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

Happy New Year

You Say You Want A Resolution?

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“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language/And next year’s words await another voice.” — T. S . Eliot, Four Quartets

I have never been a particular fan of New Year's Eve. Much like Valentine's Day and other Hallmark Holidays, it is one of those occasions where it seems to be about proscribed fun; enjoy yourself or else. You must make it to midnight, you must be having a good time, you must be doing something that is more fun that at any other time of the year - because it's NEW YEAR'S EVE!!

This alone makes me want to go to bed early and pull the covers over my head, simply because I am a contrary minded sod and can't stand being told what to do.

However.

2013, has, on many levels...

Sucked. Like a very big sucky thing. And this in itself for once makes me want to see the year out with a bang... mainly to make sure that it actually disappears and doesn't hang around making more trouble.

I am also not one for New Year's Resolutions, mainly because I tend to break most of them within the first twenty four hours of making them. As most sensible people know, resolutions are made in earnest and with the best of intentions, but are also made with absolutely no expectation of actually keeping them. It's almost an end of year security blanket for the soul; if I make a list of things that I intend to improve about myself, then I will give myself good luck for the new year to come.

This may sound very cynical, and it probably is, but I don't think of it that way; I think I am just realistic. Part of the reason 2013 was craptacular was that I didn't handle a lot of things particularly well, so it has to sit on my shoulders. The other reason 2013 was craptacular was completely beyond my control, and it wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference whether or not I had stuck to any or all resolutions made, so again, why make them in the first place?

Rather than resolutions, I think what the turn of the year should teach us is to put our faith in what is most important in our lives, and to make sure we hold fast to it as the calendar clicks over.

What do you most care about? Is it success, or family, or love, or health, or learning? Is it a combination of these things? What can you truly not imagine the next year containing? What is the one thing that for you, 2014 has to hold to make it better than 2013? What, in other words, will make the next 365 days a Happy New Year?

I think if you can answer that question then you will find your reason to be, if you will, 'resolute'. And it's not about making silly promises to yourself about how to lose weight, or drink less, or not gossip about friends behind their backs, or get a better job. It's about happiness. Pure and simple. About being able to say, at the end of 2014, 'I had a really great year.'

Perhaps it's about finding your voice.

Or even your heart.

Happy New Year.