tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10262528237532648402024-02-18T18:30:03.651-08:00Bobben BlogMy brainpageBobbenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00062074879781489858noreply@blogger.comBlogger95125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1026252823753264840.post-37566844170744445222012-10-14T01:05:00.002-07:002012-10-14T01:05:42.795-07:00And You and I; or, attachment parenting.<br />
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Before you have a baby you are full of ideas of what things you will and will not do. You won't be using dummies, you will be using a certain brand of nappies, you won't be plonking them down in front of the tv to get a break, you will spend all your time entertaining them. I know it's a well versed song but you really know nothing of the reality. </div>
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I didn't read any parenting books pre-sandy. You might think this was because I couldn't be bothered but it was actually because I already knew how I wanted to raise my child. I knew nothing of Gina Ford and controlled crying, of EASY routines and baby whisperers, and of the concept of attachment parenting. All I knew was I was having a baby and my husband and I would do what we wanted. When women working in mamas and papas told me "oh I just let mine cry" I just smiled and walked on, superior in the knowledge that this was my baby and I would do what I damn well liked with him/her. Him as it turned out.</div>
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Regardless of whether you subscribe to theories of parenting or your own ideas this is probably going to be threatened immediately after your little ones arrival by the institution of the hospital. And this will vary to large degrees depending on the hospital you attend. I attended the princess royal maternity hospital at Glasgow royal infirmary. When my baby came he was put on my chest for skin to skin. He started to suck a little after that. That was my request and indeed something the hospital promoted. However, they then brought in the magical post evacuation tea and toast and the woman who did it picked my son off my chest. "I'll put him in the cot while you get your tea" she said, lifting my 15 minute old baby off me, wrapping him in a blanket and placing him into a cold Perspex box on the other side of the room. My husband looked at me and the woman left and our tiny, confused newborn - who had only ever known the womb and had just found a whole new world - started to cry. Stuart promptly took him out and held him and he quietened down then gave him back to me, and he proceeded, for the next 5 days, to only cry two more times in hospital (during a forced bath and when I was told to just leave him on the ward while I went to the canteen for dinner, where babies weren't allowed). Honestly the whole hospital experience is hard to change from. They enforce a routine that you have no say in as its policy and you are so bewildered by medical intervention, and the fog surrounding your general mindset from having pushed a person out of you, that you let it happen. You let them tell you you can't sleep with your baby in bed. You let them force you to change him in the cot and in the cot only, even though it is impractical. You let them send your husband away for half the time you are there, regardless of the fact he is half of the team making and caring for your baby. I suppose many people get off easily, being incarcerated for only a day, sometimes less, but if you combine an epidural with jaundice you end up with 5 days on the ward which feel like a lifetime and result in you going home and putting your baby down to sleep in his cot like they told you before promptly breaking down in tears worrying that you will wake up and he won't be alive any more. The same institutionalisation makes you unaware that you can breast feed lying down in bed (sleeping while you do) and results in you sitting up for 6 hours straight in the middle of the night feeding a newborn trying to stay awake and failing and again manically weeping as the tiredness is so much you can't take it anymore. And when you do eventually get it together enough to take your baby out you put him in a big open space in a pram, the complete opposite of the secure and warm womb he is used to, and it proceeds to break your heart as he cries the whole time lying in that massive white bed as you wish you were back in the safety of home, and so does he.</div>
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So once my baby arrived all my ideas of what I would do seemed to go out the window as the enormity of the hospital experience clouded my judgement. Luckily it didn't take too long for us to work out what worked for us. Well, I say we worked it out, but actually sandy did all the working. Babies are tiny little bags of meat who are apparently born three months too early because otherwise they wouldn't fit out of our narrow pelvises and thus spend the first 12 weeks of life doing exactly what they would do in the womb - eat, sleep, grow. They are ill equipped for maintaining their own temperature and their brains are too underdeveloped to understand that people who are gone will come back. When we got home sandy took over and managed to overrule the inflexible policy of the hospital. He demanded two things to keep us all happy: 1. That I feed him, and that I feed him as often as he wanted. And 2. That I hold him, and that I hold him all the time. And thus a chain of events took place which resulted in me becoming an advocate of "attachment parenting" without even knowing the term or what it entailed, which I expect is exactly how attachment parenting wants the theory to be used.</div>
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Attachment parenting's key theme is that a baby's parents spend time with their baby. That's pretty much the crux of it. A baby who is used to constant contact with their parent, having all their needs met by that parent, for all of its life, expects this to continue after birth. I was already breastfeeding and so I breast fed on demand. I quickly realised that the only time my son cried in the early days was when he was hungry. If he wasn't going to sleep it was because he was hungry too. So I fed him. The joy of breast feeding is the simplicity of the process. The more he wants the more I make and as he grows it changes to his needs and if he wants it NOW it is ready and he can have it. Because of all this breast feeding it soon became apparent that I would not survive if I had to be awake the whole time he was feeding. I was knackered so I lay down in bed and fed him there. And I learned to fall asleep while he did this. And he stopped when he was full and he slept too. And 10 weeks on he still feeds with me lying down at night and we still fall asleep together there and we wake in the morning, him safe and content between his mum and dad in a bed that smells of his family and me having had a more or less full nights sleep. That's the joy of co-sleeping, it just makes so much more sense than putting your baby to sleep in a cold unfamiliar basket, where your baby cant see or feel its parents and where he or she will sleep much less soundly and for much less time. And as for the pram it has come to be used now, don't worry, but for the first few months if your baby wants to be right beside you, warm and safe, at night, why wouldn't he want that during the day too? Enter the sling. What more genius idea is there than taking a baby who technically should still be in the womb, and recreate that situation (warm, close, tight and with mum)? So sandy went in his sling and each time he fell asleep within minutes, waking only to tell me he was hungry. </div>
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And may I now outline the whole philosophy behind attachment parenting? </div>
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The Three Bs</div>
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- Breast feeding</div>
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- Bed sharing</div>
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- Baby wearing</div>
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The joy of all of this is that I didn't need a book or a website or a charismatic entity to tell me to do this. All I needed was my baby. Funny how someone so small and new was far more wise than all the supposed intelligence and wisdom of a hospital. </div>
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We are now approaching week 11 of Sandy's life and the end of the so called fourth trimester. He is still breast feeding and currently we enjoy the benefits of the night time 'dream feeds' where he doesn't even seem to wake to feed, he whimpers with his eyes closed and I feed him and he goes back to sleep. We share a bed at night, the three of us, and I never worry about his well being and I feel strangely lonely if he's not there. He still uses his sling though now he sticks his head out the top wanting to see the world so we plan to upgrade to a more supportive one which will allow him to go on my back as a more attentive passenger. I feel like all of a sudden he is no longer a newborn and that tiny baby phase is inching away with every minute of each day. I am sad to see it go but I'm happy to see my boy developing into himself, becoming a player in the game more than a spectator. Today he watched the formula one and spent the morning chatting with his dad, saying 'a gloooo' and mimicking the shape of his mouth and his tone, talking during the gaps in a conversational back and forth style. I can't believe how interactive he is now. And as we turn this corner to a new phase I am grateful to him for dictating the terms of our relationship. I will continue to listen to him and give him what he needs, and I fully expect the three Bs to take precedent in our lives.</div>
Bobbenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00062074879781489858noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1026252823753264840.post-18314080984839040682012-09-15T08:05:00.001-07:002012-09-15T08:05:25.658-07:00Water-resistant Sling Cover Tutorial<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Since my baby arrived my sling has been my best friend. Sandy falls asleep in it within 10 minutes without fail. And the best thing about it is the ability to just pop it on, pop him in and go anywhere. There is no hassle at all it's just like wearing a backpack on your front. A really cute and great smelling backpack.</div>
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Anyway it's been so hot since I had sandy and I'm really glad for this more autumnal weather but of course that has meant rain. And also wind. So how do you keep a baby in a fabric wrap dry in typical Scottish drizzle? I tried an umbrella which works to an extent but certainly fails in wind. Others suggested buying a too big coat and zipping it over both of us... But I spent 9 months wearing tents and really want to wear my normal coats again. So therefore it has been necessary to find a water resistant sling cover. I was pointed to Hoppediz who make one but after one sling meeter suggested you could easily use a bin bag similarly I had the inspiration to make one myself. </div>
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At first I imagined I would go and source some fabric but then I realised there was a much cheaper option which also took out 90% of the sewing work too. So if you want to make one take yourself to primark and buy one of their parka in a pocket jackets in a size small, they are £9 and all you need aside from this is a sewing machine, or even just a needle and thread if you are a fast hand sewer. </div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, 'Sans Serif', Arial; font-size: 11px;">1. Take the jacket and pull it inside out. From the inside sew up the arms (I.e. where the hole for the arm is).</span>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, 'Sans Serif', Arial; font-size: 11px; text-align: start;">2. Cut off the arms. When you turn it back the right way there should be no arms and it will resemble something like a poncho. </span>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, 'Sans Serif', Arial; font-size: 11px;">3. Now go to the very bottom of the coat where there are two separate toggles on strings. Push the coat all the way along so most of the string is free and snip off each string.</span>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, 'Sans Serif', Arial; font-size: 11px; text-align: start;">4. Go to the inside of the jacket where the zip starts. There is a flap running down the inside. Tuck the end of one of the strings under here at the top and sew it down. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, 'Sans Serif', Arial; font-size: 11px; text-align: start;">5. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, 'Sans Serif', Arial; font-size: 11px;">Now tuck it in all the way down and sew the flap down. You want to finish sewing the flap down 1 inch further down than the horizontal strip that has another string and toggle already on the jacket. </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, 'Sans Serif', Arial; font-size: 11px; text-align: start;">Repeat on the other side with the other string.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWtwY85Wx5I0LjJzgbx8MBXCcoUHMyVssFnYweF1HYKkG3eMmLLLmMQuljrULcE9A196bDmnF-CmUx_d_8_hakEUueRMi3NMVe-vhvMgn3U87lbJw1Bq9ejDoqiCtNVojkTXwElFmK_Q_q/s1600/photo+(12).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWtwY85Wx5I0LjJzgbx8MBXCcoUHMyVssFnYweF1HYKkG3eMmLLLmMQuljrULcE9A196bDmnF-CmUx_d_8_hakEUueRMi3NMVe-vhvMgn3U87lbJw1Bq9ejDoqiCtNVojkTXwElFmK_Q_q/s320/photo+(12).JPG" width="239" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, 'Sans Serif', Arial; font-size: 11px;">6. Now go to where the horizontal toggle strip is and measure 3 inches down from this and cut the jacket across. Fold up where you cut and tidily sew it up.</span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVUgwIR9qJtwqttbwxeGgZPsk1hhMSFyupqVRd415vJc8PK7s7DMdhLOmKTieBv_VOZjvpGxehzDibl8ILOokhOlzqSCE3xt9jOvnf8TED8ygyB31yv2ZptPgOMTwZvhMsxYyjiU4TaS5G/s1600/photo+(14).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVUgwIR9qJtwqttbwxeGgZPsk1hhMSFyupqVRd415vJc8PK7s7DMdhLOmKTieBv_VOZjvpGxehzDibl8ILOokhOlzqSCE3xt9jOvnf8TED8ygyB31yv2ZptPgOMTwZvhMsxYyjiU4TaS5G/s320/photo+(14).JPG" width="239" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, 'Sans Serif', Arial; font-size: 11px;">7. Take the removed bottom part of the a jacket and cut a horizontal strip from each side (the bits where the string and toggles used to be) about 3 inches wide.</span>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, 'Sans Serif', Arial; font-size: 11px; text-align: start;">8. Fold up the cut bit of each of these strips under and sew together to make neat straps.</span> </div>
