This is deep stuff, and to be honest present cos I got a major block in my head
The past couple of days I've been quiet in my writing; the major reason for this being a complete lack of post-op creativity. I guess that other writer was right in some respect: you do lose something creative when you lose your angst.
I just didn't believe her when she said you wouldn't write as much as you did when you were pre-op.
Anyways, to try and get back in the saddle I've asked a friend to pick a year between 1988 and 2009.
They chose 2005.
I said ok.
2005.
2005 was an interesting year. And I was able to dig with a certain degree of accuracy into it, primarily due to its easy reach currently here on this 'ere livejournal.
From January '05 to December life, for me, proved something closer to problematic than simple.
And, if I'm honest more flavoursome than I might care to divulge.
Saving everyone from a list of cold factual experiences, I've noted a few things that I'd forgotten and that occurred that year.
London weather is never predictable, and the biggest curve-ball the man upstairs sent us was the blizzard that hit downtown London back in March. This caught EVERYONE on the hop and no sooner has Debbie from accounts sashayed in with her skirt hiked to heaven than the wind's picked up and she's asked to get Starbucks in a snowstorm.
This isn't supposed to happen in Britain!
And i could relate cos I was dressed in blues and hanging out in the BBC.
[Bloomsbury Birthing Unit]
Yep, doing a stint in maternity was the sentence for my crime that winter and while the hospitals were connected by a system of underground corridors you still had to cross the road to get to the Unit dressed only in blue pajamas.
And what's worse there was the fact that no woman was 'birthing' at that point. I NEVER saw childbirth occur during my time there. At one point the nurses sent me home cos there was no point in me being there. Me, in my bandanna-ed androgny.
The following month I had to do community nursing in Islington. The 3rd poorest borough in London had me for a month. Jeez, and my opinion of people really plummeted after that month. And while I still love cats I can go off them very quickly these days, cos some people's houses were just overrun catteries.
And the smell!
"Of course Mrs. Jones, I'll change your pressure dressings while kneeling in cat urine. Yes, of course this is more hygienic than having it done in hospital...".
And getting lost?
Twice I got soooooo lost it was untrue. London looks the same in a lot of places, and the fact that I had an AtoZ I couldn't read and enough keys to start a key shop didn't do my confidence any good.
I remember John Paul II died on that placement too and we were comforting a lot of the elderly of Islington who were immigrants and very catholic. I liked John Paul II, he was a better Pope than Pope Blitzkrieg is now.
When I wasn't doing this I was seeing Dr. Ashworth.
Dr. Ashworth was fan-bloody-tastic. So much so is that I sent him a thankyou card when I left E&C. But he was sooooooo popular. So the only way to get to see him was to stand at 7.45am in line, at the front of the line too, with the dopers who were getting their methadone treatment so you could see him on the emergency lists.
The last time we met, I said how proud he was of me and was impressed at how far I'd come in 2 years, and how I wasn't the "scared little t-girl who couldn't look anyone in the eye" anymore.
That summer was one of repeated rollarcoastering in that aspect of my life.
I had speech therapy for my dysfluency, but the therapist refused to help me with any other part of my speech, I went to St. Thomas hospital to get my skin checked and I was constantly in CX getting blood checks and HRT levels correlated and seeing Barrett every couple of months to talk about Israel, McDonalds and Northern Ireland (don't ask).
But I just got on and did it.
Riding the subway is the biggest thing of all I miss about living in London. The idea that you can hope underground and scoot through the city to different places gives me a feeling very similar to Alice in Wonderland or something Firefly-esque in its space-age technology.
Of course come the start of July that was something that would change.
After passing our Yr 2 exams me and some friends got very stoned on (then still legal in Camden) mushrooms. The idea was to get high, get drunk and go clubbing.
This was a stupid idea in hindsight as all we did was get drunk and high and chat till 5am. Slouched over a couch with Leah giggling over how our feet wouldn't move right was the best memory i have of that night, in Roselba's little flat on the road to Brixton.
Riding the buses at night was another great thing about London, they never stopped, and people were always on them regardless of the time going somewhere to do something.
The summer nursing placement.
While all the other students are packing up and going home for the obscenely long summer the nursing students were enslaved in their 8 weeks of hell.
My room hit 29 degrees during the day and 19 degrees at night given the fact that I was situated near the boilers that no one could turn off or even down. They were on. 24/7.
