In Memory of Fluffy.
Musings of a mad Geordie woman. protected by the 1st Sparkle*mendment.
A woman at a significant cross-roads. Wondering, what do i want to do with my life as i attempt to change direction. Sometimes it would seem against the flow. Decided to get myself a Blog, mostly for me to ramble and journal life events as they happen. To reflect and to see “in the moment” where i have been and hopefully where i may go, stay, or change direction completely. Eventually revealing a clarity to my choices by giving me a tool to self explore.
(Disclamer)This blog is mine, and if you don’t like what i say…
I don’t care.
So, you have a new blog site with no comments posted yet. I’ve got a lot of comments to post then, don’t I? LMAO!
Agghhh be gentle with me
I just thort i’d say: you are much better off with Word Press! As u can c from my blog 2day, the format is all fucked-up once again but 2 b honest I’m worried about switching becoz of all my old archives & posts: there’s like 100+ that I don’t wanna lose.
I love that cat piccy, btw! The ole feminist-cat connection once again! I think there’s a rulebook sumwhere stating how all feminists need 2 possess a love 4 cats
Is it your cat?
Keep writing, as ever - loving your work!
Yes it’s Timmy the Tiger. He’s a complete sweetie with a gentle and loving nature
SP You can inport all of your blog via the techno way (backing up your template) but I was scared for i am a technophobatron and i’m just importing bit by bit. I also have over a 100 posts
It’s all somewhat topsy turvey, but hey WordPress IS much better!
Sparkle I notice that other bloggers, when they have a brilllliant post they want us to read, will drop into an active blog and make a comment linking their topic to that blog’s topic. And then all of us like kiddies at the bakery window hit on SPARKLE or Hedonistic (she does it) and awaaaay we go.
It does seem to be a relatively quiet day on the blogs. Yesterday PunkAss was hot and this would have fit somewhere. Twisty too.
Trollbuster believes in the school of poetic justice, and will deal with said sprolls, creatively.
Or, I may just swear at them.
No matter.
*super shrug*
Jenny from the garden here. Would have called you but I’ve lost your number! Do you want to come to a talk by Rae Beth called Magic For The Land on 28th October? Could you phone me? Or E-mail but it might take me a while to get it.
Jenny I have also lost your no. I will get it off K on wednesday.
Found it!
Trring …trring…
“Hello”
I love your kitty pic at the top of the page. Kitty looks so much like my Hot Rod, who died Sept 2 at 12 years of age. Sassy, my brown tabby, and I miss her so much.
I have a photo of Hot Rod in a laundry basket with her head poking out of a blue towel, very similar to your kitty’s photo.
Hi Coolaunt, I remember you talking of your Kitty on GB. This is our Timmy, he is 16 years old now, and I cannot even think about him dieing. My daughter gets really cross when I talk about it! I think she thinks he is the first cat that is going to live to be a 100. He’s got a beautiful nature, my x husband used to say we (me and the 2 girls) had him all ‘feminised’ and soppy
sorry you miss your kitty…kitty (((hugs)))
Thanks, Sparkle. I’m still missing her. I really love that big ol’ lug of a cat. I don’t care what the religions or atheists say, my Hot Rod and I will be reunited when I leave this world and body behind. That’s my only consolation, the only thing that reassures me that love isn’t for naught, and I’m hanging on to it.
Hi Sparkle
Just wanted to let you know I made my own blog. It’s never going to meet the standard of yours but it’s about me and my life since it’s recent changes, centred around my feminism. I’d be really grateful for your support.
It’s on blogger because I went on wordpress and then got pissed off with all the positive attention britney’s knickers were getting! So I just made a new one on blogger out of my original account. Hope you find it interesting.
http://graceneedshelp.blogspot.com
Hi grace
Sounds great I will be over!
Sparks*
Some days I miss Hot Rod more than other days. Today is one of those days.
Ahh CA big (((hugs))) I still think about all of my pets that have died. Hope you are OK flower x
Thank you, Sparklies. Timmy reminds me so much of Hot Rod. And the way he’s wrapped in the blanket, that’s such a Hot Rod-like thing to do. She was always burrowing under blankets and towels. She was such a funny girl. She was a big girl, about 16 pounds (a little more than one stone), which is by no means small. When she’d get scared, sometimes she’d burrow under the blankets on the bed. Granted, I seldom make my bed, at least not properly. Still, the lump made under the blankets by a 16 pound cat is quite noticeable, even on an unmade bed. LOL! But she really did think that she was well hidden from whatever had her spooked. LOL! I miss that silly girl so much.
sparkler - i shudder to reveal that i have tagged you (i believe is the term) with that book thing where you copy out a random bit from a book - i don’t know the point but i was running short of people to bore with it and if you have a semblance of a life and don’t want to do it it’s fine by me - god, i feel like the ancient bloody mariner.
hey that’s ‘k
Dangit! I used to use your blogroll like others use the My Favorites feature of IE. Now I’ve got to put my lazy butt in gear and bookmark my favorite blogsites. This means that the in-fighting has now affected me personally. Dangit!
