Love is a Verb

Please forgive the cliché in the title, I'm struggling with titles at the moment and there's not really much of a better way to out this. I'm 6 months into that supposedly tricky first year of marriage, and I've been thinking about love quite a bit of late. Partly because I've recently taken to using 'love' as a term of endearment and because of all of the life/relationship upheavals that I hinted at here. In that blog I mostly talked my way around the things that were on my mind, primarily because I'm no longer an even semi-anonymous blogger and I now need to take into account that my words have further reaching consequences than me ranting into the void.

Waking up alone again

It's late at night, or early in the morning...I can't quite tell because it doesn't feel like either. It's appropriate because I feel like I'm in limbo. It's FridaySaturday and in a few days I'll be back in this bed, but my husband won't be with me. I'll be leaving him behind in England and coming back home without him. I'll go back to waking up alone again. I've delayed the inevitable by taking time off work and forking out for the train fair back up north. It won't feel strange then, because I've travelled on my own on trains so often. Its familiar and routine and mundane and I think it will help.

Not that long ago I still lived on my own, and this wouldn't have seemed like a big deal. Up until very recently, on the occasions when we'd share our bed with the other, in the other ones flat, I'd wake up in the middle of the night and, dreary with sleep, wonder who this strange man in my bed was. At some point, after we moved in together, I stopped feeling like that. I even got so used to him here that I stopped waking up in the night. I'm wondering how ill learn to sleep, without him. More - how will I get up without him.

I've been talking a good game. Telling him and who ever else will listen that I can't wait to get my space back. That I'll finally have the space I need to write again, and that I've been stifled. The truth is, I haven't been stifled, I've been closeted and loved and held. I've felt safe and comfortable. It's contentment that has slowed me down, not suppression. I want to turn the clock back, tell my past-self that I won't miss my space, but that I will feel the empty hole that he leaves when he's gone. To enjoy it, because its all to fleeting.

I knew it would happen. We both did. We chose this life when we decided that this is what we want to do with our lives. It was inevitable. And yet I can't be rational or reasonable right now, knowing that this is almost over for who knows how long.

I joked about getting to watch BBC Four programmes at night again when he was gone. But I know that, even without him, I'll put on the rain noise app that he loves to fall asleep to. That I bought, just for him. Because I love him, and love changes you.
I hope that this change doesn't hurt as much as I fear.

Read the Books You Have

It might be the product of following so many book blogs, or perhaps the perceived challenge of a new as yet unfilled book case. It might even be the propensity to wander book stores when left unsupervised, or Amazon's 'recommended for you' section designed to separate you from your hard earned cash.

Making Good Art and the Fear of the Fraud Police

From this...

I have a growing and slightly inappropriate obsession with a married couple. I knew him first, and met her through him before I knew that they were properly serious. I follow her on twitter, him on facebook. For some reason I feel the need to keep these separate. Thanks to them, and a few other people in my life I'm thinking and doing more about my writing. I'm writing more often and I'm taking what I do much more seriously. There's a couple of pretty good videos from them at the bottom of the post.

Oz the Great and Powerful: A Blog in Two Parts

Cross-posted from my academic blog.

Part One: Oz, Disney and Authenticity

Tonight I am going to (finally) see Oz the Great and Powerful. Having heard two excellent papers on Disney’s previous attempt at an ‘official’ Oz film, Return to Oz, at the Returning to Oz: The Afterlife of Dorothy conference in February, I was in no doubt that OTGAP would be a box office smash.

Everyday Sexism and Pet Names

Yesterday a male colleague ended a phone conversation with me by saying "good girl" before the more usual "bye". Before I could think about it for too long, I tweeted the experience to @everydaysexism. Afterwards, I felt pretty awkward, both from the encounter and the instantaneous tweet. Although very few people in my department use twitter, it's fairly obvious that I'm me, as it were. I'm identified by name, but also by job and location on twitter so anyone viewing it from my organisation is likely to be see the connection. I'd worried, after when I'd had time to think, that the gentleman would be able to tell that this apparently obscure tweet was about him. He would quite rightly wonder why I hadn't raised any objection on the phone, or what was so heinous as to deserve this. I also worried that, since I knew he was senior to me, there would be repercussions. And that's just for starters. I worried, as I have done the past two times I've responded to the Everyday Sexism project, that it's all just a storm in a teacup. That now that I have somewhere that it's ok to talk about these things, I'm looking for them and seeing things as an issue that I wouldn't have not too long ago.

I'm not doing a post about International Women's Day...

