[Previously in this series: Southend and an honest-to-God house]
Before I carry on, I feel I ought to state that the past five parts of this saga only covered six months of my life. Six months. No wonder I was cranky.
I moved into the mansion in early December. I put my own sheets on the bed, the couple of books I'd been carrying around on the shelf, my clothes on actual hangers in an actual wardrobe. I did the happiest food shop I've ever done in my life, whizzing down the aisles of the supermarket with a huge grin on my face, picking up anything that even slightly took my fancy, loving the Christmas music more than I had done in years. I had a shelf in the fridge, my own space in the cupboards. It was one of the happiest days I can remember.
The journey into work wasn't the easiest, but beyond that the place was a dream. We cooked things. We did clothes swaps. My friend and I went to dances together thrilled to have someone to come back with on the night bus. I bonded with one of my new flatmates over the Christmas decorations. We all went for drinks and did pub quizzes together. We had a tiny Judeo-pagan Christmas party. When I went home for the holidays, my friend sent me a message telling me she was really glad I'd moved in. The universe was finally being nice to me.
Of course it didn't last. How could it?
I'd been told before moving in that the landlady was trying to sell the house. I'd also been told that it had been on the market for quite some time and it wasn't anything to worry too much about. So I didn't really think about it at all. Maybe it would get sold in six months, a year, but I didn't need to worry about that now.
A month after I moved in, the landlady contacted us to tell us she was going to "pop by for a chat." My flatmate saw her later that same day, sent round a message headed "IMPORTANT" and gathered us all in the kitchen to tell us the place had been sold.
It's probably OK, she said. The landlady is nice and wants to make sure we'll be OK. She's chosen a buyer who's willing to take on the existing tenants, so we probably won't have to go anywhere. She'll send us notice to terminate our current contracts, and the new landlord will draw up fresh ones for us. I nodded and shushed the alarm bell in my head because it was fine, it had to be fine, there's no way I'd have to leave this place already because that would just be ridiculous.
We got an email from the woman who'd bought the flat. She told us that yay, she would take us on as tenants at the same rent we were currently paying. Only now it wouldn't include bills, thus pushing the overall cost well out of everyone's budget. We explained this to her, got a snotty email including the phrase "substantially below market value", and gave up.
Me, to everyone I knew: I have to move.
Everyone: What?!
Me: Flat's been sold.
Everyone: For FUCK'S sake!
Me: Yeah.
We decided to try looking for somewhere together, third flatmate having revised her instant hatred of me, as well as separately. We all independently went to view a place down the road, which had several spare rooms as well as a handy built-in Sexual Assault Tunnel with no lights in it, a kitchen that stank, one room we couldn't get into because there was a broken bed and a stack of wallpaper strippings in the way, and a room which contained nothing except a huge pile of cigarette butts.
"So... people smoke in here, then."
"Oh, no," said the twelve-year-old public schoolboy playing at being a landlord. "There's no smoking in this house."
The twelve-year-old public schoolboy upset my friend somewhat. "Who the fuck rents out a cesspit like that? Complete contempt for his tenants, that's what that is. Oh, you don't live here? With the scum? Live in Richmond, do you? See, this is what was wrong with Margaret Thatcher."
Shortly afterwards my friend found somewhere with one free room and decided to take it, leaving the other three of us to look together. We found a house in an area we weren't sure about with a landlady we weren't sure about, but it was clean and had a big kitchen and cost exactly what we were each paying currently. Also I was paying the most and would have the big pretty room with the sofa in it. We had a week until our notice ran out, and none of us wanted to be living in uncertainty anymore. We told the landlady we'd take it.
[in part seven: new house and more evidence of my truly terrible landlord karma]
Wednesday, 14 January 2015
Thursday, 8 January 2015
adventures in housing, part five
[Previously in this series: exploding guest houses and a large dose of FOR FUCK'S SAKE]
I ended up spending a month in Southend.
On the one hand, it's a long way away. The walk-bus-train-tube-tube-walk to work every morning was an adjustment I hadn't been quite prepared for, and I am singularly bad at mornings. Most of the time I would wake up about seven minutes before I needed to leave the house and would remain not really woken up for the rest of the day. I have songs on my iPod that take me straight back to sitting on a bus stop in Southend in the November drizzle, hoping that I was awake enough to spot the bus arriving and remember to get off it in the right place (I wasn't always). I did not end that month full of the joys of the suburbs and planning my own future as someone who would happily trade living in London for being able to buy an actual house.
On the other hand, I had a bed for an entire month. I had a room. I had somewhere to leave my things. I could eat actual dinner instead of takeaway or sandwiches in my office. I stopped ping-ponging between hair-trigger irritability, slightly manic hyperactive chirpiness and sullen depression and started acting like a human again. The aches in my back and shoulders faded, and I got some peace inside my own head. I didn't noticeably piss off either of my friends and I left their hospitality with relationships intact.
Living with a married couple was strange. It was like walking back into the same situation I'd just left, only now it wasn't mine. Of course, it wasn't exactly the same situation, since my friends are a functional couple who didn't spend entire evenings sitting on opposite sides of the room attempting to ignore each other, but occasionally I would watch them and remember when this was my life, when I couldn't really separate "my life" from "our life", and I knew his habits and preferences so well that they almost belonged to me. It was a confused nostalgia, a reminder that things weren't always the way they were at the end, and a kind of dreadful, frightened triumph at the thought that I could still be in this place, still living this familiarity that looked so comfortable from the outside but itched like crazy when I was wearing it. I envied the security while wanting to scratch it off my skin at the same time.
My friends are possibly exactly unlike me and my ex, which is why I'm now going to take a moment to say hi, Tom, everything is fine. You are the very best of all the friends and didn't accidentally cause me bad feelings by going about your life in your own house.
I continued to message people advertising rooms. I continued to go to viewings of what turned out to be tiny cesspits hidden away in alleys lined with drug dealers, with front doors that didn't lock and seven people crammed into two bedrooms, that the estate agents and landlords felt perfectly comfortable offering for rent at £160 per week.
"Very reasonable, we think."
"...um."
"The window will be replaced at some point with one that doesn't have a hole in it."
"That's nice."
"And don't worry about Susanne, she's just like that."
"...um."
"You won't find a lot in an area this accessible for this cheap a price."
"That does seem to be true, yes."
"So, are you interested?"
"Let me get back to you."
One morning I got a message from a friend. At the time she was a friend in the way that many people I've met through the dance scene are friends: connected on Facebook, would go and say hi and possibly give them a hug if I saw them, but not close enough to go out for dinner or email stupid videos to each other. She said there was a spare room coming up in her house in a few weeks and would I be interested?
I restrained myself from trying to leap directly through my laptop screen at her and said yes, yes I would be.
