Wednesday, 1 April 2015
progress
Three weeks down, four to go. I'm not sure if this is working, but I plan to keep going just in case it is.
Tuesday, 31 March 2015
acrobatics
Following my first ever acrobatics class:
My hips hurt.
My forearms hurt.
My neck and shoulders REALLY hurt.
My quads and hamstrings hurt.
My lower abs hurt.
A bunch of weird little muscles in weird places hurt.
But also two people lay down in front of me and I did a forward roll over them, which makes me practically a stuntwoman or something.
My hips hurt.
My forearms hurt.
My neck and shoulders REALLY hurt.
My quads and hamstrings hurt.
My lower abs hurt.
A bunch of weird little muscles in weird places hurt.
But also two people lay down in front of me and I did a forward roll over them, which makes me practically a stuntwoman or something.
Monday, 30 March 2015
the critical voice, part one
(This is an experiment I'm trying. I don't know how long this series will last or even where I'm trying to take it, but I have a problem I'd like to work out and you can come with me, if you choose to.)
When I was little, my parents sent me to swimming lessons at our local pool. I quite liked the water, but swimming wasn't particularly intuitive to me, and I wasn't really getting it. I don't remember much at all about those lessons, until a few weeks in when the teacher then ordered all but three of us out of the pool and lined them up along the edge.
"Now," he said, pointing to the three of us still in the water, "you watch them swimming, and tell them what they're doing wrong."
They started with me. I don't think they ever got to the other two kids. The teacher called on various children to shout out what I was doing wrong, and since I still couldn't swim at all, there were a lot of things. My four-year-old brain became very quickly overloaded, at which point they all, teacher included, triumphantly chorused that I was putting my feet on the bottom of the pool.
"That's right! You can't swim like that, can you?"
This is still a fairly accurate description of the way the world looks to me sometimes. I'm trying to do something and the whole world is lined up on the edge of the swimming pool, waiting and encouraged to spot what I'm doing wrong and point it out to everyone. An unidentified someone is that swimming teacher, directing everyone's attention to me, telling them I'm probably the one that will screw up the most (I've forgiven most of the people who were callous to me as a child, but if I ever knowingly meet that swimming teacher, I will actually shout at him. Who the fuck thinks that's a good way to get a four-year-old to be a confident swimmer? I didn't learn to swim for another ten years, long after people had stopped trying to teach me). I thought for a long while that seeing the world as that swimming pool was the reason I am so stupidly, unreasonably self-critical, and it's only recently I've started to realise that's not the root of the problem.
A week or so ago, I typed "dealing with the critical voice" into a search engine, hoping to find something a bit more helpful than my therapist's exhortations to "be a bit nicer to yourself". There were a lot of descriptions of the critical voice, all way more nuanced than "kid at the side of the swimming pool". They described a critical voice positioning itself as supportive and encouraging, often saying nice things, recommending rewards, and generally sounding as much like a force for good as anything can.
My critical voice thinks I'm a great person. An embarrassingly great person. My critical voice tells me, with absolute sincerity, that I am incredibly smart and talented and there's nothing I can't do. My critical voice believes in my writing more than almost anyone I've ever met. It's convinced that I have it in me to be exceptional, and often when I read books that voice will be there, saying get a load of this crap. Can you believe this got published? You're so much better than this, when you get your novel written it's going to blow everyone away.
Sometimes I try something and I can't do it. My critical voice, which has already crafted several images of me doing that thing perfectly, says, Hmmm. That was bad. Try again. So I do, and I fail, and the voice says, That's strange. It really doesn't look that hard. I fail again, and it says Really? I mean, really? That's three times. Look how easy it is for other people to do this. You're definitely better than some of these people, but you can't even do this simple thing? Wow.
Eventually, I get upset and frustrated and discouraged, and the voice says, There, there. I'm sure it's an off-day. Let's get you something you like. How about sitting on your own and eating cake? You like those things.
I've written a few things that my critical voice is absolutely 100% happy with. Yes, it says. This, right here, this is the writer that you are. This is amazing. I knew you could do it. Problem is, that thing is usually a few pages of a novel. When I try to add more to it, the voice is sitting there saying no, no, this isn't right. Look at that awesome stuff you wrote. You're letting that writing down with this stuff. No, it's alright, I understand it might take a little while to get into the flow, I'll wait. Hmmm, I thought you'd have it by now. This is still all wrong. If anything it's getting worse. Maybe you should stop, you're obviously not in the right place tonight. Maybe have some cake, replenish a bit, reward yourself for trying.
