Exhibition Details, Thanks and Thoughts

The Chapel St George's Field, Springtime 
Turmeric anthotype made from 35mm film image 4x6 inches  

I've just put the last coat of varnish on the last matte medium image transfer I've made for this exhibition - which opens a week on Wednesday and you can find all the details for it here:

I'm both excited and nervous about it as well as really looking forward to it. It's the culmination of a lot of hard work which has been both really challenging and really rewarding too. 

I've spent the last six months working primarily on this project. I'm really glad that I put together a proposal and that it was accepted - in part because it's helped lay the ghosts of deciding not to continue my PhD studies at Huddersfield Uni in September 2019 with all the sadness and confidence knocking that entailed but mostly because it's given me a new focus (no photographic pun intended) and new impetus to continue with my research albeit for the time being in a different format.  It's proof of the adage by Alexander Den Heijer  'when a flower doesn't bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower'. 

I have found the last six months a massive challenge - from the basic mental challenge of dealing with the anxiety of being in enclosed spaces with other people again having mostly avoided them during the last couple of pandemic years, to the mental challenge of getting my head round having the confidence to try again in an academic environment, the mental challenge of reading some dense and intense theory as well as the practical challenges of a longish walk to college (as yet despite my gratefully received booster jabs I still cannot face the enclosed space of public transport) learning new techniques and then trying to put all of the above together to be able to talk about my work with others, create new work and re-evaluate older work as well as write and deliver presentations, the latter being something I used to do with some regularity but which I hadn't done since February 2021.  That really helped my concentrate my thinking and get it together.  

As well as feeling like I have refound my voice I have also fallen in love with making turmeric anthotypes and all their tricksy idiosyncratic fading impermanent ways.

Along with new ways of making work I've also learnt new ways of thinking and writing about it and I've made new connections and re-established some old ones too.  Leeds College of Art as was now Leeds Arts Uni remains one of my happy places and I am very grateful to have had the opportunity of being there again after doing my MA in Creative Practice there in 2014-2016.

I am very grateful to the leaders on this project at the college Professor Sam Broadhead and Curator Marianne Tsionki and her team, Henry for sorting out some printing issues for me, my aces challenging and supportive mentor Lauren Saunders whose work you can find out about here: and my fellow project artists Hafifa Ahmed, Ingrid Bale, Hana Lait and Carol Sowden for their support, patience, humour and hard work.  Thanks also to the library staff who helped me a lot too. 

Thanks are also due to my lovely supportive 'Man Ray people'* Penny, Jon, and Louise who proofread things for me and gave me feedback and last but not least to my husband for providing support and for putting up with the kitchen being taken over to make anthotypes, work drying in the bathroom and all the disruption that entails.  

So come on down if you can - I'll also post again with some more pictures of the work on show so if you can't get there in person you can get some idea of what there is to see there.  

* May Ray once said 'You don’t need a huge audience, you only need 5 or 6 people who care and support you, don’t worry regarding idealism and practicality. Try to get paid for what you do but don’t worry if you don’t. Just keep on working, you’ll make up for it in time.'

 

Concentration, Experimentation and Play

My current project notebooks - one is for making notes about the books I'm reading (the one pictures is one of them and it's an interesting and difficult read) and one is for to do lists, planning and thinking things out and the most recent knitted creature I've made - knitting is one of the things that I do that helps me dampen down the feelings/symptoms of anxiety that I experience every day. 

Practice lumen prints using acetate negatives and 4 different kinds of paper (see image below) in the back window - I took advantage of the recent very hot sunshine to do some experimentation and I'm pleased with the results and got some usuable prints as well as ideas for how to make them better next time I make some. Mapp (who can be seen in shadow towards the top of the image in shadow) very kindly let me have her one of her beds for a bit as the direct sun was too fierce even for her and she retreated behind the curtain with just a bit of a back leg catching some rays. 

4 different kinds of paper I'm currently using  - some very old indeed, the AGFA Brovira in the orange packet is well over 40 years old and was a gift from a friend when sorting out the contents of what had been her fathers darkroom - I am very honoured and privileged to have been given such precious material and I use it sparingly as it is so finite and irreplaceable. I'm not sure how old the Kentmere paper is but it's old though Kentmere Paper is still available and still in production. As are the Ilford papers - the big box of Ilford is probably around 20 years old, the smaller pack of Ilford is only(!) 8 years old as I got it when I did a Photography evening class back at was then called Leeds College of Art in 2014. Sadly the same place is now called Leeds Arts Uni but it doesn't offer evening classes anymore which I think is a great shame. I think evening classes are a great way to  make higher educational establishments seem a bit less intimidating and as a prospective student they're also a good opportunity to experience an institution as it actually operates on a day to day basis and not an open day best behaviour say anything to get your cash basis.

