tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-50842765710330324872024-03-14T07:58:30.463+01:00The Curiosity of OneA journal of waffle and wonderChloe Yateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06019972186407069060noreply@blogger.comBlogger72125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5084276571033032487.post-44859555241365535282017-10-16T17:50:00.001+02:002017-10-16T19:54:42.422+02:00#MeToo <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; text-indent: 36pt;">*trigger warning*</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; text-indent: 36pt;">I’m remembering instances that I
brushed off so many times, that I tried to ignore. I’m remembering being told
that, when I finally confided in someone about one of them years later, at eleven
years old I should have known better. Someone who should have heard me. Been angry. Been appalled for me. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; text-indent: 36pt;">I’m remembering the boy who grabbed me in the school toilets,</span><span style="font-family: "book antiqua";"> when I was seven years old, </span><span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; text-indent: 36pt;">threw me on the floor, took off my knickers and chucked them out the window, then ran back to his
friends telling them I was a dirty cow who’d wet herself. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; text-indent: 36pt;">I’ve never told
anyone that. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; text-indent: 36pt;">I’m remembering the almost-man who grabbed my arm and put his hand
up my short skirt at a club and hotly muttered in my ear that I was a filthy slut
and how much he wanted me to suck him off. How dirty he made me feel even as
I pulled his hand off me and told him to go fuck himself. I cried in the
toilets. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; text-indent: 36pt;">I was seventeen. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; text-indent: 36pt;">I'm remembering the boy I said no to, but who held me down
and did it anyway. </span><span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; text-indent: 36pt;">Did I struggle? I tried. But afterwards I wanted to hide it, pretend it wasn't real. It couldn't have happened to me. Could it? Did it? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; text-indent: 36pt;">I'm remembering being told to smile and say thank you when some
shitwad slapped my backside as I tried to make my way back to friends from a pub toilet. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; text-indent: 36pt;">And I'm remembering being told to be grateful for the attention I didn’t want, over and over. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; text-indent: 36pt;">I'm remembering every rape joke, the
sound of them clanging in my ears and clenching my gut every time, the laughs and
the nonchalant reference to the kind of event that changed me irreparably, that still
holds me back.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; text-indent: 36pt;">I shouldn't let it but the scars still weigh heavy.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; text-indent: 36pt;">These are just some of the stories
I could tell you. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "book antiqua";">These are a drop in the ocean of injustice and injury that
people I know have been made to endure. </span></span><span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; text-indent: 36pt;">An ocean.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; text-indent: 36pt;">You don’t have to tell. You don’t
have to join us, but know we are with you whether you refuse to be silent or
not. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; text-indent: 36pt;">Make it your choice. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; text-indent: 36pt;">No one else’s. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "book antiqua"; text-indent: 36pt;">Take back what was taken.</span></div>
Chloe Yateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06019972186407069060noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5084276571033032487.post-10821542842444496732016-06-28T14:58:00.000+02:002016-06-28T14:58:39.351+02:00The Agony of Not Feeling<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';"><i><span style="color: #fff2cc;">I wrote this a little while ago, and doing so made me feel a little better.</span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';"><span style="color: #fff2cc;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';"><span style="color: #fff2cc;">Today I'm depressed and I have no idea why. That's probably because
there wasn't a trigger, there often isn't. We all feel sad sometimes, feel down
and depressed, have “bad days”, but Depression is different and it's hard to
explain how. It’s not as easy to define as feeling sad or defeated. It’s not as
simple as walking in the steps of the black dog, bleakly staring around you,
wondering how you got there. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';"><span style="color: #fff2cc;">Do you remember when you were a kid and you rode your bike or ran into a
wall or post by accident? When you fell over and smacked your head on the
floor? Something like that? There was a moment, so brief but bright, when you
were stunned, the breath from your lungs had whooshed out and you knew there was
surely pain to come, but in that split second there's just you and the
breathless numbness of shock. That's what Depression can feel like sometimes –
an in-between, a “without form”, an empty space waiting to be filled. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';"><span style="color: #fff2cc;">I hate that feeling; being haunted by the expectation of what’s to come.
You know it’s coming, can almost hear it, taste it, but for now you’re at the mercy of not
feeling, the shock of emptiness, the breathless moment before your stomach
plunges into the free fall of despair. There's nothing you can do with it.
You're not even sure what it is, your fight or flight is about to be triggered
and in the meantime you don't know whether to shit or shower about it, but
you're locked in and you're going to have to choose, going to have to decide,
going to have to move, the urgency settled in your legs, in your arms, in your
gut, clenched around your heart, is telling you it's coming, any moment now...<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';"><span style="color: #fff2cc;">And still you simply hover. In between. The not feeling. The empty. All
that urgency isn't inside you, you're swimming in it, but it doesn't buoy you,
it just laps at you indifferently, not caring that it's dragging you to the
rocks – but which rocks? Where?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';"><span style="color: #fff2cc;">It's excruciating in its formlessness. It's indifference will only lead
to no good. You know this. You know it all, but your knowledge is like a
concrete slab in your head, useless to you and unbending. No one sees it. No
one sees the crack about to open up. But you do. You can feel the tremors in
the walls around you, but there is nothing you can do about it but watch in
frozen horror as it inevitably splits beneath your feet, the dark well, ready
to consume... <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';"><span style="color: #fff2cc;">It is this I dread most about Depression. The pain and despair I feel sometimes
are excruciating, no doubt about it, the seesaw gut spin of anxiety rocks your
equilibrium, leaving you dizzy and confused, but it's the unfeeling
helplessness that's worst – helplessness in the face of certainty. The knowing
it's coming and there's something you should do, but you might as well be
nailed to the bed and buried in jelly for all the good it's going to do you. You're
hopeless because you don't even remember your plan, the one you've made notes
about, practiced, been through a million times. You're a fool, a useless
helpless fool who doesn't have the sense you were born with and all you need is
your plan and you don't know where it is and it's probably going to be useless
anyway, all that thought and therapy sucked out of you like a bad case of the
bends, because the road ahead rears up at you, you can see it coming, know
you're going to spin out and if only you could remember your plan and save
yourself, but it probably won't work so the weight of the road just crushes you
instead, weighing you down into the bed, slowly, infinitesimally slowly, not
frantic, just surely, just bone achingly slow and you couldn't reach the
probably useless plan anyway... <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';"><span style="color: #fff2cc;">That's how it feels sometimes. They tell you about the pain, they tell
you about the trip hop of anxiety, they tell you about the darkness, but it's
the in between that is more likely to destroy me.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype';"><span style="color: #fff2cc;">Except, it's not. I've washed up on this shore before. I know this
place, hateful as it is, I’ve weathered it a hundred, a thousand, times before,
and it hasn't beaten me yet. Yes, it's held me down, trapped me in its airless
waiting room for weeks, months at a time, stymied me, and made me ache with
emptiness and impotence, but it has not beaten me. I know it better than it
knows me. It's not an old friend, not even an enemy, it's just a place, an
in-between –which means there is a before and an after. I just have to breathe,
just hold on, and wait for when I can raise myself again from its icy depths, piece-by-piece
but unbroken, stronger than the weight that would hold me down and drown me in
its numb indifference. It's far from easy, don't ever let anyone tell you it
is, and lord, is it tiring, but it can be done. I can do it. I have done it.
And I will bloody well do it again. </span><span style="color: #353535;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Chloe Yateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06019972186407069060noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5084276571033032487.post-52176760729591860042015-08-17T13:33:00.000+02:002015-08-17T13:33:36.491+02:00Like McCartney said - We All Stand Together.<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #fff2cc;"><span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua';">I believe in paying it
forward, particularly in respect of mental health issues. So many people seem
to think they "understand" while missing the point spectacularly. We
who live under the obnoxious cloud of depression, OCD, Bipolar, Borderline or
whatever other bastardy the establishment have labelled, or not, should trade
experiences and advice. We're the ones who know, we're the ones who live it,
and we're the ones who, with every breath we take, DEFEAT IT. Some days, just a
few words that hit the right spot can send my day in a better direction. So if
something occurs to me, something that I feel I need or have needed when the
misery chips were down, and I think it can help someone else, I'll say it,
whether that means putting it on my fb status or messaging a friend, whatever. </span><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #fff2cc;"><span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua';">Last week, I posted the
following on FB: </span><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #fff2cc;"><span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua';">"</span><span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua';">Here's a little advice - if someone you love is
experiencing a mental health problem but they don't want to talk about it with
you, don't let that stop you checking on them. They're probably not ignoring
you, they're probably working through their shit and have a lot going on. By
not engaging with them at all, you're not helping them, you're isolating them
and that's just not kind. Just check in, make them feel like they're noticed.
When you spend at least part of your life feeling like nothing, it's good to
know you're worth just a little of someone's time. It's easy in this day and
age."</span><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #fff2cc;"><span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua';">I'd realised how hard it must
be for other people to sometimes know whether to "bother" me or just
leave me be. My response is JUST ASK ME. I won't flip out or destroy myself (or
you) because of your enquiry. I can always ignore it, especially in this day
and age. My intention was to make it clear that dicking about is not the way to
go. If you're concerned, ask. DIRECTLY. Don't ask someone else to check or beat
around the bush, and certainly don't ignore those you profess to care about.