I hate this bastard voice. It makes me feel like a massive egotist and a complete failure at the same time. This the first time I've tried to define it this way; I've been aware of it for a long time, but I always thought of it as two voices, one trying to be encouraging and the other beating me down. It makes sense that's it's the same voice, the same incredibly reasonable, logical voice, making a case for me to be the very greatest or the most useless, which is it going to be?
Writing my way through a problem has historically helped me solve it at least 90% of the time. But this isn't "we had this fight" or "do I choose this thing or the other thing?", this is a long-standing part of my psyche and I don't think one post is going to do it, unless it were four hundred years long (not including musical interludes). So I'm going to try and write my way through my critical voice over the course of a few weeks or months or however long it takes and see if I can find myself any answers.
When I was little, my parents sent me to swimming lessons at our local pool. I quite liked the water, but swimming wasn't particularly intuitive to me, and I wasn't really getting it. I don't remember much at all about those lessons, until a few weeks in when the teacher then ordered all but three of us out of the pool and lined them up along the edge.
"Now," he said, pointing to the three of us still in the water, "you watch them swimming, and tell them what they're doing wrong."
They started with me. I don't think they ever got to the other two kids. The teacher called on various children to shout out what I was doing wrong, and since I still couldn't swim at all, there were a lot of things. My four-year-old brain became very quickly overloaded, at which point they all, teacher included, triumphantly chorused that I was putting my feet on the bottom of the pool.
"That's right! You can't swim like that, can you?"
This is still a fairly accurate description of the way the world looks to me sometimes. I'm trying to do something and the whole world is lined up on the edge of the swimming pool, waiting and encouraged to spot what I'm doing wrong and point it out to everyone. An unidentified someone is that swimming teacher, directing everyone's attention to me, telling them I'm probably the one that will screw up the most (I've forgiven most of the people who were callous to me as a child, but if I ever knowingly meet that swimming teacher, I will actually shout at him. Who the fuck thinks that's a good way to get a four-year-old to be a confident swimmer? I didn't learn to swim for another ten years, long after people had stopped trying to teach me). I thought for a long while that seeing the world as that swimming pool was the reason I am so stupidly, unreasonably self-critical, and it's only recently I've started to realise that's not the root of the problem.
A week or so ago, I typed "dealing with the critical voice" into a search engine, hoping to find something a bit more helpful than my therapist's exhortations to "be a bit nicer to yourself". There were a lot of descriptions of the critical voice, all way more nuanced than "kid at the side of the swimming pool". They described a critical voice positioning itself as supportive and encouraging, often saying nice things, recommending rewards, and generally sounding as much like a force for good as anything can.
My critical voice thinks I'm a great person. An embarrassingly great person. My critical voice tells me, with absolute sincerity, that I am incredibly smart and talented and there's nothing I can't do. My critical voice believes in my writing more than almost anyone I've ever met. It's convinced that I have it in me to be exceptional, and often when I read books that voice will be there, saying get a load of this crap. Can you believe this got published? You're so much better than this, when you get your novel written it's going to blow everyone away.
Sometimes I try something and I can't do it. My critical voice, which has already crafted several images of me doing that thing perfectly, says, Hmmm. That was bad. Try again. So I do, and I fail, and the voice says, That's strange. It really doesn't look that hard. I fail again, and it says Really? I mean, really? That's three times. Look how easy it is for other people to do this. You're definitely better than some of these people, but you can't even do this simple thing? Wow.
Eventually, I get upset and frustrated and discouraged, and the voice says, There, there. I'm sure it's an off-day. Let's get you something you like. How about sitting on your own and eating cake? You like those things.
I've written a few things that my critical voice is absolutely 100% happy with. Yes, it says. This, right here, this is the writer that you are. This is amazing. I knew you could do it. Problem is, that thing is usually a few pages of a novel. When I try to add more to it, the voice is sitting there saying no, no, this isn't right. Look at that awesome stuff you wrote. You're letting that writing down with this stuff. No, it's alright, I understand it might take a little while to get into the flow, I'll wait. Hmmm, I thought you'd have it by now. This is still all wrong. If anything it's getting worse. Maybe you should stop, you're obviously not in the right place tonight. Maybe have some cake, replenish a bit, reward yourself for trying.
I hate this bastard voice. It makes me feel like a massive egotist and a complete failure at the same time. This the first time I've tried to define it this way; I've been aware of it for a long time, but I always thought of it as two voices, one trying to be encouraging and the other beating me down. It makes sense that's it's the same voice, the same incredibly reasonable, logical voice, making a case for me to be the very greatest or the most useless, which is it going to be?
