Freaked out on Mars

One of the books I seem to tell people about fairly often is 'An Anthropologist on Mars'.

It's written by Oliver Sacks who also wrote 'The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat' and is the guy who Robin Williams played in 'Awakenings'. It's 16 years old now and it must be at least 10 since I first read it but several of the stories really got stuck in my brain and there's one in particular I keep going back to. To put it into context, the book is a series of case studies looking at people who have some sort of brain abnormality, either something caused by an accident or illness or something they were born with. There's a daredevil surgeon with asperger's syndrome, a buddha like religious convert with a grapefruit style brain tumour and then there is a woman, an expert in her field, who has autism.

The field this woman is an expert in is the human slaughtering of animals for human consumption. She lectures about it all over the world, consults widely, is credited with patents and so on, but she is not comfortable with people and is seemingly incapable of forming relationships. One of the things she has invented is a device that holds a pig securely but without cruelty so that it can be killed accurately and quickly without unnecessary suffering. Although she doesn't feel comfortable getting close to people, she recognises the psychological benefits of things like hugs, so she builds one of these machines for herself, and sometimes she wriggles into it and it gently compresses around her and hugs her.

*hug*

I'm flat hunting. It's depressing. Pooch has got a place in a house on stilts surrounded by water in which ducks and swans swim. We used to walk there on sundays sometimes and say how cool it would be to live there. I am pleased he has somewhere nice sorted out but also fairly gutted. All I really want to do at the moment is sit in bed drinking champagne and having the occasional cry. I guess that makes me Elizabeth Taylor circa 1970. But you guys can call me Liz.

It's what's inside that counts

It's not the skin, it's the 'nana.

I've written this post so many times in my head now. It basically comes down to the fact that in trying to protect people, myself included, I have hurt myself and apparently hurt them too. 

Shame is also involved though. Big fat shame. My own shame. Shame that started off as a response to being cheated on two years ago, then warped into shame at my own emotional response to being cheated on, then ended up as shame again in response to a conversation I was never meant to hear and which marked the end of my marriage. 

Public vs Private is another element. My marriage ended on 1st October so my life now is not very similar to what it was on, say 30th September. I have been using twitter for maybe a year. I've been blogging for about six. And while my blog started off as almost a personal diary it changed and become more private after I got married. Except of course now I am not really married. Except I am legally, just not practically. I am meeting new people and doing different things, but Pooch is through his own choice still reading this blog and my tweets. And so while what happened and what has happened since is something I want to refer to he's not comfortable with that and thinks it should be kept private. 

This week has really been one hell of a week. The kind of week you just don't want to have too often. Work pressures, an argument with Pooch, all underpinned by PMT such as you get let off murder charges for. And one of the things that made it worse was my mistaken efforts at shielding others from the truth crumbling in a quite spectacular fashion. If I had just been honest about the reasons for my marriage breakdown then I wouldn't have had the stress of it all coming out recently, and wouldn't have felt the isolation I have felt by keeping things from people, even though I realise this was self-imposed. 

So what should I do? This is my blog and I'm starting a new life which is, I assume, going to involve dating and the rest. Last night I went to a friend's house for dinner. It was a low key chill out thing for both of us since he works long hours and socialises hard during the week and I was just burnt out after the week described above. 

This friend and I had a few rebound type encounters in December but we were both clear that it was just one of those things and so that side of things is over. Pooch knows this but he does not like any mention of this friend. But if I spend time with someone and something that I want to blog about happens, how much should I consider Pooch's feelings and not make any reference to it online (which seems to include not tweeting at them) and how much should I just get on with it? 

Pooch is not going to be happy about me putting this much online, but I am increasingly feeling like I'm approaching a point where I might want to try out dating. I'm not there yet, but I think in another month or so I will be. And I don't need the stress of living a double life and trying to remember what I've told to who. So...this is it. Stage 1 of this whole process was when I moved out and was in a state of shock where eating and sleeping went haywire and I just couldn't believe what was happening. Stage 2 was when I accepted that the marriage was really over and started making serious plans for the future. Stage 3 is now. I am single and I'll be blogging as a single person from now on. That doesn't necessarily mean the content of this blog will change at all, but it does mean I'm not going to censor myself from now on.

