Let's Share The Hairspray

So recently I've had a lot of people coming up to me very interested in my 'feminist' beliefs. I'm not sure whether I've missed something monumental on the news concerning this topic or if a surge of boredom has plagued everyone I know, bad enough to start a conversation with me about feminism (bad idea, seriously), but I may aswell just try and wrap it all up here. 

Obviously this issue will never be completely resolved, and I won't even come close to covering everything concerning it here, but I will try and give you a clearer idea as to why I believe what I believe.

First things first, I don't hate the male gender. How can I with superior beings such as Johnny Depp and Ian Somerhalder roaming the Earth?

Seriously, no.

Feminism has become, in society's eyes, a veil for which man-hating, non-armpit-shaving, conflict-attracting women can hide behind while secretly plotting the demise of all things penis-shaped.

I just said penis on my blog. That will never, ever happen again, promise.

While it is true that women who choose to keep their body hair can be feminists (there are no rules for/against), someone who is fundamentally against the half of the human population that doesn't have two X-chromosomes cannot.

I'm sure you've heard this a million times before (why don't you listen for a change?) but the definition of feminism is......wait for it.... 

The advocacy of women's rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes.

Can I get an Amen?

For some stupid reason, no matter how many times they hear "Feminism is equality." some people just don't get it. I for one am bored of being asked why feminists hate men. It's like asking someone why pacifists shoot people. 

They don't. A woman who doesn't believe in equality is not a feminist but a feminist who believes in equality is still a woman. Wait, I just confused myself.

Basically, a feminist is an advocate of gender equality and in the meantime, empowerment of women. I say 'empowerment' with great care. Yes, building self-esteem and confidence in women is important, hell, it's important for humans, but that isn't to say that women are always in need of empowering. It seems that, in most magazines, our lives revolve around making ourselves look nice with makeup and posh clothes but then taking great care to know that we don't need any of that because we're beautiful anyway, and here's a cream to help with that.

So, for future reference, why don't we just concentrate on the foundations of feminism? Instead of worrying about a label and what it isn't and what it is, let's just focus on making sure both genders have equal rights, equal opportunities and an equal amount of hair products.

Mary's Homemade Houmous

Once again, I had 'writers block' this week. But seeing as I could never consider myself a writer, and block suggests impermanence and not a constant state of writing ability, maybe that term doesn't apply.

This time (you may be surprised to know that I actually have a life) it wasn't because I had nothing to write about but because I simply felt that I didn't want to impose my lack-luster attempts at humour and mildly alarming ramblings on you poor people.

Once again, I am suggesting there are people who read this. Relatives and friends reading it out of pity don't count.

I don't think anyone (minus bloggers) understands how hard it is to write these posts without:
a) Sending people to sleep.
b) Causing offence in some way.
c) Going completely off topic.

But because you don't want your blog to just be another tried-and-failed hobby, and because most days you get asked by insensitive people when you're writing the next post (I love you guys really), and because despite your complete incompetence you actually enjoy writing, you force yourself to sit in front of a computer and write something. But this something must not:
a) Send people to sleep.
b) Cause offence in any way.
c) Go completely off topic.

...whilst still being mildly amusing and readable.

It's a lot of pressure.

Here's how I cope. Repeat stuff. Thesaurus.com. List stuff. Repeat stuff. Exaggerate stuff. Italicize random words. Repeat stuff.

Just reading over that, it seems like a slightly simplified model of how I conduct my life. Maybe I should start a support group.

I should probably mention my birthday seeing as, well, it was my birthday. That sounds like I don't want to talk about it (I do, I really do. I could probably spend a few hours describing everything in detail.) but I hate those blogs where it's just some person documenting the mundane happenings of their slightly boring life. I know there are different types of blogs. There are humour blogs, campaign blogs, self-help blogs (I think mine definitely falls in this category), religious blogs, celebrity-shrine-like blogs, cooking blogs, gardening blogs etc. And some people somewhere like to read about how Mary makes her own houmous and Jason trims his own hedges (innuendo not implied) but I am not one of those people. Nor do I care to become the author of one of those blogs. Rant over.

