by Suw on December 31, 2005
You might remember a while back that I blogged about my Mum knitting me iPod socks with a little pocket. Well, since then I bought a pair of earphones with a remote control and the whole thing, remote and earbuds, won't fit in the pocket. So Mum knitted me one with two pockets which does the job just nicely.
I'm not the only one to love my iPod sock either. Mum's had a steady trickle of orders in through eBay and people seem to really love what she's doing. So now she's put up her own website, and is doing all sorts of colours and styles. She even does a really fluffy one with 'Eskimo' wool and is looking into doing one in Kevlar. She did get a reel of bonded Kevlar, but unfortunately it's impossible to knit with, and the supplier doesn't seem to be able to get their head round the concept of sending a reel of unbonded thread. If you have any ideas for other exotic threads she might use, let me know.
by Suw on December 30, 2005
The true meaning of life.
by Suw on December 30, 2005
I keep thinking of blog posts I want to write, but never seem to feel much like writing them. I keep starting them in my head, but they never make it as far as the keyboard, let alone your screen. It's a sort of blogapathy.
Blogging goes in waves. I know this. Every blog has a lifecycle, an ebb and a flow, a to and a fro. The trouble is, not blogging and not reading blogs is making me feel a bit cut off from the world. There's a logic in saying that not having time to read blogs is making it harder to write – we all know that if a writer isn't writing it's because she's a lazy fuckwit not reading. But there's more to this than that.
Some say it's because I'm in love. Actually, the way I feel right now, that ought to be capitalised. I am in Love. But I think blaming T'Other for my blogapathy is unfair and just not right. If anything, he's given me more to blog about – I've seen more films, been to more new places (Paris, Bruges, soon Prague and then Washington (properly this time)), done more fun things* than when I wasn't with T'Other. We talk a lot too, about interesting things, but in general, not about the things I usually blog about.
I certainly don't have writer's block. Like Neil Gaiman, I don't believe in writer's block. The speed with which this post is being typed pretty much conclusively proves that there is no problem regarding the assemblage of words into coherent sentences.
I'm not sure that it's got anything to do with you guys either. I've had a biggish audience for ages, and frankly, although the stats tell me so and people whom I randomly meet at dinner tell me so, I don't believe that there is any more than three men and a dog reading this. So I'm not about to start freaking out because, Oh my gawd! People read me!
Kevin Marks suggests I am suffering from “working for a blog co. syndrome”, where when you suddenly start working for a blogging company you suddenly stop feeling like blogging, because blogging is work and therefore not something you do for fun. It's not that either. I've been working as a blog consultant for the last two years, and frankly, I've had more intensive periods of work-blogging than now and still leisure-blogged. Plus, 2.5 of my days a week is spent working on wikis (not blogs) and the other 5 days is spent working on digital rights (also not blogs) so the actual amount of actual blog-related work I am actually doing is, well, not so much.
I don't think it's stress. Yes, the last six months has been pretty stressful, but, you know, watching my business go nearly bankrupt was a lot more stressful, and I blogged the whole way through that.
Time is an issue, I'll give you that. But even so… usually I can find a second or two to throw something together.
This is more about not really wanting to blog. Not really feeling quite in the mood for it. And yet, it's also more than that. It's not something as fickle as mood.
I think that the reason I'm not writing is because I'm not writing, and I don't mean that in a 'lazy fuckwit' way. Because I've had weeks when I've just been too busy, all the posts I would have written have piled up inside my head, and now they're all jammed up together, higgledypiggledy, and nothing can get out. See, usually, I just open the doors of my head and the words all tumble out and all I have to do is arrange them nicely on the screen so that they make pretty patterns, but because I have this great big dam of unwritten posts, all the words are just getting snagged on one another and they aren't coming out at all. It's not writer's block. It's more like writer's logjam. (Or should that be blogjam?) I just need to dislodge one or two posts, and the rest will flow out like water.
This may or may not cue a nasty bout of blogal diarrhoea. Guess we'll have to see.
* some of them even bloggable
by Suw on December 23, 2005
Off to Brugge in a half an hour. Just waiting for nail varnish to dry. Yes, I am capable of girliness once in a while.
It's got to that time of the year when Stu over at Feeling Listless does his review of the year. This time round, he asked us 'to describe a moment when you suceeded in doing something you've always wanted to do this year'. For me, it was fairly clear what that one thing was. And, as before, I'm honoured to have been asked.
I hope you all have a lovely Christmas. I have every intention of doing an awful lot of nothing over the next week. You should seriously consider doing the same. 😉
by Suw on December 22, 2005
It's a little alarming when you realise that the only gigs you've been to this year have been Duran Duran gigs. For someone who used to be a music journalist, and who used to be a rabidly enthusiastic attendee at as many gigs as she could get tickets to, this realisation comes as somewhat of a shock.
What's worse is when you realise that not only is the band getting older, but you're getting older to. You swap the support band for a nice dinner and get there later than you ever would have a decade ago, only to realise that they've come on earlier than they would have a decade ago. Luckily, their earliness manages to coincide with your lateness with the net result that you end up strolling through into the venue just as the opening strains of their opening number insinuate their way through the (pretty much smoke-free) air into your entirely unprepared brain.
The benefit of being an older attendee is that you're much better at compartmentalising, and can switch to gig-mode faster than you used to. And you don't need 15 pints of snakebite to get you in the mood. Instead, you just get all into the music, start dancing like it's 1983, (wait, you mean… it's not?! But they just played Union of the Snake!), and generally enjoy yourself.
