Good to talk

SO a couple of days ago my sister blew me off, and there has been radio silence since.

She canceled me at very short notice so that she could go to lunch with our parents, they had rung between our arrangements being made and before I arrived at her house.

I am slightly less pissed off that they chose her for lunch and not me, than her deciding on balance that she would rather go out with them, despite seeing them virtually every week, rather than me, as we are 'lucky' to catch up once or twice a month.

We all live within a half hours drive of each other.

Shall I infer that I am just such a rubbish person that they all don't want to know me?

Or what.

Prior to this the family relationships have been harmonious if somewhat relaxed. We don't meet up for coffee, she often says she will ring to arrange, but never does. I try and make arrangements, pop in now and then but it is somewhat one sided.

I recognise fury, rejection, sadness, disappointment. I wanted an explanation, of what exactly she was thinking, but I probably really need her to understand how I feel about this, and that the way she behaves has an impact. Being a responsible adult I own up to the fact that I choose how I deal with this. Perhaps the light is dawning that I need to made some efforts at damage limitation, but how is it possible to insure yourself against being shit on by your 'nearest and dearest'.

Great Gosh

This weekend I actually managed to spend some time doing something 'worthwhile'. Although I have been away from paid work work for nearly six weeks I was forced to look back and reflect that I'd pissed it away mostly.

How did that happen.

I was talking to the therapist and a phrase came to mind of not getting pudding till the main course is finished. That has contributed in spades. There are still all those things that I should do but can't be bothered, and until they are done I don't allow myself to go and do the good things that are fun and make me feel that time has been well spent.

Soon I am due to go and discuss returning to paid work and how that can be facilitated. I fear I may be overly ready for this. Which way will it go? Mealy mouthed platitudes or crash and burn honesty. I have done plenty of both in the past and either one is quite tempting, but what will get me closer to my career goals? They stand at 'being left alone' so it's probably academic which one will get me there.

I watched a man stand aloof and watch his sons do colouring and sticking today. He wouldn't sit down with them for the first 10 minutes and then he looked pained and didn't join in. Will he remember that one day and wish it had been otherwise.?

Clickety click.

So today I had lots of places to go and put on my modest heels, they are very school marm, sensible and not very high. Within 5 minutes I was fed up of tripping round the house avoiding falling over, 'cos I'm not a seasoned practitioner of heels and they never seem quite safe, or built to let you get where you are going quickly.

I was reminded of Gok's Fashion Fix last night, where he wheeled out a new capsule wardrobe to transform this woman, sure enough there were about three or four pairs of shoes, none of them had heel less than about 3 inches. I thought about walking up my works car park with a colleague who always wears tall stilettos and how I had to walk Soooooo slowly as she was struggling on the uneven surface, see I park on the right where there's pebbles, she parks on the left as her shoes do not allow uneven surfaces.

So heels, hmmm. Inspiration of the patriarchal, misoginistic devil to keep women teetering and unable to move, with their bums and boobs stuck out because of the way they have to compensate with their posture for the unnatural tippy toesness. Or every right thinking women's right to express her magnificent femininity and make her feel special.?

I think I may have to come back here again sometime, because I recall the colleague referring to my uniform work shoes as 'lesbian shoes' and I don't feel she was expressing affirmation. Layers of meaning and subjectivity loom there and it's time to drink tea. Laters.

Biding my time

Yesterday I went for a solitary walk, good idea or not? Dunno. I found that people in the garden centre felt they had to buy these pots and that they might get a discount because they had some possible fault......I felt they could go buy pots elsewhere if they were that bothered by faults. There was huffing.

My portfolio remains unfinished, as do many other things which I really 'should' have finished by now. Feeling becalmed? Apathetic? Disinterested?

As I sit here musing on motivation and vision I think.....blimey that hamster needs a clean.

I will feel better.

So this new group is starting and for a kick off 'someone' decided that a self help book would be a good place to start.

I sighed.

