This year I’m going to get fit! I know, right?!
Also I’m going to try and be hella creative.
And I’m doing a couple of cool things like blogging for the uni mag and making a monthly soundtrack for my friend Doyle’s life and then writing about it.
Combine all that with a shit-load of excellent people, a trip to Europe and a few ideas up my sleeve for work related projects and I’ve got myself a pretty ok 2012 lined up.
The stats.
Achieved:
half completed “before 30” to do list
turned 30 (with minimum freaking out)
tagged one wall, one post box, one toilet (raging against the machine, you see)
embroidered one beard, one wolf, one banjo
attended 9 weddings
got significantly drunkish, quite a few times
procured a new mac
made a butt-load of new friends
got heart broken by A Song of Ice and Fire
discovered Chuck, Community, GoT, Big Love and a previously undiscovered depth of devotion to Grey’s Anatomy
Highlights:
Harry Potter wand
weddings
all the dancing in the world and finding shapes I didn’t know I could throw
my family, extended
rooster cardigan, cat vest
my dear, dear, dear friends
Learnt:
I should not be surrounded by good looking/intelligent/witty young men. Bad.
new friends are THE SHIT
I can hold down a job. For a year!
embroidery is quite soothing, for a bit
music will always save my life
I know some stupidly, extravagantly wonderful and loving people.
death is often completely shit
it IS possible to have a mental break down over gingerbread
I continue my streak of being an occasional but thorough douche
the viewing of various 19th century novels-turned-movies is better done without the aid of much blueberry vodka
I can get good marks
I have the power to not like boys but said power is wily and precocious
failing subjects does not feel nice but feels better then losing ones mind
beauty is a drug
music is a drug
coffee is, of course, a drug
I do not wish sadness to be a drug
family, ay? Who knew.
I am addicted to sugar and will find giving it up hilariously difficult
George R.R. Martin is NOT TO BE TRUSTED
the power of a good playlist should not be underestimated
my ability to be envious of others talents and creativity is substantial
my ability to justify the spending of money on music, tv shows, vintage back packs and food is the stuff of legends
If I don’t think I’m wonderful, who will?
though-all of my beloveds seem to retain a steadfast belief in my wonder, even when I do not
I need to write more
to forgive is such good therapy
I’m ok, I think.
Another year, it seems. Lovely.
x
I dig Christmas. It is the time of year when the two warring halves of my personality are most at odds, but when my perky, carol loving side beats my surly inner hipster down with tinsel and candy canes until she limps off mumbling about how happiness is so mainstream now.
I love the food, I love the cheesy decorations (within reason people-I’m watching you) and the carols and stupid Christmas movies and TV specials. It is a shiny, lovely, sprinkly time of year. Why anyone would want to declare a war on such a magic-fest is beyond me.
I don’t really get the whole ‘War on Christmas’ thing. Probably because in Australia we don’t seem to be that fussed about it all so its import has sort of sidestepped me a little. It’s also probable that I don’t get it because I don’t need to.
The first time I really thought about it was while laughing my ass off in that Community episode where they’re really over the top about how to be culturally sensitive at Christmas. The dean was taking incredible pains to not be offensive to those who didn’t celebrate Christmas (Merry Happy!) and Shirley changes the words to Silent Night (sleep in relative ease). It’s classic.
Obviously part of why that is so funny is that it verges on the ridiculous to remove everything that could be conceivably offensive to anyone and in the case of Silent Night it left them with bland and meaningless (and HILARIOUS) words to engender some sort of vague holiday spirit. I thought “hahaha, how true. It’s a little ridiculous to care so much about religious sensitivity. How much of a big deal could it possibly be, if I say the word Christmas. It’s all a bit silly”.
I know it was an exaggerated situation, but according to some American contacts I have and some footage I’ve seen of certain American talk shows, this is the reality a lot of Christians are facing. Their children can’t say Christmas at school any more. Their malls display the generic and inoffensive “Happy Holidays”. The Christ is being taken out of Christmas. Bum bum buuuuum…
To that I say: Hooey. Bull, baloney, hogwash.
If you are a Christian, if you believe that Christmas marks a day (note to remind you that Christmas was originally a pagan festival, usurped by the Chrishies to celebrate the birth of Christ– he wasn’t actually born then) for the rememberence of when your loving and immense God became flesh and dwelt among us, then no rebranding of the arbitrary day chosen can take the Christ out of it. Let me tell you a secret.
Words only have the power that we give them.