Today's Google Doodle

...mainly because I'm doing a lot of reading other people articles and I'm in the office today, instead of working from home. I'm thinking about it a lot and I've been thinking about a post on the dreaded 'Women's Issues' for a while, so a post today would just be a bit of a garbled mess. There's a lot of stuff out there, so instead of reading me ramble incoherently, here a round up of some of the stuff I've read today by following the links from International Women's Day articles.

New Marla Mason Novel

Marla from Bone Shop (C) Daniel Dos Santos and T. A. Pratt

Marla Mason, sorceress of considerable reputation, queen of snark and all-round badass is back.

I first met Marla around 2007 when Blood Engines was available as a free e-book from Random House in scribd. Since then I've been totally hooked, and when the series by T. A Pratt was dropped by the publisher in 2009. Due to the response from readers wanting to find out more about the character, and read the resolution to the cliffhanger at the end of Spell Games Pratt set up a readers funded sequel, whoch I'm proud to say I backed.

Farewell CatMan

A Tribute to a Beloved Moggy 

When I think of J, I have the impression of her always having had cats around. Thinking a little deeper about this, I realise that this impression is false. J had cats when she was growing up, before I knew her (I'm tempted to say before I was born, but she'll kill me). I remember fondly the stories of her cat that followed her to school that she used to shoo away with manic limb waving, which almost never worked. The fact that her neighbours couldn't see the cat she was waving at behind the short garden walls of the houses in her area only added to her general aura of weirdness for them. It's about as perfect and all encompassing characterisation of her as I can imagine. 

When I first met her and even when we first started being friends, she didn't have any cats. It wasn't until life moved on a little, as its wont to do, and she lived in a different flat that she got cats. That was many years and several moves ago now and the last of her furry feline companions had to say goodbye recently. That over there is Cat, or Mr. Cat, CatMan or  CatManDoo. That last name was given to him by Husband, whom all animals adore, but CatMan especially loved.

THRESHOLDS 2013 Feature Writing Competition

I received this by email from the Folklore mailing list I'm registered on. It coincided with me reading Kate Bernheimer's wonderful introduction to My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me, an anthology of fairy tales from both established and new writers. You can read an extract from it here. In it she mentions the controversy that her suggestion of engaging with fairy tales caused at a writers conference and how, despite the obvious popularity and quality of such writing, 'collections and/or retellings of folk-tales, myths, and fairy-tales are not eligible' for the National Book Awards. If fact, she started a petition to change this, which you can read about here and here. And you can find out if it worked here. 

Anyway, my point is that there is a new writing competition open, and all the details are below. So, what are you waiting for? Go write some fairy tales...

A decade on...

Do you remember what you were doing in Winter 2002? How old were you, were did you work or go to school? What were your plans for the impending new year? What about the world in 2002...what was it like? How did we communicated then in the time before smartphones, Facebook and Twitter? Had most of us even heard of blogging, or were we keeping old fashioned, written on paper diaries?

I was 16 in 2002, I was in my final year of high school and I met the boy who would some day be the Husband. And what's more, I knew by the end of 2002 that I would marry him someday.

Friendship

That's Harvey and Rabbit. It's unbelievably cute, and reminds me of something my Mum used to say when I moaned about my sister's best friend growing up (of whom I did not approve). In not so many words my Mum taught me that you can't choose who you love, and that our family and friends have to accept things about us that they don't necessarily understand, like why you stay friends with someone who is an arrogant, self-centred, unpleasant little twat. Oops. Sorry. I got a tiny bit carried away...

Radio Gaga

Today I'm filling for my friend and fellow blogger Rachel on Discover Radio. You can listen to it online here, or through the iTunes radio directory. The show is usually hosted by Writer and Actor duo Rachel Marsh and Annie Bottoms, so I'll be joining Annie today.

On The Art Show today we have Dundee born Hayley Scanlon, who won Young Designer of the Year in the Scottish Fashion Awards 2012. Hayley's new line HS launched this weekend at a live catwalk event in Dundee's own McManus Art Gallery and Museum. 

How the NaNoWriMo Fever Can Help You Write Your Thesis

*Cross posted from my academic wordpress blog.*

It's now officially November, and the blogosphere is buzzing with the optimism of the first few days of National Novel Writing Month, better known as NaNoWriMo.

Missing you...

Reading this on the train back to Scotland and thinking of our own Becca again. Every now and again I dream about her, wake up having forgotten that she died and feel the pain all over again.

