December 2021

Well, December has been a weird month.

Last time I wrote I was suddenly and unexpectedly curating a graduation show for my MA course with spectacularly little notice or institutional support. More on that in a moment, but first...

Buddy! (This is Iskia, whose owner randomly contacted me on Borrow My Doggy asking if I'd consider looking after her now and then, as she doesn't like to be home alone. I got a BMD subscription right after Charlie died because I was in danger of just walking up to random people in the street sobbing and asking them if I could pet their dogs, so I decided to formalise that process somewhat. But I quickly realised it's very much a seller's market on that site, and if you've got a dog, you're the one with all the power — as I had already discovered when I had Charlie. Anyway with Chase in my life I'd decided not to bother with it any more, but it was nice to have someone get in touch totally out of the blue, right before my subscription lapsed!)

 
Racing around trying to prepare for the show hang the following day. (Read the end of my last blog for a bit of a summary about my beef with the whole situation.)

Terrible drawing (I was very tired), but managed to get the show hung surprisingly efficiently. Still pissed that I repeatedly, firmly said to my cohort 'please show up in the morning, ideally at 9', and most people only started rocking up after 12, still pissed off that I didnt get so much as a thank you from the majority of them, still pissed off that we only got told about this whole thing a week before, but proud of what I/we managed to accomplish. (A few other people on my course DID help me, and thank me, and that meant a lot!)

Every time I've been feeling stressed for the last couple of months, I reminded myself of my plan to restart Animal Crossing with a new island when I finally stop work for Christmas, and lie very still in bed playing it a whole bunch. But then I remembered that actually for the first few days of Animal Crossing you can't do much beyond shake trees and pull weeds, so I should probably get a head start... (It's every bit as soothing as I hoped/needed)

Trimming the dog's facial hair is very stressful because I worry I'm going to inadvertantly give her an expression of some kind 

Continuing to try out different classes at the gym, this time 'Aerolatino', which was... an experience. It was actually probably more fun in many ways than Zumba — a slightly better, more complex workout, the music was more consistently fun... But the tutor, a Colombian man in his early 50s, was an absolute TYRANT, ruling the class with an iron fist, and, I thought, absolutely destroying any sense of fun in the whole thing. I don't think I could handle it every week, and yet I do strangely find myself wanting to go again...

Most of the time I just go to the regular gym though, listen to fun bops and cycle or run a bit, and I do try and do some of the strength machines too. I much prefer leg day to arm day, a) because I want a big hench butt (but absolutely not big hench arms) and b) because my weedy little arms can barely do anything, but somehow my legs feel at least a bit more sturdy.

Getting really into dungarees guys

On the 10th it was the MA Graphic Media Design symposium event, which arguably was the climax of the course (even if I cared much more about the physical show at LCC). Each year the course publishes a book of critical design writing (you can read my contribution here), and hosts a symposium of guest speakers and performance pieces to launch it. This year the course also celebrated the launch of our small press 'The Rolling Drum', whose (at times slightly painful) birthing I had been involved with. 

The whole event was a slightly strange experience for me. Unlike seemingly most of the rest of my cohort, I was already starting to get a deep sense of unease about the situation with COVID, and on some level felt that proceeding with the whole thing was deeply unwise. But so much work had gone into setting up, and the prevailing wisdom at that point was still 'everything will be fine', so I went, I ran a workshop, I clapped and cheered the speakers, I stood much closer to many more people than I have done for a long time, and I generally found the whole thing exhausting and not a great time (while also appreciating all the hard work that had gone into it). It was hosted in a beautiful building owned by the Swiss Church in London, situated in the heart of Soho, and actually, the highlight of the day for me was walking alone around the streets surrounding Covent Garden, eating a good pizza and looking in shop windows. I hadn't been to that part of London for over a year, and I had missed it very much. 

The show on-site at LCC closed the next day, so I took the opportunity to show my mum, partner, and two friends around. Another thing I felt not great about, but this kind of thing is important to my mum, and Heidi and Rosie are two of my best friends who I hadn't seen together since spring. It was lovely to show them round and eat some tasty food together.

The ending of the show marked the end of most of my 'going out of the house' obligations for the rest of the month, which felt like quite a relief. In early November, as a special post show treat, I'd booked tickets for me, my partner, and our two housemates to go see 'Gingerbread City', an incredible exhibition at the Museum of Architecture in which all the most prominent architectural practices of the city had taken the time to realise their visions of future architectural concepts via the medium of gingerbread. It was frankly spectacular, and I would highly recommend anyone go next year, I've never seen anything like it. Because of COVID restrictions it was much nicer to walk around as well, I suspect normally it would be hard to get close and actually see things, but the space made it a much more pleasant experience to browse. 

