Day 339: March in Blogging

Death to the patriarchy! Hail Hydra! Oh my God we’re having a fire… sale!

I just needed something to yell there as means of introduction. Hope one of those was all right. I can furnish you with more if not? No? OK, fine.

Hullo. It’s time for my monthly round-up of the more interesting posts from this blog. I mostly spent March: editing photos. I finally got round to buying a subscription to Adobe Lightroom, and with a few photography jobs for work, my daily socials pics, my own pics, and going back over older stuff to see what Lightroom can do to them, I’ve spent an inordinate portion of the last 31 days with my face buried in tone curves.

Which isn’t, I’m sad to report, any kind of a euphemism.

Anyway, the blog…

Day 308: Where he belongs - An ode to physical labour, and to my friend Steve. I couldn’t remember writing this, I think I did it at 2am slouched in bed after arriving home from a long day grafting. Vaguely recall feeling sleep twisting round me and desperately trying to get words out and not being sure if they even made sense. It turned out quite lovely for all that.

Day 311: Wetland - About depression being a quagmire, and joy and creativity being like soaring in the sky, and how tiredness affects that. The more you soar, the more momentum you have, and the easier it becomes. But once your feet start to catch on bristles and vines you slump into the mud, and then the mud sucks at your feet, and then suddenly you’re exerting all the energy you have and it’s going on simply struggling to not be swallowed. I like this analogy. I’ll elaborate on it at some point.

Day 312: Complex structures - Neuroplasticity! Positivity! Getting trains to Happy Town! Days like this, carving out space in my head to feel good, need to be remembered. Light them up. Paint signs to them. Lay down tracks. Go back the same way as often as possible. That /is/ how brains work!

Day 316: Orbit - And again, finding my way from negativity to love. I did that. Remember. Replicate. Move forwards.

Day 317: A garden without weeds is not enough - And again! About the importance of planting seeds of positivity as well as pulling up the weeds of negativity. These posts are the unglamourous work, down and dirty in the soil, but man are they important. They lay a framework so when I feel bleak and my soul crumbles - which happens all the bloody time - there is structure to catch me. And it works. I haven’t been feeling less broken this month, but I have been more able to grind out the things I’ve needed to do.

Day 321: Days off? What are those? - Sleaford Mods gig with Mike, photo editing, coping with writing stress. The photo here is nice, although it needs a stronger single subject, and I see now it is a touch underexposed. But nice light around the chandelier.

Day 322: Roaccutane - About my experience on the most hardcore of acne medications, when I was 24. Hate writing about this. Forcing myself to write about it. Need to plough right through self-consciousness and shame, because they are demons that guard the caves with the most interesting of treasure. It is known.

Day 323: But it is good - “Just because you can’t see the sky behind the clouds doesn’t mean the sky is not there.” More carving out positive space for myself. I did that a lot this month. Well done, me.

Day 324: Somewhere else - Mosque murderers, Instagram influencers, plastic piling up in the oceans. Depression stops me getting angry most of the time, but I got angry here. We should all be angry on days like that. Anger is appropriate.

Day 325: Smile at service workers - …And then I got empathetic. And I’m serious about this one. Look directly at people who are suffering, smile at them, and think about how you want them to be OK. There are dark forces in this world. Be a torchbearer for the light, or you will be subsumed by the shadow. Look at Trump and Bolsonaro and Salvini and Orban and Le Pen and Farage and Germany’s AfD and Poland’s Law and Justice - look at these and tell me we’re not in our most dangerous time for seventy years. You might yet end up fighting for your life. Are you going to be on the side of hatred, or love?

Day 328: A long slog - A few more photos, from a walk around Kelham Island with me mam.

Day 333: Our Nige - Having fun, here. There should always be room for a bit of fun. Summoning rituals and varifocal glasses circuitous routes through the suburbs of Hell. A Pratchett/Gaiman impression, and low-hanging fruit, but some nights that is all to the better.

Day 338: Negroni - Michael and Emerald got married! I had some red wine. I got anxious and self-conscious and afraid. Pat took me in his big strong arms and told me I was going to be OK. Pat’s great. I love Pat.