So anywayyy, my birthday was good. I got so many wonderful presents (minus the willy straws) and loved spending two consecutive days with my best friends. My party was eventful but memorable (as The Mothership put it) and being 16 feels amazing. So amazing that there's no difference.

I hope you all got more sleep than I did last week and good luck with the Repeating Stuff.

Milk + One Sugar

I'm back! Miss me? 'Course you did.

Saying that, I can guarantee 98.3% of you didn't notice I went anywhere; way to make a girl feel loved. In case you aren't completely clued up about my life and tea preferences, I went to Sicily for two weeks and I'm a milk + one sugar kinda gal.

Now I'm satisfied that you are suitably confused, a mind-set that must be maintained when reading my blog, I'll get back to making you jealous over my barely-there-tan and new Italian linguistic prowess.

Before I went on holiday, I studied the art of tanning. That may sound odd and slightly obsessive but really it was just me flicking through various articles such as 'Putting Hours Into Getting An Effortless Tan' and making mental notes. I realise I still sound odd and slightly obsessive but for a white, british female, tanning is hard. Like next-to-impossible-hard. I know this isn't true for every girl in this skin-type category but I like to not feel alone in this dilemma.

These articles basically suggest that lying on an uncomfortable plastic sunbed for hours on end is only 25% of the whole debacle. There's also shaving, exfoliating, moisturising, wearing the right colours and avoiding sunburn. Like I said, it's hard.

The Mothership is a member of that superhuman cult who can literally sprint through a ray of sunshine and instantly have an all-over, no streaks, Victoria Beckham-esque, bronze glow. I religiously sunbathed for about six days in a row in Sicily and all I ended up with was faintly browner knees and a higher risk of skin cancer.

I'm not joking. How is it that TM can look like she bathed in fake-tan after an hour of sun exposure and I get tanned knees after six days? I know there's some scientific explanation, something to do with melanin in your skin cells, but it's just not fair.

                                           (sorry about this annoying link, just ignore it)

So now onto my slight grasp of the Italian language. By 'grasp', I mean I can say Ciao, Grazie and Spaghetti. Impressive, I know. At least I wasn't like TM, who resorted to speaking in English with an embarrassing Italian accent. Thankfully, most Italians speak at least basic English so, like typical English tourists, we got by without having to speak much Italian.

I hope that one day I will go on a holiday and actually have a firmer resolve to speak the locals' language but will that ever happen? Probably not. Even if I haven't inherited the Perfect Tan Gene, I  definitely have the same reluctance to attempt to speak a foreign language with a person of that nationality. I worry I will just offend them with my painful accent and lack of tongue-rolling skills.

Ah well, perhaps one day I will find myself speaking fluent Italian with the locals, marveling over my perfect tan, and maybe even drinking tea without the sugar.

A girl can dream.

Lily the Bag Lady

It's here. Today is the day all my training and hours of brutal torture will come to serve a purpose. Today, I stand as a representative of my country and will face the evils of this world with only my pink armour to protect me. Today, is my prom.

Just saying the word makes me shudder. Prom. Better than promenade, I guess. Anyway, my opening was maybe a bit exaggerated. Okay, okay, a lot exaggerated.

But it was a close call.

I was all ready to get a fake tan and to get my hair done fancy but I chickened out. If deciding to stay in bed for a few hours longer counts as chickening out. I prefer made a logical change of plans. Logical because seeing as I'm wearing a skirt and my dress has relatively long sleeves, no-one is going to see much of my beautifully bronzed limbs. Also logical because whatever I do to my hair, it will never stay in that position. Something to do with the thickness of my hair. Getting it styled at a hairdresser would not only be expensive but also pointless when, by the end of the night, my hair is back to being somewhere between stringy and fly-away. That was an attractive description. 

I will almost definitely regret not doing all of this when I'm standing next to my gorgeous, tanned, shiny-haired friends and feeling like a tablecloth drowning in a pile of silk scarves. Yet another attractive description.

So, I'm sure you're all waiting for me to describe my prom dress in excruciating detail. No? Well tough.

