Much like the way my tooth-ache has prevented me from eating hard chocolate, but simply led to copious mugs of hot chocolate as an alternative, the pain arising from writing proper sentences seems to have led to experimentation in the form of badly punctuated poetry.
Sunday, 21 November 2010
wringing the words out
The only excuse I have for not blogging right now is that I am currently finding the formation of sentences highly painful. This may be to do with the 3000 word essay I am working on?
Much like the way my tooth-ache has prevented me from eating hard chocolate, but simply led to copious mugs of hot chocolate as an alternative, the pain arising from writing proper sentences seems to have led to experimentation in the form of badly punctuated poetry.
Much like the way my tooth-ache has prevented me from eating hard chocolate, but simply led to copious mugs of hot chocolate as an alternative, the pain arising from writing proper sentences seems to have led to experimentation in the form of badly punctuated poetry.
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
political
I rarely get political. Even when the elections come down, I only vaguely know where my principles lie, and although I get concerned about social issues, I don't feel knowledgeable enough to voice my opinions. I make an effort to be aware of the different policies, everything just seems like empty promises. I supported the Lib Dems at the last election, because I liked their policies best, but a few months later it is shockingly blatant how little a policy means. One the one hand, this reminded me of how much I hate politics.
But this is really pissing me off.
I didn't attend the march today, and I really, really, really wish I did. This is something that will not (for once, I am too old) affect me but I feel like it was a bullet that literally brushed past me, and I really care. Violence is not the way forward and everyone I know who went seemed to approach it like a fun party, and I feel guilty for being responsible and not going. And angry. So of course violence is not the way forward, but this photo still just captures my mood perfectly:
Sometimes everything seems so wrong yet impossibly insurmountable that the only thing you feel you can do is TELL the world that it is wrong, even if you know it won't achieve anything, that it's not the way forward.
But this is really pissing me off.
I didn't attend the march today, and I really, really, really wish I did. This is something that will not (for once, I am too old) affect me but I feel like it was a bullet that literally brushed past me, and I really care. Violence is not the way forward and everyone I know who went seemed to approach it like a fun party, and I feel guilty for being responsible and not going. And angry. So of course violence is not the way forward, but this photo still just captures my mood perfectly:
Sometimes everything seems so wrong yet impossibly insurmountable that the only thing you feel you can do is TELL the world that it is wrong, even if you know it won't achieve anything, that it's not the way forward.
Sunday, 7 November 2010
mine
I have frequently charted my search for a functional bag. I considered a backpack, before remembering that I am nowhere near hipster enough to not look like a tourist in a backpack.
At the beginning of the academic year, I received this:
I convinced myself that I had not yet written about this big exciting purchase yet, the way I normally do straight away, because I hadn't had a chance to take a good illustrative photo. Whatever. I just took the photo you can see above, no repeats, and it is SOOC (straight out of camera), a low quality digital photo with absolutely no editing, cropping, anything.
The truth is that I have quite complex emotions towards this bag. Does that sound silly? Does it sound stupid that I can extrapolate huge emotions, relationships, shifts in style, and more, from the purchase of this one bag? Is it ridiculous to feel that I could write a whole thesis on one bag?
If I were to write the thesis, this post wouldn't be up on my blog before the bag had disintegrated into shreds. So I'll just present what the rough draft, the paragraph structure, of the thesis might have been.
1. Why spend £70 on a non-leather item?
My first desire for this bag arose from its function. The perfect size, shape and weight for a bag to lug around all my books, while maintaining style. But there are other bags that can do that. There are fakes that can do that. When I got this bag, it felt so special. I have very little experience in luxury brand names, but I have even felt their effect when carrying a Chanel shopping bag. When the bag is not simply a container but the item itself, it seems to be even more steeped in luxury, the gold-plated zips seems to take on an authentic golden sheen.
2. The process of the purchase
I didn't spend £70 on this bag. The short story is that my dad got his sister to get it at a discounted price from a large department store. The long story involves family conflict, divorce, and when someone asks me how much I paid, I can say nothing, because it was an unabashed guilt-trip gift - which I do feel bad about now.
