Mind Goblins

Here are some drawings from my phone. They are me and I am them. You know, I think some of the best blog posts are the ones that feel like I've scooped up a bit of myself and put it on the internet. Sorry if you had a bit of a weird visceral image there. I mean, blogging kinda fundamentally feels like I am putting a part of myself into each post, but some posts just feel more intrinsically like they are me. Like they are a genuine bowl of electronic impulses I plucked from my brain and placed here, like Dumbledore with his memory thingy (Google tells me what I'm thinking of is a Pensieve). I guess these drawings feel like little mind goblins. Scuttling around in there. Poking things. Juggling shapes. Telling me to listen to Rick Astley on repeat.

I'm not sure what I'm talking about, but I just feel like they represent me so well. Do you ever look at pictures of yourself and think that whilst they look like you, they don't really LOOK like you? Like they don't really convey you properly? It's a physical recording of you, but it's like looking at a version of you with no brain. Something is missing. I get that sometimes. I mean, I know pictures of me usually do look like me, but looking at myself from the outside is so different from looking at myself from the inside. It's like that thing about how people prefer mirror images of themselves because they're using to seeing themselves in the mirror, so unflipped images look off. These drawings, and other things I put here, sometimes feel like they are more me than pictures of me.

Now I'm gonna get all philosophical and talk about a cool and weird and large thing. We know that we are made up of our bodies and minds and thoughts and choices and experiences, etc. Our selves are made up of, most obviously, our physical bodies (including the brain, and thus - thoughts), but also our environment. Our culture and existence in a specific time and place shapes us. Our past shapes us. Our childhood acquisition of a large amount of Kinder Eggs shapes us. We know that, although we might not think about it too much. But also, it's interesting to think about how we define ourselves. Your 'self' could be defined to include every person you've heard of, or place you've been, or dog you've stroked. It's influenced by lots of things, so it makes some sense to say that it is, itself, constructed of an amalgamation of almost everything that exists. This is holistic philosophy and I love it a lot. We are part of everything and in a way you could say that everything is a part of us, also. Like that thing science folks love to say about how we're all made of stardust. It's true and very cool.

"The cosmos is also within us. We're made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." - Carl Sagan

So I guess in a way when I draw dumb stuff on my phone (or when I draw in general) it's a way to create myself. I am making myself. Moulding myself. It feels so strongly me, in terms of my identity. Maybe even more me than the way I do awkward Chandler Bing smiling when I smile with my teeth (not always, but definitely sometimes - and I'm not criticising myself here because I kinda like it), or my particular brand of bad dancing, or even my love for Def Leppard.

I don't know, but anyway, here I am. Here are the drawings. Here I am. :-)

Apps used: Kids Doodle & Jot It Down!

Diary: Felt Tips Are Not The Boss Of Me

I am really into drawing stick figures at the moment, apparently. They are very easy to make look sarcastic or gormless, both elements that I end up needing to convey on most diary pages. I've also decided to stop caring if my felt tips leak through my diary pages, because life is too short for this specific kind of acute worry. I am okay with letting things bleed a bit. It seems a bit intrinsically wrong, but I think I ought to try not to let it bother me. Pens and paper thickness shouldn't control me. I control them, and they can shut their faces. Besides, I can always stick paper over the top if there's been a really severe pen bleed.

I have been a bit more colourful this week, which is very pleasing to me. Partly this is because there are some new pens available to me, courtesy of my mum's sudden interest in buying a colouring book (which I have slightly stolen). Colouring books are pretty great. They're a good and fun activity. Although I do tend to get distracted by a need to draw my own stuff instead of just colouring, but there's definitely a place for it. Especially if the picture you're colouring in is of two lady pirates or a bunch of cheeky cats on an island.