My hell? Continual Care. I.E. Care of those who haven't died yet.
Staffed by sympathetic nurses from Ireland or Nigeria, either working to improve their skill-set or counting the days til their retirement it was a lesson in patience the likes of which I haven't experienced before or since.
Of the 6 people in our cohort assigned to this hospital ALL OF US called the university on the first day (The First Day!!) to ask if it was at all possible for the college to assign us somewhere else.
College says no.
Being forced to read policies for the first 8 hours almost drives me cuckoo.
Then it's shit central.
For 8 weeks.
Only broken up on 7th July when Islamic Terrorists decide it's a rather spiffing idea to blow up tube trains. And a bus.
Britain's answer to 9/11 is embedded in my brain as the day I smoked Lambert & Butler on a street corner trying to contact friends who were off the air, walking in the rain in my Pitt hockey top as I'm told to go home 2 hours after the event, the endless news playing in cycles on the teevee, singing "Why Don't you Get a Job" by The Offspring as I walked through Zone 1 (first north then south) to get home and getting looks from all the suits who were having to trek north given the fact that the buses and tubes were out of action.
Finally being on the tube 24 hours later cos nurses have to work and patients need to be fed despite what Tony Blair might claim.
Finally the placement ends and I can go home. So I stuck stuff in boxes and Jonah came up to drive me home.
Also, cos I was staying in halls for my 3rd year I got to choose who I wanted to room with the forthcoming year, so I schleped over to the Uni and got to speak to a nice lady who offered me a room of choice with either all girls or a mixed flat. I chose mixed. And I chose well.
Of course I also chose the wrong room, thinking that I was having the larger flat but not being aware that the numbers reversed themselves on the opposite side of the stairwell. I.E: In Flat A Number 6 had the largest room, but in Flat B It was Number 1 cos the floor plan was reversed. I chose No. 6. Doh!
Home in Bristol me and Jonah go and see 'The Life Aquatic with Steve Zizzo'. It starts at 11.40pm. The staff aren't happy at us going to watch it. Cos it ends at 2am.
I'm fine, i'm on holiday. The last summer holiday I'd ever have in hindsight.
Going up the bakery in town I'm asked "Are You Local?"
I almost chin her.
So I was wearing blues, is that a crime?
Summer goes fast and I end up in the capital again. With 3rd year looming and new flatmates. Who turn out to be weird and brilliant and bizarre. And Irish.
GWG becomes my best friend and we hang out while she's doing her ODP training. And I get the placement of my dreams seeing THEATRES stamped on my form in college. 8 weeks of theatre training in the new hospital are mine!!!!
Ok, it's a bit too new, and the ceiling in Theatre 10 fell in one day and half the lifts don't work, but I got to see the Queen who came to open the building which was neat.
And I learned to love orthopaedics. Although I've never done a knee replacement yet.
For the first time in my life I was happy to get to work, literally running to the subway to ride it to Oxford Circus where it changes onto the Northern Line and runs me up to Tottenham Crt.
From 7.45am to 4.30pm I'm working away.
Although I remember losing half a tooth to a can of rice pudding and having to take the day off to get it fixed out a Lewisham dentist.
I think over the year I also did a lot of proactivity on my own feelings. In September I finally got to see a councilor about my LGBT feelings. Spending £5 for a 1 hour session I start to speak about not only my feelings about my life but also the stress I was having with others. I would continue my sessions with Michael until I left E&C in summer '06 but getting out of his meeting at 8.55pm and catching the overland or the DLR home via London Bridge or Bank and trying to get to bed before 10pm was always an adventure.
In a way it's the other thing I miss about London is the speed of life. You really had to hustle if you wanted to get anywhere quickly, and the term "An hour too, an hour through" never rang truer.
Well. That's just a rough run-down of my year.
But the little things, like the trees looking all scraggly on the roads near the campus. The wind that never stopped and the rain that often came in torrents in the winter months.
Being hot, being cold, waking up at some un-holy hour to ride the subway to work on a sunday morning. Walking home on the last day of placement with a cup of hot chocolate. Riding the el or the overland home at night and seeing the city lit up. Playing with a ouija board and getting scared silly. Or just wandering into a kitchen at 8pm and finding someone to talk to even if it's about nothing in particular.
