#bridgetbythebridge

#strong

 

[This feels like coming out, not that I know what that feels like, but I imagine it feels like I feel right now. #shitscared]

Possibly the last time I was truly happy

 

  

My Father was a man who once lived on earth. Today he doesn’t live anywhere, but I imagine him wandering, spooky, hazy, near me as I march around the city he gave me the right to call home. I imagine that when he watches me, today, he observes a woman that would make him proud, a woman who walks with purpose, a woman who in no way resembles the girl he last saw ten years ago, the last time his eyes opened upon the big face that is the spitting image of his. #massivefuckingforehead

I’ve spent ten years becoming the person I am today. I walked away from a very kind man, walked away from my home, from my beautiful loving mother, I walked away from everything I ever knew and loved. I ran to France to chase a fairytale that had kept me company since I was a giggling tween. I was going to live in Europe, marry a prince and live happily ever after.

I had run away from an old life expecting that, if I made a new one smelling of butter, garlic and Cognac, I would be happy. I would love myself and someone else would love me. I would be très chic, I would be the fanciest fucking female on earth and I would rock the modern world. Well none of that happened because I was still fat.

 

Fat is a vicious word. Fat is the acid rain that stung my skin every single time that c*nt, my ex-boyfriend Nick, screamed Fat Slut across the quadrangle at school.  Fat has been my constant, nefarious companion since I was a teenager. I’ve carried the fleshy baggage of a thousand crises of confidence visibly upon my dimpled thighs and wobbly belly. I’ve been coated in a cushiony shell ever since that fateful day my father explained to me that fat meant I couldn’t be loved. #supportivemalerolemodelalert So I ran away to join my own mental Gallic circus and discovered that despite my best efforts, I was still miserable, still angry, still lonely and sad. I’d even had my fairytale romance with a French Prince and hated myself all the more. My fairytale was a horror story coated in cellulite and something had to fucking change. So I did.

 

 

I made the decision earlier this year to be strong. I was tired of feeling weak; feeling like everyone else was above me, better than me, more beautiful than me, more loved than me. I didn’t expect to lose my fat; I didn’t start this adventure to be thin. I didn’t expect to be beautiful and I didn’t expect to be loved. I just wanted to be able to carry my own weight without feeling exhausted. I wanted to be able to lift a suitcase into the overhead bin without feeling like my shoulder would evaporate. I wanted to hit a man and hurt him. I wanted to beat my father’s chest the way he used to beat me. I wanted how I felt inside to be as strong as I would be on the outside.

I’m not going to rattle off a list of the usual inspirational bullshit about fitness. I am not going to go all Gwyneth on you and espouse the benefits of agave or quinoa or fucking kale. I’m not going to tell you about how pure and peaceful I feel from all the endorphins. I’m still me; some things definitely have not changed.

I still smoke and I obviously know I shouldn’t because it is killing me. I still drink way to much fucking Pinot Grigio. But I figure I need a few vices since I don’t eat anymore. I still stare at myself in the mirror as I paste on the war paint and see a face that is too large, cheeks that have hollowed and the under-eye marks of a thousand late nights and too many shots of something I can’t even remember. I still gasp in humiliated horror when I stand naked before the full-length mirror that I can mercifully slide away. I still see the one boob that droops lower than the other. I still see the ripple of cellulite across my belly. I still see the veins on my thighs, the dimples in my arse, the ever-swollen right ankle and the railway track scars that wind up my leg. 

But then I raise my arms to the side and clench my fists.

 

Then I see the guns that poke out of my upper arms above the bingo wings. I twist my legs and see the calf muscles pop out to the side and shadow the fat ankle. I bend over, fully in half, and hug my ankles. I wrap my hands around my waist and see the bones pop out of my shoulders. I see a body that is strong.

