Sunday, October 30, 2016

Blue

"Women have very little idea of how much men hate them". - Germain Greer, The Female Eunuch This seems relevant today.
I feel quite defeatist.
I feel quite sad.

Thursday, October 06, 2016

Le cycliste

We saw a cyclist picking up onions on the way home, and I said to daughter - perhaps he's French? Jokingly. And then had to explain the French national stereotype of Frenchman on bike, with striped jumper,  beret and onions around his neck. 

Or was it garlic?

And we weren't sure,  but there is no reason a Frenchman couldn't have garlic to fend off vampires too. After all, vampires are very generally pretty refined and probably hang out in Parisian garrets.

But decided it was probably onions.

Of course, none of this answers why there were onions in the road.

Thursday, September 29, 2016

Terf wars

I'm trying to figure out ...

Chloe Allen was recently widely reported as the first female infantry soldier in Britain. She is trans and came out after being discovered cross-dressing. She says she's glad it's panned out that way and is now undergoing hormone treatment. Which is great. Under recently changed rules, she gets to stay in post. Which is also great.

What I struggle with, is this - does it skew the picture for cis women to have someone taking that 'first' who didn't have the same set of challenges? Chloe certainly had (and has) her own challenges, but to get in post had a male physique and didn't face the sexism etc that cis women haven't yet even had the chance to deal with. The first possible intake of cis women to train for the infantry isn't until Nov this year, as I understand it.

I guess my misgiving is that it sort of looks like we're already there in equality / opportunities, but that's yet to be seen - and it erases the struggles that cis women face in the same situation. And I don't know, someone who 'passes' then comes out later in life isn't perhaps paving the way for other women - it's not a case of the glass ceiling being broken, so much as circumvented?

Does this make me a TERF? I like to think of myself as 'right on' and as an intersectional feminist, but I'm struggling with this.

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

FB memes again again

"Bye bye, I deleted some so called friends over time, due to their way of doing things. Now I'm watching the one who will have the time to read this post until the end. This is a little test, just to see who reads and who shares without reading! If you have read everything, select "like" and then copy and paste this text on your profile, so i can put a thank u on ur profile,😘 I know that 97% of you won't broadcast this, but my friends will be the 3% that do. In honor of someone who died, or is fighting cancer, or even had cancer, copy and paste." 

 I don't know why this passive aggressive nonsense gets so much traction with Facebookers.
 I guess they must be passive-aggressive.
 But it's about Cancer!
So you can't be irritated by it.

 Blah.

Sunday, September 18, 2016

FB meme moan

"Dear men.... take the photo... 

 It doesn't matter what she looks like, or if she tells you no, take the photo. You may not think about it often, or at all honestly. But how many photos does she capture of you, of your family and of your life you've built. But when she is gone, those photos won't show your children the women who was behind the camera. 

Take the photo. Messy hair, no make up or a dirty old t-shirt won't matter to your children when she is gone someday. What will matter is that you loved what you saw enough to take a photo, to document it, to preserve that moment in time of the woman you love. No woman wants to look back at a lifetime of selfies. 

Do what she does for you every day, and snap a few moments in time. Be proud. Take photos of her. Before kids and after. Just take the photo...." 

 I kind of like and hate this. It's good to be positive about your family and your partner and to want to preserve those moments.

The thing is, if she tells you no - don't fucking over-ride her wishes. No is a very important word. Take fucking notice of it.  Even if she looks beautiful to you.

Make her feel like she is, all the time, and fucking respect her wishes, and then maybe she will be happier in front of the camera.

Why we need feminism (again)

Because whenever someone poses a thought experiment proposing some draconian measure that impinges obscenely on bodily autonomy, it is always by default the female body.

I give you:
"Do you feel that bio-implants be mandatory as a means of birth control? Do you feel a license should be required in order to conceive?"

Fuck off.

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Sometimes I get it right

Often I feel like I don't do enough, aren't supportive enough, should be thinking ahead more of others' needs.

And sometimes I get it right.

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Was it all a lie?

He said.
No, when I was in it, I was in it,  I was trying
I wasn't lying.

We open, I open,  he opens
Those dusty chests of you did this and I did that
And was _that_ when
You
Gave
Up?
He asks. Of each one.

Like giving up is the worst sin.

No, when I gave up
Was that moment
You know when:
OK, I said.

But you knew it wasn't.

And so! It's about the money

Sneering

But it's not that
 it's the weight of the past
and those chests in the attic flying open choking me with dust
and I can see no light for us,
for ME
and this new ending trips me and lies its heaviness on me,
and it whispers in my ear:

it
will
always
be
thus

And I know
I know
For the first time
I can do better on my own.




