Lady Mags
Help! I’m having gender doubts. I know my cupboard of bras and drawer of lipstick says I’m a lady. I have a mountain of shoes, an Everest of dresses, a Kilimanjaro of separates, a Magillycuddy Reeks of mittens, coats, hats and what-nots, but still regularly find I’ve ‘nothing to wear’. I suffer The Curse: I like men. I’ve texted messages that are straight from the heart: stunningly honest, hopelessly romantic and frankly earth-shattering - until I wake-up the following morning and remember sending them. Then I promise God never again will I allow myself, Vodka Red Bull, and the mobile be in close proximity at 3am on a weekend night. And I break the promise. Regularly.
I love conversations that begin “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but…” A good hair cut makes me really happy. Sometimes the sight of a confused, tortured animal on telly will make me cry, other times I’ll just think, ‘well it’s Pat Kenny’s own fault he’s still host of The Late Late Show.’
At a certain time every month my patience goes – I’m likely to use phrases like “excuse me, can’t you see there’s a queue”, “oh I suppose you think you’re special, just ‘cause you’re in a wheelchair” and “sorry Garda, I promise I will never tell a traffic warden to shove his ticket up his unmentionable again.” And then I break the promise, come the next full moon.
Yes, I joke about menstruation: I used to suffer from terrible Pre-Menstrual Syndrome – a whole three weeks coming up to my period I’d be snappy and irritable, then a week after I’d have even worse Post-Menstrual Syndrome. In the end I went to my doctor and said “what’s wrong with me, my whole life is just one huge menstrual syndrome?” He checked me over and said “actually Anne you’ll be pleased to know there’s nothing wrong with you, you’re just a moody old bitch, that’s all.”
Maybe because I don’t want to have children: “Why can’t we just lay eggs, like chickens?” I ask. “Then we’d just have one clear-cut decision – opps, I’ve laid an egg, should I hatch a baby? Or do I fancy an omelette?”
But I still love the kiddies. “Look at all the beautiful flowers in the park, all the different types and colours, aren’t they lovely?” the mother of one of her friend’s asked my three and a half year old niece. “I didn’t come here to look at flowers. I came here to play,” she replied. I love that story, and have repeated it many times. I love that little girl, her independence, her focus on ‘play’ and ‘let’s pretend’ and her obsession with ballet, and pink and lovely dresses and princesses – I adore her utterly innocent femaleness. As her auntie it chimes deeply with me because I am a lady. Or. Or am I?
Am I really a lady?
I found myself wondering that recently when I acquired a pile of those purveyors of all things to do with Us Ladies; those heavy, slick periodicals that, like you-know-what, come once a month; those disseminators of information so up-to-date, so ‘happening’, so ‘now’ – they have the stamp of tomorrow. ‘October 2007′ they all said, and it was only just the second week of September.
I’m talking about The Glossies. I had to buy a load for something I was working on recently. They’re not my cup of tea, and I reaffirmed why -
I’m not saying they’re not weighty enough – I felt like a navvie with a bag of bricks lugging of them home. And I’m not saying they’re totally throwaway – you wouldn’t chuck €40-worth straight in the bin, now would you? And I’m not complaining about them as ‘things’ per se – as Glossies go, they were all indeed, Very Glossy. But, what for instance, is Vogue all about? €7 for 250 pages of ads featuring girls with skinny little half-nudie bodies and 150 pages of often quiet silly clothes, on girls with skinny little half-nudie bodies and a couple of pages of Keira Knightley explaining she’s the happy type, accompanied by pics of her skinny little half-nudie body. What does it mean? 400 pages of skinny little half nudie bodies plus clothes, perfume, a star and handbags up to €11 000. Are you not really a lady if you wonder that?
As for the rest of them -
Do I care why Catherine Zeta-Jones Hollywood marriage works? Well it’s hardly because she splits her dole with Michael when she’s signing on, is it? Do I care where I can get a Luella Bartley vest; what the reader felt when she found her boyfriend in bed with her ex-mother-in-law’s step-daughter; what’s the hot Christian Louboutin this Autumn/Winter; which Philip Tracy hat Isabella Blow worn in her coffin; where’s the best place to have my boobs done; what’s a Christian Louboutin anyhow and why Jade Jagger loves her Aga in Ibiza???
No. And I also don’t need to know fourteen ways to spot if he’s cheating; twenty-seven ways to weatherproof your hair; thirty-one ways to tackle a lumpy bum; one hundred and ninety four ways to fold a napkin and find your g-spot at the same time. I just need to know one thing -
If all the above makes me puke AM I STILL A LADY?
Maybe I should write into Cosmo and ask.
