creativity, health, motivation

The Bitch Wrangler

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The Bitch Wrangler

Another Short Story from Ina Disguise

For SB, who rocks my world.

“And for goodness’ sake, don’t forget the milk this time. I don’t have time for this. You’re so careless.” Una glowered at him.

William sighed. He dimly remembered a time when his wife was happy. It had been some time ago. When did she turn into such a nag? Every interaction ended with “You’re so…”

“Yes dear. Can I fetch you anything else?” William tried as best he could to sound neutral. He squeezed his eyes shut, awaiting the response.

“Don’t even think about getting sarcastic with me. Just hurry up. Your parents are coming at eight.” Una pursed her lips and turned her back on him.

William headed for the garden, got into his car. Thank goodness the weekend was nearly over, and he could get back to the relative sanity of work.

The following day William arrived at the office to find uproar. A histrionic actressy-type they had taken on was throwing a tantrum, apparently because of some unknown issue with the team leader. She was strutting around the large open plan office, having thrown her sunglasses vaguely in the direction of her desk and was flouncing sufficiently for her cape to be hitting the heads of the other staff, who otherwise seemed to find this spectacle quite funny.

“Titanic Dickhead!” she exclaimed as she stamped and snuffled her way to pick up her workpile and associated stationary. Peter, William’s assistant, motioned to him to come into his office.

“What are we going to do? She can’t carry on like this all day.” Peter wrung his hands and looked anxious.

“I guess we’ll have to speak to the team leader.” William sighed. “Ask him to come into my office.”

The team leader, a quiet, studious and usually geeky man, was duly summoned to the office.

“Can you tell me what is wrong with your staff member?” William tried to look stern. “She seems upset.”

“It’s nothing, sir. She’ll be fine tomorrow.” the titanic dickhead remained calm. “It is an impressive display of fury, don’t you think?” he smiled.

William looked nervous. “Can you tell me what it’s about?”

“I could, but it’s not really relevant. If she is still like this in a couple of days, we can talk about it then. You can discuss it with her if you want, but you are unlikely to get much sense out of her.”

“Ok I’ll do that.” William was confused. “Thanks.”

Later that morning, Willam called his assistant and the female staff member to his office.

“We couldn’t help but notice that you seem a bit upset? Could you tell us what the problem is?”

“Upset?” The lady peered over the top of her sunglasses. “No, I think everything is fine?”

“With your team leader. You seem upset. Is there anything we can help you with?” William looked stern. “We have no HR function here, but we were a bit concerned.”

“My team leader? Oh, no he’s amazing. Keep him.” she nodded in agreement with herself. “Best manager I’ve ever worked with. Understands the job, very serious attitude, thoughtful, positive, organised the list goes on…..”

“Oh, oh good. We’ll tell him to keep up the good work.” William smiled. “So no further problems you want to discuss?”

“None that I can think of.” the lady smiled. “Can I go back to work? If I don’t hit target, he might stare at me with a look of slight bemusement, and I couldn’t bear it.”

“Yes, yes that’s fine.” William was now intrigued. The plot thickened.

The following day, after a few more run-ins with his wife, William arrived at work to find that the actressy type had come in an hour early and was quietly working. An atmosphere of happy calm pervaded the office. He called the team leader to the office.

“Ok how do you do it?”

“Sorry?” the team leader looked quizzical.

“She was furious yesterday, and then turned around and told us how marvellous you are. How do you do that?” William squinted at the team leader

“Oh that? Oh it’s not difficult. They’re a bit like horses.”

“Horses?”

“Yeah, when I was young, I used to help my father training horses. Ever tried arguing with a horse?”

“No?”

“Exactly. There’s no point. So, generally speaking, I apply the same principles with women. Arab horse training is very different from the American concept of ‘breaking.’ We like our horses fearless and loyal, so its a different process. Very much applies to women as well, I find.” he stretched out slightly in his seat. “That one was a very nervous horse, so she was a bit flighty yesterday, but she’s OK now. You just have to be a bit patient.”

“Right, so you’re saying think more like a horse trainer?”

“Yeah, you show them what you want, you give them space to think about it, let them freak out a bit, then you show them again until they get the idea. Let them play with the bridle for a bit, if you see what I mean.”

“So, was she objecting to something that you want?” William was curious now.

“Not at all, she is just frightened. The spirited ones are so much fun though, aren’t they?”

“Ok, so if I want my wife to be happier, I should show her what I plan to do in advance?”

“Yes, put a bit of thought into it, decide what you want and then demonstrate it. There’s no point in discussing it.”

“I’ll try that. Thank you.” William turned to his computer. “I’ll let you know how it goes.”

Later that afternoon, William thought about what he wanted from his wife. More sex would be nice, he thought. He considered buying some sex toys and leaving them lying in the bedroom, and quickly decided that she would not like the look of that at all.

Less nagging, how should he go about that? Nagging presumably indicated discontent on some deeper level, since he considered himself pretty good at putting up shelves, or shopping, or whatever. More sex was presumably the answer to that, too, but the more he thought about it, the less she would like that as a leading part of the wish list.

