True Love

When you're virus-ridden and comatose, and your boyfriend still thinks you're beautiful - that's true love indeed!

Back in London. Grey. Public transport. Flu.

The Queen and my miniskirt

I caught The Queen tonight. Helen Mirren is one of my favourite actresses. For some reason, I was deeply moved by the film. And thinking about it, I think I know why.

You see, I've always been old at heart myself. My mum always says that I went from being a child to being an adult; bypassed the whole teenage thing completely. When I "rebelled" by... I don't know... shortening my school pinafore or doing whatever was "in" at the time when I was 16 or 17, it was always because part of me didn't want to be old, because the world isn't attracted to old. Old is weird. Old is not in.

But what if the world is weird, not me?

The Queen might have asked the same question. What do you do when you don't understand the world any more? Sometimes I feel like I don't understand the world either. I think Diana was a good samaritan but not a good princess. She should not have had affairs, no matter what her husband was like. Duty above self - and that doesn't just go for royalty. Moreover, I thought the widespread public outburst of grief was silly (there've been some interesting psychological studies on this phenomenon).

But that's just it. So many people would think that I was the one who did not understand, who was out of touch. Old-fashioned. And this extends beyond Diana. Is it so wrong to believe in God, to want to be smart rather than pretty, to hold virtue in higher esteem than celebrity, to be guided by principles rather than trends, to rather enjoy reading the news more than Hello (which is not the news, whatever anyone says; saying that, one could do worse than Hello), to have good manners? What about eschewing sex before marriage, binge drinking, loud behaviour, swearing, girls chewing gum/smoking, slutty clothes, eating on the go (just some of my grouses about "young" people today)? As I said, sometimes I feel like I just don't understand the world any more.

I suppose if one judged others by these standards, one might be being high-and-mighty, and that's not good. But similarly, it is not nice to be judged for being these things. Most of my girlfriends are like me - serious and proper. My own boyfriend often teases me for being "proper" and "prudish"... but he does it as a laugh, not in judgment, so he's forgiven.

What does that have to do with my miniskirt, you might ask? Well, this year, for the first time in my life, I bought a skirt that went beyond two inches above my knee. It was a pleated tartan skirt by Karen Millen. Please don't laugh. I quite liked having my legs covered, thank you very much. But I discovered that I liked wearing my new miniskirt also. I enjoyed it very much, in fact. It made me feel young, and free, and attractive. I liked being complimented for how I looked in it.

I tried explaining this to my girlfriends, but wasn't very successful. One of them even burst into tears by my implicit suggestion that perhaps her style fell a bit on the conservative side (don't get the wrong idea though - she's a core smasher, one of the most attractive and fashionable women I know). Perhaps I was too eager for them to share this new-found experience. But that was just it, I wanted them to share the experience. It wasn't meant to be a prescriptive opinion.

Other girlfriends don't understand why I wouldn't wear my miniskirt to church, if I would deign to wear it otherwise. In order to understand that, one must understand the context. Before I moved to London, I didn't even wear jeans to church, let alone miniskirts. Yet another "old-fashioned" idea. My miniskirt represents a little space I have carved for myself to have fun. It is an exception, not the rule. Church, on the other hand, is the rule. It is tradition, just like everything else. A little fun on the side can be good, but it doesn't have to take over your whole life.

I've always been like that. And I'm proud of who I am. It's sure taken long enough for me to be able to say that.