wendy house

Life changing events aren’t always as easy to recognize as a birth or death. Here are two of many significant moments who’s significance I didn’t realise at the time:

• Fat. Boyfriend told me that I shouldn’t order that peace of cheesecake because I was fat (5″6, 7 stone 6lbs). I was used to him calling me fat, I’d always assumed it was his wry sense of humour because I so clearly wasn’t fat. His best friend’s wife overheard his comment and treated it as if it was genuine. She passionately told him off for being irresponsible, called me borderline anorexic and that I should be encouraged to eat rather than starve myself. He squirmed, he didn’t claim to be joking. I realised that he actually meant it. From that moment onwards I questioned my interpretation of his humour and began to see that he was a rather mean spirited person. It was the beginning of the end of our relationship.
• Stupid. I asked my ‘A’ level maths teacher for help interpreting an applied maths question. I showed him the diagram of forces acting on a ladder that I’d drawn to try and help. He pulled my workbook from me, held it up to the rest of the class (all male) and said “this is the type of diagram I’d expect from a female“. I was humiliated and really upset by this aggressive demeaning act from a teacher I’d asked for help. With unusual focus I said “If you make one more sexist remark I’m leaving because they’re not helping“. He replied with “Typical emotional outbust from a female“. I walked out of the class in tears. Later that evening my parents took me aside and told me that the headmaster had phoned them to tell them that I’d been upsetting my maths teacher and creating scenes. It was the moment that I realised that adult men in influential positions will construct situations to demean and disable women merely because they are women. Before then I’d been discriminated against but never in an overtly malicious manner. That no one stood-up to ask me what happened or defend me was also a big eye-opener. This one event lead to a series of follow-on significant events including my getting a grade A mathematics A level, and a science based PhD. Ironically it was my need to prove, to myself, that I wasn’t the stupid person that some influential people declared me to be.

Being called fat, and, or stupid doesn’t seem like a big deal. but it’s unhelpful and mean spirited.

Be helpful, not mean.

I have a rather loud laugh.

It’s a house family trait. My laugh is demure compared to my brothers. Bros 57 can silence a large noisy pub with one lashing of his laughter, his style is somewhat reminiscent of Jimmy Carr – with more volume:

I love my loud laugh. Not everyone does:

• In cinemas people will tap my on the shoulder and ask me to keep the noise down. Have you every tried to down-volume your laugh? I don’t even bother to try, I apologise for disrupting their enjoyment then continue with my own, unabashed, feeling pity for them that they can’t enjoy my laughter.
• In restaurants peers have asked me to keep the noise down because I’m disrupting the enjoyment of people at other tables and drawing attention to our table. Again, I’ll apologise and wonder at how these people can feel such a strong need to ask me to conform with a perceived need to be seen, but not heard enjoying yourself.
• A lady in the office next door came round to complain that she couldn’t hear her telephone conversation when I was laughing. I apologised for the noise level and suggested that she consider investing in a headset.

I was regularly asked to be THE AUDIENCE for full dress rehearsals by a Theatre company. Free theatre! My laugh was big enough for me to mimic a whole audience! The actors were able to adjust their timing to deal with likely audience noise levels.

One friend commented on how she envied my ability to laugh so genuinely, so unaffected by the people around me. How sad that her happiness was stifled by her respect for other people’s right to be not-offended by it. People who ask other people to moderate their laughter volume are to be pitied.  I do try to moderate when I laugh to be socially acceptable, but not the volume….

Ear-bashing happiness or hand-muffled silence

I’ll be 50 in November

I’m celebrating by doing something that would have inspired me as a teenager:  Driving the original Route 66 in a convertible. Flights and car booked today. Before the internet existed, I purchased paper versions of original maps. Finally, I’ll get to use them!

Friends will be meeting me before the journey, travelling part of the journey with me, and afterwards celebrating in my old home town of Seattle.  Finding a convertible to rent in Chicago, in late October, is not an easy task. So there’s already been some hard work and I’ve compromised. No Mustang…..

EXCITED levels are vibrating towards amber

Between now and October I’m collecting potential sights and stops on a Pinterest board: http://pinterest.com/thewendyhouse/route-66/

Being wendy, I’ll be visiting train stations, Bus stations, Cemeteries and Court houses along the way.  Please suggest unusual places to visit en-route.

I’ve got a bed fellow that responds to temperature changes while I sleep.

