crow’s nest falls: rock your body.
May 18th, 2012 § Leave a Comment
On Saturday afternoon, because my sister was visiting and the weather was divine, we decided to go bushwalking at Crow’s Nest Falls — some twenty minutes from where I live.
We all donned our daggy hiking attire and set out in my little red car.
I felt happy.
I’ve been trying to gently increase the amount of physical activity I do as one of my “New Year’s Resolutions”. Since chronic pain became a regular companion in my life in 2008, I have found myself doing less and less and less as time goes by. Last year, I realised that weeks would pass where the most I had exerted myself was walking down to the mailbox to collect the post some evenings. Or getting in and out of my car. Or opening the fridge door.
It’s easy to do nothing when your body hurts all the time.
But I decided that, if I could still move my body fairly easily, then move this body I would. I swim each week now, and I try to take every opportunity that I can to walk further, to use stairs, to squat, lift… just move.
With the sun filtering through the canopy on Saturday afternoon, and the cool, dank smell of creek water and gum leaves filling the air, I felt so good to be outside and moving. I revelled in the brilliant machination of my legs and feet traversing rock pools and stick-scattered paths. I rejoiced in the dampness of the perspiration beginning to collect on my hairline and in the small of my back. I even celebrated the uncomfortable burning sensation in my thighs and calves after a kilometre of uphill climbing.
If you’re sore, overweight, unmotivated — whatever — then I recommend the following personal motto: “Just do something.” I’ve been known to almost salivate with envy when I see some slender 20-year-old in designer lyrca jogging breezily down a residential street as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. For some, that is normality and reality. For others, it’s not.
But you just have to do something physical. Hang out the washing instead of shoving it into the dryer. Throw the ball for your dog. Park further away and walk to your destination. And get somebody to do it with you.
I cannot emphasise enough the importance of having accountability and support. If missing a swim means that I’m letting a friend down as well, I’m far less likely to pike. If I’m hiking through the bush with my dad and my sister, suddenly it becomes an outing, a communion, rather than a requisite hour of cardio.
You might even see a rock wallaby.
And they’re pretty darn sweet.
taking a moment.
May 15th, 2012 § Leave a Comment
While catching up on blogs on the weekend, I read one of Joy Cho’s recent Happy Friday posts (here on oh joy!) titled “The Pause”.
Although the focus was on parenting à la Français (citing a book called Bringing up Bébé) — e.g. refraining from running to your baby straight away when you hear him or her crying — the concept of taking a moment before responding to something really stuck in my mind.
Joy writes: “Something as simple as waiting just a few more moments before rescuing the baby not only teaches them to self-soothe {one reason French babies sleep through the night sooner} but it also teaches patience and that they will not get everything they want right away. These babies turn into toddlers and children who can sit at the dinner table and play on their own and be calm yet attentive…”
Calm yet attentive. That’s the kind of adult I want to be.
I’ve written before about the intensity of my personality and the poles-apartness of my work habits: I either do very little or try to do everything at once. I’ve never developed a healthy way to chart the middle ground.
In high school, I worked very hard. But I was also a procrastinator. Out of fear that I wouldn’t do something perfectly, I often delayed doing anything until the last minute. This carried over into my first year of university (I started uni when I was 20). I can remember writing papers at 3.00 o’clock in the morning on my bedroom floor in the middle of winter. I do not recommend this.
Suddenly, in my second year, it was as if I grew up overnight and I developed the longed-for start-early work ethic. And I’m still good at this. I think that this discipline is necessary to make freelance life functional.
However, I think that I have been letting myself down by being too responsive, too reactive.
I need to learn to take a moment, press the pause button more often.
Trying to eat lunch, wash the dishes, write a blog post, code a website, and catch up on your e-mail all at the same time just doesn’t work. Some days I stand at the kitchen counter palpitating while I contemplate making myself a cup of tea in between getting back to a missed call, researching this or that, and making it to town in time to meet friends at the allocated hour on the dot.
Woo, Amber, slow down.
