I’ve definitely been feeling better about myself lately, which is marvelous. I think, no, I know a major part of this is down to what I’ve been eating (healthy, mainly unprocessed, often vegetarian, lots and lots of water) and because of the resulting weight loss (25lb* in 6 weeks – yay me)!
Pentax K1000 and Kodak Ektar film
I can’t wait to be thin! There, I’ve said it. It may be a statement that a future, fatter me looks back on and howls at in misery, but I genuinely feel like it’s now simply a matter of when and not if the skinniness happens.
Lubitel 2 and 120 film (can’t remember what sort)
I had a battle last week – oh it was hard! I fought the demons though and stayed on track. My routine had been scuppered from nursing poorly boy and I found myself in Sainsbury’s with an empty trolley, an empty tummy and only a hair’s breadth of will power. Luckily that was enough and I managed to battle the pastry demons and cake monsters. I know I would be feeling totally different writing this today if things had gone badly.
The words seem to be skimming off the page today; like flat stones on a pond. I LOVE THAT! Hey, maybe this me is now the real me and it will always be like this, everything will be easier and happier. Maybe I’m leaving behind forever the grumpy, miserable, no-hoper who dreamed of one day sticking to a diet for more than three days. I like this me, this is the me I want to see more of and introduce the world to. Yes I may turn into a terribly annoying, egotistical show-off but at least I will fit into skinny jeans! Ha, no, that’s a bit shallow even for me, but whilst this new person may not be to everybody’s taste I think she’ll definitely be a happier, more genuine person.
*Yes, 25lb sounds and indeed IS a a major achievement, however quite a bit of this was extra blubber that was piled on after Christmas – plus, believe me, I have a LONG way to go yet! What I am most happy about though is I have moved down a size in jeans. Jeans don’t lie.
I am so fed up with my current web-hosting company that I have decided it’s time for a move. This website itself will stay the same, as will the url and your RSS feeds but there may be some interruptions whilst things transfer over (although as this site has been down half the time since I launched it back in May, you won’t notice much change)!
I’m delving around my (now heat-addled) brain to try and explain a character trait that I’ve always ‘suffered’ from: split personality. Now – I’ve just googled this and I hasten now to add, I am not mentally ill (despite what people say – ha!) what I mean is, I have two very different sides to my personality.
If I was less cynical I might put this down to me being a Gemini.
Up A Tree
I remember my 10th birthday party very well. All my classmates came along to the party I’d begged my parents for and I chose to spend it sat alone in a big lilac tree in the garden; I was literally watching from afar. I sat up there in a purple party dress that matched the lilac blooms emerging and was perfectly content to simply be an observer. Nothing would persuade me down.
I know that I adopt this approach as an adult – perhaps not physically (I’m not sure I could even climb a tree nowadays), but I am often feel myself detaching from the person or people I’m with, chatting and nodding but not really THERE.
On A Chair
Cut to me, three years later – I am standing on a rickety, wooden school-chair doing impersonations of teachers and telling jokes – I’m talking fast and wild and loud. I have the crowd in my hands. Look at ME!
This is sometimes who I am as an adult too; desperate to be heard and craving attention (but, I fear, far less amusing than I was as a teenager).
So?
The issue is that I am both these people. I swing from one extreme to the other and struggle with toeing the middle line; the line of normality and rationality. It can be a problem if I’ve been the ‘on a chair’ person with somebody on the first meeting and then the ‘up a tree’ for the second – people often take this as aloofness or dislike. The other way round and they think I’ve been drinking!
If I was one way all the time I would develop certain strategies for dealing with situations. It only dawned on me recently that what I actually need is two strategies for each situation, depending on what my predominant mood happens to be. Reading this back it sounds so obvious, but I have honestly only just figured this out. My armoury for dealing with life needs to be diverse and adaptable – the tools I’ve used for fixing things so far has only been working half the time and now I know why.
Personifying the different me’s by referencing thse childhood examples has really helped. For example, one of the things I’m learning to do now is not use my inner voice to shout or criticise myself if I’m in my Up A Tree place. This just leads to a downward spiral of self-loathing – the On A Chair me can take it, and requires it, to get results but I need to know when to engage my gentler inner-critic.
Am I making any sort of sense? Hopefully I am – it’s helped me to write it down like this anyhow. I guess we’re all multi-faceted to some degree and have various aspects to our personality. Do you find yourself dealing with a number of different yous?
