I have moved on and I no longer love you, when I am with you I feel happy heart brokenlongingfrustratedsafe unloved. I am a strong independent woman. I am a pining puppy being kicked in the head every time it yelps at your ankles for affection. Not kicked, stroked, held, caressed and then returned to the pound. I am a bitch, clearly.
...again. I wish we could be something again. Or do I? This song makes me feel like I do, and being lonely makes me feel like I do. Being in your arms makes me feel like the world would only make sense if that were the case. Logic tells me I don't, logic tells me we already were something, something beautiful, but that we are not those people any more. Logic tells me that you never loved me, and new found self esteem tells me I deserve to be with some one who loves me and who doesn't mock my passions. Some one who would do anything to make me happy and cross oceans to be with me. Some one who wouldn't want to change me. He would want to change me. I am not a tom boy, and I am Okay with that. I like that I am passionate about politics and righting social injustices. I hate that you are not. Your essence is the same and it is your essence that this song sings about and it your essence that I don't think I will ever fall out of love with.
T O R T U R E
"I wish I was your favourite girl. I wish you thought I was the reason you were in the worlds . I wish my smile was your favourite kind of smile, I wish the way that I dressed was your favourite kind of style. I wish you couldn't figure me out, but you'de always wanna know what I was about. I wish you'de hold my hand, when I was upset, I wish you'd never forget, the look on my face when we first met. I wish you had a favourite beauty spot that you loved secretly because it was on a hidden bit that know one else could see..."
After such an apocalyptic few days in London it is hard to know what to say. London has been a very frightening place, and tonight the violence here seems to have simmered, I can hear less police sirens and helicopters, though the news is that it has spread throughout the country. Its such a hideous mess, its hard to know where to begin. I'll probably post more about it in the coming days, for now just making sure my loved ones and I are safe has been exhausting.
~*~
10/08/2011
Tottenham: Where it all began
I am going to go against the tide here and say how grateful I am to police for the bravery they have shown in the face of what must have been a week of complete hell. I have not always been the biggest fan of the police, especially the riot police, but in the past few days it seems they can't win; if they had acted too barbarously to begin with then there would have been out cries of police brutality and it could have exacerbated an already inflammatory situation. Act as they did with gradually increasing "robust policing" and everyone says they are going too soft, and we should call in the army, use guns etc. There have simply not been ENOUGH police in London over the past few days to deal with this apocalyptic scale of violence, and now that other counties are experiencing similar riots those counties are struggling as a lot of their police force are holding the situation in London at bay. The police in this video stopped the violent looters from heading further up the road, are road that would lead them to my house, these police essentially kept me and my family safe two nights ago. They also did their best to limit the damages to businesses in the area, and having visited Camden the following day, I can ascertain that they did a pretty good job, yes there was a fair amount of damage, but compared with other parts of the city it was negligible.
If people want someone or something to direct their anger at, direct it at the government who have
cut youth service
cut university places and tripled higher education fees
axed the EMA which enabled many children from economically deprived backgrounds to remain in college,
cut public services
cut NHS mental health services to the point where many are facing closure
are allowing the housing crisis in the capital to spiral ever further out of control
axing public sector jobs
and taxing the hell out of normal working people whilst
offering tax breaks to the rich
doing nothing to close legal loopholes that mean we loose out on millions of pounds worth of corporation tax every year
and have people like Philip Green in their pocket.
This is an angry disenfranchised youth that know that they are not going to have the same job opportunities as their parents, that IF they can afford to go to university there probably wont be a job for them at the end of it. This country has seen consecutive governments that favour the rich and since the recession there is an increasing feeling that working and middle class young people are having to pay the price for the mistakes of bankers and parliamentarians. The cost of living is going up as are rates of unemployment, and it seems like this CONDEM coalition are determined to eradicate any existing schemes to aid social mobility, and essentially keep kids off the streets.
This video was published on 31st July, just before the first riots in Tottenham. Poignant, brutal and haunting.
The youth of today are angry and rightly so, expressing their anger in such a reckless way with such wanton disregard for the lives of people in their communities is clearly inexcusable, but if we lap up the governments "pure criminality" propaganda then we are essentially enabling them to do nothing to remedy the problems which have got us into this mess. Lets also not forget that the Tories plan to cut the number of police by 20%, can you imagine how much worse the scenes across England would be with 20% less police there to contain the situation? I can completely understand people's fury and dismay at police not reaching their homes, businesses and communities in time and essentially not being protected, this how ever is not the fault of the officers who were busy in other parts of insurrection, this is down to lack of police funding. The authorities were also completely unprepared for such pandemonium because they didn't expect it. They didn't expect it because they have been ignoring and disregarding their constituents opposition to spending cuts, condemning their/our protests against proposed bills and passing them anyway, remaining completely disconnected from the majority of young people today.