It’s not like Jesus is Tinkerbell-ing every time someone says “X-mas” (note to remind you that the X in X-mas means Christ, so calm your farm) or “Seasons Greetings” and one day he’ll cease to exist because enough people didn’t believe in him (quick everyone! I DO believe in Jesus! I DO believe in Jesus!). If THIS is the God you believe in, you should exchange him for another because he sounds useless.
To that I also ad: I don’t care.
I don’t care if no one calls it Christmas. I don’t care if all nativity scenes blow up. They could send tanks into the streets with huge pointy guns pointed at my face that will shoot me in my face (which, btw, is similar to the experience of a lot of Christians in other countries who could conceivably cry religious persecution) if I so much as think about baby Jesus and it still can’t change what it’s about for me. I choose to celebrate the birth of Christ, as a reminder that love moved to be near us in the form of a wee baby and then went on to show us the importance of peace and a completely counter cultural, revolutionary way to live.
Christians! Think for a moment about what you’re fighting for! This time of year, the decorations, the Christmas specials, the ridiculous, heart attack inducing quantities of pudding don’t equal Christmas. It seems extraneous to have to say this after the millions of Christmas specials that have taught us, ironically, the true meaning of Christmas.
There is a reason everyone rather hypocritically decides that at this time of year more than any other time of year is the bit we should be nice and forgive our brother-in-law for backing his car into ours. It’s because Jesus came to show us how to give of ourselves and by doing so, changed everything. That, overly pedantic and petulant brothers and sisters is what it’s all about.
If you don’t celebrate Christmas, that’s cool! It’s fine. I don’t celebrate Hanukkah, or Eid al-Adha or any other non-Christian religious festivals, because it wouldn’t make sense and because they don’t mean anything to me. My fellow believers: same goes for everyone else. Similarly if, like my wonderful big brother, you think that the Christmas story is a load of hogwash, that’s fine too. It does seem ridiculous.
If you do celebrate Christmas, and you believe Jesus to be the (I’m sorry) “reason for the season”, perhaps a lovely way to celebrate is by being kind. And loving. And by reconsidering your four hundredth Christmas purchase and maybe doing something more necessary and helpful with the money. And by perhaps thinking about the many other ways you can expend your energy in loving the unloved, feeding those that are hungry and fighting for those who can’t fight for themselves as He showed you and in doing so, worshipping a God who cannot be hurt by people’s refusal to speak His name, and who does not care about tinsel, or shopping malls, or carols or presents or pudding or the word we’ve given to the day we celebrate His coming to us.
So a couple of weeks ago I got respectably tipsy with a bunch of my cousins in a shed in Port Lincoln. Novelty hats were found and donned, arms were thrown around shoulders and the lyrics to Livin on a Prayer were proudly screamed into Strongbow bottles. We kicked things off quietly, I thought– I certainly had no idea that six hours later I would be swaying gently on the back of a ute as one of my cousins cavorted with a cut out horse– with a glass of wine over lunch and then essentially we didn’t stop.
My family is fun.
Not uncommon, I’m aware, but you see I didn’t know this. Don’t get me wrong, I’d always liked them when we managed to see each other, a couple of us used to live near each other and so were friends when we were younger (six hundredth viewing of Wayne’s World, anyone?), but things change, people grow up and move and mortgage things, or something, and you end up being one of those people who knows she has an extended family, but can let four year periods pass where you don’t see any of them without even thinking about it.
I guess I’d always thought that those immediately around me were my family, that the people that take care of you, that listen to your shitty stories and laugh until they pee a little with you mean more than people who just happen to have similar genes (for additional points, guess who spelt this word like the denim garment on first draft?). An on purpose connection surely means more than an accidental one.
I have, though, on occasion been jealous of those families that dig each other. My mate Amy always sees her cousins when she visits Melbourne and they laugh hysterically and get each other and it baffles me. My old housemate has cousins that are like sisters to her. How does this happen?
Last year, I made a wee note for myself as part of my list of things to do before I was 30, because I saw people like my housemate, and my friend getting on with their fam and it struck me as odd that my family connection for the most part stopped with my mum and brothers. Then of course after I made the list I forgot about it, and like, did things normally (read: in a manner both slovenly and oddly frenetic) and let nearly a year pass without anything happening. Because that’s how I roll, yo.
Aunts
Then, my Grandma. I hadn’t seen her in a while, and she’d moved back home to Port Lincoln where she used to live, and then in the space of just over a day, she got sick and she died.
