Daggy Jumper Part-ay (and Bullshit, and Part-ay, and Bullshit…with apologies to Notorious BIG)

Winter is coming.

To our nation’s capital.

Now, you can, and should, cuddle up with some seasonally appropriate Game of Thrones, a hottie (hot water bottle and/or person – count your blessings if both), and a big old mug of tea/mulled wine/hot chocolate.

But, there is another strategy you can adopt to minimise seasonal chill. That strategy, my friends, is the Daggy Jumper Part-ay.

(In the context of Daggy Jumpers, the normal spelling of party just doesn’t carry enough cringe: a hyphen just has to happen here).

Hipsters have been All About The Daggy Jumper Part-ay for a fair while now. I remember, distinctly, my first encounter with a Hipster Daggy Jumper Part-ay member. This encounter was at an actual party (normal spelling), complete with all requisite winter-in-Canberra’s-Inner-North party activities, circa 2007: goon of fortune, people dancing in circles around piles of coats in a bare living room, representation from three different political parties (and factions within parties), and at least one emotional minidrama involving a love triangle and a certain young lady blowing her nose on someone else’s pashmina.

Yes, that was me. Soz.

During some post-tears circle dancing around coats, a fellow partygoer joined me in my interpretive dance moves to Architecture in Helskini’s ‘Places Like This’ (if you need a visual: imagine me waving of arms in the manner of a floaty willow tree, add in some Gumby legs). Said partygoer, otherwise unremarkable, was wearing a baggy grey handknit with an appliquéd koala bear on the front, chomping on a eucalyptus leaf (the appliquéd koala, not my wavy-arms-dance companion).

At the time, I called bullshit on his Daggy Jumper Part-ay, picked up my coat from the middle of the circle, and went outside to check out goon of fortune.

Now, six years and a whole lot of other parties after the fact, I’ve come around to the Daggy Jumper Part-ay. Big Time, as one of my boyfriends from the 2007 vintage (a good year) would say.

Sourcin’
The trick to having a Daggy Jumper Part-ay, as opposed to just a Daggy Jumper, is to mix a bit of high culture with your low culture (hollah at me Adorno: Bourdieu, you, ain’t heavy, you my bro).

By this, I mean, choose a daggy jumper in luxe fibres: babysoft lambswool, buttery cashmere, so-fluffy-you-float angora, and a bit of lurex for doing the Fancy.

Sounds expensive, right? Wrong. Second hand stores are teeming with Daggy Jumper Part-ay specimens. Admittedly, you need some time on your hands and the guidance of your inner shopper intuition, but anybody with a couple of hours to spare on a Saturday can make good at their local Vinnies, Salvos or op-shop and come out with some Daggy Jumper Part-ay gold.

Just remember to check the fibre content label: you can usually tell by feel if you’re dealing with poly blend or something a bit more special, but it always pays to double check when you’re all about bigging up the luxe.

You can also ask your family and elderly friends if they have any Daggy Jumper Part-ays they can pass on to you, to keep the family’s stylin’ trads alive. Or, if a trip to Vinnies and Granny’s doesn’t turn up anything, pop into Country Road, they happen to be doing some very convincing vintage repros at the mo.

Prepin’
Once you get your Daggy Jumper Part-ay home, it pays to invest in some pre-wear prep. A gentle handwash will remove any lingering scent of dead people/menthol cigarettes/shop assistants/home brand sherry/naphthalene, and any suspicious stains that may have emanated from a previous owner’s body.

Handwashing using my chosen brand of laundry soap (Lux) also imparts a delicious scent that will make people want to cuddle you (huzzah for cuddles).

Again, check the fibre content label, but allow me to lay down the best way, by far, to handwash:

1) dissolve a small amount of Lux flakes in hot water, top up your bucket/sink/basin with cold water, and dunk your jumper thoroughly
2) watch an ep of Game of Thrones
3) empty the soapy water, refill your bucket/sink/basin with plain cold water
4) watch another ep of Game of Thrones
5) empty bucket onto pot plants/garden, pop your jumper into your washing machine, and run it through on a Rinse and Spin cycle
6) place on a flat surface to dry
7) watch eps of Game of Thrones until your Daggy Jumper Part-ay is dry

This last step is optional, but I highly recommend it: Peter Dinklage is a stone cold fox.

Stylin’
It’s absolutely pointless, in most cases, to try and achieve a slim, streamlined silhouette. Most Daggy Jumper Part-ays, especially if they’re vintage, are cut with comfort and warmth, rather than flattery, in mind. Consequentially, channel Notorious and embrace the B-I-G. Let your winter belly rolls luxuriate in the warm, non-judgemental embrace of your Daggy Jumper Part-ay.

