Business As Usual

Saturday 5th January 2013

A busy day resulting in my not achieving very much besides a blog post and perfect binding of a text block. Me and Jenni watched Stephen Fry’s documentary The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive on DVD. Most of the people interviewed experienced far worse episodes than I had. Feel extremely lucky to be able to function as well as I do these days. Touch wood life will continue to be productive. 10.54pm.

Sunday 6th January 2013

More book making today. Very time consuming but there’s something therapeutic about it. Feels good to be physically making rather than sitting at a computer screen hour upon hour. Ironed clothes for an early start tomorrow: my annual once-over at the doctor’s. If my knees can survive the abuse I’d like to attempt some mountain biking this month. Read a Sharon Olds interview online. Then my wall posts disappeared from Facebook. 8.51pm.

Monday 7th January 2013

Early to ride early to bed Or so they said. I was up, shaved and on foot to the doctor’s by half eight. Got there at twenty past nine. Didn’t have to wait to be seen. Took some blood from my skinny arm and gave me a little pot to piss in and return on Friday afternoon. I bought a new pen, some coloured endpapers, some Vimto and a jar of ground cinnamon on the way home.  Spoke to Mam and Ernie on the phone. It’s Ernie’s birthday. He asked about mine. Sent him net links to a book press. Think that’s what I’m gonna get. Did some prep work. But only a little. Ready some essays from the Salt book of Poets on their Poetry edited by Helen Ivory and George Szirtes. Then watched a DVD of John Hegley live in Cardiff. Very funny, but unfortunately I fell asleep a little bit. Big day of full-on prep for the Waddington Street Courses for much of the week. Another year gets going good and proper. 10.52pm.

Gratitude: Pleased I made it to the doctor’s on time. Enjoyed the walk there and back. Pleased Jenni was up to let me in. I’d put the door key through the letterbox after I locked it when I left because she was still in bed. Pleased to have cowboy hash for lunch. Pleased to have big laughs at the Big Bang Theory. Grateful to Jenni for buying me the John Hegley DVD. Pleased to be getting into work mode slowly but surely. 11.06pm.

Tuesday 8th January 2013

Said goodbye to Jenni at ten past ten and watched her go off up the street with all her stuff after two weeks at my house. She had a poetry workshop this afternoon. I did some editing – not exactly the most riveting thing to journal about really, but I enjoy the concentration of pruning text at the computer.

Watched a documentary about people getting into trouble over info they put on the internet. I find the more I post the less attention it gets. 1500 people turned up for someone’s birthday party; the average poetry gig is a huge success with less than fifty. 11.12pm.

Work-log: Morning pages – a paragraph about the bin men and the rest was content prep for writing course schemes of work. I was in touch with Waddy this morning: minibus to SLAMalgamate if members want to go; just do ten-week schemes of work for each course in the first instance and send remainder later on. I had twenty three ideas listed at that point. Typed in a couple of 2012 entries. Works in progress booklet file of Mind writers. This evening was networking, further workshop research, surpassing 40 exercise options, then read some of the intro to In Their Own Words Poets on Poetry. Poor page of regular journal. This work journal is more substantial. 11.26pm.

Gratitude: Grateful to Cheryl for sorting my Arts on Prescription payment. Pleased there’s talk of future work. Good to read some poetry essays tonight. Some nice messages from Jenni too. Bacon and egg sandwich, lamb and vegetable soup. Nutragrain oaty bar. Cashew nuts. Vimto, peanut butter on snackbread, Dairylea and tomato on Kingsmill wholemeal. AJ Mckenna sonnet on facebook. Yay! 11.36pm.

Wednesday 9th January 2013

Some builder bloke knocked on my door this morning and said that I’ve got a slate missing, offered to put it right for fifty quid. Some woman from an insurance company rang this afternoon trying to sell me two years’ cover on my second-hand Samsung television. I can watch telly online and my head’s just fine. If I did have a spare £130 quid I’d quite possibly spend it on booklet printing.  Think I’ll go to bed early and read a bit of Paul Auster or Dee Snider. It’s been a funny sort of day really. And the long winter nights just fly by. 10.12pm

Thursday 10th January 2013

Unbroken sleep, fluid scribbles. French toast, smooth scalp. Busy bus, mothers, infants, delayed appointments, unwell passengers. Bank, short queue, money transfer, current account, full allowance: domestics, bus pass. Vimto, embossed art paper, chat, relative. Fruit, veg, under fiver. Sweet things, Rogan Josh, Barry’s. Cashier, supermarket, cold, going nowhere. Ten minutes. V8 back to base. Snackbread, Dairylea, cucumber. Search, Union book. Return Armitage, library. Metro article, world food wastage, 45 Newcastle. A3 artboard, Details, spiral bound sketchbooks. Carvery, Goose: beef, turkey, stuffing, cabbage, carrots, peas, cauliflower, mash, roasties, mint sauce, onion gravy. Music mags, WHSmith, DVDS, HMV, heavy metal keyrings. Paperchase., Lit and Phil, AJ, Sky. Morbid, BLER. Sheila, gifts. Paul Summers. 45. Donut books. Consett. Walk. Home. 11.25pm.

Gratitude: Extremely grateful to Morbid for putting my poem Little Weapon in Black Light Engine Room. Excellent production, makes me want to get back into small press publishing big-style. Mega thanks to Sheila for buying me a fantastic monograph by Tim Turnball and pocket book of vignettes by John Hegley. Thanks also to Goose for mountain of food for under three quid. Also big thanks to Paul Summers for a great set – an hour of poems and anecdotes. Brilliant day! Loved it. 11.34pm.

Friday 11th January 2013

The woman in the driving seat yawned until her jaw broke off and all this goo came out of her skull. A cross between Lily Savage and a broken Stretch Armstrong toy. Freaked me out, woke me up and sent me to the bathroom.

Slow day. Took till lunchtime to get anything done. Chicken soup, face shave and a steady walk over to the doctor’s a few miles away. Check up okay, but some of the self-inflicted wear and tear due to biketrial in my thirties can’t be rectified. Kackered knees, aching wrists and creaky fingers are something I’m just going to have to live with. Ditto poor memory. I seem to impatiently skim over the surface of life much of the time unless I’m stewing in a heap somewhere, ruminating on motionlessness.

Good to speak to Jenni on the phone this afternoon. Hope she enjoys Les Miserables at the Tyneside tomorrow. I’ve just bailed on ordering a ticket for The Mission / Fields of the Nephilim double headliner at Leeds Academy this December. I’ll see how I feel closer to the time. 10.56pm.