The people we lose are never really not on our minds, but Becca has been at the forefront of mine for some time now. When I'm in a darker mood I wonder if I exaggerate how much she meant to me, and how important to each other our friendship was. I feel like a fraud at times, berating myself with thoughts that, had Becca still been alive, I'd be no closer to her than other friends from that time in my life very few of whom I'm still close to.

On the better days I remember that she was one of few, if not the only person who could see that my relationship with the Boy was something different. We confided in her, and she encouraged us when others wrote us off as well intentions but deluded teenagers. We got married just over a week ago.

At the wedding many people finally saw what Becca had seen nearly 10 years ago when me and the Husband (as he shall now be known as) were just Boyfriend and Girlfriend. I wish she had been there to say "I told you so."

On having big boobs...

Normally I post a mildly amusing photo, related to the content of my posts over there on the left had side of my blog. (I experimented with alternating left and right for a while, but I decided that it just looks better over there on the left). Today, I'm not going to do that. Today I'm talking about something quite a bit more personal, and so I'm going to post a photo of me. I'll post it further down, since I'm still working up to it. This is a big deal, so bear with me.

Quick Post: Word Verification

Just a flying visit to point out the campaign to remove  word verification software from blog comments.

Go here to read Misha Gericke's blog post. I removed my word verification about a month after starting the blog when I read a post giving advice on getting more readers. I agree that it goes against the spirit of blogging, and I groan any time that I come across it. If you do too, go sign Misha's petition and spread the word.



New, full length, original blog post coming later this week.

That's Not My Name

With the wedding date hurtling ever closer, the Boy and I have started to dread Fridays. The rest of the office gets to go home at the end of a Friday and relax into a weekend of lie-ins, brunches, cooking programmes and socialising. Weekends are a time when you don't need to worry about being in a certain place at a certain time. You do things and make plans on your own terms not dictated by work schedules or deadlines. 

 At least you do if you're not getting married in less than a month. If this is the case your weekend becomes about sitting down with the people involved to 'finalise' things. I've been finalising wedding stuff for the past month of weekends, and will be continuing to do so for the foreseeable future. I'm continually complimented by suppliers, vendors and venues about how well organised everything is, much more so than other couples. This helps a little, to know that it's paying off and that we are getting there. A little.

One of the latest things is arranging to collect/be presented with our gifts. We went with a slightly unconventional method for our gift list. Instead of registering with one department store and choosing gifts from there, we built our own online gift list on our wedding website. It means we have a little bit more work to do in keeping the links updated, and a few of our older relatives have had to get some help in navigating the big world wide web, but it has the benefit of allowing us to choose gifts from different suppliers. Unfortunately, it has also meant that we don't have a department store to deliver all out gifts to us post-wedding in one go. People have been getting gifts themselves and therefore need to arrange a time and/or place to hand them over.

Sometimes this has just meant an alternative delivery address when ordering online, and sometimes people have dropped gifts off at my parents house, or the In-Law's house. Sometimes people want to see us in person and have us open them while they watch. The latter is the one that I'm particularly uncomfortable with. I have rarely opened presents in front of anyone other than my parents, my sister and the Boy. I don't understand why people want to see me do that. Oh, and it is me that's supposed to open presents apparently. Even though they are gifts for both of us I'm THE BRIDE, so I must be the one to open them. It is not an experience I enjoy, and I've never done so. I always feel uncomfortable, and feel like I'm being forced into a show of emotional response, but I'm unsure about so I end up being hyper aware of my facial expression. This will come as a surprise to everyone because I do love receiving gifts, and I take great pleasure in giving gifts also. I'm getting a little off topic, but writing that out is the first time that I've consciously addressed those feelings and it might go a little way to explaining my reaction to things that happened around the same time: namely the SURNAME THING.

Most of the gifts and cards (and even a cheque kindly sent by an Aunt and Uncle of mine who aren't able to come to the wedding) were addressed to Mr & Mrs His Surname. You see, most people don't know that I'm keeping my own name after we get married.

There are lots of reason's why I'm keeping my maiden name when we get married, some of them too private for the internet (sorry guys.) Some of them are boring and practical, like the fact that I'm already published under my maiden name or the hassle it is to change everything from my passport and my bank account, to my email address. 

I'm just beginning to gain an understanding for how strange some people find this notion since within a very short space of time two different couples were informed, in passing, that I'm keeping my name. You know that slightly odd expression, 'you could've slapped my face with a wet kipper'? I think I might actually understand it now. I don't think they could have been more surprised if I had just assaulted them about the head with a smoked herring. I have to stress here that the reactions weren't negative, and not long after they shrugged and probably forgot about it. They were mostly confused and surprised that I wasn't following this tradition, and it's unlikely that the though that any Bride would keep her own name would have crossed their minds. That's how ingrained the tradition is within our society.

