The Sunday Struggle #9

Right then, today's Sunday Struggle is bound to have a minimal target audience, what with the lovely weather out, but here it goes nonetheless. I've amassed the following links/gimmicks/curiosities for you for today:

1. Design your own tie: Girl-ties are all the rage again, and I quite fancy some for the dressed-up days at work. Unfortunately, the only website that seems to sell ties specifically designed for women is a rather crap one. So until someone can point me in the right direction, maybe designing my own tie might be the best alternative.

2. Floor & Wall-stickers: I spotted these and thought they were a good idea in terms of decorating, if you don't fancy going for the regular wall and floor arrangements. Tango-steps explained on your floor or a cheeky plug-socket. They come in at around 50 euros each and I think that's a tad overpriced for something you could quite easily do yourself in the space of a few lost hours on an overcast Sunday...

3. Publish Yourself: (Thx to Ine for pointing this one out). It's one of the several "print yourself" sites out there, but it gives itself a bit of a leading edge by providing an easy downloadable tool with lots of templates that guides you through the process of publishing your poems, your photos, or even your entire blog... in a neatly bound book that would fit well on your lounge-table. I am currently publishing Ubiquitous 2005, Ubiquitous 2006 and a photo-album of my round-the-world trip.

4. Livingstones Lounge: I won't have enough space in my new flat, but if I had, I would most definitely splash out on creating a wee corner like this. It looks fab for kids, or for a lazy comfi Sunday-afternoons, leisurely splashed out across some pebles with yer book or sunday paper.

5. And for the most random inventions of the week: The Jonny Glow Toilet Locator and the Hamster Shredder . Designed to help men aim for the toiletbowl in the dark (a problem I am unlikely to encounter in my house-hold what with the absence of men, but I can imagine this would be problematic for some other family arrangements), and an ecological way to shred your paper. I am actually all up for that Hamster thing, and may even suggest it to my boss at our next meeting. Every office needs a mascote. It might as well do something useful too.

6. Photography: Kelli Connell: Look closely at the pictures and you will notice that both people in the image are actually one and the same person. On Connell's website she explains:

"This work represents an autobiographical questioning of sexuality and gender roles that shape the identity of the self in intimate relationships. Polarities of identity such as the masculine and feminine psyche, the irrational and rational self, the exterior and interior self, the motivated and resigned self are portrayed. By combining multiple photographic negatives of the same model in each image, the dualities of the self are defined by body language and clothing worn."

This play with the duality of identity, and sometimes the seemingly contradictory co-existence of both aspects, is very close to my heart. Fits in perfectly with my own Queer identity and daily introspective moments.

7. Organic Fizz: Delish British goodness. With this warm weather, I find it hard to stay away from the Diet Coke. But in terms of rehydration, these fizzy drinks are by far the better choice. May have to import those when I go out to York in a fortnight.

8. Word of the Day: My girlfriend has a thing for words. She knows a plethora of them and they get me hooked on her story-telling. She's introduced me to Dictionary.com, a site that sends you a new word of the day every morning. Today's word was rather appropriate, so I decided to include the link ;-)

prolix
\pro-LIKS; PRO-liks\,
adjective:
1. Extending to a great length; unnecessarily long; wordy.
2. Tending to speak or write at excessive length.