#same thing with 'karen' but thats a topic for another day

[sexisdisgusting]

putting the word "white" in front of the word "woman" doesnt make whatever misogynistic thing you're about to say somehow less misogynistic

[phoneybeatlemania-bit-the-dust]

i think this is one of the quotes anon was talking about: https://thegilly.tumblr.com/post/29568742275/the-beatles-and-me-by-neil-aspinall-scanned

(Link) (CW eating disorders)

That magazine article actually breaks my heart - the way that he’s legitimately torturing himself is just so upsetting. And in reading about John dieting the way he did, I can especially empathise with him because ive had a lot of the same experiences.

Some points I took note of from the article are:

1. John ate one meal a day, which was steak with a large salad - that means he was probably eating less then a 1000 calories a day, and id guess he was maybe only getting about 800 (?) calories a day at most with that diet. 800 calories or less is literally starvation.

2. “John wont even look at bread” - this is the definition of an ‘unsafe food’. People with restrictive ED’s do eat, but they tend to have “safe” and “unsafe” foods. I suspect John considers bread unsafe because he knows its a binge food, and a food that he thinks will cause him weight gain - again, its just so sad that he would put himself through this misery. I also think that he probably felt meats were probably relatively safe for him to eat.

3. He had two different suits - one for when he was at his normal, healthy weight and another for when he had lost weight. He would bring them both on tour with him because his weight would fluctuate so much.

4. His regular weight was about 159lbs; apparently he was around 139lbs when he died (at least, thats what a quick google search tells me, so I don’t know how true that is. But certainly he was far thinner by the time he died).

5. “Right before a tour, he’ll do everything he can to lose weight” - this appears to speak especially to the theory that Johns ED might have been sparked largely by the pressures of fame and publicity.

6. “John hardly touches his salad, and he wont even look at the other boys eat.” - He’s eating the most miserable meal on the planet guys :’(

7. “John begins to look at me apprehensively. He has hunger pains in his eyes! Finally, when he is about to “break down” I…pull out the meat sandwiches.” - He was in actual, physical pain because he was so hungry.

8. “John takes the meat out of the sandwiches and eats every tiny sliver he can find. Then he stuffs the leftover slices of bread into a bag, which I take from him (so that he wont break down again and eat those).” - I would constitute this behaviour as a “binge”, because to me a binge is not based necessarily on the quantity of food you eat, or the amount of calories you take in, but more so about how in control and contented you are during and after eating. John wasn’t in control here, and its because its his bodies natural reaction when its in starvation mode.

9. “[Johns] main complaint is ‘How come Paul never gains an ounce — and he eats twice as much as I do?’”

10. “John is sure some kind of curse is set on his head — or is stomach as it were!”

Im not going to judge everyone for seemingly not making any real efforts to help John recover from his ED, because I don’t think ED’s became something that the general public were aware of until about the early 80s with Karen Carpenters death - and its taken years for people to even really begin recognising that a lot of men also suffer from ED’s! And so im not going to criticise them for not recognising that John legitimately was displaying symptoms of an ED, but I do think its just really sad that they were all watching John starve and torture himself, and couldn’t really do anything about it. And because they weren’t recognising him as mentally ill here, they probably all just accepted his diet as a bit of a laugh, whilst still knowing there was something more sinister underpinning it.*

(*I wonder however what Paul might have thought about all this, because we know that Paul was prone to being a sort of caretaker for John, and in a lot of ways “mothered” him. I feel like Paul would’ve recognised that only eating one meal a day was a problem, and maybe sort of laughed it off a bit because he couldn’t have known it was a legitimate mental illness - but also, I hope he would try to encourage John to eat. Id like to hear him talk about this in an interview someday, though I doubt anyone would ask him about this stuff)

This is just genuinely one of the most depressing things ive ever read about John, and if its a topic you feel comfortable reading id encourage anyone to give it a read (although if you think it could be damaging for your mental health, id say avoid it!).

And overall, im just really surprised that no biographer appears to have ever really spoken about this topic in a nuanced manner.

[elizabetheaton-fashion]

ETHICAL FASHION

Ethical fashion is a topic which is always discussed and quickly swept under the rug. Whether that be because a majority of consumers don't want to think that their weekly pastime can be massively effecting other people on the other side of the world. Or just because people don't fully understand the consequences and appreciate how much they could make a positive difference to one of the most harmful industries in the world.

So to fully understand how dire this situation is we will take it back to the basics by asking: “Why do we even wear clothes?” this sounds like a silly question to ask because you might just think “so we are not naked, duh”, but it goes much deeper than that without you even realising. They can be categorised into 6 main titles: 

• Utility - we wear clothes to protect ourselves, from the environment keeping our body a safe temperature, or for our professions to keep us safe, if a fireman doesn't wear his Kevlar suit he will definitely be no help saving anyone else’s life. Pretty self explanatory but not very important anymore - how many times has it been freezing cold outside but someone is wearing stupidly short shorts they will probably get hypothermia in, but its okay because they look ‘super fashionable’.

• Modesty - to cover our nakedness (duh)

• Adornment - to assert our creativity and individuality, make us stand out from the crowd, an obvious reason also. 

• Symbolic Differentiation - to differentiate profession, religion, social standing or lifestyle, those girls wearing those Louboutin’s know you know how expensive they are thus assuming they are super wealthy and high class.

