Still Alive

Amazing. The old lady above me is back in her flat, stomping around above my head and shrieking into her telephone.

I didn’t hold much hope for her after her accident a month ago, but it sounds as if she pulled through. The council have given her a new door after the police put her old one in to get her out. The housing people washed the blood off the staircase (eventually) and everything is back to relative normality.

Speaking of normality, my flat is finally decorated- 27 weeks after I got the keys- and my home is now more Patrick Bateman's abode than Mark “Rent Boy” Renton's, if you get me. It took a ridiculously long time, but- and here’s where I get myself into more shit- that’s what happens when the council give a flat to a social services client with a memory disability, then denies him any support with decorating due to it “not coming under anyone’s remit.”

But it is done. That’s the important thing.

The insurance paid up after I was robbed in Manchester and I got a replacement HTC Wildfire. Again, a little normality ebbs back into the tangled, frayed thread ball that passes for my existence. Something that I’ve struggled to get people to understand: when you have a memory disability like me, you need a system to keep yourself organised. You need a notebook for general info. You need a diary for scheduling what happens in your life. And, ideally, you need them both wherever you go. Seeing as the man bag was a total disaster, I held fire until technology caught up with my needs. Everybody fiddles with their phones in public, and no-one thinks anything of it. Try busting out a pen and notepad, and not getting dodgy looks or being compared to George McFly.

The Wildfire is now what I use to “fit in” in society, like a rifle is what a soldier uses to stay alive. Without it- shit-creeksville. When I was robbed, that’s how vulnerable I felt. Hats off to my insurance. They really rearmed me in the hostile environment I call my life.

Jon Fitz rocked Rififi on Thursday 21^st to awesome effect. The DJ has now secured a residency at Manchester’s Avici White. I’ll be back at Avici soon enough. I have a very good feeling about the club.

Former sex worker / scientist / writer Brooke Magenti (Belle De Jour) is blogging about sex and contemporary attitudes towards it after a break from the blogosphere. Check out her fascinating Sexonomics.

I finished reading Teach Yourself Copywriting. I may have found my calling in life. Providing the text for booklets, adverts, infomercials etc- this is what I must do somehow. The only problem- I don’t have the qualifications to enter the work sector. Shit. Does anyone know how to actually get into copywriting?

Tough times. I’m struggling. That’s undeniable, but people surprise themselves in the face of adversity. An elderly pensioner, bleeding heavily after an accident, climbs down a flight of stairs to contact a neighbour she’s never seen in the hope that he’ll save her life- at 8am on a Sunday morning. Her neighbour does what he can. The police and ambulance workers play their part, followed by underpaid, overworked hospital staff who sew up her scars and change her bedpans and wash her. A month later, she’s back clattering in her flat, cooking and watching game shows and walking around in what sounds like clogs on a seemingly carpetless floor.

It’s time for me to surprise myself. I have no idea what I need to do, but I know what I need: more money, less fear and a good woman. One way or another, I'll do this.