“[...] She turned to the sunlight
And shook her yellow head,
And whispered to her neighbor:
"Winter is dead.”
(When We Were Very Young by A.A. Milne)
We are now, with the clocks going forward and losing us an hour of sleep, officially in spring. And despite the day of heavy snow we had at the end of the month, which had melted away before tea time, one thing I can honestly say about March, is that I was kind of longing for cold weather, frost and that bite in the air that we never really seemed to get this winter.
Not that I would want a repeat of the winter we had in 2009-10 or 2010-11, where the UK was pretty much snowed in for the entire winter, but I missed the cold this year. It might sound stupid, but much like when we had "meh" summers, the years where we seem to stay perpetually within the spring and autumn, skipping over the summer and winter bar a few days of snow or sun here or there, I always feel a little disappointed.
Don't get me wrong, I love the spring too, watching everything come back to life and colour starts to reappear, and I love the autumn too as it begins to fade and rust and disappear, but there's something about the winter and the cold.
But spring has sprung and here are a few things I enjoyed in the month of March...
Ruby & Sapphire
A silly little thing to start the month. I finished the first season of Steven Universe and Ruby and Sapphire being introduced was not only adorable, but completely unexpected. Despite having had less than five minutes with them during the last episode, I think that they confirmed that I actually was really enjoying watching this animation, something I hadn't been completely sold on. Also I can't get the theme song out of my head and it may be my next tab to look up for the ukulele, at least if I can get my fingers to co-operate on the Bd/Bdm chords...
F A7
"We are the Crystal Gems
Bb
We'll always save the day
Bbm
And if you think we can't
F
We'll always find a way
A7 Bb
That's why the people of this world believe in
Bbm
Garnet Amethyst and Pearl and Steven!"
(We Are The Crystal Gems by Rebecca Sugar)
Two Sleeping Beauty references in two months... is it obvious that it was one of my favourites when I was a kid? At least until I saw The Little Mermaid...
Link || Steven Universe || IMDb || Wikipedia || Cartoon Network
Link || We Are The Crystal Gems by Rebecca Sugar || Ultimate Guitar Tab || UkuTab
Dumplin'
Dumplin' was a movie I put on on a whim, while needing distraction. I'd seen clips from the trailer, not not actually watched the trailer, and I'd been going back and forward on whether or not to watch it. This was honestly because I thought there would be too much emphasis placed on sizeism.
But, I was wrong, I really enjoyed it. Danielle McDonald (Willowdean aka Dumplin) was really good and Jennifer Aniston was the perfect ex-pageant queen mum... plus drag queens and Dolly Parton! What could be better?
I don't know how anyone couldn't love Dolly Parton, for her kitsch value alone she's amazing! I've had a soft spot for her since I was a kid, watching films like 9 to 5 and Steel Magnolias, and seeing how lovable, funny and bubbly she was. By no means am I into country music, but she's Dolly, how can you not love her and her music when it comes on the radio? I've had "Here You Come Again" stuck in my head since watching this film and I'm really quite happy about that.
Link || Dumplin' (2018) || Netflix || IMDb || Wikipedia || Spotify
Link || Dumplin' by Julie Murphy || Amazon || Waterstones || Book Depository || Good Reads || Audible || iBooks
Cat vs. Mouse
I hate when the cat brings friends home. Especially when I have to give them room and board, and make them breakfast in the morning.
Now, Charlie lost the right to using the catflap (which he only ever mastered entering, never exiting) after a series of small critters were brought into the house alive. Most nights at 4am over the course of one particular summer I'd be woken up to another guest, who I would trap like a spider and escort off the premises.
When I say trap like a spider, I wasn't creating elaborate webs and biding my time, no, instead I was quickly trapping them with a small translucent plastic bin, sliding a piece cardboard under the bin, then taking it outside. I got quite good at it.
Only on two occasions did we have an escapee. One, I had trapped and my dad managed to let go and led to the spare room being gutter, and the other hid under the piano and my little sister and I blocked every exit, made it an elaborate DVD and book fort and left it for the night with its only choices to live in the piano for the rest of its life or head into the humane traps.
So, guess what Charlie brought me after bum-rushing me at the bedroom window... yep, a mouse.
