dancing

23 unspoken promises behind every great female friendship

Leave a Comment

20151112_1429231.That neither of us will ever say “I really shouldn’t” when the dessert menu comes and let that stop us ordering something.

2. That you’ll never mention it when I show up in a piece of clothing that clearly should have been ironed. I know it, you know it, but I just couldn’t be arsed, OK?

3. That wherever we are and whatever we’re doing, cake will always be an appropriate snack.

4. That if one of us fails to get the job or the boyfriend or the house that we wanted, the other will provide the required dose of IT’S THEIR LOSS ANYWAY, BABE, YOU CAN DO SO MUCH BETTER to restore our faith in humanity.

5. That whatever it is, you can tell me.

6. That you’ll smile and nod when I start talking about the level to which it is currently KICKING OFF in Coronation Street [or enter your own televisual favourite here] – despite not watching, caring, or wishing to hear a single detail more about it.

7. That if there is something on my face that shouldn’t be there, you will tell me STRAIGHT AWAY.

8. That I will always let you finish having a well-earned moan before I start to explain why things really aren’t that bad.

9. That if I’m being a dick, you’ll let me know. And that I’ll have the courage to do the same.

10. That when you ask me how ‘following my dreams’ is going, you’re prepared for a long and emotional response.

11. That when I cry at your wedding/birthday party/leaving do, you’ll be kind enough to lie and say that nobody noticed.

12. That we’ll run all photographic evidence of a night out that involved dancing passed each other before uploading it to social media.

13. That we can discuss the highs and lows of having bodies, bowels and brains without embarrassment. There’s no room for shame between friends.

14. That I may not have the required skirt, hair, or ability to kick my legs more than two inches above the ground, but I will be your cheerleader for life.

15. That ‘because I was planning to spend today doing absolutely nothing’ is a perfectly reasonable response to the suggestion of a get together. Everybody needs their space.

16. That I won’t let you walk around with food all over your top. I can’t promise I’ll always have a replacement on me, but I will dab the hell out of that stain like any good friend should.

17. That we won’t feel the need to beat each other around the head with our mistakes – but just to slowly place them under the other person’s eyes if it looks like they might accidentally start walking down that road again.

18. That a ‘What are you wearing tonight?’ text message sent ahead of an evening out will always receive a thorough response to ease the nerves of the woman who sent it (who is no doubt currently on her knees in front of her wardrobe and claiming she has so few clothes that she may as well just cut three holes in a bin bag and wear that etc.).

19. That we’ll both just pretend not to notice what happens to our hair in hot weather.

20. That you understand that when I buy a bag of Percy Pigs, it’s because I want to eat every single one of them. Best get your own packet, yeah?

21. That if you choose to spend your life with someone, I will not let you settle for anything less than the superhero you deserve.

22. That we’ll put the necessary effort in to making sure we’re still friends when we’re old and grey.

23. And that you’ll be kind enough not to mention that I am already both of those things.

 

A love letter to all the sweaty girls: You are not alone

1 Comment

Tray chicThere are so many things that women are conditioned to think they’re not supposed to do. Sweating is one of them. Going to the toilet is another.

And it’s so strange because both definitely happen every single day.

As a woman who has always suffered from the charmingly named condition EXCESSIVE SWEATING I can confirm that this belief is particularly unhelpful.

There are people who say that men sweat and women perspire. Well, you can call it what you like, but it’s the same thing. It’s as basic as coughing or sneezing or yawning so loudly that you sound like Chewbacca. We all do it.

Yesterday, whilst out dancing at a friend’s birthday party, I was reminded of my true sweating credentials. I moved seamlessly from looking like a person who’d put a good couple of hours into straightening her hair, applying liquid eyeliner, and colouring in her lips with a pencil, to a shiny-faced mad woman who appeared to have just done 20 lengths in the swimming pool, and no amount of hand fanning, forehead dabbing or sticking my face out of a window could stop it. I mean, everybody was hot but this was ridiculous. If only I’d been flexible enough to slot myself into the Dyson hand dryer in the bathroom, I would have done it.

I first discovered that I had this issue when I was a teenager. As if growing up wasn’t already hard enough – boy troubles, friend fall-outs, and a permanent fear that I was going to be called a weirdo was already keeping me busy enough – but then I had this little treat thrown into the mix. Thanks very much, genetics.

It didn’t even have to be hot. I just had to be awake. Of course, heat made it worse, but for the real sweaters among us, Winter is no holiday. If anything it’s worse because nobody expects to see somebody mopping their brow when it’s minus one outside.