After rearranging several times to find some mutual free time in our clashing dance schedules, my friend met me at the closest station and took me to see the flat, which turned out to be a mansion flat with the most ridiculous huge fuck-off living room full of enormous sofas and giant mirrors and Sky TV. And it was cheaper than the drug den box room with Susanne who was just like that, don't worry. I thought perhaps I'd fallen into a mirage. I met the other two flatmates, one of whom was sweet and friendly and the other of whom seemed to dislike me on sight, but I was barely paying attention. Yes, I am going to live here. I am going to live here. I am going to live here.
I sent a "please let me live in your house" message the next day, and both the girls and the landlady accepted me. Shortly thereafter I left Southend, bought myself some bedding and took it and my suitcase to my new home.
[in part six: the mansion and FOR FUCK'S SAKE yet again]
I ended up spending a month in Southend.
On the one hand, it's a long way away. The walk-bus-train-tube-tube-walk to work every morning was an adjustment I hadn't been quite prepared for, and I am singularly bad at mornings. Most of the time I would wake up about seven minutes before I needed to leave the house and would remain not really woken up for the rest of the day. I have songs on my iPod that take me straight back to sitting on a bus stop in Southend in the November drizzle, hoping that I was awake enough to spot the bus arriving and remember to get off it in the right place (I wasn't always). I did not end that month full of the joys of the suburbs and planning my own future as someone who would happily trade living in London for being able to buy an actual house.
On the other hand, I had a bed for an entire month. I had a room. I had somewhere to leave my things. I could eat actual dinner instead of takeaway or sandwiches in my office. I stopped ping-ponging between hair-trigger irritability, slightly manic hyperactive chirpiness and sullen depression and started acting like a human again. The aches in my back and shoulders faded, and I got some peace inside my own head. I didn't noticeably piss off either of my friends and I left their hospitality with relationships intact.
Living with a married couple was strange. It was like walking back into the same situation I'd just left, only now it wasn't mine. Of course, it wasn't exactly the same situation, since my friends are a functional couple who didn't spend entire evenings sitting on opposite sides of the room attempting to ignore each other, but occasionally I would watch them and remember when this was my life, when I couldn't really separate "my life" from "our life", and I knew his habits and preferences so well that they almost belonged to me. It was a confused nostalgia, a reminder that things weren't always the way they were at the end, and a kind of dreadful, frightened triumph at the thought that I could still be in this place, still living this familiarity that looked so comfortable from the outside but itched like crazy when I was wearing it. I envied the security while wanting to scratch it off my skin at the same time.
My friends are possibly exactly unlike me and my ex, which is why I'm now going to take a moment to say hi, Tom, everything is fine. You are the very best of all the friends and didn't accidentally cause me bad feelings by going about your life in your own house.
I continued to message people advertising rooms. I continued to go to viewings of what turned out to be tiny cesspits hidden away in alleys lined with drug dealers, with front doors that didn't lock and seven people crammed into two bedrooms, that the estate agents and landlords felt perfectly comfortable offering for rent at £160 per week.
"Very reasonable, we think."
"...um."
"The window will be replaced at some point with one that doesn't have a hole in it."
"That's nice."
"And don't worry about Susanne, she's just like that."
"...um."
"You won't find a lot in an area this accessible for this cheap a price."
"That does seem to be true, yes."
"So, are you interested?"
"Let me get back to you."
One morning I got a message from a friend. At the time she was a friend in the way that many people I've met through the dance scene are friends: connected on Facebook, would go and say hi and possibly give them a hug if I saw them, but not close enough to go out for dinner or email stupid videos to each other. She said there was a spare room coming up in her house in a few weeks and would I be interested?
I restrained myself from trying to leap directly through my laptop screen at her and said yes, yes I would be.
After rearranging several times to find some mutual free time in our clashing dance schedules, my friend met me at the closest station and took me to see the flat, which turned out to be a mansion flat with the most ridiculous huge fuck-off living room full of enormous sofas and giant mirrors and Sky TV. And it was cheaper than the drug den box room with Susanne who was just like that, don't worry. I thought perhaps I'd fallen into a mirage. I met the other two flatmates, one of whom was sweet and friendly and the other of whom seemed to dislike me on sight, but I was barely paying attention. Yes, I am going to live here. I am going to live here. I am going to live here.
I sent a "please let me live in your house" message the next day, and both the girls and the landlady accepted me. Shortly thereafter I left Southend, bought myself some bedding and took it and my suitcase to my new home.
[in part six: the mansion and FOR FUCK'S SAKE yet again]
Sunday, 28 December 2014
baggage
I came home for Christmas. I saw old friends and shopped and ate and wrapped presents and wore silly hats and ate some more and lounged on the recliner sofas my parents have acquired all of a sudden and drank whisky and introduced my father to whisky and laughed at the stupidest things and was loved more than any human has a right to be.
Tomorrow I'm going home, so tonight I have to pack. Turns out Christmas presents take up quite a lot of space.
I packed and repacked. I transferred things from bag to bag. I called in my little brother to weigh in on the "it is better to have a wheely suitcase, one shoulder bag and one carrier bag, or a wheely suitcase plus two shoulder bags to keep one hand free?" dilemma. I got it just about done and then realised I hadn't packed about nine of my presents, so I took everything out again. I was starting to get backache.
In the end, I came to the snap and surprising decision to abandon my handbag.
My handbag, like all the handbags that came before it, is a monster thing. I've always been of the opinion that if my handbag cannot carry all my wallet-keys-phone essentials plus an umbrella, a compact camera, two reusable shopping bags, a pair of gloves, a bottle of water, a packet of mints, a pair of dance shoes, a fan, two bottles of body spray and a make-up bag, it's got no right to call itself my handbag. I take most of this stuff, except the shoes, everywhere. Just in case. Who knows when you're going to need body spray in two different scents, right?
My dance teacher pointed out to me ages ago that I carry a lot of extra tension in that shoulder. If I go a few days without taking the bag anywhere, it's immediately obvious to me when I pick it up again that it's heavy and uncomfortable and sometimes physically painful to carry. Sometimes I have so much stuff that I end up walking lopsided. I noticed all these things, but decided that I'd just have to live with them. Because I need all that stuff. I need the six pens and the broken bits of another four pens, the handful of loose change, the packets of paracetamol, the hair ties (my hair has been too short to tie back for four months now), the myriad packs of gum, the screwed-up receipts and cinema tickets and bits of paper with my name on (dance debris is not like normal debris), the cocktail stirrers and flowery hair grips and broken sunglasses. It's necessary.
In trying to find a way to get everything back home with me, I realised that the stuff I actually need, the things I use day to day, will fit in a bag the size of an A5 paperback, and it's possible that the emotional security I get from carrying around 10lb worth of mementoes and precautions is maybe not worth permanent shoulder damage. So I took the essentials out, discarded the bag and everything else in it.
I'd like to write about how freeing it is, how nice it feels not to have to take that weight with me everywhere, how much better I feel now. But tomorrow I still have to lug a wheely suitcase and two shoulder bags from west to east, and I have a sense that my shoulders will be feeling substantially worse until I put everything down again at the other end.
