Fun With Mandy

Ive been meaning to write this for a few days actually, but i've not had too much time nor the drive to actually sit down to write. But in desperately seeking entertainment on christmas day i thought i would resort to writing this. I know everyone spends their time looking forward to this time of year but i despise it a lot, i end up being surrounded by so many people for so long that it just stresses me out.

The thing i actually wanted to write about was a recent experience i had. I wanted to first outline that ive never really been bought up in an environment where i am taught that drugs are bad. im taught the same lessons as every other child in school about the dangers of addiction and the health risks of them.

The funny thing is that when i do take them there is nothing in me that sparks off that moral questioning. I can take then without hesitation and without any concern for how it might be morally wrong. The one thing i feel before taking them is the fear of it going wrong, but in essence that is one of the small high of it, taking that little risk. Like a parachute jump, or some kind of crazy stunt you risk your health and that fear that comes with it is a nice adrenaline rush.

I have indulged in Mushrooms on many occasions in the past and do quite enjoy them, they're something that i find very rewarding and return from them feeling very bonded with the people i have tripped with. The other drug i had tried was a chemical version of Mescaline and it was very strong, i enjoyed my time on it but came off it with the feeling of knowing that i didn't want to do it again and more importantly not progress further with any other kind of drug.

With drugs there is always the idea that its process of progression. That once you get used to one drug you tend to find another stronger drug to give you the next big high, and soon you are taking Heroine, of which is seen as the end of the road. I found myself presented with this path and realizing it wasn't one i was going to take, i would still partake in mushrooms but not anything else.

This was all challenged on Saturday.

I was presented with the prospect of taking some MDMA on a night out with my friends. My first instinct was to say no but there is something in me that is still curious. I wheighed up the odds of it and i had decided not to, i remebered back to how i just felt that chemical drugs weren't something that appealed to me.

Once in the situation i changed my mind, i made myself a little bomb of MDMA and once out and i'd had a few drinks i was a little more confident about taking it. I went into the toilet of the pub to swollow it and it went down fine. I expected a small lump in my throat for a while after, considering it was a little piece of paper. I returned from the toilet and back to my seat and you turn onto waiting mode. Even though you will try and ocupy yourself by talking to your friends you still spend your time waiting, checking each sense you have to see if anything is taken effect. I think the reason i check my senses is because i know that the mushrooms affect them a fair amount.

I realised there wasnt really any defining factor with the MDMA, no defining epithiny where i realise i am high, nothing that all the stereo-types tell you. The room didnt fill with love, i didnt want to hug everyone but i felt something, i did feel different.

I just wanted to dance, my jaw tightened as expected and my feet moved. I am really self concious when it comes to dancing and i wont unless i am really drunk. I hadnt drunk enough drinks to even feel a slight effect of them but suddenly i was filled with the uncontrolable urge to dance. I danced that whole night and not my normal self conscious inablity to dance, i felt like i could actually dance, as if i was blessed with the ability to coordinate my body with the music like i had never been able to before.

I felt like i had the confidence of having drunk a whole bottle of vodka without the sloppy nature of being drunk. I was fully aware and coherrent, i could hold a convosation, i was the normal me, with so much more confidence, it was unbelivable.

I went home with a big smile on my face after having a brilliant night. afterwards you will spend your time trying to repress the thought of the next day, to repress the nights ending as you will want it to live forever. In repressing the end of the night and the dawn of tomorrow you will have the looming danger of a come-down to wake up to. To a day or two of depression, a small price to pay for one night of complete bliss.

I woke up with a smile, slightly tired from the amount of energy i expended but still in a good mood. I spent the day considering the night before and consider what happened, and why it was i enjoyed it.

The main thing i considered was how acceptable it was for me to use it in the future. Do i leave this as just an experience or a start to something. I didnt wake up feeling bad, i had a perfect night without anything silly happening and what seemed like no danger at all.

with that in mind it almost seems perfectly logical to replace my alchohol consumption with MDMA because there seems to be no downsides to use of it. I do consider the things you get told about drug abuse, the things that i dont already have installed in me and i am left confused, i guess i will take that advice as so many people cant be wrong.

Whenever you meet someone that abuses drugs you often wonder where it all started, and i am in no way expressing any reason for concearn but imagine if ever i got ito deep, this is where they will say it all started.

and where was that?

Ironically a small peice of MDMA wrapped up in the first page of Revalations, dropped down my throat, the first small step to a potentially fucked up lifestyle.

I know not to get like that, i am just considering possiblities.

Mandy and I could go places

A Little Look

I wonder if i now know what i want, i felt like something has sort of clicked into place. Partly because of feeling rejected and in turn a little lonely. But i came to a point where im noticing patterns that are emerging in my actions, patterns in what im chasing.

To find out what you actually want was hard and im probably not sure but i have to go with the little i have. Now that i'm a little more sure of myself and realizing what i want has bought to my attention the fact that i don't actually have it

The prolem with not having what i want is that it cannot just come from anywhere, its something i cannot force and will have to be patient. This is hard because im not so good at it and i tend to act on impulse and get myself into situations i knew i didnt want to be in but i see a good thing and go for it, regardless of it not working in the long term.