Hi CA
I’ve changed my template and I’m still working with what widgets I’m having in my side bar - that’s why my blog roll isn’t showing x
saying that I quite like not having one…
Heh!
If you like not having one, then don’t have one. I’m sure I’ll get by.
Wait a bit! Simplywondered is in here! ::ANGRY::
hi beautiful!
sparks could you do me a huge favour? could you email me on fannyblood@hotmail.co.uk when you get a mo as i need to talk about kundhalini and our mission to reclaim this beautiful word.
f x
I don’t know where else to put this Sparkle, but you’ve just got to read it. Every rad fem has just got to read this, posted to Heart’s thread. Do you remember when you felt like this? I do again, thanks to Britta.
http://womensspace.wordpress.com/
2007/01/21/
eft-and-right-wing-men-
black-and-white-men-bond-publicly-
over-the-terrorizing-of-the-duke-stripper-and-all-women/
# britta Says:
January 22nd, 2007 at 5:00 am
wow! i was so happily surprised to see gail’s photo here first thing - a lecture she gave was my first introduction to feminism, 10 years ago!! i attended wheelock college, and heard her speak there during my first year.
i wrote about the experience elsewhere…copied and pasted:
“although the curriculum included gender issues and gay and lesbian issues, somehow i never made the connection in my mind that it had to do with feminism. i even went to weekly meetings in the women’s center, went to a domestic violence workshop, and signed pro-choice petitions without that “click” of understanding that it was FEMINISM…so one night gail was giving a lecture, and i went out of curiosity. the first thing she said was, “raise your hand if you consider yourself a feminist.” my arm twitched. i had always heard “feminist” said as an insult, and felt guilty for wanting to raise my hand. i hesitantly raised it, but only after my friend sitting next to me raised hers.
unfortunately, i can’t remember a thing that gail said in that next hour.
all i remember is that her words just went straight to my heart and i felt
like i was just so excited i could burst; so alive and awake and it was one
of those WOW moments. like WOW, i never thought about all this stuff before and it makes so much sense and how come i didn’t hear all this sooner?!? i remember i almost didn’t go to the lecture because i was worried about not making it back to my dorm room in time for my favorite TV show. ha! by the time the lecture was over, i was so hyper and fired up with that “I AM WOMAN, HEAR ME ROAR” type energy that i couldn’t believe i had been worried about missing a stupid TV show — this was so much more important!
it was like 10 o’clock at night, but i wanted to get out in the world and start fighting the good fight right at that very moment! i remember literally just standing in the middle of that boston sidewalk, looking out into the night, and wishing so much there was something i could DO, right THEN. i was literally jumping around, too energized to even stand still. i didn’t want to go back up to my dorm room, where life was the same old, same old. i didn’t wanna go back there and just listen to my roommate whine like she always did, or do my boring homework, or watch that stupid tv show. i wanted to save the whole freakin world, at 10 o’clock at night, on a boston sidewalk, in my overalls.
anyway, what i ended up doing was finding the ONE women’s studies book i owned (a sense of self: listening to the voices of homeschooled adolescent girls, by susannah sheffer), and bringing it outside to read while sitting on a stone ledge under a streetlight. i just didn’t know what else to do! i didn’t want to let go of that feeling; i had to hold on to it somehow, and i did that by reading a book that empowered women. and i read it outside, because i didn’t want to be isolated in my dorm room anymore, i wanted to be out with people, in the world, in the middle of it all. it’s silly, but i think part of me was hoping that if the revolution happened to be marching by, i’d have a better chance of discovering it from the sidewalk than from my dorm room.
my whole world changed that night…wow, i should really email gail and thank her. i never did thank her, but i owe her so much.”
maybe she’d appreciate getting an email from me now more than ever, huh?
Hi Pony thanks for Britts comment. I was going to follow that thread. Yup I remember that feeling, came out of no where!
Huh! men bonding?
Oh yes, they are good at that - when it’s against women.
Just signed the violent pornography petition.
oh, and I’ve just blogged on The Verdict. Let me know your thoughts.
Hey, Sparkles! Just wanted to tell you that I like our blogs colors today (oranges, in case you change it before reading this).
