That was the question posed by someone vain on the paper-thin documentary I'm watching at the moment instead of writing an essay.
The person who came out with the offending line was some teenager's dad, who'd spent £14k on plastic surgery and hair transplants and teeth whitening. He looked like he was made of wax - but young wax. Freshly moulded wax, that had not yet been left out in the sun to melt. Who wants to look old, indeed?
I kind of can't wait to be old. I'll probably panic in middle age when everything sags, but it's not like I've got a tiny size 6 booty to lose. A bit of a complacent spread, bingo wings and dimpled thighs don't really bother me - I've sort of got those going on already. Whatever, I like food.
And I'm fairly ambivalent about my face too. Selfies irritate me and I wear make-up like warpaint, as an extra layer of protection if I need help to face the day. I remember wearing blood-red lipstick to my University Challenge heat, which I messed up - but it made me feel brave, a little separated from myself. Fearless. Hashtag fierce.
So, once the minor fear of aging has passed, I shall dance gleeful into my 50s. I shall wear purple, with a red hat that doesn't go, and definitely is not a reference to a poem. I will be as mad as possible, speak frankly about sex and drugs, and scare the kids into order.
I am far more worried about being successful than I am about being pretty. Who wants to look young forever? I'd rather look lived-in, experienced, with a face that can tell a hundred stories for every laugh line on it.
Why don't we want to look old, though? This is what worries me. And I think it comes down to the inevitable: death.
If you're busy looking good for yourself rather than for potential partners, it's not really about sex any more. And, if sex is not the driving force behind your actions, it's death. While I am aware my psychology here is generalising at best, and woefully incorrect at worst, hear me out.
We know so much these days. We know we might live to a hundred and ten, but we also know we can't live past hundred and twenty. Fifty is a mid-life crisis. After that, your best years are all gone, aren't they? Or, if not the best years - well, the bulk of them. Your body falls apart, bit by bit. And if you admit to looking old, to having had a life that's left its marks on your face, then you're haggard and tired, stressed and careless. Not taking care of yourself.
I think we run away from the simple fact of our aging because it's a reminder of the simple fact of our inevitable deaths.
Why bother with tans? With straight teeth and perfect eyebrows? If all we're doing is running away from our own mortality, making ourselves look instagram-ready isn't going to help us do anything. Life is short. So we'd better spend it doing useful things rather than preening and primping.
And that's why I can't wait to be old, really; because, I think, by the time I get there, I'll have done stuff worth talking about. Being old will be proof I've made it through this turbulent, tumultuous journey called youth. I'll have all the best stories to tell, and an old face will be an invitation for you to hear them.
Showing posts with label blog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blog. Show all posts
Monday, 26 May 2014
Sunday, 18 May 2014
Anecdotally... 3: I hated school.
I can hear my mother on the phone at the moment, talking to my cousin. My cousin is ten years older than me, married with children, forever involved in the dramas that come of growing up in a middle-class world and suddenly finding yourself shut out from it.
My mother is talking about my cousin's kids, and what they'll be like when they grow up. She recommends waiting for something until her oldest is 12.
"By the time he's 12, he'll be out playing with friends," she said.
That assumes that, at 12, you have friends.
Friends probably come from school, when you're that age. At 12, in my first year of secondary school, I hated it. And I'm not saying that in the way that everyone hates school at 12 years old, when they resent the idea of being kept indoors on sunny days and having to give up Mondays in order to learn long division.
I hated school in a real, visceral way, that manifested itself in aches and pains and dizzying headaches. I hated the institution, the stuck-up natures of the people there, the unsympathetic teachers and the boring, banal homework we were given every evening. I hated the cliques, the childishness of everyone trying to act grown up, the forgotten invites to parties and the over-reactions to harmless remarks.
School is not a place for the strange. School, at 12, is not a place for the make-up shunning sports-failing sarcasm-dripping misfit. I excelled academically, hated every minute of it, and was too wrapped up in my own misery to try and reach out and make friends. Self-pity enveloped me. I hated school then, but looking back, I hate Past Me just as much. She should have tried harder.
I would go so far as to say I hate most of my past selves, and everything from 12 to 16 should be destroyed, erased from my past. I cringe when people bring those years up. Then, I lived for music, and gigs: they were a driving passion which obliterated all other thoughts from my mind. I fiercely defended friends I made through them, but now we've drifted so far apart I can barely remember their names. Some have changed so much that I wonder why I liked them in the first place, and conclude it was the mutual sense of not fitting in. Society had abandoned us, so we in turn cast out the conventions we were meant to adhere to.
School is the best days of your life, according to my mother.
I have no doubt that was true for her, affable and small and pleasant and good at tennis. An in-between sort of girl, not too cool or too clever but just enough of everything to be generally likable. She had part-time jobs and friends and a place on a nursing course before she even sat her A-levels.
I think adults misrepresent school. We're fed this bullshit from such a young age - that it is the best time of your life - that I felt guilty for not liking it. I felt like I was wasting a valuable chance, spunking away a childhood of youth and freedom on things that did not matter. Even now, I get jealous when people talk fondly about their early teenage years: I hated everything up till 17, when I shook off the loner victim mentality and proclaimed introversion to be too emo.
We can't put youth on a pedestal just because we retroactively yearn for it. Sure, sometimes I miss school, but only as an abstract notion. I miss the concept of playgrounds and half-terms and being with your friends five days a week. I don't miss the reality of backstabbing bitchiness and chronic sick-days due to my total, actual inability to face the world some days.
University was what kept me going. The prospect of it, golden and radiant, and predicating a good school education to get there. I got there. The institution of secondary school was worth it, and I am truly genuinely happy now (or, at least, working on it). I only hope to get happier.
I hope my cousin's son is happier at 12 than I was. I hope I am never that miserable again. But I take issue with all blanket proclamations that school years are the best years of your life. You can't spend life assuming your best days are behind you: all of my best days are to come, and will still be to come, for as long as I live. What's life without something to look forward to?
My mother is talking about my cousin's kids, and what they'll be like when they grow up. She recommends waiting for something until her oldest is 12.
"By the time he's 12, he'll be out playing with friends," she said.
That assumes that, at 12, you have friends.
Friends probably come from school, when you're that age. At 12, in my first year of secondary school, I hated it. And I'm not saying that in the way that everyone hates school at 12 years old, when they resent the idea of being kept indoors on sunny days and having to give up Mondays in order to learn long division.
I hated school in a real, visceral way, that manifested itself in aches and pains and dizzying headaches. I hated the institution, the stuck-up natures of the people there, the unsympathetic teachers and the boring, banal homework we were given every evening. I hated the cliques, the childishness of everyone trying to act grown up, the forgotten invites to parties and the over-reactions to harmless remarks.
School is not a place for the strange. School, at 12, is not a place for the make-up shunning sports-failing sarcasm-dripping misfit. I excelled academically, hated every minute of it, and was too wrapped up in my own misery to try and reach out and make friends. Self-pity enveloped me. I hated school then, but looking back, I hate Past Me just as much. She should have tried harder.
I would go so far as to say I hate most of my past selves, and everything from 12 to 16 should be destroyed, erased from my past. I cringe when people bring those years up. Then, I lived for music, and gigs: they were a driving passion which obliterated all other thoughts from my mind. I fiercely defended friends I made through them, but now we've drifted so far apart I can barely remember their names. Some have changed so much that I wonder why I liked them in the first place, and conclude it was the mutual sense of not fitting in. Society had abandoned us, so we in turn cast out the conventions we were meant to adhere to.
School is the best days of your life, according to my mother.
I have no doubt that was true for her, affable and small and pleasant and good at tennis. An in-between sort of girl, not too cool or too clever but just enough of everything to be generally likable. She had part-time jobs and friends and a place on a nursing course before she even sat her A-levels.
I think adults misrepresent school. We're fed this bullshit from such a young age - that it is the best time of your life - that I felt guilty for not liking it. I felt like I was wasting a valuable chance, spunking away a childhood of youth and freedom on things that did not matter. Even now, I get jealous when people talk fondly about their early teenage years: I hated everything up till 17, when I shook off the loner victim mentality and proclaimed introversion to be too emo.
We can't put youth on a pedestal just because we retroactively yearn for it. Sure, sometimes I miss school, but only as an abstract notion. I miss the concept of playgrounds and half-terms and being with your friends five days a week. I don't miss the reality of backstabbing bitchiness and chronic sick-days due to my total, actual inability to face the world some days.
University was what kept me going. The prospect of it, golden and radiant, and predicating a good school education to get there. I got there. The institution of secondary school was worth it, and I am truly genuinely happy now (or, at least, working on it). I only hope to get happier.
I hope my cousin's son is happier at 12 than I was. I hope I am never that miserable again. But I take issue with all blanket proclamations that school years are the best years of your life. You can't spend life assuming your best days are behind you: all of my best days are to come, and will still be to come, for as long as I live. What's life without something to look forward to?
Tuesday, 6 May 2014
The worst case scenario.
I live a life a melodrama, of sharply contrasting emotions, which bump against each other angrily and repeatedly. I praise the things that make me joyous and make me laugh, eternally retelling stories of perfect moments until they are almost myths. They are on a pedestal: I look at them and wonder, sometimes, if they actually happened at all, or if I spoke their names too many times, and poof! They disappeared. I cry easily, complain about everything unjust, and live my life in a generally over-the-top manner. This is colour, this is texture, this is how I live.
And so, for me, this is the worst case scenario.
It is 2024 and I am thirty. Well. I am just shy of my thirtieth birthday, and have been adamantly avoiding it for so long that I have prematurely aged. My face looks thirty-three already. People have started making subtle comments that my looks will go soon. The pervasive sexism of young middle-age is yet to be perfectly eradicated.
Since graduating, I have had a couple of jobs but my itchy feet got in the way of my young ones. I spent sixth months as a magazine freelancer until they let me go, but the market was tough and I was getting desperate. In the end, I just took what I could get, grabbing with both hands for something I didn't really want. It was just a stop-gap, I told myself: something to get me by, until I could quit and go travelling and then start anew in a year.
A year passed. Then two, then three, and I still had not left my job. It is in an office in a respectable part of London and I work in marketing or publicity or as a sort-of job that crosses the two, and involves coming up with dynamic Twitter solutions. I have a 45-minute commute on the tubes every morning from my flat, but it's an okay place. It's not as shabby as my last two were. Once a week I go on dates, watching foreign language movies and strolling through the park and telling myself this isn't a bad life, really. I find myself lusting after the interns. They are so young, so full of potential. I want to devour them.
I don't write, really. Not any more. I'm too tired after working all day in things I couldn't care less about. I try to leave, sometimes, but it's so hard. Somehow I am stuck, and responsible. The last place I went on holiday was Venice, with my then-lover. We argued the whole weekend, and I came home with only a handful of photos and a brooding sense of resentment. I look at the tattoos I got while young with a sense of detachment. They feel like someone else's. That can't have been me. I would never spend £200 on ink and pain; that could get me a nice pair of shoes, or earrings.
It's not a bad life, this corporate drudgery and complete obedience to the status quo, with nothing unexpected and no adventures. There is no melodrama, and I watch as my friends from university get pregnant and married and divorced, fired and evicted and transatlantically job-shifted, and I tell myself the stability is everything I need. It's not ideal, but it's... not bad.
But it is the worst case scenario.
And so, for me, this is the worst case scenario.
It is 2024 and I am thirty. Well. I am just shy of my thirtieth birthday, and have been adamantly avoiding it for so long that I have prematurely aged. My face looks thirty-three already. People have started making subtle comments that my looks will go soon. The pervasive sexism of young middle-age is yet to be perfectly eradicated.
Since graduating, I have had a couple of jobs but my itchy feet got in the way of my young ones. I spent sixth months as a magazine freelancer until they let me go, but the market was tough and I was getting desperate. In the end, I just took what I could get, grabbing with both hands for something I didn't really want. It was just a stop-gap, I told myself: something to get me by, until I could quit and go travelling and then start anew in a year.
A year passed. Then two, then three, and I still had not left my job. It is in an office in a respectable part of London and I work in marketing or publicity or as a sort-of job that crosses the two, and involves coming up with dynamic Twitter solutions. I have a 45-minute commute on the tubes every morning from my flat, but it's an okay place. It's not as shabby as my last two were. Once a week I go on dates, watching foreign language movies and strolling through the park and telling myself this isn't a bad life, really. I find myself lusting after the interns. They are so young, so full of potential. I want to devour them.