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<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6bDz9maTOusewGkSpOFYkqzFEwHnsApkdJXXiKtuOHyPFdXnqSSZqRUA17W0Y84VuIiyHFtN0R35J8GkWMiqrNPmJ0dcect5T7ta9UyQvdC_Jmw3KXn-aOFm5VNYh-wOxO8FoMjctJamr/s1600/photo+(23).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6bDz9maTOusewGkSpOFYkqzFEwHnsApkdJXXiKtuOHyPFdXnqSSZqRUA17W0Y84VuIiyHFtN0R35J8GkWMiqrNPmJ0dcect5T7ta9UyQvdC_Jmw3KXn-aOFm5VNYh-wOxO8FoMjctJamr/s320/photo+(23).JPG" width="239" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, 'Sans Serif', Arial; font-size: 11px;">9. Take one end of a strap and sew it onto the jacket just above the seam where the hood joins the body, next to the zip. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNyt0vjAkQuog_teWI94wbPcm8QGy27BtrpT_6mvfpqHS-mLk83NRfmH97AmUh4pGAjpl4kraTId-j1mAIJbAuCfqXYDYiRvkuYdo1IuxwztWBV96aKdUarTqWZWD6WzqsnNealOawsfjM/s1600/photo+(17).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNyt0vjAkQuog_teWI94wbPcm8QGy27BtrpT_6mvfpqHS-mLk83NRfmH97AmUh4pGAjpl4kraTId-j1mAIJbAuCfqXYDYiRvkuYdo1IuxwztWBV96aKdUarTqWZWD6WzqsnNealOawsfjM/s320/photo+(17).JPG" width="239" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, 'Sans Serif', Arial; font-size: 11px;">10. Hold the cover up to your body with the hood where baby's head would be and take the strap and loop it round your shoulder, measuring how long to make it and then sew down the other end on top of where you first attached it (see photo). Repeat for other strap.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkTD54IfhO3IiTAwtOZM-AQTeWOzaP6b1pg61_OQ0wvAy-4fayORhdfQVT8wtquad_HqPXDkIJYfuc0JSPq5IGt3PyMc49WW8jSr8s2EqgCw-z9zb3QKRbH1uW55TnBBsN8WgvrvVch9p8/s1600/photo+(18).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkTD54IfhO3IiTAwtOZM-AQTeWOzaP6b1pg61_OQ0wvAy-4fayORhdfQVT8wtquad_HqPXDkIJYfuc0JSPq5IGt3PyMc49WW8jSr8s2EqgCw-z9zb3QKRbH1uW55TnBBsN8WgvrvVch9p8/s320/photo+(18).JPG" width="239" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, 'Sans Serif', Arial; font-size: 11px; text-align: start;">11. Take the sleeves you cut off earlier and cut out the strap and poppers of each.</span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZX_GnWqZJBnxReff0oEJVl6Yk1ObpdQzzMZGhcHfApC6uDaFy3xxpqip2Gr9T8O6vyrs1S6B41y27qosgf71l-0zp7kblT4YWG_2GNkVOpMjFsOTXnRqnP5VFbhVfqhXj9hEyO7nHhW-q/s1600/photo+(15).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZX_GnWqZJBnxReff0oEJVl6Yk1ObpdQzzMZGhcHfApC6uDaFy3xxpqip2Gr9T8O6vyrs1S6B41y27qosgf71l-0zp7kblT4YWG_2GNkVOpMjFsOTXnRqnP5VFbhVfqhXj9hEyO7nHhW-q/s320/photo+(15).JPG" width="239" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, 'Sans Serif', Arial; font-size: 11px;">12. Fold up the surrounding fabric, shortening the strap a bit by tucking it underneath before sewing each on top of the place you already sewed down the shoulder straps.</span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinGg3VsYXMyuwxW4Eufm57UMNfcE14F_2Xj-ew_jPUJadkZZUQhIORn7GPsVP-NSDy1bChhl0e8fC8lqSEmGUURl1A122xdUgFZcvpuoxf76AhD5kcAJCIPfN8oS5BNrOwQx3GvroIiJLT/s1600/photo+(19).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinGg3VsYXMyuwxW4Eufm57UMNfcE14F_2Xj-ew_jPUJadkZZUQhIORn7GPsVP-NSDy1bChhl0e8fC8lqSEmGUURl1A122xdUgFZcvpuoxf76AhD5kcAJCIPfN8oS5BNrOwQx3GvroIiJLT/s320/photo+(19).JPG" width="239" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5q-qflXIDQU2kZB37hPHWyVEjwb_4w_vQ0gsK83EG-GONUOvGsDOFsCvrQvV4aRSdrMXT1usww5kOYt9ZRHl6g9pLD-pDZfOAsmbPTzwP9NwSWlbb8ejwM1zp9C8chyisUjV2GDnYEZyo/s1600/photo+(20).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5q-qflXIDQU2kZB37hPHWyVEjwb_4w_vQ0gsK83EG-GONUOvGsDOFsCvrQvV4aRSdrMXT1usww5kOYt9ZRHl6g9pLD-pDZfOAsmbPTzwP9NwSWlbb8ejwM1zp9C8chyisUjV2GDnYEZyo/s320/photo+(20).JPG" width="239" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, 'Sans Serif', Arial; font-size: 11px; text-align: start;">Here is the finished thing... from the inside:</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGwIqyzhxt3QBX9p0gqCh8KjV5Laifg9xAiv6sRUWxREg9T9zljM7Xasw4709bE7dbRuB6bZtrDqjRMvmHj7wi2MIhMar_423y2LrM6ClPA1IBQ4HridNRic1wahN-QX93YhpJ4fXA188d/s1600/photo+(21).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGwIqyzhxt3QBX9p0gqCh8KjV5Laifg9xAiv6sRUWxREg9T9zljM7Xasw4709bE7dbRuB6bZtrDqjRMvmHj7wi2MIhMar_423y2LrM6ClPA1IBQ4HridNRic1wahN-QX93YhpJ4fXA188d/s320/photo+(21).JPG" width="239" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, 'Sans Serif', Arial; font-size: 11px;"> And from</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, 'Sans Serif', Arial; font-size: 11px;"> the outside:</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAwkk4gSaJIGwvVwj-1QijLbWKOHk6fn_TnyoCC1ZI5Ypf0V827P1lLkPKUeFEQwmfOh4mz1-hVBPm41aChh4IvcRGHclknLgIYF-2Z0wFouXphUXM13Hk2Wqik-vXq2DGI9_RvPGPOiVq/s1600/photo+(22).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAwkk4gSaJIGwvVwj-1QijLbWKOHk6fn_TnyoCC1ZI5Ypf0V827P1lLkPKUeFEQwmfOh4mz1-hVBPm41aChh4IvcRGHclknLgIYF-2Z0wFouXphUXM13Hk2Wqik-vXq2DGI9_RvPGPOiVq/s320/photo+(22).JPG" width="239" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, 'Sans Serif', Arial; font-size: 11px;">Here are Stuart and Sandy demonstrating it:</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhffdCFQ91i9pXmIwbvJBLHTJrdyHM1J3G_1c_P3XBoNhMUoNPVCNz-G8zevdzslZ1sHH14b0lHqVtyvV8S9-E4M5yQg5BcYX6QZkU5GFOZW489UFZK3XDjcjCNcb9Ebkz5HNFH-YhXOP2k/s1600/photo+(25).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhffdCFQ91i9pXmIwbvJBLHTJrdyHM1J3G_1c_P3XBoNhMUoNPVCNz-G8zevdzslZ1sHH14b0lHqVtyvV8S9-E4M5yQg5BcYX6QZkU5GFOZW489UFZK3XDjcjCNcb9Ebkz5HNFH-YhXOP2k/s320/photo+(25).JPG" width="239" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Tahoma, 'Sans Serif', Arial; font-size: 11px;">Now to use it! You have three methods of sizing the cover with toggles. The ones in the hood will be tightened to make the hood the right size for your baby's head. The ones down the side and the ones at the bottom both tighten to make the cover a shell which fits over your baby's body.</span><br />
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To secure it on over your sling use the shoulder straps to fix it on top. If you are wearing a bag on your back you can use the poppers to attach it to your bag straps so it is even more secure. Finally you can tuck the bottom of it under your sling fabric where baby's feet are so it is secured a the bottom.</div>
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In total it took me about 2 hours to make but this included working out how to make it and photographing the process so it won't take you long at all.</div>
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I'm going to make a fleece liner that can be added to the inside of the cover for when it is colder too, for which I will make a follow up tutorial later.</div>
<br />Bobbenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00062074879781489858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1026252823753264840.post-44552955889027293272012-08-26T11:43:00.001-07:002012-08-26T11:43:09.251-07:00Baby<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.09375); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(191, 107, 82, 0.496094); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); font-family: Noteworthy; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px;">Tomorrow my husband goes back to work after what has been pretty much three weeks off after the arrival of our son. Several times last week I got a bit hysterical imagining what it will be like without him to pass me the bottle of water I've left two centimetres out of reach as I feed sandy. Then I got even more hysterical imagining what it'll be like without him there to talk sense into me when I get hysterical about not being able to reach a bottle of water. So you know how that goes. <div>
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It's true having a newborn baby to attend to is hard work. I don't know about how other people describe it but to me it is a long hard slog... A days hard work followed by an evening and a nights hard work and then straight back to the office. I realised this when he had been asleep for a little while and I started to do something and he stirred and it became clear I had to leave anything and everything else when he needed me, no discussion. You'd have thought I'd have known that but it was like slipping back to my old life for a bit in a dream. </div>
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Things are finally settling a bit now as we hit the middle of week 4. Ok sandy is still unpredictable. In fact he sleeps less now than he did, and has less tolerance of time in his cot or basket or anywhere that isn't in his mum or dads arms, and his feeding is irregular and often. But I think it's me getting a handle on my hormones that has allowed things to seem better. I felt pretty disheveled most of the time at first and routinely terrified all of a sudden for no reason, then manically happy and positive an hour later. Now I feel the calmness you get when relaxing at home again. This is probably a lot down to managing to have a nap, make and eat dinner all in a row without him needing to feed. Funny how a couple of hours of being normal again makes you feel so much more yourself again. Plus our moby sling is a godsend, he falls asleep within an instant in it! </div>
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I know stuart really doesn't want to return to work but I think it will be good for all of us in some ways. It will give him some time out of the incessant baby bubble where all thoughts revolve around every microscopic movement and noise this tiny human makes. It gives us some structure to the day too, stuarts return being something to work towards when it's heavy going. Basically I am feeling rather nervy about being alone with him all day on one hand but relishing the challenge on the other. I'm worried I'm not good enough for him, that I alone can't be trusted to care for something so tiny and precious and perfect. But I know that we are a team and we will manage as long as we work together, and as long as my sling is nearby! </div>
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Being a mum is both the most alien and the most natural thing I've ever experienced. And this time the three of us has been simultaneously a feverish dream and a vivid perfect reality. I wouldn't change it for the world. He's my son, and it's hard to imagine I could love anything more than this. </div>
</span>Bobbenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00062074879781489858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1026252823753264840.post-10882789013011847492012-07-16T00:24:00.001-07:002012-07-16T00:24:20.804-07:00Bobben's Guide to Pregnancy: Part 1<br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Pregnancy sucks. It really does. I just wanted to get that
out there straight away so I can never be accused of lying about it after I
have this baby and apparently get that hormone which erases all the memories of
discomfort and pain. It’s probably the same hormone that makes you go all
squishy and rose-tinted so I thought I’d better start writing this just now,
before it’s too late to be brutally, helpfully honest. I’m not trying to put
anyone off doing anything; I’m just trying to provide a bit of transparency.</span></div>
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Before I got pregnant I had this image in my head of me as I
was with a perfect round bump, wearing tight fitting t-shirts and flip flops,
wandering around my daily life like a ray of sunshine, happily performing a miracle
with seemingly no extra effort. All of these daydreams were hazy and warm and
contented. I used to say to people “I can’t wait to be pregnant. I don’t mean
so I can get a baby, I just mean to be pregnant and have a bump”. It was a
funny and endearingly odd thing I liked to say and it was true that I felt that
way. Oh how I laugh now when I think back on it. </div>
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I’m going to go into a lot of detail about how pregnancy
isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and that people were lying to me about the
reality but actually I was warned a little. My Mum told me what happened when
she found out that she was pregnant with me. She had been trying to conceive
for many, many months and had given up caring to test or notice. When she
started feeling ill she took the bleed she had had that month as good reason
not to suspect anything other than a stomach bug. It was when she had been
suffering for two weeks that she went to the doctor to tell him she thought she
was dying she felt so awful. He told her that she was pregnant and signed her
off work. She told me of her disappointment as the family came to visit her
poorly self and she sat in a crumpled heap by the radiator uttering angrily
“I’m pregnant”. I really should have taken a lot more heed. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, when I found out I was pregnant I smiled back on her
story and planned with my husband the perfect way of telling the family. I
assumed it was just a bad experience for her, to feel so awful all at once. I
thought of all the other information about receiving the good news and all the
television programmes which portrayed that happy moment. I smiled and we
decided to make our news a Christmas eve surprise; what better present could
anyone have at that time of year? That was on the Friday. On the Monday I went
to the doctor and decided I was coming down with something as I felt so hot and
iffy waiting in the corridor. Immediately after eating my dinner that evening I
wanted to bring it all back up. I didn’t, but I wanted to. From the next
morning until 4 months later I felt like I was going to vomit at every moment
of every second of every day. Truth number one about pregnancy: Morning
Sickness is hell. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Morning sickness is like no sickness you’ve ever experienced
before. There are few ways to really described the all-encompassing direness of
that incessant nausea. Now I know some people get that morning sickness where
they wake up, in the morning, and are sick. They vomit, they feel a bit better,
they perk up by midday. That’s what you expect isn’t it? I was watching
television the other day and the woman on it was pregnant. At one point she
dramatically pulls the back of her hand to her forehead and closes her eyes.
“Are you okay?” asks her partner and she nods sadly. “I get my morning sickness
in the evening” she replies, before promptly going back to washing the dishes.
Earlier in the show she was on the beach in a bikini eating chips. I have a few
points to note about how false this whole situation was. Firstly she was in the
kitchen doing the dishes. No way are you going to manage to do anything,
especially not the food covered dishes in the edible-hell-hole that is the
kitchen during your MS. In fact, you can tell it was a totally inaccurate
portrayal of MS by the fact she was wearing normal clothes. And standing
upright. Think more lying down in scuzzy pyjamas. She probably should have been
groaning in discomfort too. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I really want to properly describe morning sickness to you
so here is my best shot. Imagine you go out drinking. You drink A LOT. You mix
your drinks. Some of them are really sugary alcocrap shots in quick succession.
You then eat a massive big donner kebab way too quickly without chewing
properly and go straight to sleep. You wake up and you feel awful. The worst
hangover of your life bar none. You feel that sensation you get right before
you puke, you run to the bathroom, you stick your head over the toilet… and
nothing. Nothing emerges, nothing changes. You can’t be sick but you feel just
about to. Now, imagine feeling like that for <i>months</i>. And imagine that you not only feel like that but you have
to somehow force some sort of food into your stomach while you feel like it.
And water. Imagine that point when you are embracing the toilet bowl, knowing
there will not be the release after you vomit up the culprit which is making
you feel so unbelievable awful, and then having to eat something. The culprit
is your baby and you are going to feel like that until your placenta is fully
grown at 4 months. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
See people who say “oh yes, morning sickness, I didn’t
really get that”, or “oh morning sickness… ugh! … I had it for three days
straight!”? Don’t talk to them. Just walk away. The injustice in knowing you
suffered day and night for months and they had nothing is far too much to
handle on a good day, never mind when chock full of crazy pregnancy hormones.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Anyway, to continue with my story. I started feeling like
this three days after receiving our positive pregnancy test result. This was
two weeks before we were due to tell everyone on Christmas eve. The first few
days I remember sort of enjoying the sickness. It took a bit to come to its
full strength and I was still reeling in excitement about becoming pregnant.
