It's your Jam

It’s your Jam, Babe

Around this time last year I was not in a good place. I met up with a friend and told her that I’d been re-reading the books of one of my favourite authors - Marian Keyes, because I got a lot of comfort from those books. I don’t think I imagined that she baulked with disdain. We all do it sometimes, flinch when someone talks about getting pleasure from something which we ourselves can’t stand, sometimes without having properly watched, listened to, read or tasted the thing itself, we just have this perception that the thing is beneath us. The thing is, why should anybody feel the need to be defensive about the things that bring them pleasure? Who made any individual the arbiter of good taste?

Tribes
When I was a teenager I felt that I had finally found my tribe in the Indie music scene - here were a bunch of thoughtful, sensitive, shy types, they hadn’t been the popular kids at school, but the more interesting ones (ha ha). The music was the thing, the string that pulled us all together and it was our selective, special thing. It didn’t matter that others didn’t get the music - in fact it made it more attractive - the music was a deep pool, only to be understood and dived into by a choice few. We had found our place in the world. Then, suddenly, your favourite band would appear on the front of Smash Hits, be played on Radio 1 and everything was ruined! That was your band, you didn’t want everyone’s grubby mits on them! They were yours to listen to in your tiny bedroom, learning the lyrics by rote and occasionally venturing into the outside world to see them play live.

There is this protective snobbery around the music scene - popular is bad, teenage girls liking it is bad, it is a largely male domain, with the occasional backstage pass issued to the occasional woman. The musos are sneering and dismissive of anything that doesn’t pass their own impossible standards of excellence and artistic integrity. Anything remotely poppy is dismissed as being totally without merit. But the thing is, to slightly misquote Laura Mvula, who made you the master of the freaking universe, love? Who made you the ultimate arbiter of good taste?
I get it, that protective thing, that not wanting the masses, those same masses who mocked you at school, to take this special thing of yours and ruin it. But I felt like that when I was a teenager, I’ve got over it now I’m an adult. I can happily listen to The Smiths (not happily, but kinda guiltily, if I’m honest), Radiohead, Alice Coltrane, Bonobo, Katy Perry, The Beatles, Crowded House, Kendrick Lamar, Ian Brown, Depeche Mode, Harry Styles….etc, etc, with no restrictions on myself and it makes life more varied and fun!

So called low brow

Back to Marian Keyes, one of my favourite authors, lumped into the category of ‘Chick Lit’, yet the first person I came across who depicted depression, in her books, in a way that resonated with me (more than sodding Jean Paul Sartre, babe!). Why would I not love her? Her books make me laugh, entertain me, contain universal truths and make me feel less isolated. There is nothing wrong with this, I shouldn’t even have to spell it out or defend it. I don’t really feel like I have anything to prove with my reading matter, I have my English degree but even if I didn’t, could still happily dive into a range of material without having to defend my choice. I love Jane Austen and Barbara Pym and Agatha Christie and Maria Semple and Jonathan Coe and so many others. The best, albeit bittersweet, feeling is when you feel sad to finish a book.  The characters stay with you, they cling to your clothes and speak to you from the pages. You go back over passages you love, rolling the words over your tongue. Or, sometimes, you might just read something silly, fun and forgettable, to get you through the day. You don’t always want a fancy, open sandwich, made with focaccia bread, topped with olives, roasted artichokes and drizzled with oil, sometimes you just want a cheese sandwich.

The ‘Idiot Box’
Same goes for T.V. I have to be in the right mood for a subtitled film I’m usually rewarded when I make the effort but often I just want to watch First Dates! Again, why should we feel that we have to defend our choices. There should be no such thing as a guilty pleasure, we need to knock that sanctimonious Jiminy Cricket figure off our shoulder and just get on with it.

I know that for self-preservation, I often have to impose a news embargo on myself, it makes me less well informed but more robust, mentally and I’ve gotten over feeling remotely guilty about it. I feel similarly about my choice of books, TV, film and music - a Dolly mixture array of things and nobody else’s business.

So, on that note, I’m going to go off and watch some episodes of Sabrina the Teenage Witch - the original, kinda silly one, I have found that, whilst I really love the darker, modern reboot (The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) I also enjoy the original.
Have a marvellous weekend!