I found out im actually quite bad at all the things i thought i might be good at, and they have all just turned into a stream of embarressing incidents. I can laugh about them and they are funny but i dont want to be a little bumbling idiot that actually has no people skills to speak of. I want to know what i want, to be sure of myself and not have to be sitting here writing about it. I want to talk, i want to be talked to and be kept at a small distance away but kept wondering. I want to be wanted.

Suddenly i want what i dont have, and also what ive given up so many times, this one thing was never exactly how i wanted it and i wonder if thats because i went out on my impules before stopping to think about what was happening and where it was going.

The one moment i keep thinking back to in my head is sitting in the shower, cold and naked but talking for ages. Its one of those kind of memories you expect one of those perfect on screen couples to have when their reminissing their lost relationship. The difference is that you know they will be back together and that they both want to be. Thats not the case with me.

Im a little lonely boy of which seems to be off limits.

I want something. Thats what i miss, something not someone.

Say Nothing

One of the things i've come to think a lot about with my work is how i can put staged photos next to authentic one. There's nothing in any photo that tells the absolute truth and nothing that lies. A photo cannot lie as a lie implies something else.

A Photo is merely a piece of paper that contains dots, shades, lines and shapes. Whereas an image is something entirely different an image is what we see. There is three outcomes to what is seen, firstly you could see the the grain and the dots. Second, you could see a person and that person could be anyone, you just recognize that it is a person or a human. The third is that you see John, Adam, who or whatever the image is of. You see something more familiar in the image.

What you see in an image is only there because you see it, because you put it in that image. Its one of the wonderful aspects of photography, that you can see what you want in an image.

It is all to familiar to question whether a tree makes a noise if it falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it.

What i want to know is, Does an image still exist in a photo if no one is around to perceive it?

A Petit Mort

Once again, my sleep is something i cannot let go. My sleep represents so much, its the beginning and end with no middle. I still don't dream so i'm not aware of anything, i have no connection to the world at all. Sleep is in its entirety represents death and in another sense is A Petit Mort.

These photos will become something else once im done with them, the project isn't about these photos but about something else.

Kiss

I strike again, taking advantage of more drunk people. I was looking forward to seeing these photos, i took them a while ago and then didnt use that camera for a while and didnt want to waste the film.

Ive been mainly shooting a lot of Polaroid, which is an expensive habit in itself but i just cant shake the unique attraction to it. I'm a little frustrated with the current cool status Polaroid has. It almost seem people use Polaroid as a status thing whereas Polaroid should be celebrated over other types photography for how unique it is. The Polaroid is a one-off and cannot be reproduced that does it any justice.

Either way, my point is, this is film and ive shot some more on film lately.

I miss it.

This Way Up

There's really no proper way to explain this, its one of those things that the internet doesn't do any justice as it requires touch, and smell to accompany to text and photos. I spent most of last night making this, my friends and i made some mushroom soup and sat in my room all night.

Ive always had thought that hallucinogens shouldn't be taken whilst your mind isn't totally sound and considering the tone of my last few posts i would of advised someone in my position to not indulge. Ive done them a fair few times before in my life and i do enjoy them, i enjoy the thinking process i go on.

I feel completely happy about my life at the moment, and it dont want that to seem like its a result of the mushrooms, as they didn't give me any kind of chemical to make me happy, i did that myself, they just let my mind go. I learnt that no matter what i do, or how i get into unhappy situations that inside i am a happy person.

Ive always been raised with a lot of love and ive always had so much unconditional love for people but i felt that was taken away from me a few years ago. I met someone that was lost themselves and didnt know how they were affecting me and subsequently i felt like i had to stop giving people the benefit of the doubt and almost stop loving everyone.

Last night i got that back, I feel like me again. I revisited old photographs and compeltely questioned all the reasons for me photographing, what it is to me and how i use it.

I learnt that in the times that i am so desperate to photograph things that there are other things that serve the same purposes for me too. For instance this book, i value it like i would any photo, as it is a photo in itself.

It served the same purposes, it gave me a vehicle for understanding things and gave me an object in return that represents my memory, it has the narative quality a photo has but unlike a traditional photo or book for that matter, like the timeless place i was in last night, this book was never meant to be read from cover to cover.

It wasnt wrote cover to cover, it was wrote franticly trying to find blank space, like photography it doesnt really have order untill its editing stage. Its impossible for us to not read it in the normal way, we know how to read a book and thats front to back. Its ok to be read like that, but just know that was not how it was wrote.

Like all my other note books it serves to be a personal thought process on paper.

I present to you my night, and the conclusion that i am happy

Repeat

Its amusing how my work circles, a few years ago whenever i photographed anything the pressing factor withing my work was identity. Its something that will always be present as it was a big part of it, but ive noticed it reoccurring lately.

At the point that i was particularly interested in identity i was so unsure about my own identity, i spent so many years when i was younger so confused about my sexuality that i completely lost who i was, i had absolutely no clue who or what i was.

Ive accepted and got over the fact that i have to deal with these problems but i haven't actually sorted out whats going on, i tend to postpone it and repress any feelings i have that i just don't understand.

