Praying for "the best outcomes"

I can't articulate the magnitude so I won't even try.

Tomorrow morning I have a 2 hour exam which if I pass will be a positive step in direction of my dreams - namely to learn shorthand (in the short-term) and get a payrise.(in the long-term)

Tomorrow afternoon I am viewing a flat. This is huge, this is so big, this is enormous.
The flat is great for my son, but not for me, on account of Zat bike and there being no space for it. It's a form of transport I need. Would you get rid of your much loved car because the home you've had a choiceless choice to move into meant you had to? Anyway, I'm saying YES and feel really fucking sick. I don't want to lose the bike. Argos have a 65% clearance sale going on though so timing couldn't be more perfect if we got it. Starting from scratch here...neither of us have beds and that's just the start...

I need to share some coincidences...I'll be quick, I don't like long posts particularly unless they are well written and well, love Stigmum as I do, I am her conduit and a hopeless judge.

The flat I'm viewing tomorrow is in the same block, or next door to the block where I said 'no' to a flat 6 years ago. (The first person had accepted it so I didn't see why I had to...)

I got a call on Tuesday, after posting (!) to go and view a flat I bid on in.... Papier Mache Towers! Yes, the place my son and I wrote this entire blog from when we were being evicted. "Aren't there plans to knock it down?" I said to the woman on the phone. "I don't know about that," she said. "I'm only given names to call. Do you want to view it?"

Yesterday I bet myself that on the bidding boards today, there would be a garden flat. There would be my 'ideal home'.
Bingo! There it was. Ground and basement floors with a garden. Steps so not for wheelchairs. And where is it? Why, the very street my son first lived on. A few doors down from where we both lived with the Foca. The very first place we were booted out from. Well, given no choice but to leave.

It made me think about Posh Street, where we were evicted from afterwards, narrowly avoiding a hostel only to land in Papier Mache Towers. I'd stand in the Posh Street's park in those dark days and implore the sky: "Please, one day, bring me back to Rochester!" like a Bronte heroine, only not half as cool.

Imagine...(I breathe, it is, all, if not too much, alot)

Anything could happen. Who knows what can happen? Not me (I've been reading posts that I saw others had read from Stiggers stats - long story ey stigs, a long long story but them readers picked some good ones for me to read back on. Your best is sometimes hard to find)

I'm praying I pass that exam tomorrow morning.
With the housing, I'm praying, I'm praying hard for the best outcome.
Whatever happens, I'm saying YES.
With that I relinquish control and hope the best, whatever that may be, comes to me and my boy.
My son, my sun, my boy, my buoy.

He asked to sleep in my bed tonight - "So you can hear me breathing if you can't sleep. I remember you said that used to help you when we shared a room"

How many times can you win in life?

I won with him; my son my sun my buoy, my boy.

I win for him now.

best outcomes best outcome best outcomes

One Night

This new label, One Night, refers to last Thursday night when I bought my son home from school and I really needed a wee. I went, barely anything, but pain, then five minutes later, the need to go again and within half an hour, not wanting to go, for fear of that pain and then

fear

of all kinds of things

and anger

at all kinds of things

but most of all

the cruel coincidence

that I'd had sex for the first time in fucking ages (don't forgive the pun) and it couldn't be just the good, clean, positive, fun that it was could it?? No.

It's going to be a big label. I think. I don't know.
I was so scared that Thursday night, I felt I had no-one to talk to, felt I had no-one to call and of course, things just rush rush rush into your head that makes you THANK GOD for TRASH TV (Sorry 'benders, you're not trash)

I thought I had cystitus...maybe I do...never had anything like anything before so no idea. Anyway, this thought made me think of sex and the past of course, LOVES to rear it's head. Pissed off are you Rape label that I won't put anything about me on you again? This post definitely the last, definitely, where rape associates with my experience OK?

See, the search for blame...you look everywhere...and the search got really dark after I saw my water was pink and my paper was clotted and it wasn't my period.