From this, William eventually got to cuddling as being an issue. He had read somewhere that cuddling improves female health, so perhaps that might be something to consider? How would he demonstrate his intention to cuddle her when she was so hostile? He decided to see if there was anything on the Ikea website, and isolated a giant bean bag that might work. He purchased it, and then wondered if he could make further improvements, and bought some scented candles.

He then considered how he would persuade her onto the bean bag with him, and realised that he had skipped a step or two. At last he had a plan that might work.

William put some relaxing music on as he drove home, and happily considered how to make his wife happier. She was already complaining as he entered the house.

“You’re late.” she bristled “You’re dinner is probably ruined.”

“I’m sorry, dear.” William smiled. “Would you prefer to go out?”

“What? No!” his wife looked furious.

“Would you mind taking a look at my hand?” William smiled at her again, making sure he met her eyes.

“Is there something wrong with it?” she looked confused.

“Have a look at it for me, and see.” William held out an outstretched palm. His wife duly inspected his hand from where she stood. She looked at his hand, and then looked at him, slightly perturbed by this odd request.

“It looks fine to me.” she turned away slightly. William had not realised she was this withdrawn.

“You could try having a closer look?” he tried. He moved slightly closer. This was way more exciting than he expected it to be.

“I’ll maybe take a look later, when we are watching TV.” his wife looked nervous and quickly left the room.

William considered this to be a good start. Who knew where this strange mini-adventure would lead? The team leader had been right however, William realised that his wife was a very unhappy horse that needed gentle handling. Even flowers would probably come as a shock.

The next day William thought it was probably too early to pursue the issue of actually touching his hand, so he decided to invent a reason for her to dress up. He booked afternoon tea at a local hotel, and made a point of wearing a tie she had chosen.

She was furious, of course, at not being given any notice, but William happily ignored it. He noticed her slightly dispirited air as she donned her twinset and skirt. He wondered how he would restore her confidence? This was turning out to be a lot of work.

He presumed that improving the confidence of horses involved a lot of grooming and whispering, so this meant the hand issue was probably quite urgent. He made a point of ushering her through doorways to reaffirm the message about his hand. She seemed to be slightly less alarmed by seeing it, but she wasn’t really connecting with it yet. He felt that they had made a bit of progress towards making use of his giant bean bag, however, so he was reasonably pleased with himself.

“When are you going to do the garden? There isn’t much of the weekend left?” his wife sounded slightly less fractious. Things were looking up.

“Don’t worry, I will do what I can with the rest of the afternoon, and then we can relax.” William was rather proud of this small advance. Taking charge would be a slow and delicate process.

William relayed his progress to the team leader on Monday, who smiled and reassured him that he was doing well. William glowed with happiness. Perhaps tonight his wife would forget to nag him and actually touch his hand!

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health, politics

FTAO NHS

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“I don’t like the look of the new cleaner much.” Helen scowled at the little man fluttering around the CEO’s office.

“There’s something a bit funny about him, yes. I can’t quite see what it is. He certainly cleans well though.” Robert looked up briefly. The little man was sweeping the parquet with delicate precision. “They don’t usually brush the floor before mopping it.”

“Yes, why is he doing that? Nobody else did it like that? There’s something odd about him.” Helen continued to stare at the apparently effeminate man.

“And, more to the point, why does he dress so well?” Robert applied only slightly more thought to the issue.

“He has very good skin, have you noticed that? Why does he have such good skin? Cleaners normally have eye bags and drooping jawlines from the chemicals.” Helen screwed up her face. “Do you know what he said to me the other day?”

“No?” Robert was losing interest, and leafed through his BMJ.

“He suggested that I had a subconscious desire to retrain as a nurse. Can you imagine?”

“He spoke to you?” Robert was suddenly irritated. Cleaners were not supposed to speak. Especially not to encourage his wife to do something other than concentrate on him. “He isn’t supposed to converse with other staff.” Robert felt suddenly threatened. “Good grief, woman, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Well, I was speaking to Margaret about my dream. You know how you hate it when I talk about dreams. I had a dream that instead of booking people in to see the nurse at the reception desk, I was able to simply deal with them. You know, in a sensible way where they weren’t having to wait for a fortnight to get a skelf removed.”

“We can’t have that. People train for years to remove skelfs. There is a union for dealing with people like you, that think they can simply remove skelfs or recommend that people stop having a daily Mars bar without guidance from a proper nutritionist. You will upset them. You don’t want to be dealing with an upset nurse, I can tell you.” Robert shuddered. “I do hope he hasn’t spoken to Physiotherapist Ian about anything like this. He is most unpredictable. He might start to think he is a counsellor, or worse an actual expert in something.” Robert had the GP’s usual disdain for three year degree courses in occupational therapy, podiatry or physiotherapy as being essentially worthless, resulting in hugely overpaid jobs to tell you to buy yourself a better chair, or whatever. The NHS was in many ways, the last bastion of useless unionism. Apart from the doctors of course, it wouldn’t do if they were cheated out of their inflated pension scheme.

“Anyway, the queer little man looked up and said he liked listening to dreams. He actually smiled at me you know. I must find out what he is using to exfoliate. He has the most marvellous skin. He said I have a repressed desire to help others, and my dream indicated that what I really want to do is be a nurse. Preferably in charge of a department apparently. I quite fancy it, what do you think dear?”