Self-help books - optimism or delusion?

I've always been really drawn to the transformation story; rags to riches, shy, retiring mouse to self-assured dynamo, plain Jane to goddess. The first ones to catch my attention were those ugly duckling, 'fat to thin' photospreads you get in magazines. The ones where, on one side of the page, a huge, marshmallow person stares apologetically at the camera. ‘I’m sorry I exist’ their sad, puffy faces seem to say - ruining your paper with my looks which don’t fit into society’s rigidly defined ideas of what is aesthetically acceptable!

Then, on the opposite page, there’s the transformation pic, the former fatty has shed 6 stone (or however many kilos that translates as) and is holding out their fat person’s, clown trousers out in front of them.
‘Look at what a fat joke I was.’ Their happy grins say, now I can walk down the street happily, without children pelting me with rotten fruit.

The most predictable New Year’s resolution

The thing is, my shameful little secret, is that there is a part of me that is still strongly drawn towards this fat to thin story, so that every now and again I’ll take a sneak peak at My 600 pound life or similar programme, on T.V. I just can't seem to stop being seduced by the lure of the idea that however bad it gets, change is still possible.

By the side of my bed, there is always a pile of books. Usually comprised of self-help books, the novel I’m currently reading and fiction books I started then put aside in favour of something a bit more interesting.
At this moment in time, at the top of the self-help pile is Freedom from Emotional Eating by Paul McKenna. And why do I have this book there, if I’ve claimed to support the body positivity movement and intuitive eating and the rest of it?
The answer to this is that I can never fully climb aboard the whole body positivity/fat acceptance thing because:
a) I don’t want to be fat and don’t feel comfortable at the weight I’m currently at
b) I do still see excess weight as having an emotional aspect to it.
c) I want to be as healthy as possible.

Now, please don’t come down on me like a tonne of bricks about this, I’m saying that I can’t embrace the whole whole ‘fat acceptance’ thing for me, I’m not talking about anyone else. I really do believe that I’ve always been an emotional eater, using food for comfort and not always just eating when I’m hungry and I want to address that. Although Mckenna’s book tends to oversimplify things, it does seem to contain basic truths. The only problem is that, I must have bought it a while ago, and it contains a hypnosis C.D and we have nowhere in our house that plays CDs and the whole point of it is to listen to it privately, on an MP3 player or suchlike but I don’t have the means to burn it onto my device but when I do we’re really going to see some changes! Clown trouser pictures to follow.

The impact of the past

The other transformations I like to hear about are the ones where people were addicted to drugs or alcohol, then had an epiphany, turned  their lives around and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro or something. I don’t think that I’m an alcoholic, I just like the narrative of having a problem to solve - one so huge and which overshadows everything, that needs to be overcome before you can realise your full potential.
Talking of problems to overcome, someone recommended to me a book about trauma, [The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma. Kolk, Bessel van der, Penguin 2015 ] The author propounds that trauma and its effects are a lot more widespread than most people think and the repercussions are manifold. Going back to the whole weight thing, one of the things he puts forward is that feelings of panic might be experienced as hunger, causing people to overeat. Also, that people who are disconnected with their bodies, not in tune with signals, may continue to eat past the point of fullness. I’ve encountered versions of this theory since reading Fat is a Feminist Issue by Susie Orbach (Although she talks of women subconsciously wanting to be fat, as a protection from the outside world).
The book about trauma is a difficult read, detailing case studies of traumatic experiences which can be harrowing, I’d only recommend reading it if you are looking to go into that field of work yourself or if you are feeling emotionally robust and read it in small bursts.

It’s all getting a bit heavy now, let’s move on 

Triumph over adversity: I’m also a great fan of those tales of women who were married to
feckless men (not that this applies to me!) and they had four children and their husbands left them but they picked themselves up by their bootstraps to become bestselling authors/successful business women/human rights lawyers. I bloody love those stories!

Like I said, I don’t have the feckless husband but am often held back by my own lack of confidence and have a tendency to self-sabotage, so to that end, when my brother asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I requested the book The Confidence Code: The Science and Art of Self-Assurance---What Women Should Know by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman. He kindly got it for me, last December, I just need to read it now, to be brimming with confidence….(In my defence, December was really manic).
Tip 1: to get the most from a self-help book, make sure you actually read it!

