2 days until new year new you

Today I went from (whoops...there will be a slight interval while my nose bleeds over the kitchen table) having keys to four properties to my normal overlarge bunch of flat, house and ridiculous keyrings. I no longer feel like a gaoler as I pull my keys from my pocket but I lose the satisfaction of having 4 choices for shelter and sleep and knowing each set of keys (with their duplicates, duff ones and different metals). Each house has a particular ritual and a particular way of remembering which key is for which lock. I'll miss that.

9 Striven Gardens is the only property in Glasgow that I have never fumbled entry. It's like it's my home. I know the keys, I'm supposed to enter. I always feel very happy here. Natalie and Julia are the best, but the house itself has a good feeling. I don't feel lonely here.

Kevin sent me his thoughts on my initial area of research...they are quite helpful for perspective. Here is the relevant part of his myspace message:

I think it was you that I was talking to about "home" being a psychological thing rather than a physical thing. I had to sleep over at Max and Fiona's again last night, and had a terrible sleep because I wasn't in my own bed. But what if MY bed was in the flat, would that have affected my sleep? I suppose it's a mere hypothetical, but it does make me think! Different living conditions sounds exciting, and challenging to represent/simulate/explain in a performance space. Can a performance space ever be homely, and would you want it to be?
Just some thoughts.

Kevin Wratten, 30th December 2006

I forgot to capture my idea at IKEA (for IKEA, I haven't been to IKEA Glasgow since Alison and I went. She drove us round the one way car park at Braehead the wrong way. I had to duck in my seat to avoid murderous glances from motoring OAPs)

• I would like to approach IKEA about performing living in their shop floor displays. In particular I would like to sleep, really sleep in one of their show beds and mix a cake mix in their kitchens. Perhaps they could rig up a TV for me to lounge in front of. I think one of the things I might be interested in are the domestic objects of the home and how we covet nice things in our homes...do we need these things? I really desire nice things, I think it might be partly tied up in my idea of home and my space. Is consumerism covering up our inability to create or to understand what we mean as Home?
• Wearing my home on my back - a rucsac with a home survival kit.
• Or physically carrying a shelter on my back (like Barabara Dean's snail image, artist in Residence at Moda). See http://www.moda.mdx.ac.uk/, http://www.kitchenanticsandappliances.com/, http://www.kitchenanticsandappliances.com/download/4520264578/a060a0c1494542793458c304ec447189906050b05020007040707041/guest/4005566124/4515446414/HomesickBADDAno.sre-edited.pdf
• Or wearing a house hat on my head (this has great potential for comedy value in the actual show) I imagine it to look like one of those umbrella hats, a round head band holding

An Aside: The phrase, a broken home...pertaining to families whose married partners seperate and a child is reared by only one parent. Is this a fifties phenomenon? It is talking home in the metaphorical people sense. It also implies that a home can be whole, and that nuclear families are good. I come from a functional home and my family is the 2.4 children normal variety. Hmmmm

The Times magazine supplement which I found on the floor of the third tube carriage on my way in to meet Sadah, is most inspiring on matters of domesticity. Who can afford the items advertised in this magazine...i'm sure that half its readership can't. They have a small domestic agony aunt column which is written by Aggie MacKenzie of How Clean Is Your House? Arrrgh