I won't be doing it with the intention of hurting anyone, or scoring points or getting revenge. I'll just be doing what I've always done - which is blogging (and tweeting) about my life.

When a blog post really speaks to you

I have a friend who follows people on twitter so he can scoff at what they say because he considers them to be so laughable.

Personally I only follow 62 people and I only follow them because I want to read what they say. One of these is @bigtangle and not only did a totally unexpected and awesome thank you present arrive from her yesterday in the post, she also tweeted about a friend of her's blogpost. I am so glad she did - because I reckon that post was written mainly for me.

This is the post. 

If you've ever had any kind of set back and needed to pick yourself up, you should read this post. 

After reading the post I turned to my trusty iPhone and my ListPro app and created a to do list based on that post.

Bit geeky I know, but...I went to bed early last night. Sadly was woken up early too by noise outside but it was a good start. Then I decided to make myself happy with Dim Sum and I faced up to a scary something by going by myself. I have also washed my hair in readiness for changing my appearance overnight using the 'curls without heat' tutorial from here. And I found that tutorial on Pinterest, which just makes me happy generally.

That bit about permission to quit is a really good point to keep in mind. It makes me think of my previous post about marshmallows and decluttering. It also reminds me of the half finished afghan I posted off to a worthy recipient yesterday. It was one I had been making as part of my nest building activities but I got it out again a few weeks ago and knew I just didn't want to finish it. So it has gone, and I have started a replacement.

I'm using stash yarn and it's a pattern I've made twice before - once for a friend going through some tough times and once for a sister doing ditto. And now it's my turn. It's a free pattern - Starghan - and very easy to follow. It's also relaxing and simple and so probably counts towards my 'finish uncomplicated thing' task.

One other thing has made me happy already today and that is the boat ride to and from the dim sum restaurant. It is only one stop on the Thames Clipper but it's lovely to watch the river and travel on it, especially in the sunshine.

Plus it reminded me of the river crossing after my hot air balloon ride in Luxor.

I want to go back there in March and will find out tomorrow whether my request for 20 days leave will be accepted. Fingers crossed.

Low Marshmallow Tolerance

I was reminded today of the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment. To summarise, small children were given the choice between a single marshmallow now or, if they waited by themselves in a room with the marshmallows for fifteen minutes without eating one, they could have two. 

A third of the children could 'defer gratification' long enough to get a second marshmallow. Follow up studies showed that the children who did resist at 4 years old later performed better in school and achieved more as adults. 

I find this interesting because up until about two years ago I was unable to metaphorically and literally resist the marshmallow. If there was chocolate or sweets in the house, I would eat them. Equally, if I had the option of buying myself a present now, and saving the money and buying something better later, I would always buy now. That also only changed about two years ago. 

One way to 'explain' a habit like that is to claim that you collect things. This is what I did. 

I had a yarn collection, a knitting book collection, a vintage haberdashery book collection, a collection of all the books written by various mystery authors, a bead collection, a button collection, a fabric collection, a collection of necklaces, a pen collection, a collection of notebooks, a bag collection, a ribbon collection and probably others that I've forgotten about. 

Adding to any of these collections didn't count as mindless acquisition of small and largely unnecessary objects - it was adding to my collections. And often I felt like if I didn't buy them and collect them they'd be lost forever. That made it not only fun to buy, but also my responsibility to do so.

I don't know what it was that happened to help me realise that, actually, I wasn't responsible for keeping these things archived, and that they were holding me back. It's not something that happened overnight and it's something I still remind myself of as I continue to declutter and weed my collections in readiness for moving. But I'm gradually getting there.

It's been a funny week. Pooch stayed in the spare room for a few nights partly so we had a chance to talk and maybe even get some of that magical 'closure'. It was good for both of us and while it confirms that our marriage is over, it leaves us both freer to move on. 

Coughing through a Crisis

So that is that. I have just been ill and coughed my way through the whole of christmas and the whole of the 5 days I was supposed to have volunteered at Crisis for Christmas. I am so annoyed about it I could spit. I am bored but mostly too knackered to do anything and about once an hour I have a coughing fit. Nice.

As I tweeted a day or so ago, it is a terrible idea to cast on your own design when you are ill. Because you'll do something mindnumbingly stupid - like casting on the waist measurements instead of the hip measurement. And when you have my kind of figure, that's the kind of negative ease you would usually only see on a Beryl Cook painting. 

