Old Woman Blues

When testing out this blog on my mobile I discovered it had a huge great ad at the bottom saying “make-up for old women” . Immediately I felt insulted, apart from it being rather ugly in itself the ad seemed to be saying this was a blog by an old woman. Now I look back and wonder why is “old” an insult? the ad was unsurprisingly about how older women should put on make-up to appear younger. I have long preached the values of getting older, yet still I find being called old insulting and I shouldn’t. I know it is used as an insult a lot in our culture, particularly towards women, but I am surprised at myself for having gone along with it.

Obviously the aches and pains that come with age can bring one down, and I know too well the fear of approaching disability and death, but surely ageing is part of the beautiful changing process of life we all go through. The idea of not being part of that cycle is to me ugly.

So too look on the bright side – am I reminding anyone of the last scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian here? – I am a hell of a lot happier now than I was when I was a teenager. I remember when I was about 14 a friend of my mum’s saying to me “enjoy life now because its all down hill after this”.  I have to say now, to my 14 year old self , that no, no it isn’t! I was a spotty, greasy haired unlovable geek then. Life has had many ups and downs but I am definitely far happier in myself now than I have been before.

I find with the passing years I worry less and less about fashion and other people are concerned less and less with how I am dressed. My clumsy, disorientated tendencies (which come with the brain disease that I’m sure I shall whine about in a later blog) are accepted more as eccentric behaviour and people are more helpful and empathetic than they were when I was younger. Now days I’m pretty much invisible to teenagers on the bus, and that is great, I can just potter along at my own speed unnoticed by the yobs that used to poke fun out of me. I know what is important to me, and who really matters, I know how to stick two fingers up to a lot of the crap that goes on.

I used to work in an office in my twenties, I hated that, perhaps even more than being a teenage geek. Me and the Rude Mechanicals did a song about it recently called Paperwork, the video for which, by Mat Green, is to be released this autumn.  Below are some images of the recent art installation I created in an office as part of Hammersmith Festival. It felt great getting the chance to mess an office up, chuck the paper everywhere and smash up the computer!

At the moment London economics, offices and people in suits are seen as the most important thing in the universe, but me, you, and the trees know, one day all that will disappear and the forest will return.

includes works by Jill Rock

includes works by Jill Rock, Marina Young

includes works by Jill Rock and Gardyloo Spew.

The Installation is called After and includes the works of Jill Rock, Marina Young and Gardyloo Spew

Perhaps this all makes me sound very old indeed, I’m hopefully barely half way through this changing process.  I enjoy my work, my friends, my flat and the very grumpy cat. I find the world incredibly beautiful, the tinniest detail can hold a million secrets and wonders. This is perhaps the desperate need for optimism in the face of incurable reality, but still – “Always look on the bright side of life…”

June begins with sinister paisley

It has been a busy week and I am exhausted, my head is thudding and the ibuprofen isn’t working yet. Thought I’d write this to keep my mind off it and before I start on the codeine.

The Library went well on Tuesday. The Library is currently my small front room and every full moon I hold an event there. This full moon it was Kathryn Davis giving a talk on quantum physics. It was fascinating, I still don’t have a clue about it apart from some things really remind me of The Hitchhikers Guide To the Galaxy, like the improbability drive. I was a young child when the Hitchhikers guide began, my dad was a big fan of Douglas Adams and we were brought up with the guide as a kind of religion, along with Star Trek. In fact, for a long time now life has generally worked out for the best if I just regard it all as The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

The epilepsy has been bad this week. Not surprising as it always gets more whenever I’m busy and I also have decided to take myself off the lyrica because it was doing my eyesight in. So it’s just good old Tegretol at the moment and my new faith in breathing exercises, which reminds me I missed yoga this week. Anyway I’ve been getting a seizure almost every time I wake up, which is really weird. I’m in a bad enough mood already when I wake up and having a turn pretty much ruins the entire morning. This week they have involved sharply coloured and intensely patterned spirals and twists enveloping me, they were like those famous silk patterns with tear-drop motif – paisley I think – but very conscious, exceeding powerful, and somehow gut twisting.

