The Other Side of the World

self photography

2012-02-10T11:48:00.000Z

Why do i take so many pictures? and why are so many self portraits? I don't think i'm massively narcissistic, hell, most of the time i'm way more a hater of myself than a lover, so why all the photos?
Maybe it's a discovery thing, i don't see how i look ( obviously ) except in photos ( and mirrors, obvs ) and so it adds a new perspective, but i'm not entirely convinced about this....
I think a large proportion of it is about self identity. I take photos to create an image of myself to display to the outside world. It's an image i can control, and decide, like a really screwed up Avatar. It's a reflection of what i can't control in real life.
In Real Life i am what i am, you get to see everything, all the bad angles that make my nose look big, all the bad hair days, all the oddly mismatched choices i make everyday.
On the internet though, if you do see a bad day, it's because i choose to share it, a glimpse of vulnerability, to show i am just human, like everyone else. But even then ,its a carefully choreographed vulnerability, as this is the internet me after all.

Maybe that sounds harsh, quite a bit of it is about creativity as well, it does make me think more about how to take photos, to come up with new ideas, to try different things, but even here, the photos still have to be 'right' i suppose.
When i take my daily picture, there's a lot of rejects, pictures i would never post online, maybe because the camera caught me when my face was doing odd contortions, or the angle is just plain wrong and makes me all pointy looking. If i'm being kind, i reject these because they don't fit my artistic and aesthetic ideal, but to be honest, there's little difference, other than pretension, between that, and just finding the pictures ugly, in a self hating sort of way, i guess.
I know that last bit sounds a bit dark, and i'm not really a huge self hater, i think, for the most, and given what i've got to work with, i'm fairly sound in relation to my self image, sure i could be better, much better, but it's by no means unbearable, which is a start.....

2011

2012-02-09T22:42:00.000Z

Also, just noticed, i didn't post here once in 2011....... i kind of feel bad for that year now, it's not like nothing happened either, although actually thinking about it some more 2011 wasn't a high point, so maybe i feel less bad now.......

365 days of varying difficulty

2012-02-09T22:38:00.000Z

I'm trying to do another 365days project, where i take a photo of myself every single day for a year. It is strangely hard, to be honest. I'd kind of forgotten quite how difficult it can be, i managed one year, but it was by the skin of my teeth so to speak, there were missed days, and a prolonged break whilst i moved for instance.
This time i am trying to do a full 365 days, no breaks, no missed days and already its putting up a fight....

I mean its fine when you're all happy happy happy go lucky me...... photo of myself? no problems, i can do that......but, when you're not so happy, that's when it gets difficult.
The last couple of weeks have been tricky ones, getting the motivation to take a picture is hard, trying to make it creative, or even good, that's almost impossible. I do know its just a hump, and that if i persevere it will be easier and that also its ultimately worth doing though, just got to get past this block......

me vs stuff

2012-01-24T09:49:00.001Z

So, I'm looking around my little home, and you know what, there's a lot of stuff. Right now, there is not a cupboard that isn't fit to bursting with stuff, there's not a surface that doesn't have something on it, just hanging around, doing what stuff does. All my bookcases are crammed with books, double layers of books I might add, with more books on top of them. I think I need to have a sort out, but actually sorting out stuff is really tricky. For some reason I can always find a reason to keep something, you know, because you never know when that book that identifies insects of the world might be handy, and everyone needs 3 sets of cooking pans right?

It's scary how much you accumulate over the years, when I first moved down here I really didn't have that much, just a van load at best, but now, well, now it's a beast. Admittedly some of it is someone else's stuff as well but still, a large proportion of it is mine, and its growing. Lets take clothes for instance, I have lots of stuff I will never wear, I have some fancy stuff I've never actually worn, which is pretty shameful really, but it's still just sitting there, waiting to be worn in some hypothetical, and unlikely scenario possibly involving an art gallery opening and Johnny Depp dressed as a pirate.

Why is it so hard to get rid of stuff? Maybe, it's because there's so much of it? or maybe it's the emotional attachments we place on things, I know a lot of it is exactly this with me, learning to attach the emotion to the memory rather than the item is really hard. The thing is, more often than not, if I really do need the thing I've got rid of, chances are I can just get a replacement relatively easily somewhere out there, especially now we have the internets, which coincidently is so much a doubled edged sword. In fact, I would say a large proportion of recentish stuff is from there in some way, especially when it comes to books, DVDs and the like, which appear to be doubling in size every time I look at the moment, like some sort of literary bacterial culture in the Petri dish of my flat.

Oh stuff, you wrap your spiky tendrils round my heart, making it so hard to get rid of you, but i know that in the end, you have to go, cause slowly, very slowly, you're squashing the life out of me.....

writing is hard.

2012-01-21T21:43:00.004Z

I don't write nearly as much as I used to. When I was young, like teenage young, I wrote a lot. I had penpals, some of whom only lived about 20 miles away, but I still wrote to them anyhow, and they likewise would write back just as prolifically.
Of course back in that particular day the internet was just a twinkle in someone's eye, so the only way to communicate was through letters, ( or phones, we had phones, it wasn't that long ago, I'm not like 100 or anything ) but also we wrote letters because it was really good fun to do, and even more fun seeing what you got back.
I still do write letters, just not nearly as often, and even less when it comes to internet letters, or blog posts as we might also call them.
I think I need to try harder to keep this up, and to keep up real life letter writing as well, even though it is hard what with making time, and just stopping for a bit. Stopping, thinking, writing.... hard, but also good.

stuff that sits at the back of mind...

2012-01-15T15:37:00.002Z

If, indeed we do, live in a multiverse, where there are countless alternate universes, with countless alternate versions of us, is there a universe where we have a soundtrack that plays when stuff happens, like in films? I think i'd like that......

Unless that is this universe of course, and we're all just in some sort of Alien sitcom, being viewed on a distant world, and they add the soundtrack afterwards. That would be less okay.

Also, that's a whole lot of channels if they're watching all of us.

12th day

2012-01-13T07:33:00.003Z

12
Originally uploaded by Scarlet traces.

I really love taking these sorts of photos, ones where you can grab a split second of time and see something you don't always get to see. I had to take so many of these though, lots where just of my hair covering my face, or snapped a few seconds too soon, or too late.....
These are some of the better out takes.....

Overall, this 365days is going okay at the moment, but then again, it is only day 12 so maybe that's a little optimistic........

on writing

2012-01-11T10:48:00.002Z

So, yeah, it's been a while huh?

I've been thinking about doing this again for some time, I've even looked at other places, thought of new names, and poked tumblr till it cried out 'I just can't do what you want'. But I guess this place worked so well for such a long time that it makes sense to come back here, to what I know.
Anyhow, erm....Hi, welcome to my blog (again), hop on and lets see if we can't just find ourselves some fun.....

autumn is here.......

2010-10-10T23:03:00.002Z

on flickr.......

Caterday........

2010-09-11T07:11:00.000Z

awkward queue moment #1

2010-09-08T14:49:00.002Z

so, i'm standing in the queue, waiting to buy my peach, and a flake dipped ( hard to find down here, but really yum ) when the guy in front of me, whilst paying for his stuff dropped a 20p.
Me, being the kind soul that i am stepped back for him to have a good look to see where it went, but he just stands there looking slightly confused. I make a sort of half sweeping hand gesture, as if to say 'take a look friend, i have kindly moved out of your way so the floor is not obscured' but he just looks at me as if i'm abit odd and then leaves the shop muttering something under his breath, which i can't quite make out.
'god' i think 'attitude' and go to pay, only then realising that when i stood back to allow him to look for his money i accidentally had stepped on the 20p, in a schoolyard claiming sort of way. Which of course he had seen.
He must of thought i'd deliberately stood on it to claim it and then was acting all cool and basically fronted him out about it intill he felt awkward enough to step away.
awkward queue moment indeed.....

a buzzard is a bird

2010-09-08T07:36:00.004Z

Yesterday something happened to me. It was something that doesn't happen at all really, and made me feel both indignant and at the same time sort of pleased.
But wait, i hear you cry, those two emotions can't co-exist at the same point in space and time!? indignant and pleased?
Well allow me to explain.....
*cue wibbly wobbly flashback sequence*

There i was, standing in my workplace, doing work type stuff, as is my way, when in walks a middle aged gentleman, with a moustache. He asks me some questions about what we sell in the shop and then starts to tell me about how he likes to go on country walks. Now, this sort of change of subject can go in many directions, normally slightly odd/perverse directions, but many directions none the less, but what he said next was a first for me.
He starts talking about how the other day he saw a Buzzard. And then he looks me in the eye and says "do you know what a buzzard is?"

If i could i would of thrown him out there and then. Clearly though my lack of an answer was an indication that i did not know what a buzzard was...
" a buzzard is a bird, a bird of *pause for dramatic effect*....prey "
I was being patronised readers, patronised! I know what a goddamn Buzzard is, i have seen many Buzzards, i have in fact seen other Birds as well, crazy as that might sound, starlings, eagles, seagulls, man, my list of birds i have known is massive. Grrrrr.
It was only afterwards that i realised he was quite possibly patronising me because i was a woman who lived in a town. ( the woman bit is the important bit there )
I've seen and heard men doing this to other women but i'd yet to experience it, but his tone and general condescendingness ( which he possibly didn't even realise he was doing ) pretty much described what others have told me had happened to them!
So 'yay' for me (pleased) and Bah! for condescending men (indignant).

I'll leave you with a picture of a buzzard, looking quizzical, ( why do all birds of prey look either cross or quizzical? )

365

2010-09-07T06:58:00.003Z

I'm doing that 365days thing again ( this is about the 500th attempt by myself now ) and so i thought i'd share on here my favourite pics as and when i take them.....
The tomato plants here are sadly not going to produce any tomatoes, they grew too late, as with pretty much all the veg i planted this year, maybe the summer wasn't summery enough, or maybe i planted too late, who knows?
Next year though i shall be ready and we shall have a glut, a glut of tomatoes, and things will be better. Picture 353 shall be a tomato paradise, hopefully........

sweet

2010-08-17T07:07:00.003Z

I haven't posted any new sweet things for a while, so i thought i'd re-start with the beast known as Vegetable flavoured KitKat!
Now i know what you're thinking, vegetables?! what fresh lunacy is this? but hold up, its actually not that bad, sort of.......