I don't know if it was the idea of the mouse in my room or having to potentially gut it that really go to me, but let's put it this way, I don't have nails anymore. Luckily my sister sat with me while I moved things and calmed me down and I decided to set some traps and try to sleep. Like that was happening. The cat was by this point asleep in front of the shelves, I'd put traps at potential exits and shoved a pile of laundry against the most likely exit so its only choice would be to go into the trap.
Then Charlie woke up. It was 4am by now, and I'd half convinced myself he'd just been after the spider that was now crawling across my floor... then he started to reach his paws in every gap he could, trying to get something that wasn't the very easily accessible spider.
In the morning I decided rather than gutting my room, I would just leave it shut up for the day and check periodically if it had been tempted by the peanut butter in the traps. By dinner time there was no mouse, and I'd resigned myself to another night of waiting and sleeping on the sofa. But when I went back to my room after dinner, I've never been happier to see a live mouse in my room.
Charlie checked next to the shelves every time he was in my room for the best part of a week after. He's also tried twice to bring me live mice since then. I'm starting to feel like a bouncer.
Anyway, he should be in my bad books, I'm really not happy, and I hate that he's quite the ruthless murderer (or abductor) but he's irritatingly cute.
Note: I got humane mouse traps the first time Charlie brought company home. We've had success with them each time bar the first - though I reckon it hid in something we took outside and got out that way. They're easy to set up, just put some peanut butter, cheese, chocolate etc at one end and lift the door in place. Then, once you've caught your furry friend, set it free and wash them out with hot water and a little soap.
Link || Humane Mouse Traps || Amazon
Chocolate Moose
No neither did I, my mum discovered this while doing some research for work and deemed it important enough to relate back to the family. We all agreed this was not only funny, but that not a one of us in my family can successfully make chocolate mousse, though I don't remember every trying. However this interpretation of the recipe seems the most appropriate for part of the conversation my mums revelation garnered:
"Moose Moose? *humming* The chocolate on the moose!"
Link || National Chocolate Mousse Day via National Day Calendar
Instagram Love: Louise Cassidy
When I saw these, I initially thought they were digitally created because of the way Cassidy has photographed and edited her origami figures into their digital backgrounds, but they're actual physically made pieces of folded paper. Writing on Bored Panda, Cassidy says she began combining origami with her other love, pop culture...
"Whenever I see a character in a film or TV show, instead of concentrating on the plot line, my mind wanders into how I could recreate it. By using various paper techniques such as origami, crumpling to create a tree bark texture for Baby Groot or paper cutting tiny feather wings for Maleficent, I set about recreating them."
(I Make Pop Culture Inspired Origami by Louise Cassidy for Bored Panda)
I think they're awesome and as soon as I saw these three I clicked follow.
Go check her out, show some love and I've pretty much decided in these monthly posts I'll post some people I love etc, but I'm also going to hold some back for the 12 Days and maybe this year...
... you know what, let's not jinx it.
Link || Louise Cassidy (Foldilox) || Instagram || Twitter || Pinterest || Bored Panda
Good Omens
My big sister think this is going to be a hot mess.
I get it, it's her favourite book and while there's always part of you that wants your favourite book to be turned into a TV series or a film, there's always a bigger part that doesn't want anyone to mess with your vision of that book you've read and reread.
My mum and sisters have been fan-casting this and many other Terry Pratchett books for as long as I can remember, they're love for his writing is the main reason I wanted to read Good Omens in the first place. So they have very set ideas of what they were looking for in the casting. For me, my first exposure to this book was as a radio dramatisation, so when I read the book, I had those voices, those actors firmly in my head.
The actual casting, David Tennant and Michael Sheen, should be great. They're both good actors, they've both been great actors within certain roles of their careers and also both prone to overacting. Which is one of the reasons my sister thinks this is going to be such a mess. If both these actors are in overact mode, we could end up with Fright Night vs. Kenneth Williams, which could spell disaster.
Good Omens is a twenty nine year old book, and for its fans, they've had nearly my entire lifespan to ruminate on their ideal fan casting. But so has its co-author Neil Gaiman, who is at the helm for this adaptation, so another worry is after so long thinking about adapting the book and without Pratchett, what changes will he make, and will the fans be happy?
