Shoes, Books & Cynicism
Kate Stone Matheson
The Wax That Melts Our Wings

I’d say it’s what separates us, not from the beasts, but the bestial. Creating the future, renewing a learned past - these are reasons to strive. Writing for and with love, taking and framing an image, stretching new melodic skins onto old skeletons of song… it’s how we manage to fly. It’s how we stay you and me, not us and them.

The Wax That Melts Our Wings
Shoes, Books & Cynicism
Kate Stone Matheson
The Lady Jellypants Guide to Grace and Poise

Unlike Osk, who seemed to establish his own tactical task force wherever we lived, scooping up neighbourhood feline troublemakers as sidekicks (including the memorable ginger behemoth Watson, with whom he used to scope the street from the safety of the shed roof), Jelly has the intelligence gathering skills of a sponge cake.

The Lady Jellypants Guide to Grace and Poise
Shoes, Books & Cynicism
Kate Stone Matheson
Love Me Tender

Anyway, somewhere in between my 'and then you should've done this' and 'why didn't you say x and y, rather than z', and 'for the love of monkeys and the general public's eyesight, you didn't honestly wear that heinous shirt did you', something he was saying about the dating extravaganza we were picking to pieces finally penetrated my cloud of self-congratulatory cumulo-waffle. 

"Most people don't talk about how dates are progressing as a tender process, do they?" he asked. 

"What?"

"She said I was 'part way through the tender process' and that she was judging me on my submission. I'd like to think there was irony involved, and I think at the time I may have given an admittedly weak "haha, yesssss, quite". Looking back, I'd have to conclude, computer says no on the presence of Fabulon or other aids to achieving crisply pressed linen."

Love Me Tender

emotion

She Don't Like That Kind Of Behaviour

““There’s no map to human behaviour””

— Bjork

I am by no means a perfect person. I am so full of flaws it isn't funny. I am attempting, however slowly, to fix the ones that are fixable; but I am willing to accept that there is no such thing as perfection in humans (except for Alexander SkarsGod, but he is semi-divine so is therefore exempt from the rules of men).

And yet.

We give people the benefit of the doubt. Particularly those we love and care for and about - it's natural instinct. If they do something that disappoints us, we usually try to forget and forgive - or at least forgive - and move on. If we didn't do that, then we would be both highly hypocritical and probably extremely lonely, because everyone is allowed to stuff up. Give some latitude, receive some latitude - it usually all comes out somewhere down the line on the plus side of the ledger rather than the minus.

But sometimes there is a point where it's actually unhealthy to just keep saying 'It's OK. I know you didn't mean to do that - and you have apologised, so let's just move on'. Because either the action was intended, and therefore the apology is simply dust in the mouth; or by accepting said sorries over and over for various actions, one ends up enabling behaviours that should never have happened in the first place. 

Or sometimes... sometimes there isn't even an apology.

This may sound like a very serious and un-shoe like post, and yes it absolutely is. But when you realise that through allowing too much benefit of the doubt you are actively hurting yourself emotionally, then something has to give. And I think that it's important to admit that and not bottle it up. Because for me, that's when I start getting mean and that ain't pretty. Think Linda Hamilton in Terminator Two (but with better shoes) and you probably get the picture.

The Ice Queen Cometh.

Almost without exception, when I write a personal post like this, I get phone calls or messages from those close to me saying 'are you OK?' - and normally I say 'yes, you're reading too much into it - I'm just expressing what everyone thinks, but doesn't necessarily put into words'. But this time; well, this time it is about me. And it's not OK. I am angry, and fed up, and tired. I try to live by the maxim of 'give more than you take' - but sometimes people run with it a bit too far, and take without giving anything back.

Like James Reyne, who for once was intelligible when he was singing, I don't like that kind of behaviour.

So don't be so reckless.

Because it will not make me throw down my guns.

It will make me pick up my pen - which is, as we all know, mightier than any sword.

Or semi-automatic.

And you will well and truly learn where I stand.