• Social Affiliation - to show they belong to a group for example Punks or Sports teams. You might do this without realising but the people you hang around with probably all wear similar things, like the same theme, people can tell you are friends... you know?

These are rather ‘traditional’ reasons we dress not really thought about that much anymore, leading onto the final reason:

• Modernism - I believe this reason to be the most apparent in why we wear clothes nowadays, we want to show people we are ‘hip and trendy’ we know whats in and what isn't, or thats what we want people to think. The fashion industry has had to adapt to this fast changing consumerism, thus the birth of fast fashion. 

Fast fashion, a industry where clothes are cheaper than anything else we consume, and due to this they are treated like food or disposables. Need a top for a night out? Why don't you just buy one for a fiver then you can throw it out straight after to avoid the embarrassment of being shunned an outfit repeater. 

I once was one of these people but after hearing about these facts I completely changed the way I shop, now you will find me in club probably wearing the same outfit I have worn for the past month but its cool I own a washing machine.

Have you ever noticed that all of your clothes have a care label? Well it is a legal requirement for this to be put on all garments so people know exactly what they are putting on their bodies, however it is not a requirement to put where the garment has been manufactured. Why is this such an issue you may ask? Because now you don't know who have made your clothes, how they might be treated, whether they are likely to be paid fairly or not! A majority of the fast fashion you purchase on the high street have been manufactured in developing countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, India etc. 

From this map you can see that a HUGE majority of apparel exporters are in the Far East (the whole section is blocked in dark red, the most serious of colours, to show how massive this issue is), why is this? 

BECAUSE IT IS DIRT CHEAP.

By choosing to manufacture in developing countries the big shots of corporate companies can pay nothing for something, that is how you can buy your £10 Primark jeans you care about so dearly...not. You know why it is so cheap? Workers have no rights, no minimum wage, no free education or healthcare, and its mainly women and children working.

More than 40 MILLION women and children work in the fashion and textiles industry, this is because they have less rights as men, they don't have to be paid as much. Men get paid around £1.00 an hour (terrible right?), women and children... £0.50 per hour. 50p PER HOUR!! Thats way below living wage for the Far East let alone anywhere in the world. How can anyone survive on that? But they can't do anything else, they haven't got the opportunity to so they are forced to work in this corrupt industry. Fast fashion is an industry based on greed and profit, nothing more... okay maybe that is generalising but these decisions are made by the CEOS and Chairmen, they probably know nothing about fashion anyway!! 

Now when you step into a store like Primark for example you may think differently about their clothes, yes they have made it clear that they are trying to be more ethical and whatever but how true can that be if they are still being able to sell tops for like £2 and coats for £15? That top you bought from there has been made by someone who has to go home with little food for them and their families to survive after a long day at work, making a top that you are probably going to throw away after about 3 wears because ‘it was soooo last season’. 

Don't forget about those people who have risked their life for your fast fashion, the most well known event being Rana Plaza where 1,134 people died due to unsafe working conditions

SO on a more positive note... How can YOU make a change?

You may think as one person you can't make a difference, but you are wrong, if everyone helped like you hopefully will, think what we can achieve!! 

Firstly ask yourself ‘Who made my clothes?” look at the country of manufacture, why was it made there and not somewhere closer to home? How do you think the workers were treated there?

If there is no country of manufacture shown... well why isn't it? Ask the store, this will make them feel uncomfortable and they will probably do something about it. Take to Twitter, mention them directly, all of their customers will see you questioning them and they might think “wait, yeah why aren't they telling me this, what are they hiding? Do I really want to support a company that are keeping secrets from me, their loyal customer?”

Try and buy things made closer to home, the workers have probably been treated much better and you will be helping the environment too! 

REMEMBER: you have a voice, people listen to you, whether that be your large Instagram following, or just your friends and family, if you think that this is wrong, show them its wrong, then they will tell their friends about it and so on, then before you know it YOU have made a change, by making people think differently about the way they shop and what they buy you have changed the bigger picture!! 

ECO FASHION

Fun Fact: Fashion is the 2nd biggest pollutant in the world closely following the oil industry... okay, this is not a fun fact at all, this is disgraceful! 

70 MILLION barrels of oil are used to make 1 years worth of polyester, as well as other synthetic materials such as nylon and acrylic. Funny enough a majority of the fast fashion pieces we buy are made of polyester or are a poly mix, so there is another reason to look at the care label folks... There are so many more desirable fibres your clothes could be made from!

Imagine: waking up in the morning, having a shower and slipping on your soft, luxurious Bamboo socks and your organic cotton T-Shirt... doesn't that sound better than your poly blend socks and scratchy Polyester t-shirt? Bamboo is fastest growing fibre in the world, it doesn't need extra watering, no pesticides, no man power and grows on damaged soil, how eco can you get? Whereas cotton farming uses 20% of the insecticides used in the farming industry equating to billions of pounds worth of chemicals a year, needs constant attention (like your clingy ex) and drinks water like its nothing! If we used bamboo more we will be able to sort out the bee extinction crisis and the deaths of millions of other insects, and think about all the chemicals that go into waterways and kill sea life, this include the chemical dyes we use to colour said fibres!

Here is some vital info about Bamboo in regards to cotton explained in a very cringe way... sorry... but it is interesting!!