Sorry, shoulders. I'm trying.
Tomorrow I'm going home, so tonight I have to pack. Turns out Christmas presents take up quite a lot of space.
I packed and repacked. I transferred things from bag to bag. I called in my little brother to weigh in on the "it is better to have a wheely suitcase, one shoulder bag and one carrier bag, or a wheely suitcase plus two shoulder bags to keep one hand free?" dilemma. I got it just about done and then realised I hadn't packed about nine of my presents, so I took everything out again. I was starting to get backache.
In the end, I came to the snap and surprising decision to abandon my handbag.
My handbag, like all the handbags that came before it, is a monster thing. I've always been of the opinion that if my handbag cannot carry all my wallet-keys-phone essentials plus an umbrella, a compact camera, two reusable shopping bags, a pair of gloves, a bottle of water, a packet of mints, a pair of dance shoes, a fan, two bottles of body spray and a make-up bag, it's got no right to call itself my handbag. I take most of this stuff, except the shoes, everywhere. Just in case. Who knows when you're going to need body spray in two different scents, right?
My dance teacher pointed out to me ages ago that I carry a lot of extra tension in that shoulder. If I go a few days without taking the bag anywhere, it's immediately obvious to me when I pick it up again that it's heavy and uncomfortable and sometimes physically painful to carry. Sometimes I have so much stuff that I end up walking lopsided. I noticed all these things, but decided that I'd just have to live with them. Because I need all that stuff. I need the six pens and the broken bits of another four pens, the handful of loose change, the packets of paracetamol, the hair ties (my hair has been too short to tie back for four months now), the myriad packs of gum, the screwed-up receipts and cinema tickets and bits of paper with my name on (dance debris is not like normal debris), the cocktail stirrers and flowery hair grips and broken sunglasses. It's necessary.
In trying to find a way to get everything back home with me, I realised that the stuff I actually need, the things I use day to day, will fit in a bag the size of an A5 paperback, and it's possible that the emotional security I get from carrying around 10lb worth of mementoes and precautions is maybe not worth permanent shoulder damage. So I took the essentials out, discarded the bag and everything else in it.
I'd like to write about how freeing it is, how nice it feels not to have to take that weight with me everywhere, how much better I feel now. But tomorrow I still have to lug a wheely suitcase and two shoulder bags from west to east, and I have a sense that my shoulders will be feeling substantially worse until I put everything down again at the other end.
Sorry, shoulders. I'm trying.
Wednesday, 10 December 2014
on chivalry
Throughout my online dating history, I have talked to, been on dates with, and had full-blown relationships with various men I met that way. Some of them were great and even though they're no longer in my life, I appreciate that I got to meet them. A lot of them, though, fell into very definite archetypes. The guy who was just a nice guy. The insufferable intellectual. The awkward semi-hermit. The pick-up-artist-in-training. The guy who had a long list of problems that would definitely all be solved if I would just sleep with him please. The guy who had a long list of all his excellent qualities that would definitely solve all my problems if I would just sleep with him please.
Occasionally I would encounter Chivalrous Dude. Chivalrous Dude would be polite to a fault, deliver all manner of compliments all on the right side of appropriate and listen very, very attentively (often without actually hearing anything that was being said). Chivalrous Dude was definitely happy to see that I was a feminist, and he was very committed to treating women right, and wasn't that great? Chivalrous Dude had many Thoughts and Feelings that he was keen to share, and eventually some Traditional Gender Roles that he thought we could perhaps partake of together. My interactions with the Chivalrous Dudes rarely ended well, and I soon learned to steer well clear of them if at all possible.
It's often in response to these guys that I am urged to "cut him some slack". I think I've made my feelings on this phrase quite clear, but let me just say: I get it. I get why people like this chivalry thing, and I get where these guys are coming from. They (mostly) have the absolute best of intentions. They've seen some truly unpleasant behaviour exhibited by men towards women and are appalled by it; they want to be better than that. They are going to be Nice to Women, because they are Nice Men trying to do Nice Things. I understand that.
I also understand that we can't apply a blanket rule of "treat everyone exactly the same" because that just isn't how the world works. We haven't fully corrected the power disparities between genders/races/orientations/whatever else that have existed as long as society has, and we may never do. Treating people with absolute rules-lawyer equality when that isn't what the rest of the world is doing doesn't make things better, particularly not if you are refusing to acknowledge that the behaviour of the rest of the world puts certain people at a disadvantage. So we can't just say "complete equality of treatment, end of discussion." Things are a little too sticky and complicated for that.
However, in terms of basic social interaction, I really do not want to be operating under a Code of How Men Should Treat Women as opposed to a Code of How to Treat Other People. It's weird. If someone holds a door open for me, I will assume they're doing so because I am a person and it is not pleasant to slam a door in the face of a person. If a man in a mixed group holds the door open for women only, I will side-eye him a little bit. If a group of men standing near the door form two groups (or for maximum weird, lines) either side of it, wave me through the door that one of them is holding open and watch me walk through it, I will feel seriously uncomfortable because this is a weird thing to do (if you do this thing? Stop doing this thing, it is a creepy thing).
And in terms of someone I'm dating? I don't want to be treated like Woman as Concept, I want to be treated like me. In my younger and stupider days I dated a couple of men who told me that "the man walks on the outside of the pavement to protect the woman" and "the man walks the woman home to make sure she's safe". What exactly he was going to protect me from by standing on that side of the road, and what dangers he was going to avert that never occurred when I walked home by myself every single other day, was never made clear. If you're going to walk me home, do it because you want to talk to me some more, not because of some unstated Lady Boogeyman.
Mostly the stated position of Chivalrous Dude is less "women are weak and cannot do things for themselves" and more "women are special and magical creatures who must be treated in a special way". Many of the ones I've personally come across have told me that women are amazing, women are worth more than men, women deserve special treatment, men are rubbish and must prove themselves worthy. This is as icky as "women are lesser" and ultimately leads to the same place - these men treat the women around them as if they're not quite human, and as if they're all basically the same.
My major, major bugbear with Chivalrous Dude is this one: there is no way to live up to his expectation of Womanhood. He has a pedestal with Woman on it, casts whoever he's being chivalrous at as Woman, and proceeds to act out his strange code of behaviour until she accidentally reveals herself to be human (by having a past, or a flaw, or on occasion by being a horrible person acting out of outright malice). At this, Chivalrous Dude feels betrayed, upset, maybe angry. Sometimes this is directed at the woman he cast as Woman, feeling that she has let down Womanhood with her unexpected behaviour. Sometimes he doesn't make this distinction between woman and Woman, and her behaviour reflects upon Woman as a whole. If the behaviour is transgressive enough, it breaks his pedestal entirely (you know that guy who got dumped or cheated on or couldn't get that girl to go out with him by hanging around looking hopeful and then spent the next eight years complaining that all women were bitches and whores? He was probably Chivalrous Dude Type 2 once).
