The Sound of Altos

In high school, I joined the school choir. In my first year, we had over a dozen sopranos, so I (I think a mezzosoprano?) got made one of the three (myself included) altos. For the longest time I really struggled - not as much because I couldn't sing a tune (though I'm sure my conductor could tell you many an embarrassing tale), but because I found it really hard to hear the melody, but sing the harmony.

I never actually got better at that. I developed a coping strategy that actually worked out best for everyone, which was simply to sing loud enough to not hear the sopranos. It wasn't blatant to the audience I don't think (I hope...), but it meant I could focus on my part and our conductor had a little bit less of a discrepancy in the sopranos overshadowing us. It can't have been too bad as I only continued being encouraged as we got a few more altos the following year.

I have a version of The Sound of Silence on my phone, an MP3 that has followed me from a desktop computer in another country. And it has the two parts separated by channel: tenor in the left ear, bass in the right. For years now, I've been studying the bass part of this song, intermittently, whenever it comes on. I always sing along with that one, hum that one, listen to that one.

I think I've almost got it :)

Spoiler free review of The Martian

I attended a Cineworld Unlimited screening of The Martian last night, having recently inhaled the book and thought I'd share my thoughts with anyone considering whether to go see it. The review will be spoiler free, for both book and movie.

Exercise

For a while, what seems like an age ago now, I did a chunk of cardio. Not a lot by fit people standards, but there was a high school girl inside me who cried at the thought of running 300 metres who was immensely proud I could run for 30 minutes at 8km/h. That was only at the end, of course, after completing C25K at a slower speed than was really intended, as my goal had been increased fitness and endurance rather than specifically running 5km. I never got what some refer to as an "endorphin high" (a rush after doing exercise), but I did really enjoy feeling less challenged by some of my more active hobbies and, combined with some healthy dieting, the effects it had had on my figure.

Then I switched to a different form of exercise (more fun, but also more challenging) and I ran a LARP event, organised a wedding, organised a lot of exciting paperwork that required a visit abroad, organised another LARP event and suddenly realised I was massively unfit again and no longer attending my fitness class due to the challenge it now posed, particularly with my decreased fitness levels.

So I attended my first visit back to the gym and started C25K over again. I decided to always run at 10km/h this time around, even if it involved redoing more weeks as I'm not on any kind of timeline and I found it hard to speed up last time. It was hard, my feet went numb, but it worked and I was okay. Exhausted, but okay.

---

At that same time, I was struggling with my mood.

I was having more and more bad days, one after another, and it became apparent to me that I had been blaming a long succession of short term, temporary factors for something that was clearly not incidental.

I worried because I know (as much as someone who hasn't experienced it first hand, anyway) how hard depression is. How hard it is to face needing help; how hard it is to push for that help against ignorance and prejudice; how hard it is to cope with the fact that there is no magic trick to "fix" it all, that it will likely get worse before it gets better... I pictured myself trying to make time for therapy, while still making time to see the people I like, do the things I like and have time to myself, all of which I desperately need to stay okay, and I winced. I pictured going through medication with all sorts of exciting side effects from weight gain, to having an upset stomach, to struggling to stand and walk, to insomnia and vivid dreams, and I winced again. And all of this was assuming I didn't get any worse, because depression can do some really awful things to people. (Of course, without seeking help, I had no idea if that was even applicable to me. It's hard to balance not devaluing the term with not disregarding what I was experiencing and recognising the fact the two may or may not overlap. Feedback welcome.)

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A couple of days after my first gym visit, I was having a hard day. This wasn't news; most days were hard by then. My husband who's also my gym mate had had a bad day, too, and I suggested we skip because running is hard when you'd rather curl up in a corner. He insisted we go regardless and... I realised something.

After I came out of that run, I was exhausted. I was still quite unfit and I was working my way through the program. But I realised that things now felt... okay. Like things could be funny again. Like I smelled and ached, but a hot shower, some dinner and my sofa would be enough to make for a fantastic evening.

I realised my brain hadn't been needling me for over half an hour as I couldn't afford to think about anything much more complicated than "Run. Breathe." while running just yet. And I could recall the kinds of things it would say, but it seemed quite happy to sit quietly in a corner if I didn't bother it. The things it would say seemed less real now, too.

