Friday, August 26, 2005
On Which Note...
To continue from the previous post and comments, it goes something like this...
The me I feel like when I'm fully dressed and made up is a me I can't quite get to dressed as a bloke. If I could, the whole TV thing just wouldn't be required. There's a whole load of theories about exactly where that sort of stuff begins, and as ever I have my own take on it. Which only means I know myself and where I come from better than anybody else - it's virtually certain that what applies to me does not apply to anyone else in exactly the same way.
But it's definitely not about an outfit that Vivienne Westwood and Barbara Cartland would consider a bit over the top. It's just about how I feel about myself.
Last week I was out almost every night, with people I consider good friends of mine and who know me pretty well, wearing more make up as the 'normal' me than ever, especially having never worn make up around those people. And I've bought a skirt in the same way thousands of women buy bloke clothes every day. As far as I'm concerned, that puts me closer to the middle ground between the two halves of my wardrobe than I've ever found myself yet. And while I'm not yet at the point where I don't even think about it, it's now mostly a case of think about it, do it, and bollocks to anybody who might have anything to say about it.
Those same friends (and many others) may still be under the impression that I don't drink alcohol - and I've blogged enough about my occasional drinking that you shouldn't be in any doubt whatsoever - but I already spend enough time telling people I'm not vegetarian either, despite the firmly held views of people who really ought to know better. While I have failed to make my point sufficiently clear at times, I've never said anything that isn't the truth here.
It's not skirt or trousers? in the same simple way it could be brown trainers or black trainers?, and it probably never will be. But it is now a choice of several skirts of varying styles rather than the only skirt there is. In fact, I probably need to stop buying skirts for a while.
As for my most recent houseguest, I'm guilty of being taken by surprise that someone on the end of a twelve hour working day could go on to talk about work in great depth for another three hours. It's only work, after all. But we're not the same people we were when we were 11 or 16, and neither should we be. And while it's a bittersweet thing to find my oldest friend and I don't have a huge amount other than history in common, what it has done is remind me about other current relationships which have much more left in them, and to which I should devote more time and attention.
There has to be an upside. And I'm finding plenty at the moment. Which is why it matters to try and explain whatever progress I can see to my friends (which includes all my readers) where I know they may not immediately see it for themselves.
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I hope this doesn't come across as too cheesy, but I find your blog articles absolutely fascinating. It helps that we've actually met and it is so much better to put a face to the words.
I think there's a saying about three days being the optimum time for houseguests to stay, so to have people around for a week must have been quite hard.
I think there's a saying about three days being the optimum time for houseguests to stay, so to have people around for a week must have been quite hard.
Thank you - cheesy is fine in any case.
Nobody has been here for a week - I had someone here last week for a couple of days, and that was absolutely fine. Unfortunately the timing for the friend who was here for a couple of days this week was not so good as it might have been, and I got caught at less than my most hospitable, and that wasn't improved by how far apart we have grown over the decades.
But life goes on :-)
Nobody has been here for a week - I had someone here last week for a couple of days, and that was absolutely fine. Unfortunately the timing for the friend who was here for a couple of days this week was not so good as it might have been, and I got caught at less than my most hospitable, and that wasn't improved by how far apart we have grown over the decades.
But life goes on :-)
As all comments are welcome ...
despite the firmly held views of people who really ought to know better
I'm going to pick up on this more particularly than anything else, because it's something I've heard you say about something and someone else and it struck me then as well.
The thing is that you can think that someone should know something, but you can never be sure. And you can think that someone knows you well enough, but you can't be certain that you understand them well enough that you can tell how they will, say, react to a story or whether there is some sort of mental block in their minds that sticks with a certain impression, rather than what they have been told. Even in my closest group of friends, we can't always remember which the veggies are - K always gets classed as one and she can eat a bacon sandwich in two seconds flat.
But, actually, while I'm on a roll ...
