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Ellen and Portia are bringing out a Vegan cookbook and here on the Rachael Ray show they are chatting about the benfits of a vegan diet and also discussing the cheese issue. It's fairly basic but it's a huge deal on mainstream TV, go Ellen and Portia!

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MapleXO is a rad project making jewellery from recycled skateboards! Below is a message from Lindsay Jo, the founder.

'WHY SKATEBOARDS: 

I’m a skateboarder and almost as much as I love skating itself, I love being a part of the skateboard community. It’s filled with amazing individuals who are all driven by the same fuel, the love of skateboarding. Recycling the boards has been my way to give back to this community by reducing the environmental footprint of skateboarding and giving the old boards new life. With such amazing art and talent that is put into the graphics and production of a skateboard deck, they deserve way more than to sit in a landfill after they’ve been skated.

HOW DID YOU THINK THIS UP: 

Recycling skateboards wasn’t a new idea. People have been doing it since the 70’s and my first personal attempt wasn’t to make jewelry, it was to make a clock for my wall at home. Next I made a chalkboard, some magnets and eventually my friend Amanda and I just put the scraps from all these skateboard crafts on some earring hooks and wore them around. Didn’t think much of it until all my friends and people from work started asking me to make them some skateboard earrings. Looking back on it now is funny, because the earrings were literally raw pieces of broken skateboards dangling on ear wires. To be honest, the first pair may just have been random wire that we bent into makeshift earrings hooks! 

Once I started cutting into the boards for the purpose of making jewelry, I started discovering the amazing beauty and qualities inside the skateboards. I was somewhat familiar with the drill press (thanks to high school woodshop many years ago) so I started with cutting circles. From the circles, I created the first pair of recycled skateboard hoop earrings, and soon to follow were the bangles. 

I can still remember the day when I made the first pair of hoop earrings and the butterflies that came with that feeling. It must have been sometime around midnight at a woodshop in Portland. This middle-aged woodworker who built and restored church organs was hard at work and from across the shop I came running over to him to show him what I had just created. I was jumping up and down with excitement, like I had just invented the wheel and this poor guy put on a great, sweet face of acting like he cared about earrings and skateboards. I had to show someone! So that was that. The beginning of MapleXO and the world of recycled skateboard jewelry. It’s been quite a journey and I can’t wait for what’s around the corner.'

http://www.maplexo.com/

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See the full gallery on Posterous

Buy one yeah?! http://sugarpapergang.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/sugar-paper-9-is-here.html

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See the full gallery on Posterous

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The reaching of the first year mark also meant other brilliant things for getbusy and also for myself. The business is now doing well enough to stand on it's own and this means i can now be self employed on a full time basis. So i no longer have a day job, i work solidly on getbusy all the time, a dream come true! 

Today is day three of my new 'job' and it feels AWESOME. I've had so much trouble over the years with bullshit work policies, working for piss-take money and having work colleagues from hell, so to sit and work extra hard, get loads done, have no bullshit and negativity clouding your mind and seeing the results from your own efforts directly on a big scale, IT FEELS BRILLIANT!

So here's to another successful year (fingers crossed) here's to growth and achieving more goals and also to my new life, as a self employed owner of a business FULL TIME.

Yeyuh.

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Having a fairly blue week for me this last week. Clambering back into a good place mostly by having an awesomely productive day yesterday at a trade show for getbusy. Me and Claire went along and picked some amazing pieces, had good feedback and a lot of confidence in what we're doing at getbusy from reps and folks in the biz etc. It felt really empowering and gave me a lot of hope for a future filled with positive challenges and lots of stepping stones, new horizons and fulfilment.

This song is perfect for my mood right now, a much loved song.

While aware the hour.
Into something new.
Throw away the flowers.
They make you feel blue.
Throwing stones at stranger.
Waiting for the fight.
Throwing stones at birds who struggle to take flight. 

I am a dark cloud swelling with rain
I am a dark cloud swelling with rain 

Get it out your system.
Get it out of you.
Send them home with blisters.
Send the home with truth.
Send them away the daughters.
Blind them with your hoove try to save the daughters.
Try to sell the news 

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So i watch A LOT of TV, lots of genres, varied content, styles etc but rarely do i come across something and have such an intense reaction, a real emotional connection and a deep FEELING.

