So. It's been a while. In fact, I'd sort of made the decision to abandon this blog - at least temporarily, anyway. I have a real job now, in an office, and it involves spreadsheets and phone calls, and means that there is no better time than 5.30 on a Friday evening. And I'm actually trying to write something... bigger. Which sounds counter-intuitive; who gets a full-time job and decides that their now-limited free time must be spent tackling a sizeable writing project? Oh, that's right, me. Why? Well, because if not now, when I'm supposedly young and fresh and energetic and full of half-thought-out ideas, then when? But more on that another time. I'm going to be testing it out, possibly on a different blog, so if you're interested, watch this space.
Anyway. This post is all the fault of my friend Catherine. She tagged me in one of those "make of a list of things then nominate others to do the same" Facebook statuses, and while usually I ignore them, it's such a lovely one that I couldn't not make that list.
In no particular order, here are ten books that, in the course of my reading life, have seemed terribly important and world-view-changing at some point or another.
1) Little Women by Louisa M. Alcott. Yes, I'm sure I've wanged on about this one before, but I caught the film on TV again relatively recently, and it struck me again how bloody relevant the story is. On the surface of it, you might think that the lives of four girls and their mother in Concord, Massachusetts, at the end of the American Civil War would be of little consequence to the average modern reader, but let's take Jo March, the second daughter. A tomboy, a guy's girl, when girls weren't allowed to be. An aspiring writer, who wanted to do Something Good and Important, at a time when women had very little power. An angry young woman who, upon being left at home after one sister married and another went to Europe, had a massive rant about not fitting in and wanting to run away, and who then took herself to New York and got cracking with a writing career.
And the best part of it is, Louisa Alcott didn't even want to write the book. Her publisher suggested she write something about her own life, and she wasn't keen. And then she only went and created one of the greatest families in literature. Thanks, Louisa.
2) The Examined Life by Stephen Grosz. Grosz is a psychoanalyst, and The Examined Life is a collection of patient histories. It's fascinating - I had to ration my reading of it, as each case is brief, so you can sail through the book in a day, maybe two if you're busy. It's astonishing how people will repeat the worst behaviour of their parents and relatives and remain unaware that they're doing it, until they are shown. It's a book that makes the reader more aware of themselves - something only truly good books can do.
3) Eating Myself, Candida Crew. Again, I've mentioned this one before, but it's great for anyone who's ever felt a bit weird about food. Crew explores what she calls "normal-abnormal" attitudes to food, putting forward the theory that the vast majority of [white, Western] women are just on a scale of abnormality when it comes to food and dieting. Some are more normal about it than others, but we all have our "things".
4) Ulysses, James Joyce. No, I haven't read the whole thing - I'm not entirely mad, and I've had stuff I needed to get done, to be honest - but I read bits of it for a uni module, and if James Joyce taught me one thing (other than "maybe don't write a 700-page book") it's that you can make up words that fit what you're trying to say. No-one's going to stop you. In fact, they'll probably ply you with awards and praise.
5) Running Like A Girl, Alexandra Heminsley. I'm not much of a runner - even less so since I rediscovered swimming - but Heminsley's book about how she turned herself into a marathon-runner is genuinely inspiring, and touching, and funny. Worth it for the bit where she completes the San Francisco marathon (I cried, on a bench in town, on my lunch break) and for the line "I decided to be able to". That's how you get things done.
6) Great Expectations, Charles Dickens. Another lofty choice, another hangover from my English degree. Thing is, it's wonderful. I thought it was going to be all grey and grim and muddy, like a long weekend in Yorkshire, but it made me think about society and class and whether social mobility is actually possible.
7) How To Be A Woman, by Caitlin Moran. There was no way I wasn't going to include this. There are better books about feminism, sure, but none that are as funny, or as brutally honest. Moran has helped make it OK to talk about things we previously kept to ourselves. Better still, she made it OK to joke about them. She turned Mother Feminism - originally a stern, scary headmistress-type, full of righteous anger - into the cool girl in the pub who wants to get drunk with you, tell filthy stories and become your best mate.
8) Unsticky, Sarra Manning. I should probably apologise for having something that looks a lot like chick-lit on this list, but I'm not going to. I read Manning's teen fiction when I was at school, and she started writing "grown-up" books as I reached my late teens, so I sort of think we grew up together. Her heroines are always slightly awkward and moody, with good hearts, and her love interests are always intriguing with astonishing bone structure (I think my obsession with cheekbones comes from reading too much Manning). And she's one of the few writers who can write a hot sex scene - which is important.
9) The Equality Illusion, Kat Banyard. For anyone who's ever wondered why we still need feminism, or has ever uttered the words "I don't know what feminists are complaining about" - read this book.