My one night stand was just a night, and a morning too. THIS LABEL IS NOT ABOUT THAT, though I will write about it (Hey, ye Who Said I Was Hot, you could be anyone, just like me, so don't sweat it, I just regret writing that I told you I wrote a blog but you didn't ask for the link so guessed you were alright with me writing about you. I wasn't going to write about you anymore than I did. I wasn't. Now who knows when I'll stop. Your fault for being a positive experience.)

This label is about being alone. Being alone with thoughts you can't share with anyone. It's all retrospective of course now, but not really. As I write this, nothing is clear, so writing some things will be really difficult. It's out there. Are they self fulfilling prophecies? What am I creating? I've got to turn that fear which is beneath everything at the moment, into something positive.

This label is about Thursday night which led to Friday morning, where I went to the doctor, which I have to post about, which I don't want to, but what you resist persists God said in those Conversations.

The label has to end on a good note. I've too much blogging experience now to know that it's dangerous to take people on a journey with you... be it to a council flat or to the dentist, although I did take you on my stop smoking journey and it's a year tomorrow that I stopped - Yippee!! Shall I celebrate with you Nico Teen? Awfully hard writing all this...NO! No I shan't! Al Cohol....?

Can't. I'm on antibiotics for a week, my pee sample's been sent to the lab. I will know the result, but you won't, reader. It's an opportunity for me

An opportunity for me to do what stigs?

Well we don't know, do we, self elected leaders of the party that we are.

We just know that things we wanted to write that aren't part of the label will come under the label and that you will know it's over when I write REPENT.

Sunday after the Friday before...The day I asked the angel cards what I can do and the card I got back was from Angel Gabriel, saying he was with me, and to follow the signs... I did that and was told to REPENT.

You lead Gabes, I'll follow...

(and look out for signs!)

Pre Reunion Nerves

Relax relax relax relax breathe relax
It will be fine
It will be fine
Man on Heath said "You'll love it!"
You will so get excited instead of scared
You've got [your son] with you, the prayers of your mam and pap, the luck and support from friends. Do it.
Go into the church and bow your head, repeatedly saying thankyou to God and the angels, to Mary and the saints, for [your son], for your parents, for your being there and holding it together.
Good things will come from it
Good things
Reunion
Re-union
Your relationships will get better because you will feel stronger.
Rest afterwards and stay close to people who love you, yourself included.

(Taken from notebook: 12th November 2011)

Teenage kicks

There was one day when me and My Best Friend came down to PE earlier than everyone else. We waited with the teacher for a while, then she told us to run upstairs and get the other girls.
So we ran upstairs, told the girls PE was cancelled, wasn't that great?! And they were like, 'really?' and we were 'yeah! Swear to God'
Then went back downstairs and waited again. And waited. And waited and my son really does take after me because I started to giggle and couldn't stop.
The teacher went bananas at us, told us to wait for her in the changing rooms while she got the girls and I laughed so hard I peed my pants, right through the wooden slats of the bench and the look of horror on her face is what made me laugh last night.

OK, it's not the best memory. Maybe I should have left out the bit about peeing my pants. Was funny though.

http://stigmum.blogspot.com/2009/09/woman-in-tower.html - I'm wondering whether to re-label this under 'reunion' because I'll have been to two this year, this one by far the most frightening.

Eclipses

I've barely read or watched the news this week but did see that Ed Milliband said council flats would go to people who worked.

SO PARENTING ISN'T A JOB THEN?????????????

You can hear me, can't you, thinking it.

Well, yesterday, in the Ham & High, an article about Frank Dobson saying he earns £66,000 but still can't afford to leave his council flat!

That's rich ey?!

Ah you have to laugh.

Well, I allowed myself a little chuckle as I wrote a letter in response to it last night, mindful, very very mindful, that I went to see Dobbie two weeks ago and he agreed to help me if I can get the law centre or another organisation to write to him.

I read my horoscopes this morning which told me there a was a lunar eclipse yesterday.