“Madness. You would have to give up yoga.” Robert was now irritated. “I hope that bastard isn’t looking at the medical records. We can’t have him actually curing anybody.” He viewed the cleaner with increased suspicion. “What age do you suppose he is?”

“Well, that’s just it dear. I wondered too, so I called the agency that sent him, and apparently he is 65! He looks great, doesn’t he?” Helen flushed with excitement. “What does he know that we don’t?”

“Pass the bran flakes, dear, I don’t want my diverticulosis to get any worse.” Robert growled and issued a surly glare in the cleaner’s general direction. Some uncomfortable rumblings in his abdomen told him that he needed more dry and unpleasant fibre today. “You can put the butter away. I might be tempted to actually eat it.” His mood was becoming worse, and his arthritic wrist was starting to flare up as he became more irritated. “I will deal with the cleaner later.”

Physiotherapist Ian swallowed another steroid as he left the gym. The guys were so much nicer to him now. The only downside seemed to be his uncontrollable need to touch people. He had become quite handsy with the other men, of late, so desperate was he for physical attention. He wasn’t sure he really liked the oily film over his skin, or the need to shower three times a day. He liked having a waist for the first time ever, however, and the steroids had certainly enabled that.

He had also found that he could not stand much in the way of conversation. People were so – challenging. They never seemed to respond the way he wanted them to. The girl in the bakery was way down his food chain, and she barely noticed him. He had had to actually attract her attention. Why was this fair, when he worked so hard in the gym to obtain a more masculine shape than merely blob, as he had been for decades before?

The cleaner had smiled and recommended that he gave up meat. What madness was that? Telling a man to give up meat? What else were men for, but to impregnate and consume lesser beings? What kind of world did the little man inhabit, where men were polite, had good skin and cleaned clinics for a living? The bastard. He would fix him later. He had noticed him enjoying a mouthful of sugarsnap peas. The bastard. What kind of person ate sugarsnap peas for lunch? Ian could feel a wave of aggression as he met the challenge of dealing with the irritating cleaner, who just wasn’t right, somehow. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. The cleaner even knew how to perform a clinical clean down. He had caught him the other day. What kind of cleaner had that kind of knowledge?

Margaret the nurse was also annoyed. She had spent hundreds of pounds on private treatment for her symptoms of menopause, which included a weight loss clinic, since NHS advice was no help, hormone treatments, since NHS treatments actually made her feel worse, and, to her horror, alternative medicine, which she of course did not officially believe in. She was aware that if any of her colleagues found out, she would be laughed at, but she did it anyway, because it was the only thing that made her feel better.

Thus she would laugh scornfully when discussing such therapies with her colleagues, yet sneak off and use them when she did not think they could see her. There were rules about that sort of thing. You must maintain the illusion of authority, so that people had confidence when clinical decisions were made on behalf of the patient, to act in their best interests. It would not do to admit to an alternative, even if you actually used it yourself.

She too, was annoyed with the little cleaner, in this case for recommending that she ate more pineapple to deal with her persistent cough. Five times more effective than cough medicine indeed! He was clearly a liar. He was also too smart. Everybody knew that only pharmaceutical companies could be trusted with medical matters. You should never eat anything that wasn’t out of a packet, in line with NHS hospital policy. Everybody knew that.

She did not feel like being smiled at and having conversations with a cleaner. He was supposed to be part of the furniture. Perhaps she should bring it up at the clinic meeting?

When the Tuesday meeting rolled around, Helen, Margaret, Robert and Ian agreed that there was something odd about the cleaner. Robert made the decision that he would ‘speak to him’ to pin down the problem.

The cleaner was finishing up when Robert asked him to come into the office. Robert could not think of a reason for firing him, so he tried simply lying.

“The staff are complaining that you smell. Are you having problems at home?”

The little man did not smile “What possible connection would problems at home have with me smelling?”

“Well, perhaps you lack running water or something.” Robert felt suddenly uncomfortable.

“Are you a little inflamed? You look a little inflamed? Any joint pain, coughing or general fatigue?” the cleaner looked concerned about Robert, and blissfully unconcerned about his allegation.

“Now look here!” Robert was suddenly furious. “I am not sure who you think you are, but I am the doctor here!”

“Experience tells me that that does not mean that you know anything at all about health. How is your diet?” the little man remained calm, and remarkably patient for someone who had just been maligned. “Perhaps you should try eating more vegetables?” he folded his arms. “You know your physiotherapist has a steriod problem?”

“That isn’t your concern.” Robert blustered. “We are all professionals here.”

“Apparently not. Apparently you are busy talking about other people.”

“What qualifies you to talk about my diet?” Robert spluttered.

“What age are you Robert?” the cleaner cocked his head.

“Fifty.”

“You need to pay some attention to your diet, and I don’t mean following NHS guidelines, unless you want to be really ill. The problem is Robert, that there are too many doctors and not enough concern about health.”

“Who are you?” Now red in the face, Robert stared at the little man.

“I used to be a nurse, then a psychologist, then I got interested in alternative medicine. Then someone very much like you ruined my career, so now I am a cleaner. You needn’t worry, I am fully trained in dealing with confidential information. Why did you take a career in medicine if you aren’t interested in health?”

“How dare you!” Robert started to shout. “You are fired!”

