Saturday, May 24, 2014

Songs today





Sunday, May 18, 2014

Good things 3

Lying in the sunshine today.

Discovering the little pond in the garden is a wealth of life, even though it was through a death I found this out: there was a dead toad floating, looking rather like the blown up animals Shrek & Fiona made. On fishing it out, I had a poke round and disturbed newts and other beasties. I had thought it but a fetid pool awaiting some tlc.


Thursday, May 15, 2014

Give yourself a gold star

I read this at Captain Awkward's blog and it seems really important to me, so I'm quoting it here, to remind me and for me to keep for others, potentially.

"So, this is big. When you feel lonely and needy and isolated, and you make the effort to go somewhere, and you don’t really find anyone you connect with, it’s very easy to weave it into the story of loneliness and failure that you’re experience, a.k.a. Well I TRIED and it DIDN’T WORK and now there’s PROOF. 

You have to actively fight against that mentality. It’s not fair. It’s exhausting. But every time you go to a thing and/or talk to a new person, make sure you congratulate and reward yourself for your efforts. Write it down in a journal somewhere. Give yourself a gold star. Tell yourself a different story, one that goes like this: You are doing good things to take care of yourself! You are learning the skill of meeting new people and building a social life as an adult, and that is something that a lot of people need if the volume of questions I get here is any indication. You are learning to find people you connect with; one part of that is figuring out where you don’t belong. Tell yourself that you put on clean clothes and showered and you tried. You saw a terrible band at the local anarchist collective and ate the worst food of your life at the vegan potluck and you listened to crabby Old Farmer Olsen talk about his hip pains for the 1700th time, and even if he didn’t really appreciate it, his wife had a good time not having to deal with him and getting to talk to some new people for a change. You helped give food to people who really need it. You marked trails for hikers who will appreciate not being lost. You petted kittens and puppies who need homes. You learned a new expansion pack of a board game. You gave your parents some alone time without having their roommate underfoot. You are doing the best you can. You are learning new skills. You are finding new interests and strengths. You are doing your best to take your place among your fellow humans. That’s all you can control, and the rest is up to luck."

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Good things 2

Listening to spoken word poetry all morning.

"Are you listening?! Can you hear me" - his voice really moved me on those words (Ken Arkind's God Box).

Fluffy clouds! It's been a beautiful day and the skies were dotted with the kind of clouds children make in pictures with cotton wool. Makes me smile.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Good things

OK, I want to write about a good thing a day, see how that works out.

Something I feel good about is turning back to open a shop door for an old lady in a motorised wheelchair = good deed for the day, I guess.

I feel good about the sunshine, about remembering to put the guinea pigs out for some grass, about doing some drawing yesterday, about my friend and my husband.

Monday, May 12, 2014

Ad-rage

I bloody hate this advert from Always for overnight sanitary towels. It pretty much uses the exact script of a nappy advert, which really flicks my switch: "I can wriggle" and lullaby music. Argh! Infantilise women much?

Fuckkkkkk offfff.

What would be a good ad for sanitary products? I don't know - stop being so prissy or 'empowering' (white trousers & roller skating, anyone?) - just the facts please and not this this this idiotic tip-toeing. Urgh.

Thursday, May 08, 2014

I love it when

evo-psych proves to be a lot of old hooey.

Pharyngula: "Years and years of studies by scientists trying to explain women’s behavior by their hormonal fluctuations are gradually falling apart. We’ve heard so many inconsistent, contradictory tales of how fertility/menstruation turns women into unconscious breeders or nurturing mothers, how women are driven to ‘hypogamy’ by their evolutionary instincts (that’s a big one with the MRAs), and how mate choices wobble from alpha to beta over the course of a month" - all rot.