Are you feeling ok after the eclipse yesterday? asks Closer Online.

Well yes, if the paper publishes my letter, if a body (Shelter? Or do I have to do a law degree?) writes a letter, if Dobbie from all that, talks to ministers and and and...

Apparently there are more eclipses on the way.

Does it mean something GOOD Nina? Yeah, I've been listening to that alot this morning, as I emailed my letter across.

Be still
Be still
Be still

Eek !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fear can be a real waste of time

I planned to have a picnic to mark my Crikieth birthday.
Over the past few years I have marked every birthday with a picnic.
My heart wasn't totally in it this time.
"The last time," I said to people. Not just the stress of it; but mostly the stress of it.
Annie facebooked me on Friday. "Do you have a Plan B"
"No, I said. I'm praying! Asking Angels to blow the clouds away so there'll be sunshine!"
I decided to be realistic though and look at the weather forecast.
Lovely saturday, lovely monday, downpour picnic day. "Wash-out" said the weather man.

For once, I could have a plan B.

My flat. It could accommodate adults I told another friend on facebook, but children? Including hers there'd be 27... with mine...28. FUCK!

Perhaps I should just cancel but cancelling my Crikieth.Stay in, on my own, feeling sorry myself... what did that say as a prelude to the new decade???????????????

Queen. This on repeat ALL Friday night. Over and over and over and over:



Never in all the years that I've had birthday picnics has the weather let me down, but never have I had a flat to accommodate any plan B. The promised pitter patter of raindrops felt almost like a celestial conspiracy.

I spoke to my son, told him he'd just have give up his bedroom. "Let Chaos Reign!"

My party was a terrific success. 27 children didn't come. Hannah left her 4 behind, others left siblings with husbands. My brother in law (my sister came!) took the boys out to play football in the rain.

Why, for an occasion such as my Crikieth birhday, didn't I always just plan to do it in this flat - which is designed for parties really?

Because I was scared. Scared people wouldn't show up. Scared people wouldn't enjoy themselves. Scared scared scared.

Had I done it in my flat, maybe those who have come to my picnics in the past would have more likely come. Who knows. I told myself to think about the people who did come though, not the psople who didn't.

Scared scared scared...pff...

Fear. Whoever knew it can be a real waste of time.

"Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway" = a book I think, an expression perhaps.

There might be something in it!

The Oxford

Thursday - last day of term. Gifts for teachers all bought I thought I'd stop by The Oxford on Kentish Town Road and have an orange juice and lemonade.

Thing is, they sell my favourite beer there - Budvar, Budweiser's far superior brother. I treated myself.

I sat on a bench and thought how little separates me from some of those cabinet ministers.
They went to Oxford, I went to Cambridge (ahem, poly)
They went to public school, I'm a public school dropout.

As I sat musing I saw Hannah; she in the same situation as me. Her property owner said her family could stay in their property and a meeting was had with her, Pathmead's and the council and it was all agreed. However, the housing officer (who is also mine - "I know you think he's nice sue but he's not, he's a slime ball") didn't tell Pathmead's about the new arrangement and Hannah and her husband received their bailiff's order. A whole stressful week ensued and the family got a reprieve the day before bailiff's day. I have no reprieve of course, my property owner wants shot of me, the "council's problem".

The interchange had me hurtling from La La Land to Deep Space Shite in seconds. I went to my local newsagents and bought four bottles of Budvar so that I might have company that evening.

Little separates me from some of those cabinet ministers indeed, except a gulf wider than the Grand Canyon.

Drink to that?

Wednesday wake up feeling

In the pit of my stomach there is fear. Heavy, weighty, fear.
My mind is in la-la land where creativity resides
A stone sits in my throat and I cannot swallow it
That must be fear travelling upwards and getting lodged so I can't voice it.

August 5th the lease ends. August. August 2010.

I have heard nothing from no-one.
Not the housing association
Not the council
Not my new support worker
I have heard nothing from no-one
Apart from my old support worker texting saying:
Any luck?