The bag took a long time coming, and the first time I met my father to deliver it, his sister had forgotten to remove the security tag, so back it went and it was another week before she got round to sorting it out and I got it again. So it was a drawn-out process, especially if you factor in the years I'd been admiring its perfection from the corner of my eye.
3. The damage
The idealised perfection of this purchase made it seem somehow timeless. It seemed justified because it was the perfect university bag, so something that will carry me through the next three years. But within weeks, scratches and stains were appearing. At first, these stressed me out. Then I realised this is that kind of item you use, heavily, and that is why I originally wanted it. I wore it out in the rain. The scratches and the stains slowly merged and faded and vanished.
This is not a unique bag. But no-one else has my style, or my story. Like the scratches and the material, this bag seems to have somehow melded with me. I have extended to beyond the appearance and to what no-one else can see, but even the physical object has its own effects. The colour green is an important symbol of self-flattery and acceptance, to me. The strong aesthetic, slightly urban equestrian, combined with an item I wear every single day, represents the introduction of a constant in my otherwise schizo style. This bag is a book carrier, and I am a student. This bag is definitely mine.
I feel incredibly self-conscious writing this post. Trying to finish it off, I still feel a sense of ridiculousness in ascribing this much importance to just a bag. Has a new item ever led any of you into a thought-process like this? What conclusion did you come to?
At the beginning of the academic year, I received this:
I convinced myself that I had not yet written about this big exciting purchase yet, the way I normally do straight away, because I hadn't had a chance to take a good illustrative photo. Whatever. I just took the photo you can see above, no repeats, and it is SOOC (straight out of camera), a low quality digital photo with absolutely no editing, cropping, anything.
The truth is that I have quite complex emotions towards this bag. Does that sound silly? Does it sound stupid that I can extrapolate huge emotions, relationships, shifts in style, and more, from the purchase of this one bag? Is it ridiculous to feel that I could write a whole thesis on one bag?
If I were to write the thesis, this post wouldn't be up on my blog before the bag had disintegrated into shreds. So I'll just present what the rough draft, the paragraph structure, of the thesis might have been.
1. Why spend £70 on a non-leather item?
My first desire for this bag arose from its function. The perfect size, shape and weight for a bag to lug around all my books, while maintaining style. But there are other bags that can do that. There are fakes that can do that. When I got this bag, it felt so special. I have very little experience in luxury brand names, but I have even felt their effect when carrying a Chanel shopping bag. When the bag is not simply a container but the item itself, it seems to be even more steeped in luxury, the gold-plated zips seems to take on an authentic golden sheen.
2. The process of the purchase
I didn't spend £70 on this bag. The short story is that my dad got his sister to get it at a discounted price from a large department store. The long story involves family conflict, divorce, and when someone asks me how much I paid, I can say nothing, because it was an unabashed guilt-trip gift - which I do feel bad about now.
The bag took a long time coming, and the first time I met my father to deliver it, his sister had forgotten to remove the security tag, so back it went and it was another week before she got round to sorting it out and I got it again. So it was a drawn-out process, especially if you factor in the years I'd been admiring its perfection from the corner of my eye.
3. The damage
The idealised perfection of this purchase made it seem somehow timeless. It seemed justified because it was the perfect university bag, so something that will carry me through the next three years. But within weeks, scratches and stains were appearing. At first, these stressed me out. Then I realised this is that kind of item you use, heavily, and that is why I originally wanted it. I wore it out in the rain. The scratches and the stains slowly merged and faded and vanished.
This is not a unique bag. But no-one else has my style, or my story. Like the scratches and the material, this bag seems to have somehow melded with me. I have extended to beyond the appearance and to what no-one else can see, but even the physical object has its own effects. The colour green is an important symbol of self-flattery and acceptance, to me. The strong aesthetic, slightly urban equestrian, combined with an item I wear every single day, represents the introduction of a constant in my otherwise schizo style. This bag is a book carrier, and I am a student. This bag is definitely mine.
I feel incredibly self-conscious writing this post. Trying to finish it off, I still feel a sense of ridiculousness in ascribing this much importance to just a bag. Has a new item ever led any of you into a thought-process like this? What conclusion did you come to?
Thursday, 4 November 2010
a sample
Back when I first started this blog, I quite frequently posted poems I'd written, or extracts from creative writing, either that I'd just written or more amusing pieces from my childhood.
