Mr Self Indulgence

Well, now it seems the PC is not playing up after a weekend of cutting off and crashing...I don't know.

I'm wallowing in my existential what am I doing? What do I want to do? Where am I going in life? pool at the moment.

I need to be shocked back into life or either I'm too afraid to go out there...I thought I'd left Limbo Land but it still seems part of me is stuck there.

I don't want to send out too many negative posts out there because everybody gets put off...its alright to moan but not to share it with everybody else too often or else they all run away.

I'm ready to start making moves to get out the house and to see the big scary world any body want to come with men and hold my hand?

Get a grip.

Good Grief.

Not Good

It seems as if the PC I work from is on its last legs or a component is. I can be typing away or surfing the net and everything freezes, crashes or restarts so I'm never sure how long I'll be online at a time...

Calls will have to be made and assessments and decisions will have to be made over what to do about all this...with somebody who knows about these things.

I wonder if there's a best before date stamped inside the computer somewhere...

Red Shoes

Another one from last year...my sketchbook is full of different things. I think I am in my awkward phase as I try to discover what my style is. This is done in marker pen and based on a pose of a model from a Sunday newspaper supplement and the framing is influenced by Rene Gruau.


I have been listening almost non-stop to Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's album 'Alone in IZ World'...if you don't know his music look him up and see what you think.

I continue to chase down an appointment at the hospital and have now progressed to beind assured by email that all is in hand...hmmm

Liverpool continue to struggle to score goals.

That's all, no great insights or flurries of mad activity from this side of the mountain to report.

No snow but it has got cold again.

Happy Valentines Day!

Ta Daaaa!

Books that I've read this month

Oh, I had high hopes for this...I bought it admitedley on the strength of the cover image. If ever too much information was given in the quotes from critics and other authors that sometimes adorn the covers of books...this is one. You pretty much know what kind of story tiu're getting because of the comment chosen on the front cover. I figured the story out about halfway through the text which at best was average, I'm not sure if this was the translation from Japanese to English and losing something along the way. If you know your Japanese horror films then you'll be on familiar territory and perhaps that what prepared me for the story and ultimately left no surprises.

Now this I enjoyyed! I wouldn't have discovered 'Scott Pilgrim' if he hadn't arrived via Boston...thanks Stephanie!It tells the story of 23 year old 'betwen jobs' rock band playing Scott and the events that unfold when he meets Ramona Flowers...
Written and drawn by Bryan Lee O'Malley...it made me smile and served to also give another taster of what can or might be possible if I kick myself a bit...

In other news and decisions since the hospital is ignoring me I am starting to think its time to ignore the literature and to go for it...and make a great escape. I shall announce myself fit to travel into London and to wander aimlessly and to browse in shops and be enveloped by the noise and bustle of the crowded, hostile streets...sounds scary when I put it that way...hmmm watch this space!

Maybe its time to emerge from my protective bubble/cocoon...

Can you hear me?

Instruments of work that have not been used in anger for a while now guarded by three ninjas...look carefully they are there! For those that really want to know there are 0.3, 0.5. ,0.7, 0.9mm pencils which will probably have to morph into an Apple computer of some sort sooner than later...

I am convinced that my valve is ticking louder than normal...it probably isn't but I just think it is. Its been 7 weeks I'm sure I should have had my check after 6 weeks and did call to ask and have been told that they will look into it...guess who I'm calling tomorrow!

I have been receiving mail and not change to this credit card or pay us this amount by this date but CD's and books from Chloe and Stephanie! Although quite how the Boston things got here quite so quickly is bit of a shock...4 days by the Postal Service...are they trying to put Fed Ex out of business?!

I visited the newly opened Apple Store in the shopping centre I got taken to last week but as is quite often my strange way of shopping I looked but did not buy. I made note what cases were available and have since been reading reviews online at the Apple Store UK and Apple Store US. What one person rates another dislikes with a passion. Or hey don't get a case just be really really careful...hmmm. I have called in help on the matter see NM...not sure when I'll next get to an Apple Store but will probably get some sort of protective membrane for my iPod.

I finally saw the Cruise/Spielberg version of 'War of the Worlds' and thought the first hour or so was great...but then it started to run of steam and it felt like messrs Cruise and Spielberg were bored and ready to move onto their next projects. Visually, the red veined landscape was everything that 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory''s Chocolate Room should have been.Then at the end of the film God/Morgan Freeman has to do a voice-over to explain the whole ending to the viewer because the film just didn't really tell us what happened visually.

I also watched 'Once Were Warriors' (1994) directed by Lee Tamahori (who is currently in the news for all the wrong reasons), I'd heard good things about this film when it was released...12 years ago but never got around to seeing it. It's one of those brutal character studies of a genre sometimes called 'kitchen sink dramas'. The story is about a woman of Maori heritage trying to keep her family together under the rule of her husband who becomes increasingly abusive and violent under the influence of drink. The acting is very very good and it shows that New Zealand is not just Peter Jackson's 'Lord of the Rings'/'King Kong' sweeping vistas...if you're familiar with 'Star Wars: Attack of the Clones'...you will see a famiiar face pre Star Wars.

I wonder what they'll send me next...

Do they call their blogs...'le Blog' in France?

February

Wow, a month has already passed. I went to have a look at the world yesterday. That is to say I asked to go to a shopping centre where forlorn items hung or lay in the bins or hung from the racks marked 'sale'. I looked in newly opened stores at shiny advancements in technology. I saw people scurry about either disinterested or just perfunctorily going through the motions of buying whatever it is that they felt they needed.

I still feel strangely disconnected from it all and the experience of living, could this be in part to the residual medication in my system or just stem from not having a job and not feeling like a contributing part of society at large?

I must try hard not to alienate myself from the readers of this blog with tales of self absorbed pity for there are those who suffer great injustices and illnesses and tragedies far greater than my own trifle melodramas.

Physically I continue to heal with still the odd pain and sensation of strain across my chest, neck and shoulders but nothing I cannot live with. I find that I do not need painkillers on a daily basis. I am still amazed at my scar and not a day passes that I do not look at it even for a few seconds. The sound of the valve continues to annoy and fascinate me at different times. It is difficult to guage where I stand and if I am making progress ahead of, behind or exactly as it should be.

In an impractical world I would come to the end of the recuperation period, stock up on meds and take a trip around the world...but in the real world I'll have to find a job and rejoin the treadmill of life.

I look forward to putting the last few months to bed and to moving on despite the perminent reminder sounding inside and on the surface of me.