There's No Armpit Hair Over or Under Here

Blondie of Transatlantic Blonde fame has issued a Call to Arms, as it were, for Feminist Friday. To shave or not to shave? THAT is quite a question. I started shaving under my arms many, many years ago when I had virtually no hair there anyway. I did it because, well, that's what my Mom did, and her sisters did, and most of the women and girls I knew or saw on TV or in magazines did. It seemed to me that it separated the women from the girls, and I was definitely aiming to be one of the women. I've never been very hairy, so it isn't very noticeable if I don't shave, but *I* notice. And I don't like the little black hair stubble-- reminds me of fly legs. Ugh. Just na-zasty.

Do I think shaving and the new Venus razor blades with 5 blades and 27 gel layers are part of some sort of patriarchal plot? Not really; marketing hype, certainly, and preying on our fear of ever being demonized as unfeminine. It is also an artificial de-naturalisation in the name of 'Beauty,' whoever she is. I don't see what purpose the hair serves in the first place-- it should be obvious to everyone that I've been through puberty, no? So any potential 'come hither, Caveman, I am now fertile and of age' signalling it might have done is pretty pointless. Will I carry on shaving? Yep. Will I defend the right of women Over There or Over Here or Anywhere to NOT shave? Yep.


(ten minutes later)
I can't resist adding a (revolting) visual, because I am stubbly and proud of it! Weak of stomach, look away now:

Process of Poetry

I am still editing. And it is difficult. I am still working on the critical component of my M Res, and compared to that, editing is a doddle. I don't know how to 'justify,' critically speaking, what I've written, or the ways in which I have written it. I am struggling to define my own personal ethic, in terms of writing, so that someone else can understand it, or at least have some sense of my process. But how can I explain something that I am only just beginning to trust and rely on myself? I know when I draft is 'done,' when I can't do any more to a piece of writing for the moment,  and I know when I am ready to work on it again, because my brain itches. Right now, my brain is so tired that the itching ain't happening. I have successfully titrated myself off of Pregabalin, which didn't work its promised magic on the pain, but I am not sleeping well, in part because I need to get writing done and I can't relax. I'll try to have a nap, and see if I can feel the itching in my head a bit more clearly after that.

Still No End, But Plenty of Gloom

Finishing off the critical component of my M Res is proving pretty challenging. I've put myself under pressure to complete it well ahead of time, and this simply isn't going to happen. I need sleep. My CRPS is screaming for more sleep, as is my arthritis, and I need a less chaotic household; we've been pretty full of musicians all weekend (see @martynclark's Twitter feed for more info.), and I feel like I've been a nanny, but without Mary Poppin's semi-magical powers, umbrella, and carpet bag. I'm going to London in a few days, and wanted this done before then, but my body and brain are simply not cooperating. Like a poem, an essay isn't something that can be forced out of my head onto a screen. I should know better.

Doom, Gloom, the End of a Project Looms

My M Res project is almost in its final form, and I am having trouble finishing it. I would think, if I were not me and was looking at me, or still me and floating around having some sort of out-of-body experience, that this  'critical component' would be the easy bit. The *hard* bit, theoretically, would be actually doing the creative writing component. Not so. Getting really stuck in to the analysis bit, in which I have to compare my own work to that of a lot of famous, competent, writerly types, is more difficult. Finding the mental energy and focus to do it is made more difficult by pain, fever, and all of the annoying antics a Dead Leg can get up to, but the real issue is lack of confidence.

Writer Me, Disabled Me, and Common Purpose

From the 6th-8th of July, I am going on the Frontrunner course run by Common Purpose . I think it is more than a little ironic that the Dead Leg and I are going anywhere near anything with 'runner' in the title...but maybe that is just my gallows bravado talking.

I got the rest of the bumph I need via email yesterday, all of the speaker and attendee bios, and I feel a bit nervous about the whole thing. I've recently begun to really embrace Writer Me again, and don't, despite presenting at 5 conferences in the last month, feel like I am fully confident, fully occupying that part of me. Frontrunner will present another challenge, one I struggle with at least as much as I struggled with acknowledging that I wanted to write "properly, like books and stuff," as my 8 year old says: trying to embrace Disabled Me.