Here is another fun fact for you: The average woman keeps a piece of clothing in her wardrobe for 5 weeks. 5 WEEKS... when I first heard this I could not believe it, thinking obviously they are over exaggerating come on! But taking it back to that Primark party top discussed earlier it makes a lot of sense, people buy for occasion or trends, and trends are quick they can change in a blink of the eye one minute people are wearing pom noms on EVERYTHING next PVC tops and trousers (?) No wonder in the UK alone we chuck 2 million tonnes of textiles out a year, textiles are the fastest growing waste products in the world and we only have fast fashion to blame really. Surely this must make you want to make a change come on... 50% of the stuff we throw out for landfill are recyclable, meaning that could save barrels of oil being used but we just throw it away thinking “whatever, how the hell is someone going to recycle that?” alas there is a way. 

Ensuring you recycle clothing can make a drastic environmental impact for the fashion industry, potentially pulling us off that second prize position. H&M have a recycling scheme where if you recycle your clothes in one of their stores they will shred them down and use the fibres again for more clothes and the cycle can just keep on going!! Doesn't that sound great? Or what about giving them to charity? If you don't want them someone else probably will, I must said I am an avid charity shop goer and I get the best deals, you can find some treasures!! One example being a wool Karen Millen tweed coat for £15 hardly worn and a staple in my wardrobe for years. One man’s crap is another man’s treasure, and it is so true!! We should all care about the environment as the world is finite, don't just think well humans will probably go extinct in the next 100 years so whatever, NO. If we can make changes in our fashion we can make a HUGE impact on the world, check your care labels and buy natural, preferably organic fibres, avoid synthetics like the plague!! Recycle your unwanted clothes or give them to a charity shop. As I said previously: Together we can make a difference!!

For more information:

Fashion Revolution http://fashionrevolution.org

Clean Clothes Campaign (Twitter) https://twitter.com/cleanclothes

35 Fair Trade & Ethical Clothing Brands Betting Against Fast Fashion http://www.thegoodtrade.com/features/fair-trade-clothing

How to Engage with Ethical Fashion | Clara Vuletich | TEDxSydney https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXOd4qh3JKk 

The True Cost of Fashion  -  Documentary (find on Netflix)

Blood, Sweat & T-Shirts: Dispatches  -  Documentary 

Death of A Thousand Dreams http://www.taslimaakhter.com/rana_plaza_collapse/

[oovitus]

Weekend Reading, 6.24.18

A friend of mine told me that he recently went to a conference where all of the attendees seemed to be talking about perfectionism, in spite of that fact that it wasn’t the conference theme. They were discussing it as people who had been susceptible to impossible standards in the past, but now counted themselves lucky to have let perfectionism go.

As we were talking, it occurred to me that I haven’t thought about perfectionism in a long time, though it had a hold on me for years. Even after I stopped trying to do everything “right,” perfectionism (and to some extent, being “Type A”) was a big part of my identity. I called myself a “recovering perfectionist,” which was truthful, but in retrospect I think it was also my way of continuing to identify with perfectionism and communicate it to others. I didn’t want to be subject to oppressive standards anymore, but I hadn’t yet figured out who I was without them.

In the end, perfectionism exited my life out of necessity; I untangled from it because I didn’t have a choice. Living with bouts of depression and anxiety in the last few years has meant letting go of a lot of my self-imposed notions of what constitutes productivity, success, or a day well spent.

A common experience of depression, I think, is that small, routine asks can suddenly seem insurmountable: doing laundry, cleaning up, running errands. This would have sounded unbelievable to me at one point in my life, when these kinds of to-dos were just afterthoughts, but now I know what it’s like to struggle with the everyday.

I’m thinking back to an afternoon two summers ago that illustrates this perfectly: my anxiety had been particularly bad, and I’d been paralyzed by procrastination all day. By dinnertime I was genuinely proud of myself for having gotten out of the house to pick up groceries and mail a package. This was a radically different measure of productivity than I was used to, and it didn’t matter: I was relieved to have done something, anything.

I’m in a different place now, capable of fuller days, but my perspective remains valuably altered by that experience. I don’t wake up with a fixed agenda anymore. I don’t plan on doing more than I know I can handle. If I notice that tasks remain undone everyday on my modest to-do list, I take it as a sign that I need to plan on doing less, rather than wondering why I can’t do more.

I’ve learned that my capacity for doing and my tendency to get overwhelmed ebb and flow. Sometimes they shift for reasons that I can identify, like how I’m feeling physically or whether something has made me anxious. Sometimes they change suddenly and for no apparent reason. I don’t try to bully myself out of feeling overwhelmed; rather, I ask what would make me feel calmer and more steady.

I often remind myself of a mantra that my friend Maria gave herself when her MS symptoms started keeping her from the pace and routines that had become customary: “better than before.” The origin of this mantra was an ongoing struggle to keep tidy the home she shared with her young son. As Maria’s “functional self” receded, she noticed the presence of another self, who “though less physically versatile, was stronger than I ever could have imagined from the perspective of the one who functioned’ throughout the day. She began to show me things my functional self simply missed.”

One of those things, she goes on to say,

was to be able to notice when I was completely out of energy to exert myself. This might be when something was halfway wiped, or not wiped at all, but I had somehow managed to put some things away. She would know to say that’s enough for now. And she was very clever about what would satisfy my functional self, who would never have been satisfied with that’s enough. It sobered that functional self to learn when the diagnosis of MS finally came that the “forcing” she had habituated herself to was the worst thing to do if she wanted to preserve her physical abilities.  But as the saying goes, it’s really true that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. So my deeper wiser identity came up with something even more ingenious than this looming threat:

Better Than It Was.

