Not always and not never

I drank so much coffee yesterday that I woke up at 5am today still feeling the effects. Only today there is a lot less of the giddy caffeine-fuelled excitement and feeling of invincibility and more of the caffeine-comedown with tummy ache, lower back pain and rising anxiety in my throat, although I still have the power to concoct harebrained schemes (get up/check sunrise times/walk into town/collect bike from work car park/go to university library to borrow book recommended to me) which then fail somewhere along the line as I realise that there is no self-service check out in the library on Saturdays, I just have to wait until 10am and check the book out when the library is fully staffed. 

The book in question is "The Uses of Literacy" by Richard Hoggart, recommended to me by our manager at work (who, when I asked him if he put an angel or a star on top of his Christmas tree, said he always used to put a red flag on top, until they had children and then it seemed less appropriate.) This is the second time he mentioned I should read it, the first time the title slipped out my mind but this time I got him to write it down. We were talking about the expression "there's no love lost" and how it didn't make sense to me. I was saying I had just had to learn that

"There is no love lost between Johnny and Mary" = "Johnny and Mary do not get on"

even though this is totally counter-intuitive, because if the love has not been lost then surely it is still there, unless it was never there in the first place, in which case its a pretty convoluted way of expressing that sentiment.
I remember when I moved to college for 6th form and made a new set of friends, who used to use the construct "do I ever!" to mean an enthusiastic yes. I just could not understand how "do I ever" equalled "yes", so in the end I just had to learn it by heart, so that when I asked a question and it was given as an answer, I didn't have to interrupt the flow to clarify what they meant.

I understand artistic devices like metaphor and simile and allusion and A Level English Language & Literature was a breeze (apart from the Chauncer module that I failed and then had to retake but that was due to not studying the text enough the first time round) but I seem to use language so much more literally than other people that sometimes I feel like I (literally, ha) cannot communicate.
To me, words like never or always only ever mean one thing. When I was once in a relationship with someone who said, in a moment of anger and upset, that we would "never be able to live together, then" (in response to my basic housekeeping standards, I think). I then took that statement as one of the constants on which to build the future of the relationship on. She had used the word 'never' so to me that was a clear parameter in place, a sanction that had been imposed on the relationship that could not be lifted. She hadn't said "we would really struggle to live together" or "the way things are at the moment, we couldn't live together", she had used one of the magical words (always/never) that ensures that whatever other circumstances may change, including the feelings of both people involved, the statement remains true (for better or worse.)
Another feature of that relationship was the way we often ended up arguing about the fact that I drank more coffee than tea, with her throwing accusations such as "you probably don't even like tea, do you!" at me (to my confusion, because I like tea very much). She bought me a tisaniere one Christmas to match the one she had, and suggested I should keep it at her house, only I never seemed to fancy loose-leaf tea when I was round there, I always preferred coffee. It got to the point that one time seemingly out of nowhere, when she had asked what hot drink I would like and I replied that I would like a coffee, she got upset and asked if she should just give the tisaniere to someone else.  No, of course not. Should I have a loose-leaf tea now to prove it? She replies only if I want to, or something...

It took me many months to realise that wasn't what we were really arguing about. I was the coffee and she was the tea and I was choosing coffee over tea time and time again.

Why not just say what you mean, especially in matters of the heart? No that's not quite right. I understand why sometimes people don't say what they mean. They may be angry, or upset, and say something that isn't quite true. Or it may seem true at the time, but then change (a "we could never live together" shifting into a "we could possibly live together if X changed") but whilst I understand this on a cerebral level, how the hell am I supposed to put it into practice? If I get angry and say I never want to see you again, that's that. But if you get angry and tell me the same, it could mean anything. How am I supposed to understand anything anyone says?!
I sometimes get really down about how flawed language is, and how if it really is the main tool we have to communicate with each other than I am done for. My inability to not take things at face value, to work on the assumption that people may not mean what they say, has backed me into more linguistic corners than I care to think about, and my inability to accept that people may not mean what they are saying is heightened when I myself am upset or stressed or tired, leading into somewhat of a negative feedback loop.

I worked as a trainee handyperson for 6months a little while back, and one day arrived at work feeling pretty tired and down. One of the handymen asked me how I was, but instead of taking it simply as a phatic utterance and replying as social conventions (and indeed he) expected me to, I unthinkingly took it literally and asked "do you mean emotionally or physically" so that I had enough information to answer the question correctly. He was completely thrown, and I went from feeling tired and down, to tired, down and awkward.
 

* * * * *

The sun is rising. I am going to go and get my bike back.

Adventures in Meanwood

I went to Meanwood Community Shop again today to drop off a couple of bags of clothes, and I got an armful of books and a cd for £1.25. It's pretty refreshing to find a charity shop that still prices goods affordably to make it accessible to the local community, unlike some of the larger ones that over-price. The charity the shop supports is "Leeds Community Trust", and you can read about them in the Yorkshire Evening Post here.

I then went to the Nettos and then the new Waitrose (more later) for groceries and on the way home managed to coat all my purchases in soya yoghurt after taking a detour home via Woodhouse ridge and slinging my shoulder bag over my shoulder a little too enthusiastically. 

So, the items I bought today and then had to wash yoghurt off:

• CD Album "Hook Up" by The Veronicas (which I'm really enjoying, it reminds me of the sort of pop music my ex-housemates Bob and David might have listened to in the past, slightly rocky pop music with synthesised strings, drum machines and harmonies. Good in the same way Kelly Clarkson - who has a song called "I do not hook up" - is good) and 3 nicely illustrated children's books (from the community shop)
• Box of crunchy nut cornflakes & bag of demerara sugar (from netto)
• Various baking ingredients including buckwheat flour (for waffles) and cocoa and a pot of yoghurt (from Waitrose).
• The guardian (from booze bargains, as Waitrose was over-run with guardian-buying liberals, so there were no copies left).

I couldn't really wash the yoghurt off the guardian, so some of the sections are just yoghurty, but I am pleased to report the family section (my favourite) remains undamaged.

(My typical reading order for the guardian is as follows: Work, Money, Family, Travel, Weekend, Main Section. I then sometimes read the guide but I never read the sport, that's for the cat tray.)

So, let me tell you about the new Waitrose:

It replaced the Co-op supermarket, and they didn't just take over the existing building, they knocked it down and built a new one with multi-level access, with a conveyor belt/escalator taking you from the car park level up to the store, with an autumated voice telling you when you are about to reach the top.

It was very busy, which is probably because it's the first Saturday since it opened on Thursday. They had an impressive range of flours in the baking section, and a good range of soya milks and yoghurts. This all seems to come at a slight premium; whilst 1000 prices have been price-matched to Tesco, the rest are probably higher, and Tesco isn't always that cheap anyway. But I was able to get organic cocoa powder, which I can't usually find in Morrisons. 


I have been tipped off that the end of Thursday is the best time to go to Waitrose for bargains, so I might call again then and see if there are any affordable treats to be had. That might also be a good time to check round the back as well...

Meanwood Community Shop, by bicycle

I have self-imposed the rule that I am not allowed to go to Meanwood Community Shop unless I am already taking some items to donate, and I can only buy things if I can think of a use for them, to avoid accumulating too much stuff in our beautiful but rather small home. (One of my Meanwood-residing friends used to go there several times a week when his son was a toddler, under the pretense that his son enjoyed it so much, but I think it was equally for his benefit. I have no small child to act as cover, so I only go on Saturdays, and not even every Saturday at that.) On this morning's trip, I found:

• two old-fashioned sweet jars (ideal for making blackberry brandy etc in) for 75p each
• a turquoise old-fashioned suitcase for 50p
• David Sedaris' book "Naked" for 50p

The woman at the til asked me if it was "a rude book?" and I replied that I hoped it wasn't.

I then went on to Chapel Allerton to pick up a hi-vis vest that I had ordered from The Edinburgh Bicycle co-op, and it is incredible! (In both the sense that it is delightful and amazing, but also in the sense that it probably 'lacks credibility' - it is fluorescent pink, and has a design on the back that says "1 less car". I love it though, and am happy choosing road safety over street cred.) Irritatingly, I could have got it significantly cheaper if I had ordered it directly from the people who made it: 1 Less Car but by this point I had already bought it in one size from Edinburgh Bicycle, and then been back to exchange it, so then to have to order one from somewhere else and start all over again would take up time when I could have been cycling round in the sunshine wearing what is, effectively, a wonderfully luminous waistcoat.

I also recently treated myself to a pannier bag and it is really great! I am in danger of getting hyperbolic about cycling gear at this point, so will try and hold back with the superlatives, but this bag has revolutionized my cycling! I haven't had one before, and had always put off buying one because they seemed quite expensive for what they were (a bag that is only of use when clipped on to your pannier rack) but found a reasonably sturdy model at an affordable price and I just wish I had bought one sooner. My bike is my mode of transport, so I frequently have to load it up with all manner of things, usually by balancing items in the basket on the front, and filling a backpack on my back. Now, I can pack most of that stuff into the pannier bag, which means there is nothing to bounce out the basket when I jump over a pothole, and nothing on my back making me tired and, I hate to admit it, a little sweaty. Brilliant.