I guess looking back, this was where my month started to go downhill... One of my big post-MA treats to myself was to be a large tattoo on my upper left thigh by one of my favourite artists. I went on instagram to send him a message confirming that I was coming to our appointment the next day, only to discover... He had died, around three weeks earlier, while visiting family in Italy. He was only my age, and his work was incredible. I still feel a deep, oppressive sadness every time I think about it. I didn't know him at all, but I'd made the choice to have his artwork about my person for the rest of my life, and there was something very particular about the magnitude of making that choice, and then having it completely snatched away that I found deeply sad. I'm sure everyone who's had more than a couple of tattoos is familiar with the process of last minute cancellations, wait lists and other things that prevent you from getting the art you want, but... Not this. Poor guy.

And then our housemate Tabitha got a positive lateral flow test. With the exception of our trip to gingerbread city, she'd already cancelled all of her social events for the previous week, but as a frontline NHS worker, she's almost certain that she caught it at work. Unavoidable. Even though she'd had the booster. 

She immediately retreated to her room, and we drew up a plan to prepare all her meals and deliver them to her, meaning she'd only have to leave (masked) to use the bathroom (and as me and my partner and our other housemate both have en-suite bathrooms, she'd be the only one using it). We felt we had as good a chance of anyone of getting through this without catching it ourselves, and were all as fastidious as possible about keeping one another safe. 

It was around this time all the looming dread started really pressing in on me. This isn't going away. I spent the last two years mostly lying low waiting for it to pass. I was so excited about starting to properly socialise again next year. But... that's not happening, is it.

By this point I was just SO DONE with working, but apparently my clients were not, with a last minute flurry of 'we need this before Christmas!' requests (pray tell WHY do you need it before Christmas? Who is going to be using or looking at this thing on Christmas day?!) Weary sighs all round, but whatever, the money is nice, the work is usually fun, I'm just so... tired...

In an unexpectedly prompt turnaround, I got my MA grade back within just a week of our final event. Merit! I don't know what to say really. At this point I'm just so tired. This time last year I honestly thought I might not even get through the course, so in that sense I'm really proud and relieved. But equally by this point I'd done so much, and I knew what I'd done was sufficiently good that in truth if I'd got anything less than a merit I'd have been pretty disappointed. So this was what I expected, and I am mostly just looking forwards to sleeping a bit more now. I will think more about what comes next in the new year.

They was robbed I tell you!

Okay, so real talk, I had the perfect plan for Christmas. My partner was headed north to stay with their mother, and my two other housemates were also heading home to family. I was going to stay here, just me and Chase the dog, eating prolific quantities of artisan vegan cheese, sleeping a lot, playing animal crossing and watching trashy TV. The festive DREAM (of solitude, please and thank you). 

But then MY VEGAN CHEESES GOT LOST IN TRANSIT, all my housemates ended up stuck here, with I (and my partner) acting as de-facto carer for one of them, this is NOT THE CHILL CHRISTMAS BREAK I HAD DESPERATELY LONGED FOR

(I appreciate lots of people probably ended up spending this christmas alone when they'd much rather have been with people, but please let me have my moment of bitterness about being with people when I'd much rather have been alone...)

And then like half a tooth fell off, but my regular dentist couldn't see me until FEBRUARY. As I wasn't experiencing any pain I paid another very expensive dentist to tell me whether or not it could wait until February, and as soon as the words 'Well it will probably be fine as long as y...' I was OUTTA there (I hate dental work and I hate spending money on boring things) (So far it continues to be fine, maybe I'll never go to the dentist again!!11!!1!)

Before Boris's panicked announcement about getting everyone their booster jabs before the end of the year, I had an appointment booked for January 3rd, and was perfectly happy with that. But suddenly it felt like I was being foolish not to get it sooner. My partner queued in a chaotic central London hospital for a couple of hours, but I decided that really wasn't for me, so decided to stick it out and wait until January after all. But then my GP texted me at around 13.30 on the 21st, basically saying 'Yo we're doing boosters RIGHT NOW, come get', I clicked the link, booked an appointment for 15.00, went to this weird little church hall at around 14.45, and was hustled straight through, jabbed, and out the back door onto the street by 14.55. It was all remarkably efficient and felt strangely informal at the same time (everyone running the thing just seemed to be members of a church congregation and it still hasn't formally registered on my NHS account that I've even had a booster...?!) but anyway, a relief to have it done, and in what felt like a relatively safe setting.

