Jettisoning Dreams

It was the standard package; end of the world and you and a handful of randoms are trying to outrun the symptoms of that ending. In this case the continuing rising water. A train exploding. Too many of you in a small car trying to motor up a steep hill. 

(There is always some exhibit, some animal enclosure, that pauses the apocalypse. This time you found a dinosaur pen, and stood watching the dinosaurs, forgetting the rising water and the marauders entirely as those giants stomped about before you. The cage was far too small. They simply paced.)

Codeine to nix the pain and let you sleep sketched the details of this dream with more clarity than is usual, and you remember a flag. Made by your group of survivors to signify that not all was lost, you were a new nation and would rebuild civilisation. You, as a species, were undefeated. 

The flag was the Australian flag, but rendered red, white and black. This, it was explained, was to show that regardless of skin colour — black/white — we all bleed red, we are all the same. 

A nice gesture, you thought, except that it simplifies the idea of race to being only that of skin colour, which is insulting, and then presents that concept as a binary. Black or white, with black standing in for brown, yellow and red, so in fact being all colours not white, and white. 

After that you leave the group, and after stealing dolls, fighting rabbits and walking alone in the bush, you wake up. 

I read about, listen to and occasionally even engage in the discourse on racism in western societies regularly, and have done so for years. I'm all for replacing the current structures that govern our thinking. 

And yet, despite this, when unconscious and building a nation for the ground up, that flag is what my brain produced. What I created. Even as I analyzed and dismantled it. Nice try. But no. 

This is how deep racism runs. 

In me. And definitely in you. 

Prey

Keeping a bird, a small bird, is not like keeping a dog. I only know about dogs. With an allergy to cat hair, we never really had cats, so while I recognise some of the behaviours of cats, it's dogs I understand.

Dogs have teeth and claws and the ability to rip you open if they feel it is necessary. Most of the time it isn't. Most of the time dogs love you like no one else will. They think you're The Best Thing that has EVER happened. The best.

Birds, budgies, aren't that. They eat seeds and grain. Their defence is flight. They are prey the way dogs, cats, and indeed we humans cannot fathom. It isn't an eat or be eaten choice for them. It's simple: be eaten.

So the rapport built with a bird is slow to grow and requires patience and repetition. What you're earning in that little featherbrain is trust. Consider their size, and yours. It's entirely possible they don't recognise your hands and your face as belonging to the same entity. And you come blustering into their world and clutch at them with your big hands and they are so very small and delicate. With hot little feet, claws that curl around your finger. Soft, so soft belly feathers on the back of your hand. A heart beating out a tarantella and a beady little bird eye wide and fixed upon you.

You could break this bird with a finger. The bird knows it.

Months of patience, and repetition, and work.

And yesterday, Poppy didn't just let me scratch her cheek, she encouraged it.

Visible Output

I've been kicking around a couple of short story ideas for half a year now. So many pages scribbled while sitting on trains. Aware of the awful clunk and lack of grace in my sentences, paragraphs, scenes, and aware that I have neither story nor plot, but one thing at a time.

So the desire to speak has not been felt for some time. While this may simply apply to social media, this vacuum of motivation is sucking on my hopes of writing like a gummy shark. A writer must have a voice. At least one.

This post by Fox Woods I could have sworn was written just for me. I can't say I necessarily agree with it (some of us are unique, most of us are not), but point is...I chose to believe it. Here. Now. Because I need to.

Being as I tick several 'minority' boxes, I do have things to say which are worth saying, and might even be worth hearing. This can and will bleed into fiction. I just have to practice using my voice, again.

Hopefully, this will mean a higher frequence of posts here. Hopefully, I'll reclaim the joy and thrill that comes with using a voice, and that will in turn make the stories less shy. Hopefully.

This still doesn't address that need to not contribute to the noise of the world. Silence is a precious, fragile thing, and there is no way to project silence. Perhaps in trying to cultivate silence around me I am too forceful, because I've silenced myself in the process.

I guess I'll just have to ensure the sounds I make are meaningful.









Quack.

The Year of Solar Slingshots

I started 2013 on the other side of the world (in the dark, in the misery, with an angry bird and cheeky lover), and after five new lands I came home. I can say that now, with certainty. Home. Then followed the joy of sinking into and being subsumed by all that we left behind and still love. Months of simply enjoying being here with these people. 

Restless heart returned. An impatience and need to know there is an adventure confirmed in the future, and that I only need make my way the ought this ordinary 9-5 day, and the next and the next and it will become the present. Financial limitations beset us. There is naught to do but be patient. 

