Inigo Purcell

(So for the last week and a bit I have been trying to get to bed at a relatively sensible time and also to be very quiet during the day. And today I decided I should probably take advantage of the gym being 24 hours and then do some writing, although I am now very tired)

Partner is on nights full time for the next few weeks and I think I have just about adjusted, but it's a weird balancing act. (It does, probably, mean I need to do a bit of using the nocturnal hours productively but I have, generally, been trying to have a more normal schedule)

(Likewise, after years of misdiagnosis, was able to finally pay for an autism assessment during the period of the PhD when I had a stipend and actually having that accommodated and diagnosed made a huge difference)

(Having, previously, been getting by with just a stick and often being housebound for weeks)

During the bit of my PhD where I had a stipend and PIP I finally made myself buy some decent adjustable crutches and a lightweight manual wheelchair and it has made the world of difference to my ability to work with less debilitating pain.

This is one of my issues with the film the Green Knight. It does a lot of "based on the 14th century poem" lampshading which made it oddly infuriating to watch as someone who knew the poem backwards. In a way that if it hadn't would have bothered me less

(By no means all but definitely some. It's just likely to involve effort by people who are not the disabled people.)

Right. And if we look into the barriers to work we are at least likely to find some cases where with the right accommodations and with the money that comes from work people's overall situations are less disabling.

Yeah it suggests a fundamental incuriosity. Or a failure to consider who might be listening if they do not count as those who need to be impressed.

(That is what we are supposed to be doing and is what scholarship is).

I really hate the emphasis on everything having to be incredibly new and groundbreaking at all times and absolutely think that ends up playing into this stuff. (As well as it just being bad form).

Like, it's fine that we are adding small, significant stuff to a body of work.

Right the only people who noticed were people *actively getting divorced* whose lives (rightly) got a bit easier and less distressing during a highly stressful time.

We grew some potatoes this year. They are nice. They, however, absolutely represent a tiny proportion of our annual potato consumption and were *so much work* compared to going to the supermarket

Yeah (was including that in "being weird about being the one who paid" as it's not the only form of being weird about it but it definitely is one prominent and gross one)

I feel you. As a gay trans man I have... really not relished the vociferous return of all of this incredibly binary nonsense to what feels like 90% of discussion of gender the last few years, and frequently to discussions of things which don't actually have to be gendered.

It would be nice to just have more data points that support the optimism, tbh

(Like, I suspect people who are good with people pick up on this with their dates and people who do not are less good at factoring it in. And generally it is always a good idea to treat your date as an individual real person, not An Exemplar of A Category)

Right, also quite a lot of women might want to split the bill for various reasons (not wanting to date guys who are weird about Having To Be The One Who Paid, having had a windfall, not wanting to be a dick if they are the higher earner) and that is worth factoring in.

(I'm not a naturally highly optimistic person but I am also quite good at managing destructive levels of pessimism these days. It is really important not to let myself get too pessimistic for reasons of Having To Stay Functional.)

I could also do with a good few years of no active health crises and my health being like... stable, for a disabled person. I can work with stable for a disabled person. That is manageable.

(I could really do with this academic year not being as rough, work wise, as the year after my MPhil when I was hideously underemployed. I think it is actively, qualitatively less bad but the ghost of just how bad 2018-2019 was really haunts me. I got very severely burnt out from underemployment.)

(Not directed at you - you are extremely good at this - just directed at the Internet tendency to hate)

I strongly agree and also think people might really benefit from learning/relearning the common skill of directing their energy towards things/people/reading matter that they actually like. We all have finite time and energy, it is good to actually put this towards things we in some way value/enjoy

Painting of the Madonna and child in acid yellow and white paint with black ink line work on grey blue sugar paper. To the the right the haloed Madonna cradling the swaddled child and looking serene. To the left a happy looking sheep, above them a star, showering them in heavenly light. The mood is peaceful and happy and the work has been done in an expressive but illustrative style

Christmas card painted by Joan Wisdom for art therapist Edward Adamson.
Joan was compelled to live at Netherne hospital, Surrey, in the midC20th, producing a deeply affecting body of work in the art therapy studio there, which critiques the psychiatric system which held power over her.

Generally the problem with end of year wrap up stuff this year is that this year has been somewhat less bad than the years proceeding it but still an absolutely awful slog with some really challenging bits. And even the good stuff is very coloured by that at the moment.

So it feels very much like "here is a thing you like. Remember when you listened to that a lot in order to try and stay functional when everything was awful".

The problem with Spotify Wrapped this year is that it is mostly an account of times I listened to music to have a sense of grounding when really ill, in pain or dissociating. (Mostly quite cheerful things and that hasn't been the entirety of my year, but it has been a lot of my heavy listening).

It is one of those books which feels very complete and whole, isn't it? And yes, it was so good (also can completely see why you categorised it as of a kind with Canticle for Leibowitz, both are books really interested in the value of people even if they are at the mercy of fate, I think)

@khandozo.bsky.social I read The Sparrow at the weekend, on your recommendation, and it is *so good*. (And absolutely amazing on disability, trauma and compassion)

Fond memories of a friend's seven year old being fine with me being a boy but asking me why I was wearing a pink suit given I was a boy. (She was then fine with my explanation of "well, I like pink")