I see the strength that has carried the wheelie red Samsonite to four different continents since January. I see the line of the jaw that clacks back and forth as I rattle off the verbs and nouns I know in French, or the sweary shizzle I spew when I’m pissed, or the lyrics to the latest from Bieber. I see a rock-hard neck that holds that massive head up high, the head that carries the brains of which I am so proud. I see a strong woman. I don’t see a fat girl. #andifyoudisagreeiwillfuckingdestroyyouwithmyrighthook

 

 

This past week I stood up on stage and presented to a room of very overpaid executives on a subject that would honestly bore you senseless. But I was strong. As I marched back and forth, I felt strong. I sounded strong when my voice came out of that tiny wire microphone they wrapped around my face and I felt like I was fucking Madonna and started Voguing. Some truly very kind people told me I was great and I told them all I wasn’t. In the secret space of my mind I still feel a bit like the fat girl and nice things people say are sometimes too quiet behind the booming voice of the Father that didn’t love me because I was fat. To all of those kind people who said I was great, I’m sorry and thank you.

To the lovely woman who is actually named after the singleton who inspires me, thank you. To The Body, and Louis, and Semi, and the hot as fuck guy at work that I’ll nickname AHAF (as hot as fuck) and everyone else, thank you. Bear, my trainer and the object of all my imaginary lover dreams, thank you. Art-sist-olger, Smartarse and Motherbear, thank you.

 

 

The Blackbirds that sing in the dead of night whisper the softening words of my Father. And in a few weeks, with a needle, a bubble of ink and a strong arm to bite, the Blackbirds will be behind me. Forever.

 

 

#imjustagirl

 

Emily Wilding Davison who died under the King's horse at Epsom Derby

 

My personal trainer, the ever-smiling Bear, that brave man who has transformed me into a slightly wobblier less pornographic version of Ronda Rousey, (my latest girlcrush and I want to be her), has one very annoying habit; he is a bit of a sexist. He is kind, he is wholly supportive of my efforts, he is very careful when we fight because he knows I’m easily frightened (a hangover from a lively childhood spent dodging fists and flying objects) but from time to time he’ll tell me I can’t be trusted because I’m female, and females lie.^

We’ve talked about it, I know why he thinks this (he too has a less than Hallmark personal history), he knows I disagree, and if I’m wearing my gloves, I’ll happily jab-cross him in the belly to make my point. #idontliebutiwillhit Women don’t, as a habit, want to lie; but we are usually required to hide how we really feel, to pretend, to make-believe and to act. We do this not from a place of malicious anti-bloke deception, we do this because we fucking well have to.

Surviving in a world owned by, legislated by, ruled by and swarming with men is really fucking hard. Despite the moderate advances of women’s rights, a shitload of shit still has not changed. #thatwassurprisinglysweary

 

JLAW - a god damn fucking revelation

 

Have you heard of Jennifer Lawrence? If you haven’t, you’ve spent ten years residing under a vacuum-sealed rock. You may know her as Katniss Everdeen, the hero of one of the most commercially successful film franchises since Star Wars. You might also know her as Mystique, the slinky blue nemesis of the X-Men films; those nice little earners that made 20^th Century Fox (and the arsehole who owns it) Four Hundred Million Dollars. Perhaps you heard of her because of all those sparkly golden statues she keeps getting nominated for, and winning. Or maybe, because she’s just a girl, you heard of her because she was dating Chris Martin, or because she has a modelling contract with Dior, or because she tripped in her heels, or because her naked selfies were stolen from her personal telephone and shared all over the cum-splashed pervy corners of the internet? 

Well now you can know about her because she wrote this*. Not only is she among the best actresses of her generation. Not only is she the embodiment of the BFF I want to have. Not only is she brutally honest, funny and clever. She can also write like I wish I could… and get a point across… and maybe just start a fucking revolution. #theswearingiscomingfromsomewhereverydark

  

JLaw makes a point that has kept me awake since I read it, “all I hear and see all day are men speaking their opinions, and I give mine in the same exact manner, and you would have thought I had said something offensive.” Why are we so worried about being precious, or prim, or narky, or bitchy, or sassy, or anything at-fucking-all, when the dudes are quite happy to go first class postal without any concern for the consequences.