10) I'm agonising over the last slot on this list - I really am. There are so many books that have had an impact on me, and the vast majority of them aren't big and important works of literature. A lot of the books I've returned to, and re-read over and over and over, are just small, simple stories. The "Jill" pony books of the 1960s - a girl and her horses and her friends, living in the country and riding all the time, the worst thing that ever befell anyone was a horse going lame on show day. Anything and everything by John Niven - if I'm ever half the writer Niven is, I'll die happy. I've never come across a writer who's so skilled at making the reader empathise with such vile characters. (I'm also willing to bet that Ruby Ferguson's "Jill pony books" and "John Niven" have never been mentioned in the same paragraph, and probably never will be again.) Antonia Fraser's biography of Marie Antoinette - because I have a bit of a fascination with the maligned queen, and regularly daydream about Versailles and all its mind-melting grandeur. Chavs by Owen Jones - because it's political and meticulously researched and right, and because Owen Jones is brilliant.
I can't pick one; there are too many. Each book is another little world, that either takes you away from your life for a while, or makes you feel your life more keenly - makes you understand your own "self" a little better. The best books manage to do both.
"A Guardian reader in Horsham, poor love."
Friday, 12 September 2014
Thursday, 27 February 2014
Confidence crisis
This one got a bit self-analytical and emo. Consider yourselves warned.
Here's a tragic realisation: I turn 24 in less than three weeks, and I have no idea how to stand up for myself.
To people who have no choice but to put up with me - to people where arguments are a natural part of the relationship - I can. My mother, Drummer Boy; I have no problem arguing with them (I should, but I don't). Anyone else - colleagues, bosses, even friends - I can't. And it's got to the point where I need to learn pretty damn quickly.
Trouble is, once everyone has you pegged as a quiet one, one who won't make a fuss, you're kind of doomed. When you finally do put your foot down with a firm hand, everyone is taken aback and thinks you're being a bitch. You end up over-doing it, because everything you've put up with over the previous weeks/months/years has gathered and grown, so by the time you get around to speaking up, it simply comes out as, "screw you guys, I can't take this bullshit anymore," Carrie-from-Homeland style.
I'm not even particularly laid-back; I'm pretty highly-strung. Things that make me hissy include but are not limited to: not having enough to do, having too much to do, being rushed, other people being slow, cold showers, the Boy not being a fully-qualified mind-reader, and my mother offering me food*. I know, I know - I'm probably going to spend a lot of time in some sort of therapy when I can afford to.
*She barely eats, but insists that everyone else eats loads. It makes me irritable.
Obviously, the problem with standing up for yourself in work-related situations is that there can be pretty serious consequences. If you're just having a bit of a scrap with a loved one, the worst that can happen is a few hours of sulking and silence. If you try and point out - however tactfully and politely - that your boss is being totally unreasonable and that something needs changing, you could lose your job/have your colleagues turn against you, et cetera. Nine situations out of ten, those things won't happen, but there's still a risk, and it won't always pay to take that risk.
It's frustrating though, because I think it's a confidence thing. It feels like there's a part of my personality missing - the "no, I will not take your bullshit" part. It's really sad but I think I'm just too scared of being disliked. (Having written that sentence out for The Internet to see, I realise how pathetic that is. Oh dear.)
I've half-wondered if it's also partly a woman thing - I've been told many times that I'm too nice (it's not even true! I can be a right so-and-so when things aren't going my way, I just pick and choose who sees it) and I'm fairly certain that girls are brought up to be "nice" in a way that boys aren't. Studies conducted in US schools found that girls receive harsher punishments for being "rowdy" (for example, answering the teacher back) than boys do for the same wrongdoing. Nice guys finish last, but nice girls go far (that isn't true either, I am hugely in favour of nice guys. They're better in bed, for a start). But I can't blame society - like I said, it's in my hands now. It's time to take responsibility and learn how to be assertive. I'm not trying to be a ball-busting, hard-as-nails bitch, I just need a sodding backbone.
A piece of advice I've seen a few times is this: pick a role model, and do what you think they would do. Admittedly, it does sound like something you'd read in a teen girl magazine, but you don't have to pick Beyonce as your "model" (I'm not nearly black nor American enough to pick her, anyway). Who would I choose? Caitlin Moran, Grace Dent, Owen Jones? Great, so my options in times of trouble are: making amazing puns followed up with devastating insights (Moran), saying something brilliantly snarky but very funny (Dent), or pulling out some well-chosen statistics and being fantastically socialist with a Northern accent (Jones. I say all that with admiration and lust though, he's my current intellectual crush). None of that is applicable to my life at the moment, sadly. So that's not much help.
