tubs of fun

Tonight I am blogging as the latest weapon in my defense against the powerful urge to cut my own hair. I KNOW it's a bad idea, I KNOW. But I WANT to.

*****

My appearance is on my mind (or, my mind is on my appearance? Boyfriend has a thing for switching the nouns in a sentence - switching the sentences in a noun - and it's catching) today. If I don't have time to get a paper on my way to uni, I'll just read whatever I find - Metro is always good, on the way home there's sometimes even a Times - and on Tuesday I found the Daily Mail.

Horrors. In the Mail, they had a surprisingly enlightened article about women and body image (and if you're thinking they thought body image was political correctness gone mad or immigrant invasion gone mad, you'd be wrong, as was I). This woman did a creative writing competition where women wrote in how they felt about their bodies, and the Mail published some of the entries. Other than the earth-shattering counter-productivity of having women compete to see who can hate their body most eloquently, it was interesting.

One entry completely ripped off an entire page of Wasted, which fucked me off because it's a stunning book and so personal. This girl had absolutely no right.

One was by a girl with cerebral palsy, talking about the perceived asexuality of the disabled. It was fantastic, nothing self-indulgent, none of this 'we are all unique and beautiful snowflakes' bullshit, just 'Alright, this is me, I'm fantastic and sexy and clever and why the hell wouldn't you want me?'. Good lady.

It gets me thinking about things that I hate to think about.

Today I went shopping with my gran, aunty and mum. Good times. Granny and I are looking at big jumpers, and I say that I want to get a really oversize one and wear it as a dress. So I pick one up that's about 4 sizes too big and hold it up and my granny says - "Yes, that should fit, you're like me, bigger than you look."

Out of the mouths of grans...

*****

God, I hate putting on weight and I hate even more that I hate it. I want so much to be right-on and feminist and 'lalala' I love my curves because - honestly - most of the time I do. It's just that I've crossed that line between Tyra Banks bootilicious and looking slightly pregnant. I'm not being mawkish, it's true. But girls are so impossible to talk to sometimes.

Eg., hearing two of my skinnier than me friends talk about how fat they are, I try to interject - don't be stupid, I'm bigger than both of you and I love the way I look - but I don't get as far as 'I'm bigger' before it's oh no, oh no, you're way skinny, we're fat.

How patently fucking ridiculous is that? These girls weigh less than me, take a smaller dress size, eat better than me, drink and smoke less, work out more - of course I'm bigger than them, to me it doesn't seem like a big deal. Until they start trying to tell me otherwise, because then I think - you protest too much.

I hate the whole thing so much. And now that I do feel fat, I want to hear 'oh no you're not' even less.

*****

Why is this such a mountain we feel like we have to climb? If I get a bad essay mark, I'll find out why and work harder on the next one. If I don't like my hair, I'll cut it or dye it. If my house is messy I'll tidy it but GOD FORBID that I should be so flippant about this. God forbid that I should casually remark that I'm packing more junk in the trunk these days - this is the one problem girls actually can't talk about.

Perfect world?

Girl 1 - I've gained weight.
Girl 2 - OK. Do you care?
Girl 1 - Yes.
Girl 2 - Then go to the fucking gym.

Simples. I so wish it wasn't a big deal, for me, for any of us.

books, turn up for the

So, I just got round to watching the Terry Pratchett programme, Living with Alzheimer's that's been saved on Sky Plus for a few weeks. Other than crying, a lot, I also found the time to panic about losing and forgetting things. Recurring nightmare No. 347 - this blog suddenly, mysteriously gets deleted from the mighty interweb and I lose my only copy of about 4 years of writing.

I'm sure there's a better way of backing up your blog, but I don't know it, so I've spent the last hour going into the posts from every single month and copying the whole text into a Word document. Are you curious?

303 pages; 150,131 words. My God. That's long, that's book-long. That's a crying shame.

Since my angst-spectacular resignation from the blogging world, I've only really come back for the occasional rant/hangover story/misery-fest. It seems like I only actually want to do this when I'm feeling something bad so - just to reassure you - I'm fine.

Really, absolutely. Amazing, hey? In case you're wondering I wouldn't ever trade. I miss being a creative person (I don't think I quite deserve the label anymore), miss feeling like a writer. But being happy and comparatively well-adjusted is far better than I ever could imagine it was. It's so alien in fact that sometimes I get paranoid, start looking for problems because I really can't believe that days and weeks can go by where I'm just ok. Just, fine.

Anyway, I think I'm on here because I feel like I have something to say again. No idea what, as yet, but I seem to be spending a lot of time on the net at the moment, on message and debate boards/whatnot. It seems strange to be spewing all this opinion out anonymously while this blog - which I am so proud of, so attached to - just moulders away. Not literally, y'understand, that would be impossible. But metaphysically, yes, it is covered in mould. *chases mice out of long-abandoned photo section*

Theoretically, I could do this again. It's not like I'm incapable of writing now, in fact I'm enjoying studying so much at the moment that most days on the train home I'm frantically scribbling down my two-cents about pretty much everything. What's stopping me is that I am so not the same person that started this blog, or even the same person that was writing it until maybe 2 years ago. I'm not that borderline-bipolar, born-again Christian, hyperactive drama student, head up my own ass, pious little motherfucker. And that's not a bad thing. I never really loved that girl, she was pleasant enough to be around but pretty shit to be. So as far as I'm concerned, I've lucked out.

Now? Ha. Relatively sane, heavy-drinking, chain-smoking, cheerful, atheist humanities student? Slightly heavier? Better dressed? In the same, constant, dire need of a haircut and a good bath? Hm. I guess I've spent the last couple of years learning to just get shit done. I pulled my head out of my ass long enough to sort my life out, then messed it up again, and now - balance! Fun! Domesticity! Cynicism!

I could write a whole blog about the cynicism alone. Maybe that's where I start.

(Tenner says I never post again.)