I’m not alone in seeking out something more substantially hot in bed than a hot water bottle. The online product reviews were posted by people over 55 years old – it’s better than their last electric blanket, it’s the best electric blanket they’ve ever owned. …ooOOoo…

It’s sold out online. I take ‘please me now’ action and walk to the local store. Yes. Satisfaction. My first ever electric blanket joins the single-skin brick wendy house. My bed has become cosy incorporated.

Retail manager (1989-1991) aka ‘Saturday girl’

This job helped to top-up my PhD grant while I was studying full time. I was the only employee of an antiques clothes shop. Having a Saturday girl meant that Val, the owner, could have a day off.

My Saturdays were spent ironing, mending and making adjustments to antique clothes, then doing the weekly accounts at the end of the day. We didn’t have a till. We had a metal box with a key. I used a paper pad with a pen and a ruler to list items sold and write and sign receipts.  Despite the overhead of all this writing at the point of sale, cashing up didn’t take long. There weren’t many sales. Look how neat the shop rails are – a sure sign of very few customers!:

It was fun when we had a customer!

They would see my genuine joy when they came into the tiny shop.  I’d look up from the sewing machine or ironing board, welcome them, offer them a cup of tea, then go back to whatever I was doing – if they clearly wanted to browse alone.

Some people would happily chat about the styles and period clothes they liked, asking questions about the clothes and the business. Some customers asked for jobs – as I had once done. All our few customers stayed a long time browsing. Some customers would travel long distances, over 50 miles, to visit us because of our unique and interesting stock. I like to think our friendly style also helped.

If customers were actually thinking of buying something, and it didn’t fit, I’d fit them for adjustments – pin the clothes – agree a price. I could make the changes on the spot in the shop while they browsed further and drank tea. Lovely. I loved the shop and the job. We had some customers that came in every Saturday, they were more like friends. I’d been a Saturday customer before I got the job.  It was having tea with Val and talking to her about her stock and business that had lead to my getting the job, I’d persuaded Val to employ me.

At 5.15pm Val would roll in to cash up for the week and get the weeks takings to the bank. She’d pour two large glasses of white wine, bring out an ash tray, and light a  cigarette. That’s Val sat infront of the sewing machine waving her fag at me.

With the shop closed I’d do the paper accounts for the weeks takings in the notebook. Not part of my job, but Val said she wasn’t very good at adding-up numbers which was all that I had to do. Easy.

As I counted the cash and checked it against the notes for the week Val would enlighten a 26 year old me with her 36 years of life wisdom. This wisdom mainly involved different ways of taking revenge against the married men she’d had affairs with. They were juicey stories and quite shocking to think she actually did those things. She explained that these men were responsible for ruining her life by lying to her about their intentions to leave their wives, that kind of behaviour needed severe punishment and she delivered it.

I made a couple of mental notes:

1. Know lovers for who they are, rather than what I want them to be….
2. Don’t upset Val, she’s capable of pure evil

Very long sentence – take a deep breath:

Having fabulous pyjamas makes getting out of bed easier because I can just literally roll out of bed and walk downstairs without actually having to faff around looking for something to make me look vaguely decent incase someone catches a glmpse of me through a window or knocks on the door.

Long sentence:

Having fabulous pyjamas makes leaving the house more difficuult – because I should wash and put on clean clothes before leaving the house.

Medium length sentence:

4pm and still in my PJs, either I’m aging prematurely or rediscovering my inner teens.

 Short sentence:

Thankyou

Recently I was asked a favour by an acquaintance. Our mutual friends had recommended she ask me. They think I have ‘Integrity‘, so she could trust me to do as I say.  Should I be more flattered by this direction or more concerned at the number of people that weren’t recommended for having integrity.

Wikipedia describes integrity as:

the inner sense of “wholeness” deriving from qualities such as honesty and consistency of character. As such, one may judge that others “have integrity” to the extent that they act according to the values, beliefs and principles they claim to hold

Well this explains why I’m happy being single, I’ve already got an inner sense of wholeness!

During commuter time, even in London, it is possible to be alone in public

When I stepped into this empty circle line carriage at 08.45am I felt like singing. So I did! No-one smirked, No-one shook their head, no-one asked me to stop screeching.

No-one joined in. I did’t feel embarrassed because  I’m not a talented or even accurate vocalist

When there’s no audience in the room – I’m an extrovert

I normally choose to be in a place with few, or no, people present – does that make me an introvert?