Even if you don't get a response, the fact that you've bothered to ask them
directly will, more often than not, be thoroughly appreciated. Being seen is
invaluable at times. It's really that simple. </span><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="color: #fff2cc;"><span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua';">While I'm talking about
sharing, you should really check out my friend Ren Warom's vlogs (see links at
bottom*). She's got a brain I could swim in and she gives good advice, plus,
her vlogs are one of the ways I remind myself I'm not alone. The worst thing
about any mental health issue is that the first thing it does is make you feel
alone. Horribly, achingly, fearfully alone. If I can make one tiny bit of
difference to that, I'm going to do it. </span><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua';"><span style="color: #fff2cc;">*Check Ren out here - </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="color: #fff2cc;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="color: #fff2cc;">https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJG0N7oVbG2AaIW1UM1gGug<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"><span style="color: #fff2cc;"> https://renwaromsumwelt.wordpress.com</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Chloe Yateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06019972186407069060noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5084276571033032487.post-62911711053208043542015-01-19T21:40:00.001+01:002015-01-19T21:44:58.869+01:00Right in/on the Noggin<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I'm very open about my mental health. It's not something I'm shy about discussing because I believe leaving this kind of thing in the dark is a sure way to compound the problem(s). Besides, it's a part of me, it's shaped and guided my life in some way for almost thirty years, and I own it because otherwise it would own me. This has not been an easy process, it's been a long road… it's not a place you can get to by a boat or train. It's far, far away… behind the moon… beyond the rain… Wait, I've gone all Wizard of Oz, where was I? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Right, Darkness = Mushrooms, and everyone knows they're the devil's haemorrhoids, so I'm not embarrassed to talk about my "problems". However, I don't wish it to be a subject of levity for someone who doesn't understand what they're talking about. Ask me about it, but don't dismiss me or minimise my experience. That will get you on my shit list quicker than you can say "Ignorant Fuck Chops". I've lost count of the number of times I've heard glorious variations on the following: "oh, you're all right though, aren't you?"; "...but it's nothing serious?"; "you're too cheery to be depressed"; or my absolute fucking favourite "you're life's so easy, so stress free, what do you have to be depressed about?". I've heard them all so often they ring in my ears at the best of times, but when I'm down, for want of a better word, they positively bellow at me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">By my reckoning, for ten months of last year I was depressed. Seriously depressed. For days at a time I was unable to leave the apartment, my OCD was out of control (I'm neither a cleaner nor a checker, my problems are mainly intrusive thoughts and excessive worrying - and no, while you feel like you worry endlessly, it's probably not the same thing. Be grateful, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy), and I licked my wounds in private. I felt lost at times, more lost than I'd been in a very long time and it was frightening. Did many people notice? No. Not many. Why? Because I've learned to live with it and to hide the worst of my symptoms (plus sometimes people just don't want to see). This isn't purely to make myself fit for human consumption, it's also a coping mechanism. I pretend to be well to persuade myself of the fact as much as to persuade anyone else, probably more so. It's tiring to carry it with you all the time, so losing yourself in the moment and being a human again just for a while, if it's possible, can be liberating. Yet, so often I still feel like tearing my face off when I'm surrounded by people. It's not easy but I manage not to. I've taught myself how. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So to explain to those of you who are surprised at my diagnosis, who don't really believe me when I tell them, this article is the closest to understanding me you'll probably come. Don't read it for my sake, although friends of mine might want to (I don't expect it, I gave up setting myself up for disappointment of that kind a long time ago - people don't always do well with you when they know you're a "mental" and many just don't care, alas), read it in case there's someone right under your nose who might need your help or, at the very least, your understanding.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lexi-herrick/11-habits-of-people-with-_b_6384062.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000063" target="_blank">11 Habits of People with Concealed Depression </a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">These past few weeks though, they've been good. I feel clearer in my mind than I have for months. My mood is lifted, not the manic euphoria that can take me over after a down (which can last for moments, days or weeks), I have a genuine sense of well being and a positive frame of mind. You know why? Once again, I've survived myself. I did even better than that, in fact. Through it all I worked, I connected with others, I lived, breathed and enjoyed myself despite its ever present tyranny. So I win. I know how to live with it, I know how to function despite the despot sitting in my brain pan. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Every time it comes and I live through it, I become stronger. Who knows? One day it might get tired of messing with me, one day it might realise it's not worth the effort anymore because I refuse to be broken. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> With that in mind, I consider myself monumentally lucky and I refuse to take that shit for granted. There are too many of us who don't come through it, too many lives wasted by this measly shitkicker of an illness that too many people continue to pretend doesn't exist. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Fuck you, Depression.</span><br />
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Chloe Yateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06019972186407069060noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5084276571033032487.post-25259184823276090772014-12-17T12:15:00.000+01:002014-12-17T12:15:42.613+01:00The Ghost of Emails PastGood lord. I got a bit zealous and decided to tidy up my email account. I went back about six years. I found some old emails. Some old emails that made my face turn inside out in horror. An exchange between me and an old friend that pretty much destroyed our friendship - although with the clarity of hindsight, I realise that it was disintegrating a long time before that, that it probably hadn't been what I thought it was in the first place. Anyway, back to the matter in hand - GOOD GOD! I sounded like a mad thing created by a very mad scientist, bashed out by a double mad machine. I barely recognise me in the writing even as I can't fail to acknowledge the echo of Past Me. My caveat here is that while I feel bad (or "off the charts crazy fandango Chloë, what the holy shit did you say that for?!") about what I wrote, a real friend would perhaps have read the emails and thought "HOT DANG! Something be VERY wrong with my FRIEND, maybe I should help rather than compound the problem or cut her off completely" Alas this was not the case, but Now Me sees it wasn't their responsibility to do so, it would have been nice (or even decent of them) if they had but life's not black and white, is it? And my shit was crazy as fuck.<br />
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Reading the emails, however, did something very good for me. Something very good indeed. That person? The one who wrote those emails, emails that alternately bleated ball-aching apologies and then bit with a ferocity I can rarely muster these days? She no longer exists. Parts of her do, of course, but I am a very different person to the one I was six years ago. My thought processes, reactions, expectations and ideas about the world have been almost entirely overhauled. And, even as I've been rubbing off (don't be dirty) my sharp edges, working hard on controlling those elements of myself I find most troubling - not to mention eradicating the shocking bouts of apparent lunacy as evidenced in some of those emails - I didn't really notice it happening. I think I'd just been hoping it would happen, and in the waiting I'd missed the change. In the missing of it, I've been repeating patterns of behaviour out of what I can only think of as muscle memory. Ridiculous laziness that has no place in my life because I'M NOT THAT PERSON ANYMORE. Those things no longer fit me.<br />
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I'm not the needy lost soul that I was, adrift in a foreign country, frightened. I see flashes of her, but only flashes. It's a liberating thing, to see me as I was and how I am now. I just didn't realise it had happened. Now I've seen it, I want to laugh until I pee my pants. Don't worry, I won't. Today. I will say this, however - the sins of your past, the person you were, who people thought you were? None of these things have to govern either your today or tomorrow. They do not define you, they do not even represent you. Not unless you either want them to or you allow them to. You can be the best version of yourself, but the other versions of yourself? They shouldn't be discarded or forgotten, they're templates, foundations, you can't move on without them. Just don't let them become the Bell Jar.Chloe Yateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06019972186407069060noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5084276571033032487.post-58474817295883808582014-10-31T13:25:00.000+01:002014-10-31T13:36:55.891+01:00Kiki and Kitty Happy Halloween folks! It's going to be a doozy because there's a double header coming at you - right between the eyes - from Fox Spirit Books: Drag Noir, edited by Kate Laity, and Wicked Women, edited by Jan Edwards and Jenny Barber. What's more, to add the welcome insult to the joyous injury, there's a story by yours truly in each. Pick yourself up off the floor and check the links below to purchase yourself some anthology goodness. Both volumes are packed with excellent authors who I'm bloody chuffed to share space with. Prepare yourselves for a link fiesta and then a little explanation.<br />
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Fox Spirit announcement: <a href="http://www.foxspirit.co.uk/double-trouble-fox-den/">http://www.foxspirit.co.uk/double-trouble-fox-den/</a><br />
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Wicked Women, featuring my story "How to be the Perfect Housewife": <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wicked-Women-Jenny-Barber-ebook/dp/B00P05YRV8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414752287&sr=8-1&keywords=wicked+women+fox+spirit">http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wicked-Women-Jenny-Barber-ebook/dp/B00P05YRV8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414752287&sr=8-1&keywords=wicked+women+fox+spirit</a><br />
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Drag Noir, featuring "Kiki Le Shade": <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Drag-Noir-Various/dp/1909348686/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414752315&sr=8-1&keywords=drag+noir">http://www.amazon.co.uk/Drag-Noir-Various/dp/1909348686/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414752315&sr=8-1&keywords=drag+noir</a><br />
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My sources for these stories couldn't have been more different. I'd spent countless hours berating myself for not being able to come up with something for the Prof's third instalment of the Noir series (you can find Weird Noir, featuring my story "A Kick in the Head" here <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Weird-Noir-K-Laity-ebook/dp/B009YYF38M/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1414752618&sr=8-2&keywords=weird+noir">http://www.amazon.co.uk/Weird-Noir-K-Laity-ebook/dp/B009YYF38M/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1414752618&sr=8-2&keywords=weird+noir</a> and "Madam Mafoutee's Bad Glass Eye" is in Noir Carnival which you can acquire thusly <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Noir-Carnival-Chloe-Yates-ebook/dp/B00DV69GFK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414752734&sr=8-1&keywords=noir+carnival">http://www.amazon.co.uk/Noir-Carnival-Chloe-Yates-ebook/dp/B00DV69GFK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414752734&sr=8-1&keywords=noir+carnival</a>)<br />