And you know what (suddenly angry)
Why am I so desperate to say it's not about the money?! I am hardly a fucking gold digger.
I am _tired_ of scraping around, of having nothing, of there being no progress and never anything left over, of nothing being sacred,
And listening to you spinning your schemes and from Peter to Pauling and feeling bad if I want something for the house and do we have enough money for me to take the kids swimming?
And it's all draining away through your fingers down the pub, but if we argue about it, it's not the pints and the smokes and the fucking gambling machines, it's my bottle of wine and groceries and petrol. Well fuck you.
Fuck you
Fuck you.

So yes it's about the money
And it's about the lies
And most of all about never keeping faith with me
about anything we agreed

There would always be a reason.

And FYI
I don't buy the bottle of wine these days.
I don't want it.

Sunday, May 08, 2016

Huh

I was very perplexed by Michael McIntyre's act last night, that had him complaining he looks Chinese when he's jet-lagged. On BBC at primetime. Just what?

Friday, April 15, 2016

When we pathologise behaviours of person or group of people…

I think it's a dangerous thing. I think it stops us from looking at ourselves. I think when you label manipulative behaviour, emotionally abusive behaviour and socially inept behaviours as those of sociopaths or narcissists or persons on the autistic spectrum (these being the popular go-tos) what it does is unhelpful.

Firstly,  are you really qualified to diagnose someone and if you are, are you so qualified you can do it over the interwebz?! Really really?

How do I mean unhelpful?  Well, I think it is generally an endpoint, not a conversation starter - and bad unhealthy dysfunctional relationships are not the prerogative of the disordered.  They're something you can end up doing to each other.

I think it others the abuser and makes them less recognisable as our partners who we love or - ourselves..

 I don't want to suggest that people in an abusive relationship should stick it out for the possibility of change or that 'red flags' in a burgeoning relationship shouldn't make you run. I think absolutely run.

But monstrifying the person just, well, it doesn't ring true to me. I'm not saying there are no deliberate predators or monsters. I'm sure there are. Hell, there are people who promote the wheel of abuse  as a relationship technique. Sick fucks. But I think there are also people who don't know any better or who fall into destructive behaviours unconsciously.

Of course intent isn't magic. And it doesn't matter if the effect on you is what the other person intended - it still hurts / undermines / kills you inside. So if it's a pattern,  you're best advised to get the hell out, get safe.

Why it's important to me to not pathologise or demonise, is that it doesn't inspire introspection on one's own destructive behaviours. Because _you're_ not a monster or a predator or a sociopath or narc. But you might very well manipulate or gaslight or otherwise screw over your partner in the throes of self absorption. People fail all the time.


Saturday, April 09, 2016

Instant

Tell me quickly all the things I cannot have with you.

Wednesday, April 06, 2016

Worse things happen at sea

Every cowboy sings a a sad sad song.

Everyone has a sad sad story - you don't got one yet, hey, give it time.

I read someone's piece about 'drama' played out on internet communities and how there are worse things to worry about - and yes, he's got a point - some things people get irate about or upset about can look mighty trivial when matched against trauma, disease, accident or death. (Oh death, lots of long-drawnoutmedicaldyingsdeathdeathdeathyouwouldn'tdotoadog). But even so, you know what, there isn't a monopoly on pain, there's plenty to go around.

Sometimes we get caught up in our own stuff, and yes, there might be time for a reality check and a slap in the face with a wet kipper. But as a response to "I broke a toe" - "well, look over here, this person's leg came right off" - it doesn't stop that broken toe from hurting like fuck, does it? It's just "shut the fuck up, I don't want to hear about it" with added shame - so buckle up and say that already.

Friday, April 01, 2016

Unpicking the past encore

This time, he was on the back foot, or so I thought.

But it wasn't so and I was always stretching stupidly beyond what I wanted to be, to what I thought he wanted. I thought that increased commitment meant that we were on the same page. But we weren't.

When it was unignorable that he was unfaithful, while our daughter was a baby, with someone I knew, I nearly left, I packed up the car. But I didn't start driving.

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Some memories

I'm at home ill, lying on the sofa. I'm not *very* ill, I don't think, just schoolitis, my mum used to call it. I have lucozade!

It's in the glass bottle all wrapped in gold - you only ever got it when you were ill back then. To me it's such a treat, it's worth being ill (especially not *very* ill). I only tore off the gold once, to find the very ordinary bottle inside - I don't know what I expected - golden glass? Still, it's shimmering beside me, that secret glossed over.

