Moving On…

Hey Everyone,

After some thought, I have decided that although I won’t delete it, I am unlikely to continue to contribute to this blog and instead focus all my energy into ClaireySweetie.

I set up Noifsnobuts following my need to put content out there that was different to my comments on advertising as found on over at The Passion Queen. At Christmas 2013 I found my needs changing again, I wanted to blog about beauty and on the whole, just more fun, more personal, lighthearted stuff. I find now that is where I want to stay and having three blogs is a bit much and something along the way suffers.

So, come on over to ClaireySweetie… it’s fun. I promise! x

Super Humans

Lately I find myself occasionally overwhelmed at human beings. Strange I know but from time to time I just look at something and think “wow, we’ve created this”. Let me explain…
The way we live now, the way we’ve adapted, developed and built everything to allow us to function the way we do, we’ve created ourselves. When Adam and Eve first walked on the earth (this is the easiest most universal theory to make the point about the beginning of time!) who knew that several million years later we could access any country in the world, venture into space…
Instead of just roaming and living all the same, like in the animal world a hierarchy was put in place to separate the common folk with the elite, we wanted ruling so a monarchy was established, then governments. We now have an enormous celebrity culture, we’ve even made celebrities of people for absolutely no reason what so ever but hey, we like fame! We recognise the good people and for the bad ones we created a criminal system where they get locked up and punished, some even fatally. We like possessions; we developed from trading items like fruit, vegetables and livestock (although I appreciate in some parts of the world this is still the case) to money and investing.
Consider transport, we had a problem, we needed to get places but our legs get tired, our feet sore and there was a limit to what we could carry. So we looked at what we had and figured out that we could ride horses, then we realised horses could pull things and more of us at a time. Then in due course we’ve created the motor car, the aeroplane, boats, and the railway and since then we’ve been crafting slicker, faster, more economic versions of them all. If you just for a moment stop and even just watch the motorway or stand in the middle of an airport or train station, ignoring the chaos, we still created it, all the systems and the ability to reach destinations across the world. Amazing really!
We invented the wheel for crying out loud! Something so unappreciated now but think of how different the world would be if an object as basic as that wasn’t formed but in equal measure imagine the breakthrough it created when it was!
Think about how much pleasure we get from something as silly as queuing! Man, we love a queue don’t we, particularly us British! Even though we complain when we’re stuck in one, I think we love the sense of order and control it brings. We respect that standing behind each other in a line waiting our turn is far more productive than fighting for space and attention.
We acknowledged the need and benefit of recording life and preserving things and making them available to see and read about in museums, books, diaries. We live in a culture where we now share and record EVERYTHING! But think, it’s all stored in cyber space so although it will never be lost, 21st century living won’t be found in museums in the same way we look at how the Victorians or Tudors lived. Life now is lived and experienced for today and more than ever it will be gone by tomorrow as we replace things too quickly and the things we share, capture and record are now mostly disposable moments.
Humans get sick and injure ourselves so we learnt medicine and created hospitals –places for the sick to come and get treated. This of course really is thinking about things on the most intricate basic level but this is what I mean, everything in place and how we function today is the result of many many years of development. None of it naturally just happened or appeared; we discovered a need and found a solution. We discovered a disease and found a cure.
I could go on and I am sure you guys can add to this (please do!), we humans are just bloody amazing creatures that need celebrating more than we spend time focussing on the negative sides of our nature.

Too Old for Disney?

My Boyfriend says I am too old for Disney, but I argue, you are never too old for Disney… the films that is.
I mean, talk to me and let me know your thoughts here. I love the films and I think there is nothing wrong with still, at 26 years old I can’t sit down for an afternoon and watch them, it’s a childhood escapism that I still find a lot of comfort in and I know that I am not alone. However, even as a child I never felt I particularly related to the Disney Princesses or felt I wanted to, I also never got swallowed up in the whole Prince Charming myth… I was always far too into horses to bother with boys until my mid-late teens so the charms of Aladdin and Eric were lost on me, the Disney horses however are a totally different story (swoon!).