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Then, although I can't remember where, I saw the Scissor Sisters' video for their song "Let's Have a Kiki" <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGCD4xb-Tr8">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGCD4xb-Tr8</a> The opening image of the story suddenly popped into my head - not that it had anything much to do with either the song or the video, but Kiki emerged, sitting on a plastic chair in the arse end of nowhere, two inches of ash on her smouldering cigarette, wig askew, waiting. I had no idea what came next until it twitched out of my mind and down my fingers like an unstoppable electric current. Who was I to say no? The question of masks is always raised when talking about Drag, but for me liberation is what's accessed via this art form, not concealment. It is an opportunity to reveal, to revel and to rail. Seeing it as a veiling negates its power - or it would if Drag Queens stood for that kind of nonsense. While Drag Queens have fascinated me since I was a child, I've never given much thought to Drag Kings and I don't know why, possibly it's because there has been so much more exposure for the former. There's a tickle at the back of my mind for a story.<br />
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As to Wicked Women, I pretty much embody the antithesis of the "perfect" housewife and I pity anyone that aspires to be such a thing - not because I think housewifery is beneath me or trivial, but because traditionally it's one of the most thankless jobs in the world. In all my narcissistic preenings (don't worry, I mostly do them in private), that's not for me. Any quest for perfection is fraught with pressure and unreasonable expectations because perfection simply does not and cannot exist in the splendour of human subjectivity. That way lies madness, friends. Just look what poor Kitty has to deal with. In my mind, juxtaposed to this idea of the perfect housewife is the keyword "wicked". It's been bastardised into meaning good in modern parlance thus lightening its severity but, by definition, something wicked is something evil, something sinful, something unjustifiable with a bad attitude. So I googled "Wicked Women" and found an absolute glut of atrocious ladies with a side dollop of inspiration. Not your kickass badasses - I figure they're becoming as stereotypical as the time worn tropes of Madonna and Whore - instead I wanted your demented, your callous, your truly "wicked" women. I won't tell you who struck me (not with a blunt instrument) during my research, I wouldn't want to spoil the fun.<br />
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<br />Chloe Yateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06019972186407069060noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5084276571033032487.post-51673947859990742242014-09-18T15:54:00.000+02:002014-09-18T15:54:02.119+02:00SHOUT! SHOUT! LET IT ALL FUCKING OUT!Do you ever just want to scream and shout? Does it ever simply get too much and your head feels like it's going to explode even harder than your guts? The world around you is a shit pile of inequality, injustice and cruelty. You're punch drunk from the spite and venom bandied about like ever cheaper supermarket booze. It's appalling but you keep plodding on while idiots thrive, and you quietly seethe - because for your voice to be heard over the clamour of the ignorant would take a fucking miracle. You try to move forward but some folks just won't let you, they want to keep you in the predictable pigeonhole they've fashioned for you ("this is what you are, we have decided") and want to watch you slowly drown in their blinkered juice of judgement. Then someone goes and pisses you off but you know it doesn't really matter. After all, it says more about them than you, but you're still annoyed so what does that say about you if you can't just get over it and move on? Does it mean you're a nut job? In the wrong? WHAT?!<br />
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A few things have been playing on my mind for a while now. Trouble is, I don't really want to talk about them because they are totally self-indulgent and utterly pointless (and apparently a source of abundant adjectivity). I've been torturing myself about shit I should either have forgotten about by now (it's not like I do that all the time…) or not allowed to get to me because it's out of my hands… and yet… my brain doesn't work like that. Every slight and injustice imagined or otherwise plays on my mind like a stuck fucking record and I'm tired of it. Shining a light on them will give them a validity they have no right to, yet they remain, chipping at my temper like squirrelly little brain bastards. Well, I'm not going to take it anymore. That's right, Brain, you're getting purged, son! My good sense pipes aren't going to buckle, but some steam is going to be blown. I'm going to YELL. REALLY FUCKING LOUD. I'm allowed to do that on the internet, right?<br />
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I WANT TO RAGE AND KICK STUFF AND SHOUT ABOUT HOW UNFAIR IT IS. I WANT TO KICK NICE IN THE FACE AND TEAR DOWN THE BLANKET OF APATHY THAT'S SMOTHERING US ALL. I WANT TO NUT CONFORMITY RIGHT IN ITS DROOPY FUCKING CHOPS AND WAVE MY BARE ARSE AT WHAT I'M SUPPOSED TO THINK AND HOW I'M SUPPOSED TO BEHAVE. I WANT TO SCREECH "HOW FUCKING DARE YOU, YOU BLOW HOLE", AND IF YOU ACTUALLY HAD BOLLOCKS I'D KICK THEM RIGHT IN THE SWEET SPOT AND LAUGH AS YOUR EYES POPPED OUT OF YOUR SORRY EXCUSE FOR A SKULL. I'D WAVE MY FIST AT THE SKY AS I RANT ABOUT HOW BLOODY PEOPLE THINK THEY CAN MINIMISE OTHERS, HOW THEY THINK THEY CAN TELL THEM WHAT'S WHAT WITHOUT AN IF, BUT OR MAYBE, WITHOUT EVEN CONDESCENDING TO MAKE ANY APOLOGY (BECAUSE IT'S NOT LIKE THEY DID ANYTHING WRONG AT ALL) AND TOTALLY NULLIFYING SOMEONE'S VALID RESPONSE TO BALLACHING SHITDICKERY. WELL, FUCK YOU, TINY DANCER, FUCK YOU AND YOUR KIND IN THE BRAIN PAN AND UPSIDE THE DITCH PIPE AND I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY BEING A BALLBAG FOR ETERNITY. I HOPE YOU CRY AT NIGHT FOR BEING SUCH A SUPERCILIOUS ARSEHOLE. MAY YOUR BREATH EVER BE FULL OF THE SPORES OF SATAN AND ONE BY ONE YOUR TEETH FALL OUT AS YOUR GUMS RECEDE INTO YOUR NASAL PASSAGE, BUT MOSTLY I HOPE YOUR HAIR IS GREASY, YOUR SKIN BLOTCHY AND YOUR ARSE SPOTTY. REALLY. FUCKING SPOTTY.<br />
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FUCK THIS SHIT.<br />
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Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. That was nice. You should try it. Most therapeutic. I feel a lot fucking better. Now, it's your turn...Chloe Yateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06019972186407069060noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5084276571033032487.post-73220358877366670662014-09-01T18:19:00.000+02:002014-09-01T18:54:49.309+02:00OCD - it's not all cleaning your oven or checking your pegs...Read this first<br />
<a href="http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5524041?utm_hp_ref=healthy-living">http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5524041?utm_hp_ref=healthy-living</a><br />
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It drives me mad when people say "It's just my OCD acting up" - and there are so many of them. I have little real humour about OCD (which is odd because I'll laugh at most anything, not like a hyena or owt though…) and it's not right that OCD has become something of a cultural joke, a denotative shorthand for "this chap's got problems"; FYI it's a real fucking thing that can cripple you.<br />
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My OCD isn't the same as the person's who wrote the article; mine's all inappropriate thoughts and having to control and rank thoughts etc (for want of a better explanation). It's internalised. It's one of the reasons I stare into space a lot, my mind's busy evening its shit up and making sure I'm not transgressing with my evil brain skills. I habitually have trouble sleeping and have done since I was a child because of the relentless thoughts and worries - and I mean "relentless". It <u>never</u> stops. I often feel quite nervous around people and that comes across via the glorious medium of Babble (imagine the creaking, straining seams of my mind machine when that happens!).<br />
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I've had a recurring nightmare since I was little (it probably started around 5 years old). In it my evil smile would kill people. I'd get out the pearly whites, intending to be nice to folks, but it would dazzle them into oblivion. The only way I could stop it was to control my thoughts really hard before I smiled and that's how I feel in real life. I'm constantly fighting to keep things the right way up, to stem my terrible influence and turn it into something people (including me) won't be hurt by. That's OCD. That's how long I've lived with it. It's why I haven't always been able to go out when people ask, to be who they want me to be, or bend with their plans and ideals just because they think I should (this is one of the good things about my OCD, if you ask me). I've had run ins about that and at no time have I had any understanding. They don't see it (they don't want to, I'm happy old Chlo who gets everything she wants, what problems do I have?) and it's exhausting. All that said, I'm winning. I've worked hard at it and <b>I. Have. Control.</b> I know how to work around my triggers and how to deal with my thoughts both compassionately and firmly. Something I once wasn't sure I'd ever learn how to do. I'm lucky. Surviving OCD has made me stronger, given me more backbone than I realise and made me want to kick life up the arse. NO APOLOGIES NO SURRENDER! In your face OCD, you dickless gonad.<br />
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Listening to people claim OCD as though it's an inconvenience and not a grinding burden is insulting. It makes light of something that has weighed many of us down for a very long time and has stopped me being the person I might have been. Mind you, saying that, it has made me the person I am and that person isn't so bad. It's taken a long time for me to say that… I will have to do a few "who do you think you ares" to even it out though. Everything costs something with OCD. Feel lucky that you don't have it, be happy you're a neat freak.<br />
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<a href="http://www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/" style="background-image: url(data:image/png; border: none; cursor: pointer; display: none; height: 20px; line-height: 0; min-height: 20px; min-width: 40px; opacity: 0.85; position: absolute; width: 40px; z-index: 8675309;"></a><a href="http://www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/" style="background-image: url(data:image/png; border: none; cursor: pointer; display: none; height: 20px; line-height: 0; min-height: 20px; min-width: 40px; opacity: 0.85; position: absolute; width: 40px; z-index: 8675309;"></a><a href="http://www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/" style="background-image: url(data:image/png; border: none; cursor: pointer; display: none; height: 20px; line-height: 0; min-height: 20px; min-width: 40px; opacity: 0.85; position: absolute; width: 40px; z-index: 8675309;"></a><a href="http://www.pinterest.com/pin/create/extension/" style="background-image: url(data:image/png; border: none; cursor: pointer; display: none; height: 20px; line-height: 0; min-height: 20px; min-width: 40px; opacity: 0.85; position: absolute; width: 40px; z-index: 8675309;"></a>Chloe Yateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06019972186407069060noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5084276571033032487.post-42577942813791490602014-06-02T15:21:00.000+02:002014-06-02T15:21:15.430+02:00Don't Say What You See Because You're Probably Wrong, Fool.<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Despite myself, I’m often curious about how others see
me. I’m not sure if it matters to me if others like me or not - after all I don’t
bend my walk to suit other people, I was born with this gait - but I’m nosey and
in constant need of reassurance (I can admit that, m’lud. I just need to learn
to reassure <i>myself</i> is all) Well, be careful what you wish for… Recently,
someone told me, unsolicited, that I'm incredibly lucky because I, unlike them