Colour wise it's sort of orange looking, which is a little off-putting, but i'm guessing is the paprika, image a pale looking carrot, that is its colour.
Smell wise its just plain weird, sort of apple-y, but in a slightly wrong way.
And taste? well, it's sort of okay, but with the most odd aftertaste. I can't put my finger on what it tastes like, it's sweet, but strange sweet.

All in all, the one word that sums this whole chocolate experience is Weird. My tastebuds are both intrigued and slightly upset by vegetable kitkat, but on reflection, i think this is a good thing .......

sandwiches ( and cake )

2010-08-15T14:18:00.002Z

Things i've discovered recently.....

i) banana and raspberry jam sandwiches. Man alive, these rock my world. I'd forgotten about them, and then re-discovered them about an hour ago. I would take pictures of their greatness, but it's hard to take pictures of the inside of my tummy, as the internets would say OM NOM NOM........

ii) portal. I have a nerdy-geek side. I know, its not something you may of realised ( stop heckling at the back ^_^ )but i do like geeky boy stuff, including erm...computer games. In particular at the moment a game called Portal. I can only play it for abit, as it gives me motion sickness ( first person viewpoint y'see? ) but i have recently finished it, and rather excitingly, there's a song at the end! what a joy! I love surprise songs......

iii) motion sickness. I never used to get this, or at least i don't think i did, but now, stuff like the above, and also films like that monster trashing new york one, make me feel funny ( funny bad, not funny haha ). I would be rubbish in space, NASA would laugh in my slightly green confused face if i wanted to be an astronaut, good job i never wanted to be an astronaut really, yeah....stupid spaceships.....*looks wistfully at the sky*

GGrrrr and umm agghh too.

2010-08-01T18:43:00.003Z

I'm stressed. This is not good. Stress is bad, very bad. It makes my skin go all psiorsis-y, my head ache, my sleep leave the room, my weight vanish from my body.
But here's the thing, although i'm stressed and all grrrr/aggghhh, its because of life, because of work, because of politics, its because of things everyone else gets stressed about. In other words it's not because of gender, or more specifically mine.
I didn't realise it at first, because it's not there anymore, but i no longer think about my confused gender muddle, because it's no longer a muddle, its no longer an issue i have to stress over because it's pretty much sorted, done, finished.
I am complete. And also stressed, but complete still, and that's got to be a good start to getting back to not being stressed about life.........

bolt

2010-05-28T10:15:00.001Z

had to share this picture i took, just cause i really like it :)

The Knife of Bad Luck

2010-05-07T09:51:00.003Z

I'm not happy, no dear reader not happy at all, because the video recorder thing has decided to wipe all the great things i'd wanted to watch. So no Lost for me, and i had the whole of Caprica to watch as well, Gah! and Bah! Why i oughta....

Thing is it's not as if we even had a mysterious lighting strike, or that the recorder has developed Artificial Intelligence and decided to get back at the fleshy ones by deleting sci-fi television programmes, if it was that i could accept it and move on, admittedly quite carefully whilst in the proximity of the recorder, but move on all the same. But this, it has no reason, no rhyme, it's just a random twist of the Knife of bad luck, Damn you Knife of Bad Luck, Damn you.....

on being he and she

2010-05-03T09:31:00.002Z

Since i had my voice operation i get she'd massively more than before but i do still get he'd as well.
I'd be lying if i said it didn't bother me, it does, which is abit mental really, as it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. But still, it bothers me.
I think it bothers me most because i'm happy with how i am, being female, but not actively making an obvious effort to look like one, which may well be the crux of the problem. What i mean by not actively making an obvious effort to look like one is that i don't wear make-up and i don't wear dresses, which i guess are obviously female things.
I think i maybe want the best of both worlds. I look inbetween i guess, which is why i get both pronouns. Some people see male, some see female, and i need to accept this and be happy that i know myself, rather than working myself up about it.
ahh, the wisdom of writing your thoughts down for the world to see....

toenails vs spring

2010-05-01T07:56:00.004Z

Damn you tricky weather, with your blowing hot and cold, one day its time for flip flops and summer vests, the next it's back to the world of coats and socks.
I even painted my toenails in preparation for the good times, but no, you have to go and throw weird weather at us again.
bah.

cold feet

2010-04-24T07:53:00.003Z

was it just me or was it really cold last night? Normally i just sleep in a vest, happy as could be but last night i had to put on socks, pj's and a particularly fluffy dressing gown just to get warm, and this was under a duvet and a blanket throw thing....and i woke up of course all tangled up in the dressing gown, goes without saying really....

On a side note, just noticed the planes are flying again as the sky is full of contrails after being clear for ages.........

food purgatory

2010-04-22T19:54:00.002Z

There is something that's troubling me, something that has, on occasion kept me up, pondering and musing.....
what is this thing, i ( maybe ) hear you cry? What could it be that ails you so? Is it the vanishing Bees? or maybe is the eternal question of what animals sleep standing up?
Sadly, although these are good questions, it's not them, no the question that bothers me so is
" why is it that i like to eat things now that i previously hated with a passion?"
The list is long, and constantly growing..... i used to hate, but now love,
1.custard
2.olives
3.beetroot
4.pears
5.salami
6.bacon
7.garlic
8.avocado
9.brie
10.marzipan

There are others as well but these are the biggies. What is with that? have my tastebuds changed as i've got older? have i just got massively less fussy? I just don't know. What i do know is that i used to hate these foods!! Hate i tell you! custard used to make me throw up ( in a very melodramatic, and possibly slightly neurotic, way ) and yet now ( like literally just now ) i can happily eat a whole tub with a big joyous smile on my face!
In fact that list now contains some of my favourite foods, how do i live without olives for instance, or god forbid, the pure oral pleasure that is bacon? Man alive!
It's like i've been trapped in some sort of food purgatory......

music from way back and now

2010-04-14T07:31:00.003Z

Over at Moon in the Gutter there have been musings on how what our parents listened to when we were young influences us now ( musically ).....
Anyhow it got me thinking, the 5 main artists i remember from when i was little were...

Abba ( especially that "money money money" one )
Ian Dury & The Blockheads ( especially "Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick", i even had a Rhythm stick made for me! It was, rather bizarrely, a toothbrush with a green ribbon tied to it )
Simon and Garfunkel
Carly Simon
John Denver ( i was obsessed with the Muppets episode with john Denver in it )

To work out who i listen to most now is really tricky, as i listen to lots but according to my lastfm profile
my top 5 most listened are...

The Submarines
Elliot Smith
The Magnetic Fields
Hefner
The Eels

Now, what what i can see, my parents folk-y, singer songwriter roots have clearly rubbed off on my tastes, which is good, well good, as long as you like folk-y singersongwriter stuff anyhow. I'll have to mull this over more i think though as i do have a fondness for Will Smith that clearly just doesn't fit......

dr who

2010-04-13T07:58:00.002Z

i haven't yet mentioned Dr.Who, which is slack of me, but i wanted to see if the second episode was as good as the first...
I think, and this is a positive think, that i'm going to like the new doctor. He's already grown on me, not as much as David T. did, but he is getting there. Not sure about the "geranimo" catch phrase, "allons-y" just made me laugh more, but he does have a charm....
I enjoyed the first one alot, the second one was okay, but i've seen better, however i'm much looking forward to next weeks, Daleks in world war 2! could be good....

dead not dead.

2010-04-08T09:46:00.002Z

I've been looking around at the state of the internets recently, and more specifically, the state of the Blogosphere, and well, i sort of get the impression its kind of floundering, still floating, but with it's little head occasionally ducking beneath the water as the facebook octopus and the twitter squid tug at its legs....
Now i used to be very " oh facebook, you evil fiend with your friendly blue borders trying to trick me into signing up with your people " but now i am more " oh facebook, you give me delight with your allowing me to be friends with people i don't even know and your friendly blue borders", so i am in no way anti Thefacebook at all, but i can't help but feel that it, along with the twitter squid has sort of killed off blogging a bit.
Everything about both those sites is so very instant, and it seems we live in an instant world. I'm as guilty as anyone when it comes to this, i never have enough time even though in reality i think i probably have loads of time. Hell this blog is proof of this, no updates for months at a time........
Anyhow, not sure where this is going as such, i just got distracted by a text, which maybe is sort of the point. too many distractions, too many options, i don't know, but i think i feel that it's time for me to start blogging again for real, i do miss it when i don't, and i guess it's just a case of making the time, because i know the time is there somewhere.........

Animal wars.

2010-04-08T08:59:00.003Z

those animals are at it again with their unrelenting campaign of terror against us, the humans.....
apparently a pheasant has been running amok in a village pecking and possibly goring small children, as told here . He seems to of calmed down abit now, having found love with some lovely lady pheasants, but was apparently at one stage very angry indeed, which i suppose is understandable. Being a pheasant sounds really rubbish, there's no internets, and people try to shoot you or squash you with cars most of the time.
In other animal related news, a hippo has swam over the wall of its zoo enclosure in a big flood. According to the article here Hippos are deadly killing machines that can run faster than the speed of sound. Nikica, for that is the hippos name, is "extremely tame and peaceful" though so hopefully things won't kick off and Nikica will return peacefully to her hippo house without running amok like the pheasant, who doesn't have a name, but possibly might be called Mr.Pecky, given his current behaviour.

noisy

2010-04-01T07:20:00.003Z

Well, i looked out of my window this morning to actual real life blue skies, still absolutely freezing mind, but blue skies!
Not that i'd necessarily notice, seeing as i was kept up pretty much all night by wild animals being ruckus-y. Yes dear reader, there i was, happily drifting off to sleep when suddenly i was woken by the strange bark of the urban fox. And then another, and another, and another.all night. bastards.
Bark bark bark all night, sometimes seemingly right outside the window, sometimes just far enough away for me to still hear and cause my brain to send primal danger signals to my body waking me up just a little bit more....bah!
What they were barking at i don't know, each other, the moon, other nightime beasts, it's a mystery, but bark they did.
And i say bark, actually it's not a bark as such, it's more like a distressed and possibly wounded human type noise, a bark/scream/cry if you will. Enough to psych you out if you're i don't know, maybe just dropping off to sleep say?
Stupid foxes.

a fox, laughing at me, yesterday.

stuff what happened.....