I Make Mistakes

Perceptions are really weird, like, the key to doing all number of things is your perceptions and feelings and actions all as a sequence. It's annoying how wrong things happen automatically when deep down in your brain you know the correct thoughts and feelings and behaviours but your hormones are getting in the way of that. I don't want to get into specifics because this is about a lot of things across a big chunk of life lived, but it's weird and kinda gross to look back on past mistakes and ideas and things and to see exactly what the sensible option would have been, because my perception isn't clouded for those memories. Like when I was 10 and cried because I was only given a tiny bit part in the school play. It didn't matter, and it also didn't matter that I was upset. It was fine to be upset. All of it was fine. And yet I remember how much that hurt.

me attacking my grandfather as a youth

I've been thinking about past and memories. All of the sad and negative moments, all sparkling like shards of glass left after an accident. In the past, I held mistakes really close to my heart and always felt awful for them, sometimes even tiny ones. I'm a lot easier on myself now, but sometimes I still struggle to stop myself from clinging on to things I've done wrong. I used to pretty obsessively believe and fear that I was harming people by, well, existing. I spent so much energy worrying about it and feeling like every single thing I did was wrong. I can't tell you when this started, because I can't remember anything about a time before it was a thing, but I can tell you that I improved in bursts and stretches largely between the ages of 15 and 19. After that I was much, much better, but remnants were still there, and are still there (still decreasing bit by bit by bit).

me being absolutely THE WORST at Twister

Of course, I still made mistakes during and after that time, and I still found myself struggling to accept the reality of things that had happened because I wasn't always able to control/influence/alter my perception of and response to them and view things logically. And it's okay if I'm not completely mentally healthy all the time, because that's an inevitable part of being a person, but I am a lot better these days and I can see that mistakes and problems don't have to condemn me to total punishment. I am trying to encourage myself to be more and more rational and understanding with myself, because everyone screws up. If I can recognise a mistake, that is enough. I'm not going to let my feelings hold me hostage. I am a complex person, not the fairy tale expectation being written over in my brain. Who needs a fairy tale like that when you can have real life, and the smell of petrichor, and the creases in your duvet, and that particular frown you made on first seeing this year's UK Eurovision entry?

Winhill

There are lots of beautiful and cool locations in Final Fantasy worlds I'd love to visit. One of my favourite things about the series is the wonderful little places you get to travel to and learn the history of and all that good stuff. There's so much depth to the towns and villages and cities and military bases and train lines of the world of Final Fantasy number 8 in particular, and I spent a lot of time as a kid dreaming of being there. When I was about 10 years old I even wrote FF8 fanfic for my creative writing. The story was about being washed up on the beach near Balamb and having to decide whether to go back home to my real life or to stay in the game world and live alongside everyone there. I totally chose to stay in the game world. I wish I still had that story (complete with drawings of the characters alongside the story).

Today I wanted to focus on the gentle, isolated village of Winhill, which I have personally visited, as you can see. It's a quiet and pleasant town with beautiful fields and flowers and pretty wooden houses. Unfortunately, the place suffers from an infestation of dangerous monsters, but people seem to get by okay. It's a fairly insular place as it sits on an isolated peninsula, and I guess the monsters make it difficult to go too far, but despite its problems it's a sweet little village.

It even has a spooky and impressive mansion up at the town square, and some casually ignored history. The whole place has a bit of a death and mourning theme and feel to it, so it's a bit melancholy, but all the natural beauty kinda makes it a pleasant setting for fixating upon mortality, in a way. The people of Winhill have death on their minds for various reasons, but life goes on here, and it's so humble and lovely. I really like it here.

Japan Candy Box Giveaway (Closed)

Following my Japan Candy Box review and my previous Blippo giveaway and review, I'm teaming up once again with Blippo & Japan Candy Box to bring you the chance to win the next box of Japanese sweets for yourself! Enter with your email address below by the 14th of August to be in with a shot. Entry is open worldwide, and your prize will differ from the picture shown below. Good luck!

