Audio

I'm really enjoying audio books. I never expected I would get much from them, always having thought that I don't tend to remember/take in information by ear as effectively as by eye. But I've listened to three good long books through my headphones now, and I'm finding it really good. None of it has been fiction so far: Stephen Fry's memoir The Fry Chronicles, Mistakes were Made (But not by me) an examination of cognitive dissonance and self-justification and Jeanette Winterson's autobiography Why be happy when you could be Normal? 

I'm not sure I'll enjoy fiction in this form - but then, I was wrong about not liking audio books in the first place, so probably I should give it a go. These books have really made a big difference to my happiness, giving me something else to think about when drudgery beckons.

Sad Cat Diary

"Dear Diary, I have decided to plead with the authorities to rub my belly, I think it will do me good in my current condition. I would like to receive two rubs exactly - a third one and I will bite the shit out of them as per protocol. Wish me luck."

me no understandy

Just when I think I know what's what, and that we're on the same page; she texts me asking me to join her for a party.

Why?

I don't understand. I don't think she likes me, what is she doing it for?

Maybe it's truly quantity not quality of guests.

I feel bad, cos I know life is hard right now for her. But I don't feel me accepting her invitation will make her celebration go better, more likely I'll be a downer. Huh?

Electoral test

Voting yesterday in the local elections was depressing. There was a 'choice' of candidates, between LibDem, Tory, UKIP or independent. So: more of the same, more of the same, worse or pointless.

On the bright side, I like to think that if UKIP do get in that it could be because they're the only actual party party, so it could be just as a protest against the current incumbents? There's a lot of talk about UKIP supposedly representing issues that other parties don't ("are afraid") to deal with on the tv today, but I am hoping it's more kicking back against the assholes in charge.

But I fear that people are swallowing the xenophobic/anti-immigration bullshit we're being fed, instead of seeing* it's the powerful, rich & privileged in the finance world, playing with currency & property like gamblers, that screwed up the economies. Walking around the village lately has been depressing, with all the signs being UKIP or Conservative. On the way into town there was a huge UKIP sign, but someone evidently didn't approve and kicked it down once. It was put back up, but whoever knocked it down must have returned to write "NO!" in white paint over it. That cheered me up.



*Or perhaps they know but feel that's unchangeable?

What can I takeaway from this?

The other day someone was complaining that she had received a private message advising her to change some wording in a blog-post, because it is a racially-charged epithet. She came onto a message board to whinge about this, because she couldn't see the potential offensiveness and was convinced it is an ok word to use. That word is 'chinky' and she was using it in the context of going to get take-away.

This sort of thing has always confused me, in that I couldn't see why it is so bloody important to someone to cry 'political correctness gorn mad' and be reluctant about changing the language they use, in the face of potentially upsetting people for no reason. I mean, is it really so hard to say "we went to get Chinese food" or "we got takeaway" instead? Does it harm you or cost you in any real way to put someone else's feelings ahead of the way you habitually speak?

Reading (or rather listening to) Mistakes Were Made (But not by Me) recently has given me a bit more insight into this resistance, which has always seemed so ridiculous and inexplicable to me. I guess there is a cost involved: a cost of admitting you might be wrong or harming someone - and that doesn't fit with the way you view yourself. Assuming this blogger is not a proud out-and-out racist (and would never think of herself as such, but rather has been a fish in a sea of unquestioned white privilege) then being called on using a word that she has perhaps never connected up the dots to being a racist one, sends her into uncomfortable cognitive dissonance. There are two obvious routes out of this horrid feeling - deny it's a racist term and/or protest that the other person is over-sensitive - or admit fault & re-think the way she uses language.

The knee-jerk reaction is to get angry and defensive and go with the former, rather than do the latter. Thus: everyone in her town uses that word, even the owners of the take-away use it about their own shop, she's not a racist, she's been using that takeaway for thirty years and considers the owners friends. So how could it possibly be racist? It cannot be a racist word, because that would mean she's been (inadvertently) racist. And she's not a racist.

I'm inclined to doubt the level of 'friendship' there is between her and the owners - maybe she knows them to chat to in the shop or on the street, but does she really know them and socialise with them outside of buying takeaway? Maybe she does...

Even if the owners themselves are not upset by the word and use it themselves, it doesn't mean it's no longer racist. I mean think about it, would it be good for business or peaceful co-existence to call your customers on their (mostly unthinking, non-maliciously intended*) racism when the likelihood is it would simply arouse hostility? Could it be a case of picking your battles? Even if not, and the owners are genuinely unconcerned by the term and everybody in the town does think it's acceptable, outside of that social bubble, it can be used in a derogatory way - and, moreover, it can be avoided easily.

