Excuses

As of this moment in time, I am trying to simultaneously balance:

1. Writing a children's novel.
2. Writing pieces and assessments for my MA.
3. Attending my MA.
4. A café job, working somewhere between one and four days of which most are weekends.
5. A bookshop café job (because that is infinitely more relevant - one day, my hoardes of screaming book fans may need coffee) of at least three days, including weekends.
6. A temporary writing residency at a local centre for children's literature.
7. Some freelancing (to make it sound far more legit than it is) for a reading project run by a local arts centre. 
8. Maintaining old friendships, which have conveniently scattered themselves across the country.
9. Making new friends, so as to not be sad and lonely. 
10. Seeing a boyfriend who works 9-5 weekdays. 
11. Sleeping.
12. Reading, so as to become a more rounded human being. 
13. General life requirements, such as maintaining personal hygiene. 
14. Pretending that I'm taking this blogging thing seriously. Again.

And currently I am either tragically behind on or entirely ignoring options 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13 and 14.

So yeah. Be right back.

I'm Back!...Again

I feel like my relationship with blogging is reflected in the way most people feel about exercise. I know it's good for me and I know that really I've got no excuse not to, so every six months or so I'm like, "WOO, BLOGGING YEAH." Then I delete a load of old stuff, write two posts of whatever I'm currently feeling constitutes a 'theme', forget about it for three months and get all:

But slowly the guilt starts to kick in (not to mention all the applications for writing work that ask me for a link to my blog and I'm sat there thinking, "I HAVE ONE OF THOSE, YES, YES...oh. Balls."), and eventually I go trudging guiltily back to the blog with a sheepish attempt at a new theme / commitment strategy.

Take this post, for instance. I have a million things to do and three hours to do them, but I still had the idea for this blog post, started it (as in, wrote the first sentence) and then spent twenty minutes scouring the internet for a gif showing that bit in He's Just Not That Into You where Jennifer Connelly smashes a mirror, disappears and comes back with a dustpan and brush. And when I couldn't find it, was like,

Much like somebody getting their running gear on again, getting halfway down the street, feeling the beginnings of their first stitch, turning round and going home. 

And yet, here I still am. And once again, here I'm intending to stay. Theme and commitment strategy as yet undecided.

So, I imagine what will follow is a three-day revamp of the blog in which I battle between the self-deprecation of feeling as though everything I have previously written is shite and the self-indulgence of feeling that if I delete everything then it was all for nothing, and then radio silence. I have figured out how to add new pages though so, you know, that's something!

But you never know, I could end up like this:

Dying, but still going. 

No Make-Up Selfies

If you're not reading this in the immediate aftermath of the 18th/19th/20th March 2014, you will probably neither remember or care what I'm talking about.

But anyway.

The latest craze to have overtaken social media is the No-Makeup Selfie, purportedly to promote Cancer Awareness, and I really cannot decide where I come down on this. Having been nominated this morning, I naturally thought the internet was the appropriate place to voice my concerns before ultimately caving to social expectation. So here goes.

1. What does being make-up-less have to do with cancer?
Well...yeah. I had seen four or five make-up-less selfies before I realised the link to Cancer Awareness, and it's not exactly where your mind jumps. As a promotional campaign it's pretty vague, which then creates the danger of people uploading these selfies with no idea or real perception of what they're supporting. But then...

2. Cancer Awareness is a worthy cause regardless of how it's being promoted.
True 'dat.

3. Being 'aware' of cancer is vague and non-comittal.
'Cancer awareness' is an extremely non-specific banner. EVERYONE is 'aware' of cancer, so what are you actually saying? Are you promoting regular check-ups, like Coppa Feel? Are you promoting the general fight against cancer, like Cancer Research? Are you promoting support for those with, and the families of those with cancer, like Macmillan? Are you promoting the charity that supported you and your loved ones through whatever your personal experience with cancer has been, like the hospice that looked after my grandad during the final stages of lung cancer?

4. Why not more donations? Put your money where your face is.
And while we're on that, don't just promote when you can actively support. It's preachy, but whatever your circumstances, if you're willing to put a no make-up selfie on the internet, you should be willing to make a donation - it's only £3, and it's as simple as texting BEAT to 70007 for Cancer Research, 70099 specifically for Breast Cancer.

5. But discussions on social media seem to be far more focused on ego-boosting than cancer support/awareness.
If I see one more selfie where the only thing being said in the comments is, 'You're gorgeous anyway babe!', 'Stunning' or - most infuriatingly - 'Well done!' I'm going to scream. NOT THE POINT.

6. But social media is a great tool for great causes, and should be used as such more often.
Generic irritation with Facebook commenters aside, it's nice to see Facebook being used for a good cause, and not to spread the news of what sandwich that guy you knew at school is eating for lunch today. It is profoundly unfair, for instance, to be as cynical over this as the NekNominate fad that was all over social media last month. Questionnable motives aside, it's good to see Facebook doing good.

