Tag: blog

16 years of complaining.

~ Sue ~ 1 Comment

I have a rather serious post I was planning, but then WordPress pinged a notification to my phone. It’s the anniversary for me registering this blog.

16 years feels like a very long time. I started this when I was at college, studying art and graphic design. We had to start a blog to keep track on our progress in our classwork. I, obviously, kept it up.

Blogging, much like myself, has changed a lot over the years. When I first started, it was just another place to rant online. Whether it was popular or read, wasn’t important. It was an outlet, which is how I still think of it.

Now, blogging has been on a bit of a resurgence after a decline. But now, there is a push to monetise everything. Make your writing your business. Like a lot of social media, where it is about building a brand, a niche. In fact, now there are multiple advertisements in using Artificial Intelligence to help create regular posts. As if it is all about quantity over quality.

If an AI post appears on this blog, I’d advise to call for help. I’d much rather dad along on my haphazard way, like I have been doing for the last 16 years. Happy anniversary.

Another Year Round The Sun

~ Sue ~ 1 Comment

It is my birthday today. I am 41. Birthdays seem a lot less fun than what they used to be. I have spent the day relaxing, and contempating.

That’s all birthdays become once we get older, or that’s what they have become for me. Wondering why is it that I have have seemingly sidestepped what every other adult has decided is the benchmark for life. This belief that if you don’t achieve these pre-existing terms of service, you haven’t lived. No child. No marriage. No mortgage. Being alive, and having a job is expected, but you are looked down on for not doing certain things.

There are times where I can brush it off Tell people that my 20s were where my mental health crumbled. Where suicide wasn’t even a thought, it was actively attempted. My 30s were about trying to pick myself back up again. Was diagnosed with Rhuematoid Arthritis, after years of complaints and fighting with doctors. ‘Horrific cramping in your hands stopping you from doing things? Maybe you just need to go to WeightWatchers.’ It has been hard, and I am feeling better than I did a decade ago. Still not 100%, but better.

But there are times where I feel a loss. Feel like I have been so stupid that I have not been able to be successful. So insecure, that I must be 10000% honest and share everything, and then put my foot in it. Losing out on oportunities. So I then stop saying everything, and try to only say what other’s want to hear. But somehow that is wrong too. It is like every step I take, there is a pothole that causes me to stumble and fall, whilst everyone else walks by unaffected.

This feeling doesn’t go away. And I don’t write about it for sympathy. I write about it to help lessen the weight it hangs around my neck. That getting the thinking out my head, allows me to focus on something else. Sometimes the ‘something else’ is more of the same. But, every once in a while, that ‘something else’ is something a little brighter, a step in the right direction.

Though, it has become abundantly clear, I don’t quite know where the right direction is.

Scheduled it

~ Sue ~ 1 Comment

If this post is online, it means I have not got round to posting today. When I decided to post every day, I wrote up a few backups for if I had a day where I struggled. Either I am busy, or my health has got in the way. The reason I decided to post a backup to schedule in, is because sometimes it’s okay to make plans so that you are still moving forward towards your goals.

So this is a wee message to keep going. Get some backups going for days life isn’t going to plan. Means that things can keep ticking over, whilst you get yourself back together. We got this.

Photos: Graffiti

~ Sue ~ 1 Comment

Today’s post is a few of my favourite photos taken from over the years.

Vienna, Austria

I like graffiti, especially when it is stylised lettering. I guess another term is ‘street art’, which keeps it separate from the ‘Jonny woz ere’ scrawlings. It can sometimes give colour and character to places people would normally ignore.

Inverkeithing, Scotland
Inverkeithing, Scotland
Oslo, Norway
Glasgow, Scotland
Glasgow, Scotland
Glasgow, Scotland
Oslo, Norway

By the Sea

~ Sue ~ 1 Comment

I live in Scotland, mainly the Kingdom of Fife, which has lots of coastal areas and beaches. Which is scenic, but may not be perfect for a swim due to it being on the North Sea. I have read that the cold water is good for your health, but I have yet to personally experience. I don’t mind the cold, but I have my limits.

Forth Rail Bridge goes across the Firth of Forth.

I grew up seeing the sea from my bedroom, in fact I still do. It’s something that is calming, the sounds of the waves and the smell of salt in the air. In these times, where my mental health has been so poor, being near the water has a grounding affect. If I have a bad day, I try to will myself outside for a walk, and hopefully down to the water. If I can’t, go and watch the cars drive past on the motorway, for some reason this has a similar affect.

I was speaking to a friend, who lives in the USA, and they have about 30 hours to travel to the coast. I have no idea what I’d do. Even when I stayed in a city for study, it was Glasgow and there was the Clyde. Which was great to walk along. I really feel grateful to live in Scotland, in a place where I am so close to the sea.

