All singing, poeting, filming, moving month of Me.

My life is often crammed full, and the last six weeks was ridiculous. Everything spilling from the seams. Bits of Me, tired bones, shaky heart, mind a hive of a thousand bees each carrying a different thought, often contrary, often confused.

I am an impatient Penny and now I am in a new nest, I am frantic with creation. I’m in love with 50s retro, done softly, a little splash of cupcake colour, occasionally geometric atomic. I want it all now, it must match the fantasy home in my head. NOW!

Of course it can’t happen now, or even tomorrow, and I’m coaxing Norma (my emotional ID) to stay calm and enjoy the journey. Especially as I am far from full recovery of the serious illness of last November, and my naughty, conflicted thoughts do so chasing each others tails, till I am exhausted from thinking too much.

Besides needing a string trail to find myself amid the boxes and tins of paint, I managed to squeeze in a day’s filming with Channel Four News. It’s part of Channel Four’s NoGoBritain series looking at how public transport is for disabled people (haha). Please do go to the site and make your own comments. It was a crazy long day of filming and I am a little sad that some of the shots were not included, especially what happened to me on the buses. Which was a lot. Here’s a link to the feature but it’s only there for seven days I believe! NoGoBritain.

The Abnormally Funny People gig was a blast and I loved it. A gorgeous space at Soho Theatre, accessible stage and cool cabaret style set up. There was even a tinsel curtain. Yes, A TINSEL CURTAIN! The audience laughed in the right place and I believe we went down well. I managed not to fall ill and keel over. Would love to go back to Soho with my show Adventures. Maybe, one day, maybe.

I feel privileged to be doing all these things, because when I can draw breath to peep over the boundary of my own life, I can see the dark storm clouds clamouring.  I work, in my hard-won niche, and wouldn’t be much ‘use’ in the capitalist system anywhere else. But the pincer movement the ConDems are attacking us with is slowly unrolling, slowly and not so slowly, pushing us into a corner of oppression and inequality. This sobering thought never leaves my mind.

I want to make a proclamation. I am not so much the banner waving activist I was, though when health allows I have my moments, but within my work I remain committed and passionate about exploring the issues and concerns we have. I remain stout in pouring into my writing and all off-shoots, those things which I believe are important – our right to equality – and to life.

Now, where’s that box with my poetry file in it gone… ?

Peppery stuff!: Rants and Performance

Penny does New York

I’ve been ill, up, down, askew with serious life changes. But I am Penny Pepper. My passion for well, most everything is undimmed and I am unperturbed. At least about my stuff. Actually, my focus is greatly sharpened to find as many outlets as possible for my writing and performance. I’m a little more frayed at the edges physically and mentally, writing comes first now. It is the core, the source of everything else associated with the words, the charms, the curses and the intrigues that I aim to spin. I am a happier Penny. Come to my guest slot on Feb 20th at Soho Theatre http://sohotheatre.com/whats-on/afp/ and follow my Twitter countdown here https://twitter.com/#!/PenPep

Of course I am not happy with the current situation with the government. We are pariahs. We are deemed the easiest targets in regards the cuts, which is a hideous subterfuge from a government so out of touch with day to day reality for many that it is frightening. Abominable. Ideology rampaging over conscience and compassion, over efforts to create equality. In my work, I will pick and prise, accuse and elaborate.
We have to be heard. We will be heard. Disabled people, the homogenized blob we are seen as, without choice, may yet be reconnected to the society where we’ve always been – if only we were able to be visible. I’m determined to be a cog in making this happen.

Today in London the Penny News is…

Not much. I’m a slug today. The sun warmed my sluggish skin a little. A friend awoke my lumpen thoughts.

What is happening? The news is dire, I can’t bear it. A ban is imposed for 24 hours to allow my mood to recover.

Cripples of the UK, shine up your begging bowls. A new poor law looms. Punish us and we may be cured!? In-valids, the Mad, the wounded et al were begging by St Giles 800 years past. We have history, let’s remember and let’s resist this new oppression.

I did find some places for short story submissions, but after all these years toiling I only do paid or for immense profile kudos.

I want to do a revised edition of Desires. Any thoughts and assistance welcome.

Bessie the adorable one is crying somewhere. Time to investigate and talk some Cat.

Now they are a good tonic for stress.

 

Back from the edge, into the festive warmth

Seasonal cheer abounds and I am feeling it myself, which is unusual. I am not inclined to be 100% bah humbug as this thing we have to do near the end of December seems ingrained. I enjoy the conviviality of friends, the relaxed togetherness which the festive season can create. The light returns from Dec 21st, that is the truth. We humans seem to need to celebrate that.

As I had a frightening skirmish with serious ill health this last month, my sense of pleasure has sharpened. We mustn’t be bogged in a morass of cynicism – and fear – when we look at the wider world and its doomy propensities. Love what is close to you, enjoy life daily, simply. Platitudes? Perhaps. But it is true.

What is the worse that can happen? It’s not half as bad as you think, and while we must fight, close to home for the justice we believe in for all, I know I have much to be grateful for in terms of friends, my cat, my mum, and much more. My mended Christmas tree which now glistens in ever-changing cheesy fibre optic wonder!