Hi CoolAunt - just like to ring the changes…you know? Heh! cuz I can and I like to have a fiddle.
Saying nowt more!
Eek! “Our blogs” was a typo. Should have been “…your blog’s…”. Doh!
Hey that’s ‘k - I can share
I’m liking this new banner/look much better. The picture is so you.
Yes it is so meee
But the comments have gone down to the bottom? not on the ‘about sparkle’ page just the front one :-/
I like this format better, too. (It’s the one with the comments at the bottom, just in case you change it again and then wonder which one I’m commenting on.) I find the wider paragraphs are easier to read, it’s easier for me to follow the longer lines.
Coool Coolaunt heh!
I see that you got the comments to move to the side and were able to keep the wider lines of text. I like it!
It never ends:
Ooops. Trigger finger up there. Here’s what I wanted to say.
The author of this blog is saddened that so many progressives have joined the anti-sex, anti-”promiscuity” forces against the cervical cancer vaccine. Scare quotes are his.
http:// sexualintelligence.wordpress.com/.
I apologize for being a repeat offender here in Sparksville but I just had to give you this:
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14401
And, look Sparks, your police made the Canadian news:
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/03/08/policebeat.html
Thanks for the links Incorrigible - shame but the “sexual intelligence” comes up with an error message? I’ve moved the Police link to the post, I’m so glad the story’s getting around.
And re Merk
“When we lose trust in company like pharmaceuticals or a group like Women in Government,” said Canavan from her home in Maine, “we start to become suspicious about everything. We need to have public dialogue. The point is not that the vaccine is bad, but that the public agenda has all been company-driven.”
Oh yes.
Couldn’t find your e-mail, so thought here would do. I must quit purging my inbox. Do the same with my bag and never have tissue when I need it.
Ahh it comes up for me. Duna bother.
Ah, it works now - yeah he’s just doing the “right wing - anti-sex” shite! I wish these freaking idiots would stop telling me what my politics and sexual preferences are and listen for a change!
hi a friend recommended your website, and I just thought i’d let you know I quite like it. I especially love the pink wellies and just wondered where you got them.
browsed thru ur site agen jst incase ur wondering it was the otha mad geordie woman from totha side of the water tht put is on to it. the 1 tht didn’t no she was a radical fem til u put the sparkle in her eye shes helped me a lot i let myself be mentally abused by men in relationships in the past but she helped me see that i’m worth jst as much as any man and i shudn’t let them undermine me. shes still tries to stop me wearing playboy tho and does tend to ramble from 1 thing to anotha.
Hi sequin sama and welcome I got my wellies from a shop in gateshead
Ahh we know the same mad geordie women? cool.
Thanks for the link that someone has just sent me.
Hey “Me” how are you? Yup, while you fight in the trenches I’m sipping chamomile tea and fussing what nail polish to adorn my tootsies with. Huh! The so called *professional* of whom you speak needs a dose of my specially prepared venom. Sparkle*Nightshade. It is now winging its way via Herbert my bat.
Anon
Oh yes, I suppose it would raise a ’manly’ tee hee if the joke was made by women against men? Of course not - and I need to stop dreaming. Interestingly enough I am attending a residential dream conference this weekend, unfortunately only of the nocturnal type, tho’ I suppose a snooze through the day would count.
If any one (except for intended parties) is reading this one sided conversation - yeah, so what?
A bit of a bizarre ramble …
I dreamt the other night that I went to a posh theater to see a movie or play with you … (funny because I have no idea what you look like, and because we live in different countries) … and I kept tripping because I was wearing ridiculous shoes. I woke up and thought, “Funky wellies!”
LM - this is amazing! I’ve just got a new pair of ‘funky wellies’, very autumnal with seasonal coloured leaves (will post a pic when I get my new blog as I have reached my up-load limit for this one)
I’ve just attended the international dream conference and we considered transference within dreams.
As a matter of interest - what colour hair did I have in your dream - can you remember the movie or play?
And thanks for having me in your nocturnal imaginings
sparklematrix - “when I get my new blog as I have reached my up-load limit for this one”
Ooo, I can’t wait!
“what colour hair did I have in your dream - can you remember the movie or play?”
It was at night and a bit dark in the theater so I can’t remember the first part; I have a feeling now that it was an old movie, a black and white classic from the 1920s or 1930s, but in a really beautiful venue that looked like an opera house.
Yo Sparks. Will I be seeing you at this years RTN? I hope so!!!
X
Hiah. sozz i’m going to be in Portugal. Not that I’m uspet at the prospect of a well earned holiday but it would have been nice to go to the march.