“Oh, I’m well aware of that. I’m just not sure why you felt the need to have this meeting.” the little man continued to stare at him. “You are aware that you have bowel cancer?”

“What?”

“You can see it in your eyes. Go and get it checked, there’s a good chap. The NHS won’t pick it up until it is later stage. Likewise your type 2 diabetes, which they won’t diagnose because of your low blood sugar. You will need to go private for them to perform the necessary tests. Luckily your over-inflated NHS wage is more than sufficient for you to pay for it. Your nurse also needs help. Those hormones they are prescribing her have started off the beginnings of breast cancer. Even private healthcare has its problems. None of you are trained properly.”

“Get out! Get out!”

“With pleasure. Sort your health out, Robert. And let your wife do what she wants. She is bored, and no wonder.” the little man smiled at him. “I will be going to have a nice long magnesium bath.” He got up and adjusted the perfect seam in his linen trousers. “You will need some nice chemical solutions for the next cleaner by the way, I only use safe solutions. You will notice a difference in the smell.” he smiled unpleasantly again. “Don’t forget about your bowels, although I imagine by now you already have difficulty forgetting.” he laughed. “Don’t be accepting too many antibiotics and X rays now, will you?”

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health, motivation

Welcome to the world Ina

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Hello,

 

The following recipe is one that I took years to develop, and I know from experience that people sometimes don’t bother trying it, but it does seem to work so it is worth a try.

The powder mixture contains a lot of anti inflammatory, mood enhancing, mineral rich superfoods and herbs from all over the world. Nothing in it is toxic or dangerous unless you were to take an astonishingly large quantity of it. I live on it. When I don’t live on it I get very ill, and it seemed to work for my mother also.

If you are asked about it, just tell them it is a health drink as I can tell you from experience that explaining that it is a complete food then allows them to verbally attack you. It is very tiresome, but people are stupid and lazy.

My mother had stopped eating and was close to death when I put her on it, and it helped her, so please at least try it for three weeks and see if you see a similar improvement.

If you need any help or additional advice the easiest and probably quickest way to find me is betterpersonproject@gmail.com I hate phones.

Supermix for building up very ill people

Here is the herb and superfood mix. The basic principle is that you remove anything causing inflammation or your body having to do any work, and replace it with something that promotes healing. Nothing in this mixture should affect existing medication.

The only objection possible from a medical person is that it would improve blood quality, hence you cannot theoretically use it with blood thinners because of the other fruit and vegetables in the drink.

Every second day you can try an almost normal meal or two, provided it contains no rice, bread, sugar, potato, pasta, noodles or cow’s/goat’s milk, butter or cream. Eg a curry or casserole is fine, but the accompaniments are not if they are starchy or sugary filler items..

To make the drink

Take a large dessertspoon or two heaped teaspoons of the powder mixture

At least half a jar of honey to taste – my mother was managing about half a jar a day. No sugar!

At least two avocados

Up to a can of coconut milk or cream

Two tablespoons of coconut oil

5-10 portions of fruit, depending on what your person likes – pineapple should not be used alone, because pineapple is quite medicinal in taste on its own and difficult to make mild, but apart from that any fruit. I found my mother to be very fond of berry flavour, and this is helpful for the brain. You can get it cheapest in the freezer section of the supermarket with the smoothie stuff.

Dates are great but not every day due to the high potassium content if your patient has a questionable heart.

At least 4 chewable vitamin C tablets- this is optional, but I found the more the better – if you OD on vitamin C you have runny poo so you do know when to stop and it isn’t otherwise toxic.

A large bunch of coriander

If this mixture is too thick, add unsweetened almond or coconut milk from the supermarket (you can get it anywhere now)

Put all of this in a blender or food processor and blend it thoroughly

You should end up with something that looks and tastes like a thick milkshake. It is extremely easy to consume and gives your body something to work with that isn’t making it work too hard at digesting it. Trying it thicker like a pudding and thinner like a drink also makes it more fun for the person who has to consume it, and you want them to take as much of it as possible.

My mother was managing 1-3 litres of this every day through a straw. Every two to three days she was able to manage a full meal of something like a 3 egg omelette with smoked salmon, black pudding or fish but otherwise she pretty much lived on this and got better rather than worse.

It lasts for about two days and then you have to make a fresh one so do not be tempted to make more of it than you need. Just make sure he gets as much of it as possible.

Let me know how it goes. If you find it is working I will make a more affordable and specific recipe so that you can make it up yourself. It is not cheap, but it seems to work wonders at getting the body to repair itself.

My version is extremely comprehensive and costs about £3k a year for two people to live on, but I am an extremist, so I can make you up a recipe for a more affordable version if necessary. You will probably find a lot of the ingredients familiar as I have used ingredients and remedies from all over the world, including India, Pakistan, the Middle East, China, South America, Russia etc. I experimented a lot on myself and my mother, so I now have some idea on what works and what doesn’t, which should save you a lot of time and money.

Otherwise the key to post-stroke seems to be making everyday activity into an exercise programme. I found doing things like making boiled eggs to improve my mother’s dexterity when she tried to eat them and daily massage to improve physical communication extremely helpful. Colour therapy, in the form of producing bright and changing objects for her to look at also seemed to keep her motivated and happy.