So change the wording: you're on a world stage when you're on the interwebz. Being wrong stings, but it seems to me fighting the rear-guard action of defensiveness and self-justification is harder work in the longer run.



* To be generous

Dog:

• Ooh you've picked up the lead, very excited, very happy!
• Oh do I have to wear the lead? Very sad.
• Ooh, I'm off the lead! Yay, happy runnings.
• It's another dog, it's another dog, yay yay!
• Other dog is more boisterous than me? How can that even happen? Did you see him knock me over? That dog's no fun, I'm not playing anymore.
• I like little dogs and old dogs and dogs that are still on leads. It's especially good when they get tangled up with their owners.

Fading out redux

I'm all weight-lifted-off-shouldersy today.

You see, the friend of this blog-post has been going through a bad time lately, living it out on Facebook. I felt I should show support, so I have messaged her and texted her to demonstrate said support. But of course she invited me over and I felt all argh and meh, and that I couldn't very well say no in her hour of need.

The kind of support I want to offer is purely practical, such as helping her move or giving her packing boxes - or emotional to a limited degree, such as sending best wishes and kind thoughts. Damn these people who won't stay in their boxes and respect my unspoken limits! Haha.

Anyways, I ended up going over (and again, it was a gathering of people I didn't know, apart from her. She had told me it was likely to be just the two of us).

During the course of the evening, however, I twigged on that her original invitation text had been mistakenly sent to me!

Such blesséd relief. I don't need to feel guilty or obligated. It stung a little at the time, but this morning I just feel so bloody happy! Skippety-hoppity hurrah.

Flamin' poo

I can't help but think the EDF 'flame' looks more like a big poo than anything else.

Politeness costs nothing (except my comfort)

I had a minor epiphany today. Very minor.

Everyday the canteen boss gives me a cup of coffee for free, which is very kind. It used to be regular-sized, but of late he has taken to giving me the large size. And in the time I have to drink it, I really struggle to consume the whole thing, and doing so makes my stomach feel distended and uncomfortable.

Today, as I say, it suddenly occurred to me I don't have to finish it.

How liberating.

The guy is doing a nice thing for me, and I thank him as is right & proper - but I don't have to drink the whole thing. I didn't ask for the bigger size and it's really not going to worry him unduly if I don't drink it all, is it? By forcing myself to drink it all, it makes him think I want or need the bigger size, so he'll keep giving it, when I was perfectly happy with the smaller cup. D'oh.

It seemed ungrateful somehow not to drink it all, and sometimes I would sneak off to drain it into the sink before he saw the unfinished cup! But I think I was being a bit daft. It is daft.

Justice Thirwall

I like the acknowledgement of the role Philpott's abuse of women had.

Norm!

I really like this article about descriptive norms, and how people are influenced heavily by what they see others doing or hear they have done.

Excerpt:

"When people try to change behavior, they often focus on prescriptive norms, telling people what they should do. We often underestimate just how strongly we respond to what other people actually do.

In a classic study, Cialdini and colleagues manipulated the signs that were displayed in Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park, a site often plagued by tourists who end up grabbing some of the petrified wood to take home as a souvenir. In situations like this, the first inclination of well-meaning environmentalists might be to set a strong prescriptive norm — perhaps by saying something like, “Many past visitors have removed the petrified wood from the park, changing the state of the Petrified Forest. This is bad, don’t do this.” The idea here would be to invoke a sense of shame and severity before asking visitors to refrain from taking the wood. But read that prescriptive message once again. Is there anything descriptive in there? Yes, of course there is. That message is not just telling you that you shouldn’t take the wood — it’s also telling you that most other people do. In fact, people were actually more likely to steal wood from the forest when they saw the sign telling them how many people tend to do it themselves, even though the very next sentence was asking them to refrain. But when the researchers simply tweaked the message to read that “the vast majority of past visitors have left the petrified wood in the park, helping to preserve the natural state of the Petrified Forest,” the thievery plummeted."

I've seen it play out in various settings myself, things like when you have a pristine toilet cubicle door, it stays that way for quite a while - but once one person scrawls on it, it quickly becomes covered. If someone leaves rubbish beside the bin, more rubbish quickly appears and so on.

So, yes, it's good to think that perhaps 'slacktivism' on FB through profile picture changes etc might actually go some way to changing social perceptions.

I think this differs from the sappy FB memes I have previously complained about (possibly because this is something I agree with!* but also) because it requires a shift in thinking. After all the anti-cancer memes are something easily paid lip-service to, while supporting gay marriage is more controversial, sadly.

* Not that I'm pro-cancer.

Oops

In my devotion to blogging, when I spotted dogs on the balcony again yesterday, I thought I would take a picture for illustrative purposes for my last post.