and others who chipped in, have no anxiety or stress in my life. Not one
stitch. I don't have a job, no children, no responsibilities and a husband who
does absolutely everything for me. It would seem that I am a happy-go-lucky dependent puff
of cloud on a summer's day, a solar-powered duck sailing across the ever-sunny
waters of life on the buoyancy aids of my husband (not his balls). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">I mean, look at me. A jolly airhead, bobbing merrily along while everyone else is out there making tough choices. What have I ever had to deal with? Easy Street Central,
that’s my HQ, son. Heaven forfend that anyone should stop to consider that we’ve designed our lives so I can avoid as much stress and
anxiety as I choose for very good reasons. Why should anyone believe for one second that our
choices and decisions, although different from theirs, have been just as
hard-fought and hard-won? Don't get me wrong, I know I'm lucky. I'm married to someone who loves me unconditionally and is the best friend I've ever had, but it's not a one-way street. I gave my dreams up twice for Mr Y. It's not
something I regret, but it's not something I would happily recommend. It’s been
hard, but it was my choice, I just didn't know it was going to rob me of
what little self-esteem I had (don't worry folks, the barrels are refilling even as we speak). I made a choice, it had consequences, I dealt with them (mostly). So
when people tell me I have it easy, I get
offended. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">Assumptions. People make them and being offended by
them isn’t useful, not one bit. Usually I’d be all “whatever, love”, but I’m
surprised how much it’s bothered me this time. It’s far from the first time
I’ve been labeled like this or been made to feel this way. I’ve encountered an
awful lot of people, some from a perilously young age, who’ve wanted to impress
upon me that I’m not as important as them, that while I have it easy they have
to endure and battle through life and I’m “less” somehow because of that. I wonder what
it is about me that makes other people want to quash me, to put me back in my
box where I belong, to reinforce upon me that I should know my
"place". Is it because I’m different and I need to be catalogued into
the Great Library of Normality for the ease of others? Or is it that I am, in
fact, simply GLORIOUS and they can’t handle that shit? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">It’s both, isn’t it? ;)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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It's true, I don't have a regular job. I don't have
children (not entirely by choice either, so some sensitivity would be appreciated on occasion), and I married an absolutely splendid man. I couldn't ask for a better
partner in life, but he is just that - a PARTNER. We're in it together, we make
it work together. One oar and it's circles, baby. The fact is our lives are
dictated by the choices and decisions we make. Just because my decisions have designed a
life very different from my peers, doesn’t mean it’s any less valuable. Just
because I don’t have children, doesn’t mean I don’t have responsibilities. Just
because I don’t have a “job”, doesn’t mean I don’t work. People should take my
self-deprecation and smart mouth a little less literally, perhaps. All this I know. So why am I so bothered? Is it because I'm sitting here, trying to force a novel and a book of stories out of my tiny recalcitrant brain onto the page but deep down I'm wondering why I have the cheek to think I can? That something in me is saying "yeah but it's YOU, Chloë. Why do you think you're entitled to even try? And who would read that shit anyway?" Then someone comes along and tells me how easy I've got it and my brain breaks a little. </div>
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Maybe it's all that… or maybe it's that I'm tired of listening to this shit, both the outside voices and the inside one that makes me crazy. It's not my voice (it's not the voice of Ethel Merman either, so don't worry, I don't need <i>those</i> pills again) it's the cumulative voice of all those inconsiderate ballbags who are oblivious to the hurt their flippantly ill-considered and ill-informed assumptions can cause. Especially one ballbag, maybe two. Well, I've let them roll around in my head, dictating my humility, for far too fucking long. DON'T LISTEN, CHLOË! YOU KNOW YOU SHOULDN'T, SO DON'T (who said that? *looks around*)</div>
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Assumptions are dangerous and, along with their weapon, the sweeping statement, they can suck the chutzpah right out of a fella. Be careful with your assumptions, they'll not only hurt others but, in someone else's eyes, they make you look a right fucking tit. Listening to assumptions and thinking they matter is the only thing worse than righteously delivering your own, so FUCK THAT SHIT. Now. Right now. </div>
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You may go.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Chloe Yateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06019972186407069060noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5084276571033032487.post-29494295052020797762014-05-12T17:19:00.003+02:002014-05-12T17:21:29.303+02:00Bloghopgasm! Three Things I Don’t Write (and Three Things I Do)<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 13.5pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: Palatino;"> </span><span style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">My first BlogHop! The
delightful Ruth Booth has kindly tagged me, along with Neil Williamson and
Jennifer Williams, so that I can test the waters of this brave new world. Check
out Ruth’s bloghoppy installment here:<span style="color: #343434;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;"><a href="http://www.ruthbooth.com/2014/05/bloghop-three-things-i-dont-write-and-three-things-i-do/"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%;">http://www.ruthbooth.com/2014/05/bloghop-three-things-i-dont-write-and-three-things-i-do/</span></a></span><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%;">One wee caveat before
we begin. Like Ruth I’m not entirely sure what I do or don’t write. I just
write. When people ask me what I write, I reply “stories” and they think I’m
being facetious. I’m not. I write whatever comes into the old brainpan and I’ll
give pretty much anything a go. In fact, I’m currently thinking about some gothic Bunty/Enid Blyton Space Opera Erotica fan fiction… Onwards!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #343434; font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%;">Three Things I Don’t
Write. <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%;">1. Hard SF </span></b><span style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%;">It’s not because I don’t want to, I simply don’t know enough sciencey
stuff to make it any good. I’ve not read a great deal of it either, so in many
ways I’m ill-equipped. All that said, I am partial to a spot of Arthur C.
Clarke and I was brought up by a pack of feral Astronomers, so the stars
and the great dark depths of space have always been a fascination for me, so
maybe one day…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino;"><span style="line-height: 150%;">2. </span></span><b style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%;">Time Travel</b><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><span style="line-height: 150%;"> – I don’t know if this comes under the umbrella of
Hard SF or not, but I’m guessing it doesn’t entirely. Time travel makes my
brain hurt. Hurt, I tell you! Paradoxes and timelines and all that business panic
the tiny goblins that operate my cerebral cogs and throw them into riot. And
then they die. Bad times. There are so many possibilities and problems with
time travel; when would you travel to? Would you go backwards or forwards in
time? Wait though! Can you simply travel backwards or forwards, or is it more
complicated than that? Hang on, what about diseases? Would you really want to
go to Elizabethan England and catch a nice dose of the plague or smallpox? And
what about where you wind up, geographically speaking? What if you land in the
middle of an old building you didn’t know existed before and you get bricks up
the wazoo? And then there’s the small (!) matter of paradoxes (I can’t even get
my head around most of that business) and of the potential, not to mention </span><span style="line-height: 24px;">multitudinous,</span><span style="line-height: 150%;"> consequences of changing
even the tiniest thing. Lordy! I’m confused enough just getting up in the morning… <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%;">3. Children’s Fiction</span></b><span style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%;"> – I swear too much. I have to learn not to because I’d quite like to
have a crack at children’s fiction and, indeed, some YA. Why not, I say? And
then a fuck or a bollock trips out of my fingers and my hopes are dashed. One
day, sensei, one day. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%;">Three Things I Do
Write.</span></b><span style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%;"> <b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%;">1.</span></b><span style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%;"> <b>My Own Worlds</b> – I don’t set stories exclusively in invented
worlds, but I confess that I prefer mine to the “real” one. I’m a control freak
and live (at least part-time) in the delusion that I am The Mighty Warrior Empress-Mage
of All Time and Space, so creating a world from the ground up appeases a little
of my wannabe-megalomaniac tendencies. The characters are my minions and I
their overlord… okay, maybe not that because my characters seem to do whatever
the fuck they like. Quite rude. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%;">In addition, it’s like Jake Chambers says, right before his second death
in Stephen King’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Gunslinger</i>, </span><span style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%;">"Go, then. There are other worlds than
these." There are. I’m sure of it and if I can’t visit them, I’m going to
grow my own.<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-font-kerning: .5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%;">2. Mental Health </span></b><span style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%;">– You drop the old MH bomb and people visibly quell. Still. Which is
probably why it’s something I’d like to explore more. My story “Maggie and the
Cat”<span style="color: #343434;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="http://www.terranullius.it/home/index.php/rubriche/75-etemenanki-no-subtitles/540-maggie-and-the-cat-chloe-yates.html"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%;">http://www.terranullius.it/home/index.php/rubriche/75-etemenanki-no-subtitles/540-maggie-and-the-cat-chloe-yates.html</span></a></span><span style="color: #343434; font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%;">was one of my favourites to
write so far. I wrote it with the work of Leonora Carrington in mind (albeit very
loosely). I wanted to convey the disconnection, confusion and uncertainty of
something like depression, how it can cloud your actions and thoughts and how,
furthermore, the selfish ballbaggery of others can compound the anxieties you
are already dealing with. The absurdities and unexpected juxtapositions that
are central facets to surrealism seem like ideal tools to blur those kinds of lines.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%;">Mental health is a difficult subject to write about in a way that doesn’t
overload the reader with sanctimonious solemnity. I’d like to write about the
experience of having a mental health problem without it having to be an
exemplar of inspirational dogma. Sometimes we can be crazy and just be crazy. We
can’t be fixed, but we do deal. Sometimes the lesson, if there is one, is simply
the experience itself. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%;">3. Swear words </span></b><span style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%;">– I like to swear and that’s a fact. Cursing instantly conveys visceral emotion that can lack punch with “ordinary” words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Besides, swear words are as much a part of
our language as any other kind of word – denying that denies a rich folk
heritage of cussing. I like to be creative with my swearing – no word is ever
thrown in just for the sake of it. I think about it hard and look for the right
word at the right time. When I can’t find the right one, I make that shit up.
