Fear and Loathing in London

Felt like this!

It hadn’t started particularly well. I had put my hair up in a Chinese style chignon but it was TOOO tight and although I looked hugely perky it was because I couldn’t really shut my eyes. Due to that (and also the fact that with visual impairment like mine I can’t always do the blink reflex in time) I then managed to stick the thick wool collar of my coat into my eyeball as I was getting ready to catch the train. This meant that by the time I got to the station I had an almighty headache and a sore eye but it didn’t matter as my hair was too tight to allow me to scowl.




 I was in London to attend a series of talks called ‘The Representation of Disabled People in an Age of Austerity’. It was fascinating if devastating stuff. Professor Nick Watson of the Strathclyde Centre for Disability Research and Allen Sutherland of the Edward Lear Foundation fed back from a study commissioned by Inclusive London in which they had analysed all articles mentioning disability in a series of newspapers over two time blocks in 2004/5 and 2010/11. Articles were scanned for emphasis, political angle, language, and so forth.


The study had been followed up by several focus groups to test general public attitudes and those of people living with chronic illness or a disability.
Here is the link to the article : http://www.inclusionlondon.co.uk/ and I am going to just quote a couple of the major findings from the study here but as you can imagine it was pretty grim stuff.

• These articles are impacting on people’s views and perceptions of disability related benefits. The focus groups all claimed that levels of fraud were much higher than they are in reality, with some suggesting that up to 70% of claimants were fraudulent. Participants justified these claims by reference to articles they had read in newspapers.
• This strength of fraud as a tabloid theme conflicts with the reality of levels of incapacity benefit fraud and focuses public perceptions of responsibility for Incapacity Benefit levels on claimants rather than problems in lack of labour market demand, economic policies or discrimination.

Its actually 0.03%!!

• There has been an increase in the number of articles documenting the claimed ‘burden’ that disabled people are alleged to place on the economy – with some articles even blaming the recession itself on incapacity benefit claimants

This talk was then followed by feedback from a study conducted (and ongoing ‘Hidden In Plain Sight’) commissioned by the Equality and Human Rights Commission on disability related harassment. The young woman presenting (I apologise as did not catch her name) said they had been inundated with information, examples, experiences and more. The report shows undeniably that ‘... harassment is a commonplace experience for disabled people, but a culture of disbelief and systemic institutional failures are preventing it from being tackled effectively.’


The speaker asked us to put up our hands if any of us had experienced harassment due to our disability...and almost every person in the room put up their hand. The woman advocated standing up for ourselves, taking a hard line stance but we all know that it is precisely this kind of engagement which in the current climate of aggressive misery can lead to real trouble. We nodded wearily. http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/legal-and-policy/inquiries-and-assessments/inquiry-into-disability-related-harassment/hidden-in-plain-sight-the-inquiry-final-report/


The last speaker Deborah Williams of Reality Productions, reenergized us with a couple of exercises to ‘create’ the ultimate disabled person from attitudes of current media.


What is a good disabled person?


Quiet! Stoic! Sexless! Grateful! Dead or cured! We yelled. ‘Paraolympians! Ex- Army! Tiny Tim! Blunkett!


And a bad one?


Fraudster! Whiner! Political! Angry! Confrontational! Aggressive! Sexual! Mentally unstable! Heather McCartney! Captain Hook! Hoodies with Attention Deficit Disorder! Err Blunkett again!

It's our life!

This was fun but when we all got up to leave I was glad that speaker had written it all down with a pale pink pen and I couldn’t see all the words littering the white board.

This is not just a game after all....

Getting tight.

The clocks have gone back and BAM just like that I am a hedgehog again and all I want to do is hibernate. This year in particular I have really noticed the brain change. Grace and I usually get up at 6ish (very ‘ish’!) She eats and slopes back to bed and I do my chanting meditation and think about ‘stuff’ and what to write and how plan my day. But since the clocks, I am dopey and dizzy and can’t surface (and my eyes have been a shambles of oedema and ache.) I know it isn’t just psychosomatic, although of course there will be an element of that. When darkness plonks itself down like an unwelcome wedding guest at 4.00pm in the blinking afternoon I turn into a middle-aged, fairy tale princess (possibly more ogre) trapped in my flat trying to spin flax into gold on my computer.



However that is enough whining. I don’t yet have to panhandle for food or sleep in a doorway and I am very grateful for that.... just annoyed by the slight feeling of melancholic claustrophobia that the change in season brings.

