On not being cynical enough to write

Alright?

Well, I guess this is a bit weird, seeing as I've not contacted you for so long and all.  Wait - don't shut the door in my face just yet - give me just another minute, another minute, I swear, then I'll leave you be.
The thing is, I didn't think you'd like me anymore.  You're rolling your eyes (does that mean you didn't like me much to begin with?  I digress) but what I mean is - I've changed - and I don't think you'd like it.  See, I think that if you liked me, that you liked me because I was cynical.  And I'm scared, because I don't know if I know how to be cynical anymore.

Tonight I traipsed through months and months of blogs.  Well, the ones I recalled as being ones I was pleased with.  They spanned from when the blog was born in November 2011 to when I abandoned it, more or less, fizzling out, in the summer of 2012.  So soon?  It was.  There were a few, but they weren't the same.  This ranting, hating, spitting, swearing version of me had been diluted by somebody reflective, democratic, balanced, and other such things which absolutely stunt the essence of passionate writing.

So I don't know why I'm here.

I'm here because I miss you.  I miss the person I am when I am the ranting, hating, spitting, swearing version of me.  I miss feeling the freedom to express opinions without the overhanging shadow of "yeah, but, what about if you think about it from this point of view?"

Thinking about other points of view is a pollutant to ranting, hating, spitting, swearing writing.

I am scared because I am meant to be maturing.  And I am, a bit.  I wash my own dishes.  I can do laundry.  I have a landlord.  I think about writing angry letters to my council, but I never do.  I smile at people and tell them to "have a lovely evening."  I can cook meat.  I own a pestle and mortar.  I can write an invoice.  I can write a business email.  I haven't used the word "cunt" in so long that I forgot it existed until re-reading my old blogs.  I buy shower spray and I spray my shower, these days, because last year I didn't ever clean it and thus constantly slipped in a pool of slime.  I do a lot of very boring things that might contribute to the argument that I, Miss Pondering Life On Mars, am growing up, in practical baby steps.

And as this supposedly well balanced human, can I really still go off on groups of people I've never met but for some reason have chosen to despise, and politics I don't understand, and essentially act as a complete hypocrite?

Yes.  I think that's fine.  I think it's fine because this year I turned twenty, and in my opinion I have another twenty years before I am expected to have children or a husband or a settled head and all of these lovely things that seem to come of genuine maturity... or age.  In the scale of a hundred years ago, I'm ten years old.
Baffled by my logic?  Well at twenty, one hundred years ago, I'd probably have children and a husband and a settled head and all those lovely things, do you see?  It's doubled.  I'm ten.  And that's fine, because I only look fourteen by modern standards.

Here are some things I don't like:
I don't like cyclists.
I don't like the flow of direction in Holloway.  It's like people are blind.
I don't like anything sold to human beings to wear which is not functional and warm and cheap, and that means I don't like clothes, for the most part.
I don't like the fact that London lacks those cafes you seem to find anywhere else in England - where you choose what you want in a sandwich.  Subway is the equivalent.
I don't like Arsenal, because I hear them chanting from my back garden and on the nights they play football my journey is slowed incredibly.
I don't like white wine.  I drink it anyway.
I don't like paying money for food because it's a human need.  I eat it anyway.  And I pay for it.
I don't like Robin Thicke's 'Blurred Lines,' because I've heard it too much.
I don't like that song by that young girl from New Zealand, or Australia, is it?  That song where she sings about things like diamonds and royalty and the whole time you're going, well you're what like fifteen years old?  This is what you think about?  Congratulations.
I don't like the idea of ever having children, because I think that by the time the generation before the generation before me are gone we will be a world of vacuous and strange people and I do not exclude myself from the description.
I don't like how I've never seen Old Rosie in a London pub.
I don't like how if you're not from a certain part of England you have no idea what Old Rosie is.


I think I can think of some more things I don't like, and then I can write you some really happy blogs, and maybe you can forgive me.  Again, you're rolling your eyes like there's nothing to forgive (because you didn't care anyway) but I am going to try.  Isn't this trying?

Goodnight.

On Jelly

It's been a few months since I published this blog.  I currently contribute content for the University of the Arts blog for freshers, like last year, which you can see here.  I also write chronic to-do lists, which are too embarrassing to share online.  Besides that, I don't write much.

I had just been casting my eye over some old entries and found a paragraph a few blogs back, written in October 2012 during my first term at Central Saint Martins.

"Last Friday I had my first lecture.  Despite Lewis' best efforts of nudging me every time my head drooped, I slipped into a dream state.  I could hear the lecturer talking about an artist, but in my head he was showing us a lumpy jar of jelly.  In this state I thought "God, how cool, a serious artist making jelly as her work."  I may now have to pursue it as a concept, since the artist he was talking about did something far more mundane than jelly sculptures.  Shame - I would have stayed awake for that."