Whilst out on my bike today, I was also able to help one cyclist who was lost in Chapel Allerton by sharing my a-z with her, and was in turn helped by an off-duty cyclist in Meanwood when my chain got jammed.

As one of my friends said to me earlier this week, my life is pretty f*cking ace at the moment.

"When it gets to the part where he's breaking her heart, it can really make me cry"

I have spent the week listening to this album: Various Artists – If I Were A Carpenter, frequently moved to tears by how AMAZING it is. I stood in the sorting office this morning, with "Yesterday Once More" through my headphones and warm tears running down my cheeks. I don't think it's a case of me being weepier than usual, but more that I am feeling everything a lot more - the good and the bad, as I'm consciously trying not to bottle things up so much. Everything is now so close to the surface that it's accessible by something as simple as a really good key change in a cover of a Carpenters song.

I came across this tribute album when I was searching for Shonen Knife on spotify, as they do a cover version of "On Top of the World". I then found out that my housemate has a homemade cd-r version of the "If I were a Carpenter" tribute album, with each song preceeded by the original version, so that has been on my mp3 player pretty much on repeat for the last week (interupted only by the All Girl Summer Fun Band)

When I get into a band I like to listen to them a lot. The same songs or album again and again and again. I sometimes try and disguise it by doing so on my headphones, or waiting until I am in the house by myself, because I know that not everyone appreciates the repetition. Which was why it was so lovely to have my housemate suggest she put the Carpenters on for me last night before we went out. To live with someone who not only tolerates my listening habits, but actively encourages them, oh!

I came late to the Carpenters. I knew some of their songs from childhood, but didn't really join up the dots and realise that they were all Carpenter songs, and until now I didn't own any of their records. But then last weekend I picked up their '69-'73 singles collections on vinyl from the Meanwood Community Shop for 25p, in one of those acts of synchronicity that made me wonder, 'would the record still have been there if I hadn't suddenly developed an obsession with the Carpenters?'

Of course it would have been there. They were a massively popular band in their day, and you could probably find one of their records in most charity shops that stock vinyl if you looked. I guess I just never noticed them until now.

My Swan D01 Teasmade

I now have my own teasmade. At quarter to seven tomorrow, it will make me a cup of coffee, which by seven will be cool enough to drink. I can then drink it in bed whilst reading about current affairs on the internet, or some of the zines I have under my pillow, or another story from the Ali Smith collection I bought from Meanwood Community Shop (my new favourite charity shop) at the weekend. Three stories in, I realised I maybe already own this one (The Whole Story) but it's not quite familiar enough to put down. 

 This teasmade came from Oxfam in Headingley, for a very reasonable £10. I later found that my friend has an identical model, bought from the same place, as she went into the shop earlier in the day than me when they had two for sale and bought one of them, leaving the second one (unknowingly) for me. I was especially glad to find this one, as only days previously I had bought a teasmade from the classifieds section at work, but when I switched it on it boiled continuously for half an hour, filling the room with steam. The same steam that needs to be captured and condensed into the teapot to make the tea, I think that's how they work. Well that one didn't work, and it didn't even have an alarm or a clock. It was clearly not the teasmade for me.

This one has an integral photo frame (!) and a removable tray on top. It will make up to two large mugs of coffee (or four cups of tea, but I find that idea far less appealing), although I have taken to only half filling it to avoid over-caffeination before breakfast (because for the time being I am still drinking my coffee in bed alone. As alone as a booklover can ever be, at any rate). I wish I had an actual photo of my one rather than this one, but it is exactly the same model so you get the picture.  

I remember when I first heard about teasmades, I thought they sounded too good to be true. An alarm clock that wakes you up with a hot drink! So now, to actually have my own seems like some kind of dream come true.

Booklovers never go to bed alone

I follow a blog called "booklovers never go to bed alone" which showcases a different photo of books everyday, and they have included a picture of one of my bookcases!

This is thrilling. I love browsing pictures of other people's book collections, and now people can see part of mine too.

My favourite picture from the site is this one which inspired me to start keeping the I-S section of my cd collection in a three story dolls house I found in the salvation army charity shop.

On the subject of going to bed alone, one of the things I like about being single is that when I've finished reading in bed at night I can put my book under the pillow, without comment from another person on the other side of the bed. This is something I have always done, sometimes to the point that the pillow becomes quite lumpy with three or four books under there and numerous girlfriends and boyfriends have found it strange. It's just the obvious place for me to keep a book I am reading in bed. But now if I end up with too many books under one pillow, I can sleep on the other side of the bed, because I have it to myself.

Another good thing about having my bed to myself is that I can let Milly (my cat) sleep in the room at night, because I don't mind if she jumps on to the bed whilst I'm sleeping.  In my last two relationships, it has always been suggested/insisted upon that she is shut out of the room overnight so that she can't jump up on to the bed and wake us up. And despite compelling arguments from both exes, I always felt bad not letting her sleep in my room at night. Now I am frequently woken up in the morning by her putting her face very close to my face, but I don't really mind. I like her to be happy, and I think being allowed to sleep on my bed with me makes her so.

Too much is never enough

This weekend I have:

• Made peanut butter waffles for my housemate and one of our friends
• Had a chat with a friend about a situation that is concerning her at work
• Gone for a walk through the woods to the plant nursery to get more plants for my garden
• Potted those plants on and tidied up the garden
• Made wild garlic pesto from scratch
• Done a load of washing
• Assembled two flat-pack bookcases and filled them with books
• Hemmed a piece of fabric for our tablecloth and made four matching napkins
• Fixed a hole in the shoulder seam of one of my jackets
• Altered the sleeves on a dress for a friend
• Unpacked several more boxes of things in my room
• Did a complete stocktake of all the zines in my distro, and calculated what I owe to various zinesters
• Had a shower and washed my hair
• Had a conversation with my sister on the phone
• Read the paper in it's entirety (minus the sport section)
• Tidied the shoe section of my wardrobe
• Watched "The Itty Bitty Titty Committee", the most recent episode of Glee and 500 days of summer

And yet at eleven o clock on Sunday night I can't shake the feeling that I haven't done enough, that I should have accomplished more. I can't work out if this is a genuine case of poor time management (which is why I have tried to list all the things I feel I have achieved) or if I have unrealistic expectations of what I can/should achieve on my two days off from work. I didn't get up until eleven today, and it was one o'clock before I got round to really doing anything, which made me feel like I was wasting my day.

I think part of the problem is that in my head I also have the list of things I "should have done":

• Gone grocery shopping
• Made a mixtape for a friend
• Written several letters
• Hoovering and general cleaning
• Finishing unpacking all the boxes in the living room and my bedroom
• Made lemon wine (which would involve buying sugar)
• Made a flyer for the "big lunch" street party I am organising next month

And as long as there are still items left on my "should have done" list then I feel dis-satisfied with the things I have done. It is eleven o'clock, I am tired but I can't go to sleep yet because there are half unpacked boxes all over my bed and I need to sort them out not only so that I can climb under the covers but so I can feel that I have crammed that little bit more into my weekend.

From a less self-critical angle, I do wonder if my feeling of underachievement is partly because I feel like I haven't really left the house. I walked to the bus-stop to meet my friend on Saturday, but that was only a few minutes away from the house. And when we went for a walk through the woods to the plant nursery, the end of my street backs on to some steps that open out onto Woodhouse Ridge so we were able to walk seamlessly from my street to the nursery without ever stepping outside of the woods.

As me and my ex boyfriend used to be fond of saying about our troubles, "of course - these aren't real problems, these are Guardian reader's problems". (A turn of phrase that came about after I read increasingly ridiculous questions week after week in the Saturday supplement in a section that allows readers to present problems such as "I have a candlewax figurine that has a film of dust and dirt on it. How best to clean it?" and actually get a serious answer. That is just an example from the most recent paper, there have been far, far worse ones in only the last six months.)

I may or may not have achieved enough this weekend. In the grand scheme of things however, I guess there are more important things to be worrying about.

"Moving furniture around"

I have been moving furniture around my living room, trying to work out the best arrangement in terms of aesthetics and practical use of space. Swapped the sofas round, decided they looked better before, so swapped them back again. Decided the two (full) bookcases in the alcoves either side of the fireplace would look better pushed up against the chimney breast rather than where they had been against the far walls, so had to empty those, move them, then restack the shelves. The room is now starting to look pretty good.

