The Brilliance of Cats

This is Bobbi, in all his glory.

I am a catty person. Forget the namesake, for that was not deliberate.

I am desperate to write about my cat but fear the dreaded 'cutesy' attachment that follows writing about animals, in a way that reminds me of a girl I went to school with who had photographs of puppies and kitten all over her stationary. You know the one I mean?

Anyway, that fear leads me to write about Bobbi (yes, with an 'i', although I've no idea 'y'. Oh dear.) in a way that will hopefully appear enchanting, potentially amusing and not liable to send you running for the bathroom with images of huge kitten eyes and cutchy coo sounds following you all the way there.

I shall bullet point.

• Bobbi is the most cuddliest cat I've ever met. FACT. I carry him in my arms like a baby. He will jump on your lap even before you think 'where's the cat, my lap is cold' and then proceed to work his way up you until he feels he is close enough to settle down. This is usually in the shoulder or neck region where he can put his head under your chin. Optimum warmth, I'm assuming.

• He makes noises that the receptionist at the vets called 'Dinosaur noises' little bubbly sounds in his throat that vary between "I'm going to jump this distance between counter tops even if it kills me" to simply, "I'm HOME! I've been out five minutes but guys! Guys! I'm HOME!"

• Bobbi has complete, and utter faith in M and I that we will catch him if he falls. Not just falling from surfaces, furniture etc. But he will repeatedly stand on a lap and suddenly FALL OVER onto you, no matter how big your lap is or what position you're in. Then he will stay there, purring manically while we position him back onto ourselves. Incidentally, we find this hilarious. I realise it may be more of a visual thing.

• He's really soft. I'm talking, rabbit fur, those furry slippers you used to get, the softest fricking thing you've felt in ages. That's how soft Bobbi's fur is. He doesn't care where you stroke him either. My favourite place is his feet. He'll let me hold his paws and stroke the pads without putting his claws out, they're really warm.

Ok, that's probably enough. But it's more to say that he has become an extension of us as a couple, that when we're together in the evenings or the mornings, if Bobbi's not around, it's weird. He sleeps in his bed for half the night then comes up to us and sleeps in between us, stretched out so either one of us is spooning him. He is the perfect cat, and proof that you can get a kitten for 30 quid from some freaky family in Bristol and they'll be fine. Better than fine.

Bobbi Fine. Actually his official name is Bobbi Woolley but when I tried to explain to the vets that he had 'taken my boyfriends' surname, it all got very confusing. I started getting called into the room as 'Miss Woolley' ooh er.

Blogging about not blogging

I'm going to tackle a theory I think only I am suffering from. Does nearly a three year writer's block exist? Or am I, lets be honest, kidding myself?

Before I started my oh-so-useful-and-expensive Creative Writing DEGREE, I used to write short stories, wobbly poems and endless articles. I then started my degree, spent the first year writing odds and ends in between my course requirements and then all seemed to die out. Literally. Oh, I was still writing, but nothing that I wasn't absolutely supposed to do to gain marks. It was like the ideas part of my mind had been given a damp blanket and the kindling fire went out. No more ideas. No more writing. I was hoping that after graduating, with all the pressure to write something decent off my back, it would all come tumbling out again. But so far, no such luck.

It's like every idea I think of (for there have been one or two, I'll admit it) there is a little Idea Marshall stopping me with a quick 'thats just not good enough, soldier' and the idea fizzes out into nothingness.

Oh dear.

So, here I am. Blogging about not blogging. Because, my dears, every idea I think might be any good, gets turned around in my sad little mind and undermined. (oooh...)

But maybe this will help, maybe I'll stop worrying and just, for the hell of it, write my ideas as they come no matter what that stupid bloke in my head says (what's he doing there anyway? Surely there are better minds to worry about - there are not and don't call me Shirley) and let you all judge me accordingly. No one ever got anywhere worrying what other people thought, right?