2010-03-31T13:05:00.007Z

so a lose sort of catch up as to what i've been doing these last few months i've not been doing this.. *cough cough* okay, maybe its more than a few months.....but anyhow, i shall be using the medium of....Pictures! to tell the tale today, so sit back and let your eyes do the walking.......

I started another 365days, but for the ten gazzillionth time let it slip.....

I did some cooking! bake bake bake, thats me........

I went on some walks, got abit wet and muddy, and was consistantly and fairly constantly growled at by a big dog....

saw lots of snow, despite living by the sea, in the south, where winters are allegedly mild and balmy...

saw lots of live music, both local, and not so local, including the rather wonderful Andrew Bird, and The Magnetic Fields.....

stroked some cats, none of whom belonged to me! yay!

broken links!

2010-03-30T22:08:00.001Z

incidently, loads of the links on the sidebar are possibly dead links, i will fix it though, maybe, possibly, no, i will.....sometime soon (ish).....

lazy

2010-03-30T21:51:00.002Z

man, i'm a poor excuse for a blogger, i really am..... nothing for months and months.....
I feel sort of guilty for not really posting anything for so long, it's like i got a puppy, which i loved very much, and had such fun, and high jinks galore with, but then shut in a cupboard and forgot about, with only occasional scratching just in earshot to remind me its still there........Hmmmmmm, Actually its nothing like that, and dear reader, i feel a little scared for myself with that analogy, so lets move on shall we, and put any puppy comparisons behind us forthwith.......
I do really really intend to start blogging ( i'd say writing but i'm not quite in that league... ) again, so who knows, maybe those heady days of hundreds of posts a year may well be returning, it could be the start of a new golden age of blogging, oh yes....or it could just be random posts about goats and stuff i'm eating right now, we'll no doubt have to wait and see.........

twitter

2009-09-18T18:53:00.004Z

i seem to be getting loads of new followers on twitter, and not all of them are trying to sell me penis extensions ( hah! the irony ) or replica watches. I think, rather bizarrely, it's to do with Batman ( y'know, big guy, cape, lives in the huge house on the hill with the secret cave system, likes bats, batster, the batmeiser, old batty face, y'know the one ).
Come again?, i hear you cry, Batman? but you guys haven't spoken in years..... nah, i'm just messing with you, Batman isn't actually real, so we have in fact never spoken....mores the pity really, as i know we'd hit it off, and i'd totally be better than Robin, but i digress...
No, actually i think that there is a new character in the comics out at the moment, sharing my twitter name, and so lots of crazy comic fans are adding me in the hope that i'll drop some bombshells about who the latest big bad facing the caped crusader is....
Of course this is just speculation, it could be they're fascinated by the insightful and often amusing tweets i offer up to the Internet hive mind, why only the other day i believe 'scarlettraces (that's me, in case it wasn't clear ;) ) had a headache' and 'sore hands....crazy days and high times i know, i genuinely don't know how i keep it up.......

i like to move it, move it......

2009-08-02T13:38:00.002Z

so, i'm moving again, i've lost count of how many times i've moved house, but it's a whole heap of alot, it averages out about once every couple of years i think, so anyhow, there are alot of things to pack.....
This time though i'm being extra precise in sorting out what i'm taking, whats going into storage, and what the charity shop can have.
Long time readers may remember, many years ago, that i moved from a 3 bedroom house to a room in a flat, which is quite a downsize both spacially and stuff wize. Well since then i've upgraded to a 1 bed flat, and am now downgrading to a room again ( keep up at the back there ) which means that unless i can develop some sort of tardis space bending power, that some stuff needs to go.
And that is kinda tricky.
For instance, although i know deep down that i don't need 13 different books on growing your own veg, there is a part of me that thinks ' well, you never know, what if the ones i get rid of had some vital piece of infomation that i may need? '
I think i need to be mega strict, and imagine i'm on some sort of channel 4 declutering telly programme, maybe with Sarah Beeny offering me excellent advice that i'll ignore, only to regret later on. Or maybe it'll be Phil and Kirsty, and Phil will laugh along with me about all the chaos of sorting, and Kirsty will look cross at us both, and then tell us to sort it out.
Or, and this is just an idea, maybe it'll be Gok! And the show will be called Gok's Moves ( cause he's got moves, but is also moving people y'see ). Oh man, Channel 4, get in touch now, this could be gold!
It would be great, he'd say things like freiya, you really do rock, and i love your style, but do you really need seasons 1-5 of Sliders? , really? or what's with all these Marc Cohn cds girlfriend? and i'd laugh, and then we'd be best friends, maybe...
ah well, i can dream.......

of gender, and definition, and interpretation......

2009-07-26T17:33:00.003Z

As much as i don't always want to label myself as a particular erm....thing, i am massively interested in how others perceive themselves and ages ago, on genderfork , someone posted this link to a fascinating page of just such gender related terms and possibilities.
Quite alot of them i have no idea of, although i'm sure a cheeky google search would bring forth answers, but there must be hundreds of terms/groups/variations there.
Obviously, it's the gender bit that really fascinates me the most, what with my gender and all that, and it does make me think how do i perceive myself in the wider world?
I do prefer 'she', if you want a pro-noun to be going on with, it does validate alot of the choices i've made and makes me feel happy, and that is a good thing. If people do use 'he', then sometimes it upsets me, although sometimes i do just roll with it, as i also figure that it's as much my presentation as anything else thats caused them to jump onto the man-bus, so to speak, rather than the lady-boat...
I definitely see myself as transgender, or to put it another way, someone with a different gender to just male or female ( which i know isn't strictly speaking the exact definition of transgender but it's my current interpretation ).
However, and this is more tricky, I don't see myself as an actual woman. I see myself as female, yes, but i don't think i personally could say i am a woman, in the strictest sense of the word, that is. I am my own interpretation of what a woman is, in that i'm an amalgamation of many women i know, mixed up with a massive amount of what i see as me.
Maybe i should expand on the amalgamation bit......When i was born, i was male. As i grew up, i developed my personality and sense of self, and i was all good and yay and happy. And then adolescence struck, and suddenly that little thing, that had been there at the back of my mind, the thing that said i wasn't quite in sync with the rest of the world, became altogether much more a big 'thing'. And then i had words for the 'thing', and over the years, it became bigger and bigger, and it developed into my transgender self, which in turn became just 'myself'. This self, that became who i am, was all about my interpretation of what it felt to be transgender, and more importantly what i thought/think it means to be a woman. And that aspect is made up of observations and aspects of all the women i have, and do know. And that is pretty much what i mean by the amalgamation, if that makes any sort of sense at all......
So i do see myself as transgender, and female, but only my interpretation of what it means to be female, which is probably slightly different to a naturally born woman's impression of what it means to be female. I know what it is to be male, and i know what i think it is to be female, and i do think that maybe knowing through being, and knowing through others being, is if not exactly the same, at least close enough for it not to matter too much, for me at least.......

photography

2009-07-15T07:02:00.003Z

Just recently i've not really been taking photos. I'm not sure why, but i do want this to change. I have taken alot of pictures, but it's almost like i've run out of steam.
I think it's partly that i am massively tired at the moment, and tiredness is a killer when it comes to creativity, although sometimes i'm not sure if i am actually tired, or that i just think i should be tired because i'm busy.....
It's strange, i got a flip video camera for Christmas, and i can count the number of times i've used it on one hand, when i really should be out there making the next zombie disaster smash hit viral movie - tsk....
I think also, that i'm not sure what to photograph anymore, there's so much to photograph it gets pretty overwhelming, although i do think that maybe i need to push my boundaries abit, maybe thats what is missing, everything i used to photograph has been done to death, by myself, so maybe i need to try something completely new, i need to not hold back so much and take a chance.
The one minor other thing, i have noticed, is that there are a lot of photographers out there. And some of them are really really really good.
Now i love looking at a good photo, i really do, but at the back of my mind the thought that i'm not as good, and in reality possibly never will be, well that's a demon that can be a bit of a beast to slay.
Who knows....i hope my muse, such that it is, returns with a vengence soon :)
Anyhow, i'll leave you with my most popular image on flickr as chosen by their interestingness pandas.....

more voice stuff........

2009-07-08T06:09:00.002Z

It was surprising how little it actually hurt. Yes, i felt groggy and abit rough for a while afterwards, but it wasn't because of any massive amount of pain.
I had some morphine straight after the operation, but my pain wasn't horrendous by any means, half the reason i took the morphine when they offered it to me was just to see what it felt like ( warm, quite nice and very sleepy, just in case you wanted to know ). I could feel where they'd cut my neck but it was, out of ten, maybe about a five pain wise, which seemed mad considering someone had just cut my throat and taken a chunk of cartilage out......
Something else i was worrying about which wasn't any problem at all was the stitches removal. In my head i'd got fairly scared about how they would get them out, what if the skin had healed around and over them, what if they got stuck, or the cut wasn't healed and all my throat came out - eek! - but that also was painless and easy peasy. The nurse just pulled one end and that was it. It didn't hurt, in fact i didn't even feel a thing, and it took about 2 seconds! yay for modern medicine!

how i nearly met gok........

