A big rack over a big butt any day

Oh yeah baby – that’s what I’m talking about. Just listen. Name me the pop song equivalent of ‘I like big butts’ that goes on and on and on about breasts – the shape of them, how they move, what they’re like to feel, what they’re like in the trunk. Go on, where is that song?

When I was in Grade 5 – that is when I was 10 years old my best friend Monica commented while we were waiting in line to begin ball-room dancing lessons that I had a butt that wasn’t too small, wasn’t too big. She was 10!! Can you imagine how my 10-year-old self coped with such a random and unsolicited observation of my butt?

Nowadays I have men slowing down in their cars to yell out the window: Nice piece of ass baby. I have the checkout man holding me ransom while he packs my weekly shop telling me he likes a ‘woman with curves’. I have men on their way to work following me down the escalator to quickly praise the cut of my jeans.

All of these incidences and I could add many more to the mix – more times in fact than ‘I like big butts’ has been played at high school discos – I have been fully clothed. No mini skirts, jumpsuits or spandex in sight.

See the reason I chose big breasts over big butt is you can hide the dam things. You can cover them up. A turtleneck, a tailored shirt, a well-fitting bra.

Can you cover up your butt? Hell no! Even a light, draping material likes to cling to the contours, even wedge itself in the gap. Any trouser pant or jeans is just asking for it. There is no escaping!!

And there is nothing I can do about it – butt get on with it!!!

A lonely castle for a princess

Let’s hope I am turning a corner and putting all those ‘arse-cakes’ behind me.

Arse-cakes: a term coined by my long-suffering friends to describe the over-crowded cluster of my ill-chosen romantic partners.

I quite like the sound of it, just not the endurance test of explaining why another one has gained new membership to this cluster.

And I think I could just about swallow the awakening of a pattern emerging but…it’s the ‘p’ word that disrupts my digestion of their sage advice.

“Every woman should be treated like a princess”

P is for princess. Does P have enough room to welcome in a prince too?

I can almost accept that ‘princess treatment’ was warranted when a woman had to give up so much of her freedom and choices to step into the role of a perfect housewife. Being a princess, I guess, was one of the perks that came with job.

Perhaps now it shouldn’t be perceived as a prerequisite of affirmation in how your beloved holds you so dearly.

Surely we’re prepared to forgo the tiara for a more equal footing of courtship?

Lonely but not alone

I was addicted to Ally McBeal simply because the show always ended with the main character walking alone in the snow or the rain looking glum. To finely complement this scene came a sad acoustic guitar number.

It sat perfectly within my own home of self-pity. It was like the right cushion to go with my carefully arranged living room décor.

And well after the show had ended, I could tediously reconstruct the scene and the silent guitar number wafting in and out of my carefully placed steps. I was her aimlessly wandering the streets forlornly looking for love in a busy city full of strangers.

How romantic can you get?

Except when you go a bit deeper, this scene is just a tad too shallow.

There is a big distinction to be made when it comes to feeling lonely and being alone. I might be single, but thankfully being alone is actually not a reality I need to swallow.

Lonely is longing to feel intimacy with someone closer than your friend. Alone is the state where friends and family are not as near as they should be.

It is the one single danger a single person should be aware of. It is the one distinction you must grab hold of to avoid days of moping about and summoning the sad guitar music.

For it will never help in the end, as comforting as it may feel at the time. It is not your perfect Habitat fleece to own. It is highly flammable and completely unsuitable for your living room sanctuary.

I understand all too well its draw and aesthetic appeal. But I urge you to resist its pull, as it is only a fleeting comfort that harbours warmth to your own self-pity.

Days watching sad movies can pass in a blur with no uncomfortable moments of letting your security blanket go for a night of unexpected and welcoming opportunities.

Play it cool and put your coat on instead. I am going to anxiously experience a world beyond my living room to let go of the acoustic number in my head.

Primarni doesn’t come with a smile

This ‘current economic climate’ is one long endurance test and muscle-toning exercise of our ability to post-rationalise those guilty shopping bags all the way home.

I am working out areas of my mind I’ve never used before in the quest to save a penny without scrimping on my materialistically-induced happiness.

Never before have I so fervently applied myself to the art form of baking. Recipes now followed to the last tablespoon and the oven sweating its poor socks off to keep up with one home-baked treat after another, which is then lovingly caressed by the glimmering glow of cling-wrap to await its stay in the over-booked freezer. It is then plucked out, transported with care to the office, unwrapped and nuked.

Yes, it is just one example of how I’ve let go of one treat to keep another one healthily in existience.

One new exercise regime I am finding hard to embrace is budget clothes shopping. I should feel overjoyed with my £15 ankle boot, but sadly it is over-shadowed by the black cloud of dissatisfaction.

I watch the glum androids of service staff as they avert their gaze over the top of many a greedy shopper’s head. And my thoughts wander to the utopian retail haven of enthusiastic, commission-driven shop assistants enquiring on whether I have the right size. I want to wander out of the dressing roam and bask in our collective admiration of the outfit choices I have made.

I want service with a smile.

Just like my frozen, home cooked lasagne in the middle after a five-minute microwave death it is time to deal with the cold harsh, fluorescent glow of when expectations collide with reality.

Over-attentive staff cannot survive in the bargain boot-camp environment of fallen clothes stripped off their hanger, shoes clumped in random piles and bonding with rolling tumbleweeds of dust and ill-placed human hair whilst the insanely glaring shopper negotiates their crazed path through what I liken to Discount Ground Zero.

So I wonder what has happened to this proud shop assistant.

Have they too adapted or are now rocking themselves to sleep after enduring a hostile day in a sparse, unforgiving cement shell that is now their nine to five retail home?

Or have they turned their back on the ‘crunch’ and sashayed off into the luxurious sunset with their smile and preened head-to-toe designer-draped self in tact.

Good on them I say. Good service should come with a price. And when all this is over I welcome your return and mine.

My credit card will be sure to welcome you with open arms.