awkward conversations

http://www.rookiemag.com/2017/01/an-apology/


I find this fascinating. Yes...the liberal instinct is to try and understand alternate points of view, and that is what runs through my heart. Everyone has the right to their own beliefs...difference is brilliant.

But does fear of confrontation stop us speaking out against actual bigotry, especially when it comes from friends.

Can you continue to be friends with someone whose political beliefs now encompass a green light to racism, homophobia, misogyny, violence, torture...

Do people have the right to beliefs that don't allow others the same space?

No.

Well done Rookie.

2017. Let's make it the year of awkward conversations.

resolve

As anyone forced, against their will, to write resolutions with me on a cold Paddington station in 2001 in brand new notebooks I had bought expressly for the purpose will testify, I bloody love a resolution. (Sorry Betts.)

I shouldn't.

If there's one thing I failed to learn in therapy it's that beating yourself with a big ol' stick of guilt and self recrimination is not only bad for your mental health, it is also counterproductive. (OK, that's sort of two things. I lied.)

Encouragement reaps better results than criticism.

Psychology 101. Bullying people makes them defensive, and therefore unreceptive. The carrot (cake) works better than the stick. Fact.

So it follows that if you criticise and bully yourself the same is true. It would be much more productive to give yourself a lovely pat on the back instead.

I know this, you know this, I'm pretty sure most of the muppets* on Sesame Street banged on about it fairly constantly throughout my childhood.

I know it...but when it comes to me, I don't actually believe it.

But resolutions can be positive, I hear you cry...
a fresh new page; the promise of change; the chance to erase and reinvent.

Meh.

Bring on the stick.

My resolutions are essentially the same every year...and when this happens they sort of become a yearly reminder of something you've failed at. A list of things you still don't like about yourself.

So I should stop...

But I bloody love a resolution.

Last year, in a bid to change things I 'resolved' (see what I did there?) to try and write new 'plus' rather than 'minus' resolutions. Things to do, rather than things to stop doing.

First I had a long fight with a hovering biro about not writing 'lose weight' or 'exercise more' or some such. Then I spent some time beating myself up in a right old guilty feminist way about all that broo ha ha...** Then I got cross with myself for not allowing myself to express what are my genuine if repulsive feelings...then I had to make a cup of tea to get over it...

Eventually I made a list of simple things to prioritise, reading more, writing more, listening to new music, etc...and it went quite well.

This year I've added a new one...but it needs its own post, or you will all lose the will to live.

Happy 2017.


*I mean the actual furry puppet muppets. I would NEVER throw shade over Mr Hooper, Bob, Maria, Luis et al.  They are the best. Obviously.

**For certainly hatred of a beautifully functioning body is largely a result of the influence of that evil bastard Patrick Arcky and his empire of misogynistic photoshopping, body shaming, advertising and media minions...

The hare beating in the new year tile was made by our friend Will.

lonely sole

Blame new year's resolutions, but I'm back blogging after a three year hiatus. I think I can promise it will be pretty sporadic, and considerably less theatre based than followers of my previous blogs might be used to.

There also might be the occasional swear word. I’m warning you now.

Anyway…here’s a post about shoes.

It is, I think, of note, how many single shoes we notice abandoned on the streets around our flat.  

If it were pairs I could understand it better. 

Sure, you could feasibly discard a pair were you, for example, an arsehole flytipping type who could not be bothered to walk the few metres to the nearest charity clothing bank, or an inebriated high heel wearer finally crippled by the sheer pressure on the balls of your feet*.

But a lone shoe?

Who leaves a shoe?

There has to be a story...

The lone trainer abandoned by the runner so desperate to achieve a personal best that they would forego a shoe despite the inevitable dog poo and broken glass...

The lone January flip-flop whose erstwhile partner gave up the ghost a couple of streets ago, leaving its antipodean owner just enough walk to decide that the uneven feel of a flip without its flop is worse than retaining one only ever so slightly comfier foot...

Sometimes it is a lone child’s shoe, and this, for some reason, seems particularly poignant.

I’m not talking about a shoe the size that could be tossed, un-noticed from a pushchair in a way that could, frankly, happen to even the most attentive parent – never mind your classic blasé latte and mobile juggling, several grand of bugaboo pushing Balhamite. 

But the lone shoe of a five or six year old.

To me it always has something haunting about it.

*I used to believe, at least until my mid-twenties that there were essentially two types of high heel wearer…those like me who would hobble around wincing in blistered pain…and high heel demi-gods who floated around on a cloud of leg-flattering bliss. I hated and admired them in equal measure. I have since learned that they, too, are in immense pain but better at hiding it. When a woman (or man, although I have to admit most of my scientific research on the subject has been conducted during my oddly frequent conversations with strangers in ladies’ loos) suggests they have at last found a pair of ‘comfy’ heels – what they mean is that they can wear them for almost an hour without wanting to cry.**

**my dear friend, professional heel wearer Jenni Crane may possibly be the exception here – but I’m still not convinced she hasn’t just developed an extra-ordinary avengers level pain threshold…