So this is where I'd got to...

That's about 3 inches in sock yarn on 3mm needles. All now ripped back and an extra 20% of stitches cast on and 2 rows done. So fecking annoying. The garment itself is destined to be a raglan ripple cardigan using left over sock yarn, of which like all sock knitters, I seem to have endless amounts. The ripple is a very simple one like that for Jaywalker and is just *kfb k5 sl2k1psso k5 kfb* alternated with a purl row.

I quite like it and going bottom up means  I'll have time to contemplate how exactly I'm going to do the raglan bit. Time will tell. Bodging will no doubt come into it. 

Although I haven't been able to do much around the flat because of being so exhausted, I have put the advert up for a flatmate online. It was pretty upsetting to do because it seems like another great big nail in the marriage coffin, to get all maudlin about it. Pooch has several times said that I've clearly made my mind up and am convinced it is over between us and in one way that is very true. I do not think there is any way it can work out between us now, but that doesn't mean I'm happy about it, and that there isn't an irrational part of me that wishes things could be different. But there are no time machines, and such thoughts are just a kind of internal torture that I guess affects everyone who has ever grieved for the loss of anything.

All in all am trying to remain positive but as the year comes to an end it's all a bit miserable, and with no plans for new year it could be a very quiet start to 2011.

Ill

By now I should be at the Crisis Ops Centre half way into my second day of volunteering. Instead I am half way into my 4th day of flu like thing. Haven't seen anyone since got back from work on thursday afternoon. Have barely made a dent on my Quality Street.

Although I did have a bit of a play and make them into a spiral. 

Bit sad really but gave me something to do on one of my brief stints out of bed. 

It's nearing the end of 2010 and so I've been thinking about my blog book. 

It'll be my 6th and probably the one with the widest ranging contents. I've used Blurb for each of them. They have a tool that slurps the blog posts and some years the pictures too into a basic format and then you just take it from there. I always used to look forward to reviewing all my posts and going back through photos but this time it's going to be a tad upsetting. I spoke to Pooch yesterday which was nice but also very sad. There he was with his lovely family and here I was in bed feeling like death and on my own. Bit glum making.

Ah well. 

Before I completely run out of puff (I know this blog post is boring but I am literally too knackered to think of anything remotely interesting to say) let me show you two FOs. The first is a baby hoody for a little one due in January. 

Exceptionally simple pattern and free too. On Ravelry here. The second is my dad's christmas jumper. 

I used a standard raglan pattern but added this lovely saxon cable up the arms. Sadly, it's still here with me since I was supposed to be meeting up with that side of my family on thursday but had to cancel because of my cold. 

OK, enough misery. Back to bed.

Holidays are Coming

Two vital ingredients of my christmas have arrived chez byrne.

I never used to like Champagne. Now, I definitely do, but I can't help thinking that it would not be a good idea to drink it a bottle at a time by myself when I have to get up at 5.30am from the 25th-29th for my volunteering.

I now have a sponsorship page for Crisis at Christmas so if you have a pound to spare...that's the page. It would be lovely to raise £100 and I have £20 online and £20 offline already so literally £1 will be appreciated.

Thanks for your kind wishes and thoughts about my poor relationship. It's really meant a lot. Fortunately, whatever the tragedy, one can at least attempt to knit through it. And with a friend with a first baby due in January this is what I have been working on the last week or so.

I'm thinking toggles for the buttons with i-cord loops to fasten them. The pattern is a free one from Pure & Simple whose patterns are....pure and simple. Nuff said. Top down and seamless with lots of scope for adding flourishes if you want to.

Along with the champagne, muppets and the slow-cooked gammon I have planned, I happened to be in Fortnum and Mason on Monday when I saw these little gems. I adore marzipan fruits.

Normally I am a traditionalist and like them to actually look like fruit, but I couldn't resist these.

Sadly I had to open the box to take the photo and...they're half gone. But I will be strong! At least one will make it to xmas day itself ;)

Finally some Finished Objects

I have finished my Inaugural Sweater, by Annarella. 

I really like it although typically I've made the sleeves a tad short. Need to wet block it some more to sort them out. I've also finished my Mum's Cardi which I started in September. Um, 2009. So it's only 1 xmas late. Since this photo I've blocked and added little pewter elephant buttons. 