I took one quickly as I was on my way to work, and wended on my way. I heard a squawk behind me and looked back to see a woman pulling her dogs back into the flat, "Are you from the council?!"

Oops. I kept walking as I didn't see how to form the thought of taking a picture to illustrate my blog into a particularly coherent sentence that I could shout up effectively and felt it might be poorly received (rightly) if I could! Walking along I picked up pace a bit in case she should come running out demanding to know what I was up to.

I guess I probably messed with her head a bit. I feel bad about that. I wonder if she doesn't have permission for the dogs from the council, or if there have been complaints from neighbours, hence the leap to thoughts of the council. Maybe she's waiting for a knock on the door or a reprimanding letter now. Oh no.

I think I'm in the wrong of it, it can't be nice having your only outside space completely open to the view of the world. Is there an expectation of privacy, when your balcony is transparent and above a public road? Well, maybe not much of one - but I guess it's rude to stare up at the people using them/take pictures of their dogs. I hadn't really thought of it from the inside, just from an idle curiosity wandering past kind of way.

Dogs on balconies

Sometimes I walk past blocks of flats and there are dogs out on the balconies, and I wonder why.

Is it to get them out from under their owners' feet while they vacuum or something, or is it so the dogs can sun themselves and get fresh air?
I hope it's not so the  dogs can relieve themselves - rank! Imagine living in the flat below. Ghastly. I hope that's not it.

Fading out

I have the urge to explain myself, but I don't think the recipient would find it edifying. So I'm unloading the reasons why here. I'm not being very transparent so perhaps I should explain.

A few years ago I made a friend - we initially met online but live close to each other and ending up seeing each other as friends in real life. We helped each other out.

Over the last year or so, however, I've found that it's not a friendship that makes me particularly happy - not because she's not nice or that she's not kind, but it doesn't really make me feel good. She often invites me to things, but it's always masses of people I don't know, never just a few, or mostly a crowd I'd met before. I'm not good in large social gatherings and she knows that: we've talked before about social awkwardness and shyness.

Bizarrely (to my eyes) she claims to find socialising difficult herself. Maybe internally it feels/is true to her, but from where I'm standing it looks like she loves to be in a social whirl of people. I can't believe she suffers the same frozen agonies that I experience.

If we do meet up 1-2-1, she always uses her phone or laptop a lot at the same time, and maybe that's old-fashioned of me, but I feel offended by it - well, not offended - but like I'm not interesting enough or fun to be around. Which may well be true.

So weighing it all up, stress vs pleasure in her company, I came to realise the former far outweighed the latter and have let things drift. It's perhaps a cowardly way out, but there's nothing to row about or confront really, just I don't feel we have much in common and that I'm there to make up the numbers rather than she really likes me.

And who needs that? I have already plenty of long-established reasons to doubt my own likeability/loveability.

But she evidently realised I've created distance and texted me recently inviting me to yet another thing with a jolly crew of campers, and asking if I was upset with her. I replied just saying that I'm rubbish at keeping in touch and there we've left it.

But the above is why.

Follow-up
Follow-up

International Women's Day

A few links:

The IWD website

A fantastic world map of women's political rights in the Guardian: New Zealand gave women the right to vote in 1893 and other fascinating facts.

A celebration of Lily Parr at the F-Word, a First World War era female footballer. The FA banned women from play on their grounds as the war came to a close and men's football restarted: sport was damaging to women's health apparently! But Lily Parr was not deterred.

And a nice piece about the damsel in distress as appearing in video games from Feminist Frequency.

I need to add John Scalzi's piece about white male privilege, which I think explains so much of  'privilege' theory so elegantly: lowest difficulty setting.

Hy

Driving today, I got stuck behind a van emblazoned with the legend 'Hydra Logistics'. I amused myself visualising a scene a la Percy Jackson, with a barely contained Hydra in the back...

The driver was probably going so slowly as to not bump or swing the beast and piss it off.

It's the simple things

When walking the dog in the bitterly cold, I like going out on the more exposed path along the river-side, and then returning by the sheltered path behind the hedge. It makes the walk back feel warm in comparison, like I could sit out and have a picnic.

I like watching the skies. And cats. I went through all the photos on my laptop and realised I have many many folders labelled 'skies & cats'. The children crop up a lot too (I add hurriedly).

I like hot toasted sandwiches with chocolate spread and bananas.

I like the way that my DMs creak when I walk.

Frogtastic

I love this frog, with a deep and abiding passion.

Warning signs

Unappeeling

It takes a special kind of mentality to sit there and moan about orange peel that you yourself dropped under the desk still being there, instead of picking the damned stuff up in the first place when it happened, or later when you noticed it again.

Your office has a cleaner, oh yes, so you suddenly lose the ability to pick up your own mess? Fingers suffering a bad case of fucking-lazyitis.