If I tell my friends that I’m an introvert they disagree.  They describe things I do that are typical of an extrovert. Things that I don’t actually enjoy or find easy. I’m an introvert who can do extrovert things when the occasion requires. Happily living alone, spending many nights in, is probably the biggest indicator that I’m an introvert at heart

I got my wish – no surgery!

I’m normal (Clinical diagnosis)

The route to this radical, yet  insightful, diagnosis required a hospital referal to get a clinical consultants’ opinion. A medical second opinion. That’s a verified, safe, judgement.  I suspect that my waving an unused sanitary towel at the consultant did the trick! What could be more normal in a maternity department? Waving unused sanitary towels is probably a daily occurence

Normal

service is resumed

Once the joy of the tinkling bells had worn off I looked towards the end of the isle. Mum and dad weren’t there

It wasn’t fair, they could walk fast or slow. Slow was the only speed I could walk. Slow or running.  They always walked fast, I had to run, whizzing passed so many fascinating things. I’d only taken a moment to listen to the bells while mum and dad wandered off.

I ran to the end of the isle, glancing both ways then looked down every isle. From a safe distance, I even checked the escalators. No mum, dad or brothers. I hadn’t got lost. I know where I am. They are lost.  Welling tears were barely held by remembering mums’ instructions

‘what to do when you are lost’

1. stay in the last place that you saw mum, dad, your brothers or school teacher
2. do not talk to strangers
3. talk to a policeman and they will help you find mum and dad

Standing by the silent bells, soggy red-faced, I wondered if mum and dad were also staying in the last place they saw me, not talking to strangers. People were watching me and talking to each other. A lady bent down and asked if I was alright. I tried so very hard to follow rule 2, not talking to this stranger. It tooks seconds for me to fail. Mucus spluttered

I’ve lost my mummy!

Why did everyone seem so calm? Why weren’t they crying too? My friends and I always cried together. Maybe these strangers were going to take me away to an orphanage and I’d never see mum and dad again. The lady leant forward to grab me.  I scrambled out of her reach towards the bells, crying louder in the hope that someone would join in.

Wearing her angry face, Mum appeared at the end of the isle to rescue me. When angry, she walks faster. I ran all the way home trying to slow mum by singing  I want to hold your hand.

scribble inspired by Nick’s recent musings on lost children

Can you improve Cemetery Junction?

Is it so gorgeous that any changes are more likely to ruin its existing gorgeousity?

Is it so icky that people have given up hope of being able to improve it without first obliterating it?

The question raises all sorts of emotionally charged, creative, cynical, optimistic, pragmatic and other reactions from people who live near, or pass through, the infamous local junction of the A4 (London Road) and A329 (Kings/Wokingham Road).

A local councilor, Rob White, is working with local action groups to improve the Cemetery Junction area. At the moment he’s consulting with locals. The co-op has a big cardboard suggestions box decorated with a collage of magazine pictures of pretty things. Excellent stuff. It made me feel like being back at school where having a go was important, encouraged and easy.

I’m loving the humour and creativity evident in this summary of suggestions to improve cemetery junction made on a ‘Get Reading’ news article:

• i’m thinking giant dinosaurs
• how about a cinema or a roller disco?
• Napalm
• Make it a spooky theme park
• How about a monorail?
• A small tactical thermo-nuclear device
• Bit of paint and a clean should do it….or if you really wanna prettify it, hanging baskets
• An underpass
• make a big roundabout where resturant is
• Nuke the site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure
• re-install the gallows that used to stand on the site now occupied by The Granby? It might act as a deterrent to the hoodies and wannbie gangsters in that area
• What about an H Bomb?
• Prevent shop keepers and traders from parking cars and vans on the pavements
• The overhanging bushes on the London Rd side need trimming… …new paving and signage
• can’t be improved – its a dead loss
• A Tesco supermarket each side of the road, with a couple of Tesco Expresses sprinkled around Liverpool and Cholmeley Roads
• big ornamental archway would brighten up the area considerably
• Give me some explosives and a bulldozer and Ill give you instant results. Guaranteed
• Zombie Apocalypse

charming friend #1:  that’s a nice neckscarf

wendy: it doubles as a hankerchief for sneeze emergencies or magic tricks

charming friend #2: I thought it was hiding a hickie

wendy: (raucous loud laughter, trying to dispel the hickie myth before rumours take flight)

wendy: tomorrow I will be Audrey Hepburn all day!

friend:  why? have I missed something?

wendy: you haven’t missed anything, it’s a random act of quirkiness

friend: Ah, your speciality

Facebook suggests that I, or my baby (???!), should learn to type and get a part time job.