'Enlightened' is a new show on HBO (Sky Atlantic here in the UK) and it focuses on the main character (played by the mum from Jurassic Park, Laura Dern) reaching a total zen state after having a bit of a breakdown at her corporate job at the time of her marriage failing, having an affair with her boss and a manic attempt for promotion. She attends a rehabilitation programme which helps her re-evaluate life, see things differently and basically, see the wonder in stuff, obvz.

The show is expertly written and it feels as if the writer definitely went down this path themselves. From the choice of music, pace of the story, real essence of the well written characters and dialogue. It really has a great vibe, a real positive feeling that gives you that thing where you zone back in to what you're doing from intense concentration and you realise you're just beaming with a big grin at the screen. Everytime the show ends (each episode is only about 40 mins long) it really leaves a mark and has you in a great chilled out, positive mood.

She's a person who has done some maybe regrettable things, not exactly been the most thoughtful and forthcoming friend but she never tried to hurt people, she was mostly hurting herself with the decisions she made. This show is all about her changing her view on life and trying to live a little more preciously and connected. There are lots of comedy moments and not everyone is open to her new way of communicating and living but that's what makes this show so awesome and heartwarming.

I actually look forward too this every week, for the fact the show is awesome and also for that trigger to such a wonderful place, a great mood which is inevitable. A super comfortable, relaxed feeling with such confident happy highs is hard to find and this is totally a gateway for me now.

I also just saw Laura Dern won a Golden Globe for her role in this show and im SO SIKED for her. Eventhough she herself may not be as zen as Amy Jellicoe in real life, i'm totally gonna believe she is. 

YAY.

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Hey folks, the new issue of the awesome 'Footsteps in the Dark Zine' is now out and available here: http://notshyofthediyrecords.limitedpressing.com/products/11939

One of my bestest friends makes the zine so maybe im biassed or whatever but WHATEVER, its awesome. Rachel is a working class lass (best three words that go together) and talks about of course class, relationships, current feminist debates, cognotive behavioural therapies, sex, politics, a love for bradford and hitting 30 this year all in a perzine kinda style, accessible, thoughtful, honest, raw and thought provoking. It's also super DIY; cut and stick and its even sewn together y'all.

OK, hard sell over, but basically you need it in your life OK, dammit!!

Also more info on Rachel and her work here: http://footstepsinthedarkzine.wordpress.com/

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So i decided to not be shy and scared and bloody well go to Berlin for the BRIGHT Tradeshow (http://www.brighttradeshow.com/en/news.html) for getbusy. It was a great opportunity to check out new and existing brands to stock and also meet reps and chat about introducing new brands to the site. It's always good to get named contacts when companies are so big and find out exactly who you need to speak to, it can be a real struggle, especially with big worldwide brands to find a way in. So i hustled and i chatted and i tried to shake off all of my past nervousness and social anxiety and get out there. I really wish i could've remembered more german language from year 9 tho argggh. I met some really awesome folks and in particular, some really rad ladies all working hard to strengthen the community of women involved in our area, from setting up brands catering to all shapes and sizes of women, to understanding the different styles in which women dress, to supporting women in skate/snow/surf/street sports and lifestyles too. It was on the whole very encouraging and positive and i had a totally emotional moment sat on a couch at the edge of one of the main rooms, a feeling so overwhelming, just of where i have come as a person and on that day, looking back at my achievements with getbusy (no matter how it works out, just the journey itself so far) as well as overcoming personal struggles and in particular my anxieties and agoraphobia. I was sitting in Berlin, on my own, at a major trade show, as a business woman. It felt crazy and exciting and to add to it all, the speakers right next to me were playing Jay-Z D.O.A. Another one of those 'moments for life' i can keep adding to my mental scrap book.