I did a bit of shopping in Greenwich and came away with these. 

Little knitted wire xmas decos. I also got this astonishingly beautiful hairclip. Also here on Pinterest.

Aren't they amazing? This is the designer who told me she doesn't sell online (I told her she really should) but that she's always happy to take orders and commissions. To give you an idea the hairclip was £3.50 so we're not talking megabucks. I've had my hair redone (I had about an inch of roots) and so it looks pretty fab against the dark red, though I say so myself. 

It's been a pretty rocky week really. Pooch and I met up on Wednesday and agreed to make our separation permanent, so the legal stuff will start in the new year. We're both very sad about it and trying to stay friendly while also trying not to upset each other. It's fairly impossible to achieve but we're still trying. 

Two Give Aways

Sadly the cat in the last post wasn't mine. But I have been adding more books to Bookmooch and so these could all be yours....for free. There's no catch. I just want to destash. Below are the most recent 10 I've listed. There are loads more.

BookMooch.com is a book trade site

My second giveaway concerns Pinterest, which I blogged about a few weeks back.

I've been using their site almost daily since then and am loving it more and more. As a xmas present to users they've given us all 6 invites for others wanting to skip the hefty waiting list. If you'd like to give it a go leave a comment with your email address or email me at littleixieathotmaildotcom.

Fancy any of these books for free?

I have occasionally mentioned Bookmooch before. I love it. You list books and people request them and you post them off. Then you request other people's books and they post them to you. No money involved. No hassle.

So this morning I started listing all the books and patterns I am destashing. They can be yours - for free! All you need to do is go to bookmooch and list 10 books you want to give away (they can be literally anything). Then you can search for my books and I'll post them to you free. 

Swap your books at BookMooch.com

Now just to be fair - my account is currently set up to only post to people in the UK. But if you are further afield and want a book leave me a comment with your bookmooch name and I'll reserve it for you so you can mooch it. Can't say fairer than that. 

 

Write your own story...

I was in a meeting earlier today and out of the window I could see these little footsteps.

 

It inspired a Scheherazadian diluge of stories to occur to me. Plus, if you follow them backwards, it looks like lots of little planes on a curvy runway. 

I'll leave you to create your own story...

It's cold outside

According to my phone is was -2 when I got up this morning. Far too nippy to get out of bed, but then a quick dance round the room to Nina Simone singing 'Feeling Good' and I was fine. When I did venture out the Dock had frozen. 

The seagulls always seem to handle this quite well, but the Coots, with their skeletal feet, just cannot walk on ice and end up staggering around like little drunkards. As I was walking past I could see the bubbles caught under the ice, looking like beautiful polka dots. 

I had gone out to go to Craftacular in Bethnal Green. (One of the things to do from my last post.) It was soooo crowded and so not the best place to be as you couldn't help jostling and being jostled. But I did get a lovely present for my parents so it was worth the visit. Sadly I can't blog about it as they occasionally check in here. It made me realise how close christmas is though. That was my first bit of xmas shopping so I think over the next couple of days I shall have to get on with it a bit more. I've got the next two days off work so I've got some sewing to do, some knitting to do, and some time for shopping. 

The knitting I've mainly been doing it the Inaugural Cardi by Annarella. I've had some fun with it but am now down to just the last sleeve. I tried it on earlier, with the single sleeve, and really like how it's turning out. 

The Dream in Colour yarn is delicious to work with and I do adore moss stitch. Another of the things on my to do list for the next 2 days is picking out the perfect buttons for it. That in itself is going to be a treat!

I've tweeted and blogged recently about the Slow Stashing article on Knitters Review. I've now finished my destash, with the result that more than half is heading elsewhere. Here's what that means in real terms. This is for charity:

And this is gradually going onto ebay:

There's a lot of history going with that lot but it really is a good feeling, and has given me a new momentum for tackling my books and other craft supplies. I think I was really trying to cocoon myself against the world with all this stuff. "I deserve it" had become my catchphrase instead of "I need it". Plus I very rarely did deserve it anyway, I just wanted it. So fingers crossed that this is a new dawn, a new day, a new life for me, because I'm feeling good. 

 

A Crafting We Will Go...

Social Butterfly that I am, there are now five things on my to do list for the next month.

