6 - 12 May

6-7th

Nothing happened again.   So why make anything with a resounding impact?  To give an impression that in some way these two days were interesting?   In effect everyday is interesting... even if nothing interesting actually happens everything is all part of a very long drawn out phase shift.  I keep having to remind myself that nothing stays the same.  So if nothing happens then there is still something gradual and important in that nothing.

Is "nothing" painful?
It depends on how much you want change.

Do I want change?
Yes.

How much?
Lots.

8-10th

The Conservative are now in power and we are about to head into a 5 year period of horror and oppression.  This isn't quite the sort of change I was after.  I was more hoping to become self employed and to be in a fulfilling relationship but sadly the changes that this world offers us tends to be changes in human rights laws so the authorities will be able to beat up whoever they like.

I've even noticed when walking down the streets that there are more homeless people.  Only 2 days after the election.  Also the prices seem to have gone up by 15p on some things... and shopkeepers all seem a little bit more rude and chagrined.  Lacking their usual jovial sense of humor when I talk to them.  I feel guilty looking happy and smiling at people on the street now because people might think I have voted Conservative and that I'm happy they have gotten into power.   I've even thought about changing my wardrobe so that I'm more obviously left wing... I worry that my clothing looks too smart and colonialist.

Culturally perhaps this is good news.  The 1980s under Thatcher produced some very amazing reactionary art, music, comedy, literature and films.  Hopefully actual real life problems to be angry about will pull culture out of it's dead end "self aware and ironic" hole and art will actually be about something again.  I'm not too worried about the cuts in the arts, at least not personally, as my work has always been too self indulgent to receive or even bother applying for arts council funding.  It's never been of benefit to the community around me.  Maybe because being self absorbed makes a person not have any interest in the community around them.  What is odd about the election result is that it does make me feel more engaged with those sorts of things.

11- 12th

Some dystopic facebook posts:

"Even though the world is going wrong, I still look cool.

I think that the media should hire me to walk slowly towards the camera, like James Bond, for any of their more upsetting news reports. I would walk through natural disasters, riots, holocausts and so forth.

I would wear quirky suits and ties, often sunglasses, and my hair would always be voluminized to the max... I would swagger elegantly towards the viewer in slow motion with debris and bodies flying around me.

People would be reassured and feel as if the situation is within State control.

I would sometimes pause and light up a cigarette. Looking into the distance with a James Dean gaze and a wistful turn to my lips. Existentially contemplating the rotting corpses and burning buildings.

This would then be followed by an advert for cigarettes.

Scientists have recently discovered that smoking cures cancer.

In other news the economy is doing well and the UK is the 3rd richest independent state. Problems of immigration, unemployment and overpopulation have all been solved.

Please donate to the Cremation Pit Charity.

Keep Our Country Clean and Prosperous."

and

"9.07am on May 12th 2018. The Economic Office:

The fly landed on Zoe B's clean, white, plastic desk. She froze in her computations and pushed herself back on her wheeled chair... her eyes fixed on the insect.

Her immediate impulse was to send a signal from her Bluetooth implant to the Sanitation Team... but she couldn't do that. Not at this stage in the ‪#‎Game‬.

Calling for a public service would cost her 32 D-Merits and she was only 48 Merits away from getting into ‪#‎Stage3‬ - at #Stage3 she would be only 3 stages away from ‪#‎winning‬.

She couldn't afford to use the public service. She would have to find some other way to get rid of the fly.

"Why aren't you at the Crematorium Pit?" she hissed at the fly. "Why aren't you licking the dried shit from the corpses of the immigrants, the unemployed and all the other bottom feeders?"

The fly tilted his head to the side quizzically... and then rubbed his front legs together hungrily before extruding his proboscis onto a small, sweet, sugary mocha stain.

Zoe felt ashamed when she saw the mocha stain. She had created this contamination and brought this monster into her office. She felt all the more relieved that she hadn't called Sanitation Team. Her penalty would have been a lot more costly than a mere 32 D-Merits.... ‪#‎LOSER‬!"

I have been writing quite a lot of short stories of late.  I think the 500 word maximum word limit suits me well and am entering a few "flash fiction stories"... I was going to combine some better statuses into a longer format so it would form a longer story made up of shorter stories and submit that to a writing prize.  It's something to do and it's nice to have a hobby that, unlike my art and pattern design, I don't take too seriously.

I'm hoping that my short story Vagina Hand is going to be accepted into the science fiction magazine I submitted it to.  Though it probably won't and to be honest I would completely understand why if it didn't...