(no subject)

[anotherusedpage]

Yesterday, went shopping with vampire_kitten.
We went to Anne Summers, where I bought Amy an interesting birthday present. Anne Summers is a great place to people-watch. There was a couple with an exceedingly embarrassed looking young man, and another couple that had brought their small kid with them. I couldn't tell whether the bloke was more embarrassed by his partner, the small kid, or me and Amy. We weren't giggling (much). But we could have been.
Then we went into the bead shop. Where I bought beads and she didn't. We also got a practical demonstration of the difference between womens and mens navigational skills. synergetic had given me directions which included lots and lots of left and right, and at one point the instruction 'due south', and 'in the direction of charring cross). Now despite the fact that the road he was talking about was one I walk past the whole time, I couldn't find it from these directions. In the end I phoned him and said 'Heeeelp, I'm by Forbidden Planet, on the street with the Jerry Springer musical', and he said 'where?' We did eventually find the shop. So if anyone wants a friendship band or safety-pin jewelry or anything else, just ask (and leave me an adress if I don't know it and am not going to be seeing you any time soon).
Ummm... anything else?
Shrek 2 was absolutely fantastic, I love it I love it I love it. Also watched my new West Side Story DVD... I hadn't seen the film of WSS for years, and had forgotten how wonderful it was. And cottonwoolfairy bought the DVDs of Firefly, which means I finally get to see that at some point soon. Oh, go say hi to cottonwoolfairy, who is one of my bestest friends in the whole wide world, and hasn't been around long or posted anything yet. But she is there.
Think that's it for now. Got college work to be getting on with. Will be in Wycombe wednesday and thursday or so of this week. Should have my mobile with me, so I'll be contactable.

Comments

[dyddgu.livejournal.com]

ooooobeadshop!! Where bead shop??
Have you been to the nice one... damn, can't remember where now. It's on the Northern Line, opposite one of the stations...
*fetches google*
Kentish Town, that's it! Get off at the tube stop, and it's the other side of the road. Huuuuge bobbis of nylon thread in many colours, yay! :)
Must go into Ann Summers again, am crap at going in there on my own, as I never feel I have quite the right look about me, and that people are staring. Very crap of me :)

[vampire-kitten.livejournal.com]

Me/Jessie would go with you if you wanted. We're pros now.

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

This one is between Leicester Square and Covent Garden, on a road called Tower Street, which is off Monmouth Street, the road which goes between Forbidden Planet and Leicester Square tube, and has the Jerry Springer musical on it....

[synergetic.livejournal.com]

Walking into a place like Anne Summers requires one to be comfortable with a number of things, including many subconscious things one wouldn't think one would need to be conscious about.

For example, walking into that bead shop was pretty hard thing for me to do. So many things had to be overcome to walk into there, including but not limited to:

1) I am about to do something that will clash with society's expectation of what a man is.
2) That I am an individual so this is ok and can assert my individuality and should do so.
3) That I am over the psychological scars of being called a girl/girly or similar in primary and secondary schools.
4) That I will not cry if people point at me and laugh.
5) That I will not attempt to kill people who point at me and laugh.
60 That I am comfortable about people making assumptions about me that will be untrue or wildly inaccurate.

So you can see the list is diverse, making such a decision extremely unsimple.

[dyddgu.livejournal.com]

It's the assumptions thing that gets me about AS too. I cannot for the life of me get the paranoia out of my head that people are looking at me and thinking "she's too ugly/fat/geeky/spoddy/etc to be having sex! What's she doing in there? And eeeyiw, I've just had a mental picture of her in the underwear..." And so forth. Nor am I entirely convinced, given that some people can be horrid, that this fear is irrational. I also worry that the shop assistants will be thinking the same thing.
But this is from the person who has passed up chocolate cake because she's afraid the shopkeepers will think she is fat and greedy... :$ I guess I have a low embarassment threshold!
Which is annoying in the case of AS, because in my head I am a liberated, uninhibited go-getting Cosmo reader. Whereas in real life I get hideously embarassed, though I don't want to. Heck, I can't even discuss girly things with my mum, even as innocuous as leg-shaving... :$

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

Know the feeling.
There's also something of a double standard, in that being sexualy liberated and able to go into Anne Summers without embarassment is seen as a good thing, almost 'cool', whereas the idea of actually using most of the products is seen as distincly sad.

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I do get exactly that. It's like, despite being totally comfortable with my own gender issues, I feel pretty uncomfortable in a football crowd - although that's partly also the undercurrents of violence and anti semitism. The fact that people are going to make assumptions about you, and that's just something you're going to have to live with, is something I find very hard to deal with, even if the assumptions are right. Like, I don't like being called a lesbian because I wear combat boots, even though both facts are true. But I'm not a lesbian because I wear combat boots, I'm a lesbian because I kiss girls. And I don't wear the boots to fit with an image, I wear the boots cos they're comfortable and long lasting.
Asserting your individuality and going against social expectations I've always seen as an extremely brave thing to do, and sometimes I wonder whether I respect indvidualism almost more as a sign of moral courage than for its own sake.
Anyway, that's Jessie's random ramble for today.

[vampire-kitten.livejournal.com]

Can't get new present to work. Can't work out if I'm just being dippy, or if it's broken.

If it's broken, can we face going back into Ann Summers and asking for a new one?

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

Don't see why not. I'd be prepared to do that.

[vampire-kitten.livejournal.com]

Ooh! Their customer services are nice! They gave me a freepost address to send it too...

[herringprincess.livejournal.com]

im fine with the underwear bits but i always feel i must be repressed because i pull the weirdest faces when i see the toys :-) so i get kind of...embarassed at my being embarassed? silly.

[anotherusedpage.livejournal.com]

Oh, we were sniggering faintly at the toys. I think it's only natural. But then, I still laugh at the word penis. And the word bum, for that matter. Doesn't mean I can;t use them in sensible conversation if necessary/appropriate.