Or, (depending on the context): Cleaner Than It Was.

These two statements became my mottos. And they still are. They allowed me to learn to pace myself while still satisfying that Functional Self that I was making what she considered progress through the daily requirements of life, even if many of them were slowed to a crawl or a downright standstill.  Better Than It Was.

Maria’s story is uniquely her own, and my own sense of high functionality has shifted for reasons that are uniquely mine. But her clever motto has given me great comfort since I first read about it on her blog. So, too, does this quote from Melody Beattie: “Our best yesterday was good enough; our best today is plenty good too.”

The best thing about letting go of perfectionism is developing a capacity to recognize that “our best” can look very different from moment to moment. There’s no longer an immovable standard of output. I wish that I’d been able to pry my ego away from productivity and being busy on my own, rather than being forced to reckon with a dramatic shift in my capacities, but in the end, it doesn’t matter how I got here. What matters is that I’m learning to be grateful for what I can do, rather than fixating on what I haven’t, or can’t.

Throughout all of this, I’ve had the tremendous luxury of being able to adjust my schedule and responsibilities in a way that allowed me to create a dynamic “new normal.” Not every person has the space to do this, depending on his or her professional and personal circumstances. I recognize and respect the many men and women who go through periods of depression and anxiety while also keeping up with fixed schedules. And of course I worry sometimes about my DI year: now that I’m learning how to take gentle care in the moments when I need to, what will it be like to temporarily lose control of my schedule and workload?

I don’t have an answer, but to some degree I suspect that I don’t need one. My routine next year will be a challenge, but so long as I can do my best without succumbing to the influence of perfectionism, I know I’ll be OK. Much as I’ve made my schedule more realistic, letting go of perfectionism has been an inside job. It resides in recognizing how futile perfectionism is, how it discourages me needlessly while keeping me from recognizing the good that I can do, and maybe have done (another observation that’s prompted by Beattie).

Here’s to a week—and a month, and a summer, and a year—of doing my best and trusting that my best is enough. I wish the same for you, too. And here’s the weekly roundup of links.

Recipes

I would never think to put fruit in a tabbouleh, but I love Katie’s creative mixture of blueberries, parsley, mint, and quinoa—I’d actually love to try it as a savory breakfast dish!

A very different kind of quinoa salad, but no less delicious: a curried mixture with red cabbage, raisins, and pumpkin seeds from Melanie of Veggie Jam.

Two recipes for summer entertaining caught my eye this past week. The first is these show-stopping chipotle cauliflower nachos from my friend Jeanine of Love & Lemons.

Number two is this platter of green summer rolls with mango miso sauce from Anya of Lazy Cat Kitchen. The sauce alone is calling to me, but I also love all of the tender green veggies here (asparagus, zucchini, broccolini).

Finally, a summery vegan pasta salad with creamy avocado dressing—perfect timing, as pasta salad’s been on my mind lately (and I may just have a recipe coming soon!).

Reads

1. This article is about a month old, but it’s very on-topic for today’s post: why you should stop being so hard on yourself, via The New York Times.

2. Ed Yong’s new article on the threat of imminent global pandemics frightened me (and the blurb under the title didn’t help), but it’s an important topic, and I’m glad that it’s being written about. Yong notes the medical supply shortages that are becoming increasingly problematic in the US; hopefully greater awareness might somehow inspire solutions.

3. Reporting on the termination of a major NIH study of alcohol, heart attack, and stroke, which was shut down when conflicts of interest were identified. It’s an important examination of the ethics of funding and scientific research.

4. Dispatches from the Gulf of California, where the vaquita—now the world’s rarest marine mammal—is on the brink of extinction.

5. I was so full of appreciation and respect when I read my friend Karen’s latest post on numbers and body acceptance.

Like Karen, I went through a long period of asking to be blind weighed at the doctor’s office and not owning a scale. That time served a purpose, but nowadays I can be aware of the number without identifying with it, which I’m grateful for. I’ve had a bunch of doctor’s appointments in the last month, and getting weighed has been the last thing on my mind: feeling more at home in my body has been my only point of focus.

Karen opens up about her own recent experience with the scale and the annual physical, then reflects on why she’s committed to being transparent about what “balance” looks like for her. It’s great to witness her journey unfolding.

On that inspiring note, happy Sunday—and from a celebratory NYC, happy pride! I’ll be circling back this week with my first fruit-filled dessert of the summer.

xo

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[caredogstips]

Ann Patchett:’ If writers are to survive we must take responsibility for ourselves and our manufacture’

The author explores buying her own bookstore, the bequest of divorce and referring to herself in the third person

In the windowpane above Ann Patchetts desk is a small steel and enamel sign that reads: What good shall I do this day? This simple dictum is the engine of Patchetts world, both on the sheet and off. In the Orange prizewinning Bel Canto , comradeship, ardour and productivity bloom among terrorists and captives; in 2011 s artful State of Wonder , a sensible research scientist faces not just the serpents and other frights of the Amazonian jungle, but the dragon of her former medical lecturer.

I have been shown so much kindness in “peoples lives”, so for me to write volumes about good, species parties seems totally natural, Patchett tells. When “theyre saying”, Oh its too nice, its naive, I just think: who killed your mother?

