You Are Quiet But You Are There

Dear ones, salutations. I hope I find you well and in good spirits. If not, my sympathies. I have had a very up-and-down week but at the moment am on a good level of contentedness. 

I've got some great things to share with you this week, including music and a website so great that my little blog is shamed into insignificance. 
But first, get this. I experienced new levels of sexism last week when I went to get my car mended at a local garage. Now....I will freely admit that I don't know enough about my car, or indeed cars in general. I memorised where all the things were under the bonnet so I could point them out on my driving test, and all I know about topping things up is petrol and the screen sprayer water holder bit. However, whilst I love a bit of banter now and again, and don't at all mind having jokes made at my expense, I take serious issue with lazy jokes made about men or women, like..."oh haha, you don't know where anything is in your car, hahaaaaa women". Or "oh haha, you're a man but you clean someone's house, paha". What is that. Come on now, people. 
My knowledge of the whereabouts of various car components has nothing to do with being a girl, but everything to do with the fact that I find cars really super boring and don't care about how they work. So anyhoo, I rang to get the headlight fixed and it went like this:
Me: "Hello, I need my headlight fixed and I wondered if you could tell me how much it would cost?"
Him: <pause> <laughs> "Right, I'm going to need a bit more information. What car do you have?"
Me: "Oh I'm sorry, BLAH BLAH BLAH 
*CAR TALK REALLY BORING ETC.*"
Him: "Bring it tomorrow"
Me: "Can I come in after work?"
Him: <pause> "Yeah, all these things I'm supposed to know...when do you finish work?"

So that went on for a bit, him being rude, me explaining my questions very politely despite my blood raging through my veins, firstly at his horrendous customer service and secondly at his immediately adopted tone at hearing my delicate, female tones at the other end of the phone. When I got there, this happened:

Me: "Hello, I've brought my car to have the headlight looked at"
Him: <pause> "No, you've come to have the bulb looked at....need to get the terminology right."

I was so furious. SO FURIOUS. I would bet real, hard, currency that he would not have spoken to a fellow, clearly superior, male in that way. I almost....almost....wrote a strongly worded letter. But I didn't. 

Wow....that was quite ranty, and was perhaps heavier reading than you were expecting but it's something I feel incredibly strongly about - casual sexism abounds and I've absolutely had enough. Who's with me? YEAH! REVOLUTION!

Here's some stuff I do like:

ONE. 
Luke Leighfield's new album New Season came out last week and it is SO. SO. GREAT. It's quite different from Have You Got Heart? but is equally wondrous. There have been some very positive reviews posted online, and I hope these few sentences are almost grand enough to stand alongside them haha. New Season is incredibly emotional, heartfelt, moving and intense. There are some songs, or moments in songs, that have moved me to tears. Having had a bit of a rubbish time last year, it speaks strongly to me about moving into a new time, a new season (obvi), and forgetting what's happened before. It's quite spiritual in places, but you can make of that what you want. You can go HERE to stream it or buy it. I'd recommend buying an actual CD (shock!) coz you get a beautiful sleeve with it and a delicious booklet of photos and lyrics. Below are two tracks from the album. Enjoy!




TWO. 
So that was the music I've been enjoying this week, and this is the website I've been enjoying for the last month or so. The Good Women Project is a website run by a lovely American lady which posts different articles about......oh man..... I'm finding this really hard to word without it sounding suuuuuper lame and lesbiany, like that bit in Friends:
Ross: You sure have a lot of books about being a lesbian
Susan: Yeah, they make you take a course
But what I mean is.....it's a website. And it has lots of articles on it about marriage, relationships, self-esteem, sex, abuse, beauty, general life, being single, emotions and all things like that. I came across it on Twitter, and I immediately thought "wahhhhhh, another Christian-women website that is going to make me feel inferior and like my purpose is to accept my second-class-citizenship".
 That's not in any way to say this is the church's message. At all. I have been made to feel this way by individuals in the past and these individuals have always had delightful, life affirming resources to back that up. 
So this is not that. It's not even that Christiany. It's just really good. The latest article addresses the issue of women being blamed for sexual assault or even just creepy guys being all creepy, just because of what they're wearing. Go and read it coz it's good. Men should read it too. Ooooh subversive!

THREE. 
My brother sent me this yesterday. I laughed and laughed and then watched it again and laughed again. I laughed a lot again when I pasted it into this post. HAHA <<< just like that. 



FOUR. 
It was World Book Day last week....or sometime recently...and we didn't do anything for it at school, which I was a bit sad about coz I enjoy books and I think children do too, but then I found out yesterday that we are doing WBD stuff, but in the last week of term. My class teacher was telling the children all about it, I was smiling along, being encouraging, making learning fun, until I heard her say this:
"It's going to be really good, we've got a whole fun day planned, and we'd like you all to come in dressed as your favourite character from a book. The whole school will be dressing up, and the teachers too!"
My smile froze on my face and dread filled my entire being. I loathe fancy dress. Loathe it because I feel stupid and people always have way better costumes than me but if you make too much effort you look stupid too. It's an impossible balance. And now I have to do it in front of 25 ten-year-olds. ANY. SUGGESTIONS?

FIVE. 
Holy Week is coming up (the week in the run up to Easter Sunday) and there are some fun things happening at Malmesbury Abbey. If you live near by, it might be fun to come. There's late night music, and poetry performances, and drama, and there is also this guy coming with an orchestra and they play lush music to the psalms. Pretty rad. Here is the link to the online program, and here is a picture of Malmesbury looking beautiful to make you want to come here and below is a video of the psalm thing coz it's rad. 

Until next time, fellow humans. Be good, be blessed. 


LOVE X X X X X