A few years ago i would become crazy introverted for about a week building up to flying, i had an intense fear and a strange feeling of CERTAINTY that the plane would crash i would DEFINITELY die. I would step onto the plane in tears, thinking about the friends i was leaving behind, the things i never had chance to do. The the doctor started prescribing my Diazepam and instead i would stroll onto the plane with jelly legs, float into my seat and see God sitting in a chair in the clouds. This time i was alone, should be bricking it right? I only took one tablet of Diazepam too and i was amazed at how ok i actually felt. My mental health is at probably an all time high, brought on by cutting out negative atmospheres, personalities and circumstances. You can read a bit more about that specifically in an earlier post on here but basically, im not saying im now cured or anything and that i have the secret, but there is a lot to be said for valuing your own judgement, treating your own feelings with respect and having the confidence to walk away from and say no to peopl

e and situations that are honestly bringing you down or clouding up your mind, believe.

Berlin was crazy humid when i arrived, enough to induce a usual panic attack, but again, the PMA and excitement paced me and i had a little word with myself to breathe, clear my mind and focus on the transport to get me to the place i needed to get to, to meet my friend Clara who i was to be staying with for the trip. That sorta shit is often hard for me, i find it hard to focus and take it things like directions, maps, facts, dates, whichever side of the brain all that stuff uses, thats the one that doesnt work too well in mine. Make the instructions in a different language and add like 456% more difficulty, i was literally thinking this whole time, WTF am i doing here, this shit is crazy, never in a million years did i think i could get here and be as healthy as this, no freaking out, so total fucking excitement and i felt so proud of myself, stood there with big bags, hair stuck to my head, hilarious sweat patches and a confused but happy face, kinda a Bridget Jones moment ish.

Lately i have been focusing even more on breathing, taking time to process things, not rushing myself and keeping calm. I have termed this 'zen' which im sure is in someway true to the word but my own interpretation which can include sitting on a doorstep in Bradford with no bare feet on concrete watching a spider crawl up my leg to standing on a gritty northern beach to simply sleeping with my window open and embracing the sound of the world around me instead of letting it interfere with my sleeping. Berlin took my zen to a new level and i had a lot of powerful moments, moments that provoked a physical reaction; be it crying, an overall sense of calm, a sort of elevation almost. Most of these could be associated with riding a bike through the city streets safely, in the breeze, at any time of day or night and not feeling rushed, pressured by vehicles or stressed by horns/angry people or city hustle and bustle. The most profound moment was riding back through the streets of Berlin at midnight with Clara, we rode over two bridges and on one of them, there were groups of people who had stuck around to watch the sun set across the city from a great viewpoint and were just chilling and taking everything in, that moment, that city, life overall. It felt amazing, really freeing, encouraging and optimistic. One of those 'there is wonder in most everything i see' moments for sure, the moments i live for now.

Clara was an amazing and generous host to me too, she was an excellent tour guide, she cooked up

 an awesome tofu scramble breakfast and took me to the raddest veggie/vegan food spots going. She even leant me her spare bike to cruise around on. We had some really thought provoking chats and she's such an open and inquisitive character, i feel like we both got something from the chats rather than chatting shit constantly or being negative you know? Challenging talks on queer politics and many other things. Very valuable. Also, we created an Allison Wolfe style band with dance moves and mouth instruments on the day i left which was bloody brilliant haha!

While in Berlin, i also went to Entzaubert, the queer film festival and saw some really great films on coming out from across the world, different films on identity, presence in the world and the body. Plus, an awesome night's full programme on sex work, which was really amazing and interesting. After that particular night, we biked over to a karaoke bar that had booths with Divine and Kurt Cobain spray painted on them and stayed out gatecrashing a abirthday party booth with some strangers till 4.30am. It wasnt even a messy drunken affair, i had one silly cocktail and the rest was high on life fun times!

Also, while i was there we went to a hardcore show with some all-girl bands playing which was fucking AMAZING, mainly for 'Beyond Pink' who were straight up rad, and then went and did a hardcore cover of Beyonce's 'Halo' which made me die and resurrect with pure happiness and excitement :)

Anyway, here's some totally zen pictures from my trip! Enjoy x

See the full gallery on Posterous

See the full gallery on Posterous

See the full gallery on Posterous

'You are like school on a sunday, no class...'

