Well, June has been a kind of stressful month, for dog related reasons which will become apparent, and also for work related reasons — I am waiting to find out whether I am going to get a 0.6 (3 day a week) permanent role at UAL and if I DO, it's amazing, I'm golden, celebrations all round. If I don't, I am extraordinarily fucked, and there's kind of no in between. So between those two things I've been a bit of a ball of nerves, but the good thing (I guess?!) is that I've been much less busy since I quit GFSC in April, which I know has helped stave off what was rapidly oncoming burnout — my work/life balance feels a lot healthier. (However it is a little in danger of going too far in the opposite direction).
Anyway, the month started at EMF camp...
Which really does feel like forever ago. On the Saturday I did my talk about my MA project. It went pretty well but I TOTALLY forgot I have a whole dedicated website for the project (ldn2btn.uk) and missed a valuable chance to actually plug it and my work, so am kind of annoyed with myself about that. The rest of the day was just a bunch of other exciting, overstimulating stuff — a great time all round.
By Sunday me and my Airbnb buddy James were TIRRRRRED. We did a bunch more nice stuff in the morning then went back to the airbnb for a lie down before making our respective long journeys home to Hebden Bridge and London. Overall the whole thing was amazing once again, and I am already excited for 2026!
Our old housemate Camille and her partner Cathy came over for dinner and a boardgame, which was lovely!
Regular readers might remember my last encounter with Piers Corbyn (September 5th). Well him and an accompanying yob were out canvassing on the Elephant and Castle roundabout near where I work, so I took the opportunity to have another reasoned debate with him about the merits of ULEZ 🙃
Glorious opportunity to meet four of the smartest people I know all at once!
The 'free lunch' is a almost always a glorious treat at UAL, especially for staff members like me who are actually a bit more financially precarious than we would care to admit. I was very excited when our PG Cert course cohort were promised a free lunch, only for 30 or so of us to arrive and discover the free lunch was... well, probably around about 30 slightly wet tiny sandwiches. Extremely depressing.
Me, my partner, and our friend Heidi went to see the stage production of Spirited Away! It was GREAT but I highly recommend if you are going to go that you pay extra for comfortable seats where you can actually see the whole thing...
A nice man in the park gave her a tennis ball
Sadly in Jessie's view there are no nice men in the park. Or anywhere else. She has started becoming increasingly reactive to some/many strangers — when I drew this I was reading her behaviour as protecting me, but actually I think the issue is that she's frightened, and doesn't see any other way to protect herself than by lashing out. Whatever her motivation it's made walks pretty depressing and frightening for both of us and I've had a few particularly dark, anxious days when she's been at her worst. I am determined not to 'send her back' (after what happened with Barley, my pride couldn't handle it!) but it is not the life I had imagined with a dog, and I grieve every day for the loss of my perfect guys Charlie and Chase.
Part of my angst may have been caused by having run two packs of the pill together in order to avoid having a period while at EMF (compost toilets + menstrual cup = no thanks). Apparently some people can just do this with no side effects but I am not one of them, and a week or two into the second pack I start getting increasingly fraught and irrational. It sucks!
There's this amazing app which enables you to detect which birds are singing nearby (and there are a lot of birds in my bit of Croydon apparently!) — it's very satisfying, a bit like Pokemon go but for REAL ANIMALS
Being broke has stopped me getting any new tattoos for ages which meant I can finally give blood 😅
Our friend Jay came over and we had a nice walk with Jessie, though later that day she was VERY naughty (got out of the house and chased the postman, which sounds like a comedy scene but very much was not, and now he won't deliver our parcels any more 💀 She didn't bite him but she was an absolute dickhead and I went into full crisis mode about having such a terrible dog)
And that's when I get sad enough that I start doing self portraits :(
Me and my partner started putting in place serious plans to try and sort out our (and Jessie's) lives. We've booked a behaviourist, ordered a muzzle and started muzzle training, and put in place some fairly drastic changes to how we walk Jessie. A working theory is that actually, taking her on long, brisk, diverse, varied walks, even though she seemed to thrive on it, was actually too much stimulation for her, and was building up her cortisol levels such that she is much more prone to stress. We've gone from walking her 2+ hours a day to closer to 1 hour, and only around our very local park. We're also walking very slowly, letting her sniff everything for long periods of time, such that a complete loop of our local rec which only takes around 5 – 10 minutes at brisk pace might be over half an hour. She's still reactive, but the less often she has full blown, straining at the end of the leash barking and lunging incidents, the less likely it is to happen again, if that makes any sense (basically trying to avoid her getting het up). Our walks do have to be on very high alert but we have had a lot less incidents in the last week simply by avoiding everything and reducing the amount of stimuli she's exposed to. My only worry now is that she's going to a) get fat, b) get restless or destructive around the house, c) get more reactive as she's not being exposed to her triggers (though the science mostly debunks the latter)
(I also got this lovely new procreate brush set to cheer me up which emulates old marker pens and have been having fun with it ever since)
To make sure Jessie gets lots of outdoor time we've been spending more time in the garden, which has definitely been a good thing in terms of finally getting on top of the back garden weed chaos.
I also had fun using said marker pens to do this drawing of our living room
A client very kindly took me to the wildlife photographer of the year exhibition, which was great. I also haven't been to the natural history museum in forever, so it was lovely to see the building again. On the way, I happened to pass by the Anya Hindmarch concept ice cream shop, having seen it online and not really entirely believing it existed. Had some delicious Malden Sea Salt chocolate ice cream (and sampled some of the other exciting flavours too) — it's pricy but I highly recommend a visit for a weird treat.
Some days it feels like one step forward, two steps back with Jessie, and every day where she's really on one I end up feeling incredibly miserable and fragile.
Getting away is good?! But not really a long term solution!? Still it was nice to go down to Chichester and stay with my parents overnight to celebrate Dad's 70th birthday. (My train was delayed by over an hour but that was actually great because I got to do delay repay, yessss)
Yeah, somehow Dad is 70 now?! idk how that happened
The sun finally came out though, which did help with my mood
Headed down for Shoreham for a fun workshop with Ladies that UX Brighton, run by my friend Heidi — the workshop was good but actually I was a bit too tired and strung out to fully enjoy it, and kind of the highlight of the trip was getting to stand by the sea in the sun. I'm very happy in London for now, but I do hope I get to live by the sea again some day.
Had a day so bad I didn't feel like I could get out of bed, which is rare for Emma, normally peppy of spirit (This isn't all dog btw. Some of it is finance/work worries). Forced myself up, did a load of chores, made two proper meals and tidied a bunch of stuff up, and felt a lot better.
At Samaritans we have recently started getting FREE PRET (we go and collect all the local Pret branch's uneaten fresh stuff at closing time), which is very exciting every fortnight (because I take several baguettes and have lunch and breakfast all weekend). However all of us were very disappointed to be told we could NOT eat the free pret this time, as it was gonna be for all the volunteers attending the pride march the next day, booooooo (only joking, they do deserve it). Luckily however, I got free pizza at lunchtime to make up for it
Having a ground floor flat with big gardens at the front and back is great, and also TERRIBLE
Justin is in London! We had a lovely* (*mediocre) brunch!
Jessie has been a good girl today, and I am hoping to hear about the UAL job in the next couple of weeks. So July has the potential to be a better month, but also the potential to be MUCH WORSE. Onwards, to find out...
