My Illustrative Life

Y’all, I know I haven’t written anything very thinky for an age, and it’s not that I have not been thinkING or that I have changed focuses here on this blog! I am just (always have been) really bad at finding the focus/botheration to start my brain firing into TextEdit when I’m all “but i HAVE BEEN to work today, give me a BREAK, I need to find BALANCE and I have MY OWN THINGS TO SORT OUT” in the back of my head. Just ask my old teachers how often I gave them finished homework. I’m sorry, my old teachers. That, and the fact that everything I’ve been working on when I can find the motivation is long-term stuff that isn’t finished yet!

Don’t lose your faith in me. I’m unemployed again (nobody needs a Dinner Lady when all the kids are on holiday), so lots of time to feel like I need to do at least something for society at large.

I’m working on things to make you ponder or inform you, honest. You will get them eventually.

..Not next week though (probably), because I get to go to the beach!

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; 
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him;

Bury him in advice!

Advice the first:

When you are cycling through fields in summer you DEFINITELY need to wear a face-protecting neckerchief. You see how many bugs are on this sleeve? The black specks. Imagine that many bugs flying into your face. That’s no fun. Only once I forgot my necker, and it.. was pretty terrible. You can feel them hit your lips.

Advice the second:

Even if you buy a second-hand, vintage item that has surely been washed MANY times before - if it is a deep colour.. wash it alone or with (very) like shades. I know, I know! Obvious! But not obvious enough, for me!

Things that used to be white:

This shirt - luckily the only non-pants item that wasn’t something of mine - used to be a delicate pink to match the buttons.. I’m sure my dad likes lilac, though. Probably.

There was a pair of pants in this was that went from green to purple. That was a strong purple pill!

Advice the third:

When a nine year old peels off from the pack of nine-ten-eleven year olds who have already sassed you several times and runs across a field apparently expressly for the purpose of telling you you should “get a better hat”, Caesar, I want you to remember this - you should drink down that fine old vinegar-wine of oh yes, that’s how it feels to know that people want to belittle you because they’re uncomfortable with your wardrobe. I remember and savour the fact that it’s a vintage unpleasantness. Not one that can currently spoil your day. In a minute, you’ll catch a glimpse of your reflection in a french window and you’ll think DAMN, I’m looking GOOD.

And you’ll be right!

Oh, and don’t forget to bend down to his or her eye level, give him a Paddington stare, and say “And maybe YOU shouldn’t be so rude“. If you don’t tell them, how will they learn? That is the kind of thing you need to nip in the bud.. before they grow up into full-blown users of “negging“. That would really make the world a poorer place.

Right now I’m wearing cut-off thermals which are the ‘my mum wore them as a necessity as a teen in the seventies and is horrified that I see any aesthetic positive in them’ kind of vintage and drinking hot orange squash, on my second sick day this week. I’m thinking about how much better I feel and that I will almost certainly be able to go to work tomorrow, and I just put two cleaned out milk bottles on the back step, out in the rain.

I’m feeling pretty good about all of these things.

Pictures from the weekend:

I told y’all I spent today (off sick) learning to draw Raymond Burr. He has a really particular face! As you can see in that last picture. This for the sake of an Ironside/MST3k comic, which you shall see later. If you tune in.

Needing to save my workshirts for work only, I have taken to wearing these oversized “peasant shirts” in the heat and just tying them up until they stop annoying me with their bigness. It’’s pretty comfy I guess, and disguises my belly button - if you can’t see it, you can’t be sure I’m not a clone. It’s less structured than I am used to or quite comfortable with; good for being in fields or on run-down farms or cooking a la Like Water for Chocolate but not for being in company, really. The skirt, also, is shorter and breezier than usual.. a little less secure than ideal. This is the kind of thing I need to say to myself curse it all, I have no inorganic responsibilities today before I can wear it.

Wikipedia says that the claim to ‘care’ is sarcastic, and then it quotes Chuck Mosley as saying Well, ah Roddy wrote all the things that he cared about and I just wrote the part that says, “it’s a dirty job but someone’s gotta do it” ’cause I figured that’s just the feeling I got, which sounds the opposite of sarcastic to me.

But when I listen to this song, I just take it straight because it’s how it always sounded to me. I care a lot. This song is the sound of me, having been in charge of twenty-one four and five year olds who just don’t care to be nice to each other, or to listen to me, or to be safe, or to take turns at needing a grown-up because I CAN’T BE EVERYWHERE AT ONCE - thinking it is fucking hard to set a consistent good example. But since I only have them for an hour and twenty minutes every day there is really no excuse for letting things slide, letting them off from bullying and endangering and exclusion and disrespect and all the worst things about current society’s interpersonal relations.