The only thing that is disturbing me is that as I think to myself "I am moving furniture around" I simultaneously remember an anecdote someone once told me about how when they were a child, their parents would sometimes shut themselves in their bedroom and explain any noises the child later questioned them on by saying that they were "moving furniture around".

Yet another innocent phrase that I can't think about in the same way anymore.

What shall we drink to?

My previously mentioned plans to set up my own "wine cellar" have finally come together!

The bottles between the two red crates at the bottom are shop bought wine that I've acquired from various sources, one bottle was a present from some guy after I did some work on his house during my handyperson stint and the other two are from when I've done the "M&S dine in for £10" deal which you get a bottle of wine with. I haven't paid for wine in a long time, not since I was trying to impress a girl who asked me round for dinner and asked me to bring a bottle of wine "but not that homemade stuff". What I should have said is "If you want me, and you want me to bring wine, you can have a bottle of the wine I make with love and enthusiasm. Now please give me my heart back." With the exception of those three bottles, all the wine in my cellar in homemade.

The bottom four shelves of wine are for special occasions, as ever since I started making wine I've always tried to keep a bottle from each batch back. I don't want to get *too* precious about it, and I have drunk bottles from this category in the past to celebrate events. The first bottle in my collection is an elderflower made in Summer 2008. Two years of wine making!

After that, I have sorted the everyday wine into the following three categories:

• Wine made from flowers (red clover blossom, rose petal and elderflower)
• Wine made from fruit (date, strawberry jam, tangerine and raisin, peach-pear-and-pineapple, banana, plum mead, pear mead, elderberry)
• Wine made from tea (lapsang souchong, single estate ceylon infused with lemon, earl grey, peppermint)   

I'm enjoying some peach, pear and pinapple wine this evening. When I first tried it in last september as it came out the demi-john I was really disappointed, but it's definitely improved. And keeping it in the cellar means it's still nicely chilled without having to put it in the fridge.

I am completely over-excited at the thought of having people round to dinner and being able to go down into the cellar to choose the right bottle of wine to go with the meal. Hell, I'm even excited about scavenging more planks of wood and bricks to build more shelves to accomodate the wine I'm gonna make this year! I think it would be fair to say that I am very excited about the whole homemade wine situation in general.

Two steep streets, two sets of steps and two staircases up to my bed

Allowing myself one last look over my shoulder, this is the cherry blossom tree in the front garden of my old house. I collected enough blossom to make two gallons of wine, which is fermenting in a bucket in my new house.
It was a long, tiring weekend of moving that started first thing on Saturday and ended about 8pm on Sunday, but I had my sister and two of my best friends helping me move each and every item. I am now safely installed in my new home, on a surprisingly comfy sofa, with my cat purring away next to me. I made it.

To get to our new house, you have to climb up two of the steepest streets I have come across in Leeds (and that's not me exaggerating for dramatic effect), then from our street into our garden there are a couple of steps, and then at the end of the path two more steps up for good measure, before you are finally at the front door. And then my bedroom is in the attic. Both flights of stairs up there are pretty steep too...

I have done this journey with all my possessions by car and van, and after that I have pushed my bike up carrying groceries, and in today's case, a vacuum cleaner strapped to the pannier rack. I just hope my legs get strong soon, I'm still finding it pretty tiring.

I haven't finished unpacking yet, and the kitchen is full of crates of homemade wine stacked up all over the place so I have been eating a lot of pasta, as this requires minimal cooking preparation. I'm hoping to carry all the wine down to the cellar over the weekend and set up some makeshift shelves out of bricks and planks, not least so I can start cooking meals involving vegetables and more that one pan, which is all I have access to at the moment.

But I love the house. I love the wooden floors, and the alcoves for my bookcases, and the fact that I live in the attic bedroom, and the fact that we can have our own wine cellar. I love having a window in the bathroom, and a gas cooker in the kitchen. I love having a mantelpiece to put my toy canal boat on. I love being so close to woodhouse ridge that I can take an alternative route home through the trees without making a detour.

I think I'm going to be very happy here.

My favourite book(case)

This evening, I finally packed away this bookcase full of books into seven boxes, one for each shelf.

I reorganised my books into colour order a few months back, after struggling for years to find an organisational system that satisfied me. Alphabetical by author was too simplistic, and grouping by subject matter (feminist theory, fairytales, craft etc) was fine until I found something that didn't fit neatly into any of them, or straddled several subjects. I tried organising the short stories, fiction and non-fiction separately, but then what of writers who have written books that fit in each category? I didn't like the way that a writer who wrote mostly novels would suddenly have one of their books stranded several shelves away, when I had previously grouped them all together.

In the end, I decided to order my main bookcase by colour. All my previous attempts at classification have been abandoned and it's actually quite liberating. Fiction and non fiction nestle up together, united by the fact that they both have a cornflower blue spine. The only problem I have had is that if I can't remember what colour spine a book has, it takes me a little longer to find it than if I had ordered them more conventionally. But ordering my books in this way has made me look on them with fresh eyes, as I search for a particular title I come across other books to read that I might have looked over before when they were grouped by author, or genre.

(I do also have a smaller bookcase that contains a lot of books with either black, white or multicoloured spines - the ones that didn't lend themselves to this system!)

One of my favourite books about books, Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, has an essay in which a house is rented to an interior designer for a few months, and on their return the owner finds he has completely re-ordered their books by colour. They are upset that their organisational system has been disrupted, that precious books have been reduced to mere blocks of colour.

Perhaps if I had previously struck upon an organisational system that made complete sense in terms of author, subject matter, style and genre then I wouldn't want to let it go (or have it taken away from me!) but as it is, I've always loved arranging things in colour order, and I've always loved books, so for me this is perfect.

(I've left the image size large so that when you click on it, you can see the image up close and see the spines of the books and read the titles, if you want. I'm always checking out other people's bookcases, although I believe looking at your bookcases will tell me what books you have, not what sort of person you are.)

Why I *still* worry about showing my body hair

I think about my own body hair a lot. In fact, it's one of those things where if I were to take all the time and energy I spent thinking about it, and save it up, I could do something pretty awesome and incredible. But instead I spend that time and energy thinking about what other people might think. (I'm working on that.)

I don't currently shave my legs or my armpits. I haven't done since about November, which was when my last disposable razor became blunt. Before that, I shaved intermittently, depending on my relationship status, the weather, and if I was going swimming much.
It's something I've been thinking about more lately, as it's getting to be the time of year when, if it's there, body hair will be on display. I've already braved hairy armpits in both social and work contexts with no comment, but hairy legs sticking out the edge of rolled up jeans have prompted comments ranging from piss-taking (being told by a man that they are almost as hairy as his) to surprise and disgust (being told, by an acquaintance who I do youth work with, that they were gross. I think she was more shocked than genuinely disgusted. Although none of the young people commented on the hair, which I was pleasantly surprised by.)

My last significant other made a point of saying that he didn't have an issue with my body hair, which I think is pretty sound. I felt comfortable having hairy legs and armpits around him, because it just wasn't an issue. Which it shouldn't be, to be honest.

But the person I was with before then didn't make me quite as comfortable. She didn't actively comment on my body hair, but she would frequently say (in all seriousness) "oh, I haven't shaved my legs, I'm sorry, they're disgusting..." to which I would always reply that they were fine, and really not disgusting. Her hair was a lot fairer than mine, so any growth was barely noticable, but that really wasn't the issue, I wouldn't have been bothered if she did have visible body hair! But her comments hardly made me feel that my body hair was something she would be accepting of, given the disgust she had for it on her own body.

I'm not currently in a relationship, so any decision I now make about my body hair doesn't take into account a girlfriend or boyfriend's preference or opinion. All I have to think about now is what I want. Well, what I want and also how much hassle I want to put up with when I go out in public.

I wish that I could go to work in a skirt without tights, without risking colleagues looking at my legs distastefully. I feel uncomfortable enough going swimming, without attracting scornful glances for not having shaved off any hair that might cause offense. I get enough street harassment for cycling through the city centre, without people being able to see when I stop at the traffic lights that my legs are hairy...

But then I admit, I don't know how colleagues would respond to my bare hairy legs, because I've never tried it. Each time it gets to be warm enough to wear a skirt without tights, I cave in and shave them. And then I keep shaving them. Until it's no longer leg-baring weather. We have a reasonably relaxed dress code in my office, but the only hair I have ever seen is above the shoulders. I can dress as smartly as I like, but if I walked into a meeting with hairy legs I would feel less confident than if they were either shaved or covered up. Maybe I'm worrying too much? Maybe a lot of people just won't care. But the people who have commented in the past, perhaps unthinkingly, made me feel incredibly self-conscious.

My hair is naturally dark and reasonably thick. If I have bare legs, you can see the hair on them. I'm slightly envious of female friends of mine with fairer body hair, who don't shave but also pass more easily in the world of smooth-legged women. Sometimes I get exasperated at myself for spending so much time thinking about society's response to my body hair, because I should be thinking about much more important things. But then I remember that it's ok to get upset about the small things too. And street harassment on the basis of my physical appearance is indicative of the wider problem that women's bodies are considered public domain.