I don't write, really. Not any more. I'm too tired after working all day in things I couldn't care less about. I try to leave, sometimes, but it's so hard. Somehow I am stuck, and responsible. The last place I went on holiday was Venice, with my then-lover. We argued the whole weekend, and I came home with only a handful of photos and a brooding sense of resentment. I look at the tattoos I got while young with a sense of detachment. They feel like someone else's. That can't have been me. I would never spend £200 on ink and pain; that could get me a nice pair of shoes, or earrings.
It's not a bad life, this corporate drudgery and complete obedience to the status quo, with nothing unexpected and no adventures. There is no melodrama, and I watch as my friends from university get pregnant and married and divorced, fired and evicted and transatlantically job-shifted, and I tell myself the stability is everything I need. It's not ideal, but it's... not bad.
But it is the worst case scenario.
Sunday, 27 April 2014
"If things were different..."
If things were different, then...
Well. I don't know. Lots of things would have to be different - but then again, I can't be sure that the differences I imagine would result in the scenario I presume.
If things were different, maybe I would be in Japan. I would have ignored my flight home, burnt through the money on my card and be in my overdraft. I would be skipping lectures and seminars and staying in a cheap hostel in Tokyo, drinking and laughing and ignoring my degree. All semblance of caring would have disappeared. Maybe I would be thinking about coming home now, an extra two weeks after I intended. It's one way things might be different.
If things were different, and I had got on a train ten minutes earlier, I'd have been out drinking in Shinjuku with the rest of the people in the hostel.
If things were different - if I were different - then I'd be dating the person I love, and we wouldn't be ambiguously flirtatious best friends.
But things aren't different, and wishing they were otherwise is to sell my own life short. I care about my studies, even though it can be hard to motivate myself sometimes; with a degree I can get a better job, save up money and see the world, not just wish I could. I am not drinking in a park in Japan; I am in bed in England, recovering from a night of drinking in someone's house.
I didn't get the earlier train, and I missed having a wild night on my last day in Japan.
And I have accepted that I can't be with my best friend, because I would hurt him too much. I philander, I flirt, I lack empathy; I would be a terrible girlfriend, so I am saving him from heartbreak. I would get bored of dating him. I get bored of most things, sooner or later.
Things aren't different, so I have to deal with them as they are. The ramifications of any of these changes might have created an entirely different world. I can't change the past, no matter how hard I wish. The future is malleable, and I entirely support railing against injustice to change the things that suck. Though mostly, I feel like we should accept things as they are. Make the most of it. Make the most of now.
If things were different, I wouldn't be writing this blog post. Meta.
Well. I don't know. Lots of things would have to be different - but then again, I can't be sure that the differences I imagine would result in the scenario I presume.
If things were different, maybe I would be in Japan. I would have ignored my flight home, burnt through the money on my card and be in my overdraft. I would be skipping lectures and seminars and staying in a cheap hostel in Tokyo, drinking and laughing and ignoring my degree. All semblance of caring would have disappeared. Maybe I would be thinking about coming home now, an extra two weeks after I intended. It's one way things might be different.
If things were different, and I had got on a train ten minutes earlier, I'd have been out drinking in Shinjuku with the rest of the people in the hostel.
If things were different - if I were different - then I'd be dating the person I love, and we wouldn't be ambiguously flirtatious best friends.
But things aren't different, and wishing they were otherwise is to sell my own life short. I care about my studies, even though it can be hard to motivate myself sometimes; with a degree I can get a better job, save up money and see the world, not just wish I could. I am not drinking in a park in Japan; I am in bed in England, recovering from a night of drinking in someone's house.
I didn't get the earlier train, and I missed having a wild night on my last day in Japan.
And I have accepted that I can't be with my best friend, because I would hurt him too much. I philander, I flirt, I lack empathy; I would be a terrible girlfriend, so I am saving him from heartbreak. I would get bored of dating him. I get bored of most things, sooner or later.
Things aren't different, so I have to deal with them as they are. The ramifications of any of these changes might have created an entirely different world. I can't change the past, no matter how hard I wish. The future is malleable, and I entirely support railing against injustice to change the things that suck. Though mostly, I feel like we should accept things as they are. Make the most of it. Make the most of now.
If things were different, I wouldn't be writing this blog post. Meta.
Sunday, 2 March 2014
Nerds with Nerf guns taught me stuff.
Presented without context.*
- If you find a potato on the street at 5am, you should always always pick it up.
- If you are drinking wine at 5am at your friend's house, you should probably not have anything too important planned for the next day.
- It is perfectly acceptable to send drunk Snapchats on trains at eight in the morning.
- It is also perfectly acceptable to spoon on the floor of trains. Especially if you are still drunk from the night before.
- Apparently study drugs are "fantastic but taste like balls".
- Taking no spare clothes to a field full of mud is a really bad idea.
- Trying to run around on less than five hours' sleep in the last forty-eight hours is really hard.
- Running around while sleep-deprived is easier when drunk and harder when hungover.
- Nerf gun bullets are capable of doing actual damage, judging by the bruises on my arms.
- Sheffield is a demon hill surrounded by demon hill spawn and no matter which way you walk, it will be uphill.
- TEAM SPUD.
- Trams are great.
- Sexist tram conductors are not great.
- Friends who stand up to sexism in its insidious day-to-day forms are great.
- Taking an oversized hammer on the tram is great.
- Oversized hammers are great.
- Unexpected punchlines to hammer jokes are great. "Stop! ... Collaborate, and listen!"
- Blue hair will not always help you get spotted in a crowd.
- You should bond with people over your suspiciously similar hair colour.
- Dexterity beats brute force in any fencing match.
- People actually want to be your friend and sometimes they go out of their way to help you.
- Sometimes people you have only known for twelve hours will lend you their pyjamas while they wash your jeans and socks and let you borrow shirts when you have no change of clothes. These sorts of people are to be treasured.
- Furries are not what the media want you to think they are.
- Frozen is still amazing.
- It IS possible to order £700-worth of Domino's.
- There is nothing wrong with playing Cards Against Humanity over breakfast.
- Mentioning Prince Albert piercings in a group of guys will cause much confusion and squeamishness. This is doubly so if one of the guys in the group has one. And it has a fairly large gauge ring in it.
- Twitch Plays Pokemon has made the leap from weird internet phenomenon to something that spawns intense esoteric debates about religion, community, free will, and the power of technology.
- Running around a park with fake blue and orange guns is cooler than whatever you did with your weekend.
- Everything is awesome.
*This weekend was Assassins Varsity in Sheffield, for student Assassins Guilds across the country. About eight different universities were represented. That's all you're getting.
- If you find a potato on the street at 5am, you should always always pick it up.
- If you are drinking wine at 5am at your friend's house, you should probably not have anything too important planned for the next day.
- It is perfectly acceptable to send drunk Snapchats on trains at eight in the morning.
- It is also perfectly acceptable to spoon on the floor of trains. Especially if you are still drunk from the night before.
- Apparently study drugs are "fantastic but taste like balls".
- Taking no spare clothes to a field full of mud is a really bad idea.
- Trying to run around on less than five hours' sleep in the last forty-eight hours is really hard.
- Running around while sleep-deprived is easier when drunk and harder when hungover.
- Nerf gun bullets are capable of doing actual damage, judging by the bruises on my arms.
- Sheffield is a demon hill surrounded by demon hill spawn and no matter which way you walk, it will be uphill.
- TEAM SPUD.
- Trams are great.
- Sexist tram conductors are not great.
- Friends who stand up to sexism in its insidious day-to-day forms are great.
- Taking an oversized hammer on the tram is great.
- Oversized hammers are great.
- Unexpected punchlines to hammer jokes are great. "Stop! ... Collaborate, and listen!"
- Blue hair will not always help you get spotted in a crowd.
- You should bond with people over your suspiciously similar hair colour.
- Dexterity beats brute force in any fencing match.
- People actually want to be your friend and sometimes they go out of their way to help you.
- Sometimes people you have only known for twelve hours will lend you their pyjamas while they wash your jeans and socks and let you borrow shirts when you have no change of clothes. These sorts of people are to be treasured.
- Furries are not what the media want you to think they are.
- Frozen is still amazing.
- It IS possible to order £700-worth of Domino's.
- There is nothing wrong with playing Cards Against Humanity over breakfast.
- Mentioning Prince Albert piercings in a group of guys will cause much confusion and squeamishness. This is doubly so if one of the guys in the group has one. And it has a fairly large gauge ring in it.
- Twitch Plays Pokemon has made the leap from weird internet phenomenon to something that spawns intense esoteric debates about religion, community, free will, and the power of technology.
- Running around a park with fake blue and orange guns is cooler than whatever you did with your weekend.
- Everything is awesome.
*This weekend was Assassins Varsity in Sheffield, for student Assassins Guilds across the country. About eight different universities were represented. That's all you're getting.
Saturday, 22 February 2014
A year in the life.
A year ago today, I published my first blog post on here.
A lot has happened in a year.
I've had 6,393 views on my blog from 6 continents and 60 countries. I've written 45 posts on this site, but I've also written for Autostraddle, Thought Catalog, Bloomsbury, Total Film and of course Nouse. I've become Deputy News Editor for the campus newspaper! That's pretty groovy.
I've been on more dates this year than in the rest of my life put together. I'm yet to fall in love with a person, but I've fallen in love with some places - with Japan and its gentility and culture, but also with York and its winding streets and perpetually smoke-grey sky.
I've seen a little bit more of the world than I had before: there are now 10 more countries I've set foot in compared to this time last year, and I'm working on seeing even more countries by this time next year.
I've started university, made new friends and maybe lost a few too - but that's okay, because life is all about gaining and losing things.
I've shared my bed with many bodies and even my head with one or two people. I'm slightly officially insane, and the hyperbole makes me feel better - but so does one of my friends holding me in the middle of the night.
I've learned I'm not as smart as I think, but perhaps a bit kinder than I give myself credit for.
Am I a better person than I was a year ago? Probably. I still have a lot to work on though. I'm not as confident as I was, and I'm still self-centred and insecure and liable to flail uncontrollably when tickled. I still wear my bleeding heart on my sleeve and hold onto old grudges like scars and keep raking over the same old wounds, despite knowing how much it'll hurt, but I'm trying to be better.
That's it, I suppose. I'm trying.
Here's to another year of trying.
A lot has happened in a year.
I've had 6,393 views on my blog from 6 continents and 60 countries. I've written 45 posts on this site, but I've also written for Autostraddle, Thought Catalog, Bloomsbury, Total Film and of course Nouse. I've become Deputy News Editor for the campus newspaper! That's pretty groovy.
I've been on more dates this year than in the rest of my life put together. I'm yet to fall in love with a person, but I've fallen in love with some places - with Japan and its gentility and culture, but also with York and its winding streets and perpetually smoke-grey sky.
I've seen a little bit more of the world than I had before: there are now 10 more countries I've set foot in compared to this time last year, and I'm working on seeing even more countries by this time next year.
I've started university, made new friends and maybe lost a few too - but that's okay, because life is all about gaining and losing things.
I've shared my bed with many bodies and even my head with one or two people. I'm slightly officially insane, and the hyperbole makes me feel better - but so does one of my friends holding me in the middle of the night.
I've learned I'm not as smart as I think, but perhaps a bit kinder than I give myself credit for.
Am I a better person than I was a year ago? Probably. I still have a lot to work on though. I'm not as confident as I was, and I'm still self-centred and insecure and liable to flail uncontrollably when tickled. I still wear my bleeding heart on my sleeve and hold onto old grudges like scars and keep raking over the same old wounds, despite knowing how much it'll hurt, but I'm trying to be better.
That's it, I suppose. I'm trying.
Here's to another year of trying.
Thursday, 20 February 2014
Will we stand for this?
Sometimes I find myself distracted from doing the things I should be doing - like reading George Eliot books and going to lectures on David Hume - by things that are marginally less important. I spend a lot of my life trawling the internet for places to try and do work experience, and it never goes particularly well.
I end up in rabbit-warrens of despair that all media work experience seems to fall into one of three categories:
1. Unpaid hovering
This is what all my work experience placements have technically been so far - turn up for a couple of weeks, watch people do things, try and be useful. I've managed to get a fair amount out of these though, from pretty much single-handedly generating a week's content for a magazine's website to interviewing a pop star. The problem is you don't get much hands-on experience, and usually expenses aren't paid. Even if I'm only commuting to London for a week, that still costs me about £80 in train fares.
2. Slave labour
The type where you get a job for three months with no pay and expenses only, and are expected to be grateful for the opportunity to do real work - and basically be a short-contract full-time employee - without any promise of further work, or actual help breaking into the sector. These are the sorts that annoy me the most. Science students seem easily able to get themselves paid internships over the summer, even with only a year's academic experience under their belts; but arts demand that you grovel for the chance to make a mediocre writer's tea for twelve weeks.
