My imaginary life: what I want to be

In getting my writing mojo (and all other mojo) back on track, I started reading a book that has made the rounds here and there in the last 10 years or so. (It might be more, I can't be bothered to look.)  It's called The Artist's Way and it's about self-discovery and all that.  I find the author a little "fluffy" but the ideas behind it are sound.

One challenge is to figure out what is blocking you from being the best and most creative person you can be. Every day, you are encouraged to write 3 pages of free flowing writing.  The idea to this is there is a lot of messed up crap inside our heads that needs to be tossed out. If we write it out first thing in the morning and never look at it again, we have clean space for the positive things.

I like it.



There are also tasks to complete each week. This week's question was:

If you had 5 alternate lives to create, what would you be in each of them?

I thought you might be interested in hearing my answers.

1. Writer -- I think I have always wanted to write. I remember finding a story I had written where the narrator was an old woman who was writing about being a writer even though no one read what she wrote. That is where my heart is in a lot of ways and yet I've never explored it beyond the walls of the internet.  I would like to write books and books and books and have people be touched by what I write, whether it is silly fiction or heartbreaking. 
2. Interior Designer -- I love choosing paint colours and themes. I always thought I would like to do that all the time. Pinterest helps. It's like designing a million rooms for a million people and never having to leave the house.
3. Police Officer -- This is the closest to real life. I really did intend to be a police officer when I started out.  I'm thankful it didn't work out that way, (especially after the *^R% polygraph) but the thought of putting on a uniform and a gun appeals to me still. When I was a teen, there was a period of time I wanted to be a sniper. I think that scared a lot of people.
4. Singer -- I like to sing. The Guy doesn't think I'm particularly good at it, but he's tone deaf, so I forgive him. In my perfect alternate reality, my sisters and I are a trio singing folk gospel type music. My youngest sister is the melody, while my middle sister and I sing duelling harmonies.  We would make Naomi Judd weep with jealousy.
5. Barrista -- This one might give you all pause. However, here is why. I love being a clerk in a service industry.  Not a restaurant or anything complicated, but a coffee shop would be perfect. A quick chat with customers, familiarity and humour, then get their stuff quick as a bunny and off they go. It's the perfect length of social interaction for me. (PS, I wrote barrista instead of coffee wench because it makes The Guy's head explode.)

So there it is. A list of what I want to be in a different life. Most of it is beyond my reach or will or ability. However, I could totally be a coffee wench. If only I could make a decent wage. You guys would tip well, right?

Quick! What would you be in your imaginary lives?

Radio silence

I've been quiet this past week. Apart from my rant against forced sexiness and my fingerless mittens pattern, I have struggled to write anything.

I promised myself I would not write if it was only to complain and not: a) be funny about it, or b) have a solution about it.  I also promised I would not write about work in any real or present way.

That made this last week one of enforced blog silence.

I have a difficult time writing when I am in the throws of something bad. Afterwards, I have no problem. I can see the end of it all and I have really great ability to deconstruct things once they are completed. Then I have wit and insight and understanding.

Until then, I'm just effing miserable.

However.

Since last week, I have gone back to seeing a counsellor. I have started a new series of books I am highly entertained by.  I have started reading a book on getting past hurts, unblocking myself from them, and finding a way to be creative while doing so. I have started cooking more things (more on that tomorrow... oy vey.)

I will likely have to start and restart things over and over again. But, I'm going to keep doing them.

The over-sexualization of everything

via

I get it. Sex sells.

Slap a pair of boobs on something and you will sell way more items than you might have otherwise.  You'll get more attention for whatever you're pushing.  Selling more, getting more attention is good.  I get it.

I don't know about you, but I'm tired of it.

Now, I'm no prude. I appreciate a good display of T &/or A as the situation calls for it. I've been known to rock some awesome cleavage myself.  However...

There is a time and a place.

I am tired of seeing sex being used to sell everything. Forced sexiness is not sexy. It is not appealing. In fact, I find it sad - like a washed up old woman still putting on mini-skirts and tons of makeup while she tries to convince the world she is really 25.

Everywhere we turn, things are being sold to us. Commercials, magazines, bill boards, or people; you name it, it's for sale. It also likely has something trying to convince you that it (and/or you) is sexy.