It was pretty strange.
(This will sound dumb, which I know is something you’re not used to from me, but I am not the person that this happens to. Which is exactly what I thought back when I was 13 and my Dad moved out or back when I was 19 and my Uncle Rick died. Out of the ordinary, dramatic things don’t happen to me, they happen to People That I Know, Friends of Mine; generally Other People. I did not, and still do not, I think, understand what it means that I no longer have a Grandmother because she stopped being alive. And just as I processed my parents marriage breaking down by confessing it to my school friends in quiet, giggly whispers and imagining the wonderous things my Dad would buy me now we were a “broken home”, I absorbed the reality of my grandmother dying with the quick, no mess no fuss “let’s just get on with it then” manner which I’ve realized is how I do things.)
So one day I’m at work, telling clients not to be racist and then the next I’m in another state, feeling bad that I haven’t cried yet, and then the next I’m chasing bottles of Moscato with bottles of cider and just the worst shot I’ve ever had in my life (sorry Mel) with a bunch of people I barely know.
The whole drunken day was quite the surprise for me, and just beyond surreal at points. My cousins Mel and Catherine were distant memories of mine, two small girls, one blonde, one brunette, filed away from a time when we were all too young to care that the others existed until I entered my uncle’s house and saw them on the couch, looking for all the world like two grown up women.
(Catherine didn’t know what time it was.)
Whut?
And they have jobs and opinions and long pretty hair and stuff and I was initially intimidated because the idea still had not occurred to me that maybe, just maybe my family could be one of those ones who enjoy each others company and I of course assumed they’d think I was a douche.
That was before Catherine started pouring me tumblers of wine and I knew we’d all be ok.
(there was something over there)
And we’re out in the sunshine, them and me and my other cousins Ro and Kelly talking and laughing and drinking and I realize that I like my family. That it’s been hours now since I felt remotely uncomfortable (I was so comfortable that though I paced myself and actually was significantly less drunk than others I could name– I’m looking at you, Ro– I still joined in the loud singing and mad dancing to mid nineties pop BECAUSE THAT’S MY JAM). I realized that my cousins had become my friends, either again, or for the first time.
throwing some shapes
I realized that I was one of those people.
A couple of points– My cousin Kelly is the shit. I love her and her wife Ro and they will come and visit me in Melbourne I hope. Hoorah! Hilarious, kind and accepting ladies.
Mel and Catherine exceeded all my expectations. I didn’t have any really, aside from my usual unvoiced certainty that people that aren’t nutbars won’t like me. Turns out they are nutbars so we’re ok.
The Uncles and the Aunts, are all crazy, and a little inappropriate when drunkish (stern looks towards my mum’s brothers). Albie and Helen were effing guns of hosts and I felt loved instantly by all, which surely, is a convenience that you should be able to go to your family for.
So. It’s shit that it took my Grandma dying to bring us all together. It’s shit that she didn’t see us falling about laughing or hear us screaming lyrics raucously from her position inside with the grown ups for she would have loved it.
Cousins
But this time taught me a number of things, mainly that life can actually, just, end and so now would be the time to love those about you and find the ones that aren’t about you to love, but it also taught me that family is kick ass. The only real thing we all had in common aside from Bon Jovi, was our connection to a lady called Merle Ransome, and though we are not a part of each other by choice, we are a part of each other. And this is a real, solid and wonderful thing.
So a couple of days ago I started hearing nasty little bits floating around about some riots going on in London. The bits multiplied and had baby bits as the rioting spread and worsened until it was all over the papers and everyone I saw (including me) was saying to everyone else “wow, London, ay?” with a shake of the head.
I don’t live in London. I am far far away from the chaos, and most people I know are too, but that hasn’t stopped us reacting. My Facebook newsfeed has been ablaze with people exclaiming, pondering, laughing and generally throwing hands in the air, wondering what has happened to our fellow humans.
I don’t undersand it all. I caught on to the situation late, as is my wont with situations that are in any way important or biggish, and so missed any sort of original happenings or things that could have set it off. I have of course now seen and heard things about the police shooting a man, which is awful in and of itself as I don’t like people getting shot, pretty much full stop, and I’ve heard a bunch about the disenfranchised youth of England being fed the hell up and sort of losing it a bit, but all in all mainly riots, fires, awful, youth, race issues, awful, shit, fires, etc.
I’ve heard stacks of blame and recrimination and calls for vengeance and justice and I’ve heard enough to make me deeply, deeply sad.
