Asa Millholm 

I think instagram might have ruined blogging. It's so easy and immediate, whenever I think of something that I might want to say here I realise I've already said in small drip, drip, drips on instagram. I don't know that everyone who reads here also follows me there (@caratakesphotos, just so you know), or the other way around, so I'm not actually sure how much I would be repeating myself, but I do know that this blog is starting to feel somewhat... redundant. And yet, I still feel the urge to put it all in one place, to tell stories that are more than just one picture, one caption, to hope for replies that are words, not a dozen small (but undeniably gratifying) heart shapes. I wonder why I care about repeating myself, I repeat myself all the damn time in real life. I tell the same stories, offer the same observations, make the same jokes. If they're funny once then they're going to be hilarious twice, right? My poor, poor friends. I miss what this place used to be, the community, the feeling of having created something. Instagram is fun but it feels like twitter, each picture another drip into the constant running stream of other people's updates, stories, observations, jokes. Earlier this week I had dinner with a group of  seven women, six of them women who I met through blogging, five of them women who have become my primary real life social group in the last few years and of course talk turned to how we had met, when we met, what we used to blog about. It made me nostalgic for blogging as it once was, but also grateful that my social life has (primarily) moved off-screen. One of my friends mentioned how naive we were, seven years ago when we all first 'met'. How we spewed forth our thoughts and our dreams and offered up our lives in total, unabashed detail to the internet, believing totally in our anonymity. 'Those were the days' I thought, and simultaneously 'dear god, we were idiots.' Anyway, I don't know where I'm going with this. I think I just wanted to say hi, that I haven't forgotten about you/here/this/whatever it is. That I still want to write and talk and share with you here but that I'm not quite sure how/why/when/what. I'm aware that my blogging has become increasingly about Not Blogging. Which is fascinating reading, I'm sure. I also wonder why I would keep writing blog posts when I've almost entirely stopped reading them. Does anyone read blog posts any more? Doesn't everyone find them almost universally insufferable? Questions questions. In the meantime, happy weekend. (Remember when we used to wish each other a happy weekend every week? And a happy monday? And just a happy happy happy? God, we were annoying.)

our brightest lights

'What platitudes then can we fling along with the listless, insufficient wreaths at the stillness that was once so animated and wired, the silence where the laughter was? That fame and accolades are no defence against mental illness and addiction? That we live in a world that has become so negligent of human values that our brightest lights are extinguishing themselves? That we must be more vigilant, more aware, more grateful, more mindful? That we can’t tarnish this tiny slice of awareness that we share on this sphere amidst the infinite blackness with conflict and hate?'
Russell Brand, on the late, great Robin Williams.*

It was with such sadness that I took in the news this morning that Robin Williams had committed suicide. I can't think of a single actor that brought me more joy as a child, who starred in films that moved me as much as Good Will Hunting or Dead Poet's Society in my adolescence. (Or creeped me out as much as that one about the guy working in the photo lab, but I prefer not to think too hard about that one.) 

In lieu of words of my own I ask you to read the above Guardian piece by Russel Brand. It's everything I wish I was capable of writing. I also ask that if you are suffering... please hold on. Please tell someone. Please.

* It still confuses me that Russell Brand is one of the most eloquent, moving voices of our generation. RUSSELL BRAND? The first time I read one of his pieces I thought it was a practical joke. I mean RUSSELL BRAND. Come on.