What a beautiful handsome steed!

But, and this is where I could do with some opinions, I do think there is a line between it being perfectly acceptable to love everything about Disney and not. I know of a couple of young women, one in particular, who at nearing her mid-twenties is still obsessed by Disney –the films, characters, theme parks…Everything! and I do think that this borders on immature. Am I right? It’s a difficult line to balance along. But maybe it comes down to how much exposure you get as a child to Disney? For me, it was purely the films and the family collection consisted of Robin Hood, Jungle Book, Aristocats, Aladdin, Snow White, Fantasia and Dumbo (and maybe a couple of others?). The greats of Beauty & the Beast, Cinderella, the Little Mermaid, Bambi, Pocahontas, the Lion King and such like I have had to buy myself later but I remember feeling a little deprived of these at the time so the opportunity to watch them at friends’ houses was always taken. But Disney was always consumed within the films, nothing more. For others of course their experiences differed, aside from the films I had friends that were bought the dresses, went to the theme parks, and had the dolls and so on. Their own personal consumption and investment into the franchise was much broader. Dressing up is all part of child’s play so little girls transporting their young minds into princess make believe land is all part of the innocence of the time but that is where it should stay. However quite disturbingly, somewhere probably in America, parents are sending their sweethearts to Princess School. Yes, such a place does exist and we should all be very frightened of it!
“

Let it go, let it go, I can’t hold it back anymore, let it go, let it go, turn away and slam the door, I don’t care what they’re going to say (let the storm rage on, the cold never bothered anyway…)”

 
Oh to have the lungs of Idina Menzel!

 
I have never been fortunate to go to Disneyland even though I went through a massive Mickey Mouse phase when I was younger, I was never taken (deprived much, eh?) and it is a place whether in Florida and/or Paris, I would one day like to go. More so probably because I think it would be sad if I died and had never gone, I think it’s one of those places you just have to go to at some point in your lifetime and lose yourself in the fun of it all.

 
On a more serious note, I did look into Disney from an academic perspective while at Uni in my first year and the research proved quite eye opening with the hidden agendas and messages twisted into the song lyrics and stories (don’t believe me, check out YouTube) but equally, regardless of academia, am I not just more alert to this being an adult? We read into everything more deeply once we have left the realm of childhood, how many words that were once so innocent now have sexual connotations attached to them?! Point made.

 
Of course you can also delve into and question how white all the characters are, how sexualised the Princesses are, how even sometimes racist the characters can appear but for children they were/are invisible, if you take things at face value that’s how it is, you don’t notice them and why should you? Disney to most is this magical and innocent world and as long as it never bleeds into real life it can only but ever stay locked within animated escapism. So let’s just leave it in there.

When it gets too much, take a walk and write

 

 

It is a beautiful sunny day so I have left the house for a walk and to try and escape my current stresses and gain some perspective on my life. I feel stressed and although I would consider myself a glass half full person, I am going through a bit of a negative phase. There are a lot of things happening right now, mostly concerning the overnight sale of the flat I share with my boyfriend and now deciding where to live and embarking on purchasing our first house. Yes it’s incredibly exciting but I don’t feel I am really in control of everything and for a control freak, this is a bit of an emotional nightmare.

 

 

This month marks 7 years since I flew the family nest and I have come a long way –I moved out of comfy naïve Devon to the big smoke of London to work and train to be a dental nurse, I then had a 6 month gap to fill so I moved to Leeds to be closer to my then boyfriend that never introduced me to his family and work professionally as a dental nurse which by then I detested. 6 months later and I moved down to Bath to attend Uni and pursue my ambitions to work in communications. While doing a summer job at the end of my 2nd year, I met the man I will eventually marry and after Uni I moved to Hampshire to be with him and now… we’re about to move somewhere new, together. It’s no wonder really that although I feel I’ve seen and done a lot, I have no real connection to anywhere I have lived and still don’t. My best friend lives all the way down in Cornwall, my family are still in Devon and although I meet and make new friends everywhere, I still don’t have anyone (by anyone I mean female friends) I can consistently rely on to ‘hang out with.’ Ultimately it boils down to the fact that I am trying to integrate myself into people’s lives that are somewhat already too established to suddenly make room for me, and when I get in sight of achieving this, I up sticks and move away again!