You cannot do chivalry, in the modern sense of the word, without bringing in some gender essentialist assumptions to a greater or lesser degree, and frankly I'd rather not. I don't like the behaviours that are coded chivalrous, and I don't like the way I'm expected to perform in response (be quiet, be polite, be gracious, don't make a fuss, don't contradict). Some people do like it, and this is why talking to each other is a thing that people should do more. Then the men that like to behave this way can do so to women who like this behaviour, and I don't have to get called a "lovely lady" ever again.
Occasionally I would encounter Chivalrous Dude. Chivalrous Dude would be polite to a fault, deliver all manner of compliments all on the right side of appropriate and listen very, very attentively (often without actually hearing anything that was being said). Chivalrous Dude was definitely happy to see that I was a feminist, and he was very committed to treating women right, and wasn't that great? Chivalrous Dude had many Thoughts and Feelings that he was keen to share, and eventually some Traditional Gender Roles that he thought we could perhaps partake of together. My interactions with the Chivalrous Dudes rarely ended well, and I soon learned to steer well clear of them if at all possible.
It's often in response to these guys that I am urged to "cut him some slack". I think I've made my feelings on this phrase quite clear, but let me just say: I get it. I get why people like this chivalry thing, and I get where these guys are coming from. They (mostly) have the absolute best of intentions. They've seen some truly unpleasant behaviour exhibited by men towards women and are appalled by it; they want to be better than that. They are going to be Nice to Women, because they are Nice Men trying to do Nice Things. I understand that.
I also understand that we can't apply a blanket rule of "treat everyone exactly the same" because that just isn't how the world works. We haven't fully corrected the power disparities between genders/races/orientations/whatever else that have existed as long as society has, and we may never do. Treating people with absolute rules-lawyer equality when that isn't what the rest of the world is doing doesn't make things better, particularly not if you are refusing to acknowledge that the behaviour of the rest of the world puts certain people at a disadvantage. So we can't just say "complete equality of treatment, end of discussion." Things are a little too sticky and complicated for that.
However, in terms of basic social interaction, I really do not want to be operating under a Code of How Men Should Treat Women as opposed to a Code of How to Treat Other People. It's weird. If someone holds a door open for me, I will assume they're doing so because I am a person and it is not pleasant to slam a door in the face of a person. If a man in a mixed group holds the door open for women only, I will side-eye him a little bit. If a group of men standing near the door form two groups (or for maximum weird, lines) either side of it, wave me through the door that one of them is holding open and watch me walk through it, I will feel seriously uncomfortable because this is a weird thing to do (if you do this thing? Stop doing this thing, it is a creepy thing).
And in terms of someone I'm dating? I don't want to be treated like Woman as Concept, I want to be treated like me. In my younger and stupider days I dated a couple of men who told me that "the man walks on the outside of the pavement to protect the woman" and "the man walks the woman home to make sure she's safe". What exactly he was going to protect me from by standing on that side of the road, and what dangers he was going to avert that never occurred when I walked home by myself every single other day, was never made clear. If you're going to walk me home, do it because you want to talk to me some more, not because of some unstated Lady Boogeyman.
Mostly the stated position of Chivalrous Dude is less "women are weak and cannot do things for themselves" and more "women are special and magical creatures who must be treated in a special way". Many of the ones I've personally come across have told me that women are amazing, women are worth more than men, women deserve special treatment, men are rubbish and must prove themselves worthy. This is as icky as "women are lesser" and ultimately leads to the same place - these men treat the women around them as if they're not quite human, and as if they're all basically the same.
My major, major bugbear with Chivalrous Dude is this one: there is no way to live up to his expectation of Womanhood. He has a pedestal with Woman on it, casts whoever he's being chivalrous at as Woman, and proceeds to act out his strange code of behaviour until she accidentally reveals herself to be human (by having a past, or a flaw, or on occasion by being a horrible person acting out of outright malice). At this, Chivalrous Dude feels betrayed, upset, maybe angry. Sometimes this is directed at the woman he cast as Woman, feeling that she has let down Womanhood with her unexpected behaviour. Sometimes he doesn't make this distinction between woman and Woman, and her behaviour reflects upon Woman as a whole. If the behaviour is transgressive enough, it breaks his pedestal entirely (you know that guy who got dumped or cheated on or couldn't get that girl to go out with him by hanging around looking hopeful and then spent the next eight years complaining that all women were bitches and whores? He was probably Chivalrous Dude Type 2 once).
You cannot do chivalry, in the modern sense of the word, without bringing in some gender essentialist assumptions to a greater or lesser degree, and frankly I'd rather not. I don't like the behaviours that are coded chivalrous, and I don't like the way I'm expected to perform in response (be quiet, be polite, be gracious, don't make a fuss, don't contradict). Some people do like it, and this is why talking to each other is a thing that people should do more. Then the men that like to behave this way can do so to women who like this behaviour, and I don't have to get called a "lovely lady" ever again.
Thursday, 4 December 2014
slack
Today I am going to complain about the phrase "cut him some slack" in order to a) get a grievance out of my head so it doesn't trample all over another post I'm trying to write, and b) stop myself getting involved in an online argument I would surely regret getting involved in. You're welcome.
(Note: "he" in the following list refers to whatever guy I was dealing with at the time rather than this whole post being about one very weird man. Just for clarity's sake.)
Times when I have been asked to "cut a guy some slack" because he is a guy and doesn't know any better/that's just the way they are/was trying to be nice and that's what counts:
When he shouted at me to "smile" from across the street
When he made a nasty joke that upset me
When he ignored everything I was saying only to readily accept the exact same points when made in the exact same way by a man
When he DANCED HIS CROTCH INTO ME FOR FIVE STRAIGHT MINUTES ARGHHH
When he objected to me talking to a male colleague whilst at work
When he, as the head of the company I worked for, congratulated me on my weight loss and warned me not to get fat again
When he phoned for advice and asked to be put through to a man
When he told me it was completely reasonable to refuse to hire any woman of childbearing age
When he ran up to me on the street, smacked me on the ass hard enough to bruise, then ran away again
When he sent me sixty text messages in two days
When he complained that women as a gender had really gone downhill in the last twenty years
When he locked me in the car and screamed at me for an hour
When he explained to me that I didn't actually want the things I thought I wanted and in fact wanted these other things instead
When he tried to carry my shopping for me, which consisted of one birthday card in an A5 size carrier bag, and got very upset when I told him I could probably handle the weight myself
When he told me that women were all whores but that I was special
When he tried to follow me home
When he continued to call me by a nickname I hate after I specifically and repeatedly asked him not to
When he laughed for twenty minutes about how indecisive women are whilst trying to sell me a mobile phone
When he made creepy-ass remarks in my ear every time he danced with me
When he tried to teach me to do something I had a qualification in
When he refused to let me make the three-minute walk from the pub to my house by myself EVER IN FOUR YEARS
I have many more, but I'm going to end it there for everyone's sake.