P = PG Tips

Sometimes you've got to be a bit of a cheeky monkey

P = Petrified

Breathe
Breathe
Breathe some more
Breathe
Keep breathing

P = Parched

The fear/desire combo makes you so thirsty,
so thirsty,
so unbelievably thirsty.
The thirst does not stop
even though you're going to the loo alot.

P = Paranoia

With a plan as big and as vast as my Pomegranite Plan, paranoia is bound to come into it but I didn't think it would do so quite so soon.

Lazing in dream world in the flat on such a warm day as today, I told myself to go out onto the Heath. My dreams are lovely there. Full of hope.

The prize that will pop out of the Pomegranite, should I be successful, is not for me. That's alright, it's a challenge. The money for my Big Issue Walk wasn't for me either.

The Press wasn't involved in my Big Issue Walk.

If it was me and the local press going after the cash it might be ok, but it's not, it's just me. The local press will report it. That's ok, I like them, I'd like to help them. Wouldn't good news be nice to report and good news of that magnitude: £283m in times of "austerity" for Camden's long bullied and battered heart?

It's just me.
Just me.
No union behind me, no association of any kind. Not even a friend saying "yeah, go for it!" Just me. Crazy, nutty, desperate, me.
I'd quite like to meet Cameron and Clegg and ask for it. I've met one of them, I've written to both of them, what's the big deal?
At that level? When that's how high I'm prepared to take it?

Exposure.

My Advice Man nearly made me cry when I met him on Sunday. He said:
"You're so desperate. I've never met anyone as desperate as you. I wish I knew how I could help you."
That word, desperate, stung (yes thank you stiggers, I know there's a P in that)
"You can't help me," I'd replied. "No-one can."
Later I said to him: "I know I'm desperate so I should use that. I should use it to get the £368 million." Fighting talk rrrrah!
"If you get that you can have the front page," he said and I laughed because if anyone should know I don't want, I don't like, exposure, it's him.

Do I mind the borough knowing I'm desperate? Not really. In my mind we all are, 18000 is alot you know and there have been two deaths in recent weeks, Jennyfer Spencer and Tony.

Do I mind the nation knowing I'm desperate? Fuck yes. These politicians are going to hang me out to dry (Oh yes, my paranoia really did take root in the soil of Hampstead Heath this afternoon and went far, far, far down the plan.)

The housing division of the council are going to be pissed off I'm going to the papers (school social worker said as much, saying it could make things worse for me and my son for blowing the whistle on it when I saw her this afternoon)

It was all beginning to look pretty pants actually, my pomegranite plan.

Then I got a reprieve, that helped me breathe. Local journo emailed me and said he couldn't meet on Friday after all and was really sorry (Don't be!!)

I'm going to my MP's surgery on Saturday, which was my plan before I had a plan.

I'm going to ask him to get the money.

I was going to tell him to use the living me and the dead Jennyfer but I'll have to see how I feel.

I mean would you sacrifice yourself for money you wouldn't see a penny of?

Thought not.

My son, my sun, my boy, my buoy, I haven't forgotten you baby, you're the reason I can't give up. I'll give up when we move so I've got to do this, at least give it a shot, before we do.

Stiggers, Stiggers, who the fuck is Stiggers?!

I met the editor of the local paper on Friday afternoon. I'd emailed him earlier in the week saying thank you for not publishing the letter I'd sent in then in brackets telling him I'd have thanked him if he had published it - such letters could heal or harm my situation and needed outside judgement.

I asked him how he felt meeting me again. Not sure why, what with no news to report, guess I just like him and anyway, no news is news in a situation like mine.

He said how did Friday sound. I said Friday sounded good.

We went to a cafe where I told him I'd enjoyed the last three issues of his rag. In each there was a political profile; of the Labour contender, the Libdem contender and the Tory contender for the borough elections.

"I've met all three!" I said laughing (laughing?) "I can't say none of them have been successful in helping me because it's with the Libdem's now!"

