Last Week

So last week I finished my job.

This week I’m starting something scary.

Last week was mostly good, the evenings were full and I planned and I plotted and it all worked. In fact a lot of stuff I hadn’t planned for happened so I ended up over at FJ’s place proving why I don’t make a great nurse (no outfit). The Laser Quest in Morecambe was fun, but the tiredness that dogged my weekend started on Friday night. I learnt how to successfully vanish in the middle of a group of people (having a pre-booked taxi really helps) and wrote a lot, well the writing really happened on Saturday but it started Friday night. There were cigars, champagne and I indulged in revealing some incredibly freaky stalkerish behaviour or that’s what FJ said I was doing. I also indulged in my disturbing hobby of lying to taxi drivers in an incredibly involved way…

Being a Mish is on the whole a good thing but it’s not just Archangel’s staying power I wonder at, though he did finally call me a bitch on Friday, which is moderately impressive given that I’ve deserved that for roughly seven years. I hardly shot him at all (no comments about my aim please!)

Saturday I’d intended to go out with Mother-In-Law but felt utterly rotten and got a text from her saying she wasn’t up for it (she’d been really tired the night before as well) so the Jellicle persuaded me to stay in and recuperate a bit, we watched a really crappy horror movie (EXCELLENT!) and then he showed me Revolver which he’s obsessed by, and which I thought was pretty interesting too. I returned to my computer after the movies to discover an MSN description of what Princess Lex was going to wear that night and wished that I had managed to go out anyway, however given the amount I slept during the weekend maybe it was better not. Apparently Mother-In-Law managed to get out and it sounds like I missed a good night, there’s always next month.

Princess Lex and Foxy Jonno came by for afternoon tea and lesbians on Sunday after the Jellicle got back from his Go club and ended up staying for a rather nice curry and a very naked man who’d come to kill a monsta (we watched Beowulf). It was a chilled out weekend which is what I needed.

I didn’t end up (due to knackeredness) preparing for this week, so I’m taking this week as a break in my career plan to get the house shipshape before starting next week.

So, what is this scary thing I’m doing. Well, I currently have two jobs; Gardener for my Gentleman Friend and Art Tutor for the Ex-Gardnerian (and possibly Nordic Lady at some point?) and for the past two years I’ve been spending the rest of my time applying for jobs, painting and writing. I put the applying for jobs first because this week I’m only just beginning to appreciate how much time and effort I put into that. Over the last two years I’ve managed to finish three manuscripts in scraps and bits and I don’t quite have a full exhibitions worth of paintings because most of my time has been eaten writing and rewriting, editing and re-editing my CV and application forms and searching papers and online websites for jobs which never materialised. Well, for the next few months I will be putting significantly less effort into finding a part-time job and keeping my current jobs and significantly more effort into writing (and painting). Of the three complete manuscripts one has been outright rejected by publishers and the other two have been shown interest in.

Ok well, Miss UD says I’m a writer, this year I become an author (of preferably more than poetry).

I’m really scared because if this doesn’t work out then I have pretty much scuppered my career prospects, on the otherhand maybe I need the fear? (Maybe I shouldn’t have watched Friends as a teenager). I’m an artist, and I need to be one instead of grabbing seconds of art in amidst the mess of trying to grab the career that was supposed to support my art rather than drain it of it’s life.

With any luck that might make me a slightly more bearable person to be around as well. Possibly even for Archie… maybe…