But I’ve also heard some other things.
My housemate said to me tonight that she read a story about people hitting the streets of London with brooms to clean up. I was considerably cheered by this. Another friend posted a photo she found somewhere of some lovely people offering the police guarding their street a cup of tea. Naw.
How could I forget? What gets me through the frequent moments of “aaah the world is falling apart and everyone is mean and no one loves anything but themselves and why don’t we all give up” anguish I experience is the knowledge that the jerk-non jerk ratio in my life (considerably higher on the non jerk side) can’t be a singular thing. The jerk-non jerk ratio must be similar all over the world. Which means:
There are good, sensible people in the UK, doing good and sensible things.
For instance, the people behind #riotcleanup. Not only have hundreds of people, brooms proudly aloft, flocked to the streets of London and Manchester to clean up their homes but the riotcleanup tag was the most trended topic in the UK the day of its inception, and the second most trended worldwide. This is wonderful news I think, for the rep of social media. It mean that while Twitter and Facebook etc helped organise the rioters, they also helped organise those that wanted to respond in kindness and practicality, proving once and for all that the interwebs CAN be used for good as well as evil.
Lovely Londoners with Lovely Brooms
I found so many stories all over the place about men and women heartened and inspired by the people cleaning up their streets. Little old ladies cleaning alongside youngins, people travelling for miles to help out. I sat on twitter (I was lured back! the riots got me!) and watched the dozens upon dozens of people per minute posting their support and gratitude for what they’ve called “the real London”.
Something else I stumbled upon is this little gem:
Buy a Bobby a Beer.com What a wonderful way to thank people for doing what is no doubt a ridiculously tiring and difficult job.
Also, this! Operation Cup of Tea, which is also going a little bananas on Twitter, asks people to join them in posting a picture of them having a relaxing cup of tea, instead of rioting. They have nearly 200 000 attending on Facebook, and looking over the hoards of photos of cups of tea and coffee consumed by citizens who would rather sip and smile than rail or accuse is heartening.
Just so you know, I’m not trying to be naive. I know there are deep and abiding evils and injustices in the world and in our systems that hurt, incapacitate and frustrate my fellow citizens. I don’t think rioting and generally going a bit troppo is a helpful solution but I am not cruel or cynical enough to dismiss this mess in its entirety as youthful idiocy. I know that cups of tea and brooms won’t fix what has caused this, and that what is lacking here goes deeper than what a smile can counter.
But I needed to be reminded that London, and the world, hasn’t completely lost its mind. My heart breaks for the UK, and for all other countries experiencing unrest and fear daily. I simply am warmed by the appearance of so many wanting to help, to laugh, to smile, to love and by the knowledge that where these are known, there must be many who are unknown.
The rioters and the press may be louder but my favourite type of revolution has always been a gentle one.
So thanks to you all, and my prayers are with you.
x
Ps, a couple more examples
http://somethingniceforashraf.tumblr.com/
http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/52977/how-jewish-communtiy-can-help-riot-clean
http://twitpic.com/63ii7k
I’ve been thinking a lot lately…
about creativity.
About wonderful ideas
and things that people make
and do.
I’ve been thinking about exploring.
About finding more trees.
I’ve been thinking about yarn bombing,
about note posting
And
about
form.
About
how
creativity
is
bottomless.
I love it. I think we were made to make things.
I’ve been thinking about how I, like so many others, want to make things that make people want to make things.
and make them want to laugh
and to sing
and to smile
dance
paint
walk
look
listen
hear touch pause breathe make
write readunderstandthink
live.
I’ve been thinking.
I know a number of people, people that I respect, who love you. They love to stand in their kitchen and move pans about and find ingredients and look in their pantries and make things for those they love. I’ve always thought that’s fabulous. I love the idea that people can be not lazy. That they can make food for themselves. It amazes me. And some of them really love it. Like, they LOVE it. They want to be with you, Baking, a lot of the time. Your sometimes painstaking methods seem a sweet price to pay for the result they get.
Not so for me. It’s not always been that I hate to cook. I don’t even think I do. It’s just never occurred to me to like it. I will certainly grab a spatula or wooden spoon and do my half assed duty, but the idea of cooking as something that’s fun to do, of YOU as an interesting way to spend my time has, on occasion, seemed laughable.
I hope this isn’t offensive… It’s not you exactly, it’s just that why would something that seems almost chore-ish be fun for me? Putting flour and salt and other shit together in exacted quantities just doesn’t get me going.
