Month: October 2013

The Bitch in the House [Paperback] Cathi Hannauer (Author)

Georgee eliotFrancine prose3

 

I said I would write about at the weekend but I felt it more urgent to reconstruct the blog as I had wandered away from my intentions.This book  is very interesting,It contains stories from a number of women in the USA about their lives.I am unsure who chose the title as my mother would have fainted to hear this name!But in truth one contributor says that she is very nice at work and a demon to her family..S he has a very high powered job.I myself find it odd that feminism means women must work  in paid job now even when they have babies.Alas house prices have risen to match and so it’s really tough.Other stories are not so harsh.The one I was moved by was written by a woman who happens to be overweight.She tells her story very well.And what a life she has had.It’s worth getting just for that.And it’s only 1p on Amazon. Some stories seem like ones from the dawn of time.. a couple meet.At last she has found her ideal man.And so he continues until they drive off for the honeymoon and as they approach a big Freeway junction he begins to shout and yell because she is not telling him which road is the right one!And he never even gave her a map/road atlas.So married life began with a shock of horror…

I myself love books like this that a bit like a blog tell a story of another woman’s life/The stories are too short really… but it’s a gripping read.A very good variety of different lives,different kinds of relationship and the toughness of educating yourself when you are poor and possibly black too

Related articles

If it were laughter ….

Bloggers,beggars,buggers… in dreams they are all one.

Wrapped in a grey blanket,who can tell one from another?

They all begin with B

As a matter or tact

My dreaming mind hides the buggers

Inside calm astute faces

Who are political braggers

At daggers drawn with the rubrics of formal

I mean,normal,life.

Who’s to say who wrote The  Four Tartlets

,Or  what rough breast Yeats hoped was coming?

Sometimes they say,it’s behind you now;

that’s an asinine remark.

Idiosynchronizing all my devices

I find my heart and mind left out.;

 makes me doubt,

However,negative capability will pull me threw

the stone you chose to cast.

So you are without sin,a TV

Sin in a tin

A smartphone is not a trombone

Yet it creates more noise

Sneaking categorically,

I’d say I’m tired of the gales

all these tablets are creating


If it were laughter then o.k.

But it’s more like domination

Say it again,Sam.

Wham!

What is ethics?

From Paul Gordon

 

“In particular, Levinas argued that ethics is responsibility for the other, that this responsibility precedes knowledge and, moreover, has nothing whatsoever to do with reciprocity, that is I do not do something in order to get something in return. Furthermore, Levinas argued, it is this ethical responsibility which constitutes me as a subject, it is the meaning of my subjectivity. Ethics, in the very particular sense that Levinas gives it, is at the heart of psychotherapy,”

Gordon, Paul (2012-12-15). Face to Face (Kindle Locations 585-589). Paul Gordon. Kindle Edition.

Related articles

Arms around each other

Some evenings,the sky turned pink
We were happy,lying in the grass
Watching the sun set.
Arms around each other.
Seemed like eternal life had come
Earlier than forecast.
Those weathermen are always wrong!
They need new training
In that timeless moment
In between two raindrops,
In between two tears.

My blog up to now

tWeeds or flowers

I am a woman over the age of sixty.My hair has fallen out not to mention my teeth.Yet.I still enjoy learning,talking and seeing new perspectives.I h ave been advised not to put my photograph on the Internet . If you want to see a photo of a woman can  you get friendly with, please look elsewhere.I am looking for people who like books and ideas and humor.I am not looking for love online.I don’t believe it is possible or wise for me

This blog is about thoughts, writers,books,humor and related topics .As and when I discover  writing  I feel is worth sharing I will share it here

After a short time I seem to have gone into philosophical  issues more than I imagined and it has proved hard work.I shall return to books again of a different type.I think it’s the people who interest me…trying to imagine what it was like in Germany in the 1930′s and wondering what I would have done.~Yes,people fascinate me.Sometimes I think education can be a bad thing unless it’s very high quality.We learn a little and grow conceited.We believe we know everything and can tell others what to think,This worries me about even University education in Britain now.

I am also veering into ethics and into the interface between being an intellectual who thinks and being someone who considers the impact on our personal and inner life of the issues I come across.And how even thinking can be bad for  you!True of feeling too sometimes.So which part of us decides on where the line should be drawn?

We think too much when we are powerless/feel we are powerless

This thought came to me last night.I looked  back to my adolescence and to my constantly thinking about my wishes,my needs,my sins,my guilt… and now I believe it was living in a very repressive home and school environment.I believe I was on the verge of madness.But luckily I got a full grant to go to University.That was so much better that my mind improved very much.I had my own money.. not alot,but sufficient.And people treated me with respect.No longer was I in a guilt ridden and powerless state.
 Sometimes there’s nothing wrong with us but our environment is not right.Also I was so totally lonely…no-one seemed interested in me.I had no money to go out.Thank goodness in that era the government paid for the  poorer students to go to college.

 That kind of thinking was more like brooding or ruminating…I had no obvious way out.