It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it, and I care a lot.

Here’s a Mike Patton-led version, because.. why not? I like them both.

This is the second summer workshirt, salmon chambray, but more importantly - it is a shirt that I can wear and think “Yes, I could be digging something up in the desert in 1922″.

That’s really all I want out of my clothes.

The fold along the center of my panama gives my silhouette a pleasingly pithy air, too. Just imagine that I am standing in from of sand, not bricks, okay?

I stayed in school after dinners were done to help take the five year olds on a walk. A really awesome walk; they all got to take their shoes off and play in a stream. On a school walk! That never happened to me! So cool! The teachers had their feet bare too and were leaping across the banks.. but I thought that, since I’m still pretty new (and ambiguously young), I don’t yet have the authoritah to stand muddy adventures and come out on a different, non-peer level. Major. Bummer.

I like the practical-practical 20s-30s archaeological-style adventure clothes but I also like the “..and here is a version for a lady“. Because, I am a lady, and I like to see if and how ‘lady’ stuff can work for me. So, la! Pretty pretty princess, undead spirit falls for her, she says “no thank you”, kicks sand in his face when he is not dissuaded.

I actually found it trickier than I expected to find example pictures of the kinds of stories my head is digging when I wear this way. I wanted to embed a section of the Appointment With Death Suchet-Poirot with Tim Curry, but youtube has it disabled! So. Here’s Diana Palmer from the 1996 The Phantom (a movie I own and will watch over and over; Billy Zane is a fun actor, and the lady friendship sub-plot is neat), Evie from the 1999 The Mummy (again, a multiple-watch film for me), and an older Diana Palmer, from this article from dailypop.

Peace out, comrades - I got history books to read.

Workshirt the first: half-button chambray. Which makes me feel like one of the pack; which shiny polished fashion blogger hasn’t gone for chambray yet this year? Still. “Blue collar” and all, it’s the supposed ideal for a physical profession. Which dinner ladying nursery-aged children is. Don’t question me.

It was a little cooler than usual with intermittent clouds and a light breeze but the sun was shining well enough to make things look yellow and I didn’t sweat me a river so I call this a triumph. It is a good shirt! Fine for working! Fine for cycling. Probably also fine for swinging across canyons and scaling bas-relief’d cliffs.

Or strolling through a town, stopping and saying “Warl hullaw thar pell-grum!”. I said that when we were shopping, for some reason, and sister said “Why are you doing John Wayne?” to which I replied I’m not. I’m doing Mike Nelson doing John Wayne.

I didn’t actually wear my hat, though. I was going to - gotta lead by example, for some reason they mostly hate to wear their hats outside - but my pannier broke, and the way I had to re-attach it meant there wasn’t room. Curses! So I was forced to make do with my necker alone.

I don’t know if you’ve ever worn a bike helmet for forty minutes in the sun and wind with wet hair, but if you haven’t, and you have to wield even a little authority afterwards, let me give you this advice: take something else to put on your head. Because if you don’t, your ‘do will look ridiculous.

And that’s how I ended up like this!

‘Why have you got that on your head?” Asked at least seven times. “To hide my horns”, I said.

Went shopping. Desperate quest to find things I can comfortably, appropriately work in.

We did the charity shops first, of course - they’re cheapest, obviously, and sister has a list of movies she’s after and, as long as you don’t mind vhs (and we don’t; the quality is far more homely and the price jes’ cain’t be beat) there’ll always be something you’re after. If you share a similar taste, I mean. She was irritated to see three or four titles she bought last week on dvd - price differences of 49p vs £7. Bummer!

Since she was buying, having birthday’d last month, we found a treasure trove! CHECK THESE OUT:

I can remember HANKERING for these when the movie came out. Gosh I did! And then they were - FOUR, all for 49 pence each. Boggling. So we bought them all and re-donated the videos. If you want to own or watch Spice World (and really - why wouldn’t you? No seriously. It’s a flippin’ funny film), shimmy on down to the BHF in your local town and see if it’s the one we went to.

We’re keeping tea in them, by the way. Different varieties of tea. Very Bri’ish. Maybe not quite GIRL POWER, but, I am a girl! And tea gives me power. So, it works.

