Not Graceful Enough to be a Julia

Sometime last week Neil from Citizen of the Month suggested The Great Interview Experiment and like all of his ideas, it was fabulous and allowed bloggers from all over to come together and discuss anything and everything. Through this experience I met The Woman of the House who interviewed me, and in turn I interviewed Bec from Out of My Tree. It has been a great experience all around and I can’t wait until Neil comes up with another one of his brilliant ideas!

And now to what you’ve been waiting for…

Me: How did you begin blogging? What was it that was so attractive to you? Was there something specifically you were hoping to accomplish or achieve by blogging?

Bec: I started blogging in November 2005 on an MSN Space. I have always been interested in trying the next greatest thing and when a friend told me that she was going to start putting herself ‘out there’ on a Space I though this was a fantastic idea. I was writing an offline diary and was going through a daily struggle of trying to find my place in the world. This was my attempt. I had no idea how to blog or what I was supposed to put ‘out there’. But I was trying desperately to feel a connection, like someone out there understood. I like blogging because it’s a safe connection. I can put anything I like out there and unless I want to that can be the end of it.

Although I like the comments, the conversation, the community - for me that is not the point of blogging. For me it’s the feeling of catharsis. Most of my posts almost always being a timetable of my day which can be awful for others to read; but for me it helps put everything into perspective.

Me: Do you think your blog is a very clear representation of who you are? How much of your personality do you think is lost in translation?

Bec: It’s funny how topical this question is for me right now. I thought it was all pretty clear, but a recent Twitter made me think about what I am putting out there. I hide a lot of my personality in ‘real life’ and have realized that I have started to edit myself on my blog too. I am beginning to wonder if the person I think I just ‘put out there’ on my blog and in real life is in fact… me? So maybe the personality on my blog is the real me and the one I hide inside is just something else. It’s weird how much just the act of blogging helps me figure out who I am.

Or maybe I should just start writing my blog earlier in the day… instead of trying to bomb out a post in the last 30 minutes of the day!

Me: Neil mentioned this in his “Interview Experiment” post… it seems the most well known and talked about blogs focus on celebrity, politics, or a topic that that may be taboo (if anything is taboo anymore) but is extremely interesting to most people. However it seems that so many of the blogs I encounter and gravitate toward are written by people who seem to have lives that parallel my own, at least in some capacity. I suppose what I’m saying is that there are astonishing numbers of angsty, single women in the world, myself included. I was just curious if you’ve noticed this or have any thoughts about it?

Bec: Being one of the crowd I have noticed this. And I feel conflicted about it. There is the part of my brain which revels in this fact and screams, ‘See?! You are not alone!’ and wants to dance around with the rest of us in a quilt sewing ya ya sisterhood aren’t the trees beautiful kinda way. Then I start to wonder if there is something wrong with all of us or is it the world that is making us this way? And are we angsty because we are single? Or single because… sigh. In the current climate it seems to almost taboo to have problems and issues and, well, feelings that aren’t happy happy dance and shout ones. And so discussing these things with other angsty single women in real life becomes a problem because no one seems able to admit there is a problem. So I think we gravitate towards the internet because there is always someone who understands on there!

Me: On your blog you discuss some of your recent life changes, ie: moving back in with your parents, looking for a new job, etc. How have these changes impacted your blogging? You mentioned how blogging and writing in general gives you a feeling of catharsis how has blogging helped you through these changes?

Bec: Living with my parents has given me a timetable for my blogging - when they’ve gone to bed.I feel kinda self conscious sometimes blogging around them; like I’m secretly planning to take over the world or… well, looking at porn. I find that I start to wonder if I am missing out on the life I should be experiencing to make my blog more interesting as the eyes start to roll when I pull out my MacBook and turn to the blog. Then, when they ask what I am writing I find myself editing what I either tell them or what I am writing. I know they don’t read it (which is a good/ bad thing) but there is always the chance that someone they know… might. Mum turned to me the other day and said that we were doing a lot better living together this time (last time - arguments, stomping and tension all the time) and I genuinely believe the blog is the reason I don’t want to strangle my family quite so much.

Me: You say you wonder if you’re missing out on the life you’re supposed to be living… do you think that’s common among people our age and younger? I’m very interested in the turn we’ve taken in terms of our near addiction to technology ie: our cell phones, laptops, etc. Do you think it’s making us anti social? I worry that young people especially don’t understand the power of a physical connection with someone and therefore don’t place the emotional importance on physical intimacy that I know I still do.

Bec: The biggest complaint that I hear from my friends is that the dreams they had when they were a kid and the lives they would have now are hopelessly separate. Is it because they had big dreams when they were younger or did something just get in the way? I think it has a lot to do with the times that I grew up in - the 80s taught us that if you shout loud enough everything will land in your laps, and for a young child that is a fairly dangerous lesson to learn.

When the 90s rolled along the lesson changed to a mix of new age peace and harmony mixed with the nihilism of Grunge. The bright and shiny plastic dreams became darker ones about surviving the grey clouds around my head. And kids today are only going to have it worse. They are either lead to believe that they will get everything they want quickly and easily or that there is no hope in trying at all. I think that’s why I, and maybe others, flock to technology. It’s something I can understand, something I can control. And if it goes wrong it’s always fixable… by getting a new one.