Of course, I understand some people don’t like it, I’m not an idiot, but sticks
and stones, baby. They’re just words. As long as they’re not directed at a real
live someone in a vicious way, they’re not going to crush your soul or steal
your sweets. There’s already plenty enough to get upset about in this world. (PS.
Not every story I write is a cuss fest. Check them out for yourself and where you can get hold of them at <a href="http://www.chloeyates.com/">www.chloeyates.com</a>)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%;">Right, that's enough of my blather. I’m
tagging my fellow skulk members, Alec McQuay and James Bennett, who are both
excellent writers and genuinely decent human beans. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%;">Alec McQuay</span></b><span style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%;"> is a horror, fantasy and science fiction writer hailing from Cornwall
in the south-west of England; an area renowned for natural outstanding beauty
and the worst internet connections in the country. Capable of going off at odd
tangents, bizarre flights of fantasy and generally being incapable of taking
things like bio-writing seriously, Alec spends most of his time scribbling
notes and ideas on his phone and talking the ears off his wife and friends
about whatever mad-cap scheme he intends to write next. Alec’s novella
‘Spares’ is already available and his debut novel, the steampunk
adventure ‘Emily Nation’ will be released in 2014.</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%;"> You can find
Alec’s blog at <a href="http://alecmcquay.wordpress.com/">http://alecmcquay.wordpress.com/</a></span><span style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-bottom: 10.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%;">James
Bennett</span></b><span style="font-family: Palatino; line-height: 150%;"> is a British
writer of fantasy, horror and the odd contemporary fable. He and I shared our
first public reading together last year and I couldn’t have asked for a better
companion. For further information, and to find where and how you can read his
work, check out James’s blog at <span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://jamesbennett72.blogspot.com/">http://jamesbennett72.blogspot.com/</a></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Chloe Yateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06019972186407069060noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5084276571033032487.post-3583039210415436792014-05-06T09:49:00.002+02:002014-05-06T09:54:31.601+02:00Social Media is not the scourge of our Age.<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="color: #fff2cc;">Why do
people keep sharing that bloody awful poem about how social media isn't social
and blah blah blah? What deliberately heart-twanging bollocks! It's not as
simple as that, as nothing is. Social media can give isolated people a way to
communicate. It can appease loneliness, despite what he says, help you make
connections you might never have had the chance to make. Kids weren't playing
outside all day every day a long time before social media reared its head. Do
you think there weren't lonely people before or aren't now in spite of it? A
lot of people I know in real life don't know the "real me", a great
many of them don't care either. It's like anything else, a handy thing to
blame, a source for our excuses.</span><span style="color: #10131b; font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Chloe Yateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06019972186407069060noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5084276571033032487.post-27348222885136891142014-02-14T11:19:00.000+01:002014-02-14T11:22:47.404+01:00Valenshizzle<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">St Valentine's Day is made up. Chaucer made it up. He laid down a lesson for Shakespeare in how to appropriate shizzle and roll it into a nice big ball of something new(ish). Check out the Prof's excellent blog post on St Valentine's Day </span><a href="https://medium.com/p/566e369a0f4d">https://medium.com/p/566e369a0f4d<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Love Is Not All</span></a> She ain't wrong.<br />
<br />
Personally, I loathe all the hoopla and expectation of St Valentine's. It's so false and utterly in opposition to what love is. Presents and flowers and showing off to your mates about them seems ugly. "How many Valentine's cards did you get?" is usually a question someone who got a load asks someone who they know didn't get any. That's a proper loving and not at all accumulative or spiteful way to approach it. ("Fuck off" is the appropriate reply to that question, btw) I have lots of single friends, almost none of whom seem unhappy with their lot. I have quite a few married and long-term committed friends, some of whom certainly seem like they'd at least like to have a look at that grass over there, some of whom I have no idea at all why they stay together. The pretence of Valentine's day merely papers over their cracks.<br />
<br />
Romantic love is not an illusion. It exists. It isn't, however, something that flourishes under acquisitive temperaments. I don't think I've ever thought I'm better than someone else because of my relationship with Mr Y, I've only ever felt fucking lucky for what we have. That's enough. It doesn't need bombast and swagger. And it's not even all there is out there. There's so many different kinds of love, and each one should be valued.<br />
<br />
So take it easy with the puffed chests and, conversely, the misery. After all, love is not all -<br />
<br />
<i>Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink</i><br />
<i>Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;</i><br />
<i>Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink</i><br />
<i>And rise and sink and rise and sink again;</i><br />
<i>Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,</i><br />
<i>Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;</i><br />
<i>Yet many a man is making friends with death</i><br />
<i>Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.</i><br />
<i>It well may be that in a difficult hour,</i><br />
<i>Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,</i><br />
<i>Or nagged by want past resolution's power,</i><br />
<i>I might be driven to sell your love for peace,</i><br />
<i>Or trade the memory of this night for food.</i><br />
<i>It well may be. I do not think I would.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Edna St. Vincent Millay</i>Chloe Yateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06019972186407069060noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5084276571033032487.post-42990031347929542552014-01-31T12:37:00.000+01:002014-01-31T12:37:02.168+01:00My Six Nations post *warning SPORT relatedHa! Reading the predictions for the Six Nations Championship in the Guardian is always a "treat". Funny how they pretty much go for their own countries. Me? I don't know. I think it could be almost anyone's.<br />
<br />
France aren't quite as strong as they should be and they have the disability of the sometimes disastrous Saint-Andre at the helm (why oh why would you choose him over Gaulthier, French Rugby people? Tell me he didn't want it, please tell me that!), but there's always the Toulouse factor to consider (watch out for Louis Picamoles - he's one of the very best back row players in the world at the moment. I'd love to see him play alongside Richie McCaw… That should put the kibosh on him then. Sorry in advance, Louis) and Wesley Fofana is on fire at the mo.<br />
<br />
Wales? They've got a difficult draw (like we had last year) so who knows? Just because no one's done three in a row for a while, doesn't mean they can't. They're probably the most established and (hopefully) settled team in the tournament, so why not? They can play some beautiful rugby when they get their shit together and they certainly know how to win these days.<br />
<br />
Ireland? I'm tempted to say no but I think that's dangerous. I never discount them and neither should you. They put the frighteners on the All Blacks in the Autumn (even more than the English did) and it's O'Driscoll's final tournament. Bod is the man, the single best player in the professional era, in my opinion. If anyone can pull it off, he can.<br />
<br />
Scotland? They're improving (funnily enough since Robinson's been gone. Can I get an "amen"?). They had a pretty good autumn series (a good win against Japan and two losses, but I'm talking about the playing rather than results) and they did come third last year - above France and Ireland.<br />
<br />
Italy? To be honest, I'm not sure what's going on with them at the moment but I'll be interested to see some of the young players from the Top 14 in there. They can surprise you when you least expect it.<br />
<br />
As for England, I never assume anything. There's quite a few newbloods in the squad and Lancaster has finally got rid of Ashton for the French fixture. Let's hope he's not knee-jerked back in there too quickly if things go wrong. The Vunipola brothers can be thrilling to watch (especially Billy), Farrell seems settled in at 10, and our back row is once again an embarrassment of riches even without Tom Croft. Let's hope they fire. We need to sort out our back line. We need some slippery little suckers who can cut defences up and not run into them and wonder why lying flat on their backs in the mud. Invention, boys, it's all about invention. More than anything, I hope Joe Lauchbury has a fabulous tournament. He's a Wasp and I'm a Wasp until I die.<br />
<br />
Fact is, these days I know more about the French Top 14 than I do of the Premiership. It's difficult for me when France and England play because part of me has an investment with our cousins across the ditch (The Yatesies are Toulouse fans). Still, England need to find their form and their team. World Cup's next year and it's at home. Better hurry, Mr Lancaster.Chloe Yateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06019972186407069060noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5084276571033032487.post-13289261215710830312014-01-11T15:06:00.000+01:002014-01-11T15:51:07.617+01:00A Musing upon the Shitdickery of Fat ShamingHere's the thing - If you use the word "fat" as an insult to me, I'm going to assume that you're a cunt and it will be forever marked in my mind (and thusly the mind of the cosmos) that that is what you are. As an habitual and frequent cusser, I don't use the "C" word very often because I like to save it for the times when I need to inject some proper vitriol into my sentiment … but back to the point. Insulting anyone in such a way is a mass transit route to Ballbaggery Central, but FYI dickwad, you might want to take a good long look at yourself before you start focussing on my grandeur in a negative way. The irony of ironies is the types who like to use that sort of bear-baiting tactic never seem to be Mr or Mrs Oil Painting themselves. Who is?!<br />
