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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

Why I loved "500 Days of Summer", when it seems like no one else did

I went to see 500 Days of Summer at the cinema, and I loved it. A lot of people I knew hated it, not helped by the line early on that states that there are two kinds of people in this world: men and women. I think that is a stupid thing to say, even in a romantic comedy. And it's not even correct in the context of their story. So I just ignored it and enjoyed the rest of the film.

I then went to see it for a second time, leaving work early one day to bike over to the cinema for a late afternoon showing, and I liked it even more. I have now bought myself a copy on DVD, which I am watching right now.

I had crushes on both the male and female leads for the duration, and I loved the scenes where they were play acting in the ikea show homes, the karaoke, and the bit in the park where everyone suddenly starts up with a synchronised dance routine was amazingly cute but the thing that got me, and made me want to watch the film again and again was my total over-identification with Tom, the one who falls in love, with Summer, the one who doesn't .

The story:
Tom starts seeing Summer, who he likes. Who he really likes. To be fair to her, she states early on (whilst in the ikea show home) that she's not really looking for anything serious, and he hears that. But things develop, and they get closer, and he falls in love even though she doesn't even believe in love. He knows they're not boyfriend/girlfriend, but he let's himself get carried away, interpreting her actions in the way he wants to, even when she is saying something else. Things carry on, with Tom suspending disbelief, until Summer tells him she doesn't want to do this anymore and he falls apart.

After putting myself in Tom's position so many times in the past, I can safely say that for me there are few things more dangerous than becoming emotionally invested in someone who wants different things to what I want. This is why the film struck such a chord with me.
I am terrified of that situation (and each time it happens I feel stupider for falling for it again), when you have something with someone which seems so much like what you want it to be that you pretend to yourself that it is that thing, the Relationship with the capital R . It seems so much like one, and you want it to be one so badly, that you ignore the reality that contradicts your expectations. You even allow yourself to be heartbroken when the other person shatters it. But ultimately, the thing that I've realised is that, if my heart breaks in this situation I have to take responsibility for my part in it.

I would like to say it will never happen again, but I think I said that the first and second times it happened. But at least I have gotten better at realising when it's happening and I can happily report that it's not happening now.