And then there was....OH DAMNIT!!

"Bad Day at Work" by cptcheerios

This week I have been trying to write a blog post each day.  Things have been going rather well so far, it is, afterall, only Monday. 

However, two things have happened today that have distracted me.  Firstly, I have had an almighty and awful day. I left work today with harsh, horrible words ringing in my ears, words that have upset me more than I probably let on. Words that are preventing me from writing anything here that isn't anything other than a diatribe against that person.  I don't want to do that.

Secondly I forgot to buy electricity and we are sitting in the dark.  I am not sure how long my computer battery will last so I'm just dumping this all down here so I feel a teeny, tiny bit better about how utterly parp this day has been.

Normal service with be resumed tomorrow. 

Sisters, are they literally doing it for themselves?

Have you read Victoria Coren's column yet today? If not, why not? It's not about poker you know.  It's about girl's having the option to do cheerleading at school rather than the football.  She makes a wonderful point about girls' roles in society being, quite literally, sidelined and wonders why it is that girl's WANT to just be the jiggling prize for the boys rather than the decorated sports star.  I, rather more clumsily, was making a similar point about TV presenters in a previous post.  What Coren asks is why aren't women allowed any serious competition with each other (let alone with men)?

With all this inverted girl power knocking about it made me think that women are competitive, just in a different way.

It's true that women are capable of making very firm friends with each other.  Over late nights of bonding and mutual secret revealing, women can quickly progress from acquaintance to friend onto full blown sisterhood in a matter of hours.  I know many men who are quite envious of this.  Some long to be able to open up to their male friends in the same way, to bond over feelings and shared experiences.  But unlike SOME women, men seem to be able to participate in creative activities in a social and mutually respectful way.  Women seem to get jealous of one anothers achievements, and here is where girl competition is rife.

Now, I'm not talking about people's friends here, more precisely, acquaintances.  Those people you know, but don't love enough to be happy for all the time. I know men can be very competitive in the work place, but I'm stepping outside of that.

I have alluded before to a certain situation that happened at the start of my blogging life.  I wrote a rather pessimistic, upset post about feeling unfulfilled.  In it, I referred to someone who represented all the opportunities I had missed and that they had taken.  I TRIED to make the post as anonymous as possible.  I TRIED to choose keywords that only the person involved would pick up on.  I thought that being a first post the likelihood of ANYONE reading it was slim, let alone anyone I may have known in a previous life.  Part of this plan was not to use "he" or "she".  What I found very interesting, and ultimately infuriating, was when someone left me a comment.

It wasn't that someone was criticising me that got me down, I was ranting and I sounded daft.  What got to me was that in their comment the person kept referring to my post subject as "she": "she must have done this", "she must be better at that".  Whoever this person was assumed that because I was a girl, the person I was writing about must be a girl too.  WHY?  Because women can only be envious of each other?  Because women can only aspire to the heights of other women? 

Do women really view competition along gender lines?  Sure, in any physical activity there are obvious reasons why Average Joe may not be suited to a heavy lifting duel with Average Josephine, but surely where creativity is concerned everyone is fair game? Say, Blog Wars broke out tomorrow, my blog would be up against ALL the trillions there are in the world, not just the ones written by women.  So why did this person ASSUME I was talking about another girl?

This is something I will definitely be coming back to.  Right now I have to beat some men at some stuff.

And yes, the person who left the comment, she was a girl.

pic: Sooki and Anna 02 by Seneschal of Avalon

Square One

alarm clock by EureekasWindow*

If this blog has taught me anything it's to do things sooner.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I am LOVING my blogging experience right now and I don't want to take anything away from it.  However, I wish I had started it sooner!   How much farther down the blogging road would I be if I had started a year ago?  I suppose I will know in, well, a year.

But blogging isn't the only thing I wish I'd done sooner.  I wish I had taken my driving test at 17.  In fact, I wish I had taken it at all!  Driving is something that has never quite happened for me.  I can drive a car, if ninjas forced me, I could get a car from my house to where ever it may be the ninjas wanted to go.

