Bonus Friday Frock: Tradition

Last year, I posted this picture. So, in honour of that, here’s a new one. Seriously, where did that little girl go? (And that blonde hair?)

You know, I think the other celebrator of Megan Day should also show us the goods. (Happy birthday Lovely.)

Friday Frock: Wow

Let’s talk, for a moment, about this:

I would, except I am speechless.  Gobsmacked by the sheer beauty.

That pink skirt, the tailoring on that dress, the colours and textures and the makeup…drool.

I would like to live in a world where dressing like that, even though it’s couture (and described, in this article, as ” the haute-est of couture”), is the norm. I would like to own that skirt, and have an occasion befitting it. I would like to have perfect porcelain skin, and slap on green eyeshadow, false eyelashes and red lips (which in fairness, I do do) and parade about in my gorgeous, gorgeous clothes. Beautiful roses, and artistically draped fabric would just appear, as I swan about in my riding habit, or beaded, layered, silver tulle hoop skirt.

Sigh. Back to the real world.

Birthday Week!

It’s Birthday Week. For those of you who don’t know, this is a Gilmore Girls invention. Though I can’t remember the actual reasoning, or if there wasn’t any at all. It’s a movable feast, depending on what is happening around my birthday, here’s this years’ schedule.

Thursday: Sleep in (yay), Work (blech), then pre-birthday drinks with my peeps.

Friday: Work, then the sevens for a while, with visiting family and friends, but I will still be working.

Saturday: International Megan Day. Breakfast out (with assorted people), then we head to Waikanizzle, with a bach, margaritas and fish and chips on the beach, many other cocktails.

Sunday: , Pancakes with bacon and maple syrup. Heading back to Welly, via the Otaki shops and the always incredible Fisherman’s Table. I’ll try to catch up with the family before they leave too.

Monday: Watching the Superbowl and drinking beer with the boys. I’m told Four Kings has the best cheeseburger in Wellington, too, so I may partake in one of those.

Tuesday and Wednesday: Are yet to be arranged, but I have some plans.

And of course, there have already been birthday surprises. Thanks to the very lovely Emma I will soon have some very gorgeous cosmetics to play with. I’m so lucky.

And look what the other celebrator of International Megan Day (and in fact, the instigator) did for me (in honour of my apparent ability to rock a dress):

Birthday Get-Up by harvestbird featuring Brian Atwood shoes

Like the lady herself, utterly, utterly gorgeous. (If I had a million dollars, and a waist, I’d so wear that dress.)

Update: But wait, there’s more!

Seriously, I have been completely flabbergasted by the loveliness of my friends in the past 24 hours.

Last night, as I was smoking my last cigarette, I was noodling around the internet on my phone (as I do), and imagine my surprise, when I found this.

I actually laughed out loud.

And then, about 20 minutes later, Jo tweeted this. That link leads you here:

To the Facebook Group, “February 6 should become International Megan Day”.

Which it should, but that is not why Miss Jo is awesome. It was the second time that night I’d literally lol’ed.

And look at the outfit she created. I want it all.

International Megan Day by johubris featuring Melissa shoes

I am now feeling like a little bit of a drama queen. Shocking, I know. I think I forgot, in all the being hurt and confused, in the stress of caring for two friends having extravagant life crises, and in all the just not coping with life, just how astoundingly lucky I am.

And there I go, crying again. But these are good tears. Happy tears. Thanks guys.

Quitting

So, in the midst of all of the last fortnight’s angsting, I did a bad thing. It’s a bad thing I have done numerous times in my life, usually in times of stress.

I started smoking again. I know, I know. I know how bad for me it is, how disgusting, how offensive, how expensive. But when I woke up in the morning with a sore jaw from clenching my teeth, and gritty eyes from crying myself to sleep, well, I wanted to smoke, and I wanted it bad.

The first couple were just to soothe my jangled nerves, and they worked. They helped. For a brief moment, I felt like me, like I had control over something, like I could breathe. Yes, I see the irony.

But the thing is, and if you are not a smoker, you won’t understand this, but the longer it went on, the more I remembered something. I love smoking.

Yes, I smell like an ashtray, my mouth is dry, I can feel a constant tickle in the back of my throat.

But I’ve been reminded how fun it is, how relaxing, how awesome, and how totally addictive.

Which is the part that sucks, because now I have to quit. I promised myself I wouldn’t start Birthday Week as a smoker. I was lying in bed last night, wanting one, not letting myself have one. Because getting out of bed to have a cigarette? That’s the hallmark of a heavy smoker, and that’s not something I’ve ever been. Plus, if I’m quitting, well the time to start is now. Sort of.

I have three left. I can have them today, and I will savour every last one. I have planned when I’m going to have them. It’s so sad. I hate that the things have this much power over me. That I will happily drop $12 for them, but balk at paying $20 for a bottle of wine (in my defence, it was Lindauer, which i will never pay $20 for).

Someone else I know is also trying to quit, and I have been mocking the techniques they’re using. Which, as I was lying there last night, forcing myself not to get up, and completely shredding my fingernails (a known side effect) I realised is completely unfair. Because if it sucks this much for me, it’s going to be that much more awful for someone who smokes about eight times as much.

So I am quitting. As of the end of the day. But that last one? I’m going to sit in the sun, with a beer, and enjoy it. Because hopefully, it’ll be the last one I ever have.

Angsting

So in a week, I’ll be 32. Thirty-freaking-two.

When I turned 27, I had a massive freak out, practically refused to celebrate it. Because 27 was that benchmark age that I’d had as a teenager, when I thought I’d be sorted.

