The end is where we start from.

I write this as 2009 draws to a close. An interesting year; the cliched rollercoaster ride. Ups, downs, twists and the strange mixture of excitement and nausea. 2010 will probably bring more of the same... but it's not what the future holds for us that matters, it's the way we face those myriad possibilities. I have recently understood that "fixing the 'outside' does not change the experience of life", that can only be achieved from inside. The external does not make us unhappy; other people, life events, our careers (or lack thereof), even our emotions and thwarted desires do not impose misery. Misery comes from within and it is the reaction we choose when faced with negativity.

I choose joy. Alles liebe.

(Tessa by Carsten Fleck 2009)

(Me by nobody)

The one true cause of human failure.

Trust and faith. Two small words. Words that we throw away every day on the superficialities of our lives. We 'trust' in certain products. We have 'faith' in politicians. We use these words to represent how we feel about the external; we trust other people and things, we have faith in Gods and philosophies. Rarely do we apply these terms to ourselves; to the internal. I wonder how many of us truly trust our own selves, how many of us have faith in what we choose, what we think, what we know.

The last couple of weeks have been an awakening. I have understood for the first time how little I trust myself and I wonder how epidemic this failure is. I look back on the minutiae of my life and realise that everything I have thought and felt and experienced has been infused with an ubiquitous faithlessness. This has often manifested in an intrusive taunting voice that whispers "The grass is greener over there...". I change my mind like I'm changing my underwear, like my choices and feelings are something material that can be discarded and rendered meaningless. This was how I was taught to deal with anything of inner meaning.  The classic British working class ethos of "Have a cup of tea, stop thinking about it and everything will be OK". I saw my strength as my ability to 'just get on with things', to be emotionally hard (although this was always only with regards to anything of depth - I can cry within just a few minutes of some cheap, schmaltzy Disney movie). I always believed that this hardness was practicality but I now realise that it was faithlessness; a profound distrust in my own instincts. This lack of faith reaches into every aspect of my being, and it is the root of all my misery and sadness and frustration.

And the funny thing is... I always know... my spirit (or whatever you want to call it... jeez, I still revolt against these 'esoteric' terms) always speaks the truth to me, and I finally understand that it's about time I started trusting myself.

(Tessa by Carsten Fleck)

Coming out the other side.

Modeling can sometimes be therapy. You find yourself sharing a kind of intimacy with someone whom you have never met before, but who sees a side of you that you keep hidden from even your closest friends. The photographers who become your friends are those ones that do not judge, that want to see the emotion and the pain and ultimately the laughter that you hold deep inside. You may only ever meet them once but their words and their spirits stay with you and if you're lucky you get a visual reminder of the way they touched your life.

(Tessa by Carsten Fleck)

Washing of the water.

I miss my boat. The gentle rocking of the river, the squeaking of the mooring ropes as they stretched with the wake, the tapping of swans feeding on the algae that nestled upon the hull at the waterline, even the fortnightly palaver of emptying the toilet. Most of all I miss how Cep used to make everything OK, she represented my achievements, my dreams and the fulfillment of my ambitions. She was mine. She kept me warm and dry and safe, her steel arms surrounded me and sang me a lullaby every night.


River, river carry me on
Living river carry me on
River, river carry me on
To the place where I come from


So deep, so wide, will you take me on your back for a ride
If I should fall, would you swallow me deep inside


River, show me how to float
I feel like I'm sinking down
Thought that I could get along
But here in this water
My feet won't touch the ground
I need something to turn myself around


Going away, away towards the sea
River deep, can you lift up and carry me
Oh roll on though the heartland
'Til the sun has left the sky
River, river carry me high
'Til the washing of the water make it all alright
Let your waters reach me like she reached me tonight


Letting go, it's so hard
The way it's hurting now
To get this love untied
So tough to stay with thing
'Cause if I follow through
I face what I denied
I get those hooks out of me
And I take out the hooks that I sunk deep in your side
Kill that fear of emptiness, loneliness I hide


River, oh river, river running deep
Bring me something that will let me get to sleep
In the washing of the water will you take it all away
Bring me something to take this pain away


(Peter Gabriel, Washing of the Water from the album "Us")

My beloved Cep.

To sleep, perchance to dream.

In my dreams I know I am dreaming, I know that I am really safe, in my bed, warm and content. The adventures I have whilst my unseeing eyes rove are a second life, a life where I am invincible even in death. I almost never have nightmares. I love the dark and dangerous landscapes that my sleeping mind creates, I love the creatures that inhabit it. They are there for my pleasure, my fun, my escape.