Writing my way through a problem has historically helped me solve it at least 90% of the time. But this isn't "we had this fight" or "do I choose this thing or the other thing?", this is a long-standing part of my psyche and I don't think one post is going to do it, unless it were four hundred years long (not including musical interludes). So I'm going to try and write my way through my critical voice over the course of a few weeks or months or however long it takes and see if I can find myself any answers.
Sunday, 29 March 2015
signs
Things have felt a little overwhelming today. But I have a three-day week followed by a four-day weekend, my schedule is nicely busy without being overcrowded, and I have a chocolate caterpillar that I don't intend to share with anyone. If any signs were to point to a less confusing time ahead, these would be those signs.
Saturday, 28 March 2015
missing
For a year and a half, the most important thing in my life was dance. I went to any and every dance class or social I got a sniff of, and as many festivals as I could afford (and some I couldn't). All of my friends were dancers, and I went to everything, dance-related or not, that they invited me to. It was my life's infrastructure. Well, I'm never free on Tuesdays or Thursdays, probably not Wednesdays either. Last Friday of every month is out. Second Sunday of every month is out. I don't know how healthy or sensible that was, but I was busy and happy and had no desire for change.
I've lost that recently. I went for well over a year without missing a single one of my Tuesday classes, and now I go to maybe half, if that. I haven't been to Thursday classes in months. I go to socials infrequently, and usually leave early. I sold my ticket for the one festival I was planning to go to. It's even hard to enjoy stupid bouncy dancing in my bedroom at the moment. I don't quite know how to cope without that, because it's one of my default comfort behaviours and has been since I was a kid, but dancing just isn't fun anymore.
Maybe it's the dance. I've got stuck. In terms of steps and moves, there's not a huge amount more I can learn, and in terms of technique, I've been learning from the same (excellent) teachers for two years, and if they haven't been able to explain it to me by now I'm probably not going to get it from them. Maybe I'm bored of the moves and the music and it's draining my love for dance as a whole.
Maybe it's the scene. Where we once had a group of people learning stuff and having fun, we now have competitions and auditions and troupes and teachers in training. People practise and rehearse rather than dance. Teachers pick favourites and don't know how to hide it. Friends and acquaintances have long, detailed conversations in which they try to pin down their exact dance level in relation to other people we know, and discuss dance like it's our profession, not our hobby. Maybe that's been sucking all the fun out of it.
Maybe it's my body. I'm frustrated at my limitations, limitations other people don't seem to have because they came into this dance with years of learning technique in a different discipline, rather than what I did, which was just show up to a class after spending the vast majority of my adult life sitting on my arse thinking about aubergines. I'm analysing every move I make, trying to persuade myself to take up other dances to get this technique stuff and make my dancing look prettier, so maybe I'm sucking all the fun out of it.
Maybe it's my priorities. When I started dancing I had a dying relationship, almost no friends in the city, and an ache for interaction that had been growing for years. Two years later I have a very healthy relationship and friends that I believe I would keep even if I never danced another step again, so maybe the need is gone. Maybe I never really loved dance as much as I thought I did.
Maybe it's my head. Anxiety is getting in the way of a lot of things right now. Maybe that's all this is, and when I learn how to control it, dancing will be fun again.
It might be any, or all, of these things. There isn't really a fix for any of them, at least not within my power right now, which leaves me without a passion acting as the driver for my life. I'm not good at handling life without that driver. For some reason I can't drive it myself, so it either goes careening off into some bushes or I freak out and stop the whole thing. I wrote in November about needing a new thing, and I've tried several since then. I've enjoyed them all enough to keep going with them; I have made an improbable number of cushion covers this month. But none of them have gripped me in the way I'm looking for. I think about what I've done and where I could go next - dressmaking! Kickboxing belts! - and I don't feel enthused, just scared and a bit sad.
There's something missing. I've tried to fill the empty place but it doesn't want to be filled. Is that because my love of dance will come back, somehow, and doesn't want anything else to crowd it out, or is this a bigger problem? I don't know. Either way, it kind of hurts.
I've lost that recently. I went for well over a year without missing a single one of my Tuesday classes, and now I go to maybe half, if that. I haven't been to Thursday classes in months. I go to socials infrequently, and usually leave early. I sold my ticket for the one festival I was planning to go to. It's even hard to enjoy stupid bouncy dancing in my bedroom at the moment. I don't quite know how to cope without that, because it's one of my default comfort behaviours and has been since I was a kid, but dancing just isn't fun anymore.
Maybe it's the dance. I've got stuck. In terms of steps and moves, there's not a huge amount more I can learn, and in terms of technique, I've been learning from the same (excellent) teachers for two years, and if they haven't been able to explain it to me by now I'm probably not going to get it from them. Maybe I'm bored of the moves and the music and it's draining my love for dance as a whole.
