wendy house

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!

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.

wendy: smells like rain

my colleage looks outside the window at the blue sky, looks back at me, raises a single eyebrow slowly then  the edges of her mouth swing out while her lips furl from her teeth revealing the cheekiest of grins.

wendy: I know, it sounds a bit bonkers, but this room just does smell like rain to me, can you smell it?

colleague: no (laughs, then, about a minute later)  OH MY GOD. WENDY! Look out the window, its raining!

A cloud above the building that we couldn’t see was dumnping its load with avengance, rain against blue skys. To me the smell was overwhelming and kinda sexy.  Apparantly the other people in the room couldn’t smell the rain through the building walls.

On planet wendy we not only smell the future coming we often hear then trip-over it too.

The wendywheel is a new firework. For fireworks night.   tonight.   Have fun, take care and a responsible adult.

When lit the whendywheel sits inactive for an indeterminate period,   do not make the mistake of thinking that it has gone-out,   this little cracker likes to  deliver a suprise start.  

The suprise start is fast, loud, colourful  and short.    Somewhat like the experience of falling-over mixed with an exploding balloon and halogen floodlights.  

Scrapping sound.   the suprise start is followed by a scrapping sound as the wheel travels along the ground.   Much like the sound of a bicycle being dragged along the road in the wheels of an articulated lorry.

Planet Wendy.   Like many people you thought it was all over when the articulated lorry squished the pushbike.   But no.   after a short silence the wendywheel whirlwinds its way to planet wendy like a snake climbing  a tree at 3000x its natural speed with the friction creating a host of green snake-scale sparks that cascade over the crowd left behind wishing that they too had a ticket to spiral up to planet wendy.

John Peel once described ‘another girl, another planet’ as an artful little caprice.

I’ve always rather fancied that the other planet is planet Wendy

Planet Wendy is definitely a good place to be another girl

the only ones sang another girl, another planet

Windows Vista provides problem reports and solutions. That  is helpful for people who want to try and fix something now, cheaply.   We don’t have to  pay for a service specialist or spend hours fiddling in the depths of the control panel.  This  is quite nice of them.   Or is it?

All Neverland’s 169 reported problems are atribbuted to Windows rather than other applications.   Should I be alarmed by Windows?  Or, iIs this because other programs don’t use the Windows  problem reporting system or is it because Windows has an infinitely  higher problem rate?

On planet wendy there are no problem reportsbecause the program causing the problem would receive the report, fix it then make me a cup of tea and compliment me on my choice of frock.

Years before I read Peter Pan when I was less than 4ft tall I had an imaginary friend.    Without wings, he could fly into my bedroom at night while my unsuspecting family carried-on their downstairs life-after-my-bedtime.   Unlike Peter pan, John wore ordinary clothes:  flared corduroy jeans, t-shirt, jumper and daps.    You could easily miss noticing John in a crowd of shorter children.   John had an ordinary quiet, thoughful, way  about him.   His silences matched mine.   He was good company.

John could fly right through the force-field  that protected me from the monsters beyond the wardrobe.    The force-field that looked like bedroom walls but was infact protection that moved with me as I travelled through planet Wendy.   John knew how to co-pilot the big red double-decker bus,   the bus that was cunningly disguised as  my single bed.     Unlike my real friends John didn’t scream or  throw the extra pillow at the slimey poison-tongued Lizards that chased the bus.   John could use his powers of flight to lift the bus out of the swamp.   John was magic,   he could corale the heard of wild unicorns into the wardrobe without saying a single word.     He was my secret, special friend.  

John stopped joining my  evenings when, in my teens, evening adventures moved into the world beyond my parents home.  I wonder if  John’s still out there,   whether he grew up or maybe became someone real.

Sometimes I miss him  

Sometimes

As you know,   I don’t need the help of heels to fall-over and scrape my knee,  uppity curbs are sufficient,  it is a wendy-way of being…

Sophie King received £7,200 compensation for ‘pain, suffering and loss of amenity’ due to a broken ankle resulting from a fall when the heel of her newly purchased shoe broke.   The Guardian’s Ariane Sherine thinks Sophie deserved a broken ankle and should repay the damages.   At least one fledgeling member of the UK caring(?), medical, profession agrees with Ariane’s view that women should expect to suffer pain for conforming to patriarchal, consumerist, pressures to wear sub-standard dangerous products,   in this case,  high-heeled shoes.   Both the Guardian and medical blog point out that Sophie, the victim, was 5 ft 9.   The sheer audacity to be a girl AND tall without  recognising that she expected to suffer substandard,  dangerous goods, while  maintaining her  social obligation to  conform to patriarchal ‘sexy’ values.  

This is a classic example of the patriarchal approach to dealing with systematic abuse against women by requiring an adjustment to the behaviour of the victim rather than the perpetrator  of the crime.   Legally referred to as ‘contributory negligence’ , infamously called-out in 1980′s UK when a man convicted of rape was not given even a custodial sentence by Judge pickles because the woman (victim) was negligent in her behaviour  by wearing a mini-skirt.   Huh?!  

I’m glad that this time, the legal system protected the victim, Sophie King.  

Shoe manufacturers systematically target physically-dangerous (high-heeled) shoes at women,  not men.  It is a clear case of female-gender abuse.    A trap targeted only at female health.   On planet Wendy an insightful, talented, lawyer would bring a class action  against  the shoe industry for being the instrument of perpetrating systematic violence against women.

sixty-second in  as unstructured  Wednesday series of posts explaining  my singleness.

Reason #62: easily confused.  

The not being single thing is  all way too complicated.   My theory is that when it isn’t complicated then that’s the right match for me!   Slam dunk,  I’ll know because its all effortless and unconfusing.   It will be like an atronought landing on planet Wendy.

Auntie Wendy’s Aunty.  

Is preparing to die.
The thought makes me cry.
She knows how and why I love her
But I should double-check.   Just make sure.

Spring to our 20′s,  
Summer to our 40′s,  
Autumn to our 60′s.
Winter to our deaths.

Winter is in my elders house.  
Please wrap-up warm.
Take a  scarf and hat.
Can I hold your hand?

Poem inspired by the photographed letter from mumzies sister, received the day before my brothers-daughter’s birthday.   My neice, my namesake on a day  when I am thinking of Auntly things.  A day when I am glad that I’d booked a full 2 week holiday in the UK covering Christmas to be both aunt and niece in the same day,  in the same company,  in the same room.    

I did not return to Britain for her brother’s funeral.   I wrote letters, a poem  and promised myself that I would  join the family this Christmas.

taking my life  as  I take my alcohol

uncloudy, straight,  not on the rocks  

It’s unclear how I get  mixed-up

where the clouds come from

Surreal?

• Investigating eating Danish Blue cheese, while
• Reading about the WhitePrince’s Kitty’s orange-reddy TV watching habits, and
• Listening to his 2005 club mix,  after having  
• Removed Kitty fur from keyboard spacebar

Laptop as food-tray, music system, communications device and kitty-fur magnets    …so versataile…

If life is surreal what’s the (space)bar for normality?

I typed

Mail instead of Main

within an email

to a male

I chuckled to myself.    This possibly isn’t amusing for you unless you are  actually  on Planet-Wendy* with me.      No map available to Planet-Wendy.

”cars ‘eee  ain’ begit’n maw carn-tex’    

Regional accent outbreak.   It means ‘context UNPUBLISHABLE’.

*photograph of Planet-Wendy  painting** attached.

** the painting*** actually IS hung on the wall in my garage.  

***I’m open to painting  purchase offers,   make me a bid…   ….I promise not to cry…  

Wendy still-nesting-footnotes