Rather than face the continual appointments and stress of WorkCover I went parttime. It feels like a good balance has been struck in terms of pain management and time and money (but still those limitations chafe). Yet it is not an extra day off, even though I may think of it as such. Too often it is literally consumed by sleep, desperately needed and unstoppable. My limits are greater than my capabilities. 

I come to realize the limits of my vocational experience, and the limits that imposes on all my future decisions. I feel trapped. In my body. In my job. Resentment blossoms. 

My lover struggles with the job market, and it grinds us both down. The karmic balance is whiplash; the day before Christmas he is offered his dream job, with great pay, and we both stare at each other in bewildered delight. It is hard to believe. Such wonderous things don't seem our lot, perhaps because we burn up our wonder in with each other. 

He will move to Sydney.  I will follow, somehow. Time spend by the sea seems a dream. There is your adventure, Tessa. A city you don't know awaits. 

I still haven't written anything. 

My family is the happiest I've ever known it to be. My friends are beset by monsters, but they prevail. I've spent more than a year living with my lover, and despite seeing him every day I am still excited to come home to him, the sound of his voice on the phone is like a drop of gold ink in the water of my being. We are unstoppable. 

There is a lot to work on. I thought we were landing, but as it turns out, we're still in orbit. May this never change. 

Still, there is a blight creeping out from the core. There is always a war. 

The sun keeps rising, and I keep breathing, and these terrible, wonderful things keep dragging me on. 

Not a Scrooge, Just Puzzled

This time last year I was unemployed in Glasgow but visiting Bristol for an Aussie Expat Christmas. It's officially Christmas today, but the family had our Christmas last weekend, so I'm doing not much at all at the moment; trying to clean out my inbox, grazing on leftovers, listening to birds squabbling on the fence.

The internet is full of Merry Christmases. They're everywhere, like an ant infestation. But without the itchiness. Disregarding my absence from the radar of late, I wonder if my lack of a similar well-wishing broadcast is noticed, is judged.

I never quite know how to position myself on Christmas. I mean, sure, it's everywhere, everywhere, and we've always acknowledged it. In a sort of, I don't know, Australian way? We're not Christian in any sense, we're not pagan, we don't adhere to any of the rituals from which Christmas stems. Santa Claus has not featured in many years. We don't put up a Christmas tree.

What we do is, get our small family together, have a fabulous meal, swap some presents, drink some beer and wine, and relax. That's all. I'd say the only real tradition we have is the salad. It's special. We all love it, and we only eat it once a year. (That said, this year may have started the tradition of the Christmas Fan, which stood in for the Christmas Tree. Assuming every Christmas is a hot day from here on in, which given the weather, isn't great odds.)

Wishing the greetings of the season feels oddly false to me. Perhaps because I'm too aware of the friends I have, who are many, for whom Christmas isn't an event participated in, and I know all to well that having to assert your autonomy when presented with so many good intentions is exhausting. Maybe I can't help but think of all the people for whom Christmas is something to dread, whether because of unrealisitic social expectations or family issues, and for whom yet another cheerful seasons greetings may possibly be the last straw. To be thankful without gloating; surely that does not require a public broadcast.

Maybe this just ties back into not wanting to add to the noise of the world. There are plenty of well-wishes out there to go around.

I like the mince pies. I really like giving presents. I like my family. I like days off. I like that salad. I probably even like you. But I don't think Christmas belongs to me.

Just wait til New Years. That's a calendar I may live by, but haven't chosen.

Noise & Sound

Every day I think about writing. Not merely acknowledging it's a task I should do, want to do, but composing sentences and stringing them together into paragraphs and then sections while I wait at the railway station or wash my hands at the toilets. But I don't write. I read a lot, and generally. I read fiction for my own pleasure, articles and essays online, all sorts of pieces to edit, and dip in and out of social media like a fussy gannet. A fussy and seemingly insatiable gannet. The nature and quality of the content doesn't seem to matter. Nothing wants to come out. There is just so much noise in the world. In fiction and non-fiction. Online and off. So much. And so much of it is empty. A cacophany of ultimately impactless voices. I have no desire to add to that, nor do I have the necessary audacity to believe I have something unique which needs to be heard. Cultivate silence, and be content.

Daughter, Music, Ghosts & Souls

A church in Reykjavík, Iceland, with uncushioned pews and people standing in the aisles. The music had become applause had become blurred voices shufting winter coats scuffed shoefalls as the audience changed shift. I did not stay. 

