How to not buy an i-phone in 4 chapters.
1. After much deliberation, and aching shoulders from lugging a laptop around, decide to invest in an i-phone. 4pm Sunday, pile family into car, drive to O2 shop, discover that current phone contract with 3 has a month to run. Decide to wait a month. Go home. Spend a month noticing all the occasions when I would have used my iphone.
i2. One month later. Go back to O2 shop, discuss the various details and decide the business contract is best. Haven’t brought any documentation or ID for my business. Go home. Spend a week or so noticing all the times when I would have used my iphone.
3. Some time later. Go back to O2 shop. Discover the new phone comes out today, along with new contract details so discuss options, and make decision. Phone 3 for PAC code. Possibly the most stressful 25minutes of my life battling with relentless woman to get PAC code. Felt quite shaky by the end. She said she would text it in the next few hours. Hang out in town for a few hours.
4. Go back to O2 shop. Very busy (new phone out – I find it weird how many people want one immediately). My credit application is rejected! Go home feeling depleted and contact experian. My record shows I went a few pounds over my overdraft limit twice in the last year and haven’t fully paid off my credit card for the last couple of months. No late payments or other misdemeanours. Can’t believe this is enough to reject my application. Awaiting reply from enquiry to experian. continuing to notice all the times when I would have used my iphone. PAC code expires in a month, so if I don’t get it all sorted, I’ll have to psyche up to that phone conversation again.
I've hit an alltime low. I feel really overwhelmed, and like giving it all up. I've decided to blog about it, because if no-one admits that sometimes it's too hard, it sets impossible standards for everyone else, and we all compare ourselves to these false images of parents who cope beautifully.
I'm tired, I'm run down, I keep being ill, I'm short tempered, small problems feel like big problems. No matter how I try to shoe horn my workload into my available time it doesn't fit. I need to worker harder, quicker, longer and I just can't find the energy.
Worst of all, I have two projects that I want to make, and I don't see any possibility of finding the time to get in my studio to do them. Despite ACE funding, I still haven't made the work that's agitating around in my mind.
I need to change my attitude and my work pattern, because I value my health and happiness. But, once again, it looks like the thing to go will be the studio time. I need to accept that these two projects may take years not months to achieve, which is so frustrating when I know I could probably get them resolved if I could work on them full time for two months.
I need to cultivate patience and generosity towards myself, but my mind is filled with a sense of disappointment and failure. Maybe I've got things out of perspective, but today the future feels bleak.
Ps. Keep forgetting to mention – I decided not to rush ahead with a NAN application for APT = Artists Parents Talking. I've had tons of ideas about what we might do, but I'd like to develop the conversation through the a-n forum (when it's set up) then apply to ACE and NAN together for a more substantial fund to develop the network strategically.
I keep wanting to forge ahead more quickly, but I know from experience that it's better to be patient and do things properly.
I forgot my 'two year theory' in my excitement. (every project takes two years to do, so get your head round it, keep working at it, accept it and remember that 'Rome wasn't etc etc')
I keep feeling like I should be doing more in my studio. Despite my ACE funding, designed to enable a 'sustained period of studio time', I still feel my practice is fractured and 'bitty'. The money has relieved the pressure to earn money to some extent, but I still can't turn down freelance opportunities that may be lucrative, or lead to further work – and I still have a family to care for. It's just been half term AGAIN – I feel like they are never at school lately!
To some extent I think I am more focussed and driven than I have ever been, as a direct result of having children. But I can't help wondering if approaching my making through a series of short bursts of energy, (rather than in a natural timescale, where one works on a job until it is appropriate to leave it) must affect the end result.
I think I need to organise a couple of days soon where I can just stay in the studio until I'm ready to leave, rather than when the alarm sounds – I literally do set an alarm, that gives me precisely 3 minutes to get out of the studio and on the road, which means I arrive at the school gate in a distracted state, but allows me to squeeze every drop out of the time.