Maybe it's the scene. Where we once had a group of people learning stuff and having fun, we now have competitions and auditions and troupes and teachers in training. People practise and rehearse rather than dance. Teachers pick favourites and don't know how to hide it. Friends and acquaintances have long, detailed conversations in which they try to pin down their exact dance level in relation to other people we know, and discuss dance like it's our profession, not our hobby. Maybe that's been sucking all the fun out of it.
Maybe it's my body. I'm frustrated at my limitations, limitations other people don't seem to have because they came into this dance with years of learning technique in a different discipline, rather than what I did, which was just show up to a class after spending the vast majority of my adult life sitting on my arse thinking about aubergines. I'm analysing every move I make, trying to persuade myself to take up other dances to get this technique stuff and make my dancing look prettier, so maybe I'm sucking all the fun out of it.
Maybe it's my priorities. When I started dancing I had a dying relationship, almost no friends in the city, and an ache for interaction that had been growing for years. Two years later I have a very healthy relationship and friends that I believe I would keep even if I never danced another step again, so maybe the need is gone. Maybe I never really loved dance as much as I thought I did.
Maybe it's my head. Anxiety is getting in the way of a lot of things right now. Maybe that's all this is, and when I learn how to control it, dancing will be fun again.
It might be any, or all, of these things. There isn't really a fix for any of them, at least not within my power right now, which leaves me without a passion acting as the driver for my life. I'm not good at handling life without that driver. For some reason I can't drive it myself, so it either goes careening off into some bushes or I freak out and stop the whole thing. I wrote in November about needing a new thing, and I've tried several since then. I've enjoyed them all enough to keep going with them; I have made an improbable number of cushion covers this month. But none of them have gripped me in the way I'm looking for. I think about what I've done and where I could go next - dressmaking! Kickboxing belts! - and I don't feel enthused, just scared and a bit sad.
There's something missing. I've tried to fill the empty place but it doesn't want to be filled. Is that because my love of dance will come back, somehow, and doesn't want anything else to crowd it out, or is this a bigger problem? I don't know. Either way, it kind of hurts.
Friday, 27 March 2015
A Statute for those who are born in Parts beyond the Sea
For some reason I've been given access to a fancy legal database, and rather than take the opportunity to learn anything I just started searching it for things with funny names. 13th Century statutes and people called Oozageer and remarkably improbable neighbourhood disputes. I expect to have fun next week.
Thursday, 26 March 2015
blue
My laptop is dying. It's been dying very slowly for a good few years now. First it decided it didn't like sharing WiFi with other laptops and would freeze or shut itself off after two minutes online (I've never found out why this is, it's done it on a dozen different private networks). Then the screen died and I had to get an internal part replaced. Then it died entirely and a nerd magicked it back to life. Then the power cord died. Then the screen started going black when tilted at certain angles. Then all the white space stopped being white at all but two very specific and precise angles of the screen, one of which only exists fifty per cent of the time and the other of which requires the laptop to be practically shut. I haven't replaced it, because it turns out laptops are bastard expensive.
My boyfriend has been offering for months to lend me his old laptop. Which is a Mac.
Me: But I don't get Macs. There aren't any buttons and you scroll the wrong way and dragging and dropping is impossible.
Him: It's fine. They're just computers. They're very easy to use once you get used to the couple of differences.
He scrubbed all his stuff off the old Mac and gave it to me yesterday. Today I tried to do some work on it. Tried.
Me: Uh... help.
Him: What's up?
Me: It went blue.
Him: Huh?
Me: I tried to save it and it went blue.
Him: It went blue?
Me: And all the words have gone.
[he investigates laptop]
Him: Yep, that's gone blue. I've no idea what you did there.
Me: I thought you said Macs were easy to use.
Him: Oh, fuck off.
My boyfriend has been offering for months to lend me his old laptop. Which is a Mac.
Me: But I don't get Macs. There aren't any buttons and you scroll the wrong way and dragging and dropping is impossible.
Him: It's fine. They're just computers. They're very easy to use once you get used to the couple of differences.
He scrubbed all his stuff off the old Mac and gave it to me yesterday. Today I tried to do some work on it. Tried.
Me: Uh... help.
Him: What's up?
Me: It went blue.
Him: Huh?
Me: I tried to save it and it went blue.
Him: It went blue?
Me: And all the words have gone.
[he investigates laptop]
Him: Yep, that's gone blue. I've no idea what you did there.
Me: I thought you said Macs were easy to use.
Him: Oh, fuck off.
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