“Pain, you just have to ride it out, hope it goes away on its own, hope the wound that caused it heals. There are no solutions, no easy answers. You just breathe deep and wait for it to subside. Most of the time pain can be managed, but sometimes the pain gets you when you least expect it, hits way below the belt and doesn’t let up. Pain, you just have to fight through, because the truth is you can’t outrun it, and life always makes more.”

I’m still hurting. I’m still miserable. And my friends are prodding and asking that I make an appointment with my gp because sleeping and eating are things that a person should be able to do. And then we had that big debate about how much weight is TOO much weight to lose in 22 days. Is 2 kilograms too much? Is 3? Or 4? How about 5? Because I’m sitting on the otherside of 5, and apparently that’s too much.

Still, I’m finding it hard to care. Hard to move forward. Hard to make decisions. Hard to do anything but sit surrounded by the aftermath and wonder about my part in this mess.

Which hurts. So instead, here is a picture of my dog.

That’s enough for today, I think.

It’s both desired, and feared. Difficult to live with, and impossible to live without. ” – Greys Anatomy, No Man’s Land.

I was supposed to post yesterday. But I didn’t. At this point every day is a struggle. Convincing myself that I need to get up, and do things is hard. I’d much rather do nothing, stay in bed with some soppy tv, my dog, or play TF2.

Speaking of which, do any of you play TF2? It’s my new thing. It happily means I don’t have to think about anything.

Anyway, I’ve been slack. I’ve been neglecting Rarg. And Twitter. And haven’t been commenting on any blogs, or even reading them. If I could work up the energy, I would.

I’m in a rough place at the moment.

A stupidly horrible, fucking awful, ridiculous rough place.

So I probably won’t be around as often. If you’d like to guest post, flick me an elly@rarg.co.nz. It would be cool if you posted for me.

Otherwise, I guess I’ll see you when the world isn’t so dark.

So the last two weeks have been rough, like REALLY rough. So for all of you that have commented, tweeted, or emailed me to check in and see how things are, thanks. I really love you guys, and I know my replies have been really down hearted, and you’re all prolly very sick of my melodramatic tirades but I’m down. So. Fucking. Down. And I know I haven’t been commenting alot, or tweeting you back . . . and my one line emails are a pretty lame response . . .

But thanks for reaching out, and making me feel a little less isolated, and saying all the right things.

?.

There will be another protected post later today, I think. Same password as last time. More of melodramatic, I think.

A friend drew this and sent it my way. I wish that it was that easy . . . really I do.

The other day I came across the site ‘Blog with Integrity‘. It’s not a large site, but it’s message is simple, and powerful – Blog with Integrity.

It’s about respect, for others, for ideas, and for your readers. It’s about being as transparent as possible, openly sharing if posts are sponsored, or paid, or if they were written just for the love of it. It’s about declaring to your readers the difference between the editorial, the advertorial and the advertising. It’s about being honest, and owning what your post. Even if you don’t want to. It’s about giving credit where credit is due, and citing inspiration in whatever form it may appear.

It’s about being honest, really. Being someone your readers can trust.

I hadn’t thought about this at all, until a while back I was contacted by a lady from Home Accent Furniture. She had noted that I’d left a comment on a giveaway that Jj had done at jjustkidding.com. She asked if I would be interested in working together, towards a giveaway.

As exciting as giveaways are, I was a little apprehensive. I’d never heard of Home Accent Furniture before JJ mentioned anything. And I’d certainly never used, seen or brought any of their products. How could I? I live in New Zealand, and Home Accent Furniture is firmly US + Canada based. So much so, that if I did do a giveaway, it would only be open to my US + Canadian readers.

I didn’t really feel right about it. It’s a simple hope skip and a jump from what I usually post about to straight advertising. But I didn’t really think that was where I wanted to go. Don’t get me wrong, I totally respect other people that do, but I’ve never used Home Accent Furniture products. Never seen them, have no idea as to their quality, and really? I try not to support causes blindly.

And then I got an email from Mr Vintage after I brought The Boy a few interesting t-shirts from their site. They asked that if I was real stoked with my order, I could do them a huge favour and write product review, because “that would be wicked awesome”. Now, they aren’t asking me to post about them, or anything. Just a few words back at them, so they knew what people thought. And if I hadn’t just started thinking about advertorial’s I probably would have written a product review and posted it to rarg.

Now I’m not too sure whether it’s something I’d be keen on.

I’m not really sure where the line is, but here, at rarg, if I’m stoked about something, you can be sure that it’s not sponsored. If it is sponsored, I’ll let you know. If it’s straight up advertising, you can be sure that I’ll tell you that too, though anything more than the google ads are unlikely.

What are your thoughts on blogs + advertising?

PS – Mr Vintage shirts are generally awesome. The sizes run big, I’m not loving how big the necks of the shirts are, but being able to grab two very amusing shirts during one of their sales for $5 each? That’s pretty wicked awesome!

This past week I’ve made an effort to take care of myself. This mostly backfired when I realised that I instead of taking care, I was indulging. Buying myself whatever it was I wanted, eating what I wanted. Inviting myself along to other peoples social gatherings and dragging other people along to mine.

I guess it’s no surprise than that in this mode I got myself another surface piercing. I’d been thinking about it for a while, and on impulse I went and asked about the possibility of getting one. Turns out they had a spot free for me, so I booked in. The Second and Fourth quarters kindly waited around with me, and then tada! I came out with a pretty piece of jewellery on my arm.

:)

So, because I don’t feel like sharing my personal drama with the world at large (particularly the mean and horrible ex-boss who sneaks around my blog) I wrote a protected post. If you’d like the password, DM me on twitter, send me an email or leave a comment, and I’ll email the password out.

Cheers!

This is what happens when you catch a ball wrong in netball. It makes your finger swell like a sausage, so your unable to bend it, use it, move it. The underside goes a lovely shade of purple and the skin becomes tight, and the flesh tender.

Okay so I tried to take nice photos, but its hard when your not using your hands, so you can suck it and admire my fat sausage finger which is roughly double it’s size through fuzzy photos.

Nice, right?

PS – Drama has happened. Be prepared for an emo Elly for a little while.

The best kind of street art, I think, are ones that you find unexpectedly. Often they are down back alleys, or in poorly lit car parks. Probably not places I should be wandering around in, but these places off the beaten track is where the art is less likely to be painted over. Less likely to be seen by disapproving eyes. And because of it, the artists (whoever they might be) tend to take their time, focus on the details, REALLY get their message across.

And it’s brilliant. I wish that Auckland was a little more like Melbourne, a little more accepting, a little more open to this kind of fantastic art. A little more encouraging of it’s creative street population. And honestly? A dark alley wall covered in bright street art, is better then a grey dirty one.