That and tights. Freakin’ sodding tights. I hate the things. When I was a kid at boarding school the small girls were not allowed to wear tights until they were seniors. At the time I thought this unfair. There we were, the little ones, with our red wind chapped thighs and frosted knees whilst the older girls had thick brown nylon to protect them from the chill. There was a kind of mystical sophistication that we all thought would come as soon as we donned our first pair of Pretty Polly tan tights. But it was all a terrible con

Spiderman having a backwards gusset moment

First of all you spend several minutes holding the tights up in front of your face desperately trying to work out which is the front and which the back because if you don’t get it right you get twisted up like a fish in a net with your gusset on backwards. A backwards gusset was developed as a form of torture during medieval times when everyone wore heavy woollen tights. A backwards gusset is the equivalent of being in the stocks. A backwards gusset means your tights will be too short and rub in awkward and painful places, you will be forced to walk like a duck...and, in cheap tights, you will also spark like a mini Guy Fawkes. Tights pah! Unventilated and sweaty ...and please don’t tell me you haven’t been in a post shower situation with slightly damp skin trying to drag those suckers up? Hell sir! And now its winter and rather than facing the large moth-eaten bag of old tights with their baggy knees and holes in crucial places, some of them still in the balls I made to throw at the wall, I invest in expensive luxury, thigh slimming, ventilated-gusset, designer beauties only to immediately put my fingernails through them as I pull ‘em up. Two pairs already balled and thrown from wall into wastepaper basket.





wot's a 'tights'?



Tights. Nope. Gonna be wearing pyjama bottoms under my dresses from now on.



Canary in the Coalmine.

It is a gorgeous day. High blue hanging tapestry of sky with crisp, cold air just enough to make your breath mist as you shout obscenities at the government. Not that we would of course. Most of us haven’t go that much breath to waste, confined as some of us are in wheelchairs or strapped into various bits of engineered exoskeleton, hanging on to guide dog harnesses or canes or friends or a combination thereof. For many of us just moving forward makes us gasp for air.

David C

The police mill around looking sheepish. ‘They are just here in case the rowdy element kick off,’ I say to my friend C as she surveys the frail looking folk in their assistance scooters. ‘That guy in particular,’ I whisper, pointing to a dummy in a wheelchair ( noooo... I am NOT doing a Ricky Gervais. It is an actual dummy) with a David Cameron mask on. Oddly, as people pass it they make little signs with their hands that look suspiciously like ‘warding off devil’ signs...if a ‘warding off devil’ sign involves an extended middle finger.


The lovely folk in the lead make us practice chanting before we set off. For 99% of us, shouting for anything is an entirely new experience. Most people with an impairment or a chronic illness are quietly stoic. The older generation in particular often settle into that ‘Blitz’ mentality of ‘keeping calm and carrying on.’ But now keeping calm and carrying on might kill you. Certainly it will lead to further exclusion and greater poverty. It is with a shocking sadness that we are rallying, accused of ‘scrounging’ of ‘leaching off the state’ and ignored almost entirely by a society warped by the recession.

The Disabled are Revolting!

‘Shout louder!’ we are told and we do, until our timidity disintegrates and we are ready.


The march route is short and takes us from the central park though a corner of the cathedral forum, with the wonderful library to the left and back to the park again. We chant lustily at about a dozen tourists, several irritated shoppers and a murder of crows that are looking rather too intensely at a few of the limping stragglers in our group.


What do we want?


Equal rights!


When do we want them?


Now!

Cath, me and Tim amongst the rabble1

Every time I shout ‘equal rights!’ I feel emotion rise up my sternum and drum on my heart.

Grace!

We try to shout loudly enough to disturb the rest of Norwich city but most of them have disappeared off to the Top Gear Road Show that is blasting pop tunes from behind the shopping centre. Ironically, there is probably more engineering technology in amongst the blinged up wheelchairs and motorised scooters in out raggedy group, but, undefeated we shuffle and skip, roll and scramble back to the park and listen to the speakers tell us not to give up. To fight on for compassion and equality. To fight on for fairness.


‘I am blind, my husband in visually impaired. I have two visually impaired children,’ says B. ‘I work hard and I want my kids to have every opportunity. Last year, we had a special bus service and I paid £250 getting the kids to school. Now the service has been cut and we have to find over £2000 a year. How?’


Her son stands up. ‘I want to go to university. The fees are so high now that most kids are having problems finding the basics. Given I would also need additional equipment, transport and access finance I am immediately excluded.’


Another woman with cerebral palsy, asthma and learning difficulties says her care has been cut from 10 to 3 hours a week. She still needs the care though.’