Even though there was technically still work to be done, I had fulfilled all my urgent pre-christmas promises by this point, and, suffering from the inevitable post-booster malaise, I decided it was TIME TO STOP.

And then my partner got COVID. Lolllllllllll

(While there's a chance they got it from Tabitha, I think it's much more likely they picked it up when they were getting their booster)

As I was still testing negative and completely without symptoms, I took the opportunity to, heavily masked up, race over to Shoreditch to collect a replacement vegan cheese board, because christmas might be ruined but I WILL HAVE MY DAMN CHEESES

So with that, we entered PHASE 2 of house isolation protocol. Basically, EVERYONE stays in their rooms except to use the kitchen at pre agreed times (with half hour breaks between each person and the kitchen window wide open to air). There is no meaningful way that I could isolate myself from my partner, so at this point I basically just had to brace myself to the assumption that I too would succumb.

Our other housemate Beatrice had already been forced to realise that she couldn't travel back to France to see family, and was going to have to spend Christmas not only away from them for the first time ever, but also alone in her rom. Spen of course couldn't go back to their mother, though Tabitha reached the end of her isolation at midnight on Christmas eve, so was able to go back to her family on Christmas morning. 

Still, absolutely fuck Boris and his assertion that this was to be 'a better christmas than the last'

AAAAND a very merry Christmas to Emma

Like clockwork, I felt BAD on Boxing Day. Luckily my partner was coming out the other side of the worst of their symptoms, so was able to take good care of me. 

Still feeling bad, but leaning into the whole 'you cannot go anywhere or do anything' vibes. (Though apparently even when sick and isolating I cannot quite resist the lure of the task list)

My partner got me the Ring Fit game for Christmas, but I hadn't felt up to trying it until this point. It is a surprisingly intense workout (fun though!), but I think the greater issue is that COVID has totally wiped out any, even small, progress I'd made on my fitness at the gym before christmas. Even just doing the warm up nearly broke me. This is going to be a slow process I suspect. 

It's very easy to eat TOO MUCH when you're not doing anything at all... 

One of my friends got Chase a big raw beef treat for Christmas and she likes to rest it on her front legs to eat, so now she's all greasy and beefy but we still love her very much and absolutely let her on the cushions in the bed

And so, on we go. It's a strange place to be, starting a new year in isolation because of a global pandemic which continues to rage on nearly two years later, but I suppose I am making the best of where I find myself, sleeping a lot, reading a lot, catching up on various small, sedentary tasks... Getting myself on a solid footing for whatever's next, I hope. 

Until 2022...

November 2021

I'm starting to sound a bit like a broken record now, but... November was a lot?! Mostly me frantically preparing for MA hand in, then trying to let my hair down post hand-in, then realising rapidly that IT AIN'T OVER YET

It started quite nicely though — I went to my first gig since the before-times. It was kind of a surprise, as I hadn't been planning on it, but my friend George had a spare ticket for jazz man Matthew Halsall at the Barbican, and I decided that it might be a good opportunity to ease myself back in gently, even if I did spend the whole evening tensing up whenever anyone coughed.

Music was beautiful though and I'm at the age now where a seated show is [whisper it] ...quite nice

 Some days it be like that. Though hormones may have played a part in this one.

With my MA final project hand-in deadline looming, I struggled to find time to focus on it because of work commitments.

I guess you could say I have some amount of regret about deciding to make 30 sets of 144 tiny items, many of which require folding...

A whole year since my perfect boy left us. I still can't believe it, and it still hurts every single day. The way he went. The space he left behind. It really does feel like the pain will never go away.