I don't do this any more, not because the feedback I got was anything but wonderfully sweet and encouraging (because it was wonderfully sweet and encouraging) but because I rarely find myself writing creatively recently. It's either critical or autobiographical emotional outpourings, and I fear the first would bore you to death and the second would embarrass me to death.
The creative stuff I AM doing more of is reading poetry. I think reading poetry is a creative act, because unlike an episode of TV or a simple narrative, every reader brings a million elements to it which provides them with a personal experience of the poem. I'm not just talking about an emotional connection which can often come from a very short quote as well as a long poem, but the details you notice, the rhythm in your own ears, the different images and meanings which the same word can create in a mind made up of different life experiences, different pools of intellectual knowledge.
For that reason, I love reading poetry even if it's about old age, or murder, or a Tudor courtship, or any other experience totally alien to me. I don't think it would be very easy to enjoy much many pieces of poetry if you were searching for one of the great canonical masters of poetry, a dead white male, to put words in an order which feel like you should have written them.
But you still treasure the pieces that do. A sample:
--------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------
I would love it if you shared a sample of your favourite poems with me. And if you would like, I would love to carry on posting up little samples of poems I love.
Note: some of you may find it amusing/shamefully nerdy to know that while I copied and pasted the text of these poems from sites I found on google search, I then went through the latter two in my original punctuation/spelling Penguin Classics poetry book to revert all the modernisations. Wow, I'm cool.
I don't do this any more, not because the feedback I got was anything but wonderfully sweet and encouraging (because it was wonderfully sweet and encouraging) but because I rarely find myself writing creatively recently. It's either critical or autobiographical emotional outpourings, and I fear the first would bore you to death and the second would embarrass me to death.
The creative stuff I AM doing more of is reading poetry. I think reading poetry is a creative act, because unlike an episode of TV or a simple narrative, every reader brings a million elements to it which provides them with a personal experience of the poem. I'm not just talking about an emotional connection which can often come from a very short quote as well as a long poem, but the details you notice, the rhythm in your own ears, the different images and meanings which the same word can create in a mind made up of different life experiences, different pools of intellectual knowledge.
For that reason, I love reading poetry even if it's about old age, or murder, or a Tudor courtship, or any other experience totally alien to me. I don't think it would be very easy to enjoy much many pieces of poetry if you were searching for one of the great canonical masters of poetry, a dead white male, to put words in an order which feel like you should have written them.
But you still treasure the pieces that do. A sample:
FOR DESIRE--------------------------------------------------------
Give me the strongest cheese, the one that stinks best;
and I want the good wine, the swirl in crystal
surrendering the bruised scent of blackberries,
or cherries, the rich spurt in the back
of the throat, the holding it there before swallowing.
Give me the lover who yanks open the door
of his house and presses me to the wall
in the dim hallway, and keeps me there until I'm drenched
and shaking, whose kisses arrive by the boatload
and begin their delicious diaspora
through the cities and small towns of my body.
To hell with the saints, with martyrs
of my childhood meant to instruct me
in the power of endurance and faith,
to hell with the next world and its pallid angels
swooning and sighing like Victorian girls.
I want this world. I want to walk into
the ocean and feel it trying to drag me along
like I'm nothing but a broken bit of scratched glass,
and I want to resist it. I want to go
staggering and flailing my way
through the bars and back rooms,
through the gleaming hotels and weedy
lots of abandoned sunflowers and the parks
where dogs are let off their leashes
in spite of the signs, where they sniff each
other and roll together in the grass, I want to
lie down somewhere and suffer for love until
it nearly kills me, and then I want to get up again
and put on that little black dress and wait
for you, yes you, to come over here
and get down on your knees and tell me
just how fucking good I look
- Kim Addonizio
THE DEFINITION OF LOVE
My Love is of a birth as rareAs 'tis for object strange and high: It was begotten by despair Upon Impossibility. Magnanimous Despair alone Could show me so divine a thing Where feeble Hope could ne'er have flown, But vainly flapt its Tinsel Wing. And yet I quickly might arrive Where my extended soul is fixt, But Fate does iron wedges drive, And alwaies crowds it self betwixt. For Fate with jealous Eye does see Two perfect Loves, nor lets them close: Their union would her ruin be, And her Tyrannick pow'r depose. And therefore her Decrees of Steel Us as the distant Poles have plac'd, (Though Loves whole World on us doth wheel) Not by themselves to be embrac'd. Unless the giddy Heaven fall, And Earth some new convulsion tear; And, us to joyn, the World should all Be cramp'd into a Planisphere. As Lines so Loves oblique may well Themselves in every Angle greet: But ours so truly paralel, Though infinite can never meet. Therefore the Love which us doth bind, But Fate so enviously debarrs, Is the Conjunction of the Mind, And Opposition of the Stars.