 

This is what happens if you happen to indicate that your father is unwell and you bump into me.  In addition I managed to simultaneously shock (when he discovered that I must be quite ancient) and bore (by my intense fixation on health) a nice young man that took a mild fancy to me.

I seem to be an oddly huge character with quiet but off the wall tendencies these days.

 

Love,

 

Ina

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health

A boring post about health

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Having been down the road of extreme weight loss several times – when I say extreme, I mean losing half your bodyweight or more – it gets better and less stressful with practise.

I now know, for example, to go with the flow – sometimes you are on a roll and easily able to shift 50lb or more without a break, and sometimes you need to sort of ‘let it settle’ and let your skin and posture catch up for a while.

My back problems, which were partially caused by my urgent need to shift a lot of weight and use of corsetting to avoid the need for core exercises, as getting out was more important, have been greatly eased, but not completely removed, by the rehearsals.  Messing with flags and walking a lot is very good exercise for a bad back.

If I was sensible I would go full-hippy and take up yoga again.  I have done in the past but alas I am more motivated by competing with myself, so I am better suited to other things.  I am just not cool enough for yoga for more than ten minutes before I would rather be doing something else, unfortunately.

So, having settled after shifting the first 70lb, it is now time to shift some more.

Interestingly, I have now found a healthy weight scale that actually takes my huge bone structure into account, and it turns out the weight I would bonk myself at is actually my healthiest weight, so I have habitually lost too much in the past, which is probably why being at an allegedly healthy weight is a painful and miserable experience.

At 98lb, which I have been for two periods in the past, I had to run at fairly high intensity for about four hours per day and eat every two days.  I thought I looked good, but I used to be referred to as ‘three melons on a stick’ by surprisingly thin people, so I guess I was a bit of a freak.  At one point, at the top end of the allegedly healthy weight for my height, a doctor who had never previously met me told me with some horror that I needed to eat more and to stop doing whatever I was doing.  This was at 120lb or so, so it made no sense to me at the time.  When will they stop criticizing and start saying I am doing something right, I thought?

It turns out from the new scale that I located that the correct weight is more like 160-170lb, which is way heavier than most women of my height, but is because I am supposed to be a sturdy little person that can throw other people around the room and have a very good quantity of lean body mass.  This comes as something of a relief and makes actually being healthy a more approachable idea.  I wonder how many other people out there, punishing themselves over not being good enough, have had their lives devastated by anxiety because nobody is using the right tools in the first place?

The NHS, in my early life when I was actually miserable about it, rejected obesity as being a problem and I was basically told that I was big and not to worry about it.  After they decided that it was useful for getting funding and more surgeons and departments, it suddenly became an epidemic in the early 2000s. I have worked in several equally wasteful departments of the NHS.  They aren’t even particularly helpful, because they choose to reject preventative medicine and use a low denomination approach which is helpful to very few people in reality.

So, it looks as if a six month deadline on reaching a reasonable weight, which is actually heavier than I was when my sisters were braying disgusting verbal abuse during my childhood, is workable, and this has cheered me up immensely.  My current campaign of ignoring everybody and doing whatever I feel like doing regardless is most helpful.  So much so, that I think it should be the first thing every person with a weight problem deals with.

As I have said before in previous posts on obesity:  Start from the perspective that you are fine, then look at your relationships and see who is eroding your confidence to the point that hiding and putting something in your mouth to shut yourself up is the only option.  Once you have got rid of them, life gets a lot easier and more pleasant.  It is their problem.  Don’t make it yours anymore.  The likelihood is that you have been listening to somebody else’s hang ups and beating yourself up with it.  Stop that.

 

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economics, health, motivation

The Joy of Variety

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A charming young man just sent me a lovely picture of himself naked.

I am sure he is very nice, and I think he is probably Iranian, which usually means wildly attractive if you happen to be me, but I felt as a conversational opener, this was not the greatest.

I remember Craig David sending out a picture himself after several years spent on Muscle Beach.  Oily and grumpy was not a great look either.

I do see that American women on my facebook list like to express great delight at this idea of men as objects, but it doesn’t actually work.  All it does is say that you are kind of boring, obsessed with the mirror and likely to be out at the gym a lot, which is no fun at all.

Far better to look relaxed, happy and as if you are likely to be good fun.  I think we as women also underestimate the power of happiness, and succumb to mutual bullying in terms of conforming to an entirely artificial idea of perfection that does not actually exist.  I remember Cindy Crawford saying this when asked how she felt about being so perfect in the 90s.  “Nobody really looks like Cindy Crawford.” I always rather like women like  Valeria and Cindy when they admit that it just doesn’t exist, and the closest that you get to it involves being utterly miserable.

The only time I manage to eat correctly is when I am alone.  Even one other person renders me so stressed that I eat socially, which means anything at all as even once a day is too much now, and means that I stay the same size.  This size is not acceptable to me, and in addition I am too polite about not sticking to my goals.  I need to either stop seeing other people, or start getting a whole lot more selfish.

Whilst I am working, I am building the shoe collection currently, and working on costume 2.  Boris is also getting done during the breaks as the layers are built up over days.  It feels very slow, although I doubt it could go any faster.