Some of the knitted things I've been working on over the past few weeks - as you can probably tell I am fond of variegated wool that makes its own kind of stripes and patterns and the little plain green and black striped creature in the middle at the back went to a new home earlier this week.
I'll keep and use the dishcloth myself (it has an outline of a skull and crossbones on it) and the other creatures and the booties will be going to chums/family members as presents. 

Concentration, Experimentation and Play might sound like they could be Emerson Lake and Palmer's troubled grandchildren but they are in fact the things I've been focusing on and at times struggling with the past few weeks. The extreme heat of the last week put a massive dent in my productivity as despite my best efforts to not be affected by it made me feel quite sick and also really sluggish which in turn is not helped by not being able to sleep very well when it's that hot. So I am very grateful the extreme heat has passed for the time being and I hope it doesn't return but I fear it will and I also fear instead of being unusual it's going to become the norm. 

I found the heat as disorientating and anxiety provoking as the first lockdown in some ways - at least then I could leave the house for some exercise each day at whatever time I fancied but the heat meant that I either didn't leave the house or went for a walk really early in the morning before it got so fiercely hot that I felt like I was breathing soup. YUCK.

I did some reading but I found it very difficult to concentrate properly once it got past 11am and then all I could manage was flopping on the sofa sipping cold water and feeling hemmed in by heat, closed curtains and the fear that climate chaos is here and as an an individual there is relatively little you can do to combat it - it needs concerted government action and cooperation between governments but sadly given the dickwads that are in charge in this country at the moment that seems pie in the sky thinking. But onto cheerier things... 

It's about six weeks since I last wrote and 'blog post' has been on my to do list for a at least 3 of those weeks and this morning while ideas and to do lists and project aims and deadlines were swirling round my head I made 'blog post' top of my to do list as it helps me formulate my thoughts and get a much better idea of what I want and need to do next. 

Top of the to do list is 'finish writing artist statement and bio' closely followed by check on state of work at St George's Field - I find writing statements and bios really difficult. I've tried to work out why I find it so hard and I think it's a mix of factors:

One factor being that it is hard - especially when trying to break down processes that to me feel more intuitive than theory and process driven even when theory and process are a big part of them. Another factor is that I think language can be a really big barrier to participation so getting the language right to describe things is hard and it also has to be audience specific and I also don't want to come across as either stupid or pretentious. Negative experiences in connection with things I've written in the past don't help either and I have to take concerted action sometimes not to let those specific incidences inhibit me.

In addition to those factors it's also been my experience that women are socialised not to draw attention to themselves in intellectual ways and I got teased at school for doing so. Plus my strict roman catholic upbringing taught me that talking positively about yourself is akin to pride and so a sin. To be fair though - a roman catholic upbringing teaches you that almost anything and everything is a sin in some way.

Another thing that I think is a factor is that I come from a working class background that had comparatively little in the way of cultural capital, I never set foot inside an art gallery or a theatre (other than for a couple of trips to pantomines at xmas) until I was in my late teens and despite the evidence of having a Masters in Creative Practice and being a practising photographic artist and researcher in some way and showing work for almost twenty years now I still suffer from imposter syndrome in part because I was not brought up to feel creative and higher education spaces were spaces I could easily go into or be in and feel at home in.

Imposter syndrome is an absolute arse as is anxiety as is the class system in this country but being able to recognise them for what they are and so be able to try and do something about them is a kind of forewarned and so forearmed defence against them and education is a way of combating it even though it also in some ways helps enable it - as there will always be something I don't know or understand but then that is the joy of learning. 

So one of the ways I'm trying to find it easier to write is to think of it as actively rebelling against my upbringing. Recognising why I find it difficult makes it a little easier to tackle though at times it still feels like the equivalent of pulling teeth but I've always been attracted to rebellion so thinking of it in those terms makes it just that little bit easier...