-Andrew Marvell
From LYCIDAS (the last two sections) Weep no more, woful Shepherds weep no more,
For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the watry floar,
So sinks the day-star in the Ocean bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,
And tricks his beams, and with new spangled Ore
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky:
So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high,
Through the dear might of Him that walk'd the waves;
Where other groves, and other streams along,
With Nectar pure his oozy Locks he laves,
And hears the unexpressive nuptiall Song,
In the blest Kingdoms meek of joy and love.
There entertain him all the Saints above,
In solemn troops, and sweet Societies,
That sing, and singing in their glory move,
And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes.
Now Lycidas the shepherds weep no more;
Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore,
In thy large recompense, and shalt be good
To all that wander in that perilous flood.
Thus sang the uncouth Swain to th' Okes and rills,
While the still morn went out with sandals gray,
He touch'd the tender stops of various Quills,
With eager thought warbling his Dorick lay:
And now the Sun had stretch'd out all the hills,
And now was dropt into the Western bay.
At last he rose, and twitch'd his Mantle blew:To morrow to fresh Woods, and Pastures new. -John Milton
Sunday, 31 October 2010
This week I have lived in my Topshop pirate pants and, oh the shame, tracksuit bottoms. It's been that kinda week. But I on general principle despise sportswear, and my pirate pants were starting to need sewing/patching up and generally looking a little worse for wear.
I went on a bit of an epic search for an alternative, and came up with these.
I am NOT wearing them ironically with vertiginous heels and a £2000 blazer. I am wearing them slumped in a corner with the world's worst hangover, fuggs and a 'vintage' football shirt.
I went on a bit of an epic search for an alternative, and came up with these.
I am NOT wearing them ironically with vertiginous heels and a £2000 blazer. I am wearing them slumped in a corner with the world's worst hangover, fuggs and a 'vintage' football shirt.
Saturday, 23 October 2010
breath
For the past week or so, a twitch in my left eye has been extremely irritating me. The fact is, I am experiencing the extreme fatigue of accumulated stress and lack of sleep. So one day I decided to go to sleep at 10PM, but I was still tired the next day, on which I reverted back to normal and went to bed past midnight. I know, it's all my fault really. A couple of days ago, I even tried cutting out caffeine, but my eye continued to twitch.
Today, the first day of my week-long break, after a night out last night, I woke up naturally at 9AM. I wanted to die. I was so tired.
Plus, I had a whole day planned. On the way there, I just closed my eyes, and when I arrived at my destination, I really didn't want to get out of the car. But, I did. And as soon as I got out of the car, my tiredness melted away.
I entered a world of luxury.
London is a strange city, where a stone's throw can separate vastly different worlds. But even more drastic, the London I live in is in fact separated by miles, and often feels like a different city.
In W1, everything is special. Everything is moneyed. Everyone is beautiful.
I tried to marvel at and find meaning in Damien Hirst's 'Poisons and Remedies'
Then I desperately needed to pee and so used the Claridge's toilets (I was tempted to take photos but wisely abstained). It was the most beautiful toilet I have ever used.
Then, the biggest treat, tea at Fortnum and & Masons (whose toilets nearly rival Claridge's).
And finally, a (genuinely) fascinating art installation at the White Cube Gallery (and more beautiful people to admire).
I felt rejuvenated. I got home, and went for an hour long run and when I finished I didn't feel tired. I think there must be some sort of fuel in beauty, either than or I'm still running on caffeine after abstaining for two days.