Finish what you started

So, perhaps my main New Year’s resolution should be to actually read my self-help books, right through to the end and, in the case of the ‘Emotional Eating’ one, actually watch the DVD, find some way of downloading the CD and follow the techniques. I’ll check in, this time next month to let you know if it’s started to work.

Time Out

Around this time last year, I wrote this post:
https://msmuddles.blogspot.com/2017/12/because-youre-worth-it.html
About going easy on yourself, not expecting perfection and taking a step back. Boy do I need to follow my own advice right now.

Right, I’ve always had a tendency to tut and sigh, heavily at times, without realising it, others have helpfully pointed it out, but now I’ve realised that I’ve actually started groaning aloud! Friends, I’m stressed up to the eyeballs at the moment, I’m irritable, emotional and the other day I fell asleep in the pub and I wasn’t even drunk - maybe I’ve developed late onset narcolepsy! So, I’ve been thinking about ways to decompress and take time out because this time of year seems to bring on full on meltdown (or is it just me?). I swear, if one more person asks me if I’ve done all my Christmas shopping….Note: I’ve done NONE of my Christmas shopping! This is not because I’m a last minute, fly by the seat of your pants, buy everything on Christmas Eve, it’s because my daughter’s birthday is next week and all my resources are going into prepping for her party. (Plus I’ve been really skint and have only just got paid). Anyhoo, that’s enough about me, bless you if you’ve preserved past this drivel, let’s talk about YOU, how can YOU relax? Because it’s very important to take care of yourself.

1) Listen to some music, preferably on noise cancelling headphones.

Shut out the whole world and their selfish, unreasonable demands for an hour.
May I recommend
Stars by Dubstar for an uplifting song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddlIPv-DAeM
Strange, kinda ghostly and kinda flat verses, interspersed by an almost operatic chorus. Enormously uplifting, especially of you lift your arms up in time to the chorus and sing along as best you can.
b.  Toxic Girl by Kings of Convenience for a relaxing song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9UauaXTXUI
I’ve never heard of them either, but this song came up on a Greatest Indie Anthems album and it’s really soothing, especially if you pay no heed to the lyrics. (Actually all their songs are rather soothing, am listening to them as I type this)
c.      Young folks by Peter Bjorn and John if you’re feeling emotionally constipated and need a good cry - it’s so melancholy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iArXv64tCJA

Of course, this is a personal list, you’re bound to have your own go to songs, for every occasion, so go forth and listen to them.

2) Have a massage
Ask around to see if your friends can recommend anyone - then when you find someone good, tell me about it.

3) Buy yourself a gift
Next time you go Christmas shopping, buy yourself a present too! Ha ha, I tend to do this sometimes anyway, especially in book shops.

4) Take time to read
Find a really quiet cafe, buy yourself the beverage of your choice, turn off your phone and read for an hour. If books aren’t your jam, read a magazine or a paper.

5) Wrap up warm and go to the zoo
 Go to the zoo/urban farm/park and look at some animals for a while. The farm is a good option because you can often feed and pet the animals and this is good for bringing down your heart rate.

6) Get Arty
Buy some cheap art materials and paint something - maybe a picture of that goat you took a particular shine to at the Urban farm

7) Socialise
Spend time with people who make you feel good or who make you laugh. Sounds a bit wanky, I know, but enormously therapeutic.

8) Ceremonial stress relief
Write your worries down on scraps of paper and have a ceremonial burning ceremony, or just rip them up and throw them away.

9) Bake something. 
Method, routine, the satisfaction of having created something. If you’re feeling virtuous, gift it someone, if you feel in need of a treat, eat the thing you baked on a really nice plate, accompanied by your favourite beverage (again) in your favourite cup. (If you don’t have a favourite cup, buy yourself a nice cup, as part of point 3!)

10. Give yourself a break
 Don’t worry about being fat (this one's for me) because one of your favourite animals is a seal and seals are fat and gorgeous and everybody loves them!