I think that I have given everybody around me the impression that I am at their beck and call. Maybe this represents a sizeable slice of the people-don’t-treat-me-right pie. I fulfil their job requests on the same day. I respond to their e-mail straight away. I make alterations ASAP. I fit in with their schedule. I drop what I’m doing to do what they’re doing at the drop of a hat.
No matter how tired or unwell I am. No matter how inconvenient it is. No matter how unreasonable it might be.
So, I’m going to sit back.
I’m not going to reply to e-mail within five minutes of receiving it. If I get a stupid request at stupid o-clock at night, I will address it in the morning. I won’t get up to fill the kettle just because somebody has mentioned that they “feel like a cup of tea”. If somebody asks me to meet up, to attend an event, to make an appointment, I will say that I’ll think about it and get back to them when I’m ready.
I will take the time to sit on the verandah in the sunshine with my flock of domestic animals each day. I will enjoy my breakfast in peace. I will get to the job in a reasonable amount of time — but not right this exact very precise minute.
I will find that elusive middle ground.
i’m tired of trying.
May 11th, 2012 § Leave a Comment
Sometimes I don’t know what to say.
Or what to do. Or which way to go.
My head tells me to do that thing: to cross the street and leave all this behind. And then my stupid heart just lingers, falters, waits. I must be an optimist deep down inside. Or just a fool.
You see, I’m a bit of a chump. Actually, I know I am. I remain naive after all these years of adulthood. I trust easily. I forgive easily. And I’m a doormat.
When I lie awake in bed at night, my heart often pumps hysterically. Sometimes I cry. I’ve realised that I feel angry just about all the time, which can’t be healthy — and definitely is not helping me sleep.
I don’t want to be angry any more. I think that means that I don’t want to be this person any more either. You know, the person who works energetically and honestly and then doesn’t get paid. The person who drives 300km each week to maintain a friendship or relationship. Who invites herself over because the invitation never comes, and who brings cake, too, because she feels bad that someone will have to suffer through the imposition of her company. The person who asks, “How are you?”, who never forgets birthdays, holidays, or anniversaries. The person who buys gifts just because. The person who sends the big e-mail. The person who texts, Twitters, or Facebooks a message. The peson who asks. The person who replies. The person who hugs first, kisses first, thanks first, apologises first, and forgives first. The one who bends over backwards, goes out of her way, goes the extra mile. And goes home empty-handed.
Every time I foot the bill for something and people promise to pay me back and don’t — it hurts. Every time I make a huge effort to keep a date when I feel unwell myself and then somebody else pikes because they’re tired or they didn’t plan their day well — it hurts. Every time somebody tells me that they’re busy and then plasters the Internet with pictures of themselves hanging out with other friends — it hurts.
I know it hurts because I do things like cry all the way home after an anticlimactic visit to Brisbane. Because I get a lump in my throat when a reply I’ve been expecting never comes.
The thing I hate most is the “busy-ness”. There’s always that assumption that your life and your time is somehow more precious, more meaningful, more valid, or more important than mine. You know what? I’ve been busy. And it never made me rude or arrogant.
I have worked full-time and studied part-time; I have studied part-time and worked full-time… all the while juggling personal projects, family commitments, chronic illness and pain, myriad appointments, and the assortment of social engagements that arise as you get older: engagements, weddings, kitchen teas, bridal showers, baby showers, work dinners, uni dinners, elaborately themed costume parties (how many people will I alienate by confessing my hatred of themed parties?). I did my job well and got excellent grades. I’ve been so busy that my body has literally broken on several occasions.
I was never mean.
Oh, I am so tired of trying.
I know that I am uncool in an epic sort of way. If you’re looking for additional evidence, try a) my attire at this very moment (underpants and Canterbury jersey from my senior high school year — embarrassingly old now), b) my extensive iTunes library, or c) the shelf in my bookcase devoted entirely to magazines that I can’t help but buy, arranged by the colour of their spines. I know that I talk too much, say too much, and quote too regularly from song lyrics and obscure poetry (hello, Adele, in this post’s title). I’m sensitive. I doubt myself.