The idea that these were symptoms of my precious baby made them just as easy to
cherish as any other aspect of pregnancy that was to come. I felt a bit like I
was going to vomit each day and for the first time in my life I didn’t mind. I
imagined myself a happy martyr, protecting my baby’s tiny form from all those
harmful things in the world that could penetrate it’s wellbeing through my
digestive tracts. I was being Mother for the first time. Take a few more days
of that and the fun started to wear off. It’s easy to suffer something horrible
at first when it has a positive end, your morale is high and expectations are
too. But after a week of it my patience was starting to wane and I was starting
to get fed up of immediately regretting eating anything. I think the worst part was that I didn’t
vomit once. Not once. I’m presently at 36 weeks and 2 days pregnant and I have
not once in this whole time brought anything back up. So it was the Monday before
the Saturday we were going to tell everyone about the baby. My Mum happened to
visit me and I sat on the couch feeling like death, lying about how I thought I
was getting a flu and did I have a temperature and wishing I could tell her as
being home alone all day everyday feeling like someone had poisoned me and left
me to slowly die was wearing thin. I didn’t tell her but the next day I hit
rock bottom. I got up and felt so poor, I couldn’t face anything. But I felt I
needed to eat, I was growing a baby and it needed sustenance! So I went to the
kitchen and heated up a half bowl of tomato soup and ate it with a slice of
plain white bread. Ten minutes later I was on the bedroom floor hunched over our
orange sick bucket (fond memories of this chap I must say) crying. I called
Stuart and begged him to come home. I had reached breaking point. Stuart said
he would try and get home from work and would call me back. I felt marginally
better, at least he could scrape me off the floor and help me put on some fresh
clothes or something. He called back to say his boss had said he didn’t want
him going home because it was now ten and by the time Stuart got back to me it’d
almost be afternoon anyway, and I was “only sick in the morning, wasn’t I?”.
How I would have laughed hearing that had I not been curled in a ball weeping
at that point. I told him enough was enough I was calling my Mum and thus the
image of us all sitting around then imaginary fire on Christmas eve, tree
lights twinkling as we told them the news and hugged and hugged shattered and
all I could see and all I could feel was nauseau. I called my Mum on her work
number as it was class time (she is a teacher) and I knew she would be worried
as I never call her through the front office so I had to offer it up straight. “What’s
wrong?” She said as soon as she answered. “I’m pregnant.” I said. “And I don’t
feel well.” I stuttered. “And I need you” I sobbed. Her reply: “I’M ON MY WAY!”.
And so Super-Mum flew into action. As she drove to me I cried into my empty
sick bucket and felt a weight fall off me. No longer did I have to pretend I
was fine when all I wanted to go was lie in a ball and groan quietly and not
eat. She arrived in ten minutes and she came in and whisked me off to her house
where I sat on the sofa wrapped in a duvet next to the pine smell of the
Christmas tree. It took several days for her to realise that I was pregnant I
think, but I was looked after like a pro. So, the moral of the story? Don’t
expect there not to be morning sickness. Don’t expect the sickness to be
bearable. Don’t expect anything less than feeling the worst you have ever felt
in your life. And don’t expect to be able to manage it yourself. So many people
wait until they are 12 weeks to tell everyone they are pregnant, but believe you
me, holding off for ten days was a feat in itself, and I have no idea how
others manage to convince their loved ones they are just “under the weather”
when they feel as though they are going to vomit all over them every second of
every day. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We told my Mum and called my Dad that day. Stuart came and
got me from my Mums and we drove via his parents and told them. I sat white and
shaking on the couch as Stuart told them I wasn’t feeling well, that I had
morning sickness, and they jumped for joy and smiled and hugged and hugged me
and I felt I could just die at that moment as I felt so awful. We told the
extended family on Christmas day and that was that. I thought back to myself
scoffing at my Mum’s miserable tale of telling the family with disgust that she
was pregnant but at least she got to do it all in person. My fate was the same
and to be honest the whole scenario set the scene for the entire pregnancy:
unrealistic expectations shattered by obnoxious reality. I am so, so happy to
be having my baby and I would never give anything back or change a single thing
that has happened. However I would wish that at the start someone had told me
just how hard it was going to be and just how debilitating. Every aspect of
pregnancy has been unimaginable and unexpectedly hard and I feel continually
that I have been conned and that the tales told of pregnancy are sugar coated
fairy stories used to continue the populating of the world unabated. Pregnancy
is tough, and the morning sickness is just the beginning. </div>Bobbenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00062074879781489858noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1026252823753264840.post-51866807078262705342012-05-08T00:36:00.000-07:002012-05-08T00:36:51.647-07:00jigsawMy husband is hurtling down the country on a train at present. I hate when he goes away like this. It's funny how he travels to work every day and I don't worry, because he always does. Yet now he's headed on a different track in a different capsule of metal and it's at the back of my mind. It's not like I think anything bad will happen, it's just that the change skews things. How would I get to him if he needed me?<br />
<br />
When I first started going out with him we were close right away. You know how there are couples who've been together for five months and are still reluctant to refer to each other as "boyfriend"/"girlfriend"? We were the opposite of that. We started out a few days prior to Christmas. We loved each other and said so by the end of the first month of 2006. For Valentines day he got me a bracelet. He knew I would like jewellery, knew I wanted all those token gestures of relationships that get put in your head from external sources of information. He bought me a silver bracelet made by an independent jeweller in Glasgow. I think he ordered it online, though I don't know for sure. It was delicate and silver, little chain links with minuscule charms on. It had a silver heart, a silver star and a quartz star. It came in an irregular red fabric pouch with white dots. I wore it every single day.<br />
<br />
One day late last year I came home from work and it wasn't there. It being silver had made the tiny clasp move with my body heat before, but I had always felt it slip away. This time I hadn't and I noticed it was gone but it wasn't a cruel blow yet. I thought it would turn up, that I would find it somewhere. I was complacent even after it was gone, assuming it would reappear as it always had done. Perhaps I was being taught about that complacency. It didn't turn up and I began to realise it was lost and I suddenly realised how much it meant to me. I searched in as many places as I could remember looking for it. I felt the elation of the possibility of its return when I remembered somewhere else it may be lying, and the stinging defeat of it's not being there. It had always been there before, on my wrist every day. I felt naked without it and where it used to live was ugly and old. I stopped wearing anything on that wrist and I mourned the loss. People will always tell you that things are just that; objects and nothing more. Cars are "just heaps of metal" when lost in a crash, and jewellery given by a loved one no replacement for the person themselves. I don't know about the truth in that. I felt as though I had been careless with our entire relationship letting it slip just because I could and not guarding it enough.<br />
<br />
I got pregnant not long after and by the end of December last year I was sick all the time. We told the family early because it was so bad. Our anniversary came and I didn't even realise what day it was until my husband presented me with a card and tiny wrapped present. I hadn't even thought of him, hadn't got him anything, and inside the silver tissue was a little irregular red fabric pouch with red dots. He had contacted the jeweller, described the long since defunct design she had once made. It contained the same charms. It contained a new charm, a tiny silver plate with the date on it; 22.12.11. I wore it every single day.<br />
<br />
Last Saturday we went swimming. We were going out afterwards to a market of nearly new baby items. I took my watch and fastened my wedding and engagement rings onto it, before securing the bracelet through the watch too and putting it in my bag. We swam. We dried and changed. We left the baths and as we walked to the car I clipped the bracelet on to my arm. Hours later we got home and I started to take off my jewellery and my wrist was once again naked and ugly and old. This time the pain came straight away and I shouted and it was gone and the same flooded back and I sat on the edge of the bed and let the initial outburst melt into sullen silence. Stuart went to the car to look for it immediately and I couldn't even look up. I went to the kitchen and sat on the floor and I cried and I thought of it on the ground in the mud, the small silver plate with 22.12.11 on it shining up as someone trod it further down into the earth. I imagined it being pawned. I couldn't imagine finding it and I couldn't imagine searching. Stuart returned and he didn't have it as he said nothing when he came in and he came to me and was touched by how much it had meant. I told him it was horrible that the only way to truly show just how much someone means to you was to be hurt in such a repetitive way. I told of my carelessness. I hadn't learned my lesson. I would learn now. I told him never to buy me anything like that again. I told him I loved him and he told me not to blame myself and I cried a lot because that's what it's like being pregnant and emotional.<br />
<br />
None of this actually means anything I suppose. No-one would judge love on such trivial and tangible measures. It's hard to prove love and when it's really intense it's hard to find any medium through which to display it. I don't even have a picture of the second bracelet. I don't want to forget the date. There is no end point to this discussion, only that it hurts when things like this happen. And that hurt stems not from your own loss but the symbolism existent in what happened, and how careless and stupid you can be with the things that matter most to you.Bobbenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00062074879781489858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1026252823753264840.post-60326621749312223612012-04-25T01:14:00.003-07:002012-04-25T01:28:28.068-07:00women drivers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6hBYCDUJGLgdke8qU8OKYveJ4O5aXzv2yBqa0z_x1el2EmqsKo6N_jmYSycufaoA1zQeRWvztMuSDOO8Pq7tWNi9QQBDe11nOomxIvoiXz-971sVLcQS1o7KNccmvqQv_F_oF6DIHtz3F/s1600/women.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6hBYCDUJGLgdke8qU8OKYveJ4O5aXzv2yBqa0z_x1el2EmqsKo6N_jmYSycufaoA1zQeRWvztMuSDOO8Pq7tWNi9QQBDe11nOomxIvoiXz-971sVLcQS1o7KNccmvqQv_F_oF6DIHtz3F/s320/women.jpg" width="177" /></a></div>
I'm forever writing posts on my tumblr about feminism and gender equality from the point of view of someone who is neither a feminist or equal in gender. I feel I'm always grasping at straws when it comes to formulating concise ideas about gender in society and always bringing slivers of interesting thought that make little impact on anything.<br />
<br />
For me, the fact that feminism exists means gender inequality is inherent. If there was no inequality then there would be no need for feminism. Interestingly though, there is no such thing as masculinism whilst this gender inequality exists. It's a simple case of history being written by the victor. It frustrates me and I know I could go into a lot of detail as to what is unfair about society as a woman but the point I am making is that this is not helpful. Sure, I get treated in an inferior way on certain occasions as I am female, but equally I get treated poorly more often because I look young, often by older people. Yet somehow older people treating youth like lesser people doesn't result in social movements and activists. This is probably because there is a sliding scale of age and it is less A versus B than male/female divides. The point is that the only way to stop there being social gender inequality is to stop making an issue out of gender, to think less of people being male or female and think more of people being people. I'm the first to admit that there are differences between men and women - physiologically - and that to treat everyone the same would cause problems specifically in relation to health care and other similar physical issues. However, shouldn't the point I make stand up in terms of a person being a person? Sure a woman can give birth and may need to be treated in a certain way whilst undergoing such events, but similarly a man may experience physical issues related to parts of his anatomy which a woman does not posses, and need treated in another specific way due to this. Conversely though a <i>person</i> may have diabetes and need specific treatment for this, and another <i>person</i> may have mobility issues, and need specific assistance in this.<br />
<br />
There is one gender related issue that comes to mind whenever I think about gender and sexism specifically, and it is driving. I found the above image on pinterest and looked at the comments below it. Some took a positive spin, saying that the picture clearly depicted a lane for women only, as they are a better quality of driver, and the only ones allowed on a new piece of road. Another commented anecdotally that her husband had crashed his car recently, yet she never had, even though she was a woman driver. One person tried to apply a logical test to determine driving ability but failed to move this beyond the gender issue, stating: "Just no. Most women suck at driving. If you can't reverse it, you shouldn't be allowed to drive it forward". The comment that struck most of a chord with me though was the one said this:<br />
<br />
"part of me wants to be offended and the other part wants to laugh out loud"<br />
<br />
It struck a chord as it is often how I felt about this in the past. I am a competent driver. I say this as I have a natural ability for driving compromising not only an ability to learn and function by the rules of the road, but additionally a good attention span, depth and speed perception and ability to predict the reactions of other drivers on the road. I have driven a car around a race track and my father used to be a rally driver, I believe it to be a skill I have learned from him and also my mother, who is also a competent driver. My husband is also a good driver, but he used not to be. He used to be less confident and less aware of other drivers around him. The reason for this was that he had not driven much. When I learned to drive I was taking lessons and also taken out by both my parents to practice, firstly on private land and secondly on the road. This did not happen for my husband and he only had lessons. By the time I passed my test I'd probably put more miles under my belt than my husband did in the year after passing his. However, now we are both competent drivers. Interestingly I have crashed a car and he has not. Make what you will of that, but please if you want to criticise me for my crash, criticize me for not taking the cruise control off when it was raining. And compliment my husband's lack of a crash for not having been driving under those exact same circumstances.<br />
<br />
Going back to the comment above the reason I feel so conflicted about it is for two reasons. Firstly I too want to be offended; if anyone was to criticise me for poor driving I would be outraged to think this was because I had a vagina. No, more likely it is because I was just not good at driving. Some people are, and some people are not. However on the flip side I also laugh at the picture. It is the defence mechanism of someone who knows that feminist arguments are pointless but are not quite sure why. They take themselves and put themselves in with the men, the good drivers. Women who deem themselves good at driving, laughing at the other women who are not. It's true though, isn't it? From the perspective of a competent driver whenever someone pulls out in front of you without thinking, or waits at the empty junction before realising they can turn, or reverses without looking, it is probably 90% of the time a woman. Of course this is not scientific but women do commit driving outrages that seem to be common to their gender. They seem not to think quickly enough, they don't look ahead to what will happen after the thing that is happening at that exact moment, they don't anticipate anything, they just let things unravel in front of their eyes. To other road users this is incredibly annoying. Sometimes like the person who posted that comment, I want to laugh out loud. More often or not I get irate and you will find the words "woman driver" being uttered in my car as I avoid scrapes with dozy road users.<br />