✶✵ The giveaway is now closed. Congratulations to the winner, Felipe! (●｀･(ｴ)･´●) ノ* ✵✶

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Fitting Room Focus: Bacon & Spaghetti

So it's been a good while since I've done a fitting room post now, and I've missed it! So I popped back into ye olde H&M and checked out their modern 2015 summery business. Fitting rooms are very good opportunities for me to live vicariously through strapless dresses that I would never usually wear, because I like my arms to be safely held in sleeves. Maybe my arms are lonely and need a gentle cotton touch? I certainly feel the heat a lot more in the sun if I go uncovered, so that contributes. I prefer to have all over coverage from a light fabric than naked skin getting all those sun rays!

top - £7.99 (£4 in the sale), shorts - £14.99

Anyway so I found this t-shirt covered in snacky things - bacon, ice cream, fizzy drinks. Very bright and fun, although if I'm honest I'd prefer a more salad oriented top, with rocket leaves and slices of boiled egg and Leerdammer or something. Yum yum! I also found these shorts with a very early 2000s lace up crotch situation. I used to have some black flared trousers with a similar thing going on back when I was about 13. Good fashion choices! I kinda looked like I was walking on funnels. I am a small person with small legs, so flares look kinda exaggerated on me, and you know, flares already look exaggerated, because they're flares.

dress - £12.99 (£5 in the sale)

Next up I found this cute dress with a cool kind of kaleidoscopic pattern in a nice blue and black with little bits of pink. Very cute and comfy. I don't have much to say about it, but it's very airy and pleasant to wear.

dress - £3.99

I also found a bunch of super cheap spaghetti strap dresses. I opted for the nice light blue colourway and I love how this feels to wear in the heat. It's so simple and cute and it kinda looks like sleepwear, which I enjoy. I kinda really really want this even if I just sleep in it because it is very cute, but I also feel too nude in it? But not really? I don't know. I just love how tiny and simple it is, and I really like spaghetti straps for some reason. Teeny tiny straps.

Japan Candy Box Review

*This post contains gifted products & affiliate links*

After my Blippo goodies review I was also asked to try out the June 2015 edition of Japan Candy Box. This is one of two monthly subscription boxes Blippo do (the other one being the Kawaii Box). So thank you to Blippo for sending me this delightful selection of sweeties!

Here's the leaflet which tells me what's inside:

1. Kabaya Fish/Frog Gummies

So I will go through each item one by one. This is the first item, the Kabaya Fish/Frog Gummies. This is one of my favourite things included in the box. It's a nice hefty size, the gummy designs are cute (egg → tadpole → frog), and the gummy itself is good quality and tasty! The packet is also resealable like a sandwich bag, which I thought was a nice touch.

Look at that cute little frog!

2. Popin' Cookin' Neri Candy Land DIY Kit

This is a craft project and sweet combined. You're supposed to mould your sweet stuff into whatever shape you like and become an incredible sculptural food artist to rival Heston Blumenthal. It's quite a fun and cute idea, but I found it pretty difficult to make something non-nightmarish.

This is the opened kit. You get some instructions and suggestions, coloured blocks, a bunch of little moulds, a little packet of hundreds and thousands, and a wooden stick.

This is my creation. I guess this is how Frankenstein must have felt.

3. Pokémon Pikachu Pretzels

A much easier snack to deal with, these are pretty much Pikachu branded Pocky sticks. They're pretty delicious. They have a nice chocolate topping, and the Pikachu packaging is a cute novelty.

I especially like all the Pikachus printed on this plastic. Hi pals!

4. Meiji Petit Bubblegum

This stuff tastes pretty nice. It has a good fresh grape flavour.

I love the packaging on this. I can relate to these bubble gum bubbles. Each one of them is me. They are all me.

5. Puccho Mixed Fruit Chewy Candy

This is, as it says, fruity chewy stuff. I don't have much to say about this, but I like the little square-headed characters drawn on the individual wrappers.

6. Marukawa Fusen Bubble Gum

This is the tiniest box ever, with 4 cute little spheres of strawberry bubble gum inside. The strawberry taste is nice, and I bet a borrower could build something good out of this box.

7. Yaokin Sour Paper Candy

Look at those happy little cola bottles! This is a strip of cola flavoured chewy stuff. The sour taste is just right.