I think on this occasion I did have an actual fever, 'though, I am warm and lumpen tired.. Mum has dropped back in from work to check on me and the tv is on: it's in black and white. Mum used to half-joke that I was considered a child in need by the powers that be because we only had a black and white tv at home, when most of the neighbourhood had long had colour.

There's some sort of serious play on the tv: the man has a child on his lap but it's not kind or loving, more imprisoning arms, and the mother character is talking, beseeching, her face strained and pulled, held back by another man. And that man slits her throat quickly and it gapes and there is blood and the seated man is carving out the child's stomach with a knife in a circular motion.

Mum catches this last bit and switches the tv off.

--------------------------------------------

It's Sunday, and I am eating sticky pudding from a tin and Birdseye custard, sat beside the Rayburn in my mum's chair, watching Battlestar Galactica in my jammies after a bath. It's the one where they have found a planet, maybe to stay on and be safe at last, but they discover a secret level where the parasitic aliens are using their bodies as hosts. I watch Apollo and Starbuck rapt. Dirk Benedict is insanely beautiful.

--------------------------------------------

It's the weekend and it's sunny and warm and I am wandering the springy lawns of a manor house, while my mother is pruning and taking cuttings for the owners. I am too young to stay home alone, but old enough to keep myself occupied. I am making up stories. All my stories end up with death. Sometimes I find tennis balls they have lost over the tennis enclosure. Sometimes the lawnmower has run over them, and they fall apart in my hands.

They have a swimming pool. So very blue. It's got a cover on. When I can, I sneak off and press down the cover and watch the water swish over it. I know my mum will tell me off if she sees me, but I do it anyway. I lean over it, and I am a little afraid, because I am not a good swimmer and if I fall in, I will go under that cover and I will drown. I have been warned. I imagine falling in, imagine being trapped under, screaming and struggling for breath, and I lean out again and press down on the cover to see the water. I know that if I owned that swimming pool, I would never have a cover on it but always be swimming in it, and I would let the gardener's daughter swim in it anytime she wanted.

My auntie and uncle had a swimming pool at their house, though. It was one they put up in the summer: circular with a wood frame. If I ran round it fast enough I could start a whirlpool, dive into it and be borne around by my wave. It was better when my cousins weren't joining in, it was just me, round and round.

Where it stood, they now have a fishpond, for different sorts of summers.

Monday, March 28, 2016

loss

Walking through the woods today, with the sound of traffic in the far distance, the birdsong, the rain on the leaves, threading my way between the mossed trunks of fallen trees: hearing the waterfall, and the dog panting joyously as he scrambles through the undergrowth.

And I was thinking about acacia pravissima against the window panes, and a ladder against the chimney stack, and those small tugs of greatness in the people I have loved. So ordinary, so amazing.

And my chest is constricted and I only breathe shallowly because something might break.

Friday, March 11, 2016

129 words

Piece of paper on the sofa. Folded, folded.

It's not my writing. Suddenly stiff fingers holding it, creeping cold through my veins, nausea sweeping through, my mouth fills with saliva and there's a clamping dull pain in my chest.

I am far away, looking through a window at myself.

And then I rush back in.

It's not making sense. It must be my writing. It's the sort of thing he made me write, to start with. But it's not my writing. Plus it's crap. I'd never write that, I sneer to myself. This is half-assed and she obviously hasn't a clue what she's getting into.

Like me.

I'm heavy. It's hard to breathe. Cotton wool chest. I sit.
The baby kicks petulantly inside. Shhhh now.
I'm heavy.
I sit.

Wednesday, March 02, 2016

I chose this

I chose this
And those words make me happy.

I chose this
I choose you (pikachu)!

Tuesday, March 01, 2016

Sorting through the things in my head

Disclaimer: I am aware that I am at risk of rewriting history. But this is how I remember it.

I said to my lover that my previous relationship had always been painful, and this is true.

I loved my ex a lot. I think maybe it was limerence to start with.

He was very much the loved, and quite cold to me. And when we got together properly, I was insecure because of this awareness of the unbalanced nature of our affections. I was always trying to be what he wanted. I remember saying to him once "I'll be whatever you want me to be" as a sort of sexy thing to say, but... I also meant it. (How terrifying). I was really into the notion of belonging to him, of being his.

He broke up with me the day before I was supposed to move in with him. For some reason, I used my plane ticket to go over anyway. It was awkward. Not surprisingly. I don't know what I was thinking to go over anyway. I guess to try and talk about it. Or to try to be a FWB if he didn't want a live-in relationship. How embarrassing. "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there".