2009-07-07T07:24:00.002Z

So, i nearly met Gok Wan yesterday.....
There i was, casually strolling down Oxford Street, when a woman came up to me and asked if i was from London. Me, assuming she was trying to sell me stuff said no, and carried on my way, only to see the Gokster up ahead doing telly stuff, like talking to everyday people, surrounded by a throng of excited other everyday people.
I fear that the woman who asked me if i was from London, just maybe, was looking for cool cats to have a chat to Gok!!!!! I know! Bah! and more Bah!
So in future if asked, "do you come from London?" then check your immediate surroundings for celebrity fashion fixers.........
Incidentally, i'm amazed, no, doubly amazed ( thats quite alot of amazed ) that we've yet to see a transexual on Gok's fashion fix .....Not that i'm saying all transexuals need help with dressing, obviously, that would be wrong, and i'm only suggesting this because as a transexual myself i feel i can approach this with a) insight b) irony and c) less chance of getting flamed by angry ( well dressed, natch ) trannies.
Anyhow, i'm just saying, Gok, if you're reading this, and you fancy a go, y'know, at gok's tranny fix ( man, that just sounds wrong, we may need to work on that bit ) then my inbox is waiting......

hiatus

2009-07-05T07:17:00.003Z

Soooo, i've been away for abit. I do have a good excuse though, in that i've had an operation and stuff.
An operation? not 'the' operation? well no dear reader not that operation, that is for another post, and another day, no this operation was for my voice.
I had 2 procedures , a tracheal shave, where they cut off your adams apple ( sounds way grimmer than it actually is ) and a cricothyroid approximation, where they do some choppy cutty stuff to the cartilage that holds your vocal cords in place.
I do have to say, it wasn't nearly as bad as i was expecting. I'm pretty scared of operations, the whole idea of going under freaks me out big time but it actually isn't that bad. They put a tubey thing into the back of my hand and then the anaesthetist injected some liquid into it and the room whent blurry and that's all i remember. Literally in what felt like the next moment, i woke up with an oxygen mask on my face in a different room with everything done.
It is pretty insane, i remember nothing after the anesthetic.
Afterwards i did feel pretty shit for a while though. I felt pretty sicky, but they gave me some tablets that sorted that out, and so after that i just felt groggy more than anything.
Strangely, it seemed to affect my ability to go to the toilet for about 24 hours, which is mad as it was my throat that was operated on. I'm guessing this maybe either an after effect of the anesthetic/painkillers ( Mmmmm, morphine! ) or that i'm massively neurotic about weeing in a toilet i don't know.......
Also my teeth and jaw where pretty achy for about a week afterwards, which is apparently where they've had to hold and move stuff about to do the operation whilst i was asleep.....
One of the things you have to do after the operation is rest your voice for 2 weeks. Now that is hard. And also massively frustrating for everyone around you. You can't speak at all for 3 days and then very little for 2 weeks, i must of said about 5 words all together in that time, oh and you mustn't whisper. Whispering is bad, like crossing the streams in Ghostbusters bad, no whisper!
Anyhow it's been about a month and a half now, and my voice has changed. When i first started speech therapy my lowest voice level was about 96hz ( definitely male ) and at best about 140hz ( still male, borderline androgynous ) but now, it averages around 200-210hz which is defo female in it's range. So yay me!
Interestingly it does have a massive effect on how people view you as well. Before the operation i would get he'd alot. Now it just doesn't happen. I've not changed the way i look, so i can only assume that we define gender hugely on how someone sounds. People without fail now use female pronouns with me, ( by people i mean people that don't know me obviously ) and this is very much a good thing :)

being human

2009-03-01T08:40:00.002Z

Good news everyone! Being Human is going to be back for a second series.........

I've massivly enjoyed the first series, which concludes tonight i think, so it's great it's being given another run. It's clever, funny, sad, edgy and intelligent drama, but with vampires, werewolves and ghosts.
It's easily on a par with the better episodes of dr.who, and dare i say it, buffy, as well...

365days have gone by......

2009-02-21T18:12:00.003Z

so, it's finally done. I have taken a years worth of me and posted it all to flickr, as you do......
( For those not in the know, there's this thing that everyone is doing on flickr that involves you taking a photo everyday for a year of yourself, and this is what i have done also )

It's been interesting, certainly useful, and quite often hard work. ( not Hard Work, like working in a coal mine, or being a Ninja, but hard work in relation to my lifestyle at least )
I think i've learnt stuff, for instance i used to never post pictures of my face. I was massivly freaked out about what people would think, one of my bigger trans hang-ups i guess, but now, in part thanks to doing this, i do post my face, and i'm proud of how i look. Okay, i'm a little unusual looking, I believe striking has been used on more than one occasion, but now i'm starting to embrace that rather than run from it.
I also have learnt alot about narcissism. I actually like taking photos of myself. Shush now with your snorting at the back, taking pictures of yourself is a good thing. The camera doesn't lie ( well okay, it does sometimes, but not for the purposes of this paragraph alright? ), it shows the good bits ( collarbone, shoulder, lips, hands, hair, freckles ) and the bad ( nose, scars, blothy skin, veins, neck ) and forces you to look at them in all their glory, untill you start to see, to really see, that it's all a part of you and that even the odd, and freaky bits are okay, and have their own beauty......

Anyhow, i feel happy that i've done it, and i think that my skill as a photographer has improved hugely since starting 365days, so now it's just a case of thinking about what to try next....maybe another 365 days of myself? or maybe other people? or maybe both.......

you dancing?

2009-02-21T09:30:00.000Z

BOOMBOX from Ely Kim on Vimeo.

this is truely a joy to behold, particularly no.64...........

goats

2009-02-08T09:59:00.003Z

Is that really Ray Parker Jr on that 118 advert at the moment? He looks soooo young still....I especially like the goats in it as well.....

Actually goats, they're just brilliant really. Everyone thinks so, no really, just type goats into facebook and marvel at Goats in trees are more awesomer then goats not in trees. or Hens VS Goats!! ( a toughy, but goats win with their crazy eyes and cute beards ) or even I want facts about goats, not to mention all the fainting goats groups.....

Some goats, larking about on a cliff......

One day, one day dear readers i shall have some goats, and live on a farm, maybe next door to Hugh Fernley Whittenstall, or PJ Harvey, and we shall live the country life, making homemade wine, collecting eggs and growing our own veg.....

And that concludes todays ramblings :)

snow days

2009-02-03T08:26:00.002Z

It is pretty exciting when you wake up to find snow everywhere.....well outside anyhow, snow everywhere would be pretty bad, and quite possibly would mean there's a hole in the roof or something, but anyhow, snow!
Down here on the coast snow is quite a rarity, i think snow is scared of the sea, and so when it does snow everyone comes out.
We went for a walk in the evening when it just started coming down, around 10.30pm, and loads of people where out taking photos and making snowmen/balls! It is really lovely, i mean the amount of photos taken in the last few days must be staggering, flickr must be 'snowed' under!!! (no? , ahh, please yourselves :) )
Sadly it has now started to melt, but, whilst it lasted it was alot of fun........

new voices

2009-01-28T08:01:00.002Z

Hey there readers, guess what? I'm getting a new voice!
What's that you cry! a new voice? surely not,is it even possible?
Well yes, it is.
Think of it as like Face/Off , but with voices, oh, but without actually swapping anything with anyone, oh, and the prison bit, and the guns, and the chase bits.....hmmmm, actually don't think of it as like Face/Off, bad analogy, to your bed......
Anyhow, yes, i'm on a list and in about 3 months time hopefully they'll call me for surgery and then i will have a new, hopefully more feminine sounding, voice.
The weird thing is that afterwards i'm not allowed to speak for about 4 days, not a single sound, not even a whisper, which will be very strange indeed because well, i'm not ashamed to say, i do like the sound of my own voice ( metaphorically speaking obviously, the actual sound i do not like, hence this whole post ).
I also have to think about what my first words will be in the new voice when i can speak, now that is a question, what would your first words be if you could have them all over again?..........

things to do, places to see.......

2009-01-25T13:10:00.000Z

As you may of noticed, i have a blog roll.....not a very big blog roll, but still none the less, one that is filled with goodness and exciting reads......
So i thought i'd do a series of posts about the blogs, on said roll, and why i think they're great, which dear reader, may well be a test of my writing powers, as quite often it basically devolves down to i like it because it is great and nice and great , which lets face it, isn't exactly cutting edge comment.....
Anyhow...i'd like to talk about genderfork today.
I've only relatively recently found this site, through Internet link hopping i think, but it consistently draws me back for more. It's about androgyny, and gender, and all the wonderful and striking variations inbetween.
I find the photos especially interesting, partly because i do photos myself, but also because it makes me feel like i'm not alone in my ambiguity. The world, it seems is filled with others who stretch the boundaries of gender, others who don't want to choose one or the other, but are happiest in the spaces inbetween.
And not just happy, but proud as well, proud enough to be photographed no less, which for alot of people may well be a big big thing.....
The genderfork tagline is beauty in ambiguity , which pretty much says all you need to know about it :)

i see you, you see me.......

2009-01-24T18:50:00.001Z

three hundred and forty
Originally uploaded by Scarlet traces.

i'm really pleased with this picture, it was just an off the cuff one but through sheer luck on my part it got just the right bit of my face to work, well to work in my mind anyhow......
I quite like the whole desaturated thing going on as well, this is something i may have to explore more......

the pet iceberg....

2009-01-22T08:16:00.003Z

following on from yesterday, i can in fact confirm that the image of the pet iceberg is indeed better in my head than on paper.....i won't be publishing my sorry assed attempts at drawing it but suffice to say they were very disappointing.......
(I did try a google search for pet iceberg but it seems that although there are plenty of pictures of icebergs, and pets, there is a disturbing lack of pets on icebergs, for which i can't help but feel the world is surely a poorer place. I did find a link for the New York pet fashion week though so all was not lost.......)

pet sounds

2009-01-21T08:17:00.000Z

i'm thinking of getting a pet, i have had them before and they really did cause alot of fun for everyone and now i feel the time is right for a new one. But which one to choose? there are many many types of pet, though sadly none of them seem to be able to sing like the dog in that car advert, which is very disappointing. In fact, scientists of the world, if you can make dogs that sing with human voices then i feel you'll never have to work again. They've made mice with ears on their backs and glow in the dark kittens so singing dogs must be like what, a days work? I'm just saying, i'm there, front of the queue, y'know, should it happen....
But anyhow, what pet? let us review the options....