Today, the first day of my week-long break, after a night out last night, I woke up naturally at 9AM. I wanted to die. I was so tired.
Plus, I had a whole day planned. On the way there, I just closed my eyes, and when I arrived at my destination, I really didn't want to get out of the car. But, I did. And as soon as I got out of the car, my tiredness melted away.
I entered a world of luxury.
London is a strange city, where a stone's throw can separate vastly different worlds. But even more drastic, the London I live in is in fact separated by miles, and often feels like a different city.
In W1, everything is special. Everything is moneyed. Everyone is beautiful.
I tried to marvel at and find meaning in Damien Hirst's 'Poisons and Remedies'
Then I desperately needed to pee and so used the Claridge's toilets (I was tempted to take photos but wisely abstained). It was the most beautiful toilet I have ever used.
Then, the biggest treat, tea at Fortnum and & Masons (whose toilets nearly rival Claridge's).
And finally, a (genuinely) fascinating art installation at the White Cube Gallery (and more beautiful people to admire).
I felt rejuvenated. I got home, and went for an hour long run and when I finished I didn't feel tired. I think there must be some sort of fuel in beauty, either than or I'm still running on caffeine after abstaining for two days.
Friday, 22 October 2010
backwards and forwards
I'm still trying to work backwards and catch up, but time keeps on moving forwards and new things keep appearing. It sort of feels like when you try to climb back up an escalator.
You see, I can't stop buying new things.
I don't know what it is, if I'm trying to fill a hole in my heart, if I feel like money is burning a hole in my pocket now I'm not in crazy summer spending mode, or if I am just noticing holes in my winter wardrobe and am in the mood to shop.
Actually, scratch that bit about needing stuff.
I just bought a yellow bag.
(I was looking for a black bag)
You see, I can't stop buying new things.
I don't know what it is, if I'm trying to fill a hole in my heart, if I feel like money is burning a hole in my pocket now I'm not in crazy summer spending mode, or if I am just noticing holes in my winter wardrobe and am in the mood to shop.
Actually, scratch that bit about needing stuff.
I just bought a yellow bag.
(I was looking for a black bag)
Tuesday, 19 October 2010
interlude
I have so many ideas for posts to write, but they all require illustration (i.e. photographs). Photographs which I currently cannot take because I arrive home in darkness and flash is not my friend.
So, for the moment, all I can post are memories of the sun. Memories of this summer, the strangest summer, or season, of my life. Maybe not even memories, more moments, which I barely remember passing. A summer of such intense feelings that they drown insignificant images. And now, these images have become connected to moments, thoughts, emotions and yet at the same time capture such a fleeting second. I can see them for their beauty, and that eases the memories.
So, for the moment, all I can post are memories of the sun. Memories of this summer, the strangest summer, or season, of my life. Maybe not even memories, more moments, which I barely remember passing. A summer of such intense feelings that they drown insignificant images. And now, these images have become connected to moments, thoughts, emotions and yet at the same time capture such a fleeting second. I can see them for their beauty, and that eases the memories.
Friday, 15 October 2010
definition
I think I'm more of a winter dresser, in that in the winter I seem to start dressing more creatively. I have a few nice summer dresses, but apart from that my summer wardrobe is basically casual separates. Whereas, right now, I am shopping more, experimenting more, thinking about my outfits more.
Before this shift, I had a uniform: denim and a black top. I was expert at varying on this theme, with a hundred different style of jeans and black top. It was a tad dull and uniform-like, but also comfortable and failsafe. Right now, though, I don't think I've worn jeans for over a week.
Instead, my style's gone a bit mad. And I try to think about it, and analyse it, and come up with a definition, but I fail. Everyone around me, all of my friends, seem to have a perfectly defined style, while I wildly oscillate. While I am aware of my shifting moods, the thing which makes my undefined style all the more obvious is other people, and their comments.
I love wearing pink lipstick, because it makes my lips look less corpse-like, but it's not as high maintenance as red lipstick. I love wearing waist belts and fitted silhouettes because they flatter my in-and-out shape. This personal preference has resulted in what I feel like a vaguely 50s/60s style. But this is simply a vague impression, and the main reason I have pinpointed it is the offhand comments I have remembered. One friend said I looked like a girl in a 60s inspired band, I looked them up and she has long blonde hair (mine is short and red). He then said it was something about the collar on my dress. A collar which is not even real, but stitched on. I am sure that the inaccuracy of the details in my '50s' look would make a die-hard retro fan break out in hives: no-one wore crepe soles in the 50s!
