Give me a customer services job and a dull husband any day.

Without the working structure of a nine to five job, where all I have are lose deadlines for possible articles, surrounded by a wool and fabric explosion, it's easy to get overwhelmed and underwhelmed at the same time and lately I often find myself closing the laptop, detangling myself, cracking open a bottle of Gin and absorbing myself in True Movies. 

I need to be careful here, not only does the lithium exageratte my senses, making me more subseptable to my surroundings (or those on the TV) but the Gin magnifies that, and I need to watch that I don't think I'm in Southern America in the mid nineties, on trial for killing my husband for his hansome life insurance, having given my eight kids up for adoption - all of which were switched at birth - whilst I recover from a fall out of a twenty story window that I was pushed but survived with courage and I dodge the death sentence by seducing the judge whom I also find out is my long lost father. It's a BIG identity crisis to take in.

So I am currently surrounded by half empty diary entries, penciled appointments, possible workshop rentals, and trying to find sctructure out of chaos, amongst everything half finished around me - notes, research, inteview tapes, photo's, knitting, fabric cuts, whilst cooking and singing along to Starship with half my head in rollers and half a glass of g&t.

Somebody told me that people with bipolar find structure difficult. No shit! And I can add that when we finally find it, some of us get overwhelmed and sabotage it, burn food and singe hair. 

Give me a customer services job and a dull husband any day.

My name is Mark Hollis

Seems kind of weird that I'm in my thirtees now and still need parental control switched on on the TV. 

Why? 

Porn addiction? No. 

Disturbing RSPCA commercials? Usually but not this time. 

Footage of eightiees pop band Talk Talk? YES. 

Something surreal very recently happened to me. Bear in mind I've been on a rocketing 1250mg of lithium daily. All my senses have been heightened - I've been hearing stuff in the house I'd never heard before like air cons, distant trains, next door but one's favourite method of pleasuring himself - and my vision has been so blurry I haven't been able to work, words on screens manifest then disappear, think doing ketamin on a trampoline. 

I became hooked on certain visual stimuli like my life depended on it and there happened to be some footage of Mark Hollis from Talk Talk on Sky Arts and I got sucked into him, like a drowning sensation through into his veins, and I actually, sort of, though very convinced, thought I was him, Mark Hollis, and this went on for nearly two days. I was obsessed, talked of/played/thought about no-one else.

My partner Nail made the mistake of teling me that his band, Bent, had contacted  Hollis re doing some vocals and had a response (a letter) somewhere when just fed my obsession than satisfied it "I need that letter!!" I screamed. 

So Nail marched me to my GP who told me I was having a reaction to the lithium (or the dose of) so I've reduced down to 750mg via 1000mg where I'm still in range (lithium blood count) so am at a theraputic dose to prevent episodes. 

So a little red (manic), a little blue, (blue) but I have no plans for a come back tour. 

Caffiene, Cocaine, Cherryade Or Just Plain Mania?

Admittedly I'm as high as a kite!!

It's like I've downed a spoon full of coffee granules dusted with cocaine down with cherryade - the hard cheap stuff at birthday parties when you were five. My shoulders are permanently hunched, my hands are shaking and ideas are flowing in (and out) of my brain  at the speed of light. I have so/too much to do in these short sharp hours of this finger click of a day. 

I did go with the boyfriend to see his therapist this afternoon - between manic bouts of knitting - to give my support, but there's a fine, paper cut line between offering support and not letting either of them get a word in edge ways with my ramblings. 

Whether that happened in the room or in my head I don't know but I'll perhaps show my support by not going next time.

pic: dried chilli's. the good hard stuff.

Running Away, Compulsive Spending, and Cadbury's Cream Eggs

I ran away recently. I felt like life was taking the p**s out of me. I also felt like a massive rubber band was holding me back from doing things everyone else seemed to be doing. So I packed a bag, my passport, my charger - although I wasn't answering my calls to anyone I still needed to know that people were calling. I thought about Scotland, Holland, and Malta, but I only made it as far as Oxford Street. 

The instinct to run away transformed into an impulse to spend. Clothes, shoes... lunch. More clothes more shoes, gin and tonic. More clothes, shoes, coffee.. I flanked out by the time I got to Spitalfields and rand the boyfriend I left that morning in such a huff and asked if he could help me cary my shopping home and he did, as usual very understanding of my mood swings, he gets a cadburys cream egg.

Turns out I didn't need to run away, just needed a bit of me time and a bit of a blow out. Note to self - need to learn how to downscale from what I think is happening to what actually is. It's like yesterday morning when I got a letter from Virgin Media I panicked and ran to the shops to get a bottle of wine (at 11am) to find it was just small leaflet in a large envelope. Curse you Richard Branson!

The clothes and shoes will no doubt stay in the bag for three weeks and then be the victims of shopping in reverse. I do it for the buzz, I have no room for more clothes or shoes - my bedroom looks like a car boot sale.

Staying in and knitting is the new going out and getting twat*ed

It may not be as rock n roll as shoplifting and cocaine but knitting is something that keeps me..
-Indoors (out of trouble)
-Quiet (minimises compulsive questioning
-Focused (on something physical)
.. and gives me a head start, so when I'm in an old peoples home I'll be able to knit my way into the hardest gang, punch colostomy bags with my needles should anyway nick my Garlbaldis.


Here lies some more of my knitting and fabrications. http://nanscabinet.blogspot.com/