Now, I dream odd things too often to have remembered that.

But here's the first work I 'exhibited' that term:

Bizzarre. 

The non-religious religion: Atheist Church

Every morning for the last few years, with the exception of a few more exciting mornings, I have sat down to eat a bowl of Oatibix topped with chopped apple and dried fruit with unsweetened soya milk and, my recent replacement for Options hot chocolate, a cup of horrible Morrisons freeze-dried coffee.  Of late I have enjoyed the concoction whilst watching the BBC London News on iPlayer, which, to an extent, takes away almost all of the enjoyment, but does enable me to make a few ill-informed topical comments about grim matters.

This morning as I sat down to my cold porridge equivalent I learned that the Metropolitan Police are in trouble for using the identities of dead children in some undercover police work, and that the British economy loves rich Chinese folk for coming over and spending three times the amount other foreign tourists do, and should kids learn Mandarin?  Apparently it’s easier than we think but a little too conversational for business dealings.  Riveting stuff.

And then the unexpectedly rare happens – a positive news story comes on.  Hang on – nobody’s dead?  Is there no upcoming violent video footage?  Can I shove another spoonful in my gob or should I wait for the weather?

No, it’s happening.  The BBC London News is about to give me something nice to think about.  Fasten your seatbelts folks, because this morning we’re learning about an atheist church.  How does that work exactly?

The Sunday Assembly, as it is known, is run on the first Sunday of the month by two comedians (Sanderson Jones, who is shown in the footage, and Pippa Evans, who is not) and features some of the same practices you would find in a Christian church: songs, talks, and a geezer at the front… except it’s not about God.  The talks are about science and the songs are anthems by Queen and Stevie Wonder and the view of the geezer at the front is - “It’s not that I don’t like God, it’s just that I don’t believe in him.”  The congregation is astoundingly large given that this was filmed on the second service ever (it started up in 2013) and will most likely be larger on the 3^rd of March following the media coverage.  In some broadcast interviews, ‘church’-goers say that they appreciate this sense of Sunday community which is otherwise only experienced by people of faith attending their religious services.

Personally, I find this very interesting anyway, but perhaps more so given my upbringing and current religious circumstances.  I was raised as a Roman Catholic, in a Catholic school, begrudgingly attending the weekly 11 o’clock services and special masses until I put my foot down at the age of 13 and said I couldn’t stand it anymore.  I didn’t understand church.  I didn’t understand how people believed in God, or why they found this sort of service useful or uplifting in any way, or why it was being forced upon me when there was so much quality Sunday morning TV to enjoy.

I went to a couple of midnight masses - primarily to get some chocolate at the end of the service and see what the decorations were like, or see what the people I went to school with looked like nowadays.  It was completely inaccessible to me – to listen to things that had been written hundreds or thousands of years ago and probably lost in translation somewhat and never re-contextualised to fit modern lifestyles.  And to be honest, I felt like a total fraud even attending, so I just didn’t.

But then in the New Year I attended a church in London.  Everything had started to feel a bit bleak, and I felt as if I needed some community external of University or family or friends to reflect on what was happening.  For some reason I felt like a church could be a good place for that.  I went along expecting a man in a dog collar at the front, some dull old people, an abundance of tuneless singing and more out-of-date stories.  But I was completely wrong.  The guy running the show was in a t-shirt, the congregation were all under 40 (maybe even 30), the songs weren’t hymns and were sung with enthusiasm, and the Biblical stories were given a modern context.  There were even some jokes.

Even though I still consider myself agnostic, I went back, because it was a nice place to go.  Essentially I was having a good sing-along, getting a chance to engage with something besides University work, and meeting nice people.  What could possibly be wrong with that?  From what I understand, many church-goers of various practices enjoy this sense of continuity and community more than the services or teachings themselves.

I attend a lot of stand-up comedy shows.  I spend a lot of time singing (or rapping) along to old school tunes with my friends.  I enjoy listening to a good talk.  I wonder a lot about the ‘big picture.’  And it appears that I can do that in a Christian church in Kings Cross or an atheist church in Islington.  Personally I think it’s time for people of any faith, or indeed no faith, to have a place to meet and enjoy a structure which makes them feel good about life.  From what I know about The Sunday Assembly they aren’t trying to make anybody believe anything or stop believing anything, they’re just giving people who don’t want to talk about God on a Sunday (or ever, perhaps) another place to realize that life is good.  And that’s admirable.  Perhaps one day everybody, regardless of their religious beliefs, can get along and agree that it's nice to be nice and it's good to be grateful.

Unfortunately the next Sunday Assembly will be on the 3^rd of March at 11am or 1.30pm, but I’ll definitely be checking it out.  If it sounds as interesting to you as it does to me, I suggest that you do too.

And here are some articles to read if you give a shit:

Guardian Online: 'Not believing in God makes life more precious'

BBC News Online: What happens at an atheist church?