I Like You

I like bringing you a cup of tea
when you’re in the bath,
the steam from both soothing you,
holding you close.

I like watching you work,
the tiny pulse beneath your temple
beating to the drum of our love.

I like how we’re always together
in life and during the night.
We take turns being koalas,
and I like it best when
you’re the eucalyptus tree.

Pursue Activities You Don’t Care About

I’ve found solace in painting, in the gentle rhythm of dipping the brush into colour and spreading it across the page. Then dunking it in water and watching the blue, pink, and green twirl and create a new colour entirely.

I love how painting doesn’t have a language. We can’t speak it or weave letters into patterns that reflect our lives. You just see different shapes and shades dance upon the page. And while you do it, your mind clears because here, you’re not on the hunt for unique metaphors and trying to stir magic from the mundane.

Your biggest task is keeping the colour within the lines. And hell, some of the best painters don’t even bother with that!

Painting lets you turn on music with lyrics (impossible with writing) and fall deeper into a hobby you don’t love or care for. Painting could be uprooted from my life tomorrow and all I’d feel is a tiny pinch, nothing compared to losing your biggest passion. One you’d be nothing without because life just wouldn’t make sense without it.

I think everyone needs a hobby they’re “meh” about. An oasis to throw yourself in when your passion project weighs you down like a great stone. I love painting because there are no expectations, there’s no ambition, and once you’re finished, that’s it. You throw it on a pile with all the other mediocre works.

And it’s that promise that keeps me afloat.

Gimme Ya Instagrams!

If you guys are on Instagram, please leave your handle below 🙂 Would be lovely to catch some fellow bloggers over there!

A Note to the Catcallers

There are two groups of people in the world: those who receive dick pics, and those who don’t.

I’ve never recieved unsolicited dick pics which is great, but at the same time you wonder: am I completely hideous?

Now I realize how ridiculous and depessing it is to have internalized the misogyny and equated it to being attractive.

And the worst part is I’ve only just had this revelation. Two minutes ago.

A man rolling down the hill on his moped caught my eye and puckered his lips. It’s funny how it’s always those in transit who do this. Cowards jeer and catcall from their moving vehicles, so you only catch a glimpse of a blurred face.

Now all I can hear is that slurping, kissing sound bouncing around my skull and I can’t shake it.

So, to every catcaller worldwide, safe in your little front seat, you suck.

Tapping into Your Creative Realm

Came across a great article about using your subconscious to spark creativity. When daily life moves at break-neck speed, sometimes creativity feels constricted and impossible to access.

So here are two activities to spark your subconscious.

The first begins with Thomas Edison’s advice: “never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious.” 

So, here’s how you do it:

1. Before settling into bed, close your eyes and take a minute to request your subconscious. Start small, for example: “please let me find creative ideas for new blog posts.”

2. Take two minutes to visualize yourself bossing your request.

You’re going for a walk and the world is sparkling with potential. You have a notepad and you’re scribbling away, endless titles pouring into your head. That evening, your titles are glowing in a pool of light from your desk-lamp, and you’re tapping away into the night. 

3. Now imagine the feeling of accomplishment. How do you feel once you’ve got pages of potential blog titles? Confident? Invigorated? 

Perfect! Let these positive feelings sink into your slumber, so your subconscious can work its magic. 

Like everything worth having, the results won’t be instantaneous. What I love about this exercise is how it encourages us to form good habits so we can build a foundation for a thriving life. 

So keep visualizing the motions, carry a notepad and pen everywhere, and let the emotional requests bloom into creative ideas.

*****

Josh Waitzkin, a former chess prodigy and tai chi world champ, inspired the second exercise. He harnesses the power of “thought-dumping”. 

To do this:

Grab a notepad as soon as you wake up (yes, before your phone!), and thought-dump everything that passes through your mind for the next few minutes. 

Waitzkin calls this “crystallized intelligence” as you gain clarity, creative ideas, and knowledge. You may find new insights but if not, you’ll have cleared some valuable mental space before starting your day.

Do you guys have any tricks to getting creative? Would love some inspo!

The Best Piece of Dating Advice

“Only sleep with a guy if he has at least three books on his shelf.”

A friend dropped this pearl of wisdom and I feel the world needs to hear it too.

Living in a Forest

In October we began our cycling expedition from the UK to Porto, Portugal. Since then we’ve tackled the monstrous hills of Spain’s Northern region, survived trench foot, and got tied into a Catholic pilgrimage.

We made it to Porto before Christmas and now we’re in a town west from Lisbon, though you wouldn’t believe it. The coast is lined by golden cliffs, occasionally interrupted by fortresses, so surfers carve against an ancient backdrop. Surreal.

But the most memorable experience is living in a forest. As it’s the middle of winter, it comes with plenty of obstacles, so I thought it’d be funny (borderline tragic) to share:

WHY FOREST LIVIN’ IS GREAT

*You’re a fairy now!