The years of moisturiser have been kind to Duran Duran. The lads look cute as they ever did – in some cases cuter. But glancing round the audience, the years of moisturiser have been kind to us too. Either that or the demographic's slipped since I last looked.
This time, though, D2's show is a little less showy, a little less flash, a little less expensive. No on-stage cameramen feeding pictures up to huge screens, no moving circular lighting rigs, no plush backdops. I guess it's something to do with them spending part of this year without a label, and whomever signed them (god, I'm a bad fan, I have no idea who they signed to) not wanting to spend all that much cash when there's no new album to promote.
And Earls Court is a wholly soulless venue. Compared to January, when Kate and I saw them at the lovely, intimate Hammersmith Palais, this gig is like watching them playing in a barn. Through binoculars. From a vantage point three fields over.
But despite that, D2 never do a bad gig. Even though Simon's voice sounded a bit tired; even though he forgot the words at times; even though we couldn't see Jack shit… it was still fun. Particularly the pyrotechnics. I don't think I've ever been to a gig with pyrotechnics before. Even from where I was, far back in the auditorium, I could feel the heat of the flame as it roared in time with Wild Boys. Must have been incendiary on stage.
Christmas roast, anyone?
Next time, though, we will make more of an event of it. Spend all afternoon getting ready. Arrive before doors open. Get overpriced drinks that taste like goat urine from the bar. Fight our way to the front so that we can swoon over JT and Simon as they look down upon us from their ivory stage. Get our feet trodden on by some fly-by-night bimbette (probably called Pam Ann) who's just that little bit too eager to get close to Nick. Fantasise that the security guards will realise our little Pammy has a restraining order on her. Swear under our breath at Really Fucking Tall Guy who stands like a brick shithouse in front of us, grumping his way through the gig and broadcasting the i'monlyherebecausemygirlfriendsaidshe'dnevershagmeagainifididn't aura that, as female Durannies, we've come to know so well over the years.
Aaah yes. I remember what we missed out on last night. Maybe next time we should just have an early dinner at Andrew Edmunds instead…
by Suw on December 12, 2005
Whilst I was in Paris after Les Blogs, I got cornered into contributing to a podcast by my esteemed other half and his mate dotBen. The results are finally up online, at their brand spanking (no pun intended) new Talking Shop podcast.
I have nothing to say about the puritanical rabbits or their procreational habits. I am, however, also deeply disappointed that Messrs Anderson and Metcalfe have taken their cues regarding my role in such endeavours from the deeply disturbed duo, Spence and Reilly.
I shall be having words.
by Suw on December 11, 2005
I don't think I've had a month as quiet as this one for blogging, and here I am with a few moments spare whilst the veg roast and T'Other cooks his fish and I have absolutely no idea what to write about. My mind is a blank slate.
With any luck, it'll stay that way. Tis Sunday, after all.
Hm, oh wait, I know what…
Had a great afternoon yesterday – whilst everyone who was anyone was at Global Voices, me, Tara and Rachel were at a bar at London Bridge getting really very tipsy indeed. I only just met Tara and Rachel at Les Blogs, although I've come across both of their blogs before. We just had a great time, talking about blogging and, well, god knows what other stuff.
Actually, T'Other knows, because he turned up with a minidisk and a big fuckoff mic, and recorded it. I believe that some of the material thus captured was not, well… worksafe. I am not sure what's going to happen to it. I'm open to bribes.
by Suw on December 9, 2005
It never rains but it pours.
Got home to discover a note from our downstairs neighbours. Seems the boiler here died, spewing water all over the place, flooding downstairs and shorting their electricity.
Oh dear.
We've had troubles with the heating and the water since I moved in, and this one kinda caps them all. So here I am, in a freezing cold flat, with no water, no heating, and no hot water bottle.
Fleeing to T'Other's tomorrow where it is warm and I can shower without catching hypothermia.
Aaaah, fun.
by Suw on December 9, 2005
Last night, at approximately 11.38 pm, my hot water bottle passed away from a fatally broken seal. It had been ill for a few weeks, but nothing could prepare me for the shock of having to suffer cold toes. I shall miss my hot water bottle. Despite many years of storage at the back of the wardrobe when I had nice cosy central heating or an electric blanket, my hot water bottle has been with me since I was a child, faithfully travelling with me to Cardiff, Reading and London. In recent months, it has played a crucial part in the prevention of frostbite and subsequent loss of toes which may have occurred except for its valuable work in holding nice hot water.
Hot water bottle, may you rest in peace.
by Suw on December 8, 2005
Still insanely busy, as you may have surmised. Keep hoping it will calm down, but every quiet day is ruined by a crisis. I have so much unread and pending email I don't know where to start. Paris was fun, but not relaxing (more on Paris if I ever get the chance to sit and write anything).
I need time off, because I'm so tired that I'm ineffective. I need to kick back and do some serious meditation. I need to do the sorting that evens things out, to quote whichever of the Daoist masters said that.
I always joke that I'm a crap Daoist, but that that's ok because Daoism allows you to be crap. But when I start to feel swamped like this, Daoism saves my bacon because it's now, when I most need to, that I can fall back on the main principles of Daoism and save my brain from frying. Instead of getting all wound up, it's time to just get into the flow of it and allow myself to be swept along. At a time when everything is equally urgent, do the things you can do. You can't do the things you can't do. It's plain and simple really.
Also, sleep helps.
