My Vagina Is Not Your Income

Disclaimer: If you formally employ me, or are a relative, it’s probably best if you don’t read this. It would just embarrass both of us.

People spend quite a lot of time talking about vaginas these days. Lord knows I do. I tried to think about something else to blog about for a change, realised I only know about feminism and lesbians, and gave up. So vaginas it is.

I find it quite alarming how they seem to have developed monetary value within the last twenty years or so. To have a vagina worthy of modern, media standards it has become necessary for women to effectively pay rent. At minimum women are now expected to at least ‘spruce up’ their downstairs, whatever the hell that actually means, and while the cost of razors totted up over a life time may not exactly purchase a house, it could probably buy you quite a few more fancy dinners and tickets to see Westside Story than you would have had otherwise. For the slightly more hardcore who fancy waxing, it becomes vital to fork out roughly once a month to employ someone to hot glue strips of fabric to the single most sensitive area of your body, and then violently rip them off again. Which is painful both physically and financially. For the ones who have signed a contract to the Fancy Genital overlord, vajazzling comes into play. The singular and ancient art of paying someone to stick rhinestones and bits of glitter to a place where there should be fluff thankfully seems to be losing the sudden burst of popularity it had, and personally I think we’re better off for it leaving. If I remember rightly, there were about two weeks in 2011 where everyone turned round and shouted ‘pejazzle’ (vajazzling's male equivalent) at each other, screamed and never, ever mentioned it again.

I still don’t really know what the point is in the ripping and the hot glue and the glitter. Some people seem to think it’s nice for someone you’re having sex with, but if your partner won’t sleep with you unless you have diamonds stuck to your foof, I think you might be sleeping with the wrong people. Frankly they should be grateful that they get to sleep with you at all, without kicking up a fuss about whether or not a grumpy beautician has tidied up for them first.

Speaking of Lady Ga-gardens, Lady Gaga apparently stripped off in London’s G-A-Y club last week. Some gay men witnessed her bottom. It was big news. Just like the time every female celebrity ever got into a car at a funny angle while wearing a skirt, or wore something chiffon based under bad lighting. Do you know when I last read an article about a bloke accidently showing a bit too much skin? Never, that’s when. No one gets paid for writing about men having a touch too much champagne before getting into a cab badly. No man has ever thought “Jesus, I possess pubic hair, something both men and women have had since the dawn of time. I should probably RIP IT OUT ON THE OFF CHANCE SOMEONE UNEXPECTEDLY TRIES TO HAVE SEX WITH ME IN A VERY BRIGHTLY LIT ROOM.” We have developed a culture where we pay people make sure our vaginas look good enough, on the off chance someone else is being paid to write about it. You might as well keep a small till in your knickers, just in case.

Unless you like doing all that, which is fine. If you want to, please be my guest. But just ask yourself first if you’re doing it because you like having genitalia that doubles up as a handy disco ball, or because you’ve just been told you should like it by someone else. If it’s the latter, I suggest you either ignore them or have a very lengthy chat. If it’s the former, please come to parties with me. At the end of the day, vaginas were meant to push out screaming humans, and give birth (ooh, satire). Do whatever you like with yours but make sure you do it for you and not to attract sexual partners with the brains of magpies.

Cheers. 

Talking Mostly To Myself (No, Really)

I just watched Easy A. It was pretty good, I recommend it if you haven't seen it. No, just so we're clear I'm not here to confess all the people I haven't slept with. This isn't so much a public blog as a personal one. I know it's been quite quiet lately. I have some ideas that I want to work on, but I've got a bit of a mental block. I don't know why. I had a bot of a lull over summer where everything got really quiet, and I sort of faded slightly. It was weirdly static. I thought things would be better now, and it's improving but slowly. I have a job. I signed my first employment contact, which was fun bus also, y'know, mind numbingly terrifying. I like my job. The people are nice and they taught me how to use a coffee machine. A proper one. With fancy buttons and levers and stuff. I feel a little bit like a scientist. I carried a tray of champagne glasses and didn't drop any. I'm still having driving lessons. I'm still awful, but the clutch has stopped making funny noises, and I remember to indicate so I think I'm improving. I'm still doing English lessons, which are still amazing and I may or may not be writing this as an attempt warm up for the last leg of an essay. I spend a lot of time on busses.

I realize that blogging total nonsense from my life is probably really annoying to most people, but it's quite cathartic. Having spent the last three hours reliving the last episode of The Wrong Mans in my pajamas, it's nice to remind myself that I'm not still stuck in the blank phase and I do have stuff to get on with. Quick note to NT - sorry you had to stay in my house during that. It was grim, and I was quietly miserable. I think. I don't really know, every time I'm sad I always assume I'm either PMSy, bored or hungry and have since forgotten what strong emotions really are. I bought some fairy lights for my bed, because I wanted to be a cliche. I rewatched the first series of The Mighty Boosh and remembered what I'd missed. I remembered being being fourteen and dancing with my Dad in a room full of people dressed as Noel Fielding's imagination while Bob Fossil mucked about on stage. It was nice, in an embarrassing, fourteen year old sort of way. Sometimes I forget I was fourteen once, but so does everyone else. Remember you used to be dumb. Remember you're a womble. 

Christ I hope no one reads this. Go watch Easy A, I beg of you.
Sorry I talk about TV so much. I have a media A level. 

