Michelle Williams

As part of my ongoing campaign of sassiness, I am trying to inject a bit more "oomph" in my appearance. Overall, this isn't that hard. Although I've never worn much makeup or had very elaborate hairstyles, I've always had strong ideas about my hair and clothes, to the point of often having stated theories and philosophies about them. I like to think about clothes in terms of "outfits", which you would wear out to school/work/dinner/the grocery store, as opposed to "just clothes" that you'd wear around the house - though I see no reason why those shouldn't be cute and colour-coordinated, too.

However, for the last year or so, I've been working in architecture practices, and it may be a cliche and by no means universal, but architects do generally wear a lot of black and have very serious black-framed glasses. I wear black-framed glasses but they aren't heavy enough to be very serious. Anyway, being around architects has meant that I've somehow ended up with a very dark wardrobe. I say somehow; last autumn I went out shopping with a list that read: trousers, blouses, jumpers - black, navy, grey only. I think that had something to do with it.

So I'm currently re-injecting colour into my routine. The first big success has been red. Boy, do I like red. In fact, last week I had to acknowledge that it is my official favourite colour, edging out pink/green, a combo that has been number one for probably 8 years now. This acknowledgement came after we'd gone out for our friend Sean's birthday and I wore a red skirt, a red t-shirt and a red flower in my hair. It was kind of hard to miss - like a red flag, if you will.

So that's the wardrobe component sorted. I've not made any real changes to my make-up routine, since I don't like to wear too much, though I am now wearing mascara every day. Well, on days when I leave the house. But today, I'm focusing on getting a new haircut. This is such a fraught subject. In March, I went to a very fancy salon and got what turned out to be the most expensive haircut of my life. The cut itself was pretty pricey, but it was the colour (which I didn't love) and tipping the stylist, the colourist, the guy who washed my hair and the girl who gave me the aromatherapy mini-massage that put the expense over the top. But I loved my hair! It was sort of messy on purpose, so it never looked like it was messed up. Does that make sense? Matthew said he thought it was the best haircut I've ever had (though he might have been trying to help me feel better about spending £187 at the salon). And, yes, it really did cost that much. Check the exchange rate - are you choking on whatever you were eating/drinking? After a while, I went back, but the second time around, it just wasn't as good. It was a good haircut, but not magical and maybe not worth £85 (no colour that time). Since then, I've had a trim at a cheapy little place in Covent Garden, but it's getting to the point where I have to do something. I don't want a drab, yucky haircut. I want something cute. Something sassy. Something a little bit like Michelle Williams is sporting these days.

I consulted Matthew for his thoughts, but he had never heard of Michelle Williams, so I had to give him the following primer:

Michelle Williams is the tragic ex of Heath Ledger and tragic mother of his tragic little girl Matilda. (Does that seem like a funny name for a half-Austrialian child to anyone else? Isn't it like Matthew and me naming our kid Britannia or Yankee Doodle Dandy?) They met when she played his tragic wife in the tragic Broke Back Mountain. She has recently been spotted having dinner with Spike Jonze - I don't know if it was tragic or not. I also read that she is rumoured to keep a diary. Undoubtedly contains lots of tragedy. Oh, and she used to be on Dawson's Creek. Is that tragic? Her ex-boyfriend died, Katie Holmes became a zombie (or not - not looking for a lawsuit here!) and James van der Beek and Joshua Jackson turned out to be much less attractive as grown men than as teenage boys. Could the show be cursed?!? More evidence: the WB network no longer exists and Paula Cole's career hasn't exactly been red-hot lately. Ooh - spooky!

But curses aside, Michelle's hair is pretty cute. I'm going print out the picture, draw on a side part because I can't wear a fringe/bangs, and see if I can get a stylist to make something pretty happen. Exciting, huh? And once he'd seen her picture, Matthew did say that it looked like a haircut that might well suit me, so that's a ringing endorsement from him.

On the subject of eyewear, I feel like if I'm going to wear glasses, I don't want to try to hide the fact by wearing invisible wire framed ones. I'm not ashamed! Just very near-sighted. My friend Krystal and I had a conversation in Scotland that illustrates my feelings on the subject:

Drunk man (thinking he's flirting): Can I see you without your glasses?

Us: Er, whatever. (raising glasses but not actually taking them off)
Drunk man: Wow, you're really pretty. Why do you wear glasses?
Us: So we can see better.
Drunk man: Yeah, but why don't you wear contacts?
Us: To prevent us being attractive to people like you.

This happened some years ago and I can't remember which of us he was trying to flirt with, as we are both really pretty, with or without glasses. But the same thing happened again, almost verbatim, in Austin once when I was out '80s-retro-dancing with my friend Julie. But, for all my fist-in-air, "we're near-sighted, we're here, get used to it!" rhetoric, I am starting to entertain the idea of getting my eyes lasered. I've always been against it, out of a combination of fear of new medical procedures, squeamishness at the thought of someone messing with my eyes, and glasses-wearing pride. But I would really like to be able to wear non-prescription sunglasses.

Our Glamorous Life

Last week’s mention of Pete Burns reminded me that I promised to write something about our (sort of) encounter with the Rolling Stones. So here it is:

A couple of weeks ago, Matthew got a package in the post containing tickets for Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Stones concert film “Shine a Light” and booking info for a hotel in Soho. It seems that he’d entered a competition online and won. The premiere was the next night, when he was scheduled to work, so there was a bit of worry that he might not be able to get off and we’d have to give the tickets to someone else, but his boss got very excited and let him off (on the condition that if possible, we give Charlie Watts a hug). So we went to the premiere along with loads of other celebrities – ha!