I am nearly thirty years old, and I have had enough of being told that I should assume the best of intentions on the part of any man who annoys me or makes me uncomfortable. I've had enough of being told that I've misinterpreted a thing that happened to me by people who weren't even fucking there, or that I may not have misinterpreted it but that my feelings about it are still wrong. I've had enough of people prioritising the intentions of a man they often don't know at all above the judgement of a woman they do know. It's insulting, and it's especially insulting to have this framed as the position of reason and logic.
Also, look at that list. "Cut him some slack" has become completely fucking meaningless. People say it to me when I'm mildly annoyed in the exact same way as they say it when I'm genuinely scared or hurt. They say "cut him some slack" when I'm griping about a mild sexist stereotype and they say "cut him some slack" when I've sustained actual physical injury from the man in question. So now the phrase means nothing, and it annoys me that much more when applied to the gripe because I remember it being applied to the bruises.
So I say to you, no. I will not cut that man some slack. I made a judgement call. I had this experience and I decided that this man did a shitty thing, or that I don't want to date this man, or that I'm taking my business to a different company. I get to be annoyed or uncomfortable if that's how I'm feeling, and you don't get to tell me my feelings are wrong. I am allowed to not like any given man for whatever frivolous reason (and in turn, people are free to not like me if that's what my frivolous reason inspires in them). I am a grown-ass woman and I am pig sick of having my opinions and boundaries and judgement ignored or disrespected just in case I hurt some poor man's feelings slightly. That man might mean well, in some cases. I fully accept that. But his meaning well does not compel me to accept or enjoy his behaviour, to date him or dance with him or otherwise spend time with him, to knowingly put myself in a situation I know I'm going to hate. Why should I? He wouldn't. It's more important for me to trust myself than to be nice to you, and no, I'm not sorry about it. I'm going to stop twisting myself into knots trying to work out how to not offend anyone and cut myself some slack for a goddamn change.
(Note: "he" in the following list refers to whatever guy I was dealing with at the time rather than this whole post being about one very weird man. Just for clarity's sake.)
Times when I have been asked to "cut a guy some slack" because he is a guy and doesn't know any better/that's just the way they are/was trying to be nice and that's what counts:
When he shouted at me to "smile" from across the street
When he made a nasty joke that upset me
When he ignored everything I was saying only to readily accept the exact same points when made in the exact same way by a man
When he DANCED HIS CROTCH INTO ME FOR FIVE STRAIGHT MINUTES ARGHHH
When he objected to me talking to a male colleague whilst at work
When he, as the head of the company I worked for, congratulated me on my weight loss and warned me not to get fat again
When he phoned for advice and asked to be put through to a man
When he told me it was completely reasonable to refuse to hire any woman of childbearing age
When he ran up to me on the street, smacked me on the ass hard enough to bruise, then ran away again
When he sent me sixty text messages in two days
When he complained that women as a gender had really gone downhill in the last twenty years
When he locked me in the car and screamed at me for an hour
When he explained to me that I didn't actually want the things I thought I wanted and in fact wanted these other things instead
When he tried to carry my shopping for me, which consisted of one birthday card in an A5 size carrier bag, and got very upset when I told him I could probably handle the weight myself
When he told me that women were all whores but that I was special
When he tried to follow me home
When he continued to call me by a nickname I hate after I specifically and repeatedly asked him not to
When he laughed for twenty minutes about how indecisive women are whilst trying to sell me a mobile phone
When he made creepy-ass remarks in my ear every time he danced with me
When he tried to teach me to do something I had a qualification in
When he refused to let me make the three-minute walk from the pub to my house by myself EVER IN FOUR YEARS
I have many more, but I'm going to end it there for everyone's sake.
I am nearly thirty years old, and I have had enough of being told that I should assume the best of intentions on the part of any man who annoys me or makes me uncomfortable. I've had enough of being told that I've misinterpreted a thing that happened to me by people who weren't even fucking there, or that I may not have misinterpreted it but that my feelings about it are still wrong. I've had enough of people prioritising the intentions of a man they often don't know at all above the judgement of a woman they do know. It's insulting, and it's especially insulting to have this framed as the position of reason and logic.
Also, look at that list. "Cut him some slack" has become completely fucking meaningless. People say it to me when I'm mildly annoyed in the exact same way as they say it when I'm genuinely scared or hurt. They say "cut him some slack" when I'm griping about a mild sexist stereotype and they say "cut him some slack" when I've sustained actual physical injury from the man in question. So now the phrase means nothing, and it annoys me that much more when applied to the gripe because I remember it being applied to the bruises.
So I say to you, no. I will not cut that man some slack. I made a judgement call. I had this experience and I decided that this man did a shitty thing, or that I don't want to date this man, or that I'm taking my business to a different company. I get to be annoyed or uncomfortable if that's how I'm feeling, and you don't get to tell me my feelings are wrong. I am allowed to not like any given man for whatever frivolous reason (and in turn, people are free to not like me if that's what my frivolous reason inspires in them). I am a grown-ass woman and I am pig sick of having my opinions and boundaries and judgement ignored or disrespected just in case I hurt some poor man's feelings slightly. That man might mean well, in some cases. I fully accept that. But his meaning well does not compel me to accept or enjoy his behaviour, to date him or dance with him or otherwise spend time with him, to knowingly put myself in a situation I know I'm going to hate. Why should I? He wouldn't. It's more important for me to trust myself than to be nice to you, and no, I'm not sorry about it. I'm going to stop twisting myself into knots trying to work out how to not offend anyone and cut myself some slack for a goddamn change.
Monday, 24 November 2014
adventures in housing, part four
[previously in this series: spurious reasons for keeping a deposit, sleeping on floors and a possible Murder House]
At this point, I'd been homeless for nearly a month and I'd exhausted all my offers of longer-term crash space in London. I would spend one night in a cheap hotel, the next on a friend's sofa, the next on my dance teachers' floor, the next on the floor of someone I barely knew at all. At the weekend I decamped to my little brother's place (oh, the 23-year-old with his mortgage and his spare room and his parking space and his two bathrooms in a two-bedroom flat). I was carrying my massive suitcase into work and back on the tube during rush hour every day. I was gradually taking over more and more cabinets at work to lock away things I wasn't going to need that night and lighten my load slightly. Most mornings I would wake up with no idea where I'd be sleeping that night. Nobody was responding to my messages online. The potential flatmates I'd found disappeared. All my muscles hurt, sleep had long since stopped being restful, and any time someone made a well-meaning joke about my situation I almost burst into tears. I needed a break. Just a few nights where I didn't have to do this.
It occurred to me that I could check into a guest house for a few days. It would be cheaper than a hotel, I could still have a room to myself, and I could get a bit of rest. I found somewhere a little way out and booked myself in for the best part of a week.