Other people talk about being excluded, passed over, dismissed, and judged useless. The changes in benefits, cuts to services, rescinding of the basic mobility component of the DLA means that more and more of us are unable to get out of the door, let alone to work. There are no good stories. Only one MEP has sent a message of support. In the distance the duff duff bass sound from the Top Gear Road Show wafts over briefly and disappears like a bad smell.


‘Was it a good march?’ my friend asks when I get back.


‘It was a beautiful day,’ I must admit. ‘But no. No, there was nothing good about such a march.’

My placard with thanks to Munch.

Only a few generations ago, in another recession, in another part of the world, people with disabilities and illness were called parasites too by a government propaganda machine. No one stood up and shouted. The government of the time felt vindicated and their second phase involved wide scale sterilisation. Again, very few people in the society of the time reacted. The government smiled and ticked the next box and we were the first to be exterminated. We, the disabled, were the canary in the coal mine. We still are.

The Hardest Hit!

Hi there! 

Hope you don't mind but I have copied the information from the RNIB website about the planned march next week. I went on the first one in London in April and I think it is very important that everyone is aware that the government 'changes' to disability benefits are going to directly affect the most vulnerable people in society.  Its grotesque especially in the way is is all being done 'undar the radar'.  You may think it doesn't affect you but it will in the long run. 

Please, if you are near any of the places listed below, do turn up and show compassionate support.  I'll be at the Norwich do with the groovy hound!

From RNIB:
If you are concerned that you or someone you know may be affected by planned benefits changes contained in the Welfare Reform Bill and by cuts to services locally, there is an action you can take in nine days' time.

Please join us at a Hardest Hit event in your region on 22 October to make your voice heard. You will be supporting other disabled people, people with long term conditions, their friends and family who are speaking out about the impact of planned cuts as the Welfare Reform Bill makes its way through Parliament.


RNIB is working with over 40 organisations to call for significant amendments to the Bill. Key concerns for blind and partially sighted people include:

Changes to contributory Employment and Support Allowance - including proposals for a 12 month time limit on benefits for people who lose their sight (and their job).

Changes to Disability Living Allowance - including proposals to end automatic entitlement to the benefit that replaces DLA, including the higher rate mobility component for people who are deafblind, or severely visually impaired.

We cannot underestimate the impact these proposed changes will have on blind and partially sighted people, and everyone living with a disability. Please join us at one of the 12 events taking place across the UK to send a clear message to Government - you are hitting disabled people and their families the hardest: stop unfair welfare cuts.

•Belfast: Debate at the Radison Blu Hotel in Belfast on the Welfare Reform Bill's impact on disabled people's freedom and independence. Please note the Belfast event is on 20 October and starts at 1.30pm. Visit the Hardest Hit website to sign up to attend.
•Birmingham: Rally in Victoria Square, in the city centre on 22 October. Assemble from noon and the rally will begin at 12.30pm.
•Brighton: Rally at Jubilee Square, Jubilee Street, Brighton on 22 October. Gather from 11am with speeches between 11.30 - 12.30pm.
•Bristol: March on 22 October beginning on College Green, outside the Council House, at the bottom of Park Street, from 12 noon - 1.00pm. Return to College Green for a rally from 1.00pm - 2.00pm.
•Cardiff: March and rally on 22 October. Assemble from 12.30 in the car park outside City Hall, Cathays Park. Speeches from 1.00, followed by a march and returning to City Hall for a rally at 2.00pm.
•Edinburgh: Rally on 22 October. Assemble from 11.00am at the Ross Bandstand in Princes Street Gardens in Central Edinburgh. Rally starts at 12 noon.
•Leeds: Assemble on 22 October at Victoria Gardens, outside Leeds Art Gallery on Headrow, from 12.30pm for march through main shopping areas and returning to Headrow. Rally from 2.00 - 2.30pm.
•London: Rally on 22 October outside London's iconic GLA building (City Hall), Queen's Walk. Meeting from 11.00am with speeches from 11.30am.
•Manchester: Rally on 22 October between 2.00pm and 3.00pm at Albert Square, outside Manchester Town Hall.
•Newcastle: March and rally on 22 October. The march will leave Bigg Market at10.30am, walking to the Monument for rally at 11.30am. Ends at 12.30pm.

•Norwich: March and rally on 22 October. Assemble from 11.30am at Chaplefield Gardens in the centre of Norwich. March starts at noon and returns to Chaplefield Gardens for the rally at 1.00pm.