It infringes a literary inhibition to write fiction that hints parties might be fundamentally good. For the 52 -year-old Patchett, however, the real taboo was writing about their own families. Commonwealth , her seventh romance, publicized this week, encompasses 50 years and two pedigrees, the Cousinses and the Keatings, whose common fate is set in motion at a gin-soaked christening defendant where Albert Cousins caresses Beverley Keating.

Today, the very best that Patchett will do involves picking up a columnist from Nashvilles airport and devoting her whole daytime to zipping around township in her little silver Prius, testifying mentioned journalist her world-wide. Even if she hadnt published an paper, The Mercies, about her schooling with the Sisters of Mercy, you might guess that Patchett had been raised by nuns. She excretes that sleeves-rolled, get-on-with it ability, paired with the clarity and occasional brutality of true-blue righteousness. To watch her in action is to hear the Mother Abbess from The Sound of Music sing, Climb Evry Mountain. Patchett climbs every mountain, but she will also croak an occasional, and deliciously un-nun-like, fuck!

What do you do when the bookstores in your hometown all shut down? If youre Patchett, you open one yourself. In 2011, she founded Parnassus Books, an idyll in a shopping plaza, with her business marriage, Karen Hayes. She has since become a rallying spokesperson for independent bookstores.

I feel that writers are treated like orchids: they keep us in the hothouse, they cloud the americans and attend to our every motivation, but if this system is going to work, if we are going to survive, we need to come out of the hothouse and take responsibility for ourselves and for the health of the industry.

She takes a firm line. When customers visit the bookstore and keep telling her Amazon is cheaper: Im like, You cannot come in, soak up what we have, talk to the staff, get recommendations, then go home and buy the book on Amazon. If you do, I will hunt you down and smack-dab you guys later. Somehow, she lends with a smiling, Ann Patchett can say that in a way that your regular bookstore owned cant.

She leads the way to the offices at the back, where young women work with puppies at their hoofs and on their laps. One of the salesclerks pokes her president around the door and tells Patchett that theres an Australian fan here who would really like to meet her.

All right, here “theres going”, and Patchett psyches out to the storey to signal four replicas for her love. Later, she tells me that when people tell her how much they cherish her notebooks, Im smiling, and Im grateful, but I almost dont know what theyre speak about. Its so far away, and what I am thinking at that moment, is: I hope I am cooking my face in a way that I seem hired and grateful.

She and her husband, the surgeon Karl Vandevender, talking here Ann Patchett in the third largest being, as do her friends and peers at the bookstore. Theyll reply: Oh, we need Ann Patchett for something, and Ill run: Ill see if I can conjure her up. Ann Patchett, she reads definitively, is the label. Ive got to employed that away at the end of the day.

All of her tales, she explains, are the same floor: a group of parties are thrown together and must forge connections to survive. Ive been writing the same journal my whole life that youre in one family, and all of a sudden, youre in another family and its not your option and you cant get off. Eventually, she expected herself: I wonder if I wrote the storey that Im so carefully not writing, if I might be free of it?

As soon as she began working on Commonwealth , the story of her own parents divorce and her precede life with stepsiblings, she announced her intentions to her family. Thats brave, I say.

Yeah, it is. It was also really smart. She told them: I dont want to cut off a part of my life any more. I dont wishes to not have access to my own experience because I dont want to set anybody out. I want to be able to grow. And, I find, until I get this done, Im not going to grow. And everybody supposed: You lead, girl!

Patchett concedes that, until this stage, shed been very self-congratulatory over not having written a volume about their own families, which seemed like the strong, easy thing to do. Then she read an paper by Jonathan Franzen in which he insisted that the novelist has to do what intimidates him “the worlds largest” and, for him, that had been writing about his family. When I speak that, I thoughts: oh , good-for-nothing would scare me more. I would happily razz down the Amazon in a canoe and is being dealt with serpents[ as she did to study State of Wonder ] rather than face my family.

In the entitle paper of her 2013 non-fiction collect, This Is the Story of a Joyous Wedding , she details the lineage of divorce in her own family, including her own at the age of 25, and her eventual matrimony to Vandevender. There is a sense in that paper, which moves in steady, clear-eyed increments, of a columnist willing herself into facing and articulating hard truths, of which this is paramount: Divorce is the history lesson, that circumstance that must be remembered in order not to be repeated. Divorce is the rock upon which this faith is built.

She remembers sweat swarming down her appearance as she wrote it, while she experienced the distinct sensation that she was sitting in the middle of the road in the dark, with a legal pad, contemplation: Im going to get squashed by a truck.

She writes candidly, for example, that she, her sister and their stepsiblings werent the products of our mothers joyous wedlocks: “were in” the flotsam of their divorces. In Commonwealth , that flotsam is the intense little tribe of the six Cousins and Keating babes, each of whom corresponds to her own stepsiblings.

Its like chess fragments, she tells, as she explains that each persona stood in for a real family member. In this mode, it was very easy for me to keep track of everyone over 50 years. And genuinely, I committed everybody a high quality of life, by a very large margin. The parties in the book somehow represented my dearest desires for all the people.

Its dedicated to Mike Glasscock, her half-brother, reimagined here as Albie, a very young, whom the others find so annoying that they narcotic him with Benadryl to induce him sleep for hours. Years afterwards, as a bicycle messenger and recovering heroin user, Albie chances upon a romance called Commonwealth by a writer announced Leo Posen. He realises it is about two pedigrees, his own, about the inestimable burden of their lives: the occupation, the houses, the friendships, the marriages, the children, as if all the things theyd craved and worked for had cemented the impossibility of any kind of merriment. He wonders: Isnt that what everyone wants, just for a moment to be unencumbered?

