Foxy

I'm currently sitting in my house with every single door and window open, watching the surviving lepidoptera sneak out from all their secret hiding places and flap out back home from last night's moth party. I don't remember inviting them.

I'm feeling a little unbalanced today. I've listened to nothing but Nick cave and the Bad Seeds all afternoon and it appears to have had a profound effect on my brain. Nick Cave always does this to me. I find myself looking out of the window into the farm by my house and watching for men with sticks or something, creeping through the rusty farmyard machinery.

You may have noticed that it is extremely hot today, so I have every intention of just lying here reading, listening to Cave and considering whether having black hair again would make me look washed out.

I was going to go for a run earlier, but I don't think that's a good idea in this heat. Wonderful as this weather is, I don't want to pass out on some country road somewhere and be found five hours late, shriveled like one of Catherine Deneuve's lovers from The Hunger.

Personally, I blame the fact that I'm listening to loads of ABBA, on my mother for having Mamma Mia! on DVD. I used to love ABBA so much when I was a kid, so now I'm re-visiting my past! Say what you want, but "The Visitors" is the best song ever - come on, it's about alien abduction!

I weighed myself earlier and over the last three weeks since I've been eating dramatically more healthy things, I have lost three quarters of a stone. Now, before you say anything (and I swear to Cher, any comments saying "OH MAI GAWD BUT U R SO SKINNY!!132" will probably just be ignored), it may be the case that I'm slim and always have been. But it's my body and I have noticed that as I have got into my twenties, it has more effect on me when I eat stuff like ice cream and chicken and then do no exercise. Of course, I am still eating stuff like ice cream and chicken, but I am also substituting chocolate for things like pistachio nuts, seeds and muesli and yummy carrots. Running and stuff has actually helped tone up a tad too. So don't think I'm being neurotic (for once!) if I mention once or twice how eating better and being more active is making me feel happier about the way I look.

In other news, I'm growing my hair. That sounds odd, doesn't it? Hair is always growing. It might be more accurate to say that I am not getting it cut - just the occasional trim to keep it tidy. But I estimate that by the end of the ear, I will be able to tuck it behind my ears. And my hair - titter titter!

Right, I have happy things to look forward to in the near future and I have to sit on all the money I receive now in order to make it happen. Kerry's having people over tonight for drinkies in her back garden and I might head out to Black Cats later to dance to the Virgin Prunes and such. A sunday of sun please tomorrow!

Today I went into town and bought some sexy black bedsheets (goth!). Right outside the Guild Hall, there was a large group of Iranian people with placards and stuff shouting "Down with Iran! Down with the dictator!" I applauded, though was a little dismayed when I overheard a woman saying that nobody wanted to know and that it was an obstruction. The police obviously didn't agree, because they were quite happily stood watching the very peaceful Iranians making their point without being shot.

I successfully resisted the temptation to push the woman out into the path of an oncoming Skoda.

I bought some tiny hotpants. They just about keep it all covered, but nobody will ever accuse me of being shy/modest/a decent human being.

I am now listening to Lydia Lunch and eating pistachio nuts, enjoying the sun. Going to a private view at a gallery tonight. I hope I have lots of Pimms fun. :)

Lene Lovich has a song which goes "EARWIGS IN MY FRIDGE AT NIGHT PUT ME IN A DANCING MOOD". I can't decide who's more insane, her or Lydia.

Hey, girlfriends and boyfriends and everything in between.

I had an interview on monday which I didn't tell anybody about. It was for a voluntary position with the Youth Work service. So it's not paid, but that's not what I'm after at the moment. My freelance work gives me money for shoes and make up. What I'm after is experience before my Masters Degree starts. I have had a lot of wonderful times with the guys at the OutYouth group (a youth group set up specifically for gay young people). It is well within my comfort zone -- it never used to be. Sat amongst a group of 13-20 year olds, at first, was daunting, dare I say frightening. But I soon got used to it. We had the fashion show; I know them all by name and could tell you something wonderful about each of them. But now it's time to move on. I will still go to the group and help. But I need to see, for example, the drugs and alcohol counseling group, the youth offending scheme. All the places where, realistically, I will be working during my degree and after it when I am qualified.

So I applied for an official Youth Work volunteer position a few weeks ago. I had the interview yesterday at 11am.

Now, I never prepare for interviews. It's not like an exam. You either have it in your soul, or you don't. You can't learn such a flexible system by route. There is a curriculum, but it is highly interpretative. There are targets, requirements and standards, but it is nothing like teaching. This is Informal Education. They, as I have said before, come to us. And it is our job to keep them there by bending to their needs and requirements.