It wasn't a "rush" and it wasn't a "high", but something had definitely messed with my brain, in a good way.

---

Cardio is not a cure for depression; cardio is not a cure for anything other than bad cardiovascular fitness. But all those things doctors say about how, if you're feeling a bit crap, you should try some exercise? Turns out, they know they're stuff.

And yes, it's still hard to actually get started and you won't be jumping off walls when you're done - hell, I can't even promise it will do anything for you. But today, I treat cardio as my own personal, positive-side-effect-only medication/therapy combo. It eats some of my free time, but it's not that much and I do get increased cardio fitness out of it as well, so it's not that bad a deal. And... it's been good for me.

LARP 2014-2015

This post is rather heavy despite a cheery beginning. If you're having a tough day, maybe leave the tab open for another time or bookmark it or set a reminder... It also discusses mental wellbeing, if that affects your decision in any way.

Miss Saigon

This past weekend, along with a handful of friends, I attended my second ever musical (well... more on that shortly). We saw a matinée performance of Miss Saigon, a show at least a couple of my friends have unequivocally labelled as a favourite. (I will not include spoilers in this review, though I will reference the mood/genre of the piece.)

Miss Saigon is considered a musical, though the phrase "technically an operetta" came up in our discussion of it. After some time on Wikipedia, I'm willing to retract my support for that statement, but not the intent behind it: like, say, Repo or Les Mis, Miss Saigon is entirely sung (excluding dramatic spoken lines, which clearly formed part of songs). Musicals like Wicked also feature an amount of play-like, spoken word expository scenes, augmented by song (and occasionally dance) numbers. Miss Saigon, while it had the kind of involved choreography that seems typical for musicals over operettas (and probably lacked many performers with operatic singing backgrounds, though I'm only guessing inexpertly here), was entirely composed of sung scenes.

I will admit at this stage my significant preference for musicals with unsung exposition. I don't feel they are in any way superior, but I am personally more fond of them. I feel like they give me a better insight into the characters, let me see more depth and story, compared to the medium of song, but that may be due to my limited perception of song. This almost certainly factored into my final opinion, which can mostly be summarised as "unimpressed". The piece is meant to portray a tragic love story and I just didn't feel involved enough with the characters to care enough (my inbuilt excess of cynicism probably didn't help overmuch).

Obviously, this is the only time I've seen this show, but a couple of things have made me wonder if perhaps my issues here are not with the source material (or at least not entirely). The vast majority of the show and character did in fact seem to be part of a tragic love story production. Unlike some of the friends I attended with, I thought the performances of what I would consider the lead roles in the story were quite good (maybe not mindblowing, but certainly beautiful and carrying across the right emotion - perhaps my threshold is lower). That kind of mood, however, is fragile, much like horror in a tabletop setting: all it takes is one person laughing to break the mood and remind everyone they're sitting in a room rolling dice and being silly. Most of the characters, most of the music/dance numbers supported this: even the bordello scene at the beginning, which by necessity had to be cheerful had an undercurrent of despair only fortified by "Movie in my Mind". The Engineer, however, seemed to have other ideas. He was a character that seemed to have been plucked from a satirical, humorous musical and plopped in here, in the midst of strife and heartwrenching decisions. (I'm looking at you, "If You Want to Die in Bed" and "The American Dream".)

And the thing is... I can see those songs having that undercurrent of despair, that feeling of laughing to stop yourself from crying and falling apart, the defense mechanism from insanity... But this Engineer didn't bring that to them, for me. And worse yet, I don't think I was the only one to focus on him (and the mood he brought) over the rest. A few of my companions picked him out as the highlight of the show and, in the final applause order, he was last, over all the participants in the tragic love story that was supposedly central to the plot.

So... yeah. He was fun and I'll probably still hum "If You Want to Die in Bed" today because it's catchy, but I think its rendition (and the character's as a whole) may have heavily impacted the perceived quality of the musical as a whole, at least for me.

Still... I'm not sure I would see it again to check that theory.

Survivor syndrome

The UK (which I live in) recently had a general election.

I am aware I live in a small and biased corner of it, but I was genuinely surprised when they elected a conservative government. As in... actually unsettled and taken aback. I was very off-kilter that Friday, completely... confused, I guess.

I have this little echo chamber, you see, and I'm aware it's there, but apparently not as keenly as I thought.