You may wish to pair your Daggy Jumper Part-ay with a fitted jean and boots, to prove to the world at large that your form has shape. But, I don’t think the fitted jean is an essential for styling the Daggy Jumper Part-ay. Really, you could wear whatever you want on your bottom half (except shorts, because they’re weird, even more so in a Canberra winter).

Basically, no-one is going to notice what’s going on south of your belly button: they’re going to be too excited by your amazing jumper, and wondering why they’re experiencing the urge to cuddle (that’s the power of Lux).

Cautionz
One further word to the wise: if you have a penchant for black fluffy Daggy Jumper Part-ays, like I do, be aware of the lint issue. It tends to gather in places that will shock you when you look in the mirror (underarms, backs, and belly buttons, oh my). It can be quite confronting, more so if you were de-Daggy Jumper Part-ay-ing in front of some lucky guy or girl (I’d imagine).

You can solve this issue by wearing a tee shirt underneath, but if that idea doesn’t appeal, consider yourself forewarned and forearmed about the armpit lint, and make sure you do a quick lint check pre boudoir.

Now, go forth, and Daggy Jumper Part-ay, because winter is coming.

Gelly

Dear Beyonce,

I had a sad realisation last week. I realised that whatever I do in my life, I will never be as cool as you.

You see, you’re just so great. Every time I see a picture of you during my morning trashy-section-of-the-newspaper browse, I do a little chair dance. Because, to quote Leo Sayer (crossing musical genres, hope that’s ok with you), you make me feel like dancing.

Even when you got into hot water about lip synching at Obama’s inauguration, I was totally on your side. As was everyone. Because, hey, you’re Beyonce, the woman who gave the world Single Ladies: how could we NOT be on your side. Now put your hands up.

(I once tried to lip synch through a bad tutorial I was taking. It didn’t work. Further proof I will never be as cool as you).

If I had to put a finger on what makes you so cool, Beyonce, it’s that you NEVER, EVER look phased, or flustered. Even when you were busted lip synching. You kind of…glide, graciously, coolly. Like a glacier moving at an accelerated pace due to human induced climate change.

I don’t glide, graciously, coolly, or in the manner of a glacier. I fall down flights of stairs. I look phased, frequently, so much so that people stop me to ask what’s wrong (NOTHING! MY FACE IS JUST LIKE THIS ON ITS OWN!) I get flustered, stumble, and land in such a way that my shoe makes a distinctly fart-like noise on the linoleum, and I feel the need to clarify to assembled colleagues that the noise they just heard was not a fart, but a fart-like-sound, a faux fart, coming from my shoe.

Beyonce, I think you can start to see why I will never be as cool as you.

I have, however, recently discovered something that makes me feel a teeny, tiny bit cool, a bit glide-y. And that’s gell nails.

You see, trying to have nice nails, when you’re as much of a terminal clutz as I am, is setting yourself up for a big disappointment. You start off, all hopeful: you prep with base coat, you apply two to three layers of colour, finish with a top coat, and BAM! Fancy fingers.

The following morning, though, you wake up with sheet marks on your nails (and nail marks on your sheets). Or, by afternoon tea time, there’s a chip on your index nail and you just can’t help but notice it every time you glance down at your hands.

SIGH.

But, in come gell nail colours. Beyonce, they give clutzes like me a little bit of hope that we may, one day, be a little bit as cool as you.

Gell colours give TWO WEEKS of chip proof, smudge proof, shiny shiny nails. That’s the kind of gelly I’m ready for, if I may mangle the chorus of your Destiny’s Child hit.

And you know something, Beyonce? It’s really cool going through life with nice nails. Even though my face is doing its thing, and I’ve got my farty shoes on.

Crossfire Hurricane

Of all my demons, I dread procrastination the most.

Unlike pride, jealousy, or anger, whose faces I know to slam the door on, I can never make myself see the harm when procrastination comes a-knocking. I let her in and, before we know it, it’s March and those Summertime things I had to do remain undone.

Which brings me to today’s topic: why it took me a whole EIGHTEEN MONTHS of frequent, regular attendance at the gym before I ‘made time’ to buy a sports bra.

The alluring thing about procrastination is it allows you to challenge quantum physics and manipulate the laws of the universe, making and unmaking time at will.

There have been whole pockets, in the last eighteen months, where I’ve spun time into a glossy, golden expanse: afternoons re-reading Atonement (not just page 136: the whole thing); aimless Sunday driving with the windows down and Tame Impala blaring; afternoon teas, brunches, dinners, coffees, where Now was All; stolen days doing sweet FA of any significance.

