head than anything else. I had to go to University Square Stratford to talk to our head of civic engagement, Gail May. We were discussing a summer project to get young people from Newham involved in the university, and she relayed a story of a young boy who walked into one of their youth centres and was stabbed. It nearly made me cry, to be honest. I was so saddened that this stuff was happening and my colleagues were eschewing 'the death of cultural theory' in the academy. If you want to do something to change the world, change the horrific things happening on your doorstep.
Also present at the meeting was Anthony Nwachukwu, who works on music production and was very passionate about community engagement. I was very excited by his ideas and we decided that this summer we would work together on a four-day workshop in which young people would form their own band, write their band bio and 'band identity', produce a 1 minute track and film a short social media promo for it. Then they would pitch their band on the last day and present what they have made. Gail agreed that we would apply for funding from the Office for Students, and I'm very excited about how this could be realised - this is set to happen in June.
Afterwards I took it very slowly back to my office in Docklands where I Julia swung by my office, and I confided in her I had a rough weekend and that I was in tears on Saturday. She told me she wished I had called her, but I don't know how much 'crazy' I want to disclose! I told her I wanted to go and hug animals in Africa and remember what is important in life. She said that she just wanted to go for walks in ruins in Essex and it was telling that I said 'Africa' as to how far I wanted to move away from all of this.
We had a quick one hour lunch before the BA Advertising Programme Committee Review where Ben, Shanel, Nicole, John Sugrue and Luca were present along with IT Richard and Library Simone. Sabiha took notes. The students generally reported positive things and I mentioned the strategic portfolio development, which was well received.
Afterwards I taught Campaign Design and Execution, and KD2.18 was filled with journalism students. They played music and annoyed me, so it was hard to spend time with the groups. Jess's group and the Durex campaign is on track. Katie, Stefan and AJ have an okay campaign with Bacardi – a competition where people can win a mentorship. I don't want to interfere too much as it will become my idea not theirs. Lucia the Spanish girl opened up some rank-smelling pasta dish that smelled of garlic, then got annoyed with me when I told her to eat it outside of the room. At 3.30pm, I started to dip again, feeling anxious, and so I set the students up to delegate their tasks for next week then retreated to my office.
I focused again - 30 minutes answering emails. Then my colleague Anna Robinson came in to discuss how foundation level will feed into the main undergraduate media programmes. I allowed myself to become absorbed in the conversation and feel good about what we were planning for the students. I think we managed to create a very cohesive structure and that we had met the requirements from management. The creative strategy I am great at and enjoy so much! Delivery will be the next phase, but it's a bridge you have to cross...
I came home feeling good about myself and thinking I am making a difference and I am creating positive impact. I had booked to go to a Creative Entrepreneur's networking evening with The Tomorrow Network. At the event, Liverpool Arts Society and a woman named Kaya who had set up her own agency did a live podcast from 31 Below in Marylebone. I met a French journalist called Alys who was studying and MA in Journalism at City University. I also introduced myself to Kaya to tell her about my social enterprise Creative Wave and the person organising the network who was also called Allan (!) but was French. I briefly met a guy called George who was developing an app called Honeypot. In my opinion, it was a bit too Sloane-y for me, but I sipped a Diet Coke (no drinking at the moment) and basked a little in being in the company of people who were motivated to do their own creative things.
On the way home, I detected 'the death anxiety' again, causing me discomfort. The tube gets me... Seeing all the people everywhere and thinking about the fact they will all die. Someone posted a story on Facebook about how we wouldn't be able to blow a meteor out the sky if it came towards the earth, which set my senses ringing...
It started to rain, which feels very comforting at the moment – these 'big sky' things we can't control and make us feel alive. Munching on some nuts and having a cup of green tea, my predominant thought about today is how long and full the day can be if you really enjoy it. I want to enjoy the fullness of every day from now on and not let it speed by. Simultaneously, I have to 'trust' in the day because I'm still finding drifting off to sleep hard. i need to have faith in the passing of days, enjoy the flow each day brings and try to be in the moments.
Most of all, I have to stop thinking I can control or predict the future, that I will feel better about the future if I know exactly what will happen and that a fundamental truth of life is none of us knows what will happen in the next five minutes, let alone months or years. I need to get comfortable with living in this space of uncertainty – of not knowing what happens. That is just the way of life and no matter how much I think about it or confront it, it is not going to change the very fabric of life, time and nature.
And when that gets hard, focus on getting through the next 20 minutes.
| A gratuitous picture of Paul Smith in Marylebone |
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