Be calm, be happy, says the lady Buddha of North London…. for now, at least.

Angry Anti-capitalist PJ Day!

Because Penny is cloven into many Pennys, it means that while I am here slouching in my PJs (oh all right, my ON = Old Nightie) and watching soothing TV, a corner of my head is over boiling with at the situation regarding the NHS, and the Welfare Reform Bill.

I am not a political expert and why should I be to understand that the proposed changes are deeply and comprehensible wrong? Morally wrong. Undemocratic. Frightening.

I am alive because of the NHS and I have been active for much of my life because of the fight by disabled pioneers who came before me – in social care and independent living. We cannot let this progress be unravelled – and I hate feeling helpless to it. Of course the NHS is not a perfect institution and I’ve had moments to complain about it. But to throw the scapels out with the sterilised water?!  No, no, no. It is a treasure. It cannot be sneakily privatised.

For me the bigger fight is against the worst excesses of capitalism. Many disabled people cannot be hammered into a market economy system which judges us purely on our productivity. But who can? There is the lie.

Someone has to pay for the deficit? We all know who should, yet often we, the ‘common’ people are derided by politicians, for our ‘simplistic’ responses to make the bankers pay, to end expensive paternalistic wars – and make the multinational tax evaders pay up.

Let politicians have their expenses cut. Let them eat disgusting value soup for 9p. Let them face impossible choices between going to the toilet and eating dinner – on social care funding it happens.

We have to believe there can be alternatives. Look at history – great changes do occur. Let’s look at other methods and models of organising society, and learn from them. We are conditioned to believe there are limitations – but we, disabled people, must know more than many, that limitations can be dismantled – thoughts, attitudes, barriers.

Let’s get on the barricades. In whatever way we interpret that. Me, I’ll carry on ranting to the last.

 

For my friend Kay 1959-1991 – Disabled pioneer and poet

In affectionate memory of a Crip Arts Pioneer: Edie, K.Oss, Tamsin Oliver – AKA the one and only Kay Jones 1959-1991

Oct 6^th just over as I write this. It feels strange because it takes me back into a soak of nostalgia which flushes over me like a waft of perfume. The perfume in this instance being washing up liquid. Me and Kay at the kitchen sink, in a time when we were young and there were no Personal Assistants, and scarcely an independent living movement in the UK.

We had six hours of ‘home-help’ a week. The rest of the time we were beholden to charity transport, volunteers taking us out and monthly taxi jaunts on our pooled Mobility Allowance. Sometimes there would be a stark choice with the home-help, a kindly woman called Sue. Did she wash our hair? Or go shopping?  We knew the restrictions on our lives were unjust although we did not yet have a clear political understanding of how this should change.

At a prosaic level it meant WE did the washing up. It took hours, every day, because in reality it was beyond us. To get through this dull grind-time we would create silly stories, elaborate nonsense scenarios. This way I became Betty and Kay became Edie. A pair of batty old ladies with secret pasts. I was buxom, timid and dotty. Edie was shrill and had an illegitimate child, who I think was called Helga. There was some daftery about Uncle Adolph and the secret times in the shed. Oh goodness, and we weren’t aided by a single naughty substance in these crazy ramblings.

We used to read The Mirror  - and The Sun. The Sun (before lining the cat litter trays) would amuse us and give us great material for Betty and Evie. A favourite was ‘Shock Horror Probe – AIDS in cat food’. I swear we read that and duly entwined it into our tales. Betty announced undercover work in the cat food factory – while tea towel flaps across a heavy plate. We interrogated our two sedate kitties and while the truth was never revealed, we did enjoy prefixing every ironic sentence with ‘shock horror probe’ for some time. ‘Shock horror probe – Betty loses bloomers!, ‘Shock horror probe – Edie grows beard!’ ‘Shock horror probe – crip girls go to seedy night club…’

Kay liked washing best of all – if a choice had to be made, and I didn’t mind, though I hated it when the tea towel got soggy. Happy days, despite the struggles.

Kay had K.Oss drawn on her shaved temple, dreads piled into a Mohican effect. On the other side she had Fuck Off. She was my friend, my soul sister, my rescuer. She was a firebrand and a protector. She guided me and freed me from a previous life of darkest shadow. Through Kay I grew up, just enough to enjoy my twenties, to flower.

She died aged 32.  I will miss her always. And there will be many more of our stories to tell before my own time comes…

Boobs and Blue Badge Blathering

Today a mammogram, which is where a machine squeezes your boobs on a metal plate. I started out feeling peeved because my usual hospital didn’t have a wheelchair accessible machine. For fucks sake! Another form of crip-culling via indifference and ignorance. How many people drift through the screening system supposedly there catch to cancer early?

But it still wasn’t as it should be, even at the supposedly accessible place.

I’m in the scan room and two polite, pleasant mannered but somewhat nervy radiographers hover over me. They attempt to push my (power) chair, then ask me if I can stand ‘only for a few minutes’. OK, I’ll let that one go, at least they ask. I say no. A bit more dithering and I ask my PA to help me undress.