When pressed on the matter of the urgent purchase of a sports bra, though, my rad procrastinatory quantum mechanics skillz emerged, and those glossy pockets of time that I’d spun out are unmade, just like that. Couldn’t possibly have gone sports bra shopping; there was a party on, a chapter to write, a job to do. Next weekend, for sure, it’ll happen.

Next weekend, and the one after the one after that happen, and keep on happening. An honest evaluation of stretch marks suggests that the old Pleasure State (with the wire poking out) does not provide adequate support in spin class.

Even still, it takes a wrinkle in the fabric of time. A scheduled lunchtime gym session thwarted by a pair of forgotten sneakers. A two-for-one lingerie deal at David Jones on my way back to the office. It was time.

I like to pretend that my iPod-priave-changeroom-danceparty-for-one (musical accompaniment: the Rolling Stone’s Jumping Jack Flash), was purely in the interests of thoroughly testing out the Bustenhalter’s bounce control.

But I’ll tell you a secret: I suspect it might have had something to do with sending procrastination on her way, and the fact that there’s no better time or place to join the Mick Jagger Strut Team than when you’ve had a win.

If said win occurs in a David Jones change room, clad in a pencil skirt and sport bra? Well, I know Mick would say it’s alright, now.

In fact, it’s a gas.

Plug Yourself In, Switch on the Power (Ballads): Thesis Secrets

I’m not above admitting low brow musical tastes. Those of you who tune in regularly will know I’ve confessed on this blog that: I Heart One Direction; my pet fish are named after Prince songs; the fact that Big W’s in house radio station played I Want To Know What Love Is made my day; and Wham! and I share a profound spiritual connection, especially at Christmas.

But, I don’t feel I’ve fully explained to you the extent to which I am the Reigning Princess of Truly Awful Musical Taste (if that doesn’t deserve a pink rhinestone flashing tiara, I don’t know what does).

You see, I was that drunk chickybabe whose Big Night(s) Out started AND ended, rather than just ended, at ICBM dancing to Whitney Houston, my sticky dance floor times punctuated only by the briefest of interludes at the Phoenix (so so mouldy) where I promised/threatened to dance on the table if My Sharona was played.

Whether or not this event actually occurred shall remain a mystery.

I am that colleague of yours who sings Don’t Stop Believing while I help you file a backlog of paperwork, even thought I can’t carry a tune in a bucket and falter on the high falsetto while imploring you to ‘hold onto that feeling’.

I am that person at the traffic lights in the vehicle next to yours, head back, eyes closed, thrashing my head side to side, in a particularly emphatic sing along to Love is A Battlefield, while you wonder if I’m having an epileptic seizure.

I am the woman who covers the screen of her iPod on the bus so you can’t see that I’m listening to You Shook Me All Night Long at 8am on a freezing Canberra morning.

I am Richard Kingsmill’s worst nightmare.

I am, indeed, the Reigning Princess of Truly Awful Musical Taste.

Being royalty of this nature has its advantages. The most important of which is that I have at my disposal a superior armoury of epic ballads for those moments when you need to plug yourself in and turn on the Power.

These moments occur frequently when you are writing a PhD, or any piece of writing that is long, hard, and, ultimately, 100% worth the effort. Over the years of my PhD candidature, I’ve honed the perfect power ballad playlist for belting out a 500 word chunk of thesis.

Intuitively, you’d think tunes to mellow you out would be the best accompaniment to an intense writing sesh. However, I’ve found that the only way I can work with my thesis, rather than against it, is to embrace the high baroque drama of intellectual endeavour and thematically arrange my playlist to work me through the peaks and troughs that characterise my writing patterns.

Now, the cool part of you is saying no, but there’s a little bit of you, your inner dag, that’s curious to hear what’s on my Power playlist. Don’t try to hide it, I know it’s there.

Or, at very least, you want to read my justification for why it’s these songs, these deeply embarrassing, terminally uncool songs, with cheesy, dreadful, lyrics, some of which I’ve incorporated here, which help me pound out some serious wordage more than anything else.

Well. Here it is. Don’t say I didn’t warn you about the Power surge:

Eye of The Tiger (Survivor) Any Power montage has to start here. It’s the only music you can do pre-typing stretching to. Take your time, take your chances.
If I Could Turn Back Time (Cher) You’ve opened the chapter you’re working on, and, if you could turn back time, you’d take back all those words you wrote yesterday, as they’re kind of awful.
Wanted Dead or Alive (Bon Jovi) The times when you’re alone, and all you do is think.
When Doves Cry (Prince) This is what it sounds like when doves cry.
Total Eclipse of the Heart (Bonnie Tyler) You’re living in a powder keg and giving off sparks. You’re at the 200 word mark. Every now and then you fall apart.
I Would Do Anything For Love – (Meatloaf) You’re hitting 250 and the words don’t come easy. Take a vow, seal a pact. You will do anything for this to work.
November Rain – (Guns and Roses) Nothing lasts forever, even cold November Rain. Gunners are all that will get you through the 250-350 word doldrums.
I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing – (Aerosmith) Your work has turned a corner, but it’s not quite there yet. This means it’s time for a serious strings section. You could stay lost in this moment, this moment of knowing that you are so close to the finish, forever.
Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe – (Barry White) Debate this soul classic’s inclusion in a Power list all you want, but it’s at this point, where you’re whomping through that last 100 words in big, easy, sentences – something’s moving - that you need some serious soul.
Freedom ’90 – (George Michael) I won’t let you down, I will not give you up, you’ve got to have some faith in the sound, it’s the one good thing that I’ve got.