<br />
Being a skinny, I have been informed, is better than being a fatty. How so? Just because you can't see it on the surface, don't mean your shit's not fucked up inside. You might also want to look at the state of your skin/hair/teeth/manners/temperament/intellect etc before insinuating that I'm not quite up to scratch because of my fat arse/gut/thighs/chops et al.<br />
<br />
If you think that me being fat is the worst thing you can insult me with, then you know very little about me or the world in general. Caught in your bubble of smug "I Alone Am Best"-ness, you seem to have not understood that underneath surfaces there lies a plethora of other stuff we should pay attention to when getting to know others. Stuff that's good, stuff that's bad. Indeed, beneath my ampleness there are a multitude of things you could use against me. But calling me out for being fat is easy, isn't it, you lazy twat. But ha! I have drawn you in to my cul-de-sac of In Your Face, because I couldn't give a shit about any of those other things either, I'm at peace with who I am, that's why I don't feel the need to do others down without cause - you should try it sometime, knucklehead. Going around judging people who don't need to be judged (judgement and condemnation are the cheapest currency of the blindly smug) makes you the Pit of Despair, not those you are judging. Good luck with your dickwaddery of negativity, Shallow Hal, because the overriding truth is AT LEAST I'M NOT YOU, with your tiny mind and rote passive-aggressive putdowns (people are very rarely direct when they're trying to tell you that you're fatness bothers them in some way - indeed usually they will deny it all together and dance around it, like the pinch-footed gnat-dicks they really are)<br />
<br />
Remember, lovelies, someone looks you up and down and makes some sort of negative remark or insinuates some cheap shit because of your appearance, big small tall or short etc, all you have to do is look (sometimes you have to really look and listen, but mostly it's blaringly obvious) at the person delivering the shitdickery and you realise, with a big old sigh, that nobody is perfect, least of all the tiny mind that thinks your appearance defines you and that your girth is the worst crime of the century. Bit fucking rich, is normally my first reaction. I'd rather be me than some pigeon-toed brain freeze who has all the smarts of a crumbling brick. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, shitkicker, your time is up.<br />
<br />
Besides, I'm very good in bed. You should be so fucking lucky.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpHwm5EFVbY">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpHwm5EFVbY</a><br />
<br />
Thanks to the Prof for the clip xChloe Yateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06019972186407069060noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5084276571033032487.post-13106089304775330972013-12-30T21:03:00.002+01:002013-12-30T21:45:56.720+01:00Goodbye 2013. It's been… <div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Ah, 2013. The year I turned 40. The year
that saw too many good people leave us. The year that tried to beat me, but
failed. In your face 2013. The year that saw my work in print, a more
consistent work ethic, and the very real possibility that I am a writer. Good
shit. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">I didn’t think turning 40 mattered much. It
doesn’t, not in the grand scheme of things, but it mattered more to me than I’d
thought it would. It gave me perspective (“HOLY FUCK! HOW AM I STILL ALIVE LET
ALONE 40! WELL DONE ME!”), which is a good thing, trust me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A lot of the pointless bollocks that
endlessly haunts me seemed to disappear into the ether (not all of it but, hey,
all improvements are welcome) and I remembered that I am, in fact, a kickass motherfucker
with no time for bullshit, bitches. Depression really gave its best shot at
throwing my shit off but it failed. Bite me, mental shitdickery. This has been
one of the roughest years in that respect for a long time, I’d maybe even throw
an “intense” in there. That said, I WON! While I may have wallowed at times –
sometimes it’s so tiring that you have to, mending takes time – I’ve worked,
seen shit through and achieved stuff. Actual STUFF. It may not be the stuff of
legend but from the tiny acorn the mighty oak doth grow, my friends. I’ve been
published (by the fabulous Fox Spirit <a href="http://www.foxspirit.co.uk/">http://www.foxspirit.co.uk</a>),
I’ve read my work in public (check it out right here <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfVTwL9TlWw&feature=player_embedded">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfVTwL9TlWw&feature=player_embedded</a>), I’ve travelled on my own without getting myself into a
state about it, I've got a website and business cards (see the former here <a href="http://www.chloeyates.com/home.html">http://www.chloeyates.com/home.html</a>) and I’ve refused to let the monkey on my back suck the joy out
of it all. Fuck you, monkey. You might think you’re clever coming back with a
vengeance this year but I’M SPARTACUS! Anxiety, I’ve sorted you out too.
Magnesium and B6 is the bomb. Try it if that old bellyaching gobshite, Mr A,
visits you regularly. From someone who’s dealt with him since she was eight years
old, it’s a fricking Christmas miracle. A big thank you to my dearest Amy, who has always been there when I needed an ear. She is the best sister I could have acquired for myself and I love her without condition. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">My friends, Adele and Kate (the Captain and
the Prof) have helped to keep me afloat with their belief and encouragement. I
can’t thank either of them enough for being as excellent as they are and for
being my friends. I love them both more than they'll ever know. To all the Skulk, some I met in Derby and others through FB,
you rock it hard. And they will know us by the trail of our dead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I became an Auntie this year (a natural
Auntie, I already have two nieces and a nephew on Mr Y’s side, plus my Amy's sweeties who might as well be my blood, who are all totally splendid themselves) and I can’t lie – Austin Otis van de Peer is BEAUTIFUL!
I’m a very proud Auntie. I'm excited to see how he turns out. (Although I'm sorry that of all the things he could have inherited from me, he inherited the larynx problem.)</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Mr Y and I have been together for 21 years
this year and I love him more now than ever – no cliché bullshit either, I do.
He’s got a patient streak 8 fathoms deep and his habit of being oblivious
actually works in my favour the majority of the time. I don’t want complicated,
I don’t want arrogant ponce, I want exactly what I’ve got – laidback and most
excellent. Plus he is still as foxy as fuck! </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">2014. I’d wonder what’s in store, but
that’s a waste of time because it’s coming no matter what. I’m just going to
dust myself down, stop
fondling my balls and, like the Prof says, BE AUDACIOUS – because there’s no
time to do anything else. No time for fear or for uncertainty. Balls out, baby,
balls fricking OUT! RARRRRRR!</span></div>
Chloe Yateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06019972186407069060noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5084276571033032487.post-88701778500007402013-06-18T17:00:00.000+02:002013-06-18T17:00:07.953+02:00Love and passion. A ramble.
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<span lang="EN-GB">I read the vaccuous headlines so I deserve the
eyeball strain. But since when did "passionate" become a synonym for
"argue all the time", especially when you know it's nothing to do
with passion and everything to do with YOU SHOULDN'T BE TOGETHER? Passion seems
to have been accepted as a good excuse for dysfunction when it comes to
relationships. Can't those of us who live together on a pretty even keel be
passionate? I 'd chase Mr Y à la Benny Hill all day long if he didn't have to
go to work. Because we don't fight, there's not passion? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I've read that back. What the heck am I talking
about? Passion has been used as a flattering cover to excuse excessive
shitdickery since time immemorial in both life and fiction. Look at that bastard Heathcliff. People
swoon over him left, right, and centre when the fact is the character is an
EPIC ballbag (all right, I'm not surprised he turned out to be fucked up considering his childhood, but
come on! Really? Romantic hero? Broody spiteful ball sac, more like) And Cathy
wasn't any better. I spent much of the last time I read Wuthering Heights
muttering crossly to myself about the bloody idiot behaviour of two people who
were more aberrantly dependent on the memory of each other than in love.
Literature is full of fools who regret their massive arsery later, but
indulge themselves in it without a second thought. Is that the human condition?
It is, isn't it? We baste ourselves in our stupid, pigeon-eyed reactions and
wonder why things turn to excrement. We think the highs and lows of love are
what make it special, what make it count. If it's not turbulent, it's not worth
it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">What utter bollocks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Love, true love, whatever you want to call it, is
about a bond. A connection that isn't tenuous, but is as solid as a double
decker bus. I only have to look at Mr Y and I feel an intensity that I can’t
verbalise. He can be on the other side of a packed bar and I'll still feel it.