 
Jeez I sound like I am whining and so hard done by! I’m not FYI, I’m just in a very reflective mood today and trying to make sense of my misery.

While I walk I can see signs that spring is on the way, a time of change. It’s exciting!

I can see the people, cars and cyclists passing me from time to time as I walk and giving me disapproving looks while I furiously tap out my thoughts on my phone thinking I am just another of those young people preoccupied with my cyber life than I am on my real one but if I wasn’t typing as I pace, you wouldn’t be reading this now and I my internal thoughts would be disappearing into the air and not into my blog. Maybe I should buy myself a Dictaphone… (*ponders this*)

 
Yesterday I scored a goal in hockey, my 3rd this season, my first since joining the club which is over 10 years since I last played hockey at secondary school! I know to the more established players three goals in a season is hardly anything to shout about but you know what, I am really proud of myself! I am proud that in one season I have developed and learnt enough to be a contributing member of the team during matches. But I don’t feel part of the team, I involve myself in the training, the matches and the socials but I don’t feel that if I suddenly left, I would be missed which is a shame as it’s a cracking little club.

 
Writing is such a good therapy. I am pretty useless at creative writing because although I am creative, I don’t have the vocabulary or an internal dictionary good enough to explain things in a more elaborative, descriptive and poetic detail. I just tell it like it is, the sky is blue, sometimes grey and all that and why whoever invented the blog needs knighting!

So you wanna know how I feel? This (*points above) is how I feel.

The Sad Truth of Consumerism

2014 is on the midnight horizon, the Christmas cake is still being finished and yet, following a quick trip to my local One Stop I saw this!

I mean seriously, what the hell is going on?! The uniqueness of events like Christmas and Easter have been ruined by this mental consumerism, everything hits the shops far too early and the focus and true meaning of these times of year are lost… they are not even religious anymore. Very sad.

Lavigne & I

When I was introduced to Avril (Lavigne) in 2002, it was complicated but she crashed into my life at a time when I needed some guidance, mostly with finding my own style, my own voice and something to hone my rebellious streak to. I was beginning to notice myself changing, I started being conscious of boys and how I appeared to others, I wanted to be different and exist on my own terms which at school was a struggle when they wanted you all uniformed and the same. It was this time that I discovered body piercings and black eyeliner…my school Loved me! Avril Lavigne sang songs about adolescence and female empowerment, I was hooked!

A year or two later, I was entering a dark place getting darker… I didn’t know why, but I was sad and felt that no one understood me. This is a common teenage feeling I know but this was darker, this was the D-word and it came and went for several years following. In 2004 Lavigne moved into a more gothic phase and style of fashion which I followed her into. Listening to Under My Skin in the car, Mum turned to me and commented that “this (Who Knows) was a good song” as tomorrow really is a brand new day. By writing an album anchoring her lyrics to a theme of a deep and personal kind, Avril had reached out to me. For the first time song lyrics really spoke to me and I was gripped with every word of every song for hours. I loved that album!

“Who knows what could happen,  Do what you do just keep on laughing, one thing’s true,  there’s always a brand new day.  I’m gonna live today like it’s my last day”

Seeing Avril Lavigne perform for the first time really was The Best Damn Thing! I was living in London now, in the big wide world on my own, still tipping on the scales between ok and not ok. I was growing up, learning who I was and trying desperately to shake away my feelings of insecurity and depression at the same time. The Best Damn Thing was a fun, care free album, perfect for what I needed. Watching her at the o2 squashed in a sea of fans, Avril asked us who had been with her from the start? I screamed “ME”! All those silly teeny boppers around me screamed too… Little liars! Avril was amazing, I wanted to be her. 