I do not need sex to eat Skittles. Skittles as a desirable STD is not what I am looking for. I don't need to think of M&Ms as sexy naked creatures. I don't need Honey Nut Cheerios to try and be hip.  I certainly don't need a mop getting lucky for me to want to purchase Swiffer.

I want to be appreciated for my brain. I want advertising to speak to my mind. I would rather watch a commercial that makes me think or laugh rather than something that just slaps a hot guy/girl on it and calls it a day. I feel like Sexy Advertising is just calling it in. It is like a ad exec said "I don't know what's good about this product. Just have a half naked girl in the commercial. I have a lunch date in 15 minutes."

If you have no choice but to make something sexy in order to sell it, then maybe it wasn't so great in the first place.

If it was, it wouldn't need it.

Ivory Hawk - fingerless gloves: A pattern by MayB

Since I learned how to knit almost 4 years ago, I have adapted many a pattern to suit my needs. It wasn't until I had a handful of gorgeous yarn and a friend requesting some fingerless gloves that I decided I just needed to do my own thing.

I made them, she loved them, and now I want to share the pattern with you. Aren't you lucky?

Now, if you aren't a knitter, you won't care. Just look at the pretty picture. If you are a knitter, these are easy whip up and lovely to wear. A great gift for someone you love.

These gloves are named after the yarn I used. I thought it suited them perfectly. I hope you think so too!

Ivory Hawk Fingerless Gloves

by Bronwyn MayB

Instructions:

Materials needed:

Yarn used: Comfy Worsted Yarn in Ivory and Hawk 1 ball each 50g

Needles: 4 DPN in 4.5mm, darning needle for finishing

Pattern:

Cast on 39 stitches in Hawk yarn

Row 1: K2 P1 repeat to end of row

Join in round, be careful not to twist.  Place marker to begin next round.

Row 2 – 10: Continue pattern for 10 rows total

Row 11: with Ivory yarn K2 P1 repeat to end of row

Row 12 – 21: Alternate Ivory and Hawk rows in pattern for 9 rows ending on an Ivory row. Cut Hawk yarn.

**Row 22: Thumb gusset setup for glove one– continuing in Ivory (K2 P1) x3, PM, M1, PM, K2 P1 to end (Note: thumb is in stocking stitch)

Row 23: K2 P1 repeat to end of row

Row 24: K2 P1 to marker, SM, M1, K to marker, M1, slip marker, K2 P1 to end

Row 25 – 34: repeat rows 23 and 24 until 13 stitches are between the thumb markers

Row 35: K2 P1 to marker, remove marker, place 13 stitches on waste yarn, remove marker, K2 P1 to end of row

Row 36 – 44: K2 P1, repeat to end of row

Row 45: with Hawk yarn, K2 P1, repeat to end of row

Row 46: with Ivory yarn, K2 P1, repeat to end of row

Row 47: repeat row 45

Row 48: repeat row 46. Cut Ivory at end of row.

Row 49-50: repeat row 45

Bind off loosely in pattern.

Thumb:

With Hawk yarn, pick up stitches from waste yarn and pick up two stitches from the body of the glove (15 stitches)

Knit 5 rows.  Bind off loosely.

**Row 22 for glove two thumb gusset setup: K2P1 to last 9 stitches, PM, M1, PM, K2 P1 to end of row

Have I mentioned you can like me on Facebook? Find me at I, MayB, at Knit Monkies OR follow me at Bronwyn.MayB and be updated on all my shananigans.

Working hard or hardly working

My 93 1/2 year old grandma has always been a worker. She is happiest when she is doing something productive.

This fall, Grandma was in her element.  She got to help my uncle get his yard ready for fall. She had assisted him in planting the flowers and talked about that for week, so when it came time to rake and mow and tidy, she was all over that.

Uncle sent me a couple of pictures of Grandma and included a video of her pushing a lawn mower twice her size. It was adorable. I haven't seen her as happy as that in awhile.

Wee Grandma loading a recycle bin that is bigger than her.

I was telling The Guy all about the picture and showed him the video. I told him how Grandma has always been happiest when she is working.

The Guy looked incredulously at me and said, "How are you related to her?"