But I don’t deserve to be the chump any more.
I’m not a bad person.
I think — all the time – that I should just call people out on their bad behaviour. But I’m afraid. I’m afraid that they will cut ties with me altogether. People don’t like criticism. People don’t like to face themselves in the mirror and acknowledge that they are, in fact, an asshole. I mean, I certainly don’t. However, I have done my share of soul-searching and I’ve received my punishment and I have paid my dues.
I have paid my dues ten times over. Whatever my crime was, in the last few years, I have been punished well and truly. Thoroughly. Totally. I have endured endless rejections. I have taken the fall for things that were not all my fault. I have been deleted, unfollowed, ignored. Hung-up on. Dumped. Uninvited. Gossiped about. Humiliated.
I have accepted financial penalty with my mouth closed. I have apologised when I should have been apologised to. I have blinked back tears when I’ve noticed my gifts in the bin or mysteriously absent from a shelf or a couch.
So I think, Amber, what have you got to lose? You are already lonely and miserable so much of the time. Yes, lonely. For the first time in your life you feel lonely. Surely if you’re brave and you finally tell someone that they’re being horrible to you and they can’t handle it and they bugger off completely, you haven’t really lost anything anyway. Right?
Well, I don’t completely believe it.
Audrey Hepburn once said: “”People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed. Never throw out anyone.”
That’s what I believe in.
Being anyone other than the chump that I am feels to me like playing a game. I can’t be the person who ignores, who holds grudges, who snaps, or who forgets about special things. I don’t know where this leaves me. Lying angrily in bed at night or sobbing for hours in the car presumably.
Sometimes I don’t know what to say. Or what to do. Or which way to go.
fun in the sun.
May 4th, 2012 § 2 Comments
Ahoy there!
Tomorrow is my birthday, so I am heading to the Sunshine Coast for a couple of days with my sister and three friendly friends.
I am super excited — I have been looking forward to it all week — and am determined to actually go to the beach, despite the chilly autumnal weather. (The temperatures at the coast are pitched to be several degrees higher than up here in “alpine” Toowoomba, though.)
I am also determined not to get sunburnt or scare other beach-goers.
I accidentally got burnt late last year (on the BUTTOCKS — who thinks to slather sunscreen there?) and promised myself that it wouldn’t happen again.
Here’s what’s in my arsenal:
1.// I’d never found a fake tan I liked until I tried this Garnier Ambre Solaire natural gel (why are the names of cosmetics always so ridiculously long?), which has a good, not-too-orange whack of colour, an inoffensive smell, and pigments derived from vegetables. This is to downgrade the pearly white sheen of my limbs to vaguely less pearly white.
2.// Another product whose primary purpose is for the public good, this Nair sensitive hot wax in orchid is my favourite wax for… never mind. Anyway, I hate waxing strips. Hot wax (when heated correctly — not to skin-scorching temperatures) is the best way to get into nooks and crannies, and it doesn’t hurt too much.
3.// I have had some laser treatments on my face to treat post-medication pigmentation flare-ups, and I have to be very, very careful about sun exposure. I’m not a fan of traditional chemical sunscreens, so I have bought this Natural Instinct micro-mineral formula, which sinks into the skin really well and doesn’t feel greasy. I love it.
4.// I have a bottle of this Neutrogena Daily Defence knocking about in my makeup bag, and while I won’t repurchase it (because of its primary ingredients), I hope to use it up on my body this weekend and then toss it out.
5.// A trusty tube of Lanolips (in Sunshine, of course) will be perfect for walking on the beach and swimming. It’s SPF15+ and so nourishing. The only thing I don’t like is the waxy smell.
I have also chucked a floppy hat, a disposable razor, and a tube of herbal recovery gel into my bag — just in case anybody gets a bit red. I absolutely cannot be bothered waxing my legs. Can you?