I won't go in depth into the interview, save to say that I wasn't expecting three people to be interviewing me! For the first few minutes, I don't mind saying that I was very worried. But i was, in my head, Well, do it, come on, Foxy, you've been mugged at knifepoint and come away with your phone and money; you've been cornered by a guy with a gun -- these are three potential colleages! Work it girl!.

Heh, as I said, this shit is either with you, ingrained in your respect for diversity, your ability to think on your feet and desire to empower young people - or it is not. This is how I am wired. I have this 'program' within me which knows what is right and what is wrong; what helps and what fucks it up; how to listen and how to talk. I came away from the interview thinking "hey, that was cool. I think I did okay." But last time I thought that, I failed.

While I was stood at the bus stop today, going to Out Youth group, not more than 30 hours later, I received a phonecall. It was one of the interviewers. He said that they were all very impressed with my interview, that they would be happy to offer me a placement within a certain sector of the Plymouth Youth Work team (which is, in short, extensive and exhausting, going by the guys I have worked with!). They could "tell you had a strong understanding of the context within which they worked". Basically, I did my homework - not for the interview, but ever since a colleague started telling me about it, and I first felt that I might want to do this as more than a sideline, I wanted to know everything about it. I needed to know more about the curriculum which was so different to the rigid teacher guidelines I had become familiar with. You mean, I can keep my mohawk? Cool!

It paid off. It was in my speech, my actions, my heart when I had the interview. I wasn't kidding myself and I did very well. I want this. I know this. This is totally in my soul right now. I am scared about it, but that's good, right? This blows down any misgivings I had about the MA and the subsequent placements. The manager of the sector for which I have been recommended will phone me this week and arrange to make the next step.

All of my friends have been really encouraging about this. Who'd have thought that a fashion show could lead to so much, huh? Cheers! I am the happiest bunny right now, but I am also very realistic about how challenging this will be.

But still, peeps, I'm so proud. :)

What's the nicest thing that's happened to you this week?

It's a very bleak day out there. I have this grey space in the centre of my head that won't go away. For the last few days, all I've wanted to do is sit in a pile of books and eat pistachio nuts, hanging up the phone and telling everyone to sod off.

All too often, I get this awful feeling that I've completely misjudged someone. It's the trap of talking to someone online or over SMS, and then finally, after days of that, seeing them in person and realising that they're not this big Entity they make themselves out to be. I feel like I've expected too much or showed them up; I feel guilty and out of place because I actually am what I say, as well as what I do. And then some. My footsteps are bigger than my voice, because I think the worst thing you can do is write your own press. If you leave it up to other people to talk about you (and if you have an interesting selling point, they will - people don't need encouragement to gossip), you can either live up to it, or discount it as being not your fault what everyone else says.

People can be quick-witted over the internet because of the time delay and not having to look people in the face. I unfortunately am cursed with a sharp tongue. I've given up putting a sock in it, because sooner or later I just spit it out again. Instead I have to reconcile what I want to say, with the situation. Like my career path right now. The reason I'm feeling bleak, is because I just want it to start now. I have the course fees, I have the vaguely sensible geeky clothes to wear and I feel like I have to confidence to start learning something new. But it doesn't start until September. So I'm left in this limbo, where I have my routine and my pistachio nuts and don't yet have any actual responsibilities beyond paying my bills and keeping healthy.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not bored. Only boring people are ever bored, and the words "I'm bored" are forever a misnomer these days and (at least from me as a response) forever met with a verbal list of all the things you could be doing. What people mean is "I can only click refresh on facebook for so long before I decide I need a wank, then a shower and then come back to facebook again". I don't often find myself bored -- I go for a run, read a book, phone Kerry or Leah or Liquid Lunch Laura or Kieren, I'll cook something elaborate, write, finish a piece of work for someone. I find myself irritated, disappointed yes; even angry sometimes. Very rarely, am I bored.

I just want this next bit to start now. I want to apply for all the part time youth work assistant jobs that are going - but I can't until I'm working towards the qualification. I wanna sit and listen to kids on fringes of society, I wanna show them that there's more to life than the majority which vomited me out and also told them "NO THANKS oh and by the way you'll never be anything because you're not like most others so get over it".

I just can't wait. If I have to, though, please can we have some god-damned skin-blistering sunshine again?

So I spent today making a sort of collar... thingy. It started as a collar, anyway. It quickly developed into a weird frilled, body armour thing.