A town on the other side of Glasgow, Scotland, but the supporting act was not who I thought it was. I did not buy tickets. 

The Corner Hotel, Richmond, on a Tuesday night. Some threshold has been crossed and now going to a gig is an ordeal. I'm tired, it's late, I don't want to wait stand be crowded make the long trip home. But I do. 

Daughter played an extraordinary set, one of the best shows I've seen a long time. Summoned back for an encore they hadn't planned to play, they kept a crowd silent, attentive, devoted. 

The skeleton is designed to drink music. I tilted my head and stretched my throat, and the beating heart of every song was played out in my breastbone. The heart cannot help but beat in time. 

She sang,

"I want you so much"

And the hanging guitar dropped out of hearing as she sang,

"But I hate you guts."

And we heard ourselves sing those words, alone and as a crowd, and a self-conscious laugh tremored across the room. In that moment, the number of people present had doubled, as before each of us stood the spectre of the one who had rent us asunder. 

You were my ghost, standing among so many ghosts. But this song is years too late. There are no scars I bear that you can lay claim to; to survive you, I had to change my shape. A shape I chose. 

When you are jostled to the surface of my thoughts, it is with affectionate exasperation I hold you. I forgave myself long ago. 

Music, this music, has power over space. Instead of watching my heart from the outside, the music sat me well inside, and this unpredictable meaty box became a grand ballroom by vaulted chambers with tiled floors and ornately-framed mirrors. The candle chandeliers are unlit, covered, curtains and veils and shadows, and there is naught but to watch ribbons of pale green music thread through these cavernous spaces, filling each room with exquisite emptiness. 

She sang,

"If you're in love you're the lucky ones..."

I stepped out into car lights, street lights and a brash moon. A train takes me to another train and I go home. 

To you.

The Starbucks Throwback Machine

I've time to spend before an appointment, cannot remember which of the cafés around don't do annoyingly bitter chai lattés and without feeling to much guilt head to the nearest Starbucks. They are globally reliable in the chai latté department, which I have researched and tested myself. 

It's Melbourne. It's winter. 

And as soon as I walk through those doors the smell of hot milk and waiting coffee,  and barista patter and easy music echoing from tiles and couches, these things dive into my memories and I'm standing in New York, Krakow, Prague, Nuremberg, Manchester, Glasgow, Inverness. I'm standing in transit lounges in countries I never properly entered. I'm standing in a country that is not my home. 

Newness is one of the biggest motivators for travel.  Learn. Experience. Try. This can be fatiguing, day after day. Sometimes you don't want an adventure; sometimes you just want a cup of tea. 

An evil corporate hegemony it may be, but a familiar sanctuary when nothing else is, it also is. 

That brief nostalgic thrill made my heart skip. A remembered swell of relief on entering. The smallest and briefest of time machines. 

Confessions, a Train Ride Home

I have  been thinking about writing, and how I am not.

There is a part of me that wants to blame medication, even though I stopped writing before the medication ever came into play. This is not unfair as it has shifted the way I think and feel. The heart does not howl any more, or, I have forgotten how to listen to it. I think this silencing has in turn silenced my need to write, to capture and tame my storms with mere words, precise words. And this should not be a problem, but it is very close, only a step away from, having nothing to say.

Which is not true, cannot be true, yet is very true.

If the need to express a voice does not come from within, then, given all the noise being forced into the world already, how can I possibly justify adding to it? If I have nothing that I need to say, then output must be because there is something I believe others need to hear. The audacity and arrogance aren't mine, not comfortably, to assume I have the authority to decide this. Even though I may choose the platform so that the choice to consume lies with the reader - no. There is already too much noise out there. There is nothing I can say that has not already been said.

There is no requirement for need in the writing of fiction. Need in the writer's voice can lend power to a story, but it is not required. I could write simply because I want to. But when the power of need has fuelled you for so long, action by want seems pale and trivial by comparison.

All that occurred in my life was for writing. All the learning and heartache and new experiences; all grist for the mill. It would all out in the stories one day. But now I don't need to cast my trials in such a light in order to make them palatable enough to see through, my lover stands by me throughout all fire and flood. It is enough to simply spend my days with him. But is it? Is a life that is enjoyed but to no end of any purpose? Writing was a purpose I gave my life in order to keep my life. Now that I am in no such danger, the purpose is no longer required, and yet to simply live is not enough, would be such selfish and wasted time.

