Sticker from the etsy shop of the amazing Midge AKA ModernGirlBlitz.

So over my apple & coffee this morning I read this article in G2 about teenagers not knowing what consent means. Interesting, given that recently high profile men & what would appear to be the whole British media, are pretty sketchy about what consent means as well. The only good thing about the Julian Assange fiasco is that if it comes up in conversation I now have a great way of telling what side of the "rape fence" someone stands on & can adjust my behaviour towards them appropriately. As in "Wikileaks is more important than whether two women were raped" = spit in face/point & scream rapist.

The sex education in this country (never mind the rest of the world) is appalling. I was shown the same video twice, about cartoons having sex & what this does to their body. We were never talked to about what constitues emotional abuse, or that because boys are often raised on porn nowadays their expectations of girls are unrealistic & that the girls themselves should treat them as such. Basically, to say girls you have the power to say no to anything you don't feel comfortable with because the boy doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about or wants anyway.

Recently I've had several friends tell me that guys have taken condoms off whilst they were having sex & although they felt completely violated, they didn't consider it rape. This totally astounded me. All of them are confident, self assured feminist women. It angered me so much that if it could happen to them & they did nothing, then what would these guys get away with, with more vulnerable women? They all agreed in the end that they had consented to one thing & the guy's had crossed the line into something that they had not consented to. Whilst I don't know the technical term for rape, it sure sounds like it to me. & I cannot believe that there are teenagers out there thinking this is ok. That there are guys that do this at all. I just... I can't believe it's so fucking common.

I spent Saturday at work unpacking boxes & putting stock on the system. We've had some of these Penguin English Classics in stock for a while but Joe told me that they're releasing like a few new covers every month in the lead up to Christmas. The covers are just so lovely. My only critique it that the texture on the cover is a bitch to get stickers off, but that's probably not an issue unless you work in a bookshop!

Penguin have made a pretty hellishly animated website with all the covers on it to be interactive & stuff, & this cute little animation is nice. But I was more interested to find out about Coralie Bickford-Smith whose the inhouse designer who gets to make all these beautiful covers, as well as some of those absolutely lovely fabric hardbacks we've had in for a while now. What an absolutely perfect job.

The cover of Edgar Allan Poe also reminded me of this bandana from Slowdownjoe that I keep meaning to buy. I mean, it's cotton! & it's only £15! & it has pen knives on it! They actually have a wonderful selection of bandanas. Makes me wish is was like the 90s again or something...

Anyway, pretty books, yes. Almost enough to actually make me get round to reading some classics!

New t-shirt from my boy now he's back from his travels. I know that Courtney Love will always be questionable when it comes to the Riot Grrrrl movement & parenthood, but I will always love Hole. They're one of the last bands I really loved like a teenager if you know what I mean. I don't get that so much with music nowadays. Like Drake & Frank Ocean I'll listen to on repeat for weeks but I'll never be their fangirl. & plus when I was going mental at the Guardian (that sounds like a top piece of journalism for like Vice or someone, or a really middle class punk band) I locked myself in the stock cupboard & organised lovely clothes whilst soothing myself with Hole on Youtube. Bad times with good music.

So I got round to taking photos of the embroidery I've been doing. I've also listed them up on etsy & updated the photos for my cards. However much I love the process of doing & completing a cross stitch I always spend ages getting round to listing them. Maybe it's because I don't actually like the idea of parting with them. That's why I haven't listed my Edie Sedgewick embroidery up, I'd have to like vet the buyer to make sure they were worthy. Control freak much.

Any ideas for what else I could stitch?

Peek-a-boo!

Well that was mighty bad timing on my part. 54 days away, almost 8 weeks or 2 months & I left on a note that sounded decidedly unhinged. I'm figuring it out though, as I go along & my heads in a much better place. I also went on holiday, listened to a lot of Azealia Banks, Frank Ocean & Amy Winehouse & embroidered. Oh & started a tumblr. But it's pretty different to the blog. More feminism.

I think from here on in the blog's gonna change a bit. Maybe more writing, maybe better photography, just something I can be a bit more interested in. Because hell, if I was burning out on it you guys must've been too! Let me know if there's anything you'd like to see more of, like books maybe? Or music? I dunno.

So how have you been? What's new? I've missed you guys!