I became super strategic in my clothes buying. I knew what types of colours and materials were most likely to show patches, and which could shield a day’s worth of salt loss. I didn’t have much money at the time – because who does at that age – so I kept a small number of tops on rotation that shielded me from being outed as the sweatiest girl in town.

And then one day I heard my dad talking about a special type of deodorant that can help people who sweat too much. I’d never told anybody about my problem before – I just assumed I’d have to live with it forever and hope that eventually I’d grow out of it – so I was ecstatic to hear that maybe there was a way out.

I booked an appointment with my doctor and had to stop myself from crying when I asked him to please prescribe it for me. I was 16 and awkward and desperate to feel normal. It was going to take a lot more than a sweat gland annihilating roll-on to do that but it was a bloody good start.

And ever since then, things have been better because I’ve had some control. Like so many situations, knowing that there’s something you can do about it is everything. Of course, it doesn’t mean I’m cured, it’s just much more manageable. Now it only really kicks in when it’s actually hot, which helps.

Thankfully it doesn’t really affect my self-esteem too much these days. And I have a critical moment that happened in February 2006 to thank.

Leon and I had only been together a few months and we went to see The Arctic Monkeys play in Leeds. This was prime Monkeys time – we were at university in Sheffield and the whole city had gone mad for them.

We went to the front and jumped around and it remains to this day some of the most fun I’ve ever had. When they went off stage I realised my entire head, back, and chest was soaked, my hair was like wet string, and my eye make-up was a distant memory. I looked at Leon and said:

“Sorry, I must look disgusting.”

And he shook his head and said:

“No you don’t – you just look like you’ve had a really good time.”

And ever since, I’ve held onto that answer.

I know that if I go out and let my hair down, I’ll end up looking like I’ve been left out in the rain. I know that dancing for five minutes does to me what 45 minutes on a treadmill does to other people. When I look in the mirror I do feel pretty alarmed – I mean, that level of perspiration does nothing for a heavy fringe; if I went out partying more frequently I might need to reconsider my hair style – but at least it shows I’ve had a good time.

I’m not writing any of this down to gross you out, though I guess there’s a chance it might have that effect. I’m writing it down because this is the internet and those of us who have learnt to deal with the little surprises that life throws our way have a duty to talk about them so that others know that they’re not alone.

I think things have moved on quite a long way since I was young. The This Girl Can campaign has done us the world of good. Hey, guess what, women exercise and when they do it, they look like everybody does when they exert themselves – hot and a bit red in the face – and nobody cares.

We could spend our lives being worried that we might accidentally be revealed as having been human beings all along. That we’re not all that different after all. That our bodies need to do things to keep us alive.

But that feels like a terrible waste of time. For every moment that we’re doing that, we could be dancing to Beyoncé or Taylor Swift. Or The Arctic Monkeys.

I can’t imagine they’d let a bit of sweat get in their way.

Nights out in your 30s: Preparation is everything

2 Comments

Shell we dance?

As I lay awake after the first big night out I’ve had which wasn’t at a wedding for the past approx. five years – feet burning, ears ringing, room doing an unhelpful spin – I wondered how on earth I used to do this every night. Because there was a time when that happened. I won’t be too specific but let’s just say MSN messenger was a BIG DEAL back then.

Yesterday’s frivolities brought my 30th birthday celebrations to a close in the best way possible – with drinking and dancing and hanging out with the kind of friends that you want to stand on a stool in front of and declare “I LOVE EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU” until you realise that’s a bad idea as your ability to remain balanced even when you haven’t drunk anything is limited. Best to just text them all afterwards instead.

But aside from other people’s nuptials and birthday parties, big nights of boozing and shape-throwing just don’t happen so much any more. And for that reason, when they do come around, I have to spend a few days getting myself physically and mentally prepared for it. For example, this week I:

– didn’t go out on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday evening in the interests of storing up as much energy as possible for last night (much like a hamster loading up its cheeks with nuts or bits of carrot, except I just stocked up on sofa time, Orange is the New Black and sweets).

– considered my pre-party diet very carefully. I had to make sure I ate enough so that I wouldn’t get drunk at the first whiff of alcohol, but not so much that I’d need to lie down in the corner of the bar mid-party and have a nap – OR look so bloated that everyone would think they were at a baby shower instead of a 30th. A very tough balance to strike.

Lucky

– added an extra half an hour to my getting ready time so that I could put on liquid eyeliner. Sure, it looks nice but my main reason for choosing it is because once it’s on, it doesn’t move, whereas after a couple of hours in eye shadow, it’s not so much that I look like I’ve been punched, more like someone has slapped me in the face incredibly slowly, dragging every grain of colour across my eyes.