I have already lost so much time. To waste more will lead only to self-disgust. Still, I cannot underestimate fear and the scars left by physical pain and emotional anguish that come into play. I lost my future, one I did not even know I projected upon myself, and so all I have and had done became untethered. Echoes of this singular horror I've heard from those struggling with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. It is not for me to self-diagnose, but it would be remiss of me to overlook this one and only echo.

To confront my identity as a writer, to consider reviving it, is to also risk the possibility of losing it again. Hope is such an awful creature. I had to give her away. She cost me too much. To survive I had to give her away. I had to.

Even from now, this place of strength, I can't dip into this subject matter without feeling it in my nerves and knowing that I will never be strong enough to survive the loss of my identity again.

There most probably lies the heart of the matter. Not all the medication and emotional well-being in the world will help me finish a story if I am afraid.

And I am so very afraid.

That Which Makes You Stronger

For three years now I have, before getting out of bed, before even sitting up properly, popped tablets from blisters and tossed one, two, maybe three back with a mouthful of water. Across time zones and continents, in transit, when accidentally away from home, when knowing I'm about to go straight back to sleep, when fighting off nausea. The image of all those pills sitting in one gigantic pile has just hit me. Green and white capsules, white round bitter coins, and clay tablets ranging from terracotta to stucco. Three years worth. Every day.

I can tell you that these magic medicines have kept me from suicide, alleviated my physical pain levels to manageable daily levels and lessened my depression. Because of these tablets I am living an absolutely amazing life, and will continue to do so. There is a lot to be thankful for.

And yet, even still I must every morning force myself to take them. Every morning it is a conscious decision to break the foil again. Some mornings I will lie still for minutes, putting it off. Pretending I don't need them.

Three years is not enough time to accept. Three years is not enough time to wear out resentment. 

A lifetime may not be enough.

Closed Circuits & Their Joy

Three decades is, I think, enough time spent bowing to such doubts. More than enough. Time to kick dat bollocks to the curb! Three decades is also enough time for such thought patterns to become well and truly entrenched, and even though I well know such thoughts are untrue and unfair, such fears are rarely rational and are not easily dismissed with logic.

The usual refrain of no one will come, no one will want to come, people will only come out of pity, they'll have an awful time, it will be awkward, everyone will leave to go do what they really want to do, how arrogant are you to think anyone would want to spend time on an event for you, you're so self-centred they have so many other things they need to do etc etc etc. Nothing surprising in there.

It took incredible audacity on my part, jaw-dropping brazenness and sass, to pick a date and send out casual invitations on FB. That was all the organisation required of me. This bar on this day. It'd be cool if you could come but no sweat if you don't. Really. If you can't come, or whatever, that's fine. I just want everyone to be comfortable. Really. Really. Really. Please come.

People changed their routines, flew down from interstate, drove up from the coast, came alone and out of their comfort zone. People I tapped because I enjoy and treasure their company. People who matter to me, dearly. 

On the day of this informal laid-back thing, I was near sick with doubt. That litany was a diseased eel frothing around in my stomach, unable to escape because there simply was no escape. Either people would come, or they wouldn't, and I was oh so very fixated upon the 'wouldn't'. Despite knowing who would be there, in all certainty, people I adore and with whom I would have a most excellent time. These fears have voices that can cut diamonds, there is no overriding them.

Of course, a great many people came, more than I had anticipated. All people I was utterly delighted to see and spend time with. I introduced friends to friends and when distracted by other friends I would look over and see those who had been strangers laughing together. It's a strange and rare treat, that. 

It occurred to me more than once that the people in my life are truly exquisite, sublime, fascinating, intelligent and entertaining entities. Nearly all of them maintain the capacity to surprise me, no matter how long or how well I may know them, and that is just excellent. It's incredibly good luck to have found myself immersed in such quality company.

Shine Theory was posted to the Girls Club mailing list a little while back, and while it is angled particularly toward women, it is a practice I think I may  have unwittingly been committing across the board for some time now. 

As such, I would like to confirm that surrounding yourself by people you enjoy and truly admire is a marvellously enriching experience, and it is hard for insecurity to get a foot in the door when it is being dazzled by ridiculous banter and chortles.

Masks

Last night was the birthday celebrations of two wonderful people, who in turn invited a lot of other wonderful people, including a face painter.

It's an interesting request with which to be presented. You can wear the most unobtrusive mask possible, and it is intended to draw attention to your face while making it hard for anyone to see you. There were foxes, cats, tigers, monsters, flowers and arabesques walking around, everyone so colourful and flambouyant, everyone become fantastic. Even knowing the people wearing the paint, the presence of the paint made such a different in how I read the minute inflections of their face.

