to thine own self

[raven]

I should be reading for, and also actually writing, an essay on Chinese foreign policy right now, but I don't want to, I want to a) watch Angels in America or b) go shoe-shopping or c) sleep all day or d) some combination of the above. I was supposed to go to a lecture today, but I couldn't get out of bed. It is so awful to say you physically couldn't get out of bed until twenty-five minutes past twelve, but I couldn't. It wasn't just vague laziness, as it usually is, but more along the lines of being glued flat. I couldn't do it.

I was therefore only awake for twenty minutes before leaving the house, during which Claire popped in to tell me she'd found Jesus. I found this a tiny bit surprising. Just a bit. It eventually became clear that she has practice exam questions coming out of her ears, and one of them is actually, possibly, perhaps, a picture of Jesus Christ. It seemed an auspicious beginning for the day. I went outside, nearly walked straight into wadiekin, wailed a little bit about how much I was already failing at the day –

(yes, I’m incapable of doing anything else; can it be just said for the record right now that Michaelmas ’07 was the term Iona Failed)

– because I didn’t get up before twelve twenty-five and it all seemed slightly hopeless. I was going to yuletide lunch with ou3fs, which was a resounding success as long as we do not define success by “talking about yuletide”. Instead, more or less everyone turned up and talked about New Year’s, and shoes, and I think Blake’s 7 at some point..

Speaking of which, I actually found this quite interesting. The other night I had a bunch of people in my room, mostly female, who got to talking about clothes. And shoes. And ball dresses. And I said, well, I always feel guilty about how much I love clothes, and even more guilty about talking about it, and there was a general consensus on both points: liking clothes, and feeling guilty about that. Why is this, I wonder? I mean, I do like clothes. I like outfits that match, I like my very favouritest skirt – it’s short, heavy denim with large ruffly bits, from River Island – so much that I’m trying to find it in other colours, I love slogan t-shirts and strappy tops and when Maria buys Cosmo I pick it up whilst the kettle boils and read the fashion pages. (And that’s another thing: I always feel guilty about reading it, and I notice all my female flatmates picking it up and reading it with just that same shifty-eyed look of guilt.) I don’t like shoes as much, as I am five foot three and a half and have size seven feet, but I got some boots the other week that I am terribly fond of.

And, well, I know my friends are the same, or at least a lot of them are – they all have amazing clothes, anyway, and today lizziwig was telling me in loving detail about a lovely pair of shoes she wanted to get – and yet we all have guilt. Why? Does it make you a bad feminist, to love clothes? I don’t think so. Does it make you a bad person? I don’t think that’s so either. Is it just the fear that if you profess said love, it leaves you open to accusations of being shallow and frivolous and not caring about more important things, such as, I don’t know, the patriarchal oppression inherent in many parts of the fashion industry? I don’t know. But still. I hereby resolve to feel less guilty, if that’s possible. After all, I’m a woman with choices. I can choose to be happy about a pair of boots. And I am, so there.

Despite Chinese foreign policy, the last couple of days have been very nice indeed. I have been co-dependent with jacinthsong - in the last ten days or so, we have communicated via LJ comments, LJ messages, Facebook wall posts, Facebook messaging, ordinary email, Herald webmail, Google Talk, phone, text, and pidge, and failing that, realised we live a quarter of a mile apart and have gone round to see each other – and eaten faaaaar too much chocolate and done no exercise, and on Monday night lots of people I love came around to watch Angels In America, and it was great.

(Seriously, how much do I love Prior? I still haven’t seen all of it – am about half an hour into Perestroika now – but I thought I loved him as a character before he turned up looking like Morticia Adams, and now, well. Heeee. Love.)

Also, there was microwaveable sponge pudding, which we didn’t eat that night in the end, and not pie. But there was lots of sugar, and I keep finding mugs and glasses and cutlery in improbable places, like under the bed, and it was only about the second time this term that I’ve filled my room with people and it was lovely.

I am suffering lately, though, from an odd convergence, which is manifesting as my putting my head in my hands and yelling, “Secret double life!” I always used to have, you see, a secret double life par excellence. When I was thirteen, fandom was my little secret. And it didn’t stay that way - hathy_col arrived in a burst of, well, enthusiasm and squee and potatoes, and changed my life – but it was still somewhat distinct. I talked about it at school to people who knew about it already, which helps enforce the separation, I think. But since I’ve been here in Oxford, and particularly since Maria joined OULES, it’s all coming together in a big blur and is upsetting my notions of how life should be a little bit. It’s a good thing, it’s a great thing that my friends are now one glorious mess of out-there fannish beautiful people who talk in cat macros, but it still worries me a tiny bit. I love it here, I do. Maria and I were chatting online at three am about how people should write fic about Plato and Socrates where they’re in a band with toga-clad groupies, and at length I said we should maybe make some peppermint tea and I went into the kitchen to find her teary-eyed with laughter, and yes, that’s it, that’s what I want, I have always wanted not to be an outsider in my real life, and now I’m not and it is so great I’m actually becoming incoherent.