I don't think my block is cured but it's proper to work the creative muscle in the body like you work any muscle. Frequent practice increases the quality of the performance.
Sounds dodgy but is true.
I just didn't believe her when she said you wouldn't write as much as you did when you were pre-op.
Anyways, to try and get back in the saddle I've asked a friend to pick a year between 1988 and 2009.
They chose 2005.
I said ok.
2005.
2005 was an interesting year. And I was able to dig with a certain degree of accuracy into it, primarily due to its easy reach currently here on this 'ere livejournal.
From January '05 to December life, for me, proved something closer to problematic than simple.
And, if I'm honest more flavoursome than I might care to divulge.
Saving everyone from a list of cold factual experiences, I've noted a few things that I'd forgotten and that occurred that year.
London weather is never predictable, and the biggest curve-ball the man upstairs sent us was the blizzard that hit downtown London back in March. This caught EVERYONE on the hop and no sooner has Debbie from accounts sashayed in with her skirt hiked to heaven than the wind's picked up and she's asked to get Starbucks in a snowstorm.
This isn't supposed to happen in Britain!
And i could relate cos I was dressed in blues and hanging out in the BBC.
[Bloomsbury Birthing Unit]
Yep, doing a stint in maternity was the sentence for my crime that winter and while the hospitals were connected by a system of underground corridors you still had to cross the road to get to the Unit dressed only in blue pajamas.
And what's worse there was the fact that no woman was 'birthing' at that point. I NEVER saw childbirth occur during my time there. At one point the nurses sent me home cos there was no point in me being there. Me, in my bandanna-ed androgny.
The following month I had to do community nursing in Islington. The 3rd poorest borough in London had me for a month. Jeez, and my opinion of people really plummeted after that month. And while I still love cats I can go off them very quickly these days, cos some people's houses were just overrun catteries.
And the smell!
"Of course Mrs. Jones, I'll change your pressure dressings while kneeling in cat urine. Yes, of course this is more hygienic than having it done in hospital...".
And getting lost?
Twice I got soooooo lost it was untrue. London looks the same in a lot of places, and the fact that I had an AtoZ I couldn't read and enough keys to start a key shop didn't do my confidence any good.
I remember John Paul II died on that placement too and we were comforting a lot of the elderly of Islington who were immigrants and very catholic. I liked John Paul II, he was a better Pope than Pope Blitzkrieg is now.
When I wasn't doing this I was seeing Dr. Ashworth.
Dr. Ashworth was fan-bloody-tastic. So much so is that I sent him a thankyou card when I left E&C. But he was sooooooo popular. So the only way to get to see him was to stand at 7.45am in line, at the front of the line too, with the dopers who were getting their methadone treatment so you could see him on the emergency lists.
The last time we met, I said how proud he was of me and was impressed at how far I'd come in 2 years, and how I wasn't the "scared little t-girl who couldn't look anyone in the eye" anymore.
That summer was one of repeated rollarcoastering in that aspect of my life.
I had speech therapy for my dysfluency, but the therapist refused to help me with any other part of my speech, I went to St. Thomas hospital to get my skin checked and I was constantly in CX getting blood checks and HRT levels correlated and seeing Barrett every couple of months to talk about Israel, McDonalds and Northern Ireland (don't ask).
But I just got on and did it.
Riding the subway is the biggest thing of all I miss about living in London. The idea that you can hope underground and scoot through the city to different places gives me a feeling very similar to Alice in Wonderland or something Firefly-esque in its space-age technology.
Of course come the start of July that was something that would change.
After passing our Yr 2 exams me and some friends got very stoned on (then still legal in Camden) mushrooms. The idea was to get high, get drunk and go clubbing.
This was a stupid idea in hindsight as all we did was get drunk and high and chat till 5am. Slouched over a couch with Leah giggling over how our feet wouldn't move right was the best memory i have of that night, in Roselba's little flat on the road to Brixton.
Riding the buses at night was another great thing about London, they never stopped, and people were always on them regardless of the time going somewhere to do something.
The summer nursing placement.
While all the other students are packing up and going home for the obscenely long summer the nursing students were enslaved in their 8 weeks of hell.
My room hit 29 degrees during the day and 19 degrees at night given the fact that I was situated near the boilers that no one could turn off or even down. They were on. 24/7.
My hell? Continual Care. I.E. Care of those who haven't died yet.