3. Misadvertised jobs
The final sort are the ones which advertise themselves as "internships". They are not internships. They are year-long schemes for graduate students which will probably end up with permanent employment. They are actual jobs, operating on a year-long contract, which eternally succeed in getting my hopes up, before dashing them - because I'm not eligible to apply to them for at least another two years.
All of these are kinda shitty in their own ways, but type 2 is the worst. Not only is it elitist, by shouldering out of the sector anyone who can't afford three months of unpaid work, but it also devalues the contribution of the interns.
As a kid, growing up, I was taught that if I worked hard in school then I would go to a good university, and if I worked hard at university then I would get a good job and be able to make money doing what I love, and that would be that. I realised at 16 that life doesn't work like that and I couldn't just walk into a job after graduating the same way my dad did. If I want to make my money writing, I have to do it for free, and for a long time. It's one of the only jobs I know of where that's true.
Honestly, I will probably be a better writer by the end of my degree than I am currently, but it will have less to do with what I studied and more to do with the fact I've had an extra two years to hone my skills. As it is, I am probably a better writer than some graduates, because it is the thing I am good at - and there are going to be some high school students who are better writers than me, if that's the thing they are really good at.
I think we should just ban unpaid internships. Flat-out outlaw them. I'm sure I would be a valued member of your team, but why should I contribute as much as the snotty-nosed 24-year-old next to me when he's on £17,000 a year and I'm on £100 a week expenses?
The sad thing is, I know I'm going to do them. I want to challenge of working on real projects and getting my name in print beyond my brilliant student newspaper - but I also know I'm going to resent having a job and not being paid for it. Will we stand for this? No. But I might well sit at a computer all summer and type for it.
I end up in rabbit-warrens of despair that all media work experience seems to fall into one of three categories:
1. Unpaid hovering
This is what all my work experience placements have technically been so far - turn up for a couple of weeks, watch people do things, try and be useful. I've managed to get a fair amount out of these though, from pretty much single-handedly generating a week's content for a magazine's website to interviewing a pop star. The problem is you don't get much hands-on experience, and usually expenses aren't paid. Even if I'm only commuting to London for a week, that still costs me about £80 in train fares.
2. Slave labour
The type where you get a job for three months with no pay and expenses only, and are expected to be grateful for the opportunity to do real work - and basically be a short-contract full-time employee - without any promise of further work, or actual help breaking into the sector. These are the sorts that annoy me the most. Science students seem easily able to get themselves paid internships over the summer, even with only a year's academic experience under their belts; but arts demand that you grovel for the chance to make a mediocre writer's tea for twelve weeks.
3. Misadvertised jobs
The final sort are the ones which advertise themselves as "internships". They are not internships. They are year-long schemes for graduate students which will probably end up with permanent employment. They are actual jobs, operating on a year-long contract, which eternally succeed in getting my hopes up, before dashing them - because I'm not eligible to apply to them for at least another two years.
All of these are kinda shitty in their own ways, but type 2 is the worst. Not only is it elitist, by shouldering out of the sector anyone who can't afford three months of unpaid work, but it also devalues the contribution of the interns.
As a kid, growing up, I was taught that if I worked hard in school then I would go to a good university, and if I worked hard at university then I would get a good job and be able to make money doing what I love, and that would be that. I realised at 16 that life doesn't work like that and I couldn't just walk into a job after graduating the same way my dad did. If I want to make my money writing, I have to do it for free, and for a long time. It's one of the only jobs I know of where that's true.
Honestly, I will probably be a better writer by the end of my degree than I am currently, but it will have less to do with what I studied and more to do with the fact I've had an extra two years to hone my skills. As it is, I am probably a better writer than some graduates, because it is the thing I am good at - and there are going to be some high school students who are better writers than me, if that's the thing they are really good at.
I think we should just ban unpaid internships. Flat-out outlaw them. I'm sure I would be a valued member of your team, but why should I contribute as much as the snotty-nosed 24-year-old next to me when he's on £17,000 a year and I'm on £100 a week expenses?
The sad thing is, I know I'm going to do them. I want to challenge of working on real projects and getting my name in print beyond my brilliant student newspaper - but I also know I'm going to resent having a job and not being paid for it. Will we stand for this? No. But I might well sit at a computer all summer and type for it.
Friday, 14 February 2014
Adventure time.
I want to see the world.
I want to put into words everything there is.
I want to gaze at the northern lights in Iceland and dance under falling leaves in a New England autumn. I want to see the clouds from the other side at the top of a mountain and come face to face with whales in the sea.
I want it all - all the cultures, all the tongues I don't understand, all the new places and experiences. I can't understand why anyone wouldn't.
I've got itchy feet just thinking about it. There is so much of the world to see that we can't ever see all of it. But it feels like we ought to at least try.
I want to feel my heart thudding against my ribs as I abseil down a building. I want to drive across deserts of sand in straight lines for hours. Catch a train across Russia. Backpack through Italian countryside. Headbang at festivals. Gaze in wonder at the same stars in the same sky in all the different countries I can.
In the book he gave me for my birthday, my then-boyfriend wrote: "To settle down is to admit you've seen all the world has. Never stop travelling." He spelled traveling wrong - because what does spelling matter, compared to the jungle islands of Micronesia or temples in Jordan?
What's the world for if we don't try and see it?
That is why I don't have the money to go out this week. It's all in my bank account, saving up for posing in front of signs in Gangnam and visting the hells of Beppu over Easter. I can't wait.
There isn't much of a point to this, except that mostly I love how my university loan is going to be spent on going new places and having new adventures. There's no education better than trying to see the world, is there?
I want to put into words everything there is.
I want to gaze at the northern lights in Iceland and dance under falling leaves in a New England autumn. I want to see the clouds from the other side at the top of a mountain and come face to face with whales in the sea.
I want it all - all the cultures, all the tongues I don't understand, all the new places and experiences. I can't understand why anyone wouldn't.
I've got itchy feet just thinking about it. There is so much of the world to see that we can't ever see all of it. But it feels like we ought to at least try.
I want to feel my heart thudding against my ribs as I abseil down a building. I want to drive across deserts of sand in straight lines for hours. Catch a train across Russia. Backpack through Italian countryside. Headbang at festivals. Gaze in wonder at the same stars in the same sky in all the different countries I can.
In the book he gave me for my birthday, my then-boyfriend wrote: "To settle down is to admit you've seen all the world has. Never stop travelling." He spelled traveling wrong - because what does spelling matter, compared to the jungle islands of Micronesia or temples in Jordan?
What's the world for if we don't try and see it?
That is why I don't have the money to go out this week. It's all in my bank account, saving up for posing in front of signs in Gangnam and visting the hells of Beppu over Easter. I can't wait.
There isn't much of a point to this, except that mostly I love how my university loan is going to be spent on going new places and having new adventures. There's no education better than trying to see the world, is there?
Monday, 10 February 2014
The meaning of life...
This is post #42 on my blog. Really, if I hadn't gone into radio silence between July and December, this day would have come a lot sooner: but, alas, the past is in the past. Unless Dr Who kindly lets me borrow his TARDIS - which, I should point out, has far better uses than being appropriated to retroactively update a blog - there is no way to change that. Anyway, the fateful day has arrived.
Forty-two.
The meaning of life, the universe and everything.
Pretty big, huh.
And who am I, to speak on such a broad topic, you may ask?
Well, honestly, nobody. I'm just a person. But we all are, in the end. It doesn't matter if you're the CEO of a multinational corporation or a toddler drooling over a sticky spoon - we're all just people in the end. Made up of our relationships, experiences and memories. Some people have more of these than others. That doesn't necessarily mean they are more wise, interesting or kind, or any of those other lovely things we should all endeavour to be.
I don't know much. I've never been in love, never had a best friendship so strong it could shipwreck everything else, never achieved anything huge and miraculous that people look up to, never found anywhere I can definitely say I belong. I sort of muddle along, scared of everything and pretending not to be, laughing the loudest to cover up my insecurities... just like everyone else.
But I do know one thing. Well, really, I know many things, like Pythagoras' theorem and how to change a tyre and who Rihanna shared a cab with last night. But I know one really important thing:
Nobody can tell you the meaning of life.
It's not a piece of information that gets passed to you like a dictionary definition or instruction manual. The nearest thing I can work out is that we find our own meaning of life through our actions and interactions. We work on what we want and do what we must to try and forge meaningful moments. The worst thing I can imagine is being on my deathbed, looking back on my life and feeling like it was worthless. It's got to be worth something, doesn't it? The problem is, the only way life can be made meaningful is if you do it. Nobody else will do it for you.
I've written 42 posts on this blog now. Most of them are mediocre. A few are awful. A few might be good. Maybe one of them is brilliant. I suppose I'll just have to keep writing until I can consistently create things with meaning - and, even better, that maybe hold some meaning for the people reading them too.
Forty-two.
The meaning of life, the universe and everything.
Pretty big, huh.
And who am I, to speak on such a broad topic, you may ask?
Well, honestly, nobody. I'm just a person. But we all are, in the end. It doesn't matter if you're the CEO of a multinational corporation or a toddler drooling over a sticky spoon - we're all just people in the end. Made up of our relationships, experiences and memories. Some people have more of these than others. That doesn't necessarily mean they are more wise, interesting or kind, or any of those other lovely things we should all endeavour to be.
I don't know much. I've never been in love, never had a best friendship so strong it could shipwreck everything else, never achieved anything huge and miraculous that people look up to, never found anywhere I can definitely say I belong. I sort of muddle along, scared of everything and pretending not to be, laughing the loudest to cover up my insecurities... just like everyone else.
But I do know one thing. Well, really, I know many things, like Pythagoras' theorem and how to change a tyre and who Rihanna shared a cab with last night. But I know one really important thing:
Nobody can tell you the meaning of life.
It's not a piece of information that gets passed to you like a dictionary definition or instruction manual. The nearest thing I can work out is that we find our own meaning of life through our actions and interactions. We work on what we want and do what we must to try and forge meaningful moments. The worst thing I can imagine is being on my deathbed, looking back on my life and feeling like it was worthless. It's got to be worth something, doesn't it? The problem is, the only way life can be made meaningful is if you do it. Nobody else will do it for you.
I've written 42 posts on this blog now. Most of them are mediocre. A few are awful. A few might be good. Maybe one of them is brilliant. I suppose I'll just have to keep writing until I can consistently create things with meaning - and, even better, that maybe hold some meaning for the people reading them too.
Wednesday, 5 February 2014
Bruised.
Natasha Beddingfield can fuck right off: if anyone can talk about getting bruised, then it's me. And no, I'm not talking in the metaphorical sense. I mean literally, physically, black-and-green actual bruises. If there are bruises to be had, I probably have them.
At the moment, I am quite impressively bruised. My bruise catalogue is as follows:
1x hickey, on my neck, from a night of necking in Willow. Reddish and almost invisible.
1x bruise on my left leg, circumstances unknown, but presumed to be from the infamous Party Harty. For reference, Party Harty was almost two weeks ago. This bruise on the outside on my thigh is roughly the size of my fist, presently brown, but has faded full the full spectrum of colours.
4x bruises on my right leg, circumstances also unknown. From their uniform colour (green) and similar locations (in horizontal bands up my shin and to the knee), I presume these are from walking into things - but again, I can't tell you for sure.
1x bruise on my right outer forearm, from either tree-climbing or my habit of shrugging a tote bag off my shoulder and catching it on my arm. Only perceptible because the skin still feels slightly tender, otherwise gone.
Admittedly, alcohol may have featured in a lot of these stories, but I have always attracted bruises, far more than scrapes or burns or cuts.
At ten I fell over constantly, laddering my tights and getting away with no bloodloss but impressive contusions.
At twelve I was so clumsy that the school nurse, seeing my multi-coloured arms, asked if "everything was alright at home."
At fifteen I would come out of gigs looking like I'd been beaten up without ever going near the moshpits.
At eighteen a playful bite from a beau turned into a line of angry red marks on my tricep, which relegated me to wearing long sleeves for a week lest I explain it to my mother.
On Hallowe'en I was accidentally hit in the face, and wore an impressive black eye for two weeks until it faded into obscurity. My friends might have forgotten, but I haven't: there's still a small bump on my cheekbone where it healed funny, a permanent lump under my right eye.
I sort of like it, the way I sort of like all my bruises.