But in the last few months I haven't been dreaming at all. Or at least I haven't remembered those that I have had - and I always remember. I have missed those moonlit escapades, my world is too homogenous without them.

Then, like a lover returned, I started dreaming again last week. But these dreams are full of sinking boats.   And the boats are sinking because of me. Because I didn't take care. In these dreams I don't know that I am dreaming, I can't control the adventure, although I don't wake as from a nightmare; screaming, sweating and thankful for the solid walls of my apartment. I just feel profound regret. Regret that I couldn't stop the boat from sinking.

Things fall apart: The centre cannot hold.

During my years as a psychiatric nurse I learnt a lot about the lengths people can go to in order to escape the responsibility and stresses of ordinary, everyday life. There are times when we all feel overwhelmed, incapable of dealing with even the simplest things like getting out of bed in the morning. I witnessed men and women so burdened with hopelessness that they no longer controlled their own bowel movements; curled like a fetus on the linoleum floor of their wipe-clean hospital room, as incapable as a new-born baby, their wails a desperate cry for someone to come and take care of them, to take on board the minutiae of their existence.

Although extreme, this dissociation was always something that touched a part of my understanding that most of the other behaviours I experienced on that ward couldn't reach. Empathically I understood their desire to just give it all away. To abdicate all responsibility. To surrender all control. There is peace and comfort in this quietism and it is the comfort of the womb; the soft, warm fleshy fortress where all our needs were attended to and all we had to do was just 'be'.

The drug addict, the dissociative patient, the ex-con who dreams of returning to the structure and enforced regimentation of prison, the alcoholic, the 'blame' junkie constantly searching for external obstacles to their happiness, the depressed. All of these are lost souls yearning for the womb and for the peace that they knew there. But they are also us. Every time we 'cannot be bothered', every time we choose not to act, every time we give in to the seductive urge to just stay in bed, or play Mafia Wars on Facebook we are taking one more step towards the abyss.

(The Death of Chatterton by Kelly Humphries)

I KNOW they're shit...

... but there are times when Keane sum it all up for me.


Who is the man I see
Where I'm supposed to be?
I lost my heart, I buried it too deep
Under the iron sea


Oh, crystal ball, crystal ball
Save us all, tell me life is beautiful
Mirror, mirror on the wall


Lines ever more unclear
I'm not sure I'm even here
The more I look the more I think that I'm
Starting to disappear


Oh, crystal ball, crystal ball
Save us all, tell me life is beautiful
Mirror, mirror on the wall
Oh, crystal ball, hear my song
I'm fading out, everything I know is wrong
So put me where I belong


I don't where I am
And I don't really care
I look myself in eye
There's noone there
I fall upon the earth
I call upon the air
But all I get is the same old vacant stare


Oh, crystal ball, crystal ball
Save us all, tell me life is beautiful
Mirror, mirror on the wall
Oh, crystal ball, hear my song
I'm fading out, everything I know is wrong
So put me where I belong

Stormy Weather.

THE TWO

You are the town and we are the clock.
We are the guardians of the gate in the rock.
            The Two.
On your left and on your right
In the day and in the night,
        We are watching you.

Wiser not to ask just what has occurred
To them who disobeyed our word;
        To those
We were the whirlpool, we were the reef,
We were the formal nightmare, grief
        And the unlucky rose.

Climb up the crane , learn the sailor's words
When the ships from the islands laden with birds
        Come in.
Tell your stories of fishing and other men's wives:
The expansive moments of constricted lives
        In the lighted inn.

But do not imagine we do not know
Nor that what you hide with such care won't show
        At a glance.
Nothing is done, nothing is said,
But don't make the mistake of believing us dead:
        I shouldn't dance.

We're afraid in that case you'll have a fall.
We've been watching you over the garden wall
        For hours.
The sky is darkening like a stain,
Something is going to fall like rain
        And it won't be flowers.

When the green field comes off like a lid
Revealing what was much better hid:
        Unpleasant.
And look, behind you without a sound
The woods have come up and are standing round
        In deadly crescent.

The bolt is sliding in its groove,
Outside the window is the black remov-
        ers' van.
And now with sudden swift emergence
Come the woman in dark glasses and humpbacked surgeons
        And the scissors man.

This might happen any day
So be careful what you say
        Or do.
Be clean, be tidy, oil the lock,
Trim the garden, wind the clock,
        Remember the Two.

W.H. Auden

The slinking cat beneath the lilacs of my mind.