At least once in our lives, we lose a great love. Avril’s marriage to Deryck (Whibley) ended and my relationship of 4 years broke around the same time too. Goodbye Lullaby, Avril’s 4th record released in 2011, was a mixture of mourning and moving on… I was just over my last relationship and ready, finally to welcome in a new one. What the Hell was about letting go of single independence and becoming part of something else, something new, something mature.

 

So where am I now? It’s approaching the end of 2013 and I have become really proud of who I am and confident in my journey so far and where it is leading me… I haven’t been struck down with the D-word for a couple of years and everything is moving forward, if I was a singer, I think I too at this time would have a self titled album so it’s only right that Avril Lavigne does too, she’s earned it.

We’ve come a long way, her and I.

Don’t let me go, Avril. I hope your new record matches this 5th meeting of ours in exactly the same way as we always have.

Oh Bridget…

I know life is no fairy tale, and in many ways it’s refreshing that from time to time, we are presented with female characters that break up the happy ending with Prince Charming. I’ll admit, I love a good rom com but now and again you need something that you can relate to.

I was a mere teenager when I first encountered Bridget Jones on screen therefore I just found her funny, but I too was a diary keeper so I related on that front. My second encounter with Bridget I was still a teen and still writing diaries but I just found her frustrating, it was in many ways good to be shown that even when you’ve found your Darcy it doesn’t mean a perfect relationship follows… But seriously, 30 something women with life still all a fluster do nothing for me. I like aspirational viewing, I like watching their journey but at 30 they need to have their shit together.

Now I’m in my mid-twenties and Bridget is back so I hear. I am saddened at the death of Mark Darcy… Primarily this means that if a film is created Colin Firth won’t have much screen time if any (of course I’m kidding, that’s not the reason) but in all seriousness, we saw Bridget as a frustrated chain smoking singleton, then we saw her sort of in a relationship, sort of single…Now we will meet her widowed, with 2 children and dating a 30 year old called Roxster?! Is her whole life just sad?

I am not having a dig at Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones is her creation, she knows Bridget better that anyone else and there will be a reason she feels the need to revisit her. To be completely honest, if meeting Bridget again and her life wasn’t still a bit of a fuck up… We’d be disappointed…. Wouldn’t we?

Rabbit Looking at the Moon

This is my latest masterpiece…

“The moon is an auspicious sign to have as a Rabbit. When the Chinese look at the Full Moon, they see a Rabbit grinding the Pill of Immortality”

This painting is an amalgamation of two things, a tattoo design (my own, not yet inked) and the ‘Rabbit looking at the Moon’ -in the Chinese horoscope I am born in the year of the Rabbit, but more specifically, Rabbit Looking At The Moon.

“You are associated with strength of character and endurance. People tend to trust you implicitly, and look up to you. Using all your skills, you do your job thoroughly” 

The tattoo design incorporated the word ‘family’ within the circle of a tree which represented the circle of trust and symbols of unity. Here, I have still used the tree to shape the painting and still embedded the word family within it… the rabbit still looks at the moon.

 

In many respects, this painting then, is about me. I am the rabbit and I do interestingly, find the moon both to be something I am drawn to as well as find it to be a very calming influence. which is why the Chinese ‘Rabbit looking at the Moon’ works so well, representing my literal enjoyment, of looking at the moon. I care greatly about my family, they are something that provide me with security but equally something I feel I have to secure myself which is why I have painted it both within and partly underneath the tree.

The painting in many respects was painted without much thought as initially it was that idea of combining the two ideas, its only upon completion have I looked at it critically and made my own interpretations of why I have laid it out the way I have. For instance, the quote earlier about my character… “People tend to trust you implicitly, and look up to you” -I have painted the Rabbit on top of the word ‘Family’ but yet the tree still towers over…. I’ll leave the rest up to you.

 

Embrace the Rain

It amazes me how in this country we have yet to fully embrace the rain. Just think, imagine if the catwalk and the great fashion houses had their own S/S & A/W wet weather clothing lines? Our attitude to the rain would be completely different, particularly if it gave us the chance to wear our new Louboutin wellingtons!

I Didn’t Look Like That…

Call me old-fashioned, but since when did children dress like this? …Why are we making them so image conscious so young?