They remind me that things really happened, that I was really there, anchored in the material world. This is not to say I would ever put up with someone trying to hurt me - ain't nobody got time for that - but more that I understand accidents and incidents. Most are my own fault, from wandering around with my head in the clouds rather than staying grounded. On my more ephemerally dualist days, my bruises remind me my body is real and active and perfect. There is no good reason for me to bruise like this either: I have no blood disorders, and even my chronically-pale family members seem to have more resilient capillaries than I do.
Bruised emotions are another matter, and a story for another time. But, Ms Beddingfield, until you've managed to bruise yourself sliding downstairs to see your friend on New Year's Eve, or carelessly dropping an empty tin on your leg, or sneezing a bit too violently too close to a wall - don't talk to me about bruising easily. I'm like a fucking peach, and I might as well be proud of it.
At the moment, I am quite impressively bruised. My bruise catalogue is as follows:
1x hickey, on my neck, from a night of necking in Willow. Reddish and almost invisible.
1x bruise on my left leg, circumstances unknown, but presumed to be from the infamous Party Harty. For reference, Party Harty was almost two weeks ago. This bruise on the outside on my thigh is roughly the size of my fist, presently brown, but has faded full the full spectrum of colours.
4x bruises on my right leg, circumstances also unknown. From their uniform colour (green) and similar locations (in horizontal bands up my shin and to the knee), I presume these are from walking into things - but again, I can't tell you for sure.
1x bruise on my right outer forearm, from either tree-climbing or my habit of shrugging a tote bag off my shoulder and catching it on my arm. Only perceptible because the skin still feels slightly tender, otherwise gone.
Admittedly, alcohol may have featured in a lot of these stories, but I have always attracted bruises, far more than scrapes or burns or cuts.
At ten I fell over constantly, laddering my tights and getting away with no bloodloss but impressive contusions.
At twelve I was so clumsy that the school nurse, seeing my multi-coloured arms, asked if "everything was alright at home."
At fifteen I would come out of gigs looking like I'd been beaten up without ever going near the moshpits.
At eighteen a playful bite from a beau turned into a line of angry red marks on my tricep, which relegated me to wearing long sleeves for a week lest I explain it to my mother.
On Hallowe'en I was accidentally hit in the face, and wore an impressive black eye for two weeks until it faded into obscurity. My friends might have forgotten, but I haven't: there's still a small bump on my cheekbone where it healed funny, a permanent lump under my right eye.
I sort of like it, the way I sort of like all my bruises.
They remind me that things really happened, that I was really there, anchored in the material world. This is not to say I would ever put up with someone trying to hurt me - ain't nobody got time for that - but more that I understand accidents and incidents. Most are my own fault, from wandering around with my head in the clouds rather than staying grounded. On my more ephemerally dualist days, my bruises remind me my body is real and active and perfect. There is no good reason for me to bruise like this either: I have no blood disorders, and even my chronically-pale family members seem to have more resilient capillaries than I do.
Bruised emotions are another matter, and a story for another time. But, Ms Beddingfield, until you've managed to bruise yourself sliding downstairs to see your friend on New Year's Eve, or carelessly dropping an empty tin on your leg, or sneezing a bit too violently too close to a wall - don't talk to me about bruising easily. I'm like a fucking peach, and I might as well be proud of it.
Thursday, 30 January 2014
Beating the blues with green.
Everyone has mood swings. Everyone has days when they feel awful, and getting out of bed takes as much effort and willpower as running a marathon. But these mostly only last a day or two, and then life goes back to normal.
Over the past three or four years, I've noticed a persistent change in my moods around December through to March. I feel much less ebullient, more reserved and cranky. I crave isolation, and company, but want to withdraw from social interaction. The last time I asked a doctor about it, I got told to fill in a questionnaire and come back in six weeks - by which time, it was the spring. Therefore, although it is not confirmed - and honestly, there are very few ways to treat it - the working hypothesis between me and my ex-nurse mother is that might I have some mild form of Seasonal Affective Disorder. (The best thing about SAD is its highly appropriate acronym.)
Anyway, that is the backstory. Take it with all the salt you want, but take away from it the fact that I was feeling fairly down today. Spending time outside is supposed to help, even on miserable overcast days when the whole sky is the same shade of pigeon grey: and so, I was outside, walking home from coffee, when I came across The Tree.
The Tree is opposite the Philosophy department on a fairly busy commuter stretch of the York University campus. There are other trees of a similar height around it, but this one is my favourite. Some way up there is a conglomeration of flat branches which look perfect to sit on; around the tree as a whole, the branches are close together and roughly form a spiral, so by moving clockwise around the main trunk of the tree it's possible to get thirty, maybe thirty-five feet up. The only way up for someone of my height is to grasp a branch about six feet off the ground, and jump your legs in a most inelegant fashion onto a second, slightly lower branch a few feet away. It's the same way I got up my favourite climbing tree as a kid.
So there I was, tote bag slung over one shoulder, making my way up this tree. I stopped to read some philosophy at a nice little flat branch maybe twelve feet up, the same place where I'd watched the sun rise from one day last term. It was peaceful, and easy to people-watch.
You never realise how much people miss until you're in a position to notice for them.
I got bored and numb after a while, and climbed higher to warm up. I tied my bag to a branch and scrabbled haphazardly up the tree, precariously balancing my feet in weird crevices and wondering why I'd never taken my grandad up on his offer of tree-climbing lessons as a child. I stood still for a while; I turned up my iPod and climbed higher; eventually I reached the perfectly horizontal branches I saw from the ground.
From them, I could see the lake in the centre of campus, and the Eric Milner buildings across it; I could make out buses cresting the hill of University Road, and hear hurried snatches of conversation as students and staff rushed past, caught up in their little worlds. In ancient Japan, ninjas were taught to hide in plain sight, which they often did by clinging to the ceiling: it's easy to see why they never got spotted. Nobody looks up.
I'd been sat up the tree for maybe an hour and a bit when the Security Services arrived. Some of the passers-by had reported me, clearly unnerved by my presence. Because if I wanted to commit suicide, apparently a moderately-high tree on a busy part of campus is a far better bet than throwing myself into Ouse or jumping off the top of the Physics building. Either way, the authorities were here: while they had no problem with me being up a tree, they politely implied that people would keep reporting me if I stayed, and really I had better come down.
I did so, slowly, collecting my bag on the way - because like hell was I going to rush and fall out a tree while being watched by two middle-aged, faintly bored security guards. I got back to base level and presented my Student ID for scrutiny, and wondered why it made so much difference.
Up the tree, reading my dry-as-pirates'-tack Philosophy notes on Natural Law, I had been... not happy, but certainly less down. Maybe it was just prolonged exposure to the cold, but my mind felt clearer. With my feet firmly on solid ground, instead of awkwardly wedged against twigs or dangling into oblivion, my mood had plummeted again.
It was only a couple of hours ago, but it sort of feels like it never happened. Only the photos and the green powder on my coat exist as proof. I'm not sure what helped more: the change in perspective, or the low-level rebellion and the evident nervousness it instilled in the general public. Either way, for at least a little while today, I got the winter blues to go away.
Over the past three or four years, I've noticed a persistent change in my moods around December through to March. I feel much less ebullient, more reserved and cranky. I crave isolation, and company, but want to withdraw from social interaction. The last time I asked a doctor about it, I got told to fill in a questionnaire and come back in six weeks - by which time, it was the spring. Therefore, although it is not confirmed - and honestly, there are very few ways to treat it - the working hypothesis between me and my ex-nurse mother is that might I have some mild form of Seasonal Affective Disorder. (The best thing about SAD is its highly appropriate acronym.)
Anyway, that is the backstory. Take it with all the salt you want, but take away from it the fact that I was feeling fairly down today. Spending time outside is supposed to help, even on miserable overcast days when the whole sky is the same shade of pigeon grey: and so, I was outside, walking home from coffee, when I came across The Tree.
The Tree is opposite the Philosophy department on a fairly busy commuter stretch of the York University campus. There are other trees of a similar height around it, but this one is my favourite. Some way up there is a conglomeration of flat branches which look perfect to sit on; around the tree as a whole, the branches are close together and roughly form a spiral, so by moving clockwise around the main trunk of the tree it's possible to get thirty, maybe thirty-five feet up. The only way up for someone of my height is to grasp a branch about six feet off the ground, and jump your legs in a most inelegant fashion onto a second, slightly lower branch a few feet away. It's the same way I got up my favourite climbing tree as a kid.
So there I was, tote bag slung over one shoulder, making my way up this tree. I stopped to read some philosophy at a nice little flat branch maybe twelve feet up, the same place where I'd watched the sun rise from one day last term. It was peaceful, and easy to people-watch.
You never realise how much people miss until you're in a position to notice for them.
I got bored and numb after a while, and climbed higher to warm up. I tied my bag to a branch and scrabbled haphazardly up the tree, precariously balancing my feet in weird crevices and wondering why I'd never taken my grandad up on his offer of tree-climbing lessons as a child. I stood still for a while; I turned up my iPod and climbed higher; eventually I reached the perfectly horizontal branches I saw from the ground.
From them, I could see the lake in the centre of campus, and the Eric Milner buildings across it; I could make out buses cresting the hill of University Road, and hear hurried snatches of conversation as students and staff rushed past, caught up in their little worlds. In ancient Japan, ninjas were taught to hide in plain sight, which they often did by clinging to the ceiling: it's easy to see why they never got spotted. Nobody looks up.
I'd been sat up the tree for maybe an hour and a bit when the Security Services arrived. Some of the passers-by had reported me, clearly unnerved by my presence. Because if I wanted to commit suicide, apparently a moderately-high tree on a busy part of campus is a far better bet than throwing myself into Ouse or jumping off the top of the Physics building. Either way, the authorities were here: while they had no problem with me being up a tree, they politely implied that people would keep reporting me if I stayed, and really I had better come down.
I did so, slowly, collecting my bag on the way - because like hell was I going to rush and fall out a tree while being watched by two middle-aged, faintly bored security guards. I got back to base level and presented my Student ID for scrutiny, and wondered why it made so much difference.
Up the tree, reading my dry-as-pirates'-tack Philosophy notes on Natural Law, I had been... not happy, but certainly less down. Maybe it was just prolonged exposure to the cold, but my mind felt clearer. With my feet firmly on solid ground, instead of awkwardly wedged against twigs or dangling into oblivion, my mood had plummeted again.
It was only a couple of hours ago, but it sort of feels like it never happened. Only the photos and the green powder on my coat exist as proof. I'm not sure what helped more: the change in perspective, or the low-level rebellion and the evident nervousness it instilled in the general public. Either way, for at least a little while today, I got the winter blues to go away.
Friday, 17 January 2014
I am not your manic pixie dream girl.
Nobody wants to date me.
Yes, I say this, despite having turned down the painfully sweet advances of a guy I love as a friend but do not want to date. Despite the few-month relationships that characterised my 2013. Nobody wants to date me, as an actual living breathing crying bodily-function-having person. People want to date the person they think I am: a manic pixie dream girl.
I kind of can't blame them, to be honest. I have inadvertently stumbled into MPDG territory. I have short, brightly coloured hair. I'm a creative sort. I'm spontaneous and scatter-brained and clumsy and have a habit of grabbing people and dragging them with me on madcap adventures (or, more likely, to pub quizzes and Willow).
But the manic pixie dream girl trope reduces women down into merely these cartoon versions of themselves, who laugh and smile and exist to help direct the eternally-puzzled man puzzle out his eternally directionless life. I've been guilty of it, too (for a boy); thought how nice it would be to date the Welsh guy who I had a crush on for two years based purely on our mutual love for Fire Emblem games. What did I know about him? Not much. But he was attractive, and he represented a break from the ordinary.
And that's the problem. When someone dates you under MPDG assumptions, they are with you because they feel you will bring sparkle and impulse into their otherwise-lacking world. Like you will turn up and suddenly paint the trees a brighter shade of green, and open their eyes to the hitherto unnoticed beauty of Milan Kundera novels and fake glasses. Obviously, people can't do that: we're not magic, not one of us. We cannot force you to alter perceptions unless that capacity to change exists within yourself already.
Once people realise you exist as more than this human-shaped life-brightener, that is when I find the attraction wanes. I am not a manic pixie dream girl. I am not going to support you through every facet of your life. I have my own emotions to chart, my own existential crises to ponder. I get moody and vent about my feelings at inappropriate times; I talk about myself a lot, and I talk far too much when I'm nervous. I can be manic to the point of reckless, and I don't think about consequences enough, unless I'm thinking about them too much. I'm a perfectionist and spend tens of minutes wondering whether I can start this many sentences with "I" (answer: yes, because it's anaphora for rhetorical effect). I do things purely for the stories they will create, and steadfastly stand by principles even when my opponent is a friend.