Sexism and misogyny are bad in my echo chamber, as is poverty and people who try to cut support to vulnerable people (poor, ill, what have you). Mental health is real, and MH prejudice is bollocks. Prejudice based on sexual orientation is practically absurd and open relationships are a valid life choice.

It's a good corner. I like it.
I mean, sort of.

The whole point of an "echo chamber" is that the real world remains the same. It's still full of prejudice against all of those things, including a handful which I personally am. So, when I interact with the world at large, I should have my expectations challenged and reset, right?

I don't really. It's starting to get a bit survivor syndrome here...
I've had one instance of being treated differently for my sexual orientation (though I haven't dated people who don't identify as male that much, to be fair). I've had... very little sexism thrown my way. The last time anyone made any sort of unwelcome suggestive comments was... maybe a decade ago, in another country? I can think of two instances of anyone ever not respecting my space.

I mean... I'm grateful... But it makes it a tiny bit confusing when I fight for specifics (wolf whistling is bad, yo) within causes I truly believe in (feminism, because equality is the best).

What am I doing wrong? Or is it right?

LG G Watch Battery Life

So... I just posted about my experience with my own smartwatch, the LG G Watch, including a section on its battery life and various ways of dealing with it.

As writing that post prompted me to return to my watch, I have discovered an excellent thing: the software upgrades for the watch now allow me to specify if I want the watchface to wake on wrist movement, i.e. if it thinks I'm trying to look at the watch. Turning that off and having the screen at tap-to-wake, leaves me with a watch that will vibrate to notify, but not turn on the screen unless I tell it to (or it gets covered/touched by something wet... it struggles a bit with handling water as non-input, though it's perfectly waterproof).

This has been the golden middle ground I coveted for ages. It extends the battery life into days - I think more than two, but less than on cinema/theatre mode - which seems very reasonable.

At this point in time, my only issue with the watch becomes the minor discomfort in wearing it. Not, I think, the "blocky" nature of it that everyone seems to say makes it uncomfortable (I do wear it on the inside of my wrist, which might be making that easier), but the sheer size of it compared to the tiny analog thing I'd otherwise wear.

And, the thing is... I wouldn't trade down the size. It's my limited input and output and I wouldn't limit that any further.

Smartwatches & connectivity

I own a smartwatch.

I know, very flash.

The question I get all the time (when it's noticed, which is actually not that often due to how I wear it) is... Why? What's the point? Is it worth it?

I got my watch for £100 because my provider had a deal on at the same time that I was due to renew my phone and I (independently of this) decided to go for the LG G3 that let you get the LG G Watch at a discount. Having had it for half a year or so, I probably wouldn't pay more for it, though I have mostly enjoyed it.

I wear a watch, you see, normally. I wear tiny, light, metal watches, with the face on the inside of my wrist that generally get mistaken for not-very-pretty bracelets. And I wear watches because I'm a tightly wound control freak that needs the time often. As a watch... smartwatches aren't great. Mine is a bit exciting about battery life (more on that later) and my solution for dealing that means that I need to tap the screen to see the time. This is less annoying than you might think as proven by my tendency to try to tap my analog watch when I occasionally swap out. It's also hilarious when I'm carrying something in my other hand and use my nose as a conductive tapping thing to wake up the screen. But then... smartphones aren't great phones because of battery issues either. (Remember when phones were charged weekly?)

(Note: the below section is somewhat outdated. See some new notes on the subject adding to these in my other post.)

Battery life on the G watch varies greatly. I mean, that's true for everything, but here it also depends on setup as well as usage due to the nature of wearables – it's always on. You can have the screen be on all the time (I don't know what reviews say, but I don't think that would last me from when I get up to when I come home after work). You can have the screen wake up on taps... or when the watch thinks you've moved your arm to look at the watch, which is... a bit random; let's just say I don't recommend knitting in that mode (that hits the iffy 15% battery shortly after I get home from work). Or... you can have either one on, but leave your watch perpetually in Google Wear's new “cinema mode” (a.k.a. we've listened to what people hate about smartwatches). The cinema or theatre mode turns off your screen until you tap it (no motion gestures wake it)... and turns off all vibration notifications. All of them. Even for timers and alarms you set on the watch – the latter don't even try to go off. It sounds... pretty bad. And, honestly, it's not great... but it raises battery life performance to 3-4 days (bonus points for turning it off at night).