I asked to be made a glacier.

That aqua paint does not come off easy. And glitter, don't talk to me about glitter.

Stocktake!

On this, the eve of my...uh...thirty-sec-ond? Thirty-second? Thirty-second, yeah, my thirty-second year of life on Earth.

Dad's right, birthdays mean less and less the more you have.

This time last year I was working a shitty shit shit job in what has become the most precious place in the world to me – Ullapool, in the Highlands of Scotland – with the knowledge that my lover would be at the end of my fingertips within a week after years disguised as month apart. Pretty great way to show in the era.

Since then, we have been a we (we counted and are pretty sure that in the past year we've only spent three nights apart (not counting those nights when either party was perhaps out being a menace and didn't notice the sun come up)), have travelled to the Faroe Islands and seen massive colonies of PUFFINS!!! and watched an ocean of clouds crash against and up over the cliffs while gannets ghosted across the ocean below, and then we got lost on several islands and were rescued by wonderful locals several times. We put a tick beside the "our first flat!" and it was indeed a complete and utter mould and mildew-infested, draughty, freezing, dank, dark, cramped, fetid, stagnent crapbox in a tenement for which the front door didn't lock and the corridor light didn't work and used syringes, bent spoons and half-eaten pizzas were regularly left outside our door and bedroom window. I've managed to not completely suck at freelance editing which my confidence enjoys. We've done Iceland (again!), Amsterdam, Nordland Sweden in deep winter, Paris in a diamond-cut crystal winter, Kiev in a lazy winter and Chernobyl, oh goodness, Chernobyl. Vancouver in a wet but gentler winter.

And home.

And back to the Monday to Friday, and back to the office cubicle and the same bed every night, the same streets and the same trains and friends who were there and are there now.

And gosh it's nice.

And possibly, maybe, I'm actually settling down. Or still riding the adventure high. I just don't feel as restless in my heart and lungs, there's not that same sense of urgency to chase every horizon.

Or, maybe I'm just tired.

Anyway. Got my love. Got my families, my friends, my dogs. Got my happiness. Got a pen and space in a notebook. Got shit to learn. 31 was pretty damn amazing. Looks like the forecast isn't going to change for 32.

Thank you, my sweet random microclimates. 

Girls Club: Self-Love

I almost wonder if I shouldn't wait a couple of days to compose this, instead of leaping onto write up a post the moment I get home. Give the thought some time to stew and get rrrreal tasty like.

This month's meeting  presented us with quite a range of exercises which would enable us to break down some mental blocks, reinforce some obvious strengths, help us identify perhaps unhealthy aspects in our current environment and generally help us to be happier within ourselves.

Self-love, self-worth, self-esteem; these things are all ridiculously personal and tied up as much to our immediate surroundings as to our upbringing and history. While we may all suffer from, say, the idea that we're just not good enough, the paths that have brought us to this conclusion are surprisingly varied.

As a result, there is no one way to address the issue, as each person's demon is tailor-made just for them.

For example; affirmations. I've never used any sort of affirmation, as when I hit my late twenties I used up my "I hate myself" tolerance, decided that all this self-loathing used too much energy, and promptly stopped. (Which is not to say I'm happy with myself, I simply don't spend much time beating myself up. Benignly indifferent? Is that a stance I'm allowed to claim?)

However, for others, forcing yourself to write and speak a simple statement that they do not initially believe to be true can be effective. Just as you can't move a hill with only a single shovelful, you must repeat the action to break through. Many shovelfuls later, the hill is moved.

The advice given was to choose an exercise that perhaps didn't appeal to you, precisely to get you out of your comfort zone and challenge something that is perhaps too deeply entrenched. Me Dates are something I've been lax with of late, and so I've already blocked off a few nights in my calendar for TEZATAIM, and they will probably involve nothing more than sitting in a cafe with a notebook, but I'm already looking forward to them. I've written before about my Happy Caps folder, but I'm going to start another, purely for professional validation.

I've a horrible feeling what I'm going to be left doing is PR for myself, as an exercise.

Have to admit, Deb and I shared a small look of horror when we discovered this exercise. Promotion of the self is, for better or worse, become a Must Have skill for writers at the moment, and shows no sign of changing. One of the blessing curses of the internet is more exposure and reaching more readers, which unfortunately means more exposure. Writers, being solitary creatures for the most part, usually suck at this. Not as a skillset - a great many writers I know are excellent at their own PR - but it takes so much from them, it's a beast that devours their time and mental and emotional resources. The idea of doing PR when I don't actually have to seems nigh daft.

