Follow Friday: Blog Edition

For those of you not on Twitter (Is anybody not on Twitter anymore?), Follow Friday, or #FF if you like, is a trend where people recommend other tweeters you should follow.  As I’m so shite at writing blog posts lately, I thought I’d do a blog edition and point you in the direction of some of the good posts I’ve read this week – in between the flailing and swearing at the horrible job I’m battling with at work.

If you’re not subscribed to the Team AWOT blog, why not?  This week there have been posts about marriage equality, gender stereotypes and competition between women.  And that’s just this week!

The brilliant Arielle of Not the Mermaid wrote a great post about why being single is awesome.  As someone who would far rather be single than in the wrong relationship, I love finding other people who agree and this is such a refreshingly honest look at singledom.  Being single may be great for a bunch of happy, shiny, I-can-do-what-I-want kinda reasons, but it’s also great for other reasons that are often overlooked.

If you’ve never heard of Postsecret, the best way to see what it is to click the link.  The Sunday Secrets are one of the highlights of my blog reading week.

The lovely Jo makes something as shitty as flat hunting entertaining to read about.  I particularly liked her statement that basements are a good place for hiding boyfriends.  A boyfriend I could keep in the cellar and just bring out when it suited me sounds ideal!

Brandy has written posts that have made me laugh, made me cry and inspired me.  This week on the blog she wrote a lovely post about something she’d written – I know, meta right?

I also discovered that Jenn, previously of Free and Flawed is still blogging at Bottle up the Crazy.  This made me happy as I thought she’d stopped blogging and I miss her Paint masterpieces.

Right, now I go back to InDesign hell.

Why I don’t like Valentine’s Day

I’ve read a couple of posts today looking at the different sides of the old Valentine’s Day debate.  Popvulture is against it.  LaRainbow is for.  And the lovely Lauren Bravo (I’m sure the other two are lovely too but I’ve met Lauren in real life) just talks a lot of sense.

Personally I’m not a fan, mainly because I’m an emotional cripple and any expression of love makes me deeply uncomfortable.  Err, I mean commercialism, Hallmark Day, rarr!

It only dawned on me the other day that the biggest reason I have for not liking Valentine’s Day is that it steals my thunder.  It’s my birthday on Friday so technically this week is mine.  Hell, I’ll take all of February if you let me but this week at least, is definitely mine.  Then Valentine’s Day waltzes into my week and other people get presents and attention.  Thunder gone.  I think there should be some sort of rule where people have to hand over their presents to me and give me cake to apologise.

Even worse than thunder stealing friends with their, “look at my shiny thing/tacky schmaltz/flowers,” are the boyfriends who think it’s okay to combine birthday and Valentine festivities.  Not because I’m greedy and I want two days of treats, that actually just makes me feel guilty, but because it feels like I’m losing my special day somehow.  It’s suddenly about them too.  Well them and them and the 50 other couples rammed into the restaurant that usually only fits 20 of course.

So this is me starting my campaign to get Valentine’s Day abolished.  February is a short month, there’s only room for one day of rampant consumerism and that’s the 17th damn it!