That, and a completed 500 word chunk of your thesis. Power to you.

PS: if you got all the references to all the songs on my Power list, the title of Reigning Princess of Truly Awful Musical Taste falls rightfully to you. But I’m keeping the pink rhinestone flashing tiara.

You’ve Got That One Thing

Hi, my name is Peggy, and I’m a One Directioner.

I know I shouldn’t be. I can’t help it, though. There’s something about those young lads that makes me pump up the volume when they come on the radio.

You see, it’s a struggle, being Cool. One moment loving Kings of Leon is a sure fire ticket to respectful nods and Meaningful Discussions about Lyrical Potency. The next moment, the same admission will be greeted with sneers, disparaging comments about Stadium Rock and Ghonnoreah, and iTunes suggestions that make you cringe (Nickleback. Yikes).

And, when Motion Banana Cycle Republic Indian Chinese Massacre get played on mainstream radio, you face the long process of starting from scratch with another band who have that same carefully studied unstudied air (C/F Bondi Hipsters – check them out on Youtube)

Digging deeper and deeper into the underground scene makes coming up into the light, bright world of POP! music a tantalising alternative to being Alternative. I blame my addiction to One Direction on this incessant quest further underground in the name of Cool. Yes, I know they are mass produced and stage managed (Simon Cowel is behind the whole thing, after all), but nonetheless, these lads have got that One Thing that makes me keep on listening.

And that one thing is that 1D are so wholesome and hopeful, in a time when pop music, indeed the world, is anything but. Yes, I know it happens as you get older (I turned 25 this year and am deploying the in-my-day’s with alarming frequency), but I find the relentless tits-and-arse of pop music traumatic. Songs about girls who don’t know they’re beautiful, or crushing on someone who has that One Thing, are just so darn Nice by comparison. And Nice is all the more valuable for being rare. Like a man who holds a door open for a woman, One Direction are a throwback to gentler way of being, and one I welcome in these sleazy and cynical times.

Just a quick thought: perhaps liking One Direction, or, more broadly, embracing Niceness, is symptomatic of being so underground that you’ve dug yourself clean through the centre of the earth and out the other side. In which case, 1D + Nice = Hipster Win.

Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe

I’ve had a rather embarrassing song stuck in my head for the last couple of days. It’s Barry White, and ‘Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe’.

Why is it always guilty musical pleasures that get stuck in your head, and not something legitimately cool? This, and other mysteries, I will have to ponder further and get back to you. For now, though, in an attempt to exorcise the disco classic from my brain, here’s some things I Can’t Get Enough of, Babe.

Layered Tights: It’s so close to warm weather here in Canberra, I’m loathe to buy new pantyhose, which means that I’m wearing tights that ought to have been retired to light duties three weeks ago. The nifty solution? Layering lace or mesh tights over a pair of opaques. The lace or mesh overlay obscures the worst of the holes, and the interplay of colourful tights peeking through black lace is a nifty way of dressing up an otherwise plain ‘teaching day’ outfit.

Bananas: Bananas, I’ve missed you. Luckily, you have finally come down to something I can (just) justify - $8.99 per kilo at my local grocers!

The Panics: Now, this is the kind of music I wish would stick in my head a little more than tacktastic disco. Their latest album is rocking my world particularly hard right now.

Crazy Cat Names: It’s a family tradition that cats get slightly whacky names. My brother’s cat’s full title is Jethro Francis Patrick Anthony Margret (he’s a special boy). If things go as well as I hope they will, I may find myself adopting a cat for myself in the next little while. Which means it’s time to work on whacky cat names. Current favorites are Ferdinand, Henrietta, Vincent, Dwight or Bettina. Or possibly all of them at once. Thoughts?


‘The Tudors’, Specifically the Duke of Suffolk and His Amazing Beard: Mimi Goss leant me her DVDs of all four seasons of The Tudors. It’s seriously addictive television. Particularly when Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, grows a beard in Season Four. Google pictures to understand why. I promise it’s worth it.