I spent months (a month) looking for a prom dress and eventually settled on the pink version of a dress I already have. I'm clever I am. I already knew the style looked passable on me and getting it in pink would please my friends who wouldn't let me wear black. This may contradict my earlier comment of pink being my favourite colour but basically, I don't really wear pink but I'll buy as many pink nail varnishes as Boots allow. Does that make sense? Probably not, but I can't think of one point in this blog's history that I have ever made complete sense. No point starting now.

Next, I ordered these perfect pink heels. Technically, they're heeled sandals. The emphasis is on the heel. They're high. Like proper high heels. I don't wear heels, simply because I look like I need a wee when I walk in them, but I thought I would defy my biological nature and stumble out of my comfort zone. So, back to the shoes. They're pale pink patent (slightly Barbie-esque) and have white cleated heels. If, like me, you're not 100% sure what 'cleated' means, it's where the shoes have little squares cut out of the soles. Think like the tops of castles you used to draw.

I put the dress and shoes together and, I am saying this with utter seriousness, I looked like a 1970s prostitute. And not in a good way. After panicking for a few hours (5 minutes) I came up with the ingenious plan to buy a pink skirt to wear on top. This seemed easy until I realised I only had two days. Yep, on Monday I went into town with my friend, who funnily enough embraces the 1970s prostitute look and manages to rock it, and bought a pink pleated midi skirt from the charity shop, Sue Ryder. This was a risk because I didn't have time to take it back if I didn't like it but you know me, I'm a real risky gal. That was sarcasm in case you didn't catch it.

This is where my story finally comes to an end (I can hear you crying) and I tell you whether it all came together. Oooo the tension. As you can probably guess, thanks to my pretty casual and non-stressed tone, the skirt looked good enough and I decided to wear it. I may look like a bag lady but it's only one day. Probably one of the many days that I will look back on with regret. Another day that I will destroy all evidence of and never think of again, except on my death bed.

After that rather gloomy ending, I am going to say bye.

Wish me luck with my stumbling.

Semi-blog-consciousness

Today I had absolutely nothing to write about. Zero embarrassing memories and zero motivation to conjure up more facts about myself (sorry to disappoint). So....I decided to just talk.

THIS PRODUCT MAY CONTAIN EMOTIONS. PART OF MULTIPACK. NOT TO BE SOLD SEPARATELY.

Two (or three?) weeks ago, The Mothership sprung on me that I was being rehabilitated to a foreign and distant planet: Bristol. This land is famously known to be inhabited by the species 'Bristolians' and middle class graffiti artists.

Seeing as I know less about Bristol than about myself, don't take anything I say too seriously.

On that note, I'm going to leave the innocent, naive world of Listing Facts that I have so comfortably lounged in for the entirety of my blog existence and instead revert to the more foreboding, barren land of My Feelings.

When the news of the move was first made aware to me (when The Mothership decided to warn her only daughter that her world was about to be destroyed by a large entity called the New Job), I cried. A lot. Like, a lot a lot. I don't cry often but when I do, it's loud and frankly disgusting.

I can't put into words what it feels like leaving Nottingham, and I wouldn't anyway because that would be cringey and ew, but it's pretty bad. However many deformed pigeons swarm the pavements and people that still push past you to get the least holey, food stained seat on the bus, it is my home and I have to say, I quite like it.

I feel like you were expecting a long, tear-jerking dissertation with in-depth descriptions of every traumatic moment of my life, from birth to Physics GCSE, but I'm going to spare you the tissues.

I'm also going to spare you any more pain at my poor attempt of writing something about nothing. It's pretty impressive, when you think about it. And also when you 'think about it', you notice that instead of writing anything marginally interesting or worthwhile, I have managed to float in and out of semi-blog-consciousness since I started this awful post. I'll try harder next time.

However much I try and pretend not to care, inside I am just a hormonal, emotional wreck, waiting for someone to bring me a bucket of angel delight.