Facebook knows my age, gender, relatives on face book (parents, siblings, cousins, nieces), apps I’ve installed and the advertisments I’ve dismissed because they were either ‘uninteresting‘ or ‘offensive‘ (e.g. Make-up, diet, cosmetic surgery, high-healed shoes). Facebook does not know about my schooling or employment.

What do you think? Should I give up my FT, rewarding job, have a baby, and get a part-time typing job working from home?

Visitors to earth from planet Wendy see the marketing of high healed shoes as institutionalised violence, targeting females. For some inexplicable reason hobbling, the risk of broken ankles, is an attractive female characteristic.

Women are the only exploited group in history to have been idealized into powerlessness.

Erica Jong

The majority of females are complicit in perpetuating this violence. Visitors from planet Wendy are baffled by this complicity. Visitors keep their befuddlement under their stylish hats lest they cause offense, identifying themselves as targets for the near ubiquitous, rigorous enforcement regime.

What shoes should I wear to demonstrate my lack of complicity without attracting non-compliance social penalties?  My tastes rarely coincide with high street fashion. My criteria for yesterday’s shoe purchase trip, in priority order, were

• must not introduce a risk of bodily injury when walking – I can fall over without artificial aides.
• comfortable – definitely bouncy soles and soft uppers
• can be worn to walk 4 miles per day on sidewalks and in buildings
• please or amuse members of the public, work colleagues and clients when I wear them to work
• give the impression that I’ve dressed-up a bit for a trip to the Theatre, Garden or Dinner party
• colour should sort-of go with some of the clothes I already own. A fairly open criteria favouring blue, black, grey, brown, white and orange.

I’ve wanted a pair of red shiny, low-heal, soft soled shoes ever since I first read the Wizard of Oz. This pair of Kansas hoppers closed the deal in the time it took to try them on. I only visted 2 shops, RESULT!  All my criteria filled and MORE!

Waiting decades before finally meeting these shoes adds a special relish to our union

Unwrap the Edam, the cheese is on me!

In my valiant steps to curb my consumerism, mend my waywardness, I partake of old-fashioned passtimes such as darning socks and spurious knitwear. Mumsie taught me how to darn. Darning wasn’t a syllabus item on the compulsory (for females) Home Economics course provided by Chipping Sodbury Comprehensive school. A lot of useful home economics were omitted from my Home Economics education. It wasn’t comprehensive by any stretch of the imagination.

Recently I’ve added ‘Brickette‘ making to my many economic home skills. Here’s the recipe

1. Borrow a brickette maker (I failed at this first step – I bought one)
2. Use a large (not plastic) bag to collect the shreddings from the confidential document shredder at work.
3. Empty the shreddings into a large waterpoof container (Bucket!)
4. fill the bucket with wate
5. Leave the shreddings to soak for 3 days
6. Scoop the soggy shredded paper from the bucket into the bricket maker and squish into a brickette
7. Leave the soggy brickette in the sun tor dry-out. I’ve placed my first brick in my log-store

Three days to make one brick. I only have one bucket. I wonder how many bricks I’ll be able to make this summer? I wonder how well they’ll work as fuel on the woodburner. Apparantly it is possible to make brickettes from tea bags…

Ostara, in the form of a hare is cohorting around the garden today, delighting the local adult children (Sampo and I) celebrating the shift from more than 12 hours of night to more than 12 hours of daylight.

With a clear view of the sky, in the Wendy House orangerie, the circular dining table has taken the role of an altar dressed in green cloth, laid with candles, flowers, seeds, pen and paper. Drinking large mugs of hot spiced apple juice from the caldron on the woodburner. Yummy. In a small celebration we’ve danced a clockwise circle round the table, written our hopes and desires on the paper, burnt the paper. Tomorrow I’ll put the ashes in the garden, plant the seeds where the growing daylight will nourish and draw them towards the sky

That’s the vernal equinox described in story form. The focus is on the people words that draw images and emotions, describing what people do and how they do it. This writing style is traditionally the domain  and humanities.

I find the scientific style of writing which often deliberately excludes explicit reference to people and beliefs fascinating in itself. Some ‘social sciences’ have included people by treating them as the objects to be studied, for example psychology that conducts research with human participants (not called people) and produces research papers written in the scientific tradition of the passive 3rd person. Wikipedia articles are examples of writing in the 3rd person passive, which I understand as core to the current scientific style. Wikipedia describes the vernal equinox in detail.

