Damn. My blogging anniversary – February 7th – has been and gone again without me noticing. Oh, well, never mind.
Once more, there have been fewer posts this year than last. If it wasn't for my resolution to post every calendar month (which I'm still just about managing), there'd probably be even less. What can I say? I need inspiration in order to write anything. And at the moment I'm busier with reading: doing research for my ‘Queer Feminine Affinities’ submission. Though I might post a picture arising from that shortly. We'll see.
Stats update (2013/14): The most viewed post is now ‘In vision (3) - male bodies, female clothes’, which currently has over 2600 views. Not sure what's bringing people to that one; possibly searches for (any of) the four models featured therein: Alex Drummond, Jasper Gregory, Andrew O'Neill, and Michael Spookshow. (Thanks again to each of them for allowing me to use their photos.) Overall monthly pageviews peaked at 2654 last February, the same month ‘In vision (3)’ was posted. The highest referring sites are now Reddit, Google and T-Central, with (new entry) Twitter following up some way behind.
My own favourite post in 2013 was the (second) one about ‘Stuff’. But I'm still waiting to unleash my “it's just stuff” diatribe...
Last night I went out in my new furry coat (£29 from ‘Daphne's Handbag’) for the first time proper. This one is especially furry and I got quite a few comments. Nothing aggressive or antagonistic – rather, complimentary (random people), amused (friends), and quizzical (drunk guy on the bus home): “Why are you wearing that?” “It's nice; it's furry.” “Can I touch it?” “Sure, if you want.” “Is it real?” “No, it's acrylic, like carpets.” [Or not. I see Wikipedia says carpets are generally made of nylon, not acrylic.] We went on like that for a little while, the woman he was with venturing that it was “sixties” and “afghan”, and me agreeing that it sort of was. And then they talked to themselves about something else and I nodded off.
Nobody said: “That's a woman's coat!” (Perhaps they all think it would be rude to say that.) So I've not been able to retort (disingenuously): “It's just a coat. Just because some dickhead has stuck a gender label on it is no reason not to wear it.” Or something like that. Basically: “It's just stuff.”
Then again, maybe it's better that no one really gives me any crap at all :)
I was going to make a glib comment about "it cannot be a woman's coat if it's worn by a bloke", but then I thought that might be a bit stereotypical and would continue to enforce gender binaries. So I didn't :-)
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on keeping going with the blog. Quality over quantity, and yes, sometimes inspiration is a tricky thing.
Thanks, Lynn :)
ReplyDeleteNo, it's not a woman's coat, it's my coat. But equally, it is a woman's coat, and it's important to me that it is. Contradictions, contradictions...