Clearing out

[j4]

We have just evicted the mother of all spiders from our beer cupboard under the stairs:



I was rather sad to see it go; it was big and furry and rather sweet in an ugly kind of way, and it wasn't doing anybody any real harm.

After that, I cleared out my inbox by deleting all the "Girl's Own" mailing list messages, having just unsubscribed from said list. For a while I've felt that I didn't really belong there, and then I received this by email:

over the past couple of months, in off-list conversations, at least a dozen - maybe more, I certainly haven't been keeping track - of the more interesting & longtime GOers have mentioned that you are a bit too opinionated on *every single topic* that comes up & that you always seem to have to have the last word. Some of them are even becoming reluctant to post because they think you're going to pounce/belittle them. Part of this may be an age thing - I think most of the more active GOers are 40+ (35+ anyway) & for many this is the only list they're on and the tone *is* generally pretty collegial. Their reaction - even *my* reaction - is rapidly becoming 'Oh god - *her* again.' To be really blunt, you're getting up people's noses.

*Nobody* really thinks the list should be all sweetness & light and we should just be talking about the 'nice school stories' and if you scroll back through the archives you'll find plenty of threads (inc lots of mine) that are fairly controversial/serious. But *not all the time.* I'd strongly suggest that you back off a bit and really listen to the tone of your posts. You'll find you do come across very strongly, not on important stuff but on topics that are really irrelevant fluff that nobody gives a damn about, and it makes you seem very aggressive. So give it a break. This list *is* mainly to talk about GO books and every single OT thread doesn't have to be relentlessly pursued, chewed & battled over.

Well, they're right; I do have opinions about all sorts of irrelevant things, and I tend to be quite outspoken, and I'm not good at confining my conversation to the wide-eyed vacant lists of "books that are really nice" (and occasionally, more controversially, "books that are horrid so I don't read them") that a lot of people seem content with. I've blethered on about housework and baking and times-tables (though I haven't started any off-topic threads as far as I can recall, just joined in with other people's) more than I have about books recently because whenever I mention a book the conversation immediately stops. Probably because I use big words like "character" and "style", and don't burst into inconsolable tears if somebody doesn't like my favourite author.

The person who sent me the email quoted above suggested that if I was bored I should run a book discussion. I'm not "bored", I'm just being driven out of my mind by the drivelling inanity which makes up 90% of the list's content, and utterly mystified as to how the interesting and intelligent 10% of contributors have managed to put up with it for so long. And the last thing which is likely to help with that is to be forced to set a load of primary-school homework questions ("In Clichés in the Lower Fourth, do you think Emily-Jane is a nice person? Should she have told tales on Malvina? Why does Miss Bobbins give her a ticking-off?") for the sort of people who think Enid Blyton is intellectually challenging.

On the whole, I miss the spider more.

Comments

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Please LJ-cut that. a) very big and b) very big spider. I now can't look at my friends' page. Seriously.

[besskeloid.livejournal.com]

Face your fears! You can do it. You can reach your goals. BEEEFCAAAAAAAAKE!

[besskeloid.livejournal.com]

We have just evicted the mother of all spiders from our beer cupboard under the stairs:

Bloody buggering flip, Janet!

[j4.livejournal.com]

Done.

(I'm sorry; like the nice lady on GO told me, I'm a nasty little cow who just posts without thought for other people. I don't know why anybody reads this crap anyway.)

[besskeloid.livejournal.com]

Stop. Beating. Yourself. Up!

[angua.livejournal.com]

Keep the spider and send it to the bint from the GO list.

Oh, and ignore her, she should shut the fuck up :)

[j4.livejournal.com]

Why? Every other fucker is beating me up at the moment, I figure it must be fun.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

sings: it's just my neurosis, that oughta be coibed, I'm psychologically distoibed.

Sorry, but arachnophobia really does make me shake and shiver and feel quite sick, I wish it was just a girly swooning thing but it does seem to be a 'real' (psychosomatic) illness. You should see me scream for imc when even a tiny one comes near, and we had one near the size of that in our bedroom the other day. I thought I was having genuine palpitations.

I stopped using my bedroom for six weeks in 1997 because of a very large spider. Only when my then-boyfriend convinced me that he'd evicted it could I go back to sleeping in a bed rather than on the sofa. I have every suspicion that he was fibbing but until someone told me that I just couldn't do it.

(This comment typed by scrolling exceedingly quickly down to the comments section, and trying not to think about the picture again.)

[j4.livejournal.com]

I put the spider out. It ran away really slowly, like it didn't really want to go. :-(

I think the GO woman was trying to be helpful. And she did say at the beginning "this is not a flame", so god help me if she ever decides to flame me. [dons asbestos knickers]

[angua.livejournal.com]

Ha, 'this is not a flame' is a bit like 'I'm not a troll'.

I certainly don't think anything she said was fair at all, I was on the GO list for a couple of weeks and it was far too full of meaningless crap for my liking.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Have you thought about trying to get the illness cured? It sounds awfully inconvenient.

(BTW you could probably turn images off before following the link... or answer elsewhere if you prefer)

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I haven't read GO for a couple of weeks, but screw 'em. There are some odd people on there. The words 'nasty' and 'cow' are wholly inappropriate for you, and 'little' is very much in the eye of the beholder (or in the eye of the person with the inferiority complex if you want to be less literal and more metaphorical).