Clive Barker once wrote "There is no delight the equal of dread." and I think he's right. From the very start of man's awkward, brutal ascent out of the primordial ooze he has meditated, debated and waxed lyrical on the subject of fear. We even use it as entertainment... we revel in the adrenalin rush, the sweaty palms and heavy breathing that accompany a good, scary story. Our fantasies are riddled with dangerous situations and cruel lovers because to be afraid is to be aroused; our hearts thump, our nerve-endings fire, our bodies shiver in anticipation.

But real fear, real terror is not so much fun. It can be educational and it can save your life, as Hannah Arendt says "Fear is an emotion indispensable for survival". In our ancestral environment fear was adaptive; the angel on our shoulder warning us of imminent threat. Even today fear continues to be our constant guardian, the sentinel of safety that helps to ensure a long, healthy life. I am a big fan of fear.

But as is the way with all good things fear all to often simply paralyses. It acts like an iron cage upon our hearts and minds, as Samuel Butler opined "Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself" and fear is a hungry monster, a yaffling Greedygut constantly whispering to us in honeyed tones "Feed me, feeeeed me". 

We can't escape it, we shouldn't escape it for it is as much a part of existence as the air we need to breathe but we do need to recognize it; to see it's true form so that we can understand it's motivations and ultimately, teach it some table manners.

(The Perils of Tessa by Darktess)

Words that should be used more often. Part 1

Verliebtheit or Limerence refers to an involuntary cognitive and emotional state of intense romantic desire for another person. Fallen-in-love-ness.

Miles to go before I Sleep.

Time is relative... apparently. We compartmentalize and solidify each moment so that we all have a marker by which to measure our lives and the activities we fill it with, but each of us experiences those seconds, hours, days differently. People often say that if they won the lottery or retired or for whatever reason no longer needed to work they would still keep their jobs... to do 'nothing' would be a 'little slice of death'. Balls! I say. You would fill your days with something. Something that structured each moment and gave meaning to waking up.

For over 6 months I have not 'worked' and for 6 months I've managed somehow to fill my days so that the months slip by, barely registering, till I find myself just a few weeks from Christmas; that ubiquitous landmark of our lives that fills us with dread and excitement in equal measure. But what are these 'things' that occupy my time? Some are productive efforts geared towards earning a living and advancing my 'career' while others represent little more than apathetic masturbation; a means of moving from one moment to the next with as little physical and mental effort as is possible. And I love those moments, the times of doing 'nothing'; watching asinine Police Procedurals TV shows and low-budget 1980's horror movies, constantly refreshing FB to see if someone else has been doing anything remotely interesting, having 45 minute showers, and smoking cigarettes as though each step that I bring myself closer to death is a past-time worthy of single-minded pursuit.

My days are now structured by the morning ritual of 8am alarms, coffee and a cigarette while wrestling with the online Guardian cryptic crossword, shower, FB, blog, MM, NM, back to FB,  followed by protracted mental flogging for my inactivity. Some days continue in this vein for hours until the sun goes down and I can convince myself that it's too late to do anything useful today so I might as well put the next season of 'Supernatural' on and open that bottle of wine. Other days find a way of shoe-horning my ass up from behind my desk and out into the world... I like these days too, they validate and excuse the times that satiate my lazy, sloth-like personality. But I know that I need more of this and less of the other... and this is the little death of 'not-working'. I no longer have a boss to demand my attention and energy; I am alone, free, with nothing but my own sense of motivation as a guide. This is what terrifies the retired and the lottery-winner. They know that they will find something to do with their time... they are just afraid that it will be of such little consequence that they themselves will cease to mean anything.


“Man is nothing else but what he purposes, he exists only in so far as he realises himself, he is therefore nothing else but the sum of his actions, nothing else but what his life is.” 


Existentialism is a Humanism by Jean-Paul Sartre 1946

Did Ted Bundy buy this?

Evil science ;)

Riding the Oxytocin wave.

Dear readers, please allow me to introduce you to Oxytocin, the love hormone.

This little puppy has been linked to bonding and attachment behaviours in both animals and humans.

Oxytocin is a peptide of 9 amino acids that has both peripheral (hormonal) actions through secretion from the pituitary gland, and actions within the brain reflecting it's release from centrally projecting Oxytocin neurons in the amygdala, ventromedial hypothalamus, septum and brainstem.