<br />
Surely then, it is acceptable to deride women drivers and to get angry or laugh at them? Surely it is something inherent about the way women are made up physiologically, or mentally, that prohibits them from being as good as men at driving? Surely not. Consider this: a young girl is growing up. Both her mum and dad drive. Most of the people she sees driving are men. Her dad drives more often than her mum. Her grandad drives but her gran does not. Her Mum is not confident when driving. Many people around her comment about "women drivers". Even if her mum doesn't ever cause a car accident, comment is never made about her safe or effective driving. Her dad talks about cars and is passionate about them. He is knowledgeable. Her mum is not. Got the picture? Well, when this girl turns 17 and steps for the first time behind the driver's seat of a car, what do you think her expectations for her driving ability-to-be are? Doesn't look like a positive picture does it? Even if she is a good driver and already possesses the skills necessary to be competent, will that be able to override the 17 years of constant social pressure on her not to perform well? You can bet her brother gets into that car with the utmost confidence that he has the ability to do this, and all he needs now is to learn how. She's getting in knowing that she is destined to fail, even before she starts.<br />
<br />
It would appear to be a little more clear why then that "women drivers" are so bad then. The only other inconsistency to follow up here is why are there a group of women who are good drivers, and who find it necessary to alienate themselves from the rest of women, ally with the men and say snort "women drivers" in that so familiar way? As someone who deems themselves separate from "women drivers" I believe this to be down to upbringing and character. If you know someone who is a good woman driver then I bet they will be one of two things, either A) someone brought up in a family where the daughter was encouraged to do anything a boy could do or B) someone who has a large amount of self confidence and the attitude that they can accomplish whatever they like, so long as they put the time and effort in. In many cases it will probably be a combination.<br />
<br />
In the car with my father the other day we laughed and derided a driver who drove up to a completely clear roundabout in front of us and stopped dead. The driver waited for a moment and then continued. They could have looked 100 metres before the entrance of the roundabout and seen that it was clear, and driven straight through without coming to a standstill. My dad remarked, "got to be a woman driver". I concurred. I don't think my dad is perfect, in fact I am fairly sure he is sexist on many occasions. His saving grace though is that he never is to me. He knows he would get into far too much trouble for that. So as much as the onus is on men to stop being sexist about issues such as "women drivers", it is even more on women to stop letting any person's stupid stereotypical attitude mould them into something they don't need to be. There are many different people out there all with different skills and it is unacceptable to think that the skills for driving cannot be learned by a women. Women need to stop labelling themselves women and start labelling themselves as people before we can ever move past sexism and inequality based on gender. And then we can simply shout "idiot driver" as we are cut off by someone on the motorway, and continue down the road in a world where people are people and that is all.Bobbenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00062074879781489858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1026252823753264840.post-87578179608531984952012-03-20T12:19:00.003-07:002012-03-20T12:50:41.113-07:00stressStress is so stupid. Even the word is stupid. I hate stress. Actually, wait the word isn't stupid it's a totally accurate transfer of a word used for something tangible to something that is so incredibly not tangible. <br /><br />Sometimes you can't win. I've been trying really hard to be positive. I think a lot of people feel that all they do is moan and whine about things that aren't perfect and I really don't want to be someone who, when they are 60, you can tell is a moany bitch just by looking at the downward lines from the corners of her mouth. Despite this it hasn't worked out. We are hoping to move house, that is our flat is for sale and it has not sold. It has been on the market for a week short of 2 months. I know it was overly optimistic to expect a bid immediately but we were quite hopeful it wouldn't be too bad. Perhaps it still isn't. Whatever, I'm so fed up of hearing about what's usual for the market <span style="font-style:italic;">now</span>. I don't care. All I want to be is irrationally impatient and foot-stampy over not selling yet. Because not selling yet means our house is still sparse and unhomey, to try and attract offers with a lack of furniture. What a stupid idea. And it has to be clean. All. The. Goddamned. Time. And I'm fed up of cleaning it. I'm fed up of sweeping up stray pieces of cat litter and hoovering for hours on end and doing the washing up every single day yet never having a clean kitchen. I'm fed up of thinking "oh, I'd like to do that but there's no point until we move". And I'm fed up of noticing time ticking away while money goes down the drain on storage and my due date gets closer and closer. All in all I hate the whole situation.<br /><br />This is funny because up until 3am last night if you'd asked about the house I'd have been the picture of positivity, telling you that everything is on track and, while we've not got bids yet we have had viewings, and most loudly that I'm not worrying about it! I'm just letting what happens happen! Because I'm that kind of person! And if it's for us it won't go by us! Fuck that. Anyone who actually knows me will know that I'm not laid back. I am a control freak. And a realist. And if you want something - like a house that's for sale - and you can't afford it, it's not because that house "wasn't meant to be" its because sometimes life sucks and things don't work out. <br /><br />About a week ago I noticed that I was grinding my teeth in my sleep again. I was waking up and flopping about at night and THINKING about things. My dreams were awful collaborations of everything I'd done that day in freakish montages. Yesterday I developed a horrible itchy rash on my sides. By the middle of the night it spread to my legs and arms and at 3am I woke up. I tried to get back to sleep but I turned over and again as my heart race started increasing and my mind was fuzzy and too clear all at once. And I was having a panic attack, because I was fooling myself. So I made revelations finally about how I've felt for the last few weeks and realised I had been fooling myself with my cheerful exterior. Only it was no longer a facade and the contradiction in what I was telling myself I felt and what I felt on the outside was what produced so much stress (tangible) that I broke. <br /><br />Today I went on the bus to Edinburgh. I booked Megabus but the bus was a Citylink coach; a minor alteration which I found hard to bear due to some internal fragility. I built up strength throughout the day. My mood throughout was stripped back, down trodden and generally dull. But at least it was truthful. It was a day where all I did was travel and work and think. At least I wasn't filling the time so I didn't have to think. On the way home I looked at all the gardens on rows of identical houses, deciding which I liked and what I would do if they were my gardens. I imagined owning fields and where I would build in it. It only occurs to me now that this is a continuation of a theme. A vent from below blew hot air up and a circle from above blew cool air down. It smelled of clean clothes. Then it smelt like toilets. My cheeks ached and my eyes burned. I thought about Stuart and felt like crying, but not in a desperate way, only because the reflex was recently tapped and still well exercised. I looked down into the windows of cars we passed, watched drivers and where they put their hands when idling down the motorway. I got home and felt like I was home which was bittersweet and I kept trekking. I've been working all day, even to this point. I'm going to have a bath and try to find relaxation now. Try and ease the incessant itch of the skin on my sides and hope that I don't awake with a jaw melded shut by my own force. I'll be fine tomorrow, I know that. The evening is just a reproduction of past evenings events with a melancholy spin. The best that can be done is to accept it and find some comfort. This all sounds so sad but it's not really, it's just life and sometimes you have to be withdrawn to heal the cracks in yourself which you one day realise you have unwittingly self-inflicted. At least it feels real again.Bobbenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00062074879781489858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1026252823753264840.post-80983283919256461272012-03-02T00:28:00.005-08:002012-03-02T01:37:30.338-08:00pregnancyBeing pregnant is like being the same person in a different body. I'm sure there are few people who are 100% comfortable in their own bodies. I'm certainly not that way but I feel that after 24 years I had grown very used to it. Aside from a period of illness in 2007 I've always been rather attune to what my body was saying, how it was behaving and for what reasons. I know what it's like when I'm sick and I know what it's like when I'm well. I know how to keep my energy levels high and how to feel good and bad about what I'm doing with regards to it. Body and mind were one, they may not have loved each other in a particularly vociferous way but there was a calming familiarity in these interactions which makes predictability enjoyable. <br /><br />This all changed when I got pregnant. I got pregnant in November 2011. It was only the second month we were trying. I got quite over-analytical in the first month of tiny symptoms, convincing myself that maybe just maybe first time was a charm. My advice to anyone looking for those 'symptoms' of early pregnancy is this: if you feel like you, and I mean in any way like you, then you ain't. In October I felt like me; like me with my head in the clouds but whatever. In November I felt like me, with no false hope and a general once-bitten-twice-shy cynicism which allowed me to only realise I was pregnant when those cramps in my lower abdomen woke me up at night. I thought to myself, well this is all a bit odd, normally my period pains are quite reserved individuals, more general dull aches than fire-breathing dragons, causing me to wince awake from sleep doubled over. I rebutted advances in early December and vividly remember telling Stuart that "the die was cast". We both assumed the same negative response. Stuart got a test from the pharmacy. I finished cleaning the bathroom before taking it. There was a languishing apathy that surrounded my whole being when we undertook it. I waited for a single line, thinking instead of just enjoying Christmas. Suffice to say the line came along with its little buddy and we were pregnant. We celebrated for two days and then I was fully possessed.<br /><br />Early on it turns out pregnancy was toying with me. I imagine it sitting on my shoulder unknown to me, causing these stabbing pains and smiling as I continued my life as usual. I did feel myself apart from those pains and pregnancy was toying with me like a cat with a live mouse under its paw. I wriggled away in celebration of our positive result and pregnancy waited patiently, before extending its long sharp claws back over me for real this time. That was week 4. By week 5 I was sick. We had found out on the Friday and as I sat in the Doctor's waiting room on Monday I felt feverish and too hot and sickly. I thought I was getting the cold and I laid my head back against the wall closing my eyes. Later I ate with vigour as the old me used to and the wave of nausea that immediately followed this conquest struck me as very odd. That's the thing with this whole pregnancy scenario, you could read up as much as you like about it and discuss every symptom and side-effect but there is this constant cloud of naivety around you once you are in it, like "morning sickness? surely not!". <br /><br />I got the morning sickness for 2 months and they were hellish and they ruined our plans. I remember my Mum reciting the story of how she announced my existence to the family; sitting in a corner in a hell of sickness muttering with utter disdain "I'm pregnant" to relatives who though she has hitherto been in the throes of some tropical illness. I laughed at that thought and Stuart and I planned our perfect telling of the wonderous news. Christmas eve! What a day! The anticipation! An early present! How joyous! It came to four days before Christmas eve and I was sitting over a bucket wanting to bring that seemingly innocuous tin of vegetable soup back up so badly but was unable to when I snapped. I called my Mum at work and remember the words so clearly. "Hi Mum. I didn't want to tell you this over the phone but I'm pregnant and I feel awful and I need you". She bundled me off to her house. Later that evening we told Stuart's parents who were so happy and I remember sitting there on their couch shivering and feeling as though I was going to pass out and wishing I could share the joy. All I could feel though was as if I was hanging onto the edge of a cliff with my nails digging into grit, trying to hold out over a nasty fall into even more sickness. <br /><br />Suffice to say Christmas was not in the least jolly. And New Years Eve was spent on the phone to NHS24. And the rest of the holidays spent coming to terms with the fact that I would continuously feel as though I was about to puke, but that I would never get the relief of actually doing it. This era lasted a long time and though it became more manageable I never had periods of feeling better. I never had a time of day where I felt alive again. I never woke up one morning and felt like I could become myself again. I don't know if this is the same for any long-term illness people experience but I felt as though the longevity of this era of constant illness changed me. It seemed to change my outlook and my tastes, my goals and my passions. It seemed to change me to the very core of my being and it scares me that I'm not back to normal yet; perhaps I won't be for five more months when everything will have changed indeterminably forever. Maybe this is the point of pregnancy, learning to deal with change and inconsistency and not being able to control your own life anymore. I find it quite frustrating but in a foggy, far off way, like my emotions are held apart from me and I can see them but I can't grasp them fully. It enraged me that I couldn't eat the things I liked anymore, but I merely moaned about it. It irritated me that I had no energy to take part in positive fantasising about the future, but I merely shrugged at the thought. It upset me that I not longer wanted to do or make things, but I simply felt confused at this revelation and settled down to daytime tv. It does seem like pregnancy takes the edge off of any feeling. Perhaps it is a defence mechanism. The midwife told me that in pregnancy the body is in a constant state of fight or flight, your eyes constantly shifting about for unnoticed danger. It explained why I shivered for no reason and why I dozed instead of sleeping, but it didn't explain why I had to lose part of myself for the experience. Why don't I like sweet things anymore? Why do I want to eat crisps? I hate crisps! There are two nobbly-bobbly ice creams in my freezer which have been there for weeks and how are they still there and not yet digested in a sugar-crazed frenzy? Why do I no longer want to make things? Why does organising the week and all my tasks seem like pointless busywork? Why can't I seem to engage the tiniest bit of energy and excitement into doing anything? I used to be such a passionate person. I used to find myself in an idea and pursuing it endlessly until I had achieved it and feeling so full of satisfaction and well being at the idea of completing a task that it over-ran me. Now I'm lucky if I can find enough energy to make a dinner that doesn't simply need 15 minutes in the oven each evening. <br /><br />I complain to everyone about how pregnancy is a conspiracy. I tell them that I think no-one really reveals the true extent of the unpleasantness because it is all some big plot to keep people procreating. I complain to everyone that it's unfair that 5 in 10 women don't get morning sickness, and 2 in 10 get put in hospital because of it. Everyone should get it mildly; we should share the burden. I complain that I put up with 2 months of sickness only to come through it into 2 weeks of constant headaches. I complain that I am so tired that it's a hassle even to go to the bathroom, which, by the way, I'm doing <span style="font-style:italic;">all the f-ing time</span> now. I used to be an incredibly positive person. I used to take a lack of well being or low levels of happiness and spin them into good again by working hard and achieving something and feeling worthwhile. I was a do-er. I did things. Now I do nothing except moan about feeling crap and having nothing to do or nothing I can do. I'm a complete drag and I can feel it exuding from me every time I talk to someone. I'm really pissing myself off.