I will not make your life better.
This is something my dear friend does not understand. Since I've turned down his advances - gently, and then more firmly to drive the message home - he has turned into the person I vent my woes to. He makes sure I know he's never more than a text away and knows just how to make me smile. It's sort of brilliant. He has manic pixie dream boyed himself. (But I'm still not going to date him.)
The thing is, you do not want to date me, V. S. Wells, semi-professional self-pitier and chronic complainer. You want to date Vee, the Facebook profile I present as my best version of me, the girl who dyes her hair monthly and bakes cookies in her knickers at 2am.
I'm not waiting for The One who loves me just as I am - because, honestly, I am a terrible girlfriend and do not want to inflict that upon anyone. This is not a plea for love. It is a request for the stereotyping to end. Just because Nicholas Sparks and Stephen Moffat can reduce women to personality quirks and value-added tits doesn't mean it works in real life.
I might be shiny on the surface, but - to quote the inimitable Andrea Gibson - "I know all of us are scratched, even if you can't hear it when we speak". I'm scratched. Stop thinking the record's perfect, and don't be disappointed when it starts to skip.
Yes, I say this, despite having turned down the painfully sweet advances of a guy I love as a friend but do not want to date. Despite the few-month relationships that characterised my 2013. Nobody wants to date me, as an actual living breathing crying bodily-function-having person. People want to date the person they think I am: a manic pixie dream girl.
I kind of can't blame them, to be honest. I have inadvertently stumbled into MPDG territory. I have short, brightly coloured hair. I'm a creative sort. I'm spontaneous and scatter-brained and clumsy and have a habit of grabbing people and dragging them with me on madcap adventures (or, more likely, to pub quizzes and Willow).
But the manic pixie dream girl trope reduces women down into merely these cartoon versions of themselves, who laugh and smile and exist to help direct the eternally-puzzled man puzzle out his eternally directionless life. I've been guilty of it, too (for a boy); thought how nice it would be to date the Welsh guy who I had a crush on for two years based purely on our mutual love for Fire Emblem games. What did I know about him? Not much. But he was attractive, and he represented a break from the ordinary.
And that's the problem. When someone dates you under MPDG assumptions, they are with you because they feel you will bring sparkle and impulse into their otherwise-lacking world. Like you will turn up and suddenly paint the trees a brighter shade of green, and open their eyes to the hitherto unnoticed beauty of Milan Kundera novels and fake glasses. Obviously, people can't do that: we're not magic, not one of us. We cannot force you to alter perceptions unless that capacity to change exists within yourself already.
Once people realise you exist as more than this human-shaped life-brightener, that is when I find the attraction wanes. I am not a manic pixie dream girl. I am not going to support you through every facet of your life. I have my own emotions to chart, my own existential crises to ponder. I get moody and vent about my feelings at inappropriate times; I talk about myself a lot, and I talk far too much when I'm nervous. I can be manic to the point of reckless, and I don't think about consequences enough, unless I'm thinking about them too much. I'm a perfectionist and spend tens of minutes wondering whether I can start this many sentences with "I" (answer: yes, because it's anaphora for rhetorical effect). I do things purely for the stories they will create, and steadfastly stand by principles even when my opponent is a friend.
I will not make your life better.
This is something my dear friend does not understand. Since I've turned down his advances - gently, and then more firmly to drive the message home - he has turned into the person I vent my woes to. He makes sure I know he's never more than a text away and knows just how to make me smile. It's sort of brilliant. He has manic pixie dream boyed himself. (But I'm still not going to date him.)
The thing is, you do not want to date me, V. S. Wells, semi-professional self-pitier and chronic complainer. You want to date Vee, the Facebook profile I present as my best version of me, the girl who dyes her hair monthly and bakes cookies in her knickers at 2am.
I'm not waiting for The One who loves me just as I am - because, honestly, I am a terrible girlfriend and do not want to inflict that upon anyone. This is not a plea for love. It is a request for the stereotyping to end. Just because Nicholas Sparks and Stephen Moffat can reduce women to personality quirks and value-added tits doesn't mean it works in real life.
I might be shiny on the surface, but - to quote the inimitable Andrea Gibson - "I know all of us are scratched, even if you can't hear it when we speak". I'm scratched. Stop thinking the record's perfect, and don't be disappointed when it starts to skip.
Sunday, 5 January 2014
"Good enough" is good enough for me.
When I say "that's good enough", it implies I have reached one of two stages.
The first is the point of frustration. When I have been toiling away at something for hours, or sometimes just minutes. This is often something I don't care about as much as I ought to, be it a blogpost or an essay or icing a cake. This is the version where I throw in the towel and accept that I cannot be bothered to work any more: it is the "fuck it, that's good enough" mentality.
The other arises more rarely. It applies to the things I really care about, more often the things I write out of an obligation to my own sense of artistry than the things I write out of academic necessity. It's an acceptance that I will never be as good as I want to be, unless I work hard. And that's okay: I can't just jump into being perfect. I have to work. For now, this is good enough.
Good enough.
Sometimes it's hard to remember that we are our own person, isn't it? It seems like we're surrounded by people telling us we are not pretty enough, our skin not smooth enough, our conversation not sparkling enough, our rooms not tidy enough. Admittedly yes, my room isn't tidy, but it's tidy enough for me! I can find anything I want on this desk, if I spend some time wading through the salmagundi of papers on it and remember to move my biscuit tins.
"Fuck it, that's good enough" is what I say after ten minutes of half-hearted tidying up, or two days of staring blankly at the third chapter of Plato's Republic. It's also what I'll say about the prologues I draft and re-draft. And it's the fear of it - of not being good enough - which means those prologues are left as forewords to stories that never get written.
I am tired of not thinking myself good enough, and I am tired of my own lazy standards.
So that is my new year's resolution, in the broadest possible sense: to never settle for being less than enough. And to remind myself that things do not need to be perfect. Strive for better, but recognise when "good" means "good enough".
This blog post isn't great, but it's something - and something that has provided a temporary portal away from the stress of my exam revision. It'll do. Fuck it. For now, it's good enough.
The first is the point of frustration. When I have been toiling away at something for hours, or sometimes just minutes. This is often something I don't care about as much as I ought to, be it a blogpost or an essay or icing a cake. This is the version where I throw in the towel and accept that I cannot be bothered to work any more: it is the "fuck it, that's good enough" mentality.
The other arises more rarely. It applies to the things I really care about, more often the things I write out of an obligation to my own sense of artistry than the things I write out of academic necessity. It's an acceptance that I will never be as good as I want to be, unless I work hard. And that's okay: I can't just jump into being perfect. I have to work. For now, this is good enough.
Good enough.
Sometimes it's hard to remember that we are our own person, isn't it? It seems like we're surrounded by people telling us we are not pretty enough, our skin not smooth enough, our conversation not sparkling enough, our rooms not tidy enough. Admittedly yes, my room isn't tidy, but it's tidy enough for me! I can find anything I want on this desk, if I spend some time wading through the salmagundi of papers on it and remember to move my biscuit tins.
"Fuck it, that's good enough" is what I say after ten minutes of half-hearted tidying up, or two days of staring blankly at the third chapter of Plato's Republic. It's also what I'll say about the prologues I draft and re-draft. And it's the fear of it - of not being good enough - which means those prologues are left as forewords to stories that never get written.
I am tired of not thinking myself good enough, and I am tired of my own lazy standards.
So that is my new year's resolution, in the broadest possible sense: to never settle for being less than enough. And to remind myself that things do not need to be perfect. Strive for better, but recognise when "good" means "good enough".
This blog post isn't great, but it's something - and something that has provided a temporary portal away from the stress of my exam revision. It'll do. Fuck it. For now, it's good enough.
Tuesday, 24 December 2013
12 Days of Student Christmas
On the twelfth day of Christmas, university gave to me:
Twelve physics friends
Eleven funny flatmates
Ten posters hanging
Nine reindeer galloping
Eight slices of bread toasting
Seven bottles of wine
Six burnt potatoes
Five glasses of wine
Four books to be reading
Three average essays
Two relatives arguing
And a very drunken Christmas.
It's that time of year again, and so I suppose I have some amends to make.
To my friends: I'm sorry for not being a better friend.
To my brother: I'm sorry for not being a better sister.
To my grandad: I'm sorry for not listening as much as I should.
To my parents: I'm sorry for listening as much as I do.
To the ones I hurt: I'm sorry for hurting you.
To the ones I didn't: I'm sorry that it'll only hurt more when it happens.
To my (few) readers: I'm sorry for taking so long to write my blog.
To me: I'm sorry for not being true to myself whenever possible - and it is always possible.
That's it. That's all I have to say. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday. I shall endeavour to return to updating this blog semi-regularly in the dear future.
Until that happens, I'll be the one in the corner with the bottle of Bailey's to myself.
Monday, 26 August 2013
An apology.
It may be a tad presumptuous to apologise. It assumes people have noticed my absence, that someone has missed my blog being updated on a semi-regular basis.
So, I am sorry.
To tell the truth, since I arrived home from Japan nearly two weeks ago - sleepy, sweaty from the flight, and blinking in the runny English sunshine (so different from the sharp shards of light that pierce Japan!) - I have been trying to marshall my thoughts into another blog post. I cannot leave the story half-told, even though it has been over for days now.
I am no longer jet-lagged. I have stopped craving okonomiyaki and ramen and inari sushi. My tan is starting to fade, but the white lines left from my socks and swimming costume are still visible. In fact, the whole thing is starting to fade a little, and I woke up last night wondering if it had really happened at all. Life has gone on. I opened my A-level results, celebrated getting into university, and started on my reading list.
It's not like I changed dramatically, like I found a new understanding of myself and have gained wisdom and knowledge previously beyond my ken. Nothing like that. I'm just a bit less ignorant about the rest of the world. All I've really learned for definite is where to get dinner in Bangkok for less than 40 baht.
The reason I can't finish writing is I can't get past Ise. Ise was a game-changer. It's this place slightly off the standard beaten tourist track, across the bay from Nagoya, home of the most famous Shinto shrine in Japan. It is demolished and rebuilt every twenty years. The inner temple is said to contain one of Japan's 3 sacred treasures, the Sacred Mirror, but nobody has seen it for centuries. The outer temple is bustling with temple-goers, but they are all Japanese. It is a site of holy pilgrimage. The signs telling you not to take photos are written in archaic kanji. There is no English anywhere.
I went to Ise on a whim - because I met a boy in Tokyo and he was going. Because I wanted to spend more time with him, because I had fetishized the idea of a whirlwind romance taking place across a whole country. Because I was scared that if we were apart for too long, he would just vanish. Evaporate. It seemed like he was too perfect to be true.
We went to the temple in the morning, and then went to Meoto Iwa, the Wedded Rocks, a pair of rocks tied together by a huge rope. They have been enshrined. They are officially gods. I took a photo of us in front of them, wondering how two deities would feel about being such a tourist attraction.
After that, we went to the beach. The ocean was so blue, and the sand so white, it looked like somewhere else, some tropical paradise, not the sort of thing you would normally associate with Japan. I wore a bikini, despite the fact the only other girls at the beach were either a) skinny as models, b) fully covered up, or c) both.
Lots of stuff went wrong that day. We fell asleep by accident. Trains were delayed (shockingly!). I got a sunburn so bad it blistered. He lost his umbrella. We got lost in Osaka and had an argument over which way to go. The internet cafe we eventually found was too expensive, so we slept fitfully on a sofa outside it, stealing the WiFi without ever going in.
And yet, it kind of didn't matter.
So, I'm sorry for not updating my blog sooner. I can't explain how, or why, but I'm stuck at Ise, with cheap sunglasses from Malaysia and a borrowed travel towel and a boy who kissed me under a parasol.
I'm now dating that boy. But I still haven't managed to write my bloody travel post about Japan.
So, I am sorry.
To tell the truth, since I arrived home from Japan nearly two weeks ago - sleepy, sweaty from the flight, and blinking in the runny English sunshine (so different from the sharp shards of light that pierce Japan!) - I have been trying to marshall my thoughts into another blog post. I cannot leave the story half-told, even though it has been over for days now.
I am no longer jet-lagged. I have stopped craving okonomiyaki and ramen and inari sushi. My tan is starting to fade, but the white lines left from my socks and swimming costume are still visible. In fact, the whole thing is starting to fade a little, and I woke up last night wondering if it had really happened at all. Life has gone on. I opened my A-level results, celebrated getting into university, and started on my reading list.