I will admit, as I charge my phone regularly (though it's a bit weird now I have a spare battery and direct-to-battery charger), I figured daily watch charging wouldn't be an issue. But it was. I kept saying it wasn't... and then not wearing the watch. Since cinema mode got added, I've worn it a lot more. (Though yesterday it had been over a week since the last time when I left it at 25%, which is just the kind of battery that might not last me through the day, even on cinema mode... It did get me home, at least.) I think it's the last few hours of the day that really bug me. If it lasted from getting up at 8ish to, say, midnight, I think I'd love it a lot more. Or even 10pm. But now... what if I want to go to the cinema after work? For bonus points, the G watch is entirely button-less, so the only way to turn it ON is using the charging dock and a powered microUSB connection.

I opted for the G Watch at the time (because, savings aside, I didn't want to buy something I wouldn't buy anyway and I was considering all the alternatives) was Android Wear. The thing is... At the time (And possibly now? I'm out of the loop a little.), the Samsung wearables ecosystem was more mature than Wear. It looked good, had lots of apps... And I was just coming off a Samsung phone, so was quite happy with the brand. But the principle of the thing means a lot to me. My phone is running Android, so, as soon as I became aware of Android Wear, I was convinced they would win the wearables OS competition. I may be wrong, or it may happen only because other people also assume it will happen. But it's the one I most wanted to support, I guess, and the one I thought wouldn't suffocate itself with a closed apps market and limited integration. Samsung hadn't released Gear Live yet, though, so it was all entirely proprietary and... I kind of liked the look of the G watch, actually.

Which brings me to another point. Circular smartwatches? Really?! Why would you even do that?

I ask, knowing the answer, of course. “Because it looks more like a watch.” The difference is that I don't see why that should be a consideration at all. Wearables are tricky; smartwatches are tricky. I don't want my interactions with something already perilously frivolous to be dampened by a circular screen. We moved away from 4:3 to 16:9 for goodness sake, and we've moved into even skinnier widescreens with phones now! Interacting with a smartwatch is tricky as is: there's a limitation on input (voice, weird keyboards, what have you) and a limitation on output (it's a tiny screen compared to your phone). I can argue both of those would be impacted by a circular screen... but I appear to be the unfashionable minority. Ah well.

It comes back to “What does your watch do for you?”.

For me, it does a couple of things. Firstly, it acts as a connection to my phone at awkward times when I might not hear it and, say, my husband is trying to reach me, say when cycling (phone in backpack) or wearing an outfit without pockets (phone in a bag, hopefully nearby). More importantly, though, I find it acting as a filter.

I go through... A large amount of data on a daily basis. I'm not boasting here as I'm not trying to compare myself to you or the other guy: I think you do, too! I'm now up to 4 email accounts, which get emails daily, for the most part, at least at the minute, Facebook, texts (including Twitter notifications), as well as general phone notifications (your podcast has downloaded, I need you to let me update some apps, AAA I only have 15% battery left). The watch lets me trivially filter them out. Because... you can only set it up so well. At the end of the day, it's hard to explain to Facebook exactly what kind of statuses you want to see; now multiply that by all the different environments and situations you could be in that could affect that. And when I'm bored, I'll get my phone and open up the app and browse all the notifications... But until then, I can happily swipe them away (literally), safe in knowing this is not an urgent thing. (It really feeds into that tightly wound control freak issue I mentioned earlier – I hate having unresolved notifications. It's why me and Google Inbox get on so well.) For bonus points, this also tends to actually mildly improve battery life for me, even with the Bluetooth on all the time as it reduces on time for the phone screen, I think (which tends to be the main battery drain for new devices; doubly so for my phone, I think).

So overall... it's not vital. Not in general and not even to me, attached as I am to my tech. But it's damn handy sometimes, so it really depends what your budget for gadgets is.

Plus it makes for a neat tea-timer, even when it's disconnected from the phone.

Pansexuality vs. Bisexuality

vs. or “versus” is such a strong, oppositionary word for two concepts that really have no clash, right?

I'd love for that to be true. In practice, however, there seems to be so much friction between them that it genuinely makes me sad (in the “other people discriminate and marginalise us enough, can't us 'queer' folk just get along?” vein).