Perhaps I should look closer to home. My mother? No. Confident she may be, but she still says "yes" to everything, knackers herself out, takes it out on the rest of the family, all the while pretending it's all her idea. I love her, but I will not do the martyr thing. The Boy? He always appears to be incredibly self-confident, sometimes to the point of arrogance. I know it's not genuine arrogance, but it doesn't really matter - if you look like you're confident in yourself and aren't going to stand for any bullshit, then people are simply less likely to try and take advantage. Fake it til you make it and whatnot.
Pffft, as usual, I don't know. If anyone's got any tips or tricks, feel free to share.
In the meantime, there's music:
I don't know why I like this song so much, having always been pretty underwhelmed by the singer in question, but I cannot get enough of the lyrics at 2:58 - there are songwriters with three decades on her that couldn't come up with lines like that.
And this song - despite the video being utterly bonkers, and the lyrics sounding like Avril Lavigne wrote them - keeps getting Stuck. In. My. Head. So now y'all have to suffer it too. (It is quite cute though.)
Here's a tragic realisation: I turn 24 in less than three weeks, and I have no idea how to stand up for myself.
To people who have no choice but to put up with me - to people where arguments are a natural part of the relationship - I can. My mother, Drummer Boy; I have no problem arguing with them (I should, but I don't). Anyone else - colleagues, bosses, even friends - I can't. And it's got to the point where I need to learn pretty damn quickly.
Trouble is, once everyone has you pegged as a quiet one, one who won't make a fuss, you're kind of doomed. When you finally do put your foot down with a firm hand, everyone is taken aback and thinks you're being a bitch. You end up over-doing it, because everything you've put up with over the previous weeks/months/years has gathered and grown, so by the time you get around to speaking up, it simply comes out as, "screw you guys, I can't take this bullshit anymore," Carrie-from-Homeland style.
I'm not even particularly laid-back; I'm pretty highly-strung. Things that make me hissy include but are not limited to: not having enough to do, having too much to do, being rushed, other people being slow, cold showers, the Boy not being a fully-qualified mind-reader, and my mother offering me food*. I know, I know - I'm probably going to spend a lot of time in some sort of therapy when I can afford to.
*She barely eats, but insists that everyone else eats loads. It makes me irritable.
Obviously, the problem with standing up for yourself in work-related situations is that there can be pretty serious consequences. If you're just having a bit of a scrap with a loved one, the worst that can happen is a few hours of sulking and silence. If you try and point out - however tactfully and politely - that your boss is being totally unreasonable and that something needs changing, you could lose your job/have your colleagues turn against you, et cetera. Nine situations out of ten, those things won't happen, but there's still a risk, and it won't always pay to take that risk.
It's frustrating though, because I think it's a confidence thing. It feels like there's a part of my personality missing - the "no, I will not take your bullshit" part. It's really sad but I think I'm just too scared of being disliked. (Having written that sentence out for The Internet to see, I realise how pathetic that is. Oh dear.)
I've half-wondered if it's also partly a woman thing - I've been told many times that I'm too nice (it's not even true! I can be a right so-and-so when things aren't going my way, I just pick and choose who sees it) and I'm fairly certain that girls are brought up to be "nice" in a way that boys aren't. Studies conducted in US schools found that girls receive harsher punishments for being "rowdy" (for example, answering the teacher back) than boys do for the same wrongdoing. Nice guys finish last, but nice girls go far (that isn't true either, I am hugely in favour of nice guys. They're better in bed, for a start). But I can't blame society - like I said, it's in my hands now. It's time to take responsibility and learn how to be assertive. I'm not trying to be a ball-busting, hard-as-nails bitch, I just need a sodding backbone.
A piece of advice I've seen a few times is this: pick a role model, and do what you think they would do. Admittedly, it does sound like something you'd read in a teen girl magazine, but you don't have to pick Beyonce as your "model" (I'm not nearly black nor American enough to pick her, anyway). Who would I choose? Caitlin Moran, Grace Dent, Owen Jones? Great, so my options in times of trouble are: making amazing puns followed up with devastating insights (Moran), saying something brilliantly snarky but very funny (Dent), or pulling out some well-chosen statistics and being fantastically socialist with a Northern accent (Jones. I say all that with admiration and lust though, he's my current intellectual crush). None of that is applicable to my life at the moment, sadly. So that's not much help.
Perhaps I should look closer to home. My mother? No. Confident she may be, but she still says "yes" to everything, knackers herself out, takes it out on the rest of the family, all the while pretending it's all her idea. I love her, but I will not do the martyr thing. The Boy? He always appears to be incredibly self-confident, sometimes to the point of arrogance. I know it's not genuine arrogance, but it doesn't really matter - if you look like you're confident in yourself and aren't going to stand for any bullshit, then people are simply less likely to try and take advantage. Fake it til you make it and whatnot.
