the fog

I am hoping it is not going to snow at all. I hate snow - I mean, it looks pretty, it's fun, but it's fucking nasty to walk on, bloody cold, and gets everywhere. I'm such a grump with the cold.

The grump is not being helped today by the raging headache currently occupying most of my skull. It appears to be pushing my brain out, because I spent most of the day in a complete fog. Although that may have been caused by the tramadol I was prescribed - which I'm not sure about; I think the headache is also a result of the tramadol. I'm genuinely not sure if a painkiller that gives me a splitting headache and massive brainfog is going to be worth not having a sore back - I take painkillers so I can function, not so that I can spend the day sitting on the sofa in a heap going "whaa?" I might keep them for the really bad days, of the sort where I wouldn't be trying to go anywhere anyway.

I've finished my first essay for uni, or at least I've reached the point where I've run out of sensible things to say. I'm not happy with it (when am I ever?) and I don't really want to hand it in, but the deadline is tomorrow, I don't know what else to say, and I hope that it gets a halfway decent mark. Either way, I get plenty of feedback before I have to write the next essay - for which I need to choose both a movement and a gender/sexuality theorist to interrogate it with - and I'm sort-of looking forward to that. It'll be interesting at least. I just need to ask my tutor if we can meet somewhere easier to access, as his office is up so many flights of stairs I'm pretty much ruined for the rest of the day.

Talking of stairs - dear people who own/run large buildings: you have a lift. Please ensure it is accessible to those of us with disabilities that neccessitate the use of a lift. Thanks. (Dear boss and fellow employee: thank you for running all over the building to find the lift and get it to take me up to the office, you guys rock so very much).

Have some pictures from a trip to the British Museum (incidentally: my former primary school teacher is awesome. We got carted all over the museum to look at a tiny wee cup with men shagging on it; clearly, she has had a great influence on me).

On brothers, and Being Ill

I have some sort of bug. I suspect it's actually G's bug, which he acquired at Latitude, but no matter where it came from, it hit properly on monday evening. I'd been feeling shite all day, suspected it was the fibro reacting to going back to work, but no, it was a fluey cold-like bug.

Until this morning, when it was the fibro, that is.

I hate being ill. While I'm quite happy to lounge about and do nothing for days at a time, there is something about being forced to inactivity that grates. I make a terrible patient; I complain all the time (unless asleep, which the fibro is good for making me do) and I crave peculiar things - yesterday I ate my way through an entire punnet of strawberries, dipping them in clotted cream, and then decided I needed a bacon sandwich - while getting quite bitchy if said cravings are not satisfied immediately.

One of the less pleasant effects of me being ill is that I struggle to walk the dogs; Indigo is usually ok, and will put up with not going out, or only going for a potter around the block - he's also much better on the lead when it comes to not getting tangled up with my stick. Holly, however, needs to be taken out and allowed to run. She's fairly high-energy even with a walk, so without it, she's a demon. Thankfully, my brother agreed to come over and take them out (he's a good boy like that; I can rely on him without feeling too much like I'm actually relying on him).

My relationship with Boy Wonder is odd. We've always gotten on, to some degree or another; we wind each other up endlessly and argue over petty subjects, but at the same time - BW is my brother, and I actually like him. And I know he'll read this, so he can cock off now.

Boy Wonder is, however, an arrogant little shitebag, and always will be; I can still remember our grandmother remarking that he'd be perfect in the army if they had direct entry at field-marshal level - and it holds as true now as it did when he was eight. He's smart, but it's only in the last couple of years I've been able to appreciate his intelligence and humour - possibly because, as he now points out, he's become a little more self-aware. He'll always be an arrogant little shitebag, but at least these days he knows he is. Which, believe me, is something when it comes to him. His determination to succeed is no longer as pointedly measured against me, for one thing.

We can now talk, about politics and art and everything, without him acting the superior - he now listens as much as he pontificates, and actually - occasionally - takes it in. Today we discussed (as much discussing as is possible when one half of the conversation is a mumbling heap on the sofa) gender and race within the context of the plays he wants to explore in his masters; I have suggested he read both Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad and Malorie Blackman's Noughts and Crosses with a view to looking at adapting them (although he needs a writer, and he will not be the director, no matter what he thinks). He's interestingly aware of the personal as political, and I like knowing he's a pro-feminist young man.

I'm rambling now. My limbs and brain work enough for me to have gotten up, eaten, taken a bath, and write this - so now I shall go and read in bed. Hopefully, I will be well enough to go to work tomorrow; I feel terribly guilty about not being able to make it in, especially as it seems the KX school is the only one I've missed days at.

visible disabilities and clothes

I saw a post about this over on the lovely DMHFFH group, and decided I had to watch. Since the fibromyalgia - woo, it has a name - started, and because I'm having one of those days (a whole 'nother story involving Millie, the bed, and me ending up on the sofa and not sleeping) I'm kinda interested in disability and the way disability is perceived.

Well, that and after going to see Frankie & The Heartstrings last night (they were awesome, lovely boys and I can understand why G loves them so), I decided that I needed an extra leg getting home and got my walking stick out. I was wearing a miniskirt (with mini bustle bum-ruffles) and pink tights and boots, and I thought I looked alright. Apparently, however, I was accessorizing with a second head the way I was being stared at once I got my stick out. Attention people: just because a person has a walking stick, doesn't mean they immediately lose all interest in clothing, or mutate into an old lady. If you don't stop staring I'll shove said stick so far up your arse you'll be able to taste it.