It's not like I changed dramatically, like I found a new understanding of myself and have gained wisdom and knowledge previously beyond my ken. Nothing like that. I'm just a bit less ignorant about the rest of the world. All I've really learned for definite is where to get dinner in Bangkok for less than 40 baht.
The reason I can't finish writing is I can't get past Ise. Ise was a game-changer. It's this place slightly off the standard beaten tourist track, across the bay from Nagoya, home of the most famous Shinto shrine in Japan. It is demolished and rebuilt every twenty years. The inner temple is said to contain one of Japan's 3 sacred treasures, the Sacred Mirror, but nobody has seen it for centuries. The outer temple is bustling with temple-goers, but they are all Japanese. It is a site of holy pilgrimage. The signs telling you not to take photos are written in archaic kanji. There is no English anywhere.
I went to Ise on a whim - because I met a boy in Tokyo and he was going. Because I wanted to spend more time with him, because I had fetishized the idea of a whirlwind romance taking place across a whole country. Because I was scared that if we were apart for too long, he would just vanish. Evaporate. It seemed like he was too perfect to be true.
We went to the temple in the morning, and then went to Meoto Iwa, the Wedded Rocks, a pair of rocks tied together by a huge rope. They have been enshrined. They are officially gods. I took a photo of us in front of them, wondering how two deities would feel about being such a tourist attraction.
After that, we went to the beach. The ocean was so blue, and the sand so white, it looked like somewhere else, some tropical paradise, not the sort of thing you would normally associate with Japan. I wore a bikini, despite the fact the only other girls at the beach were either a) skinny as models, b) fully covered up, or c) both.
Lots of stuff went wrong that day. We fell asleep by accident. Trains were delayed (shockingly!). I got a sunburn so bad it blistered. He lost his umbrella. We got lost in Osaka and had an argument over which way to go. The internet cafe we eventually found was too expensive, so we slept fitfully on a sofa outside it, stealing the WiFi without ever going in.
And yet, it kind of didn't matter.
So, I'm sorry for not updating my blog sooner. I can't explain how, or why, but I'm stuck at Ise, with cheap sunglasses from Malaysia and a borrowed travel towel and a boy who kissed me under a parasol.
I'm now dating that boy. But I still haven't managed to write my bloody travel post about Japan.
Monday, 29 July 2013
Remembered Postcards 2: getting crunked.
I woke up with Bruno Mars in my head. Today, I don't feel like doing anything. It's a sentiment I share. Travelling takes a lot more out of you than I expected: I need some time to just kick back and think.
This post will be rather more detail than my last, seeing as there are fewer days to cover.
Day 18. Hong Kong. Had I been travelling alone, I would have spent the whole day in museums, as entry is free on Wednesdays. As it was, the morning was spent sorting out my friend's lost camera, and we only managed an hour each in the History and Science museums. But, on our last evening in Hong Kong, we managed to eat Chinese food - and vegetarian Chinese food at that! I loved knowing I could eat anything on the menu: it made me want to visit a vegetarian restaurant back home.
As the sky got darker, we visited Temple Street market for our final Cantonese trinkets, before taking the famous Sky Ferry from Kowloon back to Hong Kong Island. I stayed up until 2am, talking to a lovely Spanish guy called Josu in the dorm and writing postcards. My alarm was set so I had time to pack in the morning before our flight; I was to be awake at 4am.
Day 19. Tokyo. If you asked me what happened on the flight to Tokyo, I wouldn't be able to tell you. The cabin crew could have stripped naked and sung the national anthem backwards for all I know. I fell asleep before the plane was even in the air and woke up as we came in to land.
We had been warned that the Tokyo metro and rail system is more tangled than demonic spaghetti, but we actually found it alright. I crashed out again at the hostel, then ventured out by myself to buy food. It was the first time I'd walked around a foreign country on my own, and I actually felt really safe. In the laundromat next to the hostel, I befriended some Americans from Utah, and also discovered that bento boxes are the work of benevolent gods. I also realised that smiling and saying "sumimasen" - excuse me - was standard procedure in busy pedestrian areas.
Day 20. Tokyo. Mary's grandmother is friends with a Japanese couple called the Ishikawas, who decided to meet us while we were in Tokyo. They were absolutely lovely. We ate in a tempura restaurant and saw the last two scenes of a kabuki show (traditional Japanese theatre), and had a look at the fantastic external architecture of Tokyo International Forum.
However, from that night, my time in Tokyo really came to life. The other guests at JGH Hostel were funny, fantastic people and I somehow got roped into being the only girl going to karaoke with 7 guys (2 English, 1 Scot, 2 Dutch, 1 American and 1 Aussie). Bizarrely, 3 of them were younger than me - I wasn't the youngest, as I had been in every previous hostel! Success!
Karaoke finished at midnight. The adventures didn't. Devin (the American) and the 2 English teenagers, Fagin and Connor, decided we should have an explore of our area, Nishi-Kawaguchi - a decision perhaps affected by the unlimited free bar at the karaoke. We left the hostel for a wander. 2 hours later, we realised we were really lost, and didn't return back to the hostel until 3am. I went to bed at 5, after falling asleep on Connor's shoulder.
Day 21. Tokyo. Today, my travel companion felt very unwell, and so I had a day of doing whatever the hell I wanted to by myself. I went to Ueno and watched abnormally huge crows in the park, and realised that the Museum of Western Art had a free exhibition of Rodin's statues outside it. I visited the National Museum of Tokyo, which was fascinating, and then a group of us headed out to the fireworks festival in the evening. It involved getting on the infamous Tokyo Subway system, which literally has people whose job it is to cram as many people in as possible.
The fireworks were marred by a thunderstorm. The rain was so hard, the streets turned to streams. For a while, it was impossible to tell if flashes of light were obscured fireworks or faraway lightning strikes. We lost most of the group on the way back to the station, but Fagin, Connor and I got coffee and waited for the crush to die down. Back in Nishi-Kawaguchi, Devin and another guest, Veda, made runs to the drug store for candy. Connor recommended we try Crunky, a chocolate bar filled with crunchy puffed rice. Apparently, the brand is well known enough to spawn its own verb: to eat Crunky is to get crunked. Fagin had the genius idea of putting it inside Oreos, and thus Crunkeos were born. We drank White Russians on the terrace outside our dorms, and Connor and I ended up sharing a tiny capsule bed because I couldn't be bothered to go up the ladder to my bunk.
Day 22. Tokyo. After three weeks sharing everything, the cracks in my relationship with my travelling friend were beginning to show. It was her birthday. We went to the Studio Ghibli Museum, which looked like it was built of pure whimsy but did nothing to soothe our injured spirits. Our passive-aggressiveness of the last few days, both inadvertent and deliberate, had come to a head. She snapped, and I did, and I suppose we were both at fault. We separated ways at Tokyo Central, and I went to Harajuku to see the Meiji Shrine and Yoyogi-koen (the park). I watched hip-hop dancers and a multinational drum circle, and even caught sight of a Harajuku girl on my way back to the station.
A group of us went out for dinner, and my "sakana tempura" turned out to be literally a whole fish fried in batter. Eyes and all. I needed more food after that, so I picked up an onigiri from the all-night bento store, and we laughed at how expensive all the other karaoke joints were. One of the guys and I decided to stay the night in an empty 2-person room we found, abandoning our assigned bunks in crowded rooms for some peace and quiet.
Day 23. Kawaguchiko. Unfortunately, the hostel owners weren't aware of the fact we stayed in an empty room, and at 9am we found our screen door had been padlocked from the outside. While hilarious in retrospect, at the time it was a cause for major panic, and we had to send someone to reception to unlock our door, to much confusion and many quizzical looks. It was my last morning at the hostel, so we celebrated by buying Crunky and Oreos for the breakfast of champions... Crunkeos.
My friend and I took the train out to Kawaguchiko, which is a village near Mount Fuji. The scenery here is beautiful, and the air is much cleaner than the city, but we can't climb the mountain as we didn't leave enough time, and there are too many clouds to see it. On the plus side, we're on speaking terms again. I'm just glad I can have a day off from rushing around being cultured. Writing is therapy, and I feel so much better for today's session.
Tuesday, 23 July 2013
Remembered Postcards 1: don't you forget about me.
First of all, an apology. I haven't written anything recently. This is because WiFi is somewhat hard to come by, and often by the time I'm back in the hostel I just want to go to sleep or read my Kindle, not be productive.
I hope you haven't missed me too much. I've missed writing more than I thought I would. Without further ado, here is a rundown of some of the odder bits of my adventure so far...
Day 1. Dubai airport. We ate in Starbucks while a muezzin sang the call to prayer.
Day 2. Singapore. We shared our room with a group of Thai people. Only two spoke English. Sisters. Lovely girls. I say girls; they were 23 and 25.
Day 3. Singapore. I spent all night watching thunder shake the city and fell asleep in the small hours. We visited the Night Safari and watched nocturnal animals come alive.
Day 4. Singapore. I purchased a lucky charm in Chinatown, a dog (my zodiac symbol) and called her LB for Little Bitch. She is keeping my bag safe.
Day 5. Kuala Lumpur. We arrived by overnight train and stared at the buildings, a mix of colonial architecture with Chinese, Thai, Indian, Muslim and modern influences thrown in like spices in a soup. We climbed to the Batu Caves shrine and I fucked up my ankle.
Day 6. Kuala Lumpur. The Skybar at Traders Hotel offered booze, a swimming pool, and views of the Petronas Towers. I didn't get ID'd.
Day 7. Penang. Another sleeper train to Butterworth and a ferry to Georgetown. We met an American teaching English in Bangkok in the station, and spent hours talking. In Georgetown, every building has a story.
Day 8. Penang. It is a well-known fact Thai trains are always late. Were this not the case, we wouldn't have made our train to Thailand, as we tore down the platform 20 minutes after the train was due to leave, the guard changing his GO sign to a STOP one as we ran, rucksacks bouncing on our backs.
Day 9. Bangkok. A week of hot weather hit me and I nearly passed out from dehydration in Siam station.
Day 10. Bangkok. I felt like such a tourist, having one of the most Thai experiences imaginable: getting a massage in the grounds of Wat Pho, staring out the window at the raging monsoon. In typical luck, the one day we decided to see the Imperial Palace was the one day that the Emerald Buddha temple was closed for a ceremony. We ate lunch twice.
Day 11. Ayuthaya. We went to see the temples lit up at night and visited a night market where they sold rabbits and birds in cruelly small cages. I felt sick.
Day 12. Ayuthaya. The day was spent staring at the temples which earned Ayuthaya its World Heritage status. A teacher from the Bronx at the hostel took a liking to my friend and accompanied us back to the station. I didn't trust him. He mentioned that at 24 he had been married... To a 15-year-old.
Day 13. Chiang Mai. We spoke to a Buddhist monk and toured temples in the rain. Our hostel was Japanese-style, with tatami mattresses on the floor. A Dane and a German also staying there ended up accompanying us on a jaunt to the Night Bazaar.
Day 14. Chiang Mai. We saw Christian, the Dane, again. He's the only person I've met who is too lazy to go for a massage. We had seen to many Wats, we were at wat saturation point. Waturation?
Day 15. Bangkok. The day was spent seeing the city from river taxis. The night was spent drinking with two Dutch guys we met by accident and a taxi driver asked if the four of us were on honeymoon together. I kissed one of them, and we were out dancing till past two.
Day 16. Hong Kong. I wonder if my Dutch paramour talks about me as much as I keep mentioning him. The hostel would be lovely, save for the overweight Obama-hating fifty-something who seems allergic to wearing shirts.
Day 17. Hong Kong. We got away from the oppressive fumes by visiting Victoria Park, and then took a tram up to The Peak where we spent too much money on substandard coffee shop food just so we could sit in the window and watch the city glitter in the Light Show.
I don't know when I will write again, but I love you all. Stay safe. Have adventures. Be happy.
Saturday, 29 June 2013
Bullshit Bell 4: The perfect body
Welcome to Bullshit Bell, the new semi-regular series of posts in
which I call bullshit on various ridiculous things. How semi-regular,
you ask? Whenever I feel like it. Whatever, schedules are bullshit.
I have the perfect body. My body is perfect. Why? Because it's mine. Because it functions. Because it contains a heart and two lungs and a liver and kidneys and a ribcage and muscles and ligaments and tendons and nerves and a brain. It gives me the ability to see and hear and taste and smell and touch. I can feel things from my toes to my head. I can walk. I can run. I can laugh. I, when the situation demands it, can even swim. I eat fairly well and take medication to fix my only chronic health problem. My body is perfect, because it is me.