<br /><br />It seems amusing that I have the time to write this as I have been ill in bed for the last week with a chest infection - the secondary impact of a simple cold due to the repressed immune system which is consistent with pregnancy. It's not all that amusing though; it's just the way it is. I am incredibly happy to be carrying a baby, don't misunderstand me. It just irks me when you hear of blooming women with energy and vivacity and the ability to grow a person inside them without a second thought. It makes me downright outraged to think of people who don't know they are pregnant til 3 months in, or 6, or even til the baby is coming out of them. I can only hope that putting in the time now results in a shortened sentence for good behaviour and that the labour and first weeks will be okay. I want to stress it again that I am so happy to have this baby. Indeed, all the trouble with pregnancy has had nothing to do with the baby. Fingers crossed it has been perfect. It has wiggled on the scan screen compliantly and presented it's heartbeat upon request. There have been no untoward pains and worries. The other night I was sitting with my Mum noting a very acute pressure or ache in a tiny spot not too far from my right hip bone. "It'll be the baby" she said and I looked confused. I missed the fluttering-of-wings, flopping-of-tiny-fish feelings you are meant to be able to feel in the early weeks. But at 16 weeks I can feel the baby sticking its little limbs into me, pushing on me. It's probably complaining that my constant hacking cough is keeping it from its beauty sleep. People tell me not to worry about being sick, that I feel so bad because I'm bearing the brunt of an illness made for two. I love that I am protecting the baby. But I hate that I am becoming a martyr for it. I complain often of those people who are so consistently sour-faced that everything they say is negative, even when it's meant positive. People with everything they could want complaining about the little things. Sweety-wives grumbling about the ills of society which barely affect them. They always have south pointing lines around the mouth. For some of them their mouths are even in a perpetual frown. Am I becoming like that? Is it a side-effect of enduring the negatives of pregnancy? I hope not.<br /><br />The point is this is a last hurrah. I feel a bit better today after four amoxicillin tablets and a whole night's propped-up sleep. I'm going to try and be positive. I don't think it's unfair for me to say I have had negative things to dwell on thus far. Stuart said to me last night that he would fully understand if I only wanted to have one child (assuming the potential to have more). I think it's hitting on him now too. I'm ditching the negativity. I'm trying to raise the strength to find me again, under this pile of dirt and un-caught-up on work, and with that my positivity, or at least my drive. Tomorrow we go to (most likely) buy our pram with Stuart's parents and I'm going to feel well and do well and enjoy the experience. I'm not going to lie, I'm very much looking forward to getting our baby out safe and returning to myself. But for now I'm going to see if myself still exists as I did. That is perhaps the biggest fear I have right now, that pregnancy has changed me and that I won't find myself in the rubble again.Bobbenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00062074879781489858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1026252823753264840.post-13779277629055864092012-02-01T01:54:00.001-08:002012-02-01T02:03:21.342-08:00anticipationI'm supposed to be making resolutions. I don't know if I can be bothered. Today seems like a day where letting plans fall through is the point. Why spend a day such as today in a library? There's no reason. I was sore from working hard on the back court yesterday in preparation for photographs for the sale of our home. I took a bath even though I knew there wasn't enough time because that's the kind of day it is. I read I capture the castle and my favourite part of that book, where she has the day to herself and it's warm, golden and still. She swims in the moat and sunbathes on the roof. She naps in the afternoon and sits as the sun goes down in the countryside, lighting a bonfire. Honestly the part where another person appears is more unwelcome than welcome when I read it. I can't believe real summer like that exists. Every year I hope for it and even though it doesn't come it makes you appreciate the seasons changing a bit more, and makes you hopeful, which is a mood altogether welcome. I lay in the bath trying to imagine the hot water as the sun and me on the rooftop. Then I decided that today would be a holiday. I told my baby that we were going for a walk and that I'd always protect it. I can't see the point in making resolutions when sometimes just living is enough excitement for me. It's nice to feel optimistic again and I can feel the downsides of the last few months melting into obscurity as I type. I'm looking forward to a lot of things and I don't intend them to be resolutions. I'm looking forward to spring and the approach of summer. I'm looking forward to trips to beautiful towns and countryside. I'm looking forward to moving, to roses in the front garden and sunshine in the back. I'm looking forward to August and the emergence of one of the two people that matter the most to me. I'm looking forward to everything I've always dreamed of because I'm on that path now, since the wonders of 2010, and it will come and it will happen. Right now I look forward to picking snowdrops at the Necropolis, pretty pictures and lunch at IKEA. I'm going to have truffle cake.Bobbenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00062074879781489858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1026252823753264840.post-57951592464180776562012-01-08T04:40:00.000-08:002012-01-08T04:47:03.253-08:002011 resolutions...unkeptLast year I had 12 resolutions and it would appear that what they say about the best laid plans is true...<br /><br />1. Ride Mary-anne more - <span style="font-weight:bold;">I no longer have Mary-anne after she bonked me on the head and sent me to a&e and I decided to play it safe...</span><br />2. Save up for a deposit - <span style="font-weight:bold;">Well I have made some savings in 2011 so that's a keeper</span><br />3. Save up a Cats' 'instead of insurance' fund.<span style="font-weight:bold;"> YES. done and done</span><br />4. Keep Running Regularly.<span style="font-weight:bold;">Up to August this was true... after that not so much. But, I have reasons, I will explain in my next post </span><br />5. Don't Succumb to Politeness if Ever Faced with the Former Bridesmaid Again. <span style="font-weight:bold;">No need to keep it yet</span><br />6. Get a masters, get funding for 3 years and start my phd.<span style="font-weight:bold;">YES. This I achieved </span><br />7. Learn Something New: Latin.<span style="font-weight:bold;">Er, no. I did not</span><br />8. Don't Rely on the TV to Get to Sleep. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Nope. Nope...</span><br />9. Bake Something, Once a Month, in the Shape of Gingerbread Men, and Share it with my Brother, Jamie.<span style="font-weight:bold;">Fail</span><br />10. Never Buy Bread From a Shop*.<span style="font-weight:bold;">YES. I did this, and it is something I am most proud of. Getting a breadmaker helped a lot.</span><br />11. Grow My Vegetables More Efficiently.<span style="font-weight:bold;">Garden was a fail this year :(</span><br />12. Once a Month, with Stuart, Cook a Home-Made, Joint Three-Course Meal.<span style="font-weight:bold;">Another first half of the year yes, second half no kind of one</span><br /><br />So I guess on the whole I failed but the most important were kept so that's okay. Keep posted for a proper post on resolutions at the end of the month, the lateness will be explained in the post ;)Bobbenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00062074879781489858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1026252823753264840.post-9189810146225739232011-11-27T09:30:00.001-08:002011-11-27T10:32:57.118-08:00the things that happen, autumn '11<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQsWzZxYesltyEPaz5P4yhFqqKulsopUAsvLKhEwu6Zc0jkOtK6izw2MGgeaFX9YLqrrXWff1s_7_RR7buF5ExorOIse4fwEvQovBs1NXVxHp3_RZAfe3LaZwCqmkHwfKP-HwuR0dMFpaT/s1600/stuart%2527s+30th+party+006.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQsWzZxYesltyEPaz5P4yhFqqKulsopUAsvLKhEwu6Zc0jkOtK6izw2MGgeaFX9YLqrrXWff1s_7_RR7buF5ExorOIse4fwEvQovBs1NXVxHp3_RZAfe3LaZwCqmkHwfKP-HwuR0dMFpaT/s320/stuart%2527s+30th+party+006.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5679736397351449986" /></a><br />Stuart turned thirty on 6th October and we had a house party involving giant gold 3 and 0 balloons as well as a lot of cake which never got eaten!<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN__3_UejkqwStVggozKbesKzH2a5t4NCBuSdOjZtAPVD6lZSAg7Lz1dHYhX1rpUqo0rTexzaeXOwTMc6dxhq9W4I8UudoTjXEXqNAds-5Ar2P3MWlKuuVv791239fqaQcbiEh4mq-JyAC/s1600/IMG_5108.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN__3_UejkqwStVggozKbesKzH2a5t4NCBuSdOjZtAPVD6lZSAg7Lz1dHYhX1rpUqo0rTexzaeXOwTMc6dxhq9W4I8UudoTjXEXqNAds-5Ar2P3MWlKuuVv791239fqaQcbiEh4mq-JyAC/s320/IMG_5108.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5679738386017571826" /></a><br />Then it was my birthday on 3rd November, we went to xscape and Jamie won a whole load of tickets on the arcade games which we pooled and I bought prizes to share with people.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbiTEh8Mu9ltIFJuw2CqjptXVZECAhKCeyE0pK1rdr63hspfI4Hl7rOaifRVCX_LQRRyCq3cBFKIzPiUIgRPvCl6IAWdsvk1TsCZskJY9B_Xwz2qj4D_8SHOLyH2vs2uJlshI2y6Ic2UOP/s1600/IMG_5238.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbiTEh8Mu9ltIFJuw2CqjptXVZECAhKCeyE0pK1rdr63hspfI4Hl7rOaifRVCX_LQRRyCq3cBFKIzPiUIgRPvCl6IAWdsvk1TsCZskJY9B_Xwz2qj4D_8SHOLyH2vs2uJlshI2y6Ic2UOP/s320/IMG_5238.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5679740356929068146" /></a><br />The cats have been as playful as ever.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-WRT-voDk0AqYw9Cjnhebmx4ulToz17eMXlWSnnXGkVnbL75XRYez8v5N0mFH6wKWE1ZkT4pjuk5EdmAJ-Ef3M-FTlylpmIzSvGdkixEy5ciYXc6jpTDb93sDzL9xci7wI0Kzqs1xOGGm/s1600/IMG_5793.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-WRT-voDk0AqYw9Cjnhebmx4ulToz17eMXlWSnnXGkVnbL75XRYez8v5N0mFH6wKWE1ZkT4pjuk5EdmAJ-Ef3M-FTlylpmIzSvGdkixEy5ciYXc6jpTDb93sDzL9xci7wI0Kzqs1xOGGm/s320/IMG_5793.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5679741673680487090" /></a><br />Many hats and scarves have ascended from their shoe boxes on the floor of our wardrobe back into circulation as the weather gets, well... wetter, if not colder. <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ7nFuwj7ovRNkKFgu02pRGePsDQwVbEVDqsndnmIm51QvOiDsxZXTrxqYrs_ZfNXFLmzsyJjdIY5vefkLsMjghKDhJOeKG6-8IQ5muyLjfe53i29pwiNWEM94sGAJpKQEinFabXy_yjJW/s1600/IMG_5811.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ7nFuwj7ovRNkKFgu02pRGePsDQwVbEVDqsndnmIm51QvOiDsxZXTrxqYrs_ZfNXFLmzsyJjdIY5vefkLsMjghKDhJOeKG6-8IQ5muyLjfe53i29pwiNWEM94sGAJpKQEinFabXy_yjJW/s320/IMG_5811.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5679742356499251538" /></a><br />Yesterday we went to the Fort where the coca-cola truck was visiting and they were playing "Holidays are Coming...!" which was fun despite the insane rain.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji2Y24XAsvpYMh3sHNy-MgVQiY_mu3PfssDZXxTHyizfiqJdRnwUX5C0C3PxHd3r1NBHiQgMaLNYtloG8MGGg6fbSrOxKsqEsHhqIrB-MK4gwlqBPqvzi5uXUDTmCbIyZRunlDp0vW9TiS/s1600/IMG_5847.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji2Y24XAsvpYMh3sHNy-MgVQiY_mu3PfssDZXxTHyizfiqJdRnwUX5C0C3PxHd3r1NBHiQgMaLNYtloG8MGGg6fbSrOxKsqEsHhqIrB-MK4gwlqBPqvzi5uXUDTmCbIyZRunlDp0vW9TiS/s320/IMG_5847.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5679743085733466514" /></a> This evening the skinny moon said hello. I love winter!Bobbenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00062074879781489858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1026252823753264840.post-35070811819211174512011-11-26T12:08:00.000-08:002011-11-26T12:12:40.304-08:00changeI'm going to be changing this blog a bit soon. It seems that all the words have fallen out of me. I used them all up writing a masters dissertation and with a PhD thesis to come they will be a scarcity. I started this blog because I used to write things, especially when there was no-one to tell them to. Now I have all the listening I could ask for and though I harked for the past in the form of this blog, I find I am forcing myself to be in some way poetic. I don't want to be false. Yet I don't want this blog to go to waste. I post a lot on tumblr which I love and many people comment on it's ability to keep those at a distance close to my life. I sometimes say it enables friendships where nobody gets hurt and that is true though it sounds a bit ruthless. Sometimes though, the things I post get lost in the mess and sometimes these things mean little to my life. I'm trying to lay myself out on a page for anyone who wants in and as words will no longer deliver alternative means will have to hold out in the form of images. I'll post soon.Bobbenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00062074879781489858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1026252823753264840.post-10968379623847686332011-11-18T03:33:00.000-08:002011-11-18T03:45:42.941-08:00Oftentimes it surprises me how few people you can rely on. I'm never disappointed in that reality. People love to tell you how they are 'there for you' but that only applies when it matches their own wants. Doesn't it feel good to see a friend struggling and be able to say "I'm here if you need me"? Doesn't it make you feel like a noble and magnanimous person? How often do you ask them if they need you though? How often do you take the time to contact them and say that you've not heard from them in a while, and that you are interested in how they are. Good, bad or otherwise. Not often I'm betting. <br /><br />I get it, there are important things in life and there are things central to your being which you need to dedicate time to. I understand, I have the same thing. People spread themselves too thin nowadays. Friends doesn't mean anything, it's a worthless title. And the last time you went through something awful, it took for you to show this to another before you got support.<br /><br />People love to be there for you and they love to portray themselves as a shoulder to cry on but that's only one part of it. How can you have a relationship with someone if they will never contact you? I don't run after people anymore, I stopped that a long time ago now. It's apparent that there are few people in life who you can actually rely on noticing if you need help or not without you having to ask for it; the last thing you'll want to do is ask for it. I can count on one hand the number of people outside my family who I would rely on. <br /><br />To those I can rely on, thank you. Thanks for actually taking the time to ask, you are a tiny minority of those that I know and I truly am grateful to know you. You'll know if you are one of these people because you'll have initiated talking to me, and me to you.Bobbenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00062074879781489858noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1026252823753264840.post-41985915258313411652011-11-12T14:31:00.000-08:002011-11-12T15:05:45.019-08:00imageHave you ever considered the extent to which you are based purely on the image you wish to protray? That you do things based on what you think other people will view you as? Do you do things because you want to - things that you like - or because these things will characterise you in a way which you want others to see you? <br /><br />I've been thinking about this quite a lot lately. I've been trying very hard to be myself, the core essence of my personality as shaped by my physiological nature and the imprint life has made on me thus far. When I was younger I would make all decisions based upon how these things would make me seem to my counterparts and it pretty much made my life troublesome and myself a conflicted shell of who I should have been. I've been working towards dropping this continual need to be viewed well as I have continued my life and though I will never be able to say I am truly unaltered by the perspectives of other people - as, let's face it, that would be unworkable and less than admirable - I believe I am currently far more honest with my character than most.<br /><br />Last year was a turning point where I met a girl who I thought was individual, unique and interesting. She seemed to have very clear ideas about who she was, what she wanted to look and act like and what she did and did not like. At first this was refreshing and encouraging but it became quite quickly obvious that her own insecurities were shaping how she acted, and that she was a very restricted person. It's obvious with hindsight but in many instances people have a great knack for turning a lack of character into a very convincing façade. Needless to say it doesn't take much time to get beneath the outer layer and see the conflict within. It turns out that I am no longer friends with this girl as I didn't embody an image close enough to her own in order for her to be seen with me. That's a shame.