For the benefit of other people who do not get the benefit of sleep, I can confirm that beauty sleep is definitely a thing.  I am now finding that I get pronounced pain if I fall behind, which dissipates with 12 hour marathon sleeps once a week.  I am having to shut the cat out to achieve this, as she is very keen to get on with her cat day.

I see the American Conservatives are celebrating Food Stamps being replaced by boxes of shit from corporations that produce terrible food and have lobbied successfully to poison the poor with it.

I don’t like having to pay for other people’s children to get educated, so perhaps we should just extend our mean-spirited hatred of other people to include that.  Yay! Poison the Poor!  Kill the children!  More stupid people!  Yay!!!

 

 

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creativity, health

Conservatives, philosophy and why being in love sucks

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Today poor Theresa May had to make another fairly empty speech, although I am encouraged to note that the Tories seem to have survived their philosophical spat and are at least making a show of heading in the right direction.  Unlike the Twitterites, I am looking for different pointers than they seem to be seeking.  The general consensus seems to be “Boo!  We wanna be in Europe.  We want more austerity and corpses littering the roadsides.  Where are our Muller yoghurts and Citroens!  Booooo!”

Not a thought in their heads of course, about the lower tier who have been continuously punished for years to support this continuous deficit crap.  Even my friend Leon missed this, complaining instead about the quality of job.  When you are being starved to death, any job is better than none, simply for the saving in electricity and reduced misery.  I should know, I’ve taken such jobs in the dim and distant past.

So, I am very sorry if your holiday is a few tenners more.  You aren’t starving to death. Other people are.

Anyway, enough of the lengthy soap opera that is the Tories, I have other things to do, which brings me to my second topic of today.

I have covered the bizarre series of phases you go through when unexpectedly in love in Best Love Letter Ever.  I am not sure that I was aware of being quite such a tomboy prior to the Wolfe era, as I have come to think of it.  Although I never liked being female all that much, I wasn’t always incredibly bad tempered, and I was at one point quite confident with my anti-social tendencies.  I also spent much of my youth surrounded by boys, since I did not like girls very much.

Many of the changes that have happened over the last nine years have been extremely conscious, not in the sense of reaching a goal as much as repairing my perceived lackings so that I could stop being so damned irrational.  It was the last thing I expected ever to happen to me, but nature is a funny thing, and I guess the idea of your genes taking over is not that far fetched when you spend most of your time trapped in a house with your relatives sniping at you. I used to do a lot of staring at the floor, hence the carpet fixation.

So, the lion is uncaged, and now that I am finally forced to accept that I am 1)mortal 2)female 3)just as tedious as everybody else I have to direct it in an endless variety of ways.  Beyond the repressive creativity, which is now pretty much unleashed, I am finally at a point where I am calm enough about it to start seriously writing again – on the original piece of work.  I was initially thrown such a curveball by the whole Wolfe entity that I had no self-confidence or arrogance left to work with for all that time.

Happily this is no longer the case.  I have been led by the entire debacle to finally accept that I am very unusual, in a fairly good way, in that I actually listen to people, for one thing.  I am aware that Wolfe has at times found this hilarious, but sometimes that is a good thing.  I am having a lot more fun in my seriousness than I used to, although to be fair it was never too po-faced.  It may have looked that way, but I never did understand why people have to look constipated because they read a book.

Finally,  it is most interesting finding new ways of presenting information so that stupid people actually pay attention to it instead of assuming the roles of ‘us and them’.  It is a very interesting discipline, and one which I am having great fun with.

So, even wasted love is not useless.  It is extremely creative.  My poor wasted and late blooming genes may be about to die out, but at least I will have done something constructive in the meantime.

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creativity, health, motivation

That ‘Oh God I Suck’ Moment

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We all have them.

If we are incredibly cowardly or take ourselves too seriously, we don’t do anything at all because of them.

If we let things get to us too much, or have too much pride, we allow it to stop us, because it is easier to say we suck and laugh it off.

If we then go to the next step, we sneer at other people who don’t feel the same way.

I spent months saving the money to make Bordello Rhetoric.  I knew exactly what I wanted to do, I lavished attention on it.  Now I look at it and I say NOOOOOOOOOOOO.

It is a development piece.  I did not take inspiration from anyone but Boris himself for this piece of work.  I did not even need to plan it.  I knew exactly what I wanted to do, and I went ahead and did exactly that. It involved importing agate from a quarry in India, importing the beads from a manufacturer in Germany, sourced Georgian handles from an antique collector, an ungodly amount of resin, and a ratty old box gifted by a friend. (the principle of the Boris Johnson collection is to render unemployed furniture ‘Fit for Work’ by means of artifice, and preferably guile) I replaced the castors twice, which alone cost me a week of 24 hour caring for my mother in financial terms.  24/7 care is a lot of hours, and requires a lot of commitment if you want to avoid being robbed by the social work department and having your mother killed by an institution.  So why do I hate myself for it now?

Well, because I should have used my shades of colour more effectively and done a better blend on the beadwork.  Yes it is quite stunning, but it could be more stunning.  Yes it is as I intended, but it could be better because I had no reference point.  It is nice, but it is not as nice as it could be if I had visualised it more effectively.