Then this campaign caught my eye: Hairy Awarey Campaign. Running from 1st June - 31st July, it encourages women to grow and show their body hair during this period. The rationale is that many women remove or hide their body hair because of fears of a negative response from society, but if women all began showing their hair, then the taboo could be lifted. I've seen this work on a smaller scale - a lot of my ace feminist friends don't shave and that means that when we're out together, I don't feel self conscious about my body hair because I'm not the only one. To have that feeling of security on a larger scale would be incredible, and I like the idea enough to join the campaign. I had been thinking about shaving my legs and armpits this spring/summer, for an easier life, but I'm going to try and hold off. Sometimes just knowing that I have the support of other women is enough to make me feel strong.

Is there anything else I can help you with?

In lighter, brighter news; I've been notifying all the utility companies and service providers to let them know my new address, and when I rang 3 mobile, I gave my name and address to identify myself and the person I was speaking to said straight up:

"Hello, and can I just say, you have a *wonderful* voice!"

Which was nice to hear. I do have a very clear telephone voice. Maybe I should start using it in everyday conversation.

I've also been particularly enjoying the interaction I've had with British Gas over the past few weeks, the staff are always very patient and helpful, and at the end of the call they always check if there is anything else they can help me with. (I don't know, do you wanna help me bring down the kyriarchy?!) When you are on hold they play you an instrumental version of "The Universal" by Blur, which I find very soothing. So much so, that I have taken to playing it to myself when I need to calm down. I liked this song as a young teen, so it's got pleasant associations for me there too. Although an acquaintance who works at a call centre with a British Gas contract said she used to love this song until she had to listen to it everyday. Too much of a good thing perhaps.

Blur – The Universal (via spotify)

From bad to worse: trigger warning for rape-excusing bullshit

Last weekend, I was discussing with my parents and brother the reasons I find it hard to get along with him. A mediated discussion, if you will, to try and make our last fortnight of living together as smooth as possible.

I highlighted the difference between my values and his, and how these play out when he makes jokes about rape (along the lines of "well, she was asking for it, hur hur hur"). I don't think he actually *believes* that a woman wearing a short skirt is asking to be raped. The problem is that he thinks it's funny to joke about it. As I see it, the difference between me and my brother is that he thinks rape is an issue to be joked about, whereas I will fiercely, but calmly, challenge rape humour whenever I hear it. I would hope, on a basic level, he would agree with me that women never deserve to be raped.

BUT the gap between my dad's views and mine seems to be a lot wider. When I was giving the example of my brother joking about women "asking for it (rape)" my dad's response was along the lines of...

"Well to be honest when you have these young women who dress provocatively and go out and get completely drunk and then lead these young men on and get them all fired up, and then have a moment of clarity and decide they don't want to sleep with them, well I think those women need to take responsibity!"

WOAH.

To me, that sounds a lot like a reworking of the "she was asking for it". It sounds like in this imagined situation, if a woman was drunk, and wearing clothes that a man deemed to be worn to encourage him, if she had behaved in a way that he believed was leading her on, and he had then tried to have sex with her, he wouldn't need her consent because she has been behaving in a way that effectively gives consent. If he has sex with her against her will, that is, *if he rapes her*, she needs to take responsibility for that.

NO! If a man has sex with a woman against her will, he needs to take responsibility for the fact that he is a rapist. Anything else is victim-blaming, rape-excusing rubbish. And I can't believe I am having to have this argument with my father!

There are so many things wrong here.

• The idea that women who are drunk are at fault for letting their guard down (not the fact that after a certain point of drunkeness, a person can't legally consent to sex).
  
• That if women dress a certain way it automatically suggests sexual availability (rather than a woman wearing clothes she wants to wear for any number of other reasons. Those reasons may include attracting the opposite sex, but they are not an invitation to sex).
  
• That if a woman 'leads a man on' she has to expect to have sex with him. (This one really makes me angry. The idea that if you cross a particular threshold - flirting, dancing with, accepting a drink, kissing, getting naked with... that once that threshold has been crossed you lose the right to say no to sex.)

The most terrifying thing was that this wasn't someone joking about rape culture, dragging out the tired "she was asking for it, hur hur hur" formula. This was an adult, trying to to explain to me that in certain situations, women are responsible for being raped.
I raised the concern that my brother makes jokes about women being responsible for being raped, in the hope that my parents would back me up and agree that rape isn't an issue to joke about, but instead my dad went off on a tangent to explain how sometimes, he thinks it *is* a woman's responsibility that she was raped.

I was so completely floored by this comment that I could hardly respond.

I told him I completely disagreed about that hypothetical scenario, that I felt that two people could even be in bed naked together and a woman could still say she didn't want to have sex, and if the man forced sex upon her that would be rape.
But that also, we weren't talking about if it was a woman's responsibility that she was raped in any given hypothetical situation, we were talking about whether it was ok to joke about it!

I was shocked that my father held these views. Shocked and upset. What if I had been the woman in his hypothetical scenario? If I had had (what he deemed to be) too much to drink, if I was wearing (what he deemed to be) provocative clothing, if I had been behaving in way that (he deemed) was leading a man on, if I ended up in a situation where a man tried and/or succeeded to have sex without my consent, then would I be the one needing to take responsibility?

I didn't ask him if his point of view would still be the same if I was the woman in his story. Because it was bad enough hearing him blame this hypothetical woman for being raped. I didn't want to hear him saying he would feel the same if it was me.

To her credit, my mum did state that she didn't share my dad's views. But my brother said nothing.

I know that my father and I have different views on many things. I suspect I come across to him as a progressive who is so open-minded her brain is about to fall out. A woolly-minded guardian-reading liberal. We disagree about a lot of things, and I can usually cope with that. I put it down to the fact that we are from different generations, that we have very different life experiences. We generally have a good relationship, and I'm not holding up this one interchange as a representative snapshot of what he is like. I don't think he is a bad person.

I just thought he would share my view that women are never asking to be raped. I thought that was one of my less radical, progressive views. It would appear I was mistaken.

We're grown-ups now, and it's our turn to decide what that means.

When I dyed my hair red last weekend, my brother commented, in front of his girlfriend, that "I never dyed my hair because I didn't feel the need to rebel against Mum and Dad."
The unspoken flipside of this is that I must have dyed my hair as an act of rebellion.

When I first dyed my hair (bright pink) it was after watching "All Over Me" with my first girlfriend. It's a film about growing up, coming out and loss of innocence, with a riot grrrl soundtrack. One of the characters (played by Leisha Hailey, from the band The Murmurs, and later the L Word) has the most adorable candyfloss pink hair. And we wanted hair like her. And we wanted hair like each other. So we bleached our hair, and dyed it pink. We were 16. I'm perhaps giving my teenage self more credit than she deserves, but I really don't remember it as an act of rebellion, any more than having a girlfriend was an act of rebellion. It wasn't the expected thing I would do, but that doesn't mean I did it for rebellion's sake.

I dyed my hair red again in my early twenties, again because I wanted to. I think I must have had a shop job at the time, either in a second hair record shop, or a fairtrade shop, I can't when it was exactly. But it wasn't a big deal. I was the same person as before, but with red hair.

And this time, almost ten years after first dyeing my hair, it is still not an act of rebellion. My parents may not approve of some of my lifestyle choices (my weight and nose piercings being the two big ones), but I hope they recognise that I didn't make them because they wouldn't approve.
I am holding down a full-time job in the public sector, with both my immediate line manager and overall manager telling me how fantastic my hair looks. They are not telling me that my "act of rebellion" isn't appreciated, or that it is inappropriate. I am good at my job. I have red hair. I am not rebelling against my parents, nor against "the establishment". I just like having red hair. And the colour of my hair is not affecting my ability to do my job. I know, incredible huh?

I do not fit the conventional ideal of "what is attractive" or "how people should live". I am overweight. I do not have shaved legs or armpits. I have two nose rings. And I now have red hair. I have relationships with men and women, sometimes (shock horror) at the same time. I don't watch tv. I have vegan aspirations. I can't drive yet but that doesn't bother me because I ride my bike everywhere.

My brother is, in my opinion, fairly conventional. He is conventionally attractive, slim, dresses in smart-to-trendy clothes. He has had a string of what appear to me to be fairly conventional heterosexual relationships. He is training to be a primary school teacher.

Sometimes I wonder if his comments and criticisms about my "rebellious lifestyle" are perhaps an expression of ennui at the path he has mapped out for himself. Are the people who criticise us for not conforming to the way they feel adults should live, are they secretly jealous that we are making our own rules whilst they feel trapped by having to do what society expects of them?

