These prompts are very confessional. Or rather, the path of least resistance leads to confessional-type posts, not posts that focus on the music. But anyway:

Today is 'a song that reminds you of someone you'd rather forget about'. I don't think I'd actually rather forget about anyone who was ever important to me, no matter how bad things were. I have a bad enough tendency to repeat mistakes even when I remember them perfectly. But there are times and situations with people that it hurts to go back to, and not in a 'sweet catharsis'/pleasant wallowing way but actually 'ugh, no, that's still covered in knives and razorwire'.




Some strange person on YouTube said they found this song relaxing. But for me this is the sound of learned helplessness slowly giving way to the realisation that something has to change, but also knowing you're too weary to do anything about it right now (and not being sure that anything you can do will help). Apart from the fact that no one involved was working for a man with a gun, and I was dreaming of trains across Siberia rather than space rockets, it's still painfully close to the bone.

Look, a digression! So, music whose purpose is to cause you to feel those kinds of messy, painful feelings. What is its place in your life? When music is wallpaper, when you can pick nearly anything to listen to, and when you can use it for cheering-up and determination and calming-down and generally twiddling the knobs of your limbic system like the Mood Organ in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, do you choose to listen to the sad music? Do you let it play when it comes up on shuffle? Maybe you even seek it out on purpose? I sometimes do without really knowing why. But I wonder whether sad songs on Spotify - not cathartic emotional-ketchup-blast songs that help you process the feelings, but songs like this one that just express how it is when you're submerged - get listened to less, on the whole, than happy, uplifting, calming music. And if this is the case, I hope this doesn't shape what musicians think it's worthwhile to do, like all the forces that nudge artists towards making artwork that sells well on Etsy and works as home decor.

But maybe this isn't even a thing for others. Maybe you all listen to sad music all day without turning a hair. This is something a LJ poll would have been perfect for. Do you choose music based on your mood? Do you try to change your mood with it, or avoid certain music because you think it might? When do you listen to the sad stuff, and why?

See also: Archway People by Saint Etienne. It's like this one except that 'making a move' seems even more inconceivable. 'There are some nice parts of London. You can see them from here.'

Look at this little dude. Those deep red wings. Those magnificent antennae, that look velvety like antlers. I've never seen anything like him outside the Burren, where I took the picture.

( 3: A song that reminds you of summer )

Hi! Further to the LJ terms of service change thing, I guess I'll take 'try and get back in the habit of posting on LJ' off my to-do list, where it's been for like seven years.

But is anyone still here? Are people going over to Dreamwidth en-semi-masse? Might that wake things up over there a bit? If you're moving over or have already done, come and find me here. I've transferred my whole journal over, which I hadn't realised was possible.

I've never found a place on the internet to replace LJ, and that sucks. Facebook is like those nightmares where you realise you're naked at school and somehow your boss, your mum and your appalling US state trooper cousin are also watching. Sometimes you find some clothes and put them on, but then Mark Zuckerberg sneaks up and takes them off again when you're not paying attention. Twitter is also like that except there's an angry mob on the horizon with guns. Tumblr is like a cosy living-room which looks like it has walls, so people let themselves be messy and vulnerable, but occasionally something you say gets picked out of the conversation and broadcast to thousands over a giant tannoy. Instagram is nice and laid-back but so full of people (very, very not anyone who's likely to read this, mind) saying they're #blessed, or whatever, with rictus grins, that it makes my teeth ache. ('So #grateful to my spirited children who teach me patience every day!' Oh, honey.)

And everywhere people apologise for writing long things. I like writing and reading long things, especially about people's lives, the totality of lives with all their various interests, not the one topic they guess they ought to focus on in order to monetise their blog. Hi, I am an old curmudgeon, and right now I'm kind of revelling in it. Come and join me in my curmudgeon-den. Maybe even come to Dreamwidth.

But for a long time - like, between 2003 and 2009 - LJ was a whole world, and provided the understructure for a whole rich, busy real-world social life. Thanks to LJ my then-partner and I travelled along the US west coast for three weeks in 2005, staying and having awesome times with friendly not-quite-strangers all the way. The LJ poll feature helped me make massive art (I just asked you all what you were thinking, and just like that you all told me, and it became the Collective Consciousness installation). I have so many and different feels about The Ladies' Loos that I can't sum them up, but... that also happened. I got letters from all over the place, via kindly strangers who found them in the street, after posting about my Postwodehouse project in the found-objects community. So much of that decade is bound up with LJ, for better or worse, and most of the time I felt able to speak here more than I've felt that anywhere else. I'm straight-up grateful for that.