Ribena was invented at the National Fruit & Cider Institute in Long Ashton. As sources of vitamin C dwindled during World War II, Bristol researchers found blackcurrants were the best alternative to oranges and Ribena was born. - See more at: http://www.bristol-culture.com/2012/02/01/ten-favourite-bristol-facts/#sthash.IwiLAYOX.dpuf

Ribena was invented at the National Fruit & Cider Institute in Long Ashton. As sources of vitamin C dwindled during World War II, Bristol researchers found blackcurrants were the best alternative to oranges and Ribena was born. - See more at: http://www.bristol-culture.com/2012/02/01/ten-favourite-bristol-facts/#sthash.IwiLAYOX.dpuf

Bubblegum Pink Dreamworld

After writing the previous post I felt like I was being a bit too non-conformist with this whole blog thing so decided to Actually Tell You About Myself.

Warning to those poor people who actually read this: I may sound like a super-exciting person on paper (I wish) but that bubblegum pink dreamworld will eventually come crashing down.

1. My full name is Lily Grace Copping.

2. I have 15 years experience breathing.
*I actually had to google whether unborn babies breathe. They don't.

3. I love pretty much everything pink, as you can probably tell from my background.

4. I've already run out of things to interest you with but I'll carry on because four facts is rather pathetic and I know you're just dying to hear more.

5. I am what people would call a feminist (do we need a label?) and I could spend hours telling you about it, which I probably will at some point, but today is not your lucky day.

6. I believe in the awesome entity called God and that other pretty awesome guy I fondly call Jesus. DON'T SHOOT ME.

7. My favourite foods (plural because who can choose one?) are angel delight, sushi, spaghetti and tofu.

8. On that note, I am pesketarian and before you shoot me again (this is becoming a habit, you should get help), I will do a post about why I choose to eat (well specifically, not eat) what I do, when I have the energy and correct facts.

9. I buy a large majority of my clothes from charity shops and vintage shops and no, before you inevitably ask,  I don't smell like a dead person or look like a bag lady (hopefully).

10. I play guitar, (try to) sing and (try to) act. Yes I'm one of those people.

11. I have four brothers...SOMEONE PLEASE ADOPT ME. Actually it's not as bad as it sounds, two of them live with my dad and two of them live with my mum (who I also live with), in Nottingham, UK. But that also means there's no escape. Ever.

12. I have a four (five?) year old black miniature schnauzer called Abi. In case you're confused and think that is a weird cross-breed of plant, she's a dog, I think.

13. This will end soon, i promise. It's just as painful for me to write it as it is for you to read.

14. My music taste varies from Hanson to Mcfly to obscure bands that only have two songs.
(if you want to check that out, my spotify account is something along the lines of 'Lily Copping')

15. Or if you're really curious, there's a link to my Youtube channel on the right somewhere (plus other amazingly amazing social media links to satisfy your every need). That sounded weird.

Well now I'm sure you've realised how much of a normal and boring person I am, please feel free to leave and do something more productive with your time than read my blog. If you could call it a blog.

Sunshine and Rainbows

Hey,

So I spent a while trying to sum up an adorably kitsch name to refer to anyone who reads this blog but, finally, came to the conclusion that if people wanted to be referred to as 'dumplings' or 'darlings', they could go somewhere else.

Now with that cheery greeting, let's get on with this.

I thought I should do a 'get-to-know-me' post to begin with but then realised that no-one really cares. Just another depressing realisation. This blog business really does help you 'find yourself'. For a (tiny) window into my life, it's the first weekend of half term and I have had 10 exams in the last two weeks. Now you may, perhaps, have more of an insight into why I'm not all sunshine-and-rainbows at the moment.

Any questions?

Seeing as that was purely rhetorical, bearing in mind the only person I am talking to is myself, I asked myself some questions (+ one heart-breaking statement):

1) Why has she made this blog?
2) What is she doing here? #shesnotwelcome
3) She has cheapened and lowered the standard of blogs universally.

And my beautifully crafted answer was: 

absolute and unimaginable boredom
absolute and unimaginable boredom
absolute and unimaginable boredom

I sincerely apologise if this blog is a flaw in the perfect complexion of mankind but I hope you can get some enjoyment out of my discoloured and sleep-inducing life. In all seriousness though, this blog is not for the purpose of entertainment or advice-giving, but simply a paper bag into which I can scream and vent all my feelings.