Wednesday Reviews:

• Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
• Ghost in the Shell (2017)
• Ghost in the Shell (1995)
• Baby Driver

And I’m outtie. See you next month! Oh, wait. See you tomorrow. How much longer do I have to do this for?

26 days. Christ. 26 days and I’ll have been doing this a year. That’s… insane. Best get thinking what to write for that last one.

Nah just kidding I’ll do it at 3am on the last night like I’ve done for all the others.

Bubyeeeee x

Day 307: February in blogging

Hiya. Home from hotels and tool displays and pots of paint and heavy work boots, and ready to collect up the better stuff from the blog from the past month, before I go and pass out.

It’s been a steady month, writing-wise. I don’t think I’ve written a single piece I’ve loved, but there’s been plenty that was sufficient. 

... There I go with that wild self promotion again. Best make sure I keep that in check.

No, but it really hasn’t been a wonderful month. I’ve not had any serious depressive episodes, but I’ve felt about a foot underground, happiness wise, all month. Just been plodding along, doing my best to get words out, to do everything required of me at work, more recently to be on the road with Steve, and not to collapse or fall inside myself at all. If you’re going through hell, keep going. That’s been my mantra these past weeks.

Also, I turned 34 in February. That hit me pretty hard. I’ve achieved so little. But I’m still here. And I’m not giving up. It’s a long road, through hell, but I’m walking it. Step by step by step.

Here are the highlights of this month’s posts:

Day 283: The strange man - A fairly true little tale about a strange man on a bus. I liked this.

Day 284: Gesticulating - And another few paragraphs about a bus journey. I’m sitting on buses lost in thought a lot of late. The stuff about you in there and me in here is something I wanted to get right, will attempt again at some point. It’s something I think about a lot.

Day 288: Tenacity - About ingraining habits and staying positive. Hey, how I was feeling before writing that is how I am feeling now! Listen to me back then, me now! Me back then had some sensible things to say. Pay attention, me now. And that Rory Gallagher sure knew how to play blues guitar, too.

Day 290: Radicals - Some words about 90s punk rock, the thrill of freedom and grunginess and crunchy power chords and love.

Day 293: Facing your weaknesses - Starts off about picking the guitar up again, turns into thoughts on blogging and pushing yourself and overcoming weaknesses. Got a nice ending, this one.

Day 296: Decay - Nice descriptions of inner city dilapidation and decay, if a touch reliant on the rhythms of alliteration. But it was my birthday and I was tired, and it’s nice to just throw pretty words out, even if they’re a bit clumsy and gauche. That’s the exact sketchbook feel I wanted when starting this blogging challenge.

Day 298: Skin - A post about suffering from acne. I hate writing about this, and thus I must do it. I want to get to the same place with my skin as I am with my mental health - something that used to be hard to write about and now is easy as anything. Don’t look back! Keep going! Courage!

Day 304: Inchoate - I like the paragraphs about the early morning light in here. There have been more posts this month where I’ve written descriptively, perhaps a little floridly, about the external world, and I’ve enjoyed every one. More of this, then!

Wednesday Reviews - I’m going to link all four from this month. I’m enjoying writing these more than anything else at the moment. It’s becoming a wonderful weekly ritual, choosing a worthwhile film carefully, sitting down by myself with the lights low and a cup of Earl Grey steaming, and submerging myself in a world of cinema. And then spending a few hours at my desk, or in a coffee shop, gathering my thoughts, typing them out, communicating them as effectively as I can in the time available. In a period of my life when I’m otherwise struggling to switch off, when there’s much difficulty and anxiety and self-doubt, when I don’t have alcohol or drugs to assuage the psychic pain, it’s been so important to be able to concentrate on this. Distraction, but positive distraction. Losing yourself in something that matters to you. It’s what it’s all about.

