Kiri Callaghan's Blog, page 11

How Can I Help?

You might belong in Hufflepuff where they are just and loyal, those patient Hufflepuffs are true and unafraid of toil!

If you didn’t know by now, I’m a Hufflepuff. To the very bone. I bleed black and gold, so to speak. I’ve never liked exclusivity, or cliques, and I’ve pushed my fair share of bullies. It’s not hard to be my friend, so long as your intentions are good, and once you’re in, it’s hard to lose that friendship. Since I began my presence online I’ve done what I can to be open and honest, share what I could about my own experiences and not try to be anything I’m not.

So It’s probably only natural that some of you felt safe to reach out to me through email for help. And that trust in me has meant all the world. And it got me thinking. Perhaps I could open that door up a bit more, and let you know, before you even have to reach out blindly, that it’s okay to ask.

I’ve set up an email specifically for these kinds of questions and inquiries:

Ask@KiriCallaghan.com

While my answers will be in public video form, I promise your questions/concerns will remain completely anonymous. I’d like to make video responses in the style of My Dear Stephanie videos because I feel like being able to hear someone’s voice in times of struggle is incredibly helpful in itself. Sometimes I just need to hear, “It’s going to be okay,” from someone I trust, and I figure, at the very least, that’s what I can offer to you.

I have tried to make it a standard practice to always answer a friend’s troubles with one simple question, “How can I help?”

So even if you think your question is small, or you simply just want to write me an email. I’m here, and I’ll listen.

XOXO,

Kiri

The Shoes – Writing Prompt

I was walking around the neighborhood and stumbled across these abandoned shoes.

So it’s WRITING PROMPT TIME. Let’s keep it free form, it can be a song, a short story, a poem or what have you, but it must in some way relate to this photograph.

Post your story or a link to your story in the comments below, we’ll reconvene in a week, when I’ll be posting my own.

Go!

Why So Curious?

Top 5 Reasons Ted Mosby is The WORST

Why yes, it has been over two years since the final episode of How I Met Your Mother aired on tv, and no, I’m still not over it. But while I could rant on about why that last episode was such a disservice to the characters, the story, and frankly the audience, I really want to focus on the glass shattering effect it had on the rest of the show.

I am of course referring to the glass shattering sound effect used in the episode “Spoiler Alert” where our heroes have their perceptions of each other shattered as they realize each other’s worst flaws.

In this episode, we are led to believe that Ted Mosby’s worst flaw is that the majority of things that come out of his mouth is him correcting people right and left. Which, don’t misunderstand, I completely agree, is a frustrating quality for a person to have, but it’s far from Mosby’s worst.

Now I had decided to rewatch the series since it had so handily appeared on Netflix, determined to rekindle my love for the show and simply stop before the finale. I had, after all, loved it enough to follow it rather diligently through all 9 seasons. It got me through college, it was a weird comfort during some weird phases of my life… and it had been completely ruined by the last episode. 

Because the glass-shattering realization (if you hadn’t noticed before) is that Ted Mosby is possibly quite literally the worst.

Which brings me to the main point of this article: Friends don’t let friends date Ted Mosby.

This show centered its story around this character, and even cleverly placed him next to a character like Barney which, to be fair, makes anyone look like a decent human being. But chances are, you’re not going to meet an actual Barney in life. But if you really stop and think about it, you already know at least one Ted.

Ted is that guy who insists he’s wonderful, who will bend over backwards to convince you he’s Mr. Right, and god help you if you dare to disagree.

So I’ve compiled 5 big reasons, in no particular order, as to why Ted Mosby is not the catch this show would have you believe.

1. Pretentious – Let’s just get it out of the way since we’ve already mentioned it. Ted is an “Actually” guy. Some people  now call this mansplaining but his condescending explanations and corrections do not extend to just women and I’m all about pointing out equal opportunity douchebaggery. We have all known this guy. Some of us have even dated this guy. A fellow so insecure about himself that at every turn he must prove that he is smarter than everyone else in the room by correcting any thing he can possibly spot as potentially being inaccurate. And for the love of god while he may have a point about the original pronunciation of a word, no one in the US still pronounces it that way, so no, it is NOT EncycloPEYdia. Our language evolves with our culture, and this is one of those instances, you pretentious son of a bitch. If you date this man, you’re going to have to bail your friends out of jail because someone’s going to get booked for aggravated assault before the night is over.

 

2. Transphobic – I’m sorry, but if you’re transphobic you’re just a freaking garbage human, I have no further point to make, so I’ll simply site a few episodic examples:

 

Season 2, Episode 9

[Ted is guessing what could have happened when he left for the bathroom that would make his friends instantly dislike his date so much. This example is put on par with the others he suggests which includes  killing puppies  and having a man falsely imprisoned for statutory rape.]

Ted: I’ll be back in one second.