I did OK, actually. Shopping. In the charity shops I did appallingly, there was nothing. Well, no, actually! There was a really fantastic (baffling) Morris Dancing display, complete with GIANT (fake) MAN and a.. dragon thing? With a white cloth in its mouth, that could bite. And then a hobby horse with a SCARY FACE that did a truly invigorating dance. It was aces. Pictures and film to follow, look forward!

Shop-wise though I was despairing. Despairing so that when I saw a 60% off sale in GAP I went in. I really hope that they haven’t any horrible scandals that I’ve missed, because I found two shirts that look pretty great and lie pretty light, belting though they need. And the sale really softened the financial blow.. unpleasant, but not exruciating. You’ll see them sooner or later. I often forget that an important part of my personal dressing character is “explorer/archaeological adventurer”. Take more care to remember your full inner library, girl!

Also found a summer hat (oh man, I HEART SALES). Haven’t had one of those for.. too long to remember. Probably because this one is a men’s size L (L for LARGE).. small body, giant noggin! I should really look more strange than I do. It must be all the hair. But! Folding Panama! Yay! Why should a man-hat make me look so like a young French orphan girl? Perhaps I just imagine it.

Finally: a £1.99 loan from sister sorted me out with this - the perfect way to ease myself into being a little braver. A little material girl solidarity. Thank you Madonna! Thank you for the many trails you helped blaze!

Stella McCartney + Comic Relief 2009 Madonna vest via Scope, I think. There’s a Morcombe & Wise version going here, if you want it!

Shit, someone employ me once term lets up, please. No-one needs a dinner lady when nobody’s at school!

It was cooler today! And I got a lift instead of cycling, which I already feel bad about actually. But besides my moral agitation, this was good because it meant I got to wear my own clothes! And not sweat all over them! Hurray!

For explanation of why it’s worth mentioning when I wear my own clothes, see here.

So tell me, which of these pictures looks better? The first one, which is just a picture straight off a digital camera, or the second, which is the same picture straight off a digital camera only also having been done over by the “enhance” button in iPhoto?I don’t have sophisticated graphics stuff on my computer. iPhoto, Pixen, and Gimp (which drives me crazy but which I am grateful for, thank you tech people).

This combination of shirt and trousers (and boots) is an easy killer, for me. They will always, always look good to me, on me. The fabric for both is kind of weird; the shirt’s sort of rayon-y feeling with great drape and the trousers are.. a sort of.. nubby stretchy weave? They’re appropriate for ANYTHING, and the colours are my favourite sort of vivid-dirty. Forest colours. They evoke Copper Beeches, which are one of my favourite kinds of tree - the colour change in the leaves from spring to summer is amazing! They start this delicate two-tone peach-green (which sounds awful, but isn’t) and they thunder along into the richest coffee-red. They grow enormous, too, and commonly.

I started tucking my trousers into my boots as my first expression of ‘no, you can’t tell me how to dress, you don’t even know me yet and all my friends who would try are gone’ when I got to college after sixth form, for my Foundation Art year. It felt fantastic then, and it feels fantastic now even though I don’t feel self-consciously brave about it any more. Wearing my boots out this way feels like being toothpaste squeezed to spurt out of the tube. You might recoil, but I’m a healthy product!

As for what I wore yesterday, when it was hot and when I did cycle to work - pyjama trousers. And a different shirt of my sister’s. Hnk.

I guess I need to get my tough charity shoppin’ knuckles on, because until term ends I’m doing lunches every day. I can’t spend three straight weeks in pyjamas and ill-fitting stolen items!

Actually I can spend that long in pyjamas. And I would, if they didn’t ride up so (BHS - not the greatest tailors). But the stolen tops, that’s another matter. I think she might get fierce.

These ain’t my clothes, y’all!

I’m Dinner Ladying the rest of this week and all week and I’m in TROUBLE, because this morning when I got dressed to go to work I had to wear my sister’s clothes.

I’ve gone over in some detail the personal troubles I have with summer clothes, but now I have met the professional perils and they buffeted me onto my rear. See how:

My job entails squeezing around tiny tables and chairs making sure kids eating their lunches are behaving, seeing if they need their food cut or their yoghurts opened, pouring drink, etc. Then I have to make sure they’re safe and happy running and climbing around outside. Skirts and shorts are a bad idea; I don’t trust 4/5 year olds to be fully cognizant of physical boundaries, f’rex. Low-cut or loose tops are a bad idea because I do a lot of leaning over, ditto hipster trousers (no child needs to see the crack of authority). Button-up tops are a bad idea because they gape. The few graphic t-shirts that I own are either intricate - interesting and distracting (they ask me my name often enough - “what’s that about?” is a question I’d like to avoid answering seven thousand times), or scary (when I was small I wouldn’t have wanted to stare at the Crimson Ghost whilst eating, that’s all). Sweaters or roll-necks are WAY too hot right now- really anything long-sleeved is. Showing my belly is inappropriate. And so on. And so on. And so on!