That is a very long paragraph.

Er. Dear self,

Write about Chinese foreign policy. Remember that? See the books all over your room? Recall the deadline today at five? YES. THAT.

Sincerely,

you.

Comments

[absinthe-shadow.livejournal.com]

Yay! Prior!

And also yay you! Because you Made A Profound Post about the clothes/feminism thing, and articulated everything I think so well. :)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Yay! Prior! Yaaaay!

And this seems the appropriate time to ask if you actually bought any shoes this afternoon... (I really wish I could've come, siiiigh.)

[absinthe-shadow.livejournal.com]

Lizzie got boots! AMAZING boots.

[potatofiend.livejournal.com]

I missed the buying of hot boots?

Damn you, dialectology!

[absinthe-shadow.livejournal.com]

Damn you, dialectology!

A sentence not often heard... Appropriate to being cried out in the throes of illicit don!passion?

Notice how I was subtle and didn't name names.

[potatofiend.livejournal.com]

*snorts* Oh, yes, your subtlety! Subtle as a brick. *grins*

Would this illicit don!passion possibly then progress to demands to be sociolinguistically analysed (you know you want to)?

"I'll examine your linguistic capacity, damn you - "

You have turned my brain. :P

Iona: my deepest apologies.

[absinthe-shadow.livejournal.com]

We missed you LOTS. Stupid foreign policy. *pokes*

[amchau.livejournal.com]

I once proposed that the work of feminism should not be to encourage women to forgo the love of clothes, shoes, and makeup, but to encourage the love of same in men.

However, this is tempted slightly by the realisation that men are being encouraged to look a certain way, and that it harms them as much as it harms women who are pressured to wear particular clothes or shave particular parts of themselves or whatever.

I think my conclusion at the moment is that equal does not automatically mean better--women and men suffering the same oppression-by-fashion is bad--and that feminism should fight for the freedom to love the clothes and looks that we, an individuals of whatever gender, happen to love.

Which is to say: I'm in ur feminism, overfinkin' stuff.

[hathy-col.livejournal.com]

Potatoes?

And I know that feeling; DocSoc means that I am, in fact, the university's biggest geek - by democratic election, no less - and people know about it. And it's a good thing.

Also, I like shoes. My bak balance doesn't. You wouldn't know I like shoes because I wear the same pair every day, and also I am fussy about what type of shoe I buy, but I bought a new pair today and I felt really positive. I can't wait to wear them!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

ORMSKIRK. POTATOES. I may stop bringing it up... never.

Yay for new shoes and being Lord High President! (That still is the office title, right?) How're you doing? Do you have internet at home yet?

[hathy-col.livejournal.com]

I am just President. I get to be a High President if I hold the post for more than a year, and I get to be a Lord if I am deemed to have done a particularly noble service for the society. I MAY REWRITE THE CONSTITUTION TO MAKE ME AUTOMATICALLY LORD HIGH PRESIDENT.

No internet at home; I am in Cambridge at the moment. My complaints with BT are a mile long and shouldn't go into this wee box, but oh, I am angry beyond furious.

[thistlerose.livejournal.com]

it leaves you open to accusations of being shallow and frivolous and not caring about more important things, such as, I don’t know, the patriarchal oppression inherent in many parts of the fashion industry?

There's a difference between simply loving clothes and causing yourself discomfort or embarassment in order to meet society's often impossible standards.

I love clothes and I consider myself a feminist. :)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Yes, absolutely! I agree! It's entirely misplaced guilt and I have resolved not to feel it any more.

[the-acrobat.livejournal.com]

I'm a feminist who fairly unashamedly loves clothes. :)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Good! Me too! *g*

[tmpe5t.livejournal.com]

Surely part of the Battle Of Trousers in the 70s & 80s was about the right to wear whatever you want? Therefore loving clothes is as much 'allowed' as not loving them? Surely the point is being able to do whatever whether its 'allowed' or not..?

To have the right to have the right, whether its actually possible or not, sort of thing? I think also men would love clothes more if boys' clothes weren't so crap. I mean, who can get excited about a shirt? Woohoo, look! A collar! And it comes in grey and blue!

Bleh. I'm with Eddie Izzard. Although i think his "i'm not pretending to be a lady i'm just wearing what i want" kind of falls over when his outfit includes giant rubber boobs...

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

But clothes and boots (BOOTS!) are great. The important thing is having the right to wear what you want. and not what society dictates.

Oe something.