This is me, as an adult. I am not rebelling. I may do things that other adults wouldn't do, that don't fit their vision of what adults are supposed to do, but that doesn't matter. I am confident that I am living a life of which I can be proud.

This xkcd comic hits the nail on the head: We're grown-ups now, and it's our turn to decide what that means

I find the idea that I can create my own version of adulthood an intoxicating concept. I get to choose where I work, where I live, who I spend time with. I get to choose what I eat, what I spend my money on, and what I do with my free time. I can make all these choices whilst still playing by the rules of society's prescribed living, even if I am bending them slightly at times.

And if I start breaking the rules, there's an even wider world out there...

"Red Red Red, oh!"

Meanwhile, alongside all this, I have dyed my hair red. A friend and I were chatting about red hair, and how we both fancied it, and how red could we get away with going, when suddenly our conversation tipped from 'could we/should we' to 'let's just do it!' I went for the reddest red I could find in a permanent dye, so that I can go out in the rain or have a bath without the colour running out. I used to dye my hair bright colours in my teens, but I used this dye that was only semi permanent. It was vivid, until it got wet, and then it ran down my shoulders and I was left with orange hair. But this time it's red and it's going to stay red. And it's beautiful.

It's so beautiful, that on Tuesday, when I was curled up in the armchair in the living room, crying hysterically after a run-in with my brother, (when I tried 3 times in a row to explain how he was speaking out of turn and he just became more aggressive until I and gave up and lost my composure and my temper, because if having a patient radical feminist sister isn't enough to get a man to recognise his excess of male privilege, what hope is there?), as I curled my hand around a tuft about to pull it out, as I do when I'm really anxious or unhappy, I managed to stop myself.

* * * * *

The first time I remember pulling my hair out, I would have been about 14. I was old enough to have a "down-town pass" which was something Year 10 and 11 students could have to allow them to leave school premises. Printed on red card, and about the size of a debit card, you were given one if your parents wrote a letter at the start of term saying that you had their permission to go into town at lunchtime.
We had a white shirt as part of our school uniform, and I must have left the red pass in the top pocket of my white shirt before putting it into the wash. Mum had recently bought a new set of cream towels, which went in too and I didn't realise what I had done until the washload came out with red spots everywhere. Everything was ruined, and it was my fault for forgetting to take the pass out my skirt. I told my Mum; I had to. And she was really angry. I think these towels were a considerable expense, and I had ruined them. She lost her temper with me, and me apologising wasn't enough because I couldn't undo it. I remember her having to go out somewhere, and me sitting on the tiles on the kitchen floor with my back to the dishwasher, crying and crying, and then pulling at my hair and working out that if I wrapped some of it around my hand I could get enough leverage to pull it out. I pulled out enough to leave a bald patch about the size of a two pence piece. The hair grew back, slowly. First I had a bald patch, then I had a tuft which I had to clip down to the rest of my hair with a kirby grip, and then it grew long enough to blend in with the rest of my hair.

* * * * *

For quite a few years, my hair was too short too pull out in any volume. If it's shorter than a couple of inches, it's hard to get the leverage. You can pull out the odd hair but it's not the same, it doesn't make you feel any better.

* * * * *

In a relationship a few years ago, when my hair was longer, I became so routinely stressed at trying and failing to be the sort of girlfriend she wanted that I started pulling my hair out again. I learned not to pull out whole clumps from the same place as this was too visible, so I started pulling out smaller amounts from all over my head, which made it un-noticable as I have fairly thick hair. I'd do it when we were in bed in the dark together, when we were having yet another state of union conversation, as I became more and more upset that I couldn't match up to her last girlfriend, with whom she had bought the house we now slept in. I'd lie there, as she talked about how our relationship wasn't working, and I'd twist strands round my finger and then pull them out, putting them under the pillow. When she realised what I was doing she got mad with me. I wonder if her new girlfriend pulls her hair out to cope with the things she says to her?

* * * * *

On Monday, I felt them same level of anxiety that I usually cope with by pulling my hair out. My brother has been living here for a little under a month, and historically we do not get on, due to his displays of privilege and offensive sense of humour. But he needed somewhere to live in Leeds, and I thought I should make an effort to help him out. His girlfriend is also living here, sharing his room with him.
He has an incredibly offensive sense of humour, which I try and ignore as much as possible. But he makes it hard, when he will sidle up to me and say (so quietly that only I can hear him) "I don't like black people". He knows I will call him on it. I don't think he actually means it, but he thinks it's funny to pretend he is racist. And I hate it, which makes him do it even more.
Then there's all his jokes about rape. He was spending time with me and some of my friends, and the film Thelma and Louise came up, and he said in response to the rape scene that "well she was asking for it, as she was wearing a short skirt". I don't think he actually believes this. He just thinks it's funny and controversial to say something so offensive.
So I called him on it and I said "I know you don't actually think that wearing a short skirt means that someone is asking to be raped, but it's not on to even joke about it. Rape is not something to joke about. For many women, it is a reality. There will be women you know who have been raped and sexually assaulted, and for them to hear you joking about it so casually would be incredibly hurtful." To which he replies that if someone told him they had been raped and found his joke offensive, he would stop. I try and explain, through gritted teeth that is really not the point, and survivors of sexual assault shouldn't have to out themselves to him to make him stop joking about such a serious issue. He shrugs his shoulder and says I take everything so seriously.

How about everytime a man makes a rape joke, someone rapes him. Let's see how funny he finds it then, and how many times he needs to be raped before he stops seeing the funny side. Ha ha, only joking...

See, it's not funny is it?

My brother is the sort of man who thinks that rape and racism are issues he can pretend to support for comedic effect. And if we don't get the joke then we're clearly too uptight and take everything far too seriously.

But that wasn't even what made me break down on Monday. The issue then was his use of male privilege to try and dismiss the things that are important to me, belittle my feelings, make me feel that I am the problem and then ultimately silence me. It's the fact that we only had around a month living together; a month where he was living somewhere that has been my home for seven years, when he knew that I was having a hard time getting ready to leave, but where he still felt the need to try and control me and manipulate me so that he had his way even with things that weren't that important to him.

He mentioned that at the weekend, his gf's parents would be bringing up some more of her stuff including a kettle. As I am trying to pack non-essential items ready for my move, I said that I would maybe pack the kettle after this weekend and we could use hers. I also have some pale pink cast-iron kitchen ware I am fond of, which matches the pale pink of my kitchen walls. My brother has some similar kitchenware in blue, so he suggested that we could pack mine away and use his. I challenged this and said I would like to keep mine in use for as long as possible as it looked so pretty in the kitchen, and wouldn't match as well in my new house (as I am moving somewhere we probably shouldn't paint).

He replied dismissively that I might live somewhere else with pink walls in the future. (DISMISSIVE OF MY POINT/CONCERNS)

I took a deep breath and said that whilst it was possible this might be the case, it wouldn't be so immediately in my new home, and so for that reason I would really like to keep using mine instead of his for the next two weeks before I went. I also told him that I didn't feel up to having a big debate about it as I wasn't feeling well (the kind of headache and period pain that make you stay up all night blogging because you can't sleep and don't have any painkillers in the house).

He then said to me, in a patronising, babyish voice "ok well we'll do whatever is best for you then". (BELITTLING & PATRONISING)

I called him on this, and told him he was patronising me and I didn't appreciate it.

He said I was over-reacting and being hypersensitive. (DERAILING TACTIC TO TRYING TO MAKE ME FEEL FOOLISH FOR BEING UPSET ABOUT SOMETHING 'TRIVIAL')

I told him I wasn't over-reacting, that I had *heard* him talk in a babyish voice at me and I didn't appreciate it and that it was unreasonable for him to try and dismiss my view and feelings out of hand like that.

He then responded that if I didn't like the way he was talking I could leave the conversation. (ATTEMPTED SILENCING TECHNIQUE AND REFUSAL TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY)

At this point, feeling like crap with cramps and after giving him three chances to realise that the way he was talking to me was out of order, I lost my composure. I told him he couldn't use my pink kitchenware anymore, he would have to use his own. So he retaliated by demanding a quarter of the kitchen space to keep his things in.

Now, when he moved in, he said that he didn't have very many things so wouldn't be needed a quarter of the entire house. He's even previously chided me for having so many things and being so sentimentally attached to them. When he moved in, we discussed the kitchen space and the fact that as I had been here for seven years, I was using a lot of it. But he assured me he had space for the things he needed. And a lot of my things, like crockery and saucepans and cutlery and chopping boards are things he uses as he doesn't have his own. So my things take up space, but everyone in the house can use them.

Him suddenly demanding a quarter of the kitchen space, despite the fact that he didn't need it, that he didn't have things to fill it with, that all my things would be gone in a matter of weeks, that the space I was taking up was taken up by things that he enjoyed using... this demand was him throwing his weight around.