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So one of my most favourite people Claire Hart who just put out her first zine, the dead good 'Get Back' (email me if you'd like a copy and ill hook you up!) is currently working on a zine about animal pals where a bunch of proper animal nerds gush about their special friends..

Here's my submission...

My name is Em Ledger and I am a crazy cat lady. I have two cat best friends that live in my house and I love em to bits. Their names are Rita and Bronwen, named after my Nan and Grandma who were very important in my life but died a few years ago. It’s really nice to still use their names a bunch of times a day and to pass on their legend status to two beaut cat friends who are equally as important in my life and as treasured.
The eldest one Rita, is 3 and a total cat babe, she has such a pretty face and a little pink nose, all the boy cats in the street come and hang out at the back door and call for her to come play. She’s a fierce Destiny’s Child diva though and doesn’t care about the boys, she growls at them to piss right off and instead spends her time training for the hunt, grooming to look well reem and grabbing some beauty sleep in her bed which is a cat limo (see pic). Rita’s favourite thing is a stick with feathers on the end, she goes wild for that shit.
The youngest one is nicknamed ‘The Winniature’ and she is 1. She is a wild wannabe-feral maniac and gets her nickname from being teeny weeny and miniature. She may be tiny and the cutest thing you ever seen but she is M.E.N.T.A.L ;my house has giant bits of wallpaper missing and the chairs are scratched to shit from when she has a mad half hour legging it around everywhere. She is from a different cat family to Rita, eventhough they look very similar and The Winniature has a big fox style tail that bushes up like a peacock when she strolls around the garden, so fabulous daahling! The Winniature’s favourite thing is having a chat and a sing to you and also watching sports on the telly as she tries to jump and grab the little footballer folks and people skiing and anything small moving on the screen.  Together they also love the big brown paper bags from Primark to sleep in and chase in and out of, classy lasses.
I love my cat friends and totally spoil them with treats and fun times, my house is full of cat adventures toys, scratch posts, tunnels and a toy box and I also have two cuddly cat toys that I spray with catnip that the cat ladies proper get involved with and get high.
I love my cat friends to death and I would do anything for them, gotta keep them fit and healthy and up to date at the vets. As their human you have to make sure they get everything they need to be happy and healthy. They hate the vets and run away and hide if we get the cat box out but we have a little chat with them and tell them the importance of their jabs and flu treatment ha!
Here are some pics of my favourite ladies…

See the full gallery on Posterous

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So the awesome folks at Eyeball sent me a really positive and supportive email to do with my writing and namely my zine output and asked if i wanted to do an interview. Always one to like having a word, i of course said yeah. Below is what came of things (this was done around february time so interesting to look back on the getbusy progress there too). Check the link below to check out more of their site and read some of the other dead good pieces they've published and amazing people they've interviewed/featured.

http://eye-ball.info/blog/?p=420

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/video/video-slut-walk-protestors-rally-ag...

So at the moment, my twitter and fb feeds and group/event invitations are filled with 'slut walk' and the amount of online friends 'liking' and reposting anything slut walk related in the past few weeks has sky-rocketed. Straightaway, i had reservations, the name for a start is fucked, the pictures used on some of the event pages are fucked and a bunch of videos i saw online of people at these events were, you guessed it fucked. Now here's my opinion on this whole thing, my personal take on things and i will try not to generalise as much as possible as i know some people involved are genuine and i can see where they are coming from. Others, i think need to take a minute to think about what they're doing, what their actions and saying and how exactly they are working together to support victims of sexual assault and how obnoxious and ignorant their behaviour is to sex workers and women the world over who enjoy sex, are sex-positive.

(I am using the word 'victim' in this piece as it is the one used in most pieces i've been reading, you know im not into that shit and much prefer 'survivor' but thats pretty much what this whole piece is about... you'll see my point..!) 

