Maybe Yes, Maybe No, May Be Crepey

[QueenQueenie]

Unilateral decision... No space for consultation. Call me Dave...

I am going out tonight to achingly trendy venue in Shoreditch. AIBU to wear frumpy Boden frock with Birkenstocks and navy linen jeans jacket stylee on top? Am going out with Successful Friend (who it transpires works most evenings in a pub, so I am thinking, can't be that successful then?).

DP will make an excellent grandfather. Especially to grandsons. He is one of four boys and it's very obvious that he adores being with my nephews - the Inferiorettes and I always tease him about it and he denies it but it's true. I think he feels a little...bewildered by teenage girls.

Mind you he's equally adoring of DSis's dogs.

WAF, a novelist I shouldered my way into knowing know says she often tells her creative writing students to Cut The Beginning. Obviously I haven't taken her advice, but I do take the point that one has to grab the reader immediately. Agents tend to say that it's the first few pages that really matter.

I do find this hard as have a sort of prologuey thing to my own Effusion.

I had a terrible hairdresser who I loyally stuck with for far too long. When I saw her, enormously pregnant with ds1, hoping for a decent last haircut the right side of childbirth, she spent an hour telling me how much she hated babies and 101 horror stories of her family / friends / acquaintances and their birth stories. I never went back and have had fab hairdresser for last 18 years...

Hi Chibi - will hunt for your scribbled out face in a bit. Make yourself at home...

Bloody mothers and their passive aggressive comments. Mine used to say things like that about what I was wearing... "Is that skirt meant to look like that?" or "Is that colour fashionable then?" etc. etc. Grrrrr.

WAF - I want to read your book! Will PM you if I'm not too late...

Laters...

My parents avoid discussing haircuts as they are Wrong. Women should have Long Hair. It is part of the way Women Should Be Traditional Indian Women, and should also be stunningly beautiful but natural and unadorned - none of this nasty makeup or hairdye stuff; while at the same time valuing intellect far above beauty. Intellect without effort mind. Striving is declasse.

Yes! Yes! I always used to get "Who do you think is going to look at you anyway?" She said this when I was trying on my wedding dress, and the woman who owned the shop was like this: She then went on to say "Well it doesn't really matter what you wear, because people always say the bride looks lovely, even if she looks a right mess."

I had a rather nice haircut the day I gave birth to DD2. (Before, that is. Came home, was actually doodling around on MN and my waters went. Posters were taking bets on when I'd deliver.)

I Take your point MI but I would have loved long hair - I always had to have it short.

I remember whenever I tried makeup, DF who is a doc would say "you look like your suffering from (insert appropriate disease)". I am actually grateful to him for steering me away from green eye-shadow though.

I was never allowed a fringe, as they are common. Apparently.

Now of course I have a fringe. Partly as it hides my monkey-style hairline, and partly because it's cheaper than botox.

In desperate need of a haircut, as I haven't had it done since January. However, until I come into a) time and b) £35, I'm going to have to keep hacking at it myself with the hairdressing scissors.

I may solve the money problem by flogging a few of my coats. There's one khaki lightweight jacket that looks v cool, but is utterly useless. It's too thin to wear against the skin, as it seems to suck any warmth away, and is not remotely waterproof. Still feel loath to part with it, however.

Hatty, Rod Stewart was one of my first crushes (aged about 10). I also had a Rod haircut

I also had about 20 years of not going to a hairdresser as I had long hair and could get a friend to trim it (do the same for DD now!) Your parents would have loved it MI

BTM - everybody seemed to fancy him except me!

You're not alone Hatty.. not a Rod fan... in fact YUK.
Marc Bolan for me

MI, hmmm. Would it help to chop chunks out of the estate agent bit? Does getting Joyce back go on? At what point do you think, 'ah, now we're motoring.'

Sorry everyone. I will set up a thread for me boook.

Adios amigos I'm walking through the park to meet my bestie and have a meal. Happiness is mine.

My assignment is shit. While it only has to scrape a pass, the point at which it can limp over that line is still unknown.