Other times, at 7 in the morning, I will want to wear something baggy and therefore unconstricting, and so I will pair my flared pussy-blow blouse with an equally flared squared, and then I look like a member of the women's institute. That is not the intended look here, guys, and I don't appreciate the comparison.
Someone told me the other day that she has never seen me wear the same top twice. I don't know her very well, and I was a bit taken back. I never feel like I have very many clothes, buthen a highly clothes conscious male friend turned around and said 'you know, it's true, you have so many clothes'. I don't actually buy very much, but I also don't throw away very much, and when I was younger I had more time and money (to spend on clothes). As a result, my wardrobe is a wild mixture of old, new, and even older (passed on, handed down, borrowed), distinctive pieces neglected in a six month long black t-shirt and jeans phase and therefore totally familiar to me, but no-one else.
Today I received a lot of compliments, and I understood why. It is not that my outfit was particularly special, and if I posted it on here it would not create a huge response (in brief: loght grey jersey mini-dress, charcoal wool cowl neck jumper, black leggings, cinammon wool legwarmers under tall browny-grey boots, stripy wool navy and white scarf, khaki bomber, khaki Longchamps tote). But it was a style which mirrored their own. When I wear pink lipstick and fitted retro dresses, I am a million miles off from the 80s red-lipped, sparkly, baggy and short vintage of my friends. Wearing a bright skirt or dress that reaches my knees is an even more foreign notion, and makes me look 'old-fashioned', be it in a succesful retro combination, or a less sucessful librarian unchic. Short, uncolourful and casual: familiar, ergo 'really, really nice today'.
That's not to say I didn't like today's outfit; I did. I love the combination of the matching wool texture with the palette of a range of neutrals. I love being able to snuggle up a million layers. But for me, this is 'comfortable'. This is, 'I don't want to attract loads of funny comments about looking old-fashioned'.
Reactions shouldn't form my personal style. But they do, and they inevitably affect the way I feel about an item of clothing, and my overall style. On this ramble through my thoughts over the past few weeks, I seem to have wandered away from the original path of 'defined style', a tangent which I don't feel too guilty about as it is a pretty well-trodden path. But I also don't seem to have arrived at a destination, a decision about how I feel about the whole act of creative dressing. The only thing I do know is that I am enjoying the journey, and seeing what new ideas I arrive at.
Before this shift, I had a uniform: denim and a black top. I was expert at varying on this theme, with a hundred different style of jeans and black top. It was a tad dull and uniform-like, but also comfortable and failsafe. Right now, though, I don't think I've worn jeans for over a week.
Instead, my style's gone a bit mad. And I try to think about it, and analyse it, and come up with a definition, but I fail. Everyone around me, all of my friends, seem to have a perfectly defined style, while I wildly oscillate. While I am aware of my shifting moods, the thing which makes my undefined style all the more obvious is other people, and their comments.
I love wearing pink lipstick, because it makes my lips look less corpse-like, but it's not as high maintenance as red lipstick. I love wearing waist belts and fitted silhouettes because they flatter my in-and-out shape. This personal preference has resulted in what I feel like a vaguely 50s/60s style. But this is simply a vague impression, and the main reason I have pinpointed it is the offhand comments I have remembered. One friend said I looked like a girl in a 60s inspired band, I looked them up and she has long blonde hair (mine is short and red). He then said it was something about the collar on my dress. A collar which is not even real, but stitched on. I am sure that the inaccuracy of the details in my '50s' look would make a die-hard retro fan break out in hives: no-one wore crepe soles in the 50s!
Other times, at 7 in the morning, I will want to wear something baggy and therefore unconstricting, and so I will pair my flared pussy-blow blouse with an equally flared squared, and then I look like a member of the women's institute. That is not the intended look here, guys, and I don't appreciate the comparison.