The video above covers a lot of the shared politics and also carries the general ethos that victims of sexual assault should not be the focus of judgement and their dress sense/sexual history/general behaviour etc should not be referenced as 'asking for it' - much rather we learn to focus on the fact that rape is a crime, rape is a choice by the perpertrator to sexually assault/abuse someone else against their will. They should be the ones interrogated, judged and eventually punished for the crime they have committed and also taught before as well as after that this is not acceptable, no means no and there is a life long affect on the victim. This same week, Nadine Dorries, a conservative MP has successfully proposed a bill to teach girls speficially the 'benefits' of abstinence from 'sexual activity' with no mention of any education for boys to consider the same so called benefits. Of course this is fucked anyway, like what exactly is discussing abstaining going to do when we have a ridiculously high teen pregnancy rate, crazy raising levels of sexually transmitted infections and reported/unreported sexual assaults and rapes. To anyone at all, this is pretty clear that we need MORE sex education (for a wide range of school ages), we need it to be compulsary and we need it to happen NOW. To talk to girls and not boys about saying no, reinforces again that women are just the fodder of men (who cant possibly control themselves and of course shouldnt be asked to either), to be used and abused in various ways throughout their lives and most certainly can never enjoy sex, want to seek some kind of bodily pleasure, that is FREE and in endless supply. Oh no dear, none of that, how positively ghastly....!

Back to Slut Walk. And again, i dont wanna talk too much shit on this as, as i said above, there are some folks coming at this from an informed and sound angle, but seriously calling an event 'slut walk' where you are wearing 'provocative' clothing and marching down a city street with signs saying 'proud to be a slut' how the fuck exactly is that changing anything in politics, supporting any victims of sexual assault or violence (i am fairly confident in saying that most people who have experienced this kind of assault in their lives probably wont be there, because let me say this again, THIS SHIT IS FUCKED UUUP) on various levels and just seriously, WHAT THE FUCK?!

My anger is not just with 'Slut Walk' but this whole bullshit bandwagon thing at the moment where so many people are just jumping on whatever ignorant ship sails by without properly looking into what the politics are; whether they personally agree with them or how they might approach them due to their sexuality, gender, race, class or levels of academic understanding. The word 'feminism' is a dangerous one, more and more so, with crazy so called feminist groups lining out fierce transphobia and anti sex-work remits and also dropping out terrible racist/homophobic and classist slurs when nine times out of ten blindly flooding out of the mouths of priviledged white middle class straight identified, cis-gendered women.

If you know my writing, you'll know how this is gonna finish up....

Organisations are organisations, governments are governments, movements are movements, WE the people make up and give life to these inanimate, non human groups of multiples of varying powers and we take them places. This is a human battle, no 'powers that be' no 'the man' here, this is straight up, your chance and your responsibility to get out there and make things happen. If you really want to support victims of sexual assault and violence, learn about them first, we're real people you know, with real opinions, lives, pasts presents and futures and we dont need you to walk around your city wearing a fucking tutu with ripped crotchless tights on and smeared lipstick to 'help support' us. To all the haters coming at me with the 'it gives exposure to campaigns' etc, i dont give a fuck about campaigns , campaigns will still not go through the organisations made up of shit people when shit people still continue to operate in them.

Girls, get busy becoming MPs, counsellors, teachers, youth workers, social workers, volunteers, charity workers, doctors and nurses, police officers, any position of power and with a remit of people to influence and put that passion of yours into the road to change. Get the negative shit out your head, what's the point in moaning and hating on shit all the time? Life sucks, the world doesnt owe you anything, there you go, now you know, GET OUT THERE and make the world the place you want it to be. Just have a little think about what you're doing and the best ways to go about it instead of just swallowing someone elses garbage, a motto that applies to a lot in life... 

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http://www.getbusystore.com

So if you didn't already know, i've been holed up for the last few months setting up my own business. I've been going to seminars and workshops, enterprise coaching sessions and now i have the funding and a bit more knowledge/skills, here i am finally setting it all up :)

Above is a sneak peak of how the site is going to look, for now you can see the temporary homepage on the link above and check out the awesome song written and recorded especially for 'getbusy' by the awesome J-Kas (here is his latest video: )

The site is going to be a community and shopping spot for active women in street/urban lives and lifestyles. We'll be stocking streetwear and also hardware for certain sports and activities such as skate kit, roller derby gear and crafting stuff etc. We're gonna be stocking; Volcom, DC, CTRL, Gentle Fawn, Insight, Rebel8, Brixton, Ravenous Skateboards, Shake Junt, Deathwish and a bunch more as we continue to grow...