Now, go forth, you magical unicorn and sparkle! Or, alternatively, put your feet up and relax.

What do I do now?

Oh my goodness, it’s nearly the end of November and I’ve nearly finished my book! When I say book I really mean the 50,000 words I signed up to write at the start of November - #NaNoWriMo. It’s only flipping worked - I’m nearing the end of the book and I’ve written 48,340 words! Of course, as I haven’t been editing as I’ve gone along (as per the instructions, I’d never have been able to write that much if I’d worried about little things like plot and syntax) I don’t know whether the book will actually be any good or not but I’m feeling very attached to it. I like my likeable characters, am irked by the irksome ones, am slightly besotted with the love interest. In short, I’m going to really miss it when it’s finished. What am I going to do with myself now? Because all that time I was spending writing was time when I wasn’t worrying about what needed to be done for my daughter’s impending birthday or for Christmas. I wasn’t stressing about who had spoken to me sharply that day and whether I was going to chalk it down to experience or hold a grudge against them forever. While I was working on my lovely book, I didn’t think about how much weight I’d put on or how much money I’d spent on new clothes. Come to think about it, when I was writing I wasn’t splashing out on a load of shite I probably didn’t need, either. Most significantly, I was also holding back any feelings of loss and grief which have been a massive feature of this year.
So I think we can safely say that I was using writing as a form of escapism, in the same way that I’ve always used reading as escapism. I think that’s why I detest book snobbery, because books have always provided solace for me, so who is anyone else to dictate what you should be reading or what books have merit.

When I first embarked on NaNoWriMo I told a couple of people that I thought it would be good for me - motivationally speaking, as I always do my homework. (Perhaps I am a people pleaser after all, although I’m reluctant to admit it) The writing never felt like a chore though, I loved it! It was so liberating just to be instructed to write, write and write, without worrying about editing, the most important thing was to get the words down. Every now and again I’d stop and think - does this look right? Does this feel authentic? Then I’d skip on, telling myself, it didn’t matter, it’ll all come right in the edits.

• I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it but I had a short story published in an anthology, this year. Between you and me, I think I’ve always had somewhat unrealistic expectations about being published. I never expected unheralded riches, but perhaps I thought I would feel something profound. But when I tell you what I expected to feel, perhaps you will see why I was always set up for disappointment. *Whispers* I think I expected to feel valued, appreciated, accepted, yikes, loved even.  It really pains me to admit this. I saw a comedian at the weekend and he showed us (the audience) a picture of him standing with two other smiling comedians.

“Look at us - we’ve all got the same eyes.” He quipped. “We’re saying - ‘Love us, love us, please love us!.”
I laughed in recognition. It was great to be congratulated on being published, far less great to read some of the harsh reviews. My brother, who studied psychology, told me once that some psychologist said that all Art was an expression of mental illness. This stayed with me. I was fully prepared to accept that I was mentally ill. Nowadays I feel that perhaps it’s less about being sick and more about being heard, though.

Friends, I’m worried about what the actual flip I am going to do when I finish this book.  I’ve set myself the rule that I won’t look at it again until the New Year, so I can look at it with ‘fresh eyes’ and begin the onerous task of pulling it to pieces, salvaging the best bits, making sure the research adds up - editing it! But I loved writing it. And, I don’t want to think about Christmas and all the things I have to do. Neither do I want want to acknowledge the nascent depression, that has been flapping its greasy wings in my face for over a year, threatening to grab hold of me and plunge me down into the abyss. What am I supposed to do now? Write another book you say, ah, OK then!

November motivation

Good morning, Reader,

I can't stay for long, I'm supposed to be writing a novel. On the one hand I'm wildly motivated and enthused, on the other I fear that I'm going to emerge from my cave at the end of November, covered in hair. I'm talking about a thick layer of stinking, matted hair! I'm having to wear noise cancelling headphones and ignore the children to try and meet my word count. It's making me even more insular than normal. I had to drag myself out for a fireworks display at the school last night and I felt quite fearful.