Its surely my greedy lust, Patchett laughs. Franny, whom the nun had led to believe that God granted preference to people who did things the hard way, is a cocktail waitress when she first fulfils the famous novelist Posen.( Who wants to have a novel about a novelist? Patchett groan. But thats the way it turned out .) He becomes so drunk that she must help him up to his hotel chamber, where he has only enough time left to ask for one more advantage, which Franny thought was the deepest difference between women and men. Eventually, that dynamic is enlarged in incidents established in the Hamptons, Long Island, where Franny spots herself expected to single-handedly acquire dinner and liquors for changing hordes of Posens clients. Theyre some of the funniest of the book.

You wanna talk about which part of this volume is autobiographical? Patchett reads. That fraction. How exhausting it is, as the status of women, to always be the one who has to do the meat and change the bunks. No topic how enlightened, how much of a feminist I am, I am still doing all of it.[ With] every journal I conceive: well, if this ones actually successful, maybe I wont “re going to have to” acquire dinner any more, she laughs. Perhaps Ill finally is how to not do this any more, because its my fault. Its is not simply gender, but the 12 years of Catholic school and being trained to be a good servant. I believe in this, I truly believe that the greatest event you can do is to serve.

Oh, if I could free-spoken myself from the autocracy of good deeds, she mocklaments. Oh, there used to be no stopping me. I could be Tolstoy without good deeds. I has actually be something.

Over lunch she tells me that she read a Charles Bukowski poem that morning that aims those who/ replace/ know/ this secret :/ there isnt/ one. Its abide with her, perhaps because writing, more than any other art formation, is susceptible to regulations, premier among other issues being to write every day.

Dont you think guys are the ones that always say that? she adds. Im not sure Ive heard a woman say you have to write every day. Theyre too busy obligating dinner. I go through extended periods of time when I dont write, and Im fine. Writing is an amazing situate to hide, to go into the rabbit defect and pull the trap door down over your premier. I want to have time in my life when I dont have that cover.

She also insists that there are things that are a lot more important than me writing a novel. For illustration: If person told, OK, you can either write five more great novels, or you are able to made to ensure that the people who work in bookstores have health insurance and have some home to depart if they need assistance because theyre transgressed. At this stage I might certainly go for the very best. Nothing fuels the good of “the worlds” like gaiety, and the thing that sees me feel really alive is figuring out how I can startle other beings into doing good.

To ordering Commonwealth for 15.57( Bloomsbury, RRP 18.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or announce 0330 333 6846. Free UK p& p over 10, online orders merely. Phone orders min p& p of 1.99.

Read more: www.theguardian.com

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All Levels,  – 2.5 hours,  23 lectures 

Average rating 4.9/5 (4.9 (28 ratings) Instead of using a simple lifetime average, Udemy calculates a course’s star rating by considering a number of different factors such as the number of ratings, the age of ratings, and the likelihood of fraudulent ratings.)

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Additional Money to purchase items and invest in your new business Time to learn as there is a lot of information here Basic knowledge of computers and digital technology Positive Mindset A Laptop/Portable Device to learn with A quiet spot to learn without distractions

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Imagine what you could be making if you TAKE ACTION TODAY!* Take action now by joining this course and taking your first step towards the lucrative and exciting mobile app industry! *DISCLAIMER: Please use caution when taking any form of risk and consult with your professional advisors before starting any new business venture. Every effort has been made to accurately represent this product and its potential. There is no guarantee that you will earn any money using the techniques and ideas in these materials. Examples in these materials are not to be interpreted as a promise or guarantee of earnings. Earning potential is entirely dependent on the person using the materials, ideas and techniques. Your level of success in attaining the results claimed in the materials depends on the time you devote to the program, ideas and techniques mentioned, your finances, knowledge and various skills. Since these factors differ according to individuals, there is no guarantee of your success or income level. Nor is the instructor responsible for any of your actions.

OTHER FEES: As you setup your new business you will naturally incur many fees associated with running an App Business. These fees include the price to open up a company, hardware costs, app development yearly membership fees (Apple, Google, etc.), software tools and several other fees along the way. There may be even times where you may be recommended to take certain other programs to help you enhance your learning even more or even to get an added edge over your competitors. Be prepared for these possible fees in the App Business.

INSTRUCTOR INVOLVEMENT: Due to the busy schedule Abhinav has as he is developing new games, speaking at seminars around the world, running his various companies, building new programs and courses, and ofcourse spending time with his family, fans and other students, etc. it will naturally be a challenge for Abhinav to be available all the time. For this reason it is highly recommended that students take advantage of any webinars or discussions which Abhinav is a part of! These are great opportunities to connect with Abhinav and ask questions about the app business. Note: Please make sure your questions are related to the app business when asking questions as Abhinav has several courses on various topics. If you have a question on another course or topic that Abhinav teaches that is outside the scope of this course, please ask it in that specific webinar or discussion section.

WHO SHOULD TAKE THIS COURSE?