Shame. I blame my degree. HA! £22,000 later and she blames the degree for not writing.. jesus...

Where have I beeeen??

Dear readers,

Only my sincere apologies will do for the length of time I have been away from my keys. Since graduating (2:1, thank you very much) I've managed to get myself unemployed, relocated, employed, employed again, and again, and er, again. M and I are currently situated in Bristol, in a terraced two bedroom house with a garden and our little addition, Bobbi. Don't panic, he's our gorgeous, hilarious kitten.

I'm working, are your ready for this? Three/four days a week in Culpeper - a herbalist/aromatherapist shop in Bath selling oils and soaps and oh-so-natural products. I'm learning a lot and generally having a lovely time with three lovely ladies I work with.

In the meantime, I'm also still working at the Walrus and Carpenter, although it's still only one night a week and I'm not sure I want to keep it yet.

I'm modelling again for my nice old ladies, last week they had me dressed in pink red and orange against a red and pink background - groovy.

Oh, and I started a new job in Colston Hall last night, waitressing and bar work. It's lovely, hard work but so entirely different from the Walrus it made a pretty nice chance. Better pay too. Not that I don't like the Walrus, but this will be more convenient being in Bristol, and my old school friend has moved to Brizzle and is working there too!

Er... latest on our film stuff.

I filmed my cousin's half Muslim wedding last week - edit's going pretty well, although the ceremony was a little disappointing what with a stroppy toddler banging her feet against the wooden floor, and everyone standing up ruining my shot. But still, learning through trial and error and all that. Next time I might be able to charge for it.

So! That kind of sums it all up, from now I can write about the smaller things rather than trying to keep you all up to date all the time.

Until the next time,

Kat x

Ok. So where was I? There's been a huge gap in my posts I know, I'm sorry.
Recent news: I am about to hand in my final project! Exciting/Terrifying not sure which yet. I am also house hunting, currently unsuccessfully but we'll get there.

I feel this has all been a tiny bit too easy, I've not been having sleepless nights, hair falling out or anything.. I have contracted a strange stomach ache that seems to appear randomly and only go away when I go to bed, it lasted about 9 hours yesterday. Strange.

Aside from that everything seems to be going well, just got to tidy up the loose ends I suppose.

We have a new commission - Alan Ogg the Egg Man wants to meet up with us to discuss a promotional DVD of his egg incubators to send to schools in September, sweet work!

This was just a quicky, will post more next time. Must run - got to finish my degree don't you know!

Meh.

I've been putting off adding a new post. There doesn't seem a lot to report on. I'm nearly there - 27 days and I will have handed in my final deadline. I'm surprisingly calm, everything seems very under control. I'm onto my last drafts of my fiction and script, I've got one more critical commentary to do and just finish the films and tidy all the paper work up. Not that much really, to do in a month. Then it's my birthday and I'll be 22 and done.

M is freaking out - he's in the studios nearly every night at the moment polishing his songs and it's painful to watch him panic yet again. I think I'm more excited about him getting out than me - it's been such a struggle for him to get motivated enough to do some work, he just doesn't have any fire for it anymore. If he ever did. It would just be lovely for him not to come home stressed out and complaining about deadlines and tutors and beating himself up about not doing enough work all the time. But he doesn't do enough, and he knows it. It's just hard to not nag and look like the baddy.

We set up the final time lapse for Iain Haysom this afternoon and took him into the music labs to do the voice over for the films. It went incredibly smoothly - the man is a natural! He also loved the films and I think once the final polish goes on with the v/o and all the little extras we're going to add in it will all look beautiful and I'll be proud to hand a selection of the films in to Nic.

Bristol Festival of Ideas man invited M and I to the dinner after the prize giving next week - free supper! Always up for extra perks of a job! Which is the other film? Oh yes, the hateful teahouse film which really isn't so hateful except that its taken SO long to finish. M is writing the music for his 'writing for tv' module so that should be done soon.... So nearly there!