<br /><br />It's tough being yourself, it's not mean to be, but it is. Recently I've been trying to align my mind and my actions as closely as possible without being hurtful. I think that is a good barometer for sensible day to day life. For example, the other day at work I told everyone that I wasn't a people person, that I don't tend to get along well with others. I told my friend that I think that most people in the world are stupid. I criticised mainstream television programmes I find futile and moronic in front of people who I knew possibly watched them. You might think this pointlessly antagonistic and sometimes I would agree with you. But that in itself is a trend of society brought about directly by the inability of people to act like themselves in public. It is polite to go to your hairdresser and respond to the question, "Do you watch the X Factor" by saying "No, I've never caught it". It is not polite to say "No I find this programmes to be irritating and the content at very best mediocre", but you know what, it is truthful. I suppose the happy medium is to say, "No, I don't like pop music, nor do I like reality/competition television programmes". Either way, you run the risk of being thought either rude or elitist. Why can't you just be thought of as having one of a plurality of views on the subject? Why can't we just accept that not everyone likes the same thing.<br /><br />It's so tempting to be so brutally and honestly myself that I say everything I think. Being truthful is so enjoyable and refreshing that it is hard not to get carried away. On the whole so far I have found positive results, more people describe me as original, or odd "in a good way". Most people find it endearing, and why not? How often do you really get to see right inside a person, to witness the functioning of their true character on a day-to-day basis. Let me tell you this, normality, fence-sitting and inoffensive middle-of-the-roadness are not appealing qualities in the slightest, they are boring. Hey, if you don't get a positive response at least you will get one.<br /><br />The point is that this has caused me to constantly be thinking of why people are doing things or why people like things. More and more I see people doing things that everyone else does. Why? Surely with all the different types of people in the world, the multitudes of different traits and talents, then people should like different things? Surely some people are going to stand out and dislike things? Is it just that I am abnormal, or unique? I'd love to flatter myself but I doubt I am all that original. It seems more likely that people do the same things because they are too timid to not follow the trend if they think it pointless. I suppose for many it is easier to not put a skirt over those leggings than to explain why you think seeing the outline of someone else's crotch as specified by everyone else is ridiculous. I've been turning this analysis to myself now considering if I tend to do things in the opposite vein, turning my attentions to things off the beaten path because I detest to be associated with the masses. Honestly, I am sure that I do, and I am sure that I hate that this is the case. I know I find more ease liking things other people don't like than things they do. Despite this though I'll still like all these things that appeal to me, it's just how I feel about liking it in the first place that changes. I'm trying really hard to be myself right now and I'm going to keep doing that. So, in this spirit of honesty I've decided that I am going to start a Truthful Tuesday section of my tumblog where each week I outline one truth I would be less than inclined to reveal normally. To start this off I will go with a simple and honest one which is this: I don't think that Kurt Cobain was the incredible genius people beleive him to be. I think he was good at what he did and certainly relevent, but his work just doesn't strike me as on a par with other music legends which could be be named. This is personal - much like my Mum disliking Bob Dylan - it just doesn't get me in the way other music does.Bobbenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00062074879781489858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1026252823753264840.post-90951243108220657022011-11-01T12:20:00.000-07:002011-11-01T12:33:49.424-07:00Moving OnI've been working as an administrative assistant in an office at University for the past few months. It's a temporary position and finishes a week today. The girl who is going to be filling the vacancy permanently started today and shadowed me. It's really odd how much I'm going to miss it and more unusual still how I will miss them when I don't even really know why. I suppose it reveals a lot about me when I note that it's probably the camaraderie of being part of the team. And it is a team not just one forced upon people by situation. I've never worked anywhere where politics has featured less than there. Granted I've not worked in many offices before but I am led to believe it is a common scenario. I'm never part of a team. I'm the lone wolf. If you want something done right you smother yourself in all consuming loneliness and get it done better than you could even have imagined. It's incredibly hard to be included in much if you are willing to uphold honesty and good morals, especially if it involves a lot of social interaction. That's why I find it hard to be part of a group of friends. It always boils down to misunderstandings, lies and people getting hurt. It always results in winners and losers and the winners write the history. Staying away from that means I can write my own history, but it is altogether less action packed. The thing is, being part of a team in a professional capacity allows one to form friendships which are never taken too far, and in-jokes that never cut close to the bone, relationships you know won't falter, and trust which impinges on regulation. It's a sad state of affairs but for me friendship is 1% compatibility and 99% reliability, and that's why it never works out. So I'm going to miss seeing people at the times specified in an outlook calendar and I'm going to miss people noticing when I do something helpful or nice for them. Despite the clinical nature of my analysis I will miss these people because when it comes down to it they are decent and I enjoy their company. They are the kind of people who home bake a cake for your birthday and all of a sudden I don't really know why I would choose to give that up. In light of recent events I can't help but feel like moving on is stepping onto a ledge and it's a long way down if I fall after climbing this far.Bobbenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00062074879781489858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1026252823753264840.post-32611382655754744372011-10-12T13:17:00.000-07:002011-10-12T13:36:01.627-07:00I went to a meeting today and it was not good. It was obvious that he had been caught out and he knew it. He saw my face when he told me to come back later and he saw what he'd done and he went on the defensive and I was cold. I came back an hour and a half later and he was harsh. I sat and I knew what the outcome would be so I didn't even bother to take of my jacket and my head became so hot and I felt my face burning as my body temperature bounced off the limiter and I was too set in stone to care. I stopped giving him the time of day. What he said hurt. The intent was to ridicule and deride and it worked. There is no way you can win when it feels as though you are living at home with your parents again so I became monosyllabic and shot darts of poison wherever I looked. Someone put their head around the door and I smiled a vicious smile as he suggested they meet for a pint. As I left I knew it was time for the post game review and I went off without a care for dignity or winning or social interaction itself. The cool air outside helped my warm head and I felt stuffed in a bubble of air. On the street they were painting lines on the road and the noise made my hearing numb and my inner ear crackle; a weakness I blame on spending nights in clubs for a month in my first year of university. I bought a drink I didn't want and avoided the man asking for adoptions of guide dog puppies even though he didn't want to ask me. I must not have been his target market. As I walked the rain was like mist and the cold bit me and I was glad for the heat I had endured in the name of obstinacy. I was in a blur of hatred for all and myself. I imagined what I could say what I should say and how I should relay such dictations. I spoke viciously in length and I spoke without care as I left the room. I wrote emails in short hand and letters in long. Doctor's notes and complaints flurried in my mind as tiny particles of water soaked into my clothing. I didn't notice the strange men hanging about under the bridge and they didn't notice me and I swore to be better and to be worse and to resist and then I succumbed and the words formulated in my mind. I think I that I may have made a mistake in choosing to do this. I do not have the intellect, or the common sense, or the general knowledge, or the endurance. Into my vision came a two pound coin on the ground which I picked up quickly and kept walking. I held it in my hand until I reached the garage and as I walked up the hill I let the anger and the hurt seep out of me and the sweat and my heart rate burned and bitter tiny tears singed the rims of my eyes. I gave the coin significance and I told myself of the obvious problems other people had and convinced myself of my strength. I told myself that bridges have been burned but that this is for me. Later Stuart confirmed it. I re-enacted the entire meeting and I raged, but quietly, and I seethed, but softly. I placed the coin on my bedside table and I thought of the draft in my bag and I shuddered and I knew that the next few weeks would be sickening but manageable. Then we prepared dinner and talked of the important things and smiled, calm in the satisfaction of our own entirety being enough for each of us always.Bobbenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00062074879781489858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1026252823753264840.post-37916219645049831542011-09-29T11:25:00.000-07:002011-09-29T11:43:15.533-07:00patience my dearI'm an impatient person. I don't like to wait. It's the way I was brought up. Really, it's about knowledge. I will not wait in the dark to find out about something. Part of this is about personal insecurities and part of it is about the high-functioning character of my brain. If you keep something from me it either won't be for long or it will be forever. Right now my mother is keeping what my husband's 30th brithday present is from me and I hate it. I know fine well the reason for this is that it will be something exciting for me too, but I hate to be kept out of the loop. Tell me the day and time something is happening and I'll be patient and plan it but tell me there is something you can't tell me and all hell will break loose. I can't wait, it's as simple as that. Of course this characteristic didn't seem out of place when I was growing up, surrounded by people who imprinted their personalities onto me. It did become apparent though when I met Stuart and started to interact with him and his family's way of doing things. For Findlays, everything good should be a surprise, a way of making something exciting even more special. A nice notion I think you'll agree? I think most people would. Except me. Don't get me wrong, I like the sentiment and I would even like to be able to savour surprises like my lovely family-in-law. But I can't. Stuart tells me, he and those like him are natural queue-ers. Waiting is their game, and they do it so well. If Stuart is anticipating the fun of the rides at the back of the two hour queue at Disneyland, I'm definitely the girl making a point of not lining up at the departure gate in the airport. I'm making the effort for Stuart's birthday, I'm planning some things and I'm not telling him, but I've already gone to great lengths to tell him not to make surprises for me on mine. Maybe it's weird but I can't seem to help it. I have tried to be more spontaneous, and I've tried to enjoy anticipation but I can't shift the feeling of being irritable at my lack of knowledge, and, ultimately, my lack of control.<br /><br />Sometimes though, things are completely out of your control. Sometimes things just happen or don't happen and you find yourself grasping onto straws in the vague hope that you've elicited some actual meaning and sense. You find yourself torn between searching for logic and reason and proof, and painting meaning in where prior there was just a void. Waiting is an incredibly hard task and I fail at it every time. I'm considering the notion of things being 'worth the wait' and I find that invariably they are. Invariably they will always be.Bobbenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00062074879781489858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1026252823753264840.post-81037890625168695812011-09-17T09:50:00.000-07:002011-09-17T10:24:24.894-07:00The Other SideSomething that always surprises me about myself as I am now is the stark contrast to my younger self. The main difference that strikes me currently is that when I was younger and I was feeling in anyway down, lacklustre or anxious I would write. I look back over journals kept then and I am surprised that there is actually minimal amounts of teenage angst therein, and reality lying for all to see. Words epitomise the true feelings as they then existed and the proof of that lies in the flush of heat in my chest when these memories are awoken with such vivacity that it overwhelms me. Contrast this to the me of now and you will notice gaping holes in my writing and you are now to be informed that these chasms represent emotional difficulties and times of unease. Times when the immensity of incomprehension and discomfort render one unable to articulate things that seem at that moment to be the most profoundly unwanted conditions imaginable. This makes it incredibly hard to write about the times when things are most hard, and consequently the times at which writing would be most welcome for. The most vivid and truthful writing emerges as a result of negative experiences, they enlighten and teach, and I am useful at relaying them. My writing in these times is stuttering, and simple and straight to the point. The words seem childlike. They are the words in bold in the thesaurus lonely, stark and obvious and I can't bring myself to write them. Writing of painful truth is hard enough to do poetically, but I am too complex as an adult to let such things emerge in the way they ought to. I suppose I am worried that the reality of how you feel in dark moments will shock those who read them, or that admitting their existence to yourself will cause circles of revelation that are dangerous to one's sanity. There is a process we go through in times of trouble, and for me this involves a difficult mixture of denial and panic. Creating discourse is not in the order of play. <br /><br />Thus, my writing this passage currently will signify that the worst may yet be passed and the actuality of better times to come acknowledged. I am very rarely completely open about how I am coping with life on a day to day basis, even with people who are close to me. Brave faces come easily and I don't even publish this blog on other interfaces where people I know will see it any more. But I will be truthful. This summer has been hard. And as is always the case with the most troubling emotional intricacies, there is little reason for it. At best I could classify it as change, inconsistency and continual fluctuation's effect on a person over a prolonged period. At worst, I would say that I am never at ease in summer. Now it is full autumn as far as I am concerned and I'm easing back into normality. It is selfish to say as I know there is a lot worse - indeed, I have known it myself - but I feel happy again. Today I visited Summerlee Industrial Museum with Stuart and we took photographs and wandered around the canal in silence and fresh air that bit like winter. At the tram lines in the utopian created street I crouched over the cobbles to take a picture. The sun was hitting the roofs of the houses and tram and I felt a swell of happiness that seemed quite remote, quite unknown, like a far removed acquaintance. I felt myself going 'Oh' in recognition and I smiled. I told Stuart. Suddenly things that felt like the end of the earth a few days ago felt manageable, even mistaken. Coping is dripping back in slowly. It's been a long slog through times when things were not great, but equally not bad. I honestly don't know if short, sharp periods of dire circumstances are favourable to long dragging days of banality that wear you down with time, or not. All I know is that now I am on the other side and I can write again because I feel once more like there is a point to it, and that I will look back and be glad to have these words. I'm going to make big decisions, now that I finally feel able to surmount the daunting once more.Bobbenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00062074879781489858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1026252823753264840.post-40619133591738075792011-09-01T11:27:00.001-07:002011-09-01T11:27:56.117-07:00On FeminismPicture this scene: I am at a go-karting track in Tenerife. I am with my husband. We are shown to the go-karts which sit in a line in the middle of the pit lane. There are two girls, myself, my husband, and five other men. I sit in the kart I come to first, it is the last one in the row. The two girls are in their late teens and thus go into the smaller karts which sit at the side of the pits. They go off first. We await the start.