OK, I'm out of here. HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME

I wasn't really planning to go to a protest on Wednesday. I knew there was something happening at Goldsmiths but I didn't have the details; I thought they might be occupying the library or something. If I'd known what was going to happen I'd have brought food and water and a flask of tea and worn more jumpers. All the jumpers. But whatever was happening, I wanted to be there for it. I've spent all this time thinking and planning and getting up the nerve to try and get back into academia, then being almost unbearably excited that I was going to Goldsmiths, and now it seems they're having all their funding cut. My plans for the next bit of my life are going up in smoke - but whatever, I don't want to make it about me. Every time I see anything about education on the news I get a sick falling sensation in my stomach. In any case, I got there at 11 to find people gathering in front of the main doors. Only a few hundred to start with. I had stuff to be getting on with, but when they set off for New Cross station I couldn't not join them.

( In the kettle. This is long. )

For a while, in late '08-early '09, I was actually quite enthused about politics. Sometimes, though I was wary of the feeling, I had a sense of being part of a great wave; of the system itself changing. Then, of course, the long slow fall of disillusionment. I got enthusiastic again for the election here. I took it all terribly seriously, and it all went horribly wrong. My faith in doing things through the proper channels is dwindling by the minute. But whatever was left shrank still more on Wednesday evening, as I walked back and forth like a bear in the zoo, looking at hordes of teenagers imprisoned for eight hours outside in November for having walked down a street. Seriously, in what universe is that fair?

EDIT: Photos on Flickr here.

Hello! I am in London!

We arrived last Saturday after the most nightmarish move I've ever had, part of a horrible few weeks in which we flaked out on some people quite badly (sorry, vodka_fairy and Jess; sorry, Dan's mum, who ended up having to pack a load of my life detritus for me while I went off in the moving van). I honestly have no idea how Dan is still sane, never mind out job-hunting and looking sharp in his suit; and I've had a good few moments when I just wanted to hide under the furniture hugging my knees and rocking back and forth until it all went away, somehow. But it doesn't go away, and we did all the things, and we got here.

Since then we've been staying at the staggeringly generous rainsinger and Z's place. Dan's been registering with every job agency in sight. We are still house-hunting - well, room-hunting, really. We've been swinging wildly between exhilaration and terror, though luckily enough we seem to be on opposite cycles, so the other can usually talk the terrified one down. We've mostly been staying in and trying not to spend much.

But: strangely enough, I seem to have got myself half a studio space to work in, near Deptford Creek. I'm not quite sure how this happened. Most affordable studio spaces have endless waiting lists, but somehow here I am.

( studio blah, and a picture )

And as if I wasn't already on the verge of a hysterical giggling fit all the time, I've landed right in the middle of one of their biggest events of the year. They're having Open Studios this weekend - like Artweeks, for the Oxford people - a part of the Deptford X art festival where all the studios in the complex are open to the public. You can get all the details at the link, but there's a private view from 6pm this Friday, and the studios are open from 12 to 6 on Saturday and Sunday. (The flyer above is wrong about that - it sounds like they're open from 6pm every day, which is LIES.)

London folk: please come! There will be cheap drinks! What I've seen of the other tenants' stuff is very cool! You can see a small part of my Collective Consciousness installation from last year, which I've put back together and hung from the rafters! It's five minutes' walk from Greenwich station.

Oh, London. Underneath it all I'm really happy to be back.

Thank you all for your kind comments on the last post. We're dashing off to look at flats in London now. Oof. I have been furiously throwing stuff out in an attempt to convince myself that there is order to the universe. And speaking of which: these are two hasty Flickr sets of stuff I'm selling or giving away - I'll add the details, prices and so on tonight.

Clothes. Mostly Monsoon-type things, nearly all size 14, and a lovely but weird coat which is the only designer thing I own but would be better on a taller person (I'm five feet). Some free, most a fiver, a couple (the jackets) eight quid. The white fluffy scarf has a story behind it which is funny and ethically thorny at the same time.

Books and music (some of them). Books range from free to three quid for the big hardbacks. CDs mostly free or a pound a pop.

If you think you might want any of this stuff, you're welcome to come and get it (this Sunday afternoon is the 'official' time, but other times good too) or just let me know and I'll work out the postage.