It's actions include the 'let-down' reflex in lactating mammals (whereby breast milk is let down into collecting chambers in the mammary glands ready for suckling), cervical dilation and Uterine contraction during labor, and other bonding and maternal behaviours in mammals. More recent research has investigated the connections between Oxytocin and sexual response in humans, and while the jury is still out it seems that this little bundle of amino acids has a key role to play in sexual arousal and orgasm (when injected into the cerebrospinal fluid of male rats it causes spontaneous erections). Furthermore, some studies have hinted that it also plays a part in increasing empathy and trust and reducing fear.

The neurobiology of social bonds.

The Oxytocin Receptor system.

Plasma oxytocin increases in the human sexual response.

So.... next time you hear you heart go 'Boom-Boom-Chick-a-Wow-Waa' in the presence of some guy or girl... don't fret, just blame your Oxytocin.

Edit: This is a rather fun link too... The Cuddle Hormone ... I particularly like the quote;

"You first meet him and he’s passable," Witt said of the phenomena. "The second time you go out with him, he’s OK. The third time you go out with him, you have sex. And from that point on you can’t imagine what life would be like without him."

Monday morning and things move on...

Baby,
life's what you make it
Can't escape it

Baby,
yesterday's favourite
Don't you hate it

Everything's all right
life's what you make it

Baby,
life's what you make it
Don't backdate it

Baby,
Don't try to shade it
Beauty is naked

Everything's all right
life's what you make it

Baby,
life's what you make it
Celebrate it
Anticipate it
Yesterday's faded
Nothing can change it
Life's what you make it

Everything's all right
life's what you make it.

Couldn't say it any better myself...






( Schleifen by Kelly Humphries)

I love the smell of developer in the evening.

In a room as dark as pitch, a red bulb barely throwing out enough light to see my hand in front of my face I attempt to bring life and meaning to an image captured months ago on a 30 Euro plastic camera... and this poem keeps running through my mind...


                                                                                        
You'll love me yet!—and I can tarry
Your love's protracted growing:
June reared that bunch of flowers you carry
From seeds of April's sowing.


I plant a heartful now: some seed
At least is sure to strike,
And yield—what you'll not pluck indeed,
Not love, but, may be, like!


You'll look at least on love's remains,
A grave's one violet:
Your look?—that pays a thousand pains.
What's death?—You'll love me yet! 

(You'll Love Me Yet by Robert Browning)

(Lulu by Kelly Humphries)

I can't remember the tune but I remember the lines...

When I hear you call my name,
My heart skips a beat.

( "3" by Kelly Humphries)

Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea...

I think that most people who know me would say that I'm a fairly practical, no-nonsense kind of gal. Romanticism and the esoteric hold little interest for me outside of philosophical debate. However, every now and then I find myself wallowing in the fantastical, day-dreaming flights of fancy and obsessing over that which is not real.... or at least, that which is not yet real; I spend my days moping around my apartment, drinking way too much coffee, smoking too many cigarettes, hardly eating. At these times I always find myself drawn to the random collections of poetry that hover, gathering dust, in-between the rows and rows of serial killer biographies and pulp horror novels lining my book shelves. There is something overly dramatic about poetry that comforts me. The eloquent and luxurious prose somehow validates my histrionics, turning them from the destructive, sad and foolish things they are into something of heart-rending beauty.

So, just for you, dear readers... here's some Alfred Lord Tennyson...


A Farewell.

Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,
Thy tribute wave deliver:
No more by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.

Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,
A rivulet then a river:
Nowhere by thee my steps shall be
For ever and for ever.

But here will sigh thine alder tree
And here thine aspen shiver;
And here by thee will hum the bee,
For ever and for ever.

A thousand suns will stream on thee,
A thousand moons will quiver;
But not by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.

(Tessa by Kelly Humphries)

2.20am

I'm flayed by the love that used to
be the air I breathed.

(Tessa by Mike Kamei)

The white city...

Yippee!!!! The first snow of winter has arrived in Berlin... this is the view from my balcony as of 5 minutes ago.... I think I may have to go out and play ;)

I'm having the overwhelming urge...

... to do a shoot while listening to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.... really fucking loud!

Blue shadows behind your eyes
I wonder who you disguise
Through windows behind the sky
I wonder who you will find
I'm so tired
I can't get back
I'm walking to still come back
With something that I have loved


(Photo courtesy of FilmPhoto)

At times like these...

...only Bryan Adams can help me.


(Tessa by Kelly Humphries)

The Garden of Love.

I went to the Garden of Love
And saw what I never had seen:

Room for two?

Some say the world will end in fire,
  Some say in ice.
  From what I've tasted of desire
  I hold with those who favor fire.
  But if it had to perish twice,
  I think I know enough of hate
  To know that for destruction ice
  Is also great
  And would suffice.