Subscribed

~ Sue ~ 2 Comments

See when apps like Netflix launched and allowed us to stream our favourite TV shows, it was revolutionary. Finally, we weren’t stuck watching shows at inconvenient times, we could watch what we wanted, when we wanted. And over the years, more services came online, and we had more choice than ever. It was a viewers market.

Until it wasn’t.

I can only speak for myself, but if you want to view all the content you may want, you can easily pay for 6-7 different streaming services at once. Which, considering streaming was originally a cheaper option to Satellite/cable, is now getting more and more expensive. The thing is, if people really use a service, and get their moneys worth, it’s fine. But, I find that most people don’t use their subscribed streaming services to their value.

I can only speak from my experience, and I think that there is too much stuff, spread across too many providers. I am a very indecisive person and really struggle with choosing to watch something new. It is why I am watching Gilmore Girls for the thousandth time on Netflix. It is also why I decided to shut my Disney+ account. I have an option activated across my devices, where they automatically ‘offload’ apps I haven’t used in like a month or so. Disney+ had been removed across all my devices. So I just cancelled my subscription.

The thing is, I am a huge Disney fan. I have so many of the movies on DVD still. I was trying to collect the whole animated classics series of films. But then, DVDs became harder to find, and people streamed instead. And when I was faced with all my favourite animated movies and tv shows, as well as new series and films and documentaries, I just got overwhelmed. I don’t know what it is about Disney+, but I just did not like the app’s layout at all. Don’t really know why. But I’d just open the app, look at the homepage, close the app, go into Netflix and put Gilmore Girls on.

I know terrestrial TV is struggling, as advertising money is shrinking. People don’t watch scheduled tv anymore. They prefer to watch 2-3 episodes of the same show in a row. Programs that make it to standard tv, has more chance of being renewed. Netflix and Disney are very good at cancelling shows after one season. And, if you look at things like Netflix’s Wednesday, by the time season 2 launches it will be 3 years since the first season premiered. That would never happen with traditional TV. For me, it means I have no intention of watching till I find out if the series is going any further, and that is a growing opinion amongst people. People aren’t going to invest their time and heart into a show that isn’t going to deliver in length or content.

It’s all a bit crazy.

Bad Friends

~ Sue ~ 1 Comment

I have written on here, a lot, about how I have been struggling to keep up with my hobbies. It’s mostly due to being in constant pain, whilst having crappy mental health, often leaves me no energy to try and do any of my hobbies. I just want to sit in my bed and do nothing. The trouble is, that it is not just hobbies that suffer when I am going through a bad patch. My personal relationships suffer too.

I have always been a low maintenance friend. The kind that doesn’t have to always be in contact, but will always be there if you needed them. Like I get messages from friends, just chatter or memes, and I often read them, start to reply, and then get distracted before I can actually send them. And when I wonder why I have heard nothing back, I check to see that it is me who halted the conversation. And, now it is too awkward to send anything, because the conversation is over. And it was my fault.

Any message I would subsequently send would serve as an interruption. Everyone has their own shit going on, they don’t need me turning up, with my complete lack of awareness. So I don’t send anything. And it all goes silent. I am not much better in real life, either. I will say basic chatter, that ‘how are you’, that doesn’t seem to really care how anyone is doing. Which is annoying, I do care, I just don’t really know any other way to try and start a conversation.

Conversation is a thing that has never been my strong point. My mum used to always speak of how I would be quiet at nursery or Primary School, to the point teachers would be worried about my speech. The truth was, I could talk fine, I just didn’t waste time talking to people who I didn’t want to. I’d much rather do a jigsaw puzzle or read a book. Not much has changed. I always feel awkward in conversation, where I have nothing to add, as everything in my life is boring. I either complain about being sore, or my work.

I think this is my problem. I feel like a background character, who is someone folk are aware of, but don’t particularly like. Think Kirk from the Gilmore Girls. He is a member of the town of Stars Hollow, he is a valuable member of the town (doing almost every job there is), but no one really has time for him. He is a person to be mocked and not one to befriend. That’s me.

I discovered this week that someone who I really trusted, was speaking shit about me. Making me out to be a horrible person. Now, I have my problems, but I do try to be nice to everyone. It has just shattered my confidence. Like, maybe that’s why I am such a low maintenance friend, because I don’t expect any of them to actually like me. Not really. The curse of my life is that mantra that used to be thrown about of ‘you can’t expect anyone else to l like you, if you don’t like yourself’. I have never liked myself, so I don’t expect anyone else to either.

I am aware that it is just another thing I need to work on. Great.

Arrrgghhh!!

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I really am not doing very well at the moment. Work is a pain, health is horrible, and every time I sit down to write or do anything creative, I just find myself staring at an empty page. I am so frustrated. Why?