I’ve come to the conclusion that whether we lie, whether we tell the truth, whether we’re dressed in heels, boots or sneakers, ultimately it is the vagination of anything I might say that offends. Most men are pretty fabulous, most men are kind and open and generous and loving and fair most of the time. But on the day when decisions are made, on the day when resources are rationed, on the day when arguments are fought and lost; the men are thinking only about winning their fight, they are not thinking about whether their lipstick is smudged, or whether they come over catty, or whether they will still be respected if they disagree with the rest of the room.  

Which is why Suffragette made me so sad.

Carey Mulligan - entirely amazing in almost everything

 

Go and see this movie. Make everyone you know go and see this movie. Once you’ve all seen it, sit together, have a drink and talk about what it all means. 

Almost a hundred years ago, women took to terrorism to get the attention of the men who wouldn’t let them vote. They became rebels, they blew shit up, they screamed and shouted, they made a whole lot of noise and even sacrificed their own lives to force those in power to amend their patriarchal rule.

I’ve voted as long as I’ve been legally able to. I’ve had my own bank account. I’ve walked alone. I’ve signed my own contracts. I’ve purchased (and drunk) my own litre of vodka. I’ve bought all the shit I’ve wanted to buy, by myself. But I worry every single day about whether I’m being harpish, bitchy, negative or emotional. I worry about crying in public, I worry what the people around me think of me, I worry if Bear thinks I’m lying. Every time I ask someone I work with to do something, I worry about being perceived as a moaning preachy cow. But the boys don’t. #andtheygettopeestandingup

  

Did you know that ‘bullish’ is a positive word? Did you know that being bullish is actually a good thing? Did you know that being called a cow (the girl version of a bull) is more insulting than being called a cunt? Did you know that a cunt is a vagina and one man calling another man cunt is more insulting than cock? Did you know that hysteria (being nuts, crazy, unreliable, etc) comes from the Greek word for uterus? Did you know that the language we have to describe what is happening, how we feel and what we want to do was written by and designed for a whole bunch of people with penises and I wish I had a word for how that makes me angry that in no way had it’s etymological roots in my womanliness?

Well now you do.

 

 

^We’ve had a separate conversation about why I should be called a woman rather than a female; one is scientific and one is complimentary 

*I subscribe to LENNY so I can read the full version. You should too.

 

 

 

 

#ohsaycanyounotsee

 

Every time I’ve ever written about America I get in big trouble. 

I unleash a litany of criticism about Australia, the former PM was a colossal knobcheese and Australians spend too much time watching grown men punch each other for fun. I spew vitriol upon the sort-of-not-really-United Kingdom, a tiny tiny spec of an island where everyone is a just a tiny, little bit racist but far too polite and passive-aggressive to say it out loud. I cast grievous aspersions against my beloved France, home to a people so obsessed with an eternal struggle against ‘the man’ that no French human has actually worked more than four consecutive hours since 1945. I poke fun, I make sweeping, often unfounded statements, I draw nonsensical conclusions and no one ever remarks on anything other than my spelling. But when I write something less than fawning about the Stars or their Stripes, friends of mine get a little bit nasty, they come over all judgy; they take it very fucking personally. #goodthingthentheydontcarryaglock

Those friends might do better than to read any further.

 

I’ve recently returned from a wonderful week in NYC; I worked hard, I shopped harder, and I’ve contracted some kind of allergic reaction to the air. In total, this year I’ve spent over 5 weeks in the US of A, I’ve been there every years for the last ten and I’ve worked for Americans since I was 19. I’m not a card-carrying, gun-toting resident, but I have enough Americana in my life to comment with a degree of expertise on what has to be the most batshit-crazy, political-vacuum, money-centric sinkhole of a country that ever there was. #includingwhereverspiderscomefrom

Last week, while I was storming through my all of my bank account and some of Fifth Avenue in my activewear, another whackjob went postal on a schoolroom; this time in the relatively normal, (albeit God-fearing) organic coffee, peace-loving state of Oregon.  This is the second time I’ve been in America at the time of a shooting rampage; the last time it was Gabrielle Giffords, the politician who survived a point blank shooting in Arizona. Watching American news coverage of mass shootings, even in the less right swinging states of California and New York, proffers some clue as to why this crazy-arse-nuttness keeps happening.