Right, off to the bus. It's a beautiful pearly morning. Time for the Lemmings voice: let's go!

Hi! Hello. How are you doing?

I’ve forgotten how to do this. I want to tell you how we’re getting on, but resist letting it turn into a massive, self-indulgent 4000-word epic like I’ve done in the past. There's a metric ton of backstory which isn’t all mine to tell in any case. Anyway:

The short version is that Dan and I are moving to London in mid-September, so I can start a part-time MA at Goldsmiths in October.

( the long version )
Anyway, it’s happening, which means several things:

Housing in London: Partly because we haven’t known till quite recently if there’d be one or two of us, we haven’t got a place to live yet. We’ve been looking at flats on the web but it looks as if most estate agents require both of us to have full-time permanent jobs, and that's a bit difficult if you're moving to a new city (or temping or self-employed). What we’re thinking now is that we’d like to find a room in a house share somewhere for the fairly short term, like four or five months, till we’re more established and can get a place of our own. There are various ways to do this, but obviously it’d be brilliant if it was with friends or friends-of-friends. I realise we’re all older now and there isn’t the constant churn of house shares that there used to be, but just in case: if any of you know of someone looking to fill a double room in their house, please do let us know. We’re domesticated and good-humoured, our previous landlord will vouch for us, and I can provide a pile of tax returns and bank statements and such to demonstrate that I do actually make money (and most of my work will come with me to London; it’s location-independent).

Seeing people in Oxford: Time, as ever, has snuck up on me and I keep realising that I’m probably doing things for the last time as a resident of Oxford. Next Tuesday is quite likely the last time I’ll make it to comics pub. On Saturday we’ll be at Gappy Tooth Industries at the Wheatsheaf to see The Evenings reforming for one night only – if anyone’s in town over the weekend and fancies a gig, it’d be lovely to see you there. We’re talking about having a yard-sale/giveaway/excuse-for-a-get-together sort of thing in our house. (Edited to add: how does Sunday 5th September sound?) I did it when I left London and it was great fun, and a good excuse to have people round. And there should definitely be some sort of house-cooling. And hmmm, anyone for Scott Pilgrim some time in the near future?

I might just sell or give away all my CDs, actually. I never got that attached to them as physical objects. I’ve gone to the CD rack maybe twice in the last six months. Last time I did, the first thing my eye fell on was Dead Media by Hefner, which made me chuckle.** I kind of want to just throw almost everything in storage and stroll off whistling, maybe with my guitar on my back like a great big hippy. Stuff. Who needs it? Well, my computer is nice, I guess. I’ll keep that.




*Edited to add: Except jackfirecat, who paid me promptly. Thank you very much, jackfirecat.

**And isn't even mine, come to think of it.

Thank you all very much for your comments on my post about naming my freelance proofreading/editing website. It really helped clarify things for me. I think I'd got hung up on finding a memorable name and was stuck on "memorable = dramatic" (as marnameow said, "Fire! Melt! Extreme!", which made me laugh). Drama was the wrong thing to convey. If I was sending my precious novel off to an editor, I wouldn't want to feel that it was going to be hacked about by a frustrated-artist drama-queen. A very important part of proofing and editing is being sensitive to the writer's style and not imposing your own on it. venta made another piece fall into place for me with the words "brisk and businesslike".

So I took a completely different tack. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Friendly Pedant.

I've included the formatting/DTP kind of design in this site. The rest of my design - the stuff that warrants an artier approach - is going on a separate one. There'll be a copywriting page too when I've managed to dig out enough reviews of my writing.

Also: seriously, how much does Google Analytics rock? I can't stop refreshing it.

Edit: particularly interested in comments from people viewing it in Internet Explorer. I've used a bunch of online IE emulators on it, but I'm not very confident in what they've told me.

I feel like doing a Decade In Music sort of write-up, but that seems a huge and daunting task. So instead, how about this?

Suggest a year of the 00s in comments, and I'll tell you the ten songs that defined that year for me, and why they were important. I'll include links where I can - to youtube videos or similar - so you can hear them yourselves, or at least to the lyrics if there are any. I'll try to resist choosing the coolest ones and stick to the ones that really meant something at the time (though I can't promise not to do that at all).

And I'd really like to see this turn into a meme, so if you comment saying you'd like to join in, I'll give you a year too. It doesn't have to be ten songs - that just seems right because it's an amount that will probably fit nicely on a CD, and then I can badger people to make them for me ;)