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<br />This is the point at which a face appears in front of me. He asks, “have you done this before?”. I reply “no”, indeed, I have never raced a go-kart here before. He looks at me very directly and points to the pedal underneath my right foot. “This…is to go”. I look up at him, frowning and smiling. “This…” He continues, pointing to the pedal under my left foot, “is to stop”. I nod very slowly, smiling in irritation. “Not at the same time” He mouths each word obviously and waves his hands across each other to fully convey the message. “Ohh-kayyy” I reply, rolling my eyes. At this point I expect him to move to the kart in front of me, containing Stuart, to repeat the ridiculous exhibit of just how dense people can be. I imagine us laughing about it together on the relay bus back to our hotel. Laughing and smiling. Suffice to say, he does not move on and tell Stuart.
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<br />When I realise this I am angered. My first thought is, “why me?”. My Second thought is “well, duh”. As I fester with tingling waves of irritation they start the kart at the top of the row and off he drives. The second kart is now started, and the third, until they are starting Stuart’s in front of me. As the man who starts the karts comes to mine he looks at me and asks, “have you done this before?”. I give him a quizzical look, “Yes, I have driven a go-kart at home.” He points to my right foot and I stare at him in the same way I stare at approaching charity muggers back home, but unlike them this one does not take the hint. “This foot… is go” He nods emphatically, I feel like a child. “This foot” my left “is stop”. I feel like I have the intelligence of a marble. “Not at the same time” he stresses, speaking to me the way idiots speak to foreigners on situation comedies. I look at him incredulously, “I know how to drive a car” I implore. “Go slow your first lap” He says. “Yes, I KNOW” I say through clenched teeth. Whilst saying this my kart has been started and the first one to explain to me about how to flex muscles in my feet is behind me saying “go… go…gooooo…” in the same tone that children use to taunt each other. I put my right foot down and fly out of the pits in a haze of fury and humiliation. I don’t know if it is just that I am good at driving or if the red mist came down but somehow I managed it. It doesn’t matter but for what it’s worth I was fourth fastest, beating four of those unassailable entities who can do no wrong, also known as men.
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<br />I am no feminist. I care not for stereotypes of bra burning and rejected chivalry. A girl at university once told me she was an “anti-feminist” and I was impressed by her… balls. I think of it now and then I remember the rigours of go-karting and I feel as though that god-damned piece of wire and fabric is choking the life out of me. Despite this, I still can’t get around the fact that I like men. What’s more, I admire men. All my idols are men. All items in my life that do not have a very obviously pre-assigned sex (i.e. if they are pink or have long eyelashes) are men. I would not do very well with languages where nouns are gendered. Blame me, blame my upbringing, I am the antithesis of a pink princess. I want to do everything men do and unlike many who would call themselves feminists, I don’t want to flaunt my femininity whilst in the middle of a rugby scrum. I don’t know that you can really want gender equality when all you want is for gender to not be noticed at all. I find it very hard to place myself when I know that I am unable to be a woman in the perceived way that I would be able to convey this. For me, being a woman is having inconvenient periods and a lower level of physical ability than men and that is it. All the rest is society and that is it. I’m fed up of feeling inferior because everyone wants to champion the woman who uses her feminine charms to work her way to the top. To me, that, and all the rest of it, is sexist.
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<br />For some there are key criteria for discerning when being discriminated against based on sex is over. For example, when women and men are paid equally. For me, the issue won’t be over until nobody thinks of it again. If a woman is paid equally to a man it won’t matter that she has the same amount of money, she’ll still be treated based on sex, not on competency. Until people stop thinking in terms of sex, only then will it not be an issue. This is so complicated I can only imagine the sheer number of problems that there are for people of mixed gender.
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<br />Here’s the thing for me. You may think to tell me that those go-kart people were obtuse sexist morons who should be reprimanded. You may tell me that even if they were there are a whole host of them out there and that I personally can’t fight them all. You may tell me that I should use my sexuality to the best of my ability and embrace exactly who I am. I am woman, hear me roar.
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<br />This is who I am. I am a person. I am not someone who deserves to be judged based on their sex. I like to wear clothing that doesn’t sexualise me. I can’t do the whole girls at their sleepover talking solidarity sister bit. I like “male” activities but there is no way in earth I will participate in them if I feel like people notice me because of my sex. For them to notice me because of me; that is all I want.
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<br />I suppose to cut to the chase I am a feminist inasmuch as I find discrimination against women, and sexism unacceptable. I hate being patronised because of how I look. Imagine in that go-kart a black individual is singled out and patronised due to their being different to the other people participating, I cannot begin to imagine the amount of shit that would hit the fan if that went down. Yet, oh dear me, here I am, a stupid woman who can’t drive a go-kart, let alone a car, let’s make her feel like she has the worth of a peanut and send her on her way. I hate that this happens and I don’t know what you can call it but there is no way it can be sexism if I am just swapping being singled out in a negative way to being singled out in a positive way. I’m fed up of playing the game. I’m out. I’m no feminist, I am nothing; and I hope you’ll treat me that way.Bobbenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00062074879781489858noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1026252823753264840.post-65142880517427297562011-08-25T12:06:00.000-07:002011-08-25T12:13:51.902-07:00your wife of 363 daysi can’t do the talk like they talk on tv
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<br />and i can’t do a love song like the way it’s meant to be
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<br />i can’t do everything but i’d do anything for you
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<br />i can’t do anything except be in love with you
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<br />this played at some point during our wedding day. i have gypsophila in the house; all i need now are white roses. this time a year ago i was waiting for indian food, depending on the way you judge a year. it's funny how time flies and it's funny how everyone always says that but it does and it feels like i've not given you enough yet. everytime i hear these songs it makes me ache with the heaviness of the day, the great weight of significance and the knowledge that it will never happen again. all i can see now are deep red lights and you, and white, and circles. i've never felt as tired as i did that evening as the nerves turned to exhaustion.
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<br />i've been married for almost a year now and there is gypsophila in the house. today you came home and you called me your wife of 636 days. in the garden it smelled wet and warm and comfortable; stark contrast to the week in my memory. our olive bush, i thought long dead, has burst into life again. we can suffer through anything my dear, any thing at all. i won't say i believe in any superstition, but i will say that there was hope in those new shoots. of whatever there is that doesn't go on, i know it won't be us.
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<br />it's all yours, as you know
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<br />Bobbenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00062074879781489858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1026252823753264840.post-50334173165234373762011-08-09T00:34:00.000-07:002011-08-09T00:54:15.622-07:001% autumnA friend of mine got married the other day and it rained. I don't know if that changes anything. Perhaps it wasn't something so tenuous. I find myself constantly theorising - as is my way of living - and making life quantifiable. I'm cataloguing days and events into boxes; tidy rows of visibly sensible information. Sometimes there is so much going on that it's easy to take the things you want out of life and show a pattern. Such persuasiveness lies behind numbers. Then again, sometimes I can't help but think that there must be no reality to assumptions of fate and right and occurances. Isn't it all just immeasurable? Every little detail of every single life can't possibly follow a track. Saying that, if you mix every colour it always becomes brown so is everything brown? You'd say no, but I'm guessing it's not so visually apparent.
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<br />The seasons changed the other day. I just wanted to note it because no-one ever does. People always disagree with me when I tell them we are moving to a new front and they do this because they are unwilling to change so soon. They don't understand that it is a progression. It just went from 100% summer to 1% autumn, that's all. It's a change nonetheless and it was combined with my having the cold and it made me feel so very cool; chilled right through at the thought. I can always tell the change in the season by the change in myself and my pinings and last week I thought of fires and warmth and the first christmas eve alone with Stuart and the stillness of it all like such a voyage was never made before. I thought of the start of university in 2005 when everything was changing and I relished change then. Every time I go back to those mornings at five to ten, walking through frosty campus in a black duffle coat, what you would call 'hungover' but I would call at ease. I'd walk up through the part of campus with the fake stream and the grass and the trees with the leaves falling and the water clogged with shades of brown. The sun is always shining, and my face is cold. Sometimes I try to recreate these feelings when I walk out now but all I can get is the memory and it is unchanged. I'm not the same person now and I know I'll never feel that way again.
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<br />Today I woke up from under the blanket but ontop of the duvet and it was cool and I walked to the living room finding it odd that I didn't go straight to the kitchen (straight to <em>doing</em>) and the room was so chilled that I knew my cold hadn't served to alter my perceptions and autumn was welcoming me in the pale light of this morning. It was as if it was being persuasive just for me, it knew I needed this.
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<br />On Sunday we are going to Tenerife and I've never been on a 'summer' holiday so late in the year. I'm a bit worried about the schism of it being autumn here but I've vowed to act like it's a reprive and I am on pause so it will be alright. Once I'm back I think I will feel at ease with myself once more. Summer is like that bad friend at school and you want to feel daring but once you've had it you know you need to go back to your own. The winter months are my own, I'm a child of November and it's all I really know.Bobbenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00062074879781489858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1026252823753264840.post-68489574049310432732011-08-02T01:14:00.001-07:002011-08-02T01:37:20.043-07:00illnessHaving the cold always reminds me of Christmas. It makes me think of a double duvet cover folded in half on the sofa like an unzipped sleeping bag, a cocoon of heat and initial comfort. Those beds were always so fresh and welcoming after a long sticky night of tossing and turning, unable to breathe lying down. My Mum always used to put lavender water on the sheets and pillows which made it seem as if nothing as reviving as this had ever existed. Then several hours later that bed seemed like a cage of discomfort and uneasiness. Covers rumpled and clumping beneath your restless body making creases jut into your aching feverish skin. The lavender smell was long gone and instead that constant dirty, tangy taste of illness and catarrh is all that remains. When I moved from home and in with my now husband my bouts of seasonal illness would see me replicate this event and add my own take by gathering on a foot stool beside the sofa an array of carefully arranged medicinal products and otherwise. Neatly stacked boxes of paracetamol, decongestant, cough syrup and throat lozenges stood next to a cup of hot orange or tea, a banana to accompany the pills, tissues in a package, vicks vapour rub and a menthol inhaler. A book, tv remotes, work if applicable, all this gathered on the stool, a protest to having to leave a seated position. By the time the lavender smell has faded these products are in disarray, a mass of opened boxes of pills and scattered remedies. Sticky spoons and cold half drunk drinks in pecariously sitting mugs. Sodden tissues on the stool, dried and used ones on the floor, books disregarded, remotes dropped, banana peel straddling the inhaler disgustingly. The pain killers have worn off but its hours before you get more and the fever has returned and you kick sheets with restlessness and anger that cant be exhumed as strength has abandoned you. Whatever's on the television becomes a haunting nightmare as you doze and you are too hot and too cold all at once, forehead clamy and hair sticking to your face in disgusting clumps. There is such little dignity in illness. To right this wrong you peel yourself from the sheets which duely stick to your leg and aim to trip your pathetic creeping walk and you climb into the shower, weary already. The normal water is too hot and it stings your prickled and achey limbs and the good feeling of being clean is overwhelmed by the faint feeling you get from standing up so long. Brushing your teeth tastes like rubbing peppermint into stomach acid and you are so tired after it all that drying your hair depletes the last ounce of strength available. But by the time you are finished, shivering, diminished in bed clothes that seem too large all of a sudden, the cocoon is remade and the freshness restored and the products rearranged neatly on the stool, pain killers administered and a familiar comfort returned shortly. <br /><br />Being ill isn't something I take kindly too, yet there is something that sparks a security and homeliness that creates a hollow schism in me. These beds in my mind are often accompanied by dark nights and cosy rooms, often fairy lights. Smells of delicious family meals that I was too nauseaus to take part in. Always crispy duck. I find it very odd that the smell of menthol now takes me back to festivities and december but in some ways it is like its my brain making it easier on me. Having a cold in summer is such an awful paradox that it throws off my sense of seasons and makes me wish for a change. I always have this thing where I pine for summer, or winter, and when it arrives I take my fill quickly, or am dissappointed by a lack of snow/sun, and start to crave the alternative. Recently I've been considering christmas and winter and snow. I know I shouldn't, I always jump too quickly. Last year it snowed in late Novemeber and when christmas came it seemed like celebrating in Janurary, or like cleaning on new years day. I won't do that this year. I'm going on holiday to tenerife in two weeks to get some sun and I'm retaking summer after this short interlude to illness ridden nostalgia. That's just me though, impatient.Bobbenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00062074879781489858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1026252823753264840.post-27058562069202360142011-07-29T00:05:00.001-07:002011-07-29T00:05:21.951-07:00movingyesterday i spent time in the west end of glasgow. and by time i mean like one hour. when i first moved here, to glasgow, i would envy the west end. where i live - high street, which could be classed as either merchant city, university of strathclyde or city centre really - seemed so barren. it's not that i expect a lot but coming from relative country and clean housed streets where the worst act of crime was melting the bus stop with a lighter, the tribulations of living in the east of the city centre were uncomfortable. first there was the whole issue of security because our flat, though on the first floor from the front, was on the ground floor at the back due to a raised back court and the hill upon which all of the north east of the city centre is situated. our windows overlook a tarmac-ed court of red brick walls and flimsy, unspiked railings. the day we moved in to the flat was the day of the large orange order parade - a procession hitherto unknown to me in terms of origin or reason, that involved copious