8. Dorayaki Japanese Hotcake

This is one of my favourite items in the box. A delicious, soft pancake with chocolate filling. It's so good. I want 5 more immediately.

9. Meiji Kotsubu Chocolates

These are just like Smarties, but the chocolate is a little bit richer, so they taste like luxurious Smarties.

I really like this packaging as well. The back of the box teaches an English word - pencil (enpitsu in Japanese).

10. Lotte Koala March Biscuits

These were another favourite. They are biscuits with a chocolate filling, with koala designs on the front. The biscuit to chocolate ratio is just right, and they're nice and light.

This koala has a very stylish hat. I'm sure I have seen this koala on the cover of many fashion magazines.

I think my favourite item overall was probably the doriyaki, but I liked the whole selection and the variety of everything. Check out my unboxing video below, and don't forget to enter the giveaway over here!

Adventure

When I was little I wondered a lot about why I was born and existed in this specific place and time and how weird it was that your consciousness just arbitrarily existed whenever and wherever it was. There's a strange disconnect between people in the past and me, like they aren't really real. And isn't it so weird how Cleopatra (69 - 30 BC) lived closer to the release of the iPhone (2007) than the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza (2560 - 2540 BC)? I mean it's not weird, because it's just true, but...?????

When I was little I also used to wonder if I was an alien because I guess I could never understand anyone else as well as I understood myself. That's still true, but it doesn't mean I'm an alien. It just means I am not inside everyone else's brains. That would be exhausting, probably.

It's so weird and cool how each of our lives is so unique. I mean obviously I share a lot of experiences with people who share the space and time with me, but when I am alone eating gummi frogs or something, no one knows about it, or knows how intently I might be thinking about frogs for a few minutes. I think this is part of why sometimes watching leaves wave about in the breeze is really special - because you know you're the only person in the world who gets to see these particular leaves wave around in this particular way, at this particular time, in this particular light. Even if someone sees the same thing the next day and it looks exactly identical, you still had a unique personal moment with the leaves. That sounds weird. You know what I mean though, right?

I think some of the best parts of being alive are when you can notice and appreciate little things like that. These are the little adventures that connect our lives and worlds, piece by piece, leaf by leaf.

Book Review: Dear Nobody - Berlie Doherty

★☆☆☆☆: Failed pregnancy parable teaches absolutely nothing, encourages teens to feel shame for being real human beings.

I also stared dramatically out of a window after reading this book because it was so miserable

[vague spoilers throughout]

Dear Nobody is a short, teen novel about a couple of 18 year olds who face an unexpected pregnancy. As we are introduced to the relationship between Chris and Helen and swiftly brought to the main plot point - the pregnancy - (the story moves fast as the book is short - that's about the only good point) they appear, initially, like the perfect childhood sweethearts. They are explicitly committed and besotted with each other despite parental concern that they are too young to be spending so much time together (at 18? really?) and the potential of a long distance university situation in the near future. This apparent devotion doesn't really add up given their actions throughout the book. Even at 18, if you can't even entertain the thought of a potential long term relationship with someone, how can you possibly think you love them? I appreciate that the concept of love is applied quite liberally to different feelings and situations, and that they might mistakenly intensify the feelings they think they have for each other, but it all seems off to me. To see such devotedness quickly segue into the opposite is jarring, and Doherty relies on this inherent and unexplained fickleness.

I'm not sure what the book is really trying to say. The only moral theme that seemed reasonably clear to me was the concept of staunch importance heaped upon education at all costs. Education is of course important, but I resent the stressful pushed narrative that not going to uni will destroy your life and leave you with no prospects (as opposed to ending a significant relationship to pursue a specific line of education and an unknown future). Sometimes other things are legitimately more important than education, and teenagers should be allowed and encouraged to construct their own set of priorities as they grow into adults. The book reads as a preachy fable from the point of view of an adult who has long forgotten what it really feels like to be a teenager on the cusp of adulthood.