My book report: The Fault in Our Stars

It's been a long time since I have done a book report. However, this book is worth staying up all night researching things, organizing my recipe cards of information, and colouring in my title page.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Have you ever read a book so powerful it made you feel as though there was nothing more than that book? That the pain and honesty and heartbreak of it was more than you could physically bear?

That is this book.

It is story about teens who meet through a cancer-supoport group and face all the horrors of cancer all while facing the worse horrors of teenage-dom.  It is a widely agreed upon fact that children should not have cancer. Cancer, if it has to happen at all, should be for people who have experienced things already, who have lived and loved and travelled. You shouldn't get your first cancer treatment before your first kiss.

Cancer is one of those words whispered when spoken. It always makes me think of the scene from St. Elmo's Fire when the mother keeps whispering words she finds scandalous: "cancer" and "prison" hiss from her mouth like the words themselves are poisonous.

This book not only talks about cancer, but about how it feels to have it and be left physically and emotionally altered for the rest of your life which might just be miserably short. It's about being a teenager and experiencing things teens experience which would be completely normal except that it's tempered with being terminal or even in remission.  You can't just be teen depressed or teen in love, it all has bigger meaning.

And yet, the book isn't even really about cancer. It's about finding out what is in the world, experiencing things in the world you should get to experience, and also the reality of the world versus our expectations of it. About our heroes, how we think they "get" us and yet, they too are just people who can disappoint. About how we can find it all and how short that "all" can last.

It's about how life just isn't effing fair.

This book is all that and more. I imagine it is different for every person who reads it. It is different for me experiencing it as someone who lost her mother to cancer. It would likely be different if I had read it as a teen versus an adult. It would likely be different for everyone.

When I finished this book, I sat and sobbed. I sobbed for the raw emotion it brought forth and the unfairness of life. I sobbed because it was an amazing book that I could never read for the first time again. I sobbed because I could never write anything as beautiful and as painful.

I wish I had never read it because no other book will be as good.  And that is why I normally stick with trashy romance.

Hard headed: my first assault on the job

My job with the public in human (social) services has been one filled with adventure and amusement. Most people hear about my work and wonder what kind of person I am to love it as much as I have. Crisis work has lead me to a personal body count, a knowledge of breaking into buildings, and more than one assaults on my person.

None of them are serious, so don't panic.

One of my favourite stories (apart from the time I watched the SWAT team clear a house) is from my first year in the field when I was assaulted.  By an old man.

Two old friends. Not my assailants.

I was green as the grass when I first started working at an advocacy agency that has long since been closed. My job was to go house to house and assess the living conditions. Our clients were poorest of the poor in terrible living conditions which they sometimes left worse.  On the off chance they didn't and were accused of it any way, I was there to make sure there was a record.

One day, I was visiting the home of a middle aged woman. Because of limited resources and a perceived lack of danger, I was on my own that day. I was not a threat, so thus was not considered likely to be threatened. I had already done many assessments without trouble.

I entered the house and was met by the woman at the door. On an old dilapidated couch, sat two old men whom she introduced as her uncles. I introduced myself, explained why I was present, and went about wandering the home looking for things.

Innocuous, right?

One of the old men didn't think so. He did not like a young, naive, bubbly white girl wandering around "judging" things. He mumbled about spoiled brats like me and told me I should get out. The woman told him to be quiet and encouraged me to get my assessment done. I wasn't worried and continued about my way.

I was dumb like that.

Looking back, I'm sure the old man was drunk as a rat. At the time, it didn't dawn on me. I was still learning about the ins and outs of poverty and how people coped with that life.  Now, I would have backed out of the house and made arrangements to come back. No big deal.

I continued my assessment - making notes on my clipboard (oh, Social Workers and their infernal clipboards) - and turned to go into another room.  I heard some motion and a slight whistling noise.

It didn't register what was happening until something thunked against my skull. It didn't hurt, but I whipped around nonetheless.  On the floor beside me was an empty, plastic lotion bottle. The kind with the blue twist on pump.

The old man had hurled it across the room and hit me in the head.  However, being that he was old and likely inebriated - and the bottle was empty and plastic - it barely made to to me and lightly bounced off my skull.

I did what any normal person would do. I burst out laughing.

It must have been the right thing to do because everyone laughed. I finished up my assessment and, when I left, I got a handshake and an offer of a hug.

I love my line of work.