My dreams have also been disturbing this week. I keep getting this dream where I’m being chased by this sinister man/force. He is like a cross between William Blake, Beethoven in that famous portrait when he is older and very stern, and the twin peaks hero turned evil in the more recent twin peaks. He chases me though corridors and woods and tunnels. I wonder if it is anything to do with the installation of a ruined office I’ve been doing in Hammersmith this week. Will write more about that in a later blog, because the whole exhibition is huge and very worth while seeing but my head is just not together enough to explain such things as location write now.

On a more easy note I got some wonderful gifts for the Library this week, a box of postcards of botanical prints, a beautiful Aspen leaf necklace, a huge heavy book on Occult Philosophy that is big enough to stun an ox (Laurie Anderson quote, couldn’t resist), a catalogue of the Natural History and Science Emporium from New York, and a lovely card catalog box so I can order my books properly.

I have also sold almost all my Biro Beasts. Just one of the original 10 left, and I’ve started drawing more as they are good to draw and seem to get some of the mess in my head out.

The Black Hole on my Bedroom Shelves

Well it’s a bank holiday Monday, I was going to get lots done today but seeing as it’s 11 and I’m still in bed that probably isn’t going to happen. Alarm went off at 9, I woke up, cat sat on my face, I made a cup of tea, went to drink the tea in bed and had an epileptic turn. Saw the universe in the hole in my banking file, which then melted and everything melted into it. Took a while to figure out which universe I’m supposed to be in after that. Once it was over I went back to sleep where a very old man sat next to me in a hospital toilet cubicle and told me he had polio. His friend said he was only joking.

Had a good gig in South London on Saturday, a lovely friendly crowd who were well practiced in shouting “hurrah!” with the required hand signal. Sold some Biro Beast drawings and a couple of Rude Mechanicals Glass Eye albums as well. Glass Eye was the bands first album years ago, it sold out but folks have been asking for copies recently so we had another 100 made. On Saturday someone said we sound like Nick Cave and John Lee Hooker, I think that’s good, anyway it’s all gone a lot darker and swampy than it was and I like that, it suits the universe melting into a black hole in my bedroom files.

Last night I went to see Infernal Contraption play at the 100 club on Oxford street. They were very good with lots of odd noises and well thought out songs with interesting subjects. I also got in for free as Jowe put me on the guest list and then I had a drink brought for me so this felt good given my terrible financial situation currently. I managed to go out for the night in Oxford street for the £3 bus fair there and back. I also drew the a possible perfect child whilst waiting for the bus. Could be a development on the old logo?

I’ve taken the teeth from a crocodiles smile I’ve stolen the brains of a rich man I’ve torn the tongue from the snide st witch I’ve threaded my needle and now I must stitch[/caption]

Illustrations for Angela Carter’s Bloody Chamber

Cover Design

“And he kissed those blazing rubies, too.”

” Grasping the slack of her neck firmly between my teeth, I gave her the customary tribute of a few firm thrusts of my striped loins”

” He strips off his shirt”

Rusalka

Water Demons

I am possessed by demons due to wearing the evil mask Simon Aronson made me. But luckily it will all be alright because the 11th June is Rusalka Night!
It is in early June that the Rusalka water demons are most dangerous. They leave their watery depths in order to swing on branches of birch and willow trees by night. They entice bachelors and children dragging them down into the watery depths or tickling them to death!
To render these water demons harmless and perhaps lay their souls to rest the Rude Mechanicals will be celebrating Rusalka week on Saturday 11th June with music, dance, and the ritual burial of mermaids. http://www.rudemechanicals.co.uk

“And the ones that mother gives you don’t do anything at all”

12ft x 8ft oil painting - I was going through a very weird phase! 1999

The other day there was someone banging at my door and ringing the door bell all night long, but the battery in the door bell is dead and when I peered through the blinds there was no one there.

I’ve increased the amount of Lamotrigine I’m taking – the number of hallucinations and seizures was getting ridiculous.

Now my heart keeps having moments of awkwardness where it forgets what its supposed to be doing and then remembers and starts again in a hurry. Are heart jolts a side effect of Lamotrigine? I dare not look at the information leaflet as I’m likely to pass out just from reading it. I feel faint in supermarkets if I read the effects of vitamin tablets!