•Nottingham: Rally on 22 October. The rally is taking place in Old Market Square, just outside Nottingham Council House from 12.30pm to 13.30pm.

More information about individual events and contact details can be found on the Hardest Hit website. If you want to support the campaign but you are unable to attend an event, the Hardest Hit website also has a list of suggested actions you can take.http://thehardesthit.wordpress.com/

Night Nighties

Right, that’s it. I have HAD it with nighties. In fact all bloody silly night dresses of all forms; wispy, silky, clinging, spaghetti-strapped, long cotton with pretty embroidery, delicate, immensely irritating bloody nighties. No more! They are just not safe night wear.
You see a couple of nights ago, Grace and I were woken by suspicious crashing noises coming from the garden. Grace leaps up and dashes for the back door with me on her tail, desperately flicking on all the lights in the flat.

‘Let me at ‘em,’ growls Grace, pretending to be three times her size and when I open the back door a crack she pushes past and hurtles barking into the treacle blackness of the garden. I am left peering blindly into the pitch black, terrified that Grace will get hurt or that I will get rushed by whoever is trying to clamber drunkenly over the back fence. It is then I realise that, back lit by the lights in the living room, I am standing at the French doors in a nightie now utterly transparent.

Must have been one hell of a scary sight because silence now floods the garden. I am still standing clinging to the door, trying in vain to retain some dignity,  when Grace trots back in. She pauses momentarily raising eyebrows at me then shakes her head as if to say ‘you just can’t get the staff these days', and lopes off to bed.

Pyjamas are the way forward. In fact, due to having a terrible head cold the other weekend, I was too befuddled to pack a bag correctly and hence arrived to give an after dinner speech without the correct trousers (Gromit!) I ended up standing in front of 140 people to give a talk in my pyjama bottoms. Luckily they weren’t the fluffy ones or the ones with little love hearts on the arse but just saying. I couldn't have done THAT in a nightie!

Self Portrait with du vin.

No one would have noticed either except that, after said talk and to calm myself I downed several glasses of ‘medicinal’ whisky and, all snotty nose and lozenge breath, leaned unsteadily into the handsome man on my right and hissed ‘Guess what...I am so easy to get into bed I am already in my pyjamas!’ before winking one gruesome red rimmed eye and blowing my nose in a come-hither kind of a way.

Oddly enough he wasn’t tempted but my point is that never nighties. Always pyjamas. Especially if one is in a sinking ship. Remember your first life saving instruction? Tie knots in your pj bottoms and blow them into a life vest (or life raft depending on the size of your pj’s of course... )

Whatever your night wear, thank you for patiently waiting for me to get my blog brain back in gear.  I aim to keep my posts shorter but more regular from now on.  After all we have a hell of a lot to catch up on!  How have you all been?

Please Don't Adjust Your Sets....

My blog brain is on hiatus but ...It Will Be Back!  I promise. I apologise for lack of clown in the very bad replica BBC test card but Grace had a hissy fit and legged it into the garden when I said she had to wear a hat. Hope you are all well.
Tanvi x

Fighting Talk

image from internet

I am gritting my teeth. Sweat is beading under my fringe and my legs are twisted around each other. My friend C, on the opposite chair, is equally scrunched up. We are listening to a CD ....a workshop on Non Violent Communication. It is fascinating and for me it much of it makes very good sense BUT the man’s voice, a painfully slow, American drone of a drawl, is driving us nuts. I am aware of the irony, the fact I am having to hang on to the armrests of my chair so as not to up and head butt the CD player.

‘Does irritation still count as anger?’ asks C, lips near white as her knuckles

‘Can’t talk. Listening,’ I hiss going puce in the face.

The man is talking about how anger is useful as a signal. Why are we reacting in anger to the particular situation? If we unpick our anger we always find an ‘unmet need’. Resolve this with care and compassion and one will find, apparently, the anger obsolete. This ‘signalling’ works with guilt and shame and elements of depression too. Unmet needs. He uses an example of a married couple who come to him saying they are having terrible rows.

‘I just get so angry with him,’ says the woman

‘Why? What behaviour is he exhibiting, exactly, that is making you react this way?’ asks our American droner

‘Because he...errr...he....never..err...he doesn’t...’

‘If you told me what you wanted me to do I would do it!’ interjects the man

Again the woman thinks. ‘It’s hard. I can’t say exactly.’