1. Craftacular at Bethnal Green this sunday - I went to the summer one (blog post here) and had a great time so am definitely going to this one for some xmas shopping.

2. Deathtrap on Shaftesbury Avenue - looks like just my kind of thing.

3. Bridget Riley at the National Gallery - I have always loved her opart so am looking forward to seeing a proper exhibition along with art from those who have influenced her.

4. Wildlife Photographer of the Year at the Natural History Museum - I've always liked this exhbition and missed it last year because of my back. Looking forward to this one.

5. Book of the Dead at the British Museum - the BM is an easy walk from work now so am planning an evening viewing, if there are any.

If anyone fancies any of these let me know and we can meet up. I may already have found a willing victim for the Bridget Riley but the others are all open.

Swing, brother, swing.

This is the title of a Ngaio Marsh detective mystery. It is about a swing band and the accordian player is stabbed and so on and so forth. I am a big mystery reader and I do have a soft spot for the Inspector Alleyn mysteries. However, that is not the reason for the title - which is more to do with mood swings. It hasn't quite been metronomic, but there are some definite highs and lows going on.

I'm still taking part in the LSE 'Mappiness' study which involves plotting your happiness, relaxation level and awekeness using a little app. You can click here to see how happy people taking part are right now compared to the average. There's a map too and lots of other info on the site. I have now made 147 submissions to mappiness via the app and my graph is all over the fricking place. I started doing it just after Pooch and I separated so you can imagine for yourselves what some of the lows are about.

I compared it to a friend's and his was essentially the graph of a cheeky chirpy little bugger without a care in the world, which is fairly accurate.

I have been finally getting on with my stash review. I have been very influcenced by two things. The first is a print which the V&A has in their online store and which I will very shortly have in my flat:

The second was this article on 'Slow Stashing' from Knitters Review about a year ago. The article got a lot of attention when it was published but for some reason it has taken a year to sink in. So last night I went through about half my stash ans now have 2 bin bag fulls for charity and another bin bag full on ebay. (Click here if you're interested in some bargain Rowan etc). I can really relate to keeping stuff for 'should' reasons and that is most of the charity stuff. Also things that I had bought because I loved them but were just not speaking to me were definitely part of the 'unhappy' pile. And having done this I already feel so much better. A knitter on twitter wants some for her school knit club but there is plenty to go round so if anyone does want any for charity knitting then just email me your address and it's yours. Plus of course this frees up a lot of space in the flat which is gradually starting to look less stuffed and more homely. Somewhat ironic really when you consider the situation but there you go.

One of the lines I particularly liked from the article was:

"At its core, slow stashing involves being mindful of every skein we own, and only bringing in new skeins that are truly deserving of our time, our attention, and our resources".

Being mindful of every skein that we own is something that can easily be expanded to almost any sphere of life and ties in so well with the William Morris quote on the poster. Because if something is not useful, and you don't believe it to be beautiful in at least some small way, why give it space in your life?

Feeling Blue

I think it's fair to say I have been feeling a bit glum the last few days. It started when I had just finished watching the Lord Mayor Fireworks by myself on saturday.

I love fireworks. I hadn't been to see any for ages and so off I went.

They were really good but the thing is, they only lasted 10 minutes. Which left me in central london at 5.10pm on a sat night with nothing to do and no one to do it with. So I wondered about for a bit and had an early dinner of steak and champagne. Because I may be miserable but I know what I like.

So that left me fed and with nothing to do. So then a friend took pity on me and got me to go to a bar in shoredith to keep them company while they kept another friend company on a school reunion. A kind of double beard.

So I was there, drinking lemonade, watching what Temperance Brennan would have called "Hackney Hate Mating Rituals" and rapidly coming to the conclusion that this is what life holds for me.

So then I had this idea on the tube this morning.

How about a social network where you list an event you're wanting to go to by yourself and then others say whether they're going and you can arrange to meet. In a totally just-hanging-out-with-no-one-hitting-on-anyone-else kind of way. So I told the boys at work about it. Their response was to speculate the sheer quantity of lecherous apes it would attract and to suggest it be called various names which I'm not going to put here.

Really, what this all says to me is that I am lonely but don't want to date anyone. I really don't want to do that. And in the meantime I may be a bit lonely but I'm well, fed, roofed and have enough money. So really it could be an awful lot worse.

It's still all just a bit sad making though.