Later on this week, i'll write up a full blog post about the processes of setting up your own business from absolutely nothing but an idea and all the things i've worked on and continue to do....

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So Le Tigre are soon to be releasing a new DVD full of clips of their international tours and gathering together footage of their time as a band and experiences had. Hearing news of this and watching the above clip just took me back to being 16 and seeing them for the first time....

I was in my first year of sixth form, still relatively new to riot grrrl and despeate to find more people into it, who liked the same music and who i could go to gigs with. It was around this time (and this makes me feel old now) that the internet was really spreading and becoming more accessible, meaning i was meeting all kinds of awesome ladies online, on forums like kittyradio.com (courtney love's fan message boards) and also through traffic.co.uk (street teaming). It was this period in my life i really started seeing feminism link into my reality. I started to meet other women and girls who were actively trying to better their own situations and lifestyles, reading new and life changing feminist books and uncovering years of powerful female herstory and we all shared and learned together. I also made some life long friends in this period who grew and shaped with me, sharing some of the most inspiring moments of our lives.

This particular weekend of the show, was also host to Jennifer Finch of L7's new band 'The Shocker' touring the UK which made for a super riot grrrl charged time in the big city with my new internet made friends (ha!). I stayed with Lydz, who im still good friends with now and her just amazing mum, who is one of the most beautiful people i have ever met, just so warm, supportive and lovely. Her mum actually wrote me a letter once that i've kept ever since regarding my childhood and also hers and she said some really powerful words of support and love that ill never forget.

I remember being at the big London venue back in 2002, maybe the astoria (?) and it being full; standing and several tiers, of awesome looking riot grrrls and queers, fringes and tote bags aplenty, cat eye glasses, plastic jewellery and an amazing feeling of being, something prior to this i had never felt before, i had found my people, MY PEOPLE! I remember the moment the show started and JD and Johanna were on stage beginning to play and then Kathleen jogged in with her high pony bouncing around her. I was in total heaven. Me and Lydz were stood next to three women who had travelled from Canada to coincide their trip to the UK with seeing the show and they had knitting circle tshirts on, amazing. I wanted never to leave this place and have to go back to my reality. When they played 'deceptacon' i honestly thought the floor would cave, the floor was bouncing too, forcing everyone to jump if they werent already, boom boom boom. When they played 'keep on livin' i sobbed my heart out over and over, what an amazing moment where i wasnt alone, what inspiring words we were all chanting together and safely.

I saw them twice more, once again in London at the Islington Academy and then at the Leadmill in Sheffield. Each time the same response. Le Tigre were unreal, there has never been a band come close to the feeling they gave me when i first heard them, with every new release, the first show and every since show, the friends i made, the times i quoted the lyrics, the talking points, the sheer passion and identification with the lyrics.

Le Tigre made me proud to be a feminist, Le Tigre helped me find 'the courage to heal,' Le Tigre found me lifelong friends, Le Tigre made me feel like a human being instead of a victim, Le Tigre gave me self confidence, Le Tigre shaped the way i thought about art and music, Le Tigre made me the person i am today. Thank you.

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Had a really amazing moment today, one of those moments that all of a sudden make you realise major changes in your life, personal strength or new beginings you weren't sure you had reached and somehow prove to you that you achieved things you were scared of without even thinking about it. One of those affirming realisations when you discover that soemtimes if you focus and worry about something too much, it can seem further away, unachievable and weigh you down. It's in the last couple of years and primarily this last one that i have discovered this to be very true of my life and refocused my efforts on just getting out there and getting stuff done and the rest just somehow falls into place. I honestly do feel like if you're willing to go the distance and put the work in, somehow things do just come to you.

I was diagnosed agoraphobic a number of years ago, one of those secondary diagnosis, lead throughs of my main 'generalised anxiety' status and a side order of obsessive compulsive disorder. I can look back now and see the major difference in my thought patterns, my general health and the head space i was renting at the time. Now things are very different.... Today i had a moment of reflection when i was in a shop in town, on my own, spontaneously, with no anxiety niggling at me or no feeling of closure in my throat. This song was playing on the shop radio and both of these artists have played a big part in my life for the past year. To hear them right there at such a powerful moment for me singing such poignant words to what was running through my head was an amazing feeling. 