Seventeen year old me thought I’d be tripping around on high heels, carrying a briefcase, and then heading home to the loving embrace of a handsome and smart husband, while our three adorable children played in the backyard of our stylish and massive house.

Fifteen years later…yeah, not so much. But you know what, Seventeen year old me can SUCK IT.

If there’s anything I’ve learned in the past couple of years, it’s that even the people who look the most sorted, who on the surface have amazing lives, are carrying baggage. Are crippled by fear, or sometimes completely unable to get up in the morning. Some of us are still that 15 year old.

I did a lot of work last year, on figuring out what made me happy and doing it. I spent a lot of time thinking, and writing (stuff that will never be seen here) and dealing with some things I had put off for a long time. It was hard work, but it was worth it.  It meant that those walls were ready to come down at the right moment.

I know it might seem like I’m angsting a lot, and I probably am. But know there’s a lot of other stuff  going on, people for whom I am worried, scared, and trying to be a friend. Work and life stuff.  I don’t get stressed often, (someone once described me as disgustingly laid back) and when I do, I don’t cope all that well with it. That’s part of what’s going on right now.

I’m going to spend the next week or so, getting back to that place, that place where I was happy and feeling sorted, and confident, and ready to take on the world. So that when I start my 33rd year, I will be all of those things.

In the meantime, if you are Wellington, drinks on Thursday night?

Friday Frock: How to look like a movie star

Just do this:

Or, actually, any one of most of these.

Honesty

I don’t, as an acquaintance recently accused me of, think all men are bastards. Or that all women are blameless. I think we all hurt each other in a myriad of ways every day. I do think that women are better at articulating when and how they are hurt. And allowing people to help them. Here’s my therapy. It’s is all about me, which isn’t fair, (and isn’t addressing how worried I am right now about other people) but like I say, my therapy.

There was, as if it wasn’t obvious, a boy. It (whatever it was) is over. It’s complicated, and I’m sad. Sad for what might have been, for the idea I had in my head of where it might go, for having to give up something that was fun, that I was enjoying, someone I really liked. But I’ll be OK.

And here’s how I know that. It has been a long time since I’ve fallen like that. It might not have ever happened. It’s been a long time since I’ve just felt like that about someone to think about where it might go, and where it might end. Because of something that happened three years ago, or five, or possibly even 15 years ago, I’ve had all these walls, all these defences. All the jokes about embracing my inner crazy old cat lady, having backups, joining a commune. Those walls are easy to create, easy to maintain, and fucking hard to tear down. I’ve not let myself have those feelings for so long, it was a shock to actually feel them.

So I might have over-reacted when it did end, when someone did get past the walls, enough to make me feel something, only to find (for whatever reason) they didn’t want to be there. I was surprised, I was hurt, and I was…sad. There’s not really another word for it.

I don’t think I am the only woman in the world who feels like she’s never going to be good enough. Or just enough. On my good days, I think I’m awesome. Kind, generous, caring, funny, smart, and pretty. On my bad days…well, on my bad days I think I will die alone, and that will be what I deserve.  That is hard enough to write, and harder to say out loud. Thirty-one years of the world telling me I’m not quite right is a hard battle to fight and it’s one I fight with myself every minute of every day.  I know it’s not about someone else making me feel like I’m enough, at all. But briefly there, for a while, I felt like someone thought I might be, and that made it easier for me to believe too.

I tweeted late one night last week:

I am constantly reminded how many wonderful people I have in my life. And if they stick around, that must mean i’m ok too, right?

Which was partly a desperate cry for someone to say ‘yes, you’re ok’. And partly a reminder to myself that ‘yes, you are OK.’ Because I am OK. The fact that I fell for someone means I can do it again. The fact that I let those defences down means I can do it again. Because it is easier to live with them up, sure. It’s easier to not feel, and not get hurt. It would also be easier to not write your deepest darkest secrets on the internet, where everyone you know will read them. But it’s also terrifying. I don’t want to go back to the person I was a year ago. So desperately afraid of being hurt, of not measuring up, that I don’t do anything, don’t take any risks, don’t let anyone get near me.

I am ok. Or, I will be. Eventually, I will be Home Again:

She will be missed (not that she’s dead or anything)

I should go to a club or something but it goes against my philosophy “why stand in line for booze and dancing when I have booze and dancing in my very own living room?” I hate lines. And I never have the right clothes to go to cool places and if I try to dress like I do I look like a lady of the evening.

Sarah Haskins is no longer doing Target Women, and that makes me sad.  But she’s still funny.

Oh, it’s lovely

How lovely to be a woman, and have one job to do,

to pick out a boy and train him, and then when you are through,

you’ve made him the man you want him to beeeeeeeeeee.”

(HT: Tiger Beatdown)

On Context

The new senator-elect from Massachusetts is in trouble already. For this:

Even the always delightful Glenn Beck has weighed in, saying:

“‘Hey, my two daughters on a meat market,’” said Beck, mocking Brown’s remark. “My wife would have pieces of my body in a drawer this morning. My daughters never would have spoken to me again.”

“I want a chastity belt on [Brown]. I want his every move watched in Washington. I don’t trust this guy,” Beck said. “This one could end with a dead intern. I’m just saying. It could end with a dead intern.”

Now, I’m not saying what this guy said isn’t inappropriate. Certainly in a victory speech. The word ‘available’ has all kind of negative connotations. I am sure it was humiliating for the girls.

But. This is totally something that my Dad would do to me. Albeit in front of a much smaller audience. At my cousin’s wedding about 10 years ago, my uncle offered the guests his daughters for something like $12. New Zealand dollars, he was at pains to say. Yes, it is offensive, inappropriate, women are not property, blah blah blah. But it was a joke, surely?