If you’ve followed this blog more more than about six months, you’ll have noticed that I can’t commit. To anything. Blog wise, I mean (whether or not I can commit to anything else is going to take another post). And if you were here before about three hours ago, you’ll have noticed that I’ve changed the layout. Again. Sort of. It’s brighter than it was. I got fed up with the overbearing header so I changed it to… a stock photo of a city that came with the WordPress theme. I’m not sure which city it is. It might not even be a city. The marketing person in me wants to go and make a branded header right now, but I like that it’s kind of anonymous. I might replace it tomorrow… I might not. NOTHING IS FIXED IN THIS WORLD EXCEPT MY DESIRE TO LISTEN TO MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE.
Speaking of.
Sunday was #Parade10, aka Lots of People I’ve Known for Years on the Internet Hung Out and Nearly Cried Watching Old Footage of a Semi-Vintage Band. I met up with people I saw at #Revenge10 and have actually tried to stay in touch this time. I met entirely new people and will try to stay in touch this time. Coincidentally Sunday was also six years since this happened. Six entire years since MCR debuted Danger Days at the Hammersmith Apollo and I heard The Kids From Yesterday and thought ‘I think that makes me a kid of today’. Since I’m not quite at the age MCR were when they wrote Kids, I refuse to acknowledge that I’m not still, like, the youth, even though I feel fucking old when I look at the top 40 (is it still actually called that). But I guess the youth don’t partake in videos saying ‘fuck Australia’, so.
It’s been another week, Francesca. Where have you been, Francesca.
On a first aid course, that’s where. Now I know what angina is, and why the recovery position is important (do not let your drunk friends fall asleep on their back or front if they haven’t puked yet). I’ve also been writing, which is more draining than I had remembered. I need a short nap every five hundred words.
Anyway. Remember this?
My order has arrived.
I’m not ready.
I can’t believe it’s been ten years since I first heard Welcome to the Black Parade.
There’s a flag in my bedroom and I might remove a wardrobe to make room for it.
I might have to put myself in the recovery position if the music hurts.
I’ll be 21 soon, which is basically the last giant birthday I’ll ever have where I can ask for things without being a dick. Also, I’ve been clearing out some cupboards recently and noticed that I own a lot of shit. I own too much shit. Emphasis on ‘shit’. So I thought I’d make a little list for my loved ones to refer to when scratching your heads in the Yankee Candle aisle. If you’re unsure as to whether a potential gift could also be shit, put it back and write a cheque for a leishmania charity. (Please do not ever buy me a Yankee Candle.)
My 21st Birthday Gift List
Car insurance. As in, mine.
Patreon support. If you were going to spend £5 on shit I don’t need, pledge that much over however many months you like. Then I get to upgrade my blog and you get art and no one has to clean their cupboards out
Etsy support. If you were going to spend £5 on shit I don’t need, spend that much in my shop then send your friends everything you bought (for the love of God please do not give it back to me)
A book shop gift card. Not Amazon. Not iBook. Something for a shop where I can smell the products before I buy. I fully intend on contributing books to said shops, and I won’t be able to do that if they’ve all been put out of business by tax-avoiding conglomerates amirite
Pretend you’re listening when I talk about my job(s). Just for five minutes, pretend you want to know about professional hashtagging
Okay you’re going to give me stuff, declare that £5 to be spent in the MCR store. I do in fact always need MCR shit and I don’t think Warner do gift cards.
Is it possible to do one of those wedding list things for birthdays? Because I might have lots of marriages, but 21 only comes around once.
I thought I’d let the dust settle on last Thursday before attempting to write a coherent sentence about it, but at this rate that won’t happen until 2025, so I thought I might as well write anyway.
I’ve not had a hugely pleasant week, to be honest. It’s hard to run marketing campaigns when no one’s reading anything but the news, and it’s hard to have conversations with your family when they all think you’re stupid and wrong (and patronising when you try to explain why you’re not). The fact Nigel Farage now has more political klout than the leader of the opposition is just a mild irritant at this point, although I am genuinely angry that a small portion of racists now think half the population agrees with them – and that half the population now think the other half think they’re all racists… and that I recently renewed my EHIC and might not get my money’s worth.