Then she realises. ‘Ohhh, she says. ‘I actually need him to know what I want before I know and then to just do it. ‘

image from internet

Hence she has revealed an impossible conundrum that she can only solve by understanding her ‘unmet need’ is for something only a telepathic soothsayer could help her with. She doesn’t have one of those. She has a husband. She will need to actually work out what she wants him to do and ask him to do it. It’s a revelation to them both.

I’m not sure if it saved the marriage or if she ran off with a Betazoid (whispers to people without TV, ’that’s a clever Star Trek reference to a telepath soothsayer’ ..cough) Non Violent Communication is a particularly useful way of engaging warring communities to understand that the needs they externalise as violence and fury are actually about unmet needs within; safety, autonomy, sustenance etc. Once an unmet need is exposed and understood it can be negotiated. And it can work equally well for the individual, especially for those people like myself who spend a lot of time enraged at themselves. How many times I day to I want to whack myself upside my own head? ‘You blithering idiot!’ I scream at myself when I do something imperfectly. All rather pointless self abuse which I would be mighty relieved to stop.

I intend to delve into the ideas around NVC in greater detail in the hope that it will help me with all my interactions...(mainly, I would imagine, because by the time I have actually worked out exactly why I am pissed off and what the unmet need IS ..the situation will have resolved itself.) There is need of this I think, of finding something positive to grip on to. Something possible and useful. I don’t know if you are feeling anything like me what with the current icy sluicing of tsunamis and radiation, the fearful boiling over in Libya, Yemen, Cote, D’Ivoire, Syria...? I feel helpless and that all is beyond my understanding and certainly out of my control. I want to fight the injustice, bring help to the displaced, be ‘of use’ and at the same time to run somewhere safe. ‘There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home..’ Its classic ‘flight or fight.’

Maybe the drawling American man will have some answers. Ruby Slippers. (C) T. Bush 2011

A few days ago on yet another very overcrowded commuter train, the woman opposite me insists on squeezing onto the seat even though I have asked her to keep it clear. My guide dog needs a bit of room to breathe,’ I say apologetically.

‘I know dogs,’ the woman says, unpacking her handbag without looking at me. ‘She’ll be fine.’

I am furious. But I remember American Drawl Man. ‘Why?’ I ask myself. ‘What exactly is my unmet need?’

I wait until the train creaks slowly out of Kings Cross and begins to pick up speed. Then I lean across and smile at the woman who has placed her expensive shoes either side of poor Grace’s head.

‘Just so you know, ‘ I say sweetly. ‘My dog has a tendency to vomit when she gets stressed.’

Then, as the woman looks up horrified from behind her newspaper and in vain tries to move her legs, I lean back and feign sleep. Seems my ‘unmet need’ was to ensure we all respected each other’s space. See how easy Non Violent Communication is?

St Iving Off!

'What’s that?' There is a most remarkable sound coming out of Daisy's rucksack.

‘Flamingos.’ says Daisy unperturbed.

'Oh,' , I say blinking. 'Noisy aren’t they.'

'I had seagulls before', says Daisy 'but that made things a bit difficult at the seaside.'.

I can see her point. We are in St Ives in Cornwall and the sky is tattered with gulls. Having their cry as a ringtone on one’s phone might be more than a bit confusing. A lot of missed calls.

Ahhh St Ives in winter! Just look at the light and the quaintness and most important for Surly curmudgeons and sea dogs like me and Grace, look how empty it all is! Whole beaches to ourselves and harbours to mooch around in.

I cannot recommend it enough- although tis jolly far away. One has to contend with quite a lot of sites, shops, restaurants and bars being shut for winter refurbishment but there is still plenty of great seafood, the Tate shop and enough art and tat shops to please. And even without a car to get across to some of the more wonderful, less accessible beaches, St Ives itself has plentyof sand and surf, all in walking distance and one can always hop on the train. (Right, where is my 10% from the Cornish tourist board?)

My friend, Daisy, and I had organised a couple of rooms in a luxury self catering apartment at a ridiculously low winter rate. As part of the Treganna Castle complex the apartment was at the top of the hill overlooking the town with views out onto a golf course. I had thought it would be a perfect writing retreat but it turns out that staying in too gorgeous a place is dangerous for writers. How could I sit, hunched over the same old computer all day when ten minutes down the hill was roaring surf and wide open beaches full of light and sound?. Plus Grace, having realised on the first day that any movement away from the apartment and ‘down’ meant BEEEAAACCHHH, completely forgot almost every moment of her training and insisted on plunging , with me gripping white knuckled to her harness, over the edges of any steep steps or cliffs she came to no matter where they led. This did cause some conflict, a few angry words but hey..who could resist this expression?

