A Domino Effect

This weekend has been brilliantly quiet and relaxing.  I wasn’t in any particular need of such a peaceful window of time, but it’s never not nice to enjoy a couple of obligation-free days of reading, walks and cycling in the sunshine, eating pizza and cake, drinking wine and coffee and watching the usual quota of films and TV.  The weather over the past couple of days has been truly Spring-like.  Still nippy enough to warrant a jacket, but dazzlingly sunny nonetheless.  After months of cold, dreary Winter (when we didn’t even get any snow!) it feels so good to finally have the sun on my face again, to look at daffodils, to feel the afternoon light stretch into the evening.  My boyfriend and I cycled along the Union Canal towpath last night, just as the sun was beginning to slink its way down beneath the Pentlands.  The atmosphere down on the canal was almost carnival like in its bustle: dogs, runners, walkers and cyclists, all out to enjoy the first proper day of Spring and to bid a firm goodbye to the shackles of Winter.

The upcoming week holds holiday planning, swimming (I’m excited to visit the newly refurbished Royal Commonwealth Pool here in Edinburgh, which seems to have been closed forever) and -- wait for it -- the start of the 2012 caravan season!  On the blogging front, I’m due to guest post here at some point during the next couple of days.  Congratulations to Paul on his reaching 500 paragraph film reviews (500!).  Keep your eyes peeled blog buds.  In the meantime, enjoy a mash-up (or three) on me.  Found yesterday when I was researching my post on music -- Grease vs Snoop Dogg is my favourite.

I used to come over all paranoid when people asked me what kind of music I liked.  For some bizarre reason I regarded it as one of the most loaded questions there was; one that required an answer worthy of grave head nodding and deep throated ‘mmm-hmm’-ing.  Needless to say, I could never give one.  I always ended up mumbling something about “liking a bit of everything” before retreating into a corner and berating myself for not being very cool.

At one point I actually asked myself whether I was into music at all, so unrefined were my responses to this kind of question.

As I’ve grown up, however, I’ve come to appreciate my taste in music for what it is.  That liking The Four Tops, Rhianna and the Manic Street Preachers in equal measure doesn’t mean I’m not into music, all it means is that I don’t have a particularly niche taste, or a ‘go-to’ genre.  Some days I listen to this and think melancholic thoughts, while other days I listen to this and jump up and down on my bed.  Some days I play Bowie on repeat, other days I watch dance videos from the 90s on YouTube for three hours straight, pining for the lost days of glow sticks and Smirnoff Ice.  My musical proclivities aren’t a reflection of the brains in my head, the people I associate with or the job I do.  They don’t inform my political views, they don’t (usually) inspire my writing and they rarely help me out at pub quizzes, because the chances are high that I’ll nothing about a song apart from the fact that “I LOVE THIS!”..

And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.  All anyone’s taste in music comes down to is a bunch of songs and artists that we like to listen to because it makes us feel something when we do.  It’s about happiness, expression and creativity, and anyone who tries to make it into an exercise in pretentious oneupmanship is, if I may be so bold, fundamentally missing the point.

So here’s to us, non-niche music lovers!  Now where did I put that Faithless vs Eurythmics mash up…

What’s your taste in music like?

Having very little to say sometimes is, I think, all part of the blogging experience.  One week the ideas burst forth quicker than my fingers can translate them into words, while the next is characterised by blank screens and very little motivation.  Where that’s the case, I’ve always considered sitting tight, saying nothing and waiting for the tide to come in again to be the best approach.  It takes a will far stronger than my own to force any words past a clod of writer’s block!

This last week I’ve been doing just that: sitting tight.  Well, sitting tight and doing other stuff.  Including, but by no means limited to, the following:

Eating: scones at Loopy Lorna’s with a friend.  A Sunday carvery dinner with four kinds of meat and many, many roast potatoes.  Spicy empanadas with pineapple salsa and guacamole, all home-made by my sister and by far the best treat of my week.

Making: (yet) another crochet blanket.  I managed to find twelve balls of wool all the same shade of turquoise in a charity shop the other day and am now busy transforming them into a toothpaste-coloured throw for my bed, edged in dark chocolate brown.  Crocheting round and round and round without having to stop to change colour is the ultimate therapy: it’s mesmerising just watching what started off as a tiny little knot morph into an actual blanket that will actually keep me warm.

Laughing at: the total stranger who, seeing me puffing my way up a hill on my bike, shouted at the top of his voice “KEEP GOING PRINCESS, YOU’LL GET THERE, YOU’LL GET THERE!”.  He spurred me on and made me laugh when I needed it.

Pondering: taking up yoga this Spring.  Anyone else practice?  Any Edinburgh-based readers able to recommend a class?

Reading: Having (finally) finished this book about Africa, I’m giving myself leave to enjoy a few easy going stories over the next couple of weeks. All recommendations welcome!  I’m also dipping into the The Rough Guide to Happiness for inspiration and Ideas That Matter for interest.  And then there’s the pile of books about India that’s starting to accumulate by my bed…

Looking forward to: Increasing my feeling of lightness by planning a big trip, packing away my Winter coats and paying down my debts.

Thankful for: health, wealth and quick cook pasta (seriously, does anything hit the spot quite like it?).

What’s been happening in your world this week?

Image above from here.