Someone told me the other day that she has never seen me wear the same top twice. I don't know her very well, and I was a bit taken back. I never feel like I have very many clothes, buthen a highly clothes conscious male friend turned around and said 'you know, it's true, you have so many clothes'. I don't actually buy very much, but I also don't throw away very much, and when I was younger I had more time and money (to spend on clothes). As a result, my wardrobe is a wild mixture of old, new, and even older (passed on, handed down, borrowed), distinctive pieces neglected in a six month long black t-shirt and jeans phase and therefore totally familiar to me, but no-one else.
Today I received a lot of compliments, and I understood why. It is not that my outfit was particularly special, and if I posted it on here it would not create a huge response (in brief: loght grey jersey mini-dress, charcoal wool cowl neck jumper, black leggings, cinammon wool legwarmers under tall browny-grey boots, stripy wool navy and white scarf, khaki bomber, khaki Longchamps tote). But it was a style which mirrored their own. When I wear pink lipstick and fitted retro dresses, I am a million miles off from the 80s red-lipped, sparkly, baggy and short vintage of my friends. Wearing a bright skirt or dress that reaches my knees is an even more foreign notion, and makes me look 'old-fashioned', be it in a succesful retro combination, or a less sucessful librarian unchic. Short, uncolourful and casual: familiar, ergo 'really, really nice today'.
That's not to say I didn't like today's outfit; I did. I love the combination of the matching wool texture with the palette of a range of neutrals. I love being able to snuggle up a million layers. But for me, this is 'comfortable'. This is, 'I don't want to attract loads of funny comments about looking old-fashioned'.
Reactions shouldn't form my personal style. But they do, and they inevitably affect the way I feel about an item of clothing, and my overall style. On this ramble through my thoughts over the past few weeks, I seem to have wandered away from the original path of 'defined style', a tangent which I don't feel too guilty about as it is a pretty well-trodden path. But I also don't seem to have arrived at a destination, a decision about how I feel about the whole act of creative dressing. The only thing I do know is that I am enjoying the journey, and seeing what new ideas I arrive at.
Tuesday, 12 October 2010
On Friday night, as I struggled to keep my eyes open and my brain engaged in wakefulness, I realised I couldn't remember the last time I had been free to do as I wanted, and not too tired to do it. Reading before bedtime is not an option when your eyes are forcing themselves shut...
I decided that the next morning I would go for a run for the first time in more weeks than I could remember.
It was painful, and short. But I felt so great afterwards.
Sunday I dedicated to reading (a fiction, for pleasure, how novel) and then in the evening, I went for a walk.
That is not to say that I am suddenly carefree and spritely: I am not. I slept 6 hours last night, and the night before. Hence, why although I decided that on Monday I would resume writing, I ran out of time and was a day late. Restoring the habits which practice makes natural isn't effortless, but I think it's important.
I can feel the joltiness in my writing, I am too unused to writing outside of the restraints of essay structure. But I'm going to do my best, and I'm going to work backwards, and hopefully as I reach the point where I stopped writing, I will get nearer and nearer the fluency I had then.
So.
Most recent purchases:
Never fear; I only ever wear them together when part of a Catholic schoolgirl in Gossip Girl ensemble, which is only rarely (and no, I am not putting a picture of that up on this blog for all to see - if any of you are still out there).
I decided that the next morning I would go for a run for the first time in more weeks than I could remember.
It was painful, and short. But I felt so great afterwards.
Sunday I dedicated to reading (a fiction, for pleasure, how novel) and then in the evening, I went for a walk.
That is not to say that I am suddenly carefree and spritely: I am not. I slept 6 hours last night, and the night before. Hence, why although I decided that on Monday I would resume writing, I ran out of time and was a day late. Restoring the habits which practice makes natural isn't effortless, but I think it's important.
I can feel the joltiness in my writing, I am too unused to writing outside of the restraints of essay structure. But I'm going to do my best, and I'm going to work backwards, and hopefully as I reach the point where I stopped writing, I will get nearer and nearer the fluency I had then.
So.
Most recent purchases:
Never fear; I only ever wear them together when part of a Catholic schoolgirl in Gossip Girl ensemble, which is only rarely (and no, I am not putting a picture of that up on this blog for all to see - if any of you are still out there).
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