23: The Year of Challenge & Changes

So, as you all can probably tell, I have been off the grid again. 

And for that, well . . . 

I, um, uhh . . . 

Hmmm . . . 

sorry is a pitiful word but here it sort of applies. 

I have been busy with the bullshit of adulthood, and that is nothing to be ashamed of. 
. . . Right . . . ? 

However I am a bit ashamed. Well more than a bit to be completely honest.
Not for choosing my career and personal life pursuits away from the realm of computers, but for settling into laziness when the real world work was done. Granted, I have gone through a lot in the past few months which I will get into later. Is that any excuse though? To throw away the hard worked earned on the slower path, by taking the easy road with the quick fixes that last about as long as this run on sentence?

Oh God, Get on with it already!!

Okay okay! Here goes nothing.

It has been a crazy few months for dear old blogger and tortured artist Ashley. First, let's cover the updates on the life end. After getting ill and injured at a specific place I will not mention, loosing my visa, gaining a new visa sponsor, facing death and the grief aftermath, sticking to my diet and workout plans and actually loosing weight, landing jobs that made it too difficult to stick to that lifestyle change. My career was at a complete stand still. I got a few bits and bobs here and there, mostly helping friends with their work for free. I finally got a theatre job, then a film one, then another theater gig. Now I am auditioning, looking for more work and trying to get back into a routine to not only get some mental clarity, but to build a routine back up. 

Not having a routine has started making me question a hell of a lot of things. 
Not just about myself, but about my up-bringing, my school routines...
It feels like I have been on a treadmill for 22 odd years with headphones and blinders on, and at 23 the headphones and blinders were finally taken off, and I was told "Hey, Ash. You know there is a whole gym, not just this treadmill right? Oh and we are closing in five. So you will have to head outside soon."

Can you see why I have been away from the keyboard, yet??

Now I am back...again...no really, I swear! 
We've got so much new material for ya'll to read about not only my life, which I am sure you have been dying for, but more HTDW's and other interesting articles one health, goofiness, and reviews on every topic under the sky! See you tomorrow for more adventures.

 Bye for Now Lovelies xx

Over bored and Over Sexed...A reivew on my week with Mr. and Mrs. Grey

Remember how I told you my boyfriend's mother had given me some books to read, when I had hardly anything to occupy my long days, before school began? Well, the 50 Shades books did the trick. Not a good series for substance like Harry Potter, Sookie Stackhouse, or World War Z, but a nice, silly, and very sexually informative read. Now I am no prude....well, not anymore anyways. It used to be that anytime someone said something non-sexual, but made a sexual face and touched me, I would giggle and turn redder than a beet in a salad. Being an actor, basically stop being shy about sensitive subjects or get out of the game.

Be Comfortable With The Uncomfortable.....

One of my closest friends has his own blog / website / online business: one pertaining to some sexual and quite interesting subjects. But this is no site for the faint-hearted, the prudish, or the under age. I have written an article about my readings and musings, and here is the link to my first published article! 

http://ohhmy.co.uk/blog/review-fifty-shades-trilogy/ http://ohhmy.co.uk/

WHooooooooooooooo! I am a writer!

How To Deal With: Old Injuries 1 (The Morning of the Cripple)

When an old injury acts up, usually it doesn't mean you cannot continue your day right? Maybe pop a few pain killers or some anti-inflammatory pills, and you can push through the day until you can climb back into be and ice it. But when you have an injury to the foot, and one that has required not 1 but 2 major surgeries, your day is shot. Well, to be more accurate, what you had planned on being your day is shot, and a new kind of day unfurls at your...feet...
horrible pun...

 

A lisfranc injury - one you should actually only get if a horse stomps on you, not if you slide 6 feet, barefoot, in a rehearsal space during an acting class warm up at 9 in the morning - is a bitch. You wake up one day, it is a little stiff. you spend about 15 min in bed making sure it is okay to walk on, by stretches and exercises you have learned from over a year of Physical therapy, and then carry on with your day. That night you elevate it for a little while. I am supposed to ice it at night, or whenever it hurts badly, but I don't. Where am I to get ice on a train in the middle of London?? But some mornings, you forget to elevate it the night before (for like 2 weeks), and you do your morning's 15 minute check-if-I-am-good-to-walk test and all seems fine. Until, even through the fog and dreaminess of your sleepy brain, you put your foot on the ground and try to stand. And instantly you are awake, eyes bugging out of your head cause it is 7 am, people are sleeping so you cannot cry out, and your brain tells you in a frightened sad voice, 

"I don't think you can make that long commute today. Yesterday you had no seat on either side of the train journeys and walked back to the house when you should have taken the bus."

After hating myself for about 10 whole minutes, I tried to convince myself it wouldn't be so bad, that I could do it! A good pep talk can make armies run to battle, a girl feel confidant in herself enough to head to school, but not today. The second I tried to bare weight on that injured foot again, I knew I couldn't do it. I wouldn't have been able to walk down the stairs to put my shoes on. Or put my shoes on! So, hating myself for an additional 10 minutes, solely thinking about how my class needs me, and I must get to school to help them with our stuff, my boyfriend just stares at me. Worry, mixed with a bit of awe at the conversation in my head maybe, and trying to put his foot down...god I hate these puns...about making me stay to nurse myself for tomorrow and relax today.

Now I am in bed, with three elastic tension bands, an ice pack, a laptop, and a cheap top-up mobile to call into school to let them know I cannot come in. You feel guilty with an injury like this. You are needed or are desperately excited to do something vital for the day, but you have to take care of your injury instead. After a while, some people - who shall remain name-less on here but not face-less in my head - have thought I was milking my pain out so I could get out of doing things, or faking the injury for attention. 

Trust me bitches, FUCK YOU. 

 

If I could fake this, I would be so much happier. Then I could wear high heels again, dance all night and still be fine to go to the gym in the morning. I hate that this happened to me. I was isolated in a room for 3 months after the first surgery, my whole summer spent in doors and in such horrible pain (I had to crawl down the stairs, more than once, to use to bathroom. You don't know dignity until you had to hop on one leg for 3 weeks every time you had to throw up or pee or god forbid both.). Then, not fully recovered, pretended that the pain had ebbed and went to school in another country. Anytime it was unbearably awful, I had to tell a faculty member, and it was embarrassing. The second summer of pain was not as bad, because I know knew the joys of the internet (previously, all I used it for was research and online games. I now know of reddit, pinterest, and other just addictions) and what to expect of the pain. 
Today is the first in many weeks I have been physically halted in my tracks...fucking puns...

I will be fine, is my mantra. 
It will get better, the other mantra. 

I hope so, inner me. I do hope so.

Bye For Now!