A year on, he got in touch by letter, and it all started up again.

Monday, February 08, 2016

Unfinished

My painting,  I began it
It shone in my mind
And I could visualise each stroke
And flow of the paint and the brush
I could feel the tug of it in my hand
And I began

It's half done
And I know
That I will never pick up
The brush again to finish it
I may get out the white paint and slosh it over
Erase it from my sight
Though she will stay there behind that layer
And in my mind.

Saturday, February 06, 2016

"Bravery" in baring

Looking into the stillness of the mirror
And the light reflected in your eyes
I dance there, I dip, I writhe
In the river of dappled images
Silky tones of flow and flesh
All naked women:
Soft skin, pout and pose,
Breasts, lips, cunt exposed
All singing the same tune:
“Bravery” in baring.

And yes there is.
And yet, and yet

Yet female sexuality
Has always been
Bought and sold
And here we are, buying in
Having it sold
Back to us
As our privilege and power.
Yet it was ever thus.

Spitting the words 
“Empowerment” and 
“Acceptance”
When it looks no different
from “Exploitation” and 
“Objectification”.



TL/DR:

If nudity is power, why don’t we see more generals in their pants? >.<

Thursday, February 04, 2016

Zika freaker

"Zika was a ploy to coerce abortion on a very Catholic anti abortion country. Government loves to make decisions for you. Just stop vaccinating babies in utero and poof, no microcephaly."

"It's easy, you round-heeled sluts. Sex is not a recreational activity. It is intended for PROCREATION. Fucking for Fun is not what God intended. So, unless you are willing to accept the consequences of your actions KEEP YOUR DAMN LEGS CLOSED."

The above are couple of comments on Facebook this morning about the Zika virus and abortion.

Some days I get worked up about these things and some days I just laugh my ass off.

Wednesday, February 03, 2016

New keyboard

Inside me there is this bubble of happiness, tugging, lifting me, carrying me, and though there is lot to concern me and weigh me down, that irrepressible bubble is there. 

There is joy and friendship and love and family. We are warm and loving and silly together. Bubbles in the stream.

Remember when you are happy, acknowledge and sing it.

I let go the anchor. I’d been gripping on so hard and so long, my fingers didn’t know what it was to unbend and to feel the bloodflow.
Let the blood sing. 
Let the storm blow.
Let me spin and spin.

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Angry with you

I am angry with you, because you kept us poor, constantly on the edge, poorer than we needed to be, with your gambling and drinking.
I am angry with you, because you boosted your self esteem, by shredding mine.
I am angry with you for making sex something we could fail at.
I am angry with you for all the lies you breathed.
I am angry with you for always taking the easy path, for letting us down.
I am angry with you for never keeping faith with me, for paying lip-service to what I needed but never seeing it through.

We do amicable well. But if you want to know why I am not your friend, I have only just learnt to be angry to express my anger with you.

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

3 days

 Jan 26
 Jan 23

Jan 20

The why oh whys

I don't understand why some functions exist in machines and gadgets. Why is there the capacity to flip your screen upside-down when the cat stands on the keyboard?  I mean,  who actually needs that?

Also, in the car, why accidental knock of button = internal lights stay on (again). A button that really has no business being connected to those lights. Surely buttons relevant to those lights should be the ones visibly attached to them?

Saturday, January 23, 2016

212

I call this victory

The other day, the internal lights of my car were staying on for no apparent reason. I didn't know why, and was quite worried that it would end up with me unable to start the car the next day cos it drained the battery. And so, I investigated and figured out how to get into the internal light, and decided, if I couldn't make it stop lighting by pressing buttons, I'd remove the bulb. It was quite stiff, but I did eventually get it out without breaking it. Shortly afterwards I figured out which button on the dashboard had been accidentally pushed, so all the bulb wrangling was no longer necessary. But it's a victory. Ok, I didn't spot the problem straight off, but I did figure out a workaround. And also learnt how to change the bulbs in the internal lights. I learned a thing!

It's minor, but it's the sort of thing I would have previously left in M's lap to deal with, in stereotypical gender division of roles. So it makes me happy to solve it myself. The small victories.


Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Technology

Technology gives new meaning to "living in each other's pockets". 
Or anyway, you live in mine. 
I like you there. 

I cling on your belt. 
Which sounds more precarious.
 But isn't. 
I guess a tiny me-koala with its claws digging in the leather. 
Which seems apt. 

At least the claws. 

Sunday, January 17, 2016

Jan 17

Cheshire cat?