Life is not like that.  If I had known I would fall crazily in love with a health guru, I would have looked after myself better.  If I had known that the NHS would kill my mother anyway, I would not have been investing every penny in keeping her well by natural means.  Hindsight is a wonderful thing.  This also applies to our artwork.

We should never feel bad about completing a piece of work that we no longer like by the end of it, nor should we worry about promoting pieces we no longer like, because as creators we are not trustworthy judges of what is good or bad.  I have thrown out pieces that other people thought were works of genius in the past, because I knew I would do something better.  When I first came across Wolfe, quite apart from not knowing how to get his attention any other way, all I could think about was how I could make him better, and better, and better.  I am still guilty of this.  Instead of appreciating what people or objects are, I strive for improvement.

My friend is even worse than this.  You cannot ask him to collaborate on a project from the beginning, because the objections are so many and varied that the project never starts.  He is, however adept at finishing work.  Once you think you are finished, he is ideal for finding details that you never thought of.

It took more than three years of deep and probably constant thought before I realised that I was the problem.  My desire for perfection was neither realistic, nor desirable.  Wolfe was right, I was wrong.  What matters is the doing, not the striving. The methodology is less important than the result.  When I finally accepted this, which took some time, Ina was born.

Conceptual thinking is probably more important than technique, when it comes to actually developing your work and ideas.  Acceptance of imperfection is necessary to reach mastery, because if you really care about your work, you very quickly realise that you will never truly become a master of anything.  I am fortunate that as a former chef, who worked for culinary glory for many years, I was aware of the futility of perfection.  I just hadn’t realised how universally applicable the concept was until I met my far more successful and happy twin (Wolfe and I were born twelve days apart, which was part of the reason for the level of focus)

So, when you have your own ‘Oh God I suck’ moment, feel good about it.  You learned something, and you need never feel ashamed of growth.  It is likely that nobody will even notice your mistake, because mistakes are often painfully beautiful, even when they drive you crazy.

 

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health

Ina Disguise Build Update 2

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I should have written at the time, but I hit the 70lb weight loss mark at the beginning of November, actually.  Since then, I have stayed the same as I always take breaks in the course of losing weight and, by coincidence, I had an ankle injury from walking in a bad temper, followed by a flare-up of sciatica, followed by my mother’s appalling death.

I put on probably 10lb on one meal a day, and have now lost this again since my mother’s death.  I am now able to walk again, although time and cold is preventing me from doing my full 15km.

I also took a break from the corsetting during this time as it was not practical when spending your time running up and down from a hospital or desperately seeking the means to exist in the form of work.

It is not much fun being attacked all the time, so everything I have managed to do so far has been evidence of my improved confidence as a person rather than a delusional construct (see previous post, What would Mrs Wolfe do?)  I obviously won’t have that option in the coming months, so I guess my flight of fancy has made my own confidence improve somewhat.

If I was sensible and not trying to do anything more spectacular, I would just lose the same again and be done with it.  I have, however, met the most beautiful creature in the known universe now and I will have to make some more serious changes to my overall stature.

To put this in some sort of context – yes, I respect other people’s choices.  No, I do not have any serious plans to bag any wolves or eat their cubs and I LIVE IN A DIFFERENT COUNTRY ANYWAY.

Life is complicated, however, and I do have potential plans which may mean I end up having to awkwardly stand next to him at times, so the visuals have to be correct.  I have a 7″ wrist, which means I genuinely suffer from what nastier people dismiss as fantasy and am in possession of a quite stormingly enormous bone structure.  Wolfe, on the other hand has a beautifully formed, small structure.  As we do happen to look sufficiently alike for more than one fan to stop and instigate conversation in the past, I now have to ensure that I do not look like an inflated female version!

So, there is a long way to go, and I will end up having to sustain being smaller than is comfortable regardless of anything else. It is fortunate that, thanks to him, I have done sufficient research now to be able to manage very good nutrition in very few calories per day.

I probably suit being muscular more than bony, I have tried both, but bony is probably going to be easier given that writing is likely to become more important than artwork or anything else.  Assuming I survive the inevitable family attack, which I may not, it looks as if the future consists of a lot of drinking water and supermix blends, so I need to get used to this now. I have banned everything that is not strictly correct from the house, so probably a good idea to avoid visiting.

My skin is responding well to the attention I am paying it, the magnesium oil, whilst painful, has pretty much eradicated all signs of stress-related psoriasis, but I am still seeing some evidence of collagen depletion, probably age-related around the eyes and chin, which I am experimenting with.  I will update when I find a more fail-safe way of dealing with it than I am currently using.

I think it is probably time to dig the next set of corsets out, although replacing clothing is not going to be easy financially until I secure more gainful employment. (the current job, whilst entertaining and flexible, is not likely to last forever due to a rather unfortunate cultural issue which I have no plans to do anything about)

 

 

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health

How the NHS kills old people

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There are a variety of techniques I have seen employed over the last decade.  Broadly speaking, if you are over 80, particularly if you are no longer on your feet, you should be considering private treatment for most ailments if you wish to remain alive.

I imagine that this cut-off will get smaller as time goes on.  It is as much for the benefit of the economy as it is for reducing costs of sustaining the lives of people that a consultant has written off and obtained the agreement of some colleagues, who may or may not have met you, to proceed with a process on the assumption that your ‘best interests’ are served by being dead.

