Life sweeps me

I always say life is manic or hectic and other such excessive terms. And it is! I know I have chosen and designed this path, it is hardly accidental. But true nonetheless.

But I am full. Brimmed. I suspect I would annoy many people with this bounce. I am overcome by feeling. Livingness I think DH Lawrence called it. Life is in my mouth and more and I am chewing with relish. I am maybe in the mouth of life and it relishes me too.

I've submitted an application to a short film funding stream. I performed the Spoken Word Set at Liberty last Saturday, in Trafalgar Square, with lovely Jo adding colour and uniqueness to my words. I did two Open spoken word slots at the Edinburgh Fringe, which was yes, intense and exhilarating. See my DAO blog for more on that.

I want Fancy Nancy to be published, and I'd love a republish of Desires. And in the US. Any help out there?

So, there you go. Still a crazy kitty going up and down the curtains of lovely existence. Yeah, miaow.

Battling with the invisible Them. ILF - a saga of perceived powerlessness

I remain creative and each day I get an improved grip on my time management. I've always been of the opinion that any kind of time organising is OK, if it works, and I tell my mentees this. You can't fit yourself in an angular ordered box if you are a round squishy sort of personality, as am I.

But over the last month these worthy thoughts and actions have more or less been consigned to the bin of wasted effort.

I'm fighting Them. The faceless indifferent Them. It is horrible, undermining, and frightening to be in this battle. At this point They come in the form of ILF. Independent Living Funds. Some of you will know about ILF, many will not. In essence, ILF contribute to the costs, shared with my local authority, that enable me to employ Personal Assistants. This is called Direct Payments and many disabled people are on such a scheme. The key issues around Direct Payments are flexibility, choice and control in how 'care support' is given.

PAs enable me to have my basic functions attended to, but also to effectively live a life, to go from A to B to Z if I need to. PAs remove barriers by their faciliation of tasks I cannot physically perform. Let there be no misunderstanding: without a PA I do not take part in society or have a rounded full life. Forget being an artist, a creator, a story teller! A PA, under my direct supervision, actions the flow of my life, so that I CAN be that creative force.

Without warning, my ILF funding was suspended, and demands for mountains of paperwork were made to me. Instead of working and finishing my novel, instead of giving focus and attention to developing my property business, I have sat here for days, replicating information to send to ILF as if in some Kafka-esque nightmare. Information given to them already, also from my local authority, by my social worker, and their social worker. This pile will go to individuals who show no understanding of using PAs, or the intricacies of managing Direct Payments. I, on the other hand, have 15 years actual experience.

ILF is funded by the DWP and I have found out that ILFs budget was cut last year. All this nonsense is really about saving money, and as usual when there is an economic crises, disabled people are seen as an easy target from whom money can be withheld.

I hate saying we are powerless, but in some senses we are. Such a situation will not hit the national media easily, and this is because there is still a tendency to see us as being within the health sector and having no importance other than our statistical role within a welfare state. If equivilent funding cuts and approaches were made to individuals so unilaterally within education, or towards MPs and their pay packets perhaps, I am sure it would be across the press and beyond.

The reality is I work. I took the leap into self-employment, encouraged by New Deal and Working Tax Credits for disabled people. I came off Incapacity Benefit. I pay tax and national insurance contributions. The contradictions must be obvious. ILF, with their sudden action, risk putting me out of work. If I cannot pay for the assistance to get out of bed, what do they think will happen? The situation highlights not only the hypocritical views towards disabled people, but also the confusion and ambiguity. Who works? Who can work? How is it decided who can work?

I'm fighting ILF, of course. But it should not be necessary. I do have an impairment that affects my stamina, and should be conserving my energy to WORK happily on what I do well, with the skills and talents I am fortunate enough to possess.

Rest assuured, this is not the end.

Hone Grown

I was worrying recently about spreading myself too thin, and worse, squashed out in the wrong direction. Surely a worry many creative people have?

The bills need paying and now I am in the working sector I have to maintain it. Mostly, I like it! The freedom is a bonus. Yet aspects of it can drag me down. It's the obvious stuff. The endless scratching for a few pounds. The constant dilemma of working at something tedious, weighed against creative projects that set you on fire, that contribute nothing financially.