Another exercise I found interesting was letting go/reaching out, the idea being that if you have identified a person in your life as not being great for you, you let them go. However, for every person you let go, you should in turn identify someone who has a positive effect on you and try to strengthen the relationship with them.

Balancing my social wants to my emotional wants is something I'm grappling with at the moment. Melbourne is so full of wonderful and interesting people from whom I can learn all sorts of things and have all sorts of fun, and I want to spend time with these people!

I also want to spend time reading and writing.

Being as my one great fear is depression, I'm probably too good at cutting people who may be detrimental to me from my life. But figuring out how to cut down the number of awesome people around? This is possibly a zero world problem- wait. There are no problems, only challenges. This challenge indicates I have it pretty good, but holy shit it is hard to figure out.

A last exercise I shall do is the maintaining of the Reverse Bucket List, ie, a list not of things you want to do, but of things you've already done. And man, I have heaps. HEAPS. Piles even! And when I'm sitting at work, on the train, at home, being frustrated at the limitations of my life, I'll shove this list in my face and remind myself not to be greedy and patience is a virtue. You are quite good at making things happen; thus, things will happen.

Look on my works, ye mighty, and be amazed.

(I was on Young Talent Time as a kid, STICK THAT IN YOUR REVERSE BUCKET.)

Girls Club: Bias

Another session, and another roundtable discussion that was actually a discussion, with active listening, weighing of matters and consideration given to the various facets of the topic that could be squished in over a late (and tasty) breakfast.

(I have to plug Trunk, because their breakfast menu is incredibly delicious and a Golden Gaytime milkshake? Whoever came up with this is worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize.)

This video was used as a reference point, and so the particular angle at which the idea of gender bias was approached was geared very much toward the what is encountered in professional circles. This was, for me, a conversation more listened to that contributed to, as I am in the minority in that my dayjob is not my career, and bias tends to become an obstacle particularly when one is trying to advance oneself, when one has ambition and when one can be considered competition, and thus a threat.

A great many disheartening stories which related not only to gender to but to age bias as well. What interested me most, however, was not that judgement should be equal regardless of gender, but the idea that what needs to be  promoted is not only the presence of women in power and responsibility, but the positivity of what have previously been considered 'feminine' traits, and negatively at that.

(Apologies for the wiffy-waffy sentence structure.)

For example, from the article 'To Bake or Not to Bake':

"You bake for work?" Her tone was less curious than it was accusatory. "I thought you were more ambitious than that."

Baking, the preparation of food (I specifically say 'food' and not 'cuisine'), has long been considered the realm of the woman, as the kitchen is where a woman belongs. A woman's work not being considered of any real importance, to engage in this activity, publically, is perceived as a sign of weakness on behalf of the professional woman, to the point that other professional women will see this as a betrayal.

To be successful is, therefore, still measured according to male-inclined criteria, and that which falls into female criteria is to fail. To be feminine to is to fail. We must become men to be successful.

Bollocks.

Nothing is gained by shaving down triangle blocks to fit into square holes. Nothing changes, nothing is improved.

So I just wanted to take this opportunity to applaud not only the women I have worked beneath in my time, but the men who have not adhered to overly-macho dickwad 'masculinity' behavioural models that sadly dominate most corporate culture.

I have worked beneath such men, and in all instances the work environment was mostly crap, involving unbalanced expectations and assumptions, unnecessary favouritism and almost universally poor communication.

My current manager is quite the opposite sort of gentleman. The fact that he takes his time to listen to and consider things, is patient, understanding of the human factors involved in this line of work, and is willing to teach as well as learn makes this one of the most comfortable offices I have ever worked in.

Are these feminine qualities? I believe they are sensible, practical traits; it had not occurred to me to think of them as gendered until now.

Face Value / Drill Down

This is pure kneejerk reaction. Distilled and essence of.

I have just read "When does plastic surgery become racial transformation?" and it's all in the title.

For months we've talked about his journey, about the reasons behind his surgery, and what he hopes to do in the future. But Jiang, articulate, intelligent, and using his philosophical skills to their fullest, often talks in the abstract. It's all a way to muddle the real emotion behind the actions — 16 years ago some dumb people made some dumb comments and it's still dominating his life.