Then what?

New Plan, Plan B, C.. D.. where are we now?

New plan. There's no bloody way we're moving to London without jobs. That won't work. However, in theory we could stay in SW at the jobs we have part time, pick up a few more and continue with MiKat Productions until this shitty recession starts moving and there might perchance be some more 'career' jobs going. No one needs runners at the moment apparently. So, I've decided to chill-the-crap out and stop worrying. Everyone else I know is going off travelling, picking up other courses or when asked replies a simple 'ugh, dunno really.' Why should I be the only one having sleepless nights over a potential lost career move?

I shall remain happy and poor and maybe by being happy and poor eventually someone will realise I'm a nice hardworking person who isn't kicking up a fuss and want me to work for them. Maybe. Meanwhile, M and I have been half heartedly looking at houses in Bristol. We can get a 2 bedroom HOUSE for less than we're paying for the flat. Mental. Plus we could really do with an extra room if we're going to seriously look at freelancing to live on.

Some very nice news, over the Easter weekend M went home and spoke with his Dad, whom M is carrying out his legacy of sound editing. David told him that as he is planning to retire, he would happily send HALF his work to M in Bristol. For monies. David has been working all his life as a sound editor and has a heap of clients, recently his latest work includes Stevie Wonder's live DVD, The Killers and Girls Aloud. (Who can't sing, but we knew that.) Good eh?

Oh, and I have an 'informal interview' tomorrow with Suited and Booted for some runner work over 10 days next month. They're a community based production company in Bath currently working on an NHS Stop Smoking campaign. Not quite sure how I would fit it in with all this uni work but let's worry about that if it comes to it.


Things are picking up, we did the micro-biology film with Iain Haysom last week, nice and smoothly it went too. Will log hopefully tomorrow if I can get into the lab... got a commission with a guy to film the 'Bristol Festival of Ideas' Literary Prize (http://www.ideasfestival.co.uk/?p=276) Me and a camera plus a free supper! Nice.

All is well at the moment, only a few weeks left to cram all my uni work in, and horrifically it feels suspiciously like I've burnt myself out... 3 years of hard slogging and my final push just won't come. I know I need to get down and write, I know I could do really well, but things just keep cropping up and procrastination has turned into denial. It's horrible, I need to escape. Maybe I'll just take my laptop somewhere where I can't do anything but write, no food, no tea, no filmaking, no editing, no nothing.

Job Hunting part 2 (This could turn into a saga)

I didn't get the job at BDA either. A 'recruitment freeze' she called it. Joan Dunlop's email sounded genuinely sorry, they're not hiring any more runners at the moment.
On the plus side (there always has to be a plus side) this means I won't be packing up M and the gorgeous flat and moving to London right this second. I can breathe a little and concentrate on uni while still applying for jobs left right and centre. It also means I might be able to spend the summer doing random jobs as well as maybe some more MiKat stuff and going for runner jobs on small shoots, usually I can't go for them 'cos I don't have enough time. Maybe maybe.

Filled in an application for Talk Back Thames today, emailed a distant relative who works for BBD London and last week phoned a ga-zillion production companies offering myself to them. Fun. Still, no responses yet, but I will phone them next week and be all, like, 'didja get my cv like?' -sigh-

Started my Swap My Mum script today for Writing for TV.. it's taken me ages to get started because you're made to do treatment after treatment, scene-by-scenes, step-by-steps until you're so sick of your own idea that you can't even be arsed to write the damn thing. So I decided that as I will be handing in all the garb, I'd start the script where my scene-by-scene leaves off, make it a bit more interesting. So I'm starting half way through and just pretending that the first half is pure genuis. That the characters are already well formed and likable. That the plot as worked up til now and audiences are literally gasping for the next installment of Swap My Mum. Meanwhile it's actually coming out a little bit er.. tame. I'm hoping it gets better.