Saturday, August 25, 2012

Cherry Lips


Songs get stuck in heads for particular reasons. These reasons may not be immediately apparent: I am still pondering why Love Shack by the B52’s is my head’s default stuck setting (suggested reasons are, of course, welcomed). But, there is always a reason.

This week’s sticky song – Loon Lake’s Cherry Lips – was stuck in my head for a particularly good reason.

It was a sign that I needed to wear red lips, after a two year hiatus.

And, on Tuesday night, as I joined a couple of lovely friends for Laksa at our local noodle house, I put my cherry on my lips. It felt exactly right.

The thing about a red lip is that it can’t be forced. If you try to force it, you’ll be wiping it off with a tissue in the car before you’ve driven two blocks. And we all know, ladies and gentlemen, that red lipstick brands like nothing else. Everyone will know you tried, and failed, at a red lip, by the tell tale pink stains around your mouth. For shame.

When the mood is right, though, nothing short of big, red, full and smiling-with-a-big-toothsome-grin will do. We could discuss at length, here, the socio-political-aesthetic assumptions about red lips, and, indeed, about the colour red – both potent symbols.

But we’re not going to discuss it, because, for me, a red lip has always been nothing more or less than a mood that comes over me, an impulse, indeed, an inspiration. It defies categorisation. A red lip just is.

You can consult, if you like, with Marie Claire, Cleo and Cosmo for application tips. At the end of the day, though, it’s make up, not rocket science or world peace. You just need to open the tube, and apply.

So, put your cherry on your lips, as Loon Lake would say, and get yourself to that dinner, or those drinks, that day at the office, or that just-because thing. And, to paraphrase another song that gets stuck in my head – this time Garbage’s Cherry Lips:

Go, baby, go go.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Spring Wardrobe Cleaning

It’s nearly the end of August. It snowed yesterday in Canberra (I hope you got to see it, it was beautiful). There’s a cold-as-charity breeze sneaking through the draught in the bathroom window. I’m still taking hotties to bed with me to keep me warm.

But, spring is coming.

I can feel it when the sun rises early enough to wake me in time to catch the 7.45am bus. I can feel it as I walk to the shops for the Saturday paper, smelling wattle mingling with smoke from the wood fires Canberrans are so fond of. I can feel it while I take a ten minute cuppa-and-novel-reading break from PhDing on the balcony to soak up some rays.

Most particularly, though, I feel it when I look at the disaster that is my wardrobe, because I can feel a cataclysmic Spring Wardrobe Cleaning a’coming.

I’m one of those irritating people who can’t make up their mind whether or not they’re a neat freak or a slatternly grotbag in matters of wardrobe maintenance. And, because I remain undecided, I vacillate between the two states, depending on particular external factors.

For instance, a rental inspection, a particularly special new clothing purchase, epic procrastination, and the first hint of warmer weather will turn me into a neat freak who sorts her (American Apparel) tights and stockings by colour and degree of ‘goodness’ (If you’re interested in the classificatory scheme? No holes = best; holes at crotch only = second best; holes in toe and crotch = third best; holes everywhere = laundry day only).

On the other hand, long days in the office without sunshine, winning gold at social decathlons (BREAKFAST! BRUNCH! HIKING! LUNCH! COFFEE! MOVIES! SHOPPING! DINNER! DRINKS! THEATRE!), and writing sessions where I’ve got my flow on, turn me into the sort of slatternly grotbag who interprets closing the wardrobe door, by even the narrowest of narrow margins, as a sign that folding, hanging and chucking out can wait for Another Day.

At present, the pendulum is well and truly making its home in slatternly grotbag territory. To give you an idea…in a two minute reconnaissance mission, the following items, hitherto missing and presumed lost, were recovered from my bedroom floor:
• one half of a very expensive pair of earrings;
• my favourite vintage Nike hoodie;
• Cath Kitson woolly wellington socks;
• a pink and cream Elle McPherson bra (I thought I’d left it at the gym); and
• countless bobby pins and hair elastics.

While this sounds dire - and, indeed, outfitting myself from my wardrobe mess for tonight’s decathlon events will be problematic - it’s actually a part of a well balanced seasonal cycle of building up, then slashing and burning, my wardrobe.