What I said about women going out and buying men's clothes all the time holds true for other things. What I forgot to say before as well was that my first job was working in a shoe shop with a Tall and Small section. Every now and then, a man would come in and buy a pair of shoes. After you've seen the first one, you really don't bat an eyelid - even as a giggly 16 year old girl. Sometimes it is possible to imagine a worse reaction from the salesperson than is really there, simply because you are projecting your worries onto them.
And can I donate a couple of terms to you - boydrobe and girldrobe - this whole two sides of the wardrobe business still reads in a slightly confusing way. ;-)
despite the firmly held views of people who really ought to know better
I'm going to pick up on this more particularly than anything else, because it's something I've heard you say about something and someone else and it struck me then as well.
The thing is that you can think that someone should know something, but you can never be sure. And you can think that someone knows you well enough, but you can't be certain that you understand them well enough that you can tell how they will, say, react to a story or whether there is some sort of mental block in their minds that sticks with a certain impression, rather than what they have been told. Even in my closest group of friends, we can't always remember which the veggies are - K always gets classed as one and she can eat a bacon sandwich in two seconds flat.
But, actually, while I'm on a roll ...
What I said about women going out and buying men's clothes all the time holds true for other things. What I forgot to say before as well was that my first job was working in a shoe shop with a Tall and Small section. Every now and then, a man would come in and buy a pair of shoes. After you've seen the first one, you really don't bat an eyelid - even as a giggly 16 year old girl. Sometimes it is possible to imagine a worse reaction from the salesperson than is really there, simply because you are projecting your worries onto them.
And can I donate a couple of terms to you - boydrobe and girldrobe - this whole two sides of the wardrobe business still reads in a slightly confusing way. ;-)
I think, all too often, that we assume that people "know" things about us, when they don't. The things that are important to us, the things we spend a lot of time thinking about, are rarely the things we talk about.
So, they assume an importance in our head that they don't appear to have in our day to day discourse.
The only people who SHOULD know better are ourselves, and even then, I bet we all fail miserably sometimes.
You ask five people to tell you what your best quality is. I guarantee two things. The first that only one of them will say the same thing that you thinking. And the second is that the other four will all say something different, both to each other, and what you were thinking they were going to say.
You say people SHOULD know better, well, frankly, they don't. And, sometimes, neither do we.
So, they assume an importance in our head that they don't appear to have in our day to day discourse.
The only people who SHOULD know better are ourselves, and even then, I bet we all fail miserably sometimes.
You ask five people to tell you what your best quality is. I guarantee two things. The first that only one of them will say the same thing that you thinking. And the second is that the other four will all say something different, both to each other, and what you were thinking they were going to say.
You say people SHOULD know better, well, frankly, they don't. And, sometimes, neither do we.
# posted by 
: 8:44 pm
: 8:44 pm
The who knows stuff is worth a separate new post on its own - and I'll be coming back to that shortly.
But I take the point about shop staff getting used to people buying stuff that seems like it shouldn't be for them.
My experience is that some are like that, and some aren't. And as with everyone, it can also depend if you get them when they're tired at the end of a shift or when they are more in the mood for customer service.
The good news is that I've now done enough of that kind of shopping that I feel comfortable that I know roughly what range of reactions is likely, and more importantly that wherever on that range it comes, the world doesn't end, life goes on, and my wardrobe gets fuller.
But that's definitely all about me, and the fact I'm planning to buy myself a new bra in person before xmas should speak for itself about where I think I am on that subject.
And I like feeling I've escaped the tyranny of being limited to mail order shopping.
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But I take the point about shop staff getting used to people buying stuff that seems like it shouldn't be for them.
My experience is that some are like that, and some aren't. And as with everyone, it can also depend if you get them when they're tired at the end of a shift or when they are more in the mood for customer service.
The good news is that I've now done enough of that kind of shopping that I feel comfortable that I know roughly what range of reactions is likely, and more importantly that wherever on that range it comes, the world doesn't end, life goes on, and my wardrobe gets fuller.
But that's definitely all about me, and the fact I'm planning to buy myself a new bra in person before xmas should speak for itself about where I think I am on that subject.
And I like feeling I've escaped the tyranny of being limited to mail order shopping.
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