There is an alternative solution to reducing the deficit. Think how much this week is going to cost? A lot more than it would to keep Haringey's youth services open that's for sure.
The perpetrators of the grotesque crimes witnessed across England need to be bought to justice, and I hope they have many years in prison to think about what better ways they could have harnessed their anger. Collective anger without politics is frightening, and opportunistic theft, arson and thuggery is sickening. So lets hold the people responsible accountable- the perpetrators through the criminal justice system and the government through our collective voice- STRIKE OCCUPY RESIST, and for gods sake vote. And let us thank the police, fire and ambulance services for risking their lives to try and ensure the safety of ours.
Taken at Notting Hill Carnival '10 following the events of this historical week Carnival '11 will probably be cancelled.
This is the tag that is still (much to the annoyance of most of my friends,)on my new handbag. My new handbag is not a hand bag at all actually, it is a rucksack. A gorgeous dark brown leather rucksack which doesn't clash with my girlie dresses! I have wanted a rucksack for ages so that my back wouldn't get so sore carrying around my heavy handbags, so I had pretty much resigned myself to back ache until, whilst looking for a replacement primary handbag I found this.It I adore my new bag. On my new bag was the above tag and I feel like the marketing team for Urban Outfitters have, once again, got it spot on. Although I must admit whilst doing my research for this blog I have discovered that Urban Outfitters may have a very talented marketing team however they have "have no policies in place to prevent abuses by suppliers" making me feel conflicted in my choice to, on this one occasion shop there.
I try and buy all of my clothes second hand. This is partially because vintage and charity shop bought items tend to be cheaper than new clothes. This is also partly because I feel that the culture of Fast Fashion that we have today is completely unethical. It is unethical because it is creating huge amounts of poor quality, mass produced items which are designed to wear out or break before the next season so that their owner(s) are forced to buy more fast fashion items to replace those that have fallen at the wayside. The clothes are cheaply made and retail at prices cheaper than their high-street-chain competitors, so customers buy into the fast fashion concept as the believe it to be saving them money. As the economic climate has got bleaker these type of stores have boomed. The trends in these stores also turn around so fast (hence the name) that people who follow "fashion" are encouraged to buy a new wardrobe each season anyway, (this, the inexpensive cost of the item and the ludicrously long cues to customer services, the only part of the store you can return things, mean that most customers wont bother returning their poor quality, faulty items and with by more instead.)
These rejected, surplus clothes more often than not end up in land fill sights. As most of these clothes are made as cheaply as possible they are often made using synthetic materials which cannot decompose easily, creating more waste than our planet can handle.
Think twice about how you dispose of your clothes
The other way the huge multinational companies keep the cost of manufacturing down is by using "slave labour" or paying way below the recommended minimum wage in their factories. Most of these factories are located across less economically developed parts of Asia and other countries lacking the infrastructure to protect its citizens against such corporate greed-fuelled evil.
The ugly truth of the global fashion industry
Now I am not going to pretend that I have never been guilty of shopping in Primark or any other equally disgusting consumerist cesspit I try my very best now to avoid it all costs.
Vintage shopping in Brighton's North Lanes = LOVE
I LOVE charity shops, you can pick up the most beautiful vintage, quality, classic items for the cost of a sandwich or less. Some charity shops have become more expensive in the last few years, which I don't entirely approve of; (because I feel that charity shops provide a service the community not only through the money they raise for their charities but for the poor people with the community who shop their, but I am getting of topic!) However most items that you find second hand and weren't originally from afore mentions vile fast fashion establishments are still less expensive than you would find them new. I also adore the entire experience of rummaging through the old clothes, like a treasure hunt, to come out with a rare gem. It feels like a prize and like you earned it! Also there is also that feeling of well being knowing that by buying this gem, this prize you are giving to a worthy cause and not some greedy global fat cat. I'd say about half of my favourite items of clothing are charity shop bargains, and the fact they were bargains makes me cherish them all the more! The other half are from Vintage shops.