Learner Brooch by PayneDesign

But I cant do it legally.  My test has always alluded me. I have only booked a test once.  The morning came round and I sat nervously on the edge of my bed waiting for my driving instructor to turn up, snapping: "YES I'M FINE!" to anyone who dared poke their head around my door (I'm not good with stress).  It wasn't long before his little red Corsa pulled up, and with my stomach sitting on my tongue I ventured out into, what I hoped, would be a new world of automotive freedom.

I hadn't even sat down in the front seat by the time my mum came running out with the news:  my examiner had called in sick and my test had been cancelled.  I cannot understate how much this rocked my confidence.  Convinced that that day was the only day I would ever possibly pass my test, I never re-booked.  My lessons fizzled out and two years later I still can't legally drive ninjas anywhere.  Every time I have to sit on a packed bus on miserable, rainy days, I think about that examiner and imagine all the ills that may have befallen him that day.  It is the only thing that gets me through the coughing, the fidgeting, the sneezing and the smell of my fellow passengers.

I also wish I had kept up with my guitar playing.  At secondary school I had the usual classical lessons which I found mouth dryingly tedious. I stretched my little fingers over scale after scale and knew more Russian folk tunes than I knew what to do with. But as tedium turned into a deep depression regarding anything to do with my lessons, I gave up. But, of course, NOW I wish I had carried on.  Now that I have been gifted a wonderful flowery guitar I wish I could play something on it.  But all those scales and all those Russian Folk songs escape me.  I am back at square one.

On my track record I think I will make Square One my new forwarding address. I am the Queen of Putting Things Off which is a rubbish empire to reign over; No-one makes the bed, no-one washes up, no-one plays the guitar and no-one can BLEEDING DRIVE!

Hopefully this time next year my blogging will still be bubbling along nicely.  Chances are I still wont be driving.  But I will endeavour to learn a tune on my guitar.  An actually tune.  One that I like and know all the words to.

Who needs a car anyway?  I'll walk to Square Two.



* This is just the cutest isn't it?  Are you handy with a crochet hook and fancy recreating items like this one?   Visit  the creators Etsy store for patterns HERE.

Good things come to those that blog

"BLOG" by NVasion

Blogging is lovely.

This blog here started in a very poorly place.  I was down in the dumps and down on myself. I needed to start writing to let off steam and this blog let that happen.

Thanks to blogging I have had a much needed outlet over the last few months to moan and gripe. Apart from a rather odd situation along the way (those this applies to know what I'm talking about, and they are the only ones that need to (so don't ask about it!)) it has been a very enriching experience.  From writing Bitter Lemon I have had the boost I was desperate for! I have something else to think about and something to get excited about!

I have been writing on and off for five months now and in that time I have progressed in my writing to a stage where I'm applying for writing roles on other websites.  I have also had the confidence to set up a blog in a rather competitive corner of the Internet: food.

"Competitive" is completely the wrong word.  Apart from The Situation I mentioned above, everyone I have encountered through the Internet have been an absolute joy.  They have given me heaps of advice, time and the occasional (well worded!) criticism, all of which has helped me to improve what I'm doing.

The Internet is, ironically, the place where things can actually happen! I have written two blogs in the past week about two women I admire.  Both these women have not only read my blogs but have taken the time to send me thank you messages (they were THANKING ME!).  To anyone who dismisses Twitter and blogging I will use these experiences as proof that through social networking you can reach the people that have brought a little wonder to your lives and thank them for it (and if they are truly wonderful they may even thank you back).

When I started I didn't know where blogging would take me. I am nowhere near where I want to be but just being HERE is lovely and to anyone thinking of starting their own, I'd say GET BLOGGING!

Love it when I talk about food?

 You know you do!

So why not try my new foodie blog Hank's Marvin.

Go on, it's tasty.