Kathy: I bet he’s going to the urinal. Yeah, I remember when I had a penis.


Season 3, Episode 8

Ted: If there’s some potential “Ohhh….” [dealbreaker] moment, I want know about it right away. I mean, what’s the alternative?

[Cut to fantasy sequence Robin and Ted at the altar]

Priest: I now pronounce you man and wife.

Ted: I love you.

Robin: I used to be a dude.

Ted: Ohhh….


Season 7, Episode 5

[Ted wonders why his date is secretive. A fantasy sequence ensues where Ted is in the bathroom of the restaurant and Janet comes in.] 

Ted: This is the men’s room.

[Janet strides to the urinal and hikes up her dress.]

Janet: I know. I’m a dude.

Ted: [gasp of horror]

3. “I’m in Love with You” on the 1st Date is Creepy – I need you to forget what bullshit romcom cinema has been trying to force into our brains for decades. Imagine you met someone at a bar the previous night (or a coffee shop or whatever), and even if you’re a romantic and want to get married and have kids REALLY THINK about what Ted does on that date. Someone you have spent a collective of what… 5 hours with, tells you they’re in love with you. And then when you are clearly uncomfortable with this, they proceed to talk about how they’d be a great spouse and parent. Look, I once dated a guy in high school, which while we’d been going out for almost a year, I was in freaking high school. The fact that he started talking about marriage and kids before I even knew what college I was getting into was absolutely terrifying. And I feel like having that conversation with someone on the first date is a pretty damn similar move, without the excuse of teenage stupidity. When you’ve only covered things like favorite movies and what you do for a living, and thus that person has not had enough time to actually get to know you as a unique human… they cannot profess true love and start planning your future together. That. Is. Psychotic. This is a person who is in love with the idea of love and will attempt to fit you into a mold that they have already made for their life. In fact, Ted is CONSTANTLY re-imagining Robin as wanting to get married and have kids (see various fantasies), or pushing her into changing anything he’s not a big fan of (her career ambition, her guns, smoking etc). Back away and bring a baseball bat. It’s not safe to go alone.

 

 

 

4. There is literally an episode about how to turn a “No” into a “Yes”. – Watching Ten Sessions is absolutely painful, and I’m not sympathizing with the idea of Ted having to get a butterfly tattoo lasered off his skin painful. That part I kind of enjoyed. What’s painful about this episode is that Ted asks out his dermatologist, and when she politely turns him down, he proceeds to ask, and ask, and ask. Now the frustrating thing is the writers made this out to be such a romantic gesture, but again, put yourself in Stella’s shoes. You said ‘No.’ At that point, your reasons for saying ‘no’ are kind of irrelevant. You gave an answer and it’s not being respected. This episode then goes on to perpetuate the idea that 1, guys are entitled to a ‘Yes’ when they ask a woman out–No, seriously, Ted sincerely believes he deserves that yes–but 2, it gives support to the myth that when a woman says ‘No’, she secretly wants to say yes. Amusingly, when Ted gets left at the altar, he realizes Stella’s issues with Robin were actually because she herself had unresolved feelings for her ex, but never seems to make the connection that the issue stemmed all the way back to him pushing her into the relationship she’d refused in the first place. When someone tells you ‘No’, trust that is what they mean. Don’t push, don’t persist, respect their freaking decision.

 

 

5. THE ENTIRE PREMISE OF THE SHOW– I’m sorry, I can’t not rant about how shitty this show ended. It’s called “How I Met Your Mother”, but the mother is barely in the last bit, is killed off in literally a sentence and we discover that the entire point of telling this phenomenally long story about how he banged all these terrible women was to awkwardly pivot back to being obsessed with a woman who we were proven time and time again they do not work together. Ted Mosby, you son of a bitch, you did not deserve Tracy. We should have had a show about her and her friends. They seemed pretty badass. I want more of that. Less Ted. Fuck Ted. I think that’s more of a gripe to the show runners more than anything, but let’s try to get this back on track. Do not date the person who is still hung up on “the one who got away”.  Idealism is to be admired, but only when it’s still within the realm of possibility. Idealism is only admirable when its outcome does not depend on the suppression of someone else’s humanity. This is not a journey of a hopeless romantic trying to find “the one”. This is the revenge fantasy of a man who got turned down by a woman and decided to devise a story where he found another woman who gave him everything he wanted, for long enough to make the first woman miserable and sad and jealous for years until he finally rescues her from her tower.

What the fuck was this show even?

Do not let your friends date a Ted.

Just don’t.

 

FairyTa(b)les

I’m prone to whimsy, as most bards are, I think, and that whimsy tends to want to extend to my aesthetic. Which includes my house! For the den I’m working on something that will feel extremely cozy as well as give you the notion that Hobbits probably live here. My first step in this direction was the coffee table.

