Look! Another blog...this one is all about expressing myself...oooh!

 I found this unpublished post from 2010  lurking in the mechanism of the Blog... Funny, as I've just finished my 3rd Panto, indeed  my 7th or 8th production with my theatre group, and things have galloped on apace since then...

Good day, Me Hearties. I hope the world is treating you kindly today, and that you are doing likewise unto it.

I have been to my Art Class this morning, (I use Title Case because it is important to me, as you will learn if you read on...) which I enjoyed, despite the fact I only produced a work of monumental crapulence in an attempt at monoprinting today. Rather like a dollop of seagull poo on a windscreen, (see? Art in nature, marvellous..).

I embarked upon Mixed-Media Art Classes, (through Haringey Adult Learning Service) about 18 months ago, having done nothing visually creative, in the arty sense, since school, many hundreds of years before.

Around the same time I joined a newly-forming local drama group, having done none of that since school either, (my goodness, I was a busy schoolgirl) so both new ventures were, for me, a huge step forward in scratching an authentic itch, as it were. Just doing something for no other reason than I wanted to.

Over the years I had often idly googled and trawled through listings, searching for  classes and groups, but they were nowhere to be seen.

Then, eighteen months ago, the arty planets were indeed aligning. For a couple of weeks there I seemed to stumble upon the very leaflets and fliers containing exactly the two activities I  wanted to do, in exactly the right places at exactly the right times. Almost as if it was meant to be...

But who would have thought my brain would make it so flippin' complicated!

Angst? Angst? I didn't know the meaning of the word (or indeed how to spell it) until that first mixed media day in January 2009...

Our teacher, Julia, was wonderful -  kind, patient, encouraging and seemed to see value in every bumbling attempt, but during that first session I was amazed what  a  bundle of emotional weirdness I turned out to be!

I never expected to be a great artist,  but neither did I expect, when, as a starting point, were asked to close our eyes and just draw a doodle, that I would find myself having to leave the room as I was close to tears.  What was that about?

The dialogue in my head went something like this:-

"What shall I draw?"
"Draw a doodle"
"What like?"
 "Just let your pencil make a shape on the page"
"I can't. What shape? I can't draw! What if it's rubbish? I can't. It will be a waste of paper, and a waste of time and I'll never be any good at it and it will be horrible Oh my god I'm hopeless at this. What's the point? It's all a terrible waste of everyone's time and I cant do it...Waaaaaa!" etc etc

You get the picture? (Ha! picture...)

I think, if I analyse my reaction,

I thought I was very laid-back, easy going and creative, but for a while now I have begun to realise that I am incredibly competitive in a rather closet sense. A Closet Competitive, if you will. And  I was a long way from my comfort zone in a room full of strangers. I didn't know what to do, or how to be any good and I felt panicky.

If ever the sage-like words of the great philosopher, Nike, were needed, it was at that moment.

"Just Do It!" I said to myself (very quietly, you understand).

I drew something. Just a wiggly line at first, but it was enough to crack open the fear and get me started.


Since then I have wrestled my many, many demons, wept tears of self-conscious frustration and had a multitude of hissy fits, but I have also had the most a fabulous time and  laughed my artistic little head off rehearsing, performing  in a fantastic play and pantomime, and rather proudly exhibiting my first attempts at visual art in Hornsey Library (on a Nobo Board to the right of the photocopier).

Forgive me, Father, it has been 2 years since my last Blog...

It is 1.11am - it looks like Jake the Peg. (diddle iddle iddle -um). Now a minute has passed and the visual-digital-clock magic has passed with it.

I only opened the laptop to switch it off and now look what's happened! Two years since my last blog and I'm at it again. Sitting alone in my bedroom in a leopard print onesie (with feet) at my age. Good grief.

My husband is not here.  He's in Cornwall with our lovely girl, taking her to her university interview tomorrow. I'm very envious, not only that he's in Cornwall and I'm not, but also that there is a university there at all. If there had been one in 1980 you can bet I would never have left Cornwall at all. Let alone remained here in London for over 30 years. Who'd have thought when I got on that train...

But I digress...actually I don't digress at all as I have no agenda anyway.

I'd entirely forgotten about this blog - actually I had thought it no longer existed. I tried to sign in a few times and thought it had all been deleted, but now it turns out I was looking under the wrong name, so finding my last post intact is something of a joy.

It made me laugh. It must be funny.

I haven't sat in the window typing away for a hellishly long time. I don't tend to write at all these days, which is a terrible shame. Things got in the way - but I am thrilled to find my blog alive and well, indeed I shall come back to it tomorrow.

Dear god - look at the time  - 01.25 - no visual comedy there at all. Better go to bed

Introductions and Procrastinations...