We are so lucky in Australia with our gorgeous beaches and coastal towns, but our sunshine is mighty aggressive. This all probably seems like organisation nerd overkill for two days away, but I’m not keen for neon pink buttocks again, you know?
Have a great weekend!
the sweetest things.
May 3rd, 2012 § 1 Comment
Because I tend to lie awake for many hours at a time, my mind wanders and searches and remembers and contemplates.
Lately I have been thinking about the sweetest things that people have said or done to me — or for me — in my little lifetime so far.
When I was 16, I went on a brief exchange to Germany over the six-week summer holiday between grades 11 and 12. I stayed with a family in Essen and my host brother Jan and I became very close. On the day that all of the students left to fly back to Australia, and the charter bus’s engine was just rumbling to life and wheezing into gear, Jan clambered up the steps and barged onto the bus to give me one last cuddle. Onlookers’ eyes just about bugged out of their heads. It was very dramatic and romantic. Like a movie. It was a moment that should have had a backing track. More than a decade onwards, we’re still crazy about each other even if we don’t keep in contact very often.
We used to have a big gum tree next to our house in Australia when I was growing up, and a lovely great cassia in our backyard in Papua New Guinea. My father rigged up a wooden swing to a strong branch in each of these trees. And even though he has never been the sort of dad to toss around a football or play Lego, he used to push us on those swings. Sometimes I would imagine being pushed so high that the swing would make a complete circle around the branch. I was a wimpy kid. And prone to motion sickness. But those were sweet moments.
I met a short little guy from somewhere in South America when I was studying Linguistics back in the day. He had a shock of wildly curly hair and was at least half a foot shorter than I was. His background was in film and drama, and I confessed to him once that I had wanted, fleetingly, to pursue acting when I finished high school but didn’t have either the passion or the thick skin. “But you would have had the looks,” he replied. And I was flabbergasted. But still, to this day, heart-warmed and flattered that this funny little man thought that I had a face for films.
When I first started seeing my ex-boyfriend several years ago, we wandered down to the bank of the Brisbane River to walk along the paths there on Coronation Drive. It was getting cold, and I sat down on a bench to get out of the wind. He sat down next to me and asked very shyly if he could kiss me. I often wish I could return to that very moment in time. It was perfect.
I got sick in my first year of university and was feeling very ill and lonely one evening when one of my best friends dropped around unexpectedly with a grocery bag full of instant noodles and cloudy apple juice. This is still the grand measurement of kindness in my mind: noodles and juice. And possibly a large supply of tissues.
My brother took me to hospital years and years ago, too, when I had a migraine so vicious I thought I might be dying. I vomited in the multi-storey hospital car park and he looked absolutely disgusted but didn’t say anything. That was sweet of him.
And when I broke up with a boyfriend in my first few years in Brisbane and went to the German doctor at Moorooka because I couldn’t keep anything down and he told me I was just “getting a nasty guy out of my system”… That was sweet too.
You have to hold onto the sweet things in life, because there are plenty more bitter things that can stain the waters.
A job description for me: collector of beautiful moments.
stress less.
April 24th, 2012 § 2 Comments
How do you relax?
I’m not sure I know how. Relaxation, for me, seems to reside in the same cognitive round file as sleeping: the one labelled Long-Forgotten Ordinary Skills.
I’ve never been much good at moderation anyhow. I am either doing nothing — stuck in bed, slurping down tea and analgesia — or DOING ALL THE THINGS! I find it difficult to locate a healthy middle ground.
And so, right now, I am doing (or at least trying to do) all the things. I owe e-mail. I have stacks of documents to either write or design (I have a folder on my desktop called “half-finished articles” — yuck). Webpages to generate or maintain. People to see or ring. And, as you know, these things must take place in and around the dull, relentless minutiae of daily life: getting on top of dirty and clean washing, hosing down my car (why is it so filthy and mud-encrusted?), seeing doctors, sorting through the rest of my stuff, to-ing and fro-ing between home and town and Brisbane, eating the right food, doing enough exercise, picking cobbler’s pegs off the dog, blah blah blah…
It’s so easy to become busy doing nothing.
