About Me
[Disclaimer. Me is subject to change. The author reserves the right to withdraw any or all of the content at any time.]
First off, at the risk of sounding terse, I don’t follow back unless I want the contents of the blog on my dashboard. Just because I post something once doesn’t mean I will again. I have bursts of obsession, which then fade again, so you might find yourself hating my blog.
I keep myself in a roll-top desk – one of those ones with lots of cubbies and drawers and secret compartments, with a brown leather pad for writing on. Some of the drawers are open. The cubbies you can look into. I keep the darkest parts of me in the secret compartments. Some of them I unlock to write dark Star Trek or other fiction. Some of them only Kris has the key to. Some of them I have the key to but I choose to think I have lost it.
I try not to judge, deep down, but I am superficially judgemental. A little thought puts me right.
I don’t know about religion. I thought I might be able to adhere to Christianity, but its clothing and mythology bothers me. Deep down I am a Pagan, with an affinity to druidry. Once I found hazelnut shells and acorns tucked under my pillow and according to the Druid calendar I am hazel and Kris is oak. This had a big impact on confirming what I believe. I don’t believe in magic spells and incantations. I do believe in the overwhelming power of the earth around us and a living spirit that unites it all.
I carry a notebook and pen almost everywhere. Often I have my camera with me too.
I have very vivid dreams. Even when they are bad, I value them.
I hate wilful stupidity and ignorance and intolerance. Some of the people with the worst school grades have a beautiful intelligence that makes me smile. Some of the people who should have breezed through university are so stupid it makes me crazy.
I love, perhaps in a particular order – I’m not sure – The Beatles, folk music, The Stereophonics, Catatonia and Cerys Matthews, Vivaldi, baroque music, swing, Star Trek, classic films, Audrey Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart, Hitchcock, Peter Graves, Route 66, The Man From UNCLE, Gomez (the band), Quantum Leap, UFO, popular 60s sci-fi, wild flowers, grass, Thomas Hardy, Victorian Literature, Michael Ondaatje, young adult fantasy literature, writing, geology, archaeology, lyrical prose, cats, quiet, pork joints, water (either in a glass or all around me), darkness, lights, Modigliani, various types of art from installations to Renaissance depictions of fruits around the Virgin Mary. I could add to this forever. I have left many things out.
I hate – a lot of journalists and newspapers (The Guardian excepted), and many politicians. The parts of people that make them ignore the perils of damaging our environment. The thought of sitting on the beach or in a park and finding dog mess. Conflict.
I hold on to grudges. If you cross my family or my friends you will not gain unconditional forgiveness.
Going to school has left me with a deep distrust of people. I should get over it, but I haven’t yet.
I worry constantly about what people think. I need reassurance.
What I have achieved, what am I good at? (forgive me this. I so often feel so stupid and unworthy it’s good to repeat this to myself.)
BA First Class in English Literature, focussing on Anglo-Saxon and with a dissertation on The Erosion of Patriarchy in Thomas Hardy’s Novels (and I got the top student prize each year, and another on graduating. I bought books, including the Times Comprehensive World Atlas.)
MA Early Mediaeval Studies, with a dissertation on Anglo-Saxon Depictions of Hell and the Damned.
One published novel, four that I haven’t tried to publish, hundreds of thousands of other written words.
I’m getting better at poetry.
I’m not too bad at art.
I write, and people like it.
I take nice photos, but I cannot get a grasp on the technical side of things.
I am practical. Lots of people aren’t. If I need something I can usually make it.
I am exceptionally good at obsessing.
I have a dream of a beautiful home and garden, with no other houses nearby. It might happen when the children are older.
I procrastinate professionally.
I have either too many or not enough books, depending on your perspective.
I collect things for the sake of it.
I love my children, but they also have a very bad impact on my mental health. I haven’t been off anti-depressants since the first was born. I spend fifty percent of my time unbearably stressed. But I understand a lot more about my own mind than I used to.
I have a very low tolerance for other people’s depression.
I can’t bear to be exposed to people in the street. I like some strangers. I don’t know how to talk to people I vaguely know.
I avoid meeting up with friends because I can’t talk to them without feeling stupid.
I love facebook for giving me access to people’s minds without the awkwardness of physical confrontation. I love it for reuniting me with friends I had lost.
I would like to say, if this displeases you, I don’t give a fuck. But I do. I give far too many.
Where I Keep My Stuff -
Photography, artwork, much writing and poetry is kept at http://aconitum-napellus.deviantart.com/
Fanfiction is kept at http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1647571/ andhttp://ksarchive.com/viewuser.php?uid=1076 Also under the same name at Fannation and Archive of Our Own.
General blogging about life and children at http://the-non-adventures-of.blogspot.co.uk/
Peter Graves obsessing is kept at http://fangirlrambling.blogspot.com/
A Route 66 blog is kept at http://sixtysixkicks.blogspot.com/
Some poetry is kept at http://ofthreelittlethings.blogspot.com/
I have too many various sites, don’t I?