This is a course for beginners and is perfect for those who have bee

Reviews:

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  About Instructor:

Abhinav Gupta Karen Browne

“A day well planned is a DAY WELL LIVED!”, Abhinav Gupta – 2015 Success takes on many forms, from money to love to a complete balance between all areas in your life…and it’s NOT EASY! However over the years I have learnt many methods, techniques and systems that have helped me to succeed time and time again to overcome many challenges, from business life to personal life and beyond! And it doesn’t stop there, I’m continuously learning new things daily and teaching what I learn to the WORLD! The greatest feeling is all the “Thank You’s” I get from my students who show me that I’m able to make a difference in their lives by teaching them something that took me time to learn. I am personally INSPIRED to bring the greatest quality I can to the creations I make, so much so, that if the Universe stopped and took a look here on our world, they would say, “You see that? That is truly the very BEST I’ve seen of him!” This is what I aspire to acheive every time I create a new piece of work, to be the very best ME I can be, from teaching courses to creating the next great mobile game and more! I am inspired to bring my very best to the table, and I look forward to having you do the same! Knowledge is POTENTIAL POWER until it is applied…thats when it becomes TRUE power and can change our lives forever! For this reason I also learn daily, from reading books to even taking many Udemy courses myself and even learning new things and doing my best to apply what I’ve learned ALL THE TIME! Every successful person has learned from someone else! Let us all therefore learn and teach each other so we may all succeed and pass on wisdom and knowledge from generation to generation! Will you take part in that great vision with me? Together we can make a beautiful future together! I look forward to both teaching you and learning from you and I thank both my loyal students and my fellow instructors and teachers in life! Together we can learn, teach and grow…together we can make this world a place of greatness and hope for generations to come! WHAT I TEACH (Major Course Categories and Areas of Expertise): -Motivation and Inspiration -Mobile App and Game Development -Software and Web Development -Business and Entrepreneurship Related Courses -Future Areas I’m planning to teach: Music, Book Authoring, Movie creation and Directing, Investing, Health and Body Check out my courses today! ABOUT ME: Abhinav Gupta was born and raised in Canada and is the Lead Developer and CEO of Game Scorpion Inc. He is an App and Game Developer, Motivational Speaker, Health Enthusiast, Creative Artist and a Lifelong Learner. With a passion for knowledge he seeks to motivate and teach others what he has learned and constantly tries to empower others to become the very best that they can be as well. He is the writer of hit book, “App Trillionaires: How To Become An App Developer” and His motto in life can be summed up by his own personal quote he spoke in 2008 which was, “Many dream a dream and wake up to reality…some dream a dream and make it reality!” ACCREDITATIONS: Abhinav is a graduate of Computer Science with a BSc. from Ryerson University in Canada (2008). He also has an A+ CompTia Certification (2005) and also obtained a certification in C++ in 1997 from DeVry Institute of Technology.

Karen Browne is founder and CEO of Mahogany Public Relations, a boutique public relations firm located in sunny Miami, Florida. For over six years, Karen has been able to carefully construct and execute strategic brand initiatives and PR campaigns, tailored specifically for each client, company, or brand. Her ability to effectively communicate with target audiences comes from her experience in observing trends and not being afraid to push the envelope with unconventional methods of advertising and marketing. Karen has a background in Healthcare Management, an advantage she feels has given her the flexibility to work with clients from all walks of life. Her fir

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[oovitus]

Weekend Reading, 6.24.18

A friend of mine told me that he recently went to a conference where all of the attendees seemed to be talking about perfectionism, in spite of that fact that it wasn’t the conference theme. They were discussing it as people who had been susceptible to impossible standards in the past, but now counted themselves lucky to have let perfectionism go.

As we were talking, it occurred to me that I haven’t thought about perfectionism in a long time, though it had a hold on me for years. Even after I stopped trying to do everything “right,” perfectionism (and to some extent, being “Type A”) was a big part of my identity. I called myself a “recovering perfectionist,” which was truthful, but in retrospect I think it was also my way of continuing to identify with perfectionism and communicate it to others. I didn’t want to be subject to oppressive standards anymore, but I hadn’t yet figured out who I was without them.

In the end, perfectionism exited my life out of necessity; I untangled from it because I didn’t have a choice. Living with bouts of depression and anxiety in the last few years has meant letting go of a lot of my self-imposed notions of what constitutes productivity, success, or a day well spent.

A common experience of depression, I think, is that small, routine asks can suddenly seem insurmountable: doing laundry, cleaning up, running errands. This would have sounded unbelievable to me at one point in my life, when these kinds of to-dos were just afterthoughts, but now I know what it’s like to struggle with the everyday.

I’m thinking back to an afternoon two summers ago that illustrates this perfectly: my anxiety had been particularly bad, and I’d been paralyzed by procrastination all day. By dinnertime I was genuinely proud of myself for having gotten out of the house to pick up groceries and mail a package. This was a radically different measure of productivity than I was used to, and it didn’t matter: I was relieved to have done something, anything.

I’m in a different place now, capable of fuller days, but my perspective remains valuably altered by that experience. I don’t wake up with a fixed agenda anymore. I don’t plan on doing more than I know I can handle. If I notice that tasks remain undone everyday on my modest to-do list, I take it as a sign that I need to plan on doing less, rather than wondering why I can’t do more.

I’ve learned that my capacity for doing and my tendency to get overwhelmed ebb and flow. Sometimes they shift for reasons that I can identify, like how I’m feeling physically or whether something has made me anxious. Sometimes they change suddenly and for no apparent reason. I don’t try to bully myself out of feeling overwhelmed; rather, I ask what would make me feel calmer and more steady.

