my blog

has been an absolutly fantastic way to document and has been a foolproof way to gather info for my novel, but i will com to a point where i delete it . ive got to that point where a website will be up and running soon and have been out with prof photographers trying to make my ugly mush sellable. just so ya warned!

start wearing purple! wearing purple!

wow! Gogol Bordello are playing rock city! I'm so exited!!!

seems like every weekend is so totally busy for me at the moment. I'm rusing around all over te midlands all the time for all sorts of random obligations and its tireing. im so knackered!

Moley is being lovely and he *bless* wants to take me to see Beauty and the Beast (Disney version) at Dmh for my birthday (well, not actually on my birthday). On the big Sabrinamass day itself I'll (hopefully) be going to latasca for a spanish meal with Mole (if he can make it), morph, Lucy W, Lucy H, Flippyflop, Angie, Nick, Helena, Weird Al and Josh. Fabby! (charisse and Edgar - if you can make it tell me and ill book extra seatage)

on a less apeasing note, im pissed off because the disco (who invented this stupid usb???) is non-compatable with htis computer and im now going to have to bugger off and find an ipod, download the stuff onto it and email the latest version to stephen lowe. grr. hassle that i can do without.

I NEED THE INTERNET DAMMIT!

its soooo inconvenient!

on the writing front the sector story is going well with the planning, starchild is going well with redrafting and the novel is actually being inbetween play fun for me to play with.

on the devlopment side ace-semper is still ongoing, and allthough its slow i fel that its coming. a laboured process! waknham-ace is also simple enough to start when i have a free moment (if i ever do) and artspartnership-semper is going ok in some ways, allthough im less encouraged, as ladyfest seems to have not had much sucess with them.

sorry!!!

I’ve not been here for a while its cos beta is GAY and won’t let me long on at work!!! I have to snatch internet moments here and when I can and often my mind is pretty blank when I think “oh must update blogger”
Well I’m actually working on a few things as writers semi-block has lifted and I’m feeling pretty prolific at the moment. I’m doing the damned novel and its going well. My collage technique seems to be providing the much needed structure that I was requiring and I’m enjoying it loads!!! The only downside is that it’s going to take a lot longer than I once thought...
In other news I’m doing good on my 3rd draft of starchild and the cave that too seems to be melting into place and is totally being a proper joy to write!
And just as a capper I’ve started on the piece for the long awaited simper project that we are all waiting with baited berth for!!! It’s a 2 hander set in a club that was very dear to my heart for many years and (I hope) a few other people enjoyed as well and its more comic and realistic (apart from the mannequins) it’s also kind of for a girl I once knew and all the others who were emotional casualties of the 90’s that didn’t quite survive

Oh Dear!

Moleboy and I have moved house to somewhere that has no internet and its also somewhere that is very small with a weird little gremlin-man in the front room that we will be trying to remove as he has no idea about the difference between Amy Winehouse and Lilly Allen (oooh! crime!)

Anyway - Its hard for me to access the net at te moment and to have the coherent thought to do some type of bloggymcblogblog post. Im getting very odd about the house and have started making compost, while the mole keeps saying that a man needs a lawn to mow and that he wants a dog. He's 2 mins away from a flat cap and sheepdog. Too many HE Bates novels.

University Challenge just had a run of questions on "Semper Eadum". I think thats a sign.

I cant access blogger at work. the computer there just wont let me and I dont know why. I've tried to put myself on some type of "dont eat chocolate and get off lazy arse" type diet and have failed on te first day. had a banana for breakfast, peach, pear, cob and cold pizza for lunch, countless little dimebar chocolates throughout the day, salad, potato salad and old lazagne for dinner and im hungry again. i wish i was like the mole and just "forgot to eat" how the hell can you forget to eat? What type of person does that and how do I become one??? at least there is no wine involved. Anyway. I'm going swimmin tomorrow with weird Al so that will at least make me fel better about the ever expanding gut.

Im dying

i feel ill. sure im coming down with bronchitus or some type of terrible lurgey...

so anyway, it looks like i may not have home tinternet access for teh newst few months (dammit) cos ive moved house and there is some wack deal on that means i cant actually do my work with BT (who are useless). what is on my horizon i hear you all scream in anticipation?

Ladyfest is on the 6/7/8th oct so get yo asses there.
im being interviewd at some point by ed stillard for 69 mag with the publicity specilist from the semper project
im dying

yes. actually dying is going to take up most of my time and my main intrest will be lemsip...

gak!

Tears dry on their own.

Have you heard the new Amy winehouse song? I’m not generally a big fan but I do like it and it made me actually listen to Back to Black (song not album) and download some of her stuff cos it’s pretty interesting. I like Amy Winehouse now, actually for the music as opposed to the tattoos and fact that she scares Hoffmole half to death!