I left my brother's place on Sunday afternoon, got the train back to London, went dancing (because priorities) and trekked out to the further reaches of East London to get to the guest house, which was labelled as such by an almost imperceptible sign next to the door. There was no doorbell. I knocked, and a few minutes later a woman answered.
"Hi," I said. "I'm booked in for four nights."
"Oh." She laughed. "I don't work here. I'm staying here. You need to phone this guy's mobile and he comes round and gives you the keys."
"Um. OK then."
"Yeah, I know. I don't understand it either."
I made the call, and a man showed up with the keys. He showed me where the bathroom was, gave me the WiFi password, and told me I was free to make use of the kitchen. He showed me my room, which was huge and warm and nicely decorated. The internet worked. I dropped everything in a heap on the floor, collapsed into bed and slept for ten hours straight.
The next morning, I was woken up by one of the other residents knocking on my door. "Hi," she said, "I'm really sorry about this, but these guys from the electric company have shown up and I can't hang around to deal with them, I'm really late as it is. Would you mind?"
"Sure," I said and came out of my room.
On the doorstep were two men, one of them holding a search warrant. I ordered the small alarm going off in the back of my mind to shut up, everything was fine, there was no way that everything wasn't fine.
"We have a warrant to come in and have a look at your meter," said the man with the warrant. "We cut the electric to this property due to non-payment of bills, and we have reason to believe that it's now being accessed illegally. This your place?"
"No, I'm just renting a room for a few nights."
He gave me the most sceptical look I've ever seen in my entire life. "Renting a room."
"It's a guest house."
"It's not licensed to be a guest house."
Oh, for fuck's sake. "I didn't check. I just booked a room on the internet."
"Hmmm."
I let the other man, the engineer, into the house to look at the meter, while I stood on the doorstep trying to convince the first guy I wasn't running a shady guest house that was at least three types of illegal and lying brazenly about it to his face. After offers to show multiple forms of ID, booking confirmations, the original online listing, and the contact information of the people who actually were running a shady operation, he decided to trust me. He took the phone numbers I offered and was about to make a call when the engineer came up out of the basement where the meter was. He looked ever so slightly shaken.
"Nothing we can do," he said to the first guy. "I am not touching that."
"What is it?"
"They've rigged it to get free electric like we thought, but the way they've done it... there's exposed wires everywhere, it looks like it might blow up any minute. I'm not touching it, it's not safe." He cast a glance at me.
"She doesn't live here," said the guy with the warrant.
"Get out," said the engineer. "I'm not kidding. That thing's a death trap."
As the engineer pulled out a phone to call his boss, the guy with the warrant took me to one side. "You need somewhere else to go. That guy's a qualified engineer, he's been doing the job ten years. If he won't touch it, it's dangerous. Legitimately this place might explode. You can't stay here, it's not safe."
Oh, for FUCK'S sake. "I don't have anywhere else to go."
"Find somewhere," he snapped.
They left, and I called the owners, wondering what on earth I could have done to invite this level of exhausting over-the-top stupidity into my life. "Hi, I'm renting a room from you at the moment. Um. The electric company showed up and said you're not a licensed guest house and you're accessing your electric illegally and that the house might explode."
"Oh," she said.
"So, obviously, I can't stay here."
"Why not?"
"Because the people who know about electricity said the house was going to explode?"
"Oh, that." She laughed. "No, it's fine."
"No, it's not fine. They said the house was going to explode!"
"No, it's fine."
"Look, I can't stay here. I've been told it's not safe."
"You can leave if you want to, but the place is fine, so you won't get a refund."
"You can't rent an exploding guest house!"
"It's not going to explode. No refunds."
I phoned the electric company.
"Hi. One of your engineers just came by the place I'm staying and said it was about to explode. Can I get that in writing so I can get a refund?"
"Uh... what?"
"Can you provide a written statement saying that this place is about to explode?"
"...I'm going to be honest, I've never been asked this question before. Can I get someone to call you back?"
I phoned my manager.
"Hi. So an engineer just showed up at the place I'm staying and said it might be about to explode and now I need to find somewhere else to live and am possibly having a mild panic attack."
I wish I could have seen his expression. I bet he would have beaten the guy with the warrant for Most Sceptical Look Ever on a Human Face. "So you're not coming in then."
"I would be of very little use, unless you need someone to sit under a desk and cry for five hours."
He sighed. "Fine."
I phoned my mother.
"Hi, Mum. This guest house is illegal and the engineer said it was going to explode and the people won't give me my money back and I don't know what to do."
"WHAT."
"What do I do?"
"YOU GET OUT OF THERE RIGHT NOW WE WILL GET YOU A HOTEL BUT YOU NEED TO LEAVE RIGHT THIS SECOND YOU DO NOT HAVE PERMISSION TO GET BLOWN UP."
"...okay."
My parents paid for two nights at a hotel, and my aching muscles gave me a talking-to. The chances of finding anywhere to stay in London within the next few days are slim to none, they told me, and you clearly, clearly cannot do this anymore. Stop it. My friends had been offering me their spare room for ages, but I'd kept turning it down because it was in Southend (and honestly, who lives in Southend? I know you're reading this, you're both ridiculous). I didn't want to have to commute into London every day, and I didn't want to be so far away from my social life, but I couldn't prioritise that anymore. The longer commute had to be better than lugging all of my things up and down escalators twice a day. A bed had to be better than a floor. Comfort and security had to be better than blindly hoping for somewhere to stay in zone 2. Staying with people I knew and liked and who probably weren't going to hate me after two weeks had to be worth leaving a few dances earlier than I'd have liked.
I took them up on their offer, and two days later my suitcase and I left London.
[in part five: the joys of commuting and a possible actual place to live]
At this point, I'd been homeless for nearly a month and I'd exhausted all my offers of longer-term crash space in London. I would spend one night in a cheap hotel, the next on a friend's sofa, the next on my dance teachers' floor, the next on the floor of someone I barely knew at all. At the weekend I decamped to my little brother's place (oh, the 23-year-old with his mortgage and his spare room and his parking space and his two bathrooms in a two-bedroom flat). I was carrying my massive suitcase into work and back on the tube during rush hour every day. I was gradually taking over more and more cabinets at work to lock away things I wasn't going to need that night and lighten my load slightly. Most mornings I would wake up with no idea where I'd be sleeping that night. Nobody was responding to my messages online. The potential flatmates I'd found disappeared. All my muscles hurt, sleep had long since stopped being restful, and any time someone made a well-meaning joke about my situation I almost burst into tears. I needed a break. Just a few nights where I didn't have to do this.
It occurred to me that I could check into a guest house for a few days. It would be cheaper than a hotel, I could still have a room to myself, and I could get a bit of rest. I found somewhere a little way out and booked myself in for the best part of a week.