Another thing I'm supposed to be doing is cleaning, this is not something on the top of my list, I can tell you, but my house is mired in, what I like to think of as Bohemian squalor. I have this weird dichotomy between hating housework and resenting the fact that the bulk of it falls to me, and fearing germs. I can't afford a cleaner and a massive dose of liberal conscience would probably prevent me getting one even if I could afford it. So why hasn't anyone invented an affordable robot cleaner yet? I'm deadly serious here, why haven't they? Alexa, clean my house! I think I'd have a male robot cleaner called Sven. I'd program him to make me tea and ask me about my day, maybe we could have some light conversation about the works of Agatha Christie and the best places to go to for afternoon tea. I would talk to him for ages and say  “Stop me if I'm boring you.” And he'd say “Oh, you could never bore me, friend!” Perhaps I could program him to do the school run as well. Oops, I'm starting to get a bit of a crush on Sven.

Anyway, why am I rambling on in this manner? Am I just stopping by to say 'hi’ and keeping you from your day?

It occurs to me that I sometimes advocate things without actually doing them myself, for instance, exercise. I still do a lot of walking, that hasn't changed, but I've been told that it isn't enough (enough for who? Dunno, the health police I suppose). If I say that I'm going to do it here, on this blog, then it acts as a binding, legal contract. So, first off, yoga. I used to do it, quite enjoyed it, felt the benefit. And I'm going to start doing it again, at least 3 times a week.

If I don't stick to it I give you permission to take away my chocolate.

While we're here, I need to have written 50,000 words by the end of this month. NaNoWriMo. I started on the 1st November and have 16,000 words now, so am roughly on target, if I do my 1,666 words today. If I don't complete this task, you can have my beloved, illustrated copy of Pride and Prejudice.

So, we've entered into the contract now. If you like, we could do an exchange and I can come round to yours and kick you until you sign up for that skydiving course you've always been meaning to do. What do you say?

Go Ape: the most challenging thing I've done this year

Celebrate the Moment

I was chatting to this woman the other night, at a school drinks evening, and I felt that I’d met a kindred spirit. We had quite a lot in common and she too was an aspiring writer. I'd never really spoken to her properly before, beyond exchanging a 'hello' at the school gates but I'd got the impression that she was a lovely, warm person. I mentioned that I’d recently had a *short story published and added on the usual clauses that I feel the need to insert when people asked me about it: that it was being published by a small, independent publisher and that the book probably only had a very small print run, not widely available in shops or online book suppliers or anything. I said that I was torn between wanting to celebrate this fairly **minor achievement (**other people might see it as minor, but to me it’s actually a fairly big deal) and not wanting to make a fuss. I also said that I was tempted to say to people that I wanted to celebrate this because this might be it, this might be as good as it gets.  Then she replied;
“No, (you should) celebrate the moment!”
And I thought - what a lovely idea - celebrate the moment.

I love upbeat and positive people as I sometimes find it hard to cling to the positive myself. I’m a bit of a ‘but what if this happens?’ Chicken-Licken, kinda negative thinker. I find it easier to encourage other people and be positive for them, than for myself, I’m often anticipating disaster or rejection. So I really liked the ‘celebrate the moment’ ethos. It seemed both positive and Zen-like.

Twitter Wisdom
It also tied in with something I’d seen on Twitter, earlier on in the year, when someone said that with writing, success often happened in tiny little increments that were difficult to quantify.  You might be waiting to crack open the champagne until you’d won a competition or when you'd signed with an agent, only to defer it until you’d signed a book deal, then waited until you’d sold over a certain amount of copies, then won an award...The Twitter post urged you to celebrate every step of the way and it was very timely for me because an agent had asked to read my full manuscript.  This was the first time this had happened. I was cautiously optimistic and a wee bit excited. Surely I should wait until she said she wanted to take me on before I cracked open the bubbly? Then I saw the thing on Twitter and duly broke the foil on a bottle of fizz (Prosecco, not champagne). It was a moment to enjoy because it was a sign that someone's interest had been piqued. In the end the agent decided to pass, I was crushed but at the same time I didn't feel too silly for celebrating the small breakthrough, as I’d never even got that far before.

Why should we need an excuse to have a celebration?

