tattooed ladies

i’m about to tie myself in knots with this one i can tell…

here’s the thing.  i like tattoos.  really;  i do.  not all of them have artistic merit, and yes they’ve gone a bit chavvy, but unlike my tedious ranting husband i don’t think they are intrinsically stupid or reprehensible.  i had one done a long time ago and while it no longer marks me out as in anyway unusual, free spirited or rebellious, i’m fond of it.  these days its more of a sign that i was young once…

i have been thinking of what tattoos represent to me and what they signify to others after going to a swimming pool in colchester with my kids this weekend.  the pool was full of the usual essex mum crowd but with one standout difference – there were a large number of young women / mums with major chest art. 

now these may be one of the last types of tattoo that haven’t really hit mainstream womankind.  not even the winehouse has gone for whacking great cross tit ink.   its pretty hard to cover up and detracts from your cleavage too.  and yet it still doesn’t perform the job of looking alternative or interesting when you can see 20 women in one pool sporting one.  so why? 

given my location i ended up wondering if it was somehow linked to colchester’s pagan history.  and being all women is it some kind of unconscious collective tribute to the ancient warrior women of the iceni?  daughters of boudicca bizarrely celebrating their ancient heritage.  in a kiddie pool.

i may have over thought this though.  maybe they were just all rock hard bitches.  you need to be round this way with all the squaddies.

feminists

am bit pissed off at recent rash articles by female writers moaning about young women spunking the hard won freedoms of recent times on getting breast enlargements, dressing sluttily, getting pissed and generally making a show of themselves.  cf http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/11/michelle-obama-most-powerful-woman

i’d still call myself a feminist if i talked in those terms (i don’t.  i prefer to just be one and not bang on too much about it.  except here of course…) .  And i do agree with much of what is said in the piece.

However

I really dislike this bluestocking ascetism creeping into these discussions.  how is it good, polite or sisterly to knock women for how they dress, present themselves or live their lives?  and what exactly is wrong with wanting to enhance your appearance, look slutty or have some fucking fun?  life is too short ladies.   and don’t call women bad role models like its your job if in the public eye to be a perfect one.  the bashing of women for “dancing about a stadium – nips out and wearing backless chaps made of tampons – hooting: “Woo! Leetle monsterz. Female empowerment!”" rather implies that some section of womankind can’t see a bit of fun and taboo breaking for what it is.  not the greatest view to take of those of us who don’t conform to the perfect serious – intellectual – politically concerned archetype.

so just cut it out you feminist misogynists.  get back to the real enemy.  men.

ahaha.  no only joking.

or am i?

http://bit.ly/c3wOIo

spotify

she’s back!

being fully in character i got a bit bored of my blog and wandered off.  typical me typical me typical me i started something….

so anyway.

i’ve just signed up to spotify pro after a muso-ish friend recommended it.  means i can use on my iphone so suddenly am able to listen to all sorts of new music and theoretically widen my increasingly lazy range of stuff i like.  course so far i can’t resist behaving exactly as always and have simply uploaded a load of “old fav” playlists and listened to them.  i will do better.  can’t expect to shake off the ennui if i don’t try eh?

the old playlists were quite illuminating though.  i have one of 6 songs associated with my husband / wedding.  a total joy to hear.  upbeat, funny, dancable – marvin gaye, mary j, eels, mint royale.  really a nice listen.  to be fair its not all joy - quite a bit about having fun in spite of everything – how appropriate – and theres an absolute horror in there about jealousy from buena vista social club which we hadn’t translated before he chose it for the wedding but then thats totally on the money too – and you have to take the rough with the smooth don’t you?

then i have another that reminds me of my recent and disatrous emotional misadventures.  a short playlist that runs from whimsical through wistful to yearning and defiant – arctic monkeys, yeah yeah yeahs, charlatans, queens of the stone age.  sounds ok in theory but all downbeat ones really not so much fun.  and much less me.

this tells me nothing i didn’t already know (cf kylie post from way back) and yet at the same time was most instructive.  somehow listening to your feelings played back at you is much more powerful than thinking or talking them through – which i got bored of ages ago anyway.

am keeping the playlists as a stark reminder to focus on the positives.  thats what gets you through.

my life in a venn diagram

all the mean epithets i’ve had levelled against me in one simple diagram!  cool.

how very dare you

reclaiming the mid-life crisis for womankind

through my recent troubles i’ve been dogged by the highly irritating phenomenon of people merrily informing me i’m having a midlife crisis. 