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Shorts. Sun cream. Seafront and Doctor Who Novels. I'll be back in a week!

Sorry, I came back from London a bit sooner than I expected. Unfortunately, I have a few commitments here which I didn't think would require my attention so soon.

It was really nice to see Ara and Sal. We drank so much rosé wine at the Mad Bear and Bishop; the Circle Line has never seemed so fun! Unholy was shit, but I caught up with Elina and Matt and Mark ("I think we've met somewhere before!").



Jon was so nice to put up with me for a week and I really like Notting Hill's Queensway area. I went for a run in Kensington Gardens, which was divine -- though clammy. And on another day, I had an argument with a big swan.

I will forever be impressed at the size of Paddington Station. Even in London, you can be in massive, open, airy spaces and look up to the sky, or see around you for miles. But there's something about enclosing a large chunk of it in a concave roof, which makes the space seem more real. I am Rachel Whiteread.



I had an empty train carriage all to myself all the way back home, except for a really nice old man who was watching Doctor Who on his laptop! He let me share and we watched it together until he got off at Taunton.



I now have hundreds of feathers which arrived in my absence. I can finish Helen's wings, finally and then start filming my new project Tesseract next week. Tomorrow is filled with looking at old books in an antique shop and sunning myself on a mound of grass with a book about quantum physics.

So the British National Party raped my letterbox with one of their this morning. I immediately followed the (who was, in an inhuman manner indicative of such pondlife) already half way down the street. I politely informed her that she had mistaken the hole in my door for a bin and would she mind taking her crap and putting it into the proper receptacle. Woman just stood there gawping like a jack-o-lantern.

So I took the leaflet back home and plotted. Here are instructions you may wish to follow.



1. Take the lovely BNP leaflet. Also, take several envelopes, a pair of scissors and about fifty sheets of paper.



2. Chop up the lovely leaflet into as many pointlessly tiny pieces as you want.




3. Wrap each one in a sheet of A4 paper. The message you write is optional, but I personally can't let a blank piece of paper go anywhere without a point. Don't write anything obscene or threatening*.




4. Place your paper-wrapped bitesize leaflet inside an envelope. The piece of paper pads it out, makes it look like something that is worth opening.




5. Repeat. Over and over again - yes it'll take maybe half an hour and yes it'll be a bit boring (unless you're like me, who cackled maniacally all the way through). Try to relieve the boredom by alternating the messages you write.



6. Personally, mine got a little surreal.

Then, get a BNP address - perhaps your local office, or maybe even their headquarters. Then stick all the envelopes in a postbox. Don't bother with a stamp. The nice men at the BNP pay for the privilege of collectively spending several hours opening all these pointless bits of crap that we send them. If you do this with your leaflet - even if you just send it back without chopping it up - we'll waste their time, their money, which could otherwise be spent promoting their repulsive propaganda.

I advise everyone I talk to, to get their arses off their computer chairs and go vote for someone else, ANYONE else, on June 4th. It'll be apathy that gets the BNP elected, because they have no sound policies and nothing to say which isn't thinly-veiled Fascist ideology. Cut through that, get over the can't-be-arsed-to-vote attitude and we can keep these people out. Their turn to go into the closet.

They're taking smalls steps. Before you know it, they could have a say in how this country is run. It'll happen right under your nose.

Get thee to the poll booths (via the postbox, of course!).








*Fitting that I should refer to an African parable here. It goes... If you're having a bath and a madman steals your clothes and runs away with them, do not jump out and chase the man down the street, because you will be the one thought insane.

The last week in picture format. With a few words.

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Birthday or no birthday, I'm still working on a few side projects of mine (Helen, I'm waiting on feathers to be delivered- your wings will be worth the wait). But also, I have some lovely news. I already put it on facepalmbook, but I'll say it here too:

I got a letter offering me a place on the MA in Youth and Community Work at the University College of St Mark and St John (Marjons), starting this september! I'm doing it part time over two years so I can be sensible and get a part time job alongside it; I'd love it if the job could be related to youth work, but frankly, the most mundane shop job will do so I can, y'know, eat and buy shoes. I also will be doing lots of volunteer work - plus a major part of the course is a work placement.

I was really happy when I got the letter yesterday. It all hinges now upon whether my bank gives me a career development loan. I'm set to have a chat with them within the next few weeks. I have no debts apart from my overdraft, so, yeah, fingers crossed. I don't know how any of this stuff works really, which is why I'm taking my dad with me. :D

I'm going to be a real live youth worker in two years. I had a look at some of the entry level basic salaries and was pleasantly surprised.