 

Hidden lives

Georgee eliot

“But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch

I came upon this by chance

Related articles

Summer Reading

More books

authorsandstorytellers's avatarAuthors and Storytellers

As I have mentioned before, I came to love audiobooks this summer. Part of this was because of long and numerous travels, but also because of my summer bucket list. For the past couple of summers my good girl friend and I have created summer bucket lists (things we want to accomplish during our summer hiatus). I have included mine below.

1. Read at least 20 books this summer (this includes audiobooks)
2. Finish organizing and cleaning my apt
3. Take at least one professional development class
4. Visit with all of my friends this summer (literally all my close friends)
5. Meet my weight-loss goal by exercising and eating healthy foods I cook myself
6. Get back to running 5k lengths
7. Become more adept at using my sewing machine
8. Paint a picture

Some of my goals I didn’t meet, like meeting my weight loss goals, and some…

View original post 1,041 more words

Can this be true?

Related articles

Sleep with Shakespeare

It seemed a good idea at the time.But the timing was wrong.Shakespeare was my boyfriend’s friend.To be honest he was a cat.So to preserve my modesty I slept with the cat and not the boyfriend.Just another natural disaster in every day life.

Still,a cat has eyes unlike a flea which is what I sleep with now;I know only because it bites me in the night!Possibly it was from the cat and became a multitude like my sins .which are mainly of omission.A  few are cultivated and the rest grew like weeds.I feel such shame when I think of my life,sleeping with everything but  a human being. Intimacy with moths does not contribute to literature or any other human undertaking and yet it saved a man from torment loving a woman with such a strange personality.So that is good.I also wrote a few plays

A midsummer night’s scream.

Julius seized me.

Richard the Blurred

King Fear

MacDuff,the pudding

Hamrent

Hamerous

Hams of old England.

Nymphs and Leopards.

Liebscreamsche

Nietzsche’s word was my father.

Who won the Bore?

England’s screaming peasants blend

Death ,where is thy King?

Foreigner’a rile us.

Boldlock the beloved

I  made a few dollars selling myself to  an owl.Beyond that my life is herstory.

Can I get bail?I hope the judge is  lenient

Related articles

Lonely or human?

Ain't That Lonely Yet
Ain’t That Lonely Yet (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
General Practitioner Services
General Practitioner Services (Photo credit: the justified sinner)

You know when you are really truly lonely

when you haven’t even got any enemies

when your GP says only to go  there once a week

and so does the priest after hearing your fifth confession today

and you can’t go to A and E  as it’s closed down

and you help all old people blind or not across roads

and you go  to the dentist once a month even though you are broke and have only two teeth

and your mouth has dried up so you can’t speak

and your phone is dusty

English: Francisco Vallés Español: Francisco V...
English: Francisco Vallés Español: Francisco Vallés, médico personal de Felipe II. Grabado de 364 x 242 mm. Cobre; aguafuerte y buril, talla dulce. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

and your cat died but you had her stuffed

and you have paranoia because the world loves you

and you pray hourly

and you only dream of deserts

Related articles

‘How To Be Happy Though Human,

 

Image
“f we want to know what happiness is we must seek it, not as if it were a part of gold at the end of the rainbow, but among human beings who are living richly and fully the good life. If you observe a really happy man you will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, educating his son, growing double Dahlias in his garden. He will not be searching for happiness as if it were a collar gold button that has rolled under the cupboard in his bed room. He will have become aware that he is happy in the course of living 24 crowded hours of the day. If you live only for yourself you are always an immediate danger of being bored to death with the repetition of your own views and interests. No one has learned the meaning of living until he has surrendered his ego to the service of his fellowmen. If your ambition has the momentum of an express train at full speed, if you can no longer stop your mad rush for glory, power, or intellectual supremacy, try to divert your energies into socially useful channels before it is too late.
For those who seek the larger happiness and greater effectiveness open to human beings there can be but one philosophy of life, a philosophy of constructive altruism. The truly happy man is always a fighting optimist. Optimism includes not only altruism but also social responsibility, social courage and objectivity. The good life demands a working philosophy as an orientating map of conduct. This is the golden way of life. This is the satisfying life. This is the way to be happy though human.”

 

-W. Beran Wolfe, ‘How To Be Happy Though Human, 1932

 

Related articles

Feeling suicidal?

I noticed many people read the article I reblogged about  a woman who was feeling so depressed last year.There are many resources … the Samaritans being the best here in the UK.local charges on phone

Or visit this link

http://www.breathingspacescotland.co.uk/bspace/119.34.36.html

Related articles

I don’t BELIEVE it!

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/sep/08/84-cannot-reach-orgasm-age

Sexual healingIM000484.JPG

Browsing on philosophy I accidentally  hit on   this piece

A man  of 84 can have sex for ages but no orgasm.So he writes to the Guardian.Mr Japan the young are   becoming asexual.Sosmething wrong here!

Sexual Healing.Well,I have to admire this man of 84.And if he has no orgasm it means he can give time to his lady friend!