Thrifting will be your best friend for these kinds of projects. Good sturdy coffee tables can range up pretty high and the last thing you want to do is experiment with something that set you back a pretty penny. I mean, maybe you do, but I’m terribly broke, and sonnets don’t pay what they used to, so I searched thrift shops. And I encountered this table at Out of the Closet for a mere $45.

It was in great shape, sturdy and made of real wood. It had a few scratches on it, but honestly nothing that furniture polish won’t hide. The glass easily lifts out, and I advise finding a piece of furniture that has a similar feature because it will make the conversion process infinitely easier. Set them aside for later.

To create the moss I bought two 14″x48″ Ashland Moss Table Runners from Michael’s, measured and cut them to fit beneath the frame. DO NOT try to put it directly where the glass sits, it will not lie flat enough to secure.

You’re also going to want to snag some silk flowers. I suggest small wildflowers, they’ll look the more natural. I used two different colors.

Cut the flowers very close to the bud, so you just have a small bit of stem, and hot glue them onto the moss. Try to keep it random and like a field. I recommend placing everything down before you actually glue anything.

After that was all secure, I flipped the table carefully over and hot glued the two strips to the bottom. Careful of your finger tips! The hot glue will seep through and burn you. But hey, then you can commit the perfect crime. No finger prints. I made sure to pull things tight and secure them at every point I could, especially the center beam to prevent any sagging.

Go ahead and flip it onto its side, but the top should look like this! With the flowers completely done of course.

With the table on its side, secure the battery pack of the LED, battery powered twinkly lights to a place where you will be able to easily access the on button. I used Heavy-Duty Scotch Fasteners so I’d be able to replace the batteries easily and if needed, be able to swap out the string of lights itself.  Next I used small pieces of duct tape to secure the wire in swirls beneath the moss.

From here you can actually flip the table back on top and you’ll want to get a needle and green thread. Double thread your needle and start securing in places where you taped. This is the really tedious part, so it will take a while. It’s my Netflix and Craft bit.

Make sure all knots are on the under side and since the netting is wide, you’ll need to secure your knot to the netting. If you’re not familiar with sewing, it’s pretty simple. To do this, simply come up through the netting as if you were going to do a normal stitch, then before pulling the thread all the way through, take the needle back down through the moss and pull it through the two threads before the knot until tight. There is probably a less complicated way to describe this, but I don’t know how. If you did it right, your thread will now be wrapped around that one space like a slip lead. Then you can just loop your thread around the wire in that space a few times, and move to the next place to secure and so on.

Flip it back right side up, replace the glass and turn on the lights and voila, you have this beauty. Turn off or dim the lights and you get this:

A table that Bilbo himself would probably love to have in his own den.

I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have, and if you do make this on your own, please leave your own creation in the comments below!

 

Keep on the Windy Side of Care,

Kiri

Pet Peeves – Miss You, Talk Soon

The Napolean

Mama – Spice Girls Cover

I Catalog The Happy Moments

I have been a close observer of depression and its effects on the people I love since before I could remember. Despite that I’m not personally struggling with it, it’s been a prevalent antagonist in my life. It has terrorized my father, my sister, my partner, and some of my dearest friends. It took my brother’s life. It’s the monster I have never found a strong enough epithet to properly describe.

The most accurate comparison I have found is that depression is a lot like the Dementors from Harry Potter. Depression doesn’t just make you feel unhappy; you feel like you’ll never be happy ever again, and despite that it might have been just yesterday, you can’t remember the last time you were happy.

Depression lies to you. And it’s the best liar you will ever encounter. It will tell you that you were just faking it yesterday until you are convinced you weren’t actually happy. And what they really don’t tell you, is that the people who fight that battle at your side will start to feel it too.

And so I overshare on social media. I take selfies, or pictures of my food, or where I am, or something that made us laugh. I vlog, I make ridiculous videos, I write tweets of conversations we had, or things we heard. It’s why I spend so much time making sure to record those moments.

I do this so the next time someone I love can’t remember the last time they felt like themselves, I have something to remind them depression is a liar. Some kind of dated proof that, “No, you will be happy again, you were really happy and feeling like yourself just the other day. We will get through this moment together and soon those days where you don’t feel like yourself will lessen. Soon you won’t have to be reminded quite so much.”

And maybe when we get there, I won’t feel the need to capture every moment on film. Maybe I’ll be able to just “live in the moment”, though the idea that recording that moment means I’m somehow ruining it seems rather ridiculous to me. 

But until then, I’m going to keep filming or taking pictures, or even bragging about how blessed I am to have those people in my life.

It’s how I keep both of us grounded in reality, even when the Nightmares feel like they’re creeping in.

Hello World!

This is me testing out if I’ve configured this correctly. Eventually there will be real blog content here. Probably soon even. Won’t that be cool? I think so.