Random vanity...

Ooh I love a good bit of history; the passage of time really intrigues me. How one tiny change happens, then another, then a few years pass and another tiny change happens -- then suddenly it's 100 years later, everyone who saw the first tiny change is dead and the newbies have to learn about the last, missed century. It makes my spine shiver.

Up until very recently, I wasn't convinced Plymouth had much history I would be interested in. How wrong was I. I've just learned a tiny bit about two people who died in the 1920s. I'm going to try and tell you a bit about them and how I found out about their lives. You'll also see what other subsequent discoveries I have made while on the hunt for old photographs and information.

Don't worry. I did end up finding loads of pictures, many of them from the early 1900s, some I suspect are before the turn of the century even. If you've ever been to Plymouth, or if you like trying to imagine a past you never saw, you'll love this.

Some of the photos have been re-sized; some of them haven't and, as a result, are quite big.


( This all began a few months ago... )

Oh SOD off. Either tell us what the e-mails said, or stop fucking whinging about it.

Well, it's an absolute outrage. I mean, Jesus. Who'd have thought? Politicians being slanderous about each other! I mean gasp.

This is offensive in a number of ways, not least because, once again, our lovely British media are pandering to the pissweak, attention-dependent egos of these people. Under orders, I suspect, so that we all forget how much of our money they have spent on posh curtains and pornography. I find it disgusting* this is the sort of mundane crud which makes the news.


*Although, alas, not surprising.

I usually hesitate to say that I had a good "Easter Weekend". In much the same way as I see Christmas a time for spending money and getting drunk (and thus getting people to return the favour), I regard Easter in the same way. Except with bunnies and stuff. I'm not a Christian; I'm not a Pagan. But I do like chocolate and I do enjoy the way this year's has coincided with my having many monies from the show. So, for once, I grudgingly admit that it was quite nice. ;)

I was introduced to the editor-in-chief of a certain magazine last week, and although I can't really say any more (if only because that would jinx it horribly), I am positively excremental with excitement about a new project. :D

I have finally figured out how to work my camera on the Tocco.

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Then beautiful Gilly and I went shopping and I spent hundreds of pounds on Vivienne Westwood, sunglasses and shirts aaaand I replaced my Paco Rabanne wallet which was stolen. We ate chicken fajitas and drank wine. Now I am home and will fall onto a big pile of pillows and read Wonderland magazine. Or just look at the pretty boys in it.

I hope your break was lovely. :)

Just in case, like me, you have been looking for this song since you saw the film. This is the version of Siouxsie's Peekaboo from Jeepers Ceepers, specifically, the bit where they're driving with the police behind them, this song is playing on the radio. The audience only gets to hear about ten seconds, but this woman has a brilliant voice.

Echo3's cover:

I'm sure glamwhorebunni won't mind me posting photos of the painting I finished for him. I put the tiniest little finishing details to it today ready to send to him tomorrow. I'm really, really pleased with it. :)





I also spent the better part of today in the garage crafting oxfordgirl's big awesome feathered wings! They're coming along nicely, Helen. Should finished within a few weeks!

I also received payment for the fashion show. I gave £100 to my mum, 'just cause'. She's on holiday from work and looks bored shitless; I'm too busy to entertain her, so maybe she can go and spend a reckless amount of money on small shrubs or something. But don't worry, I wasn't completely selfless. I bought myself this cool jacket and these sexy trousers
too. Oh and this book, which appears to be specifically about Tezcatlipoca, containing lots of stories about him and an in-depth analysis, I suppose you could call it. I totally can't wait until I'm reading it!

All that hard work paid off, eh? I can work more now and not worry about money for once. I've earned money before (obviously!), but never before have I really been substantially paid for doing something I wholeheartedly enjoy.

Aw, happy days. : )

I found this earlier today and I wanted to share it, because I found it very beautiful and very sad. It was a prophecy of the Nehilawe (the Cree - Native Americans originally indigenous to Canada).




Only after the last tree has been cut down,
Only after the last river has been polluted,
Only after the last fish has been caught,
Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.

The show was an utter success. Thank you for your support, MAC, House of Fraser, Urban Decay, Criminal, Blue Banana. You all rock and we made a shitload of money for the Eddystone Trust, for AIDS and HIV awareness.

I am SO proud of you lot.




"I can only attempt to express how wonderful it has been to work with the Plymouth youth group. You all personify the reason I exist to create; to ensure that each person I work with has the right and the support to express their creativity. I am honoured to be associated with you guys"