So, yes, anyway. How to Look Good Naked... with a Difference was on Channel 4 last week, but I watched it on 4OD earlier (I fucking love internet tv catch up stuff). I don't usually watch HtLGN, mostly because I'm not a massive fan of makeover shows - I'm uncomfortable with the public critiquing of women's appearance, although at the same time I can see how it can help women become more open with each other about their body issues. I do like that HtLGN encourages body-acceptance over surgery or diets to change the women's physical appearance - it's message of confidence in one's self is a good one, at heart. That and I find Gok Wan a bit much a lot of the time. Ah well.

Like Sadie Stein at Jezebel, though, my biggest issue is that they feel they need to devote a whole series to disabled women - in a way, it is still excluding a group by virtue of circling them out for "special attention". To me, it shouldn't be a special attention thing - there should just be disabled women involved in the "regular" HtLGN series without a big thing being made about it. However, because disabled women (and men, for that matter) are so rarely seen outside of alternative and fetish modeling, perhaps drawing a big red circle and screaming "oi, dickheads, pay attention" is the way forward; we have to increase the visibility of disabled persons in shows like HtLGN (and not Britan's Missing Top Model, which was just endless rounds of trying to make typically-attractive girls who happened to be disabled look like able-bodied models while still screaming "no, they're disabled, see, they're different, we're being inclusive") before they can be seen as a normal part of the advertising and fashion industry.

I liked Tracy (the first participant) for her honesty - and her bravery - in admitting that she didn't like her body. I understand her anger at having a body that doesn't quite work "right", at being that one step further away from being "perfect". I admire her confidence, and how much she did change (while I might get almost-naked for LSG's charity drive for Haiti, total strangers in a very public place is not happening). While I don't think being confident in one's body requires the ability to get naked in front of a crowd of strangers, or that it's particularly feminist to do so, at the same time I do like that HtLGN does not require the women taking part to be typically beautiful to do so - there is a part of my feminist side that sees nudity of all forms as an important move away from restrictive bodily ideals.

It is important that disabled women and men have the same access to fashion as able-bodied people; while Tracy showed that there are sometimes clothing has to be adapted to meet the needs of a disabled person - elasticated panels in the waistband of jeans, for example - there is no real difference between asking yourself "will the sleeves catch in my wheels?" or "how long can I wear these heels for before I won't be able to walk any more?" and "will this top be too big in the chest?". They're just bodies, different sorts of bodies with different needs - but the people who inhabit them want - and deserve - the same access to and enjoyment of clothes.

The Telegraph article on the show.

Next step: realising just because someone isn't in a wheelchair or using a stick, doesn't mean they're not disabled.

Fibro, Yarn, Kent... weekend as usual then

This morning, after getting up very early, and meeting the lovely Ryn at the station - she brought me pancakes. They were quite possibly the best pancakes in pancake history - we headed down to sunny Kent to meet with the downright adorable Patience and everybody's favourite Metalouise. It was very sunny, and we sat in the beer garden of Patience's local and knitted (well, they knitted, I crocheted, with my gorgeous yarn from Planetariumfish). Look at this yarn. Is it not fucking gorgeous? I'm making it into a slightly lacy cowl, and possibly some fingerless gloves. I don't normally wear limey green shades, because I'm scared of them, but this was just too pretty - I like the bruisey flashes of deep red and purple.


So, anyway. We were in Kent for World Wide Knit in Public Day, and all was well. Cider and chips and other excitement was consumed, talking was done, and I got sunburned across my shoulders because I'm cool like that. Oh yes.

I felt the need to take this picture on the way home:


Ryn and I hopped back on the train to London when the pub shut mid-afternoon (boo!); a few stops out of London Bridge, some of the local chavs decided to sit next to us. Their conversation was scintillating - I sound like such a bitch, but seriously, dude, you're barely 14, and your grasp of politics and geography has come from the headlines you glanced at while turning to page three of The Sun. Do fuck off now. Cow that I am, I abandoned Ryn at London Bridge to sit through their conversation for a few more stops, and got on the DLR home. And saw this:


Home was reached, G talked to, food consumed and I was dressed for Brackers' birthday party. So I pull on a cardi and say the magic word* to Indigo. Oh hai body fail time. I can haz working legs please? About halfway through our walk, I'm rapidly reaching the point where it looks like I'm going to need a zimmer frame in the immediate future (that would at least give me a reason to be moving so slowly). The fibromyalgia the doctors are thinking I might have - or lupus, but it's never lupus - is playing up.

I hate this. I hate not knowing if I'm going to make it home without a trip to the hospital because I can barely walk, or feeling like I've run a marathon and been beaten with sticks when all I've done is get up and make a cup of tea. I hate the headaches and how it turns me from a fairly self-sufficient person to someone who can barely make it down the stairs. It's fucking ridiculous, and I know it costs me friendships because I can't go out and do things - or stay in and do things, or I can't listen because I'm barely conscious, or can't type a coherent sentence. This week has been pretty good - I've been to the library, had meetings, walked Indigo, all sorts. And this evening I keep having to retype words because I can't fucking spell any more. So I'm going to bed.

*walkies!