oh how i hate this.  it makes me sound like a stupid bloke trying to reclaim my youth with ill advised affairs (oh.  yes i do see….).  and i’ve always been first in the queue to point and laugh at men clearly in the throes of one.  its quite mortifying to suddenly be the object of derision.

so no more.  in true me fashion, i’ve decided to reclaim my midlife crisis. 

it might be embarrassing – but the fact is, its normally men doing the crisis-ing.  women only seem to be allowed certain suitably feminine crises – mostly kid related melt-downs over inability to have them or at the other end of the scale abandonment crises when they fly the nest (though they don’t these days, do they?).  as always, we get pigeon holed into a zero sum of thwarted or lost fertility, as though our sole purpose in life was as breeding machines.

so i’m quite proud of having had an old school inapproprate sexual behaviour melt-down. not saying all male behaviours are desirable, but why shouldn’t we fuck up just like they do.  it’s been quite interesting to note the outrage of most peoples’ reactions.  i appear to be largely outside the map.

truth is i think theres a lot of fear at the notion of rebelling against what is, not for nothing, referred to as an institution.   only even the concept of rebellion makes the institution all powerful.  as though the only conceivable reason for my behaviour was to flout my husband’s authority.  well maybe it was a bit, but you know what?  some of my emotions are actually endogenous.  they aren’t all about him.

is like when i got a tattoo and my mum decided i’d “just done it to spite her”.  er.  nope.  i did it because i wanted to.

doesn’t make my recent behaviour good, but its mine and i take responsibility for it.

am trying to figure out positive role models to think of in my lunacy.  ok i have the lovely (ha) julie burchill but lets face it, she’s a brilliant writer but not necessarily a healthy role model.  after that i have only come up with sam taylor-wood so far, but boy she did hers in style. 

gosh though. she does look a bit smug. think what i like so much is that she clearly knows it won't last but doesn'ty seem to care. no fear of pain. this is very cool. not sure about that shiny suit of his though.

not actually sure i’d want to marry a 19 year old and have another baby, mind.

FACT

number 2 son is a ninja. 

top sekrit.

at least i think thats what he means…..

fantastic

watched f mr fox this weekend.   my gosh that exceeded my expectations.  the stop motion animation is gorgeous. 

fantastic

if i was tim burton i’d be gutted.  out-quirked, out-visualled, out-storied, out-charactered. 

i’ve never even been a wes anderson fan before.  royal tennenbaums is one of the most irritatingly self regarding slabs of tedium i’ve ever managed to get half way through watching. 

tedious

and just getting that far was an achievement, though i only managed it by being pregnant, unwilling to move and in possession of no better offers for my friday night.

how literal

number 1 son to number 2:    i’m going to kick your head in.

number 2 son:    no no, please don’t it might make my eyeballs pop out.

literary daisy chaining

reading book by another of my lit crushes – lynn barber this time.  this sentence made me laugh, cringe and identify with all at the same time:

“My father often quoted charles kingsley’s line ‘be good sweet maid and let who can be clever’ but he said it sarcastically – he wanted me to be clever and let who can be good.”

in the same chapter she in turn quotes her lit crush – julie burchill - (yeah another of mine too.  oh dear.  is like horrible pretentious daisy chain)  

“when i discovered writing it was as if i’d been speaking a second language up til then and finally discovered my mother tongue”

the ladies write better but pictorially the daisy wins. how unsisterly of me.

barber interviewed her once.  i seem to recall she actually asked something breathless like – gosh was tony parsons dreadfully humiliated by how much better you are at writing?? 

on a final note of lit fawning – ms burchill fully in character with her bitchy review of nick kent’s auto biog last week – http://bit.ly/9PaKQz -  issuing magnificent put downs while referring to her own (i knew i was right) as “majestic”.

love rat bonanza

jesus christ.  now even nicety nice mark owen in serial love cheat shocker??

my head is spinning. 

tiger woods was – well, funny actually.  thanks to his wife trashing the car.  (rather beats me merely losing an iphone.  though percentage of  income-wise, i’m guessing my loss was greater, sadly) 

ashley cole and john terry were a given.  even in those bizarre baggy y fronts.  vernon kaye was no great surprise.  but little mark owen?  god.  its like finding out the tooth fairy does porno.

i can’t work out – do all these stories reflect a social trend towards more and different forms of infidelity - as this article in the observer suggests –  http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2010/mar/07/polly-vernon-infidelity-betrayal-help-relationships .  the emphasis on virtual infidelity is certainly making me feel like the worst kind of early adopter right now….

or is it just that all the love rats decided they may as well blow cover now since everyone seems to be at it.  like the political spin trick of burying tricky announcements on a busy news day.