Pffft, as usual, I don't know. If anyone's got any tips or tricks, feel free to share.
In the meantime, there's music:
I don't know why I like this song so much, having always been pretty underwhelmed by the singer in question, but I cannot get enough of the lyrics at 2:58 - there are songwriters with three decades on her that couldn't come up with lines like that.
And this song - despite the video being utterly bonkers, and the lyrics sounding like Avril Lavigne wrote them - keeps getting Stuck. In. My. Head. So now y'all have to suffer it too. (It is quite cute though.)
Thursday, 23 January 2014
From Bristol with love
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| I took this. |
*Not sure if I've explained this nickname. It's not as deviant as it sounds, unfortunately.
Step one: Set off alarmingly early, because your significant other needs to renew their railcard and is confident that this can be done at the station before 7am. On a Sunday morning. Resist the urge to tell them not to be so ridiculous.
Step two: Find that, indeed, it is not possible to renew said railcard. Resist the urge to hiss "I bloody knew it, you moron". A conductor tells you to get off at Clapham and do it there - but the conductor does not understand that you are booked on a specific train from London Paddington and if you miss it, there will be financial consequences.
Step two, part b) Get off at Clapham. Wait for significant other (SO or "Boy" from now on) to take passport photos and fill out form. Assure him that his face doesn't look "wonky" in the photos. (It does look a bit wonky.)
Step three: As expected, miss scheduled train. Fail to remain chipper - it's cold, and you've been up since about 5 - and snap briefly. Then feel bad. Have fruitless exchange with member of station staff, who rightly asks "why did you get off at Clapham if you had booked tickets for the 9.03 from here?" Pay for new tickets.
Step four: Once on train, doze off on Boy's shoulder, but keep sliding down into his lap, causing him to worry about what this looks like to other passengers.
Step five: Get to Bristol and feel high as a kite that you're back. Chatter like a [well-rested] child at Christmas. Discuss lunch: "I really feel like soup. Something healthy but warm." End up in 'spoons with a cheese toastie and a pint. Which both go down an absolute treat.
Step six: Because you have an exceptionally cavalier attitude to deadlines, spend the afternoon writing feverishly in order to meet one. The Boy is fine with this, as he has John Niven's latest book and, unusually for him, a Nintendo DS.
Step seven: Drink strawberry beer. Realise at about half-ten that you're starving. Make plans to take pizza back to your hotel room (do it once and you'll have a glorious tradition for life. Trust me). Head to nearest pizza place, scoff at prices. Head to nearby Tesco Express, whip out iPhone, find a deal, order pizza. Return to pizza place, collect pizza. Worry about how disapproving the hotel staff will be when they see you carrying the pizza box to your room. Boy assures you repeatedly that no-one will notice or care.
Step eight: The hotel has locked the front door, and you must show your keycard to be let in. Which means you and your pizza have been noticed. Refuse to make eye contact, feel mortified. Once inside the lift, hiss at Boy: "Sorry, what was that you said? No-one will notice or care?!"
Step nine: Forget feeling mortified, demolish pizza in bed while watching CSI: Miami. Realise that far from being cool and exciting, eating pizza in bed with fairly awful American TV and a nice young man beside you is actually the dream. Also realise that the main dramatic device of CSI: Miami is... the way... Horatio pauses... to make every utterance seem... really... significant.
Step ten: Following a pretty poor night's sleep - partly due, no doubt, to being chock-full of cheese and pepperoni, but also because you seem to be in The World's Hottest Hotel Room - drink a bajillion cups of coffee. And find that Brendan Cole, of Strictly Come Dancing fame, is staying at the same hotel, with a group of musicians and dancers from his show.
Step eleven: Go shopping. While in Topshop, receive an e-mail saying that one of the five pieces of copywriting you did the previous afternoon has been accepted. Figure that the company is going to e-mail you about each piece separately, which means you have four more to go (you're good at maths). Immediately think back and realise that you wrote a lot of bollocks. Narrowly avoid having a full-scale panic attack in Topshop. Think, for the ninetieth time in your life, that coffee and an anxious personality do not mix.
Step twelve: receive four other e-mails telling you your pieces have been accepted. The red fog of anxiety clears.
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| He took this. |
(Give any readers permission to be a little sick, if they haven't already.)