It’s not that I’m any busier than anyone else — far from it, really. But my mind is busy. And I’m frustrated with my body for not keeping up with my brain.
I can’t stop thinking about all the important tasks that I should be crossing off the huge to-do list of life, relationships, and career. I think about them all through meals and all through films and all through conversations.
My brain needs an off switch.
What do you do to wind down?
At the moment, I am finding solace in my friends and family.
You know what? The Amber of yester-year would never have said something like that, but it is finally true.
Every week, at least once, I have coffee with two of my best friends before swimming for an hour. We usually talk not only for the couple of hours before the swimming, but all through the swimming as well. This is great for several reasons. I get out of my pyjamas and get out of the house. I debrief about the things that are bothering me. I laugh. And I learn about the stuff going on in other people’s lives, instead of focusing entirely on myself. Even for just a few hours. It’s a useful break from navel-gazing.
Strangely enough, the time I spend driving is also a healthy downtime, provided I’m not driving so tired that I’m nervous about micro-sleeping. I have learnt to value the “wasted” time I spend behind the wheel just as I’ve learnt to relax and be patient while waiting in line for a ticket or browsing through decades-old magazines at the doctor’s surgery. I think of these moments as patches of breathing space in the grand fabric of time, some of the few times where nothing else is expected of me but to stand or sit quietly.
This Ministry of Sound Chilled Acoustic album arrived in the post yesterday. Today I enjoyed listening to the first disc while I drove into and out of town. Especially in the midst of the thick darkness of my familiar out-of-town roads, it was comforting to be blanketed in night-time with only those mellow sounds for company.
I don’t want to be a highly strung person.
I know busy people. I am surrounded by busy people. I love some very busy people. But they’re not really present, you know?
I never want to be so busy that I don’t take the time to ask, “How are you going?”
My brother’s two children remind me of how important it is to stay in sync with the people whom you care about. It’s easy to observe when people are so young — as babies and children — how quickly individuals change and grow. A first mouthful of food. A first tooth. A first step. A first word. A first day of school.
But we don’t stop growing and changing even as we become so much older. There are still plenty of firsts. And plenty of lasts.
In my stressed state, I fear that I am at risk of missing those things.
And so I need to learn to slow down. To stress less. Not to stop. Not to give up and collapse in a heap. But not to fire on all cannons either. To take a couple of steps each day with my eyes wide open to the people around me.
How do I do this? I don’t know yet. But I’m hoping I won’t be too busy to find out.
writer’s block.
April 20th, 2012 § 4 Comments
I’ve had a severe case of writer’s block for the last few weeks.
I have a funny feeling it has something to do with my “sleep block”. I got about five hours of sleep last night, and when I was driving down to Brisbane this morning, I could barely keep my eyes open.
Tiredness always affects me a lot behind the wheel. (Should I be admitting that in such a public forum? STAY OFF THE ROAD, peeps!) I hate that sensation of desperate fatigue: I feel sure I will nod off at any moment. And so I sing along to the radio, turn the airconditioning down cold, sip water. Sometimes I even do the Mr Bean thing where I physically drag my eyes wider with my fingers.
That is how tired I am, and yet I can’t sleep.
And I can’t seem to write.
It’s not so much a lack of ideas as being unable to articulate those ideas. Sometimes, the more I have to write about, the less I am able to write about. The more ideas I have, the fewer the opportunities to actualise them. I am super busy at the moment and teeming inside with thoughts, visions, schemes, and goals. I’m constantly thinking about how much I have to do. I stare into my computer screen and feel defeated before I even begin.
Lately, when I type, I’ve been putting words in the wrong order, too, as if my syntax is somehow corrupted. I am making more typographical errors. I feel dyslexic. And when I speak, I can’t retrieve the words I want from either my mental lexicon or the depths of my memory. I snap my fingers and blink in conversation; meanwhile, tumbleweed blows across the blank, beige expanse of my mind. Am I going crazy?