I must thank the guitar wielding, genius cook and inspired driver, Daisy for putting up with my belly aching about work (and literally belly aching, as somehow I had managed to bring a nasty bug along that made me pretty sick for several days...although strangely didn’t stop me getting through the wine box...) And Grace for being the happiest beast in Cornwall. For Rachma and Steven for letting us drink their gin on the way up and back. The sea the sea the wonderful sea!!

Briefly on other news; In Zambia I was sad to hear that Bente Lorenz passed away at the end of last week.

In a career spanning over 50 years, she will be celebrated as a internationally renowned potter, a master of ceramics and glazes, writer, artist and an inspiration to artists across the world as well as a great and kind friend and mentor. My love goes to her children and grandchildren.

All photos copyright (C) T. Bush 2011

She's back!!

image from internet

I know, I know...once again the blog got filed under ‘bury head in sand’ and the year is suddenly rounding up on the middle-end of January. Gadzooks! Apologies (and I have to give an extra thanks very much to a particular reader who gave me a gentle boot up the backside to get going again. You know who you are!)
Right then. Where are we? Ahh yes...a smashing and relaxing Xmas with my sister and her fiance, a tub-thumping New Year and a crash dive into the bleak mid winter. Such I believe was the pattern for many of us, running hell bent towards the end of the year, eyes shut, fingers in our ears, shouting ‘ Yabadabaddooooo! We made it!’ only to find there was no ‘it’ to make and the morning after was still full of plot holes and winter and ‘what next’s and job hunting and cut backs and the usual hangover of world politics.
I realised that although my 2011 needed to include such things as ‘income’ and ‘love’ and ‘adventure’, I wasn’t going to be able to do any of it or even think straight until I had finished the first draft of my thriller ‘Witchgirl.’ The only problem was that it didn’t seem to want to be written. I tried concentrated blasts. Nope. I snuck up on it, pretending to walk past the computer and then ambushing the keyboard. Nope. I turned off facebook. (This helped but was unsustainable), and I even attempted to remain seated in three hour blocks three times a day. Nada. Not even an eloquently constructed sausage. I whined at everyone (hence facebook on again) and eventually went to far as to moan about the unfairness of it all to my poor cousin in the States- she of the post back surgery-and-by-the-way-I-am-still -in-agony,-still-have-kids-and-a-job- to-deal with-and-am-not-allowed-to-even-swivel-let-alone- pick-up-my-own-martini- glass, cousin. I called to cheer her up with my whining.

'Tanvir,' she said. 'Just write it.'

'Whatdaya mean?' I asked sulkily.' I am a creative. I have to wait... '

'Just get to the end and THEN go back and make it pretty.'

'Really?'

'Really! '

And so and so after much whimpering I finally tucked in my chin and did a slightly off centre judo roll into my final few chapters. And it stinks! Hell yeh! Trust me I am not being modest here. It pongs big time.. but at least I am now in the final few thousand words.
I intend to get to the end by THE END OF THE MONTH! Dad a daaaaa!

And that’s bascically why I have been unblogged folks. At the moment it hasn’t been worth the wait but maybe..just maybe...after a great deal of plot darning, some character renames, an additional sex scene and a spell check this blasted book might be my ticket into 2011 after all.

Apart from the above mentioned, I didn’t really have many resolutions this year but I did decide to continue the one major lesson I learnt last year. I learnt that life can be hard BUT it is you who decides if life is shit. It’s a very simple attitude correction. Feels like having one’s posture adjusted by a physiotherapist. You may feel like a plonker as they twist you into shape; elbows back, neck relaxed, chin in..but then your entire spine suddenly feels gooey with relief, all supple and sexy. Problem is that it takes practice. One is barely out the clinic door before one is slumping and chin poking all over the shop again. You have to keep telling yourself, straighten out, boobs out, elbows and chin IN.
Same with life. I don’t mind hard. Hard is just a challenge and it feels good to get through things that are hard. ‘Shit’ on the other hand is a steady circular downward thing. (I know my metaphors are getting out of hand) I have learnt that approaching things as ‘hard’ as opposed to ‘shit’ makes them possible, sometimes even exciting.
So from now on everytime I hear myself winigng about things being just so shit , inclduing the problems involved with getting my novel fixed, or money, or eyes, I will straighten up and say nope...things are probably going to be hard but that's quite all right. Boobs out, chin in, come on 2011!!

Grace Dec 2010 (c) T. Bush