I know that in the next couple of weeks, as the sap of spring rises in my blood, I will derive a peculiar, seasonally specific, pleasure from spending the better part of a weekend cleaning, sorting, arranging, and redistributing no longer needed clothes, bags and accessories.

Just right now, though? I can feel the sun dipping below the mountains, and that cold-as-charity breeze tickling my bare feet. It’s time to put on my woolly socks, curl up with a book, and wait for Another Day. Given the pleasing signs that spring is almost here, I am sure Another Day won’t be too long in coming.







Friday, August 10, 2012

Flat



There are moments when I realise I’m getting older, and I feel OK about it. Pertinent examples:
• Spice Girls nostalgia;
• Looking forward to staying in on Friday nights, not because I’m looking forward to getting my nerd on with Ulrich Beck (look him up), but because I’m going to have a bath, re-read a particularly beloved book (Zadie Smith’s On Beauty, read it), pop a Restavit and head to bed by 11pm;
• Rocking clothes I have owned for almost a decade;
• Chats with friends who are long-standing enough to remember ALL TWENTY of my uni hairdos, but kind enough to forget a few; and;
• Driving a brand new grown up car.

There are, however, moments when I realise I’m getting older, and I most certainly do not feel OK about it. Pertinent examples:
• The Wrinkle of Incredulity, mentioned eighteen months ago on this blog, has not gone away. Rather, it has increased, because numpties are always with us and there will always be a daily something or someone that makes me pull my incredulous face;
• ‘She’s So High’ by Tal Bachman, the song my first ever boyfriend declared to be my song (his taste in love songs was almost as good as his taste in women), is played late at night on Mix 106.3, Canberra’s Golden Oldies station;
• I can wear dresses I wore when I was eighteen, but, in doing so, my breasts are forced to occupy a totally different postcode than they usually do;
• I have superannuation in seven different accounts, which need consolidation; and;
• I can no longer wear high heels every day.

It’s this last realisatory moment that’s been making me feel a little flat, literally and metaphorically.

It all started the other week, when I was shaving my legs in the bath (I’m. Just. So. Classy. It. Hurts). As I extended my right leg to remove the last outcrops of winter undergrowth from the back of my calves, I heard an odd ripping noise. I bent my knee, extended; there was that noise again, the noise like ripping wet cardboard. As I wasn’t in any pain, I decided it was just one of those Body Things that will resolve on its own.

Two days later, however, I noticed the noise as I descended the stairs in my building, and, again, while there was no pain, I know enough of my family’s medical history to know that You Don’t Mess Around With Knees. In my family, knees are as serious as abandoned packages in airports - serious enough to make me take the advice my friendly neighbourhood chiropractor has been gently giving for years; abandon the high heels in favour of flats.

It’s hard, forcing myself to reach for the lower options as I get dressed in the morning. Surprisingly, it isn’t the height I miss – I’m five nine in my stocking feet and already feel myself too tall – but the enhancement to the shape of my legs that a heel, even a little one, gives.

A gym instructor once told me that heels, when worn consistently, activate different muscles in your leg than normal shoes. While activating these muscles stuffs up a whole lot of other musculoskeletal processes, repeated wear will give you that classic curve from ankle to calf. In other words, heels give you killer legs, when you are wearing them and when you take them off.

While I wouldn’t go so far as to say my legs are killer without heels on, I do know that I feel my legs look better, more curved, more graceful, in heels. The drunken old men who hang around the Melbourne and Sydney buildings, at very least, make their appreciation plain (or that could just be the metho talking, I can’t be sure).

Being a little stumpier in the leg department, though, is something I can – grudgingly - accept in return for what I hope will be a longer period of my life where I can stroll through my favourite cities, run for rudely early buses, and climb the stairs to my apartment. One day, when I own a penthouse with a rooftop garden and sunken pool area, being able to climb stairs will be a most handy thing.

Or, hope against hope, some clever lady will invent an innersole for ballet flats that activates the same muscles as a pair of five inch stilettos, building that graceful curve of muscle without buggering knees and backs.

A girl can, and does, dream.