I keep hearing the line from Annie Lennox’s famous song “No More I Love Yous”: The language is leaving me (in silence).
I hope it’s just tiredness. (It’s not a tumour!)
Has this ever happened to you?
minimal me (part ten): sorting, storing, forgetting.
April 19th, 2012 § 6 Comments
More than a year ago, when flood waters swept through Toowoomba, the rumpus room underneath our house got very, very wet.
This meant that all the stuff I had in storage down there from moving back in with mum and dad also got very wet. Not just wet, but muddy and grassy and mouldy. At the time, I went through and chucked a lot of it out. I only kept quality crockery and bedding, or things that people had given me as gifts.
But knowing that the rest is down there has been haunting me. There are warped, mildewed boxes in the space directly beneath my bedroom as I try to sleep each night. Perhaps that’s why I can’t sleep. I subscribe to the view that physical stuff equals mental stuff: if your environment is cluttered and unorganised, then your mind will also be in disarray.
So, this week, I decided that I would bring an armful of paraphernalia upstairs each day, un-crumple it from its stained newspaper wrapping, wash it up in boiling, soapy water, and repack what I want to keep in a couple of airtight plastic containers.
Oh, the things that I am discovering…
This mug was given to me by my boss years ago — before everything went horribly awry between us. It’s one of those Christopher Vine Designs. She said that the frocks and gloves and slippers reminded her precisely of me. It was my favourite cup for a long time. I have bleached all of the tea stains out from the inside. I’m not sure what to do with it now.
It’s a sad process sorting through these things. Every object I retrieve from the boxes to unwrap in the kitchen reminds me of some part of my former life. The unit I shared with my cousin, who sympathetically listened to all of my job-related sorrows for two years. The plates on which I served my boyfriend dinner most nights of the week. Candles that I lit in my bedroom while we slept together.
I try to think of it as a cathartic, cleansing process. Tuesday this week would have marked another of our anniversaries (we considered the day we met — April 17 — to be our anniversary). I expected the day to be difficult, but I made myself busy and wore bright lipstick. I made it.
I wonder almost every day if I will ever be able to forget the pain of the last couple of years.
When I pack my coloured latté mugs into their new plastic box, and try to arrange (in the manner of Tetris) the utensils and soup bowls and teapots all around them, I try to imagine the next brilliant season of my life. I like to think of owning a lovely large desk with a bookcase beside it for all my manuals, dictionaries, and novels. I think of swimming each week and cooking every evening. But there are a lot of empty spaces.
I have nobody to share this with.
a fringe and falsies: musings on photography.
April 13th, 2012 § 8 Comments
I’ve been reading up a lot on freelancing lately: honing my copywriting skills, investigating marketing theory and strategies, and gathering information about quoting and billing.
One thing I’ve come across numerous times is the importance of engaging clients with your face and voice. This means being authentic, personal, and transparent. Making phone calls. Writing thoughtful letters and e-mails. And having a couple of professional photographs up your sleeve.
I have been packing death about these aspects for the last several months — ever since I decided to make a go of operating as a freelance writer, editor, and researcher. As a woman of letters, I love to hide behind my pen and keyboard. I feel safe with writing.
But being shy — not to mention self-conscious about the way I look — presenting the real, “live”, physical dimension of myself has been causing me to break out in a figurative sweat. I even hate to submit author and writer bios.
The thing about sole trading, however, is that you are part of the product and part of the reason a client might select you to work on a project, if not the reason.
So I have bitten the bullet. I recently updated my website copy. I force myself to call clients now. And today I had a batch of professional photos taken.
I am not photogenic.
I don’t say this to be coy or to fish for compliments; I am stating a simple fact. Some people look the same or better on film/in pixels. I am not one of those people. I feel acutely uncomfortable in front of the lens and my awkwardness ends up written all over my face.