Horses
Positives: Can carry heavy things around, likes sugar lumps, can double up as transport in sunny weather
Negatives:
not ideal for city/flat living, have been known to bite, mule variety notoriously stubborn
Guinea pigs
Positives: make funny noises, often have crazy hair, can be picked up easily as they think your hands are a vulture or something and so freeze in terror
Negatives:
known to breed exponentially just by looking at each other, easily scared by everything
Dogs
Positives: often do stupid things for comedy effect, can see ghosts, can see off trouble makers and ruffians using growl, many varieties
Negatives:
no singing abilities yet, obsessive about unpleasant or smelly things, carnivorous pack animal descended from wolves- possible regression issues?

boy, oh boy, this is complicated, and this is only the tip of the pet iceberg ( hmmmmm, now thats a thought, although i fear the image in my head is better than any image i could hope to actually draw....) , i must ponder some more i think.........

old not wise

2009-01-17T08:30:00.003Z

Hmmm, it seems that i'm getting older, and that as i get older, time starts to go faster.
Obviously this is not ideal, i remember when i was younger, time seemed to take ages but now i hardly seem to get up in the morning before it's time to go back to bed again......
Maybe it's because i'm always busy doing something, wheather it be eating, working, internetting, eating, sleeping, looking at the sky, eating, or making v signs at the telly when stupid adverts come on.....maybe all that stuff distracts me from noticing that loads of time has gone by and nothing of any consequence has been achived....
Actually that's not strictly true, it's the middle of january and so far i have achieved...erm....
1. re-starting writing, hmmm, that's good, and....
2. keeping an organised diary, as opposed to bits of paper stuffed in my back pocket..
3. about 20 or so more white hairs on my head.

so that i suppose is a start, i've re-lit my creative flame, got organised, and started going grey....yay 2009......:)

facebook

2009-01-14T07:56:00.002Z

I have a real love/hate thing with facebook. I know that i'm not alone in this, it makes me squeal with joy when someone comments on my status, or pics, not as much as on Flickr, or here, but still it is a notable squeal.
But it also makes me cross, actually cross is too strong a word, lets try mildly disgruntled, in equal measure....for instance, i really don't like that blue colour they use, admittedly not enough to join one of those groups people seem to set up all the time protesting about the inhumanity of not being able to change the colour, but still, it's a very dull colour....
Which brings me onto the next gripe....stupid/amusing groups. Okay, i know everyone can do whatever they want now but really sometimes you have to ask, what is the point?
Some of the groups i've found just recently ( and yes, i know that the fact that i've spent time looking for these things makes me equally, if not a little more, sad )include.....

If you say riding horses isnt a sport, id love to see you try it. ( nice lack of grammar here )

Wow, I really like Grapefruit Too! and it's slightly harsher sister group fuck grapefruit

AUTHORITIES CRUSH DOG IN A RUBBISH TRUCK - WE WANT ANSWERS! is nice for it's use of SHOUTING and serious point undermined by exclamation mark..

George Bush is an easy target but you have to admire the group I bet I can find 1,000,000 people who dislike George Bush! which has actually found 1,000,000 members. Sadly though this triumph has been upstaged by the group I bet i can find 5,000,000 people who dislike George Bush which itself is having it's thunder stolen by i bet i can find 15,000,000 people that Hate George W. Bush , and so on and so on for ever and ever.....

Lastly, i do like the sheer optimism of the BRING BACK ROD HULL AND EMU. group, sadly though, i feel this group's optimism may fall at the first hurdle....

Facebook eh? Now, where was that 'wow, i really love grapefruit' group again ?......

back...........

2009-01-13T08:08:00.003Z

Y'know, the only thing with not using a blog for nearly a year, and then deciding to start it again, is the problem that arises when you try to login in.
Damn my tricky ways of spelling passwords in order to deture potential blog hackers.......

there goes the fear

2008-05-15T06:48:00.002Z

Do you remember when you were young? It occurred to me the other day that when i was i really did have very little sense of danger, or fear of 'stuff'.
I mean i was afraid of things, things like spiders, two geese we had, who were called Lawrence and Green, and were particularly badass, ghosts, posters with things on them that had eyes ( don't ask ), the dark, all the usual childhood fears, give or take a few crazy ones.
However i wasn't so afraid of actual dangers, like falling out of trees for instance. I'd climb up those babies without a fear in the world, despite being incredibly clumsy and gangly.
I can remember we had a hay barn, about the height of a two story house, and on summer days we'd break up a few bales of hay on the floor and climb up the other hay bales to the top of the barn, and then jump off into the broken bales. Without a fear in the world.
Quite often i miss that careless abandon you have when you're young, when things that are quite obviously dangerous don't seem like that.
That hasn't quite come out right, what i mean to say is i find it frustrating and sad sometimes that as an adult i spend alot of time being afraid of stuff. As a child i didn't have that worldly wise-ness and it freed me in many many ways to do things that were good and fun without any thought. I just did. Naivety was my god.
For instance with the hay bale death jumps my major concern wasn't a broken fibula or paralysis from a fractured spine. No my major concern was that my mum and dad would find us and stop the fun ( and possibly give us a sound telling off ).
So anyway here's the point of this all, here are some things i'd do if i still had the mentality of my child self but which as an adult i'm too repressed and dumb to do......
roller coasters, tattoos, riding horses, flying, hot air ballooning, travelling.

That's just a few, i suppose the big one is my presentation i guess. One of my friends once said that if she could, if she hadn't got the fear, she'd wear shorter skirts, lower tops, she'd glam it up. I get what she's saying, more so now i think than all those years ago when she said it, in a different life. I have in my head an image of who i want to be, and it doesn't match the one i am. Which isn't to say things haven't got closer, they have very much so but the actual final image? I'm not there and to be honest i'm not sure i ever will be, i'm not sure i'm ever going to be able to let go enough, to be like my carefree younger self.
i should point out that although it sounds like i'm not happy with myself i am happy with things at the moment, life is very very good, but sometimes it doesn't hurt to think and speculate i guess. Maybe then we can find our way past the things stopping us from being more like ourselves.

made in the dark

2008-05-11T14:58:00.002Z

once again, not dead, just busy...this is getting to be a habit really but it does seem that my blogging decreases as my satisfaction and happiness with the rest of my life increases.
I do miss writing though so maybe i'll start again, maybe i will.

the twist

2008-05-09T23:37:00.001Z

the twist
Originally uploaded by Scarlet traces.

looking up at a magnolia tree..........

in reality

2008-04-14T18:51:00.003Z

as i mentioned before i have got a job, working in a similar, but not quite the same, field as what i did before. It is strange working again after not working for 3 odd months though.
Suddenly i've gone from having way too much time to do stuff to having not enough time to do stuff again, which means i'm going to have to be way more organised than i was before if i want to do all the stuff i like doing...... which is alot of stuff really.
One of the pluses of working again is that i get given money for doing it, something i am very happy about as it means i can now buy things, even though i don't have enough time to fully appreciate them because i'm working, which is yet another irony i have recently been taking on....
Which makes me sound like a whiny moaner, which of course i'm not at all. This is just something i'd forgotten during my 'sabbatical'. In actual fact i am really really enjoying working at the moment, it's new, exciting, fun and very different in a good way and in reality, when it comes down to it what more could any of us want from work than that?

the sea on sunday

2008-04-09T07:40:00.001Z

the sea on sunday
Originally uploaded by Scarlet traces

Flickr has now introduced video! how exciting!
this is something i did ages ago now but it's been lurking on my hard drive waiting for the right moment so here it is. I think i may of posted this before along time ago but hey ho, it's on flickr now :)

snow

2008-04-06T16:56:00.001Z

red
Originally uploaded by Scarlet traces.

we had snow! it is however april, so slightly unseasonal snow it is........and it's pretty much all gone now :(

job

2008-04-03T06:53:00.002Z

i have a new job, hense the tumbleweeds blowing around here :) yay me!

nearly full

2008-03-24T13:36:00.002Z

nearly full
Originally uploaded by Scarlet traces.

i feel quite chuffed with this picture ( blimey, i haven't used the word chuffed for years, it's like being back at school ) having taken lots and lots of really crap moon shots. On this one, rather than it being a big white glowy ball which quite frankly could be anything, you can actually see the craters and seas. I shall try and take some more i think, now i've got a system of sorts on how to do it. ( my old system was point camera at moon and press shutter button, which although simple lacks a certain professionalism i feel ).

flickr!

2008-03-17T08:34:00.001Z

flickr!
Originally uploaded by Scarlet traces.

contact sheets

2008-03-16T14:52:00.002Z

Back in the old days i used to develop my own photographs. In those days i had access to a darkroom, which madly for a college that majored in Art related degrees, very few people used or even knew about. Admittedly it was through one of those invisible doors, the ones that no one notices intill they're pointed out, and down some dingy stairs lit with emergency lighting so maybe that put people off......
I used to really enjoy doing this sort of stuff, so i've decided to do a photography course. It's more digital based, so no dark room, but it does look like fun and i am all for abit of fun.....

the point isn't always sharp

2008-03-11T15:14:00.002Z

I had another job interview today, it went okay. I think my whole interview thing is good, y'know, smiling, being good with the answers to questions, not inappropriately touching people or swearing under my breath but even with all this behind me i can't help but feel that when people first see me all that goes through their heads is 'tranny', possibly in big flashing lights and maybe warning sirens as well.
I do really try and make an effort to look pretty fine but inevitably after a few seconds of interaction the penny drops, and then i'm at a disadvantage, mainly because everyone else that's interviewed isn't ts, and that's a plus for them and a big minus for me.
Maybe i'm being abit pessimistic, i possibly am, but, and this is the thing, all the jobs i've applied for i would of got before i came out, they're no different to many other jobs i have had in the past. bah!
Other things i did today include signing on. Which is where you get money from the government whilst you're unemployed. Which sounds good, and is good, and would be even better if the person you went to see actually said more than 10 words to you during the whole process.