Step fourteen: Get cold, go to a pub. Drink more strawberry beer, try a pilsner called Veltins, which is honestly one of the best things you've ever drunk. Go and eat a terrifying amount of glorious Indian food at Clifton's Thali Cafe. Wonder how on earth you're going to fit in a cocktail or two (we had vouchers for free ones).
Step fifteen: Walk back to the hotel, seeing the city lit up around you. Debate whether the definition of true love is both "finding the person you want to annoy for the rest of your life", or "finding the person you can stand being annoyed by for the rest of your life".
Step sixteen: Decide that you can probably stomach at least one cocktail, so reluctantly shoe-horn yourself into a dress and head down to the bar. Watch as Boy promptly sloshes quarter of his first drink over his jeans. Feel old because the amount you've eaten and drunk over the last thirty-something hours is catching up with you, and you just want to sink into that big hotel bed.
To finish: As the train leaves Temple Meads, remember that year you spent in Cardiff, flitting to Bristol whenever you had a few days spare, and how flat you felt when you had to get on the train alone on Sunday evenings. Feel grateful and relieved that you don't have to do that anymore.
Get home, Google "jobs in Bristol".
You really need to listen to this guy. Saw him last night, and he is disgustingly talented.
Friday, 17 January 2014
A double whammy. Whatever that is.
Instead of one big, lofty, I'm-totally-changing-the-world-here post, today you get two little ones. They're just little oddities I can't put anywhere else.
I've never been what you call "sporty". The only remotely energetic things I was interested in while at school were hockey and horse riding. (I now get disproportinately cross when there's any sort of equine sport on TV and people think it's OK to take the piss out of dressage. There's a metric fuck-tonne of skill that goes into that, all right? It's not just horses dancing. It's not.)
I went through a phase when I was about 15 or 16 where I got a bit obsessed with being skinny. Nothing major, no medical intervention, and it was cured by a bout of food poisoning - after five days of whimpering on your bathroom floor, you start to miss the ability to keep food inside you - but that was when I started dragging myself out running. Which, incidentally, was another thing cured by the food poisoning, as it took a good month or so to not feel totally drained by everything. I digress. Running was exercise I didn't mind doing. I pretty much forgot about it while at uni, but in late spring last year, I decided to go back to it. I figured that I might as well get into good habits now, before I get to the wrong side of 27 and all that cheese and wine weight suddenly comes out from wherever it's been hiding for the last few years.
And so now I run. The first ten times, it was painful and knackering. But then one day it felt easier, more natural, and that in turn made it easier to keep at it. I remember my doctor telling me, at the height of That Anxiety Thing I Had, that exercise could really help work off the excess adrenaline that was making me feel so bloody mental. I'm still not sure if this is true for me personally - as at least once every run I become briefly convinced a heart attack is imminent - but it certainly boosts my mood. In the damp, drizzly winter months, it's incredibly hard to want to go out and get moving. You can be putting on your trainers and opening the front door, repeating "no, I don't want to, can't I just stay in with biscuits and Netflix?" but by the time you've done a warm-up jog, you've come around to the idea. Your legs - and ideally, your energizing playlist - take over, and you think "look at me go! I'm doing it. I already feel awesome!"
And then you come home to a warm house, and biscuits and Netflix, and you're snug and smug. Because that, I've found, is the thing about running - sure, it gets your heart, lungs and leg muscles engaged, it burns off some calories - but it makes you feel jolly smug. And if that's not a reason to keep doing something, then I don't know what is.
I've written about make-up before, and as a rule, I try not to write gender-specific posts, but I read this yesterday and had one of those "Oh God, yes!" moments - and, as something of a rarity, all the comments on the piece are lovely, and worth a read. (If you don't know who Sali Hughes is, she's the Guardian beauty writer but also does a lot of other journalism work. She's mates with Caitlin Moran, and seems like an all-round good egg.)
So yeah. I love make-up. I can spend hours - and a small fortune - in Boots. I'm not insecure about my looks - well, I am, but no more than the average woman - and I don't wear it all the time, but I do love make-up. It's fun. I like the possibilities, the playfulness. I like not having to leave the house with the face I woke up with. You can be anyone - smudgy eyeliner a la Kate Moss, or classically red-lipped like old Hollywood stars. Though, if truth be told, I've yet to master either of those without looking like a child who's got hold of Mummy's make-up bag. The point stands though - it's fun, it's transformative; it can make you feel bolder, more confident. And when you're confident, you function better. You literally have your game face on.