What Not To Say In A Driving Lesson

I'm trying to get in the habit of writing a little bit more regularly, so here's a dumb list blog, because I haven't done one in a while. I'm also not bothering to type it up on Word first, so it's back to the good, old fashioned, Az-can't-spell-type-or-use-grammar days. I should also point out that I'm drinking a combo of 'glitter juice' (pomegranate juice with gold glitter, thanks M&S), and vodka. It's a cracking combo, but I am worried that I'm going to turn into liquid music. Or Robots In Disguise. I don't mind which. 

Most of you probably know that I'm learning to drive at the moment. It's going well, although I have put my foot in it a few times. Here's some stuff you shouldn't say in a driving lesson. Not all of them are me; I'll let you guess which ones are direct quotes.

1. "I'm really worried that I'm just going to run someone over. Possibly on purpose." 
2. "Have you ever rolled a car? Do you want to try?" 
3. "What would you do if I drove into that wall?"  
4. "Have you ever done 80mph in  hearse? I have." 
5. "Why's it making that noise? Have I changed gear? Which gear am I in? Oh God, the noise is getting worse. The car hates me, WHY DOES THE CAR HATE ME?!"
6. "What colour was that traffic light?"
7. "The brake is that little lever behind the steering wheel, I would assume."
8. "Well, I've driven a lorry before, but I was drunk that time, so I don't think it counts."
9. "Can you just grab the wheel for me? I need to re-do my eyeliner."
10. "OH SHIT, IT'S THE FUZZ."

Pointed reminder: I did NOT say all of these. I know the brake is that little button on the ceiling.

Joining The Debate Of The Genders

Ah, there’s nothing to beat the promise of a newly opened, blank Work document. Yeah, so it’s been a while, but I was busy. Also lazy. Mostly lazy.  I did get a job though. I haven’t actually started it yet, but I did get one. So that’s something.

For a while, I’ve wanted to take on the age-old question: which hurts more, period pains, or getting kicked in the balls. I will tell you here and now, it is period pains. The question used to be a kick to the balls, or childbirth. Ahahahaha, nice one, patriarchy. I’d like to see a man be kicked in the balls and end up screaming in agony for twelve hours, with a cocktail of drugs and the possibility of having to be cut open while still wide awake. We once asked our old English teacher what it was like to have a caesarean. “Horrible,” She said. “It feels like someone’s opened you up, and scooped out all of your organs, because all of the weight leaves so quickly. I felt empty. And in pain. There was a lot of blood.”

But we know how rubbish giving birth is. We can rant, and yell about it for hours. There have been books written about it, and it gets pretty decent coverage, media wise. We all know the image of a woman propped up in a hospital bed, dripping with sweat, screaming, with her BFF and her mother holding her legs in the air. We don’t talk about period pains. There’s no woman on telly, lying on the floor punching whatever’s nearby, while crying and swearing I the same breath. No book character has ever been forced to not go and punch the baddy because their legs age too much. And I’m pretty sure this is why men idiots people who have never experienced PMS think that it isn’t so bad, and white it off as women being hysterical. As was the case for any woman with a mental illness, until about sixty years ago.* No one ever talks about PMS, because we know that since it will simply happen again in two to three weeks time, we may as well just pop some pain killers and get on with it. However being kicked in the balls happened rarely, and only if you’re acting like an idiot, and therefore deserve it. Or if you play rugby, I suppose. I wouldn’t know, organised sport give me hives.

I was lucky enough to get a group of friends who do talk about period pain. This turned out to be amazingly useful:  one friend tends to throw up and faint around her time of the month. When it came to half seven in the morning, and I was just waking up on the kitchen floor so I could vomit again, I knew it was probably just PMS and there was no need to call an ambulance. When I opened my eyes, I could see the cat sitting next to my face, licking his paws. This is how I will die, I thought. With my cat waiting to eat my flesh. It was a cheerful day, all told.

There was a woman on twitter a few days ago, talking about the fact that she used to get nosebleeds at the same time as cramps. As well as smacking of poor biological wiring, it’s also not something generally caused by being kicked in the balls. Count yourselves lucky, dammit.

I think recently, however, we have got better at talking about the sheer, driving agony of PMS. And I hope we carry on. It may be a sore subject, but as with the state of the economy and Miley Cyrus’s career, it’s better if we talk about it. Last year while on holiday, I found myself face down on the sofa, physically unable to move from the pain. And my step brother made the noble decision to remain in the same room and talk to me. Which was nice, and also surprising. Which is why my little nugget of advice for now is to all those with a uterus: talk about it, have a cry but ultimately don’t let it stop you from being fierce. To all those without a uterus: be sympathetic without being patronising, and don’t act in a way that results in foot to genital contact. Idiots.

Sorry for the over-zealous use of italics. That’s a lie; I’m not sorry at all.

*Fun story – my great-great-Grandmother had eight children and an abusive husband. This led to her having mild depression, something that could be treated with bed rest and a divorce. Instead, she was locking in an asylum and accused of being mad, simply because she was unhappy with her home life. In the end, from what we know from her medical records, she died of influenza after she’d been there for several years, time which she spent crying and begging to go home, until she did eventually go mad. Moral of the story: women know when shit’s going down, and accusing them of lying/being hysterical/attention seeking LEADS TO BAD THINGS.

I’ll see ya’ll soon. I’ve got a lot of stuff left to shout about.