7. Why is going make-up less such a big deal?
This is a different rant, really, but why is wearing no make-up such a sacrifice? People shave their heads, bathe in beans and jump out of planes for charity - it's a shame that this is seen as an equivalent.

8. It's a great idea, but why not make it more relevant?
Along the same lines - if you're going to post a no make-up selfie, why not make it relevant to the cause you're championing? Contemporary body image and the media's promotion of 'beauty' are both infuriating attitudes, well worth fighting against - and then at least more people would understand the point you're making. This, I understand, was actually the origin of the no make-up selfie; author Laura Lippman going barefaced to support Kim Novak, after she was criticised for her looks at the Oscars. It's hard not to be cynical when 'Cancer awareness' has just been slapped on as justification for a fad nobody quite understands the point of.

9. Cynical attitudes are as prevalent as supportive ones.
As I have clearly demonstrated, scepticism and questioning are accompanying this craze with at least as much vigour as cancer awareness / support - The Independent, the Daily Mail and God only knows how many blogs have challenged it - justifiably and understandably so. But...

10. It's obviously working.
The Telegraph reckons the no make-up selfie has raised over £1 million in 24 hours for Cancer Research - and you can't really say fairer than that.

Ultimately, there is no simple answer. I and many others can and will question the sincerity and the purpose of the no make-up selfie for cancer awareness until we're blue in the face, but you can't argue with figures. However many people miss the point, consider it a sacrifice to go make-up-less or 'forget' to post anything about the supposed cause, if money is being raised for charity then I will shut up and cave:

Glamorous Twenty-Somethings

So it's one in the morning, I have to get up for a nine o'clock seminar and have already turned the lights off - and then back on again - three times. But obviously these are the moments when I have ideas my deluded and sleep-deprived brain considers to be borderline genius, therefore must share with the world as soon as possible. Cue internet. I guarantee I will read this back in the morning and wonder if I have now actually cracked.

Today's thought, or really more of a pondering: Why is society so fascinated by the lives of twenty-somethings? 

This stemmed largely from having just watched too many Girls episodes in quick succession, but it got me thinking more broadly: Girls, Friends, How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, New Girl. All shows which explore the lives of young adults trying (and in many cases, failing) to get their shit together. 

But why the fascination? In my current position, I'm standing on the edge of twenty-something-ness, feeling the semi-security of university shaking under my feet and looking at the vast, unknowable, unpredictable chasm of the 'Future' with a gradually building but increasingly distinct sense of panic. Up until now there has always been a Next Step along The Path; go to school, get A-Levels, go to university, get a degree. Now, it feels like I am counting down to the point in a few months time when I will fall off the edge of The Path and come face-to-face with reality in a horrifically sink-or-swim manner. To put it more simply (and drop the weird combination of metaphors), imagine the red dot is security, consistency and general confidence in your life - the pug is me: 

Now what, dear God what, is so fascinating about that? Depressing, concerning and mind-blowingly terrifying, yes, but fascinating? This seems to me a prime case of romanticising. 

In the end I think it comes down to misunderstanding - or more likely misremembering. If nothing else can be said for being young, poor and confused, at least most twenty-somethings have no responsibility to anyone but themselves. In theory, sure, we could fly off travelling at a moment's notice, quit the day-job to follow our dream and sleep with anyone we happen to come into contact with. Except we don't live in a sitcom; the real world has real consequences. 'Free' from responsibility we may be, but that doesn't make us 'free' in any other sense - particularly financially. Regardless of what you are capable of doing in terms of personal freedom, thinking about what you, as a young adult just out of university, can actually afford to do is probably more likely to make you feel like this: 

(This is getting way more depressing than I meant it to be...sorry.) 

Or maybe it's just that the problems of youth are easier to sugar-coat than the problems of later life. Sure, you've got no money - but at least you've got parents to fall back on. Sure, your love life's a mess - but at least you're young enough to take advantage of all the options worth exploring. Sure, you don't know where you'll be living in three months - but at least you're not tied down or trapped. 

And to look at it that way actually makes me feel the least worried I've been in a while. Maybe it isn't sugar-coating so much as a Real Adult way of looking back and realising that the problems you faced as a twenty-something, whilst still being problems, were at least simpler problems. Finding a last-minute place to rent is easier on your own than with a family. Moving to a new city for a fresh start or a job opportunity is far less hassle as a couple than if you have kids. Dating / finding someone to be with has much better odds as a young adult than a divorcee - through the simple fact that there are a lot more people in that situation. If nothing else, at least as a young adult you can look around you, and know that everyone has either dealt with this, is dealing with this, or will deal with it in the future. And that's actually surprisingly comforting. 

On which note, I am going to sleep, and leaving you with this: 

(Also this article on why Friends is fabulous / still relevant. It's like this post, except less embedded in reality, and thus cheerier.)