I, glorious, return!

Good morning lady readers!

A metric-fuck tonne of apologies for my absence, but due to a rather unfortunate incident with a bottle of Martini Rosso, an argument with an ex boyfriend and the unfortunate presence of a disposable pink bic razor, I've been hospitalised for the majority of the summer. It was nothing too serious, just the sort of thing to be expected from a sensitive Lady writer such as myself, and really all that time sitting around in a white nightie getting pumped through with diazepam gave me time to think, write, compose, touch the windows, plait my hair and so forth. I haven't been so creative since mama left me in Poppins in Uxbridge that weekend with a bottomless coca cola and some crayola!

One of the best presents I was gifted with during my time in the Women's ward was not a Blackberry, which would have been helpful, nor the Bible which a group of bastard Gideons planted on my sleeping chest, I can only assume, when I was out cold that last week in July, but rather the fabulous Femmes of Power, a book about a lot of very well turned out lesbian Ladies (apologies if this isn't the correct term, I'm so useless with gender theory even though my Auntie invented it and really I wish we could all just get along!) in the most fabulous states of dress. I thoroughly enjoyed perusing this volume, made all the more sensational by the reaction of the facile Jackie in the bed next to mine whose awful grunting fiance insisted on visiting every afternoon and staying for the entire permitted visiting hour. I mean, how pathetic is that? They can't have been more that 23, and it came as an utter shock to me to find out they were engaged. I mean, it was all well and good in the past before women were liberated to get married young, they had precious little else to do! But now it just smacks of desperation. Jackie and I had a rather heated discussion on the subject when I felt obliged to point this out to her, and perhaps if I hadn't called her a foolish strumpet she might have listened to my advice a little closer, but needs must when the sexist thrives and besides, I simply can't be calm when I see a woman uselessly giving over he entire being to a man, let along a dope like this Keith!

However, I calmed myself by reasoning that in terms of the lifespan of individuals such as Jackie and Keith compared to the rest of us, it makes perfect sense for them to get married that young when they're clearly going to die much younger that we are, around 50 I expect. Like the peasants I learnt about in A Level history, before the death rate was practically halved by improved health care. I said to myself, Posie, if you were going to die at 50 I'm sure you'd have thought about getting married at 23!

Although, judging by the standards of the hospital, I can't be too sure! Of course it was a private clinic close to my home in North London but the media really should stop reporting on the state of NHS hospitals and draw attention to the fact that hygiene issues are not limited to public health facilities. Honestly at the rates we were paying I hardly think it's much to expect that the staff be clean.

Oh dear, I digress! The point I was hoping to make concerned this wonderful femme book, which appalled Jackie to no end. She seemed never to have met a lesbian, a feminist, or in fact any other woman unlike herself. This was remarkable, not least because the beautifully adorned women who featured in my book looked not a great deal unlike those Jackie poured over in her daily doses of Heat! magazine and the rest. Except of course mine were much, much, better.

This got me thinking: what is the thing that connects women as diverse and myself and Jackie? Surely not just our presence in a close observation psychotherapy ward! Perhaps it is rather how we look, or how we are seen not just by each other but by men and other Women. Is it that we both put on mascara everyday even though we were strapped into a hospital bed and dressed in fashion's equivalent of a white bin bag? Why is it that whatever Women do, they have to feel they look good while they're doing it?

Since I've been out of hospital and subjected to the gaze of North and North West Londoners alike, I've started to feel a little concerned with my appearance, but not in the way you might think! I've stopped wearing make up, I now tie my hair into a mundane pony tail and limit myself to the jeans-and-a-nice-top school of dressing. Awful! I'm not sure how long this will last, the reaction so far hasn't been particularly dramatic but perhaps the potentials are revolutionary, we shall see!

At least I'm comforted by the fact that that much time off solids means that I'm now really incredibly thin.
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