I left my brother's place on Sunday afternoon, got the train back to London, went dancing (because priorities) and trekked out to the further reaches of East London to get to the guest house, which was labelled as such by an almost imperceptible sign next to the door. There was no doorbell. I knocked, and a few minutes later a woman answered.
"Hi," I said. "I'm booked in for four nights."
"Oh." She laughed. "I don't work here. I'm staying here. You need to phone this guy's mobile and he comes round and gives you the keys."
"Um. OK then."
"Yeah, I know. I don't understand it either."
I made the call, and a man showed up with the keys. He showed me where the bathroom was, gave me the WiFi password, and told me I was free to make use of the kitchen. He showed me my room, which was huge and warm and nicely decorated. The internet worked. I dropped everything in a heap on the floor, collapsed into bed and slept for ten hours straight.
The next morning, I was woken up by one of the other residents knocking on my door. "Hi," she said, "I'm really sorry about this, but these guys from the electric company have shown up and I can't hang around to deal with them, I'm really late as it is. Would you mind?"
"Sure," I said and came out of my room.
On the doorstep were two men, one of them holding a search warrant. I ordered the small alarm going off in the back of my mind to shut up, everything was fine, there was no way that everything wasn't fine.
"We have a warrant to come in and have a look at your meter," said the man with the warrant. "We cut the electric to this property due to non-payment of bills, and we have reason to believe that it's now being accessed illegally. This your place?"
"No, I'm just renting a room for a few nights."
He gave me the most sceptical look I've ever seen in my entire life. "Renting a room."
"It's a guest house."
"It's not licensed to be a guest house."
Oh, for fuck's sake. "I didn't check. I just booked a room on the internet."
"Hmmm."
I let the other man, the engineer, into the house to look at the meter, while I stood on the doorstep trying to convince the first guy I wasn't running a shady guest house that was at least three types of illegal and lying brazenly about it to his face. After offers to show multiple forms of ID, booking confirmations, the original online listing, and the contact information of the people who actually were running a shady operation, he decided to trust me. He took the phone numbers I offered and was about to make a call when the engineer came up out of the basement where the meter was. He looked ever so slightly shaken.
"Nothing we can do," he said to the first guy. "I am not touching that."
"What is it?"
"They've rigged it to get free electric like we thought, but the way they've done it... there's exposed wires everywhere, it looks like it might blow up any minute. I'm not touching it, it's not safe." He cast a glance at me.
"She doesn't live here," said the guy with the warrant.
"Get out," said the engineer. "I'm not kidding. That thing's a death trap."
As the engineer pulled out a phone to call his boss, the guy with the warrant took me to one side. "You need somewhere else to go. That guy's a qualified engineer, he's been doing the job ten years. If he won't touch it, it's dangerous. Legitimately this place might explode. You can't stay here, it's not safe."
Oh, for FUCK'S sake. "I don't have anywhere else to go."
"Find somewhere," he snapped.
They left, and I called the owners, wondering what on earth I could have done to invite this level of exhausting over-the-top stupidity into my life. "Hi, I'm renting a room from you at the moment. Um. The electric company showed up and said you're not a licensed guest house and you're accessing your electric illegally and that the house might explode."
"Oh," she said.
"So, obviously, I can't stay here."
"Why not?"
"Because the people who know about electricity said the house was going to explode?"
"Oh, that." She laughed. "No, it's fine."
"No, it's not fine. They said the house was going to explode!"
"No, it's fine."
"Look, I can't stay here. I've been told it's not safe."
"You can leave if you want to, but the place is fine, so you won't get a refund."
"You can't rent an exploding guest house!"
"It's not going to explode. No refunds."
I phoned the electric company.
"Hi. One of your engineers just came by the place I'm staying and said it was about to explode. Can I get that in writing so I can get a refund?"
"Uh... what?"
"Can you provide a written statement saying that this place is about to explode?"
"...I'm going to be honest, I've never been asked this question before. Can I get someone to call you back?"
I phoned my manager.
"Hi. So an engineer just showed up at the place I'm staying and said it might be about to explode and now I need to find somewhere else to live and am possibly having a mild panic attack."
I wish I could have seen his expression. I bet he would have beaten the guy with the warrant for Most Sceptical Look Ever on a Human Face. "So you're not coming in then."
"I would be of very little use, unless you need someone to sit under a desk and cry for five hours."
He sighed. "Fine."
I phoned my mother.
"Hi, Mum. This guest house is illegal and the engineer said it was going to explode and the people won't give me my money back and I don't know what to do."
"WHAT."
"What do I do?"
"YOU GET OUT OF THERE RIGHT NOW WE WILL GET YOU A HOTEL BUT YOU NEED TO LEAVE RIGHT THIS SECOND YOU DO NOT HAVE PERMISSION TO GET BLOWN UP."
"...okay."
My parents paid for two nights at a hotel, and my aching muscles gave me a talking-to. The chances of finding anywhere to stay in London within the next few days are slim to none, they told me, and you clearly, clearly cannot do this anymore. Stop it. My friends had been offering me their spare room for ages, but I'd kept turning it down because it was in Southend (and honestly, who lives in Southend? I know you're reading this, you're both ridiculous). I didn't want to have to commute into London every day, and I didn't want to be so far away from my social life, but I couldn't prioritise that anymore. The longer commute had to be better than lugging all of my things up and down escalators twice a day. A bed had to be better than a floor. Comfort and security had to be better than blindly hoping for somewhere to stay in zone 2. Staying with people I knew and liked and who probably weren't going to hate me after two weeks had to be worth leaving a few dances earlier than I'd have liked.
I took them up on their offer, and two days later my suitcase and I left London.
[in part five: the joys of commuting and a possible actual place to live]
Sunday, 23 November 2014
new
So NaNoWriMo didn't work. I'm not sure why. I got just about to my word count on the first day, skipped the second day, wrote 4,000 words on day three, and then got stuck. I couldn't think of anything I wanted to say. I didn't have a character I felt connected to, I didn't have a plot point I wanted to get to, I didn't have a setting I wanted to describe, I didn't even have a snarky conversation that amused me enough to write down (I pretty much always have snarky conversations. Whatever else my story might be about, you can always count on snarky conversations at completely inappropriate moments). I gave up trying ages ago, but I wasn't going to come back here until November was over because blogging in November rather than writing a novel would be an admission of... something. I have no idea how my brain works. But I've decided to work on the basis that writing stuff gets me closer to being a writer than sitting around thinking about how I can't write a novel.
I've been thinking for a little while that I need something new to learn. I've stagnated. The things that were new to me aren't new anymore, they're just an accepted part of my life. Which is great, I love these things. But the highest points of my adult life have come when I'm discovering a passion I didn't know I had. It makes me happier, it makes me braver, it makes me friendlier, and because of that other good things start happening to me at the same time.