Identity is seeping back through my work, its taken its place in its once overthrown palace. I see it coming back due to the issues arising within my life. The only difference is that this time i talk about it and don't shy away from it.

I will one day work out what is going on, but until then don't ask me who i am.

Smothered

Today is the day i considered how unhappy my life will be. So far all that i can see is that being in solitude is the only way i can be happy. I never know what i want, i never have and if i never find out this will always happen.

I have never known who and what i want from a relationship, since i was young and developing my awareness is of sex i have never known what sex i want. Will i ever know? i get into relationships where i get so infatuated with the person that i neglect anything going on within me, i block it out completely to a point that it doesn't exist at all.

Each of my relationships have ended in confusion, confusion over where i go and i am currently in that. The problem i have is that i dont take time to understand, i don't devote time to myself to work it out.

In my selfishness i have hurt people, this never meant to happen and i am sorry to all of you that read this and understand. you are each wonderful people who i do not appreciate enough due to my own turmoil.

i will work it out one day but until then i think i just need to be alone.

Morning

I seem to see death everywhere, photography is killing everyone i know. The death doesn't come until i edit.

Mistaken Identity

Theres something about sleep where you become no one, you become a complete and empty vessel. Its funny how sleep becomes like traveling in time, to sleep is to lose any connection to our corporeal reality. We have our faces of which we use to distinguish ourselves from everyone else, but our conscience thought and personality is the thing that drives the individuality. Go to sleep and its all gone, you become just a face.

Toothpaste Intimacy

I wanted to do something with these, i have a fair few and i just cant bring myself to throw them away. Each time i bring home a new one the old one stays in the pot unused until i have a few sitting there doing nothing. They then get moved to a small bag i have under the sink where they stay. I've always hoarded things like this but theres something about toothbrushes that i just cant part with.

I put this thing in my mouth at least twice a day every day its the first and last thing that i have contact with and theres something intimate about a toothbrush. I'm the same with shoes, but in a different way, i wont throw those away because i think i may have some use for them at some point.

I feel like my toothbrushes deserve something, so i decided to write about them and take a photo. They've become their own little collection in their own right and i wanted to give them their significance, their own significant in time and space.

So i present a Polaroid of them, unique, irreproducible and complete in its own time and space.

Look

Waiting, Smothered, Ready to Die,
Wrapped, Peaceful, Still alive.
Still Alive

Space

I'm finding myself just starring into space at the moment. I'm not looking at anything, I'm not waiting nor am i dreaming. I'm thinking, not about anything in particular, but there is movement in my head.

i find myself wondering if masking tape will ruin something if left on for too long. How my bed is littered will all the things i find essential. Ive spend a lot of time looking at my work on the walls and found myself thinking about the activities of my bed. I've even found myself wondering how much tomato ketchup is wasted from the bits that sticks to the sides.

All entirely irrelevant to whats actually going on. I tried reading and the way i was reading was as if i was really tired, i couldnt stay focused and i couldn't keep track of the subject matter, im not tired at all.

i slept for a few hours earlier, again because i found myself starring into space for no real reason. sleep seemed like the only thing that i could do to occupy my time. ive tried keeping busy but i just dont know what to do.

i dont feel like doing anything, im always sitting in silence and thats because the mood of music affects me a fair bit and i cant actually determine what mood im in as to adequately find a piece of music that fits.

ill probably be here for a few days.

Atitudes

Its interesting how you have an attitude towards something and how it can change, bend and flex depending on what happens to you.

Something happened tonight that any normal person would think that my attitude would change. it didn't, i suddenly found myself realizing how much i believed in what i thought. i didn't want to give my selfish views on it for who am i to put anyone in that situation.

I've always tried to renounce my selfish and subjective views, i could do that at this time but ethically and morally that was wrong.

I guess i just don't know what to say to it, what to suggest and what i can actually do.

I'm completely an utterly helpless.

Self Portrait

This was a day that i got pretty told off for, it was never something that planned but i had the weird compulsion to take photos whilst there. Hiding in the bathroom was the only place i could take photos without anyone noticing. Its interesting that i took a picture of myself there, here i am, i was here, confronted all the things i feared. No longer do i feel angry, sad, nor anything.

Untitled

This is another one of those photos where i just wanted to see what i looked like. i still remember my face when i was 8, when you look in the mirror your so familiar with the reflection that you see, occasionally i remember that i used to look different and i find myself strangely estranged from the face i see. i find that i know what it is to look and to find it looking back, but i find myself seeing someone older than i remember.

Insignificant Other

Theres something amazing about looking at the sky. It installs a complete and utter insignificant feeling in me, the interesting thing is that it actually makes me feel good about my life. I find it a good feeling to find my life has no significance in the universe. When you gaze at the clouds, the sea, the stars or even anything that is on a large scale you begin to wonder. To look at the stars makes me think about the grand scale of the universe, of other planets, stars and galaxies, of possible life. We tend to think of life and the universe as we know it, to exist on this planet but if you think of the size of the rest of reality, it's humongous, and you really are just an insignificant being.

15 Years Old Again