drinking; urinating; flighting; and skinheads. it also involved burly men climbing into the back court and attempting to defecate in our bins. i think it was probably this troubling start that worried us about security in the beginning. that and our colourful neighbour whose real name was ellen but we called queenie. she didn't seem that old, i'd venture no older than 75 but looks can be decieving as all the best lower working class old glasgow town types who think of the barras as tesco look about 60 after the age of 16, and time ceases to effect them. you wouls hear a knock on your door around nine in the evening and know exactly who it was as queenie would stoat about our door and once opened regaile you with tales of neighbours that probably didn't exist being broken into from the same row of tenements that we lived in. she tottered about at the door, continually appearing to retreat to her home and then coming back to you time and again with "aye, an...". aye an two blocks up was burgled last week. aye an i saw people outside last night and they were looking in my windy. and so it went on, her appearing drunk on gin and tonics she drank in who knows where telling us of the latest acts of violence and us adding lock after lock to the door; half from this fear of glasgow and half from fear of her. once we settled and became sure that, contrary to her belief, no-one in these blocks had been broken into in a long while, we relaxed. she still told her stories to us though and we took it in turns to have to go and listen to her. this close, she would say, used to be so clean i could eat my dinner off it, but look at it now. them above me, they're pigs, they flooded my bathroom again, and they are fags, you know, not that it matters, but they are, right above me. one time she appeared particularly enebriated, up in arms. unfortunatley it was me answering the door and she came right up, eyes swilling, why did you write that on the wall downstairs? that's awful, why would you do that? she was referring to a small pencil written name beside the buzzer on the wall downstairs, which i had not written, and was not even situated beside our flat numbers buzzer. despite this she conceded we were good neighbours but it softened her to do it when all she wanted to do was hark back to when times were 'better' as a way of regaining control. i can understand why, but not understand that she did. i didn't realise that whole time that she was dying, perhaps the drinking masked it all. haggared as she was, she still never seemed a day over 60. once she was gone her place was taken by her grand daughter and what happened was learned in part and i had ceased to feel a child playing home. my brother had moved in for a while and then moved to a flat in the west end where i would sometimes go and where i had other friends. at one point i had several friends there which i no longer have and i would marvel at their vintage shops, craft fairs, greengrocers and the lack of dubious looking people parading the streets. it was like being back where i used to live and byres road was like a little town on market day, willow basketed bicycles carting organic produce with women in full length floral dresses and floppy sun hats, and children with pudding bowl hair cuts wearing hand knitted scarves. as i walked about looking into shops selling clothing that seemed spun of gold and costing as much i took this view with me of people at ease with themselves, who had friends and neighbours and community meetings. a communal theme ran through and every man seemed to be his own boss and every perfect figured woman parent to perfect blonde children, shopping for shitake mushrooms and samphire. i don't know that it was even that i wanted these things or this lifestyle, perhaps i just admired the ability to do it if you chose to. i compared it to my own bit where bicycles were mangled three seater buggies and greengrocers were pawn shops. they had victoria wine and peckhams selling imported french beers while we lived above an offsales promoting tennents special in the window, and the remnents of these purchases lay dirtily in our close, in a puddle of piss. i think that perhaps the way that this has changed for me is indicative of my own view of myself, my own confidence and personality. looking back i see that the west end was the same as it always was and where i live is often similar, though improving on a grander scale. here waste land has become new perfect buildings in the space of a year and the din of workmen and construction a disruptive reminder of progress as it is happening. new shops have emerged, and failed, but it is in the attempt that i can feel secure. i lay in bed last night and listened to a slanging match between two reprobates on the street below and considered that it has been a very long time since i last heard this. when things are bad you notice them all the time but as they ease off you begin to think they never occur at all. i realised recently that i have been in glasgow for six years now, the equivalent to the entire time i was at high school, and on this street for five, which is equivalent to all the time i have been with stuart bar six months. i feel i have, if not grown up, then at least grown here. i'm a different person to who i was when i first came. in the west end yesterday a new colour took place as i looked at the places, the people, the shops. it seemed the same as here and the buildings not much different. the streets were the same and the trees were the same. the shops were overpriced and affected and the idea that a post office selling yankee candles was better than mine seemed an idea far removed from reality; when was the last time i bought a yankee candle? in a newsagent we waited at the counter and the man was unpacking boxes and he said, give me two minutes, and we waited still. everyone in the west end thinks they are something, it's like little edinburgh or what i imagine st. andrews it like, only with less english people. i looked at them all, people in brogues and pointed shoes, with teddy boy hair cuts wearing waist coats and trousers perpetually a little too short. it was as if chinos were just invented, and not that marks and spencers had been selling them the whole time. it seems odd now that i though of these people as somehow better, or aspirational. i look at them and they are hipsters and they pretend to be twee and they are all the same, sitting in kelvingrove park, looking the same, being the same, the same pain white basketed bicycle at their feet. i look at myself and i see a person still so divergent from their image, only now i know it is a good thing and i return to the east of the city centre and i feel at home and i feel secure. <br /><br />we are thinking of moving shortly, out of the city, and though since i've moved here all i have wanted is a garden and some quiet and the country life once more, i think i will miss this place far more than anything i've ever missed before.Bobbenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00062074879781489858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1026252823753264840.post-48272177348097880152011-07-22T10:38:00.000-07:002011-07-22T11:12:17.551-07:00the weightAt Seamill Hydro, a few days away, a holiday. I thought I would feel supremely relaxed there and return home revived but I should have known no-one ever earns a quick fix, no matter how good they try to be. I carried troubles about with me like being at the supermarket with no baskets and too few hands. I thought every night that I would put on pyjamas and sit up, relaxed, and worries would melt away, but how could they when I didn't even know what they were? <br /><br />We booked for three but took four and the weekend was spent theorising how to evade notice. A friend who lives nearby, visiting for dinner. And for breakfast. The continual moving of bedding and straightening up of areas where numerous bodies had been. The idea that the maids would happen upon four wash bags and actually care, never mind notice. The number 3 on a sheet while four towels appeared on the counter. Honestly I think it was very clear to everyone that there were four people ambling about the premises each day, and such worries were pointless. It's funny observing people so rigid in learned goodness that the smallest infringements set them off kilter so quickly. You talk of Catholic guilt and that is definately that because of the hypocricy and the ignorance inherent in the application of morals. Everyone else has learned to live with the multiple personalities. You flip through the photographs and go one too far, it appears a mistake but I can tell you are happy, wanting to share the illicitness and the debaucherie with someone else. Someone impressionable. Someone already on their path. I'm becoming very good at putting my head in the sand too and I hate it, I hate it with every fibre of my being. I use my favourite analogy, the man standing up to thugs and getting stabbed from it. The two schools of thought: he's a hero, a martyr, standing up in the face of it; or an idiot, who could be safe in his house, sand to his neck, rather than dead, and cold, and finished. Some say it's over-exaggeration but to me it is black and white and grey is non-existant. Things happen everyday and I always want to stand but then I feel a parody of myself. I talked it over at breakfast on the last day and it all seemed so clear as things tend to in the bright, hopeful light of morning. Later in the evening I talked to the one person I trust and it seemed much more muddy and by the time night was emerging I was backing myself through a doorway and the unease was creeping past. Sometimes I think this means it's better for me not to always be making a scence over issues of rights and morals and indignations. Other times I feel like I am failing the very core of my being.<br /><br />We walked on the beach and the sea could be in and it could be out but we were all there and I felt my separation so clearly that it may as well have been written in the sand. I don't understand why I am still surprised by it even when I have accepted it. I followed the three of them and took photographs and felt sad that such things come so easily to me and that I still have to tone down my skills to preserve others. They walked in lines and trailed eachother in age and I took pictures choreographed and mimicing the ones taken now of siblings in impromptu studios in shopping centres, blown up onto canvases, giant headlines of pride in oneself. There was another person taking pictures with a camera like Stuart's and I took a picture of him only because I felt some affinity by vitue of us both holding a similar device. No-one waited for me and no-one ever would as though I was intended as a lone wolf forever. They go at eachother's pace and I am consistently syncopated.<br /><br />We walked down the stairs of the familiar exit to the apartment blocks and I pulled my phone out my back pocket once again, knowing to them I seemed a teenager hooked on other people. I didn't care; it's been a long time since I cared if I come across as young. A single message indicated that I had recieved phd funding at the last hurdle and I told them and they were happy and the grinned and I had to call people but I don't know where my own happiness was. They all wanted to recreate the moment later but I wanted the feeling and there hadn't been any to recreate so I sat with a smile like a shell and hollow and dark, dark brown. She said, 'you seem quite calm' and she was right but it wasn't calm it was searching and desperate and she said, 'it must be a huge weight off you' and she was wrong and I felt the weight of not knowing weigh heavier than ever. I ordered us prosecco to celebrate and I drank a glass and it made no effect and I hoped that one day there would be a different beverage used to celebrate events; one that chimed with my being and not with my anomolies. <br /><br />When I was home I managed to identify some roots and it was painful all over again but in a dull, aching way that seemed peverse. I woke this morning with a mouth like a snowball and when I opened my mouth it cracked and ached and epitomised what my brain couldn't envisage, like it was protecting myself from vicious circles of doubt and unease. I imagined my jaw, dislocated, relocated, injections and plans washed out as and more plans piled on unsafely. I diagnosed online and it eased off and I realised it was jaw clenching from stress and it made such sense that it was like a slap in the face. <br /><br />At the gym I listened to favourite songs and ran in the large empty room and I ran far faster than usual and I visualised things and I tried to tap into the fear and if I did then that's good but I'm not even sure what it is and trying to describe the invisible is the only way I think I can surmise what being offbalance for no reason is like. Stress sits on you, a burden, waiting and weighing and hoping your concentration will waver and it will be able to declare itself once more. On one of the seldom occassions where I happened to be in a church when I was young the minister talked of the holding of a grudge as a literal thing. He placed a toy bird of my friend Imogen on his shoulder and told us that holding a grudge was carrying around this bird and that it was no fun to carry around a bird like that all day. We all agreed. He was right, we should shift what we are carrying around like weights. But he never told us how.Bobbenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00062074879781489858noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1026252823753264840.post-2163285285761967282011-07-13T00:18:00.001-07:002011-07-13T00:42:01.196-07:00wasting awayI'm feeling very tired right now, like someone has pulled the strength out of me. It's part physical, part emotional. It's like things just aren't in rhythm right now. I don't deal well with change and that's undoubtedly part of it; especially when it's not just my change but his too, and everybody's. Part of me feels I just need a few days to bring it all back, some strength, some solid material to prop up the weary frame. When away we drove back home one evening and the hour journey took four and it's hard to deal with that but for no good reason at all. You feel as though you are losing your mind to the small things that typify the situation. I took my shoes off, put my feet out of the window as if to prove there still was air outside this vehicle that wasn't really moving, but that we couldn't get out of. That's the worst kind of traffic, where freedom is visible but unattainable. When I tried to put my shoes back on they wouldn't fit it was as if my feet had absorbed the liquid in the rest of my body and puffed up, leaving me scraped thin and coagulating on the seat. I hurt my thumbs trying to get the shoes on. I walked on top of them like a bad attempt in heels and I didn't even care though I should have. It rained as if to prove the mood. In the toilets someone had managed to get themselves all over the seat and I couldn't understand how people like this exist, that they can't replicate their personal hygeine standards outside the home. There was no toilet roll. I looked at myself in the mirror and it seemed like a younger, less secure me looking back and I hated her. Stuart was outside and I knew he would be and I told him all my woes and he knew what I needed because he is me. I told the car too but realised it was stupid because they no longer care for me like he does. It's changed and I'm only to be soothed if it fits their aged idea of family and that's okay. It was silent, I felt nauseaus. Counted down the miles on the sat nav and hoped that the end was near but it was just a keep right on the m6. It's okay, I'm just sitting still so how arduous can it be? When we got back the tightness was released but not much and we got to the car park. A woman in a car drove close, awkward and we waited, watching her actions in regards to our attempt to park. She pulled away and the small car clipped the kerb, bouncing off as she drove. We all laughed, in unison again. The car next door had a giant plush spotty dog in the back seat, larger than a human. We laughed the kinds of laughs that are tired and strained and hysterical, so close to tears that your not sure it was even a good thing. The other day my brother asked me if I remembered the time my Dad was angry at me for not being ready to go on holiday with him and I couldn't. He told me it was because we were to leave at 5 and I wasn't ready and he went ballistic at me, as was the trend back then. I didn't know what he was talking about and then a moment later the memory resurged with full colour, when the time told was half 5 and Dad confused it for 5, full anger at me sitting with half an hour of prep still to go when we were meant to be leaving. I hated those incidences because no-one was right and one person was wrong and no-one ever won. I'd blocked that memory out and the description didn't raise the vision of it at first but then it did and when it came it was full of the infamous, horrible glory of being out of those scences now. It's funny how we manage to block these events from our minds after they are gone, uncomfortable and awkward scences of self-hatred and division. But apparently the worst things stick the longest, so I guess it's just how well your brain can fool itself. Part of me wants my brain to fool this whole time right now, because though there are good things, the insecurity and volatility of life and of me is something I deign to hold on to.Bobbenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00062074879781489858noreply@blogger.com0