It's been 7 weeks since I left work (4 matte medium image transfers - two on fabric and two on canvas)  there and my aim is to recover those pieces next week so  they will have been there 8 weeks. I 've done it with the aim of collaborating somehow with the space which the artist Stephen Gill so beautifully describes as the hope that 'maybe the spirit of the place can also make its mark'.  

I hope the environment has made an impression on the matte medium image transfers I left there and I also hope that they have not been carried off by anyone or anything, but that would also be interesting - as long as they've not just been thrown in a bin as that would make me sad but that's the gamble you take when leaving work somewhere for any length of time. 

In terms of play - I've been playing with inverting colours on images using GIMP photo manipulation software. It's free and open source unlike Photoshop which I am lucky to also have but which I find almost impossible to use. I find Photoshop really unuser friendly and not intuitive at all. But the photosoftware I use most of all is that which comes with the Microsoft Windows operating system as I find that so simple to use and it does the things I want. 

I've found this blog post really difficult to write but it has helped me organise my thoughts and find a way through to attack my to do list with renewed energy and vigour. The deadline for getting work ready for the exhibition at Leeds Art Uni is getting closer each day and though I have done a lot I still have lots to do.

So please wish me luck in sustaining that effort and thank you for reading. 

 

Anxiety, The 4 'R's, Making and Doing And That Kind Of Thing

 

From right to left - journal (a thin exercise style book I write in using my posh fountain pen every few days or so) appointment diary that I write all my appointments and a brief outline of what I've been up to - journal is more for how working out how I'm feeling about things, pink book is my 'commonplace book' that I write uplifting or insightful or helpful quotes in, techniques for helping feel less panicky - so it's primarily to do with my mental health and what I can do/read/think about to help stop anxiety completely taking over, the coffin stickers were a present from a friend.
 I have been putting them on all sorts of things... 
Commonplace books were especially the habit of middle and upper class women in the Victorian era where they were used to write down inspiring quotes, copies of poems, recipe ideas and that kind of thing. It pleases me to be carrying on a Victorian era habit - as well as helping me to better appreciate and reinforce new ways of thinking.

Sample of some of the books I'm reading at the moment for the research project I'm part of at Leeds Arts University, along with the notebook (also with a coffin sticker so on brand) - some of these books are my own, some on loan from the Arts Uni library and some from council run Leeds Library Services
 

My current post it note, big project notebook, blank post it notes, melon topped paperclip and a big chunky pen. As you may have noticed I am a sucker for a notebook and a lovely pen to write with.

I last updated this blog in March 2022 and it's been on my to do list to update it again but for various reasons I have been finding it difficult to get round to doing it.

Partly because sometimes I find it too difficult to find/create/maintain the headspace in order to be able to properly marshall my thoughts and express them. Anxiety is frankly a f**ker so some days going for a walk and distracting myself in a novel or a lovely old black and white film is a better way of keeping the anxiety weasels at bay and also mainly because in March I applied to be part of the aforementioned research project at Leeds Arts Uni (what was Leeds College of Art and will always be 'the college' to me) and I have been mostly focusing on that.

One of the things I am finding so anxiety provoking is the reality that the pandemic is nowhere near  over - despite so many people and our shitshow of a corrupt and morally bankrupt government behaving as if it was. I am still finding it difficult to be indoors with others unless I'm in a well ventilated room with easy access to the door and the thought of public transport and the inability to choose who you sit next to, how close or rather how far you sit from them frankly brings me out in hives. 

I was never very comfortable being in busy cramped noisy indoor spaces jammed up too close for comfort with others and all Covid has done has add another layer of extreme discomfort and anxiety to the discomfort and anxiety I was already feeling.  I am tremendously grateful that mostly I do not have to leave the house unless I choose to and that I can choose where and how I go as well. I am going out a lot more than I did but I still choose times when it's likely to be quietest and I'll be able to keep a decent distance from others otherwise my anxiety is so strong (no matter what actions I take to stop it) that it completely detracts from and ruins whatever it is I'm trying to enjoy.

Panic attacks are no fun - either for the person having them or the people around the person having one and when I do have one it takes me a long time to come back down from them and start to feel vaguely normal again. I find breathing and counting and getting away from the stimulus causing the feelings of panic the best thing to do along with beta blockers that help with the physical symptoms. And a look at my beloved Hacker T Dog, Spongebob or Count Arthur Strong will make me laugh, make me smile or if things are really bad at least distract me enough to stop it spiralling further. 