*After a day tied to a computer, the stillness amidst the trees is revitalizing. And with no internet access, you wind down in wholesome ways like reading, cards, or writing

*We’re in a bougie town so you feel rebellious living for free

*You spend days differently.  On our days off, we challenge ourselves to recipes, difficult over a camp stove.We’ve mastered pan pizzas and on Saturday spent three hours making dumplings

*Being awoken by bird-song feels right

*We don’t have air-beds (the rain destroyed them) so we sleep on a tarp to protect us from the cold mud.  But no longer have back pain!

*We cycle to town each morning.  There’s no better way to jig your brain in gear, breathe crisp air,  and admire the morning light cast over the cliff-face.  The sea is calm in the early hours too.

Mourning the Double Space

After a year working as a content writer, I just got completely dicked on for still using the dreaded double space.  <- Yup, THAT ONE.

It hurls me back into the 90s when, once a week, our class had 30 minutes to type out what we did over the weekend, complete with double spaces (thanks for teaching us how to blog, Ms. Sackett!).

Ever since, I’ve jabbed billions of double spaces, so many you could cover the distance from here to the moon a hundred times over.

Until today.

Right. So why do people get so heated about this topic?

Well, it all boils down to this.

Typewriters used monospaced type which means every character (e.g. ‘i’ and ‘w’) occupied the same amount of white space on the page. As a result, the text looked jiggly and loose so it was harder to spot the spaces between sentences.

Enter: our beloved double space.

As soon as the double space was introduced to the typewriting world, a lot less people were confused and shit got read.

Fast-forward to the present and everyone hates “two-spacers” because monospaced fonts dissolved in the ‘70s. Thanks to computers, proportional fonts took their place (like those we type with!)

Though, interestingly, the typewriter-esque font, Courier New, is still considered to be monospaced.

But it’s cool, I’ve got the memo and I’ll cave (even though it physically hurts). It’s time to kill the double space. I’ll miss you, old friend.

Magic at the Supermarket

January is cut-throat competition, and the contestants fall into two groups.

Those determined to live out their New Year Resolutions and those who cave.

Be careful though because Sally’s going to one-up you and cook up a #Veganuary storm while Max is already feasting on books, twirling fancy words on his tongue like spaghetti.

And for the rest of us, it’s getting rid of things that don’t serve us. Sweets, alcohol, crisps – we’re talking about you.

But there is a trick so you don’t have to succumb to the sugary allure of technicolour sweets. And it’s fool-proof.

Here’s what you do:

Enter the supermarket and head towards your biggest craving. For this example, we’ll use a Portuguese rice cake (bolo de arroz).

They’re divine, soft and airy except for the top which is firm. The satisfaction you get from breaking it off and enjoying a bite with the crumblier part of the cake is like no other….

So now you’re carrying a four-pack of these golden cakes.

Carry them around regardless of how much food shopping needs to be done. Even if you have a trolley, hold on to your craving, and as you amble down every aisle, your mind will get louder.

Do I need these?  They’re terrible for me and I know I won’t be arsed to do the exercise to shake them off.

Also, there are four meaning I’ll scarf them down and want more tomorrow. Remember, sugar is government-approved crack so you can’t be weak and let them topple your New Year diet.

By the time you’re lining up at the counter, eyeing everyone’s’ trolleys stuffed with bottles of wine, fruit, and parcels of meat, you realize.

You don’t need them.

Nope.

By the time you have to pay for them, guilt and your interior monologue rip apart everything positive about these delicious, fluffy cakes.

They just feel wrong now.

So you dart back to the bakery section and return them, and a entirely new buzz kicks in, one way more fulfilling than the sugar coating those sweet, sweet cakes.

You’re proud because you SWERVED them. And if you can swerve your biggest craving, you can swerve anything.

You’ve got this guys. Wishing you all a little more discipline this year!

No More Bitching, Bitches

“Ugh, I don’t know, can I say something really mean?” A boy wearing glasses asks, leaning across the table so his girlfriend can inhale every word.

“What?”

She’s almost gasping.

“I just find Olivia has nothing to talk about unless it’s about herself.  She’s really boring.”

“Ohhh my god, right!”

*************************

Everyone gossips and it makes an easy passtime especially trapped in a limbo like a train station.  It’s addictive too and if you have no idea what to talk about with new acquiantances, it’s a quick way to establish common ground.

This happened loads in the hospitality industry, it felt like we had returned to high school.

Employees stole money from one another or stood in the smoking area by the bins, electrified with toxic words, as red-hot anger coiled around their blue plumes of smoke.

Going to vow in 2020 to stop bitching about other people.  A lot of you probably don’t.  But if you do, it’s because you hope to quieten your own self-hatred, if only for a little while, but in a cheap and dirty way.

In 2020, we only speak highly.

❤