Resumption of (un)usual programming

Plans, I have them! I haven’t made any New Year Resolutions to blog more regularly (or any resolutions at all, really; they’re a little bit bullshit) but I am hopeful that I’ll have a little more time and space for writing and that means, maybe, for here too. Even though I regularly get the urge to delete all of my posts, I’m still here. And I plan to be back from time to time.

But for now, I have a treat — a guest post from one of my favourite bloggers coming right up.

DUFC Time

Hey, check it out, it’s a blog carnival!

I love the Down Under Feminists’ Carnival. Next month (first week of March) it’ll be hosted right here at Spilt Milk. I’m a little nervous about my first time hosting a carnival so be gentle with me and submit plenty of wonderful stuff (without leaving it all until the last minute, because I never leave my own submissions until the day before, of course. Ahem.)

All the submission details and guidelines are here. Firefox users can even use this handy bookmarklet to make submissions more simply.If you have trouble with the submission form, you can always email me at mymilkspilt at gmail dot com and send them directly.

Happy reading!

Summer reading

Hello! I exist!

It’s been a busy ol’ time (in quite a nice way, for a change). I have writing happening in my head though, as always, so some will make its way onto your screens soon.

In the mean time, you can sink your teeth into the 32nd Down Under Feminists Carnival over at Profligate Promiscuous Strumpet. These carnivals are just my favourite.

Re: body acceptance, you should also be reading:

Let’s Make A Deal at Fat Lot of Good

But You’re Gonna DIE at Fat Heffalump

The Best Thing You’ll Read all Day at Shakesville

Re: rape culture, in light of this latest disaster from Naomi Wolf, I think we all need some of these

Privilege denying Naomi Wolf "Can't say no but can call cops - that's not feminism"

 

 

 

Fat on Feministe

Oh looky here! I’ve a guest post up at one of my favourite group blogs, Feministe. Check it out.

A bloggy note

A couple of people have recently brought to my attention the presence of google ads on my blog. Unfortunately, WordPress allows google to display whatever they like, and they are targeted to key words. Hence, a lot of the ads appearing on Spilt Milk are related to weight loss sites and products (because, of course, anyone using the word fat must be in need of some vile-tasting meal-replacing gloop!)

Unless (until?) I have my own site, there’s nothing I can do about those ads from my end. If they bother you, though, there’s something you can do – if you have a WordPress account and are logged in, you won’t see them. I never see the google ads on here or on other WordPress hosted blogs. It’s nicer that way: I know it’s pretty frustrating to read an inspiring FA post with a bunch of diet advertising down the bottom. Other options include ignoring them, swearing at your computer, complaining to WordPress, and bombarding diet companies with feedback about how full of fail they are.

Intermission

I’ve not been writing. Don’t feel neglected: I’ve not been studying, or cleaning, or ticking off errands either.

I’m not feeling well, again. I’ve felt it creeping up and so I’ve been pushing the depression back and back but that only works for a little while and that while has passed, for now.

Like Fat Heffalump says in her post on the Black Dog, most people go quiet when passing through a patch of bleakness. I’m no exception.

Some talk of how depression feeds their creativity, how darkness is a source of ideas and catalyst for expression. Not so for me.

For me, it is all dimness and brainfog. Inactivity and fatigue feeding each other. Lack of concentration. Headaches and a feeling of heaviness; too-quick anger and too-slow smiles. Stagnation.

I don’t know what to write, except this.

What is a blog?

Spilt Milk has evolved.

It was born on a whim. My good friend Muliercula was the midwife: she said ‘you should start a blog’ at just the moment I felt I had something to talk about.

I was tentative. At that time, I didn’t actually read blogs, any blogs. I knew what they were – had in fact studied them as a life-writing genre – but my online life was confined to forums and Facebook. My first few posts were a little directionless: I knew I wanted to talk about motherhood and what the experience was doing to the way that I viewed the world and my place in it but I didn’t know if I wanted to be humourous or reflective, chatty or serious. I did know I didn’t want to work too hard.

People read my stuff. That shocked me.

Some people liked it enough to link to it. That shocked me even more.

And already, I was changing. The more I wrote, the more I read. At first to trawl for ideas and direction and role models, and then because I found new communities and new ways of thinking and a kind of addiction to this access to the discussions we don’t see enough of outside of educational settings. There was so much talking, so many people talking about things I cared about, and it gave me joy to listen.

One of the things I heard was Fat Acceptance.

I didn’t set out to write about my body – at least, not the fatness of my body, except perhaps how it might relate to maternity. But when I started, I couldn’t stop. I had found something that mattered, to me, in ways that ideas had not for a long time. I am a feminist, and have identified as one for years (although my feminism was suffering from lack of engagement and I’m thankful that the internet has helped me somewhat with that). But I am new to being any kind of size acceptance advocate. Sometimes, so new that it still frightens me. I don’t think that’s always a bad thing.