Sometimes though I cannot work out exactly what it is that is making me feel so anxious so getting away from it is not so easy. And along with the racing heartbeat, tunnel vision etc, I also have to fight against the negative feelings I have about feeling so panicked and anxious in the first place, especially when I feel like I am letting people down by not being able to go out for things I thought I could cope with or that one day I can cope with and another day I just can't. That feeling like it's me who is somehow at fault for having them and that it's a weakness is hard to deal with sometimes - especially when despite all my hard work to rid myself of such feelings it's still there just waiting for a trigger.

I have to remind myself that I do and am working hard to deal with them and work around them and that they are just part of me. Plus I am very lucky to be mostly surrounded by supportive and understanding people and those that aren't supportive and understanding can just take a long walk off a very short pier. 

So the project is the reason behind all those books and notes  - I've made good progress on it so far and have enjoyed the sessions at the college and with my mentor but I have a lot more to do and a lot to make and create before the exhibition opens in October (watch this space for details). 

One of the things I'm going to be trying out is a new (to me) matte medium image transfer method which sounds a bit more fiddly than the one I'm used to but will also hopefully result in an image that I can transfer onto more uneven and potentially tricksy surfaces like branches and maybe even leaves. So far I have had success using my old method transferring images onto coffin lining material - it's shiny like coat lining material, muslin, canvas and cotton. So if the new method fails there's always that method to fall back on instead. 

I'm really enjoying the project as it's enabled a revaluation and revitalisation of my thinking and processes, given me new connections with other artists and more reason to be hanging out in the library - basically doing the 4 'R's' which are - reading, 'riting, researching and recording. It's also making me think again about resuming these studies formally in a PhD type context but I've a lot more thinking and doing (and saving up) to do before I can do that on a practical level.  

But in the meantime watch this space for more musings on working methods, research questions, outcomes and artefacts and I hope that if you suffer from anxiety too you can find or have a good way to ease your way out of it.

Thank you for reading.  

Doing, Horror, Reading, Making and Stuff

Image taken using the kids watch cam built in reflection in water filter, it's a view of the 'scarey corner'*  bit of St George's Field, I took it earlier this month and then post processed it to monochrome. 

image of main avenue linking the two halves of Sheffield Cemetery together - taken in February this year whilst we were there celebrating our 13th wedding anniversary. I was using my 'proper'  point and shoot digital camera for this and post processed the image to monochrome.

screenshot of my contribution s to the House of Smalls last 3 exhibitions highlighted for International Womens Day earlier this month  - you can see mine and other artists work at their website thehouseofsmalls.art  

So it's a few weeks since I last wrote full of the good intentions of a new year and a new start and some things for the new year have been good but some things have been and continue to be dreadful - namely the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, the ongoing massive rise in numbers of  Covid infections, the massive cost of living increases in the UK of basics like gas, electric, fuel, food and the fact that our binfire of a corrupt government continues to do little to ameliorate any of those things.

I feel quite powerless, helpless and hopeless in the face of such power and corruption so I remain incredibly grateful that for the time being at least I am very fortunate in terms of my personal circumstances and can retreat to a world of thinking, making, horror of the made up and easily vanquished enjoyable kind, fiction, going to the gym and going for walks in the green spaces that I am so lucky to live close to. 

I've been thinking again about photography and my relationship with it, it remains the main way I express myself, the main way I see the world and try to make sense of it. I am still very much enjoying using the kids camera watch and experimenting with its inbuilt filters as well as the post processing I can add to such images using basic image software that comes as part of the windows operating system. Photoshop remains an unwieldy unuser friendly beast to me though I do use and love GIMP photo-editing software sometimes. 

I also love the fact that although in some ways my kids digital watch camera is completely impractical it's also so very portable and easy to either wear on my wrist or stick in my pocket (along with the now obligatory for me hand sanitiser, tissues, non smart small brick mobile phone, mask) - it makes me sad to think that the days of just leaving the house with a packet of tissues and little fear of what you might encounter out there are long gone and lost forever.

I don't so much have FOMO ('fear of missing out') at the moment but more FONBATDTIUTDEA (the much more unwieldy fear of 'never being able to do things I used to do easily again') -  for example I haven't sat in anywhere to eat or drink coffee in over 2 years as my favourite places to do that have either been closed or my anxiety at the thought of being in an enclosed indoor space with others has far outweighed my desire for the food or the coffee. I'm lucky in that I can get and have had take-aways but it's not quite the same. See also for me - in person film showings, in person gallery visits and going round friends houses.