It’s the first opportunity i’ve had to get away for a rest so I’m looking forward to it, but i’ll be with you all in spirit
Hi Sparklematrix,
This blog turned up on on the feminism tag:
http:// decalogue.wordpress.com/
It’s pretty obvious. I was shocked cz it’s the first time I’ve seen this sort of thing. Is there anything we can do? What is it exactly?
WTF is that!! On a feminist tag? Have you read some of the stuff? never mind the creepy pictures. I’m going to break the link tho’
Yeah, you tell me, WTF is that? I checked out the paedo tag on the blog, that’s it. I couldn’t find your email id so decided to post it here. Does it violate the WP terms of service? How does this work? Sorry for putting dirty link on comment list.
I would imagine it does breach TOS as it admits the girls are underage and the header says “Girl Love” The reporting window is in the top right hand corner.
I took my email off many moons ago due to personal attacks and it’s okay about the link. I have the likes running around here on a daily basis.
Oh well, after two complaints by me that pox of a blog (above) is now classified as ‘mature’ What good is that? It’s still there with its not even thinly disguised paedophilia. FFS it has sexualised pictures of 12 year olds together with blatant paedo apologist whinging.
I had a quick scan of the (blogger) Terms & Conditions a few days ago and there is nothing about offensive material - I’m sure there used to be. Basically, anything goes.
In the blog template there was an option for ‘includes adult content’ which brings up am approval page every time you click on the blog. I’m equally certain that I could go in and remove that page at any time I wished.
It really looks as if the only policing out there is RL-based - in other words, making a case against the RL person behind the blog.
I might have a peek at the WP ToS out of interest - but as it happens, I was specifically looking for blogger to warn me against building a pornographic blog and there was *nothing* there.
From: http://wordpress.com/tos
the Content is not spam, and does not contain unethical or unwanted commercial content designed to drive traffic to third party sites or boost the search engine rankings of third party sites, or to further unlawful acts (such as phishing) or mislead recipients as to the source of the material (such as spoofing);
the Content is not obscene, libelous or defamatory (more info on what that means), hateful or racially or ethnically objectionable, and does not violate the privacy or publicity rights of any third party;
Thanks Sophie - though surely this site breaches ‘ethics’?
No I forgot…
I’m going to complain again.
Hey Sparkle*Matrix!
Do you know that the quote at the top of your blog “Women have been taught that, for us, the earth is flat, and that if we venture out, we will fall off the edge” (where you say ‘Author Unknown’
in fact was written by Andrea Dworkin in an essay that was published in her book Our Blood: Prophecies and Discourses on Sexual Politics?
Why do you write ‘Author Unknown’ then? I’ve always wanted to ask you this.
Hi Maggie - I didn’t realise that it was Dworkin, I found it on a quotation site with ‘author unknown’ I’ll get it changed
To the person who sent me an article - thanks, good stuff. Hope you are well.
I really like your new header (photo) but I also really liked the older one. So I dunno; it’s hard to tell which one I like the most.
Thanks Maggie - my old photo was one I took on my holiday to Portugal in the winter. This one is where I work and it’s from last summer - pretty huh?
Gorgeous.
“pretty huh?”
Indeed, very pretty, and there are few pretty things in and about this world we’re living in (but I don’t know if I’m saying this just because I’m depressed or not).
I believe that there is many a ‘pretty’ thing still in this world - when I learn to blank out the ‘white noise’ that is…
I have to - or I would go mad.
Sorry you are feeling depressed Maggie.
Thanks tho’ this has actually just reminded me of what I need to do, as I’m sat here obsessing over something.
pretty thang: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/9803/aurora2_dh.jpg
I’ve seen that pic before - in a comment from someone who lives in way out place.
See - pretty.
just re our discussion on fgm a while ago now
sure you know about this organisation, but it’s one i found (from the law society) who combat fgm among other things
http://www.womankind.org.uk
keeping looking
Thanks SW. I did know of this organisation but for some reason I’d forgot about them.
sparks i’ve started bloggin!!!! wooo hoooo!
you can find me at fannyblood.wordpress.com!
x
Happy Birthday Sparkle. I hope this will be a fantastic year for you, stepping out on your own, brand knew life. Cheering you on. xxx ooo
Hey thanks Sis, those few words have been rather inspirational.
Happy Birthday you kickass mix of Taurus, Leo and Cancer!!
Thanks pisaquarise - my astrologer friend reckons that I have the ‘groundedness’ of the Bull, together with the ‘charm’ of the Lion, mixed with the sensitivity of Cancer. Hey man I sound okay
Belated happy birthday Sparks. I meant to get in first this morning, but had to rush out.
Hope you had a good one.