Work? Work has been okay, and I seem to be preforming well in the tasks that I have to do, which is grand. The problem is, that the money I am getting doesn’t seem to be going further enough. I know people say ‘get another job’, but when I have been with the company for 10 years, it is harder to leave than one may think. I have job security, hours and shifts I can plan my life around, and the benefits (like online consultation with a GP) cannot be sniffed at. It’s the lack of overtime that I am frustrated with. You see, for the last several years, if I ever needed money for anything, I could work an extra shift or two, and that extra £100+ would be there. But there is currently no overtime, and that makes things a little strained, financial wise. And, there is no sign in sight, and I am not used to that. So yeah, I’m annoyed.

Health? I hurt. I have ran into a roadblock with my medication for my rheumatoid arthritis, and I have had to stop taking the tablets that have been working. This means that I am back to sore feet and hands, where I have the energy to do my job, and that’s about it. People often remark to me, that if I can work, it’s not that bad. But, when my hands have no grip, I can’t really cook without dropping stuff everywhere, so I rely on Shin ramen noodle bowls and microwave meals. Which then means my health is shit, because I can’t hold a knife to cut or prep any salad or anything healthier. I can get a small side salad, but they don’t seem to keep well, and the ones left when I finish work seem to be well past their best. Then I have the toothache that has been on and off since the end of January. I broke a tooth when I ate a piece of pizza. They do say, what you love hurts you the most. Anyway, I am not registered with a dentist and it is impossible to find one. I am currently waitlisted for 4 in my area. Some days it is searing pain, other days it’s more like minor sensitivity. It is so annoying. I am muddling through, but I can see why some people get to the point where they try to pull their own teeth out. And then, there is my mental health, which is utter rubbish right now. I feel like I am treading water, but it is really exhausting. It’s like I am throwing everything at just not drowning.

And creativity, I have honestly had problems with my creativity for the last few years. Some would say the start came when I made the decision to formally study art at college. It took it from being a fun hobby, to something that I had to take seriously enough to be my future job. Safe to say that didn’t happen. I struggled to make work for people who didn’t like the same artistic style as me. Like, everything I did was rather messy, I suppose that is because I am messy myself. But, the whole process felt awful, and I struggle to make any kind of art now. Writing, I just feel like I complain about the same things all the time. I guess that happens. But, again, there is that expectation that a blog is there to make money. Even WordPress expects it. Constantly promoting selling stuff, and how to make your blog a business. Like… I put enough pressure on myself to post, that I get so frustrated and post nothing. This blog is for me personally, to document stuff, it may develop into something else, but for the moment it is me and my pondering. I shouldn’t be made to feel I am doing ‘it’ wrong by the very platform that I have used for years.

But that is why I haven’t been around. I am struggling to cope, if I were to be honest. But, I am hanging in there.

A Change Is Needed

~ Sue ~ 2 Comments

I have been using this blog for almost 14 years. And, although I do sometimes update rather sporadicly, it has documented a huge section of my life. Something that is tangible, that I, or anyone, can browse through at their leisure. For a person who is as indecisive as I am, it is a pretty big thing to have kept up. It’s become a snapshot of what has been on my mind at a particular time.

I have tried a lot of things over the years. Most of them writing challenges that I have done for 2-3 days, and then proceeded to ignore. I have tried other blogs, ones with a ‘niche’, so that I could turn a blog into something that is more than a blog. But, they didn’t even last the length of time it took for me to register an official domain name. There are other sites, like my Livejournal, which is much older than this site, but… that has fallen into defunct mode, given that any community that was once on there, has now fizzled away to nothing. WordPress, still seems to be going okay. I think.

The problem, right now, is that I don’t know how to personalise this blog more, make it more fitting on where I personally am. The layout, in itself, works, but is that maybe because it has worked before. Maybe, I am comfortable in it. I think this may be a ‘do some research’ on what I like kind of thing. But then, it may just need me being creative and making a new header, maybe creating a new biography. Make sure that any links work (note: they do not work). Maybe I will feel a bit better if I freshen things up a little.

I always have this hesitancy to change things, though. Because, I am a creature of habit, and I don’t really do well if things change too much. But then, all the tools I use to post will be the same, so I suppose not much will change. Maybe. It feels a little bit like redecorating my bedroom, if I make things too different it might start making me uncomfortable, rather than be a relaxing space of safety. I understand that it makes me sound like a 3 year old who doesn’t want to try anything apart from their Turkey Dinosaurs. It wouldn’t be me, if I wasn’t overthinking something so silly.

Let’s see what happens.

Rambling Away

~ Sue ~ 1 Comment

It’s Blue Monday. Supposedly the most depressing day of the year. I am okay though, just feel like I’m treading water, as usual.

Yesterday I went to Dundee, and visited Groucho’s Music Bar in Dundee. It used to be a good music shop, that I had bought CDs from, years ago. It’s nice that they were mindful of the history before opening it. And it looked so cool.

Today, I went to visit my friend for a coffee, and hobbled about being really sore. My foot and my hands have been super sore all day. I think I’ll have an early night, as I have 50 hours of work this week. Not great when I am sore already.