*Jerks Awake Suddenly*

Haha, I am absolutely knackered today. What a great feeling! I am going to be living in university accommodation 'next' year (i.e. in a month's time), and I was getting all riled up because I forgot to hand in something on the list. I forgot the most minor and unimportant thing (a SSAE), despite having paid my deposit, handing in my signed licence agreement and giving them the requisite passport-sized pictures. However, the copy of the licence agreement I had warned very sternly that missing any of items a)-d) could result in losing one's place. So I legged it over there (well, as fast as one can when one's destination is on the other side of the city and trains are involved), fearful because I'd rung several times and received no answer.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I entered the Residences Office and was approached by a woman instantly. 'Sorry, I forgot the SSAE,' I began immediately.
She blinked at me, and then let rip in a cheery, hearty Cockney accent: 'Ah, babe! That's really sweet of ya! Most people don't do that!'
I smiled at her, slightly dumbfounded, then handed her the envelope.
'Thanks, babe... can I just 'ave yer student number?'
I duly pointed it out to her on my copy of the licence agreement, which I'd brought with me in case of 'trouble.'
'Right... OK... thanks! See ya!'
'Thanks, bye!'

I left the room, and the building before bursting out laughing. We need more cheery Cockney women in the world! However, as I walked along, my mojo-uplift was slightly compromised when I heard a bizarre sound... which I realised was someone making kissing noises. AT ME. I looked up and there was a spike-haired loon in his car on the other side of the road, going for it like he had a pacifier in his mush. He carried on, irregardless of my more-than-a-little-disgusted expression, until I was out of sight.

Still, I suppose it's better than the time I was going home from a friend's house and then a man with a golden perm/mullet and the sort of chubby, red, boiled-egg face that could be 35 or 50 turned asking for directions into an attempt to chat me up. When I said I had a boyfriend, he asked me if I was going to marry him. WTF?! What does it have to do with you, fella?!

I really do not know what is with me, I emanate 'freak' vibes the way our Netgear routes emanates wireless signals. The most normal experience I've ever had was last year in France when a bouncer stared hard at me when I walked past. Then, a good hour later, he reappeared out of nowhere while I was sharing chips with a friend and asked me if we wanted to go dance at a nearby club with him and his accomplice. I looked quite coolly at him, clutching my takeout box and replied 'No, we're eating.' OOH, BURN!!!

In other news, I made a new friend today, but he is skinnier than me and that is surely wrong. No man should be potentially lighter than me unless he is gay or yet to have his growth spurt! It makes me feel like even more of a baby elephant. Also, I had a Reflection on clothes an' fashion an' shit while drawing the curtains.

Comfortable is never fashionable. Talk of beauty and fashion abounds with references to 'suffering' and 'being uncomfortable' to 'look good.' Often when comfortable clothes are in fashion, it lasts all of about two seconds, and you see about five people dressed 'comfortably' before it all inexplicably moves on to the new trend of skintight bikini-dungarees made out of old suspenders or whatever.

And I'm not talking about comfortable as in 'oh, the new shoe-boot is so much better than summer's wedge-heeled sandal!' I mean REAL comfort. Slouchy, draped layers that make me think of ancient Greece and Uniqlo all in one go (though that's rich, since it was at Uniqlo that my fear and distrust of skinny jeans was really developed).

What the fuck does all this 'looking good' actually amount to, though? What does it MEAN? If you think about it, it always means emphasising your body. In fashion terms, that means tight clothes and revealing clothes. High heels that lengthen your calves and push your butt out! Platform heels that make you tower like a sexy willow-tree!

So in short, it's about creative nudity. We cannot (too scared, too dangerous etc.) walk around naked and we will not (because we're vain, insecure etc.). Therefore, 'looking good' through fashion is, as far as I'm concerned, most of the time about sex and precious little else. I mean, look at the way models are chosen nowadays. Everyone loves the androgynous, pre-pubescent look despite what they might say, which is why Agyness Deyn is apparently going to be the new Kate Moss (fuck off). This is because the people behind the manifold orchestrations of the fashion industry tend to be gay men for the most part. They turn women's bodies into the canvas for their sexual yearnings.

Is that art, or is that misogyny? I think it sits somewhere in-between. It's a little bit sad that so much fashion and beauty is that shallow (although not very surprising). Maybe I'm getting it all wrong, though. Maybe when people feel that they 'look good,' that they are sexy, and then their confidence increases which really IS sexy... There are people out there who dress how they like, and yes, they might dress to emphasise a certain part of themselves and look good (like me), but they also do it for the sake of it and not just because it's 'in' or because they want to pull. Although I suppose people don't even realise they're doing it sometimes. Let's not forget the easy pull of conformity, especially when it comes to clothes. If your body shape is irregular in any way, shopping is going to become an arduous and unpleasant process, so you might as well go with the flow, even if it doesn't look good on you. Case in point: skinny jeans.

OK, enough lighter-than-thou ravings. I will leave you with this very amusing piece of bitch, which turned out to be my favourite of all the DOs and DON'Ts (most of the ones online are actually pretty shit).

UPDATE: I just realised that the DOs and DON'Ts are in themselves a perfect illustration of what I'm talking about. A good 80% of the time, the DOs are girls that are dressed in a way that is sexually appealing to the reviewers, and most of them are very skinny, wearing tight or revealing clothes (though not necessarily revealing in the glamour model sense!). Whenever they try to put in slightly bigger-sized women, or women who don't look like models, there's almost always a certain patronising quality about the captions, even when they mean well. How 'good' people look is about how much they make others want to sleep with them, 90% of the time! Who are the makers of this mag? For the most part, white middle-class men (though one of its founders is Pakistani). Who are the readers? Hipsters and hipster-wannabes. This is the sometimes-funny but often-distasteful bit of a free mag which otherwise has some really good photos and journalism.