– decided to wear jeans with a very comfortable waistband. I was going to wear a dress that is very tight around the middle but I shunned it in the interests of being able to breathe – something that matters to be more and more as I get older.

– selected a pair of heels with a very strong strap to avoid stepping out of them and breaking my ankle mid over-enthusiastic dance move (FYI all of my moves fall into this category – if you’re going to go out, you might as well get an entire year’s worth of exercise done in one evening, in my opinion). Of course such a shoe doesn’t necessarily save you from a tumble but my rule is: if I’m going down, my shoes are coming with me.

I didn’t used to need all this preparation – I remember being at university and not even deciding whether to go out until 11pm whereas if you suggested that to me now I’d… well, I wouldn’t hear you because I’d be asleep.

But the good thing is that the less frequently that something lovely happens, the more you appreciate it when it does. Celebrating with friends, drinking cocktails filled with raspberries and lemon (oh and gin, loads of gin), and struggling to go to sleep because your feet are throbbing so hard from all the jiving that they’re just not used to, doesn’t happen every day (and for that my toes will always be grateful) so we have to make the most of it when it does.

I’m already looking forward to next time, whenever that should come around, just as long as I have plenty of warning. In the mean time, I’ll be sat safely on my sofa, nursing my poor feet back to their former glory and preparing them for their next expedition outside.

If my current state of exhaustion is anything to go by, I fear I may be 40 before I’m ready for that to happen.

Six reasons to be extraordinarily happy

Leave a Comment
IMG_20140909_172742-1024x1024

As my regular readers will know, posts here at Nothing Good tend to come with a heavy portion of cynicism and a side order of “Look at that knob head!” with the knob head in question usually being me.

But today I thought I’d slap on a happy face and talk about what’s good in the world. Maybe it’s the wedding I went to yesterday that made me cry tears of joy approximately four times, or perhaps it’s the Cadbury’s Dairy Milk I had on the way back. I don’t know, but I’m in the mood to give it a shot.

I’ve done a fair bit of moaning recently – about being tired and broke and my kitchen refurbishment taking weeks and weeks to finish and blablablabla NOBODY. CARES. But that little nightmare is over now, and with a stomach full of home cooked grub, things don’t look so bad after all.

So here it is, six very simple things to be extraordinarily happy about. Let’s enjoy it while it lasts.


1. Socks!
If the summer must end, and it must, then at least we can enjoy being back in socks and, even better than that, new socks, straight from the packet onto your feet. And if you really want to maximise the fun, may I recommend popping on a good pair of slippers and perhaps even a pyjama bottom to go with them. The fact that I don’t have my own line at Ann Summers remains astonishing to me.

IMG_20141005_145900-1024x1024

2. Sweets!
I don’t care how old you are, sweets exist to make your day better.  My husband gave me a bottle of strawberry mushrooms (above) for my birthday and I reacted like he’d give me keys to a Porsche – I was DELIGHTED. Give me a Porsche filled with sweets and I may explode. You know those programmes called stuff like ‘Brits Off Their Bits On Booze Whilst On Holiday And Not Wearing Very Much Which Really Makes The Whole Thing A Lot More Embarrassing”? I don’t understand why there has never been an equivalent made about people who have binged on sweets. One too many bags of fried eggs or dusty milk bottles and I’m hysterical with laughter, unable to stay upright and ready to hurl. ‘Brits Off Their Faces On Strawberry Laces’ is just a phone call away.

3. Friends!
Yes, the programme is indeed something to feel extremely happy about (although the fact that I’m not allowed to own the box set in case it makes me even less inclined to go out than I am already remains a sore point) but this time I’m talking about actual human chums. I consider the fact that I have seriously good, marvellously interesting and funny pals a major achievement. I don’t need to join a gym, I just need regular catch ups with my friends. There’s enough laughing, gasping for air and flailing my arms about involved (it’s for dramatic effect, thanks) to rival any zumba class.

4. Dancing!
It’s good to have at least one good dance per day. And you don’t have to be at a party to do this (though give yourself a bonus ten ‘cool’ points if you do happen to go to such an event). Nope, you can be on the train, waiting to pick up something from the printer, or just hanging out in your kitchen, rustling up a marshmallow based snack. Wherever you are, a few swings of the hip are bound to make everything feel better. As to whether other people witnessing this act will feel the same level of joy is hard to guarantee, though if your moves are anything like mine, I’d say it’s unlikely.