"I believed that my ugliness was in part due to my ethnic features," he says. "My father thinks I'm ridiculous for building a complex system of beliefs based on that initial shallow stimulus. He says, 'You've gone and done this, so you must be very proud of it, but initially it was some stupid kids opening their mouths to you.'"

The article touches on a number of facets, but it felt like this, the individual root from which Jiang's decision stems, was brushed aside. Discussion centres largely upon why a member of an Asian race wishes to "look white", with various experts being quoted. Jiang's voice, while also quoted, isn't given any volume. It isn't that he wants to look white, just less Chinese.

Because, yes, he was bullied for being Chinese. It wasn't "some dumb people made some dumb comments". He was bullied, ostracised and had his whole life shaped because of the way he looked.

Erasing his defining features from his face should not be a path he should have to consider.

Small-minded majorities who can't cope with anything that doesn't fit in their narrow worldview without attempting to crush it are the problem. That racist, bigoted, shallow and fucking puerile mindset is what needs fixing. The incessant and overwhelming broadcast of ALL THAT IS WHITE IS PURE AND GOOD AND NORMAL needs fixing.

TV shows and movies are full of 'token ethnic person' appearances because that is what they are; token. A head nod that hey, non-white people exist so look, they're visible on the screen, but they're incidental and the narratives that matter are full of white people. The ads are full of white people. The news covers stories about white people because 'no one wants to hear about [insert whatever]'.

Just as there's nothing wrong with being Chinese, Ethiopian, Greek, etc, there's nothing wrong with being white. It's the perpetual and self-feeding delusion in the Western world that white is normal,  THAT is what is wrong, and sickening, and sets the world up so that white people will bully a Chinese guy and he will change his face to address that, and those white people will never know or care or change. As if that is okay. As if that is expected. As if that is normal.

 And yes. I was bullied as a kid too. Also because I was not 'normal'. And I've stood in front of mirrors and been fucking thankful that my eyelids have a fold because they could have just as easily not. Even though I don't even look Chinese, I don't look white enough to be normal, and I've wished, I have fucking wished I was whiter because then I would not stand out and I would be normal and no one would push me aside and laugh at me.

The problem is the Western world as a whole. You're a disgusting fucked up bigoted and self-deluded mess, and we can't get out.

The Coin of Your Life

I've been thinking a lot about time recently, and how I'm not sure if I'm spending that which I have in a way that I'm satisfied with.

No longer being fulltime at my day job does return a significant chunk of my life to me. Additionally, I'm currently housesitting at an address that has my commute down to 20 minutes from 1 hour. The amount of time that is mine at the moment is staggeringly luxurious.

Still, there is never enough time to do all that I want to do.

Which indicates that I'm getting done all that I need to do, and that is already better than before. Being torn on the fact that I must decide between various pleasures is a wonderful conundrum.

(But is writing a pleasure or a necessity? I have made time for it, but it does not feel like enough.)

(And the freelance work? Is that work or play? How do I prioritise that?)

(Friends, I am still gorging myself on friendship and camaraderie, and I really should heed the introvert warning signs but-)

I'm not sure who I need to be stricter with; those around me asking for my time, or myself. 

The Midriff Conundrum

The realisation that the t-shirt you grabbed from the drawer this morning is just a touch to short is just a touch too late, coming as it does when you raise your arms to stretch out a yawn while talking to a co-worker. The lift gives him a perfect view of the waistband of your jeans, which are just a touch too tight and emphasis that little flap of paunch just a touch too well.

And you can't work up the motivation to be disgusted with your body, or to be disgusted at the socially-conditioned reaction of disgust, because you're at capacity with frustration at the knowledge that you will have to manage this oversight of overflab over the next 16 hours when you know you do not currently have the mental resources to spend on something so ridiculous and trivial as keeping your midriff concealed because your sleep the night before was so utterly broken and crippled and limping and crying at its ineffectiveness and all this could have been avoided if you'd only checked yourself before stepping out the front door, but you were so addled, so tired, that it slipped your mind just as your belly slips into view; with easy.

This doesn't put you in a wonderful frame of mind, and you were already in negetive attitude. You can always choose your mood - no, you can - but you can't choose whether or not you are exhausted, aching, and addled. You can choose to vent your petty miseries, or you could choose to shut up and stop polluting the emotional airspace, but the one person who doesn't benefit from that is yourself.

You could try and turn this into something mildly thought provoking, and whip up some navel-gazing blogpost concerning the constructive analysis of physiological mood factors and the responsibilities we take with not only our mood by how we choose to project our mood onto the world, but truth be told it would only be a thinly veiled piece of waffle that, even with the long words and needlessly meandering clauses, is just a whinge.