I think more than anything I am missing spontaneity and tiring of the extra steps I feel are necessary in order to do anything with the least amount (but still a considerable level) of anxiety on my part that involves being around other people. I am hoping this will begin to lessen though as I am taking steps to step out of and widen my comfort zone each week. They make look like tiny steps to others - like sitting in the local library for 10 minutes but they are big ones for me and fingers crossed they will work and I won't catch anything debilitating in the process.

I've been doing a lot of reading recently - I remain completely in love with Shirley Jackson and all her work and am currently very much enjoying The Sundial though its end of the world apocalyptic focus of the main characters is a little bit too uncomfortable at times (especially the decision to take books from the library shelves and burn them so the shelves can be used to store canned food instead) but it is also an exquisite comedy of familial rivalries and etiquette.  That's my serious book for the moment, my not so serious more brain bubblegum book that I've got on the go is The Dark Angel by Elly Griffiths which I am enjoying so far. I really enjoyed The Stranger Diaries by her earlier this year so am now eyes peeled for works by her when I dare venture into a charity shop. 

I'm also re-reading Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes - a booked beloved by philosophers and academics for its clever thought provoking insights into the nature of photography and its relationship with the dead but also a beautifully heartwarming and poignant book too. Then it'll be Margaret Bourke-Whites biography 'Portrait of Myself' - a book I ordered from the library after seeing the following quote from her on a photography page on Farcebook ' saturate yourself with your subject and the camera will all but take you by the hand'.  I'd never heard of her before then but I am finding out more about her and her incredible work now.    

I think I watch more horror  (as a genre rather than just how the news can be described, though I mostly just read headlines now as otherwise it's just too depressing) than I read of it and I am especially enjoying the horror offerings on Talking Pictures TV (channel 82 on Freeview) on a Friday night from 9pm. 

Introduced by the delectable Caroline Munro they are an excellent mix of obscure and not so obscure, british and american, pre and post 2nd world war films - some excellent and some whilst not excellent very entertaining nonetheless. There is a tweet along under the hashtags #cellarclub or #thefilmcrowd and it is so lovely both to see the films and appreciate with other like minded fans and laugh about their absurdities or laud their insights or just swap bits of nerdy trivia (like one of the meths drinkers in Theatre of Blood (1973) Stanley Bates also played Bungle in Rainbow and was bound over to keep the peace after a road rage incident in March 2001. The role of women in these films (as in all genres) varies from decoration to main character, from dreadful inaccurate stereotypes to iconoclastic leaders. It is a highlight of my week in these ongoing disturbing and distressing times.

Image-wise I'm currently working on putting together images made with my watch cam into a photobook, am still deciding on whether to do this in chronological order or locations or themes or some combination of all three. This week I have also been doing some thinking about photography itself as a medium, its relationship to the dead and rekindling some of my old formal research interests. Please keep your fingers crossed for me that something good will come of this. I'm still knitting too as I still find it quite meditative and calming - a kind of beta blocker in yarn form. 

I'm also enjoying seeing robins in particular when I'm out for a walk and it makes my day if I see one. The folklore is that robins contain the souls of dead loved ones and so seeing one is meant to be a good omen. I try not to be superstitious and I know that they do not actually contain the souls of dead loved ones, however I'm always pleased and cheered if I see one when I'm out and about as it makes me feel like my Dad is near - even though I know in reality he isn't and cannot be. 

*so called because it is the only part of the space where I have felt unnerved even though the circumstances which led to me feeling like that were entirely coincidental or had some actual physical cause. 

   

New Year, New Ways of Trying To Do Things, Continuing The Old Ways and That Kind Of Thing.

 

The Skull of Nice Things - I got this skull a few years ago, when new it contained halloween themed mallow sweets - the sweets were eaten long ago and since then I use it to contain lovely things that have happened - I write them up on little pieces of paper and fold them up and put them in there. If I'm feeling especially low or in need of a pick up I look in there - I also look at it at the end of the year as it provides a nice overview and reminds me of nice things - a thing often needed in the midst of this ongoing shitshow. Some years it gets fuller than others, right now it only has a couple of things in it but the year is young and here's hoping it'll start to fill up soon... 