I adore vintage shopping! As you may have gathered from the left side of my blog backdrop I have a bit of thing for the fifties... and the sixties, some of the seventies, a small amount of the eighties and most of the forties! I love old clothes and accessories, I love the concept of reusing the fashions long passed. Fifties fashion is probably my favourite and I do have a bit of a fifties housewife fantasy that I some times play out in my head, but of course being a modern woman with some feminist ideals a fantasy is about as far as it gets in terms of the way I lead my life.
50s Fantasy made reality
For me vintage shops are like treasure troves, filled to the brim with treasures long forgotten, ready to rediscovered, to tell you their story and to start a new one with you. The vintage back pack I began this little rant about it a perfect example. After I had been using it for the best part of a day I found something unfamiliar in one of the side pockets. Upon removing it I unfolded a 1997 map of San Francisco Zoo. You can imagine my joy! There was piece of some one else's story in my new bag, a glimpse into the story of the bag, clearly the last time it had been used by anyone was fourteen years agoin San Francisco and some how, all these years later it ended up the the "Urban Renewal" section of Urban Outfitters on Oxford Street. Urban Outfitters in not a shop I frequently go into any more, in fact that was probably the first I had been in there in several years, because, as I have mentioned I strive to buy almost entirely second hand clothes, as avoid the high street chains like the plague! There for I almost felt like I was meant to find it, it was meant to me mine. And now this bag is inheriting a new story, my story, to continue on from its adventures in San Francisco. I hope it has lots of exciting adventures with me too.
Another great thing about buying second hand clothes from Vintage or charity shops is that most of the time they are not in fashion. I know we are socially conditioned to want to follow fashion and to feel that we are in some way inadequate if we do not fit in with the current trend; I personally don't like sitting on a carriage of the underground, at a bus stop or in a busy coffee shop only to look around and realise I am a carbon copy of everyone around me! Of course my style is influenced by current fashions but I would not say that it is dictated by them.
Outfit of entirely second hand clothes...
apart from the belt o.O
I know that this has become an epic rant, but I would just like to make one last point, an appeal if you will. Please can people look into the ethics of their favourite high-street brands, do some research into where there clothes are made, under what conditions and who by. Look into if the owners of your company pay corporation tax, which our country is desperate for in the this difficult financial climate when valuable services are being axed to enable these fat cats to continue thriving off the ignorance and consumerism of people like you and me. It is still possible to look stylish and fashionable without shopping in such evil corporations. If you are not a fan of wearing clothes that have already have a story, an imprint if you will of some one else's life, fine. Try and shop in individual stand alone stores, yes they are harder to find, and most of them are more expensive that Primark. But your shopping experience will be more pleasant (as most of you will have experienced, shopping in Primark is retail HELL!)The clothes you buy will, on the whole be of better quality, and if not they do turn out to be faulty you tend to have a much more sympathetic returns policy, you wont have to cue for 3 hours and you are far more likely to be returning your item to the same person you bought it off. Don't be a slave to Fast Fashion. Oscar Wild once said"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months."
Oscar Wild's insightful quote on a fashionable
T-shirt, what delicious irony.
FAST fashion is an even more grotesque form of ugliness so intolerable they have to change it even more frequently. Try to find clothes that are classic to your individual style not a trend that you feel you must conform to. That way you will spend less money, your wardrobe will be full of less things that never wear any more and you will have a nice concise collection of outfits you cherish and adore. The latest trends are often built around one body type (emaciated super model mostly) so if you care about how you look, (call it superficial) find out what body type you are and some classic cuts and styles that will good good on you. That is of the reasons I love fifties frocks, they are a very flattering cut for me.
Or maybe it began here, in my spectacular
year 5 production of Grease
So to conclude if you believe in recycling your waste to save the planet why not give recycling fashion a go? Try hitting some of your local charity shops, venture into a vintage shop. Vintage is all the rage at the moment so more and more are popping up all over the place. If you need you clothes to be new, or your looking for something specific in a specific size then stop ethically there is a wealth of information out there on how to do this. Live local, buy local. Support your small local businesses or they will die out. If you think TopShop is a great British institution Google UKUncut, it will open your eyes to the Arcadia group and many other popular high favourites (Boots). Being an anti-consumerist does not mean you are are anti nice things. I like nice things, I studies textiles at school, I like the artistic element of designer clothes and can appreciate them as peices of art one can wear, but for the most part I find the status symbol and inherrant excessive cost of designer clothing deplorable. However if you invest in expensive designer clothing it is normally very well made and will last you a very long time, and (hopelly) help put an end to the huge surpluss waste from the fashion-conscious consumerist culture of the west ending up in landfills, often in the same countries that were already raped for the resources to produce these items in the first place. Think about where the things you buy come from, look at the label and find out which country it was manufactured, this will give you an initial indication of the conditions in which it was manufactured if you have done some background reading on slave labour and the globalisation of the fashion industry which EVERYONE SHOULD.