I haven't waded in telling them why that is a bad idea, which shows personal growth on my part I feel. I am thinking that they may find self help books ..well helpful. But I have my doubts. There are so many. So very many. And they peddle the bleedin' obvious so appealingly packaged. ANd I know that it all seems very attainable, and with a bit of effort, I could do it. I could help myself. But then again who ever does? Please, if you have found a self help book which really began a change process which was sustained for more than a week or two could you leave a comment with the title of the book and what made it valuable for you.


I am not about to belittle that, I am honestly interested in what actually brings about change in a human's life, change that persists for longer than a few days. What process makes it happen. Knowing what motivates people to behave differently is a very powerful bit of knowledge, and I would like to catch a glimpse of what that looks like, guess it is very personal, guess there are already books and courses out there which may give me this info, NLP, for instance seems to have a lot to say about changing behaviour, but somehow I remain untouched. How about NLP...have you ever been? Perhaps I should go, and find out what it has to offer, top tips for winning over the opposite sex, or selling your product? But what about the change which means I get to live the more satisfying life, where does that come from?

D'ya Know?

Vincent D'Onofrio.

He is in that psuedo police thing on channel five, and I remember him in Men In Black.

His suits in that are great, he appears very dashing, he appears quite tall, in fact on Saturday in an early scene he looked just like one of those people who is someone sitting on someone elses shoulders with an overcoat on. Somewhat bizarre.

I wonder what it's like to arrange shots so that people aren't always peering up his nose, so that he can emote on the same level with everyone else.

This may have come up as Gillian Anderson was on a sofa somewhere giving away her play. She had to wear heels a lot and not stand right next to everyone else, that Mouldy guy, or was he Solder or Sully???? No that's Monsters Inc isn't it.

Yep, which takes me right round to that fab song which I've been listening to in my head for days now

" Take that thing back where it came from...so help me....so help me" ( Tum Tum Tum).

Slap dat.

I was mooching around the internet in yet more job avoiding activity and came across 'Ravelry' and like many things, once you know its there it suddenly starts appearing everywhere. I wondered whether it could be good to join, get free patterns to knit, that sort of stuff, but then the job avoiding indicated this may not be helpful.

Anyways I wandered past again and noticed the delay to get your 'invitation' had come down to 1 day, from 4. Hmmm. Then I found that all sorts of upset and internet shoutiness had broken out over some people being BANNED. I bumped into several passionate outpourings about the evils of how they had been banned and the underlying socio-political implications of what had gone on. After skim reading a couple it seemed to me that the very fabric of democracy and basic human freedoms were in peril, never mind economic crisis....Ravelry had banned people.

I was transported to a time when I was a moderator on an internet community, I had the power to influence bannings and such. Oh the power, oh the enormous impact such things could have..... on a group of about 12 people ...when they thought about it. In fact I think I was made a moderator just so I could help support an admin who had realised she might have to ban someone. Really the agonising that went on before, during and after, particularly after. It was a thing to behold. I think the banned member would have been very very pleased had they realised the depths of agony plumbed by some staffers after they had done the deed.

Now I should probably come clean here and admit that the forum I moderated on was a very small affair, with only about 800 members on the books, and talk about niche interest, really very minor affair, hilariously described by colleagues as 'guinea pig porn', yup. But I couldn't quite put it all together. How people believed that joining a forum gave them some kind of right. That their membership and the efforts they put in had some kind of global, no universal significance. It was a great education and when I got fed up of being there I had the ability to delete everything I'd ever put up there and leave in my own time. Probably that's where the angst comes from, unfinished business, echoes of unsatisfactory endings, rejection. Injustice.

All because some guinea pig freaks, or knitting enthusiasts got fed up of you. It seemed ineffable that this forum was actually a complete autocracy, and the whims of the person who started it could prevail, no matter how injust or unreasonable they may seem they could decide. Written all over the aftermath was the childish/ childlike whine " It's not fair". It was very easy to say from the inside no, no one ever said it would be, but that's exactly what was playing out. Except here at ravelry there does actually seem to be some discussion about the political and legal implications of banning people from a knitting forum. Blimey.