Nothing much to say, only that after days and days and days of rain, the sun and heat have finally arrived and it feels amazing – I feel drunk on sunshine!
Hello lovelies, here are things that have kept me amused recently. I’ve seen quite a bit of the internet this weekend as I’ve been hibernating in the living room with poorly Admin, watching movies and Glastonbury on TV and whilst I surf on my laptop.
My favourite movie of all those watched was 4.3.2.1.
The mental-scars from tortuous Clarks shoe-fittings as a child have now healed and I can enjoy their offerings again, I am especially excited about these knitted boots.
I grew up loving The Smiths and I’ve stayed loving them too – I big part of the whole Smiths phenomenen was the imagery and photography that accompanied everything they did. There’s a brilliant article here with Stephen Wright, the young photographer who captured some of their most iconic images . There’s also a gallery with lots more shots like these…
Hey, you know that whirring sound the ATM/cash-machine makes when you’re withdrawing money – well, it isn’t real! What I mean is, it’s been added into the whole process to reassure us silly humans that everything’s working, it could quite easily pay us in silence. And there are other fake noises too – is nothing real!?
Finally – there’s this video, it’s is amazing and over far too quickly for my liking…
I’m back! Well, I haven’t actually been anywhere but I am back.
Talking of backs… poor admin is sofabound with some sort of awful, agonising backpain. The doctor has prescribed some VERY strong painkillers so things are getting better – I might even let him have some soon. Ha!
Oh, I’m so happy that I never surcame to the sexual-stereotyping that was rife in the girls’ comics of my youth to become a nurse (I’m looking at you,Twinkle). I could list a million reasons why I would have been rubbish at this job but it mostly involves unmentionable bodily-functions and… gruesomeness. Thank goodness for all the women and men who can deal with this sort of thing – they are AWESOME.
Whilst I’m still not absolutely 100% sure what I do want to do when I grow up, I do know that ‘nurse’ wont be on that list, so that kind of helps :/
Here’s a photo – much safer water for me and photographer is certainly much higher up on that aforementioned list. This was taken in the garden with my NEW Diana F+ with an Instant Back (hey, another ‘back’ reference) – it’s not exactly a prize-winning photo but I now know this bolted-together contraption works and I can start shooting in anger…
Ninù is a little handicraft laboratory that creates original design by Sandra Comas based in Turin, Italy, and these bags, quite frankly, are wonderful! Some people say I am ‘bag mad’. This is a little unfair, it’s not so much a madness as an obssession. This is the focus of my latest desire, the Valentina Pouch…
To be honest ANY of these amazing bags would suffice – I simply want them all! I wonder if I could sneek this one in past the radar that Admin (aka Mr M) seems to have acquired for such things? I may have to give it a go.
I’ve signed up for the 2011 film swap over at fortheeasilydistracted, have you? It’s such a great idea;
Each photoswapper either takes a roll of film or buys a disposable camera (it has to be something that you develop) and they take photos just for their swap partner, then send the cameras/films to each other and develop the other persons photos (and posts them on their blogs for everyone to see of course).
It’s going to be a great excuse to get out with my camera and so exciting to receive a mystery film to develop, I can’t wait! I’m going to use my Pentax K1000 and I know that takes amazing photos and I wont disappoint my mystery recipient with anything too experimental. Why not give it a go – you could always get one of those disposable film cameras if you only use digital at the moment – it might be the start of something big!
telegraph pole, st ives, 2010 – taken by me with Pentax K1000
I love the posters on the Paris vs NYC blog (which you can also buy). What a great idea, and so beautifully done – this one’s my favourite…
Finally (and I may be showing my age a bit here) but do you remember the Cosby Show? If you do (or you’ve asked your grandma to fill you in on the details) then you’ll appreciate how awesome this tumblr blog is, drawing inspiration from the Cosby Show sweaters – it was the 80s so there were many and they were mainly hideous!
Today is… my birthday! Here’s a big clue as to how old I am now…
Here a glimpse of some birthday loot – my two favourite gifts…
I’ve been off work all week (that’s really the best present of all – the gift of free time). And today me and ‘admin’ had a bit of a cultural day looking at arty stuff…
There was an Andy Warhol exhibition on and we got to be famous for 15 minutes (only it got a bit boring so we were famous for about 1.5 minutes)…
I ignored all the signs took all these on my phone – I think Andy Warhol would have done the same.