The producers, the anchormen, the writers, the editors, the commentators, the shock-jocks, the single cell amoeba that purport to cover news on Fox; all of them, to a person, love this shit. They paste their sad faces over the top of their orange makeup, they invent their hashtags, almost always starting with the word pray, and they analyse, scrutinise and dissect the latest tragedy until you can’t even tell if it is news media, or the latest episode of CSI. They lap it up, they hunt down the ex-Girlfriend, they turn the awfulness of senseless death into a Lifetime movie with a synthesised soundtrack and the viewers remain transfixed until they subside into their corn syrup coma.

Well I have an idea.

 

Perhaps we should just stop broadcasting the aerial shots of people running like ants into the carpark? Perhaps we should not interview the middle-aged postal worker who was three bloody blocks away in a gargantuan, noise-polluting Chevy, what he thinks the killer’s motive was? Perhaps we should not camp in front of the hapless shooter’s hapless-er parents’ house in the hope they’ll wander past the front window in their knickers and offer some kind of explanation as to what it was they fed their child that transformed him from cherub to Beelzebub? Perhaps, instead of quickly scheduling a candlelit vigil and sharing close-ups of the tear-stained faces of yet more sonless mothers and yet more daughterless fathers, we, the people, should collectively enforce a 100% media ban on all gun related violence… forever? 

Many of us acknowledge the reason behind America’s prolific gun deaths is the almost candy-like accessibility of weapons (of mass destruction). I would argue that the constitutional right to bear arms is one thing; the right to 15 minutes of celluloid fame in a society ruled by doe-eyed women whose names start with K is something very different. #fameistherealamericandream

 

 

Congress, The Senate, the lawmakers and lawyers, even POTUS himself cannot win a war against the NRA. They have far too much money, too many Trumps, too many old white men with money, they are bribing anyone who’ll accept their greasy handshakes and state by state, they will overrule any government that attempts to legislate for greater control over weapons.

BUT…

We can win a war against sad, lonely, megalomaniacs whose entire life ambition is to top Twitter’s trending topics list. We can filibuster the egos of immature, uneducated, misinformed morons whose warped morals are learned in video games. We can ensure, that even if they do see through their homicidal tendencies, their identity will never, ever be known, they will never achieve notoriety, renown or social media acclaim for their crimes. Their victims will be mourned by their friends and their families in private, away from media circuses and candlelit vigils, as it should be. Wannabe mass murderers could buy a trillion NRA approved guns, they could slaughter half of their neighbourhood, but they will never ever become tabloid fodder or 140 character headlines.

While we’re at it, we could stop printing pictures of IS victims trembling in their orange overalls, cowering under the curve of a merciless machete. We could stop glorifying poor life choices à la Honey Boo Boo, Duggar, Loser or Bachelor? We could put an end to the pandemic blight of Kardashian-Jenner-Wests by never ever seeing their pinched and pulled faces ever, ever again?

If all of the media, social, public and whatever kind of parasite you classify Fox as, would take some kind of responsibility for the messages they circulate, the hatred they engender, the misinformation they broadcast, we might just give the NRA an excuse to evaporate all by itself. There would be no gun violence left to talk about.

 

So how about it America? How about you tweet a little more about the athletic splendour of the Williams sisters? How about you celebrate the scientific achievements of your Ivy League hospitals? Gloria Steinem, Toni Morrison, Michelle Obama, The Women’s football team, Bill Gates, Michael Moore and Robert de Niro. There are so many useful and interesting Americans we could hear from?

 

Oh say, can I see that?