Staffed by sympathetic nurses from Ireland or Nigeria, either working to improve their skill-set or counting the days til their retirement it was a lesson in patience the likes of which I haven't experienced before or since.
Of the 6 people in our cohort assigned to this hospital ALL OF US called the university on the first day (The First Day!!) to ask if it was at all possible for the college to assign us somewhere else.
College says no.
Being forced to read policies for the first 8 hours almost drives me cuckoo.
Then it's shit central.
For 8 weeks.
Only broken up on 7th July when Islamic Terrorists decide it's a rather spiffing idea to blow up tube trains. And a bus.
Britain's answer to 9/11 is embedded in my brain as the day I smoked Lambert & Butler on a street corner trying to contact friends who were off the air, walking in the rain in my Pitt hockey top as I'm told to go home 2 hours after the event, the endless news playing in cycles on the teevee, singing "Why Don't you Get a Job" by The Offspring as I walked through Zone 1 (first north then south) to get home and getting looks from all the suits who were having to trek north given the fact that the buses and tubes were out of action.
Finally being on the tube 24 hours later cos nurses have to work and patients need to be fed despite what Tony Blair might claim.
Finally the placement ends and I can go home. So I stuck stuff in boxes and Jonah came up to drive me home.
Also, cos I was staying in halls for my 3rd year I got to choose who I wanted to room with the forthcoming year, so I schleped over to the Uni and got to speak to a nice lady who offered me a room of choice with either all girls or a mixed flat. I chose mixed. And I chose well.
Of course I also chose the wrong room, thinking that I was having the larger flat but not being aware that the numbers reversed themselves on the opposite side of the stairwell. I.E: In Flat A Number 6 had the largest room, but in Flat B It was Number 1 cos the floor plan was reversed. I chose No. 6. Doh!
Home in Bristol me and Jonah go and see 'The Life Aquatic with Steve Zizzo'. It starts at 11.40pm. The staff aren't happy at us going to watch it. Cos it ends at 2am.
I'm fine, i'm on holiday. The last summer holiday I'd ever have in hindsight.
Going up the bakery in town I'm asked "Are You Local?"
I almost chin her.
So I was wearing blues, is that a crime?
Summer goes fast and I end up in the capital again. With 3rd year looming and new flatmates. Who turn out to be weird and brilliant and bizarre. And Irish.
GWG becomes my best friend and we hang out while she's doing her ODP training. And I get the placement of my dreams seeing THEATRES stamped on my form in college. 8 weeks of theatre training in the new hospital are mine!!!!
Ok, it's a bit too new, and the ceiling in Theatre 10 fell in one day and half the lifts don't work, but I got to see the Queen who came to open the building which was neat.
And I learned to love orthopaedics. Although I've never done a knee replacement yet.
For the first time in my life I was happy to get to work, literally running to the subway to ride it to Oxford Circus where it changes onto the Northern Line and runs me up to Tottenham Crt.
From 7.45am to 4.30pm I'm working away.
Although I remember losing half a tooth to a can of rice pudding and having to take the day off to get it fixed out a Lewisham dentist.
I think over the year I also did a lot of proactivity on my own feelings. In September I finally got to see a councilor about my LGBT feelings. Spending £5 for a 1 hour session I start to speak about not only my feelings about my life but also the stress I was having with others. I would continue my sessions with Michael until I left E&C in summer '06 but getting out of his meeting at 8.55pm and catching the overland or the DLR home via London Bridge or Bank and trying to get to bed before 10pm was always an adventure.
In a way it's the other thing I miss about London is the speed of life. You really had to hustle if you wanted to get anywhere quickly, and the term "An hour too, an hour through" never rang truer.
Well. That's just a rough run-down of my year.
But the little things, like the trees looking all scraggly on the roads near the campus. The wind that never stopped and the rain that often came in torrents in the winter months.
Being hot, being cold, waking up at some un-holy hour to ride the subway to work on a sunday morning. Walking home on the last day of placement with a cup of hot chocolate. Riding the el or the overland home at night and seeing the city lit up. Playing with a ouija board and getting scared silly. Or just wandering into a kitchen at 8pm and finding someone to talk to even if it's about nothing in particular.
I don't think my block is cured but it's proper to work the creative muscle in the body like you work any muscle. Frequent practice increases the quality of the performance.
Sounds dodgy but is true.