But.
As you may or may not be aware (I’m sure you’re busy with Nigella or Masterchef or something but you may have read my blog..) I decided I wanted to make a pie. I decided this around seven or eight months ago as a part of my quest to do some shit before I turn 30. I have after all, always been a huge fan of pie –one of your finest works, I think– and the making of one, crust and all, seems like such an insignificant and obvious part of other peoples lives that the lack of any experience making one in my own began to look ridiculous.
The pie making scheme sat latent within me, swallowed by laziness, fear and my super human ability to forget things and be easily distracted for many a moon. Then, one unsuspecting Friday night, at around nine, I began to think. I began to think pie thoughts. I began, Baking, to dream pie dreams. We didn’t have a lot of fruit, so I googled pear pie recipes lazily, still not entirely committed to the revolution.
I found one. It looked good. I sat, and read it and thought and read it some more and then, when my self esteem thought all hope was lost I said “fuck it, I’m doing this” got off the couch, took my place in the kitchen and, may I say, my place in history.
First, as you will know, I made the crust. I took the crust part of another recipe as the one I found was all American and saying things like Wholewheat Flour and stuff. I hoped the recipe wouldn’t know I cheated. The dough freaked me out when I took it out of the food processor as it was a little wet and greasy. Convinced that I had fucked even that small a part, I divided it in two and put it in the fridge to set. Or whatever.
Next! The filling. Several sloppy pears dripping all over the bench later,
I know, right? Nutmeg and cinnamon and honey dude. Damn.
So. Once this was done and after a few minor interruptions in the way of facebook chat and freaking out a little more over the fate of the ill-begotten crust, it was time to like, assemble this sucker.
Here is where the trouble started. I placed the pear mix in the middle of my very nicely rolled (I thought) pastry. I began to pull the edges of the pastry over the pear to form a little tart case thing. But woe! The pastry was too thin and the pear too juicy and small cracks began to form in the newly soaking dough. I would smoosh one crevice together only to catch another forming on the other side. It stuck to the bench and looked unlikely to ever make it into the oven. Somehow though, the lumpy pear boat was placed hastily on a tray to await fate and my surrender to inadequacy.
I moaned aloud, I told friends on facebook this was sure to result in horror, I lamented my danged decisions to attempt anything ever as the little pear boat waited for me like an unassuming time bomb of floury doom.
I waited.
Something peculiar happened. When repeatedly checking the pie, I noticed it had begun to look..golden-ie. Sort of baked and delicious. It looked, dare I say it, edible.
Not letting myself dare to hope, I paced the kitchen some more and then…
… it was born. My first pie. And I cut into it, and I ate it, and Baking my friend, it was good. The crust was crumbly and baked through and not dry and the pear was succulent. I was exultant. Where there had been no baked good, I had made baked goods.
And now here I stand, on the other side of my great adventure, humbly asking for your forgiveness. I’m sorry I thought you were naff, Baking. You gave me pie and for that I will be forever grateful. I now look forward, almost, to spontaneously deciding to try you late at night again, and possibly at other times when we might combine to make other pies.
Here’s to a long and healthy friendship,
Carlynne.
Just over a year ago I was having a really shit time. To say it was all about a break up would be stretching the truth a little but it certainly started that way, and the wrong, ripping grossness that is that time became snowballed with feelings of dissatisfaction with myself and my life and of horror at years of solitude stretching in front of me like a barren forest path and it ended when I grudgingly woke one day to the thought that perhaps it would be better if I was not alive any more.
I have, fortunately, enough sense inside me and inside my wonderful friends to not let myself have too much headway with thoughts such as this, and it was luckily a momentary thing, but it did shock me a little. More shocking, and more persistent than this, was the realisation that I had forgotten how to like my life.
So I decided I needed to be reminded, and that I was just the person to do that.
I began to take a photo a day, the only rule being it had to be a photo of something that I dug or something I loved or something that made me smile. The results can be viewed here.
365 photos of flowers and skies and streets and trees and friends and strangers later, yesterday I posted the last. The day before I got confused momentarily and thought I had finished already, and was surprised at my feelings of loss. I felt like I was parting with someone I love. Which is a bit stupid when you remember that I’m talking about a photo blog but I’ve grown so used to looking about me wherever I am and writing captions in my mind and falling in love with all the small but wonderful things that are everywhere around me. And I will miss it.