Male friends - and I say this with love, and an unwillingness to make sweeping generalisations - don't get it. "You look great without make-up, you don't need to wear it." OK - a) I don't look "great" without it. Honestly. I don't. I see my face every day, I know it better than anyone. B) I want to wear it. I like it. I like the ritual of it - it's ten minutes at the beginning of the day that are calm; just me, doing my thing and trying not to get mascara on my eyelids. And on bad skin days, a bit of foundation and concealer can make the difference between a good mood and a bad mood. Another favourite line trotted out by men is "I don't like women to look fake... lots of eyeliner, false eyelashes - nah, just doesn't do it for me". You know what? That's because it's not for you. We do it for us. We really, really do. (Weirdly, on the rare occasions the Boy has noticed and complimented my make-up, it's been when I'm wearing more eyeliner than usual. Maybe he likes the slightly gothy look? Who knows?)
I don't like having to downplay an interest in make-up and beauty as a guilty pleasure, as something that's too "girly" and not useful. I'm properly geeky about it at times - a lifetime of problematic skin has given me a genuine curiosity about ingredients and techniques that work, and those that don't, and why. The idea that you can't be smart and bothered about your appearence refuses to die. If you express an interest in beauty, and appear to enjoy spending money on new products, you can still expect to be thought of as a bit vain or superficial. And that's frustrating, and wrong - on the Sali Hughes piece, find the comment about the woman who escaped a violent partner, got to a refuge and asked for, amongst other things, her favourite face cream. Sometimes your beauty routine - however basic or complex it might be - can keep you together, emotionally. Like I said, it's a moment of calm, a ritual. Therapeutic, almost. During WWII, American cosmetic brands gave their lipsticks names like "Patriot Red" or "Fighting Red". And in the fifties, beautiful, quirky powder compacts became all the rage - after years of rationing and the dark times of war, reclaiming a little bit of luxury and glamour became important.
OK, I've rambled on enough now.
On the subject of beautiful things, here's this.
The reluctant runner...
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| Dressage is NOT "horse ballet" |
I went through a phase when I was about 15 or 16 where I got a bit obsessed with being skinny. Nothing major, no medical intervention, and it was cured by a bout of food poisoning - after five days of whimpering on your bathroom floor, you start to miss the ability to keep food inside you - but that was when I started dragging myself out running. Which, incidentally, was another thing cured by the food poisoning, as it took a good month or so to not feel totally drained by everything. I digress. Running was exercise I didn't mind doing. I pretty much forgot about it while at uni, but in late spring last year, I decided to go back to it. I figured that I might as well get into good habits now, before I get to the wrong side of 27 and all that cheese and wine weight suddenly comes out from wherever it's been hiding for the last few years.
And so now I run. The first ten times, it was painful and knackering. But then one day it felt easier, more natural, and that in turn made it easier to keep at it. I remember my doctor telling me, at the height of That Anxiety Thing I Had, that exercise could really help work off the excess adrenaline that was making me feel so bloody mental. I'm still not sure if this is true for me personally - as at least once every run I become briefly convinced a heart attack is imminent - but it certainly boosts my mood. In the damp, drizzly winter months, it's incredibly hard to want to go out and get moving. You can be putting on your trainers and opening the front door, repeating "no, I don't want to, can't I just stay in with biscuits and Netflix?" but by the time you've done a warm-up jog, you've come around to the idea. Your legs - and ideally, your energizing playlist - take over, and you think "look at me go! I'm doing it. I already feel awesome!"
And then you come home to a warm house, and biscuits and Netflix, and you're snug and smug. Because that, I've found, is the thing about running - sure, it gets your heart, lungs and leg muscles engaged, it burns off some calories - but it makes you feel jolly smug. And if that's not a reason to keep doing something, then I don't know what is.
Not even a bit related...
.jpg) | |
| The very tip of my make-up iceberg |
I've written about make-up before, and as a rule, I try not to write gender-specific posts, but I read this yesterday and had one of those "Oh God, yes!" moments - and, as something of a rarity, all the comments on the piece are lovely, and worth a read. (If you don't know who Sali Hughes is, she's the Guardian beauty writer but also does a lot of other journalism work. She's mates with Caitlin Moran, and seems like an all-round good egg.)
So yeah. I love make-up. I can spend hours - and a small fortune - in Boots. I'm not insecure about my looks - well, I am, but no more than the average woman - and I don't wear it all the time, but I do love make-up. It's fun. I like the possibilities, the playfulness. I like not having to leave the house with the face I woke up with. You can be anyone - smudgy eyeliner a la Kate Moss, or classically red-lipped like old Hollywood stars. Though, if truth be told, I've yet to master either of those without looking like a child who's got hold of Mummy's make-up bag. The point stands though - it's fun, it's transformative; it can make you feel bolder, more confident. And when you're confident, you function better. You literally have your game face on.