And I'll second: stop beating yourself up.

Talk to me about character and style. I feel like my brain is rotting, reading nothing more demanding than Kipper's Kite. Set me some homework Miss McKnight! :)

[j4.livejournal.com]

I think it's gorgeous. Lovely big furry spider.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Ah, but I'm the one producing the meaningless crap. They want to talk about Nice Books. :)

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I have thought about it. That's an improvement on five years ago. In fact, the fact that I'm having this discussion at all, and using 'the s word' is a big improvement on most of my life! ;-)

My mother said I would learn to deal with them the first time one goes near smallclanger. Well, not so far. I took him out of the playpen and didn't put him back in until imc had checked it very thoroughly several hours later. But at least I have put him back in there since (the baby, not imc!), which again is an improvement. Baby steps, I guess (NPI).

[angua.livejournal.com]

Well sometimes they can't have what they want!

I would rather have a list full of intelligent, witty people like you rather than one full of people that want to talk about the books and nothing else.

FFS at some point you have to look at the world outside of fiction :)

[arnhem.livejournal.com]

Was it intentional that the way it's held, it looks like someone is drinking from that glass and in for a bit of a surprise? I instinctively tried to scroll right to see the look on their face ...

[j4.livejournal.com]

Ha! Not intentional, no -- I was just trying to shake it along the glass a little to make it show off its impressive legs and body -- but I do see what you mean...

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

People like the woman who sent you that e-mail deserve a ruddy big spider in their bath just like the one you found in your cupboard.... as well as a good dose of your patent Chalet School slash fanfic in their terribly starchy mailing list.
Not only does it seem that most of the subscribers on GO are over 40 - not that there's anything wrong with that, says this old fart at play - but also it appears by the tone of their postings most of them are wearing hessian directoire knickers as they type. Sod 'em.

[rmc28]

"This is not a flame" is like "I'm saying this as a friend ..."

Cow. Like the spider though.

[ghirlracer.livejournal.com]

FWIW, I don't at all agree with the person who e-mailed you from GO - frankly, I wish more people would post their opinions like you do. Sadly I can never really think of much to say, or I'd join in more, but there's no way you deserved a comment like that, as I don't think you've done or said anything wrong.

Although I'm not sure I agree with your comments towards the end of the post - I suspect I'm in your 90% of uninteresting and unintelligent posters due to my general quietness, but even if I'm not, I still don't think the list's all that bad. The problem is that it's hard to find that much to say about books, so not a lot gets said - if only a handful of people have read a book, and most of those read it so long ago that they don't remember it, people won't say a lot ebout it, other than what little impressions they can recall, which usually will be the "inane drivel" about whether or not they like it and the major plotlines.

Perhaps some people just have trouble dealing with people who have opinions - I know a few people (well, one in particular, who's never seemed friendly to me since, either... I'd be curious to know if she's one of the people who also has a problem with you; I think the chances are high) were a bit snarky at me when I joined, because I'm often a bit blunt and maybe trample on people without meaning to. I just dont say much now; it's easier than annoying people, and often all I can contribute that hasn't already been said is a strong opinion that I know not everyone will like, so it's better to leave it unsaid. In some groups it's possible to have reasoned discussions, but like the person you quoted says, a lot of the people on GO are older and not as flexible I guess.

Sorry you've felt you had to leave - I enjoyed reading your posts :-(

PS - Nice spider... I think I won't be showing that to the bf, seeing as he's scared of even little ones!

[imc.livejournal.com]

To go off at a tangent… the LJ user-options (http://www.livejournal.com/editinfo.bml) page now has a tickybox which blocks images over a certain size on your friends page. (You can see the image as normal if you view the entry individually, such as when posting a comment on it.) I've been using it for a couple of months.

However, if the diarist leaves out the image size attributes then it'll be blocked even if it is a small image.

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

FWIW, it's a noticeably Oxbridge thing, we (or you, I didn't qualify) are a lot harder, or perhaps more pointy and direct in all conversations with an intellectual content. There's an assumption that our interlocutor is as clever in conversation as we are, confident and willing, with pleasure, to defend their point and respond to whatever we say.

This is not the case in the Real World. Most people aren't that confident and there seems to be no such thing as benign criticism, and little pleasure in debate.

[hairyears.livejournal.com]

I'll admit it, I am fond of spiders too. Not quite so fond as to keep huge hairy tarantulas as 'pets' but yeah, I like having another predator in the house. And I guess I'm a live-and-let-live type, except for unhygienic things that eat my food.

[sesquipedality.livejournal.com]

That woman is talking the kind of small minded crap that really gets on my tits. You're definitely right to walk away from that kind of poisonous environment. Reading between the lines, it's nothing more than "*I* don't like you, so therefore I am going to use other people's smallmindedness and misguided fragility to beat you around the head".

You were right to leave, that kind of poisonous environment you're better off without. No-one should ever be ashamed of having opinions, and if they think you're confrontational, there are several people I'd love to subscribe to that list that would show them exactly how unconfrontational you are.