Tra la la, Tralala, everything lovely, on top of everything, leisurely session in studio exporting video for light night. Tra la laaaaaagh!!!!
Logon process initialization failure. Please consult the event log for more details. I have an event log? huh?
See you at Light Night. This Friday. In 4 days. I’ll be the one in a heap in the corner.
‘Inside Out’ at ACE Clothing, 5 -10pm, Leeds www.lightnightleeds.co.uk
The changing rooms in the shop are cast as wtiness to our consumerist desires. A film (strangled yelp goes here) about presence and absence projected in the shop windows. And some other stuff in the changing cubicles. (gulp).
At the front of a very long queue of traffic, in conversation with the man in the toll booth at the Humber Bridge.
man: £2.70 love
me: oh dear… the thing is, I don’t actually want to cross the bridge…I took the wrong turning at the..
man: this is a toll bridge. You need to give me £2.70
me: yes I see. It’s just that, I don’t actually have any money, and I don’t want to cross the bridge. I went wrong at the roundabout and…
man: all the cars are waiting.
me: (wobbly voice). Oh dear. What should I do? You see I couldn’t turn round because of the central reservation and I’ll be late to pick up my daughter if I have to go all the way over the bridge and back and I’ve got no money and…
man: you can pay by card
me: (all attempts at assertiveness dissolved). oh. Yes. of course. That’s what I should do…. (tearily) can I have a return ticket?
Or at least that was the version of events in my head as I sat helplessly in the queue. Then I spotted a gap in the central reservation, hurrah, yahoo!! A way out, and better still no need for assertiveness or confrontation.
I blame it on The Archers – it was Annette’s latest love interest that distracted me.
I keep dreaming that I’m typing great witticisms and brilliant insights into my blog. If only it were true. I can’t even remember them in the morning. At least I am brilliant in my sleep I suppose.
I found this, in my handwriting in a notebook, which was encouraging: ‘sometimes when I’m writing, reading or thinking about art I get a sensation in my head as if a blast of wind has briefly lifted a lid on my brain and I have a sense of a possibility of seeing/thinking about things differently. Then it’s gone.’ I’m pretty sure I must have written it, as I certainly understand the sentiment!
Below, in a different pen it said this, (which I will put into practice soon – probably alone in the living room…)
‘Hard Times Require Furious Dancing’, Alice Walker 2007
When I’m incubating an idea, preparing to transform it into a reality, I wish I could skip the stage I’m in now – the ‘oh god what was I thinking, this is a terrible, boring, pointless idea that no-one is interested in – and I’ve got to force myself to see it through’ stage.
I keep wanting to just give up, but then have to face the stark reality that that means giving up on everything I’ve been working on for the past several years as all my ideas are facets of one driving force.
I like the shiny exciting glint of a new idea feeling much better than this.
A cup of tea and spot of ‘hanging out the washing’ should see me through in the short term. I think that’s one of my top ten strategies – washing as art practice. Good job there are loads of dirty clothes to go at.
In the interest of balance and truth I feel obliged to report that today I did ‘one of my routines’ as they are fondly known in our house.
‘I can’t cope, I do everything in this house, I never get a day off, it’s not normal, something needs to change, I don’t know how to do it differently, it’s just chaos all the time, go away daughter I’m talking to your dad, it’s not possible to do less, well that’s easy for you to say, yes I know we’ve been over all this before. a lot.’
I’m going to try keeping my work to 4 days a week, and spend a day a week getting on top of home and life.
Any bets on how long it’ll last?