I didn’t know what blogs could be like, when I started. I didn’t know, for example, that I would end up hosting some interesting interactions between friends who are reading because it’s me writing, and experienced social justice advocates who are reading because of what I write about. I didn’t know I’d be trying to do 101 and nuance at the same time. (Actually, I don’t really try. I’m just me and come what may.) Besides, there are many 101 courses I still need to embark on, myself, and sometimes that’s overwhelming (but mostly invigorating).

I also didn’t know that my blog would change me. That I would come to rely on it so heavily for catharsis and exploration and expression. I didn’t know it would open me up to ridicule from trolls or conflict with others but perhaps I should have been less naive. Happier things have come of it: I have met some fabulous people and will hopefully be meeting some more soon.

This space is mine, still. But it’s yours too. If it means something to you, a little thing, fleetingly, I am so incredibly humbled by that.  So honoured.

I hope you don’t mind me changing in front of you.

Milk spills far

Just thought I’d let you all know that Spilt Milk can sometimes be found on other parts of the interwebs.

Currently, I have a guest post up at Gappy’s place. Feel free to wander over there and take a look (and read Gappy’s stuff too, if you haven’t already, because it’s great.)

And, if you weren’t already aware, I’m an occasional cross-poster, and have had existing posts show up at Melinda Tankard Reist’s page and at Fat Lot of Good.

Stay tuned for more.

When secrets are lies

I am secretive. Avoidance, acting and deflection are well-honed tools in my belt. Emotional disclosure, I’ve learned, comes at a price and it’s not one I’m usually willing to pay when I can’t dictate the terms.

I can’t say exactly why. Perhaps, like Josie at Sleep is for the Weak, I have a thin skin. Honest people do risk censure. It’s sometimes easier to hold back than to have to worry about what people might think. That’s a concept very familiar to me.

But I write this blog. I write this only-semi-anonymous blog, which many people who know me in the flesh read. Sometimes, they talk to me about what I have written, or they look at me knowingly when topics I have covered here come up. I don’t mind. (Ok, I do, I actually feel quite panicky if I think about it for too long, but that has more to do with perfectionism than privacy. I don’t much care if people know I use a menstrual cup or see a psychologist but I do care if they think I’m a shit writer, and I don’t exactly glow on the page in all my posts.)

One of the reasons I write this blog is because I am very bad at talking. About myself. It can physically hurt to do it. But I obviously need to! A psychologist once said that my mother gave me some gifts, one of which is shining independence of spirit and outspokenness – products of neglect, it is true, but still worthy bequests.  She is right, but they are not always easy to access, these gifts. I sit with them covered tightly in nervous hands, my natural impulse towards honesty heavily leashed, sometimes ailing.

I don’t like to be asked how I am and I will rarely respond honestly to that question when asked face to face. Yesterday, I told a friend, over the phone, that I was experiencing difficulty withdrawing from anti-depressants and that I felt overwhelmed and weepy. She may not know that it’s a huge compliment to her and her friendship, that I said that out loud. A compliment I would probably not have been able to pay if it wasn’t for this blog.

Because I’m learning that speaking in here makes speaking out there less painful.

The notion of radical honesty intrigues me. For a while I flirted with the idea of experimenting with it. For me, as for most I think, it would be unsustainable. I need my armour. The world feels abrasive enough as it is, without risking my raw self out in the social wilderness. A mediating screen makes it safer here: a right of deletion on the comments helps too! And then there is the self-censorship I can forgo here in this space I have made for myself. Many people in my life are not feminists, not activists, not interested. Many of them would think me strange or too radical or too me if I spoke as loudly out there as I do in here. And some of them would learn personal things about me that would hurt them to know.

So not everyone I know reads my blog. Some very important people in my life are not aware that it exists, and I actively keep it that way, precisely because what I speak about here is not part of the self I offer to them. Is this lying? Is offering one face to one person and another to the next, lying? Is the dishonesty of ‘I’m fine, thanks’ the same as any other deceit, if you say it often enough?

Are the unspoken things, untruths?

Words words words

Inspired by first the egg, I’ve made a Wordle out of the story of Bean’s birth.

I love how the largest word is ‘felt’. Because that’s what I’d like to remember it as: full of emotion and sensation.

I’ve also made a Wordle from the most recent few pages of my blog.

It’s interesting that ‘people’ is so prominent, but ‘women’ is not. And ‘feminism’ and ‘feminist’ are quite small, as is ‘mother’. Not what I would have thought. My words, they look different!

(click on the images to embiggen)