Outside of a little non-creative work, at the moment it's like this. I've honed projects down. The spoken word set Pains and Pleasure can roll along, hopefully snowballing once I start. This will give me new practice with an audience and leads naturally into the development of the one-woman play. People are coming my way and links are being made, making me know in my guts this is the right way forward. Fancy Nancy is still with several agents and I do hope they all ask for the whole manuscript. Soon, please. Now I have almost, almost, almost (say it!) completed the final redraft. She must be born, this is her year!

There is the business venture, details of which will appear in public soon. It's exciting and I'm skinning that down to its essentials too. Watch this space.

Focus and growth is everything to me right now.

Oh, a pleasant, dynamic, witty chap to go out with would be a bonus. But let me dream of that in another blog posting.

My website, my frustration, the London snow

There's a lot going on and some of it I can't write about in detail as it's too private.

But I must say this. Why is it that as we fight to remove barriers, to circumvent challenges and obstacles we did not create, there are officials and organisations and agencies, who undermine us in these efforts? Don't they see what they are doing?

So we become conflicted. We spend so much time, effort and energy (to quote a friend) on petty fights and bureaucracy that we run out of steam on what we should be doing. Living fully would be a start.

Is that so much to ask?

Anyhow, my website: www.pennypepper.co.uk

It is a fine slinky thing, made by a very talented friend. Do have a look and contact me - in fact this blog links straight in.

I should write about London and the snow. It's almost gone. It was pretty for 10 minutes, making us innocent and clean, then an annoying as we could not move or go where we are so used to going.

I am wary there will be more. I never relish my daily freedom so much as when it's taken away from me.

Thinking, making, doing

It's one of those weeks. Life ticks along and I feel good. I enjoyed the pool very much today even though it was a little clogged with butch men swimming badly, making butch waves, and very butch noises. I trotted along by my wall as usual, saying my mantras, happy in my inner world. It's all you can do really.

I am excited by seeing my website grow. It's on a countdown to launch now, and I love being able to tinker with it.

How true it is that we can achieve so much once we let ourselves. Let our minds free to chase all dreams and all ambitions, although there is a mystery here that reality seems to level out to our expectation. So make them big, make them marvellous.

It has been a long time since I have felt so much enjoyment from what I do, and from all my plans. I look forward to their fruition. There is no doubt of success, only a pleasant wondering about how it will happen.

Let me write of Dublin, and travels to the sea

August 2008.

A trip like this gives almost too much to write about. Almost. It deserves a decent effort.

Liz pointed out the horse in the sea. On the wide open sands as we approached Dalkey, there it was, trotting, pleased with itself and its lovely shape against the pale grey sky. Now there is a story germinating in the tireless synapses. Agitated now and excited to be set free at last. There is… a young widow, and, she will surprise everyone with her story.

Dublin had the promised friendly people, the talkers who clearly do tongues with the Blarney stone. It did not have kind and welcoming access to us wheelies over all. How many pubs did I gaze into hopefully hearing the drift of traditional music I yearned for? Yet faced with slabs of steps, and reluctance to be dragged in at risk of pain, and certainly much indignity.

Never mind. I went along and down and up the ‘four streets’ of Dublin and even explored the ‘non-entities’ as one Dubliner described the other roads of the city. My birthday was a swill of rain and shared hilarity in our blue pixie hooded ballooning packamacs. They should have been green and we would have passed as leprechauns. I bought essential items such as new bras and hair fascinators. What else should one buy on a birthday with my gift money? With Liz urging me to not lose heart, we did eventually find a pub to serve us delicious Irish Stew and two halves of Guiness.

Maybe tomorrow I will write again about the bog bodies in the museum, the ghoulish rag remains of human beings, so preserved you could see the ridges on nails. The gently closed fine masculine hand, resonating with stories of strength and protection. Making me melancholy, for a moment or two.

I felt my Irish blood stir to see such things. And now, like many of my countrymen and women I can’t stop writing.