Unfortunately, I am aware not everyone agrees with me.
Previous readers of my blog (hi, YOU EXIST?!) may remember the time I wrote about body diversity in advertising, and concluded that I ought to buy a bikini.
So... I bought a bikini. To follow is a picture of me wearing my bikini. But, to make it easier for you, I've listed 10 things wrong with me. Don't worry, you're welcome to add more.
1. My hair. For a start, it's not very evenly dyed, and bits of pink are poking through the brown. For another thing, it's short. And if the media has taught us anything, it's that Real Girls have long hair. Anne Hathaway even postponed her wedding after cutting off all her hair for Les Mis. So, hair makes the girl - and I don't have much of it.
2. My make-up. Admittedly, you can't see my face in this picture, but let me elaborate. I have a few blackheads and a few spots. My skin is not flawlessly clear. Additionally, I wasn't wearing any make-up, and that is a cardinal sin. But wait! I was wearing eyeliner! Oh, actually, that's a sin too - if the make-up doesn't look natural, it's fake and tacky.
3. My arms. I don't have neatly defined triceps and biceps. I can't fit my hand around my upper arm, and it's not rock-hard and toned. I have low-level bingo wings. If I jiggle my arm, it wobbles.
4. My tits. They are not pert tits. In fact, they are beholden to the force of gravity. Luckily, a decent bikini top helps out with this, but that leads me on to another problem: I am above a D cup. This apparently means that I am either a) fine with having minimal choice in most high street shops, or b) affluent enough to be able to spend £30 or more each time I need a new bra.
5. My... I don't even know what to call this. But, in short, I bulge out slightly under my bikini top. Yes, it is squishy. Yes, it is probably fat. Yes, I have never seen a girl in real life without this, even a little bit, no matter how skinny they are. But everyone knows models and celebrities don't have underbra handles.
6. My waist. It is both too small for my hips according to standard clothing size measurements, but also too thick for me to be attractively curvy. Apparently, the ideal waist-to-hip ratio is 0.6: mine is more like 0.75.
7. My stomach. I have a bit of a Buddha belly, and child-bearing hips, so despite my large breasts I think of myself as being pearshaped. Pearshaped girls with tummies don't wear bikinis, lest they frighten onlookers and drive the public into a state of shock. If you have a chubby tummy, the magazines kindly advise you, in the way of a condescending but well-meaning aunt, to wear a tummy-sucking swimsuit and sarong. That way, nobody - not even you - will have to think about the horrors of a convex abdomen.
8. My bikini line. I don't shave it.
9. My thighs. Again, they are wobbly, which is repulsive because it is a sign I do not dedicate my copious spare time to doing squats and leg lifts. They touch, which is repulsive because it is a sign I have not taken the tumblr thinspiration posts seriously enough. There are numerous white stretchmarks along the top of them, which are repulsive because they are a sign my body has changed and may even change again.
10. My calves. I haven't shaved those either. Plus, sometimes, I have trouble zipping up boots over them. This is not a sign that the boots are too small, but rather that I am fat and nobody will ever love me.
What else is wrong with me? Come on. Tell me. Shout it at me in the street. Because your opinion does not change anything. My body does not exist for you to scrutinise and mark out of 10. My body does not exist for a mysterious other being to find attractive or hideous. My worth is not dependent upon my sexiness, which in turn is held up to standards that are perpetuated by media with a vested interest in lowering body confidence.
I do not have to prove myself to some ethereal arbiter to be deemed thin enough to wear a bikini. I will wear one, whether you like it or not.
My body is perfect. And yours is, too.
I have the perfect body. My body is perfect. Why? Because it's mine. Because it functions. Because it contains a heart and two lungs and a liver and kidneys and a ribcage and muscles and ligaments and tendons and nerves and a brain. It gives me the ability to see and hear and taste and smell and touch. I can feel things from my toes to my head. I can walk. I can run. I can laugh. I, when the situation demands it, can even swim. I eat fairly well and take medication to fix my only chronic health problem. My body is perfect, because it is me.
Unfortunately, I am aware not everyone agrees with me.
Previous readers of my blog (hi, YOU EXIST?!) may remember the time I wrote about body diversity in advertising, and concluded that I ought to buy a bikini.
So... I bought a bikini. To follow is a picture of me wearing my bikini. But, to make it easier for you, I've listed 10 things wrong with me. Don't worry, you're welcome to add more.
1. My hair. For a start, it's not very evenly dyed, and bits of pink are poking through the brown. For another thing, it's short. And if the media has taught us anything, it's that Real Girls have long hair. Anne Hathaway even postponed her wedding after cutting off all her hair for Les Mis. So, hair makes the girl - and I don't have much of it.
2. My make-up. Admittedly, you can't see my face in this picture, but let me elaborate. I have a few blackheads and a few spots. My skin is not flawlessly clear. Additionally, I wasn't wearing any make-up, and that is a cardinal sin. But wait! I was wearing eyeliner! Oh, actually, that's a sin too - if the make-up doesn't look natural, it's fake and tacky.
3. My arms. I don't have neatly defined triceps and biceps. I can't fit my hand around my upper arm, and it's not rock-hard and toned. I have low-level bingo wings. If I jiggle my arm, it wobbles.
4. My tits. They are not pert tits. In fact, they are beholden to the force of gravity. Luckily, a decent bikini top helps out with this, but that leads me on to another problem: I am above a D cup. This apparently means that I am either a) fine with having minimal choice in most high street shops, or b) affluent enough to be able to spend £30 or more each time I need a new bra.
5. My... I don't even know what to call this. But, in short, I bulge out slightly under my bikini top. Yes, it is squishy. Yes, it is probably fat. Yes, I have never seen a girl in real life without this, even a little bit, no matter how skinny they are. But everyone knows models and celebrities don't have underbra handles.
6. My waist. It is both too small for my hips according to standard clothing size measurements, but also too thick for me to be attractively curvy. Apparently, the ideal waist-to-hip ratio is 0.6: mine is more like 0.75.
7. My stomach. I have a bit of a Buddha belly, and child-bearing hips, so despite my large breasts I think of myself as being pearshaped. Pearshaped girls with tummies don't wear bikinis, lest they frighten onlookers and drive the public into a state of shock. If you have a chubby tummy, the magazines kindly advise you, in the way of a condescending but well-meaning aunt, to wear a tummy-sucking swimsuit and sarong. That way, nobody - not even you - will have to think about the horrors of a convex abdomen.
8. My bikini line. I don't shave it.
9. My thighs. Again, they are wobbly, which is repulsive because it is a sign I do not dedicate my copious spare time to doing squats and leg lifts. They touch, which is repulsive because it is a sign I have not taken the tumblr thinspiration posts seriously enough. There are numerous white stretchmarks along the top of them, which are repulsive because they are a sign my body has changed and may even change again.
10. My calves. I haven't shaved those either. Plus, sometimes, I have trouble zipping up boots over them. This is not a sign that the boots are too small, but rather that I am fat and nobody will ever love me.
What else is wrong with me? Come on. Tell me. Shout it at me in the street. Because your opinion does not change anything. My body does not exist for you to scrutinise and mark out of 10. My body does not exist for a mysterious other being to find attractive or hideous. My worth is not dependent upon my sexiness, which in turn is held up to standards that are perpetuated by media with a vested interest in lowering body confidence.
I do not have to prove myself to some ethereal arbiter to be deemed thin enough to wear a bikini. I will wear one, whether you like it or not.
My body is perfect. And yours is, too.
Thursday, 27 June 2013
Anecdotally... 2: The manwhore
"There's one thing I should make clear," he said. "I am a total manwhore."
I couldn't see why he couldn't have just said whore. The gendering of it seemed frivolous, surplus to requirements. The effect would have been the same.
"What else?" he asked. I looked at him blankly. I didn't know what else. It must have been a rhetorical question, because he continued without waiting for me to answer. "Oh yes. I'll try anything one. Or anyone."
That was definitely more than one thing. That was three things which he had clarified. He couldn't count. That said, if a pretty girl was lying in my bed making very clear she wanted to kiss me, I'm not sure I'd be able to count either.
Our protracted make-out session lasted several hours, but there was surprisingly little kissing involved. They tended to happen in short bursts, interspersed with long lingering eye-fucking, and bizarre fragments of conversations. We discussed his scars. He had one in the back of his leg from an air rifle. The result of growing up in the countryside, he said. He told me about the girl he'd met on a night bus in London while out of his skull on champagne, and the holodeck he was building at work. I offered stories about my parents' education and why straight vodka was always a bad idea. We had an argument over the ambiguities of the English language which ended in stalemate.
He was a self-described universal pervert. I was an unspoiled flower. It was something he would "bear in mind". It must be strange, the inequity in sexual experience. I wasn't bothered, but I wondered if it made him uncomfortable.
"You are a universal pervert," I said, quoting his own words back at him
"I resent and resemble that remark."
"If you're a manwhore, I suppose there is hope for the least of us yet."
"I'm not sure how to take that. Are you calling me easy?"
I wasn't sure how I'd meant it either. It was more an observation. He was not the epitome of attractiveness, coventionally speaking - and yet, he was rolling in women. It could be lies, but I doubted it. There was no air of boasting or arrogance to his words. They were just words. Really, I had meant it as something of a comparison. If he managed to have lots of sex, then I figured my prospects were also fairly good. If I felt that way inclined.
We were awake most of the night, but he never tried anything untoward. He didn't push or make me uncomfortable. He dozed off with his hand on my thigh. Later, he turned over, and I spent a long time with my face buried in his bare back, breathing in his scent.
I had problems with trying to be sexy. Make out sessions inevitably involve me dissolving into a fit of the giggles (though whether out of amusement or nerves, I could not say), no matter who my partner is. Often, he would stop, and look at me.
"What?" he asked, and I would laugh and tell him the random, inane thing which had triggered my giggling. Sometimes they were to do with him. Sometimes they weren't.
At one point, he had broken away trying not to laugh.
"What?" I asked, a parrot, reflecting his inflection of the syllable.
"The things parents say," he said. "About not getting into strange men's beds."
He's right, I suppose. He could be a murderer for all I know. He could have chainsaws in the oven and an axe stowed under his bed. I said as much to him. Why else would he have two sheds, unless one was for storing corpses? But I also know that he drives a vintage MG, which doesn't have the boot space for the discrete transport of dead bodies.
"Hasn't done me any harm so far," I said.
I wondered if he was upset by my lack of reaction to his promiscuity. Whether he had thought it would phase me. If anything, I felt reassured: he was a safe pair of hands. He knew what he was doing. I supposed I trusted him, at least a little, or I wouldn't have been prepared to share his bed.
In the morning he woke up for work and had a shower. I lay in bed a little longer and wondered if I would do this again. I drove home, dropping him off outside his work on the way, and he pecked me goodbye in the traffic jam.
I wondered if I would see him again.
I couldn't see why he couldn't have just said whore. The gendering of it seemed frivolous, surplus to requirements. The effect would have been the same.
"What else?" he asked. I looked at him blankly. I didn't know what else. It must have been a rhetorical question, because he continued without waiting for me to answer. "Oh yes. I'll try anything one. Or anyone."
That was definitely more than one thing. That was three things which he had clarified. He couldn't count. That said, if a pretty girl was lying in my bed making very clear she wanted to kiss me, I'm not sure I'd be able to count either.
Our protracted make-out session lasted several hours, but there was surprisingly little kissing involved. They tended to happen in short bursts, interspersed with long lingering eye-fucking, and bizarre fragments of conversations. We discussed his scars. He had one in the back of his leg from an air rifle. The result of growing up in the countryside, he said. He told me about the girl he'd met on a night bus in London while out of his skull on champagne, and the holodeck he was building at work. I offered stories about my parents' education and why straight vodka was always a bad idea. We had an argument over the ambiguities of the English language which ended in stalemate.
He was a self-described universal pervert. I was an unspoiled flower. It was something he would "bear in mind". It must be strange, the inequity in sexual experience. I wasn't bothered, but I wondered if it made him uncomfortable.
"You are a universal pervert," I said, quoting his own words back at him
"I resent and resemble that remark."
"If you're a manwhore, I suppose there is hope for the least of us yet."
"I'm not sure how to take that. Are you calling me easy?"
I wasn't sure how I'd meant it either. It was more an observation. He was not the epitome of attractiveness, coventionally speaking - and yet, he was rolling in women. It could be lies, but I doubted it. There was no air of boasting or arrogance to his words. They were just words. Really, I had meant it as something of a comparison. If he managed to have lots of sex, then I figured my prospects were also fairly good. If I felt that way inclined.
