Tuesday 7 April 2009

Fantastic Economy

I have just bought myself an amazing cashmere jumper from Gap, which I intend to work backwards from in an imagined way as reward for payment from an article I am writing which will never actually be published. Phew. It made sense at the time, and although daft and ludicrous I'm going to stick to it. If I start to imagine the writing not as School Work but as Livelihood (ie jumpers and rent and that), perhaps it will lift the iron on me which makes everything so goddamn big and scary. Therefore, at £7/hour, my now-going rate, the jumper is 'paid' for in seven hours of work. I define work at my own peril, but mostly indicates submittable product, and this kind of counts too.

I read a piece by a Guardian journalist who a friend of a friend used to live with at uni. She told me how this journo crazy girl would slum around in her pajamas, ringing up people at the merest sniff of a story. So she's hot stuff basically. She wrote this thing is the g2 called 'On your bike! Why we need more women on two wheels'. So basically something I could've got my teeth round if I'd wanted to. It was talking about the way the aesthetic has kept women away so long, how a Topshop concession (possible to transfer nationwide) might change this, and how it's flying in the face of the liberated women of the past who were free to get about without their husbands and their dresses. But it doesn't really get to the point, in that most women give a shit about what they look like, and if you like to look polished, you do not look like it after a four mile bike ride. So all this aesthetic malarky is ok, retro accesories, bells baskets and 'cycle fashion', but if your not a cheesy cow (I certainly am not) what are the serious options?

I think I have cracked it, almost, the old blending tech with chic thing. Clothes have to be breathable, so either cottons or tech fabrics. I love my Stella McCartney/Adidas coat. I love that I was wearing it in the Fashion v/s Sport exhibition on tour at the Walker, and a woman accosted me over it. It was pretty fucking cool. Funny that it took half a year and 200miles to get the guts to wear it. I quite like the Sustrans Bike Belles site, though it sounds and is a bit cheesy. "There's no reason at all why you can't cycle in heels. It's easy!" No it's not, and no you shouldn't, I hate seeing these women with their heels locked into the pedals, throwing their knees back as they go. I do like what the site says about putting your hair in a bun under your helmet. And waterproof mascara. It's true you get a glow that's better than makeup when you cycle, all that lymph swimming around. I have to put less make up on when I get there.

I'm really enjoying the coming home in the light thing. I'm seeing things I usually can't, literally. New shops, services and restaurant deals. It's really nice to see things. It's like promenading but so much faster, you're not actually wasting any time. I have started to think about the money it saves too, if I hadn't ridden today it would've cost me £4.40 to get to work and back. So I spent half of that on half a Little Ryding instead. These economics I've got going are dangerous. So now I'm going to go and have a look at my new jumper, and remind myself what I'm working towards, or away from, or however I want to make my own silly sense of this writing.

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