Related articles

I had finished with Arendt but came across another good article

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/aug/29/hannah-arendt-adolf-eichmann-banality-of-evil of Kant

Interesting as it gives a better definition of what she meant by thinking.And horrifyingly

Eichmann claimed to be a follower of Kant

Related articles

Humorous real books

IM000484.JPG

http://us.macmillan.com/all/editorslist/General/HumorousBooksTickleYourFunnyboneASeriousGuidetotheGuffaw

On Sunday evening people feel bad sometimes….so read  a funny book or wash all your socks,tidy a drawer  or be creative

Related articles

New books

tWeeds or flowers

How to be more obscene than I by George Grammarcy

How not to spill   all your words by Mary Maddens

How to paint yourself into a corner by Vincent Bunk Off.

Novels for he men by Forman Taylor

Related articles

Ghosts smoking

 

 

 

 

Hot March days 041

 

 

Life’s not easy
when I see ghosts smoking without ashtrays
and,worse,without even hands.
…

Related articles

The shadow of a human

th Cloudy sju wiki

One side of us is good and the other is bad

We are like old gramophone records

Sometimes we are playing the good side

Then late we play the reverse.

The brighter the appearance

The darker the shadow

so Jung decided

Which may explain

why he and Heidegger

did not see the truth about the Nazis.

Jung got a top job

because all the Jewish psychoanalysts had to flee Austria and Germany

And later France

Jung was unable

to use his own insights

I guess we are all  a bit like that.

But we must keep trying…..

We need to accept  the pain

Of knowing we have a shadow.

If not,we will do harm

for if we don’t know it

we cannot control it

Related articles

Go to bed with an egg

Britain is apparently famous for its advertising industry.Many of us recall a clever ad about 30 years ago which said,Go to work on an egg.It was said to be the invention of Fay Weldon,now famed for her  wild novels.What in fact seems odd today is that we would not see the point of advertising eggs.Why was it needed?

It’s like advertising tea:

Go to work  on a mug?

Deep brown tea will help you to see

Go to work on a bag?

Go to work after a potful?

Tea,the leaf that transforms.

Tea,the opium a of today.

Tea,not free but worth every shilling

Earl Grey will make work play.

Fancy a Chinese first thing?

Drink tea with your toast for utter bliss

Hot as hell ,tea casts a spell.

Ceylon tea will help you pee.

You can see I was lucky not to be in advertising…

Thinking can be just worry and if so is usually useless

Thinking can be very bad for you if it goes round and round in your mind

Of course in the Christian Bible we read:

IM000484.JPG[

Wild flowers, Holy Land [Israel]

Matthew 6:25-34

American Standard Version (ASV)

25 Therefore I say unto you, be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than the food, and the body than the raiment?

26 Behold the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are not ye of much more value then they?

27 And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto the measure of his life?

28 And why are ye anxious concerning raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:

29 yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

30 But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

31 Be not therefore anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

32 For after all these things do the Gentiles seek; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

33 But seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

34 Be not therefore anxious for the morrow: for the morrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

American Standard Bible

Related articles

That the world contains THIS, this person,this scenery,this light.

English: The Langdale Pikes
English: The Langdale Pikes (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’m sure since then
I have seen more beautiful places
but what was once called
The Shock of the New
washed over me before I could think.
Then I might say
That the world contains this,
That the world contains THIS,
this person,this scenery,this light;
That the world contains this..
this beauty,this love at first meeting;
THIS person
The total lack of expectation makes the experience possible.

Approaching by rail,on a line now closed
the train needed two engines as it rose from the coast
to Newby Bridge.There we walked onto a steamer and the sail began
At first the long lake is banked by dark trees
It’s peaceful but not remarkable;
turning a bend, all of a sudden the Langdale Pikes are manifest
And ever after they have lived in my heart like a blessing
I’ve even climbed on as a foolhardy schoolgirl;
getting down is the hard part.
Further and further into the heart of the Lakes
Every view is truly loved
but it was this view,the first,from just a small hill
That took away my breath.
Wanting nothing,we sometimes receive everything.
A person , a place,once loved,
is loved forever as they shape our very being
into a truer form;show us possibilities,
Transform us,even though,through them.
we make acquaintance with the sadness of loss and grief.
Love and loss our twin polarities that form our souls.
“And the Spirit of God moved over the face of the waters”

Related articles

Damn it.I thought I was a virgin.

According to Freudian theory,writing with a fountain pen is the equivalent of copulation.Damn it.I thought I was a virgin when I got marriedThat Freud.. who does he think he is? God……anyway as we get older we can enjoy this simple outlet without dressing upor on line dating.And you don’t need protection,contraception or metal detection.Lose it the inky way.

Fo those who want to read more about Arendt

I am sorry the link was broken before but I have corrected it.

 

http://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_1_hannah-arendt.html [this link works now]

A long but not too difficult article…you may disagree but it’s worth reading or keeping till you have time.t explains why left wing people are so anti-Israel now.It goes right back to the 40’s and Arendt’s writings.