This one never, ever runs out of uses. from sunshinethekatt.tumblr.com
I’ve been tempted a lot over the past few years to pack up and try being a digital nomad (digital nomading?!), and this week I actually found myself doing the maths. To cut a long story short, I won’t be nomading anywhere for a while, at least not until I pass my driving test and learn how to Skype on the move, but I could feasibly visit every country in the EU for a long weekend (a long weekend per country, not a long weekend for all 27 countries) assuming I checked my emails while I was there. I don’t generally like to plan my life in advance, but assuming we’ll be out of Europe by the end of 2018, I could visit everywhere including Lichtenstein (assuming I learn where it is) for a few days without bankrupting myself. If I didn’t eat much on the road and did all of Eastern Europe in one go.
I will continue working on this plan in the coming months. I will also continue walking the other way in certain social situations. If I post on Twitter that I’ve upped sticks to Bruges or Krakow or Helsinki, assume I kept walking.
Also, tell me your own awkward family dinner table conversations. Let’s make a scale from ‘slightly condescending’ to ‘I nearly threw gravy’ and compare notes on staying friends with people you used to be friends with. I think a guide could be useful.
Today I learnt that in the three-and-a-half years they’ve been open, my WordAds adverts have earned me a total of $14.74. I feel this is representative of my career as an artist.
As you may have noticed if you’re reading this onsite instead of in the email inbox (does anyone still do that?), I’ve made the banner slightly brighter. It’s now the same shade as roughly one-fifth of my hair on a good day. I’ve also added a little cookies info banner for visitors when you first arrive, because it’s an EU law thing and although my instinct is telling me to vote stay, it’s also telling me that we’ll go and I want to get my money’s worth of widgets before 23rd June. Stay tuned for a couple of other little changes; I have been thinking about my ideal blog and right now, the colour pink and more widgets are on my to-do list. I kind of want a blog personifying this:
laweekly.com
But that’s enough about me. On Sunday I went to clean my teeth and noticed a small daddy long legs nestled on the handle part of my toothbrush. Had it just wandered in from the bathroom window? Was it the first of a scouting party? Was there a nest of baby daddy long legs ready to move into the sink area? Could I remove it from the room before it got to the tooth-brushing part of the toothbrush?
No.
Out went the spider. Out came my travel toothbrush. Out came my grumblings that I only bough the old toothbrush a fortnight ago this is why I’m an atheist. Yesterday evening I bought a new one.
Yesterday evening Donnie got bored or hungry waiting for us to come home from the supermarket so he raided the bathroom bin. I found very chewed half of a toothbrush on the bathroom floor. Presumably he heard me bemoaning his disgusting teeth (he’s not allowed those teeth-cleaning bones because of his kidney problems, and he does not understand the point of chewing rubber tooth-cleaning dog toys. Ironically my toothbrush was made of the same material they use in those rubber toys) This morning Mum found bristle-filled dog vomit on the floor.
Donnie’s teeth are as grim as they were yesterday morning. Our carpet is a little grimmer. The only thing any of us have learnt is that it’s high time we bought a dog-proof bin.
I am prepared to bet the spider has snuck back in.
Late last year, but not so late I remembered it, I signed up for WordPress’s Blogging 101 2016, a blog community thing designed to encourage new bloggers to blog and old bloggers to, well, avoid getting old. Today’s assignment is to write an post introducing yourself and your manifesto, or to revisit your manifesto from when you started. I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to write about when I started Indifferent Ignorance other than knowing that ‘indifferent ignorance’ sounded cool and that I wanted a platform to say whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted… but I need not fail at the first hurdle of blogging 101, because coincidentally I was going to write about new year’s resolutions.