I often remind myself of a mantra that my friend Maria gave herself when her MS symptoms started keeping her from the pace and routines that had become customary: “better than before.” The origin of this mantra was an ongoing struggle to keep tidy the home she shared with her young son. As Maria’s “functional self” receded, she noticed the presence of another self, who “though less physically versatile, was stronger than I ever could have imagined from the perspective of the one who functioned’ throughout the day. She began to show me things my functional self simply missed.”

One of those things, she goes on to say,

was to be able to notice when I was completely out of energy to exert myself. This might be when something was halfway wiped, or not wiped at all, but I had somehow managed to put some things away. She would know to say that’s enough for now. And she was very clever about what would satisfy my functional self, who would never have been satisfied with that’s enough. It sobered that functional self to learn when the diagnosis of MS finally came that the “forcing” she had habituated herself to was the worst thing to do if she wanted to preserve her physical abilities.  But as the saying goes, it’s really true that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. So my deeper wiser identity came up with something even more ingenious than this looming threat:

Better Than It Was.

Or, (depending on the context): Cleaner Than It Was.

These two statements became my mottos. And they still are. They allowed me to learn to pace myself while still satisfying that Functional Self that I was making what she considered progress through the daily requirements of life, even if many of them were slowed to a crawl or a downright standstill.  Better Than It Was.

Maria’s story is uniquely her own, and my own sense of high functionality has shifted for reasons that are uniquely mine. But her clever motto has given me great comfort since I first read about it on her blog. So, too, does this quote from Melody Beattie: “Our best yesterday was good enough; our best today is plenty good too.”

The best thing about letting go of perfectionism is developing a capacity to recognize that “our best” can look very different from moment to moment. There’s no longer an immovable standard of output. I wish that I’d been able to pry my ego away from productivity and being busy on my own, rather than being forced to reckon with a dramatic shift in my capacities, but in the end, it doesn’t matter how I got here. What matters is that I’m learning to be grateful for what I can do, rather than fixating on what I haven’t, or can’t.

Throughout all of this, I’ve had the tremendous luxury of being able to adjust my schedule and responsibilities in a way that allowed me to create a dynamic “new normal.” Not every person has the space to do this, depending on his or her professional and personal circumstances. I recognize and respect the many men and women who go through periods of depression and anxiety while also keeping up with fixed schedules. And of course I worry sometimes about my DI year: now that I’m learning how to take gentle care in the moments when I need to, what will it be like to temporarily lose control of my schedule and workload?

I don’t have an answer, but to some degree I suspect that I don’t need one. My routine next year will be a challenge, but so long as I can do my best without succumbing to the influence of perfectionism, I know I’ll be OK. Much as I’ve made my schedule more realistic, letting go of perfectionism has been an inside job. It resides in recognizing how futile perfectionism is, how it discourages me needlessly while keeping me from recognizing the good that I can do, and maybe have done (another observation that’s prompted by Beattie).

Here’s to a week—and a month, and a summer, and a year—of doing my best and trusting that my best is enough. I wish the same for you, too. And here’s the weekly roundup of links.

Recipes

I would never think to put fruit in a tabbouleh, but I love Katie’s creative mixture of blueberries, parsley, mint, and quinoa—I’d actually love to try it as a savory breakfast dish!

A very different kind of quinoa salad, but no less delicious: a curried mixture with red cabbage, raisins, and pumpkin seeds from Melanie of Veggie Jam.

Two recipes for summer entertaining caught my eye this past week. The first is these show-stopping chipotle cauliflower nachos from my friend Jeanine of Love & Lemons.

Number two is this platter of green summer rolls with mango miso sauce from Anya of Lazy Cat Kitchen. The sauce alone is calling to me, but I also love all of the tender green veggies here (asparagus, zucchini, broccolini).

Finally, a summery vegan pasta salad with creamy avocado dressing—perfect timing, as pasta salad’s been on my mind lately (and I may just have a recipe coming soon!).

Reads

1. This article is about a month old, but it’s very on-topic for today’s post: why you should stop being so hard on yourself, via The New York Times.

2. Ed Yong’s new article on the threat of imminent global pandemics frightened me (and the blurb under the title didn’t help), but it’s an important topic, and I’m glad that it’s being written about. Yong notes the medical supply shortages that are becoming increasingly problematic in the US; hopefully greater awareness might somehow inspire solutions.

3. Reporting on the termination of a major NIH study of alcohol, heart attack, and stroke, which was shut down when conflicts of interest were identified. It’s an important examination of the ethics of funding and scientific research.

4. Dispatches from the Gulf of California, where the vaquita—now the world’s rarest marine mammal—is on the brink of extinction.

5. I was so full of appreciation and respect when I read my friend Karen’s latest post on numbers and body acceptance.

Like Karen, I went through a long period of asking to be blind weighed at the doctor’s office and not owning a scale. That time served a purpose, but nowadays I can be aware of the number without identifying with it, which I’m grateful for. I’ve had a bunch of doctor’s appointments in the last month, and getting weighed has been the last thing on my mind: feeling more at home in my body has been my only point of focus.

Karen opens up about her own recent experience with the scale and the annual physical, then reflects on why she’s committed to being transparent about what “balance” looks like for her. It’s great to witness her journey unfolding.

On that inspiring note, happy Sunday—and from a celebratory NYC, happy pride! I’ll be circling back this week with my first fruit-filled dessert of the summer.

xo

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