And because I wasn't feeling well, because I had already repeatedly tried and failed to rationally challenge his male privilege-powered attacks, and because I am feeling upset about moving out of this house, I got upset and gave in. And then I rang my mother.

Before my brother moved in, I was very worried about this type of situation occurring. Him using his male privilege to try and get his way, so that I either have to give in for an easy life, or fight it and cause a scene. I had spoken to my mother about it, and she had said that if that sort of situation occurred then we could have "a family discussion about it" but obviously I had not explicitly used the phrase "male privilege" because when I rang her in hysterical tears, she tried to calm me down and said that it wasn't 'because he was a man' that he was doing these things.
I then had to take time out from the issue to explain the concepts of male/white/middle class/thin etc privilege to her, and how people possessing those privileges can use them to oppress people who don't have them, often in such subtle ways, so built into society that many people don't even notice what's going on. I was surprised that she wasn't aware of the concept. And that made me despair a little, because people who don't know it exists aren't going to be a position to spot it or call people out on it. She spoke to him to hear what he had to say, and then told me that he had said he hadn't meant to upset me, but I had become upset. He is playing her, convincing her that he hadn't meant to upset me. So I come across as the one who is irrationally upset, a view which isn't helped by my hysterical crying down the phone.

* * * * *

I give up. I just give up. If I had been talking to any male friend, any male colleague, and the conversation had started going down the route it went with my brother, where I felt he was patronising me, or belittling me, or silencing me, and I calmly raised that, I am *sure* they would either have taken the opportunity to back down and apologise for being out of order, or if they genuinely hadn't meant to, they would apologise for making me feel that way. But he just carried on, as he always does. If any man in my life repeatedly used his privilege to try and control me, and didn't back down or apologise when I called him on it, I would cut him out my life. But as I know from past experience, that's harder to do when you have a biological tie to a person.

It was suggested by my mother, that I was expecting things to go this way with my brother, and that my negative thinking wouldn't help matters. That when I said, before he moved in, that I was concerned I would end up with as situation similar to one with strike three housemate (see previous post), where his controlling manipulative behaviour made me feel uncomfortable in my own home, that I was being irrational.

I know she was trying to help, but I call do not agree with her. I don't think it is past negative experiences that are causing me to worry that situations will repeat themselves.

I think it's that I'm getting better at recognising the men who use their privilege to manipulate and control the women in their lives, and the more times it happens the less patience I have.  I am growing stronger and braver and I will not stand for it anymore. Some people will see me as a jumped up feminist upstart, but that's a price I'm willing to pay.

* * * * *

When my friend and I decided to dye our hair red together, she sent me a message which said

"and the red we dye our hair will be the red of rage, passion, new starts and fun times altogether."

Hell yes. Bring it on.

Why I am looking forward to moving to my new home

I've been reluctant to give to many specifics about my current housing situation as I am trying to keep a degree of semi-anonymity, but I'm coming to the realisation that if you already know me then you will know that I write this blog, and if you don't already know me the specifics I give won't be enough to conclusively work out who I am. And I can't talk coherently about what's going on at the moment without giving some context.

* * * * *

I rent a room in a 3 bedroom house that is owned by my parents, but it is in my name. It is not our family home, it is a house they bought nearly seven years ago when I was at the end of my first year of university. Put simply, the idea was that I would rent a room and be responsible for finding two other people to live with me and together the three combined rents would pay the mortgage taken out to pay for the house. This house has now gone on the market, as I've decided I don't enjoy living here anymore, and it's becoming more like a burden than a blessing. The new house I have found is one I will be renting from a private landlord, allowing me to keep separate my family situation and my living arrangement.

Living in this house has had its ups and downs, the ups being that I have had the freedom to decorate the house as I wish, and that I have had stability that I wouldn't get by renting privately. But the downside has been continually finding people to live with me. The house isn't in the part of Leeds typically favoured by students & young professionals, and whilst my room is lovely, the other two rooms aren't as great. The rent isn't extortionate, but it's not cheap, and bills are relatively high.


As the house is legally mine, I have had to handle a lot of the "landlord" responsibilities as well as also being a tenant and paying rent. Whenever a housemate claims housing benefit, it's me who has to fill in all the paperwork (and it's happened several times) and yet when I was out of work, I couldn't claim housing benefit because of the situation where I was renting from my parents/"owning my own house".
When one housemate let the bath overflow and water came through the ceiling, which then grew black mould all over it from the damp, it was me who had to clean it up when he wouldn't, even though I was effectively just a co-tenant.

* * * * *

I've had a number of good friends live here over the years and a lot of good times, but I've also had a few nightmare housemates...

Strike one
One housemate used to be a friend of mine, which made it harder when things broke down and I had to tell him I didn't want to extend his contract for another year. We'd got on well when I was younger, and enjoyed going out and drinking all the time. We'd stay up late, go out together, get drunk, have fun, and come home and carry on. I grew out of this, but he didn't. I'd been temporarily out of work, where as his unemployment continued. He lived almost completely nocturnally, which meant he had lights on all night, and he had two computers running 24hours a day. He'd go out clubbing and leave almost every light in the house on, and when I tried to suggest this was why our fuel bills were so high he said that wasn't it, that fuel was just expensive. (When he left, my next quarterly bill was over £100 lower even though it was at a colder time of year.) On the occasions he came out to feminist discos with me, he'd often hit on women and behave in an inappropriate sleazy fashion towards friends of mine leaving me embarrassed that I'd invited him out with me.
When I told him he couldn't carry on living there because I couldn't cope with living with someone like him, giving him plenty of notice to find somewhere else. He acted like I was a monster, and we lived out our last month together in awkward silence. He now lives with my sister, and whenever I go round he stays in his room, even if I'm there for Christmas dinner.

Strike Two
Then there was the housemate who came well recommended by a friend who has since admitted she would never live with him. He was also long term unemployed, and spent most of his time in his room. He refused to pay council tax as he didn't have a job, but wouldn't apply for council tax benefit as he said that was the landlord's (ie my) responsibility to sort out, which left me paying proportionally higher council tax because it clearly wasn't my responsibility to sort out, as I couldn't claim the benefit on his behalf.
When temping agencies rang up to discuss his situation (ringing up on my landline which he refused to contribute to, no less) presumably with a view to trying to find him work, he would be rude to them on the phone and then once the call had finished he would rant about how it was completely out of order for them to disturb him like that.
He would moan about having to go collect parcels from the sorting office, even though it was less than a mile from our house and he had plenty of time to go get them what with not having a job.
He also seemed to lack the social skills to know when a conversation had run it's course, meaning that you would often get trapped in conversations with him for literally hours unless you bluntly and forcefully excused yourself from the conversation. He was incredibly negative, and we didn't get on at all.
Halfway through a year long contract, I knew I couldn't live with him for another year, so I politely told him, with six months notice, that I wouldn't be renewing his contract and he would need to find somewhere else. He took this badly, claiming that he now had "another thing to worry about", presumably another thing on top of getting your rent paid, and not having to pay council tax, and being paid to sit around in your room listening to music. Boo fucking hoo.

Strike Three
Another housemate started off not as a housemate, but as the boyfriend of a housemate I got on really well with. He stayed over a lot, and we got on reasonably well, so eventually it was decided he should go on the contract with her and contribute properly to rent and bills. There were a few things I didn't like about him, like his tendancy to control and manipulate my housemate/his girlfriend by sulking when he didn't get his way, or kicking off when he was upset so that she compromised her position for an easier life, but I figured that was their relationship and not my problem. That was a misjudment on my part, because it soon became my problem. Controlling men will try and control anyone in their life where they think they can get away with it
The day his new contract began, his behaviour got a lot worse. I came home from work to find he had emptied the entire contents of my garage (which he didn't rent as part of his tenancy agreement). He was sat on the roof of his car, overseeing the contents of my garage, which was now piled up all over my lawn. As I walked up the street to the house (on my way from work), he shouted out to me that he was wondering when I was going to be home, as we needed to "sort all this shit out". He started going through the items one at a time, suggesting things we could get rid of. This was my stuff, a rocking horse I had when I was a child, a bicycle that had great sentimental value but couldn't be ridden since someone had kicked the front wheel in. Bits of wood and paint from when various work had been done on the house. The sort of stuff that you keep in a garage basically, but that crucially was not his to move around or get rid of.

I tried to explain that he was out of order, calmly at first, but when he wouldn't listen, getting more upset and agitated. He then told me I should go inside to have a cup of tea and calm down, so I told him to put the stuff back and left him to it. A short while passed, and it started to drizzle at which point he got cross because no one was helping him put the stuff back in the garage. His girlfriend agreed with me that he was completely out of order, and 'had a word with him' but it seemed to have little effect.

