FUN: a guide for lonely and hysterical women

ACTIVITY #1: Put an ice cube into a plastic bag and let it melt around the curve of your thumb. Once it is all water, drink. Cheers; to your health.

ACTIVITY #2: Cry until you feel sick. Walk until you find grass. Sit and pull out the blades, dewy and sharp. Ask yourself: do they hurt as you cut them? They stain your hands green. Is this what it feels like for them to bleed? Is it for you?

ACTIVITY #3: Write your favourite words on every page of a small notebook. Sound each one out as you write; enjoy how they twist and turn on your tongue. Flick through it very fast and watch the ink dance. Use it to devise your own meaning for life.

ACTIVITY #4: Look for insects outside on a windy day. Decide which of them crawls, which wriggles, which slithers, glides and scrambles. Note their colours. Note how they root themselves to the spot in spite of the weather, stolid as soldiers. Ponder which of them thinks the most like you.

ACTIVITY #5: Practise smiling in a mirror. Note the intricacies of your face: look out for wrinkles, acne, if your eyes are uneven, if your nose is crooked, if you need a haircut. Does the light reach your eyes? Keep going until it does.

ACTIVITY #6: Walk to a new place and talk to someone you don’t know. REMEMBER! Ask them three key questions. How did they get here? Who do they love? What makes them happy to be alive?

ACTIVITY #7: Dip your fingers in paint and make a self-portrait. Make a list of words to describe how it feels to create with your hands, and memorise them to recite to yourself next time you feel down. TOP TIP! A self-portrait is not what you see when you do ACTIVITY #5. A self-portrait is a way of honestly symbolising the inside of one’s heart.

ACTIVITY #8: Sit on a bench in a busy street for half an hour or so and listen. Keep an ear out for words in conversations, the timbre of the speaker’s voice, passing traffic, the buzz of electricity, footsteps, heartbeats. Lie in your bed at home with the lights off and repeat. Compose a song made up of what you heard. Sing it to yourself next time you feel down.

ACTIVITY #9: Cry until you feel sick. Walk until you find grass. Remember the last time you stood on this spot, just like now. Remember how it felt like home. Sing your song and recite your words. Remember what brought you here. Remember.

ACTIVITY #10: Let the ice in your heart melt around the curve of your breast. Once it is all water, drink. Cheers. To your health.