If once you have learnt about the ugly truths and
you still don't care, then this blog is not for you.
But at least you are making an informed decision.
Here are some useful links to information that might help you make a more informed and hopefully ethical decision about where you shop.
I currently have no working camera or camera phone which is very sad... So I have to grab my friend's fancy gizmo's all the time and take some shots when the urge takes me. Here are some photos I have taken with the snazzy Hipstamatic application for iphone.
Tips Please?
This was taken at the Lock Tavern pub in Camden, quite simply I found it very amusing.
Whitechapel Wasted
I really like this photograph. It was taken at the Whitechapel Gallery in East London. I arrived there with my friend and dashed down to the loo, when I came upstairs a couple of minutes later I found my friend shamelessly flopped out over the sofa-bench. Her wanton disregard for social norms made me love her even more, I thought the scene of her flopped out next to a very disgruntled, bored looking man set against the beautiful Art Deco interiors of the Gallery make for an interesting photograph. I don't like the yellow border, however I was unable to chose that.
It all began with me watching him from afar;
it grew, it blossomed, never withered just died.
So what is it about human affection that is so powerful? Why is it that the embrace of another human being can change the way one feels entirely? Loves long lost can in the most basic of actions make one feel so many emotions all at once.
Everything was normal, friendly, possibly a bit flirty and definitely antagonistic at times. Then I asked for a hug before they left. Then, then everything changed. It was like all of the emotions I had had to cram deep inside, shove down so forcefully, so many that they were compacted deep within and hidden from me and everyone else, suddenly were released. As he squeezed me they losened and they rose up inside me making them self known again, I wanted to cry, to sob and sob until I was limp in those arms. I felt both volnerable and safer in the same moment, in those arms. Our bodies fit together, like we were made on the same production line and it was more ergonomic and cost effective for our manufacturer to make us as two pieces that slotted together perfectly.
I peel back the layers and reveal what is unchanging deep within him. We fit together, two Lego blocks locked together; and then I pour my heart out..
It is confusing and it's messy, but it is beautiful and it is pure, it is unselfish. When in his arms, in his bed all the layers peel back, all the bravado, arrogance and masculine pretext that he acquired since he was not-mine slip away and he is the same, he is mine again. But not mine, never mine again, I don't think... Never say never again.
?
How can some one be so loving with LOVEing? He never did love me, and I think, I hope now that I no longer love him. But it is hard when being with him, being in that strong, smooth, earth shattering, heart wrenching, soul destroying embrace makes me feel the most secure it is possiblefor me to feel. He is the only one who never loved me yet he made me feel the most loved of all. We fit together, like two pieces of Lego squeezed together.
Like Tetris pieces in an epic game of Tetris where all the blocks are people in your life and you have to fit them all together properly, perfectly so that things keep making sense. But as you get older the people,(blocks) start falling faster and in more awkward and individual shapes, you stop being able to shift them into the right position in time and gaps start appearing, and before you know it, it's
But this whole twisted stressful game is so much easier to win when we are interlocked, with our Lego blocks are squeezed together, stronger. Back when our pieces were always clicked together we worked. We really worked, I always said he was the Yin to my Yang and it worked, it worked so well.
the water to my fire, the earth to my air
It only ended because I left, (I literally flew away to distant lands... without him.) He couldn't handle me leaving so shut me away in a little box and pretended I wasn't what I was to him. It was never supposed to be for ever but in that box, I got filed away and no matter how hard I tried I was trapped, the box was sealed and that chapter closed.
Then we went our separate ways to different places, met different people, did different things and changed in different ways. Now we are so different, more different, too different. But our bodies still fit together, and those arms still feel more of home to me than any bricks and mortar every could.
The Yin to my Yang
~*~
So it is painful, I miss him and I miss the embrace. But it is Okay, because I would prefer to have him in my life a little than for everything to be manifest and to miss him a lot. One day, one day, One day we'll either sort it out and live out plans naively dreamt or, one day I will stop loving him, entirely. Until then I must be content with long awaited embraces, stolen kisses and memories of youth and passion...
