Meditations on a Brick

What makes a Rubenesque lass pour her fulsome self into a tight nylon singlet and jeans low enough to squeeze out a spare tyre and a Tradesman's Grin? Or wear strappy slip-on "shoes" that require a Python-style Silly Walk to stay on? These are just two of the questions my brain put to me as we sat sipping an iced coffee in the city this evening.

It's Friday night in Bris Vegas, and I'm amid the hubbub of the after work/pre-drinks throng. Two things have lured me here this evening:
1) I was paid for the first time in a couple of months today.
2) My phone - The Brick, object of mirth on the part of others and anti-style pride on mine - is not well. I fear she may be terminal.

I only paid $20 for The Brick. The Boss had decided to replace her and her comrades because he thought - I suspect - they were a bit daggy-looking. They were offered around for staff to buy, starting optimistically at $50, later settling at $20. I am of Scottish inheritance, so recognised this as being just the right price for a mobile phone... and so it was that The Brick entered my life.

The mobile phone is very much an object of style, which irritates the absolute hell out of yours truly. All I ask of a phone is that it survive the rigors of being tumbled around in my backpack and having the odd bit of banana mashed into it from time to time.* I perused the stores tonight looking for The Brick's successor, but quickly grew annoyed by the sight of buttons so small you'd need a sharp pencil to press them, so stepped back on to the street with a lips pursed like a kitty's aft and feeling fratchy.

But I digress. Friday night is, as it is everywhere, the night when the young 'uns like to strut the streets in what I imagine to be the latest styles. I can't be too disdainful here; I did exactly the same thing at that age. (Actually, it's a duty to oneself to do so; what fun is there in looking back on photos of yourself dressed tastefully?) These days, however, my dress sense is somewhat more utilitarian.

Now, those of my three-dimensional acquaintance may wish to sit down before reading this: I am quite particular about what I wear. It's true! I'm not actually concerned with being fashionable - I can think for myself, thanks all the same - but I know what I like and what I don't, and no correspondence will be entered into. I'm not consciously trying to project any particular image, either, but there is one that I - apparently - have given consistently over the years: people often assume that I'm a lesbian.

I don't find this upsetting in the slightest. Dorothy and I move in the same circles; I’m employed in a predominantly gay workplace, for starters. I fancy that I am at ease enough with myself to be unaffected by these speculations. It simply makes me wonder.

My occasional sequins-and-eyelashes extravaganza aside, I tend to dress quite simply and practically. I generally favour jeans, and having feet like Homer Simpson's - a double E width fitting - means that Blundstones are a happy choice for me. Freakishly thick and wilfully wavy, my hair is at its best short. Very short.** And I confess to a modest piece of ink art on one shoulder. But despite a penchant for lipstick and painted toenails, it seems that all this adds up to looking like a sister's sister....whatever that means.

So what does this say about the "straight woman" look? To signal to the world's male populace that you're batting for the "right" side you're condemned to a lifetime in painful shoe purgatory? Of doing the Shoe Victim Shuffle? Of touching your face only to mop up the paint as it slides humidly south? Of sweltering in synthetic fabrics? Of restricting your movements for fear of your cleavage spilling onto the table? Of carrying a bag so tiny you can only fit your credit card and lip gloss in it? (But where does your Swiss Army Knife go, I'd like to know?) And how fast do you think you can run in your clacky mules if you’re in trouble?

If women feel compelled to arrange their lives around this charade, is it because it's what the gents seek in their feminine others? Someone who looks incapable of substantial movement? A woman who spends half her time and most of her income on preening? A girl who can't take two steps without risking ankle dislocation? Is Rose with her nose in Vogue more appealing than Jenny jostling with Joyce? (Or joists, for that matter?)

Sometimes I think I know the answer to these questions, sometimes I'm not so sure. What I do know is that when I had my gigantic cascade of wavy waist-length hair cropped short a year ago, men stopped chatting me up in pubs and started chatting to me instead.


*One of the occupants of my household is aged 2

** It's not dissimilar to a bright red coir doormat. At a pinch I could scrub my nails with it.