Benefits office person (hereafter known as BOP):hello!
Me ( hereafter known as erm..me ): hello there!
BOP: *makes no noise at all and just looks at his computer screen for about 10 minutes*
Me: *makes polite but assertive cough*
BOP: good work on your job sheet...*pushes sheet of paper at me*
Me: *smiles* so i sign this?
BOP: yes ( said in a even more patronising way then the good work comment )
Me: *signs bit of paper* is that it?
BOP: yes, goodbye!
Me: bye then.....

Dear god, it's soul destroying really. Ah well i suppose maybe when you've had to do the same thing with 50 other people who don't really want to get a job that your heart isn't really in it anymore......

however this postcard on postsecret did make me laugh alot so the day wasn't a total downer :)

the pier takes a battering......

2008-03-10T16:43:00.001Z

the pier takes a battering......
Originally uploaded by Scarlet traces.

another stormy picture...............

a bit blowy.....

2008-03-10T08:06:00.002Z

I popped down to the seafront this morning to have a look at the storm, it was very very very windy, and abit damp.
As i was walking down i saw a trail of windswept destruction already, including my gorgeous partner's moterbike! eeek! it had blown over rather dramaticly but we decided to leave it there, as to be honest it would only blow over again.
There were also loads of recycling boxes blowing down the streets, like plastic tumbleweeds, bits of trees, and the odd slate.
Anyhow the seafront was extreme, i got a few pictures but to be honest it was abit too wild really so i wizely decided to scarper back home pronto for a nice cup of tea :)

flickr phenomona

2008-03-05T17:44:00.001Z

2.88
Originally uploaded by Scarlet traces.

it appears that if you want to get lots of views in a short space of time on everybodies favourite photo site then a combination of some bare skin and macs ( of the apple variety rather than than the coat ) works quite well :)
maybe next time i'll go naked..........

things that make me anxious part one

2008-02-29T13:04:00.003Z

Going to see bands.

Which is a weird thing because i also really like to go see bands play, i do really love the whole live thing but i do also always feel a rippling undercurrent of anxiety.
If i go with friends i always feel slightly anxious about if they'll like the band we're going to see, and then i start to think maybe they don't and they're just being polite. When this happens i spend most of the gig thinking 'shit, they really hate 'Nuclear Deathmatch Kittens' ( insert your band of choice here ),and now they're all smiling politely because they really hate me for making them watch such a rubbish band' rather than just enjoying the gig.
This feeling is exaggerated a thousand times if the band are actually rubbish.

I also get anxious if we happen to be near anyone in the audience that starts talking when the band are playing. I do try and block them out but somehow suddenly all i can hear is their conversation about how little Jocasta spoke her first words yesterday, which incidentally weren't "shut the fuck up", and how little Tarquin is now onto potties. Seriously, there's a time and a place people, and it's not right now when Pulp are playing their last gig ever as a full band. True story, i kid you not.

And finally the other big thing that makes me anxious about going to see gigs is when the band themselves decide to do one of their best songs, the one where everyone claps and cheers as the opening bars are played, but decides to do a 'new' version of it rather than the one we all know and love. Why, oh why would they do that. It's not clever or exciting, it's very, very wrong. I don't want to see a 'new' version sung entirely in semaphore, i want to hear the one that's the same as the one on the cd, the one that everyone likes and have turned up to see you play.

More anxiousness later.......

tougher and tough

2008-02-25T18:48:00.002Z

I think i need to toughen myself up to needles. Not in a stonelike skin sort of way, which incidently must of been used for some sort of X-men type superhero power by now, if not then feel free, it's a good one. They could have a catchphrase like 'stoneskin will always win' or 'power of unpierceable skin', which they'd shout very loudly at their nemesis, who'd proberbly be called The Needle, or PointyMan, maybe.
Anyhow, as i was saying, i have a fear of needles, they tend to make me faint in various spectacular ways. My worst was possibly taking down a huge vase of flowers whilst ineffectually mouthing the words "oh dear i feel..." and then just twitching for about 10 minutes in a big puddle of water and chrysanthanums.
My aclimitisation plan is to try and look at needles more. Not the most detailed of plans admitidly, but i think that simplicity is the key here. I have already started, the injection i had, as mentioned in the post before this one, was a test run and although i didn't actually look at the needle as such i did look at the hole it left when it had done it's needlely thing.
The hole, although surprisingly big for a hole caused by a needle, didn't make me faint so i'm guessing this is a good sign and has given me newfound confidence in my phobia confronting mission so i will keep you posted on the progress i'm making as and when i'm confronted by anything pointy and needle like.......

needles

2008-02-20T16:46:00.004Z

So the interview went okay after all that, they'll let me know later if i'm in but i think it went a-okay all in all, okay being of course no screaming or muffled laughter as i closed the door after the end of the interview......
I also had a stomach injection today, hence the picture of my tummy with a big plaster on it.
It's actually an implant they put under my skin with an injection, i can't tell you the size of the needle though. I really try to make a deliberate effort not to acknowledge things like that. I'm guessing though that it's massive, i imagine the sort of needle that they use to inject large beasts with, like dragons or wyverns.
This implant blocks testosterone, which is good for me as my body seems to be quite keen on producing said hormone. It is a little surreal though, who'd of thought that we'd be able to do such things as artifically regulate hormone levels to this degree? It does amaze me sometimes, i think i certainly live in miraculous times........

idle hands

2008-02-19T16:41:00.003Z

Being unemployed is quite a strange thing really. I've only been in this situation once before and to be honest it was abit shit really.
So, stuff i have been doing, apart from looking for jobs ( more on than in a minute ), to stop it being abit shit include....
1. watching reaper on E4, very funny, like 'buffy' crossed with 'dead like me' and it's produced by Kevin Smith too.
2. doing some quite frankly damn hot 365days pictures. It appears that the devil actually makes creative photography ideas for idle hands.
3. going uptown to London to look at art. ( i am soooo much a middle class guardian reading leftie it's painful, no really, i hurt )
4. thinking about what i really want to do. This one is a little bigger than this post will allow so we'll come back to that another time.....
5. reading books....current reading list includes...Fifteen Modern Tales of Attraction by Alison MacLeod, No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July, The Government Inspector by Nikolai Gogol, and Old Devil Moon by Christopher Fowler to name a few....

As i said before though, i have also been looking for jobs, which would be easy if it wasn't for the complication in my life. As regular readers will know i'm transgendered. And it seems that people looking for prospective new employees aren't too keen on trannies.
This obviously leads to a dilemma, shall i mention it beforehand or not mention it at all till they twig ( this is usually as soon as i cross a line of sight ).
I have however, in the name of social research, done a little experiement to determine the best course of action.
It appears that the jobs where i have mentioned it when applying are the ones i don't hear back from. It could of course be a coincidence, i'm keeping an open mind.....and the ones where i don't mention it? well those seem to be the ones i do hear back from, although this too is fraught with peril!
'But Why?' i hear you cry, ( in a hopefully dramatic and angsty way ). Well dear friends allow me to recount the telephone conversation i had yesterday....

Me: hello, my name is 'Joan Jett' ( obviously i used my real name here but i'm using an alias today ) i'm ringing regarding the message left on my answering machine about the job"
Them: ( pauses) oh yes, we're having interviews on Wednesday...sorry, what was your name again?
Me: ( slight pause as pennies begin to drop on both sides ) 'Joan Jett'
Them: (more pausing ) oh, i'm sorry, are you a gentleman?
Me: ( in a Ohfuckbollocksfuck type stylie ) noooooo, i do have a deep voice though.....
Them : ( in a not buying it for a minute type stylie ) oookay, shall we see you about 12 tomorrow then?

So i did get an interview after all that but i have a feeling, i'm not sure why, that it maybe the shortest interview in the world.... i shall let you know afterwards......

sunset with sun

2008-02-17T19:03:00.001Z

sunset with sun
Originally uploaded by Scarlet traces.

new world

2008-02-13T08:03:00.002Z

I've had a blog spring clean, maybe it's the sunshine, or maybe it's just that i have some time on my hands at the moment, but anyhow there's a new title thing for this blog- yay!
And not only that but i've sorted out my other mini blogs, check out the links under my other blogs to see what's been going down - double yay!

tiltshift my blog

2008-02-12T15:33:00.000Z

I have just recently discovered the joy of tiltshifting, and it is an unparrelled joy. Make real life things seem tiny and toy like? Holy moly! show me the way........
Anyhow i've made a new blog, especially for the tiltshifting fun i've been having in Brighton which shall be updated in my usual regular and irelevant manner.
Oh, here's the link, tiltshifting brighton , please take a little look, at a little world......

ring of fire

2008-02-09T10:52:00.001Z

2.64
Originally uploaded by Scarlet traces.

eye

2008-02-07T18:37:00.001Z

eye
Originally uploaded by Scarlet traces.

babies

2008-02-07T13:22:00.000Z

A while ago someone i know told me they were having a baby. By someone i know i really mean someone i had a thirteen year relationship with, and i am really really pleased for her because it is something fantastic and amazing, but there is a part of me, a very, very small part of me that's a little curious about why we didn't have one when we were together.
In hindsight it is of course a good thing we didn't as we broke up, and when it comes to break-ups babies aren't so great, indeed from my own personal experience i found it was hard enough with cats so the alternative doesn't bear thinking about but....
Whilst we were together it never was an issue, neither of us had the baby fever, and certainly in my case i have yet to contract this, but i can't help thinking i wonder what's changed.
I think the biological clock may play a part, once that stops ticking you've kind of missed the boat in many ways, it's a strange thing. Maybe because i've never felt the need to reproduce i'll never really understand, i know people who have the desire to have children, and it's so strong that everything else is second place to that, and i must admit i don't always completely understand that strength of desire, possibly due to my lack of need to reproduce. Which isn't to say i don't empathise with it, i am after all vaguely sentient, but i think sometimes there is a difference between empathy and understanding.
I think that maybe the curiosity as to why now is partly a male thing as well, which is fine, i do have male traits as well as female ones, and i am happy to embrace that particular reality, but whatever it is one thing i do know is that i am very happy for her, and her baby, and i'm also very happy for me, without any babies.....

perfect moments one

2008-01-30T19:36:00.000Z

We've been getting some amazing sunsets just recently, this one was positively tropical in it's glory, these are real colours in the above picture! It is quite majestic.
When i was down watching and snapping this one it was pretty cool to see so many other people doing the same thing, some had tripods and fancy photograph stuff but many others just had cameras and some where just watching.
It reminded me of one of the perfect moments that happen so rarely where everything just seems right.....
This one happened a few years ago, about 5 months after i moved down to Brighton, after all the sad and strange things that happened before, ( which you can read about if you delve into the earlier posts of this blog ).