With that said, I'm actually really looking forward to it, other than the fears of Gaiman and overacting, I'm excited to see a book I'm so recently enjoyed and became invested in adapted.
Plus, it releases on my birthday! So that's a nice treat for me.
Link || Good Omens (2019) || Amazon Prime || IMDb || Wikipedia
Link || Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman || Wikipedia || Amazon || Waterstones || Good Reads || Audible || iBooks
Link || Good Omens BBC Radio 4 Dramatisation || BBC || Audible || iTunes || Amazon
International Women's Day
...and I liked them, but didn't save them and my feed doesn't go far enough back to find any. So I have no means of showing them to you.
Which sucks, but one post I know came out around this point was one by Jameela Jamil on the I_Weigh account, showing how inaccurate and edited photographs we see in the media can so negatively influence how woman see themselves.
I know I had Jamil and I_Weigh as a favourite last month, but it's not going to be the last time because I find it such an incredibly positive account. Her post about stretch marks also reminded me of the work of Cinta Tort Cartó, also known as Zinteta, who creates artwork based on the things all women get, menstruation, scars and stretch marks, enhancing them with rainbow colours and glitter, to embrace and show off the parts of being women we're often encouraged by the media to hide.
There's nothing wrong with having stretchmarks, they show growth and development, there's everything wrong with the media editing them away and telling us that we should be ashamed of them.
"Your body is not ruined; you’re a goddamn tiger who earned her stripes."(Unknown)
Link || International Women's Day || Website || Instagram || Twitter || Facebook
Link || Jameela Jamil || Website || Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Wikipedia || IMDb
Link || I Weigh || Website || Instagram || Twitter
Link || Cinta Tort Cartó (Zinteta) || Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Bored Panda || BBC
Hyperbole & a Half
The book began life in 2009 as a blog, Hyperbole and a Half, where Brosh would post her humorous observations and life experiences paired with crudely drawn cartoons of a character - loosely based on herself - in a pink dress with a triangular shaped ponytail. The book itself focuses on lots of areas of her life, from her pets, Simple Dog and Helper Dog, who need multiple chapters to truly capture their idiosyncrasies, and the iconic cake fury...
... but a lot of people will be familiar with "Clean all the things!" which became a meme that took the internet by storm in a million guises.
But two important chapters are on Brosh's battle with depression and suicidal thoughts, and how suddenly and unimpressively it began...
"Some people have a legitimate reason to feel depressed, but not me. I just woke up one day feeling sad and helpless for absolutely no reason.It's disappointing to feel sad for no reason. Sadness can be almost pleasantly indulgent when you have a way to justify it - you can listen to sad music and imagine yourself as the protagonist in a dramatic movie. [...]But my sadness didn't have a purpose. Listening to sad music and imagining that my life was a movie just made me feel kind of weird because I couldn't really get behind the idea of a movie where the character is sad for no reason.Essentially, I was being robbed of my right to feel self pity, which is the only redeeming part of sadness.And for a little bit, that was a good enough reason to pity myself." (Hyperbole and a Half: Adventures in Depression by Allie Brosh)
Brosh describing the experience of being depressed is incredibly familiar, and honest, and between her writing and her illustrations, she's able to create a really relatable vision of what so many people experience. No one persons experience of depression is the same, and a lot of people you'd never know it was going on.
After the release of this book, a sequel (Solutions and Other Problems) was announced, however this never came to fruition, and Brosh stopped posting on the blog her fans, including myself, loved so dearly.
As someone who has disappeared more than once, all I can hope is she's well and happy and that maybe one day she'll feel ready to bring her acerbic, witty storytelling and charmingly crude drawings, back in some way or another.
I really do recommend this book for laughs, and tears and endless humour. Or indeed just head to the Hyperbole and a Half, to get a taste of her work. The blog is still up, though inactive.
Link || Hyperbole and a Half || Blog || Adventures in Depression || Depression Part 2
Link || Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened by Allie Brosh || Amazon || Waterstones || Good Reads || Book Depository
Etymology: Shitfaced
etymology (/ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/)
(n.) the study of the origin of words and the way in which their meanings have changed throughout history.