IMG_20141005_150223-1024x1024

5. An empty weekend!
Plans and parties and shindigs involving alcohol are great but you know what’s also swell? Staying at home and doing absolutely nothing. You can cook, you can clean and – fun fact – you can still have booze, just without the added risk of having to cope with public transport afterwards – brilliant! Hazard warning – to avoid causing too much damage, I do recommend cooking before cracking open any drinks. I understand kitchen refurbs can be quite the undertaking. *twitches*

6. Experimental fruit juice combinations!
Nothing can make me feel more positive about an establishment than the offer of a fresh mixed juice. I know, I know, I need to SLOW DOWN. Perhaps it’s the colours, perhaps it’s the flavours, or perhaps it’s the knowledge that there is actually something in the world that is good for you and delicious (nice try, kale). Whatever it is, that sh*t is good.

So there we are. A little happiness for a Sunday afternoon. Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for me to hit the dance floor. And by dance floor I mean kitchen floor – I think the combination of new socks and new tiles is going to create something my neighbours are really going to enjoy.

Perhaps this post does feature a little touch of knob head after all.

Will it be cold there? Will I get a seat? And other things grown-ups think about

4 Comments

hand-gelYour brain changes as you get older.

You think more about the weather, the next time you’ll get to sit down and how much washing you need to get done, and less about about parties and hair glitter and whether you’re ready to take the dance routine you made up to Picture Of You by Boyzone to a wider audience.

And I guess it’s inevitable now that we’re responsible for more than just our social life and our cassette collection – there are bills to pay and gardens to weed and conversations about the benefits of online grocery shopping that just have to be had.

And this change of focus affects pretty much everything – our approach to going out, to seeing friends, to deciding what type of surface we’re willing to sleep on…

And even though we’re not so old that we’re not still presented with some of the same opportunities as there were when we were younger – there are still parties (weddings), and gigs (YouTube) and even sleepovers (cohabitation) – when they do come up, our grown-up brains will think about things that wouldn’t even have occurred to us when we were younger. Allow me to compare – though please note that, as a person who was young in the nineties and early noughties, my concept of what a young person thinks about may be slightly out of date.

Scenario 1: Going to a party/pub/wedding/on holiday/on a train/leaving the house to do anything whatsoever
Young person thoughts: Will there be booze? How do I get the booze? Will he/she be there? Is this the right occasion for me to wear my skirt-trouser?
Adult thoughts: Will I be too cold? Will I be too hot? Will water be readily available? Will I get a seat? What is the toilet situation? Is there a lot of walking involved? Will there be dickheads?

Scenario 2: Selecting a new dress
Young person thoughts: Is this something Baby Spice would wear? Do my platform trainers go with it?
Adult thoughts: Does it have a pocket that will hold a tissue? Can I wear proper pants with it? Is it dry-clean only? (Because if it is, you can forget it.)

Scenario 3: Choosing a new handbag
Young person thoughts: Is it big enough to hold this inexplicably enormous ring binder I insist on owning? And this tin pencil case I’ve covered with my initials written in Tipp-Ex?
Adult thoughts: Does it have a good zip? What is the pocket situation? Is it so deep that I’ll never be able to find anything? Is it big enough to hold an umbrella, cardigan and Tupperware box? Does it have a good handle?

Scenario 4: Somebody coming to stay at your house
Young person thoughts: Is it a boy? Does he smell? Could I beat him at Street Fighter II?
Adult thoughts: Are they clean? Do they respect bathrooms? Will they notice that I haven’t dusted the television?

Scenario 5: Going away for the weekend
Young person thoughts: Will there be a TV? Can I watch Gladiators?
Adult thoughts: Will I be back earlier enough on Sunday to do my washing? Will there be dickheads?

Yes, we think very differently now.

I don’t remember when things changed; when antibacterial hand wash started mattering more to me than my mobile phone, or when I first wanted to bail on a trip to the cinema on the off-chance that somebody might sniff during the film… but now that we’re here there’s no turning back.

But thankfully it doesn’t mean we can’t still have fun, we’re just a little more prescriptive. If you can find us a wedding party with comfortable chairs, a steady supply of H2O, sparklingly clean toilets and with a minimal number of dickheads on the guest list, then you’re in for quite the party.

And if there happens to be some Boyzone on the playlist then that’s even better. I’ve been working on a little something I think you’ll enjoy…

Hens vs stags: Two very different dos

Leave a Comment

Hen do badgeLocation
Me: Manchester
Him: Munich

Paraphernalia
Me: Two pink sashes, one balloon, and one excellent badge (see right).
Him: PVC lederhosen.

Memory
Me: I can remember every single thing. Every drink, every dance move, every cupcake with a picture of the groom’s face printed on it.
Him: Absolutely none whatsoever beyond 10pm (although he can’t actually remember the precise time he lost his memory so it was probably a lot earlier than that).

