2013: What a piece of shit year that was. If I was of a superstitious inclination I'd postulate that with a "13" in the name, it was bound to be doomed. But I'm not; it was just a shit year. I mean more shit than usual that is: Life has been shit for me for a very long time.
The year started with what I thought was a brilliant idea. I was in the bath one night and I had an idea for a short horror film. The idea was accompanied by something one of my lecturers said during my MA that "the pulp is political" and it made a horror film about the cuts seem even more sensible.
To be honest, I expected daylight to come the following morning and to realise what a daft idea I'd had the night before. Instead, more ideas came. Before I knew it I had all the scenes plotted out in my head and much of the dialogue too. So I decided to type it up and ask a few producer friends if they thought it was viable.
At one point it looked like I had a producer on board and all systems were go. I got in touch with a few actors who I thought might be into it. Liz was especially amazing; she put me in touch with so many people who could be involved either in front of or behind the camera.
It really looked like it might happen. Like my daft idea might come off. I was struggling a bit under the stress, but nothing too bad.
Then the project lost a producer. I don't blame them at all; I totally understand a need to pay the rent over and above a not-for-profit, anti-cuts film. I started looking for a new producer...
... And that was when I really went mental. I can quite honestly say that I have never been so close to having a full-blown breakdown. I questioned the point of my existence when I was too useless to even be able to find a film producer on at least an hourly basis.
I also hated myself for not being able to produce it myself. I don't have the skills required or the sanity to be able to do it; and that was another thing I regularly berated myself for being so useless about.
So many people had offered their skills or given their time, and I couldn't pull it off. And I was getting crazier by the day.
On Good Friday I met with Wendy who'd kindly edited the script. And that was the last work I did on the film. Her handwritten notes on a print-out of the script are in a pink bag about 3 feet from where I'm sitting right now, and they're just sitting there, not typed up.
A few months later I was having a conversation with a friend about my failed foray into screenwriting. "It sounds like you need a producer to help you find a producer," was how she succinctly put the problems that had driven me round the twist.
It still seems so wasteful that there's a script ready, actors keen on the project, a fundraising strategy, etc, and it's all going to waste because of the dearth of producers out there. But I can't keep producer-hunting when there are none to be found; and making myself mental in the process. So I guess that's that.
It took a while after giving up for my sanity to be restored; I continued to question what the point of my being alive was when I couldn't pull off something so seemingly simple. In fact, it took until about the summer: And then it was my body's - rather than my brain's - turn to fail on me.
I royally fucked up my left knee....
Hang on! I'm getting ahead of myself! Before there was the knee; there was the digestive discovery.
My stomach has been fucked for years now. Worse than the acid reflux, worse than the stomach feeling like it's on fire, worse than my ability to eat being totally dependent on my stomach's whims has been the belching. I have spent the last few years feeling like I've swallowed the contents of several helium balloons. Gastroenterologists have giving me drugs to speed up my digestive transit which just forces the belches to come out as farts instead. So I quit those because, frankly, the constant belching was better.
But having a stomach perpetually full of air was horrific. It was painful because my stomach was always so distended with gas. Sometimes I even had trouble breathing because my stomach was so full of air that it impaired my lungs ability to inflate properly. Sleeping was impossible because air rises so you can't belch when you're lying down flat. I had to wake up several times a night, sit up, and beat myself on the chest until I'd expelled most of the air so I could try sleeping again for a few more hours.
In May I decided to experiment with going lactose-free. Holy fucking shit, what a relief. Yes, I miss cheese. And milk chocolate. But it's a small price to pay for the relief of not having my breathing compromised by such an inflated stomach.
But back to the knee. It was about July I think that it went wrong. I have a pretty high pain tolerance. I'll walk around on broken feet without taking painkillers. In fact I fractured a metatarsal while my knee was knackered and it totally didn't bother me. But my knee; that was a different story. It wasn't a bony injury; I could tell that. My GP sent me for an x-ray to rule out bone damage, and I was vindicated. It was something tendony, I don't know exactly what: I never got a proper diagnosis. For about 2 and a half months I needed morphine just to be able to walk to the toilet in my teeny tiny flat.
Not only did I have the drugs making me drowsy; my knee itself was also exhausting. Different types of pain and injury have different effects. Some pains will keep you awake all night with their agony; other pains will drain all your energy and make you sleep 12 hours a night. My knee fell into that latter category.
Also over the summer I had to say farewell to my beloved 5 year old netbook. Almost everything I've written that's worth reading over the last 5 years was written on that machine. It was a cheap thing I picked up in the supermarket to take into hospital with me when I had surgery in Nov 08, but it provided 5 years of loyal service. I had to replace it with this temperamental piece of shit running Windoze 8. It's slow, moody and a pain in the arse. I suppose we at least make a matching pair. Though I'm sure that one day I'll lose my patience with this and throw it out of a window.
The autumn saw a return to depressive form; although not quite as severely as earlier in the year. I had a realisation that it was October and I had absolutely nothing to show for the year that was nearly finished. I may not have the health to hold down a job, I may spend a lot of my time sitting in hospital waiting rooms. But at least in 2012 I'd done quite a lot of blogging on my "good" days. 2013 was almost over and I'd done almost nothing. I'd written a film which I couldn't find a producer for; and that was literally all I'd done. No powerful blog posts, no going to protests. There were several protests during the summer that I couldn't go to because I didn't have enough painkillers to be able to stray that far from my bed. Once again I found myself considering what the point of me being alive was when I offered no value to anything.
I really didn't help my sanity thanks to a spur of the moment decision in September: I decided to join an online dating site and paid for a month's membership.
I've tried online dating before: Everyone is disablist. As you click through profiles you realise they all say:
No crazies.
No crazies.
No crazies.
No crazies.
No strange limps.
No crazies.
Obviously the spur of the moment decision to sign up didn't result in me meeting anyone. I didn't hear from even one person. But I'd paid for a month's membership so I stuck with it for the whole month; every day hating myself more and more. Partly for being so repulsive, and partly for being stupid enough to spend money on online dating knowing that all that would happen would be that I'd be reminded that everyone thinks I'm repulsive.
But back to the lack of productivity: The fact that I'd done nothing all year apart from a couple of TV and radio interviews was what made my presence on the 2013 Pink List such a shock. The year before it was an honour and a pleasure; but not a surprise. (I'd gotten advance notification from someone at the paper because they needed me to provide a headshot.) On my good days I'd done things that I felt proud of and I was honoured to have them recognised. Reading the Pink List again just now while getting the link to post here I sort-of expected to find 86 had gone blank because it had all been a mistake and I wasn't really supposed to be on there.
The year ended on a bacterial note. Given the frequency with which I usually get sinusitis I actually did pretty well in 2013. And I only had the infection for about 5 weeks before I got to see a GP for antibiotics. (I've had to put up with sinusitis for a couple of months before now.) Something else which sapped all my energy and left my splayed helplessly on the couch because the bacteria in my face were sucking all my spoons. I literally finished the antibiotics a couple of days before Christmas. So that was that, 2013 effectively over. And all I had to show for it was a lactose-free diet and the script for a film which will probably never get made.
There are several people I owe blog posts to; promises I made months ago but haven't had the energy to write. Yet. So far 2014 has been a bit of a crazy whirlwind of hospital appointments (they started on Jan 2nd and this is the first week all year without one). But hopefully - hopefully - I can get all caught up in the near future.
And on the subject of hopes: Please just let 2014 be a bit better than 2013. I know my life is always going to suck. But it'd be nice if I could have a year that sucked slightly less.