We were awake most of the night, but he never tried anything untoward. He didn't push or make me uncomfortable. He dozed off with his hand on my thigh. Later, he turned over, and I spent a long time with my face buried in his bare back, breathing in his scent.
I had problems with trying to be sexy. Make out sessions inevitably involve me dissolving into a fit of the giggles (though whether out of amusement or nerves, I could not say), no matter who my partner is. Often, he would stop, and look at me.
"What?" he asked, and I would laugh and tell him the random, inane thing which had triggered my giggling. Sometimes they were to do with him. Sometimes they weren't.
At one point, he had broken away trying not to laugh.
"What?" I asked, a parrot, reflecting his inflection of the syllable.
"The things parents say," he said. "About not getting into strange men's beds."
He's right, I suppose. He could be a murderer for all I know. He could have chainsaws in the oven and an axe stowed under his bed. I said as much to him. Why else would he have two sheds, unless one was for storing corpses? But I also know that he drives a vintage MG, which doesn't have the boot space for the discrete transport of dead bodies.
"Hasn't done me any harm so far," I said.
I wondered if he was upset by my lack of reaction to his promiscuity. Whether he had thought it would phase me. If anything, I felt reassured: he was a safe pair of hands. He knew what he was doing. I supposed I trusted him, at least a little, or I wouldn't have been prepared to share his bed.
In the morning he woke up for work and had a shower. I lay in bed a little longer and wondered if I would do this again. I drove home, dropping him off outside his work on the way, and he pecked me goodbye in the traffic jam.
I wondered if I would see him again.
Wednesday, 12 June 2013
Anecdotally... 1: Smiling at strangers on trains
Welcome to Anecdotally..., another semi-regular column. But rather than calling bullshit, this is just going to be me telling you stories. Anecdotes, if you will. Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then we shall begin...
It had been a long, mostly enjoyable day. I had wandered around Hyde Park and drunk chai lattes in a coffee shop, crossed to the East End of London via the Central line and DLR, watched a band I love play a show, and then sat in a pub with an old friend drinking and laughing. By the time I got on the train home, at just past midnight, I was starting to fall asleep.
Instead, I got out the book I was reading, which went by the unwieldly title of This Isn't the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You. It was a collection of short stories which I had taken from the Bloomsbury marketing room on my last day, and after slogging through a 500-page novel alongside my exams, I fancied reading something a bit lighter. Everything was ready for a normal train journey home: I sat down in a window seat facing backwards with my iPod in my ears, a book under my nose, and the rest of the world blocked out. Someone sat down opposite me, but I didn't pay them much attention.
About five minutes into the journey, I heard the drumming of fingers on the train wall. I saw a hand just beneath the window, on top of the "no feet on the seats" sign. I glanced up. I checked my feet weren't on the seat.
The boy opposite me raised his eyebrows. He was too old to be called a "boy", really: in his early 20s, I thought, with dark hair and thick stubble. He wasn't quite attractive in the conventional sense, but there was something interesting in the way his face was arranged. I smiled slightly, shyly, the way you smile at a stranger who is encroaching your personal space when you want them to stop.
I looked back at my book, and he drummed again. He motioned with his hands, and I realised he wanted to see what I was reading. I showed him the cover wordlessly, but my attention had been diverted from the paragraph I was staring at.
"That's in my pile of books to read," he said, and I was taken aback by how nice his voice was. "Though, the pile is about this big," he added, and held up his hands about two feet apart. Before I could stop myself, I laughed.
"I have exactly that problem," I said. "I just picked this because it was the smallest book on my list."
"That's the smallest? Then what's the longest?"
"Probably A Dance With Dragons," I said.
I couldn't help it. I'd been sucked in. We started talking about Game of Thrones, and science fiction authors, and how trains were better than buses. After a couple of minutes, I took out my earphones. After ten, I closed my book and put it in my bag.
I could remember two other times in my life when I had engaged in long conversations with strangers on public transport. The first was when I had been 15, on the day of the General Election, when a handsome bartender had spoken to the guy next to me and swapped seats on the crowded tube, purely because he wanted to speak to me. He'd mentioned his job. He said that talking to strangers was how he amused himself on his commutes. I thought him incredibly brave. He'd asked who I voted for, and I lied and said Lib Dem, flattered he thought me old enough to be able to vote. I was sad to get off at Chalk Farm, because I had to leave this interesting conversationalist behind. His name had been Robert, or Richard. He had smelt of cinnamon.
The other time had been on the train home, wedged in a table seat opposite two American Football fans who'd seen a game that day in London, and next to a Canadian on his way to the airport. Once the football fans had left, I'd talked to the stranger next to me: he had been from the Yukon. He was catching a flight to Portugal, where he intended to pick fruit and then catch buses across the country. He had lived on his own since 13 and had hitch-hiked from Germany to India (or possibly the other way round). He features, occasionally, in conversations: I contribute his existence whenever the subject of hitch-hiking comes up. I don't remember his name. Perhaps he didn't tell me.
"I'm V, by the way," I said, feeling emboldened by my drinks through the day. I'd had three in the last few hours, which - on an empty stomach - had the effect of making me giggly and confident.
"Oliver," he said, but I heard it as Holiver. We had a long conversation about this, our hands still clasped. "Oliver," he said again, "like Twist, the little street urchin. All-singing, all-dancing crooks. That's me."
"Yes, I know," I told him, "I just misheard you, added an imaginary H. Very cockney."
He had moved to the same town as me - counting on his fingers - four days ago, as the office for his job had moved. I let slip I was 18, and though he claimed he'd had me sussed, I was pretty sure he'd assumed I was older. People always do. I guessed he was 23; he was 25. His favourite band was The Eagles and he worked in 3D modelling, which sounded terribly interesting but had little to do with what his degree was in.
"About a year and a half ago, when all the stuff about Blackfriars 1 was on the news - that was our company."
"I don't remember that," I told him.
"It's a weird building. A skyscraper. Looks a bit like a thumb."
"A thumb?"
He demonstrated what he meant by half-bending his thumb. "Yeah, it goes up, and then it's got a kink in it."
"My thumb kinks the other way," I said, because I quite like showing off my weird hands. I have a thumb that, when straightened, bends back at about fifty degrees. Everything about my hands is weird: the tips of my index and middle fingers bend off at angles too. My peace signs have a definite tilt to them. He laughed, and pressed the ends of my index fingers together, the way I always challenge people to do, and laughed more as they sprang back and I told him that no, it didn't hurt at all.
As the train approached our stop, he stood up and I realised how tall he was. I also decided that I wanted to keep talking to him, this stranger who had started a conversation with a girl with pink hair based purely on the book she was reading.
"I kind of want to have lunch with you sometime," I said, and his wallet was out. He pulled out a business card, with his number on it, and a QR code underneath, in case I was "that kind of geek".
"Consider it done," he said.
My dad was waiting in the car for me outside the station. I texted Oliver once I got home, with one kiss on the end, and he said he'd "been about 15 seconds" from asking me out too.
I'm not sure how I feel about this. It's not often you end up organising dates with strange men you meet on the train. He doesn't seem like a potential murderer, but then again they never do. Still, I'm intrigued, but mostly amused. And if nothing else, I have a vaguely interesting anecdote to tell my friends.
It had been a long, mostly enjoyable day. I had wandered around Hyde Park and drunk chai lattes in a coffee shop, crossed to the East End of London via the Central line and DLR, watched a band I love play a show, and then sat in a pub with an old friend drinking and laughing. By the time I got on the train home, at just past midnight, I was starting to fall asleep.
Instead, I got out the book I was reading, which went by the unwieldly title of This Isn't the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You. It was a collection of short stories which I had taken from the Bloomsbury marketing room on my last day, and after slogging through a 500-page novel alongside my exams, I fancied reading something a bit lighter. Everything was ready for a normal train journey home: I sat down in a window seat facing backwards with my iPod in my ears, a book under my nose, and the rest of the world blocked out. Someone sat down opposite me, but I didn't pay them much attention.
About five minutes into the journey, I heard the drumming of fingers on the train wall. I saw a hand just beneath the window, on top of the "no feet on the seats" sign. I glanced up. I checked my feet weren't on the seat.
The boy opposite me raised his eyebrows. He was too old to be called a "boy", really: in his early 20s, I thought, with dark hair and thick stubble. He wasn't quite attractive in the conventional sense, but there was something interesting in the way his face was arranged. I smiled slightly, shyly, the way you smile at a stranger who is encroaching your personal space when you want them to stop.
I looked back at my book, and he drummed again. He motioned with his hands, and I realised he wanted to see what I was reading. I showed him the cover wordlessly, but my attention had been diverted from the paragraph I was staring at.
"That's in my pile of books to read," he said, and I was taken aback by how nice his voice was. "Though, the pile is about this big," he added, and held up his hands about two feet apart. Before I could stop myself, I laughed.
"I have exactly that problem," I said. "I just picked this because it was the smallest book on my list."
"That's the smallest? Then what's the longest?"
"Probably A Dance With Dragons," I said.
I couldn't help it. I'd been sucked in. We started talking about Game of Thrones, and science fiction authors, and how trains were better than buses. After a couple of minutes, I took out my earphones. After ten, I closed my book and put it in my bag.
I could remember two other times in my life when I had engaged in long conversations with strangers on public transport. The first was when I had been 15, on the day of the General Election, when a handsome bartender had spoken to the guy next to me and swapped seats on the crowded tube, purely because he wanted to speak to me. He'd mentioned his job. He said that talking to strangers was how he amused himself on his commutes. I thought him incredibly brave. He'd asked who I voted for, and I lied and said Lib Dem, flattered he thought me old enough to be able to vote. I was sad to get off at Chalk Farm, because I had to leave this interesting conversationalist behind. His name had been Robert, or Richard. He had smelt of cinnamon.
The other time had been on the train home, wedged in a table seat opposite two American Football fans who'd seen a game that day in London, and next to a Canadian on his way to the airport. Once the football fans had left, I'd talked to the stranger next to me: he had been from the Yukon. He was catching a flight to Portugal, where he intended to pick fruit and then catch buses across the country. He had lived on his own since 13 and had hitch-hiked from Germany to India (or possibly the other way round). He features, occasionally, in conversations: I contribute his existence whenever the subject of hitch-hiking comes up. I don't remember his name. Perhaps he didn't tell me.
"I'm V, by the way," I said, feeling emboldened by my drinks through the day. I'd had three in the last few hours, which - on an empty stomach - had the effect of making me giggly and confident.
"Oliver," he said, but I heard it as Holiver. We had a long conversation about this, our hands still clasped. "Oliver," he said again, "like Twist, the little street urchin. All-singing, all-dancing crooks. That's me."
"Yes, I know," I told him, "I just misheard you, added an imaginary H. Very cockney."
He had moved to the same town as me - counting on his fingers - four days ago, as the office for his job had moved. I let slip I was 18, and though he claimed he'd had me sussed, I was pretty sure he'd assumed I was older. People always do. I guessed he was 23; he was 25. His favourite band was The Eagles and he worked in 3D modelling, which sounded terribly interesting but had little to do with what his degree was in.
"About a year and a half ago, when all the stuff about Blackfriars 1 was on the news - that was our company."
"I don't remember that," I told him.
"It's a weird building. A skyscraper. Looks a bit like a thumb."
"A thumb?"
He demonstrated what he meant by half-bending his thumb. "Yeah, it goes up, and then it's got a kink in it."
"My thumb kinks the other way," I said, because I quite like showing off my weird hands. I have a thumb that, when straightened, bends back at about fifty degrees. Everything about my hands is weird: the tips of my index and middle fingers bend off at angles too. My peace signs have a definite tilt to them. He laughed, and pressed the ends of my index fingers together, the way I always challenge people to do, and laughed more as they sprang back and I told him that no, it didn't hurt at all.
As the train approached our stop, he stood up and I realised how tall he was. I also decided that I wanted to keep talking to him, this stranger who had started a conversation with a girl with pink hair based purely on the book she was reading.
"I kind of want to have lunch with you sometime," I said, and his wallet was out. He pulled out a business card, with his number on it, and a QR code underneath, in case I was "that kind of geek".
"Consider it done," he said.
My dad was waiting in the car for me outside the station. I texted Oliver once I got home, with one kiss on the end, and he said he'd "been about 15 seconds" from asking me out too.
I'm not sure how I feel about this. It's not often you end up organising dates with strange men you meet on the train. He doesn't seem like a potential murderer, but then again they never do. Still, I'm intrigued, but mostly amused. And if nothing else, I have a vaguely interesting anecdote to tell my friends.
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