The second incident with him came about because my bike that I used for riding everywhere needed some work doing to the back wheel, something to do with the sprocket. I hadn't had chance to sort it out immediately, as the bike repair shop was a way away from my house so I was waiting til I had a day off. On my day off, I went into the garage to get the part of my bike that needed fixing to take to the shop, only to find that he had moved it. I tried to ring him to ask him what he had done with, but it rang out and then went to answerphone. So I went to the shop and bought a new part instead of fixing the old one, and returned fully pissed off. When I challenged him about it, and explained that it wasn't his bike to touch and that he had massively inconvenienced me, and that I tried to call him to ask where it was before having to give up a new part, he told me his phone hadn't rung. I repeated that I *had* rung him, at which point he asked aggressively if I "was I calling him a liar".  I snapped. It wasn't just the bike, or the garage, it was those two things as symptoms of his desire to control people around him, of his disregard for other peoples feelings or possessions.
He also owed me over £300 in bills, as all the bills in were in my name and came out of my account, and had to be paid on time. He had been claiming he didn't have the money as he had been out of work for a while (and he was self employed.)
I told him I didn't want him to live there anymore, and that I was giving him a month's notice (as I could do legally as per his contract.) At this point he stopped making eye contact and acted like he was very engrossed in his computer and said "fine, whatever you want, I don't care". He moved out a week later and his girlfriend went with him, and I still have concerns about their relationship, and the control he has. I tried to discuss them with her before they left but she didn't want to hear me. Fortunately, I did get my money back before he left.

* * * * *

These three men ultimately made me feel uncomfortable in my own home. The stress of having to keep finding new people to move in, and the risk that it could dissolve into another one of these situations made me realise that any benefits I got from living here were not worth it. It's not like a situation where if you rent a house with a group of friends, and things don't work out, you can leave. This was my house, and what started off being stability ended up being something I felt shackled too. So I spoke to my parents, and we decided to put the house on the market. It was decided that once this house sold, they would buy somewhere for my brother and his girlfriend to live in.

And then, as a temporary measure, and because he needed somewhere to live and I had a spare room, and because our parents effectively own the house, my younger brother moved in less than a month ago. Slowly at first, and then all at once, things became very unpleasant, as I will explain in my next post.

The Life That is Waiting

"We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us."  

(Joseph Campbell)

I bought these flowers last week from my favourite plant nursery, the Vale Stables in Meanwood. I discovered the nursery when I was going for a walk with two of my friends last year, along the ridge of woodland in between Meanwood and Woodhouse, heading towards Meanwood Park.
It's absolutely charming, like a nature trail where the specimens are for sale, with plants in teapots and boots and a chair made out of horseshoes. At the centre of it all the people who run the nursery sit round an outdoor stove hanging out and drinking tea. They also sell firewood, and I'm sure I remember there being chickens roaming around at one point. On one visit I saw a cat who was the *spitting image* of a cat I used to know. 

I've been talking about moving house for a while now, but I now have a house to move to and a date to move in. The new house is in Meanwood, a hop, skip and a jump away from the woods and the nursery, and it's ours from mid May.

We'll have a cellar to keep our wine in, and I'll finally have the attic bedroom I've been dreaming of since I left home nearly nine years ago. The two alcoves in the living room could have been made for my pair of 6ft bookcases. There's a lovely light bathroom I can grow houseplants in, which is something I've been longing for after living in a house with a bathroom with an extractor fan instead of a window for the last seven years.

But in order to move into this new house that is waiting, I have to leave behind my home of seven years. This house has seen me through so much, so many relationships have begun and ended whilst I've lived here, so many housemates have moved in and out.  The cliched "good times and bad" and the weight of everything I have lived through here is suddenly pressing heavily on my heart.

I have a month to work out how to give this part of my life the respectful goodbye it deserves, before moving on to the life that is waiting. I want to take it all with me, in case I leave the wrong things behind. I want to hold on to every last memory, everything every person ever said to me in this house, every regret and every celebration.
I've spent the past seven years building a shrine to the person I promised myself I would become but now I finally have a chance dismantle it, and build something new.

Have a cup of coffee, put a cd on...

It had to happen eventually; I am sorting through my cd collection.

I'm currently listening to a Pulp bootleg cd from a Shepherds Bush concert in 1995 to decide if it stays or goes, and the riff at the beginning of Disco 2000 is *still* one of my favourites. But do I really need bootlegs of live Pulp shows? I'm listening to this one through to see if Jarvis says anything incredibly adorable, but so far he's just been dissing horoscopes ("fucking bollocks", apparently) and talking about home furnishings. Not a patch on the banter you get on his Sunday Service on BBC radio 6. I also have a lot of Pulp CD singles, the earlier ones deserve to stay in my collection, but I don't really need the single version, plus two remixes, of Party Hard. Does anyone?!

My cd collection is very late-90's focused, as this was what I was (retroactively) into in my late teens and early twenties. Think Shine compilations cds, the Slingbacks, Pulp, Placebo, My Life Story, Lush... so it's really not representative of "the sort of music I like nowadays". I remember going mad (a slight over-reaction) when a new significant other started looking through my cd collection and making assumptions about me and my tastes accordingly. Because whilst my tastes have moved on, I've not really been buying the cds to reflect it. (I will leave you to make your own assumptions about how I have been acquiring music if not by buying it on cd. Clue: I haven't just been buying it on vinyl instead. And I keep it mostly on my computer.)

A lot of my cd collection was amassed during my university years, when I worked at a secondhand record shop and volunteered at a books & music focused charity shop. Secondhand cds were therefore cheaper than cheap for me, and so I ended up with the entire Super Furry Animals collection without really noticing (a collection which has now been whittled down to "Rings Around the World" when I realised I didn't really like them that much, if at all. I also discovered last year that I owned almost all the White Stripes cds, including a bizarre release called "Electrostripes", comprising entirely of electro covers of the White Stripes. Not that remarkable until you realise I have little more than a passing fondness for either the band or the covering genre.)

There is also a small selection of cds in my collection (misleadingly filed amongst all my others) that are not cds to be listened to, but artifacts from past relationships disguised as cds to be listened to. I'm talking about mix cds that exes made me, that I didn't really like but as I liked them at the time I can't really bring myself to throw away. I'm not going to get rid of these, but they have no place in my cd collection.
Then, even more toxic, are cds that exes copied for me which contain music I would quite like to listen to but everytime I pick them up the cute messages written on them spiral me into a mood completely different to the one I was in when I first thought "you know what, I'm in a good mood. I'd like to listen to some Tilly and the Wall". I have finally hit upon the solution of ripping all these cds to my computer and filing away the cds themselves into suitcases with other relationship detritus, as mp3s via itunes or ipod pack (slightly) less of a punch than her handwriting. Hopefully as I listen to the music in this new digital no-mans-land I can make new, happier associations than the ones I currently have.

The cds I *have* been buying since my record shop assistant days tend to be small bands, either unsigned or signed to DIY labels, like Ste McCabe, Hotpants Romance, The Lovely Eggs, Das Wanderlust that I have seen live and want to support, enthusiastically. Which seems like a reasonable compromise - if they are the only cds I buy they are probably the most deserving of my money.

My cd collection is never going to be accurate way to read my personality (and whoever came up with that suggestion probably read High Fidelity too many times) but at least after today it will only contain things I actively want to keep.

The Muffins Are On Me.

I got my copy of Vegan Brunch through the post this morning and got completely over excited. Our Saturday post arrives around 11am, so by the time I had looked through the book and decided what I wanted to make, it was already lunchtime. I went out on my bike for ingredients to make English Muffins and Scrambled Tofu (and also picked up some reduced plantain which I think I will cook up for brunch tomorrow), and at about 4pm sat down to this feast:

And (whilst it may not be the most photogenic meal ever and could have done with some green vegetables in it) it was great, and the potato salad on the right was made with the last of my smile potatoes! I've never made (savoury) muffins from scratch, so that was pretty exciting. I am already planning a smoked paprika version, and a marmite version. Mmmm. And scrambled tofu. I know it's this big vegan cliche staple that everyone is bored with, but I'd never tried it, and I think I could eat a lot of it before I got bored.

Vegan Brunch is a very exciting cookery book. I already own a couple of books by Isa Chandra Moskowitz (Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World and Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar) and they are all beautiful and entertaining and inspiring.

The only thing that trips me up is the American English (as these are American cookbooks), which is particularly difficult when it comes to measurements/volumes and the fact that some ingredients have different names. Like what the American's call cornmeal, we call maize flour - or more commonly - polenta. So I often have to approach recipes with my computer on in the background so I can google anything I don't understand.

Whilst trying to work out what cornmeal was, I came across this site, which promises to answer "life's vexing cooking questions". It's set up in a Q & A style, and you can search the archive or submit new questions. The tone of the answers can be a bit sarcastic at times, but it's a really useful site especially if you are trying to bridge the American/British cooking terms divide.

