Beads

If there's one thing I just cannot resist it's buying beads. Big, small, fat, thin, cheap, expensive, sparkly, matt, subtle, garish, any type of bead. And here's the results of manic endless bead shopping waiting to be made into profit via being made into jewellery. What a task. Piles and piles of them. Each pile on an A4 piece of paper representing the collections I'm doing. from simple to ornate to surf-y to 1950's pearls, 1980's plastic, and 2000's lariats, it's all there. Shells and sparkles and wire and pins and findings and glue and a big pile of WORK! eeeek. Shows coming up are here.

Things I'm good at; who am I?

What job does the person below have? (this is not a trick question)(unfortunately)

Things I'm good at
Sleeping
Comforting people
Staying calm in a crisis
Making Flapjack
Selling luxury goods
Threading beads
Listening
Thinking up entrepreneurial schemes
Smiling in the face of disaster
Creating something from nothing
Looking better than I feel
Sitting with silence
Matching up colours
Shopping for the exact right thing
Personal shopping
Trend spotting
Bargain hunting
Doing make-up
Reading ingredients of everything
Making up new buzz words
Posing for photographs
Appearing glamorous
Appearing efficient
Smelling nice
Cleaning the kitchen
Showing enthusiasm
Articulation
Attention to minute physical detail
Remembering great detail
Looking youthful
Telling the truth

Things I'm not good at
Looking conservative
Paperwork
Filling in forms
Saving money
Sticking with relationships
Resisting another beer
Deadlines
Stress
Boring jobs
Getting up very early
Resisting a bargain
Taking my vitamins every day
Resisting another kiss
Lying

Stuff I still do (obviously)

Tuesday 17th october. The photo shoot was excellent fun. It reminded me why I ever did it in the first place. Its not for the photo but for the experience of standing there in some bizarre pose while Chris clicks away through the Comedy Lens. We all arrived and drank beers. Chris posed the shot. Then we sneaked off to Hackney Town Hall to shoot it. A little draggly line of bizarre outfits and babies moving through the back streets of London, giggling.

And there were;

Diesel, (huge biker with huge shiny bike; in biker gear and helmet)
and there was
Karen, (Chris's orange haired muse in waif dress and black stetson)
Katie (cute actress) in slip and huge fluffy pink fairy wings,
me (depressed jeweller) in black trousers platforms and obscenely pink fluffy coat and ridiculous shades,
Alan (re-enactor) in steely blue helmet, armoured gloves codpiece and tail,
Birgit (cheery jeweller) in blue velvet, heels and head jewellery,
Zak (journo and Mum) in multi coloured fleece patchwork jumpsuit and akubra hat,
Gemma (Mum) in tracksuit and shades, and
Becca (tiny baby) in baby clothes with a big lipstick-kiss planted on one cheek.

They were all in the photo; but with us, to hold things, and point, and distract potential security guards were Drak (new troubledad?) Zoe (with Katie) and Sophie (doing digital shots of The SharkShoot Process) and of course Chris without whom none of this would ever be possible.

We all re-posed manically fast round the bike on the steps of the town hall amid puzzled glances and after a very short time indeed 15 shots were done. Then Jackie (glamourous blonde rock chick) arrived too late to be in the shot and we all oohhed and aahhed and went to the pub. Just like old times. Almost.

Was too tired to blog yesterday! This post will eventually have a picture with it. Watch this space, it'll be wicked.

I've put this post in with the others at National History Day :)

Stuff I used to do

A really really long time ago when my hair was short and pink I used to hang out in fetish clubs and drink with photographers, madams, punks, goths, ex-victims of this that and the other, all half starved, perma-drunk and miserable. I'm not that person anymore. No-one tells me what to do or wear or that everything I say do and create is somehow pathetic. Or that my class is anything whatsoever to do with how I treat people. EVER AGAIN. Tomorrow I'm having my photo, as part of the alternative-shark-family taken by Chris again. Frankly, I'm bricking it. I'm fatter and a whole lot more angry than I was. I have nothing in common with these people anymore other than my arms legs and head. And my tattoos. And my clothes. And my drinking habit. And my unemploy-a-bility. Oh OK THEN maybe I have. Will it show in one of Chris's photos? You bet it will. He photographs people's feelings with scary insight. In a couple of days, I might be looking at the worst photograph of me yet. Thank god it's a group shot.

Ebay; Magnetic Streaking Hook

Yea, it's here. You never thought you'd need one, but here it is. For those Naked Moments. Aw.

Filth cake and ambition.

Tonight I saw a band called Monotaxi. I specially liked their glittery aqua blue guitar. I spent today wandering away from home and away from, well, everything, trying hard to come to terms with the word "comfortable". Am I comfortable where I live? With who I am, and with what my ambitions are, and with how many of them are being realised? Perhaps, like my bulging wardrobe full of clothes, my ambitions and aims have become confused and cluttered, some worn out and replaced but none yet fully discarded. No clear style has ever emerged out of my wardrobe other than "purple". No clear aim has ever emerged out of my life other than "make shiny things". I'm not a very clear-cut person. Perhaps I should make purple shiny things.

I can make chocolate cake though. It's one of the things I'm good at. I can't blame my expanding waistline on anyone but myself when I make stuff like this. Melt 300g darkest chocolate with 275g whitest sugar and 165g hard baking margarine (or butter if you're not allergic). Melt them slowly, in a glass dish over hot water, stirring, inhaling the vapour and watching the bizarre crunchy lumps turn to glistening dark goo. Don't microwave it; that'll take the soul out of the recipe. Beat 5 large eggs together and stir them into to the hot chocolate slowly to form a glossy, gloopy batter. Pour into a well greased cake time with a removeable base. Bake at 180 degrees for 35-40 minutes, cool, and remove the sides of the tin. Serve in small wedges. Its more of a baked mousse than a cake, and I nicked the original recipe from the Green and Black's cookbook My friend stray named this cake; after first tasting it, she said "Wow, that's like... porn for the mouth! it's pure filth!" and so it became... Filth Cake. Enjoy!

teeth

Yup, it's both my right wisdom teeth. I went in and the young man said "You're down here to be having two out" And I must have said something that sounded like "WHAT!!!!" but he said it would be nescessary and Ok....what could I do? He was the one with enormous shiny steel plunger with the super-long, glitteringly sharp, hair-fine needle in it... he was the one wearing the pinstripe shirt and the grin. I suddenly got all a bit trembly, or at least, my hands did, which seemed to be running on a different emotional circuit to my cheerful breezy voice. All in all, considering how the LAST one went (over an hour and 5 jabs, drilled away bone what felt like half my jaw, left massive loopy stitches, huge swelling continuous bleeding and left me out of action for 3 weeks) this one was a total party. But the young man still had to call his boss in to get the top one out.

What is it with me and medical observers? Even on completely routine tooth-out surgery they have to call the boss in. On allergy testing, they always call the students in. Even in therapy I had a work-experience lady sitting in on one or two sessions. Hopefully it's not just me; hopefully its just that lots of people are studying medicine. That's what I hope anyway. Because the world certainly need it's share of doctors.

On a more up-note, I'm going to try this again, come November. Seeing as I have no job, in the official sense of the word, I may as well bash out my Opus Novel.