Some of the things I made for people for xmas - am pleased to report that my Mum loved the toilet roll holder (which is a lovely old school pattern to knit) and that my second oldest nephew loved his knitted Count Orlok - he's really into zombies and vampires and I am really looking forward to sharing horror stories, films, tropes etc with him as he gets older. Knitting is still one of the best ways for me to just feel that little bit calmer - and the fact that I end up with something at the end of it is all for the better.

Rather than making resolutions as such I've been writing down as things occurred to me - what things I need to do, what things I want to do and what things I ought to do and in the plastic wallet bottom right - the nice things from 2021 -  I was lucky to have so many given that it in so many ways it was a complete shitshow and that sadly all the things that made it such a shitshow are still ongoing...I hate the Tory government and their pisspoor lack of ethics and moral standards - Johnson et al are truly despicable and they must think we are mugs - but here's hoping their til now consequence free ride is coming to an end and they'll be booted out sooner rather than later. 

 

As I type this I'm listening to the Frigay The 13th Podcast on Dreadcentral - the episode about haunted and cursed objects and apparently there are lots of 'haunted' objects available to buy on Ebay with the disclaimer that there is no guarantee that the spirit will accompany it to the successful bidder and equally that they are not responsible for any horrible things that happen to the new owners. 

Sounds more to me like it's a kind of  Pascals wager for people selling or to be far more honest about it conning gullible people out of money.  At the time of recording there were two haunted UPS cardboard boxes...yep you read that right - haunted cardboard boxes...
You can listen to it and their other fabulous podcasts here

However despite my scepticism with regard to haunted cardboard boxes I'm really interested in what an object can contain other than its material components and characteristics, like where the memories associated with them and how they can be accessed and oh how I wish objects could talk so that they could tell their particular history in a truly authentic direct as opposed to mediated way.

Oh how I wish telemetry was an actual thing and I wish I had it as a skill. I often touch things in the hope it'll give me some great revelation, insight or transportation to a time and place but alas this has never happened...but I live in hope of it happening...

To go back to the 'nice things on pieces of paper skull - that is something I will be doing this year, I will also continue to try updating my blog more regularly (usually on a Thursday) and though I have written (see above) some lists of things and some wishes the new thing I am going to do is not beat myself up if I don't do or achieve the things that I've written down - apart from medical stuff.

I'm going to see if taking the immediate pressure off takes away some of the angst and procrastination I have around doing things and so leads to them actually being done.

But one thing I am doing is making a list of goals for the day - like the minimum things I want to achieve in the day before I try to settle down to watch something that I find comforting. Days seem much more achievable in terms of a timescale at the moment. 

My comfort watching continues to be Dark Shadows - Barnabas Collins as portrayed so beautifully by Jonathon Frid is just wonderful, Mandy is making me laugh out loud, and the Twin Peaks box set I got my husband for xmas is just beautiful and disturbing...and I'm still trying to catch Buffy The Vampire Slayer when I can.

I'm reading lots too - I enjoyed Elvira's biography and postie has just dropped off a book about Vampira too which I hope to start reading this evening. My love affair with the Boulet Brothers Creatures of the Night podcast, Peaches Christ Midnight Mass podcast continues and I often have them on in the background whilst I'm working, I think I will be adding the Frigay the 13th to my listening list too.  

I have so far this year though taken lots of photographs amidst the windy cold of Blackpool Illuminations, worked on a piece to do with medication which *gasp* doesn't involve a photograph - I am hoping it gets accepted to be in a particular show but I won't know if it has or not til next week. I've also made some new image transfers and I have plans for putting some of this stuff together into more of a themed collection type arrangement.

I'm continuing to go to the gym (as my beloved Hacker would say it makes me feel so much better-er) and to try to go for walks which also make me feel better - even if it's just a quick turn round the block.  I'm also trying to be a little bit more sensible about what I'm eating but also just take a bit more notice of it so that I can try and see if there is more of a pattern between what I eat and the physical discomfort I sometimes get after eating and also what my mental state at the time is too as I think they feed (no food related pun intended) into each other.

So here's to 2022 and here's hoping that (this shitshow of a government and what they continue to do aside) it brings nicer and kinder things than the last couple of years - top of my wishlist is a return to spontaneity and a lack of intense fear...what are you hoping for?