Saturday, January 16, 2016

Jan 16


Friday, January 15, 2016

Big bang

Just watched an episode of Big Bang Theory that makes me really pissed off. These supposedly 'victim' guys and their relationships.

Penny & Leonard go off to get married and he confesses kissing another woman.

Howard using Bernadette as the "hammer".

Amy finally loses patience with Sheldon just as he is about to offer her a ring?

So it's a woman's lot to put up with anything,  for the sake of a relationship,  even with the most unprepossessing guy? The guys in the series are supposed to be endearingly inept, but newsflash, no-one is that loveable they get to treat people like that.

Blah.


Thursday, January 14, 2016

Jan 14. Alan Rickman's rainbow

I was driving when I saw this one, and it has faded a bit by the time I could take the picture.  Still. Rainbow for the departed.

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Break-ups and bubbles

For my adult life, there was 'we'. And now there is I. And it is good.

I think that.. No, I _know_ that our break up came as a shock to a lot of people. Not least my husband himself.

But after the Madagascar incident 4 years ago, I promised myself it was the last time I would go through another disaster.

We moved on and decided to try following a new tack, a new (old) lifestyle, but this time wholesale. And this time I was going to pursue my own interests as well. It was going to be about what I wanted, not just his subsuming my own.

That took unexpected shape when I met someone, we began to see each other and he started becoming important to me as well.

I really thought the new approach might work, might give my husband what he wanted/needed, and 'though opening our marriage for the first time on my side added turbulence, I wanted to have that too. I felt I was owed it. And I was hopeful. We had got through so much already. We kept going and things looked possible and positive.

Then I got a text message of disaster - and all I could reply was "ok".

And the promise I made myself came back to mind.

 I waited, expecting the old feeling of 'we can get through this' but all there was was 'I don't want this for the rest of my life. I am tired of going round in circles'.

And this time I didn't break faith with myself.

I was afraid that ending the marriage would also mean an ending to my relationship with my paramour: that I presented a very different prospect as a newly single woman than as a safely married one.

But I was prepared to lose both in order to be free. I didn't want to. It held me back for some time and then I realised it had to be risked. So I told my paramour & metamour together what I had decided, and thank fuck, they were prepared to see me through. Which made things easier and happier.

Ending the marriage was like a light coming on, a weight lifted.

Being free is a rush.
It's the sunshine.
It's peace.
It has been the best thing I've ever done. The last six months without him have been just .. better.

The new year has begun and 'though there are many challenges, with family ill-health and uncertainty at work, but I feel ... bubbles of joy.

Blogging and delusion

Well y'know, the photo a day thing hasn't gone so well already - but meh. It's something I will continue with, even though the goal is failed already.

But then if I can't fail self-imposed goals without guilt, what can I fail? It's funny: I was actually tempted to pretend I took some photos and put them up, but who do I think I'm fooling? I write this blog for myself, when I write it - and I guess up until I forget what I did, which I might never, I'd know I was cheating. Weird that it would even cross my mind.

On the subject of writing this blog - it's 10 years old. That's amazing. Posting has been light at times, and tends to be heavier at the beginning of years.... hmmm, I wonder why that could be?!

On the subject of writing other blogs, today I looked back at one I wrote for a few months in 2012. It's interesting to me, because I have been thinking about why I ended my marriage and writing a post about it - and this blog was one I wrote when we were going through another major upheaval. It's good to see I'm not fooling myself in rewriting history to make him out to be bad or something - things were truly bad at times. I'm far from perfect, but yeah, I think more sinned against than sinning.

But I would think that.

It's also curious to see how conventional my set of relationship tools is/was. My mind has been opened to the notions of polyamory and things like this since. Scoff if you will. It went so well in my marriage... But I am currently in a rather happy situation in a V type arrangement. But y'know, check back with me in a while and see if it all goes to hell in a handbasket.

For now, however, I am mostly happy and it's always good to stop and appreciate when you are.

Jan 12


Thursday, January 07, 2016

At dusk

Driving home, we saw a barn owl. How cool! How very beautiful.

I love where we live.

Wednesday, January 06, 2016

Jan 6


Tuesday, January 05, 2016

Jan 5

Stupiddog

Jan 4


Sunday, January 03, 2016

Jan 3


Jan 2

Kitteh

New year's day


Saturday, January 02, 2016

Happy new year

What am I going to do this year?

I want to write, to take a picture everyday, to read, to save up for going away.

I want to gradually improve our house and make sure I make the most of the time with the children.

I want I want.

I aspire.