Actually, there were lots of celebrities there. We had pleb tickets and so got ushered in pretty quickly, but they were showing the red carpet on the big screen in the cinema so we got to watch as each mildly famous person stood blinking under the barrage of flashbulbs. The woman “hosting” the red carpet portion of the evening asked all the celebs which was their favourite Rolling Stone – most said they love them all and couldn’t possibly choose, except for Liam Gallagher, who staggered up looking very drunk and unkempt and said he liked Brian Jones best. Which was pretty funny. Considering the quantity of celebrity, the quality wasn’t very high. They were mostly British television and music personalities; Matthew was impressed (and not completely in a good way) that I was able to identify a girl who is famous for a) being the daughter of an actor, b) dating the brother of a singer, who is himself a television actor (and the singer has a TV talk show, too), c) wearing very “edgy” clothes at fashionable places and thus getting her picture in the papers, and d) being in a futuristic kung-fu show in which she had purple hair and a pair of magic gym shorts once owned by the Buddha (but I don’t think that’s gone anywhere).

We got several looks at the Rolling Stones, both on the red carpet and because, while the celebs were upstairs in the balcony so they wouldn’t have to mix with the regular folk, the band walked right past us as they went up to the front to introduce the film. Actually, if our seats had been slightly worse (a couple of rows back and farther to the side), they would have walked right past us. As they went past, Mick said, “Not too much making out in the back, please” and the superfans around us thought that was the funniest thing they’d ever heard. If I think about it, though, it was probably the funniest thing ever said directly to them by a member of an iconic rock band, so fair enough. Up to this point, we were quite entertained. However, then we had to sit through the film.

To be fair, it was pretty entertaining as well. However, I think this was mostly down to being in a really big cinema with a really good sound system, surrounded by people who were really excited to be watching, so that it felt at times like we were actually at the concert. Several times I found myself almost clapping at the end of a song. But I don’t think I would watch it on TV at home. The most interesting parts were the archival and behind-the-scenes footage and there wasn’t much of it. And although I was impressed by the band’s physical stamina at their age, it did drag on a bit.

Some other impressions:

They are all really tiny! They aren’t very tall and most of them are wraith-thin – Keith Richards is the only one with even a hint of an old man potbelly. Mick Jagger was wearing shiny patent leather platform sneakers. I wondered if they might be orthopedic to deal with the havoc all that jumping around and twisting might have done to his back, but I now think they might be because his girlfriend is about 6 inches taller than he is.

Speaking of Mick Jagger’s girlfriend - she is a professional stylist, yet all his stage outfits looked like they came from the ladies’ resort section at Kohl’s department store. He wore black satin trousers (very slimming) and a burgundy shirt with pintucks down the front, which he took off to reveal a black t-shirt with subtle sequin details, which added just a touch of sparkle.

I thought Keith Richards looked a little bit like a grandpa - if your grandpa were actually a Berber tribeswoman. He had so many things tied in his hair or dangling from his belt, I thought I could hear him jingle when he moved, though I guess that could have been his old bones and dried-up, leathery internal organs.

Charlie Watts could be a vampire. He certainly looks like one and have you ever seen him in the daytime?

Anyway, we had a good enough time at the film and then spent the night at a nice hotel and had a big breakfast (included with the room) the next morning. We definitely like staying in hotels in town – it’s like traveling without all the hassle of actually going anywhere.

On Sunday I bit the bullet and went to Oxford Street for a bit of shopping. It was insanely crowded, as I knew it would be on a Sunday afternoon, but I had a fresh podcast to listen to during the 40 minutes I was in the queue for the changing room at Primark, so I was okay. I mean, my arm got very tired and I jettisoned several items before I even tried them on, but I was entertained. I ended up with a dress and some birthday presents for my lovely niece Mattie. I got some other bargains – even though I had to go to all three Uniqlo locations on Oxford Street. Their flagship store is almost completely given over to a range of artsy t-shirts they’ve done in collaboration with international artists and very large photos of Chloe Sevigny wearing said t-shirts, so that there is very little room left for anything else. I finally found some actual clothes at the third, oldest and by far least fashionable location – a couple of tops for £2.99 each and a trench styled jacket marked down from £39.99 to £19.99.

I also saw Pete Burns (of Dead or Alive and horror plastic surgery fame) in American Apparel. In a very ick-making move, they were playing “You Spin Me Right Round, Baby” when I walked in and about 30 seconds later I bumped into him. He was relatively small, only about my height, which surprised me because I always thought he was more statuesque. However, he did look a little bit like a monster in a fairy tale. I was telling this to a woman at work and she said, “You know, they’re people, just like us,” but I had to say, “No, actually, he’s not.”

So, the other day I saw Louis Theroux in John Lewis. I was there looking for picture frames, but that's a story for another post. He was pretty scruffy (or at least noticeably unshaven) but really quite attractive. He wasn’t nearly as tall as I’d expected, though. He is easily over 6’ tall, but not conspicuously taller than your average shopper. I've just looked at IMDB, which reports that he is 6'2", but it also says that Dara O'Briain is 6'4". I’ve seen him in person (twice) and he is genuinely enormous! Can two inches make that much difference? Or is it context? I saw one in a department store, where one expects to see normal, everyday people doing everyday things, and I saw the other on stage being almost supernaturally funny.

I did notice that Louis was buying a bathroom scale, perhaps to see how much weigh he lost through his recently televised liposuction. Or maybe his old one broke. I don’t know and, although I did lurk around pretending to look at wallpaper books so as to get a better look at him, I didn't ask.