I Would Go Out Tonight...

I think I might be having a mid-life crisis. I realise this means I plan to be dead by 56 (and I have to say I'll be pretty miffed if I'm dead at 56 as frankly I have far too much to do and that would be a serious impediment), and yet I seem to be showing many of the signs. I haven't yet bought a Harley, but that's probably more because I wouldn't have the faintest idea what to do with it, rather than because I'm only being half-arsed in my attempt to cling on to eternal youth.

I was, however, struck by a sort of fashion epiphany/paranoia a few weeks back when I made a throwaway comment about not having any style. My mate's response was "Yeah, you do," and, looking me up and down, "that's your style." Now that would have been all well and good, except that I was wearing a pair of shapeless, £8 jeans bought from ASDA in 2006, a top purchased when supposedly looking for clothes for my grandmother's funeral in 1999, and a Middlesex County Cricket Club jumper. Now, there's nothing wrong with that per se, but I draw the line at it being deemed my "style". It occurred to me that I spend pretty much every evening now in a vest top and jogging bottoms, and I haven't had a haircut since June last year - and that one was only because I was getting married. And then followed a sort of urgent revelation: "You're getting old; there's a lot of options out there but you can't pull them off for very much longer."

So what could be done about all this? Well, to kick off I bought some knee-high boots, which is a pretty good start, and based on the fairly reliable fashion sense of my stick-thin and trendy cousin. (At any rate she spent around 12 hours cumulatively in Westfield over the Christmas holiday so she jolly well ought to know what she's talking about!) Next, I bought some skinny jeans. This dented my confidence slightly, because I made the mistake of buying them in Top Shop, where it turns out I'm a size 12. This was even more of a shock given I'd just bought a comfortably baggy size 8 jumper in Monsoon, and somehow managed to grow two sizes in the 100 yard mooch down Oxford Street (NB I realise Monsoon likes to flatter its customers while Top Shop, conversely, prefers to gently but firmly push its clients towards unnecessary body angst). Now skinny jeans are fine - they actually look rather nice - but a.) they are really flippin' cold in the winter (the wind goes right through them, and you can't really fit leggings on underneath, which is my normal clever get-around) and b.) they are rather undignified to put on, having to be eased up bit by bit as you wave your legs in the air. Though that's probably just me.

Next on the list, then: glasses. Now, I hate eye tests, but Specsavers had refused to send me any more contact lenses until I relented and went for one, presumably in case my eyes have fallen out or something since they last saw me a mere 12 months ago. There's something about eye tests that makes me squirm far more than the doctor or dentist. First of all, the word "test is very apt: I feel I'm being trialled for some MI5 post or something (and for all I know that might be how they do it.) The officious, unsmiling 16 year old who's conducting the test flicks several seemingly identical images of black dots in front of me and barks
"Which is better, a or b?"
"Um...a?"
"c or d?"
"Um..." I barely had a chance to look...
"Probably d?"
I feel this might be some sort of sociology experiment, that I'm going to be zapped with an electric shock if the correct answer is c. Then she complicates things further.
"Which is clearer, the number 24 or 42?"
"Um..."
"42 or 24?"
It's like being on University Challenge. If you pause she'll start telling you to hurry up then dock you 5 points.

To make matters worse, once the pressure of this is all over and I can take my head off that hard plastic chin rest and start trying to release the crick in my neck, she starts shooting puffs of air into my eyes - 3 in each eye no less. Actually 4 in one, as apparently I blinked (well, wouldn't you?) She then briskly tells me my prescription has changed and my left eye has got worse again, making me wonder if I should apolgise for this, and marches me downstairs and deposits me with her equally chirpy colleague to pick out some new glasses.

"I'd like to look at some Missoni ones," I venture, having made the daft mistake of booking an eye appointment the day after pay day.
Chirpy Colleague is having none of it.
"They're too big for your face. They will not suit you."
I try a pair on, and she shakes her head emphatically.
"Your face is too small."
Well, that told me.
"You can have them as sunglasses."
Right, well that sounds OK, I need some sunglasses.
"Why don't you look at some others first?"
Er, because I don't want others. I want those.
"How about these?"
She thrusts some huge brown DKNY glasses into my face with what can only be described as a lump of bling on the sides.
"Um, I don't really like the...diamond thing."
"Try them on."
I try them on. They look ridiculous.
"What about these?"
"I really do like Missoni."
"These are Gucci."
Exactly. I.e. they're not the ones I've just said I like.
"Try them on."

This goes on for a not inconsiderable amount of time. The upshot? Next week I shall be picking up my prescription MISSONI sunglasses. Which apparently won't suit me, because my head is too small and they are blingless.

Last on the list: hair. This is another experience I try not to have too often, partly because it's expensive and partly because I don't like having long conversations with ultra-cool preoxide blondes while they inflict pain upon my scalp. I also don't altogether trust my own abilities to explain what I want, and in turn their abilities to suspend their disbelief and actually trust that, unadventurous and bland though this makes me, I really don't want my head shaved, or my hair coloured pink, or an 80s perm. So I ask for blonde highlights and sit in near-terror for an hour whilw my hair is wrapped in bits of tinfoil, prattling inanely about my holidays and hoping I don't walk out looking like Myra Hindley. To make things worse, my (lovely) hairdresser has not only a very pronounced French accent, but also a lisp, so I'm answering "yes" to rather a lot of things (like "do you 'av a thide parting?") without actually knowing what she's said, but too embarrassed to ask her to repeat it for the third time. I'm also anxious at the revelation that I'm the only customer in the shop and apparently a guinea pig for some trainees, who all look about twelve. A girl with a brace and an alice band washes me hair, someone else mixes the dye for it and then, worryingly, someone I presume to be the manager shoos them both away and does the dying herself, before finally unleashing her speech-impaired colleague onto it for the grand finale.

So what was the result? Well, fortunately my hair looks more like Jennifer Aniston's than, say, Pixie Lott's, though I've inadvertantly gone for the Agnetha Faltskog look tonight, wearing my knee-high boots complete with a 1970s above-the-knee, all-in-one...thing (dress? Maybe?) and lots and lots of blue eye shadow and facial glitter. Bring on the party!