But we've been so lucky to have our new friend Chase in our lives for most of this year, who has been such a comforting and supportive presence. We're still getting to know her ways, and, unsurprisngly given her fear of thunderstorms, fireworks night was an upsetting time for her. Even more upsetting because on the 5th there were informal displays, and on the 6th and 7th there were MASSIVE displays in Battersea Park, which is very close to our house. Three days of big bangs! We tried out the 'thunder shirt' on the recommendation of our vet — it's a tight jersey suit with velcro fastenings, with which you can effectively swaddle your dog, and for many this has a substantial calming effect. This made a little difference we think, and is probably good for day to day scaries like 'hockey ball go bang' or 'smol thunderstorm', but didn't really cut it for the ultimate dog scare fest that is fireworks night. So I got her one of the dog pheremone collars, that supposedly slow-release the same pheremones nursing mother dogs give off to comfort their puppies. This definitely made a difference to Chase. She was still scared but was much more able to lie still and calm, and wasn't constantly shaking and drooling and panting. Will definitely get her another one next year!

It's kalette season yo, can't beat 'em. My favourite is roasted in the oven with salt and olive oil until crispy!

Readers of last month's blog may have been wondering, does Emma have lung cancer?! I am pleased to confirm Emma does not have lung cancer, or COVID, just a persistant, unexplained cough. Sadly the next set of tests I'd need to establish cause (maybe allergies or something else) aren't running at the moment (because of COVID), so unless it gets much worse, GP's official advice is 'keep on toughing it out and call us again in the new year'. I am entirely fine with this outcome, mostly just relieved to not be dying.

My final MA project is very colourful, and I got my nails coloured to match! (Despite having very little free time, I decided that this was important)

When my partner goes away, I have to get up at around 6 to take Chase out for her morning toilet. (We don't have a garden so this involves about a 10 minute round trip, so it's impossible to just stay asleep while doing it). Much though I hated having to do this every day when I lived alone with Charlie, having to do it occasionally tends to spur me on to a very productive day. I wish I could happily wake up at 6am every day!

Felt like my visual diaries had been getting a bit lazy (I mean, I HAVE been busy), so did a painting of some lovely plants from the park to try and make up for it. (Also maybe procrastinating putting the finishing touches on my project)

Official submission day for our final MA project was November 16th, but I was done on the 14th and sick of looking at the damn thing, so I just uploaded it and decided to have a rest. If there was anything I could have done in those 48 hours that would have upgraded me from a pass to a merit, or a merit to a distinction, I sure as hell don't know what it was.

To celebrate my (very brief) newfound freedom, I took a London excursion up to Mill Hill East, to wave my friends Jonathan and Dan off before their big move to Australia. I'd never been to Mill Hill East before. They gave me a nice hot chocolate and took me to a cute garden centre. I was also very excited to travel the entire way there up the Northern Line, starting from my new local station Battersea Power Station! (Yes I am a big nerd, we know this by now) (Also I dated this one wrong, d'oh!

Actual hand in day was a bit of an anti-climax, with the post-hand-in meeting mostly consisting of our head tutor saying 'yes yes, well done, now here's the million other things you have to do before the end of term'. I did treat myself to a lie in and lots of delicious foods though, so that was something.

Our formal submission day was on the 16th, but that was just a digital submission. We had the chance to drop off our physical outcomes at uni the next day, but that too was a bit of an anticlimax.

If you're interested in seeing my project, I have a dedicated website for it here, which has a nice explainer of it in the 'about' section.

There's also some photos of the physical object/set (and my lovely nails) on my creative instagram, here

Anyway, over the last couple of pandemic/MA years I've put on over a stone — because Charlie died (less exercise and also sad), I've been sitting at my desk a lot, and because food is a great joy that I refuse to deprive myself of. I'm not happy though, I hate struggling to run for a bus and getting tired going up the stairs, so IMMEDIATELY after hand in (perhaps too keen given how much work I still have to do), I went and joined the gym over the road. It's run by a private company, but I'm pretty sure is as close as this jurisdiction gets to a local authority gym. It's very cheap, slightly laissez-faire in some respects, and crucially has a real cross-section of the local community attending (in terms of age, fitness level, race, everything!)

Gyms are scary but this one felt welcoming, and because I got a student membership I get to attend all classes for FREE! And I got two free personal trainer sessions, which was mildly terrifying. I was paired up with an incredibly hench Persian man who used to be on the UK olympic weights team. Unsurprisingly, he tried to get me to do weights. I told him no to weights, but did take on board a lot of his advice about incorporating strength training into my workout, not just cardiovascular (i.e. using the lift-heavy-things machines not just the get-out-of-puff machines)

I like the gym so far, but we'll see if it sticks in the longer term.

I immediately jumped on the free classes bandwagon and had a great time at ZUMBA

In other 'finally finished my MA' (kind of) errands, I went down to Brighton, especially to get a haircut from my old hairdresser there, who I lost for a few years and then finally re-found. He gave me a dramatic haircut that is still growing on me. (Literally, I guess).