Generally I try to think of resolutions as intentions, because let’s face it, no one who startsadietbeginsexercisingchangestheirhairandgetsanewjob in the first fortnight of January will be keeping it up by March. I did once know a girl who gave up chocolate for a year with nerves of steel in the face of Lindt, but she is the only person who I can remember sticking to her resolve. Also I am far more a fan of short term goals than I am long term plans, because how does one plan life? I thought I could plan what I’d be reading this autumn, then The Raven Cycle came along and my other books gathered dust. No regrets. As we are in a new year, my diary is clean and my room full of new toys, I feel that although a massive unkeepable resolution would be a waste of time, Christmas and January is a good time to take stock of one’s life and desires, and to set new short term goals. So I have compiled a short list of my blogging intentions for the coming few months:
Learn to Take Better Photographs
Some photos in my shop are lovely. Many look like they were taken in someone’s lounge at 10pm with the flash off. Maybe they were. If I’m going to become a trillionaire then my product images need to improve, and I’d like to take more original photos here too (there are only so many times I can dig out that Gerard Way GIF). I got a light tent for Christmas and I intend to use the shit out of it. I apologise in advance if you follow me on Instagram.
Well at least one more time. from sunshinethekatt.tumblr.com
Read More Varied News Sources
I think I mentioned I was thinking of bringing back the Six O’Clock News? Since I left school I’ve been terrible at keeping up with current events, basically just tuning into Radio 4 when I wake up and ignoring the world for the rest of the day. Not very conducive to my desire to a) take the piss out of politicians or b) use real life as inspiration for art.
Learn to Use Facebook
I know, I know, it’s my job. I recently started doing more marketing on Facebook and I’m realising that Pages are actually far more interesting than I’d given them credit for. Everyone needs to see something on their timeline that isn’t their aunt’s best friend’s cousin’s poppy appeal poster. Having ignored the Indifferent Ignorance Facebook for a good four years (18 likes? Come on Francesca, you have a reputation), I resolve to post there more. I’ve no idea what… anything that’s longer than Twitter but needs less tags than Instagram?
To Chill the Eff Out
This is a bit self-centred, but I think we’ve all seen how completely plagued I am with doubt about this blog. Do I want it to be political satire? Do I want to write essays? Do I want to tell you all that my mum’s Poldark calendar can be viewed from the street? I never know. Some days I want to blog for a living and consider sending out applications for advanced reader copies of novels or taking paid reviews for art. Some days I want to close it down and move to Cambodia to write screenplays. So my intention for the next few months is to try blogging new things, to let myself poke around with the theme, to write terribly, to make an effort to write well, to stop worrying that I lost my mojo at 16. I already have a weird and varied job(s); there is no reason why I can’t also have a weird and varied blog. I don’t know who I want to connect with on here, I don’t know what I hope to have accomplished by 2017, I don’t know what I will consider success or failure. So I intend to try to be okay with not knowing… especially since that is probably when I will find out.
My Blogging 101 instructions are to now write five tags that will show the world this post. I just came up with 15 and they’re shite. Would it be unethical to just put ‘x rated video’ or ‘baby panda sneezing’?
Never let it be said that I eschew Christmas traditions. It’s a tradition that I subject you to the world’s best Christmas music every year.
Okay and now I have a present for you guys. Yes, even you, person who stumbled across this on a weird tag. Those of you who come here sporadically might remember me talking about Headspace, the mediation app. I love doing Headspace; it’s the only time of day I get to feel smug that I’m looking after myself (and other people, because it’s helped me learn how to stay calm and clear my head). The app even has this cool feature where you get a little reward for completing a certain number of days – hit 20 days and you get a voucher to give to a friend for a month’s free use, that sort of thing. Problem is, I quite frequently forget to do a day here or there, so my counter goes back to one. I start up again, and when I next hit 20 days, a voucher hits my inbox.
I currently have seven of them.
So, my gift for you this year – other than the MCR video I’m about to list – is Headspace. If you want one of the month-free vouchers, leave a comment here saying happy Christmas/whatever you celebrate, and I’ll email you the access code. (Technical shit: all Headspace is free for 10 days, I have no idea how long the codes are valid but so far as I’m aware it’s forever, I can’t guarantee you’ll love meditating. Oh and there are only seven vouchers up for grabs, because I’m on a good streak at the moment. Gift open until 31st January.)
Francesca's Thoughts 