We were having a good ol' yackety yarn when he suddenly asks me if I want to write a First Person piece for the paper.

"Eh?!" (Surprises always stun me)

"In late May, after the election," he continued.

"Oh gosh, oh well, yes, I guess I could if you want. Gosh, erm..."

He asked me to think about using my own name for it, think about allowing my picture to be taken.

"Oh got to be brave, got to be brave..."

"We'll pay you something for it, we're not going to exploit you," he smiled.

"Oh crikey, oh if you want.." Really stunned by that one but didn't tell him no, it'll upend my benefits. Not telling you no either... I'll cross that financial carnage bridge when I get to it... It would be nice to be paid after all.

I told him I had the germ of an idea to write a piece about the elections, for the nationals, but wasn't sure.

"Great idea," he said and then said if they didn't take it, he would!

Yikes!!

You know, I don't know if I thanked him; I certainly didn't pump his hand and gush. Perhaps it was fear. Perhaps it was fear and desire intermingled. Perhaps it was the clash of my positive and negative self given something good to hang on to and my not knowing how to make sense of it now this opportunity was in my hand.

All I know is that me and the ed left on good terms and when Issy called me Saturday and asked 'what's up?' and I told her the local rag had asked me to write a First Person piece, she said: "That's brilliant! That's awesome! I'm so happy for you!"

Sunday afternoon I meet Japanese Mum (who I hadn't told I was in the paper last month, mostly because I rarely run into her) who said: "That's great! That's rearry briyyant!"

Three people therefore believe I am up to this. Stigger's believes I am up to this too. Stiggers is actually relishing the challenge.

Me? I feel like I'm facing the Jabberwocky. Fecking terrified is an understatement. Can I rise up to the challenge?

Well, if Alice can and she's only 19, then for flips sake, I ought to be able to aswell.

"Alice, Alice, who the fuck is Alice?" Stiggers is asking with Smokie's rasp.

"Stiggers, Stiggers, who the fuck is Stiggers?" (Because I really am beginning to wonder)

"You, you big baffoon."

"Holy Shit."

"Shit means good in youth slang you know"

"Shit Shit Shit!"

When you lie and do wrong

I know that I have it within my power to delete everything I've posted which I didn't ask permission to post. Do it quickly, before the story breaks.

I have broken a fundamental code of conduct within journalism. I know I'm not a journalist but I do think it's this background that's given me a sense of duty to agree to be interviewed for the rag's story. That, and of course, the desperate desire to finally take my son Home.

I might have gotten myself into "a whole heap of trouble". You know, I've been boring you for months with my paranoia.

One of my 'punishments' (Christ, I hope there are not too many) is that the State will refuse to house me.

If I am to continue bouncing my son around through no real choice of my own, I have to feel I have done something wrong.

I have to feel it so that when my son asks again: "Mummy, why do we deserve this?" I can tell him: "My child, I wrote a blog. I didn't ask permission to write the truth."

Such is the risk I am once again taking, with my son in my arms.

"The greatest risk in life is to risk nothing" (a poem Jules gave me when we worked on the boats together. At some point I'll source who wrote it. For a long time I thought it was her!)

No Christmas in a hostel - the fear and relief explained

I'm hoping the tremors from last week's psychological earthquake will stop now, or at least that I stop writing about it. Fear is a very powerful emotion. Relief is very powerful too.

I am spending Christmas with my parents; "Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum". It will be extraordinarily special.
My mum is still cruising around with her Zimmer, picking up speed she tells me. I ask after my dad and she says he's doing well, though my sister called saying "Oh Sue he's really losing it, it's really hard to have a conversation with him now." Special. Christmas will be special.

A week ago today, I told you I couldn't spill my fear on these pages. My fear was real, not unfounded.

On Monday, at the Homeless Person's Unit, the recovering alcholic mum of three told me she had once left her hostel room for four days and when she returned was told her contract with that room had ended. The inference being obviously, that she had somewhere to go. Voluntarily homeless but with two children, she was placed in another hostel.