This attitude was something should have been prepared for, as I'd stumbled across an article in The Vagenda a few weeks ago on the same subject, but from the perspective of Mr. It's a well written and interesting article, and although it discusses a few other things that are also ringing true for me and the Boy, it's the name thing that's got me this week:

"But, dear readers, do you know what we rarely get asked? Whether or not my wife will change her surname to mine. As far as I can tell, the reason we’re not asked this is because it is almost universally assumed that she will or, more accurately, already has – and in fact probably rushed ecstatically to do so somewhere between kissing the bride and consummating the union. It wasn’t just that everyone assumes that her surname is mine – which in itself is presumptuous, if understandable – but that so much subsequent post-wedding correspondence was addressed simply to Mr and Mrs My Full Name. Apparently not only did my wife lose her surname in the nuptials, but in the eyes of a lot of people she lost her first name too." SPR, The Penis Perspective: A Wife By Any Other Name...

I wasn't prepared for how I'd actually fee when faced with a card addressed to 'Mr and Mrs His Full Name'. I expected Mr & Mrs His Surname, and actually chuckled a little to myself when I saw it for the first time. We've been together for almost 10 years, and I'd be a massive liar if I told you that I hadn't tried out Karen [His Surname] to see what my signature would be like.* At some point I started to feel differently about changing my name. I'm not sure when that was, or if there was any one thing in particular that made my decision. I'd dithered for some time about keeping my own name for my academic career, and being Mrs His Surname everywhere else. Yet the thought of splitting myself like that, of being two different people - the 'career academic' and the 'wife&mother' - made me incredibly uncomfortable. I began to question why and my search for a good enough reason didn't find one. Karen [His Surname] isn't me. That's either someone else, or a fictional character. I felt no attachment to it, as if those two words couldn't hold my identity. Family stuff came up and suddenly there were very good reasons, but for keeping my name not for adopting someone else's. It might seem odd to some people, but suddenly keeping my own name was the right choice for me. I'm not doing it for political reasons in order to subvert the patriarchy, after all how much difference does keeping my Father's name rather than taking on my Husband's make to that?

When faced with a card from one of the older guests addressed to Mr and Mrs His Full Name, I felt weird. A few days later when I explained it to the Boy I said that I felt like I suddenly didn't exist any more. I was a non-entity, defined only by my relationship to him. It was a very, very odd experience, but a fleeting one. I opened the card and read the message, addressed to us both by our first names and it went away.

The looks of bewilderment on the faces of the people when the Boy told them that I was keeping my own name haven't faded from my mind yet. It's still quite fresh, but it's left me somewhat baffled myself. I really didn't think that it was still so uncommon in the 21st century.

*It turns out that because one of the initial letters is the same as mine it just looked like I'd tacked Mc on to the beginning of my own name. 

Quick Post: The Dark Knight Rises

Very quick post today to say that my friend Sam has just started a blog in order to discuss her reactions to seeing The Dark Knight Rises yesterday, which was also when The Boy and I, and my sister and her boyfriend went to see it (separately). It has certainly got us talking and Sam's blog sums up our reactions to the film so well it's worth re-posting here. As she discusses the film at length there are, of course, SPOILERS so I'd advise waiting until you've seen the film if you want to read it. (It's only just out in the UK, but this might be a moot point for reader in the US)

I'll be back with my feelings later in the week when I've worked out what they are, and once I've done some work on my thesis. I may edit this post, to link to a new one here. I haven't decided yet.

Procrastination or There's No Such Thing as Writer's Block

From @benwhitelaw

Last year I was talking to a newly published author (let's call them NewAuthor) at a book launch dinner, and discussed with them my theory on the non-existence of writer's block. Later I found out from a friend who had also been talking to NewAuthor that they had also had a conversation about writer's block, except it had been NewAuthor telling my journalist friend (or Journo) that they were suffering badly from this thing I had insisted doesn't exist, and had moved countries in an attempt to unblock. After hearing that from Journo my first reactions were to feel guilty and tactless. I'd like to blame it on the wine with dinner, but the truth is I'm incredibly opinionated, and rarely think at the time about how my opinions will be received by others. That's normally left until something like this happens, and then I feel guilty. I've been thinking about NewAuthor and our conversation that night quite a lot this week, as I struggle with my own writing.