Words are weird. The English language is weird. It's full of weird spellings and words that are all pronounced the same, but have different spellings as well as meaning and I still haven't got a full grasp on it.
But words are also wonderfully weird and ridiculous and their origins make complete and utter sense once you're aware of them. Shitfaced is just such a word, and it's origins are inevitably Scottish.
Before we had indoor plumbing, what did we do? Well in Edinburgh - as with most other towns and cities in the early part of the 20th Century, people threw all their waste out of their windows into the streets below. With this happening at all times of day and night, the streets of Edinburgh such as the Royal Mile, and narrower parts of the old town, were constantly knee deep in the stuff.
In order to retain some kind of order and stop the streets being a river of excrement twenty four seven, the town adopted the French phrase "regardez l'eau", which translates essentially as "watch out for the water". Soon this became the term "gardy loo" which was to be yelled out of your window before you threw your waste, thus giving anyone below fair warning of what was about to rain down on them.
This helped reduce your likelihood of getting gunged, you at least got a warning, but it didn't help with the disgusting state of Edinburgh's streets. So in 1749, the Nastiness Act was past, decreeing that you could only dispose of your waste between ten at night and seven in the morning, thus helping the flow of waste down the hill, and letting the streets remain slightly more sanitary during the day.
But where does "shitfaced" come into play? I'm guessing most people reading will have worked it out, but basically, if after work you went to the pub to have a dram or two, and slightly more than tipsy set out for home, in your drunken state, you might not be aware of the call of gardy loo, or you reaction times to it may not be quite quick enough.
Thus, when you are drunk, you become shitfaced, literally. Which is a word we still use, while gardy loo went down the drain with the introduction of Edinburgh's sewer system.
I found out about this because of comedian Daniel Sloss, while he was being interviewed by Conan O'Brian... please try to refrain from screaming every time he says Edinborough instead of Edinburgh.
He's a very funny boy, but he left out one crucial piece of information...
... The Nastiness Act of 1749 was never officially repealed, so legally you can still throw your waste out of your window between ten and seven in Edinburgh.
But if you're living in Edinburgh and read this, maybe don't, maybe just use your toilet and shout gardy loo when you're giving it a flush.
Link || Daniel Sloss || Website || YouTube || Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Netflix || Conan
Link || Edinburgh Tales #3: Sh!t-faced Drunk by Freya Rose Creech
Link || Gardyloo: The grim story of unsanitary Edinburgh by Claire McKim via The Scotsman
Random YouTube
Makeup Artist Kiki G (Katelyn Galloway), spending half an hour explaining how make cold brew coffee and simple syrup.
Half an hour! And I lapped it up because she's hilarious. Half way through she spends a good few minutes dancing, twerking and showing us random objects from around her flat, when cold brew coffee is literally: put coffee and water in jar, place jar in fridge, wait twenty four hours, strain coffee, drink coffee... but I love her lack of brevity and obvious over caffeinated hyperactivity, it's like sitting watching your best friend or a family member messing around, trying to make you laugh while performing stupidly mundane tasks.
The ultimate crossover! Great British Bake Off and Drag Race!
Former GBBO contestant Dan Beasley-Harling started a YouTube channel this month and his first video (excluding his teaser trailer) was with for RPDR contestant Miz Cracker to make Challah, an enriched, braided, Jewish bread.
Sold.
"Warning: This video is only for 32 year old ladies!"
Well, I'm a year off, but I think Jenna Marbles would be okay with that because at the start of the video she says that at some point, a switch went off in her brain and suddenly she became a crazy plant lady... same.
No, seriously, I hit thirty and started not only collecting, but propagating succulents and other house plants and coveting them when I saw pretty ones in the supermarket. The latest I've adopted being a coffee plant and two echeveria, though those two succulents may have been slightly motivated by the pretty iridescent pots they were living in... don't judge me, one day I will have my own home and I want pretty things to put in it, including plant pots.
Truth is, I'd been growing plants in the garden from seed since uni, mostly because a packet of sweet-peas, nasturtium and geranium seeds cost a damn sight less than plants and they're really pretty and make my mum happy. I even have four or five yellow tree peonies which I grew from seeds from my grans garden, and could potentially flower for the first time this year! Yay! This fact actually is exciting given these bloody things take five years to develop enough to flower and they took two years just to germinate! Two years! Elephants create life quicker!