He could be on the other side of the ocean and I'd still feel it. Time and
distance don't change it, it just is. It's not about that old Buddhist bugbear,
attachment - which is why I fear many people keep their disintegrating
relationships alive. I can understand it. There have been times in our
relationship - which is nearly 21 years old - when I've felt utterly lost, but
you keep on keeping on, y'know? You work through the hard times and learn your lessons and a little more about each other, not to mention yourself. It doesn't mean yelling and
screaming the same old petty abuses at each other ad infinitum, picking the
scabs, getting nowhere, then indulging in some hot monkey sex that's really an excuse not to take a good hard look at yourselves. That's not love. That's demented. Like Albert Einstein
once said "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and
expecting different results". Quite so, old boy - and he knew a thing or
two about the old love squeezings ... wait, I’ve gone wrong and we’ve ended up
back with Benny Hill. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB">I don't know if love can last a life time. How would I know? I've not finished mine yet (touch wood). I hope it does though, because frankly I lucked out like a motherlicker the day I met Mr Y. What I'm saying is don't let them fool you. You don’t
lack passion because you’re not haranguing each other all the time. It's not
boring because you're not humping each other like dogs on heat every five
minutes. If you're not taking lumps out of each other, it doesn't mean you're
not in love. The perma-tanned airheads (of both sexes) who parade their
"passionate" relationships up and down the side bars of tabloid
websites aren't good examples. Passion does not trump good behaviour. If you
love someone, you behave well towards them (most of the time, but because they
love you it's okay when you sometimes don't) Stop and smell the roses. If it's
not making you happy, and I mean long term happy, not "he didn't put the
loo seat down and the toilet has that green mist again, I'm leaving"
term happy, dump that shit and run. Life's too fucking short. <span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br />
<br />Chloe Yateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06019972186407069060noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5084276571033032487.post-16590078424777175012013-06-11T11:31:00.000+02:002013-06-11T11:31:26.790+02:00Scales of DepressionTo say I'm despondent today is a fucking understatement. I weighed myself. Stupid stupid stupid. I had a naughty weekend filled with carbs and alcohol and I knew I'd put weight on. I was pretty strict yesterday and wasn't going to hit the scales until the end of the week. Like a kneejerk ballbag, I found myself stepping on them this morning when I distinctly said I wouldn't. I've put on more weight since the weekend.<br />
<br />
Now I feel stuck (Common sense has no place here). I feel like I'm going to be trapped here forever, one step short of the Good Year blimp. I can't explain how fucking depressing it is. All that effort last week? I lost 2lbs. 2 fucking pounds. And now this. The week before that when I exercised 3 or 4 times and ate chips 3 or 4 times, I lost 8lbs. Explain that to me! No, don't. I don't need explanations, I don't need platitudes, I need to keep going. I also need not to weigh myself. No more scales. They are self-righteous bitch queens and they're tyranny must be ended.<br />
<br />
None of this is helping the fact that my Depression's reared its ugly mug. Nothing like the classic Chloë meltdowns of 01 or 94, but a bout of hopelessness that, weeks long already, just won't bloody shift. It's like a worm that's chowing down on the apple of my mind and plopping out big nuggets of bleakness. The only things keeping me going right now are Mr Y, Miss Maudie, running and writing ... but you know, when I write that down, I've got to say I'm pretty fucking lucky to have those things. That's how I know I'm winning. I can see so much more clearly these days. I used to be Depression's bitch. I can't say I never will be again but for now I can say I know what to do with him when he trots along all proprietary and shit. I know when he's arrived (there's nothing worse than him suddenly hitting you in the chops, like a misery ninja) so I can face him down like Gary Cooper. It's just very tiring. Some days I feel old beyond my years, worn down by the cycle.<br />
<br />
These days, however, I understand there are differences in the manifestations of my Depression. There are differences in me too. Sometimes, it needs swinging at. I need to get angry at its tenure in my brain pan; not that morbid anger that just feeds the little fucker, but a righteous determination that drives me to find expression and makes me stronger. I have to refuse to give in to it. On the other hand, there are times when I have to give in, but under controlled conditions. I have to sit down and take stock and let it flow through me. I allow it. It's a part of me that may never leave. So I air it sometimes. Let it breathe and say its name. If I stifle it, it just gets stronger. If I'm not afraid of it, it can't beat me ("you have no power here, begone") Then I get back up and get on with living. And that's the biggest difference of all.Chloe Yateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06019972186407069060noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5084276571033032487.post-50641848195720906412013-05-29T10:59:00.000+02:002013-05-29T10:59:04.994+02:00JUST SAY NO TO THE S.S. CHLO! I always swore that if I lost weight I wouldn't be one of those yo-yo dieters, that I wouldn't engage in the dreary old to and fro. Seeing as I don't actually follow a diet per se, I guess I'm not, but I put one and a half stone back on after losing 8 (and still having 3 or 4 to go) and I've been going up and down within that same 1.5 for about 10 months now. DULL! DULL! DULL!<br />
<br />
I've been dabbling here and there with a run now and again, a bit of a walk here, some weights there, a dash of yoga to act for the cherry on top, and not committing to anything at all, especially not my health, fooling myself into believing I was still keeping myself fit. I've eaten more falafels and chips than anyone has a right to (although I think by law everyone should have at least two a week ... which probably explains a lot) and drunk enough booze to sink the Titanic (my backside would stand in for the iceberg)<br />
<br />
It's time to pack it in.<br />
<br />
I can't kid myself anymore. I'm approaching 40 and shit gets harder to shift as we get older. I'm not happy with it so I have to do something about it. Thusly, I am officially on the wagon for the next six weeks. I'm going to run at least once a day, add a proper weight regime to it so I can at least try to avoid too much saggy old skin, and learn a bit more yoga to add to my sun salutations. I'm not going to drink sugary drinks, eat any white processed carbs, and I'm going to remember why I enjoyed losing the weight in the first place. It wasn't because I wanted (or still want) to be Miss Skinny Minnie or wear a size 10 pair of jeans. I enjoyed losing the weight because I regained control of myself. I didn't look in the mirror and see an imminent heart attack staring back at me (that distinctive colour grey is one of the scariest things I've ever had the misfortune to see) and my brain works better. Much better. So much better. I can think straight and productively. My mental health improves beyond measure. It works for me and that's what matters. Until that bitch queen Self-Sabotage Chlo rears her mingey old head and whispers, oh so softly, "Nah, let's stay in bed. You can do that later. You're back hurts and your legs ache, have a little more sleepy" or "It's just one big fat greasy portion of lard, it won't hurt you, it'll make you feel better".<br />
<br />
But it doesn't. SO THIS TIME I SAY NO TO THE S.S. CHLO! In your face, greedy boxes.<br />
<br />
Let's go.Chloe Yateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06019972186407069060noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5084276571033032487.post-5642914263148235492013-05-21T16:41:00.000+02:002013-05-21T16:41:20.693+02:00500 WordsI'm writing a novella. Or it might be a novel. It's all very "whatever happens happens". So, let me tell you what's happening - the glacial formation of sentences. GLACIAL. They're slipping out of my noggin like a spelunker stuck in a crevasse. 500 words today. 500 - now that's 200 more than Gerard Butler got playing Monopoly (I might mean Thermopylae, I'm all about the rhymes just like Ice T) so I'm not going to sniff at it because it's better than my brains dashed across the screen, but they've made my teeth ache and my back sore. I've also finally realised that my sketchy premise for how a character gets somewhere was ... well, it put the rhu in rhubarb, and for three hours today I sat and stared at my yellow legal pad and thought about how much of it I would have to ingest before I had a vision that would deliver me the solution ...<br />
<br />
I didn't eat it. I'm fine. I did have an idea though. I'm going to take the hack out of hackneyed and use it like a bigot uses nonsense to prove their point - unashamedly. Because how she gets there doesn't really matter, it just has to not sound like total arse. That's progress and as long as I'm getting that shitty first draft down (thanks to the Prof for recommending Anne Lamott's <i>Bird by Bird</i> - it's already kicked my sorry grey matter into a higher gear) that's what matters.<br />
<br />
So here's to 500 more today.<br />
<br />
<br />Chloe Yateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06019972186407069060noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5084276571033032487.post-20466484317958960252013-03-25T18:59:00.001+01:002013-03-25T18:59:28.769+01:00Gender: Drug of choice? I've been reading a certain author's work for years, at least since the late nineties. I love her writing. It challenges and transports me in ways that are so very singularly hers. No one else does what she does. She has a way of trapping you in the story before you even know where you are and keeping you there until she's done with you. You're not always sure what's happening because you go on the journey along with her characters - and they're not always the most reliable of witnesses. All of her characters are well-considered and written, but she writes female characters with a deftness of touch and understanding that I have always admired immensely.<br />
<br />
Today I learned she is transgendered. I had absolutely no idea. It has never crossed my mind that she is anything other than a woman. And that's because she isn't. She is, was, and always will be a woman. That's who she is. The fact that I had no idea shows you just how little relevance the body you're born into has on who you are. For me, she is an exemplar of women's writing and the fact of her being transgendered changes that opinion not one whit.<br />
<br />
The Richard Littlejohn piece in the Daily Mail that singled out and bullied Lucy Meadows, a woman who had courageously stood her ground and lived her truth, shows you just how achingly archaic the mind-set of some parts of society still are. Lucy was driven to suicide because of who she was. That is more wrong than mere words can ever express. We need to be teaching younger generations acceptance not aggression in the face of difference. The conformity writers like George Orwell warned us about should be feared, not encouraged. Gender constructs are the drug of a world that should be moving forward. Gender is an anachronistic tool for keeping the unruly masses in check. It's holding us back when it simply doesn't matter any more.<br />
<br />
It takes all sorts to make a world.<br />
<br />
<br />Chloe Yateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06019972186407069060noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5084276571033032487.post-29630561015559226952013-03-19T13:49:00.000+01:002013-03-19T13:49:50.206+01:00Rape. Whatever.The Steubenville rape case passed me by and I only came across it because of the outpouring of vitriol for the girl involved and the support for the "poor" boys whose golden futures have been ruined because of them being prosecuted for rape and all. Aw, those "poor" boys, they could have played in the NFL rather than being raping scum shitwads who were made to answer for their crimes.<br />
<br />
According to some well-meaning types, in this case it was totally the victim's fault because she was drinking. In fact, she herself should be charged with underage drinking and held to account. When I say "well-meaning" I obviously mean raging fucking dickbags with the moral compass of a shitty arsehole. I just hope nothing happens to any of them while they're having a drink because, from what they say, drinking alcohol means you relinquish all standard human rights. How many of us are asking to be mugged on the street after a night on the sauce? Shouldn't we all get beaten up and told we're trash because, after all, we were drinking? When you see someone being kicked to death in the street and you realise they've been drinking alcohol, make sure you film it, YouTube that shit, and golf clap as the victim's death rattle shimmers in the night air. If it's your boyfriend, so what? He fucking deserved it, being so drunk and shit.<br />
<br />
<br />
When will people get it? It doesn't matter how drunk a girl is, a man's penis doesn't get sucked up into some irresistible slutty vortex of alcoholic indulgence she has created. He puts - or rather, shoves - it there because he wants to. In that instance, he is the one with the choice. She might be drunk, but her alcoholic consumption doesn't grab him by the balls and make him do it. He does it of his own free will, unlike his victim who has her's taken from her. What about her life? What about her future? It will never be the same, she can never go back, do over. Rape stays with the victim forever, one way or another. She has already paid for his crime. She will carry on paying for it for the rest of her life.<br />
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Chloe Yateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06019972186407069060noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5084276571033032487.post-26539349934476479222013-03-01T12:54:00.000+01:002013-03-01T13:01:17.455+01:00In Which I Talk About Self-Harm *trigger warning*I might be the only person (who wasn't a troll) to have provoked censure from a self-harm forum. For a while, when my shit got really bad, I burned myself with a certain kind of liquid. It prolonged the pain and left a "better" wound than cutting. Literally no one understood - fuck, why would they? Nevertheless, there I was, sitting at the computer, not wanting to go down that path again, wanting desperately for someone to tell me ... something, something that would make more sense. I wanted acceptance at least. All I got was virtual open mouths and quite a few WTFs?! It didn't help. Every one has their limit, it would seem.<br />
<br />
Today is Self Injury Awareness Day. Self Injury or Harm is one of those things that people find almost impossible to understand. You hear it and think "save us from one more teen angst attention dramz" or you might be all "That shit be crazy. Why would anyone do that?". Indeed, that last is an excellent question.<br />
<br />
Why the fuck <i>would</i> anyone do it? Let me tell you why I did it.<br />
<br />
I'm a self-harmer (you got that, right?), although I haven't self-harmed for a long time now, many years in fact. There was a time when it was the only way that I had to cope with simply being me. What was worse was that although I had been a perennial picker of scabs etc as a child and self-harmed on and off during adolescence, I developed into a major league SH'er in my twenties. I know, right? Get your fucking shit together, loser. Who does <i>that</i>?<br />
<br />
A lot of people. They just don't talk about it. Because of shame.<br />
<br />
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Well, I'm not ashamed.
