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

personalities

Break On Through To The Other Side

I have a bad habit of getting what I suppose could be termed tunnel vision. I focus on the positives in people, and put aside the so-called negatives of their personalities. This can mean that I dig myself a very, very big hole that I find hard to climb out of when they behave - well, as humans tend to, and as I certainly do myself - as a normal numpty with feet, legs and a torso of clay.

This is usually a bit unfair on them, and certainly on myself, because the person who is most affected in the long run is me. And this is wasted energy and emotion. And sometimes a whole box of Kleenex. 

I am trashing the planet through my inability to cope when people are less than nice to me.

What a sook!

I have written before about the fact that none of us is without flaws, and we should accept them. This is all well and good. But being who I am, the trouble is that sometimes I don't see the wood for the trees in terms of what is a true problem area in the psyche and what is simply a quirk of personality - and as a result go charging round with friend Napalm. 

Next thing you know there's a bright orange sunrise and everyone's feeling vaguely sunburnt and ill.

And there's a big cleared out patch where some very strong friendships used to be.

So what to do?

Lay off the Apocalypse Now references would probably be a good starting point.

After that, it's a matter of accepting that everyone is different. The whole 'you are unique' blarney isn't actually blarney - I know that I drive many, MANY people in my life bonkers and they put up with my ways with a grin. A somewhat forced grin, but a grin nonetheless. So I therefore need to look at someone as a real boy or girl, not as a Pinocchio-like wooden figure, from the start of any relationship - instead of trying to see just a part of them.

That way when I do drop down into what I think is a pit of despair, I will be grateful that it was actually not a hole at all.

It was just a covered pathway. Or even a tunnel of sorts.

And there is an end in sight.