Male friends - and I say this with love, and an unwillingness to make sweeping generalisations - don't get it. "You look great without make-up, you don't need to wear it." OK - a) I don't look "great" without it. Honestly. I don't. I see my face every day, I know it better than anyone. B) I want to wear it. I like it. I like the ritual of it - it's ten minutes at the beginning of the day that are calm; just me, doing my thing and trying not to get mascara on my eyelids. And on bad skin days, a bit of foundation and concealer can make the difference between a good mood and a bad mood. Another favourite line trotted out by men is "I don't like women to look fake... lots of eyeliner, false eyelashes - nah, just doesn't do it for me". You know what? That's because it's not for you. We do it for us. We really, really do. (Weirdly, on the rare occasions the Boy has noticed and complimented my make-up, it's been when I'm wearing more eyeliner than usual. Maybe he likes the slightly gothy look? Who knows?)
I don't like having to downplay an interest in make-up and beauty as a guilty pleasure, as something that's too "girly" and not useful. I'm properly geeky about it at times - a lifetime of problematic skin has given me a genuine curiosity about ingredients and techniques that work, and those that don't, and why. The idea that you can't be smart and bothered about your appearence refuses to die. If you express an interest in beauty, and appear to enjoy spending money on new products, you can still expect to be thought of as a bit vain or superficial. And that's frustrating, and wrong - on the Sali Hughes piece, find the comment about the woman who escaped a violent partner, got to a refuge and asked for, amongst other things, her favourite face cream. Sometimes your beauty routine - however basic or complex it might be - can keep you together, emotionally. Like I said, it's a moment of calm, a ritual. Therapeutic, almost. During WWII, American cosmetic brands gave their lipsticks names like "Patriot Red" or "Fighting Red". And in the fifties, beautiful, quirky powder compacts became all the rage - after years of rationing and the dark times of war, reclaiming a little bit of luxury and glamour became important.
OK, I've rambled on enough now.
On the subject of beautiful things, here's this.
Friday, 3 January 2014
This old chestnut...
Happy New Year and all that. Personally, I'm hoping that 2014 is going to be a vast improvement upon 2013, which was - to put it politely - patchy at best. I'm going to kick off the year with a feministy rant. Sorry.
Shortly before Christmas, I spent most of a day writing a piece on whether society still judges women who choose not to have children, as part of a staff writer application (miraculously, they liked what I wrote). Now, normally, I'd be all over that shit. As someone who has always found the whole pregnancy and childbirth thing utterly terrifying, and who has only recently started to think "aww, kids might be fun", it's something I could bang on about for yonks. But my word limit was around the 400-mark, so not nearly big enough. I like to throw all my thoughts at the page and see what sounds good, so small word counts are tricky. I also felt a bit bored by the topic - like "we're really still having this conversation?" But we are. I even asked my mum - not that she's the best person to ask, Mrs Daily Mail - and she shot back straight away "yes, we do judge childless women, without a doubt".
So here's the unabridged result of me throwing some thoughts at my laptop.
For all the progress we've made in a few decades (the vote, education, employment, equal pay - in theory if not in practice - and contraception), feminism's still got things to do*. It's got to deal with all the insidious stuff - the attitudes, the media's representation of women, how women are treated by the legal system - stuff that is, arguably, harder to tackle. If you want legislation changed, there are procedures you can follow - campaigns, petitions, advocacy groups - you get the picture. It might not be easy, it might not be successful, but there are ways and means, paths that have been trodden. To change attitudes, you have to shout into the wind and hope that enough people hear you. You have to call people out when they say things that are narrow-minded, unintentionally offensive or just plain stupid. At best, they might accuse you of not having a sense of humour, and at worst, they might be hostile, aggressive and threatening.
*Despite what Angela Epstein said on Newsnight a couple of months ago, when they did a piece on Everyday Sexism. I didn't know Ms Epstein wrote for the Daily Mail at the time, so I sat there and seethed about how contrary and deliberately obtuse she was being. When I looked her up afterwards, it all made sense.
Anyway, back to the thing. Womanhood and motherhood remain inextricably linked, despite all the progress that's been made. The notion that you're not a fully-fledged human being until you've produced a new one persists - if you're female. Women who choose not to have children, and instead throw their energy and intelligence into their careers, travelling the world, or simply going about their own business - quite happily - still have to deal with questions and remarks that are loaded with judgement:
"When are you going to settle down?"
"Give it time, your hormones will kick in."
"You'll change your mind."