O___O’

This, in my wardrobe, leaves nothing!

!!!

It also does not help that both my pairs of trousers are in the wash right now. Oh, bravo, bravo, I know.

Sister was in the shower so I grabbed and contorted my way into a shirt I haven’t seen her wear for ages and the first pair of skinnies on her floor.

I safety-pinned the back of the shirt of the seat of the trousers because when they say they are low rise they really

are not bluffing, and thank goodness I had a badge of comparable size when I noticed this at the last minute -

..What the heck am I going to wear tomorrow?

When I get paid, I might be looking in to some skinny “jeans” in an interesting colour - I really like the way they just fitted right into my boots. Any recommendations on where to get good quality examples?

It feels like I’m complaining a lot recently. Sorry about that! I will try to do better.

I like these colours. I feel like a stretch of countryside.

The badge is from an Eduardo Paolozzi exhibition which I saw in Scotland a few years ago. It was fantastic. It really opened my mind - the validity of collage as an art form; semi-/abstract colourwork as an intellectual pursuit; how impressive and invigorating modern sculpture can be. I saw one of his small sculptures on Cash in the Attic once (or was it DIckinson’s Real Deals?), an elephant in plastic or rubber all made of angles. Oh, and there was a recreated Artist’s Studio as part of the exhibit - he has a Geordi LaForge figure in there. I am pro TNG.

Look at this - this version of Vulcan/Hephaestus was at the showing I saw. You could look at it from three different levels I think. Photo via nationalgalleries.org!

And how good is this?

Changing subjects, this is my annotated copy of the book I’m preparing a (thorough) review for (two thousand words in..):

Each of those turned-over pages stands for something I have a problem with. Kind of impressive I actually still plan to read the last two books in the series, huh?

Don’t frown at me. It’s a mass-produced paperback.

I’m doing it for the LOVE of books! Come on! Paper isn’t always sacred..

Yesterday my sister was watching a movie where someone went “It’s– it’s so beautiful!” and she said, “haha did you hear that? She was talking about..” And I said, “a peen?”

That was wrong, but I decided that actually, it was right.

So I drew it.

Some days I just don’t feel like taking a photo, you know?

I hope you can read my writing. If it’s too small, click to zoom!

Just submitted another blog post for Waterscape - it probably won’t get approved until Monday. I don’t think the editors work over the weekend! You cannot fault that, of course. Oh no wait, not until Tuesday! It’s a bank holiday, of course. Anyway - look out for it next week! It’s another illustration; the second in my “good and useful times I have spent by canals” series. Because you know - I have spent a lot of times by canals (I typo’d that as CABALS, quite different!) or other waterways.

But, the picture above! A good way of showing Wot I Wore, or no? A decent way to catch up when the weather’s bad for photography maybe? There’s no colour, obviously.. The skirt’s kelly green and black (it’s featured here before a whole BUNCH of times), the jumper had a whole post to it last year - that was before it shrank, of course! Funny how much change of fit means change of meaning. It’s mostly grey, anyway. The hat’s grey with faintest hints of lime, the boots are purple, the tights black. Belt: brown.

How do you feel about the bracelet? Personally, I feel that it is SMASHING. My mum gave it to me earlier, fair out of nowhere, and it is just the right weight. And it looks like leaves!

Leaf-bracelet and green suede and grey wool, I feel I should start waling over hills and through forests and beside rivers. But instead? I shall be watching the Eurovision song contest.

First day Dinner Ladying!

Phew.

Click the picture to swing by my May column on British Style Bloggers if you want to give me a boost or if you’re currently in exam-revision hell - the theme is keep calm and carry on, and I’m speculating on what best to wear when what you really need to be doing is buckling down. Expounding on one of my favourite topics - house clothes! With wardrobe from Corina Corina thanks to Ella in Warwick, and a peek at my mum - see if you think I get my looks from her, hmm?

Actually, speaking of family resemblance, check the chick above. Little sister, little sister. She wanted me to give her a beard too, but agreed that it would be too cluttered.