• The Killing of a Sacred Deer

• Annihilation

• Green Book

• The Lobster

OK. Lovely. Read any of that if you want. I don’t know if the links work when you’re looking at this through Facebook’s browser, if not you can open it in Chrome. Phones and apps hate blogs. I might as well be writing these on scraps of paper and slipping them in bottles and dropping them in the ocean. But why not? That sounds like a marvellous thing to do.

Going to bed now.

Hugs x

Day 279: January in blogging

Hullo chickadees. I'm going to start a monthly round-up of my blogging, collecting all the better, or at least more interesting, pieces, both as a way for me to see where I've been and where I'm going, and for you to check in on the highlights if you don't have the time or inclination to follow me daily, but still have a vague interest in what I'm writing.

Lovely. Here is this month's:

Day 251: Insignificant - A post I wrote to help people feel less self-conscious by reminding them how tiny and stupid and meaningless they are. Also I got to make fun of my friend Mike's enormous head, which to be honest I'm at times surprised fits through my kitchen door when he comes round to watch The Wire. But though his head is enormous (and oh, how!), his life is tiny, and stupid, and meaningless - and I very much hope that this thought brings him solace.

Day 252: Deer - Creativity, I posit here (not exactly originally), is a deer in the woods - you can't go stomping after it ordering it to do what you ask. It will only flee. You have to creep up slowly, gently, wait patiently, and if you are lucky then the deer will wander up to you and nibble strawberries by your feet. Do deer like strawberries? The Deer of Creativity does! Also, you're not hunting the deer in this analogy, so get that macho predator instinct out of your head. You're asking the deer spirit to bless you, and it has to be alive and free to do so. I like this analogy a lot.

Day 258: Storms of tarantulas - Some thoughts on the Welcome to Night Vale novel, and the difficulties in delineating worlds of the imagination.

Day 259: Dried fruit - A post about challenging self-critical thoughts, told through an analogy about making portraits of celebrities out of bits of dried fruit. I don't know what comes out of my head some days.

Day 261: Cherry - About the two kinds of happiness, and how to find peace beyond the attempt to sate desire, told through an analogy about eating iced buns. I don't know what comes out of my head, etc.

Day 264: Wednesday Reviews - Roma - I've started writing film reviews once a week. Took me a while to find my feet, to remember how the form should flow, but I was happy with this one. It was a great film, as well. You should definitely check it out on Netflix if you get the chance.

Day 267: Shrapnel - Notes on how emotional pain is related to physical pain, how the same neural mechanisms fire for both, and why we let down the vulnerable in our society when we fail to recognise this truth.

... And then I got ill. Researching into mental health issues, thinking about my own struggles with such, a mass of negative thoughts that I had been ignoring since Christmas, trying to power through, suddenly came crashing in, and knocked me on my arse. It's interesting looking back and pinpointing the moment it happened, how you can sense I felt I had in some way opened the door to it, allowed the negativity room to manoeuvre, and how much guilt and shame and hopelessness spread through the whole of the following week after it leapt.

Day 270: Rumination - I wasn't well here, but I managed to post about rumination, the constant obsessive worrying about problems without ever actually solving them. Being anxious about why you suffer, rather than thinking about how to overcome suffering. This was exhausting to think about, and to write, but it helped give me insight into something that affects me every single day, and I'm trying to be more aware of it arising at the moment.

Day 272: Implicit - A little post I squeezed out about the role of character in film, how a scriptwriter must be like an animation artist, sketching telling details of a person above the surface to imply a whole mass of depth unseen below, and why for this reason they must be experts in feeling the shape of people, the shape of behaviours, hopes, fears, dreams. Want to come back and flesh this thought out sometime.

Day 276: A different realm - The day or two before this post were my worst this month, completely overcome with depression - but here I gave myself permission to feel as I did; I called in sick to work, treated myself kindly, and began the process of recovering. Weird that this was only three days ago. Truly feels like another time, another me.

Day 277: Back on track - Making sense of the previous week's depression, paying attention to the precise symptoms, making plans for dealing with them when they arise in the future. If you struggle with mental health yourself you may want to read this and see whether any of it strikes a chord, and whether any of the strategies may be of use to you in your own private battles. I hope so.