I’m in front of the machine which looks scarily like a high tech meat slicer. It goes up, it goes down, it clamps together. It is not, however, truly accessible. I speculate who designs these things. Not female and not mobility impaired I conclude.

I face the machine and one radiographer attempts to twist me so as much right bosom as possible is on the slab. Now I am not especially flat chested (yes, yes I can hear friends giggling) and so bosom sits there while a plastic plate is pushed down onto it. But I cannot be manoeuvered by force – I simply crunch and break.

Left breast is next on the slab, and all goes reasonably well. But this is followed by a sidewards scan as the meat slice turns. I’m asked to dismantle my wheelchair and stretch my arm across the machine. I try, unsuccessfully. A bit of forcing is attempting before I object. No I can’t drop my shoulder, no I can’t move in any other way.

The outcome is ‘it will have to do’. Why oh why do I end up feeling guilty?

By the way girls, don’t fear a mammogram, it’s mildly uncomfortable, no more. But if you have a mobility impairment – check that they know!

I’d also been shoved into grouchy old woman mode because of the faffing about with parking. Dear Readers, let me tell you now; the disabled Blue Badge is not some wondrous licence to park anywhere (unless you’re a crim  – like the one who stole my BB from my van in 2006, bastard). Neither is there automatic parking rights at a hospital simply because you have a badge.

The BB system is screwed at the best of times – no reliable method to root out abuse, and massive overload. Then you enter the central London boroughs and it’s even worse. BB does not count very much here and today I was in City of London. Online information tells me there’s 16 ‘Disabled’ bays where I need to go.  I head for the first four… the next two, the next three…all taken. At 15 I’m very stressed as it could be a meter jobbie which will mean a longer wheel – and yes that does matter as there’s many cobbled streets, and pavements with intermittent dropped kerbs.

It makes me howl with outrage at the idea disabled people have it ‘easy’. Easy in what sense?!

Once again, it’s the social configurations that causes the discrimination, the barriers from design and from negative attitude. Under-pinned by the subtle but clear message from politicians that we are nothing but scroungers, useless-eaters and irrelevances.

Now I must go out for a stroll and buy some stationery to chase the BBB blues away.

Split Penny Personality!

I didn’t really get up today. I got out of bed at 11.10am then I footled around picking away at bits. In fact it was a bitty day.

There are things to do. I’m not quite ready to do them. Maybe I should just do stories, memoirs on here till I am a cheerier Penny.

I’ll think about that. Work on the memoir (official) has begun in a slightly faltering way. But as I remember and savour and look at my journals ( 30 years of ‘em!) I smile. Anais Nin, a great influence you know and I suppose I have to go for glaring omissions too until everyone dies. We’ll see. Shame I don’t have the rich husband funding my erotic antics…

Oh well. Back to daily grind. The horror unfolding with the Con-Dems. Some of their spouting is truly shocking and has frightening echoes from history. Ferals, immigrants, scroungers… all to blame. Not much mention of banks and the ultra rich.

No wonder I’m wavering in a depressive phase.

Someone will drag me back from the abyss, they always do.

 

 

Edinburgh, highs and lows

Back home now in London and wondering about my week away. Wondering about many things. Listening to the news all night on the BBC’s World Service. Events in Libya, momentous change. People uprising against tyranny. I hope it lasts and is not replaced by new oppression. My concerns seem so small in comparison. As always, I speculate on the lot of disabled people. Where is their voice in it all?

I am happy to be distracted from the noise in my head, having taking the nose dive into hospital while at the Fringe. Not contemplating meanings and tricky questions. I did too much, it may be that simple, as much as I am loathe to accept it.  My contrary mind is rarely a cooperative mind, but there were highs and I relished them.

I can say I did perform at the Fringe, I can say I was there and I flyered and made my little mark.  The process was a good learning curve. The show is improved and tightened, though now the dust must settle for a month while I recover physically and mentally.

Many highs. Being with Jo, sharing funny moments. The warmth of people – generally. Sexy men in kilts! Fine legs! Being in a gorgeous spacious flat.  Seeing Ruby Wax and her show ‘Losing it’. Getting to ask Ruby a question in the Q&A. One about the positives within the negatives – the light within the dark.

I always believe it’s there! Even as I sit here wondering, wondering, questioning… what is IT all about?

Edinburgh Imminent – come and see ‘Adventures in the Dark and Light’ – Princes Mall 23rd-27th Aug.

I am in a deep groove of Edinburgh preparations as my credit card trembles. Plans upon plans and magnified by the disability, the barriers, the devil being in the tiny detail. I have to know where I can find a toilet after all.

I’m not sure of myself right now. Always the question, contradictory in my own thoughts. Why do I do these things? Go through this stress and torment. Things mounting up, props lost, confusion all over.

I can’t exactly answer this why. For passion and glory? The addiction to speak out, to connect. All that bollocks…

It is fun of course, and addictive, When the moment hits, the perfect high in your performance, the sharp link with strangers through the power of my words. That’s when I know why I hoick my sorry bones up the motorway, and do this sort of thing.