Bucket List

After about ten years of waking up every morning - thats 3,650 times - wishing I could go to Prague and wander through narrow cobbled streets, staring up at dolls houses the size of mansions, and pay 50p for a pint of vodka.. I actually went last week. I can now tick that off my bucket list.

I went to stay with my good friend Jim, so good in fact that he’s been living in the Czech Republic for three years and I didn’t even know. When we were kids we often played guitar together, usually Pixies songs, and when I saved enough of my tight as hell pocket money i bought my first electric guitar. Trembling with excitement I phoned Jim straight away.. “I got one!” “Brilliant, what type?” “A red one!” “But what type!?” “A cherry red one!” I did however get cooler as I got older. In fact I was proud owner and theft victim of a Gibson ES 335 and I lent it to “a specialist” to re-aline the neck and never saw my baby again.

Pretty Prague is everything people make it out to be and more.. although, as a manic depressive, everyday some form of chaos filtered through.. the first day, Jim and I, both being petrified of heights (I stand on a chair and start screaming) climbed the mini replica of the Eiffel tower which stands at the top of a hill so high you need to take a train to get up there, totaling 378 meters above sea level, and you climb (many) stairs just in the outside of the tower. It was really windy, and once you start you can’t turn back. By the time we got to the top, and it took a long time, not just because of how high it is but I had to stop every few steps to have a panic attack, security had to send a lift to take us down as I diva-refused to walk back down. Then the following day I suggested a nice relaxing trip to the Museum Of Torture. Three floors of nausea, fear and panic that this could have happened to me in a previous life, each floor up was more terrifying than the last. Favourites of medieval punishment involved genitalia, spikes, and weights. Then the day after that I got arrested by the Czech Police. I can’t understand what’s written on my fine receipt but it could be a number of things.. Breach of the peace (shouting, singing even louder) or “cavorting” in a public place (with a teenager) or trying to seduce the police officers that arrested me or then resisting arrest. Oh, and showing my bum. I somehow only paid 500kc instead of the standard 1000kc, I’m guessing they saw the funny side, but my biggest crime however is that I am a massive hypocrite. Only the day before I was telling a czech friend that Brits abroad give us a bad name, with their loud, drunk, slutty behaviour and that I was appalled at what I see on these TV documentaries following Brits on holiday. 

So, note to self.. Next time.. REMEMBER TO PACK YOUR  LITHIUM!! The rest of the trip consisted of hiding out in the countryside where you can’t get into trouble. Beautiful. Quiet. Friendly. You have to be careful when living in a village though because if you make an idiot of yourself in the pub like I do, the next time you have to sheepishly walk back in because this could be the only pub in the whole village. One of the best things about living in London is that there are over 7000 pubs. Result!

The rest of my bucket list I need to get through includes the following.. 

Meeting Noel Edmonds, Owning my own front door, Learn to play drums (ticked), Do the splits (ticked), Wear heels without crying, Get unbanned from uniformdating.com, Do charity swimathon (I got someone to do it for me so sort of ticked), Beat bipolar (up), Do stand up comedy (ticked), Own my own needlecraft shop and rent the basement out to the mafia, Take a comedy show to Edinburgh Fringe (ticked), Watch Ghostbusters without having nightmares for a week, Bake cupcakes without setting the fire alarm off, Make a salad without setting the fire alarm off, Sleep with a celebrity pop star (tick), Get a female puppy and call it Dave, Wear a wedding dress (but not get married), Live in a pretty house abroad and walk round it in an apron and carry a wicker basket at all times (even in bed), Play bass in a band (tick), Come off all meds and not go mad, Stop showing off around boys, Get over my fear of bunting (tick), Have babies, Write a sketch show for telly (sort of tick, went on radio two), Get arrested by policemen for sexual harassment (on the sexy policemen - tick).

Attachment Issues, Floor Tiles and Garibaldis

To some extent we all have some attachment issues, even if very little, even if we don't even know. Same as rejection, same as abandonment, same as horizontal stripes make you look fat issues. 

Although I have absolutely no idea where mine came from.. I wasn't breast fed so I can't blame it on coming off the boob, my dad came home every day after work, and no sh*t, our family goldfish lived for thirty one years. (It was won at the fair by my mum when she was a baby - before it was thought inhumane – and it was one of those annoying situations where a grown up actually wins it and then says “clever girl!” to which the baby just gives a “what the f*ck” look then sh*ts itself).

However, my seemingly from nowhere attachment issues came out recently, horribly, when two decorators came to convert my bathroom into a shower room.  No it didn't happen in B&Q, although I have cried in there a few times before. The smell of timber reminds me of wasted weekends as a child, wandering around with the parents for what seems hours, days, when all my other friends were swimming, outdoors for god sake. What I do however like about B&Q is watching couples a) have arguments over floor tiles, or b) have conversations with each other by just staring at each other.

No, what it was, they were here for two weeks. Two weeks is a long time if you work from home and they are your only other form of communication other than rodents who are my guinea pigs Bev, Sue, Pam, Elaine Barbara, Linda and Pauline. I also have two cats now named Exceptional Circumstances and Discrimination In The Workplace. The builders wouldn't drink my tea, they said Earl Grey tastes like Perfume, fair play, but they sure as hell ate my biscuits. And we chatted every day, I got to know their first names and everything.

When the shower room was almost complete, on the last day, I actually lost nearly a whole nights sleep wondering how I was going to survive them leaving me, so, I got up early and left the house before they got here, leaving a note – on the biscuit tin – saying..