I dated someone once who identifies as bisexual and they told me of all the crap they'd been getting about how didn't they mean 'pansexual' and how the term enforces a gender binary and is exclusive to trans* people and wasn't what my then-partner felt at all (obviously, as they're pretty awesome). Firstly, I say every person should be able to label their sexuality (or not) however they damn well please and not be responsible to provide justifications for anyone else. If they felt that “bisexual” was the best word to describe how they felt about people, then that's what they gets to call themselves. If it confuses you and you're in a position in their life where you could discuss their sexuality, then you could talk through what that means to them and figure out the details. (As with many of these things, this is a somewhat personal definition and not everyone is entitled to know details about who you want to have sex with. I'd say it goes without saying, but that would be more wishful thinking.)

A potential difference they proposed as to why they felt the word was more descriptive of them rather than, say, 'pansexual' (and, again, this is a personal choice and in no way reflects what these words mean to everyone), had to do with what they felt was a somewhat blanket approach to attraction in the connotations of pansexuality. They felt that to be pansexual meant to be attracted to people irrespective of gender, regardless of gender... as though it's not a factor, almost. Whereas to them, bisexuality was to be attracted because of gender, whatever that happened to be. And I'm not sure if the words have the same connotations for me and I'm sure they won't for absolutely everybody else, but I understood their choice and, even before that clarification, understood the frustration of having people insult or correct the way you've chosen to label your sexuality.

Why? Why would you even do that?

Just recently, someone mentioned to me that a person they knew had probably just come out as either bisexual or gay, using almost those exact words. And... I flinched.

The problem is, of course, that I don't know the details. There is, perhaps, a way to do that explicitly. But what came to mind was a person posting a couply photo with someone of their gender or perhaps setting their relationship status to being in a relationship with someone of their gender...

I identify as pansexual. And I felt... excluded. Erased. And then my brain jumped to all the things I'd listened to about bisexual erasure (that I fully support, in the sense that bisexual erasure is crap and people should do their best not to) and I felt bad. I'm not the only one with problems, right? And it's not that big a deal, right? It didn't seem... nice to fight against them. And I knew no malice was intended.

I'm ashamed to admit that I have actually “simplified” my sexuality to “bisexual” more times than I care to admit to (which barrier is, admittedly, any at all). It's an easy way to dismiss prying people that I don't want to have a complex conversation with, but... it's bullshit. It's not like there are limited slots for how many sexualities people can accept and understand (well... there sort of are, but the point is) and, even then, we should really just get away from assuming we can tell a lot about a person from a single word: sometimes you can and sometimes you can't and you actually need to talk to them and get to know them and figure it out.

I think it all stems from people's insecurities with flirting. (Well, or maybe I'm just projecting.)

Flirting is confusing and terrifying and uncertain and complicated and being able to have at least one solid thing there (“They're not attracted to anyone of my gender, so I shouldn't get my hopes up/have been misreading their behaviour/etc.”) is very reassuring. And it makes it easy to be able to know a bunch of things about a person based on a single word (like “homosexual” or “female” or “geek” or...), but that's what creates stereotypes, which are useful aides... But should never ever be taken as an absolute.

Monosexualities are easy and seem so much more absolute; but getting into bisexuality you start to lose that and anything further (pansexuality, asexuality, demisexuality, aromantic non-asexuals and panromantic asexuals and... so many more) is more likely to confuse and frighten (What if you don't know what that means? What if you don't really know them, so can't ask? Especially if the internet can only give you a vague answer because you agree with me that people get to define their own terms to an extent? What now? What do you know about them?!).

And the answer is that people are scary and getting to know them is difficult and, I'm sorry, but there aren't any shortcuts... But maybe that's for the best. Because stereotypes can make us think we have all the answers (especially when they almost fit) and then we miss out on finding some out really cool things about people we think we've got all worked out.


My preferred way of avoiding this whole issue would be something like... “Oh neat, someone I know may have just come out as being attracted to their own gender! So happy for them.” And then you avoid reinforcing the gender-is-a-binary-thing issue, you avoid limiting sexuality options... Am I missing something? (Because, if yes, please tell me. If it's easier, you can send me anon private messages on Tumblr – my username is the same and my ask is open under the AMA link at the top.)