Here's said haircut (and some embarassingly bad drawings of my face, some days drawing just... doesn't work?!)

Went for my second personal trainer session and he made me flap the ropes about like an idiot, and yes I know all the hot hench men do it, but I will not be flapping the ropes again.

Went to give blood (which I have done numerous times before) and the nurse inserted the needle into my arm in a way that made me say 'SOMETHING'S WRONG' and quietly 'aaaaaaaagggghhhhhhh' so as not to alarm the people waiting to give, until she took it out again. Possibly she hit a tendon? Or just went in wonky? Anyway they gave me this very gentle leaflet called 'Arm Care', which should basically have been called 'So we fucked up your arm', full of information about when to panic and when not to panic. (Anyway don't let that put you off giving blood, it's a good thing to go and they give you snacks!)

I've mostly managed to stave off the winter blues quite well so far, but we kept getting the central heating wrong and the house felt like an icebox, and I got quite miserable.

As well as being very busy with freelance work, one of the things we have to organise before the end of term is a 'symposium' day, which celebrates the launch of a small publishing press associated with the course, and the publication of the course's annual book of critical design writing (which I, remarkably, have contributed to). I've been involved with the press and will be running a workshop on the day of the symposium, which obviously comes with a fair bit of organisational stress (though to be fair, other people on my course are taking on the brunt of that, it's still occupying a lot of my headspace).

I begun to somewhat regret my mid-October attitude of 'book loads of fun stuff after hand in day', because it turned out hand-in day absolutely did not mark the beginning of chill out time. BUT, tickets had been booked, so off me and my partner went to the museum of brands, which I can highly recommend if you have a couple of hours to kill near Notting Hill. We also went to Nakanojo, a quite-fancy Japanese Peruvian place for lunch, and it was some of the best restaurant food I've had in a long time! I want to take everyone there! (But you're paying next time). Was fun to have a cute date, which, considering we've been dating for nearly 2 years, we've had remarkably few of. Pandemic'll do that I guess...

 
One longstanding bone of contention for me on our course was UAL's stubborn refusal to offer us an end of year show. Maybe it's stupid but it was a big thing for me — I love grad shows and was really looking forwards to the chance to show off my work and see it alongside that of all of my cohort. The general attitude from our tutor in charge of organising the end of year event/s (NOT Tony pictured here, who is great) was 'the symposium is all you're getting, no you can't display your work there, tough it out', which I found, frankly, unhelpful, but I had come to peace with the fact that, ostensibly for COVID related reasons, we would not get a show. (Even though no one else seems to be letting COVID stop events running any more, for now at least)

So it came as a bit of a surprise to have it hinted at on hand-in day that maybe there WOULD be an on-site show, and then, just a week before said show was expected to go up, to be told that we would recieve no assistance in organising it, and that if none of us stepped up to plan, curate, hang, label etc, we would simply not get a show. ONE WEEK before the show hang. 

Having desperately wanted a show, but also being super busy with other work, I waited, and waited, and waited for someone else on the course to step up and say 'yeah, I'll organise it'. But no one did. Most of the kind of people who like doing this stuff were already occupied with the symposium day, and most of the kind of people who don't like doing this stuff had literally gone on holiday (seeing their lovely tourist snaps on instagram made me grit my teeth a little).

So anyway hey guess what, I'm organising a show, it hangs on Friday, opens next Tuesday, and if you wanna come I'll share a link to the tickets page with people who subscribe to my newsletter. (Not gonna put it out here for general consumption as I think numbers are somewhat limited).

So now I am VERY STRESSED but in like 2 weeks this will all be over and I can stop writing about how stressed I am! (I hope)

Spent all day today drawing up an elaborate plan for the exhibition space with everyone's work in (which incidentally is much too small for our cohort, hence needing someone to lead on layout, that someone being me). Then spent the rest of the day redrawing it upon recieving new information about the space that UAL had not deigned to share with us before. Honestly the whole thing is an absolute shitshow, we got kicked out of the building yesterday because it flooded, all the academic staff are going on strike tomorrow because the university treats them like crap, and the other tutor who was supposed to be offering me assistance with this simply is not responding to her emails. Feeling less affectionate towards academia every day tbh

WISH ME LUCK 😅 (I am using that emoji about 20 times a day at the moment)