I believed her because it's not the first time I've heard of this.

Five years ago, the worker at the drop in where I took my then two year old, told me she'd vacated her hostel room to give birth, spent the following two days at her mother's place and when she returned found all her belongings in a black carrier bag in the basement. Her stereo was gone. She had no alternative but to go back to her mother, where she remained 'homeless at home' until she was eventually permanently housed two years later.

Like I've told you, I tend to be afraid of what I know.

If my son and I were in a hostel from Monday, then what to do about Christmas with my parents? If I go, when I come back, the council will say I've made myself voluntarily homeless and I will have nowhere to go. I felt sick with fear. I could not spill it on these pages incase it happened. Even now, I'm not so pleased I'm posting it and would have preferred to write it after Christmas (which is why I haven't started a new paragraph because I don't want a new problem. It's a brutal system we 'statutory homeless' are caught in).

I adore Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee but living with them is not an option. This does not mean I do not love them, I do. For a start, I don't have a driver's licence and I need one of those to live with them. When the local shop closed its doors forever, the bus service was discontinued.

I have a letter saying I do not have to leave this property, not next week, not in the near future. I have a witness that I've been told the Bailiff order won't be enforced until August (you were with me journo, you were with me when they called, I hope I don't have to call you)

I will paper over this post with another. As with blogspot as with life, what is past is past.

"You need to think positive thoughts," said the doc. "You need to get out of your environment, do you have somewhere to go for Christmas?"

I am spending Christmas with my family. I am spending Christmas with my son AND I am spending Christmas with my parents, sister and brothers (must not argue; Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee don't like it and it's not fair on them).

I am extraordinarily lucky. I thank God. I will say a little stigmum prayer on Christmas Day for those who aren't extraordinarily lucky.

To everybody, I toast your wealth, health and happiness for the future, with my cup of tea.

14 days notice? No, not that 'lucky'

The penny dropped today. You get told you'll get 14 days notice, but you don't. That would give 10 working days to talk to the council.

Day 1 was Tuesday. This is when the letter was sent. No phone call, no warning.

I have but five days to talk to the council over the future of my son.

They are going to see us as an 'emergency'. This despite the fact that I have been writing to them since before January, when I chose to blog it all for you. This despite the fact that I have written to them a great deal since September when I got the first notice. So too the Prime Minister, so too my MP, so too Local Authority leaders. Oh you know, it's all here.

The housing association, a registered charity, is evicting us Christmas week and the Council will say we're an 'emergency'. I sent them an email yesterday: "Have I been lied to? You told me August."

Politicians wax lyrical about the Protection of Children. This is Cruelty to Children.

My son and I are mere pawns in their blame games of greed.

I am freezing despite wearing a multitude of layers. I don't know if it's because the heating's on the blink, or whether it's that old foe, Fear.

I can't spill my fear on here. I mustn't. I have to focus.

My son needs me to focus.

My son my Sun my Son

Stigmum I love you but I don't think even you can help me now. Stay with me though; tomorrow is my third visit to the Homeless Person's Unit since my son was born. It's Heaven for some people; it's Hell on Earth for me.

Stigmum stays put

Tis ironic is it not that it's at the Year 2 Fun Run that Stigmum decides she's not going to run at all.

In truth she had me up half the latter part of the night whispering "storm in a thimble, storm in a thimble," into my paranoid ears.

I am frightened, I'll be honest with you reader, that if the council reads this, they will hang me up to dry largely because I don't know if it's legal what I'm doing and I am telling tales. My son and I risk not being housed at all for doing this. Already people have more points, who have waited less time than me. Some are housed with less points than me, many who have waited less time are also secure now. I don't know what I've done wrong. I might be doing something wrong now though....

However, I will continue to blab. You will continue to hear how ignored I feel, how threatened and bullied I feel, because if you can read me objectively, you'll conclude that the housing system I'm caught in is wrong, wrong, wrong, and flawed beyond belief. I don't know what to do about it but someone might.