As well as being an anti-convulsive, Lamotrigine is used as a mood stabiliser. Yet when I was last on a heavy dose I got really aggressive, even started a fight in the street for no reason!

Its curious how ones mood can be controlled by drugs. Even more curious when you require drugs to stay sane. Reality is such an awkward thing, can slip through the fingers. The senses take in so much stuff, so much information, its a constant struggle trying to work it all out, what is relevant and how this should be interpreted. A tablet that makes that easier, slows it all down to a reasonable pace, can only be a good thing, right? So why do I feel uncomfortable when I take lots of them?

Have I seemed different? More aggressive to anyone over the last couple of weeks? Have my blogs been extra violent?

I’ve  felt a compulsive need to watch the comedy Green Wing, and am now seriously worried that I may bare a striking character resemblance to Sue White, the lunatic staff liaison officer.

I’ve failed to panic over the imminent deadline for the Library sculpture, which is worrying.

Didn’t mention the ghost dog to the lady from Battersea Dogs Home. She disapproved of my garden (too overgrown) but warmed to me once she saw the Icon pictures on my wall. She thought this meant I was a Christian, which I imagine she is. I didn’t correct her. Like the ghost dog I don’t think the visions would have gone down well, and everybody feels the need to convert an Agnostic. My dad saw the Icon pictures and was very worried that I might have joined the Church. The very best way to rebel against my parents would be to become a practicing Christian, or even better a Born Again.

Well just so its clear, I’m not a Christian, though fascinated by the subject of faith, and I’m not a lunatic. My brain just has wayward tendencies. It has visions (and since they are more real than anything else I experience they cannot be ignored!) and it likes to make connections that aren’t there. So if there is a fan going it will hear it as voices, if there is a repetitive noise for a while it will keep hearing it even once the noise is silenced, if there are dog bones and doggy people about it will create a dog ghost. So I’m probably saner than the rest of you put together, but reality is an awkward thing.

Funny how blogs lend themselves to mentioning nonsense, “bollocks” as my sisters would say. Most of the time I do everything I can to hide it. I’ve taught classes in colour theory whilst thumb sized beetles roamed across my body. Despite my need to drink endless cups of tea no one noticed anything unusual.

The Ghost of a Dog

Stars. They’re useless! Up there in the sky with that know it all look about them, that “I can tell your future” twinkle. But they can’t! Hot Passion, huh! I had a bad cold and the electricity men hitting things with hammers in my hallway. Rubbish! Then there was that greasy good-for-nothing guitarist Mr Cos, coming round here stealing CD’s, thinking he’s got the right just because they’re his. The cheek! Mr G Avern, my reliable bassist and  Other One, has hand lurgy so he’s no good, he can’t protect the CD’s from Cos. All useless!

At least I have my ghosts:

The Box of Bones

I made the box for the bones found in my back garden. I have only drawn a dog’s skeleton on the top because I don’t want to think of it being a murdered wife or anything. I like this flat I’m now in and love the garden so don’t want them to turn bad against me. It probably was a beloved dog whose flesh has fed my garden, yes I like that. When I die I want to feed other things, to rot, to be eaten, to have the roots of nettles and sycamore trees creeping through my bones. I say sycamore trees because my garden is full of them, the garden must have been a tiny sycamore forest till they were all chopped down, now they’re growing back again with avengence which means at some point I might have to do some gardening.

Interestingly I’ve been having a good hallucination of late. There’s a dog in my flat, a mongrel, very friendly wagging its tail , I bend down to stroke it and it’s gone. I like it though, beats the usual insect and bird monster hallucinations. I did consider that it might be the ghost of the dog whose bones I’ve put in the box. Possible. Or it might be that dastardly part of my brain that does things without my consent deciding that it wants a ghost from the bones and therefore creating one. It does that. The dog vision isn’t as strong today as it has been the last few days, I kind of miss it. I’m still trying to get a real dog though, the lady from Battersea Dogs Home is coming round to inspect my flat on Friday. Worrying. Do they give dogs to people who hallucinate dogs? Perhaps I shouldn’t mention it.