Anyway – Looks like I’m conducting the Ladyfest theatre writing workshop on my own! Eek! What a scary thought! I’m gonna have to dig out all those Emma Rosoman exercises and try to create some purpose in 2 hours.

Today someone at work wanted to buy the cardigan that I’d scavenged from Nunu the policewoman’s eBay pile…

It’s green.

Anyway – Semper is taking shape (in my head and on paper if nowhere else) and some bloke from the secular hall called Wilfred Gaunt (great name) keeps missing me (and I keep missing him). I’ve been a megalomaniac and:

• Split people up into teams (we should really actually have a bit of a discussion regarding what EXACTLY each team does)
• Got the ACE form nearly completed
• Done the budget (briefly – we need to speak about this also)

But it makes me feel that I've had some type of progression rather than just mellowing around in circles.

In addition:

• The while room theatre company have been in touch and I’ve been briefing them about what Semper is all about
• There is a youth-at-risk arts group in Loughborough that want to take part

Also there are 2 ways my life can go at the moment…

1) Uni – do I want to go back to uni? I would like to be a student again. It was fun.

2) Trainee Housing Adviser – I stop the evil council evicting people. Nuff said.

Black Butterfly

The black butterfly symbolises the malfunctioning nature in modern society. It creates and harbours the illusion that butterflies are an infinitely feminine and beautiful creature. Moths are not beautiful, indeed some people are petrified of them, so to make the butterfly black is to shift the focus away from beauty and simply add it into the Addams Family-style dimension of the sinister and bizarre.

Surely, to shift a motif of beauty into the area of gothic fantasy (with or without a sense of humour – I haven’t decided yet) is to replace the meaning of beauty. Replacing the meaning of beauty then in turn questions the area that made the original meaning. And that throws the original premise swiftly down to the abyss of anarchy.

It devalues and fucks up meaning, it highlights that nothing is stable. The black butterfly is here with us to stay. Not so much a moth, not so much a butterfly, not a caterpillar anymore, nothing.

But it is something. I’m not existentialist enough to simply say nothing. Simply the black butterfly exists.

And thank God it does! If everything was as simply defined then we’d all be out of a job! It then symbolises something more.

What is this more? What?

It now becomes a symbol of the dysfunctional, the cynical and the depressed. It is a manifestation of what is seen beyond reality.

The butterfly hovers like a humming bird, but makes no noise.

It’s the newspaper article that accuses another mascara brand of using fake lashes on airbrushed models; it’s the pyramid scheme, its “earn £200 extra per week” cards in the post office. It’s an ASBO awarded to the poor family that do not have a garden for their kids to play in so they kick a ball about in the street.

The black butterfly is the un-squashable feeling of the alternative. It’s the marginalised feeling. It’s not being able to cope with what you are supposed to be, it’s a manifestation.

Its Frauza Balk going from Dorothy Gale to Nancy, its Sylvia Plath’s corpse hanging out of the back of an oven, its Amy Winehouse singing about Rehab and then going to rehab.

It’s what Beth Ditto wants to be but sold out.

There is something just not right with a world that prides things that don’t really matter over shit that does. Really. What are you more worried about? The double chin? The size of your penis? Those new shoes in Topshop or the twelve people who were just killed in some foreign war-torn country halfway across the globe. Honestly? For me it’s those shoes in Topshop. I’m just as bad as the rest of them. I’m just as conditioned and exposed to modern society. If I wasn’t I wouldn’t by clothes from Primark, have a freezer or shave my legs. We are all conditioned into this false economy. False. That’s what it is. Takes a special person to stop and really look.

Plato banged on about caves and images and prisoners. It’s the modern world. It’s any world, but then the butterfly shakes my argument with its dark wings fluttering at the back of my mind. What is real?

headache

oh ive got a headache. ive been doing my dasterdly deeds all weekend regarding a certain semper project and its given me a headache.

just wanna say a big fank yoo to alex walsh for helping sort this pigsty out.

went over to my mate nu's ebay corner last night. it was pretty brill. got some brown trousers and cardigans and tops and a necklace. got some stuff for charisse as well.

And something AMAZING happened on the way over there... Hoffmole actually said "you look nice" thats the first time EVER he's said that!!! its usually insults masqurading as compliments from that one. i was (as usual) head 2 toe primark clasics (got a dress £3 the other day when i went shopping with angie)

Mole said we could watch 2 movies tonight and he'd cook stir fry and I'd make a trifle. So far I've made a trifle and he's played video games. Some things never change.

I'm gonna do an MA next year in playwriting. I've got the cash secured now. Where is good to go?