annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary
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Friday Fun
Fuck, I’ve just done it again, accidentally deleted twenty minutes of writing directly into wordpress. Can’t be arsed to write it again properly but want a record of some of it. So:
- Writing group this morning, given prompt, a fun one, apparently, of ‘look to your right – whatever you see there is what you will use to disarm a thug who is attacking you. Describe it now – you have five minutes’ Straight into flashback – I don’t get triggered very often, it was being asked to imagine being attacked that did it, so I left the group – ‘Not for me, I’m off, see you next week,’ exit Anna, in bits. Will have to write and explain to the bloke who runs the group why that was a shit prompt to give to a bunch of women in a mental health recovery group, many of whom have been attacked. Jeez though.
- New art group at museum this afternoon. Also Jeez. Different mental health context, different people, all new to me. Two artists and six clients, me and five men. Three with learning difficulties, one with severe autism, one with severe shyness. Not what I expected at all. Very anxiety provoking, but I knew I was safe and the anxiety was just anxiety so I got my head down and did a painting of my house. It’s a tricky house to paint as it’s quite a dull ex-council house – what I think might be called projects in the US but not sure. It was built in 1947, in the post-war ‘homes fit for heroes’ era, so it’s a really solid building in terms of structure, but it’s a rubbish design and not remotely attractive from the outside. But I want to paint it because this is where we live and I refuse to reject it as a suitable subject for art. But (there are a lot of ‘buts’) it’s kind of like a child’s vision of a house so not easy to make a good painting of it. I decided to just go for it and to do it loads of times until I come across a version that I like. So this is version one:
3. I emerged from this just as the sun was descending so I cut across to the beach – this is the third consecutive day I’ve been by the beach at sunset, bloody lovely. Here are some pics:
Today I am grateful for: my friend M lending me her food processor to shred the Seville oranges we now have to make marmalade. I drove over to fetch it just now, after my dinner. It’s a drive up over the hills, into the proper dark, full beam on the headlights, which hardly ever happens. It’s completely dark there, as much as it can be quite near a city, and I usually like driving it because you can see another car from miles away so it’s safer than daylight, but following all that shit this morning I had to work hard not to freak out at a car following me all the way, too close behind me, on a road too narrow to overtake. So meh, I say, fuck all that. I know #notallmen but actually #nearlyallwoman and #metoo
Still no resignations or sacking in the political world, just a mealy mouthed, almost-apology, but we must be getting closer.
12:47 a.m. - 15.01.22
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