I had very short hair as a child (hairdresser told my mother this would help thicken it up - rolls eyes) then long, then shoulder length bob, then very very short and shaved up the back my mother nearly died....

Short ever since and stopped commenting about 20 years ago... And as the crepeys who have met me know - grey

Marc Bolan went to my school.

Mick Jagger, Bowie and .....David Cassidy over here although not reflected in my hairstyles.
DM hacked off my thick long hair because me and Dsis screamed too much when she brushed it. We had crops and they were horrible.

DM on hair when I grew up....

DM oh you've had your hair cut
Me yes
DM ( pauses) ......ah......very with it.

Donovan bought our old house for his parents. That is my only early 70s hair-based rock claim to fame.

Herbs I am betting your assignment is very much not shite....

I'm trying to analyse a learner's reading at word, sentence and text level, without any access to reference books or seemingly any lecture notes.

I've now been at it for seven hours. I might go and treat myself and mow the lawn.

Er - are all the crepeys writing books? (inferiority complex growing by the minute).

Rose! More Marc based info please...

Bloody Hell Herbs that sounds v difficult... are you meant to have textbooks / notes? Can you wheedle some help from fellow sufferers on your course? Respect re Donovan claim to fame

Fret not Hatty. No books here...

Sadly he was a few years ahead of me QQ .....just know by reputation. Gorgeous man...so ahead of his time.

There weren't any books recommended for this bit, oddly, and the lecture notes are sparse. I think I may now move on to her speaking, which is more fruitful...

I wrote a book once. And then burnt it, along with 10 years' worth of dreadful diaries and excruciating poetry (damn good bonfire). It was a frightful pile of tosh and I have never written anything since. Except for 15 years of GIGO on the work front.

Thanks for the sympathy re: dd. She now tells me she will always tell me 'everything'. Ha. There was a deal of unnecessary lying and shifty behaviour involved in the night in the field episode. Completely ridiculous, because as far as I'm concerned, if she wants to sleep in a tent in a field with her friends, it's entirely fine as long as she tells me first. Anyway, we have now moved on to the next challenge, with her announcing that she has a 'date' on Friday and that her beau is coming to pick her up in his CAR. Aaargh. AIBU to say that I have to at least cast my eyes over this personage before waving her off? Allegedly he is at her school. Why can't everybody be a poor sixth former like in Ye Olden Days and not have cars? Whyyyyyy? I do not need more stuff to worry about.

I used to live near the tree where Marc Bolan met his unfortunate end. I cannot for the life of me think why anyone would find any of the 70s popsters mentioned remotely attractive. I must have been an extra-late developer as they just all seemed like ridiculous old men to me when I was 10. Rod Stewart? Bleargh. Jagger, eeee nooo. Bowie, ugh, creepy.

Hair. Hmm, my hairdresser tells me repeatedly that I have "difficult hair". I have tried a great many different hairdressers over the years, ranging in price from shockingly expensive to vv cheap. And none of them ever seem to be able to make me look anything other than rather silly, so maybe my latest hairdresser is right. I think I should just give up and wear a swimming hat all the time. It won't look much more daft than the wonky brillo-ish arrangement I am currently sporting.

Herbs, I feel your pain. I have spent a great deal of time doing reading error analysis this year and I'm still a bit about it.

Welcome chibi! I have had every hair style, and most of the colours, under the sun. I could put up a raft of pictures that would test the crepeys' pelvic floors for weeks to come. Remember when Patsy Kensit had a weird half fringe (or bangs as they were called in my house, which is probably even more common, eh Herbs?) thing going on? I had it going on too. Along with Lady Di, Rachel from Friends, a number of ill-advised perms and a part shaved style that was modelled on Harold Larwood's haircut in the 80's tv series Bodyline. It's a very, very good thing that hair grows - and at least it's summer now and hair will grow faster.

NU - you're right about the grandchildren, although if I am ever lucky enough to be presented with one, I will weep with slightly hysterical joy for the first 2 years of its life, and make any DIL or SIL look permanently like this . I may also try to steal it.