This has become a day to look back on and assess if its impact lasts longer than its length. The day commenced with my feeling restlessness, deciding that I had to undertake the boring task of making records of completed work over the previous week.
It has been a week of contrasting activities. The first priority was to complete an appeal against the findings of the Health Ombudsman in relation to the premature and preventable death of the woman who had providing mothering in my childhood, and then the creation of a note following a private meeting with a small group of others with the Government Minister Health Minister at the end of last week to learn of out current concerns. The re were two dissatisfactions around my group table, the reality and the risks of present day hospital care and that Ministers had agreed to make major increases in the pay of doctors and senior nurses without improving the public accessibility and accountability.
I decided against going to a cinema theatre screening or to watching a live dance production at the Playhouse, in favour of some directed internet and my space searching, having previously gone with some instinctive flows of a musical orientation.
There were three portals entered. The first was the work of Sophie Calle, having decided to recreate my experience of a theatrical performance of Exquisite Pain and was pleasantly surprised that there were a thousand entries, and that these led me to a number of young artists, some not so young, in several forms. The second door was the friends of Tracey Emin. She, according to the media, had joined the Elizabeth wedding circus and media obsession, and the of searching the work of her friends had only developed part way before I came across the Tate site and this has been exciting, horizon widening and the discovery of what I hope will prove important work for my continuing learning and development.
I had woken earlier than usual for having gone to bed around 3am, and having only made one additional entry to both MySpace and the AOL Blogs, instead of what has become a standard of two and three. I postponed the boiled eggs and tea and decided to use the additional time available with some gentle MySpace exploring, but within a short while came across an image, which together with other information, provoked a situation where I had to try and say something in writing and then communicate. Having undertaken a couple of drafts I decided to send as a private email and then posted as new Blogs. Then after the over done boiled eggs and some delicious tea, gone are the days when I thought I needed coffee, I received the first comment to a MySpace Blog and this merited an immediate response which I enjoyed creating but then found I had quickly eaten into set task time and so I must now report that only a third was completed as my days ends.
Four new work development set bringing the total to 1835, three sets of artman glitter and signature cards bringing the total to 451, and then the new event sets about my space, with total over 1000 and then three confidential sets of my space private communications bring the confidential sets to 1350, a combined set total covering creative work and records of 6149 or 147576 individual cards.
This means that I have achieved less that fifty new registered sets this month although the minimum of 100 will be reached, but far short of the 150 plus of the New Year intention, and with still a couple of weeks work on 100th birthday celebrations albums, and spring underway, I may have to settle for accepting 100 a month as the realistic target for this year. Talking of spring I planted a dozen tulips in the bronze tin window boxes acquired for only 1.50 each from the local supermarket, and they are now about to flower, despite the forecast of snow this weekend. The amazing success of growing things or more accurately keeping things growing is that continuation of one of two pre Christmas flower pots for three months and with no sings of ending as has the first. I wish I had recorded their name. They are over 12inches in height above the pot rim and are top heavy with brilliant red flowers which measure up to three inches in length by a width of two. The difference between the two plants is remarkable and is the consequence if respective locations. The dishevelled one is on the kitchen sink surround, against the window, but where there is no heating except from when the cookers are lit or switched on. Yes I do have two, along with two refrigerator and two microwave ovens, just for my own use. The main cooker came with the house and has a giant oven and a grill which smokes burnt fat and cannot be cleaned away. I use a small electric over with grill, alongside a steamer. I only use one of the fridges, the one I brought with me, although the other makes a useful store. Anyway back to the Christmas flower pots, and another supermarket checkout bargain. The second is also on a surface (the day room table) against a window but over a central heating radiator. There is light through both windows through the Perspex type roof to the garage,, but the thriving plant is nearest the uncovered small patio space between the garage area and the back wall from where I can look out while sitting at this desk, with one eye on the telly if is on or listening to Gib radio as I am doing now, if I am too occupied to sort and change CD's.
I enjoyed lunch more than usual around midday, making use of a small chunk of cold beef from yesterdays hot evening ration, (four substantial portions for £5 with gravy and microwave time of 7 mins and yet another supermarket bargain), eaten with a mixture of cooked from frozen peppers and a small packet of steam fresh mixed veg, also from frozen. Today the midday salad was my usual concoction of a bed of thin chopped lettuce, some quartered slices of cucumber, a chopped pepper, today a red one, a handful of green olive stuffed with pimento and small chopped tomato, followed with a banana. Tonight after visiting my mother and a supermarket visit I baked a trout too lazy to do steam, finished off the mixed peppers and another small packet of mixed veg, followed by some water melon on its own. Again I was too in haste to do the fresh pineapple having purchased two for £2 instead of one of £.1 68 or £1.98. I have not become obsessional about price but for the past two weeks, if my mother in already prepared for bed and in her bedside chair with the telly on, we watch a programme called supermarket sweep challenge, where one game involves the three teams of two assessing the cost of selected items either the combined cost or whether an item costs more or less than another. I join in showing off that I know the prices although my mother is usually in a world of her own dimension, but my mother substitute aunt would have been tickled pink by this knowledge and application.
After the lunch I watched the 11th episode of Lost on DVD and enjoyed but also became puzzled by aspects and links which I cannot remember from previous episodes. Perhaps I had dozed off earlier in the week? It could be Sunday before I finish the disk and write up something of the experience and issues without too many spoilers.
I have decided to revisit the enlarged Ikea tomorrow morning as early as I can to acquire some black boxes for the creative work sets. Previously I had acquired 20 from Staples over a period of two years. They were attractive to look at but with irritating studded sides always coming apart and a surface which scratches easily, and comparatively expensive. Ikea has a similar product of same dimension in packs of 2 for less than a third of the price and they do not have the studded sides. I will try and get there before lunch and then go for a modem which will mean I can use broadband with Vista but that is another story for another day.
Mother did not cough once this evening during the hour I was with her which is encouraging and suggests the antibiotics is beginning to work. She has had the cough since a week after her birthday when half the home and staff caught the infection. So did I although it was no more than a cold fought off with some Lemsip and a couple of glasses of whisky before bed and some left over cough mixture from a similar cold experience a year previous. Talking of medication and health issues last Friday I learnt that one of the problems why the elderly are contracting fatal secondary infections in hospital is because of the excessive use of antibiotics and which sounds to me something of a Catch 22 situation I have received a notification through the post advising that I am to be given the opportunity to undertake a self administered bowel cancer check.
We also watched the local news tonight and the prospect of Switching from weekly to bi weekly rubbish collections. Locally the discipline of putting in some recycle stuff into boxes has taken time to become a habit so getting used to three bins for those with green waste gardens will need encouragement. Someone explained the other day on TV that to achieve an offset of 60% a domestic household would have to have no electric appliances or heating other than long life light bulbs and a cooker.
It is perhaps not surprising that I fell asleep during American Idol and missed several performance including that of Likesha but caught Ms Miranda Doolittle and agreed with the judges that because of the choice of song she was not as gob smacking skin tingling as before, but is in a league on a par with Leona Lewis although the styles are different, her jazz blues was out of this world. And I had an a more accurate out of the world experience when I woke up because having decided I was not up to more work sorting and registering I began another amble checking out listed friends of the Tate and followed one trail which led to a website and a piece written at the end of the last decade about artistic creativity which took me immediately back to what I had written at the start of the day. Who says that our experience is not circular, and the piece confirmed that my ideas are not original, and sadly several notches below the writing art of others? Coming upon the description of one art object in a Google search after I decided to add a comment to its my space image less than 24 hours ago it is just as well I am not financially dependent on what I do for a living.
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