Allow me to introduce myself, gentle reader.  Welcome, and Namaste.

I opened this Blogger account in 2005, yet this is my first post of any real substance, or at least of any size.
I am both delighted and relieved, therefore, to have made a start - after all, 5 years is not bad for a procrastinator of my calibre!

To get things straight from the off, and to avoid disappointing anybody, I should explain, my nom de plume, "Teasy Maid" is not any kind of burlesque-esque reference to teasing in an "Ooh-er" sense. Rather it is a (or an) homage to my West Cornwall roots, and in fact  how my mum used to describe me when I annoyed her by being moody.

"Teasy"  to my mind, and the minds of those raised in West Cornwall, means "irritable" and "maid" means "young woman".  Despite the fact I am neither particularly teasy, or indeed a maid nowadays,  nor am I in Cornwall, but in North London, it is a name I like.

Next shall we establish the correct title for a reader of a Blog? 

The writer, I believe, is a "Blogger," so I will assume the reader is a  "Bloggee" or even a "Bloggée",  - yes, I rather like that. Is it a little exotic, and the acute accent somewhat diffuses the clumsiness of the word "Blog", which is rather like "slog" or even "bog".

Alors (!), welcome, mes Bloggoises, to the ramblings herein. My intentions for these pages are unclear at the moment, but perhaps something will form over time, I will become inspired, or perhaps I will simply give up.

At the moment there seem to be crumbs beneath my space bar, making its function rather random. If I don't remember to give it a good thump many of my words will roll together like the ramblings of a lush yummy mummy at the school gates. I must deal with that.

I love to write, and to muse on paper, text message, Facebook updates, scraps of chopped-up cereal boxes - anything as along as I have a sharp pencil or a digital device.  

I realise as I write this that I am intimidated already by the potential criticism of some Bloggée with the eyes and heart of a 1970's "O" level English marker. Straining to find reason to ignore the guts of the content, in order to mark me down on hyphen-abuse, or incorrect usage of the apostrophe. Whose red pen fills my margins with large  "wordy!" or "where are you going with this?" Well I'll tell you where I'm going with this, matey - anywhere I flippin'-well like, so if you find that so objectionable I think we both know what you can do with your red pen.

There. I feel better now. However, I suspect my content may be tempered by my compulsion to please. Exhausting.

Well. Here I am on my Macbook Pro, full of the crumbs of illicit biscuits and buttered toast ( - it, not me - I had a ham sandwich from a plate). I am in my bedroom, sitting in an old, comfy chair in the bay window. I can't see out of it very well, as I have recently reached a stage in my life where my vision is irritating, and neither here nor there. 

I have always been myopic, and wore specs since I was about 9. I wore contact lenses (hard, not cissy gas permeables, and certainly not those flimsy, breaky squeeze-your-own-eyeball soft ones) until I had my children, after which, and indeed, since then, nearly 18 years ago, I am always on the lookout for the rare opportunity to steal a nap, so, to save faffing, I'm back to specs again.
At the moment my specs are on my head, like a peri-menopausal Alice Band, which means I can see the screen and the keys of the laptop, but, alas, sod-all out of the window. I tried varifocals, but they seemed to add insult to injury, making me a la fois nauseous and irritated.

Seeing (sic) the Glass Half Full as I sometimes do, there is an up-side to this  recent inability to peer at my neighbours from my vantage point. 

It seems to me that, when my teenagers were little, we mums (or, indeed, Dads) would walk home from dropping our kids off at the infants' school around the corner, some of us pushing buggies, wheeling discarded scooters, but usually a leisurely pace, unless we had to rush off to work in which case one would adopt a more energetic gait. 

I had a rather lengthy gap before producing my third child,  but in the  intervening years there has been a remarkable change in the pace of the pedestrian traffic from school. They all bloody run. It's horrible. They hare down the road, lycra-clad, some pushing terrified newborn babies in racing buggies resembling a cross between a wheel barrow and a canvas Landrover.
These days I look out my window (having scuttled home feverishly to avoid being flattened on the pavement) and I thank the Goddess Presbyopia that I cannot see their whippet-like backsides disappearing towards the organic cafe.

Is it the pace of the world that changed, while I was here making biscuits and watching Pokemon with my kids? Or is it that the house prices in my area shot up through the roof since they built the school, and people who can afford to live in this catchment now  are speedy young successes who live the kind of fast-paced life where whippet-like backsides are de rigeur?

Perhaps I might consider lifting my derriere from the crumb-covered window seat and hobbling after them, if only I could see where they went.

sunday

Bed with laptop, kettle and t bags. Fab