Mx.D.P

At the moment, I am surviving, but I can’t say I am thriving. The bloody cats are killing me… up five times last night. I don’t think two chest-fed kids were this much work, but I’ve probably forgotten, and I was a quarter of a century younger and a lot, lot fitter…

In other art news, when I went to collect my boobs from the gay bookshop last week, Pete was stuck behind a tree fall. I thought what a nuisance it would be to return to Aber, a real pain… Truth is, wherever I go, it’s a pain (don’t be cheeky, I’m not the pain lol). I’m in pain! the logistics are a pain… it’s just painful.

Still, it turned out to be serendipitous. Pete was still not at the bookshop; it was his day off, but his husband Matt was. Matt is a nursing lecturer at Aber University, and his area of focus uses Queer Temporal theory to look at the lost childhoods of trans people. It also informs patient care of trans-gender dementia patients and their gender dysphoria. It made me think of my childhood and the realisation that I had lived most of my life as a male anyway. There is a whole blog post about that, possibly! It may be the push I need to work on the gender flags. The global trans situation has never looked so grim, and the representation of resilience has never been so important.

Rivers never run straight… that’s not a comment on sexuality, just life, so there is a meet-up planned to talk about Matt’s work when I come back from the low-res.

Queer temporal theory has underpinned my MA paper and was part of my presentation this week. My paper uses complex themes, so I hoped people understood its purpose; I certainly enjoyed sharing it with my cohort.

I’ve enjoyed all the MA paper presentations so far and am a little sad not to be able to have seen all of them in person, but as we are a digital course, we have them on catch-up YouTube; how cool is that depository of embodied knowledge.

Our next Big Wave project is all about documentation and lived experience. We hope to work with the National Library of Wales and photographer Bruce Cardwell.

https://libraries.wales/aotm/bruce-cardwell/

His latest work looks to street portraiture. He says he doesn’t just take pictures of people but captures their souls… I think that might be true. I know Bruce’s work because I was one of his subjects ten years ago.

Our latest work aims to bring Bruce’s photography and the documentation work of the National Library to the people using the power of art…

Ok, maybe I am doing more than just surviving… But, I am still mad at the cats… and possibly my dead husband…