The first time this happened to me was with the camera. I'd hated cameras throughout my entire childhood and would run away and cry when I saw one. I got used to taking silly photos of my friends in the pub after I left school, but I couldn't understand why anyone would bother taking photos of things. It just seemed like a waste of film. (Yep, film.) I hung on to my crap film camera way after most people had switched to digital. I even tracked down another crap film camera after my original one broke, and that was not an easy thing to do in 2007. I'd taken maybe two rolls of film with it before I acknowledged that no, this really was a crap camera and all the photos looked terrible and maybe I should admit defeat and look into this digital nonsense.
I bought a digital camera and took it to the zoo. After about 20 minutes photographing seals and being increasingly thrilled and delighted with what was happening, I decided my new camera was the best thing ever and started carting it round with me everywhere. Everything was a photo opportunity and I loved it. I photographed everything in sight for about eight months, but I don't remember any photos I took until this one:
It's nothing much. But at the time, I genuinely thought this was the most impressive fucking thing I'd ever done in my life. It's not just a photo of a thing I saw, there's forethought and viewpoint and some measure of artistic fucking merit in that thing. I got myself a Flickr account for the express purpose of putting that picture on the internet, and though I've deleted a fair few of my older photos, that one is there for good. First photo on Flickr. It means something to me.
I started researching. For the next year or so, the internet was composed of three things: photography tutorials and advice; other people's photography; and diary sites where I could blither on about photography and how amazing it was. I quickly came up against the limits of my camera, which was on the fancy end of point-and-shoot, and when my parents offered me a graduation present I asked for a DSLR. My mother asked if I was sure I wouldn't prefer a piano (an instrument I'd had one lesson on and hadn't touched since), but they gave me what I asked for.
I got my D60 in June 2008 and it's probably still my favourite thing that I own. We still go on walkabouts together, and my photos get better as I sharpen my understanding of my camera and its relationship to the world. Over the last six and a half years, my D60 and I have taken photos of friends, of family, of fireworks, of woodlands, of weddings, christenings and graduations, of Rome and Venice and Prague and Cancun and Las Vegas and New York, of beaches and zoos and cemeteries and mountaintops and of me doing stupid things in any or all of these places. My love of photography is still one of the most important things in my life.
But it's not new anymore. I don't have the rush that I got when I first started learning photography (or dance, or practical employment law). Coming to a new skill with zero background knowledge means that literally everything there is to know about that thing is sitting there waiting and I try to take in as much of it at once because of course I do. Then once I have very basic knowledge I start discovering all the other interconnected spheres and I start studying fashion photography (or spending hours on end amassing an enormous collection of blues music, or reading all the unnecessary case law I can get my hands on). I don't have time for anxiety or to second-guess myself, because I need every spare brain cell to learn as much as possible in the shortest amount of time. But the point comes where I basically know how it works, and now I have to get good at it. And that doesn't feel like a world full of barely-tapped possibilities; it's a slog. An enjoyable slog, but still a slog. Progress slows down to the point where I can't see it for myself anymore, and I start to see my own intrinsic limitations - things which I could work on, but probably never get over to the degree I'd like. I have no intention of abandoning the things I've learned at the point where it gets difficult, but I miss the newness. And I feel that if anything's going to pull me out of a stagnant patch, it's the newness that'll do it.
So now I need something new, completely new, to learn. I'm taking suggestions.
I've been thinking for a little while that I need something new to learn. I've stagnated. The things that were new to me aren't new anymore, they're just an accepted part of my life. Which is great, I love these things. But the highest points of my adult life have come when I'm discovering a passion I didn't know I had. It makes me happier, it makes me braver, it makes me friendlier, and because of that other good things start happening to me at the same time.
The first time this happened to me was with the camera. I'd hated cameras throughout my entire childhood and would run away and cry when I saw one. I got used to taking silly photos of my friends in the pub after I left school, but I couldn't understand why anyone would bother taking photos of things. It just seemed like a waste of film. (Yep, film.) I hung on to my crap film camera way after most people had switched to digital. I even tracked down another crap film camera after my original one broke, and that was not an easy thing to do in 2007. I'd taken maybe two rolls of film with it before I acknowledged that no, this really was a crap camera and all the photos looked terrible and maybe I should admit defeat and look into this digital nonsense.
I bought a digital camera and took it to the zoo. After about 20 minutes photographing seals and being increasingly thrilled and delighted with what was happening, I decided my new camera was the best thing ever and started carting it round with me everywhere. Everything was a photo opportunity and I loved it. I photographed everything in sight for about eight months, but I don't remember any photos I took until this one:
It's nothing much. But at the time, I genuinely thought this was the most impressive fucking thing I'd ever done in my life. It's not just a photo of a thing I saw, there's forethought and viewpoint and some measure of artistic fucking merit in that thing. I got myself a Flickr account for the express purpose of putting that picture on the internet, and though I've deleted a fair few of my older photos, that one is there for good. First photo on Flickr. It means something to me.
I started researching. For the next year or so, the internet was composed of three things: photography tutorials and advice; other people's photography; and diary sites where I could blither on about photography and how amazing it was. I quickly came up against the limits of my camera, which was on the fancy end of point-and-shoot, and when my parents offered me a graduation present I asked for a DSLR. My mother asked if I was sure I wouldn't prefer a piano (an instrument I'd had one lesson on and hadn't touched since), but they gave me what I asked for.
I got my D60 in June 2008 and it's probably still my favourite thing that I own. We still go on walkabouts together, and my photos get better as I sharpen my understanding of my camera and its relationship to the world. Over the last six and a half years, my D60 and I have taken photos of friends, of family, of fireworks, of woodlands, of weddings, christenings and graduations, of Rome and Venice and Prague and Cancun and Las Vegas and New York, of beaches and zoos and cemeteries and mountaintops and of me doing stupid things in any or all of these places. My love of photography is still one of the most important things in my life.
But it's not new anymore. I don't have the rush that I got when I first started learning photography (or dance, or practical employment law). Coming to a new skill with zero background knowledge means that literally everything there is to know about that thing is sitting there waiting and I try to take in as much of it at once because of course I do. Then once I have very basic knowledge I start discovering all the other interconnected spheres and I start studying fashion photography (or spending hours on end amassing an enormous collection of blues music, or reading all the unnecessary case law I can get my hands on). I don't have time for anxiety or to second-guess myself, because I need every spare brain cell to learn as much as possible in the shortest amount of time. But the point comes where I basically know how it works, and now I have to get good at it. And that doesn't feel like a world full of barely-tapped possibilities; it's a slog. An enjoyable slog, but still a slog. Progress slows down to the point where I can't see it for myself anymore, and I start to see my own intrinsic limitations - things which I could work on, but probably never get over to the degree I'd like. I have no intention of abandoning the things I've learned at the point where it gets difficult, but I miss the newness. And I feel that if anything's going to pull me out of a stagnant patch, it's the newness that'll do it.
So now I need something new, completely new, to learn. I'm taking suggestions.
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