Anyway, whether those flower or not (I think they need more time and repotting) I have lots of plants in my room, and around the house, and I love them, they make me feel happy, which having plants in your home have been shown to do. I also feel sad every time I kill one of them, and I kind of love that Jenna made a funny video just wandering around her house introducing her viewers to her plant babies and being weirdly attached to them. There's something incredibly endearing about that, which I like.
So there you go, some random YouTube love.
Spotify Playlist: The Fatal Flaw
The Fatal Flaw by Tes Medovich, a playlist based on the Donna Tartt novel, The Secret History. Now, I know nothing about this book, I've never read it, but, my little sister was listening to it and I started to as well because there were lots of songs already enjoyed.
Is this something you do? Even just in your head.
I think I do, but I'm curious seeing I started another book, to see if I can create a playlist to go along with the book, which is The Comet Seekers by Helen Sedgwick.
Instagram Love: 157ofgemma
157ofGemma is a webcomic/blog following the lives of Gemma Gené and her chubby, opinionated pug, Mochi. (Also her husband Peli and her other dogs, Huey and Duey, also known as the Twinchis.)
There were a few new Instagram accounts I started following this month, a few I'm keeping for later in the year, but I couldn't resist Mochi and Gemma's drawings. He's just so adorably sassy and cute.
Go check out her Instagram etc and show her some love.
Link || 157of Gemma || Website || Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || YouTube || Patreon
Emily vs. Spring Cleaning
Spring has sprung and I, because I was having a down couple of weeks, decided I needed to start spring cleaning... or in other words, I made more mess.
"Does this item spark joy?"
(Marie Kondo)
So I've spent the last week of the month starting with something which should be relatively easy to get rid of, paperwork.
A ridiculous number of old magazines, educational based paperwork and random scribbles later, I've filled half the recycling bin and the shredder bin with stuff I think I was keeping purely because it had been shoved away to be dealt with at a later date. Plus I found:
- the police letters from when my wallet got stolen out of my bag, from inside my shut drawer, in the empty uni studio, which should have been locked
- a"spare/safety" copy of my dissertation, just in case on binding/submission day I lost all three I was actually getting bound
- drawings of owls I did when there was talk of doing a window based on Harry Potter
- a box of old hard trial contact lenses my dad gave me and I'd forgotten about (they're weird but cool, and it's sad but I love the little round boxes they're in!)
- the train ticket from dress shopping with my best friends for our sixth year formal, which ended in a missed train and me not making it home for my grandpas birthday... big trouble
- and coincidentally, an essay I wrote about grandpa when I was in school...
I'm a pack rat. I know I am, but I'm going to take my room, bit by bit, cleaning, throwing out and rearranging, because who needs a knee high pile of old magazines?
Since I got the paperwork to a manageable state, I started going through the boxes under my bed today (30/03), have four bags of shoes to donate, and among other things found yet another envelope of high school exam results. Does everyone have a dozen copies of their exam results? Every box or file I go through, I seem to find another envelope with another set! Why on Earth did we need so many copies?!
Link || Marie Kondo || Website || Book || Netflix || YouTube || Instagram || Twitter || Facebook
Craft Hoarding
Something else I kept finding as I've been tidying, has been lots of random pieces of craft paraphernalia, which isn't unusual for me. And I'll freely admit I hoard craft supplies, I'll also happily keep things which could potentially be used as craft supplies.
For example, for years I saved three fibre optic lamps, they didn't work, the fad for them had long since ended, but I didn't want to throw them away. But I was vindicated, because I ended up using them in multiple jewellery projects throughout uni. So it was totally worth my lunacy.
Craft hoarding is a bit of a family trait, my gran often telling me not to buy things before rifling through the cupboard of sewing stuff she's got, but it might also explain this...
Do I make the kits? Obviously not. I put them in this hat box, which isn't small, and save them. A little bit of me doesn't want to open them and just be a good old fashioned hoarder, the other part like the idea of saving them for a rainy day, or if we ever get properly snowed in and I'm looking for something to keep me occupied.
Or maybe they'd be good for a blog post. Who knows.