Yes, in some ways I feel closer to my MacBook than any person, but maybe because it brings me closer connections; to my fellow bloggers or those I have ‘met’ through social networks; than ‘real life does. I find that I crave physical contact and intimacy; but have difficulty initiating it now placing too much emotional importance on it now. I think that, yes, it is making us anti-social, if you take that to only include the physical society… but maybe this is just everyone running to catch up to shifting definitions?

Me: Okay, I think we’ve been serious enough, now for the fun questions… You’ve already shared your weakness for all products Apple… so when you really want to indulge yourself, give yourself a treat, etc… what do you do/buy?

Bec: If I have money then a new iPod… or a trip to the Apple Store for something kinda useful or to take part in one of the many free workshops.

But as money is tight at the moment I am becoming rather tragically addicted to Mac magazines. It’s a bit of an odd thing standing in WHSmith’s thumbing through the latest copy of MacFormat or MacWorld UK or MacLife or… You look up and see another person furtively thumbing through a copy of something similar. A smile passes between you as you know that all will be serene with your computer when you get home to it. That you won’t have hours of fighting to get it to do what you want it to do. Then you both lean in for the last copy of MacUser and realise that the store has understocked again and that the Mac magazines a e always on the most inaccessible shelf while 400 different PC magazines fill the shelves being rude and incredibly cheap at the same time. True story…

The cheapest way of giving myself a treat, though, is just to mention that I have a MacBook or show it to someone. There hasn’t been a time when the smug feeling hasn’t failed to put a smile on my face

Me: It’s obvious you find a lot of pleasure in books and reading… what are your three favorite books and what makes them so special to you?

Bec: This is the kind of question I hate as my answer will change minute to minute, depending on how I am feeling. The three books I have chosen here are ones which helped me define who I was when I ead them and still remain a part of me now.

Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel - I was introduced to this book at uni by someone who was trying to help me find my ‘voice’. She left it in my room and I read it in one night not stopping until I had absorbed the fact that there was someone out there who felt like I did and could write about it. There was one line in it about needing love ( ‘…what I really need, what I’m really looking for, is not something I can articulate. It’s nonverbal: I need love. I need the thing that happens when your brain shuts off and your heart turns on. And I know it’s around me somewhere, but I just can’t feel it.”) that felt like a punch in the stomach. It’s one of the I underlined passages of it that spoke to me, that sounded like I could have said them (if I had anywhere near her level of talent) and ended up with a copy nearly fully underlined. It became a second diary of sorts. I am still devastated to have lost that copy. Since then I have had three other copies - I lent 1 to someone and never got it back, left one copy on a train as part of some thing where you left your favourite book on a train to ’spread the wealth’ with someone else, and the third sits on my top bookshelf waiting to be read again.

The second book in my current three is Microserfs by Douglas Coupland. This book helped me release my inner geek. I haven’t read it in a while but it is next on the pile to read. I followed the programmers lives and could hear myself - the randomness of the text, the deep introspective laid out in advertising slogans; the need to belong and the need for something more. I wanted so badly to be one of them - no matter how crappy their lives were. I wanted the cubicle life, coding away for 16 hours a day building something!

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen is the third in this list. I used to carry this book around with me. And, yes, that was before the Colin Firth with his shirt off mania! I read this book at primary school when I finished all of the compulsory books and fell in love with the language; with the flow of words and their ability to move and transform whoever they touched. It was this book that made me realise that it wasn’t just the meaning that was important - it was the message itself as well. Of course, the drama of Elizabeth’s love affair caught my heart and it helped that we had the same surname! Sigh, when will my Mr. Darcy arrive?!

Me: I’m very passionate about food and I’m always interested in learning what others tastes are. What are some of your favorite foods and why… do you get comfort from them, are there certain foods you only like during certain times of the year such as holidays, when you’re sick, celebratory, etc?

Bec: Favourite foods. I have always had a love/ hate relationship with food. I love it and it hates me! Favourites though - oh, that’s easy. I love strawberry ice cream when I’m feeling a little lonely. For some reason it makes me feel happy and like there is hope for me yet. I love tuna mayonnaise sandwiches (on white tiger bread) and could eat them all day long. They always feel slightly indulgent to me. Mayonnaise, my Granny told me, was a luxury and should be used sparingly, if not at all - salad cream could be used just as well. Salad cream masks the flavour of everything and it wasn’t until I tried the tuna/mayo combination that I really understood sandwich joy. Tragic, I know, but it’s the little joys right?! I could drivel on about chocolate forever but it’s just the usual joy derived from speech we all know off by heart.

Another favourite is doughnuts. I adore ring ones and ones with jam in the middle but am not too fond of the ones with loads of crap on top. I am amazingly fussy about icing so I find it best to avoid it unless I know it’s going to be right. The jam doughnut thing has become a bit of a nightmare though. Sometimes they are just advertised as ‘jam filled’ meaning there will be a red jam, either raspberry or strawberry, inside. If it’s strawberry it’s happy dribbling down my chin joy but being allergic to raspberries means a roll of the dice to see if this will end well!

When I am sick it’s all about toast. With butter. Real butter (or the nearest substitute). And it has to be hot. If it starts to go cold I lose interest. I can only eat festive foods at festive times - for instance someone offered me a mince pie in June. It felt so alien to even see one at that time that I just couldn’t stomach the thought and refused even though I love them…

And now I’m hungry!

I’d like to thank Bec for indulging me and all of my rambling personal questions. I’d also like to thank Neil from Citizen of the Month for allowing me to take part in The Great Interview Experiment! It was a great time and allowed me to meet two fellow bloggers I might not have come across if I hadn’t participated!