“Early meeting, cheers boys, looks great”

But what I really wanted to say was..

“I can't believe you're leaving me! How could you do this? Do you not think I have feelings too? All you do is work long hard hours, talk about your wives (BTW when did you ever talk about me?) eat  my garibaldis and fart every time you bent down to seal a gap. Yours, devastated, Kerry of Hackney. PS One of the taps is dripping, maybe you need an extra week to fix?)

So I wrote it down, and felt better. And left the house before they got here. As I stepped onto the tube to go nowhere I panicked.. which note did I actually leave on the biscuit tin???

Manic Spendathons

If there's one thing I learnt in CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) it's that we have to take something positive from every negative experience. Or was it other way around? Well.. I recently went on a spendathon. It's not shopping that I have an addiction to - when I'm manic  I actually hate the physical act of shopping; if I try on one pair of shoes from Oxford Street I then have to try on EVERY BLOODY pair of shoes in every bloody shop and then just choose ten pairs - I did seven and a half hours in the Westlife (or maybe it's Westfield) shopping centre in Stratford during that time and I swear to god I will never run out of stationary and paper plates. No, internet shopping is more satisfying. I swear to god the only reason Amazon hasn't gone bankrupt like everyone else is because of me. You can sit there in yesterdays pants, last week's make-up and the next six months wages and tremble over stuff you wouldn't normally think about. And Groupon.. and I blame other people for this.

But going back to my original point, we take a positive from a negative. All the non-refundable overpriced treatments that I can't afford, when I'm manic, credit card shaking in my hand, along with all the promises of beauty, stardom, husbands and oh my god I will look amazing....... fortunately by the time the actual bookings come around I am usually face down in my sink, hair flopped in soap, toothpaste, anything that is gonna drive me to a very clean suicide, but hey! Guess what! I have eyelash extensions to look forward to! Lazer teeth whitening! Er.. Learn Portuguese in five days... and a call from the credit card company threatening to take me to the cleaners.. but guess what? I can actually say that, through dazzling teeth, in Portuguese.. Vamos levá-lo para a limpeza. 

Very good friends will take your credit cards off you during this time. Shoot them.

Visual Associations

It recently occurred to me that visual associations are so f**king random. Music associations - fair enough, we hear something and it reminds us of the place we were at or the people we were with when we heard it. Smells - same as. But why is it that every time I plug in my curling tongs I think of Bjork? She doesn't have a perm. And whenever I pay my council tax I think of Noel Edmunds sitting on a hay stack. Again, never seen it. Perhaps something is happening in our dreams. Perhaps we are all being spiked with mild hallucinogenic drugs in our water system. Perhaps I should log out now.

Lies, Cliff Richard and Numbers.

I told the best lie yesterday (I try to tell at least one lie a day, it's good for creativity and writing). A friend of mine came over to see if I was manic, I was putting my Christmas tree up and listening to Cliff Richard sing seasonal ballads, it's April. I tried to give him some money from a wad load of cash I had stuffed in an envelope. When he asked where I got it, I turned all serious, and silenced Cliff, and told him that nine years ago, I witnessed a man do something. Something terrible. Instead of going to the Police - which by the way I've felt nothing but guilt about but have got hooked on the money - I tracked him down and blackmailed him. Not so much about going to the Police but to his wife as that would be game over. My bribe was set at a grand a month, until I decide to stop. My friend looked mortified. He couldn't look me in the eye. He said that he's rather not know what I witnessed but I could see he was curious, so I told him. I saw him pick his nose and flick it at the back of his wife's head. Then turned Cliff back up and started to dance.

Had a piece published a couple of days ago in the Huffington Post. It's had nearly 200 likes already which is fab because I thought it was crap. I went to a press event hosted by Alastair Campbell about the portrayal of mental health in the media and - as Sarah Jessica Parker always say - "and that got me thinking..."

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/kerry-hudson/mental-health-criminality_b_2974281.html

I dream of sleeping

I haven’t posted for a while, been so distracted, and I forget stuff as soon as I think it.

Six and a half hour spending sprees, but on the plus side, no pets.

Nights out, most nights, I can’t remember remembering.

Very little sleep.. even on promethazine and zopiclone combined.

Feeling so high - as in measurement, not morphine - someone tried to mug me the other night and I spat a big fat swear word in his face.

So scatty I keep forgetting my lithium.

Brain so fast haven’t been able to work, it can’t keep up.

But this isn’t mania, mania was last November, mania was putting my address on facebook and inviting anyone to come over and help themselves to anything in my house, mania was throwing the remaining anything off the balcony.

All I want to do is sleep for more than four hours a night. When your mind is on overdrive but your body is exhausted all you can do is lie there and buzz. Sometimes my alarm goes off right next to me but I don’t notice for ages. I had to set my alarm to a Chas n Dave song thinking it would annoy the hell out of me and break me out of the charged up pulse but no.

On a slightly more interesting note, I’m exhibiting at “Creative Journeys” Hackney Museum Gallery for three months, it covers the history of mental health in the East End of London. See photo’s above plus a LOT of knitting.

I love you.

Creative Journeys - an exhibition

Should you wandering around Hackney Central one day, check out our exhibition in the gallery. It runs until May 25th (2013) and artwork is on sale. 

Should you be inspired by my work, I'm running a series of workshops in the museum. Just ask at the front desk.. "What the bloody hell is all that about then?"

SSP x