It was my flatmate's birthday and we'd had a gorgeous lunch in a pub, proper food that would get celebrity chefs all excited, with some friends. There was wine and laughter and it felt good. Anyhow it was an unusually warm december afternoon, you didn't really even need coats, and so to end the day we walked down to watch the sunset over the sea. There were so many people all down on the beach, standing, sitting all watching the sun go down. In the background a steel drum was playing, and we stood and watched the sun set. For a short and wonderful moment nothing really seemed that bad, that empty, that sad.
It was a perfect moment, just those few minutes.
And of course then it was gone again, we went on to another pub, drank abit more, laughed alot more, and then woke up the morning after, when real life catches up with you and well, you know the rest.......but for those few moments on that december evening, everything was right.....

some sort of seating anarchist

2008-01-28T15:57:00.000Z

As I’ve mentioned a while back I have joined the revolution and got a Mac ibook, which is just as lovely as everyone says. However I wasn’t warned of the strange effect using a Mac has on other people.
There I was, happily typing away on the train, completely minding my own business when a guy got on the train and sat down next to me!
I should mention that at this point there were many empty seats on the train, with tables should someone wish to spread out, but no this gentleman decided to sit right next to me.
Now normal train etiquette dictates that you only sit next to someone as a last resort, it’s like an unspoken rule, but here I was, directly affected by this flagrant disregard for the system, by some sort of seating anarchist.
He then proceeded to get out a computer magazine and some photocopies of said machines. It was frankly terrifying dear reader, but it was about to get worse……
Now I’ve learnt a few things from travelling on the trains, one of which is the power that headphones exude. Stick a pair of those puppies in your ears and only the most hardened of crazies will attempt to strike up a conversation with you. You don’t even need to be listening to anything, as long as they’re in your ears people will leave you alone to contemplate life’s mysteries. So anyhow I have my headphones in, a clear sign that I have no desire to speak to other people , and yet this guy ignores this! OMG! Indeed! He’s a loose cannon, smashing down the walls I’ve worked so hard to build up!
He reaches over and touches my arm, and inside I let out a little scream.
“ sorry to bother you” he says ( a likely story I think, in my head though as I don’t want no trouble ) “ but I’m going to buy a mac and I was wondering which one was the best “
Which one was best? Out of all the Mac’s in the world? Don’t hold back there big fella…..
I think my face, possibly a mix of irritation and fear, said as much as he then narrowed his search criteria to the photocopies he was carrying, not that it helped much.
It was a tricky situation, this man was clearly some sort of wild card, but he was also asking for my advice, and I’m afraid my vanity won through. Give me the chance to seem all knowing and wise and I’m anybodies.
I put on my knowledgeable face, it’s a good one, there’s a hand to chin, some gentle head nodding and some pretty intense eye movement, and plumped for the most expensive one he showed me. I believe I may have said something about how with macs it’s a case of the more you spend the more you get, obviously a very wise thing to say.
What? Well it was either that or me just going that one looks really pretty, buy that one.
Tsk… ..

lighter

2008-01-28T10:52:00.001Z

2.53
Originally uploaded by Scarlet traces.

curry

2008-01-27T21:40:00.000Z

I’m writing this whilst cooking, curry if you’re interested, so excuse me if it seems disjointed, it’ll be because my onions are burning ☺
Anyhow, I was speaking to my parents today, I saw them earlier this week, but it was a bit of a new thing for them, as they saw me, the female me, for the first time.
I know, what a potential situation, it could turn nasty, it could descend into farce, or it could just be slightly weird and a little awkward as everyone just does the british thing of ignoring the very obvious ‘ one of these things is not like the other ones’ type thing.
Actually it wasn’t that bad really, it all went okay give or take a few awkward moments in wagamamas, which is obviously good.
The thing is, how far do I push it. ‘It?’ I hear you cry, and well you might so let me elaborate. By ‘it’ I mean the whole this is who I am now and you need to accept it and deal, Actually scrub that because it’s a little aggressive. By ‘it’ I mean I am to all intents and purposes living, acting, looking ( give or take ) , being a woman. Do I push it down their throats, or is it easier to just tone it down abit when I’m around them?
I really don’t know.
Curry is now cooked, and eaten. It has fuelled my brain cells as well and I think it’s something I probably need to do on a day to day basis depending on the situation and also the people involved. For instance I know that certain members of my family find it harder to deal with than others, so for now I guess we’ll not push it so much with them. Maybe work on the ones that are slightly more receptive to the changes that are happening first. Which sounds kind of mercenary and a little erm… well…un-emotional but maybe it will make for an easier ride for everyone in the long run……

999 photos

2008-01-26T09:15:00.001Z

999 photos
Originally uploaded by Scarlet traces.

well it was 999 photos but now it's gone above that, but still i feel quite pleased, admitedly about half of these 999 photos are abit crap but hey ;)

whats been going down

2008-01-24T14:41:00.000Z

Well, lots has been going down my friends, the picture to our left, if blogger is working right, is of all the wood that's washing up on the beach, here's the news story in case you live erm...somewhere else, or don't know about it, or something. More, as usual on flickr. So anyhow i went and had a look at said wood, it was quite exciting in a sort of embarrassing way, if you get what i mean. Really all it is is a load of planks washed up on a beach but somehow it was quite erm...good? hmmm

Other news, which is abit more major is that i have been made redundant from my job. This obviously sucks big time, it wasn't entirely unexpected but well it's still really shit. However, i am as always, the optimist when it comes to bad mojo and i'm viewing it as a new start, a fresh beginning, a lucky escape even maybe, depending on how things go?
This does mean that i am entering the scary world of applying for jobs though, it's all very competitive really so i'm putting my "grrrrrrr, i'm a tiger" head on in preparation for any trouble :)
Wish me luck.........

29881 days, and 4 hours

2008-01-17T07:06:00.001Z

29881 days, and 4 hours
Originally uploaded by Scarlet traces.

An amusing message that popped up when i tried to put some pictures onto cdrom the other day, funnily enough windows vista crashed shortly after this ;) tsk!

fish

2008-01-15T07:17:00.001Z

more fish
Originally uploaded by Scarlet traces.

recycling

2008-01-09T06:54:00.000Z

We recycled our Christmas tree last weekend, it left a lovely trail of bits, actually it was quite amusing in that all along the street to the place where you could leave your tree for recycling was a cheeky little trail of pine needles and the odd branch, so even if you weren't sure where you where going you could in theory just follow the trail!
anyhow it's all recycled now, the environment is saved for another day, yay me!

hello again....

2008-01-06T11:57:00.000Z

ahem....okay so it's been quite quiet round these parts lately, i've just been busy with other stuff in the physical world, as opposed to the electronic, and so have maybe neglected this little corner of t'internet a bit.....maybe.....
I am going to be writing more though this year, i believe you could, should you be so inclined, call it a new year's resolution. I won't call it that though, because if i do it will be the kiss of death for the whole writing thing......:)

happy christmas......

2007-12-26T14:24:00.001Z

christmas......
Originally uploaded by Scarlet traces.

......back in the new year........

pow!

2007-11-02T21:25:00.001Z

2.23
Originally uploaded by Scarlet traces.

cheeky

2007-10-17T15:32:00.001Z

now we all love abit of post, oh yes, but today i got a load of vouchers from Boots, and well......well.....i'm not sure what Boots is trying to tell me but.....hurmph.....

rat

2007-10-14T09:28:00.000Z

oh dear, we appear to have mice, and rats and all that the little rodenty things bring with them.
Where we live has recently had pretty skanky bins, which seems to of attracted them in, one popped his little cheeky head out from under the washing machine, so armed with a torch i took a look and i think i can see a gap in the wall where they could be coming in, the little swines. So that's another call to our letting agent on Monday then.........
The Rats are more a rumour but who knows....... one of my friends once told me about a rather scary incident with a rat so i'm not taking too many chances.....( cue wibbly wobbly screen effect as we go back.....back in time! )
My friend liked to have a smoke on his back porch in the evening, busy day and all that, time to unwind, sooo anyhow he was just sitting there minding his own when about 15 feet away a rat pops up, like in that whack-a-rat game you sometimes see at the seaside.
Now he's not afraid of rats, he's seen one before but this rat stands there and looks at him straight in the eye. If this rat had sleeves he'd of been rolling them up no less.
"hmmmmm" thinks my friend, and stands up, obviously in order to assert the age old pecking order between Humans and Rats, but this rat, clearly a philistine when it comes to these matters starts moving towards him!
He waves his arms a little bit and offers some direct and forthright advice in the rat's direction. I believe there may of been some swearing but this is unsubstantiated.
But the rat ignores this and picks up speed!
Picture this dear readers, A man, a fully grown man, top of the food chain no less, standing on his doorstep shouting and a rat, ignoring the natural order of things, and heading straight for what i can only imagine it thinks is an easy target.
What would you do? hmmmm? maybe take the rat on at it's own game and charge yourself, man vs rat, only one can walk away! or maybe arm yourself with a garden implement, such as a trowl and brandish it threateningly, a swift and well timed thwack and the rat would of been dealt a harsh but timely reminder of how things should be...or, and this my friends, is what current reports suggest happened, would you run inside, slam the door shut and decide to give up smoking? Hmmmmmm? Rats Eh?