I also discovered that US and UK teaspoons and tablespoons are not exactly the same size as their transatlantic counterparts, which led me to this site which not only gives conversions from US teaspoons to UK teaspoons, but all sorts of other useful conversions, like a cup of flour converted into metric weight. Although to be honest I just have a set of American-size measuring cups which I use for any American cookbooks.

"Why not smile? You've been sad for a while."*

This morning I have been spring-cleaning my garden, making it tidy enough to invite friends round for homemade wine and fires in the chimnea, pruning shrubs to make way for the new spring growth, and having a rationalisation of my gardening equipment before I move. I have countless seed trays and pots, which seem to increase in number each year even though I use very few of them. I've also got a load of old tyres that I painted up in bright colours and then stacked up to grow potatoes and strawberries in, which are not very transportable once full of soil and plants, so I'm not going to take with me when I go.

I put a post on the classifieds site at work to see if anyone wanted my excess seed trays, pots and tyres, and a woman got in touch to say she would love to have them as her son wants to start growing vegetables. So I feel pretty happy about that, not only have I de-cluttered and made my garden more habitable, but a little boy can learn about growing vegetables!

Whilst emptying the compost out of the stacked up tyres, I discovered the very end of the yield of last year's homegrown potatoes - a variety called "smile"! They are so-called because of the little half moon markings (which you can see clearly in the photo on right hand potato) which look like a smile. There are just enough potatoes for making a portion of potato salad, one of my favourite things to make with little homegrown potatoes.

*The subject line of this post is taken from one of my favourite REM songs, "Why Not Smile", and if you have spotify, you can listen to it here: R.E.M. – Why Not Smile - Oxford American Version

Springtime is the Season

"The springtime is the season where everyone's a friend

Loneliness and desperation both come to an end

No matter how you've died through winter, in spring you're born again

Your life might not be going good but spring helps you to pretend."

(Of Montreal, Springtime is the Season)

Today is the first day of spring.

Mid week I concocted plans to make a banner with this quote on it, and suspend in in the park today. I found some old fabric I could use, but when I tried to start crafting I found the paint I was going to use had solidified, and it was raining, and I wasn't feeling particularly full of the joys of spring, so it didn't happen.

I sorted through my paint cupboard in the hope of finding something else I could use, but there was nothing that would be weather resistant. But this did mean I finally got round to sorting through my paint cupboard. Several tins that had completely dried up got thrown out, and there's a few more that I will hang on to just before I move, and if I still haven't used them I can send them to this ace local project called Seagulls which collects old paint to be redistributed amongst the community.

I also collected three more of those brewery crates (after persuading my sister to take a trip to the supermarket with me in her car, we stopped en-route). I now have them in red, blue, green and black! I realised the backyard I've been getting them from belongs not to a terraced house, but to a closed down off-license cornershop, which explains why the crates are there.

Do you want this box? Part Two

On Thursday I received a message from a friend that said:

"Always loads of cardboard boxes in the Merrion Centre loading bay, get in by the hotel. Ask if you need more help."

After this fantastic tip-off, I met the him outside the Merrion Centre when he finished work and collected 7 boxes out of the recycling bins. And there were more, that's just all I could comfortably carry. (And I mean comfortable in the same way that trying to sleep on the megabus is comfortable.) So that's a supply I can tap into on any day it looks like I might not hit my quota.

I've also started thinking about how to transport all my bottles of homemade wine when I move, which led me to a stash of discarded brewery crates.  It took me a long time to work out that brewery crates would be the best way to transport my wine. I'd thought about just putting them in cardboard boxes with bubblewrap (no no no), and then about those cardboard fold-out wine carriers you get from the supermarket, but after having the question in the back of my mind for a couple of days I suddenly remembered these crates I had seen months ago (the sturdy plastic sort that hold 12 bottles) in the backyard of an empty house on my way home from work. I figured they have already been out of circulation so long that the brewery wouldn't miss them, so I might as well use them. I took one today (which I am going to count as today's quota for my "do you want this box?" challenge, even thought it's not made of cardboard), and I plan to pick up another crate each time I'm going past so that I end up with seven or eight of them. Because as well as carrying bottles, they also make great outdoor stools if you upturn them and put a cushion on top. Let's hope we move somewhere with a yard or garden!

I've been making wine for about 18months, and I've probably got about 50 bottles of wine maturing, dating back from when I started. I've also got 9 demi-johns still full of wine, which should be ready to bottle before I move (if not before), so that's another... 54 bottles! Over 100 bottles of wine!!

Wow. I'd never really stopped to think about how much wine I would end up with, I just kept making exciting new varieties, or making more of the delicious ones that got drunk straight away.

"Hope is the thing with feathers"

In an earlier post, I was lamenting the fact that I couldn't scan in an illustration of a blue tit from my favourite bird identification book, as I didn't have the right leads to make my scanner work. Well, two trips to PC World later (have mercy on my soul) and an hour long tech-support session with my brother over skype whilst we tried to download the correct driver, I now have a fully working scanner!

I love this book so much! I got it for 50p from one of the few charity shops that will still sell you worn out, written in books for under a pound, rather than brand new/barely read books for nearer a fiver. On the front page, it says "To Daniel, with love from Bristol Granny xxx" and the spine is coming off, but this only endears it to me further.

I was tidying up my utility room recently, and I came across a bird feeder and a large unopened bag of peanuts I bought in the winter. I decided that if I hadn't at least started the bag before I moved, they would have to be thrown away. So I filled up the bird feeder and hung it up from the porch in my back garden, easily accessible to the bird community, not so easy for my adorable cat to pounce.

And at the weekend I saw a blue tit feeding on the nuts! The glee, the excitement, the unadulterated pleasure that I felt! It was better than getting a parcel through the post, or getting a splinter out my hand. The once-full feeder is now only three quarters full, and I am so happy that I will be able to give the peanuts away one at a time to the birds, rather than keep them in a cupboard and ultimately throw them away.

The subject line of this post is taken from Emily Dickinson's poem "Hope"

Hope 
   

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Do you want this box? Part One

I am moving house soon, and I only realised last week that I am going to need a lot of cardboard boxes. And I only realised that when a colleague said to me "You're moving house soon, you'll need a lot of boxes. Do you want this box?".

Yesterday I set myself the challenge of finding one cardboard box every day until I move and I found three (all in commercial bins on my walk home). Depending on how easy it is to find these boxes, I will either stick exactly to the "one-a-day" rule, or allow an average of one a day (so that the three I picked up yesterday will see me through til the weekend if there's slim pickings today and tomorrow).

I find it easier to do this kind of thing if I make it into a challenge.

I've been at my present house for around six and a half years now, and I have amassed a lot of stuff.  If I have less stuff, I will need less boxes. I'm not going to take this to its logical extreme, and get rid of everything that won't fit in my three boxes, but I am trying to be quite ruthless and downscale my possessions. But how do you even start?

(I own two microwaves and two copies of Jeanette Winterson's "Written on the Body" and two cast iron casserole dishes. In all these cases I only regularly use one of each, so maybe my duplicates would be a good place to start...)

One friend of mine, when moving from Sheffield to Leeds, set herself the target of reducing her books, film collection and clothes by a third. This appeals to me in its boldness, but for it to really work accurately, I would have to either tackle each category in one go, or I would have to keep count of the number of items kept and discarded to make sure I really did a third/two thirds split. Maybe this system worked for her because she had a less precise, literal interpretation of "a third" than I do.

As I like to gradually pair down my possessions I need a different approach. Another person I knew of apparently gave away one item a day. Unfortunately I acquired this information secondhand, and didn't know him well enough to ask at what point he stopped. What if I use this method and it gets completely out of hand?!

When it comes to sentimental items, I have started taking advantage of any level-headed and unsentimental moments when they occur. I knew that keeping hold of the first flowers my ex ever gave me (three years on they were completely shrivelled and faded as they were never intended to be 'dried flowers') was a bad idea, and to transport them to my new house would be some kind of oversentimental madness. I try and pack that kind of past-relationship-ephemera away into boxes even when I'm not about to move (shoebox after shoebox of letters and trinkets that I don't want to part with, but if I was confronted with them on a daily basis I would find it hard to get out of bed, to misquote the Tindersticks), and the fact that these flowers had sat in a wine bottle on my shelf for so long was a regular reminder of the relationship that I didn't need. And it's not like no one has brought me flowers since then. But I had tried and failed to compost them in the past, and each time I got close I remembered the circumstances they had been presented to me, when after several heartwrenching months of are we/aren't we she decided if she decided she *was* sufficiently over her ex to give the relationship the chance it deserved, and met me at the bus station after work with a bunch of flowers to tell me.
But then this weekend, I thought about the relationship, and realised that even if I throw these flowers away, the relationship still happened. I don't need to keep them to prove that once upon a time, she wanted to be with me. And I threw them away.

And I felt a little bit better.