Stockpiling the Proof

What I do, is I, I collect every moment;

• Comments
• FB status updates
• Tweets
• Emails
• Text messages
• Photos

And I screenshot them. And I put them in a folder called 'happy caps'.

All of these screenshots are an expression of love from you to me. They are examples of the kindness and generosity of your heart, of passing exchanges that have delighted or tickled me, compliments given without any expectation and demonstrated appreciation of my existence.

I keep all this evidence for those moments when my doubt is speaking louder than my courage, and with this evidence I punch my doubt in the face.

You are the best arsenal a girl could ask for.

Self & Prescribed

Three days ago I switched from taking Effexor to Pristiq, or venlafaxine to desvenlafaxine. The latter is a sort of 'remastered' release of the former, in order to keep the pharmaceutical patent alive, but although the molecular difference is cosmetic, the actual affect is quite marked. All anti-depressants have dulled my mind, bruised my memory capacity and generally made me vague and scatterbrained, but Effexor takes that dumbening to new depths. Unfortunately, Pristiq is not available in the EU/UK, so for the past year I have been endumbened.

It's amazing how little it takes to shake an awareness up and down. Mere milligrams is what I, we, the medicated sorehearts, take. Measures so small as to mean absolutely nothing in that small terracotta pill in the palm of your hand, which you're sure is comprised mostly of chalk and hope. Molecules, a mere additional arm, nothing, and these three days you've felt such an upheaval in your nethermind. Tearstorms and rotten softness where once you thought you were strong. You tell your friends and you tell your family; it isn't me. It's just chemistry. It'll be done in a week or so.

You tell yourself it isn't you.

We, you, I rarely speak of the faith required of medication. The invisible substance you take will alter you, and alter your ability to perceive this alteration. It will gift you with an emotional vertigo unwarranted by your surroundings. It will make you worse, so much worse, and the only thing you can do is trust, believe, hope, that it will get better. It must get better.

Please let it get better.

Last week I attended a PostSecret event at the Arts Centre. I've been following PostSecret for years, and so was not unprepared for the heartstring tugging that those hours contained. Strangers stood before a crowd of hundreds and confessed to personal crimes that stole their voices, a powerful and what should have been liberating and uplifting act, but when I left and stood at the station waiting for my train, I felt tired, deeply worn, helpless. There is so much hurt walking around these ordinary streets behind these ordinary faces. Tasting the scope of this suffering is to stop where you stand, close your eyes, and lie down right there.

There was one secret shared - the only man to stand and bare himself - in which the words spoken were a carefully crafted fish hook on a very long line, and I didn't realise I was caught and leaving a tangled trail behind me as I walked all over town.

He said that anti-depressants saved him,  have made him so much better, but it was before he started taking them that he has never felt so alive.

It's been years of medication and health obstacles, and nothing has changed except my perspective. I want to write, now. I'm not scared any more. Actually I've been bashing my head at writing for some months now, and a growing part of me suspects that this medication truly is interfering. Or is that the excuse I've come up with to hide behind? I don't know. I can't tell.

Still, strive for this. Stretch and strain. My application for part-time has been approved, and now every Wednesday is mine. The driving motivation for this was pain management, as the last three Fridays I've had a major meltdown from the stress of trying to hold myself together through the working week, as the pain signal gets steadily louder and more ragged. Fatigue has continued to dog my heels, so I must assume it is not merely the rigor of travel that was flattening me previously. Hopefully breaking the week in two will offer enough respite that I shall be able to keep on top of things, whatever those things may be.

Sadly that old paradigm remains in place, and on what should be a day of rest I will feel guilt for using my time for myself.

But maybe that's the medication talking. Maybe it's all just chemistry.

What I want, what I miss, what I long for more than anything else is Loch Broom.   I want that cold North Sea water, a finger of the Minch sneaking into the west coast of Scotland to lie lazy between the hills. A beach of rocks worn delightfully smooth, older than dinosaurs and covered in lost kelp and discarded crab shells. The languid wail of herring gulls punctuated by the piping of oyster catchers. I miss the constant salt in the air, air that has been tossed over the isles and mountains and seas. I miss the hills, barren of trees but so full of hunched life, heather and gorse grumpy and gorgeous. I miss the way the sun  would play through the mountain passes and the clouds would curl over the peaks as though suddenly shy. I miss the certainty that, no matter how much turbulence I carried in my heart, I could look out a window and see-