stuff

2007-09-26T21:33:00.000Z

i've been looking at all the stuff i have accumulated over the last few years, and it appears to of grown again.
Long time readers will remember ( see how i assume i have long term readers here, my ego knows no bounds ) when i first started this blog, that i moved from a three bedroom house to a single room in a house. The reasons for this drastic move i won't bore you with right now but surfice to say there was a certain degree of downsizing when it came to personal possessions.
Anyhow a couple of years have gone by and my stuff has increased, books, cd's ( oh god the cd's, they're starting to have to live piled up against the walls ), clothes, and it's starting to drag me down a little.
I've decided that there's only one thing for it, it's time for a sort out of epic and harsh proportions........i'm starting on the cd's first i think as those bad boys have been the fastest growth area :)

seaweed

2007-09-25T18:41:00.000Z

It's been quite windy down here which means that stuff gets washed up on the beach, and today it's been lots of seaweed! The colours were really gorgeous.........

Here's some more on Flickr........

obligatory i'm not dead blog post.....

2007-09-24T19:44:00.000Z

ah friends.....it's been a while and i have not posted any entries, not through lack of things happening. oh no , just through not having the time.
what larks we've had here at otherside towers, oh yes, we've braved the great outdoors....in a tent! yes a tent i tell you! holy moly!
i shall update you on that one at a later time, along with the perils of owning a Mac and many many other exciting tales of daring and..... erm.....some more daring? yes some more of that....hurrah!

early starts

2007-09-04T20:09:00.000Z

Strangely I quite like early starts. There is something quite fun about getting up before the sun has started to appear, it sort of harks back to the early days of childhood, on the day you know you’re going on your summer holidays and everyone has to get up extra early to beat ‘The Traffic’ ( with capital letters, natch ) ‘The Traffic’, when I was young took on mythic proportions, a giant metal snake twisting all the way along the M5 and down into Cornwall. The only way to beat ‘The Traffic’ was an early start, so that meant an organised effort the day before of military precision involving piles of suitable clothing, two favourite toys ( that was the limit, due to ‘Space Restrictions’ , although there were often sadly futile attempts to smuggle more using erm….pockets, which was possibly why they were always futile attempts ) , and the ‘Bathroom Bag ‘ , which for those of you who’ve been here before will know consists of Toothbrush ( I had one with a glittery handle….honestly, that’s pretty cutting edge when you’re 6 ), Toothpaste ( stripy, obviously ) , Flannel ( can you still get flannels? Or did they go the way of Soap on a Rope and Bath Salts in Cardboard Boxes ? ) and a bar of soap, wrapped in toilet paper to stop it contaminating the toothbrush ( soap and toothpaste, you only do it once…) .
Ah, those were the glory days, of course when, after all the early starts, you consistently arrive at the B&B ( we didn’t do Tents, it’s a long family Tradition, dating back to an unfortunate incident with a flock of geese, a two man tent and a petrol encouraged camp fire ) before it’s actually opened the shine is taken off abit but I believe that the fabled rose tinted spectacles of nostalgia can be used to gloss over that particular truth......

sunset

2007-09-02T11:19:00.001Z

sunset six
Originally uploaded by Scarlet traces.

Sunset on Brighton Beach.....

global warming

2007-08-31T05:56:00.000Z

I've just put the heating on. And i did an evil laugh as well. It's not cold, no far from it, it's just the top i want for work isn't dry yet and i Must wear this top ( a brown vest, since you're asking ) today. It's now drying quite nicely, and as an added bonus the flat smells of radiators warming up for the first time after a prolonged absence of use.
Actually it is getting abit hot now.............

little voice

2007-08-30T19:45:00.000Z

I went for some speech training yesterday, which was actually a lot of fun. We measured my voice noise frequency thing, which averaged about 91mhz, maybe, don’t quote me on the mhz bit as I don’t really understand what it means as such, only that I need to get it up to 150 ish, which apparently is totally do-able.
Then we did some voice exercise stuff which mainly consisted of me saying words in a higher voice and trying not to raise my whole body higher as I did it, it appears that I equate higher pitch with altitude ☺
I have some exercises to do for 10 minutes each day but apparently if you practice enough it will eventually click and I’ll be able to change my voice at will which will be rather good.

In other news I have crossed over to the other side and invested in a second hand Mac laptop!
I do have a laptop but it’s abit of a beast sizewize and ironically not that portable so I have been contemplating getting something more convenient for the train journeys I do every day and lo and behold, an ibook appeared!
Okay, its not the most cutting edge piece of equipment, it’s from afew years ago and it doesn’t have a massive hard drive or anything but for blogging on the move I’m quids in. And its got stuff like word and photoshop on it too which is handy as my other technological investment recently was a tablet and light pen, which I think I’m going to need abit of practice with. At the moment it appears that a small child has got hold of it when I try and draw…..

polaroids

2007-08-28T21:05:00.001Z

I've dug out my old polaroid camera! i'd forgotten how much fun they are, what with the whole instant photo thing, which is still hugely cool and impressive, even though we live in the future.
I have more up at good old Flickr just here....

martha wainwright

2007-08-18T09:48:00.001Z

martha wainwright
Originally uploaded by Scarlet traces.

i was lucky enough to see Martha Wainwright the other night at St.Georges Church in Brighton. She was really really good and the Church is a fantastic setting for any singer to perform, it has lovely accoustics. It was pretty packed out and the atmosphere was pretty excitable.
Amusingly, in front of us was a woman that clapped like a seal at the end of each song, well i thought it was funny anyhow.......

scam?

2007-08-18T09:31:00.000Z

an email popped into my inbox today from Toshiba. Rather suspiciously it was offering me a laptop to test out for a week, like a real reviewer that works for magazines and stuff gets!

here's what the email says......

I work for talkToshiba and our objective is to get people talking about Toshiba on the net.
As an established blogger, we'd like to give you the chance to trial a Tecra A8 Notebookfor a short time, and write an honest, objective review of it which will be published on the net. A blurb about you and a link to your blog is published on the talkToshiba website so it can also help direct internet users to you blog.

my main suspicion is based on the fact that any reviews i do on other stuff here tend to be in the 'it is great because it is fab' stylie, which i'm not entirely convinced Toshiba are looking for......
What do you think?

from across the water

2007-08-12T11:39:00.000Z

My favourite blogger from across the big old oceans, Spinning Girl, has set an assignment! It's a complete the sentence type thing, oh yes, so lets go disco!

1. My favorite childhood toy was ... a badger, though not a real one obviously, real wild animals are never the best toys for children, mine was a cuddly toy.
2. My favorite childhood game was ... hide and seek? musical statues? not sure really.....
3. The best movie I ever saw as a kid was ... The Rescuers
4. I don't do it much but I enjoy ... Dancing, i get quite self conscious about it though....
5. If I could lighten up a little, I'd let myself ... well, dance really.
6. If it weren't too late I'd ... of kept in touch more, much, much more.
7. My favorite musical instrument is ...guitar, or piano, or maybe the kazoo.
8. The amount of money I spend on treating myself to entertainment each month is ... too much really.
9. If I could get anything for my inner artist, I'd buy him/her ...an anti apathy pill, or a big boot up the arse,as there is a fine line between apathy and lazy and i'm not sure which one i suffer from......
10. Taking time out for myself is ...rather nice.
11. If I start dreaming ... i'm normally the hero
12. I secretly enjoy reading ... comics!
13. If I only could have grown up to be ... an explorer, like Benedict Allen, that would be pretty fabulous.....
14. I wish I could make/write/grow/ create a ...new universe. ( what? i'm not allowed to think big? )
15. My parents think that I ...am different...... but amazing.
16. What makes me feel weird is ... if i think about death too much.
17. My most cheer-up music is ... at the moment i love Alex Dingley's 'Oriole', but generally anything a bit indie pop....
18. My favorite way to dress is ... kinda casual, jeans and a vest that sort of thing.....

Atom

2007-08-10T21:36:00.000Z

i saw a quite frankly mind fucking programme on telly last night, i am of course talking about atom. Actually i say of course but in reality I've no idea how many people watched it, maybe it was just me. Either way it was impressive mainly because it explained how things work in a way that sort of made sense, in as much as the way everything that exists meaning something can make sense that is.
You possibly had to be there.
Anyhow the two best things i learnt from this programme where that a vacuum isn't empty space, oh no my friends, a vacuum is constantly filled with particles being created and destroyed in an instant ( they proved this with a couple of sheets of metal that moved in a vacuum, again you had to be there ) and whats more the particles, they're from the future! holy moly!
Okay now that's pretty insane but hold your horses there Tonto, it gets more crazy. The second thing i learnt from Atom was that everything only exists when it's observed.
To make this point schrodinger's cat was brought into the equation, which was quite exciting. Anyhow to go one step further with this apparently some really really really out there scientists have sort of proposed that everything, and in that i mean the big bang, life, the universe and everything, only exists because we can observe it.
The thinking goes something like this, in order for the universe to exist it must of been observed, but it does exist, therefore we must of observed it, or something like that, don't quote me, I'm not a scientist, which is possibly quite apparent.
There was also some bad ass talking about maths, anti-matter, vibrating strings and mayonnaise but really i think that's enough to be going on with.
And we won't even mention the stuff about reality just being an illusion......