What I guess I wanted to get down here, as well as a huge thank you to the world for its continued brevity and charm, is some sort of notice that it worked. I once again dig my life to the point that it could seem irritating and self indulgent to those around me. I am, and, dear reader I suspect you are, surrounded by, showered in, positively crowded with joy. It is there, small and large, ugly and glorious, magenta and yellow, clouded and bright, foreign and dear. I am not making this up.
My nephew walking or the sound of my nieces voice
The perfect magnolia flower (I know it’s still out there)
A young man helping an older lady with a walker onto a tram
Old men greeting each other in the street with a handshake and a grin
The dude in the popcorn suit who freestyle rapped at me in a bar
Ladies with fairy lights inside the bottom of their delightful, vintage frocks
Any of the life changing, heart aching music that is like oxygen to me daily
Smiles on strangers faces that are oddly familiar to me
The majority of totally awesome sandwiches eaten
The night the moon was apparently really frigging huge, even though I didn’t actually see the biggest part
So many clouds in so many wonderful, decadent skies
The smell of morning
I have not lost the near hysterical love for clouds I fostered as a child.
I am if anything, a little too blessed.
I am not as gungho about taking photos of strangers as I would have hoped.
Peoples faces are lovely.
Noticing things takes up a good deal of time.
The camera resolution on the iPhone 4 is just so much better than the 3.
Smiling is helpful and just about the easiest thing to do in the world.
Food is totally fucking great, though it’s possible photographing it makes me a wanker…
and
There is always something.
Thanks everyone and everything, I hope to take a photo of you all at some point.
C.
Today was my birthday.
All day.
I awoke to find an enchanting flock of origami cranes hanging from the dining room ceiling. Nearby, a paper elephant and peacock offered me birthday messages.
Chatty paper birthday origami
I had breakfast with friends and the dude at the cafe gave me a birthday slice of tart for freesies.
I did some birthday study and was obviously channelling birthday wizard power ’cause I totally kicked an essays ass. I then went birthday op shopping and scored some birthday bargains. Then I came home to find birthday flowers and birthday tea!
Birthday flowers on not so birthday tv
Terrible birthday pop music was played, enjoyed and danced to. I went for a birthday walk and felt the birthday sun warm my cheeks as it touched the petals of nearby birthday roses.
Birthday Sunset
At home, Kate (she of the mad hatters dinner party and also the one responsible for the paper menagerie) cooked me a birthday dinner of birthday basa,
birthday fish
and a birthday cake.
birthday cake..
and birthday Kate.
I have had a birthday whistle in my nose for the last little while, but feel it ads to the festive tone of the day.
birthday me.
I’m reasonably birthday sleepy now. I will sleep soon, which is birthday wonderful.
birthday brie and birthday unicorn
Oh and because it is my 29th birthday I am posting my list of shit I’ve got to do before I’m 30, entitled: The Art of (my) Gentle Revolution tonight. Stay tuned for action packed list crossie offie posts.
Rest easy tonight, interwebs, squooshy and comfortable in the bosom of the knowledge that I had a kick ass day and am for the first time in a long while, looking forward to my age.
Peace out.
I have this disease where I compare myself to anyone I come across who does or has or is something that I want to do have or be. Like there is a race, or a board game where everyone has to be awesome and I’m sussing the competition and being like “dude. No way. They have this in the bag”. Gah. So very year 11.
I just looked at this blog called THXTHXTHX, and it is lovely and it is the kind of idea I wish I’d had. It is this girl Leah and she writes a thank you note a day to things like Anything I Eat After Surfing and Request For Me To Cut Your Hair. It is funny and sweet and honest and I like it a lot, but immediately I thought “damn. She’s done it. She’s better than me” and I actually got a little teary about it.
Geez.
The thing is, I actually have a blog of my own, about daily things I’m grateful for/happy about, but what my brain did when looking at her blog was to think that her way of being grateful is somehow more hip and edgy than mine. Because a blogs hipster cred is obviously the most important issue here. I’m such a douche sometimes.
I think though, that the reason I got teary was (at least partially) that a. I cry with relative expedience at all manner of things and b. I am so glad that the world is populated by women and men who see the beauty and the excellence around them and want to celebrate that. This is brave and good and makes me a little emo.
And I am now going to endeavour to grip hold of my individuality as something to be proud of, not mourned, and others creativity as an exciting expression of Good Stuff. Ok? Ok.
That’s all, I reckon. But check out her blog, and celebrate with me the wonder of humanity and of thank you notes.
Bless.