All of me is affected by my disability, but I spend a lot of energy and time trying to keep it from affecting me. And it doesn't work. Going on the Frontrunner course is about trying to make the adjustments I need to make to lead as a disabled person, to advocate for myself as well as for patients and clients. I don't have any hangups about advocating for them; it is me, and people like me, the Spoonies with hidden disabilities, I need to be better at advocating for. So the Dead Leg, my walking stick and/or crutches, and I are off to London to meet a lot of people. So here's the bio I sent:

     I wrote my first poem when I was 7, shortly after ensuring (or so I thought) that my youngest brother’s adoption proceeded smoothly, and prior to performing open-heart surgery on a snapping turtle crushed in an MVA. He (I think he was a he) didn’t last long. I have failed, to some extent, to live up to the early promise I demonstrated.
I ran track and cross-country before discovering I had arthritis. I cooked a lot of cheesecakes before perfecting that black art. I lived all over the US before falling in love, marrying, and moving to Italy, briefly, before settling in Scotland. I have two fantastic sons who ensure that I don’t get too full of myself, and humiliate me regularly at cricket. I trained and work as a Speech and Language therapist, write, edit, stupidly agree to organise and attend conferences, and write more. I am incubating 3 poetry collections, some short fiction, and a novel (please don’t mention the novel to my supervisor, as he quite rightly assumes I am taking on too much already). I am learning to play the guitar—badly, as it turns out. I love feeding people.



(The writing prompt  Sleep Is For the Weak gave me (well, me and the Internet, but you know what I mean) is to choose something that represents me, some article of clothing, an accessory, and write about that. I hope it is obvious I chose crutches and other accoutrements of Crippledom.)

Sports Day, Or Why We All Need to Raise Feminist Kids

I was a parent helper at Sports Day today. We were in the amazing Kelvin Hall, on a *real* track with the *real* rubbery smell that so vividly reminds me of the days when I could run around tracks and across fields and anywhere my legs wanted to go. I watched the kids struggle with one of what appears to me to be the biggest dilemmas they all face: how to compete without anger, fear, or being consumed by your own insecurities. Boys get told that they need to be the fastest and the bravest and score the most goals. Girls still, unfortunately, get told in very insidious, hard-to-challenge ways, that they should be the best they can be as long as it doesn't interfere with boys being the best. They should, "when trying hard to be their best," be just "a little less," to paraphrase Madonna.

I watched as girls subtly discouraged each other, unconsciously letting the boys 'win'. Not that anyone was allowed to win, of course, since Sports Day is an anti-competitive affair in which no one is allowed to win, because that might discourage those who try and fail. The real world isn't like that, and I think it is a disastrous failure, as policies go. My sons are competitive, and the only way they will learn to manage their competitiveness is to be competitive and to compete. They have to learn that sometimes they'll win, and sometimes they won't, and that we aren't all equally good at everything.

One girl wasn't discouraged. She was quiet, but was still clearly part of one of the more powerful cliques in operation in P6 and P7. She tried hard and was good at the javelin throw, the long jump, and many other things. But when I saw her running, she was awe-inspiring; I wanted to cry(for her, and in some way, for me). I remember that feeling, the joy of knowing you are not just good at something, but spectacular at it. I remember flying over hills and around tracks, feeling as though I would never have to stop unless I wanted to stop.

It was like turning on a light; her sureness was a beacon, and it pulled the other girls on her relay along with her. I wanted to tell her so many things afterwards. I wanted to say,

'Don't slow down for people who don't make you feel the same way you feel when you run.'
'Don't ever let anyone tell you that running or being athletic means you are less female or girly or special.'
'Don't ever forget the feeling of flying, and what it means to know and to understand your body and all that it is capable of.'
'Be you, all of you, all the time, just as you are you when you run.'

I didn't say most of those things, apart from the last one. I didn't want to frighten her off. I remember what it is like to be all legs, half-tamed, and half-comfortable in your own skin. I told my sons instead, and listened as they talked about her, and all of the things she's good at, without jealousy or fear. I thought that I might be managing to raise feminists after all, and so might some other Mom on the Southside.

Nursing Home Residents Face Uncertain Futures

Not completely uncertain, I suppose; they know they aren't going to have a lot of choice about what  they eat and when, or the music getting played in the dining room, or who sits next to them at lunch....So much is decided for and about nursing home residents, and they don't often have much of a say in how things are run.


Southern Cross Healthcare announced that it is planning to cut 3000 jobs from its 44,000-strong workforce. Please see the Guardian article below for a concise summary of Southern Cross' current position and plans.


http://tinyurl.com/69s5hk9