Wow, Edinburgh.  What’s with the wind and the rain?  Haven’t you heard it’s March and I’m completely sick of this sh*t?  Can’t you be all golden and gorgeous and make make want to wear white linen and plan camping trips?  No?  OK, reading the internet before sinking into a carbohydrate coma it is then.  Someone wake me up when Spring actually has arrived…

Budget Bytes reminded me the other day that carrots can actually be awesome, as opposed to just things-I-really-think-I-should-eat-more-of.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I love Beth’s blog.  Pure, unrivalled magic for the financially restricted yet adventurous cooks among us.

This really freaked me out.  What crazy looks like, found via Pose 83.

Lady Smaggle’s post about dresses that won’t die made me laugh.  My DTWD cost me £3 in a sale five years ago.  I must have worn it a few hundred times since then.  I once lost patience with wearing the same damn thing so often that I consigned it to a pile for selling on eBay.  I regained my senses just in time and it’s still in my wardrobe.

I love the words on this print.

I can’t rave about travelling alone enough, so I was delighted to see this post and the ensuing discussion on A Cup of Jo yesterday.  Although it did make me miss this place like crazy.

These t-shirts are cute, but looking at them all at once only reminded me how many of those books I still want to read.

The Frenemy is never not hilarious, but sometimes she actually also really makes me think.  I love this post for that reason.  What little things make you hopeful?  My list includes Alain de Botton, fried halloumi cheese and having weirdly serendipitous, funny moments with complete strangers.

This article on “banter” makes me laugh.  A lot.

Finally, here’s a little sumthin’ I worked out this morning.  I always knew these were the bicycle racks outside the Scottish Parliament, but I never really got the design of them until this morning when I glanced at them from just the right angle and saw this.  It kind of made my day…

What’s the internet teaching you at the moment?

Image above from here.

“Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

A few days ago Sarah tagged me in one of those “tell us all about yourself” meme things that sweep round the internet every once in a while.  While I’m flattered that she picked me, I have to admit to having developed a real aversion to this kind of post, perhaps because whenever I’ve tried answering one I’ve always found myself trying to think of quirky, weirdly interesting things to say that will impress my audience, as opposed to just telling the plain, or boring, or “Yes I actually do kind of love Celine Dion” truth.  See this post by my other favourite Sarah for reference.

Nevertheless, there was one question in this meme that managed to pique my interest AND bring me out in a cold sweat:

What is your proudest achievement?

Questions like this always make me nervous.  Partly because I hate talking myself up and also partly because I never know what the answer is.  And that’s not because I’ve never done anything in my life that I’m proud of, it’s because the obvious candidates for this kind of thing – which let’s face it are usually academic or professional achievements and accolades – never really strike me as the things I’m most proud of.  I always end up feeling like I’m not really answering the question if I use something I did at uni or work as my example.  As the great Roy Walker was always so fond of saying, “It’s good, but it’s not right”.

I graduated university with a first class law degree; I got a job that several hundred other people applied for and this blog of mine once found its way onto the Guardian website.  Yes, these things are worth being proud of, of course they are.  But I never really had to change the way I think in order to make them happen.  I got my degree because I memorised my ass off and I learned how to construct a good argument; I got the job because I had the degree, the experience and because I told an off-tangent story about being a bridesmaid at the interview that probably helped them remember me.  And the blog was on the Guardian because I wrote a series of posts about my relationship with my wardrobe that someone there thought were entertaining enough to share.  Obviously these things are worth being proud of, and obviously they are clearly “achievements”, but I didn’t ever have to change the way I saw the world to attain them.  That’s not to say I didn’t work for them, it’s just that it was a different kind of work.

What really makes me feel proud are the things I’ve done that have pushed me in the direction of travel I want to go.  I want to live a compassionate, well-considered life where the choices I make reflect the person I want to be and the things I think are right.  I want to be confident enough to stand up for my opinions, but open-minded enough to let other people have theirs.  I want to say yes more.  I want to be fearless.  I want to be able to better control my reactions to other people and situations.  I want to be able to live without stress.

Not all of these things come naturally to most people.  They certainly don’t all come naturally to me.  I have to work tirelessly in pursuit of greater self-confidence.  Positivity and saying yes are sometimes a struggle.  Stress is my companion far more often than I would like.

But I’m working on it.  I continue to work on it.  I’m reading, I’m thinking, I’m making different choices and occasionally I get a glimpse at the place I want to be.  And when I do, usually I think this.

Things I’ve done so far that I’m proud of include:

• Working out that my own company is not something to be scared of;
• Fostering and maintaining positive relationships and working to eradicate or cut down on my exposure to negative ones;
• Being able to cut some serious shapes on a dance floor without a drop of alcohol in my system;
• Knowing the difference between being flaky and just not wanting to do something;
• Being able to better appreciate the line between self-confidence and narcissism;
• Not shopping in Primark, but also not jumping down the throats of those who do;
• Being brave enough to speak up when something isn’t right;
• Realising that my reactions are my responsibility.

Taken together, I think those things are pretty awesome.  I don’t have a certificate to prove any of them, they probably couldn’t get me a job on their own merit and they certainly haven’t stopped the melting of the polar ice caps.

But I worked really freaking hard for them, I got there, and they have made me a better person.  And I happen to think that for those reasons alone, they are very much worth being proud of.

So back to the original question.  What is my proudest achievement?

I think the answer is my character (a work in progress).

Image above from here.