• I think in life it’s important to celebrate the little things rather than waiting for something ‘big enough’ to come along. I don’t think we should wait for a ‘big’ birthday or a significant anniversary to come along, before we have a big old knees up, I think we ought to make a fuss about being married for eleven years or about turning nineteen. Or, if parties aren’t a person's bag, do something that we really enjoy.  Sometimes we might think it unseemly or showy to make a fuss but it’s actually really nice to mark things.

I’ve been a little bit passive in the past but if other people don’t give you the fanfare you want - create it yourself.

P.S you can buy the short story anthology here:

https://margocollective.com/product/chains-unheard-voices/?platform=hootsuite&fbclid=IwAR3UmalaoGVwc9iM1M6gPYtocyfB0BZB_CT7BHw-NzfN2N6jnsRl8Le0lxg

Stockholm Syndrome

“Why would any woman vote for Trump?”
A male friend asked me, in 2016, when the gibbering orange baboon was elected to high office.
“Search me, guv!” I said, or something similar.
I can no way claim to speak for all women, unlike a man in my former writing group who used to constantly tell me, when he read about something my male characters had done;
“A man wouldn’t do that!” Because he obviously speaks for all men.
Why would any woman have voted for someone who claimed that you should grab women ‘by the pussy’? Why would any woman cheer as Brett Kavanaugh* was confirmed as supreme court justice? This is obviously a complex psychological and  socio-political issue which I shall attempt to unravel and reduce to an idiot’s guide. (I’m the idiot, reader, not you!).
I really don’t want to dwell on this issue, it pains me to write about it but I feel that I have to.
*https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45660989

In the beginning

It is an established fact, in the world of psychology and beyond, that when you are a child and your parents mistreat you in any way - beat you, call you nasty names, any of the whole gamut of forms of abuse, as a child you perceive the fault to be within yourself, rather than in your parent. It is too painful to entertain the fact that your parents aren’t perfect, so you internalise the guilt instead. It is only when you reach adolescence that you begin to challenge this view. Perhaps some people never do challenge this view? The ones who will tell you that they were thrashed to within an inch of their lives and it never did them any harm? The ones who might joke about their rough treatment by qualifying it with the comment that they were a ‘right little shit’ or perhaps ‘a bit of a handful’. None of us are perfect and I’m certain that I’m giving my kids a whole range of future neuroses - perhaps a germ phobia or an inability to cope well in crowds, to name but a few. It seems hard to believe that little kids think their parents are perfect because mine are always arguing with me and pointing out where they think I’m wrong, but there you are, you can’t argue with the facts…

What’s this got to do with anything?

You know those women who want to know what a woman was wearing when they find out that she was raped, you know those who say that a woman shouldn’t have been walking  alone at night? Why do they buy into such a misogynistic view? Why do they unquestioningly repeat the patriarchal lies? Is it because they are stupid or masochistic or is it because it’s easier to parrot the dominant ethos, rather than question it? Because once you do question it what you are left with is an ugly, unbalanced, unfair society where women are at the bottom of the pile.

Flight of fancy

Imagine a world where a man was walking on his own at night and a group of women attacked and sexually assaulted him and the judge, jury and media stated that it was his fault because he shouldn’t have been walking on his own. Moreover he was dressed very provocatively, in tight jeans and muscle T. His genitals could clearly be seen through the lines of his denim - meaning that he was asking to be assaulted.

Why did the women weep in support of Kavanaugh?

I don’t believe this to be purely a question of political allegiances, some right wing women
spoke out against Kavanaugh:

From the Guardian article:

'I'm on the brink of tears': how rightwing women reacted to Kavanaugh
28 September 2018

Some, of course, supported him every step of the way.

Kavanaugh's accuser, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, still can't return home because of the death threats she's received, since coming forward with her accusations. Why would any woman voluntarily put herself up for that kind of abuse? Ford is a highly respected, intelligent woman, she must have anticipated some of the fallout from her claims, she talked of placing herself 'on the train tracks', of annihilation. One can only conclude that she was telling the truth, she knew what this man was capable of and was prepared to put herself through an excoriating public ordeal in order to highlight his shortcomings and prevent him holding a position of such great power.

And today the orange baboon apologised to Kavanaugh for what he has gone though...

Wake up women, wake up to the uncomfortable truth - the parent society is deeply, fundamentally flawed.