Dancing
Me: Enough to excuse me from exercise for at least a month / that it’s a wonder nobody got hurt / that I must never become famous lest the CCTV footage comes back to haunt me.
Him: I’m not sure if stumbling into a cutlery table and smashing it all over the floor of a busy restaurant really counts as dancing…

Entertainment
Me: Food, sitting down, spa treatments, and cabaret featuring a Madonna montage that was so perfect it made me want to buy a cone shaped bra. I’m sure I’d get a lot of wear out of it.
Him: Does watching your friend ‘tombstone’ your best man into a breeze block, knocking him unconscious, count as entertainment? I’m told the answer is ‘not at the time but absolutely 100% yes the following day’.

Vomiting
Me: Ok, perhaps a little but it’s not my fault my food allergies couldn’t even give me my cocking hen do weekend off.
Him: A good keg’s worth each, apparently. But if you will drink your weight in beer and jagermeister, you will suffer the consequences.

Casualties
Me: One pedicure chip caused – I believe – by over kicking to Footloose.
Him: I’m told that at the height of his inebriation he demanded an ambulance be called. Thankfully nobody was sober enough to dial 1.1.2 in the right order so he just had to sleep/vomit it off instead.

Photos
Me: We’re women: if we did it, we snapped it.
Him: Once you’ve seen one picture of your future husband with his unmentionables tucked into tight PVC shorts, there’s really no need to see more.

Recovery
Me: I’m writing this on the same day as I returned from the hen so I think I’m through the worst of it.
Him: Completion date TBC.

You should be dancing, yeah!

2 Comments

IMG_2846As I looked around the dance floor on New Year’s Eve I considered how much our approach to dancing changes over time.

I remember with a face full of cringe being eight years old, arriving at a lower school disco and not quite knowing where to put myself. So what, you just go from normal walking to dancing without any build up? I couldn’t handle that. So instead, I did a quick skipping circuit of the school hall before finding my friends and joining in with the Agadoo. I think that was the first time I realised I was cool.

Then came the teenage years and the curious phenomenon of ‘the slow dance’. The holy grail of the dance floor where a boy is prepared to hug you and slowly turn around in a circle at the same time. Oh, to be one of those girls and not just standing on the side making “Woooo!” noises at them to disguise my intense loneliness. Yeah, being a teenager was ACE.

There were basically three routes to survival: do the Saturday Night dance routine to everything and pretend you’re being ironic, tap your feet from side to side in the hope that it will send you back to Kansas (or your actual home), or sit it out altogether, drink squash, eat crisps and convince yourself it’ll all be easier when you’re older.

Oh, but it won’t.

Because by then everybody knows what SEX is and that makes everything much more complicated.

It didn’t occur to me until I got to university that dancing and sex were in any way related. How could me spinning a pretend lasso around my head during 5,6,7,8 by Steps ever make anybody want to do THAT with me?

But then the first time I ventured into a club in Sheffield, I realised. Nobody in there was doing that routine (except me). No, most people had a very different thing on their mind and I didn’t know any of the moves.

I definitely hadn’t heard the word ‘gyrate’ before. For anybody who is unfamiliar, Urban Dictionary defines it as: shaking hips/body provocatively to attract attention (male or female).

Well, ‘When in Rome’, I thought. I gave it a go but suffice it to say any attention I attracted was not for the intended reasons. My fellow party people were just on guard in case they needed to call an emergency chiropractor at any moment. I didn’t do that again.

But then the university days pass and you become a real adult. Dancing is now only really done at weddings, work parties, in bars kind enough to throw on a bit of album track Take That, or when you’re cooking and you don’t think anyone is watching.

So when we do get to dance, we’ve got to make it worth our while. We can’t be worried about how we look to other people, or whether we’re going to pull a muscle. We need to climb on that Gangnam Style horse and not get off until our boyfriend, chum or Dad tells us it’s time to go home.

So when New Year’s Eve came around I grabbed the opportunity to throw some shapes with both hands. My legs ached for three days afterwards but it was worth it. I may even have worked off one of the three Christmas dinners I had.

As to what the next stage of dancing is, I don’t know. Dancing with kids? Maybe. Dancing with dogs? More likely. Or perhaps just dancing down the supermarket aisles when they play an instrumental version of Bohemian Rhapsody. I’ve already been doing that for years.

But until then, I’ll stick to the kitchen and the odd wedding reception dance floor. As long as they don’t mind me doing a quick skip-circuit first. I don’t want to look like an idiot now, do I.