Here’s a few things I found out written in a more scientific style:

The word “vernal” is of Latin origin and refers to the season – spring. The word “equinox” is another word of Latin origin that means “equal night”. The vernal Equinox is a time when day and night are of nearly equal length, 12 hours, across the world. Today is the March equinox, which is the vernal equinox in the northern hemisphere and the autumnal equinox in the southern hemisphere.

Sometimes the everyday barrage of pressure to conform to gender-stereotype through jokes, advertisements, news, and everyday conversation, that re-affirm the female role as

• trivial
• survile
• productised
• dehumanised

gets me down

This sea shanty by the outstandingly talented ‘the Decemberists‘ can lift my mood, let me sing and dance, let me hope for the some form of justice. Though in reality I doubt such a well established system of abuse as the Patriarchy has developed will change for the better in my lifetime, at the moment things seem to be getting worse

The Decemberists sang the Mariners revenge

Every morning when I leave the Wendy House a tiny spider attempts to stop me. The Wendy House residents love me so much they want me to stay there

After a couple of mornings eating spider’s web for breakfast-desert I’m begining to warm to the idea of joining the residents. Succumbing to their desire to keep me home

Life pace in the Wendy House is enticingly in tune with my heart

Miss interpretting and spelling written words is one of my innate talents. Context, together with how the word sounds in my head normally helps me get things right

Sometimes I use the wrong context. Here in the fabulous Jackson’s I was thinking about ‘Austerity’ when I read this sign. I read Boys School Uniform Debt and assumed it was some form of financing offer to help parents avoid getting into dept when buying school uniforms for their boys.

It sounded plausible to me….

Popular conversational topics #6: hair changes

girlfriend: what have you done to your hair?

wendy: what looks different?

girlfriend: it looks longer

wendy: I’ve grown it?

I’ve had over 6 conversations of this ilk in the last 2 weeks

It’s as-if my hair length has recently passed some plateau that shifts peoples’ perception of it from not-long, to long

Here we see evidence of my attempting to befuddly my niece with battiness. It is my firm belief that aunties were invented to introduce befuddlement into the lives of their relationshions and I’ve never been one to shirk such a valuable social responsibility.

I wonder what a cool 18 yr old will do with such a letter, assuming she can read my rather degraded handwriting. Handwriting was never one of my strengths, Western writing was designed to favour the right-handed.
At junior school (age 10) I was taught cursive writing using a fountain pen. I’ve never really been motivated to master the rather boring script style taught in school, now I’m thinking of trying to learn Bickham script.  Bickham is more legible than the secretary hand, a script popular in 17th Century Britain, and bears a reasonably strong resemblance to my current scrawl of idiosyncratic and inconsistent style.

The corner shop, the post-office, both still sell writing paper. Lined writing paper. No letter-writting paper. No Basildon Bond. I should not have been suprised, the demand for letter-writting paper must have waned with the growth of the internet as a way to communicate with remote friends. In the 80′s I had a collection of different letter writting papers, varied colours, varied sizes and some with subtle water-colour marks. I didn’t use Basildon bond, it was too boring for the many letters that I wrote. Often I would write four or five letters a day. Not so now.

It was a real treat to buy myself a Parker fountain pen, letter-writting pad and envelopes. Now I just need to find my friends’ physical addresses….

By the time I came along mumsie was a skilled child-manipulating propaganda machine. She’d gathered tips and tricks from other parents, Dr. Spock, and refined her practice on my elder brothers

Whenever we left the house mumsie always carried paper and coloured pencils. If I was cheeky enough to declare that I was bored Mumsie would remind me that:

• only stupid people couldn’t entertain themselves
• I should have bought something with me to make sure i didn’t get bored
• she had paper and coloured pencils if I hadn’t bothered to bring anything

I don’t remember the last time I was bored or even what being bored actually feels like.  Mumsie gave me the lifelong gift of being able to entertain myself, anywhere. 

Alas, along the way I picked up my own intolerance of others that lack this gift.

Why I love England #15:  ‘peeling church bells

Seattle Sunday and Saturday felt interchangeable. The main percievable difference was that Saturday night heralded a sleep-in while Sunday night heralded the start of the working week. Saturday and Sunday were both filled with open, buzzing, malls, bowling alleys, ski-slopes and roads. Returning to England returned my beautiful Sundays.