From aging relatives hoping for grandchildren, you might expect it. But I've had the latter two said to me by male friends my own age. In my case, I happen to think they're right - I would like children, it's the personally having them I'm not so keen on. If it was simply a case of planting a tree and plucking a baby off when it was ripe, I'd be all for it. Or growing one in a tank, like Sea Monkeys. It's the giving up my body in order to grow a little human that I have the issue with. And then forcing it out into the world. It's the biggest physical commitment there is, and only women can do it, so when it's men saying "oh darling, you'll change your tune", I get a little riled and want to spit back "how the bloody hell would you know?"
The flip-side of this was pointed out to me by a very wise friend - it's incredibly rare that you hear parents saying that it's not all it's cracked up to be. There must be some people out there who have children and have found that were they able to go back, they wouldn't have had them. You don't hear those stories, because it would be horribly damaging to the children in question to find that out. There are people who never planned on kids but had them, and wouldn't change a thing, but that's a far more socially acceptable position to take. Society needs to catch up and recognise that motherhood isn't something that women have to cross off the list - we need to stop having conversations that run thus: "she's very successful, yeah, top of her field. Never had kids though". Making and raising new humans is such a commitment, such a life-changer, that you have to really want to do it. It's the unwanted children, the resented ones, who will suffer.
One day, women's choices and decisions aren't going to be the subject of endless judgement and debate. One woman's way of doing things won't be seen as representative of the whole of womankind. We will all - men included - just be allowed to get on with things. And let's hope that day comes sooner rather than later.
I don't have a sex playlist (well, not as yet, but you never know) but if I did, this would be on it.
And when I went for a very chilly, rainy run the other day, this song made me feel invincible.
 |
| I love a daft stock image. |
So here's the unabridged result of me throwing some thoughts at my laptop.
For all the progress we've made in a few decades (the vote, education, employment, equal pay - in theory if not in practice - and contraception), feminism's still got things to do*. It's got to deal with all the insidious stuff - the attitudes, the media's representation of women, how women are treated by the legal system - stuff that is, arguably, harder to tackle. If you want legislation changed, there are procedures you can follow - campaigns, petitions, advocacy groups - you get the picture. It might not be easy, it might not be successful, but there are ways and means, paths that have been trodden. To change attitudes, you have to shout into the wind and hope that enough people hear you. You have to call people out when they say things that are narrow-minded, unintentionally offensive or just plain stupid. At best, they might accuse you of not having a sense of humour, and at worst, they might be hostile, aggressive and threatening.
*Despite what Angela Epstein said on Newsnight a couple of months ago, when they did a piece on Everyday Sexism. I didn't know Ms Epstein wrote for the Daily Mail at the time, so I sat there and seethed about how contrary and deliberately obtuse she was being. When I looked her up afterwards, it all made sense.
Anyway, back to the thing. Womanhood and motherhood remain inextricably linked, despite all the progress that's been made. The notion that you're not a fully-fledged human being until you've produced a new one persists - if you're female. Women who choose not to have children, and instead throw their energy and intelligence into their careers, travelling the world, or simply going about their own business - quite happily - still have to deal with questions and remarks that are loaded with judgement:
"When are you going to settle down?"
"Give it time, your hormones will kick in."
"You'll change your mind."
From aging relatives hoping for grandchildren, you might expect it. But I've had the latter two said to me by male friends my own age. In my case, I happen to think they're right - I would like children, it's the personally having them I'm not so keen on. If it was simply a case of planting a tree and plucking a baby off when it was ripe, I'd be all for it. Or growing one in a tank, like Sea Monkeys. It's the giving up my body in order to grow a little human that I have the issue with. And then forcing it out into the world. It's the biggest physical commitment there is, and only women can do it, so when it's men saying "oh darling, you'll change your tune", I get a little riled and want to spit back "how the bloody hell would you know?"
The flip-side of this was pointed out to me by a very wise friend - it's incredibly rare that you hear parents saying that it's not all it's cracked up to be. There must be some people out there who have children and have found that were they able to go back, they wouldn't have had them. You don't hear those stories, because it would be horribly damaging to the children in question to find that out. There are people who never planned on kids but had them, and wouldn't change a thing, but that's a far more socially acceptable position to take. Society needs to catch up and recognise that motherhood isn't something that women have to cross off the list - we need to stop having conversations that run thus: "she's very successful, yeah, top of her field. Never had kids though". Making and raising new humans is such a commitment, such a life-changer, that you have to really want to do it. It's the unwanted children, the resented ones, who will suffer.
One day, women's choices and decisions aren't going to be the subject of endless judgement and debate. One woman's way of doing things won't be seen as representative of the whole of womankind. We will all - men included - just be allowed to get on with things. And let's hope that day comes sooner rather than later.
I don't have a sex playlist (well, not as yet, but you never know) but if I did, this would be on it.
And when I went for a very chilly, rainy run the other day, this song made me feel invincible.
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