By Robert frost

Jurassic fuck.

This has got to be one of the funniest things I've ever seen... whenever I'm blue this is guaranteed to make me chuckle...

Pterodactyl porn!?!

... I have to admit to be pretty impressed by the quality of the costumes...

A lone hand claps...

Well, it's been about 3 hours since the Geisha boys left Berlin. I fed them well, I led them on a tour of historic Berlin sights and I took advantage of their narcissistic temperaments and made lots of pictures.

And now... the apartment is tidied and all signs that 4 grubby rock musicians have been bedding down in what usually passes as my lounge are gone... save for the boxes and boxes of books and other pointless tat that I made them bring over from England in their tour van for me, and I think I miss them....

Geisha Noise Research Group

Night of the Living Geisha Boys...

... at some, as yet unspecified, time today the peace and tranquillity of my Berlin apartment will be over-run with Geisha-boys. Unfortunately, not the lady-boy, he-she variety but the sweaty-been-on-the-road-for-3-weeks-snarling-noise-rock genus of Geisha... but they rock so it'll be OK.

As for this gorgeous little lady that I captured at the Venus Adult Trade Show... I sincerely hope that when I'm in my seventies and barely able to stand up straight I will also be carrying around a digital camera that probably weighs more than I do, happily snapping away at lithesome, naked, copulating teenagers...

A gun would be nice...

... I'm writing this whilst being on hold with 3 Mobile in my 3rd attempt to get my old English handset unlocked, and a gun would be nice... not that I can reach through the airwaves and shoot the motherfuckers answering at the call centre in Mumbai... but I could at least put myself out of my misery.

But I have no gun.

So instead... a picture from the Venus Trade Show 2009

A huge erection...

... just a taster from the sights at the Venus Festival. Needless to say, I want one!

Days of T&A

I was hoping to upload some photos and a little diary of my experiences at the Venus Porn Festival here in Berlin... I'm 3 days down with 2 more to go... but it's been so full on I have not had time, and quite frankly after 11 straight hours of way too much gynecological imformation the last thing I want to do is fucking talk about it and edit photographs... so I'm off to get some cigarettes and eat some instant mash potato and I'll update this blog that no one reads when it's all over.... please God let it be over.....

The whisperer.

So, for the last couple of days I have been pondering the eternal question... why does Steven Seagal have a voice double? This strange and inexplicable phenomenon first appeared a few years ago and while it is less of a mystery why he has had to resort to body/stunt doubles the dubbing of his voice leaves me in a constant state of wonder. Is it because he's so expensive that when some additional recording is required the producers just hire some young cheap stud to impersonate the Holy one (very badly)? Or... is he just a bit of a lazy fuck and can't be arsed with all that pesky ADR? Or... could it be that the man is almost incapable of delivering his lines above a whisper leaving the poor sound guys with tapes and tapes of inaudible mumbling?

I've scoured the internet for an answer to this conundrum but the all-knowing webbernet has failed me.

I still love ol' chubby chops though...

(photos copyright of Eroticalia)

Dear Santa...

... I want to be 5ft 8in and a size 0.

Santa is rubbish (I never did get that rocking horse I wanted either) but luckily for me Stefano Brunesci isn't!

The Wonder Years...

... when Tessa was just a glint in Kamei's eye.

Apparently today is Reunification Day here in Germany... I remember being 16, sitting in my tiny bedroom, watching the events unfold on a dust-covered portable TV and realising for the first time in my life that I was watching 'history' as it happened... today, at 35 I am not so reflective, today this simply means that all the fucking shops are shut for the next two days and I haven't got anything in the fridge for Sunday lunch. Balls! My persistent inability to plan ahead is a constant source of frustration for me.

So instead of going out and enjoying the simple pleasure that is food shopping I will sit at my desk and try and think of something interesting to say....

.... fuck it! Here's some naked pictures instead... (copyright courtesy of AndyQPhotography, Stefano Brunesci and filmphoto respectively)

I'm rambling but not naked...

... at the moment. No, no nakedness here, just a black negligee ruined by an old brown cardigan. It's glamour all the way.

So, this is the beginning of my blog... in truth, it's a cheaper option than buying a website and all the kewl people do it so it can't be that bad... can it?

The purpose of this ubiquitous exercise in vanity? To display my work as a model... this is where the 'naked' comes in and the reason why FB etc etc fail me...

... so all I need to do know now is how in the name of all that is holy I can upload pictures.

Ah-ha! I do it like this....

(Photographer: filmphoto)