I read an article some weeks ago pointing out that, due to the likes of Facebook, many of us are becoming increasingly neurotic about how we look and always having to be “photo ready”. In some ways, my romantic notions prefer the days when having your photo taken was a special event, one of only a handful of occasions in your life when your appearance would be immortalised in sepia. In fact, I quite love the thought of photography taking so long that it’s inconvenient to smile. There would have been no “Try to look natural!” back then. No, sullen and serious was the order of the day, and those vintage images are sublime.
So anyway. I don’t usually wear much makeup, but I realised that I’d have to apply some for this shoot today. All last week, I searched for “how to apply makeup” and “makeup tips for photography” online like a 14-year-old girl who has just discovered Google and Maybelline simultaneously. People suggested a strong lip and a simple eye, with several mentioning false lashes to avoid looking washed out around the eye. I don’t wear mascara often because I rub my eyes and smear it everywhere.
I bought a pair of Chi Chi lashes at Myer last night, and at 5.30 this morning, attempted to apply them myself after brushing on a thin veil of foundation and some bright pink lippie.
Oh. My. Goodness.
My advice? Don’t try to do this yo’self when you’re not a morning person, you’ve not yet had a cup of tea or coffee, and you’ve never applied falsies before.
I glued my eyelids together. I glued my bottom lashes to my cheek. I glued the lashes onto the crease of my eyelid. I gooped glue everywhere. I could not get the lashes to line up with my natural lash line. In the end, I went and woke up my sister, complaining of a prince gerhardt von hapsburg eyebrow malfunction. She blearily pronounced them fine, then went back to bed like the belligerent little marsupial that she is.
I sighed. I pulled them off. They were sort of OK while they lasted.
Oh, by the way, I have a fringe for the first time in forever.
I went to the hairdresser — a proper one! — yesterday and asked them to make me look as though I weren’t still trying to grow out a short haircut from two years ago.
“I think a blunt fringe would look great on you,” said the hairdresser.
I replied: “…”
Actually, I’d been toying with the idea since developing a strange girly fixation on Rooney Mara of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo fame, but I was never brave enough to request one at my local, somewhat terrible salon.
Admittedly, I held my breath while the hairdresser snipped the first strands from my forehead into my lap, but I don’t regret it. In fact, I love it. I feel more striking, more polished. And it suits my brows and glasses.
I was lucky enough to work with a wonderfully lovely and talented photographer who made me feel as comfortable as I could. We got some nice shots despite it starting to rain half an hour into the process.
I did not need false eyelashes.
Moral of the story? Relax. Keep calm and wear glasses.
How do you feel about having your photograph taken?
ridiculous shoes.
April 10th, 2012 § 6 Comments
Recently I made the momentous decision to get rid of any and all of my uncomfortable shoes.
The sad thing is that, unless my arthritic condition magically disappears, I can never really wear high heels either comfortably or elegantly again. I have some excellently sturdy and stylish pairs that can stay in my closet for rare occasions. But there are several other pairs of stiff, stupid, heeled boots up for grabs… if anyone wants them (sizes 6.5 and 7, or 37 and 38). I will replenish my collection with sensible (yet chic, I like to hope) substitutes.
As a woman of a certain age (how old do I have to be to start saying that?), I have begun to take both fashion and clutter slightly more seriously than I used to. Sometimes it makes me sad that I can’t step out in the staggering confections of my peers. I feel very self-conscious when I’m so much slower and… hobblier… than other dames my age. Then I remind myself that I’m being obnoxiously vain.
It also distresses me to have a closet full of shoes that I hardly ever — or never — wear. So, I am turfing stuff.
Oh, and looking at platforms online.
Just the other day I ordered a pair of these wittner clodhoppers — to wear bare-legged in warmer months, and with black or mulberry-coloured opaques in the winter.
The heel is quite manageable when factored against the platform, don’t you think?. I find platforms (and clogs! hippie! hipster?) much easier to walk in than other fancy shoes.
Now I await the scorn of my sister, analyst of my wardrobe choices and arbiter of acceptable attire.