Don't know what else to say so Stigmum's calling upon the Velvet Underground and Nico again, after all, they were a big part of yesterday

Thursday morning, praise the dawning
It's just a restless feeling by my side
Early dawning, Thursday morning
It's just the council fears so close behind

Watch out, the State's behind you
There might be someone around you who will call
It's nothing at all (eek, I hope so)

Thursday morning and I'm falling
I've got a feeling I don't want to know
Early dawning, Thursday morning
It's all the blogs I wrote, not so long ago

Watch out, the State's behind you
There might be someone around you who will call
It's nothing at all (eek, so hope unless it's good news)

Watch out, the State's behind you
There might be someone around you who will call
It's nothing at all (just the keys to secure accommodation?)

Thursday morning
Thursday morning
Thursday morning

Run Stigmum run... a song

You've got to run run run run run
Take a drag or two
Run run run run run
Council death and you
Tell you whatcha do

Will you Velvet Underground and Nico? Will you tell me what to do?
(Stigmum has in her possession their truly fabulous Andy Warhol album. They are telling her to run run run run run because she has to run run run run run but she doesn't know where where where where where....)

A chill wind for Stigmum

A law firm acting for an oil trading firm tried to take an injunction against the Guardian to prevent the paper from publishing a question tabled in Parliament. The paper wished to publish "the contents of a report related to the dumping of toxic waste in Ivory Coast" which has made thousands of people sick. The company in question had other ideas and is currently involved in a libel action against Newsnight for covering the story.

This gagging of the press is becoming more common apparently. If companies don't want people knowing of their ugly and unscrupulous dealings, then lawyers, Ian Hislop informed me in his commentary, will use "injunctions to secure privacy and confidentiality". He says, which has frightened Stigmum somewhat that "now it is not a question of publish and be damned as it used to be: we are now finding that we can't even publish at all."

Anybody should be horrified by that. Stigmum is of course because she is 'publishing'; she is telling my story using emails and phone calls with council officials without their knowing. She and her child may well be damned. We have tried, as you know, to get legal advice from the national union of journalists, but as we are not members, we can't and as we don't ask to be paid (for what we ultimately don't get published out there) we can't become members. Parliament is 'open' to Freedom of Speech. Does that apply to 'post' that you receive too? Stigmum brazenly continues while I get increasing paranoid. Tonight she's feeling the chill.

Oh, all we want is transparency. If the ugly aspects of society are faced, then that can lead to positive change, no? (well, that was what prompted my going for therapy all those years ago - face my ugly self in order to change her)

Don't you want to know everything going on in your world? Or know that you can know everything if you want to know everything? You can't change what you don't know can you? What else can't the media tell us?

Fuck. I only bought the paper because it was giving out free fairytales. Thought I might read them to my son......Got more than I bargained for.

Chilly chilly chill chill, physically, metaphorically, bugger.

Storm in a thimble

Several journalist friends, who I texted for advice on Monday night, called me yesterday. A mixed bag of responses when it came to giving my full details but a couple of them asked why I didn't write the letter under my own name given it wasn't about housing.
Indeed....
Well the answer, I suppose, is in the post 'Why ARE cigarettes always the answer' but to expand on that a little bit, anything I write that even remotely mentions a politician's name, has to be written by Stigmum. This is because enough people in the council know who I am, or know of me and they have it within their power to send my life into the pits. Already I'm much further down the waiting list than I used to be.
I did email the CNJ yesterday, said my link was my address, I would leave it all at their discretion. It was the best I could do.

It's funny and not funny, but in my twenties, one of my favourite quotes was:
"I might be going to hell in a bucket but at least I'm enjoying the ride!"

Now I feel I really am going to hell in a bucket, and I'm not enjoying the ride. I have my son, I want to go to heaven in a chariot.

I guess it's time for another letter to the council. About overcrowding this time?
We gotta get out of this place, if it's the last thing we ever do, cos boy there's a better life for me and you. (The Animals)