Shame can fuck right off. It’s not a useful emotion and I want no part of it.
As Augusten Burroughs says in his book <i>This
Is How</i>, <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> “Shame is the landfill
emotion. It’s not organic, like joy. It was dumped there by somebody else. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> A manipulation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> Shame is very heavy, dense <i>disappointment</i>; somebody else’s in you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> Inside of disappointment is a deeper judgement: Less than.
Inferior. Defective.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> … Shame can lead to a
shitload of problems.”</span><span style="font-family: Book Antiqua;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->So fuck that shit.
For various reasons, I had a tough time, mentally, for a very long time. Self-harming got me through a lot of it, as bizarre as that may sound to you. It got me through because in the cacophony of self-hatred, paranoia and confusion that I experienced for so long, it was the one thing that made me certain about what I felt. When you're lost in Dorothy's twister with no land in sight, you hang onto the one thing that makes sense. For me that was pain and the mark that followed. I knew what that was. I could deal with that. Easy peasy.<br />
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It's not about suicide, although I did try that
too but not at the times I was self-harming. Self harm is very different from
suicide. It might seem similarly self-destructive, but SH is about wanting to be
alive, not wanting to end it all. It was a way to manage the
blaring racket inside me, to control my pain, to make sense of things. I wanted
to feel something, to know that I felt it and to decide when I felt it.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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I would never suggest it as a form of therapy. I would a) truly hope that no one ever felt even a tenth of what I felt, b) but if they did their family and friends would see it and give them the support they need rather than ignoring or admonishing them or c) that they themselves find another way out of the spiral. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Do not treat Self Harm as the problem. It is a
symptom. Casting the shadow of shame on it because you don’t understand how someone could do <i>that </i>to themselves is
a bullshit move. If you care about someone, be there for them. I know it's hard, but sometimes simply taking the next breath is hard. Believing you're not worth the effort of taking the next breath is hard. If you don’t
understand it, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist or can be fixed with that good old maxim “sort yourself out”. That shit does not work. DOES. NOT. WORK. Self-harm happens because other
shit is kicking the self-harmer’s arse and while you might not stop it, you can
at least do them a solid by not ignoring them and not judging them. Because you care, right? So your
squeamishness about the harm they do themselves can be contained. You never
know, just not being a dick about it might be enough to make them stop.
They’ll know they’re not alone, that although they might not be understood,
they’re not lost in that dark vortex of self; that they have a strand of red in
the labyrinth. Sometimes that’s enough. Sometimes it isn’t. But you’ll never
know if you don’t quell the urge to ignore it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Of course, they won’t want to talk about it. I
never did. Patience and acceptance worked for me. Both mine and that of my lifeline. I've been enormously lucky. It wasn’t easy. It can become addictive – what shit that makes
you feel better, if only for a moment, can’t? But I stopped. I don’t say I
don’t ever think about it, but I don’t do it. It’s not my first port of call. I
have control without it now. More than anything, however, I learned not to be
ashamed. </div>
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Shame. What a useless ballbag of an emotion. So fuck it.<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Chloe Yateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06019972186407069060noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5084276571033032487.post-6940110326343881562013-02-17T07:19:00.000+01:002013-02-17T07:19:22.404+01:00A Short Treatise on the Ballery of OthersSometimes people are balls. The trick is, I guess, to understand that this does not make you balls and that their ballery is their own concern. Also, expecting them to not be balls just because you can see that they are, in fact, balls or calling them out on the aforementioned ballery because they apparently cannot see it themselves is not necessarily going to reduce their level of being balls. Making your point is just going to wash away in their scrotal sac tide of ballery and you'll get heartburn. Which is balls. So think to yourself, I feel bad for your epic balls-ness but fuck it I'm not going to be balls about this ballery myself. I'm not going to "rise above it" or any of that shitdickery, I'm just going to worry about my own balls and maybe polish them so they're shiny and not clammy and sad like yours.<br />
<br />
Break free from the ballery of others. Be in touch with your own balls.Chloe Yateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06019972186407069060noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5084276571033032487.post-74379835182015055502013-01-13T11:48:00.000+01:002013-01-13T11:48:06.730+01:00Silver Linings ...Don't get me wrong. I quite enjoyed Silver Linings Playbook. However, something about it left me cold. A lot about it. Maybe it was the utter lack of chemistry between the leads. Lawrence had more chemistry with Chris Tucker in their brief dancing bits and Cooper had more chemistry with his bed.<br />
<br />
Don't actors learn to act with their eyes anymore? Both Cooper and Lawrence pulled the faces but I didn't feel the emotions coming from inside them. Does that make sense? Probably not, but against something of a masterclass from Robert De Niro and, particularly, Jacki Weaver as Cooper's parents it made for a somewhat hesitant watch.<br />
<br />
It's a "dram-rom-com" that tries to suggest we're all a bit crazy, ho ho ho, but we can still love and be loved, we just have to move forward, face the truth (whatever the fuck that is) and take responsibility. It has moments of sweetness and "truth" (mainly in the medium of the uncensored - because they're crazy y'all - protagonists asking and revealing to each other crazy bald facts about their crazy lives) but something about it fell short and flat. I certainly have to wonder about the calibre of other performances in the main acting Oscar categories if these two are being jizzed over in the press.<br />
<br />
That said, they're not awful, far from it. They're quite engaging, and Lawrence tries really hard to be a grown up, it just comes across that she's "trying" rather than "being". I do think she's going to get better as she gets older. By the time she's Weaver's age she may well have acquired those righteous acting chops too. Cooper was better than a plank of wood (his usual M.O. which is often to do with the films he chooses - no one does Face like Dirk Benedict, bitches*) He's eloquently hyper but his swift turnaround from manic instability to calm realisation didn't work for me. That said, enlightenment can sometimes hit you like a freight train, even if you're all crazy and shit. So okay, I thought, I can swallow that ... but then his dead eyes drained my remaining sympathy like a catheter. Come on man.<br />
<br />
I want to say good things about this film but, if I'm honest, I found it bordering on patronising wankfest (and not in the fuzzy tingle times way). I'd say something cavalier about better performances or maybe casting for the leads saving the day ... but the saccharine yackydah of the convenient ending you can see coming a mile away - while potentially satisfying for the rom-com crowd - pinches my ball sac.<br />
<br />
5/10 - for Weaver, DeNiro and Tucker.<br />
<br />
*That fucking A-Team film. Have people no goddamned shame?Chloe Yateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06019972186407069060noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5084276571033032487.post-81076079591937784032012-12-28T10:30:00.000+01:002012-12-28T10:35:46.389+01:002013 is the year I turn 40. FUCK YEAH!I just read an article with a woman who turned 40 this year and has finally "accepted" that she is no longer young and has had to give up her youthful dreams, like going to acting school or becoming an über-tycoon. There are several questions here, not least of which are<br />
<br />
1) Why did I waste time I will never get back reading such banality? and<br />
<br />
2) WTF? If we all assign ourselves to the scrap heap or give up on dreams because of being a certain age then we are just conforming to the idiot dichotomy of modern life. Youth is the be all and end all and yet we have an increasingly "older" population?<br />
<br />
Youth is precious simply because it is fleeting. So while it's nice and we should perhaps try to appreciate our time in the land of tight jeans and wild hair (not so much the tight jeans for me, I weighed about 19 stone for most of my twenties, but I did often have mad hair) shouldn't we bloody well value the fact that our shit gets wiser or, at the very least, we've failed often enough to start working that shizzle into a golem of self-advantage rather than self-sabotage at last?<br />
<br />
I intend to be not young for a long fucking time. Maybe I'm lucky - Mr Y calls me the baby-faced assassin - and it's true, I don't particularly have wrinkles and people regularly think I'm about ten years younger than my not-at-fucking-all decrepit 39 years. But face is not fact. I am 39 and I will be 40 in about 9 and a half months. So according to that fool woman, it's time I accepted I'm not young and that I should give up childish dreams. Well, I say, fuck that shit. Fuck it right up the arse and out the ear. Realising that you're not as young as you were is like saying "hey man, this water is like totally wet" REDUNDANT. Age is meaningless. People die all the time at all kinds of ages, many of them far too young (quite a few far older than they deserved, naming no names). Rather than bemoaning our loss of years, we should be shouting "FUCK YEAH! I'm still here and I'm kicking that time shit in the BALLS!". The last things you are going to prise out of my cold dead hands are my dreams, youthful or otherwise. That's right. I'm going to rule the world, I'm going to write a best-selling library of books and Benedict Cumberbatch is going to rub his balls all over his Oscar for starring in my movies. Or something. I'm going to outdo Bassey, I'm going to win gold medals. I'm going to do it all. Or I won't, whatever. But I'm always going to dream I can.<br />
<br />
Onwards.Chloe Yateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06019972186407069060noreply@blogger.com6