Having had reason to read the legislation that the Social Work Department work from when dealing with adults with incapacity recently, even this has paragraphs which all end the same way ‘the problem ceases when the patient is dead.’  Hence we have systems in place which assume that the best interests of the patient are, in fact, for them to no longer exist.

Whilst the actions of so-called-professionals have given me many reasons for anger of late, it is not surprising then that they operate on several assumptions:

  1. That any carer needs some form of reeducation as they are sublimating their lives for someone else.
  2. That any elderly person getting few visitors is of no value
  3. That any difficult patient is draining resources and of less value.
  4. That ongoing health issues as you get older are again draining resources and making the patient actually cost money.

One of my elderly neighbours was actually told to his face that he was deserving of treatment because he was a high-rate taxpayer.  I was told by three separate doctors what was going to happen to my mother long before it actually happened.

When they decided to finish my father, it was the Liverpool technique.  He was drugged within two days of being in a unit devoted to sparing other hospitals from high death rates on the grounds of his being ‘difficult.’  He was still able to speak and was a relatively happy, plump and mischievous man when he was drugged.  Within four months he was starved, unable to speak and agitated when awake.

When they decided to finish my uncle, he was on  his feet and independent.  He recovered well from a UTI, only to be placed in a draughty ward and given further antibiotics until he contracted pneumonia a week later.

When it came to my mother, they actually came right out and told me.  Seven months before, she had been sent home, painfully thin with terribly fragile skin on the assumption she was going to die.  I knew this because of the daily visits of the district nurses, who were supposed to be there to give her an injection to clear any fragmented clots.  So keen were they to also give her painkillers, that a fight broke out when I changed her diet to a highly technical version of a raw food diet and not only solved the continuing weight loss problem but improved her skin and eradicated the infections she had had for the previous ten years on a normal diet.  My friend, a former medical professional, was astonished by her recovery.  So was her GP, who noted the astonishing improvements in her blood work, since the nurses were so keen to attempt to prove a case against me, that they invented stories about weight loss as she gained, clutter which was caused by visiting carers not knowing the house, and by accusing me of neglect if I left the room within the five minutes that they were there to see my mother.  It was a constant fight for seven months.  The social work department were brought in to tell me that I resented my mother, that my saving her life was, in fact, me somehow abusing her and that anything I did was wrong.

Finally, when she went into hospital after a GI bleed (she had also had one on her previous visit to hospital, so personally I would have regarded this as routine and simply given her a transfusion)  I was asked whether I wanted her to have medical treatment, to which I said yes, of course.  The next doctor I saw said that in future she would be ‘eased out.’  The third consultant stated that she did not believe in the science of my mother’s diet, and when I referred her to the blood test results I had established, simply did not bother to look because she was wrong.

I have had many reasons over the years to be highly suspicious of people who assume that their education is the end of them having to learn anything.  Crap doctors, crap accountants, crap former bank managers.  People who take their salary, pay their bills and carry on administering a conveyor belt.

You may choose to live in blissful ignorance.  It will not help you when it happens to your family.

Maybe, like my local shopkeeper and my neighbour, you actually want your loved ones dead.  I did not, and on the assumption that there are still some other compassionate and intelligent people left in the world, I suggest that you get out and learn what they are failing to teach so-called professionals.  There is no need for too many antibiotics.  As I said to a consultant pathologist I was working alongside several years ago.

We don’t need more doctors.  We need better health.

Where is the funding for that? Why aren’t the public told the truth?  If we fed animals the way we feed ourselves, the animals would be taken from us. How come a £150000 a year consultant cannot manage to find it out by themselves, and I can? I am very sorry that I did not know what I know now in time for it to have spared my father his miserable death.

I have heard a frightening number of people who think these issues will never affect them.  They will, and sooner than you think.  In memory of my parents, I think it is time to do something about it.

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economics, health

Merry Christmas to readers old and new

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Sorry that I have not posted in some time.  My mother was being killed by the NHS and my attention was rather diverted by that.

How do they do this?  A couple of consultants decide that your aged relatives are a burden to you and pass this down the line, whereupon a team of nurses will tell you that they are professional and acting in your parent’s best interests as they then precede to feed them crap to ensure that the pharmaceutical drugs they are using destroy every nutrient in their body until they die of infection.

Be warned, this is very likely to happen to you.  I have seen it done to three people now, and there is no escape.

In the event that you wish to enjoy your full lifespan, I suggest that you avoid the NHS.

My alter ego, the serious academic type who fell in totally uncharacteristic love with Wolfe some years ago is now going to take on the NHS, the pharmaceutical industry and the social engineering system they have been perfecting since the first phase of their eugenics system, WW1 and 2, and demonstrate exactly how this works and how education has changed even in my lifetime to reduce your status as an economic unit to the point that there is little possibility of escape from a system that tells you what to eat, what to wear, what to worry about and when to die.

Merry Christmas, enjoy whatever someone else told you to enjoy, and I will return in a more cheerful state when I have more fully recovered from this latest case of institutional murder.

My mother was a much loved, much misunderstood, mischievous lady who deserved better.  Better from her other children, better from the NHS, a better final chapter.

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