English Sundays start well with a warm, naturally slow, awakening. Things just keep getting better from there. Whether sunshine, rain, fog, drizzle… going out in it or staying in, the choice is mine and the doing is free from shopping. Then comes the distant peal of church bells. Sunday gives time to be with beautiful people; to do nothing or something. Perhaps a spot of painting, a walk in the park, pull weeds from the garden, talk, listen.

On colder days a log fire fills the house with the gentle scent of warm woodsmoke, the clicking of the Stove as it warms, the sparking of logs and roaring of flames.  Lashings of tea, Sunday lunch followed by lashings more tea.

An evening amble to a pub quiz, real ale, laughter, debates and arguments in the company of friends.

Sunday draws to a close with me all wrapped up in sweet smell of fresh laundry and crisp, silence, of the white cotton sheets. They engulf me as I contentedly fall into deep sleep.

feeling compelled to share my experience I’ll ask

• have you tried this…
• do you know about that…

Asking before I’ve heard all the story. Not finding out all the twists and turns in the story as the teller may find it. Not giving full space for the storyteller to explore and reflect at their own pace, in thier own perspective, which is so much more full of more relevant feeling and being.

The story may be about a problem, but the telling of the story may be all that is needed. No solution sought, just the time and empathy of the listener.

Sometimes it’s difficult to remember that even pragmatic advice may not be of real benefit, it may even detract from the real value of talking around the problem.

• walnut and carrot cake
• Peanut butter
• wendy house kitchen
• wendy house bed sheets
• wendy house

All my adult life I’ve popped into restaurants, cafes, bars without being accompanited by another person.  yes, ALONE.  Iet out in public alone.  Somehow I’d managed to miss that this is not something people easily do.

Then Mr. London Street wrote a blog post encouraging his readership to eat alone. He mentioned that this doesn’t instantly appeal and may be stigmatised. At first I was baffled. What is this stigma? Why would someone not want to eat in a restaurant alone?  I thought, poor chap I wonder what is wrong with him to make him think and feel like that.  Then his readers comments showed he was describing something they recognised and understood.  A shared experience for many, though not all, of them.   

If eating alone in restaurants was once difficult for me, I’ve forgotten it. I have noticed how being a lone customer in a restaurant has changed over the decades. In the early 1990′s staff would show me to a seat out of sight, towards the back of the restaurant. As if a woman eating alone in a restaurant was indeed stigmatised.  In those days, with my mobile phone, book, and note pad I was happy with good light, good food and some table space for sketching. Now, in the naughties, I am more often seated near the window, as if the sight of a single woman eating in their restaurant is a positive thing.  Still happy with my notepad, handheld, book and now with a digital camera.

I drop by Mr. London St‘s blog occassionally because his writing appears to tap into something that his readers empathise with and admire. He lives in Reading town, but not in the same place I live.  He often writes things that his commenters empathise with, but I don’t. Consequently, his writing often makes me feel unique, even special. 

Excellent.

Everywhere there are uniforms. Uniforms for

• Empowered girliness – high heels, short skirt, proudly displayed cleavage
• IT safe corporateness – khaki cargo pants, branded baggy t-shirt
• London tube commuter - black and grey tailored and ironed outfits
• Healthy person - fleece, neoprene, goretex jackets and bouncy footwear
• Cyclist – lycra overdose, wrap-around glasses, go-faster helmet
• …..

There’s rarely an instruction manual for these uniforms. Working out what’s best is all too much for me. I’ve jumped ship and tend to opt for wearing comfortable clothes that make a token gesture towards the uniforms. Not excelling in displaying any 0ne unifrom, but partially there with all that needs to be conformed-to for social acceptability.

On a good day I’m slightly quirky. More often I exist somewhere in everyone’s experience of visually bland stylessness. 

Apart from my hats.

The urban dictionary attributes my singleness to my name:
1) Intellectually attractive woman.
2) Physically attractive woman.
3) Emotonally attractive woman.
4) Attractivve in all 3 major ways, yet not you are condemned to be ‘just friends’

Person A: Oh man, she’s perfect!
Person B: Oh yeah? So are you guys dating ow what?
Person A: Nah man, she’s a total Wendy….ya know?
Person B: suxx0rz 2 b u l4m3r!!!11

Would ‘Person A’ please un-anonymise themselves…