Link || Mollie Makes || Website || Instagram || Twitter || Facebook
Slim Freedom
This is her studio version of the song, which I rediscovered this month after the song randomly popped into my head, but the street performance is amazing and should definitely be watched.
Randomly getting Fleetwood Mac in your head? I have no problem with that.
Link || Ashley Stevenson || Street Performance || TEDxChicago || YouTube || Instagram || Facebook || Soundcloud || Patreon
Curly Girl Update No. 1
From what I've read and watched, I know my hair is transitioning, and it will take a few months to sort itself out. But it would be really nice to wake up, brush my hair and be done with it, instead of wondering whether it's survived the night...
... actually, if I woke up with Merida from Brave's hair, I'm be pretty satisfied!
Monthly Dose of Fluffy Idiocy
Look at these feet! Look at these dirty feet! And this is how Charlie comes in most nights. I mean he has white socks and refuses to wear kitten mittens...
... as if we could get him in kitten mittens, I'd lose my life, or at least a few appendages if I tried getting him a pair of those! But he honestly, for such a clean cat, who never has matted or anything stuck in his fur, he always has dirty toes!
Unicorn Store
"Kit is a failed artist who moves back in with her parents and takes a job up as an office worker. One day, she receives a mysterious letter from an unnamed salesman who invites her to "The Store", a strange indeterminate place that sells "what you need". The Salesman offers her the chance to have it sell her childhood fantasy: a unicorn." (Unicorn Store, Wikipedia)
Sold, and only slightly triggered.
This film starring Brie Larson (also in her directorial debut) comes out on Netflix on the 5th of April and I shall be watching because I was sold eight seconds into the trailer because of the colours Kit was painting on the wall, the unashamed use of glitter and how incredibly messy she has gotten herself.
Link || Unicorn Store || Netflix || IMDb || Wikipedia
Brexit
Last to mention about March is the dumb show that is the United Kingdom and Brexit.
Three years ago in June, the British public was asked to vote on whether or not we remained part of the European Union. Three years ago, after months of campaigning by "Remainers" and "Brexiters", campaigns which consisted mostly of fairytales, make believe and general bullshit, and one party tried to convince us all to follow them, despite obviously having no plan of how we'd actually achieve their goals. Then the British public voted to leave the EU... by 3.8%.
All the loudmouthed pro Brexit politicians seemed to have disappeared by the waysides and it turned out the sceptics were right, they didn't have a plan as to how we would successfully exit the EU and three years on, they still don't.
You can probably tell, I voted to remain, and signed the petition to revoke Article 50, because I think isolating yourself only ever negatively affects you. But I'm biased on that fact. By leaving, we isolate ourselves, we've already made ourselves look like idiots by not being able to follow through efficiently, in fighting and constantly fighting against the any and every option suggested to let us move forward.
I'm not a Conservative, I don't affiliate with any party, I don't have any fondness or great opinion for Theresa May, but David Cameron called the vote and then bailed out. May took the mantle, despite the fact that she was against Brexit and agreed to set her opinion aside and navigate Brexit for the country. And let's be frank, she's failed, but it didn't help that no one's let her. There has been call after call for her resignation, which seems to be the only thing anyone's actually interested in, but that would just put the country into an even bigger tailspin.
Especially when you see the list of candidates for the job.
I'm tired of it. The whole situation is a mess, no one can agree and we're probably going to fall out of the EU without any idea of how we survive outwith it and no one willing to take us serious period.
We've become the dead donkey at the end of the news...
Brexit the Cat
“He wakes me up every morning meowing to death because he wants to go out, and then when I open the door he stays put, undecided, and then glares at me when I put him out.” (Nathalie Loiseau, Le Journal du Dimanche)
At least someone's having fun with this situation.
Link || Brexit || Wikipedia || Just Google the idiocy... || ... or don't just click this instead!
Link || France's Europe Minister 'names cat Brexit because he is reluctant to leave' via The Local
Link || French minister named her cat Brexit because he’s indecisive, report says
Kathleen Joyce by Kathleen Joyce via Fox News
Actually no...
There, that's a better way to end the month.
Hope you had a good March!
..................................................................................
Listening: My Strange Addiction - Billie Eilish
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