A couple of years ago, there would be no way on earth i would leave the house to go to even the corner shop. At one point i became dangerously underweight because i wouldnt change the direction of my route home even if i knew there was nothing to eat in my house. This was at it's worst, taking over every element of my being. The weird thing about agoraphobia, in my experience is that often it can go un-noticed, it's difficult to talk about, to get people to understand. It often just looks like laziness (not changing our route, switching plans to avoid meetings and social events), being a lush (not walking or getting buses but instead paying money we dont have for taxis) and most of all, being a bad friend (not showing up when you need us to, not offering to come round and console, not supporting occasions etc). 

I cant think of a time or process that 'cured' me or made me suddenly better or a line that i remember stepping over in real time. I just started noticing little things every now and again, moments like these on a smaller level. I'd realise i was doing something i thought i was scared of, like some kind of out of body experience, this couldnt be me just doing this right?! Like it was that easy. Well weirdly yes it was. I'd spent years worrying about particular pre-empted scenarios, id work myself up into emotional panic just imagining eating in a restaurant in front of people or having to meet someone somewhere without military precision planning and numerous phone calls beforehand and constantly on the lead up to the meeting. I hadn't even for a second considered just going ahead and giving myself no choice, lining things up and knocking them down. I never was a feel-sorry-for-poor-old-me mental health sufferer, i was always open with my friends and they grew to understand and meet me halfway on certain situations but i never laid down and let it win, i was lucky in that i always saw it as some sort of demon in a side car always trying to take me down, always sneaking in under the darkness of the black cloud meddling with MY life when i didnt want it to. I think eventually when suffering from something for a time, you just become used to the patterns and rule out ever freeing yourself from it, you just think, 'nah, i cant do that' and dont even see things as viable options anymore.

This is not about me sharing my deepest and darkest, this is my putting out there a positive story on the recovery from mental illness. A personal moment of triumph. Finding myself on the path of my life in a different strand, doing different things, different scenarios, places, types of meetings and as part of those steps and that path, discovering old habits being turned on their head and shown to you on a golden platter to show you before you miss them and it. In the past year, my life has taken on a whole new meaning, a whole new focus and that has involved me getting out there and putting myself forward, getting shit done. Taking control of my life and realising nobody else is going to do that for me has been a major revelation and life changing thought process, something i always thought i had a grip of but alas, that little pesky gremlin had been holding me back from fully realising that. Somehow i managed to tell the gremlin, maybe in my subconscious or in my sleep to piss the fuck off and slowly i have been opening more doors with a lot less weight and finding the other side to be a sunny and calm place. 

So today, after another successful day of meetings toward setting up my own business, feeling confident and optimistic about my individual impact on the world and on my life, i found myself in a public place, alone, with no military style plans and no feelings of angst. The song triggered me back into consciousness from the hazy pleased-with-myself state i was in and i was welcomes by the familiar voices of Nicki and Drake, a 'sign' if ever i had one. A little word in my obsessive ear that sometimes, life can be a bit magic....

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<p>Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema from editorlisa on Vimeo.</p>

I watched this amazing documentary shown on Sky Arts the other night. Such an important programme and luckily this was executed so well. With plenty of inspiring notable pioneers of queer cinema featuring as talking heads, it was an emotional journey through LGBTQI history, education, progress, struggle and pride. I added so many new titles to my lovefilm list afterwards, listing a bunch of films id never even heard of as well as revisiting films ive seen before that i love. 

If you haven't seen this yet, i would strongly urge you to rent or get hold of a copy, its a great piece of work and celebrates such importance within our community, culture and lifestyle. 

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Here it is: http://www.wearsthetrousers.com/2011/01/rodeo-massacre-if-you-can%E2%80%99t-smoke-%E2%80%98em-sell-%E2%80%98em/

If you aren't familiar with this site, it's a great resource for women in music; full of news, reviews and features on all genres.

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