For a book about a teenage pregnancy, it's bitterly disappointing that the boy father isn't really held accountable or responsible in a substantial way (excepting one adult character who takes a dislike to him). Numerous characters opine that he is "not ready" for the pregnancy, or even a long term relationship, while Helen resigns herself to the reality and inevitability of her pregnancy. Helen has no choice, but Chris is not just given the choice, but is openly pushed away from taking any responsibility for his child by just about everyone. This is presented uncritically, and is a dangerous message. It's one thing to portray an irresponsible young father who is overwhelmed and selfish in the aftermath of a pregnancy, but for all the book's moralistic warnings, it gives the boy a pretty free ride.

The decisions Chris and Helen make are stupid and nonsensical, but they're also just not quite believable to me considering the intensity of their young relationship. Both pine for each other and yet make every choice possible to distance themselves from each other. One thing that struck me was that Helen never got angry at her controlling mother, who insists that the couple no longer see each other. Helen simply accepts this and resigns herself to a lonely pregnancy. What 18 year old would do this? The book is written at times as if they are a couple of 14 year olds, when in reality they are 18 - barely adults, sure, but they are adults. I understand that Helen feels guilty and possibly quite numb about the situation, but the extreme level of capitulation to her mother's wishes just does not seem realistic and makes for an incredibly boring and depressing read. Helen's mother should elicit more of a vicious reaction, I feel. She reads to me as the villain of the story, but the book doesn't treat her like it.

Dear Nobody spends so much effort pushing the idea that higher education is more important than the commitment of a relationship (and, you know, a baby) despite the inescapable reality of Helen's pregnancy (and how it will affect her prospects) that it feels like it's meant to be a punishment for not being an emotionless, parent-obeying robot. The book ultimately treats Chris' education as something much more important than Helen entirely, and more or less throws her away as a doomed and ruined mother. No life or humanity is afforded to Helen, she is just a mother at the end of the story. As if that is nothing and she is nothing.

Dear Nobody is a dull read at best, and a horrifying, misguided, and punishing anti-love fable at worst.

Yellow & Cows

Here are some nice things that have made me smile throughout the past week or so.

sketchbook pages by jxiaoo

I love these sketchbook pages because they're so colourful and scribbly. I love all the wobbly lines and gentle colours as well as the colour of the pages and that one severed arm on the first page. So many nice little details and colours and lines. It makes me want to scribble.

from “Portraits” project (1984) by Patrick Tosani (via naturalmachine)

I find portraiture so interesting, especially because it can be easy to photograph yourself and record something about yourself in an instant, and there's so many endless amounts of options for how you can do it - setting, light, distortion, etc. In this case distortion is utilised to make these strange, blurred, watery pictures. We can still see the general form and the difference in movement, position, and shape of the subjects. They are simplified to pretty smudges and it's kinda a nice metaphor and image of the vagueness of our understanding of other people. You don't exactly have to understand everything about a person to appreciate them. But you can see them, and something about them.

These pictures of cows by plantcosmos are so perfect! Look at them! I love them! The sky and the trees and the cute cow faces. Everything about these is just so great.

by Adria Mercuri

I like the textures on the hair and eyebrows and eyelashes here. Such a beautiful and skillful drawing, but also I really like the use of white space and the delicate and soft feel of the pencil lines.

colour research by alexquisite

I have been seeing so much of the colour yellow lately, and I'm really warming to it as a colour from all this yellow exposure. I've liked mustard-y yellows for a while, but since I'm seeing all these summery yellows around me and cute daffodils and dandelions and raincoats in yellow, I'm just more and more happy to see all the yellows.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

I've included this screenshot not because of the movie so much as this particular wish. I feel like it's impossible not to wish you could bend time a bit and change things. I wish I could push myself into photographs and go back to '97 or whenever. I want to go back to the right places and the right times and push together puzzle pieces.

Things I've Lost So Far by Joanne Liu

Everything Joanne Liu draws is so funny and cute. I am enjoying all of it a lot.

Other things: a short animated film called 'Trash Cat', 2 nice pictures of a hug, a dance involving a chicken, and this incredible blog post looking through a beautiful journal.